September 9, 2024 - PBS News Hour full episode

GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "News Hour" tonight: As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare for this week's debate in Pennsylvania, we speak with voters in that critical swing state about their views of the candidates.

LYDIA REMINSKY, Harris Supporter: I generally just do not think that Mr. Trump could - - could lead the country at all.

RODNEY NACE, Trump Supporter: He gets the job done.

And when he gets the job done, it was always for the betterment of the country.

GEOFF BENNETT: New details emerge about how the mother of the alleged Georgia shooter warned the school ahead of time, why it wasn't enough to stop the attack.

AMNA NAWAZ: And in a new report, House Republicans blamed the Biden administration for the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, but ignore the role played by the previous Trump administration.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

It's the eve of the pivotal presidential debate, when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are set to face off for the first time and possibly the only time between now and November.

GEOFF BENNETT: And with only eight weeks remaining until Election Day, new polling suggests this race is as close as ever.

QUESTION: Are you ready, Madam Vice President?

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: Ready.

GEOFF BENNETT: Flashing a thumbs-up to reporters on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris said she's ready to take on former President Donald Trump, now just one day to go before their first presidential debate in prime time.

The vice president in a radio interview aired this morning sharing what she expects from her opponent tomorrow.

KAMALA HARRIS: We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth, and we should be prepared for the fact that he is probably going to speak a lot of untruths.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the stakes are high, with new polling suggesting the race is a dead heat.

The national poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College shows Trump leading Harris by 1 percentage point, 48 to 47, well within the margin of error.

And among voters who say they still need to learn more about Vice President Harris, 63 percent of them say they don't know enough about her policies and plans.

The vice president, mostly out of sight for the past few days, has been preparing for the debate in Pittsburgh, flying today to Philadelphia, where the debate will be held.

NARRATOR: Now those people have a warning for America.

Trump is not fit to be president again.

GEOFF BENNETT: As her campaign rolls out a new ad featuring clips from former Trump officials, including Mike Pence, warning about a second Trump term.

That's as Donald Trump spent the weekend on the campaign trail, holding a rally in battleground Wisconsin.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We're run by stupid people, stupid, stupid people.

And we found that out at the debate with Joe.

How did that work out?

And we're going to find it out again on Tuesday night.

GEOFF BENNETT: In those same remarks, he promised to pardon January 6 rioters if reelected and on social media this weekend made the baseless assertion that the election will be stolen from him.

And he again promised retribution.

"Those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which will include long-term prison sentences."

FMR.

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): A vote for Vice President Harris is the right vote to make this time around.

GEOFF BENNETT: As major voices in the Republican Party, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, saying they will vote for Kamala Harris in November, some Trump allies are urging him to stay on message.

FMR.

GOV.

NIKKI HALEY (R-SC): You don't need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else.

Just focus on the policies.

When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up too.

The bottom line is, we win on policies.

Stick to the policies, leave all the other stuff.

That's how he can win.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we will have live special coverage of the ABC News presidential debate.

Tune in tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on your PBS station or our YouTube page to watch a simulcast of the debate followed by analysis from our panel of experts.

AMNA NAWAZ: We start the day's other headlines in Memphis, Tennessee, where jury selection is beginning in the trial of three former officers charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.

The 29-year-old died in January of 2023 from blows to the head after he was killed after he was pulled from his car and brutally beaten during a traffic stop.

In body camera footage, he can be heard calling out for his mother who lived nearby.

Today, the former officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith, arrived at a federal courthouse.

They have pleaded not guilty to violating Nichols' rights, as well as witness tampering.

The trial is expected to last up to four weeks.

Wildfires in the Western U.S. have prompted tens of thousands of people to evacuate amid scorching heat and high winds.

In California, the Line Fire has burned at least 33 square miles in San Bernardino County.

County officials shut a number of schools, and the Forest Service says some 36,000 structures are under threat.

In Nevada, meanwhile, crews have been dousing the Davis Fire by air just south of Reno.

That blaze has prompted about 20,000 people to evacuate the area.

In Vietnam, state media says catastrophic rains and flooding from Typhoon Yagi have killed more than 60 people.

Swollen rivers sent water gushing into streets, while deadly landslides have pushed hillsides into homes.

Dashcam footage caught the moment a steel bridge carrying cars and trucks collapsed.

Reports say the 12 vehicles fell into the rushing waters below.

Before making landfall in Vietnam on Saturday, the storm caused 20 deaths in the Philippines and killed four others in China.

Turning now to the Middle East, the Israeli military ordered a new evacuation for some parts of Northwest Gaza today.

Officials say Palestinian militants fired rockets from the area on Sunday toward the nearby Israeli town of Ashkelon.

Separately, officials in Syria say airstrikes from Israel last night killed at least 18 people and wounded dozens more.

It's one of the deadliest attacks on Syria since the war in Gaza began.

Israel has not acknowledged the strike, but the country regularly targets places in Syria it says have connections to Iran or Hezbollah.

Residents described their terror when the strikes began.

BASHAR MAHMOUD, Syria Resident (through translator): We were in panic.

The children were sleeping and woke up terrified by an unusual situation.

We did not know what happened, but we saw blazes of fire billowing from the forests.

We were subjected to many violent strikes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, dozens of mourners attended a funeral procession for the American citizen who witnesses say was killed by the Israeli military as she took part in a protest of illegal Israeli settlements last week.

Aysenur Eygi also has Turkish citizenship, and the country's president says the Turkey will seek justice for her death.

Back here in the U.S., more than a dozen school districts across Southeastern Kentucky were closed today as authorities carried out a third day of searches for a suspected gunman.

They believe the 32-year-old Joseph Couch opened fire on 12 vehicles along Interstate 75 on Saturday.

The shooting took place near the small city of London, Kentucky, south of Lexington.

Five people were injured.

In their arrest warrant, authorities say Couch sent a text message 30 minutes before the shooting vowing to -- quote -- "kill a lot of people."

Authorities committed today to continue the manhunt, but said that the jungle-like terrain of the search area is complicating their efforts.

On Wall Street today, stocks rebounded Monday after last week's sell-off.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped nearly 500 points, or more than 1 percent.

The Nasdaq also gained ground, tacking nearly 200 points.

The S&P 500 also ended sharply higher on the day.

And in royal news, Britain's princess of Wales, Kate, says that she's finished chemotherapy and will make a gradual return to work.

The 42-year-old announced in March that she was being treated for an undisclosed type of cancer.

In a video released today that also featured her husband, Prince William, and their three children, the princess said her recovery is far from complete.

KATE MIDDLETON, Princess of Wales: Doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my focus.

Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long.

AMNA NAWAZ: The princess last appeared in public for the men's Wimbledon final in July, where she appeared moved by the crowd's warm reception.

And one of the world's most recognizable voices has gone silent.

Actor James Earl Jones has died.

He got his start around the same time as Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, when leading roles were not available for Black actors.

His early parts came on Broadway before Jones moved also into films.

He went on to win two Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, an honorary Academy Award, and a Grammy, what's called an EGOT.

But it was perhaps his voice that resonated the most for fans.

From his famous "This is CNN" to Mufasa in "The Lion King" to, of course, Darth Vader in "Star Wars."

JAMES EARL JONES, Actor: If you only knew the power of the Dark Side.

Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.

MARK HAMILL, Actor: He told me enough.

He told me you killed him.

JAMES EARL JONES: No.

I am your father.

AMNA NAWAZ: The power of Jones' voice was all the more astonishing given his early battle with the stutter.

In 2014, Jones sat down with Jeffrey Brown to discuss that and how the characters that he connected with the most also struggled with language.

JAMES EARL JONES: When I was nothing but a little boy down there on the farm (INAUDIBLE) I used to wrestle hogs to the ground at killing time.

Ain't no hostage get away from me yet.

(LAUGHTER) JAMES EARL JONES: Very simple people, people who don't articulate much, people like me who don't have language, who are inarticulate.

I like Hoke in "Driving Miss Daily."

Hoke invents a language of his own.

He doesn't know how to use English as you and I are doing right now.

But he has a way of talking that it's quite poetic.

AMNA NAWAZ: James Earl Jones was also seen as a pioneer, paving the way for the likes of Denzel Washington and many others over his seven-decade career.

James Earl Jones was 93 years old.

Still to come on the "News Hour": Tamara Keith and Amy Walter weigh in on the presidential candidates' battle for swing state voters; an Ohio town seeing a large number of migrants moves to enter the political spotlight; and a new book on how seeing the good in others is also good for you.

GEOFF BENNETT: New details are emerging in the deadly shooting at a Georgia high school last week that took the lives of four people and injured nine others.

William Brangham has more.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Geoff, the mother of the 14-year-old suspect reportedly contacted Apalachee High School 30 minutes before the shooting began to warn of a -- quote -- "extreme emergency" regarding her son.

During a 10-minute phone call, Marcee Gray asked the counselor to find her son.

But school officials were not able to locate him in time.

This has raised even more questions about how yet another tragedy unfolded, despite some warnings being sounded ahead of time.

For more on the latest developments, we are joined by Chase McGee Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Chase, thank you so much for being here.

So the mother makes this phone call to school officials, saying, please find my son.

Do we know anything more about the content of that call or what might have prompted it?

CHASE MCGEE, Georgia Public Broadcasting: While we don't know much about the content of the phone call, we have some reports from her and her family, the mother and her family, about what might have prompted it.

She says she received a message from her son that concerned her, to the point where she decided it would be best to call a school official.

And while we don't know what was in the content, like I said, it obviously prompted them enough to take action.

That is, a school administrator left to seek out the algebra class where the suspected shooter was in.

However, we know by the time that the school administrator got to that classroom, the shooting started just minutes later.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, apparently, there was some confusion because, I take it, he was new to the school and there was another student with a very similar name that might have caused some confusion?

CHASE MCGEE: Right.

And -- that's right.

Colt Gray had only been in the school system for a couple of weeks and of those days had maybe only attended a couple days of school.

And so the school administrator was seeking out Colt.

And there was a student with a similar name who came up in some early reports.

And that confusion over which student that the school administrator was looking for might have led to some delay in trying to figure out who exactly they were looking for in that classroom.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Are school officials facing scrutiny for receiving this warning and while they did try to locate him not perhaps taking more drastic action like locking the school down?

CHASE MCGEE: Yes, certainly, in the immediate aftermath we did hear from some students, some eyewitness testimonies that suggest that the school didn't lock down quite as early as it could have.

But we haven't really heard anything from school officials since they have started directing questions towards the local authorities.

That's the Barrow County Sheriff's Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who are heading up the investigation.

And at this point, with two criminal cases ongoing, they're both starting to refer questions to the Piedmont Superior Court.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On the flip side, there's also some indication that security technology within the school might have helped stop this being an even worse tragedy.

What happened there?

CHASE MCGEE: Yes, absolutely.

A couple days before the shooting, Barrow County schools seem to have started testing out this I.D.

card-shaped-and-sized button that will alert law enforcement and the safety officer on campus as to a current crisis going on and even give some specifics on location data.

That way, responding law enforcement have a better idea of where on campus they need to get.

The campus Apalachee is seated on is this sprawling campus with high school, middle school and elementary school all in one place.

So certainly that information might have sped up response time, saving lives in the process.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So let's talk about the legal situation.

The 14-year-old alleged shooter is being charged as an adult.

His father, who allegedly bought him the AR-15-style weapon that was used in the shooting, is also being charged here, including for second-degree murder.

Why is it in Georgia they are choosing, prosecutors are choosing that route with the father?

CHASE MCGEE: Yes, that's right.

And it has less to do with any existing gun laws in the state and more to do with Georgia's definition of criminal negligence.

The state is going to argue that because of a previous investigation into the suspected shooter for his access to guns and previous threats he might have made the act of the father buying him -- buying a gun that he would have access to was criminally negligent, and it led to injury and death of a third party, in this case those affected at the school.

And at this point, it seems like that's going to be the line of argument that the state's going to follow up with.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I understand that the community there is trying to do everything it can for people who have been traumatized by this event.

What kinds of things are they doing and how are people responding?

CHASE MCGEE: Yes, in the immediate aftermath we saw things like organized vigils, sort of community members coming together to distribute water and other immediate care.

Now we're seeing more official and organized response.

The Georgia Emergency Management Agency has responded today, opening a community recovery center in town that will be open for the next week, or, as the GEMA director told me, however long is needed.

That way, people can access financial aid, legal aid and they point out mental health care and spiritual health care with local faith leaders involved.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Chase McGee of Georgia Public Broadcasting, thank you so much for your reporting.

CHASE MCGEE: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: House Republicans today blamed the Biden administration for the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, accusing the White House of ignoring Afghan, allied and military advice and conducting a subsequent cover-up.

The U.S. exit from its longest ever war ended with a complete Taliban takeover, a terrorist attack that killed 13 service members and hundreds of Afghans, including many who had worked with the U.S. government left behind.

The White House today called the report partisan and dismissed the accusation of a cover-up.

Nick Schifrin is reporting on this story for us.

He joins me now.

Nick, so let's just start with this report.

What does it say?

NICK SCHIFRIN: The report from the Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee makes four major conclusions, Amna.

The number one, the administration was -- quote - - "determined to withdraw" from Afghanistan no matter the cost.

The administration - - quote -- "failed to plan for all contingencies."

As a result, 13 U.S. service members were murdered by a terrorist attack.

U.S. national security was degraded and America's credibility on the world stage was severely damaged, and the administration conducted a cover-up, misleading and in some instances directly lying to the American people, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions.

Some say Saigon was the worst.

I say this is the worst.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The White House called the timing of the report omnipotent for election year politics, full of cherry-picked facts, preexisting biases.

Strategically, they reiterated their belief that ending the U.S.' longest war has made the U.S. stronger.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, let's just take this chronologically then and start with the decision to withdraw.

What is the debate here over that?

NICK SCHIFRIN: The core of the debate is whether the fault of the withdrawal goes on to the Biden administration or the Trump administration.

In February 2020, the Trump administration signed the Doha agreement.

It committed the U.S. to leave Afghanistan by May the 1st, 2021, and the Taliban to refrain from attacks on U.S. troops and had to -- quote -- "prevent al-Qaida" from using Afghanistan to threaten the U.S. or its allies.

President Trump then accelerated the U.S. troop production down to 2,500 and Democrats say prevented a proper transition into the Biden administration.

And that led to the first key finding of a Democratic House Foreign Affairs Committee report released today -- quote -- "The Trump administration set a time-bound full withdrawal into motion without regard for facts on the ground and failed to plan for executing it."

Regardless of that debate, the Republican report and the fact is that Biden had a choice.

He could have argued that the Taliban was not living up to their side of the agreement and therefore the U.S. did not have to withdraw troops as scheduled.

But the president argued this.

Extending the war would have exposed that relatively small contingent of U.S. troops still in Afghanistan to more attacks.

And administration officials did not believe the military when they said that they can conduct their mission with only 2,500 troops and feared a future troop increase.

Whoever is right about that debate, the Trump administration's Doha agreement and the Biden administration's announced withdrawal was catastrophic for the Afghan national security forces, which lost the will to fight, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction John Sopko, told me in 2022.

JOHN SOPKO, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction: What really happened was they felt essentially that the Taliban had cut a deal with our government and to some extent maybe their own government and they were left in lurch.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And, Amna, the Afghan security forces collapsed in a matter of weeks or months.

AMNA NAWAZ: So that's the decision to withdraw.

What about the actual withdrawal, that the nature of that and the chaos we all saw in August of 2021?

NICK SCHIFRIN: The report accuses the administration of failing to plan for and delaying the order for that emergency evacuation of Americans in Afghanistan, therefore creating an unsafe environment at the airport in Kabul and that is what led to those catastrophic scenes from August 2020 that we remember so well, Afghans trying to rush onto the plane, trying to get out of the airport, as you see there, and of course, the suicide bomber who killed hundreds of Afghans trying to get inside the airport and 13 service members protecting the base.

Today, the White House said that the withdrawal planning began before Biden even made the decision to withdraw.

And State Department officials have made the following arguments.

Any earlier evacuation would have actually collapsed the Afghan government earlier.

They did warn Americans to get out, and it was the Trump administration that really eroded the system that evacuated Afghans, and it was the Trump administration that did not have any contingency planning.

At the end of the day, the evacuation that they led was 120,000, the largest in U.S. history.

And one more point on this the White House made.

The intelligence community said at the time the worst-case scenario was the Afghan government would fall in six months.

That meant the administration, the military diplomats thought they had more time than they actually did.

AMNA NAWAZ: Nick, as you and I both know, we covered Afghanistan for years.

It's fair to say the context here, it's important, is that none of this is just about the U.S. or decisions made in the weeks or months prior to that withdrawal.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, just two things of what you and I have talked about for years, Amna.

One, Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, he fled on the morning of August 15, despite promises to everyone that he would be there until the end.

That is what sparked the government collapse and that is what sparked chaos at the airport.

And, number two, every single Afghan expert that you and I have spoken to document decades of mistakes.

Iraq and early Pentagon decisions meant a lack of early U.S. investment in Afghanistan.

Counterterrorism rates that killed the very people that the U.S. was trying to protect.

Obama's surge with an end date.

Pakistani safe haven for the Taliban.

Afghan corruption.

That list, sadly, is very long.

AMNA NAWAZ: Nick Schifrin, thank you so much for laying that all out so clearly.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tomorrow night's presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will take place in Philadelphia in a state that could prove to be the deciding factor in the race for the White House.

Lisa Desjardins takes us inside one Pennsylvania county with a track record of picking the winner, a place both parties think could signal how the state and possibly the country could vote.

LISA DESJARDINS: Drive down a gravel road just past a cornfield and you will find how Vice President Harris plans to win the election.

VANESSA BOULETTE, Harris Organizer: If someone says they are concerned about reproductive health care, you want to talk about Kamala Harris' opinions on that.

LISA DESJARDINS: In swing Northampton county, Pennsylvania, Democratic volunteers meet weekly to strategize, before hitting the streets and pushing every way they can for Harris.

VANESSA BOULETTE: Hello, my name is Vanessa and I'm a volunteer for the Harris campaign.

There's a lot of enthusiasm for since Kamala Harris got into the race for getting out and voting for her.

But I think people are very concerned.

It's such a close race.

MAN: Help people get involved, lord, and help people work to save America.

LISA DESJARDINS: Several miles away in the in Northampton County, Republicans too are gathering for voter outreach.

In one room, we see the span of the MAGA coalition, some focused on Trump as a strong leader, at least two others on conspiracies.

Among the things this woman told us is that Joe Biden is dead, replaced by a fake.

For Rodney Nace, it is about Trump's track record.

He voted for Barack Obama once, but is now all in on Donald Trump.

RODNEY NACE, Trump Supporter: He's very, very outspoken.

I could be, too, if I get wound up.

But he gets the job done.

And when he gets the job done, it was always for the betterment of the country.

LISA DESJARDINS: Of the 3,000 counties in the country, just 25 of them voted for the winner in the last four elections.

Of the tiny handful in swing states, Northampton County was the closest in 2020.

They voted for Joe Biden by less than one point.

Lifelong resident Carlos Diaz grew up with the lights of the Bethlehem steel plant.

CARLOS DIAZ, Pennsylvania Resident: Every night, blue flames would shoot out of that.

And you would hear the clanging and banging and it was always like chh, chh, chh, that never stopped.

LISA DESJARDINS: That was your childhood all the time.

CARLOS DIAZ: That was the soundtrack to my childhood for sure.

LISA DESJARDINS: That was in the '80s, but, within years, the plant shut down, snuffing out thousands of jobs that were the town's economic lifeline.

Did those jobs ever come back?

CARLOS DIAZ: No.

They shifted a portion to Maryland, but the majority were lost and gone for good.

LISA DESJARDINS: Carlos is a truck driver and a lifelong Democrat voting for Harris.

Like her, he opposes abortion bans and is the father of a child with autism.

He was appalled at attacks on V.P.

nominee Tim Walz's son, who is also on the spectrum.

Perhaps most of all, Carlos sees the working class at stake.

CARLOS DIAZ: These people who are not part of the 1 percent, who are not corporations, why they would think its in their economic self-interest to vote Republican is beyond me.

I cannot comprehend that.

Joe Biden went to a union picket line.

How amazing was that, a sitting president on a union picket line?

That just made my heart swell.

LISA DESJARDINS: Northampton has an industrial draw.

It is a key corridor between major East Coast cities.

But it is also a compact version of the whole state, with urban areas like Bethlehem, lush rural farms, and middle-class suburbs, like in Easton, where Jackie Crowell today is watching her grandson.

A retired schoolteacher, she is centered on family and her faith.

JACKIE CROWELL, Pennsylvania Resident: I am voting for Donald Trump.

It's policy over personality for me.

I'm a conservative Christian.

And he aligns, the party aligns much more with my ideals as a Christian, as the Democratic Party.

LISA DESJARDINS: She is Republican and anti-abortion and applauds Trump for his role in overturning Roe v. The matriarch of a family of wrestlers, she opposes transgender women playing women's sports.

JACKIE CROWELL: Oh, there's my great-grandparents.

LISA DESJARDINS: These are wonderful.

Jackie's politics are also rooted in family, immigrant grandparents from Germany and Italy, once Democrats.

JACKIE CROWELL: My grandmother used to say when I was a little girl, Democrats are for the poor., Republicans are for the rich.

If she were alive today, she would be Republican, no question about it, because the Democrat Party of her day is not the Democrat Party today.

LISA DESJARDINS: Jackie blames Democrats and Harris for high prices, from food to homes, and what she sees as a lower work ethic.

JACKIE CROWELL: I'm very work hard, don't expect the government to take care of you.

Do what you have to do for your family.

Doesn't mean you're going to be millionaires, but you will have a comfortable living if you work hard.

LISA DESJARDINS: That idea unifies this swing county, hard work.

But the divide is everywhere, like at the popular Fegley's Brew pub.

At the bar, a veteran for Trump is struggling in this economy.

JIMMY PEARCE, Trump Supporter: I haven't been able to finance a House because the rates are too high.

LISA DESJARDINS: A few feet away, a group of hard no's on Trump see a threat to rights and democracy.

LYDIA REMINSKY, Harris Supporter: I generally just do not think that Mr. Trump could lead the country at all.

LISA DESJARDINS: One thing we noticed, we did not find any Democrats for Trump.

But we did meet Republicans against him.

What don't you like about Trump?

DOLORES COLE, Republican Voter: Where do I start?

LISA DESJARDINS: Like Dolores Cole.

We met her at that Republican event.

She's been in the party 62 years and does not mince words about Trump, noting he is a convicted felon, or about Trump voters.

DOLORES COLE: They just worship their God, who is Trump.

And that's it.

He can do no wrong even though he does.

So they don't think for themselves.

I am thinking for myself and for my country.

LISA DESJARDINS: Love for country is evident here, along with strong divide over what that means.

Like so much else in Northampton county, who wins here likely will come down to one thing, who works the hardest.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

GEOFF BENNETT: And for more on the latest in the presidential race, including a look ahead to tomorrow night's debate, we're joined by our Politics Monday duo.

That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Great to see you both, as always.

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Good to be here.

GEOFF BENNETT: So tomorrow is the first and so far only debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

This is a potential campaign reset moment as many voters tune in for the first time with, what, 56 days left to go until Election Day, but who's counting?

So, Tam, how are both sides preparing?

TAMARA KEITH: Well, one thing that has stood out to me today for hearing from both campaigns is that they are both talking up Donald Trump's ability to debate.

Both the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign say that he's hard to debate, that he has a lot of experience debating.

They have different reasons for doing this, but essentially the Harris campaign is sort of talking down -- they're not talking down her ability, but they're just tempering expectations, because she's this person who, as a former prosecutor, had these standout debate moments.

She, in various Senate hearings, prosecuted the case, asking tough questions.

And her campaign is trying to say, temper those expectations.

Trump is this unique person who is difficult to debate, who is unencumbered by facts, as she says.

And so watch out.

That's a little bit of working the refs, I think, from both of the campaigns and -- yes, so working the refs.

And the other thing that I will say is that what we know is that Harris is new in the spotlight.

She has not been running for president long.

A lot of people didn't get to know her when she was vice president.

And so this is a very high-stakes debate for her to introduce herself to voters.

Trump is well-introduced.

People know who he is.

Her campaign would like to remind people of some of his flaws, but those flaws may not be as on display as some of her supporters would like.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Amy, for that reason, you can argue that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in many ways speaking to different audiences or trying to reach different parts of the electorate.

What constitutes a win tomorrow night for Trump and for Harris?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: The whole -- I think Tam said it quite well at the end there, which is this is all about defining Harris, this entire debate.

It's very hard to see that people are going to walk away from the debate saying, I feel so much differently about Donald Trump than I did a day ago, right?

Those are pretty locked in.

But, for Harris, she really does have to speak to those swing voters who have -- maybe they voted for Biden in 2020, but haven't completely come back into the Harris camp or into voting against Donald Trump again.

And they do -- they want to understand who she is, what she's going to do for them.

So to the point that Tam made about lowering expectations, I think for a lot of partisan Democrats, what they would like to see is the Kamala Harris that showed up in the Supreme Court hearings going after and, as one Democrat said to me, just having a takedown of Donald Trump.

That is not what Kamala Harris needs to do.

She needs to be speaking to an audience that isn't interested in her taking down Trump, but they want to know what is she going to do for them.

For Trump, talking to Republicans today, his top priority is stick to the issues, stay away from the personality.

Now, we have known that that's not always easy for him to do, but that is -- they feel like he has a pretty easy job is if he sticks to substance that he can make a good case for why Harris should not get four more years.

GEOFF BENNETT: We will see if that happens tomorrow night.

Can we talk about this New York Times/Siena College poll that has political obsessives all spun up?

Because it shows that the race is basically tied nationally, unchanged since President Biden was in the race.

And the battleground polls show basically the same thing.

The biggest lead that Harris has is in Wisconsin, which is by three points.

But the takeaway here, Tam, is that this is an agonizingly tight race.

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, absolutely.

And it has been all along.

Certainly, Harris is performing better than President Biden was in the month of July.

However, this is just a really close race.

If you remember, the presidential election was decided by a small number of votes in a small number of states in 2016 and again in 2020.

And so both of these campaigns are really set up to face that again.

I think that's partially why you see Trump now sort of talking about election fairness and possible election denialism, again, sort of laying the groundwork.

And it's why you hear Harris talking about herself as an underdog, in part because she needs voters to be so motivated to show up to vote that even if they have to pick the kids up from school and go pick up groceries, they're still going to go vote.

AMY WALTER: Yes, so part of the reason - - this is a national poll.

And I think part of the reason that you're hearing sort of this consternation, especially for Democrats, is they look at the results of the last two elections.

Hillary Clinton ultimately won the national popular vote by about two points.

She lost narrowly in those key swing states.

Biden was leading, won the popular vote by four points, narrowly won.

So if you are Kamala Harris, and you're either trailing by one or you're just up by one, that is lower than where Hillary Clinton was.

And the other -- and certainly much lower than where Biden was.

The other question I think a lot of folks are having is, OK, if the polls were off in 2016 and 2020 by undercounting Trump supporters, are these polls finally getting it right and showing, as Tam said, a race that we should know all along is tight, or should we see that it is actually going to undercount him again, he's actually ahead by four?

(CROSSTALK) GEOFF BENNETT: Because there have been Democrats who've said that this poll in particular oversampled Republicans and in a way that could mean that it's actually more correct.

It's a more accurate sample.

AMY WALTER: Or we just accept that.

TAMARA KEITH: Or it's not.

(CROSSTALK) GEOFF BENNETT: Or it's not.

AMY WALTER: Or we just accept, as we have for a long time, that this is, I think you said agonizingly.

This is going to be very, very close.

And right now this is why this debate is so critical.

I think what you saw from the moment Biden dropped out and through the convention, Harris got all that support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, and the race has sort of stalled out there.

Trump hasn't lost anything, but he hasn't really gained anything and the debate becomes a moment where it can.

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, and all of this essentially tells us that all of that euphoria that Democrats felt with Harris coming on, that didn't actually change the fundamentals of the race.

Her support is consolidated in a way that Trump's has been all along.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: All right, Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

AMNA NAWAZ: Today the small city of Springfield, Ohio, found itself at the center of a fraught election-year issue, immigration.

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D.

Vance claims Haitian migrants in Springfield are -- quote -- "draining social services and causing chaos."

He's also repeated a baseless rumor, already debunked by city officials, about pets being abducted and eaten, a story amplified by right-wing media and Elon Musk online.

GEOFF BENNETT: Over the last four years, Springfield has seen its small population grow by over 20 percent, driven almost entirely by immigrants.

William Brangham recently went to Springfield to understand how the city is coping.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The sounds of Haitian Creole carrying across soccer fields, in grocery stores, in restaurants dishing up the popular Haitian street food pate kode.

It's striking hearing all this in the heartland of the United States Springfield, Ohio.

Springfield is a small, blue-collar city with a familiar story.

Much of the factory work left decades ago, and the residents followed.

A community of more than 80,000, emptied out to less than 60,000, that is, until the last few years.

WES BABIAN, Springfield Resident: Our churches, we see new people.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the pews?

WES BABIAN: Yes, absolutely.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Wes Babian was the pastor at First Baptist church for almost 20 years.

WES BABIAN: For years, we have lost people.

But you hope somebody else will come and take their place.

That hasn't happened here.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Until now.

WES BABIAN: Because there are folks from Haiti who are coming to church.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Luckens Merzius, who among his many other jobs mans the sound board for Sunday services, is one of those new Haitian members.

LUCKENS MERZIUS, Springfield Resident: Why Springfield?

(LAUGHTER) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Of all places.

Merzius with his wife and daughter were among the first Haitian families to arrive here in 2018.

LUCKENS MERZIUS: I got a decent job when I was in Haiti.

And then to make a difficult decision to leave, it wasn't easy.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The reason they left is their home country is disintegrating.

Protests and increasing violence in the Caribbean nation culminated in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

Since then, the country spiraled.

Armed gangs currently control 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Merzius is one of the estimated 731,000 Haitian immigrants now living in the United States.

LUCKENS MERZIUS: I got my brothers and sisters, my mother still living there.

I'm always thinking about my family in Haiti.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Because of that violence, the U.S. granted temporary protected status to Haitians in the U.S., giving them limited-time permission to live and work here.

TPS was then expanded by the Biden administration.

Merzius says he came to Springfield for the same reason most Haitians did.

He heard that housing was cheap and jobs were plentiful.

JAMIE MCGREGOR, CEO, McGregor Metal: It started slowly.

We had an application pool that was a little bit different.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: People coming to work here.

JAMIE MCGREGOR: People looking for jobs.

What he is welding here, again, are welded axle components.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jamie McGregor is the CEO of McGregor Metal, which makes welded parts for the auto and farm industries.

Right now, about 10 percent of his work force is Haitian, over 30 employees.

JAMIE MCGREGOR: I wish I had 30 more.

Our Haitian associates come to work every day.

They don't have a drug problem.

They will stay at their machine.

They will achieve their numbers.

They are here to work.

And so, in general, that's a stark difference from what were used to in our community.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: McGregor acknowledges the sudden arrival of so many new immigrants is a challenge on multiple fronts, but he believes this is partly how the Industrial Midwest can regrow JAMIE MCGREGOR: We want more jobs in our community.

And in order to fill those jobs, some jobs need to be people who are not originally from here.

ROB RUE, Mayor of Springfield, Ohio: There's things in the last five years that have really changed and has been a forward improvement for Springfield.

But this is taxing the resources of the city.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Springfield's Mayor Rob Rue says he was cautiously optimistic when the first Haitians settled in town.

But then their numbers quickly rose.

The city estimates 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians are here now.

ROB RUE: The infrastructure of the city, our safety forces, our hospitals, our schools.

Springfield is a close community and has a big heart.

But at the same point, we have had this influx that has taxed all these services.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The number of students needing English language help has quadrupled in five years.

Translators at the local health center cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

And last year was the busiest year on record for the fire department.

But it seemed that, for the community at large, the increase in immigration and its stresses largely flew under the radar.

A lot of that changed last August.

It was the very first day of school, and a school bus full of kids was coming down this road.

A driver coming in the other direction came around that bend, said he was blinded by the sun.

He clipped the bus and the bus ended up in this ditch.

WOMAN: We begin with breaking news.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are on the scene of a deadly school bus crash.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Dozens of children were injured and 11-year-old Aiden Clark died.

When the driver was revealed to be a Haitian immigrant without a U.S. license, things erupted.

WOMAN: The majority of the Haitians here are low-skilled and thy illiterate.

MAN: I want to know who is busing them in.

Who is responsible for that and who can stop them from coming?

WILLIAM MONAGHAN, Springfield Resident: Our concerns don't have anything to do with racism.

They have to do with lack of affordable housing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For the past few months, Springfield resident and former journalist William Monaghan has been a fixture at city commission meetings.

He helps run a Facebook group that's become a clearinghouse for locals' concerns about the Haitians, where people complain about everything from reckless driving to higher rents.

WOMAN: Do you shop in Springfield?

No.

Do you drive the streets of Springfield?

No.

Do you consider Springfield your home?

No.

Are your kids safe in school?

No.

WILLIAM MONAGHAN: They're talking about, I got kicked out of my house because the rent went way up.

My insurance has gone way up.

I don't feel safe in the stores anymore.

With maybe a couple exceptions, it's never a race issue.

They want to make it sound like a racial issue so they can demonize us and ignore our concerns.

But these are valid concerns.

ROB RUE: I have the same concerns that you as moms and dads, grandparents, aunt and uncles have.

I won't say this is a Haitian crisis.

This is an immigrant crisis.

It's the fact that we have so many people here and we have a culture clash.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mayor Rue says reckless driving is an issue, but there's been no uptick in crime related to the immigrant population.

But with so many new arrivals, he says the city needs help bolstering basic infrastructure.

ROB RUE: We say we need help, basically for translation services and safety forces.

That's what were looking at.

Our hospitals need reinforcement.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the meantime, local nonprofits like St. Vincent de Paul have stepped in.

Here, people learn how to apply for jobs and how to navigate the city's computer system.

WOMAN: It's really important that when you file applications with immigration... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: A translator and a local lawyer helped this woman with her visa application.

In a building across town, Viles Dorsainvil runs a support center that helps Haitians integrate into American life.

He understands why so many new arrivals into an established community can create conflict.

VILES DORSAINVIL, Haitian Community Help and Support Center: They have the right to express themselves, because we are living in a free speech world.

But it is from the Haitian side who are trying to find jobs and opportunities, where it is from the locals are complaining because too many people are coming here.

It is human being.

We are expressing ourselves, the way we feel, but at the end of the day, we have to find a way out, to live together.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But he says many Haitians would also return home if the violence subsided.

Do you hope one day to go back to Haiti?

LUCKENS MERZIUS: Yes, hopefully.

I can't wait hopefully to go back to Haiti, because I am dreaming Haiti.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Dreaming Haiti, meaning at night while you're dreaming, you are there?

LUCKENS MERZIUS: Yes.

Yes, I'm there, so still working, still trying to integrate and then facing with challenges all the time in the U.S., but I'm also dreaming of my country.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For now, the residents of Springfield, old and new, will continue writing the latest complicated chapter in the story of immigration in America.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm William Brangham in Springfield, Ohio.

AMNA NAWAZ: At Stanford's Social Neuroscience Laboratory, scientists have spent years studying kindness, connection, and empathy.

But those can all seem in short supply at a time of deep divisions and uncertainty.

The head of that lab, Jamil Zaki, offers a different view, a data-driven reason to be hopeful about each other and the future.

I spoke with Zaki recently about his latest book called "Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness."

Jamil Zaki, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for being here.

JAMIL ZAKI, Author, "Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness": Thank you for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So you have been studying human goodness and kindness for 20 years, which seems like a great job.

But you wrote in this book that, even over the last 10 or 15 years, you yourself started to lose hope.

You said: "I could recite evidence about kindness from my lab and a dozen others.

But as the world seemed to grow greedier and more hostile, my instincts refused to follow the science."

This is probably something a lot of people can relate to.

So describe for us, what was it you were feeling?

JAMIL ZAKI: Well, it is a cool job, first of all, to study human goodness.

And I think because of that, I have become a little bit of an unofficial ambassador for humanity's better angels.

People ask me to speak or write when they want to feel good about our species.

But I can tell you studying something isn't always the same as feeling it.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

JAMIL ZAKI: And, for me, especially during the early pandemic in lockdown, when I was experiencing humanity mostly through screens, I started to really feel as though no matter how much I looked at the science, I felt as though people were selfish and dishonest.

I felt a split between my job and myself.

AMNA NAWAZ: You talk about that cynicism, right, as a lack of faith in our fellow humans.

You also talk about it as a tool of the status quo.

What does that mean?

Who benefits from cynicism?

JAMIL ZAKI: Yes, so cynicism, again, is the theory that people are selfish, greedy and dishonest.

It's on the rise.

And a lot of people say, well, maybe that's good because cynics might be radicals who hold power to account.

It turns out the opposite is true.

Cynics see social problems, but they don't see any solutions.

And if you think that our problems represent who we really are, why do anything about it?

So cynics end up voting less often than non-cynics, protesting less often.

And, in fact, the people who benefit from a population that doesn't trust itself are often autocrats and authoritarians.

That's why I call it a tool of the status quo.

AMNA NAWAZ: You also document, and there's a lot of data to back this up in your book, real-world physical and social benefits to living in low-cynicism, high-trust societies.

What are those benefits?

What have you found?

JAMIL ZAKI: They really occur at every level.

So trust is our willingness to be vulnerable to other people.

And it's crucial to building important relationships in our lives, to having nourishing communities that help us feel happier and less stressed, but also to having communities that function, for instance, civically and economically.

So it turns out that from individuals, to families, to organizations, to culture writ large, trust helps us operate, helps us succeed.

And cynicism disintegrates that.

AMNA NAWAZ: I think here in the U.S., especially around now, we're talking about that cynicism and those divides we see along political lines, just how people have sorted.

You write about that in your book, and you say: "During the same era in which Americans lost trust in one another, they grew contempt for people with whom we disagree.

In 1980, U.S. Republicans and Democrats felt lots of warmth towards their own party, neutral about the other.

By 2020, each party disliked the other side more than they liked their own."

So you and your colleagues at the lab in 2022 brought together 100 Americans, basically, who disagreed and had them engage in random Zoom calls with each other to talk about really difficult things.

What did you find?

JAMIL ZAKI: Well, first of all, we are divided, and I don't want to diminish that.

There is so much disagreement and a lot of really dangerous division in our nation as well.

But the divisions in our mind are much larger than they are in reality.

AMNA NAWAZ: What does that mean?

JAMIL ZAKI: Well, it turns out, if you ask Democrats and Republicans, what does the average person you disagree with think, what do they want, what do they like, we are wrong on every -- on nearly every measure.

We think that the average person we disagree with is far more extreme than they really are.

We think that they are twice as antidemocratic, twice as hateful, and four times as violent as they really are.

In many ways, we are fighting phantoms because we don't interact with people we disagree with as much as we used to.

So in our lab, we tried to change that.

We brought people together for these conversations, things like climate change and gun rights.

And we asked them to predict, how do you think these conversations will go?

And they said, somewhere between neutral to poorly.

We then had them have these conversations and asked, how did that go on a scale of zero to 100 in terms of pleasantness?

And the most common response we got was 100.

People loved connecting.

They were shocked by how open-minded, warm, and interested in them the person the other side was.

AMNA NAWAZ: You advocate for this, this idea of taking leaps of faith over and over again in the book.

What does that mean?

How can people do that?

JAMIL ZAKI: The data are really clear.

People are overall more trustworthy, kinder, more open-minded, and friendlier than we realize they are.

Of course, there are people who do harm out there, but the average person underestimates the average person.

And what that means is that when we give people a chance to show us who they are, by putting those little leaps of faith, those small acts of trust into them, oftentimes, we're pleasantly surprised by what they give back.

AMNA NAWAZ: You start the book with your own crisis of hope, as it were.

Where are you now?

JAMIL ZAKI: I would consider myself a recovering cynic, not recovered.

This practicing hope takes time, the same way that practicing running or yoga takes time.

It takes effort, but most things that are worth it do.

AMNA NAWAZ: The book is "Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness."

The author is Jamil Zaki.

Thank you so much for being here.

JAMIL ZAKI: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Join us again here tomorrow night, when we will have live coverage of the ABC News presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Our simulcast of the debate, plus analysis, starts at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us.