September 2, 2024 - PBS News Hour full episode

AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm John Yang.

Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz are away.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Protests erupt across Israel, demanding an end to the war after the bodies of six hostages held by Hamas were recovered from Gaza.

IDIT TEPERSON, Protester: We have a prime minister who doesn't think of the good of a country, but only of his own good.

JOHN YANG: On this Labor Day, we look at the power union workers could wield in the upcoming election.

And Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest headlines from the campaign trail.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that he would not join in cease-fire talks over his demand that Israel remain in control of Gaza's border with Egypt.

He spoke after thousands of workers across Israel walked off their jobs following a night of protests over Netanyahu's failure to negotiate a deal for the release of those held in Gaza, all this after the recovery of the bodies of six more hostages.

Across Israel overnight, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in the biggest protests since the war began almost 11 months ago.

In Tel Aviv, police and protesters clashed.

Nationwide, some two dozen people were arrested.

Today, protesters blocked a main road in the city, demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a deal to return the 100 or so Israeli hostages still in Gaza.

IDIT TEPERSON, Protester: I think we have a criminal government, a criminal government who lets the hostages be murdered only for the sake of the coalition.

And we have a prime minister who doesn't think of the good of a country, but only of his own good.

JOHN YANG: A general strike disrupted flights at Israel's international airport, and some hospitals were only partially operating.

In Jerusalem, Israelis lined the streets for the funeral procession of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

He was among the six hostages recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza over the weekend.

Today, Netanyahu said Hamas would pay a heavy price for their deaths.

At the funeral, Goldberg-Polin's mother, Rachel, mourned her son.

RACHEL GOLDBERG-POLIN, Mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin: For 23 years, I was privileged to have the most stunning honor, to be Hersh's mama.

I will take it and say thank you.

I just wish it had been for longer.

JOHN YANG: At the White House, President Biden added to the pressure on Netanyahu.

QUESTION: Mr. President, do you think it's time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to do more on this issue?

Do you think he's doing enough?

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: No.

JOHN YANG: In Gaza, a polio vaccination campaign continued.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to pause fighting in select areas until Tuesday.

The goal is to vaccinate more than 600,000 children.

MOHAMMED RAJAB, Palestinian in Gaza (through translator): In these conditions we live in, with the diseases spreading among children, vaccination is now very important to protect our children.

God willing, in these days of war, peace will prevail for everyone.

JOHN YANG: And in the West Bank city of Jenin, an Israeli military operation continued, the fifth day of heavy fighting.

So far, at least 20 Palestinians have been killed.

At the White House today, President Biden said the United States will hold Hamas leaders accountable for American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin's death.

He also met with the U.S. team trying to reach an agreement that would free the remaining hostages.

Yohanan Plesner is president of the Israel Democracy Institute.

He is a former aide to both Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. Plesner, give us a sense of what the mood is like in Israel today.

You have had a tumultuous 36 hours.

YOHANAN PLESNER, President, Israel Democracy Institute: Yes, it's a very emotional period.

The fact that six of our hostages have been murdered in cold blood and just 24 hours before the IDF soldiers have actually reached them was received as a major blow for -- I think for all Israelis.

And the protests that erupted have reflected that.

Now, we have to understand it's -- we have to be able to hold two complex thoughts at the same time.

On the one hand, we're dealing with a murderous Hamas jihadist regime that wanted and continues to desire to annihilate our state and to execute our hostages.

And they haven't said yes to any deal, to any mediation, to any of the parameters.

So, Israelis are, in this respect, united behind the war goals of dismantling Hamas and bringing back the hostages.

At the same time, a growing number of Israelis, perhaps a majority of Israelis, do not trust the way the prime minister is conducting and carrying out this war and operation, and specifically the attempt to bring back the hostages.

And the protests yesterday are a reflection of this distrust in the way the prime minister is leading the negotiation.

JOHN YANG: Well, that distrust you talk about, you worked for Mr. Netanyahu.

What do you think his thinking is right now about this -- getting the hostages back?

YOHANAN PLESNER: Well, the prime minister basically conveyed to the Israeli public the message that only increased military pressure will bring back the hostages.

Now, on the one hand, increasing the military pressure puts obviously pressure on Hamas and its leadership and produces a positive outcome.

But it also has costs.

It also puts our hostages in danger.

And what we have seen now is the fact that our hostages were murdered was to some extent as a result of the fact that we put pressure.

So this formula is not that simple as it sounds.

But I think a more complex element is the fact that many Israelis think that Mr. Netanyahu is managing this negotiation in bad faith, that alongside the interest of bringing back the hostages and dismantling Hamas, there's also other additional political interests, like keeping together his coalition and that it costs with hostages their lives.

And this distrust, I would say, was augmented by the fact that, at least what we heard from leaks from what's happening within the room, within the discussion, within the discussions, is that the leaders of the defense establishment think that Israel -- there's additional wiggle room for Israeli compromises that might bring about a deal and that Netanyahu insists on not making those compromises.

And it's unclear whether there's strictly a security consideration or other more political considerations involved.

JOHN YANG: This growing distrust, does it present a challenge or a threat to Mr. Netanyahu and his government?

YOHANAN PLESNER: Not necessarily, because we have seen tonight Mr. Netanyahu presenting his case and positioning it strictly as a security argument about the merit of holding on to the border between Gaza and Egypt.

And as long as it's wrapped or positioned as a security -- argument around security interests, I think it's a relatively comfortable position for the prime minister.

JOHN YANG: The prime minister tonight said that the containing that containing that -- or maintaining presence on that border, what they call the Philadelphi Corridor, is the only way to keep Israel safe against weapons being smuggled in from Egypt.

Does his defense establishment agree with him?

YOHANAN PLESNER: No, not necessarily.

We actually heard the chief of staff of the IDF say that Israel can also give up on its -- on holding onto this corridor temporarily or think of other arrangements, for example, if we get security guarantees from the United States and the Egyptians.

And one has to see it in a broader context.

This is a whole issue of risk management.

There are the lives of the hostages.

There's what's happening in the northern border.

There's the interest in building and stabilizing a strong coalition against Iran that is trying to dominate the region and to deploy and activate its proxies against Israel, against U.S. interests, against the interests of the moderate countries in the region.

So there's a much broader picture than just narrowing and reducing it down to a dispute around one axis.

So I think to reduce the whole debate into what's going to happen in this five-kilometer strip is less about security interests and more about talking to one's own political base.

So, again, Israel's war goals are just.

We are fighting against an evil enemy, Hamas, that wants to annihilate us.

And at the same time, the fact that we have a just war does not mean necessarily that the prime minister is executing it in an optimal manner, not vis-a-vis our own national interests and not vis-a-vis the interests of some of our allies.

JOHN YANG: Yohanan Plesner, thank you very much.

YOHANAN PLESNER: Thanks for having me.

JOHN YANG: There is other news.

In Ukraine, residents of Kyiv awoke to the aftermath of Russian shelling that wounded three people.

It also cast a shadow on what was supposed to be the first day of the school year.

This morning, parents took their children to one school, only to find buildings destroyed and classes canceled.

OLENA, Kyiv Resident (through translator): We heard strong explosions since the morning.

We live not far from here.

We hid in bathroom, where it was relatively safe.

She's going to this school for the first time.

It is a new school for her.

And so we came and saw this.

At first, we did not see messages that our studies were being postponed, so we came with our neighbors.

The children were hoping for a celebration today.

JOHN YANG: Explosions rocked Russia's Belgorod region just across the border from Ukraine.

The governor there blamed Ukraine for the shelling, which injured one person and damaged several homes.

The U.S. government has seized a private plane used by Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The Justice Department says the $13 million jet was smuggled from Florida last year, in violation of sanctions and export control laws.

In a statement, the Commerce Department, which partnered with DOJ, said this sends a message that "aircraft illegally acquired from the United States for the benefit of sanctioned Venezuelan officials cannot just fly off into the sunset."

The seizure comes just over a month since Venezuela's contested presidential election.

The U.S. says Maduro lost to his opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez.

Police in Chicago say a shooting on a subway train early Monday has left four people dead.

Three people died at the scene at an aboveground station in the Western suburb of Forest Park.

A fourth victim died later at a hospital.

Officials say a suspect initially fled, but was arrested on a train on a different line and a weapon was recovered.

They described it as an isolated incident.

An investigation is ongoing.

More than 10,000 hotel workers across the country are spending this Labor Day on strike.

They're calling for higher pay and more even workloads.

Hundreds of hospitality workers at a Hilton in Baltimore were the latest to join the growing walkout.

There are nearly 200,000 fewer hotel workers now than there were before the pandemic.

The union wants staffing levels restored and wages increased.

MICHAEL CORREA, Hotel Worker: We have a lot of people that are just living check to check.

We're asking for a $10 raise.

And even with that $10 raise that we're asking for in the next four years, by inflation numbers, we would still be considered poor as a hotel worker in the next four years.

So we're asking for a contract that is a modest contract.

JOHN YANG: Union president Gwen Mills says the strikes are part of a long-running battle over benefits in an industry that's disproportionately made up of women and people of color.

Representatives from Hyatt and Hilton say they're open to negotiations.

At the Paralympic Games in Paris, Team USA's lineup of para triathletes won a combined eight medals today, among them, veteran Hailey Danz, who struck gold after finishing second in both the Rio Games in 2016 and Tokyo the last time around.

On the track, a Paralympic debut for Ezra Frech turned into a golden finish in his classification of the 100-meter dash.

Americans also won medals today in swimming, badminton and wheelchair rugby.

And you may not know the name, but you have probably read one of her stories.

Longtime Associated Press reporter Linda Deutsch has died.

For nearly 50 years, she covered some of the biggest criminal and civil trials in America.

She was in the courtroom for proceedings against cult leader Charles Manson and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, against Michael Jackson and O.J.

Simpson.

Trials, she once said, are human drama.

LINDA DEUTSCH, Associated Press: "Oh, you cover all these grisly, horrible things."

She said: "Don't you feel like a voyeur?"

Do you feel like a voyeur when you're watching "Hamlet" or "Macbeth"?

That's -- it's the same thing.

And it's as old as Shakespeare and as old Socrates, and it's an extremely powerful theater.

JOHN YANG: Linda Deutsch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022.

She was 80 years old.

Still to come on the "News Hour": our Politics Monday duo weighs in on presidential candidates efforts to woo union voters; and a new book chronicles the precipitous downfall of former lawyer turned convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh.

Candidates are heading into the campaign season's closing stretch that traditionally kicks off on Labor Day.

Former President Donald Trump was off the trail today and over the weekend, but on the offensive online.

He will speak to the Fraternal Order of Police later this week.

Meanwhile, labor was the theme for Democrats with several events in blue wall states.

Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden made their first joint campaign appearance since the convention before an organized labor audience in Pittsburgh.

Earlier, Harris also made a pitch for unions in Detroit.

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: Everywhere I go, I tell people, look, you may not be a union member.

You better thank a union member... (CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) KAMALA HARRIS: ... for the five-day workweek.

You better thank a union member for sick leave.

You better thank a union member for paid leave.

What we know is, when union wages go up, everybody's wages go up.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) JOHN YANG: The candidates are fighting to win key Midwestern states like Michigan, where Harris was today and where Trump was just a few days ago.

Both are determined to get as much of the union vote there as they can.

But, as our economics correspondent Paul Solman reports, Trump has also shown surprising strength among some workers.

BRIAN PANNEBECKER, Retired Autoworker: I remember my mom crying for days when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

PAUL SOLMAN: Retired United Auto Workers member Brian Pannebecker.

So yours was a Democratic family?

BRIAN PANNEBECKER: Yes, because we were always told, well, the Democrats are for the little guy, the working man.

PAUL SOLMAN: But he's an avid Donald Trump supporter now, one of many who like Trump's positions on trade, tariffs and taking on China.

BRIAN PANNEBECKER: I put 30 autoworkers into a group called Auto Workers For Trump on Facebook.

It grew organically to 3,800 people.

ANNOUNCER: Please welcome the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

PAUL SOLMAN: As for the much larger Teamsters union, its president, Sean O'Brien, actually spoke on day one of the Republican National Convention, although he didn't endorse Donald Trump.

SEAN O'BRIEN, General President, Teamsters: We all know how Washington has run.

Working people have no chance of winning this fight.

That's why I'm here today, because I refuse to keep doing the same things my predecessors did.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so the question, is the union vote, so long thought to be faithfully Democrat, swinging Republican?

Brian Pannebecker lives just outside true blue Detroit, holds his political truths to be self-evident.

BRIAN PANNEBECKER: I just believe that the Republicans now, with their lower taxes and support of family values, is better for the average working men and women of this country than the Democrat.

PAUL SOLMAN: At a Teamsters local of oil refinery workers near Detroit, we heard much of the same.

CASIMER GUZDZIOL, Member, Teamsters Local 283: Of course, we're going to try to elect somebody that's going to be more pro-oil, right?

Drill, baby, drill.

PAUL SOLMAN: Refinery worker.

Drill, baby, drill?

BILL KIRKLAND, Member, Teamsters Local 283: I am a refinery worker, yes.

I am all for keeping my job.

I'm all for America being self-sufficient on energy, our reserves being topped off to the top.

I'm all for us being independent, so yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: But more important to Bill Kirkland, cancel culture.

BILL KIRKLAND: If you don't agree with me, you're on the other side of the line, we hate your guts.

MICHELINE "MICKI" MAYNARD, Journalist and Author: The Teamsters have always been the more Republican-leaning union.

PAUL SOLMAN: Longtime Detroit journalist Micki Maynard.

MICHELINE "MICKI" MAYNARD: And it goes back to Nixon, because Nixon pardoned Jimmy Hoffa.

And the members of the Teamsters union remembered that.

PAUL SOLMAN: The Teamsters also supported Ronald Reagan and George H.W.

Bush.

And even autoworkers began defecting in Macomb County, a northern suburb of Detroit, back in 1980, the Reagan Democrats, as imports undercut the U.S. auto industry.

Brian Pannebecker lives in Macomb, blames Democrats for the decline.

BRIAN PANNEBECKER: Do you remember a presidential candidate named Ross Perot?

And he said, if we elect Bill Clinton at that time and NAFTA is signed into law, you will hear a giant sucking sound.

And that will be all of our jobs leaving and going to Mexico.

Well, in essence, that's exactly what did happen.

PAUL SOLMAN: What many blue-collar workers think today, says Micki Maynard.

MICHELINE "MICKI" MAYNARD: There is this idea that you used to be able to drive a truck or work in a car plant and you could own a home and maybe even own a vacation home and send your kids to college and have two cars and retire comfortably.

And that, today, it doesn't exist in the way that it once did.

A lot of people have to work two and even three jobs to attain the level that one parent had back in those days.

PAUL SOLMAN: As some UAW parents made it into the middle class, they moved to the suburbs to places like Macomb County, became tax-cutting Republicans.

But there's plenty of union support for the Harris/Walz ticket, which supports stronger union rights, collective bargaining and tougher enforcement of it.

Walter Robinson said his co-workers were happy that Harris and Walz visited his local.

KAMALA HARRIS: We stand for the people and we stand for the dignity of work.

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you think more people will show up and vote now because of her?

WALTER ROBINSON JR., Member, UAW Local 900: I believe so.

PAUL SOLMAN: Walter Robinson Jr., a member of the local, works as a quality control inspector at the Ford plant across the street.

WALTER ROBINSON JR.: I believe that you will get other people that might have been on the fence because they were concerned about whether President Biden Couldn't take another four years.

And I believe that they will say, well, this is a younger candidate, so let's go.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now look, plenty of Teamsters support the Democrats too.

JARED JACKSON, Teamsters Local 283: I would never vote for a Republican.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, even this group of refinery workers whose jobs depend on fossil fuels was split right down the middle.

And most unions support Harris-Walz wholeheartedly, like the Service Employees International, two million members, the National Education Association, three million, the AFL-CIO itself, 12.5 million.

And at the Democratic Convention, UAW President Shawn Fain made his support crystal clear.

SHAWN FAIN, President, United Auto Workers: In 2024, who will stand with the working class in our fight for justice?

Kamala Harris.

PAUL SOLMAN: OK, so what percentage of the UAW's 400,000 or so members favor Donald Trump?

BRIAN PANNEBECKER: Seventy percent.

That's conservative.

PAUL SOLMAN: Walter Robinson's guess, more like 40 percent.

Journalist Micki Maynard?

MICHELINE "MICKI" MAYNARD: I would come down somewhere in the middle.

PAUL SOLMAN: Final question about the weeks remaining until the election.

Anybody think they're going to change their mind?

MAN: No.

MAN: No.

MAN: Not with this group of people?

(LAUGHTER) PAUL SOLMAN: What do you mean?

MAN: No, we're just -- we're just -- we know what we want.

PAUL SOLMAN: I put it this way to the UAW's Walter Robinson.

Is there anything that Kamala Harris could do that would change the minds of some of the people on the line?

WALTER ROBINSON JR.: She would probably have to pull out a magic wand or something, but then they'd call her a witch.

PAUL SOLMAN: Robinson then laughed, maybe nervously.

WALTER ROBINSON JR.: That's the thing that I had to worry about doing these -- doing all these interviews is that MAGA is going to find out where I live at and they're going to be on my front lawn and mess with me.

PAUL SOLMAN: Because, as you may have noticed, these days, tribalism runs pretty deep in America.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman in and around Detroit.

JOHN YANG: And for more on both presidential campaigns' efforts to appeal to working-class voters, 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.

As we just heard, the endorsements from a union don't necessarily mean that the union members are going to go that way.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: That's right.

JOHN YANG: But, Tam, how is the Harris campaign trying to turn all those endorsements into votes?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: It's pretty simple.

Those endorsements come with what we would call a ground game.

That is union members out knocking on doors, campaigning with their family members, campaigning with their neighbors.

And, for instance, the AFL-CIO endorsed, well, Biden back then extremely early, very, very early.

And when I talked to them about why they did that, they said because that then opens the floodgates to be able to begin doing that door-knocking and other on-the-ground campaign work.

It really just, for Democrats, magnifies their already existing infrastructure to try to reach voters where they are, because the feeling about this election is, it will be very close.

It will be decided in key states where there are a lot of union members.

And, yes, the union members, the rank and file, are split, but in terms of who's knocking on doors, they're knocking on doors for Democrats.

JOHN YANG: We also just heard, Trump has a lot of support among union members.

How is he making those inroads?

TAMARA KEITH: It's -- in a lot of ways, it's cultural.

He is appealing to these voters.

He appeals to a lot of working-class voters.

He is appealing to them in the same way that he's appealing to a lot of voters across a swathe of the country.

What he is doing is saying that he is for the workers.

He is trying to drive a wedge, in fact, between the workers and their union, in many cases, particularly with the autoworkers.

I'm not sure how well that's actually working.

Certainly, the union leadership will point out that, when he was president, he appointed members of the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, that were not pro-union at all.

But he is sort of trying to say that he's pro-worker.

And it works with some voters, certainly.

JOHN YANG: And, Amy, they chose -- the Democrats chose to have their union events in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Any coincidence?

AMY WALTER: What a coincidence.

I have no idea why they would choose those two states.

(LAUGHTER) AMY WALTER: And that Harris was with the president in Pittsburgh, a state where, obviously, he is from, the president from Scranton, from the other part of the state, but hoping that there's maybe an ability for Biden to convey some of that goodwill among those types of voters.

And I think both the setup piece here and Tam's point about cultural, that when we talk about labor unions, as a whole, it is about 18 percent of the national electorate.

So it's not a huge percentage of the electorate, people who say, I am in a working -- I'm in a labor household.

But when you talk about people who feel like they're defined by, not necessarily that they belong to a union, but consider themselves to be working class -- and this is where I think Trump has done a job -- a good job of getting beyond just the cultural attachment.

But he's talking to them about workers, particularly putting workers first, specifically in a place like Michigan.

Hey, those electric -- the electric battery mandates and electric car mandates, we don't like them, you don't like them, going to get rid of them.

We're going to put tariffs on cars coming from overseas.

That's going to help your job.

We're not going to let the country get flooded with those foreign cars anymore.

And then we were at the RNC and the head of the Teamsters was speaking.

This is not something we thought we'd ever see at a Republican Convention.

So as the... TAMARA KEITH: Though he didn't endorse.

AMY WALTER: He did not endorse.

TAMARA KEITH: It was this weird dance.

AMY WALTER: But just having the head of the Teamsters speaking at a Republican Convention is sending a message beyond just labor, people who are part of a labor union, but to those people who identify themselves as part of that sort of forgotten working-class voter.

JOHN YANG: Last week, the unpredictable Donald Trump surprised a lot of folks by coming out and saying that in vitro fertilization, IVF, should be free.

Either the insurance companies should pay for it or the government should pay for it.

That sent a lot of Republicans scrambling to try to figure out how to deal with this issue.

We have got two senators, two Republican senators, who each came down on the other side, opposite sides of this issue over this weekend.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): So I think we'd have to evaluate the fiscal impact, whether the taxpayer can afford to pay for this, what impact it would have on premiums.

But, in principle, supporting couples who are trying to use IVF or other fertility treatments, I don't think is something that's controversial at all.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I think he's just trying to show his support for IVF treatments, that we have been accused, the party has, of being against birth control.

We're not.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent and Co-Anchor of "This Week": But you wouldn't support this idea of mandating insurance companies to cover this, would you?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: No.

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, you have already voted against it.

Yes.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: No, I wouldn't, because there's no end to that.

Yes, there's no end to that.

JOHN YANG: Amy, the Democrats are clearly making reproductive rights an issue in this campaign.

Have the Republicans figured out how to deal with it, how to react to it?

AMY WALTER: No, because it is not an issue that they had expected they were going to have to deal with in 2022.

And there's no easy answer for it in 2024.

The difference, though, between, say, somebody like Lindsey Graham there, who was trying to fit this conversation about IVF and abortion into the traditional Republican box, is that's not where Donald Trump is, right?

There's not a philosophical, ideological issue that Trump is grappling with.

What he sees is, wow, I'm not doing very well with women.

How can I get women voters back?

And so you saw him the other day try to get a little bit further away from Republicans on the issue of abortion, specifically the six-week abortion ban in Florida.

Then he sort of had to backtrack a little bit on that because that made pro-life voters and supporters very upset.

But IVF, here's another way that he sees us as an opportunity to really win over voters he needs to win over.

It's not a change in philosophy or ideology.

That's where the party gets itself sort of caught up in this issue, because they're trying to fit it into something that's bigger than just one election.

That's not where Donald Trump is.

JOHN YANG: And, Tam, tomorrow, the Democrats are kicking off what they call the Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour.

And they're doing it in Trump's backyard in Palm Beach, Florida.

Has the Harris campaign reacted to the -- to Donald Trump's comments on IVF?

TAMARA KEITH: They have.

And they essentially said, why would you believe him now?

Because he has changed his position reproductive rights, on IVF, on any number of things repeatedly, though he has been very clear that he -- and they will point this out repeatedly.

Trump has been pretty clear that he's responsible for Roe being overturned because he appointed those three Supreme Court justices, created the conservative supermajority, and he points that out whenever he's in front of a conservative group or a religious rights group.

So he wants that.

He wants credit, but he doesn't want too much credit, and he doesn't want the political problem that doing away with Roe has created.

Even with IVF -- when Alabama -- when an Alabama court put IVF on hold, it was because of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe.

So this is a problem of his creating.

This is the dog caught the car, and this is the political challenge that he's trying to sort through.

And he's doing it in a very Trumpy way, which is he just says, I believe this, I believe that.

Oh, wait, no, somebody said that I should not say that I would possibly maybe support that Florida ballot measure.

So, no, I'm going to vote against it.

He had multiple positions last week, and I think we can see more of that to come.

JOHN YANG: It's been a week since the -- Mr. Trump made his controversial visit to Arlington, Arlington National Cemetery.

We're still talking about it.

Vice President Harris was silent, and then finally issued a -- put up on social media this past weekend: "Let me be clear.

The former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.

This man who is unable -- this is a man who is unable to comprehend anything other than service to himself."

And the Trump campaign reacted by putting out statements from Gold Star families.

This sort of feeds in, doesn't it, Tam, to the Democrats' line about Donald Trump?

TAMARA KEITH: Certainly, this was an event that has been snowballed.

It started out with Trump being invited by these families, but then there was video and there was photos.

And they -- and someone on his staff pushed back someone who worked at the cemetery who said, the rules say you can't film in Section 60.

They did, they put out a video, he didn't apologize, and now we are, like, multiple days into this cycle of Trump controversy, which now has muddied the water, and he is making it about Harris, when in the start it was him who didn't apologize.

JOHN YANG: We have got to leave it there, because we're out of time.

Tamy -- Tamy and Am.

(LAUGHTER) TAMARA KEITH: Tamy.

There you go.

(LAUGHTER) AMY WALTER: Yes, we have a new moniker.

JOHN YANG: Amy and Tam, right.

Thank you very much.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

AMY WALTER: Thanks, John.

JOHN YANG: A new chapter is unfolding in a story of power, privilege, and violence.

Last year Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murdering his wife and son in South Carolina.

The case gripped many across the country.

And now the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal.

A new book chronicles not only the story of the murders and the trial, but a family that for a century used violence to gain power.

Lisa Desjardins has more, beginning with a reminder of Murdoch's tangled history.

QUESTION: Alex, did you kill your wife and son?

LISA DESJARDINS: In a small courthouse with millions of people watching, last March, a jury convicted formerly powerful attorney Alex Murdaugh of the unthinkable, shooting and killing his wife and younger son, Paul.

Prosecutors say it was a desperate attempt by Murdoch to distract as years of stealing millions from his clients was coming to light.

Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters: CREIGHTON WATERS, Chief Prosecutor: It doesn't matter who your family is.

It doesn't matter how much money you have or people think you have.

It doesn't matter what you think, how prominent you are.

If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina.

LISA DESJARDINS: The trial reads the specter of other deaths around Murdaugh and his immediate family,the fatal head injury attributed to a fall of their housekeeper five years earlier, the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach after witnesses say Paul Murdaugh drunkenly crashed his boat, and the death of a teenage classmate of Murdaugh's older son ruled a hit-and-run, but which police later investigated as a homicide.

The Murdaughs publicly denied responsibility for any of that.

On the stand in his wife and son's murder case, Alex had to admit he lied to police after cell phone video proved he was at the scene of the crime minutes before the death.

In a separate case, Murdaugh admitted guilt to financial crimes, stealing life-changing legal settlement money from impoverished clients.

He blamed drug addiction.

The isolated Murdaugh estate, where the family murders, happened has been sold.

But what happened there is still making headlines.

A new book chronicles this saga and goes further, looking at not just Alex Murdaugh, but 100 years of eye-popping privilege and violence connected with his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

The book is "The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty" by Wall Street Journal reporter Valerie Bauerlein.

She joins me now.

Congratulations.

You're an instant bestseller.

VALERIE BAUERLEIN, Author, "The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty": Thank you.

LISA DESJARDINS: There are a lot of true crime stories these days.

What about this one made you want to write a book?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: I was captivated by the same thing that the country was captivated by, right?

I mean, this story had everything.

It had all seven of the deadly sins.

I went and looked them up, and I was like, yes, it does.

It had mystery.

Who killed Maggie and Paul?

And then once we found out that Alex was charged, why and how?

How could a man kill his wife and son?

And I think, as much as anything, for me, I grew up in the South.

I have covered the South my entire career.

It's really the only place in the country that just evokes an image in your mind.

And once I started digging in on the history, I was like, wow, you can tell the story of the rural South through the lens of this family, in addition to every other thing it shows us about American life and American tragedy.

LISA DESJARDINS: I want to have you read a passage about Alex Murdaugh in chapter four.

Can you read how you describe him there?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: "He was the kind of guy who could, in the course of a day, score some pills, cheat on his long-suffering wife, fix three different court cases in three different counties, head to Hampton's little league fields to coach one of his son's teams, and then host the after-party for players' families."

LISA DESJARDINS: Now, this is the same man who spent years embezzling millions, committing massive fraud, in fact.

And he lied to the police on the night of his wife and son's murders.

Yet he took the defense stand.

In the end, how did you come to understand this man?

And is he someone who understands the truth himself?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: I think he gave us two days of who he was when he took the stand in his homicide case.

But I think he also, in addition, talked an additional 45 minutes uninterrupted back in November in Beaufort when he was finally sentenced for stealing millions of dollars.

I watched him.

I can remember putting my pencil down and just leaning forward and being like, he doesn't know himself.

He's a walking mirage, and nobody really knew him.

LISA DESJARDINS: Do you think he's someone who believes he's above the law?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: There's no question in my mind that Alex Murdaugh thinks he's above the law.

And I think that is an inherited belief.

The story of the book is really the story of five generations, essentially, of Murdaughs.

They realized that, to be above the law, you had to become the law.

And they were the law.

Alec's father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all held the office of solicitor, which is district attorney, but it's so much more than that in a rural area.

They were the lead lawman for a five-county area for a century, and in a place where there would be maybe a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, and a jailer.

But that was it.

The Murdaughs were the finder of fact.

They were the detectives.

They were the law.

LISA DESJARDINS: That's incredible power.

And going through that, his great-grandfather -- through your incredible research over years, great-grandfather committed, an insurance fraud scheme that led to the family's wealth.

Grandfather ran a bootlegging operation.

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: The largest in the South.

LISA DESJARDINS: And got away with it, it looks like, with jury tampering, while he was a prosecutor, by the way.

His own father, there's evidence that he covered up a violent boat crash.

I want to ask you the theme of this book.

What did you learn about this family and power and deceit, how they tell lies and get away with it?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: What I learned about this family is that they had perfected the art of making a lie look like a truth.

And for a long time, that was easy enough to do when you are the law.

There was no electronic records.

There were not cameras falling us at all times and if you say, no, that never happened -- or in the case of his grandfather, who was accused of running the largest bootlegging ring in the South by the DOJ, I mean, by the Department of Justice, he was like, I never took a cash bribe out in the hallway of the college and county courthouse, the one where we were every day in court.

So they just had mastered the art of making problems go away.

And they could because of generational privilege.

LISA DESJARDINS: And generational wealth that they passed on through... VALERIE BAUERLEIN: Generational wealth that was -- it was a dynasty forged in fraud.

I think the evidence completely supports that.

LISA DESJARDINS: What do you think this tells you about this particular place in the South?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: You know, it really is so isolated and so poor.

The median family income is half the national average.

People -- there's no net migration, right?

Nobody moves in.

Nobody moves out.

It's been 20,000 people for 100 years.

So it really has been immune to change partly because of the iron fist of this family.

One of the perverse legacies of the Murdaughs was, they were the solicitors, right, but they also ran this very powerful civil law firm.

And because they knew everybody, guess what?

The jury awards in civil cases were enormous.

And that had the perverse impact of scaring businesses away.

So, all that is to say, the economy is not vibrant at all.

There are many people that I have come to really care about in Hampton, and they have been left with a hard situation as a result.

LISA DESJARDINS: This story is something obviously that a lot of people paid attention to for the details.

But I also want to talk about Murdaugh's victims.

You spent time talking with them, some of the poorest of the poor, who he stole from.

What is the takeaway for them?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: You know, I really thank you for saying that.

I really did try to let you know a lot more about the poorest and most vulnerable people that he stole from, motherless girls, a quadriplegic deaf teenager.

He stole their future.

He stole their money, but he stole their chance at a life.

And what I wanted to show was, there's a kind of moral and emotional violence to that type of crime.

And I think, over the course of years, that violence inured him to hurting other people.

So it was not in my mind as far a leap to kill his wife and son, to cover up, as the evidence shows, to cover up, his many years of thieving.

LISA DESJARDINS: It comes back to that circle of power and deceit.

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: It really does.

LISA DESJARDINS: He is appealing, trying to appeal still.

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: Oh, he's appealing multiple things, isn't he?

LISA DESJARDINS: Do you think this case will ever end?

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: We have a first ending.

A jury of his peers in the place where he grew up found him guilty of killing his wife and son.

And then, later, he played guilty in state court to all the thefts.

So, essentially, he played guilty to the motive.

He pled guilty to the predicate crimes that the state said drove him to kill them.

No matter what happens in the future, we have an ending.

And we also know he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

LISA DESJARDINS: No one knows this case better.

Valerie Bauerlein, a gripping and meaningful book.

Thank you.

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: Thank you so much for having me.

JOHN YANG: We'll be back in a bit with a look at how Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz has become a focal point at the Minnesota State Fair.

But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.

It's a chance to offer your support, which helps keep programs like ours on the air.

For those stations staying with us, we return to a cooking icon.

Madhur Jaffrey first made Indian cuisine accessible to the West decades ago with her milestone cookbook "An Invitation to Indian Cooking."

In this encore presentation, she spoke with Amna Nawaz from her home in New York as part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

MADHUR JAFFREY, Author, "An Invitation to Indian Cooking": I'm Madhur Jaffrey.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the crowded, cosmopolitan world of cuisine, she has single-name status.

MAN: Madhur Jaffrey.

MAN: Madhur Jaffrey.

MAN: Madhur Jaffrey.

WOMAN: And we're talking about Madhur Jaffrey.

AMNA NAWAZ: But for famed Indian chef Madhur Jaffrey, the path to numerous bestselling cookbooks, multiple James Beard Awards, and the highest civilian honors in both India and the United Kingdom wasn't planned.

MADHUR JAFFREY: I think of it as a huge, wonderful accident.

And it's for -- serendipity.

I don't know what you want to call it, but it just happened.

And I have enjoyed myself hugely while it happened.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ironically, growing up in North India, Madhur Jaffrey didn't spend much time in the kitchen.

MADHUR JAFFREY: Well, I did everything the boys did.

I played with them.

I played cricket.

I went fishing.

I went swimming in the river behind the house.

AMNA NAWAZ: An aspiring actress, she left home in Delhi for London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1958 at the age of 19.

Far from home, what she missed most was her mother's cooking.

MADHUR JAFFREY: We used to go up five floors of steps to the canteen.

And then we would get this gray slice of roast beef that you could hardly look at.

And I would think, oh, my God, the food at home is so good.

Why am I eating this?

So what I did was, rather than just give up and eat that rubbishy food, I wrote to my mother and I said, look, I don't know how to cook, but can you teach me?

Can you send me letters with recipes?

AMNA NAWAZ: Her mother obliged, and the transcontinental cooking classes began.

MADHUR JAFFREY: She didn't write very long, elaborate recipes.

She wrote three-line recipes.

Take this, take that, stir that around, add a little water, and let it cook until it's done.

AMNA NAWAZ: There's no measurements or anything in the recipes.

MADHUR JAFFREY: No real measurements.

Well, it's just a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

But what was the wonderful thing that I realized much, much later was that I had a memory of the taste of everything I'd eaten.

AMNA NAWAZ: As she pursued a performing career years later in New York, strangers would ask again and again, where could they find good Indian food?

MADHUR JAFFREY: So, it was always, oh, I don't know.

Just come to my house, and I will -- and after a while, it became too much.

I mean, how many people could come to my house?

So I started writing recipes and giving them out to people.

And this, -- it just sort of mushroomed and grew.

AMNA NAWAZ: In April of 1973, it bloomed into her seminal cookbook, "An Invitation to Indian Cooking," reissued 50 years later, a collection of the recipes for the dal, chutneys, keemas, and biryanis that defined her youth and kept her connected to home.

It wasn't the first Indian cookbook on the market in America, but it was the one that caught on.

Madhur's straightforward, simple style, adapted from her mother's letters, offered unfamiliar Western chefs, newly intrigued by Indian cuisine, an easy entry.

MADHUR JAFFREY: Now, what I have here... AMNA NAWAZ: The book made Madhur a household name in America and the U.K. A cooking show on the BBC followed in 1982, combining her love of food and performing.

MADHUR JAFFREY: If you want the dish to be hotter, you can really put in as much cayenne as you like.

AMNA NAWAZ: She recalled auditioning in a studio with no kitchen, no utensils and no food.

MADHUR JAFFREY: Now I'm going to put that cumin that I roasted, because I want that lovely, smoky aroma.

So I'm going to put that in now.

AMNA NAWAZ: I can see you doing it now.

No food, no tools.

You're doing the same thing now.

MADHUR JAFFREY: I'm just -- like I'm telling you.

And then I say, I'm peeling your cucumber and I'm grating it, grate, grate, grate right into the yogurt.

I mix it in.

Now I clean off the edges and put a little ground cumin on top.

It'll look lovely, little ground Kashmiri chili powder on top because it'll look very pretty.

And there it is.

There is your yogurt right there.

So I did it that way.

And I got the job.

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: She produced bestselling cookbook after cookbook over the years, welcoming home cooks more deeply into the food she loved.

A memoir brought a generation of fans closer to the cook they'd come to know.

And along the way, Madhur never abandoned her original love of acting.

ACTRESS: What are you three so intense about?

MADHUR JAFFREY: The jig is up.

AMNA NAWAZ: On television with a guest role in the "Sex and the City' reboot "And Just Like That" in 2021, and always ready to try something new, like a starring role in New York rapper Mr. Cardamom's music video for his song "Nani."

(MUSIC) AMNA NAWAZ: But an invitation to Indian cooking remains an enduring part of Madhur's legacy.

Chickpeas.

SEEMA NAWAZ, Mother of Amna Nawaz: Chickpeas.

AMNA NAWAZ: Better known as?

SEEMA NAWAZ: Chana.

AMNA NAWAZ: Chana.

SEEMA NAWAZ: So... AMNA NAWAZ: For a generation of South Asians inspired to build new lives abroad in the 1960s and '70s, the book offered more than just recipes.

It offered a connection to the home left behind, including for my own mother, Seema.

I wanted to share something with you, if you don't mind.

My mother's copy of "An Invitation to Indian Cooking"... MADHUR JAFFREY: Oh, my goodness.

AMNA NAWAZ: ... has been used and reused so lovingly for so many years, it's kept in a bag because the cover fell off.

MADHUR JAFFREY: Oh, my goodness.

That's the best.

AMNA NAWAZ: I mean, this is a well-worn, truly, truly loved book.

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: And so my father said, you can't use this one anymore.

He got her another copy.

SEEMA NAWAZ: And do you know how to peel ginger?

It's always good just to scrape it like that.

MADHUR JAFFREY: I keep telling people when they're cooking, where's the emotional aspect of it?

Because Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, there's a lot of emotion tied to our food.

And it has to do with brothers, sisters, ancestors, cousins eating together, going on picnics together.

All those memories are tied into every little bit of food.

So now the interesting thing was that this generation in the 19 -- early '70s was cooking from my book.

But then they cooked the food and their children ate it.

And then the children bought the book.

SEEMA NAWAZ: You made a good base for the chickpeas.

Look at that.

See?

AMNA NAWAZ: Oh, it's so delicious.

SEEMA NAWAZ: Now it's -- yes, it's coming.

See?

MADHUR JAFFREY: So I got letters from the children.

"My parents used to cook from your cookbook.

And now -- and we ate your food.

So now we are cooking from that."

AMNA NAWAZ: All the spices hit the pan.

MADHUR JAFFREY: And there have been three generations like that who have actually cooked from the book already and passed it on to their children.

It's very gratifying.

It's very nice to know that several generations within the same family have been cooking my recipes in America.

AMNA NAWAZ: Cheers.

Those families now await Madhur's next book, the details of which she's holding close for the moment.

MADHUR JAFFREY: I won't tell you too much about it, but it's great fun for me.

AMNA NAWAZ: Is it another cookbook or not?

MADHUR JAFFREY: It is.

It is.

AMNA NAWAZ: But it's a kind of fun cookbook for me that includes aspects of me that you don't know.

You will find out.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now I'm intrigued.

MADHUR JAFFREY: That's what I meant to do.

And I will leave it at that.

AMNA NAWAZ: The happy accident that inspired this journey is still propelling the now 90-year-old Madhur Jaffrey down new paths ahead.

JOHN YANG: The Minnesota state fair draws more daily visitors than any other state fair in the nation.

Over the years, there's been a long tradition of politics being on display.

It's where Teddy Roosevelt uttered the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

This year, politics is back at center stage.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took time off the vice presidential campaign to visit yesterday.

And as Twin Cities PBS reporter Mary Lahammer reports, he's been top of mind for fairgoers.

MARY LAHAMMER: The buzz at the booth where Democrats gather is decidedly different this year.

GRADY PETERSON, Minnesota: I got the Harris/Walz.

It was the orange.

I wanted the green, but you know what?

I will just wait until I can get that one too.

MARY LAHAMMER: Why is this your pick?

Why do you like that?

GRADY PETERSON: Why do I like it?

It's kind of the anti-MAGA hat.

MARY LAHAMMER: The Minnesota state fair always features politics, but seeing a local elevated to a national ticket has changed things for folks in the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, or DFL for short.

It's the state affiliate of the national Democratic Party.

JUSTIN DEKKER, Minnesota: We're super excited about the Walz/Harris ticket, and we have got to stop by and buy some stuff, show our support, and make sure the right people get elected.

KAREN DEKKER, Minnesota: With Tim Walz, I mean, I'm sad because we will lose Tim Walz, but he is the kind of guy that you just want to endorse and be behind, because he is a father figure.

He's a teacher.

MARY LAHAMMER: Here at the DFL booth at the Minnesota State Fair, they sold more merchandise in the first few days than they have ever done before in an entire run of the fair.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): People are excited, and people are excited.

Yes, Democrats are excited, but we -- actually, I have been here a number of times.

We have had Republicans, independents, people that don't want to go back.

MARY LAHAMMER: Senator Klobuchar, who ran for president in the past, says it was surreal to stand backstage with Oprah, John Legend, and the Mankato football team before introducing Walz at the convention.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: In Minnesota, we love a dad in plaid.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) MARY LAHAMMER: How many times have you been asked what does Tim Walz really like?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: A few times, but actually one of the funnier things about our modern politics is I think all these people across the country now think they know him personally.

They think he's like their favorite uncle or something.

MARY LAHAMMER: The Republican Party booth also has new Merchan poking fun at Vice President Harris, and the Never Walz booth has updated images for the V.P.

run, mocking his military record and menstrual products in school bathrooms, along with spinning a wheel full of issues from Action for Liberty.

MAN: Stolen valor.

Claims he went to battle.

Never did.

MARY LAHAMMER: One GOP state rep spends his time at the nonpartisan House booth.

You walk past the DFL booth, you get the buzz and the energy that's around having Governor Walz.

How do Republicans kind of counter that energy around Walz and that ticket now?

STATE REP. DANNY NADEAU (R-MN): I think that story is going to unfold.

I believe that the governor hasn't really been held to account for a lot of the decisions that he's made.

The governor is really good at communicating with people.

I don't agree with a lot of the policies that have come out of that, and I don't think that he's really been all that honest with his belief system.

MARY LAHAMMER: The Republican from a competitive district worked on the campaigns of Walz's last two challengers for governor and says he barely recognizes the kind of energy the vice presidential candidate has been mustering in front of enormous crowds on a national stage.

STATE REP. DANNY NADEAU: I have seen him change his demeanor significantly over the last three to four weeks.

MARY LAHAMMER: As a person who represents some rural areas, how do you feel about him and his outreach in rural Minnesota and the country?

STATE REP. DANNY NADEAU: Yes, I think he's got a lot of work to do on being a little bit more authentic.

Putting an orange vest on and putting a camo hat on and talking about it is one thing.

But when the policies are hurting hunters, when the policies hurt fishermen... MARY LAHAMMER: Do Republicans have a lot of work to do, though, to successfully counter what has become a sensation and the means and his communication skills?

STATE REP. DANNY NADEAU: Absolutely.

I mean, Republicans, we need to talk more about what we believe in and what does it mean to be a Republican in Minnesota?

President Trump is very popular in greater Minnesota, but President Trump is not all that popular in the metro.

I mean, we have to find that space as well and that grace.

MARY LAHAMMER: The Minnesota State Fair ends today, giving people one last night to pick up campaign merchandise as the campaign enters the final stretch.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Mary Lahammer in St. Paul, Minnesota.

JOHN YANG: And that is the "News Hour" for this Monday.

I'm John Yang.

For all of us here at the "PBS News Hour," thanks for joining us.

Happy Labor Day.