A discarded hat supporting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sits on the sidewalk outside Trump Tower where Trump lives in the Manhattan borough of New York. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Why now? And why this?

For the legion of Republicans who abandoned Donald Trump on Saturday, recoiling in horror from comments their party’s White House nominee made about using his fame to prey on women, there is no escaping those questions.

For months, they stomached his incendiary remarks about Mexicans, Muslims, prisoners of war, a Gold Star military family and a Hispanic judge, along with offensive statements about women too numerous to count. Democratic critics argue that their silence — or the promise to vote for Trump, but not endorse him — amounted to tacit approval of misogyny and racism.

There were no good answers Saturday, and few Republicans attempted to offer any.

Some, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, didn’t say anything at all about the top of the party’s ticket. A steady stream of others revoked their endorsements or called for Trump to drop out of the race, condemning the New York billionaire in emailed statements and carefully crafted tweets.

How will Trump’s comments about women affect the race?

Those fleeing from Trump may ultimately say it was the shock of hearing and seeing the businessman’s crudeness on video that prompted them to finally walk away. On Friday, The Washington Post and NBC News both released a 2005 recording of Trump describing attempts to have sex with a married woman. His words were caught on a live microphone while talking with Billy Bush, then a host of “Access Hollywood.”

Some may draw a distinction between Trump’s outrageous earlier comments about women, minorities and others by noting that this time, the businessman wasn’t just being offensive — he was describing actions that could be considered sexual assault. In the video, Trump is heard saying that his fame allows him to “do anything” to women.

“Grab them by the p—-. You can do anything,” he says.

But with a month until Election Day, and early voting already underway in several states, the truest answer to why Republicans are dropping Trump now — and why they’re dropping him over this — is likely political.

During the Republican primary, GOP officials worried that disavowing Trump would alienate his supporters and hurt the party in congressional races. In the general election, Trump’s crass behavior also seemed easier for Republicans to tolerate when stacked up against Democrat Hillary Clinton, a candidate so reviled by many in the GOP that virtually nothing Trump did seemed worse than the prospect of her becoming president.

But these new revelations come at a time when the White House race seems to be slipping away from Trump. He’s been unable to attract support beyond that offered by his core backers. His performance in the first debate was undisciplined and he followed it up by tangling with a beauty queen whom he shamed two decades ago for gaining weight.

“There were people who were just starting to feel like this ship was going down and now this gives people a good excuse to jump off,” said Katie Packer, a Republican strategist who advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and led an unsuccessful effort to prevent Trump from becoming the GOP nominee.

While some Republicans expressed astonishment and dismay over Trump’s 2005 comments, those who steadfastly refused to endorse him throughout the campaign suggested their party knew full well what they were getting with the brash real estate mogul and reality TV star.

“Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours is surprising to me or many others,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who was critical of Trump when he ran against him in the primary and has remained so for months.

The last hope now for many Republicans is that an unimaginable election year will still end with the GOP in control of the Senate. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Nevada Rep. Joe Heck, both locked in tight races, joined the parade of officials Saturday who said they simply couldn’t stand by Trump anymore.

For Ayotte, the move earned her no quarter from her Democratic opponent, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan.

“She has had one example after the next of Donald Trump’s despicable words and his despicable behavior as reasons that she should have disavowed him,” Hassan said. “It took her until now when the revelation of his comments from a decade ago were made to decide that politically she couldn’t stand with him anymore.”

Look for more of the same in races nationwide. Democrats made clear Saturday they would spend the next month trying to ensure they and other Republicans get no credit for walking away now.

The post Analysis: Why didn’t more Republicans abandon Trump before the tape? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Republican U.S. vice presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence speaks during his debate against Democratic U.S. vice presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, U.S. October 4, 2016. Pence’s running mate, Republican Donald Trump has put him in an awkward position with the release of vulgar comments in 2005. Photo By Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

INDIANAPOLIS  — Mike Pence has long described himself as a “Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order.”

Trump has vowed to stay in the race.

Pence’s advocacy for Trump came to a screeching, perhaps temporary, halt Saturday in the hours after Trump released a video apologizing for 2005 remarks in which he describes his aggressive conduct toward women.

Pence said in a statement about Trump that he won’t “condone his remarks and cannot defend them.”

“We pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night,” the Indiana governor said.

It’s more evidence of the trials facing the GOP’s No. 2 that could serve Pence well if he runs for the top spot in 2020.

Pence dare not speak about that possibility. To do so would assume Clinton prevails on Nov. 8.

But plenty of people are engaging in presidential talk about Pence, including Republican members of Congress, governors, a former presidential candidate, and more.

Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Mike Crapo of Idaho are calling on Trump to quit the campaign so Pence can lead the ticket. Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire says she’ll write in Pence’s name on the ballot — not Trump’s.

Pence canceled his appearance at a Wisconsin rally Saturday with House Speaker Paul Ryan. Pence would have been expected to advocate for Trump.

“I’m sure he’s horrified,” said Mike Murphy, an Indiana public relations strategist who’s known Pence for more than two decades. “We impeached Bill Clinton and we cannot impeach Trump off the ballot. But I wish there was a mechanism to do so.”

Pence raised his political stock Monday night during the only debate against Democrat Tim Kaine. During the 90-minute event, Pence managed to not defend Trump’s indefensible behavior, yet still sound supportive and show off his own expertise on foreign policy.

The performance highlighted the gulf in political sophistication between Trump and his running mate.

Pence addressed the awkwardness with a savvy statement acknowledging his own performance and preserving his alliance with Trump.

“People are saying that I won the debate,” he said Wednesday in Harrisonburg, Virginia. “From where I sat, Donald Trump’s vision to make America great won the debate.”

But on Friday, Trump’s behavior put Pence to an even tougher test.

The Washington Post and NBC broke the story of Trump’s words about women as Pence advocated for Trump him in Ohio.

“With Donald Trump as president, we’ll have a president of the United States who respects all the American people,” Pence said as news of Trump’s comments was breaking.

Pence went on to defend, as he has previously, Trump’s outspoken nature as a refusal to “tiptoe around those thousands of rules of political correctness.”

Pence ignored shouted questions about Trump, and he was quickly whisked out of reach of the news media.

What followed: Pence’s silence, the scrapping his Wisconsin appearance and finally, his statement.

An influential Indiana conservative, Jim Bopp, who helped draft this year’s Republican Party platform, said Pence “should stay the course.”

Trump’s words are “ill-considered and crude,” Bopp said, and also “statements Mike Pence would never make.”

The election is bigger than that, said Bopp, a lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana.

“In the grand scheme of things, this is trivia vs. real life-and-death problems that we face in our foreign policy and the serious challenges that everyday Americans face because of the Obama-Clinton economy.”

Associated Press writers Brian Slodysko and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.

The post Republicans urge Pence to replace Trump in presidential race appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A promising new class of drugs is proving powerful in the fight against ovarian cancer. Photo by Portra Images/via Getty Images

The race to create the next potent ovarian cancer drug is coming to a head.

In recent days, the researchers behind three PARP drug contenders threw down preliminary data during the European Society for Medical Oncology conference in Denmark.

Massachusetts-based Tesaro was the clear front-runner with its experimental once-a-day ovarian cancer pill, niraparib. Its results built upon exciting data it released in June — showing that its drug can increase the window of time in which a woman’s cancer doesn’t get worse. (The study did not assess whether the drug helped women live longer, just how long it stopped tumors from growing.)

A small pilot study on a drug called talazoparib, which is now owned by Pfizer, recently showed similarly compelling results.

But Colorado’s Clovis Oncology fared less well. Though its own PARP inhibitor, rucaparib, showed that it could help some women compared to chemotherapy alone, its data didn’t measure up to the other two trials. The company’s stock plunged 18 percent on Friday after the data were released.

One PARP inhibitor has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration: olaparib, sold by AstraZeneca as Lynparza. It’s being used to treat ovarian cancer in women who have already undergone chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy deals heavy damage to tumors — but often, the cancer cells are able to regroup and repair themselves. PARP inhibitors work by stopping this repair. They’re particularly useful in treating cancers associated with the BRCA mutation, since this gene codes for proteins that help repair damaged DNA.

While chemotherapy is still used as a first line of attack, PARP inhibitors are largely being studied as maintenance drugs. The hope is that they’ll keep cancer at bay once it’s been attacked by chemo.

A number of cancers are associated with BRCA mutations — including breast, prostate and pancreatic.

More and more clinical trials will spring up to test PARP inhibitors in combination with other cancer treatments, such as immunotherapy, said Dr. Christina Annunziata, an investigator at the National Cancer Institute who studied the efficacy of Lynparza in ovarian cancer patients.

The field is so hot that over the summer, Pfizer agreed to spend an eye-popping $14 billion to buy San Francisco-based biotech Medivation. The key asset Pfizer wanted? The PARP inhibitor talazoparib. So far, there’s just extremely early data, but it looks promising. In a pilot study of 13 breast cancer patients on the drug at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, tumors shrunk on average 78 percent.

“We found a significant decrease in the tumors with only two months of therapy,” said Dr. Jennifer Litton, the lead investigator. She’s launching a larger trial for further study.

As for Tesaro, it first shared initial data from a Phase 3 clinical trial this past June. It showed that patients with recurrent ovarian cancer treated with the drug got an extra 15 months without their disease getting worse, compared to a control group. At the European conference this weekend, Tesaro added a few more details to that data:

The study looked at 553 patients whose cancer responds to a certain type of chemotherapy, known as platinum chemo. The best results came from patients with the BRCA mutation: Their tumors didn’t start to grow again for 21 months, on average, compared to 5.5 months for a control group that just received a placebo. Other groups of patients treated with the drug also had significantly better outcomes than control groups.

The results were published this weekend in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A few weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration granted Tesaro’s drug fast-track approval status —and this new data will support its registration applications to both the FDA and the European Medicines Agency, Tesaro CEO Lonnie Moulder said. The company is now planning trials in lung cancer, and is considering other cancers to pursue.

“In the field, these would be described as landmark results,” Moulder said. “At this time, there’s nothing available that has been approved by regulatory agencies for these women who have recurrence to their ovarian cancer.”

By comparison, Clovis Oncology has floundered.

The company aims to use its PARP inhibitor, rucaparib, to treat only patients with BRCA mutations who have had two or more chemotherapies. But the data it presented at the European conference showed that the drug may not actually be more effective than Lynparza, the PARP inhibitor that’s been marketed by AstraZeneca since 2014.

The study’s lead investigator, Rebecca Kristeleit, defended the performance of rucaparib, adding that one can’t compare Clovis’ drug to Tesaro’s: “It’s a completely different population, and a different use of the drugs,” she said.

Because early symptoms are fairly benign — bloating and back pain — about 75 percent of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer don’t learn they have it until it has progressed to Stage 3. About 22,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and about 15,000 women die of the disease each year in the United States.

This article is reproduced with permission from STAT. It was first published on Oct. 8, 2016. Find the original story here.

The post The race to create a new class of ovarian cancer drugs heats up appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a campaign rally at Blair County Convention Center in Altoona, Pennsylvania August 12, 2016. Photo by Eric Thayer/Reuters

The footage of Donald Trump in which he brags about aggressively groping women and trying to seduce a woman who is not his wife is the latest example of crude and sexist comments made about women by the billionaire businessman and former reality TV star.

___

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” He adds seconds later: “Grab them by the p—-. You can do anything.” — Trump in a previously unreleased recording made by “Access Hollywood” in 2005, published Friday by The Washington Post and NBC News.

___

“If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.” — Trump tweeted in April 2015. He later deleted the post.

___

“It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.” — Trump to a female contestant in 2013 on an episode of “Celebrity Apprentice.”

___

“Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?” — Trump tweeted in September 2016. He was referring to former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, whom he publicly shamed for gaining weight when he owned the contest.

___

“It’s certainly not groundbreaking news that the early victories by the women on ‘The Apprentice’ were, to a very large extent, dependent on their sex appeal.” — Trump wrote in his 2004 book, “How To Get Rich.”

___

“All of the women on ‘The Apprentice’ flirted with me — consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected. A sexual dynamic is always present between people, unless you are asexual.” — Trump, also from “How To Get Rich.”

___

“You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.” — Trump in an interview with CNN in August 2015, referring to Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly.

___

“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?” — Trump in a September 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, speaking about then-primary rival Carly Fiorina.

___

“It doesn’t really matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” — Trump in an interview with Esquire Magazine in 1991.

___

“A person who’s flat-chested is very hard to be a 10, OK?” — Trump in an interview with shock jock Howard Stern in September 2005.

___

“I saw a woman who was totally beautiful. She was angry that so many men were calling her. ‘How dare they call me! It’s terrible! They’re all looking at my breasts.’ So she had a major breast reduction. The good news: Nobody calls her anymore — nobody even looks — and not only that, it was a terrible job.” — Trump to Stern in 2008.

___

“Somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.” — Trump at the first presidential debate in September 2016.

The post Trump has long history of offensive comments about women appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

Read the full transcript below.

JEFF GREENFIELD: This is what most debates look like—the candidates at a lectern.

JEFF GREENFIELD: And many recent Presidential debates have featured the candidates and the moderator sitting down at a table.

JEFF GREENFIELD: But tomorrow’s debate features a very different format: a “town hall” meeting, in which undecided voters—selected by the Gallup organization—put questions directly to the candidates. It’s a format that offers special opportunities—and pitfalls.

JEFF GREENFIELD: For instance—a question can sometimes be unclear—as in this example from 1992.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives? And if it hasn’t, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what’s ailing them?

JEFF GREENFIELD:President George H.W. Bush was clearly confused by what she was asking.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Well, I think the national debt affects everybody.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You, on a personal basis — how has it affected you?

CAROLE SIMPSON: Has it affected you personally?

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: I’m not sure I get — help me with the question and I’ll try to answer it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, I’ve had friends that have been laid off from jobs.

BILL CLINTON: Tell me how it’s affected you, again. You know people who’ve lost their jobs and lost their homes?

JEFF GREENFIELD: Bill Clinton, by contrast, quickly reached out for a personal connection.

BILL CLINTON: When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it. When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them.

JEFF GREENFIELD:The format, unhinged from lecterns and tables, allow the candidates much more movement. But this can be a double-edged sword. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore decided to move into Governor Bush’s personal space, perhaps to create a sense of dominance. But watch:

JEFF GREENFIELD:That non-verbal gesture proved to be the most memorable moment of the entire debate.

MITT ROMNEY: How much did you cut licenses and permits on federal lands and federal waters?

BARACK OBAMA: Governor Romney, here’s what we did.

JEFF GREENFIELD: In the 2012 town hall…Mitt Romney and President Obama were on their feet so much, it felt at times more like a duel than a debate.

MITT ROMNEY: “Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?”

BARACK OBAMA: I don’t look at my pension; it’s not as big as yours, so it doesn’t take as long.

CANDY CROWLEY: If I could have you sit down, Governor Romney. Thank you.

JEFF GREENFIELD: It is moments like these that make the town hall meeting, the most unpredictable, and for the candidates, the riskiest format of all.

The post The challenges of a town hall debate appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A sign directs voters during the U.S. presidential election at a displaced polling center in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, during the 2012 presidential elections. This year, New York City tripled the number of languages available on voter registration forms. Photo By Brendan McDermid/Reuters

As the Oct. 14 deadline for voter registration in New York state approaches, Ahmed Mohammed, an operating officer in Queens for the Arab-American Family Support Center, has been pushing to get more people in his community to sign up to vote.

In recent months, New York City has tripled the number of languages available on voter registration forms, a measure the city’s mayor said would expand voting participation. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the addition of five new languages, including Arabic, in July, with another six added in September, raising the total number of languages for the voter registration process in New York City to 16.

“No one should be disenfranchised because of their language,” de Blasio said, during the program’s unveiling.

Mohammed’s organization represents about 6,000 Arabic- and Bangla-speaking people across two boroughs, drawing Mohammed to visit local mosques, delis and community events in an effort to find unregistered voters.

About a third of his group have become naturalized citizens after immigrating to the U.S. from Middle Eastern and East Asian countries. Mohammed said many prospective voters are limited by language barriers, despite living in the country for decades.

“Most of the people are parents, mothers and fathers,” he said. “They don’t know how to speak the language even now.”

Ahmed Mohammed, an operating officer in Queens for the Arab-American Family Support Center, reached out to citizen of his community to register them to vote. Photo By the Arab-American Family Support Center

More than half of the 1.6 million immigrants living in New York City are citizens and 853,000 people residing in the city speak languages other than English, according to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA).

The city looked at data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to determine what languages are most prevalent among voters who may not be proficient in English. Those added this summer were the languages spoken most commonly at home.

A year after the Voting Rights Act of 1975, a section of which requires alternative language accessibility on voting material based on the number of minority-language speakers living in a county, Spanish became the first language outside of English to be incorporated into the city’s voting process. Chinese was added in 1992, followed by Korean in 2003 and Bangla in 2013.

Because of the federal mandate, those languages are also required to be available on ballots at polling places in New York in addition to voter registration forms.

In July, under a directive issued by de Blasio, the city added Russian, Urdu, Haitian Creole, French and Arabic to voter registration forms. They were followed in September by Albanian, Greek, Italian, Polish, Tagalog and Yiddish.

These languages are not required by federal law, but the city added them to provide voting material separate from the federal requirements, according to MOIA. Because they are a voluntary initiative, the new languages are available only on voter registration forms and will not be on the ballots for the Nov. 8 election.

But more than 90 percent of people considered limited-English proficient can now register to vote in New York, according to Nisha Agarwal, MOIA’s commissioner.

She said there are more than 200 languages spoken in “the most diverse city in America,” and increasing the number of languages for voter registration has broadened accessibility in New York.

Citizens who might benefit from the language changes often grow up in the U.S. speaking English as a second language or are more comfortable filling out government forms in their native languages, MOIA said. Others are able to bypass an English test required for citizenship because of their age or the amount of time they have already spent in the country.

The new forms can be found on websites for the city’s Campaign Finance Board and official government site, as well as in city libraries, post offices and other municipal buildings. Local organizations representing immigrant communities also have made an effort to register new voters.

Matthew Sollars, a spokesperson for the New York City Campaign Finance Board, said voters who registered, but whose languages are not on the ballots, are allowed to bring someone along with them when casting their votes when translators aren’t provided.

“But if you aren’t registered then all that other stuff doesn’t even matter,” he said.

A “Vote Here” sign, in multiple languages, is seen at a polling station for the New York primary elections in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., April 19, 2016. Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Jonathan Brater, counsel for New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice Democracy program, said while Asian and Latino Americans are among the fastest-growing minority voters in the U.S., their registration and voting rates lag behind white and black voters.

“If you look at 2008 and 2012, you’ll find that black and white turnout was not as equal percentage-wise,” he said. “Having people being able to see the candidates’ names and understand the material is a critical part of bridging the gap in participation.”

Amaha Kassa, executive director of African Communities Together in the Bronx, an organization representing more than 20,000 French-speaking Africans living in New York, said the group worked with the city as a consultant on French-language voter registration forms and “proposed a good number of changes” before they were installed.

“The citywide languages were never meant to be a ceiling, they were meant to be a floor,” Kassa said. “I do think that we could do more to make polling places accessible. This starts the process for people to get registered to be eligible.”

He said the city’s language access policies began in some city agencies during the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, before it expanded to the voter registration process under a directive issued more recently by de Blasio.

While MOIA says it does not have projections on how many voters have participated in the process since the new translations were made available, Kassa and Mohammed said attempts to register citizens from their communities have gotten off to a slow start.

Mohammed helped a U.S. citizens in his community in September to register to vote. Photo By Arab-American Family Support Center

Mohammed said he began attempting to register people to vote in early September but during the first several weeks only managed to sign up 12 people out of the hundreds to whom he had reached out. After immigrating to the States, often from non-Democratic countries, some people in Mohammed’s community expressed fears about giving out their personal information.

“They need to be educated that this information is confidential,” he said, noting that in one instance, he walked to mailbox with a person who was registering to vote to prove their information was safe.

But a late flurry of registrations came last week. After he set up a table near a local mosque on National Voter Registration Day, Mohammed wrangled a few dozen more people to register. Between its Brooklyn and Queens locations, the organization has registered roughly 90 people who are now eligible to vote.

“I said, Let’s have a seat there and see what’s going to happen,” he said. “Some of them just tell their information because they don’t know how to write in English.”

The post New languages for NYC voter registration could expand access for immigrants appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

By Christopher Booker and Connie Kargo

SOPHIA DICARO: Okay, alright sister.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: For Sophia DiCaro, political campaigns are a family affair.

SOPHIA DICARO: Well I can’t thank you enough for your support.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Throughout the fall, DiCaro, her husband Robert, and their three kids, caravan through Utah’s state House District 31.

ROBERT DICARO: Thank you so much we appreciate it.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: For DiCaro, who previously worked for four governors, the family’s full-court press is designed to hold the seat she won two years ago.

SOPHIA DICARO: You know, these campaign politics world. It’s one of those things that you can’t really describe unless you experience it for yourself.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: As a republican in Utah, DiCaro is part of the state’s majority in the House of Representatives, but as a women in Utah politics, she’s a rarity.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Nationally, about a-quarter of all state legislators are women. With 6 senators in its 29 member senate and just 10 representatives in its 75 member house, Utah has one of the lowest percentages of female legislators in the country.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Yet this low percentage lags behind what’s happening in the workforce — 60 percent of Utah’s women are participating in the labor market.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Why do you think so few women are involved in state legislature here in Utah?

SOPHIA DICARO: I think there’s a number of factors that play into that question. We have a part-time legislature. It is full time intensity for a 45-day period. So your family situation has to be such that you’re able to accommodate that kind of schedule. You have to have the availability of time and you have to have the financial ability to make it work, you’re not paid very much as a legislator.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: DiCaro says her ability to make the arrangement work for the family is largely due to the support she receives from her husband.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Do you ever find yourself– contemplating the gender questions that surround campaigns? Does that come into your world at all?

SOPHIA DICARO: You know, initially when I ran for office, you know, that did come up in our caucus meetings ‘Are you going to be able to manage your family?

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Do you think if you were a man they would have asked you those questions?

SOPHIA DICARO: No. I don’t.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: You can’t discuss women in Utah politics without addressing the role of the state’s dominant religion — the Mormon Church.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: The majority of the population identifies as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. At the same time, Utah has one of the lowest percentages of women in state legislature. Is it fair to ask if there’s a correlation between the two?

ALLY ISOM: I think it’s a fair question to ask how the culture impacts the greater community.”

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Ally Isom is the church’s director of family and community relations.

ALLY ISOM: “We’re having the conversations within the church, as an employer, but we’re also having the conversation within the church as a faith-based group.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Although the Mormon Church currently does not allow women to become priests, she believes the state would benefit with more women in politics.

ALLY ISOM: We’re looking at, ‘what are the cultural barriers that might inhibit women from stepping up?’ And, ‘do they need a little encouragement? Do they need to know that they make a difference?’“We need women to recognize the value they add to public policy conversations. The questions they ask are so important. And to understand they make an– a meaningful difference when they step up and engage. But cultural change sometimes takes some time.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: With permission from the church, Isom sits on the executive committee of Utah’s Women’s Leadership Institute — a coalition formed by the Salt Lake City business community working to train Utah women for senior leadership positions both in business and politics.

PATRICIA JONES: There will be people when you run for office that will ask you how you feel about certain things.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Today is the first day of their political development series – designed to train women of any party affiliation how to run for office. The six month program is led by the institute’s c-e-o, Patricia Jones.

PATRICIA JONES: Women make up more than half of the population, and yet we have such a small percentage of women who are making policy decisions. You know, I think it was Oprah Winfrey, once said that, ‘politics is social work with power.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: First elected in the year 2000, Jones spent 14 years as a democratic state representative and state senator.

PATRICIA JONES: The first race that I had, I didn’t know what I was doing (laughter). You know, I knew that I had to walk door to door, because I was a democrat. I ran as a democrat in a republican area

PATRICIA JONES: Understanding how the system works is really important to you, personally.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Jones spent much of her time in office fighting for increased funding for public education. She says while she was warmly received by her male colleagues, collaboration was often easier with women.

PATRICIA JONES: I saw that personally. You saw women, you know, working together on both sides of the aisle when I was in the legislature.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Utah, like many states, does not require companies to provide paid family medical leave for the arrival of a new baby or to care for a sick relative. Utah workers workers benefit only from the federal law which allows for 12 weeks of unpaid leave from their jobs.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: What’s the causation or correlation between the lack of women within state legislature and a lack of family policies within the state of Utah? Is there a correlation between the two?

PATRICIA JONES: Yes, absolutely, there has to be. I mean, I could give you countless stories about my own personal experience. You’re often either the only woman, or one of very few women in a committee, and that is really where the work goes on is in the committee, is where you discuss issue, and you discuss bills, and you figure out public policy. And these are committees that are discussing issues that are of primary importance to women.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Advancing women’s issues thro ugh the legislature is a goal of the the Utah’s women’s coalition run by Stephanie Pitcher.

STEPHANIE PITCHER: If we don’t have women up there speaking and lending that perspective to the issue, then we’re not going to have a policy that is representative and comprehensive to the entirety of Utah’s population.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Last year, Pitcher worked with a republican senator to pass a bill requiring employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy and breastfeeding in the workplace. This year, she’s working with democratic state representative Angela Romero to resurrect a bill granting six weeks of paid parental leave for state and university employees.

ANGELA ROMERO: I think states like Utah want to show that they’re fiscally conservative, but I flip that and say, ‘well, if we really invest in our employees, and we provide them with these incentives, then they’re gonna be happy in their jobs.’ They’re gonna have happier families, and we’re gonna have a healthier economy, long-term.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Two prior attempts to pass a paid family leave bill in Utah have failed. Today in this interim session, the bill is once again under economic scrutiny.

UTAH STATE SENATOR JERRY STEVENSON: Has anyone taken a look at that and the cost of that versus a first benefit?

UTAH REP. JOHN WESTWOOD: That’s my concern as well, that we look at the fiscal side of this very carefully

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Despite those questions, there was one receptive republican — representative sophia DiCaro.

SOPHIA DICARO: I’m a little bit more interested in the mechanics, because I would like to see something like this work and would hate for it to get hung up due to mechanics. Maybe I can help take a look.

SOPHIA DICARO: And it’s not about necessarily accommodating the woman, it’s about accommodating the family. Because the husband’s impacted just as much. It’s a family affair so if we have a welcoming environment for family, I think that would only help this state.

PATRICIA JONES: Women tend to migrate towards certain issues, whether it’s public ed or health, it’s issues where you know, child care, you know, family leave, and that sort of thing. Because those are the lives that they’ve lived. But to have the power to actually make change is really what’s important – that women understand the power that you can have. And there’s nothing wrong with the word power.

PATRICIA JONES: Suzanne’s running for, you are running for the house aren’t you?”

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Suzanne Harrison is one of 40 women in Jones’ political development series this year.

SUZANNE HARRISON: Thank you all for coming!

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: An anesthesiologist and member of the Mormon Church, the first time candidate is running as a democrat for state house district 32, just outside Salt Lake City.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: So you are running for office for the first time. Why?

SUZANNE HARRISON: Mostly ’cause I’m a mom. And this is a priority for our family. We have some of the largest class sizes in the whole country and we have the lowest in per pupil spending in the whole country and I feel like that’s wrong. That’s not where my values are. That’s not my priority as a mom and as a doctor. I value public education and I want that to be a priority in this state.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: This november women are competing for 35 seats in the Utah house and senate. If, in the unlikely event they win all 35, this would more than double the percentage of women in state government…..But women would still only occupy a third of the Utah state legislature.

SUZANNE HARRISON: I’m an anesthesiologist. I’m a physician. My first priorities are to families and to my patients. And we could use some more of those kind of viewpoints in the legislature. There’s a lotta people in real estate. A lotta people that are developers. There are not very many physicians, and there’s not a lotta moms. And those perspectives really matter.

The post Why does Utah have so few female legislators? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Everett, Washington, U.S., August 30, 2016. Picture taken August 30, 2016. Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is trying to revive old problems in Hillary Clinton’s marriage and claims that she helped Bill Clinton discredit his accusers. As Trump’s campaign staggers under the revelation of his own predatory behavior toward women, he’s also going further: He’s accused the former president of “rape,” Hillary Clinton of being an “enabler” and threatened to shift those issues from his Twitter feed to the presidential debate stage.

Leading up to Sunday’s town hall debate in St. Louis, Hillary Clinton’s campaign brushed off Trump’s tactics.

Here’s a look at the Clintons’ history and what Trump has said about it:

Accusations against Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton has been dogged by rumors of adultery and, at times, allegations of mistreatment of women, for much of his political career.

The rumors and accusations began when Bill Clinton was Arkansas governor in the 1990s. They became national news when he ran for president in 1992 and actress Gennifer Flowers claimed she’d had a long-term, sexual relationship with Bill Clinton. The candidate and his wife denied the affair on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Bill Clinton was dubbed the “comeback kid” and went on to win the presidency. Bill Clinton later acknowledged in a 1998 court deposition that he once had a sexual encounter with Flowers.

More claims of infidelity haunted Bill Clinton’s two terms as president. In 1994, former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him for allegedly exposing himself to her in a Little Rock hotel room. Bill Clinton’s lawyers tried to have the suit dismissed, but in November 1998, he paid Jones $850,000 to settle the case without apologizing or acknowledging culpability.

That same year, Bill Clinton acknowledged that he had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. Bill Clinton initially denied it — including to his wife. But under pressure from investigators, Bill Clinton later admitted to the affair. He was impeached by the Republican-led House for perjury and obstruction. The Senate voted against removing him from office.

Two other women who have long accused Bill Clinton of mistreatment revived their charges this year.

Juanita Broaddrick, a former Arkansas nursing home administrator, first claimed 17 years ago that Bill Clinton raped her during a meeting in Little Rock in 1978. Broaddrick sued Bill Clinton in 1999, but the case was dismissed in 2001. A Twitter account that claimed to be that of Broaddrick revived the allegations on Saturday.

Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer, is using a web site to again accuse Bill Clinton of forcing himself on her in 1993. Both women also accuse Hillary Clinton of trying to discredit them.

Neither accusation has been adjudicated by a judge or jury. Bill Clinton has long denied the accusations. Hillary Clinton has declined to address them.

How Hillary Clinton responded to allegations against her husband

In the 1992 race, Hillary Clinton worked with campaign aides to counter rumors against her husband. She stood by him when he was accused of infidelity and held hands with him when he denied an affair with Flowers on “60 Minutes.” She has lashed out at a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for inflaming allegations of sexual misconduct against Bill Clinton.

His admission of the Lewinsky affair in 1998 and his out-of-court settlement with Jones confirmed what his wife had long denied. In her autobiography, “Living History,” Hillary Clinton said she raged at him after he admitted the affair, but ultimately decided she did not want to leave him. She called it one of the most difficult decisions she has ever made.

What Trump is doing

The Clintons’ conduct, Trump alleges, amounts to abuse. Trump’s critics, including dozens of Republicans who are calling for him to quit the race, say he is describing his own acts of sexual assault on the recording first reported Friday by The Washington Post and NBC News.

Trump fired back ahead of the second debate against Hillary Clinton by retweeting Broaddrick’s rape accusations, posted to the Twitter account that claimed to belong to her. He also tweeted a link to Breitbart News, which had posted an “exclusive” video in which Broaddrick tells her story about being raped by Bill Clinton. Breitbart News is a conservative publication whose former chief, Steve Bannon, is now chief executive officer of the Trump campaign.

Also Sunday, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a top Trump adviser, echoed other Trump aides in saying Bill Clinton’s conduct alone is not relevant to 2016 race. What’s relevant, Giuliani said, is Hillary Clinton’s “role as the attacker” of women who claimed affairs with Bill Clinton.

“Neither side should throw stones because both sides have sinned,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”So how about we put that behind us?”

Trump used to express sympathy for Bill Clinton

TRUMP USED TO EXPRESS SYMPATHY FOR BILL CLINTON

In August 1998, nine days after Bill Clinton admitted his affair with Lewinsky to a grand jury, Trump expressed sympathy for the president’s plight in a CNBC interview.

“I’m not even sure that he shouldn’t have just gone in and taken the Fifth Amendment (constitutional protection against self-incrimination),” Trump said.

As late as 2008, Trump, who invited the Clintons to his 2005 wedding and has donated at least $100,000 to their global charity, said on CNN: “Look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense.”

Trump said recently that his earlier comments reflected his obligation as a businessman to “get along with everybody.”

Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

The post Ahead of debate, Trump revives allegations against Clintons appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

The post Clinton, Trump prepare for debate amid Republican exodus appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

The post In Florida, cleanup begins after Hurricane Matthew appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rally with supporters in Aston, Pennsylvania, U.S. September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

ST. LOUIS — In a stunningly brazen move, Donald Trump met Sunday night with several women who have accused Bill Clinton of rape and other unwanted sexual advances, just over an hour before the Republican presidential nominee was stepping on the debate stage with the former president’s wife, Hillary Clinton.

The Trump pre-debate event was the clearest sign yet that he planned to use Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs to try to distract from the swirling controversy over his own predatory remarks about women. Trump is under enormous pressure from his own Republican Party after the release of a 2005 video in which the businessman can be heard saying his fame allows him to “do anything” to women.

Trump refused to answer questions from reporters about the video during his meeting in a hotel conference room with Paula Jones, Kathy Shelton, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey. Some of the women seated alongside him, however, were graphic in their accusations against the Clintons.

“Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me,” Broaddrick said. “I don’t think there’s any comparison.”

Broaddrick, a former Arkansas nursing home administrator, first claimed 17 years ago that Bill Clinton raped her during a meeting in Little Rock in 1978. Her lawsuit against him was dismissed in 2001 and criminal charges were never filed. Clinton has denied the allegations.

Trump is trying to change the subject from his own conduct. Even before Friday’s new revelations of his sexual remarks about women, his campaign was slumping. But the release of the 2005 video has some leading Republicans convinced the damage is insurmountable.

Even Trump’s most loyal supporters struggled to defend him on Sunday.

“They’re remarks you certainly don’t want to hear from anyone, much less a presidential candidate,” Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, said on CNN. “I think he made a full and complete apology for it. He probably is going to do it again tonight.”

Clinton has stayed largely silent since the video was made public, though running mate Tim Kaine accused Trump of engaging in a “pattern of assaultive behavior.”

“I think there’s kind of a piece of the jigsaw puzzle missing in Donald Trump where he does not look at women and consider them as equal to himself,” Kaine said on CNN.

Trump’s troubles have almost completely overshadowed the release of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign that revealed the contents of previously secret paid speeches to Wall Street. Clinton told bankers behind closed doors that she favored “open trade.” Such remarks were at odds with her tough public comments.

Trump allies desperately hope the businessman can keep his focus in the debate on Clinton, raising questions about her trustworthiness and pushing his own populist economic ideas. The candidates will face questions in the town hall-style setting both from moderators and undecided voters seated with them on stage, a format that typically rewards candidates who show empathy and connect with the problems facing Americans.

But as Trump’s meeting with Clinton’s accusers indicated, he appeared to have other priorities.

Trump has long hinted he would raise Bill Clinton’s sexual history at debates. In what was billed as a videotaped apology for the 2005 videotaped remarks, Trump said “Bill Clinton has actually abused women” and Hillary Clinton “bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated” her husband’s “victims.”

Clinton’s campaign appeared unconcerned by the prospect of Trump raising Bill Clinton’s past.

“If that is how he chooses to spend his time in the debate, then that’s his decision,” Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters. “I’m not sure that’s what voters are going to want to hear.”

At a fundraiser in Chicago, President Barack Obama called Trump’s rhetoric “disturbing.” Obama said “it tells you that he’s insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down.”

Trump’s own running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has declared he could neither condone nor defend the remarks in the video revealed on Friday.

Other Republicans have taken the extraordinary step of revoking support for their party’s nominee. Among them: Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte — both are running for re-election — and the party’s 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Some called on Trump to quit the race.

“I thought about years from now when my daughter Kate is old enough to know what is in those tapes and to understand what he is talking about,” Ayotte said of her 12-year-old daughter during a press conference Sunday. “I want her to know where I stood.”

Trump spent Sunday morning highlighting Twitter messages from supporters who slammed Republican leaders for abandoning him. In his own message, Trump said, “So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers — and elections — go down!”

Republican leaders scheduled a rare Monday conference call for House GOP lawmakers, who are on recess. An email obtained by The Associated Press doesn’t specify the topic, but rank-and-file lawmakers believe it’s about Trump.

The post Before debate, Trump appears with women who accused Bill Clinton of rape and harassment appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Our team of in-house experts are analyzing, fact checking and adding context to the candidates’ statements as the debate happens Sunday night. Here’s what they found:

Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the presidential town hall debate with Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at Washington University in St. Louis. Photo by Jim Young /Reuters

ST. LOUIS — Donald Trump denied in Sunday’s debate that he ever kissed and grabbed women without their consent, then argued that his crude words from a newly released video paled in comparison to what he called Bill Clinton’s abuse of women. Standing a few feet away from the former president’s wife, he accused Hillary Clinton of attacking those women herself.

“She should be ashamed of herself,” Trump declared.

Clinton stared icily at Trump from across the stage. She did not respond directly to his accusations about her husband’s extramarital affairs or any role of her own, but was blistering in her condemnation of his aggressive comments about women in a 2005 tape released Friday.

“I think it’s clear to anyone who heard him that it represents exactly who he is,” she said, adding that she did not believe Trump had the “fitness to serve” as commander in chief.

Bill Clinton never faced any criminal charges in relation to the allegations, and a lawsuit over an alleged rape was dismissed. He did settle a lawsuit with one of the women who claimed harassment.

The tension between Trump and Clinton was palpable from the start of their 90-minute debate, the second time they have faced off in the presidential campaign. They did not shake hands as they met at center stage. Trump stood and paced throughout Clinton’s answers, repeatedly interrupting her.

This debate was a town hall format, with several undecided voters sitting on stage with the candidates. The voters, all from the St. Louis area, were selected by Gallup.

Ahead of the event, Trump brazenly met publicly with several women who have accused Bill Clinton of unwanted sexual advances and even rape.

The Trump pre-debate event was the clearest sign yet that he planned to use the former president’s sexual history to try to distract from the swirling controversy over his own predatory remarks about women. Trump is under enormous pressure from the Republican Party after the release of a 2005 video in which the businessman can be heard saying his fame allows him to “do anything” to women.

Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s communications director, said she wasn’t surprised to see Trump “continue his destructive race to the bottom.” She said the Democratic nominee was “prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way” on the debate stage.

Trump refused to answer questions from reporters about his own aggressive sexual remarks about women during the meeting in a hotel conference room with Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey. Kathy Shelton, a fourth woman who appeared with Trump, was a 12-year-old Arkansas sexual assault victim whose alleged assailant was defended by Hillary Clinton.

Some of the women seated alongside him, however, were graphic in their accusations against the Clintons.

“Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me,” Broaddrick said. “I don’t think there’s any comparison.”

Broaddrick, a former Arkansas nursing home administrator, first claimed 17 years ago that Bill Clinton raped her during a meeting in Little Rock in 1978. Her lawsuit against him was dismissed in 2001 and criminal charges were never filed. Clinton has denied the allegations.

Trump’s stunt set up an extraordinary scene in the debate hall. His campaign said all four women planned to attend the event, with Bill Clinton also expected to be present.

Trump is trying to change the subject from his own conduct. Even before Friday’s new revelations of his sexual remarks about women, his campaign was slumping. But the release of the 2005 video has some leading Republicans convinced the damage is insurmountable.

The political firestorm was sparked by a 2005 video obtained and released Friday by The Washington Post and NBC News. In the video, Trump, who was married to his current wife at the time, is heard describing attempts to have sex with a married woman. He also brags to Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” about women letting him kiss them and grab their genitals because he is famous.

NBC said Sunday that it had indefinitely suspended Bush, now a “Today” show personality, for his role in the crude conversation with Trump.

Trump’s own running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has declared he could neither condone nor defend the remarks in the video revealed on Friday.

Other Republicans have taken the extraordinary step of revoking support for their party’s nominee. Among them: Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte — both are running for re-election — and the party’s 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Some called on Trump to quit the race.

Trump’s troubles have almost completely overshadowed the release of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign that revealed the contents of previously secret paid speeches to Wall Street. Clinton told bankers behind closed doors that she favored “open trade.” Such remarks were at odds with her tough public comments.

Trump has long hinted he would raise Bill Clinton’s sexual history at debates. In what was billed as a videotaped apology for the 2005 videotaped remarks, Trump said “Bill Clinton has actually abused women” and Hillary Clinton “bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated” her husband’s “victims.”

As early as last week, Trump had said he didn’t plan to raise the issues on the debate stage. But that appeared to change in the hours after his own remarks were made public and a flood of Republicans began turning against him.

___

Pace reported from Washington. AP writers Steve Peoples, Catherine Lucey, Jonathan Lemire, Laurie Kellman and Kathleen Ronayne contributed to this report.

The post Donald Trump denies grabbing women without their consent appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

NEW YORK — CJ McCollum, Jamal Crawford and Jacob Tamme are among current and former professional athletes on social media to criticize Donald Trump’s characterization of his predatory, sexual comments about women from a 2005 video as “locker room talk.”

Trump’s campaign described his remarks as “locker room banter” in a statement Saturday, and the Republican presidential nominee repeated the line multiple times Sunday during the presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

In the tape, obtained by The Washington Post and NBC News, Trump describes trying to have sex with a married woman and brags about women letting him kiss and grab them because he is famous.

“When you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

He adds seconds later, “Grab them by the p—-. You can do anything.”

“I haven’t heard that one in any locker rooms,” McCollum wrote on Twitter in a response to a tweet from Crawford. McCollum plays for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and Crawford plays for the Los Angeles Clippers.

There should be an embedded item here. Please visit the original post to view it.

Tamme, a tight end with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, asked that Trump “please stop saying ‘locker room talk,'” adding that “it’s not normal. And even if it were normal, it’s not right.”

Dodgers pitcher Brett Anderson, Chiefs wide receiver Chris Conley and retired NFL players Donte Stallworth and Chris Kluwe offered similar condemnations.

The post Professional athletes take issue with Trump’s ‘Locker room talk’ appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Donald Trump listens as Hillary Clinton answers a question from the audience during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri on October 9. Photo by Rick Wilking/ Reuters

ST. LOUIS — Donald Trump had a better night than expected. Hillary Clinton missed some opportunities to defend her record and attack her opponent. The second presidential debate on Sunday night was marked by contradictions: ugly personal attacks and policy-heavy segments, plenty of lies and moments of actual candor (at the very end.)

All in all, Trump likely regained some ground after one of the worst three-day periods in modern campaign history. Dozens of Republican elected officials withdrew their support for Trump over the weekend after a video was released on Friday in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women. And Clinton failed to deliver the knockout punch her supporters had hoped for.

The question is: was Trump’s performance at Washington University in St. Louis enough to turn his campaign around? It was an improvement from the first debate—but that’s not saying much. For Trump to beat Clinton in November, he’ll need to expand his base of support, and there is little reason to believe that he accomplished that in the second debate. While both campaigns wait for new polls to come out, here are some early takeaways from St. Louis.

Trump improved. At a familiar point

For the Republican nominee, think of this as the opposite twin of the first debate. In face-off number one, Donald Trump cruised through the first 15-20 minutes but then, even Republicans agree, stumbled for the rest of the night in a storm of seeming agitation. But in round two, in St. Louis, Trump markedly improved. And that improvement started around the 20-minute mark.

After Clinton let loose with her attack on Trump as unfit (pivoting off that infamous video), the Republican candidate replied, “It’s just words, folks. It’s just words. And those words, I’ve been hearing them for many years.” It was Trump in his own skin, doing something new in the debates: turning a Clinton attack on him into a gut-punch against her as a meaningless longtime politician.

Trump was the less-defensive Trump. The on-offense, one-liner Trump. Throughout the night he showed more control than in the first debate. And more discipline. About 53 minutes in, a clearly frustrated Trump put his request for more time this way to moderator Martha Raddatz. “Can I just respond to this, please?” This is not to say he was flawless. He was still agitated at times, defensive at others and occasionally put together curious phrases. But he was improved.

Clinton was better at stagecraft

While Trump naturally knows how to work his crowds, Clinton knows the swing-voter town hall format incredibly well. From her appropriately serious and focused listening expressions as Trump spoke, to her direct walk toward and reach out to the voters asking questions, the Democratic nominee understood both the room and the cameras around the room.

And she used movement to send a message. Clinton notably did not shake her opponent’s hand. (As a noted germaphobe, Trump may have been grateful.) She pointedly crossed in front of Trump in close range on multiple occasions. Consider Clinton’s stagecraft a kind of silent counter-tactic to Trump’s audible interruptions in the first debate.

Sex on the (political) brain

Trump “went there” on Sunday night. Or did he? Over the weekend, Trump made clear his plan to bring up Bill Clinton’s infidelities at the second debate—even though many people in his own party thought the strategy would backfire. Less than two hours before the debate got underway, Trump held a surprise press conference with several women who have claimed that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted them in the past. That seemed to suggest that Trump would hold nothing back when he came face-to-face with Hillary.

Once the debate started, Trump wasted little time in attacking Bill Clinton. “There’s never been anybody in the history of politics of this nation that’s been so abusive to women,” Trump said, as the former president looked on, stone-faced, from the Clinton family box in the audience. Trump added that Hillary Clinton had “attacked those same women, and attacked them viciously.” It was an extraordinary and unprecedented moment in U.S. politics: a presidential nominee, recently caught on tape making vulgar comments about women, accusing a former president of abusing women.

But Trump didn’t go further, as he hinted he might, to launch a detailed attack on the Clinton’s marital history. Instead, he spent a significant portion of the first 30 minutes of the debate defending the comments he made in the video that was published by the Washington Post on Friday. And he didn’t look good. When Anderson Cooper, one of the moderators, asked Trump point-blank if he understood that the actions he described in the 2005 video — kissing and groping women without their consent — amounted to sexual assault, Trump disagreed—and doubled-down on his claim that the talk was just “locker room banter.”

“I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do,” Trump added. He can continue repeating those words, but just because he says them, it doesn’t make it true. As Clinton said, “I think it’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is.” Trump needs to improve his support with women. If he doesn’t, he won’t win the election. He failed to do that in this debate.

Clinton’s missed opportunities

There was plenty of material to work with. A new report, published after the first presidential debate, that showed Trump took a $916 million tax loss in 1995, and potentially didn’t pay his federal incomes taxes for the next 18 years. A video of Trump making vulgar comments about women. A weekend in which dozens of Republican leaders — from Sen. John McCain on down — abandoned their party’s nominee.

And yet despite having all this at her fingertips, Clinton took a surprisingly conservative approach to the debate. Clinton did not spend much time on Trump’s tax returns, unlike in the first debate, when she called on Trump to release his returns and made a powerful argument about all the reasons why he might be hiding details about his real business record. She criticized Trump’s comments in the “Access Hollywood” video, but didn’t go after him with the same intensity she displayed in the closing moments of the first debate, when she skewered Trump for demeaning a former Miss Universe. At the same time, Clinton made only passing mention of the fact that Trump was being deserted by his party’s elected leaders.

And Clinton let several of Trump’s attacks against her go largely unanswered. She apologized, once again, for her decision to use a private email server. But Trump criticized her repeatedly for deleting thousands of emails, and Clinton didn’t have a particularly fresh or effective response. She also struggled to defend her comment, made in a paid speech to Wall Street executives, that politicians need to have a public and private position on issues. The comment appeared in a trove of leaked documents released on Friday.

At the debate, Clinton said the comment was a reference to Abraham Lincoln, and his ability to wheel-and-deal to get things done. But the analogy fell flat—and Trump was ready with a strong rebuttal. “She lied, and now she’s blaming it on the late, great Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said. The exchange underscored the stakes at the debate. Clinton had a chance to deliver a knockout blow and didn’t.

We have a problem. With civility and boundaries

Out of 321 million people, the two Americans who made it to the presidential debate stage Sunday night made it clear that they will do and say nearly anything to win this race. The 2016 battle between two unpopular figures continues too often be a race to the bottom.

That is not entirely new. The U.S. has witnessed vicious, brutally personal presidential elections since George Washington retired. But, there is something different this time around. A flavor of reality television mixed with anger. An attention-deficit skimming of important topics in favor of landing punches and earning style points. Clinton and Trump did discuss significant policy in St. Louis. But that did not seem to be the central contrast each was trying to make. They aimed more at persona than ability. More at dramatic moments than drilling down on real-world problems.

An example: the swirling words over sexual remarks and alleged acts. As the two campaigns alternated pointing fingers and throwing elbows, neither hit the broader issue: How powerful men treat less powerful women. That might be a difficult discussion, but one worth having. Instead, this debate showed that this cycle’s lack of civility and boundaries are keeping important discussions out of reach. And likely encouraging voters to keep shaking their heads.

The post Top 5 takeaways from the second presidential debate appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Al Gore let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. Richard Nixon looked pale and uncomfortable. A candidate’s silent debate reactions can speak louder than, well…when they actually speak.

The second 2016 presidential debate was one of the most intense in U.S. history, and it was filled with silent drama. Hillary Clinton smiled with apparent amusement as Donald Trump said that he felt she belonged in prison. Trump regularly paced the stage, often turning his back on Clinton when she spoke. How often did each candidate’s body language reveal their discomfort on the debate floor?

We cut 15 minutes of silent reaction footage to compare how well each candidate kept their cool in the face of such a heated event. This video is not cut in chronological order, and video of the other candidate speaking has been edited out of each frame to create this artificial comparison.

After you watch the video above, visit WatchTheDebates.org to catch up on more than 60 years of presidential smirks, sighs and shuffles.

The post Compare Trump and Clinton’s silent debate moments in this reaction-shot supercut appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

BY ALAN FRAM AND JULIE PACE, Associated Press

File photo of House Speaker Paul Ryan by Yuri Gripas/Reuters

WASHINGTON — The nation’s most powerful Republican told his party Monday he now is focusing on ensuring Hillary Clinton doesn’t get a blank check as president with a Democratic-controlled Congress, suggesting he doesn’t believe Donald Trump can win the election.

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office quickly said he was not conceding the election’s outcome. But pro-Trump GOP House members got that impression, pushing back and saying Trump can still prevail and should not be abandoned. One outspoken conservative called Ryan and other Republican leaders “cowards.”

Here’s the list of GOP responses to Trump’s vulgar comments about groping women

A person who was on Ryan’s conference call with GOP lawmakers said the speaker declared that he will “spend his entire energy making sure that Hillary Clinton does not get a blank check with a Democrat-controlled Congress.” The person wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name and demanded anonymity.

Ryan said he wouldn’t defend Trump or appear with the Republican presidential candidate for the rest of the campaign, according to lawmakers and Republican congressional staff, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

The remarkable development came as Trump battled to rescue his campaign after the release last week of a 2005 video in which he is heard bragging about how his fame allowed him to “do anything” to women. Several leading Republicans have withdrawn their support or even called for him to drop out of the race.

Several people on the call said Ryan explicitly told House members, “You all need to do what’s best for you in your district.”

Ryan said he was “willing to endure political pressure to help protect our majority,” a person on the call said.

Ryan’s message appeared to signal his disbelief in Trump’s ability to turn the campaign around with four weeks until Election Day, though he didn’t actually revoke his endorsement. He said his decision was driven by what he thought was best for the Republican-led Congress, not himself, according to people on the call.

Top 5 takeaways from the second presidential debate

In the eyes of many Republican leaders, the recently released tape of a 2005 conversation in which Trump made vulgar, predatory comments about women not only jeopardized his own uphill candidacy but that of Republicans fighting to hold their majority in the Senate. Their commanding majority in the House could now be in peril, too.

Some conservatives expressed alarm with Ryan’s tone, according to those on the call.

California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher called Republican leaders “cowards,” one person on the call said.

Questioned at Sunday’s debate about his vulgar remarks, Trump turned his fire on the Democrats. He accused Bill Clinton of having been “abusive to women” and said Hillary Clinton went after those women “viciously.” He declared the Democratic nominee had “tremendous hate in her heart” and should be in jail.

“Anything to avoid talking about your campaign and the way it’s exploding,” Clinton countered.

Trump got backing Monday from his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who gave a series of television interviews, urging Republicans to stand behind Trump.

“This is a choice between two futures,” Pence declared, saying he never considered leaving Trump’s ticket.

“I’m honored to be standing with him,” Pence said.

For voters appalled by Trump’s words, the businessman’s debate performance likely did little to ease their concerns. He denied he had kissed and groped women without their consent, dismissing his claims that he had as “locker room” talk.

Clinton on Monday tweeted: “If Trump stands by what he said about women as ‘locker room talk,’ he’s clearly not sorry.”

Trump’s intensely loyal supporters might well be energized by his vigorous criticism of Clinton. He labeled her “the devil” and promised she would “be in jail” if he were president because of her email practices at the State Department — a threat that drew widespread criticism.

“That was a quip,” Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, said Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” She also wouldn’t confirm what he said at the debate: that as president he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. Trump was “channeling the frustration” of voters, she said.

In a brazen pre-debate move, Trump met with three women who accused the former president of sexual harassment and even rape, then invited them to sit in the debate hall, not far from Bill Clinton and his family. The former president never faced any criminal charges over the allegations, and a lawsuit over an alleged rape was dismissed. He settled a lawsuit with one of the women who claimed harassment.

Trump’s campaign was already struggling before the new video was released, due in part to his uneven performance in the first presidential debate. Many Republicans saw Sunday’s showdown as his last best chance to salvage his campaign.

According to a person involved in Monday’s House GOP call, Oregon Rep. Greg Walden reported that Trump’s polling numbers began falling after his first debate with Clinton last month, accelerating downward after his criticism of a former Miss Universe for gaining weight. Walden, heads the House GOP’s campaign organization, said he expected a further decline in Trump’s numbers, the person said.

The Trump video overshadowed potentially damaging revelations about Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street firms. Emails released by WikiLeaks last week showed Clinton told a group that it’s acceptable for a president to project differing positions in public and private.

Asked if that’s “two-faced,” Clinton pointed to Abraham Lincoln’s effort to get the 13th Amendment passed, allowing emancipation of slaves, by lawmakers who did not support African-American equality.

Rolling his eyes, Trump said, “Now she’s blaming the late, great Abraham Lincoln.”

WikiLeaks published another 2,000 emails Monday that it said belonged to Clinton campaign chief John Podesta.

___

AP writers Catherine Lucey and Erica Werner contributed.

The post Ryan all but concedes Clinton will be president appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Alison Pelegrin has just released her latest collection of poems called “Waterlines.” Photo by Bryan Davidson.

Alison Pelegrin experienced “countless” hurricanes as a child.

“I’m almost ashamed to admit that back then it was something that was exciting to me. We always evacuated, so my brother and I had a great time packing up and missing school and having pancakes for dinner,” said Pelegrin, who was born and raised in New Orleans.

READ MORE: A poet’s history lesson on Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood

By the time she was an adult, that excitement had been replaced with a healthy sense of fear. When she heard about Hurricane Katrina, she and her husband evacuated with their two young children to wait out the storm.

She says she was lucky. Living on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, she missed the heavy flooding. But large pine trees in her yard had fallen, destroying their house. The homes of her mother and brother were also destroyed, so the three families ended up in a rental property for several months.

“I went from being a poet to being someone who was constantly on the phone or standing in line trying to get my life back to normal. All of my life I have carried a small notebook to dash off lines of poetry when they come to me, but the notebook abruptly changed to “to-do” lists and phone numbers.”

For months she said she couldn’t write and then suddenly “in a fevered dream” on an air mattress in the rental property a line came to her: “Big muddy river of stars.” She said the phrase referred to the beauty and destruction of the Mississippi River. It eventually would become the title of a collection of poems about the hurricane. Many of the poems are humorous, especially in the ones dealing with the small army of people who came to rebuild her house. Here is the first line of her tribute to those workers.

ODE TO CONTRACTORS POSSESSING
VARIOUS LEVELS OF EXPERTISE

This one’s a shout-out to the git-r-dones,
the crowd since Katrina most idolized and
sucked up to—seminude roofers,
hard hatters, electricians, tree doctors,
Ditch Witch pilots dwelling in tent cities
or, like our lumberjacks, the Dollar General
parking lot.

Pelegrin said that writing poetry helped her cope with the aftermath and put things into perspective. Still, she says, the hurricane is never far from her thoughts.

“It is the marker in my life. Everything is ‘before’ or ‘after.’ I’m changed permanently. I was born in that moment but I’m recovered. I wear the scars, but I’m able to go on.”

For Pelegrin, one of the worst aftereffects of Katrina is the forever-altered landscape and the sense of uneasiness that causes. It’s one of the themes of her poem “Debris.”

“We would take drives to the coast where I had been many, many times but nothing was recognizable because everything was gone. It was very unsettling to know where you were but not know at the same time.”

Pelegrin says her heart goes out to the people who have been affected by Hurricane Matthew. She says she knows it sounds glib, but her but her advice to them is to know they’ll get through it.

“They’ll be forever changed but they will survive.”

DEBRIS

I drive the Gulf Coast to get away,
but this Mississippi debris seems familiar.
What’s left is front steps leading nowhere,
the waterline, oak trees trimmed with car parts.

This Mississippi debris seems familiar.
Plywood everywhere. I need some time off
from waterlines and oak trees trimmed with car parts.
Debris shingles my memory lane.

Plywood everywhere. I need time off.
There’s a yellowed snapshot of me here.
Debris shingles my memory lane,
no landmarks left. Where am I again?

There’s a snapshot of me here, or close to here,
with a sea lion planting kisses on my cheek.
No landmarks left. Where am I again?
What happened to the Oceanarium?

Once, a sea lion kissed me on the cheek.
Dolphins rode out the storm in swimming pools.
What happened to the Oceanarium?
The storm surge clawed it out to sea?

Dolphins rode out the storm in swimming pools.
The gift shop, where dad bought me a jewelry box,
the storm surge clawed it out to sea.
On Sundays we used to picnic here.

Dad bought me a cedar jewelry box.
The air smells sweetly of hurricane debris.
On Sundays we used to picnic here,
landscape of front steps leading nowhere.

Reprinted courtesy LSU Press.

Alison Pelegrin is the author of five books of poetry, including “Big Muddy River of Stars”, which won the 2006 Akron Poetry Prize. Her latest collection, “Waterlines”, was published in August by LSU Press. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Copper Nickel and Barn Owl Review. Pelegrin earned her MFA degree at the University of Arkansas, where she was the director of the Arkansas Writers in the Schools Program. She currently teaches English at Southeastern Louisiana University and lives in Covington, Louisiana, with her family.

The post When a hurricane turns a familiar place into ‘familiar debris’ appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Music composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II finish work on a musical. Photo by Bettmann/ Getty Images

I have a disclosure to make: I am, and always have been, a devoted fan of Broadway musicals.

With that confession off my chest, I can sing out loud about the cultural and medical importance of this day: a little-known musical comedy depicting the life, trials and tribulations of a young physician. On the evening of Oct. 10, 1947, 69 years ago, this “medical musical” opened on the Great White Way and it was the hottest ticket in town.

READ MORE: Marilyn Monroe and the prescription drugs that killed her

No wonder! The show was written by the greatest double act in the history of American theater, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Only a few years earlier, they took the world by storm with the mega-hits, “Oklahoma!” (1943) and “Carousel” (1945). The title of their 1947 production was “Allegro,” a musical term for a brisk and lively tempo.

Alas, “Allegro” ran for only nine months, a mere fraction of the long runs for their previous two smash sensations. The production costs were so high and, once the bad reviews came in, the ticket sales so low that the play closed after 314 unprofitable performances. Since that final curtain rang down, “Allegro” has been relegated to a towering pile of all-but-forgotten musicals, only to occasionally pop up its libretto and score. For example, “Allegro” had a brief off-Broadway revival in New York City in 2014.  More recently, this past August and September, the show enjoyed its first “full professional run in Europe” at the Southwark Playhouse on London’s South Bank.

Several years ago, I wrote about the origins of the failed musical for the Journal of the American Medical Association. But even now, I remain so enamored with this flop that I often pull down off the shelf my treasured copy of The Modern Library’s “Six Plays by Rodgers & Hammerstein” to look the play over. As I read the script and lyrics of “Allegro,” I listen to the complete 2009 recording of the show produced by the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and featuring such theatrical luminaries as Audra McDonald, Laura Benati, the late Marni Nixon, and Danny Burstein. (The original 1947 cast recording, incidentally, contained only 10 of the songs and none of the choral narratives.)

Corny by an ear or two, and accompanied by Rodgers’ least-inspiring tunes, Hammerstein’s libretto explores how professional success can disrupt, and even preempt, one’s personal growth.  In almost every scene, Hammerstein emphasizes the importance of seeking personal happiness over material or professional gain.

“Allegro” was probably Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most experimental play. The musical tells the life story of Dr. Joseph Taylor Jr.  It begins with his birth in 1905 and proceeds until he is 35.  Astute theater aficionados will detect a few psychological-dramatic techniques used in Eugene O’Neill’s “Strange Interlude” (1928) and Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” (1938). “Allegro” was also an extraordinarily complex production, with a cast of 78, an orchestra of 35, elaborate, mechanical, rotating flats, curtains, and platforms, lantern slides, four ballet sequences, 500 lighting cues, and a singing “Greek chorus” that follows Joe around ever ready to break into musical song (and commentary).

The curtain opens with Joe’s birth in an unnamed, Midwestern, all-American town. In short order, the audience is introduced to Joe’s mother, grandmother and father, Joseph Sr. The patriarch is a small-town doctor working uphill to build a modern hospital and deliver the best health care to the poor patients of his community. Little Joe, of course, is slated to be his father’s successor in this clinical quest. Much of the first act depicts Joe’s early childhood, school days, college years, and his awkward courtship (leading to his eventual marriage) with his childhood sweetheart, Jenny Baker.  The problem, or dramatic conflict, is that Jenny wants Joe to abandon the idea of joining his father’s small town practice and, instead, move to the big city for a better life and a better (read, more lucrative) living.  Convinced that her son is marrying the wrong woman, Joe’s deeply disappointed mother conveniently dies of a heart attack.

Upon returning from the intermission, the audience learns that Jenny wins the battle. After being offered a prestigious internship at a big city hospital, Joe Jr. breaks his dad’s heart metaphorically, collects his medical diploma, and leaves for a new job and a new life.

Amid the glittering lights and fascinating people of the big city, Joe and Jenny attend a whirl of parties and ribbon cuttings, all the while soliciting donors to fund new patient pavilions at the hospital.  Although Joe makes a mint giving vitamin injections to the worried (and wealthy) well, Jenny feels neglected and occupies her time by having an affair with the chairman of the hospital trustees.

In an inspiring coda, Joe turns down a promotion to physician-in-chief of his hospital, leaves the odious Jenny, and, instead, opts for his true destiny as a healer, back home in the town where he was born and where he can do the most good.

A powerful hospital trustee explains Joe’s resignation to a reporter by telling him that Joe is “sick.” Joe, overhears the remark and rejoins, “Tell them I’m just getting well.” The Greek chorus swells, albeit in a manner more inspired by Tin Pan Alley than the Pythian road, as the stage directions prescribe that Joe “walk away, out into the sunlight,” joined by his adoring nurse, Emily (who sang the musical’s one remembered song, “The Gentleman is a Dope,” after Joe nearly misdiagnoses a patient with a stomach ulcer), and his best friend, Charlie Townsend.

An optimistic accounting of the reviews would be to say they were mixed. Wolcott Gibbs, The New Yorker’s acerbic and alcoholic drama critic, offered the harshest opinion.  Calling it “a shocking disappointment,” Gibbs proceeded to ridicule Joe’s wealthy patients as “suffering vividly from alcoholism, nymphomania, locomotor ataxia, and echolalia (compulsive repetition of idiotic lines).”

Initially, Richard Rodgers (whose father and brother were physicians) criticized the play as “too preachy.” He later had a change of heart and admitted, “Of all the musicals ever worked on that didn’t succeed, “Allegro” is the one I think most worthy of second chance.” Oscar Hammerstein was not nearly as sanguine. “It’s no use alibi-ing,” Hammerstein told an oral historian in 1959, “if a horse throws you, he throws you—and apparently I didn’t have a strong grip on the reins with the audience in that play.”

A fascinating footnote to this musical tale is that Oscar Hammerstein employed a 17-year-old kid to be his “gofer” during the production of “Allegro.” His name was Stephen Sondheim, the current “dean” of American musical theater.  The experience of working on “Allegro” was profoundly inspiring for Sondheim as both an artist and a man. When reflecting on the show, he told a biographer:

Years later, in talking over the show with Oscar—I don’t think I recognized it at the time—I realized he was trying to tell the story of his life … Oscar meant it as a metaphor for what had happened to him. He had become so successful with “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel” that he was suddenly in demand all over the place. What he was talking about was the trappings, not so much of success, but of losing sight of what your goal is…to the end of his days Oscar said, “I want to rewrite the second act of Allegro so people will understand what I was talking about,” because all the critics pounced on it as being a corny story, the doctor who gets corrupted by money. That’s not what he meant. It wasn’t about money; it was about losing sight of your goal.

Sondheim is a shrewd judge of both theater and character. Rodgers & Hammerstein’s rarely performed medical masterpiece is a musical warning about the costs of placing career advancement and money over the goals you know in your heart to be the right path: valuing and acting upon a set of honorable principles and developing and supporting loving relationships with other people. During my walks to the medical school where I teach, I may whistle tunes from “Carousel” and “Oklahoma,” or even “South Pacific” and “The Sound of Music,” but it’s the clunky yet profound “Allegro” I would most like to prescribe for my students and colleagues.

The post Column: The failed Broadway musical I wish every medical student could see appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence speaks at a Phoenix campaign rally in August. Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence emerged Monday after a weekend out of the public eye reaffirming his relationship — awkward as it may seem — with Donald Trump.

After canceling a weekend campaign appearance and leaving Trump alone to deal with a video of sexually predatory remarks, Pence was campaigning again — and praising Trump’s Sunday debate performance.

But even as Pence struggled to clean up a disagreement with Trump on Syria, the Indiana governor — a devout Christian — tried to put Trump’s obscene remarks about women behind him. Importantly, Pence noted, Trump had apologized.

“We all fall short of the glory of God,” Pence said during a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. “I believe in forgiveness.”

Pence was referring to the Friday afternoon publication by The Washington Post of a story about a 2005 video in which Trump is recorded bragging about groping women without their permission. Pence released a statement refusing to condone or defend Trump’s remarks. He urged Trump to “show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation” during Sunday’s debate.

Trump said at the beginning of the 90-minute showdown with Clinton: “I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people. Certainly, I’m not proud of it. But this is locker-room talk.”

Then Trump turned to former President Bill Clinton, whom he called “far worse.”

“Mine are words, and his was action,” Trump said, referring to the former president’s highly publicized infidelity 20 years ago. Even some Republicans questioned Trump’s level of contrition.

Trump’s debate performance got mixed reactions, but it was good enough to earn the Republican presidential nominee a congratulatory tweet from his running mate.

By Monday, Pence was personally praising Trump during his event in Charlotte.

“It takes a big man to know when he’s wrong and to admit,” it, Pence told the audience. “Donald Trump last night showed he’s a big man.”

Pence Monday also tried to smooth out Trump’s contention during the debate that he and his running mate didn’t agree on U.S. military policy in Syria. Pence had said six days earlier that he and Trump supported so-called safe zones for refugees fleeing violence in the civil war, but that the U.S. should also be prepared to conduct military strikes on Russian-backed Syrian government targets to protect innocents trapped in the city of Aleppo.

“We haven’t spoken and I don’t agree,” Trump said during the debate.

Pence told Fox News Monday that moderator Martha Raddatz “mischaracterized” his position. In fact, she quoted Pence verbatim from the Oct. 4 vice presidential candidates’ debate, where he made the claim.

Still, Pence’s comments Monday dismissed any doubts he would remain on the GOP ticket, a very open question during 48-hour stretch after Trump’s 2005 remarks about women were reported. Almost immediately after the report was posted, Trump cancelled what was to be his appearance with Pence, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. Trump initially said Pence would speak for him. But then Pence cancelled, too.

Pence Monday specifically rejected on Monday the idea that he had weighed quitting the ticket.

“It’s absolutely false to suggest that at any point in time we considered dropping off this ticket,” Pence said during an interview on Fox News Chanel, adding, “It’s the greatest honor of my life.”

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

The post Pence reaffirms backing of Trump after second debate appeared first on PBS NewsHour.