PBS News Hour

GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

Amna Nawaz is away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Millions are without power in the Southeast, as residents begin the long, arduous recovery from Hurricane Helene.

Ukraine's president meets with Donald Trump, as competing political visions for U.S. aid to Ukraine cast doubt on the future of the war effort.

And we go inside a Georgia election center to get an up-close look at the voting protections at the center of a critical swing state.

J. ALEX HALDERMAN, University of Michigan: Fundamentally, it's a problem any time that you're going to put a potentially vulnerable computer between the voter and the only records of their vote.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

The devastating impact of Hurricane Helene is being felt far and wide across the South tonight.

At least 40 people are dead in four states.

Millions are without power.

And there have been harrowing air rescues from Florida to Tennessee.

And although the Category 4 hurricane is now a tropical depression, the threat is not over yet.

Christopher Booker has the latest.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Helene's fury unleashed on the Florida Gulf Coast.

Coming ashore last night just east of Tallahassee as a Category 4 hurricane, the storm brought sheets of blinding rain and whipping winds of 140 miles an hour.

Storm surge threatened to wash cars off roads.

Ocean swells grew so high that it carried these boats from the water and smashed them into homes.

MAN: Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Flooded streets resemble rivers.

Entire neighborhoods look more like lakes.

This man in Cedar Key tried to check on family.

MAN: I was trying to make it to my mama's house, but it's neck deep here.

I'm not able to get any further.

Oh, man.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: It prompted thousands of high-water rescues from Florida up through the Carolinas, first responders out in boats to rescue people trapped in their homes.

In South Pasadena, Florida, firefighters literally battled fires and floods.

And in one daring rescue, the Coast Guard airlifted a man and his dog from their stranded sailboat off the coast of Florida's Sanibel Island, with the storm bearing down.

Still, Helene claimed lives in multiple states from fallen trees, debris, and possible tornadoes, many of them in Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp said the threat was still very real.

GOV.

BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): It is still very dangerous out there.

Even though the winds are starting to die down, there's still trees literally falling.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: In the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, up to 10 inches of rain sent floodwaters roaring past the Biltmore.

And in Tennessee, dozens of people had to be airlifted from a hospital engulfed by the rising river.

For more than four million people across the South tonight, they're left in the dark.

And returning power to some customers, officials say, could take days.

Helene has now weakened to a tropical depression, but it still threatens millions further inland, hovering over the Tennessee Valley through the weekend.

Its sheer size can only fully be comprehended from space, spanning from Missouri to Virginia down to Georgia, where streets and neighborhoods were submerged today, catching many off guard.

ALESE MCGHEE, Peachtree Park Resident: I just didn't expect this to happen.

Like, living over here, it wasn't something that came, like, across my mind.

This is so crazy.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Back in Florida's Big Bend, it's been a devastating trifecta of hurricanes.

Helene made landfall mere miles from where Idalia struck just last year.

And many of the same communities are still reeling from Hurricane Debby just one month ago.

Governor Ron DeSantis today: GOV.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL): And the early reports we have received is that the damage in those counties that were really in the eye of the storm has exceeded the damage of Idalia and Debby combined.

In Riverview, just outside of Tampa, Randy and Bonnie Hann's home was inundated with water from the nearby Alafia River.

They stayed with family last night, but came back early this morning.

RANDY HANN, Hillsborough County Resident: We came back and we were able to get down the street.

And we had all the doors taped and sandbagged, but that water finds a way of getting in.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: They have been in their home since 1975.

And although it has flooded before, they say it's never been this bad.

But despite the damage, they have pledged to rebuild no matter how long it takes -- Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Christopher, you're there in the Tampa area.

Tell us more about what you're seeing.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: You know, as we drove in from the east toward Tampa, we didn't see a lot of downed trees or that much water.

But as we learned through the day, Tampa and nearby Tallahassee were actually spared the brunt of the storm.

But here on this street, which is right next to the Alafia River, nearly every single home was flooded.

As you can see behind me, people have been bringing out their damaged furniture, spending the day assessing the damage and trying to figure out what it's going to take to get their homes back to normal.

GEOFF BENNETT: What else have you heard from officials there about what the last 24 hours have been like for folks?

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: I had a conversation earlier today with a spokesperson from the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue who said that between 11:00 p.m. and 6:45, they rescued 500 people.

He also said the sheriff department rescued 400 people.

So in just under eight hours, they rescued nearly 1,000 people.

For comparison's sake, two months ago, there was a tropical storm.

They rescued 11 people.

He said that the storm surge actually exceeded what they were expecting and it landed somewhere between four - - it rose between four and seven feet.

And they received nearly 1,200 calls during that nearly eight-hour period.

On a normal night, they might get two calls for fires.

Last night, they had 47.

He also said that this storm was an eye-opening event for Hillsborough,that this is an area that's used to storms, but last night was different.

GEOFF BENNETT: That is Christopher Booker in Riverview, Florida, for us tonight.

Thanks so much for being with us.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: The day's other headlines start in the Middle East, where Israel says it struck Hezbollah's central headquarters in Beirut.

Massive blasts shook the city just before sunset, flattening several residential buildings.

The death toll was not immediately clear.

The "News Hour" is told that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strikes.

Nasrallah's condition is unknown, though an Israeli official tells the "News Hour" that they believe he was at the site.

Ali Rogan has more.

ALI ROGIN: In Southern Beirut today, multiple massive explosions, then thick plumes of smoke that engulfed parts of the Lebanese capital.

Lebanese media reported that six high-rises were bombed, leveled and reduced to rubble.

Israel called it a precise strike targeting Hezbollah headquarters, which it said was built under residential buildings in the densely populated Dahiye suburb of Beirut.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister: Here's the truth.

Israel seeks peace.

Israel yearns for peace.

Israel has made peace and will make peace again.

ALI ROGIN: The strikes coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

He justified Israel's attacks in Lebanon that have reportedly killed over 700 people this week, even as dozens of diplomats staged a walkout opposing Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice.

They endanger their own people.

They put a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage.

ALI ROGIN: A source familiar tells the "News Hour" the strikes targeted Hezbollah's General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah, who has been its leader for over three decades.

Nasrallah joined the ranks of Hezbollah in his 20s, working his way up under the mentorship of Hezbollah co-founder Abbas al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel in 1992.

Today, Beirut reels under the shock of what was the biggest attack on the city in years.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Ali Rogin.

GEOFF BENNETT: Also today, New York Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to bribery and other charges in federal court.

He's accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and gifts from Turkish nationals in exchange for using his position to help Turkey's interests.

Adams did not speak on his way into the Manhattan courthouse, but flashed a thumbs up to the crowd.

His lawyer said he will file a motion next week to request that the charges be dismissed.

Adams was released after the hearing.

He has said he won't resign and will continue to conduct city business as usual.

Vice President Kamala Harris is making her first visit to the nation's southern border today since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

She touched down in Arizona this afternoon and is set to give remarks later in Douglas, Arizona, near the border.

Harris lags behind her rival, Donald Trump, when it comes to voters' trust on the issue of illegal immigration and is looking to close that polling gap.

For his part, the Republican nominee was in Michigan today to deliver remarks, according to his campaign, focused on manufacturing and the economy.

The Justice Department has charged three members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard for the suspected hacking of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

According to a 37-page indictment, the men allegedly engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign starting in 2020 that targeted U.S. officials, journalists, and campaign staff.

The goal was to damage confidence in the U.S. democratic process.

The men are charged with 18 counts, including wire fraud and identity theft.

Speaking to reporters today, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the attacks point to the increased threat posed by Iran, plus Russia and China.

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. Attorney General: These authoritarian regimes, which violate the human rights of their own citizens, do not get a say in our country's democratic process.

The American people and the American people alone will decide the outcome of our country's elections.

GEOFF BENNETT: Last month, the Trump campaign said it had been hacked by Iranian actors and that sensitive internal documents had been stolen and distributed.

The three men charged today all live in Iran and are unlikely to ever face a trial in the U.S. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed to close out the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 130 points to end at a new all-time high.

The Nasdaq lost ground, giving back about 70 points on the day.

The S&P 500 also ended lower, but just barely, slipping about seven points.

And a venerated star of the stage and screen has died.

Dame Maggie Smith, one of the greatest of her generation, won two Oscars, four Emmys and a tony and played roles many generations will remember.

MAGGIE SMITH, Actress: I'm so looking forward to seeing your mother again.

When I'm with her, I'm reminded of the virtues of the English.

ACTOR: But isn't she American?

MAGGIE SMITH: Exactly.

I saw you drooling over her pearls.

GEOFF BENNETT: For nearly 70 years, Dame Maggie Smith enchanted audiences with her signature mix of quick-witted comedy and English elegance.

MAGGIE SMITH: There never is anything personal between us, is there?

Or is that getting too personal?

GEOFF BENNETT: Prolific and preeminent, she took on a truly impressive range of roles.

Smith started her career in the theater, working on Broadway, the West End, and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, to great acclaim.

Yet she wasn't as widely known until she took on two megastar roles in the 2000s, first as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" franchise.

MAGGIE SMITH: Well, thank you for that assessment, Mr. Weasley.

GEOFF BENNETT: And later as the sharp-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey," the enduringly popular PBS series.

MAGGIE SMITH: I don't even know what that means, but it sounds almost as peculiar as you look.

GEOFF BENNETT: Earlier in her career, she won an Academy Award for her performance as a Scottish school mistress in 1969's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie."

MAGGIE SMITH: I am a teacher first, last, always.

GEOFF BENNETT: The win was a first in her career with no shortage of accolades, including Tonys, Emmys, BAFTAs, and a second Oscar.

MAGGIE SMITH: I just really can't believe it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Smith belonged to a generation of British stars like Judi Dench, who later in life cheekily called themselves the dames.

MAGGIE SMITH: You can swear more, yes.

Just try and do it privately.

GEOFF BENNETT: This dame was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1990.

MAN: Dame Maggie Smith.

GEOFF BENNETT: Maggie Smith was 89 years old.

Still to come on the "News Hour": we break down the presidential candidates competing proposals to counteract crime and gun violence; Jonathan Capehart and Danielle Pletka weigh in on the latest headlines from the campaign trail; and author Danzy Senna's new novel, "Colored Television," uses fiction and humor to spotlight difficult realities of American life.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is heading back to his home country after a busy week of meetings with leaders here in the U.S. His final sit-down was with former President Donald Trump, whose current bid for president holds high stakes for U.S. support for Ukraine.

Stephanie Sy has more.

STEPHANIE SY: Former President Trump and Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met at Trump Tower in New York.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President: We have common view that the war in Ukraine has been the strongest and Putin can't win.

And Ukrainians have to prevail.

And I want to discuss with you the details of our plan and our victory.

STEPHANIE SY: Ahead of their closed-door meeting, Trump said he had a great relationship with Zelenskyy, crediting him for helping him during the first of his impeachment trials.

That scandal exploded five years ago, when Zelenskyy, fresh-faced before years of war, sat with then-President Trump at the United Nations.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We're with the president of Ukraine.

And he's made me more famous than I have been.

(LAUGHTER) REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The ayes have it.

STEPHANIE SY: Trump was impeached in late 2019 after he demanded Ukraine provide information on then-candidate Joe Biden in return for releasing military aid to Ukraine.

The Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: The fact that we're even together today is a very good sign.

STEPHANIE SY: But in the same breath today, Trump also lauded Russia's president, leading Zelenskyy to interject.

Trump's response was telling.

DONALD TRUMP: We have a very good relationship.

And I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin.

And I think -- if we win, I think we are going to get it resolved very quickly.

I really think we're going to get it resolved.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: I thought we have more good relations.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, I see.

Yes.

But it takes two to tango, you know?

STEPHANIE SY: With Russian assaults continuing, all week, Zelenskyy found himself caught in the crossfire of the battle for the U.S. presidency, with Trump refusing to say whether Ukraine should win the war.

And earlier this week, Trump said this about Ukraine's president: DONALD TRUMP: I think Zelenskyy is the greatest salesman in history.

Every time he comes into the country, he walks away with $60 billion.

STEPHANIE SY: Trump also suggested this week that Ukraine should have made concessions to Russia to avert the war.

DONALD TRUMP: Ukraine is gone.

It's not Ukraine anymore.

Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.

STEPHANIE SY: His running mate, Ohio Senator J.D.

Vance, has also focused on the war's price tag.

SEN. J.D.

VANCE (R-OH), Vice Presidential Candidate: I don't appreciate Zelenskyy coming to this country and telling the American taxpayers what they ought to do.

He ought to say thank you to the American taxpayers.

STEPHANIE SY: Vance and other Republicans have ramped up their critique of Zelenskyy since an interview with "The New Yorker" published Sunday.

In it, Zelenskyy called Vance's stance on Ukraine too radical, and said: "Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war, even if he might think he knows how."

Republicans charge that Zelenskyy has waded too far into U.S. politics.

Early this week, Zelenskyy visited an ammunitions factory in Pennsylvania with Democrats.

Now the GOP speaker of the House is calling for Ukraine's ambassador to resign, and a House committee is investigating whether laws or ethics were breached.

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: So, President Zelenskyy, it is good to see you again.

STEPHANIE SY: In Washington yesterday, Zelenskyy stood alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, who lambasted Trump's insistence on striking a quick deal.

KAMALA HARRIS: These proposals are the same of those of Putin.

And let us be clear.

They are not proposals for peace.

Instead, they are proposals for surrender.

STEPHANIE SY: Surrender is far from Zelenskyy's mind, as he tries to sell his plan for victory to the U.S. while walking a tightrope.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

GEOFF BENNETT: Georgia is one of the battlegrounds where local and state officials are grappling with some big changes about certifying the vote and a new requirement to hand-count the total number of ballots.

Miles O'Brien looks at another concern raised by some experts about a potential vulnerability of the voting machines.

State officials say they are more than prepared.

Here's his report.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's a few weeks before a primary Election Day in Bartow County, Georgia, and election workers are conducting a logic and accuracy test of computers that stand between voters and their ballots.

WOMAN: Where it says tech size, touch down and then do big.

MAN: Big, OK.

MILES O'BRIEN: They are ImageCast ballot marking devices, or BMDs, made by Dominion Voting Systems.

Everyone who votes in person in Georgia uses one of these touch screen computers to record their choices and then prints a marked paper ballot, which gets scanned and tabulated.

So are these machines worth the added cost and complexity?

JOSEPH KIRK, Elections Supervisor, Bartow County, Georgia: I advocated for them.

MILES O'BRIEN: Joseph Kirk is the elections supervisor here.

He says the ballot marking devices offer advantages over paper ballots marked by hand.

JOSEPH KIRK: It guides the voter through the process and makes sure that there's no question about their intent.

MILES O'BRIEN: A small percentage of selections on hand-marked ballots are disqualified because voters make ambiguous markings.

Dominion's ballot marking devices may address that issue, but many election security experts say they inject stubborn uncertainties into the voting process.

J. ALEX HALDERMAN, University of Michigan: Fundamentally, it's a problem any time that you're going to put a potentially vulnerable computer between the voter and the only records of their vote.

MILES O'BRIEN: J. Alex Halderman is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan.

He is among those who advocate for hand-marked paper ballots.

I guess it seems ironic that the best computer scientists in the world will tell you the best technology for an election is pen and paper.

J. ALEX HALDERMAN: Well, that's absolutely right.

And the reason for that is, we know how paper can be secured and we know how digital systems can be attacked, right?

The risks aren't even comparable.

MILES O'BRIEN: Halderman has spent a lot of time studying the risks.

He is an expert witness for the plaintiffs in a pending federal lawsuit seeking an injunction against using the current voting system.

Halderman says he and his team found nine vulnerabilities in the Dominion system.

We met at a law office in Atlanta in March.

He showed me some of what he demonstrated in open court.

J. ALEX HALDERMAN: We thought like an attacker.

What would an attacker want to do?

How could an attacker circumvent the layers of protection that are in this machine and in a real polling place?

MILES O'BRIEN: Halderman demonstrated a few seemingly easy ways to breach the security of the Dominion ballot marking device.

He used a pen to recycle the power, which gave him administrative control of the computer and he used a widely available USB device favored by computer security experts and hackers to rewrite the software of the machine.

All of this mischief could occur without an obvious trace.

That's because the scanner that tabulates the votes does not look at the human readable text.

Instead, it derives its data from this Q.R.

code.

J. ALEX HALDERMAN: We can change just the Q.R.

code and leave all of the voter visible text identical to what the voter entered on screen.

So, as a voter, there's nothing at all that you can see that's going to indicate there was a problem.

MILES O'BRIEN: Halderman and his team worry that the hacks could propagate through an entire county or even statewide.

While the ballot marking devices are not directly plugged into the Internet, as they are updated and operated, they regularly exchange data with online systems through USB memory sticks and smart cards.

J. ALEX HALDERMAN: That can potentially provide a route for hackers far away on the Internet to gain access to BMDs.

The kinds of attackers that worry me in this scenario include some of the most sophisticated adversaries in the world, foreign governments like Russia or China or Iran.

MILES O'BRIEN: We asked Dominion for a response.

A spokesperson e-mailed us this: "The claim that someone could hack an election with a pen is flatly false.

A court directive gave Mr. Halderman, as plaintiff's paid expert, unfettered access to system security features, including passwords, security cards, election files and more.

This did not take into account the many layers of physical and operational safeguards."

There is no evidence that any of these apparent vulnerabilities have ever been exploited.

Georgia state election officials say they are hypothetical scenarios.

GABRIEL STERLING, Georgia Voting System Implementation Manager: Almost all of these are mitigated by the processes that are put in place around the election system itself.

MILES O'BRIEN: Gabe Sterling is the chief operating and financial officer for the secretary of state.

He says the many layers of people and processes surrounding these machines make it impossible for a voter to reboot them with a pen or insert a USB device without being detected.

So what Alex Halderman demonstrated, you believe, is not a real-world scenario?

GABRIEL STERLING: The computer experts focus solely, solely, solely on the computer.

They focus nothing on voting processes and human behavior, but they don't look at the entirety of how the system works.

The reality of it is, is, there are so many safeguards around it.

MILES O'BRIEN: But what if there was an inside job?

This is exactly what happened in early 2021 in rural Coffee County, Georgia.

The election supervisor and the local chair of the Republican Party invited Trump campaign allies and a data forensics team into the secure area where the Dominion machines and the election management server are stored.

For several days, they copied proprietary software and confidential data.

It is one of the most infamous security breaches in U.S. election history.

It was uncovered by the Coalition for Good Governance and other plaintiffs in that federal lawsuit.

David Cross is one of the lead attorneys.

DAVID CROSS, Plaintiff's Attorney: It was distributed on the Internet to people that have I.P.

addresses that show up around the world.

And so it's hard to know where all this is going at this point.

MILES O'BRIEN: Did they give away all the keys, essentially?

Are they all out there?

DAVID CROSS: Those keys have been out in the ether now for years.

The state has done nothing to protect the system against that.

MILES O'BRIEN: In late 2022, Dominion Voting Systems released a new software system, which makes the Q.R.

code optional.

It was approved by the United States Election Assistance Commission in early 2023.

But Georgia has yet to upgrade its fleet of about 30,000 machines.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), Georgia Secretary of State: People somehow thought that this was like an iPhone download that you do overnight.

MILES O'BRIEN: Brad Raffensperger is Georgia's secretary of state.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER: No, this is actually a full deinstallation, a reinstallation of boots on the ground in all 159 counties of all 30,000 pieces of equipment.

MILES O'BRIEN: How much time does it take to do that?

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER: We're looking at four to six months.

MILES O'BRIEN: In early 2023, Raffensperger asked the state legislature for $25 million to get the job done in time for the November 5 presidential election.

But the request was not approved.

You have such a complex system, that it's not able to respond to a security threat very quickly, is it?

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER: Well, we are where we are, and so we are now into an election.

So those are issues that the General Assembly can take up next session, and they don't meet until next January.

MILES O'BRIEN: The state did pass a law to eliminate the Q.R.

codes by 2026.

In the meantime, Georgia is relying on additional oversight to save the day in a contested election.

In addition to the logic and accuracy testing before the machines are deployed, state election workers will conduct parallel monitoring while the machines are in use, which we saw during the presidential primary in March.

They randomly selected BMDs from various counties and tested them for accuracy on Election Day.

MAN: So we know what the county is using matches our control.

MILES O'BRIEN: And after the election, they will conduct risk-limiting audits designed to deliver a statistically valid confirmation of the results.

During those audits, the votes are verified with the human legible text, not the Q.R.

codes.

And if it is as close and contested as in 2020, Georgia is prepared to do a 100 percent hand recount.

If one aspect does, in fact fail, do you feel pretty confident one way or another you will catch it?

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER: Yes.

Our system and our people are battle-tested.

We have been through 2020, we have been through 2022, and we're ready for 2024.

MILES O'BRIEN: Ready or not, Georgians who vote in person this year will use Dominion ballot marking devices.

As voters cast their ballots, political operatives are likely poised to cast doubt on whether the machines can be trusted.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Atlanta.

GEOFF BENNETT: Gun violence and crime in America are both key issues in the 2024 campaign.

As part of our ongoing series about election year issues, our Lisa Desjardins has looked into where the candidates stand.

And she joins us now.

It's great to have you here, Lisa.

So let's start with former President Donald Trump.

He talks often about crime, despite his own felony convictions.

What's his plan to address crime in America?

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump's approach is blunt and it focuses on enforcement.

Here is what he said to the National Rifle Association in May.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We have become a drug-infested, crime-ridden nation, which is incapable of solving even the simplest of problems.

We will institute the powerful death penalty for drug dealers, where each dealer is responsible for the death during their lives of at least 500 people or more.

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump has given a few other details about this.

Without the music, we can look at it a little more specifically.

First, to do this, he would require that police forces, in order to get federal funding employ, stop and frisk.

That is that police method which looks at people that police believe are suspicious and they would pat them down to try and find weapons or guns or drugs.

It's a controversial program.

He would require it in order to get federal funding.

He also would have a crackdown on illegal drugs.

To do that, as he said, he would invoke a death penalty, he says, on drug dealers -- he hasn't given other specifics -- and human traffickers.

We don't know exactly what that means, but that's as severe a penalty as you can have.

It's in contrast, though, to when he was president.

That time, he signed the FIRST STEP Act.

That's something that actually reduced the punishments and sentences for some nonviolent drug offenders, including traffickers.

And he personally pardoned or commuted the sentences for dozens of drug traffickers.

GEOFF BENNETT: So what about Vice President Harris, former prosecutor, former state attorney general?

What's her approach?

LISA DESJARDINS: Let's talk especially about policing and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Her opponents accuse Harris of wanting to defund the police, but she has never used that phrasing.

Instead, she's really carefully walked this line, sometimes in a vague way.

So let's go back to 2020.

After the death of George Floyd, Harris then said that, in fact, she thought there should be a reimagining of public safety, more resources for education, for housing, for community development.

She did say at that time, in her opinion, it was right to question the size of police budgets.

Now, while in the White House, she has pushed for more community intervention funding.

At the same time, as the issue of crime has risen while she's been in the White House, the Biden and Harris administration has also pushed for more funding for police.

Now, that includes things like police detectives, forensics, and also some prosecutors as well, her specialty.

One of her key advisers has said that that's not in conflict, that both can happen, that you can increase funding for the police, but also push for reform.

What reforms does she want exactly?

She hasn't specified.

But Harris' main focus in terms of solving crime as a candidate is about prevention, especially about gun violence.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk more about that.

What are the candidates saying about what they would do if elected about this issue of gun violence in particular?

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

Let's start with Harris because it really is central to what she is saying as a candidate.

Here is something she said at an event just yesterday.

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: ... in favor of the Second Amendment and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws, and red flag laws.

KAMALA HARRIS: When we took office, we promised to take on the crisis of gun violence, and we passed under the president's leadership the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years.

LISA DESJARDINS: That bipartisan law actually extended some background checks and it closed some loopholes.

Now, in addition to that, as you heard Harris say, she would ban assault-style weapons.

She would also ban high-capacity magazines.

Those are things we know often are used especially in mass shootings in this country.

But she would also extend more background checks and red flag laws.

She wants also more community intervention, as I mentioned.

And talking to experts, Geoff, that's something that they say already has had a positive impact, that gun violence, they see, is being affected in a positive way downward because of community intervention.

As for former President Trump, he says repeatedly on the trail he wants to protect gun rights.

He opposes bans on assault-style weapons on high capacity magazines.

But, otherwise, honestly, he hasn't given many details this cycle.

So, if you go back a little bit and look at him as president, there's a mixed record for him on guns.

One is that he asked that bump stocks be declared illegal.

It was later overturned by the Supreme Court, but that was something in the direction of gun control.

Otherwise, he moved to water down or sometimes completely rewrite federal gun regulations.

GEOFF BENNETT: And returning to this issue of crime, it might be a resonant political issue, but do a fact-check, because crime rights in this country have actually come down.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

We hear this again and again, especially from Trump and Republicans.

There were new figures out just today - - or just week, rather, from the FBI.

Today, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that crime rates have gone down to almost their lowest level in 50 years.

What does that mean?

Well, violent crime nudged down from last year this year, and especially murders and manslaughter down 12 percent just in the last year.

Now, Trump and his allies are saying they don't like those FBI statistics, which are based on law enforcement around the country.

Instead, they like to use a measure that is a survey of people about if they were victims of a crime.

It's a survey of about half-a-million or a quarter-of-a-million people.

Now, that measure, however, Geoff, I want to point out, when Trump says there is an increase in crime by that measure, there's some fun with math there.

The increase is based on pandemic levels.

If you look at that same measure, based on pre-pandemic levels, crime is done.

If you look on that same measure that Trump likes based on last year, same thing.

Crime is at about the same level.

So we asked one expert, Jeff Asher, to break down the bottom line here.

JEFF ASHER, Crime Analyst: We know that murder is falling probably at the fastest rate ever recorded, and that's coming from both government sources, the FBI and the CDC, as well as independent sources, the Gun Violence Archive, our real-time crime index, the Council on Criminal Justice.

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump also talks about migrant crime, but we know all research so far in that area says that undocumented immigrants are either less or just as likely as anyone else to commit crime, not more.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lisa Desjardins, thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

GEOFF BENNETT: Vice President Kamala Harris heads to the U.S.-Mexico border to present her border security plan.

On that and other issues shaping the presidential race, we turn tonight to the analysis of Capehart and Pletka.

That's Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post, and Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute.

David Brooks is away this evening.

With a welcome to you both.

So, Kamala Harris is visiting the border, trying to flip the script on what has been a political vulnerability for her.

Jonathan, the Harris campaign has tried to gain ground on this issue by pointing to the bipartisan border deal that congressional Republicans blocked earlier this year after Donald Trump came out against it.

She's at the border today.

What else does she need to do, in your view, to confront this issue head on and try to cut into Donald Trump's perceived advantage?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, she's doing it.

She's going to the border.

She's there.

She will be speaking about it later this evening.

And by going to the border and talking about immigration, she -- it does give her yet another chance.

And she's been talking about this on the campaign trail -- gives her another chance to talk about the bipartisan comprehensive immigration deal that was negotiated by Democrats and Republicans, the lead Republican, Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate.

Had all the votes, and then Donald Trump called up and said, don't vote for it, and it died, did not even come up for a vote.

It gives the vice president an opportunity to talk about that bill, talk about the things that are in it, and talk about the fact that it had things in there that had her and the president going against their own party, because they were looking for a deal to do the exact thing Republicans say they were -- they wanted to do and the exact thing the American people are saying they wanted addressed.

And that is securing the border, but also going further and reforming the immigration system.

And Donald Trump didn't want it to happen because he didn't want to give Democrats an issue to run on.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Danielle, part of the Harris campaign strategy here to counter Trump's approach is to use this new ad that they have released today.

It's going to air in Arizona and across a number of battleground states.

Here it is.

NARRATOR: Kamala Harris has never backed down from a challenge.

She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border.

Here's her plan, hire thousands more border agents, enforce the law and step up technology, and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking.

We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border.

And that's Kamala Harris.

GEOFF BENNETT: What do you make of that?

I mean, the campaign is pointing to her record as attorney general taking on transnational criminal gangs, but they're not defending the Biden immigration policy really.

DANIELLE PLETKA, American Enterprise Institute: We need a real leader to take on -- that is not a felicitous term that they should have put at the end of that ad, because she's been that leader.

This was part of her responsibilities.

She didn't go to the border.

She didn't make it an issue.

And I understand.

I mean, look, the politics of this are clear.

This is an issue where she lags behind Donald Trump, where she's perceived to be less good.

And she can't just shrug off 3.5 years as vice president of the United States and suddenly say, we need new, fresh leadership to deal with that.

Where were you for the last 3.5 years?

But I think, look, Jonathan makes an interesting point.

And this is -- this is not a -- this is a problem for the Biden administration.

The Supreme Court has said -- and I'm going to read the quote.

It says -- in a decision on immigration, it said that current statute -- quote -- "exudes deference" to the president.

In other words, the president had and has all the authorities that are needed to do what was necessary to either shut down or regulate the flow at the border and to deport people if necessary.

None of that happened for the first three years of the Biden administration.

Now, is it good that Congress wanted to address this?

Yes.

Am I a little bit ambivalent about how it was handled?

I am, because I think it needed a solution.

And I think sometimes you have to compromise.

The argument that many make who opposed it is that the president has these authorities and that the legislation actually limited those authorities.

In other words, it would have superseded existing legislation and limited the ability of the president to shut down the border unless there was a certain number of people, an average of 4,000 to 5,000 at the border.

Now, that was the complaint against it.

Is it fair?

I prefer compromise and bipartisan solutions, but that's what happened.

And it doesn't take away from the fact that Kamala Harris didn't do anything and Joe Biden didn't do anything.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's shift our focus to Donald Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy was in Washington yesterday making an in-person plea for more military aid.

And there you see him with Donald Trump today.

Jonathan, what were your takeaways based on their interaction?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Look, I give President Zelenskyy major kudos and major props for meeting with Donald Trump.

He could very well be the next president of the United States and meeting with a man who has said on multiple occasions that basically President Zelenskyy should just hand over his country to Vladimir Putin.

And so the fact that Donald Trump met with Zelenskyy after saying before that he wasn't going to meet with him because Zelenskyy said not nice things about him I guess shows a level of maturity of the former president.

But I do think, when a wartime president comes to the United States for the purpose of addressing the U.N., saying thank you to the people in the factory that are making the weapons that he's been able to use to defend his country, that is a good thing for him to do.

And it's good that Donald Trump met with him.

GEOFF BENNETT: Danielle, Donald Trump sees foreign policy so much through the prism of money.

He talks about NATO countries needing to pay their fair share.

Just in terms of the language he used today, he talks about a transaction, doing a deal.

What would it take to get the MAGA wing of the party and for Donald Trump himself to see Ukraine's success in the best interests of this country?

DANIELLE PLETKA: It's a great question.

But I want to talk a little bit about Zelenskyy for a second, because I think he was manipulated, and I think he was manipulated cynically by the White House.

The trip to Pennsylvania that he was going to do, which was one of many trips that he, the ambassador, Ukrainian leadership, do to thank the American people and the people in factories -- I agree totally with, Jonathan, this is a really appropriate thing to do -- had none of the senators -- Democratic senators on the trip on the original manifest, had a short meeting with Governor Josh Shapiro to sign a sister city agreement and otherwise was not a political setup, and ended up looking like a campaign visit.

Now, that wasn't organized by the Ukrainian Embassy.

It was organized by the White House.

I think Zelenskyy fell into that.

I think he exacerbated that problem when he went and gave an interview to a house organ of the Democratic Party, "The New Yorker," and made, frankly, let's say, unwise comments.

I happen to agree with some of them, but unwise comments about J.D.

Vance.

But they created this firestorm.

And, actually, I give a lot of credit not just to him in reaching out to Donald Trump to try to fix this, but Donald Trump being gracious and accepting that outreach immediately.

So I think that's really important to understand, because the one thing I haven't seen since this invasion happened is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stand up and show the necessary bipartisan leadership to sell this to the American people.

So what is it going to take?

I come back to your original question.

It takes leadership.

It takes effort.

It takes the bully pulpit.

People need to be persuaded.

(CROSSTALK) DANIELLE PLETKA: Go ahead.

GEOFF BENNETT: Democrats would make the point that Joe Biden has shown that leadership and that the reason that there is a Western alliance that has been unified in supporting Ukraine is because of that leadership.

DANIELLE PLETKA: Democrats would make that argument.

And Ukrainians will tell you, as will the Republicans on Capitol Hill and most Democrats, that the Biden administration has been a day late and a dollar short in every single weapons transfer to the Ukrainians.

When they need HIMARS, HIMARS come a year later.

When they need aircraft, aircraft come a year later.

When they need ATACMS, they come a year later.

When they need to reach into Russia to hit targets where Russians are staging against them and the Biden administration won't let them do it, they finally grudgingly allow them to in the last month.

Helping people when they're losing is not the best plan.

Helping them when they can win is the right plan.

That's what I call leadership, not just going and schmoozing at NATO.

GEOFF BENNETT: What about that, Jonathan?

And this is really a bipartisan criticism that the Biden administration, when it comes to giving Ukraine aid, when it comes to giving them the missiles that they have asked for, that the Biden administration has been too slow to get to yes.

And now the question is, will the West, will the U.S. give Ukraine the authority to shoot Western weapons deeper into Russia?

The administration might get to yes on that question too, but at the moment it has taken them weeks and weeks and weeks to get there.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Sorry, I'm just trying to recover from the hurricane of platitudes there.

Listen, Geoff.

And we can't just be simplistic about this.

The hesitation of President Biden here in Russia's war on Ukraine is thinking that, you know what, we don't want this to flare up into a situation where the United States and the NATO countries are going to have to go to war with Russia.

I appreciate and applaud the president's reticence and deliberation in helping the Ukrainians, in helping President Zelenskyy.

And I'm glad you brought up the major point.

The president and the Biden/Harris administration haven't been doing nothing.

They're the ones who pulled together the coalition that has helped Ukraine last in a war that everyone thought would be over in a week.

And the idea that a wartime president like Zelenskyy could be manipulated by anyone, I think, is unbelievably insulting.

GEOFF BENNETT: All right, Jonathan Capehart and Danielle Pletka.

Unfortunately, we are out of time.

DANIELLE PLETKA: That's all right.

GEOFF BENNETT: I'm sure we will continue this conversation elsewhere.

Thank you both.

DANIELLE PLETKA: Thank you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: The new novel "Colored Television" uses fiction and satire to spotlight sensitive and often difficult realities of American life.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown talks to author Danzy Senna for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

DANZY SENNA, Author, "Colored Television": I mean, I have affection for all the places and people I skewer in the book.

JEFFREY BROWN: In Danzy Senna's new novel, all manor of contemporary culture is subjected to sometimes brutal skewering, Hollywood, publishing, class and real estate, most of all, attitudes toward race.

DANZY SENNA: People aren't expecting a comedy about racial identity or about someone failing in financial woes and familial problems, but the comedy in it has a lot of darkness underneath it, and it feels like freedom to me to be able to work in that tone.

JEFFREY BROWN: Did you have fun writing this book?

DANZY SENNA: I had a lot of fun.

Most of all, I'm making fun of myself or people like me.

I'm often writing about people in my world and people like me, who I never see represented.

So, so much of my work is about putting those people into the light.

JEFFREY BROWN: From her first book, the 1998 novel "Caucasia," and on, Senna has mined and examined her own world of growing up biracial in America, the tensions within her own community and the broader culture.

In "Colored Television," her protagonist is a biracial, struggling writer, wife and mother named Jane Gibson who can't finish her epic novel, which her Black husband playfully dubs her "Mulatto War and Peace," and gets drawn into the epically nutty world of television executives breathlessly seeking the next big thing, a biracial comedy.

So, you have written a novel in which we have a biracial writer, you, writing about a biracial writer, who is writing now a TV series about a biracial writer.

DANZY SENNA: Right.

It's a hall of mirrors.

JEFFREY BROWN: A hall of mirrors.

Was it confusing for you as you were writing?

DANZY SENNA: It felt completely natural.

And they're also living in a house that has no windows on the outside and is all glass on the inside.

So it's like this navel-gazing house, and the book itself is doing the same thing.

And she's doing the same thing within the book.

And because it's a comedy, it sort of feels like a joke within a joke within a joke.

JEFFREY BROWN: Senna herself was born in Boston in 1970 to a white mother, the poet Fanny Howe, and a Black father, editor and author Carl Senna, in an atmosphere of Black pride and empowerment that shaped her own sense of self.

DANZY SENNA: My siblings and I all look different.

And Blackness was the only identity that holds all those colors in the world I grew up in.

It was the only one that sort of absorbed all of these different complexions into it.

Whiteness was sort of the exclusionary category and Blackness was the inclusionary category.

And my parents also knew that that was the identity that they needed to sort of uphold and give us pride in.

And it wasn't the white side of us.

So, for me, there was no contradiction between looking the way I do and also having a white mother and being Black because of that moment.

Where there was no mixed-race category, that's just what you were.

JEFFREY BROWN: But what about in the larger culture?

DANZY SENNA: I mean, I have faced confusion from people all my life.

And I think it's -- in some ways, it's why I became a writer or it sort of formed me as a writer, because I was always feeling like an other amongst others.

I also found that I felt like a spy oftentimes in America, that I was seeing things that other people didn't see.

And so, with my work, I'm always sort of trying to write from the complexity and the nuance of being within that experience, because it's really a story that's weirdly undertold.

JEFFREY BROWN: "Guess What's Coming to Dinner," American Girl dolls, nice liberal neighborhood Senna dubs multicultural Mayberrys, the Kardashians, and a whole lot more, they're all here.

In popular culture today, Senna sees a kind of glamorization, even what she calls a fetishization, of being mixed, some of it referenced with humor in her novel, including the fad for labradoodle dogs.

DONALD TRUMP, Former (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: So, I don't know.

Is she Indian or is she Black?

JEFFREY BROWN: But she also sees something else, as when Donald Trump said this of Kamala Harris: DONALD TRUMP: Because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn, and she went -- she became a Black person.

DANZY SENNA: That tone that he spoke about her with was so familiar to me.

It was the tone that I have heard my whole life, where you're not really Black.

You can't be Black.

You don't look Black.

Let me see your family picture.

Let me see -- and this idea that you're an impostor of yourself, and that your family story is constantly being discounted.

These things that you hold inside of you that feel naturally who you are, you're not half-in-half, you're a whole person, are constantly being met with suspicion and a kind of hostility or disbelief from the world, because you don't fit this kind of cartoonish or kindergartenish idea of what the races are.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now on a book tour that included the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, Senna continues to play with that never-ending fraught American story, giving it her own twist, one that mixes some serious issues of our time with some serious laughs at the way we try to negotiate them.

DANZY SENNA: I do think people really want to laugh right now.

Like, there's a feeling that -- about these subjects that -- you look at Twitter and everybody's on tenterhooks, and it's like something -- anxiety is released when we laugh, and there's sort of this little change that occurs in us when we find a way to laugh at ourselves.

So, for me, this is laughing at ourselves, and all of the sort of deeper messages are hidden in this laughter and in this comedy.

And, that, I feel excited about, that tone and that emotional range that people are getting from this.

JEFFREY BROWN: The novel is "Colored Television."

Danzy Senna, thank you very much.

DANZY SENNA: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: And there's a lot more online, including "PBS News Weekly."

That's our digital show that unpacks an eventful week amid an escalating war in the Middle East, while world leaders gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

You can find that on our YouTube page.

And be sure to tune in tonight to "Washington Week With The Atlantic."

Guest moderator Laura Barron-Lopez and her panel analyze Harris and Trump's dueling positions on immigration and look ahead to Tuesday's vice presidential debate.

And on "PBS News Weekend," the latest on the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as the storm pushes north.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight and this week.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the "PBS News Hour," thanks for spending part of your evening with us.