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HARI SREENIVASAN: Since Friday, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has been releasing e-mails that were hacked from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The stolen messages detail how the campaign responded to important issues through the race for the White House.

It is unclear who was behind this latest digital theft, but, on Friday, the Obama administration did blame Russia for the hacking of Democratic Party Web sites earlier this year and attempts to breach state election systems, in order to influence the vote for president.

Today, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said there will be a U.S. response to the alleged Russian hacking. He told reporters aboard Air Force One: “The president has talked before about the significant capabilities that the U.S. government has to both defend our systems in the United States, but also carry out offensive operations in other countries. So, there are a range of responses that are available to the president, and he will consider a response that’s proportional.”

With me now to sift through what all this means in both political and diplomatic terms are the “NewsHour”‘s Margaret Warner and Lisa Desjardins.

Lisa, tell me — let’s start with what is in the e-mails.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

So, this latest dump, so people can keep track, began on Friday. These are about 2,000 e-mails, a little bit more, coming from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, obviously a very big player in the Clinton world now and for years.

Now, in these, we see one of the standout notes that we have gotten — there haven’t been all that many — is from a Clinton 2013 speech to an Italian bank. You may have seen that quote. In the speech that was referenced in these e-mails, it was purported to say — quote — “My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.”

Obviously, that’s raised a lot of questions in this year of very heated talk about trade and especially after Clinton herself came out against one of the largest-in-history trade deals, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

And that’s probably the biggest kind of headline that’s come out of these e-mails, but also they include a great deal of campaign tactics, including a 71-page briefing, sort of oppo research to some extent on Bernie Sanders. All of this was happening during that very heated primary campaign.

Now, the Clinton campaign themselves is not confirming the authenticity of any of these e-mails. It’s very important to say that WikiLeaks has posted these. We know they were hacked, so the authenticity is fair to question.

And the Clinton campaign is pushing back strongly, saying this is from a state actor, and this is obviously an illegal act in politics.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so, Margaret, how did these e-mails come to light in the first place?

MARGARET WARNER: Well, as Lisa said, not only did they come out on WikiLeaks, this latest batch, but there have been two other sources, something called Guccifer 2 and something called D.C. Leaks.

And the U.S. government, intelligence officials and also many cyber-experts have been sure for — at a 90 percent degree of certainty for months that two Russian spy, cyber-spy agencies, one tied to Russian intelligence, one tied to Russian military intelligence, had been behind these.

These have been known for months. FBI Director James Comey did tell the Congress, in fact, he said, “We’re trying to determine just what mischief Russia is up to in connection with our election.”

So, there is a difference between the hacking and the leaking. And the Russian M.O., U.S. officials believe, is that they do the hacking, and then they give them to others to do the leaking.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so let’s talk a little bit about the timing, coincidence or not, in an election year? What’s the political fallout?

LISA DESJARDINS: Well, the fallout, first of all, has not been related directly to the content of these e-mails. I think the worst fallout for Hillary Clinton is whenever the topic of e-mails comes up, whenever the idea comes out that maybe she and her strategists are doing things in secret that the public don’t know about.

The truth is, there is no indication of any wrongdoing. This is typical campaign operations for the most part in these e-mails. Some, you could say, are not good on style or there’s infighting or whatever, but there is really no indication of wrongdoing here.

Instead, this whole concept of e-mails and a shadowy Clinton world is the problem for her, which they say is all sort of a shadow conspiracy. But I think there’s a greater issue here, Hari, in that what these e-mails are doing is, it’s changing how our political operatives communicate.

For example, I know sources now who will not communicate with me over e-mail, who must communicate by phone. When our leaders aren’t able to talk to each other over the most common device they use, that’s a success for the opponents of the United States. And that’s something that may be happened now already.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Margaret, that statement from Josh Earnest, that the U.S. has the potential for a proportional response, what can the administration do? This was almost one of the first explicit moments where we said we are in an active cyber-war.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, in which we outed somebody, another country.

The only other one ever outed is North Korea. Russia has done previous hacks of U.S. government databases, and so have the Chinese. This time, it was different.

First, the reasons they did it, I was told by a senior cyber-official, had a lot to do with the upcoming debate. Julian Assange had been saying there was going to be a new dump. The administration strongly believes, as Lisa said, that this is all aimed to help Trump and hurt Clinton.

And so this was definitely, at a time a very high tension with the Russians anyway over Aleppo, a way of trying the neutralize Trump from saying, who knows if the Russians are behind it?

Of course he said it again. What’s in the kit bag? A lot of things for the United States to retaliate. The name and shame may be the only thing it does, trying the put Russia on notice that, look, you’re crossing a line here because you’re interfering with, as Lisa again said, the sanctity of the American election system, not just communications, but the real sanctity here, sowing mistrust and doubt.

But, certainly, if the U.S. wanted to turn out all the lights in Moscow, it could, but Russia could do the same to New York. So, the administration has been reluctant to get into any kind of real cyber-war.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Margaret Warner, Lisa Desjardins, thanks so much.

The head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has said they could release 100,000 pages of new material before the election.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: It’s an eventful day and a humbling one for the electronic giant Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones.

Today, the company announced that it is halting production of its beleaguered Galaxy Note 7 phone. Reports of the Note 7 catching fire caused the company to issue a recall and then create replacement devices that were also found to be a fire risk.

It comes, coincidentally, as a prolonged battle between Apple and Samsung over money, patents and the designs of those phones you use went before the U.S. Supreme Court today.

Jessi Hempel is with Backchannel, a Web-based platform that covers the tech world. She joins us now.

So, tell us a little bit about the issues surrounding this. We have seen dribs and drabs of people saying, look at this burned-out battery, look at this burned-out shell. How long has this been going on? How serious it is?

JESSI HEMPEL, Backchannel: Well, it’s quite serious.

I mean, it’s really impossible to underestimate how serious this is for Samsung. It’s been a month-and-a-half. You know, at first, when the phones started catching fire, Samsung acted decisively and immediately and got a lot of credit for that. It said, we issued a recall. People went and returned their phones.

And then the new phones started catching fire. And that’s when it became a very serious problem for Samsung. It suggests that we really can’t trust the brand. And, frankly, when people think about this, yes, maybe they will remember that it’s the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, or maybe they will just think about the brand name Samsung.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Right. And that’s a big company. They make everything from washers and dryers to lots of other bigger things.

JESSI HEMPEL: Yes. Right.

HARI SREENIVASAN: But how important is this? This is sort of the flagship phone, the thing they’re supposed to be the most proud of.

JESSI HEMPEL: This is their flagship phone. And, therefore, it’s really important. And it’s important for a couple reasons.

First off, this was what they put forward to compete with Apple’s new iPhone. And, quite frankly, it didn’t work. It will be a huge financial loss for the company. Now, it’s hard to say exactly how much, and it will be a while before we know, but I have seen estimates put it at between $4 and $5 billion. So it’s very important.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so, speaking of Apple, they’re in the Supreme Court today, the arguments.

JESSI HEMPEL: Right.

HARI SREENIVASAN: What’s the sort of core of the disagreement between Apple and Samsung?

JESSI HEMPEL: You know, anybody who has watched Samsung and Apple over the last five years has seen this play out in ticktock, this ongoing fight between Samsung and Apple.

What’s at issue today is no longer the question of, did Samsung copy Apple? Yes, everyone has agreed Samsung has copied Apple. It’s no longer the question of, should Samsung pay Apple? Yes, the courts have agreed. Samsung already paid Apple. What is at question now is, how much money does Samsung really owe Apple?

Now, the courts, the federal courts in California said, according to the law, Samsung owed the total profit on the phones that it ripped off pieces of the design from Apple. Samsung at this point is saying, no, wait, hold on a minute, why should we pay total profit? You’re raising an objection over three design elements on this phone. Surely, we shouldn’t have to pay the total profit for the phone just over three design elements.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, this is really just about deciding how much money either Apple will continue to keep or if it would have to give it back?

JESSI HEMPEL: That’s right.

And, you know, the reason why this matters, the reason why the Supreme Court would even decide to look at this right now is because it raises the question and the importance of design to a product. And that, of course, is a big issue for Silicon Valley write large.

And it’s been a very long time, I think 130 years, since the courts took up this issue of patent, of design patent. It gets to the question of, what is core to a product? What differentiates it in the market?

And, you know, it’s funny. These three design elements, each on their own, they just don’t seem that big. There’s the question of the rectangle shape of the face of the phone. There’s the question of the raised glass on the front of the phone, and then there’s the question of the icons on the front of the phone.

Now, if you think about all these things, right, they have become central to what we think of as not just an iPhone at this point, but a smartphone. Apple says, hey, we get credit for that. We designed those. We own those. And you owe us all the money off of the phones that you sold that ripped those off.

Samsung says, well, wait a minute, you know, parallel to this is like a car and a cup holder in the car. Would you say that if I ripped off the design of a cup holder in the car, that I should pay you the total profits on the entire car? Is that what differentiates it to the consumer?

HARI SREENIVASAN: Jessi Hempel from Backchannel, thanks so much.

JESSI HEMPEL: Thank you.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: In the day’s other news:  Russian jets resumed heavy bombing of Aleppo, Syria, after days of relative calm.  At least 16 people were killed there today in airstrikes on rebel-held neighborhoods.  Recent drone footage showed the scale of the devastation in eastern parts of the city.

Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande criticized Moscow’s actions in Syria, just as Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled a trip to Paris.

PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, France (through translator):  I think it is necessary to have dialogue with Russia.  But it must be firm and frank.  Otherwise, it has no role to play.  Otherwise, it’s just a charade.  So I’m ready to meet President Putin if we can make progress on peace, stop the bombings and implement a cease-fire.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  In Southern Syria, rebels fired rockets at government-held areas.  One hit a primary school, killing at least six people, mostly children.

It’s been another long day for thousands of people coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.  The U.S. death toll rose to at least 30 today.  Half of those deaths were in North Carolina.  Meanwhile, President Obama signed a disaster declaration for South Carolina.

And in hard-hit Haiti, there were rising fears of disease.

William Brangham has our report on the day’s developments.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Main streets turned into waterways, as rescuers boarded boats and helicopters again today to search for people stranded in the deluge.  Some 1,500 people became trapped in the town of Lumberton, North Carolina, when a river there began overflowing on Sunday.

This morning, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory urged those who could to leave, and fast.

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R-N.C.):  Get out.  Get out now.  You are putting not only your life at jeopardy.  You are putting our emergency rescue teams in jeopardy.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  One new death in the state wasn’t by water.  Last night, state troopers shot and killed an armed man during a search-and-rescue mission.  Governor McCrory would only say the shooting happened under — quote — “very difficult circumstances.”

Floodwaters continue to inundate towns like Lumberton after Hurricane Matthew poured more than a foot of water on Eastern North Carolina from the capital, Raleigh, south to Fayetteville and beyond.  Interstate 95 was still inundated and blocked off near the South Carolina border, severing the major north-south route along the East Coast for another day.

Hundreds of other roads were flooded or damaged, leaving whole neighborhoods cut off.  In Moore County, residents were evacuated late last night as crews worked until morning to shore up a dam that threatened to burst.

Where the waters have receded, the damage is ruinous.

Bob Swilley piled up 400 sandbags to protect his Fayetteville print shop from the waters, all in vain.

BOB SWILLEY, Fayetteville Business Owner:  Saturday night, this flooded over.  It just — of course, you can see the damage here.  And it came over the road, came over the road, into the bottom of our building.  That’s where all of our equipment is.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  The scale of the destruction is still unclear as the flooding continues, but thousands of homes have been damaged already.  And half-a-million are still without power throughout the Southeast.

Still, nowhere was more devastated by Hurricane Matthew than the Caribbean nation of Haiti, where cleanup efforts pressed on today amid catastrophic damage, but another potential deadlier crisis is emerging in the impoverished country.  New cases of cholera have spiked dramatically due to a lack of safe water.  An outbreak after the 2010 earthquake killed more than 10,000 people and sickened 800,000.

The World Health Organization said today it was sending one million doses of cholera vaccine to hinder any new epidemic.

Sean Casey is the International Medical Corps in Haiti.  The “NewsHour” reached him by phone in the port town of Les Cayes.

SEAN CASEY:  In addition to the myriad health challenges we have after a disaster, we now have a cholera outbreak on top of it, which requires additional health resources, but which is also pulling health resources away from primary care services that are also needed.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  In the south, where Hurricane Matthew struck, about a quarter of the health facilities have been destroyed or severely damaged.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m William Brangham.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  In China, more than 1,000 protesters demonstrated today outside the Defense Ministry in Beijing.  Many wore army uniforms and stood for hours outside the ministry to denounce military downsizing and problems with veterans’ pensions.  Hundreds of police used buses and other vehicles to obstruct views of the protest.

The World Health Organization called today for higher taxes on sugary drinks.  Officials at the U.N. health agency said it could cut consumption of the drinks and help fight obesity and diabetes.  As of 2014, 11 percent of men and 15 percent of women were classified as obese, more than 500 million people around the world.

Thousands of nurses in Minnesota have reached a tentative deal to end a strike that began Labor Day.  The governor announced the agreement after a 17-hour mediation between the Minnesota Nurses Association and five hospitals.  The nurses walked out over issues including health insurance.  They’re set to vote on the agreement Thursday.

And stocks fell sharply on Wall Street today, led by heavy losses in the health care sector and a drop in oil prices.  The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 200 points to close at 18128.  The Nasdaq fell nearly 82 points, and the S&P 500 lost 27.

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HARI SREENIVASAN:  It was another contentious day on the campaign trail on the ground and online, as the candidates turn their focus to a handful of key states.

Lisa Desjardins reports.

DONALD TRUMP (R), Presidential Nominee:  Oh, what these politicians have done to us.

LISA DESJARDINS:  The Republican Party’s civil war raged again this morning on Donald Trump’s favorite platform, Twitter.  The GOP nominee sent a flurry of tweets criticizing his party, calling House Speaker Paul Ryan an ineffective leader one day after Ryan told GOP members of Congress he will not defend Trump.

Trump followed by calling his opponents within the party disloyal Republicans who don’t know how to win.  And, in person, Trump was on the attack, too, after saying the shackles are off.  Speaking to thousands last night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he doubled down on jailing opponent Hillary Clinton if elected.

DONALD TRUMP:  Lock her up is right.  When I said we are going to get a special prosecutor to figure this deal out…

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

DONALD TRUMP:  I have never been so ashamed of this country as what’s gone on with Hillary Clinton.

LISA DESJARDINS:  Clinton, for her part, was in Miami this afternoon, joined on stage by a man who represents the importance of each Florida vote, former Vice President Al Gore.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), Presidential Nominee:  I’m running against a guy who denies science, denies climate change, says it’s a hoax created by the Chinese.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

HILLARY CLINTON:  I can’t wait to have Al Gore advising me when I am president of the United States.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

LISA DESJARDINS:  The event’s focus on climate change is part of a push for younger voters.  Also today, Clinton proposed doubling the child tax credit to $2,000 per child.

She not alone in the Sunshine State today.  Donald Trump plans a rally on the Florida Panhandle tonight.  And that tells us something.  Florida is one of 10 states where campaigns are focused, where either Clinton or Trump has been in the last two weeks.  Five of those, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan and Ohio, have seen the most visits.

Clinton’s rally in Columbus, Ohio, just last night drew one of her biggest crowds of the cycle, some 18,000 people.  Both candidates now have just 28 days to reach what polls say is a shrinking number of undecided voters.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Lisa Desjardins.

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Over the weekend, Dakota Access Pipeline protesters square off against police between the Standing Rock Reservation and the pipeline route outside the little town of Saint Anthony, North Dakota. Photo by Terray Sylvester/Reuters

At least nine people were arrested Tuesday in protests across the country as construction began again on the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota.

The nine protesters had unsuccessfully attempted to shut down oil pipelines in various U.S. states, the Associated Press reported. Additionally, armed police arrested 27 protesters yesterday near the Missouri River in North Dakota.

The continued protests follow an appeals court decision over the weekend that denied a temporary halt of construction 20 miles from Lake Oahe, the main source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

The Standing Rock Sioux, supported by thousands of tribal federations and protesters on campgrounds in recent months, continues to dispute a lower-court ruling in September that allowed the four-state Dakota Access pipeline to resume construction on private land.

Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based company that owns the pipeline, still needs a final permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for further construction on federal land underneath the Missouri River.

“We continue to believe that the Army Corps will soon issue the easement for approximately 1,100 feet necessary for the crossing beneath the Missouri River—the sole remaining authorization necessary for completion of the project,” the company said in a statement released after Sunday’s ruling.

However, following Sunday’s ruling, the Corps said it was holding off on that approval as it considered possible reforms over how tribes are consulted for these pipeline projects, AP reported.

The U.S. Department of Interior, Justice Department and the Department of the Army also issued a joint statement that will temporarily stop construction on land owned by the Corps.

In July, the Standing Rock Sioux filed a lawsuit against the Corps for violation of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires tribes be notified when preserved property is being considered for federal development.

North Dakota’s Historic Preservation Office said they found no evidence that sacred burial grounds would be disrupted in the path of the pipeline on private land. The Standing Rock Tribal Council disputes this and continues to argue burial grounds are disrupted by the crude oil path.

On Monday, 27 people protesting construction of the $3.8 billion pipeline were arrested for participating in unlawful activity on private land, near the Sioux camp. This marks the highest number of arrests in a single day, since tribal federations began arriving at the camp in July, Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said.

Laney said that “all are arrested on the same charges: engaging in a riot and criminal trespass.”

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According to Laney, the sheriff’s office was notified around 7 a.m. local time that three people were on private property. Of those, two people had chained themselves to bulldozing equipment before construction began.

“It’s not their property,” Laney said. “We are a nation of rule and law, you follow those laws or you get arrested.”

Since September, thousands of people have joined the protest on the Standing Rock reservation and in cities across the country.

“We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline,” said Dave Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in a statement following the ruling.

Of the protesters on-site in North Dakota, 123 have been arrested since mid-August, including Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and actress Shailene Woodley, AP reported.

READ MORE: Meet the Native Americans fighting against the North Dakota pipeline

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Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (R) and former Vice President Al Gore shake hands after talking about climate change at a rally at Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida. Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

MIAMI — Al Gore laid out the environmental stakes of the presidential race in stark terms during a campaign stop for Hillary Clinton Tuesday, arguing that electing her opponent would lead to “climate catastrophe.”

Vice president during Clinton’s husband’s eight years in the White House and a longtime environmental activist, Gore served as a closer for Clinton on climate change as the Democratic candidate seeks to appeal to activists and to young people, who consider this a key issue.

“The choice in this election is extremely clear. Hillary Clinton will make solving the climate crisis a top national priority,” Gore said, before issuing a strong warning about Republican Donald Trump. “Her opponent, based on the ideas that he has presented, would take us toward a climate catastrophe.”

Gore’s history with Florida, the ultimate swing state, lent extra weight to his appeal to get out and vote. Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, but lost the presidency to George W. Bush after a lengthy Florida recount and a shocking Supreme Court decision.

“Your vote really, really, really counts,” he told the crowd, which responded by chanting, “You won!”

Clinton, meanwhile, vigorously emphasized her plans to develop more clean energy, reduce fossil fuel production and build more weather-resistant infrastructure. She also continued her attacks on Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and said he would renegotiate the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty designed to curb the rise in global temperatures.

“We cannot risk putting a climate denier in the White House,” Clinton said.

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During the primary contest against progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton offered clean energy plans and came out against the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is opposed by environmentalists.

“Climate change is one of the issues where the difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is night and day,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon. “For many of the core supporters we are seeking to galvanize in the remaining weeks of the campaign, including young voters, communicating the boldness of her plan is important.”

At the rally was Miami Dade College student Adam Demayo, 24.

“Every beach I go to is polluted,” said Demayo, a former Sanders supporter who said he is reluctantly voting for Clinton. “My children are going to, like, die. I want to dedicate my life to saving the planet.”

The world is on pace for the hottest year on record, breaking marks set in 2015, 2014, and 2010. It is about 1.8 degrees warmer than a century ago. Scientists have also connected man-made climate change to deadly heat waves, droughts and flood-inducing downpours.

Gore explored global warming in his 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Despite Clinton’s promotion of energy policies aimed at lessening climate change, there has not always been unanimity among her campaign aides about how strong that support should be. A series of hacked emails released Tuesday by Wikileaks sheds more light on the campaign’s discussions. The Clinton campaign has neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the released emails.

A message released Tuesday by Wikileaks from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s hacked email account shows some aides were not totally on board with Clinton’s promise in June 2015 to raise fees on companies involved in oil exploration and fossil fuel production on federal land.

Clinton had broached the idea at her campaign launch in June 2015, but raising energy royalties could be politically explosive in western states where oil and gas firms have spent billions of dollars on extracting fuels.

In July 2015, campaign speechwriting director Dan Schwerin told Podesta in an email that “I think we’re going to have to make peace with our fossil fuels royalties, since she’s already promised that.”

On July 15, 2015, Clinton said she wanted to raise fees and phase out fuel extraction operating on public lands, but warned it could not be done quickly.

The hacked emails also show a discussion on how Clinton could show her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. Clinton originally said she shouldn’t take a position on the issue, because she didn’t want to interfere with the Obama administration as it considered whether to approve the project.

By August 2015, Clinton had decided to oppose it and the campaign discussed how to proceed. Wrote Schwerin on August 7, 2015: “We are trying to find a good way to leak her opposition to the pipeline without her having to actually say it and give up her principled stand about not second-guessing the president in public.”

Other emails in September 2015 show a discussion about making her position known in an op-ed column. But Fallon weighed in with concerns that such a move would look like “cynical political maneuvering,” and suggested letting the information leak out after a meeting with labor leaders.

Clinton announced her opposition during a town hall in Iowa later that month, in response to a question from the audience.

Stephen Braun and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

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LOS ANGELES — Two more women came forward Friday to accuse Donald Trump of unwanted sexual touching, including a former contestant from a reality show that starred the Republican presidential nominee.

The latest accounts come after several women reported in recent days that Trump groped or kissed them without their consent.

At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Friday, Trump sought to discredit his accusers. He said because there were no witnesses to the interactions, the allegations were not credible.

“Right now I am being viciously attacked with lies and smears,” Trump said at an outdoor amphitheater. “It’s a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are.”

Trump also suggested the women who have come forward to accuse him were not physically attractive enough to merit his attention. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you,” he said when speaking of one of the women.

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” said Trump made unwanted sexual advances toward her at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007, while photographer Kristin Anderson alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York nightclub in the early 1990s.

Zervos, 41, appeared at a news conference Friday with Gloria Allred, a well-known Los Angeles attorney. Zervos was a contestant on “The Apprentice” in 2006 and said she later contacted Trump to inquire about a job with one of his businesses.

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the TV show The Apprentice, reacts next to lawyer Gloria Allred (L) while speaking about allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump during a news conference in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Reuters

Zervos said she had an initial meeting with Trump, where he discussed a potential job with her. When they parted, he kissed her on the lips and asked for her phone number, she said.

She said weeks later Trump called to invite her to meet him at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she said she was expecting to have dinner with the New York billionaire. Instead, she described a series of unwanted kisses and touching by Trump, which she said she repeatedly rejected.

“He tried to kiss me again … and I said, ‘Dude, you’re tripping right now,’ attempting to make it clear I was not interested,” she said.

Zervos said Trump eventually stopped and began talking as if they were in a job interview. She said she was later offered a low-paying job at a Trump-owned golf course.

At the time, Trump had recently married his third and current wife, Melania Trump, and the couple had an infant son. Trump suggested the women who have come forward to accuse him were not physically attractive enough to merit his attention.

Zervos said she is a Republican and has no political agenda in coming forward. Allred said her client told her parents and others about the incident shortly after it occurred.

In a statement released by his campaign, Trump denied he was ever alone in a hotel room with Zervos and claimed to have only a vague recollection of meeting her. He lashed out at the media for creating “a theater of absurdity that threatens to tear our democratic process apart and poison the minds of the American public.”

In a story published online Friday, Anderson told The Washington Post that she was sitting on a couch with friends at a New York nightclub in the early 1990s when someone’s hand reached up her skirt and touched her through her underwear.

Anderson, then in her early 20s, said she pushed the hand away, turned around and recognized Trump as the man who had groped her. Then recently divorced, Trump was then a frequent presence in the New York tabloids, and he was regular presence on the Manhattan club scene.

“He was so distinctive looking — with the hair and the eyebrows. I mean, nobody else has those eyebrows,” Anderson, 46, told the newspaper. She said the assault was random and occurred with “zero conversation.”

Anderson did not respond to a phone message from The Associated Press. She told the newspaper said she does not back Trump or Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

The Post said it contacted Anderson after a friend she had told about the incident recounted it to a reporter. Other friends also told the Post that Anderson recounted the same story to them years ago.

Donald Trump says a new story by The New York Times about two women claiming the Republican presidential candidate sexually assaulted them is a lie. Judy Woodruff gets reaction to the latest developments in the presidential campaign from Carolyn Ryan of The New York Times, David Maraniss of The Washington Post and presidential historian Jon Meacham.

Zervos’ and Anderson’s decisions to speak publicly about her experience follows last week’s disclosure by the Post of a 2005 video in which Trump boasted that his celebrity gave him the ability to grab women “by the p—-. You can do anything.” Trump apologized for those remarks, but also dismissed them as “locker-room talk.”

Also Friday, Melinda McGillivray, 36, of Palm Springs, Florida, told the AP that Trump’s denial in last Sunday’s presidential debate that he had ever groped women prompted her to come forward after years of brushing off an incident from 2003.

She told The Palm Beach Post for a story published on Thursday that while she was backstage at a concert at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, when he grabbed her buttocks.

“I wanted to do this so I can be a role model for my daughter,” McGillivray said. “I wanted to be that courageous woman that she sees every day, but in that moment she saw vulnerability and she saw a scared little girl.”

AP reporters Michael Biesecker and Michael R. Blood wrote this report. Biesecker reported from Washington. AP writers Jill Colvin in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Kelli Kennedy in Lake Worth, Florida, contributed to this report.

READ MORE: All the assault allegations against Donald Trump, recapped

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Cuban cigars on display at a tobacco store in Hanau, Germany. Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Rum and cigar aficionados rejoice: American travelers visiting Cuba are no longer limited to $100 worth of Cuban alcohol and tobacco products.

The new Obama administration policy directive was announced Friday. It also eases collaboration on medical research between the U.S. and Cuba and lifts restrictions on cargo ship travel between the two nations.

“The objective of the new policy is to help the Cuban people to achieve a better future for themselves and to encourage the development of a partner in the region capable of working with the United States to confront regional challenges,” the directive read.

In January 2015, President Obama eased the restrictions on Cuban alcohol and tobacco products by allowing American travelers to return from the communist island with up to $100 of those products.

While the president can enact reforms, Congress still holds the power to lift the embargo. In the directive, President Obama called on lawmakers to officially end the embargo with Cuba, calling it “outdated.”

So far, the Obama administration has implemented six rounds of regulatory amendments to the Cuba sanctions, which was first implemented in 1960.

On Dec. 17, 2014, President Obama declared a détente with Cuba and became the first sitting president to visit the country since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 when Air Force One touched down on March 20, 2016.

In a statement on the directive, President Obama called the opening of relations with Cuba “irreversible.”

He added that, “Challenges remain – and very real differences between our governments persist on issues of democracy and human rights – but I believe that engagement is the best way to address those differences and make progress on behalf of our interests and values.”

U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice celebrated the policy directive, “And, saving the best for last, we are lifting the cap on imports of Cuban alcohol and tobacco … I thought that one would wake some folks up. You can literally break out the cigars to celebrate.”

READ MORE: The bizarre, brilliant and useful inventions of Cuban DIY engineers

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A truck passes through flooded water at a business after Hurricane Matthew passed through in Savannah, Georgia. Photo by Tami Chappell/Reuters

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Judges in Georgia and North Carolina on Friday ordered state election officials to extend voter-registration deadlines in some counties due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Matthew, which forced thousands of people to evacuate and temporarily closed some government offices.

The judges’ rulings came after Georgia’s governor and North Carolina’s state board of elections’ executive director had declined to extend the deadlines.

In Georgia, U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. ruled residents of Chatham County, which includes Savannah, must be allowed to register through next Tuesday, Oct. 18 — a week after the original deadline passed.

“Extending a small degree of common courtesy by allowing impacted individuals a few extra days to register to vote seems like a rather small consolation on behalf of their government,” Moore wrote in his order.

In North Carolina, a state judge ordered election officials to extend the deadline in 36 eastern counties of the state because of disruptions caused by Hurricane Matthew.

Both orders came in response to lawsuits filed by several groups.

READ MORE: AP fact check: Clinton on Hurricane Matthew, climate change

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This animation demonstrates the lookback into the distant, early Universe. While the modern Universe contains in average larger galaxies, the early Universe is dominated by many tiny galaxies. Photo by ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

You think your attic’s full of stuff – try the universe. By remapping the deepest corners of the universe, scientists at Nottingham University in the U.K. now believe there are 10 times as many galaxies in the universe than previously thought. Their findings, reported this week in The Astrophysical Journal, recycle data collected over 20 years by one of the oldest man-made sentinels in space — the Hubble telescope — to offer new perspective on the observable universe.

“It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we observe these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes,” Christopher Conselice, an astrophysicist who led the study, said in a statement.

His team reached this conclusion by reanalyzing the Hubble Deep Field surveys, a set of images captured in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. The concept behind the surveys was akin to taking a photo with a long exposure. Pointing Hubble at one section of the sky for a long period of time allowed the telescope to capture extremely faint details of the cosmos. The faintest points represent the earliest corners of the universe. The first Hubble Deep Field, for instance, lasted 100 hours over the Christmas season in 1995, each second crawling deeper and deeper into history.

Conselice’s team took this data and similar batches from telescopes across the world to peer 13.7 billion years into the past. Despite covering huge swaths of the sky, the images from each telescope represent a small sliver — a pencil beam — of the total universe. Conselice and his colleagues carefully teased apart these pencil beams, in order to create 3-D maps of the universe.

This animation starts with a lookback into the early Universe. The local, modern Universe with large and evolved galaxies can be seen to the left. The distant, early Universe with many tiny and primordial galaxies can be seen to the right. These galaxies grew through mergers to the galaxies we see today. The animation slowly turns by 90 degree and ends with a view similar to the Hubble Deep fields. Photo by ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

The team found galaxies aren’t uniformly distributed across the evolution of space. The early universe contained about 10 times more per unit volume compared to today, their study reports. Overall, they estimate 2 trillion galaxies populate the universe, but also suspect 90 percent are too faint for detection even with the best of today’s telescopes.

“Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we study these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes,” Conselice said.

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters

Their charges range from an unwanted touch from behind to aggressive, sudden kissing to fingers groping up their skirt and into their underwear. Donald Trump and his campaign insist all of the stories are fabricated and politically motivated.

So far:

• 11 Women have accused Donald Trump of various forms of sexual assault, including one accusation of rape.
• 4 Other women have publicly said Mr. Trump walked in on them and other pageant contestants while they were undressing. Buzzfeed reports another three women have confirmed the pageant stories but did not want their names used.
• The alleged incidents range from the early 1980s to 2007.
• Donald Trump has adamantly denied all of the stories and accuses the women of being political tools trying to shift the presidential campaign weeks before the election.

SEXUAL ASSAULT ACCUSATIONS

Here is what we know about the accusations of assault against Donald Trump, including the date of the alleged assault.

Kristin Anderson – Early 1990s. Story in the Washington Post October 14.
Anderson says she was in a Manhattan bar with friends when the person next to her reached up her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear. She says she turned and recognized the person as Donald Trump.

Rachel Crooks – 2005. Story in New York Times October 12.
A 22-Year-old receptionist at the time, Crooks said Trump gave her an unwanted kiss on the mouth after meeting him in 2005.

“Jane Doe” – 1994. Lawsuit filed June 2016, refiled October 2016 as reported by Buzzfeed and others. A court has ordered responses from Trump by December.
Jane Doe is an unnamed plaintiff who was 13 years old in 1994, when she claims she was repeatedly raped by Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at Epstein’s New York City apartment. A witness, also given a pseudonym — “Tiffany Doe” — said she recruited “Jane Doe” and others.

Jill Harth – 1992-1993. Story in the New York Times October 9.
A Florida businesswoman who partnered with Trump and later dated him. Harth alleged that he groped her under the table at dinner with her boyfriend then repeatedly got her alone, and it would turn into a “wrestling match.” She sued Trump for breach of contract, sexual harassment and at one point attempted rape. She settled and then in 1998 dated Trump.

Jessica Leeds – Early 1980s. Story in New York Times October 12.
Leeds says she sat next to Trump in first class on an airplane and that he kissed her, groped her chest and reached up her skirt, leading her to move back to coach. “He was like an octopus,” she told the New York Times.

Mindy McGillivray – Jan. 24, 2003. Story in Palm Beach Post October 12.
Working as an assistant to photographers at Mar-a-Lago in 2003, McGillivray charges that Trump nudged or grabbed her from behind.

Jennifer Murphy – 2004. Story in Grazia October 12.
A former Miss USA and “The Apprentice” contestant, Grazia says that Trump kissed her on the lips after walking her to the elevators following a meeting in New York, which he said was to discuss a possible job.

Cassandra Searles – 2013. Made story public in Facebook post.
Miss Washington 2013, Searles wrote on Facebook, “He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room.”

Natasha Stoynoff – December 2005. Story on People.com October 12.
Stoynoff was a celebrity reporter covering Trump for People Magazine. She alleges that Trump assaulted her while she was at Mar-a-Lago interviewing him and Melania Trump for a story about their one-year anniversary. She alleges Trump took her to a private room, pushed her against the wall and aggressively kissed her. Stoynoff also says a staffer told her Trump was waiting for her the next day at a massage appointment.

Temple Taggart McDowell – 1997. Story in New York Times May 14, 2016.
McDowell, who was Miss Utah USA 1997, charges that Trump suddenly kissed her without her consent on two separate occasions.

Summer Zervos – 2007. Story made public in news conference October 14, 2016.
A former contestant on “The Apprentice,” Zervos alleges that Trump told her he wanted to discuss a possible job, but alone in a Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow, grabbed her breasts, kissed her and tried to lead her into a bedroom.

PAGEANT CONTESTANTS ALLEGING TRUMP WALKED IN WHILE THEY WERE DRESSING

Mariah Billado – 1997 Miss Vermont Teen. Story in Buzzfeed Oct. 12.

Tasha Dixon – 2001 Miss Arizona. Story in CBSLA Oct. 11.

Victoria Hughes – 1997 Miss New Mexico Teen. Story in Buzzfeed Oct. 13.

Bridget Sullivan – 2000 Miss New Hampshire. Story in Buzzfeed May 18.

Buzzfeed on October 12. reported that three other anonymous sources from 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant confirmed Billado and Hughes’ story.

OTHER ALLEGATIONS OF IMPROPER CONDUCT

Lisa Boyne – Summer 1996.
Boyne alleges that at a group dinner, Trump and other men forced women to walk over the table to leave their seats and that Trump looked up the women’s skirts and commented on their underwear and genitalia.

The post All the assault allegations against Donald Trump, recapped appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, the presidential campaign is often ripe fodder for comedians and late night TV. But this year, you might say, is a little different. The campaign season brought Seth Meyers, who cut his teeth as a head writer at “Saturday Night Live”, to Washington this week where he has been hosting his “Late Night” program for NBC.

Jeffrey Brown joined him at the Warner Theater.

SETH MEYERS, “Late Night With Seth Meyers”: My new set, it’s technically really just the same furniture in a different place.

JEFFREY BROWN: You even brought your own desk.

SETH MEYERS: My own desk, yes. When a man hosts a show he builds a relationship with the desk, and you can’t just–

JEFFREY BROWN: Not just any desk.

SETH MEYERS: You can’t be promiscuous with the desk. You have to be loyal to one desk.

So yeah, we brought it down.

Good evening, everybody. I’m Seth Meyers. This is “Late Night”. We’re in Washington D.C.

JEFFREY BROWN: The nation’s capital: a destination, Seth Meyers told me, that fits with the DNA of his show.

SETH MEYERS: They thought it was totally normally to just start walking off the stage while Hillary was giving an answer.

Where is he going? What’s back there, the ash heap of history?

JEFFREY BROWN: Biting, direct, sometimes using raw language — Meyers’ monologues have become increasingly political.

DONALD TRUMP (R), Presidential Candidate: Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.

SETH MEYERS: President Obama was born in the United States, period? (EXPLETIVE DELETED) you, exclamation point!

JEFFREY BROWN: Targeting Donald Trump in particular.

When we met in the Warner Theater last Friday, just before the leak of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, I asked about the daily focus on Trump.

SETH MEYERS: Well, it’s really because of what he’s doing. You know, we’re not going out and sort of — we don’t feel like we’re making ad hominem attacks on him and just every day saying, “We got to find something on him.” You know, it’s on the front page of the paper every day. You know, we do feel pretty strongly about everything. You know, I feel like comedy these days particularly is allowed to have a point of view.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do you mean “these days?” as opposed to?

SETH MEYERS: Well, I think when you go back to Johnny Carson, I think there was a real sense that you didn’t really know exactly what he felt. And Jay Leno, you didn’t really know exactly what he felt. And I think that for that era, those guys were making the right decision.

Now, you know, there’s so many shows like mine. There are shows that live a little bit more by that Carson model, and then there are shows like mine that can — thanks to Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” thanks to the “Colbert Report” — like we can live in a world now where people tune in and they do want to know what we’re thinking, and we’ve certainly taken advantage of that this election.

What a great time to be in Washington. The Nationals won yesterday.

(APPLAUSE)

The Redskins won yesterday!

(APPLAUSE)

And the orange skin lost.

JEFFREY BROWN: Traditionally, to entertain, make us laugh, to help us end the day to, help us go to sleep.

SETH MEYERS: Sure.

JEFFREY BROWN: OK. But that’s not what you’re doing.

SETH MEYERS: Yes. I mean, we want to be informative, and we want to talk about issues that we care about and we also think other people care about. But we really, I can’t stress enough, if we can’t get enough jokes in them, we will cut it that night — like we have to also be entertaining.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, but I watch, I see that there’s a lot of jokes, but there’s also a lot of very serious what you could call political analysis in it.

SETH MEYERS: I would say we try to explain with jokes and probably some analysis comes out every now and then. I don’t know if I would take it to the bank though. You should double — you should back up everything that you see on our show with another source.

JEFFREY BROWN: You’re not going that far. No “trust everything we say.”

SETH MEYERS: I will say we try very hard to be fair as far as what we present, as far as being factually correct. I’m sure people — I’m sure there’s plenty of people who watch my show that don’t think we’re fair at all because we hold a contrasting point of view to what they have, and I think that I completely respect and they’re entitled to that position.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you think or do you want to influence people in this election? You clearly support one candidate over another. At least that’s the appearance.

SETH MEYERS: I think if you go back, we have not been particularly supportive of Hillary Clinton.

How many emails does Hillary Clinton have that she can just miss 15,000? Oh, no, is she one of those weirdoes has them unread on her phone?

But we’ve certainly been harder on Donald Trump.

I don’t think in comedy, support is a particularly funny position to have. I think it’s far more — it’s far funnier to point out people’s flaws as opposed to pointing out their strengths. This is an election where one has so many more flaws than the other that it’s naturally drawn our focus to that.

JEFFREY BROWN: But conversely, have you ever felt that you wanted to go a little easier on Hillary Clinton because you’re afraid of pushing people toward Trump?

SETH MEYERS: I don’t. I really don’t think we have that kind of influence. So, I really haven’t thought about it that way.

JEFFREY BROWN: You don’t think you have that influence.

SETH MEYERS: I don’t think we have that influence.

JEFFREY BROWN: But what about when most every late night host seems to be taking off after Trump night after night?

MAN: We’ve barely scratched the surface of this scandal.

JEFFREY BROWN: When Jimmy Fallon served up a more traditional friendly late night interview with Trump, sharp criticism came from another late night host, Samantha Bee.

SAMANTHA BEE, Late Night Host: NBC tacitly condoned a race-baiting demagogue.

JEFFREY BROWN: Some commentators, including “New York Times” columnist Ross Douthat, are critical of a late night “echo chamber,” and note a feeling by Trump supporters of, quote, “being suffocated by the left’s cultural dominance.”

SETH MEYERS: We try very hard not to be an echo chamber, and I hope people don’t take us as that. And I really do respect the fact that for some people, my show might be frustrating for them to watch based on what they believe in, and I respect those beliefs. But again, I don’t want to have to try to change my show to something I don’t believe in.

And again, you know, there’s so many options for people to watch television right now. There’s so many places to go.

Take away the fact that you might not like any of your late night options on a given night, people are I’m sure just going to Netflix and watching some documentary.

JEFFREY BROWN: Or just go to sleep.

SETH MEYERS: That’s our biggest competition. Don’t ever think that it’s not sleep.

JEFFREY BROWN: You are of course in a ratings business. Have you seen any impact of what you’re doing in this?

SETH MEYERS: We haven’t. We really haven’t.

JEFFREY BROWN: So you don’t get any pressure to tone it down.

SETH MEYERS: No. Again, it’s hard to say. This is a complete hypothetical, because we haven’t seen anything. I mean, I would assume that if our ratings plummeted based on anything we were doing, the network would politely let me know. I can tell you up to this point they haven’t. And they have my number, and they know where my office is.

JEFFREY BROWN: They know how to reach you.

SETH MEYERS: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Seth Meyers, thank you very much.

SETH MEYERS: And thank you for having me at the coolest bar in Washington, D.C.

The post The candidates’ flaws are a laughing matter for Seth Meyers appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A Bushmaster rifle belonging to Sandy Hook Elementary school gunman Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut is seen after its recovery at the school in this police evidence photo released by the state’s attorney’s office in November 2013. Photo by Connecticut Department of Justice/Handout via Reuters

A judge has thrown out a lawsuit against gun manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used by Sandy Hook Elementary school gunman Adam Lanza in a massacre nearly four years ago that killed 26 people in Newtown, Connecticut.

Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis granted a motion by the North Carolina-based Remington Arms to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the families of nine Sandy Hook victims.

In her 54-page ruling, Bellis cited the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, passed in 2005, which grants gun companies broad protection from civil lawsuits when their products are misused, like in crimes.

Bellis did acknowledge that a “narrow exception” existed in the law for plaintiffs to hold the gun companies liable for “negligent entrustment,” a built-in exception for cases when companies carelessly sold their firearms to unfit buyers.

But Bellis ruled to toss the lawsuit.

“[T]he allegations in the present case do not fit within the common-law tort of negligent entrustment under well-established Connecticut law,” the judge wrote.

The plaintiffs also couldn’t prevail under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, the judge ruled.

“A plaintiff under CUTPA must allege some kind of consumer, competitor, or other commercial relationship with a defendant, and the plaintiffs here have alleged no such relationship,” the judge wrote.

Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer representing the victims’ families, said they will appeal the ruling, the Hartford Courant reported.

“While the families are obviously disappointed with the judge’s decision, this is not the end of the fight,” Koskoff said in a statement. “We will appeal this decision immediately and continue our work to help prevent the next Sandy Hook from happening.”

Nearly a thousand mass shootings to have taken place since the Newtown shooting. For all of the discussion of what can be done to prevent future tragedies, little has changed. What can be done to stop the violence? Judy Woodruff talks with Todd Clear of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice and Jeffrey Swanson of Duke University.

In a bid for accountability from gun manufacturers, the families of the Sandy Hook victims had argued that Remington and firearms distributor Camfour and Riverview Gun Sales marketed AR-15-style rifles to civilian buyers, posing “an unreasonable and egregious risk of physical injury to others.”

In June, Koskoff said it “was Remington’s choice to entrust the most notorious military American killing machine to the public and to continue doing so in the face of mounting evidence of its association with mass murder of innocent civilians.”

Using a Bushmaster XM15-E2S made by Remington, 20-year-old Lanza shot and killed his mother before opening fire at the elementary school. There, Lanza killed 20 children and six teachers. He killed himself as police arrived.

Lanza’s mother legally bought the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the December 2012, shooting. She purchased the gun at a Riverview Gun Sales store.

READ MORE: Nearly four years after massacre, Sandy Hook builds new school

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Turning a corner, after decades of health warnings, cigarette sales have fallen sharply in the United States and Europe, but multinational tobacco corporations are targeting huge new markets in the developing world, including countries in Asia. In a report produced with Global Health Frontiers, Hari Sreenivasan explains that in the Philippines, anti-smoking activists are now pushing back.

ACTIVISTS: We want the pictures now! Pictures save lives!

HARI SREENIVASAN: On the streets in Manila, demonstrators march against tobacco.

ACTIVIST: We want to make our voices heard.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Their cause is supported by the medical profession here.

DR. TONY LEACHON, Philippine College of Physicians: Smoking’s the number one killer in the Philippines.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tony Leachon is the president of the Philippine College of Physicians.

DR. TONY LEACHON: For the young Filipinos, smoking is considered a macho image for men.

SMOKER: I know it’s bad — it’s bad for our health, but this is to relax myself out from work.

RACHEL ROSARIO, Philippine Cancer Society: Culturally, smoking seems to be an accepted mode of socialization, an accepted mode of relaxation.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Rachel Rosario is with the Philippine Cancer Society.

RACHEL ROSARIO: There is that vision of holding a cigarette and smoking with makeup — it seems to be something that we have to fight against.

SMOKER: It’s really hard to kick the habit. I try to lessen it down, cut it, but then you always have that urge.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The fight against smoking here won a major victory four years ago when the Philippine Congress passed what is called the “Sin Tax Law”, imposing a tax that effectively doubled the price of cigarettes.

MAN (through translator): It’s expensive. It’s five pesos a stick.

SMOKER (through translator): The effect on me is I’m smoking less. It’s more expensive.

SMOKER: I used to be a pack a day, now I’m like half.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Maria Encarnita Limpin leads the framework convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines.

DR. ENCARNITA BLANCO-LIMPIN, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance: From 1990 to 2008, the rate of smoking in the country has never really gone below 30 percent. The latest survey that we did in the country showed dramatic drop in the prevalence rate of smoking. This time, it is going down from above 31 percent to 25 percent. That’s a big deduction.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Private held leaders say a major reason why the sin tax law was passed was the grassroots campaign organized by cancer survivor Emer Roxas.

EMER ROJAS, Cancer Survivor: I started smoke can at the age of 17. And at the age of 44, I got stage 4 throat cancer, and that was 12 years ago. They removed my vocal cords so that the cancer would go away.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Before cancer, Rojas was a successful engineer, businessman and radio broadcaster.

ERIKA ROJAS, Emer’s Daughter: I still remember that voice when he was singing. Before, he used to sing a lot whenever there was a birthday party.

EMER’S WIFE: He loves to sing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

EMER ROJAS: That’s my favorite song.

EMER’S WIFE: Yes, I know.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Rojas says he felt he was given a second life, and he decided he would commit his life to making people aware of what happened to him because of smoking, and his family has joined him.

ACTIVIST: All of us in the family, we’re volunteers.

ACTIVIST: I want to save lives of other people. I don’t want for them to experience what we experience with Emer.

HARI SREENIVASAN: With rallies, speeches, and messaging on radio and television, Rojas developed the new voice association as a powerful advocate against smoking, especially to protect children.

DR. ENCARNITA BLANCO-LIMPIN: All of the strategies of the tobacco companies, particularly their advertising strategy. They’re all geared to hook the young children into starting smoking at an earlier age. And since of the adults would actually grow old and eventually die. And therefore, they need new market.

ACTIVIST: The children agree that cigarette smoking is really bad, right, kids? Cigarette smoking is bad.

STUDENTS: Cigarette smoking is bad.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Another new law, following examples in other countries, requires health warnings and graphic pictures on cigarette packaging.

DR. TONY LEACHON: The graphic health warnings have been helpful in other countries, and basically we’re going to use this for the young population, of course, to women as well.

SMOKER: I’ve been to some airports and they do sell those packs with pictures of throat cancer, your lungs are all wrecked up, I guess it made you think a bit, but at the end of the day, I’m, like, where’s my pack of cigarettes?

ACTIVIST: Pictures save lives!

HARI SREENIVASAN: After months of delay, and rallies like this, the law requiring graphic health warnings is now in effect. But public health advocates say they’ve not yet won the war against tobacco. Millions of Filipinos still face lifelong addiction, and the benefits from the sin tax and graphic warnings won’t be clearly evident for decades.

ACTIVIST: One, two, three —

STUDENTS: Do not smoke!

ACTIVIST: Very good!

HARI SREENIVASAN: For the “PBS NewsHour”, I’m Hari Sreenivasan.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And with that, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and “New York Times” columnist David Brooks.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Well, what a week. And it keeps coming. David, these allegations against Donald Trump, some of them we can’t even describe in full here on this program. He said — they’re very graphic, he says they didn’t happen, these are all lies.

Is this just more of the same or have we reached a new low?

DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: I guess we’ve always reached a new low, Judy, every Friday. So, we’re on a weekly basis. His case would be better if he hadn’t bragged about doing exactly what he’s alleged to have done.

And so, you know, when you get five or six of these people coming out, some of whom said things contemporaneously, I don’t know if it’s dispositive, but it’s kind compelling. And the fact that we’re talking about a major presidential candidate behaving this way in 2016, it’s kind of astounding. And the fact that the guy is still walking and the guy has a lot of support among a lot of decent people, I don’t know what the word s. And so, you just — just gobsmacked, British would say, surprised out of your wits end that we’re here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Gobsmacked, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I’ve never been gobsmacked, but I know David — David has been — I just have to say, Judy, it amazes me that anybody with anything approaching this background, the tape alone would run for president. I mean, given —

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean the “Access Hollywood” tape.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, the “Access Hollywood”. I mean, irrespective of these charges, charges are quite serious, but I mean, I had one Republican reminded me today, well, how did Dennis Hastert accept the speakership with that in his background? So — but I don’t know what point you start to think that you’re invisible or just bulletproof.

And that — I have to say that the singular impressive moment of the week to me was Michelle Obama. It was — because she took it out of a — sort of a “men should be ashamed” or whatever, into a — and women are victims — into a very I thought human terms and spoke about the pain and the outrage that she felt.

And if you are talking about somebody as unassailable critic, she is, A, the most popular political figure in the country. She is the best known mother and mother two of daughters, wife, professional woman and happens to be African American. But I just thought authentic in the air that’s been synthetic in so many respects, and we hear about campaigns and what’s going on. I just thought that was an authentic moment, I thought it was a defining in this campaign.

DAVID BROOKS: And sign of national malaise that we’re all dragged into because of the conversation we have to have. And I will say —

JUDY WOODRUFF: That we have to talk about.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, and I will say one other thing, you know, oppo research gets a bad name. You shouldn’t go after your opponent, you shouldn’t go dig them up, but if Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush or John Kasich have decent oppo research, and had unearthed this in the primary, it would have spared the country a lot of turmoil. And their own party, a lot of self destruction.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you think they should have been doing this.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, things should come up. They had a lot of candidates in that race, once Republicans had a lot of decent choices, they could have looked away from Trump to somebody they could have stomached and it would have been fine. But now, and you watch a lot of Republicans who just feel — you feel like they’re lock in.

And then you feel other Republicans in morally incoherent state. Last week, a couple of senators calling for Trump to step down, and he didn’t step down. And now, they’re saying, we’ll vote for him, which is morally incoherent. If you want them step down, you can’t vote for the guy to be president of the United States.

And then you have a lot of people saying, I’ll just play it cool. I’ll just be with him. I’ll be good Republican, and then when he goes away, I’ll just be fine.

That is not the case. This is not like supporting Barry Goldwater in 1964. This is like supporting Joe McCarthy and you will not be fine. And a lot of the people are just hanging around on the fence or alienating both sides by being somewhere in the middle will not be recovering so easily, I do not think.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you explain their calculus?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think — I think the people who switch last weekend after the “Access Hollywood” tape, are ones who are in the most trouble politically. I think it was politically —

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean because they waited?

MARK SHIELDS: First of all, if I’m a Trump supporter, loyal supporter this is hour of maximum peril. And these are the people who picked up the knife and plunged it into his back when he was really hurting, I won’t forget that as a Trump supporter. If I’m one of the people like Mitt Romney or Ben Sasse of Nebraska who early on said this man is unacceptable, I have a legitimate question and say, wait a minute, what was it that finally tipped it? I mean, you know, it wasn’t the judge, it wasn’t libeling Mexican immigrants, it wasn’t libeling prisoners of war and their courage or whatever else? I mean, nothing else he did, libeling women throughout e, but this did it because he became politically radioactive at that point?

So, I think — I think in that sense, I’ve already seen it in a poll, congressional poll where Republican member who had changed, two to one margin, constituents in a post-weekend poll, regarded it as act of opportunism rather than political courage. So, I think David’s categories are right. It is a difficult thing to do, but if in fact he loses and they lose the Congress, Republicans lose the Congress, and I think that’s the key, if that happens, then association with him will have been regarded as a permanent stain. Not standing up to him and calling him for what he has done.

DAVID BROOKS: This is sort of psychological question, what happens, say he loses what happens the next day? Is there all the Trumpians saying, no, we were robbed, we are robbed, we are sticking with our man, we’re going into some sort of revolt? Or is it, like, I was a loser and I’m putting that behind me.

My intuition about the psychology is the latter is more likely. That people are just going to throw Trump to history, and then lot of the sense that mass revolt, this is not legitimate, this is not legitimate, I don’t think that’s likely to happen.

MARK SHIELDS: Could I just a little dissent there?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Sure.

MARK SHIELDS: I think reaction is, Judy, whether the Republicans see themselves as congressional party or presidential party. If Donald Trump loses badly, OK, and Republicans lose the Congress, lose the Senate, lose the House, which is for this first week people are talking about, Republicans are even talking about it. If that were to happen they say, in 2018 we’ll come back because the natural sequence of things, Republicans then return to majority.

This is what Democrats went through, 1980, 1984, 1988, the Democratic presidential candidates won total of 17 states in three presidential elections cumulatively. But they kept the Congress. So, insulated the congressional party they said just the candidates’ fault. If the Republicans, you know, take a whipping across the board, we’re doing something wrong, not just the presidential level but the congressional level, then I think you’ll see the soul-searching.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But I want to ask you both about what happens to the country. I know we’re still 3 1/2 weeks away. But what happens to the country after this election, David? I mean, there are people at Trump — Trump himself is saying, this thing is rigged, it could be stolen. People are booing the press. They cheer him on when he says the country, there’s a big conspiracy.

How do you put anything together? I already hear from people saying how is the country going to be put together after this?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I will say Hillary Clinton wins, there are two scenarios. One, that there’s such a vicious hatred that nothing going to happen. But I happen to think she was mediocre secretary of state, but I thought she was an excellent senator and very good at working around the aisle. McCain, Lindsey Graham, John Barrasso, she was good.

And so, I see possibility whatever is happening out there in the country, I think there will be a — people may check out for a little while because they will be so exhausted, so down, including a lot of Trump people. That she may have an opportunity, at least elite level to be effective in some way if she picks issues that sensible Republicans can sign on to.

And they’re going to want to put a window — or a curtain between what just happened and what they are going forward. So, you could paint an optimistic scenario. So, I’m clinging to that against all odds.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But Trump voters are going to want to listen to her, Mark, if she were elected?

MARK SHIELDS: You know, what’s going to — I think David’s point is a good, Judy. I don’t know. I hope so. I hope that’s the case, I think it comes down — I mean, Hillary Clinton highest moment in public life was in the United States Senate. I mean, she was good at it.

She made 130 trips to New York on first 18 months. She went to subcommittee meetings. She insisted on sharing the spotlight. She turned down the Sunday — I mean, she was really good. She recognized that this was a collaborative, collegial. And you know, we hope that that — will be some response to that.

You know, I think it comes down to the — it comes down to how she does it. I think it comes down to some degree how President Obama handles the transition.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we are — I don’t want to jump in too much, but we still have days to go before this election is over.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, we do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But we’re taking about Hillary Clinton, another — David, another WikiLeaks dump this week from what apparently the Russians hacked from the Democrats, from Hillary Clinton’s own campaign manager, John Podesta. Is there anything consequential there that we’re seeing in these day after day of e-mail dumps?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I was shocked to how boring it was. Usually, if you’re in the height of campaign, they are setting up private e-mails, ripping into so-and-so.

(CROSSTALK)

DAVID BROOKS: Exactly. There is some stuff like the Catholic — lot of people who are Catholic think there’s — become Catholic, they don’t want to become evangelicals. They’re living in cities so they become Catholics. Catholics are systematic thinkers. You would say it’s like — it’s not like something horrible.

You know, they’re saying like Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, is kind of annoying and overbearing and Governor Richardson from New Mexico can be a bad guy or sort of pain in the rear.

But by the standard of what I expected, to get the inside of a campaign, it’s pretty mild. I think Clinton people should be lot more imaginative.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I think, Judy, if there weren’t what’s going on with Donald Trump’s campaign, I think it would be a big story. I think it’s hard to make the case reading those e-mails that Hillary Clinton is a candidate of change. She’s very much an establishment candidate. She’s a status quo candidate.

The open borders, open trade, the hemisphere would have been — would have sent some signals and shock waves. But — and there’s a certain moral arrogance I think, especially on the — looking down their nose at Catholics and Evangelicals. I think that comes through.

The thing about John Podesta, ten years of his e-mails, he’s incredibly discrete. I mean, that’s one of the reasons he’d be able to survive, but no candidate comes through to vote Hillary Clinton on her inability to apologize, it’s been a problem. She has not effectively, believably apologized for the e-mail, the personal e-mail server to this moment.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And there was a draft that was leaked of the speech that she might have given where she would have been a little bit more direct but she didn’t give that version. We’re still sorting it out.

DAVID BROOKS: And the key point, which is why Trump is still in the race, it does indeed make her look like very pinion of the establishment which happens to be true. So, there are lot of people who are supporting Donald Trump not because they like sexual abuse but they just think the country needs some big, big change, that she’s not, they’re willing to swallow a lot, it turns out.

JUDY WOODRUFF: David Brooks, Mark Shields, we’ll see you next week. Thank you.

And tune in next Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. for our coverage of the final presidential debate. Mark and David will be with us.

And in the meantime, you can watch all the presidential and vice presidential debates dating back to 1960. Pull up a chair and that’s at our new website, watchthedebates.org.

LLOYD BENTSEN, Former Vice Presidential Candidate: Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.

GERALDINE FERRARO, Former Vice Presidential Candidate: I almost resent, Vice President Bush, you’re patronizing.

MITT ROMNEY, Former Presidential Candidate: Whole binders full of women.

MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Former Vice Presidential Candidate: I have proposed death penalty during all of my life.

ANNOUNCER: Interact with all the general election debates on our website watchthedebates.org.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, the second of two perspectives on the campaign from the world of business. Yesterday, correspondent Paul Solman talked to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Tonight, Paul sits down with Tom Barrack. He’s a friend of, economic adviser to, and fundraiser for Donald Trump. It is the second take this week of our series, “Making Sense”.

TOM BARRACK, Founder and Executive Chairman, Colony Capital: I’m the first kid to ever go to college, first kid to ever go to law school.

PAUL SOLMAN: Billionaire Tom Barrack, the son of Lebanese immigrants, made his fortune as a real estate investor. Though his firm, Colony Capital, has taken stakes in more visible, if unconventional assets as well, like Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, film company Miramax, and the debt of photographer Annie Leibovitz. His showbiz investments often made with his friend actor Rob Lowe.

But the southern California educated polo-playing mogul spoke with us on behalf of his business associate of longstanding, Donald Trump.

Is the reason you’re one of the only two top executives who were willing to talk to us in support of Mr. Trump because you’re fearless?

TOM BARRACK: It starts with number one: he’s a friend. And number two: with him, it’s the personal things of compassion, and kindness, and intellectual acuity, and the ability to make decisions that I think I could help explain.

PAUL SOLMAN: Barrack met the candidate when he sold Mr. Trump New York’s Plaza Hotel in the 1980s, as he recounted at the Republican National Convention.

TOM BARRACK: He said, “No contract. No contract. You and I shake hands right here, no lawyers, no contract, no nothing. You just tell me the things that I should know and how to fix it and I’ll do this deal.” He played me like a Steinway piano.

PAUL SOLMAN: A few years after the deal, Trump filed for bankruptcy and the plaza was sold at a loss. But the two have been friends ever since.

Barrack is one of Trump’s economic advisers because, he says, among other reasons —

TOM BARRACK: We have an unequal barbell society. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, middle class is evaporating. I see it every day in our businesses.

So, somebody has to intervene, other than professional politicians who are paid to increase the bureaucratic morass of what everybody else is dealing with.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, Mr. Trump’s policy with regard to, for example, taxes, would actually cut taxes more on the people who are on the — I don’t know, the richer side of the barbell.

TOM BARRACK: Well, I don’t think it’s — it’s fair to say that, right? The concept is, that if you incent people to take risk, they will take risk. They’ll infuse more capital into the system. And at the higher end of that — of that equation, that’ll eventually produce more growth, and growth will produce more opportunity, and the tax base itself will increase.

But it takes all of us on the outside, gently knocking at that door, and saying, it’s time to reexamine these things, let’s do it.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, it’s not gentle knocking at the moment, right? I mean, Mr. Trump is not a “gentle knocker.”

TOM BARRACK: Well, actually, on the policy side, I think it is gentle. The rhetoric is not gentle. I think they’re both better than that. I think Hillary is very accomplished and very capable, and I think people would be surprised at the — the intellectual ability of Donald on these issues.

PAUL SOLMAN: “Conciliator,” you said in one interview.

TOM BARRACK: Yes, absolutely. And you think about the difficulty of building a Trump Tower. I mean, you have 100 constituencies that you have to bring together, and then you have to be able to sell it to somebody who’s going to lend you the money. Making deals and negotiations to me is where the United States is going to have to go in the next decade. We haven’t been good at it.

You have Donald, who has no political background, but has a very good background in being able to coalesce these constituencies, most of the time successfully, sometime not successfully, who’s saying, “I will challenge that system, and I’ll bring in people who understand the system, but people who are not of the system.”

PAUL SOLMAN: But he’s giving no indication that that’s what he’s like, when he appears in public, in the debate, when he appears at rallies and so forth, right?

TOM BARRACK: Yes. It’s true. This crass sense of who he is, which comes out of vignettes, which he doesn’t help, right? Because he’s not apologizing for things the way —

PAUL SOLMAN: Yes.

TOM BARRACK: — that we would, right? That being said, I think a man who has the courage to say, “Look, interpret it however you want. I’m not a political animal, so I make mistakes, and that’s who I am” is refreshing.

PAUL SOLMAN: You have no concerns that he might go too far, that he might do things — threatening, for example, Secretary Clinton, with putting her in jail? I mean, that doesn’t bother you?

TOM BARRACK: Look, all, all of that quite personally bothers me. It bothers me having her attacked, it bothers me having him attacked. I don’t see any benefit in either of those things. It’s this cat fight that’s becoming disheartening.

PAUL SOLMAN: And if Donald Trump, as he will, hears you saying this, he’s not going to be upset with you?

TOM BARRACK: No, he will! He hates it when I say that, because, in his view, the cat fighting is what’s important. In other words, the emails, the lack of credibility, the lack of integrity. I look at it differently, saying, look, I have a private server, and I have a public server. And I know how complicated it is, just for me as a little guy trying to keep track of things.

I quite honestly think somebody of Hillary’s ilk is not intentionally doing any of that. And a foundation, if you’re president of the United States then you have to go get a job, what are you gonna do, be a caddy! Right? I mean, you’re going to do something elegant, you’re going to go out to the world and you’re going to form a foundation, and you’re going to do big things.

So, if you then do those big things, and somebody needs to get invited to a lunch, is it — is it so out of place that you’re going to invite somebody who’s a contributor versus somebody else. You know, the things to me are not the issue.

PAUL SOLMAN: But Barrack says there are a host of economic issues Donald Trump would positively address.

TOM BARRACK: Fair trade, a monetary policy that’s failed with quantitative easing and a focus on jobs is employment and normal people having an education and healthcare system.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, Mr. Trump has had almost no specific proposals for how to deal with any of the things you’re talking about, except to say, “No!” to the trade deals, “They’re bad. I’m going to make them better.”

TOM BARRACK: So, here’s why I think that it’s not as silly as it sounds. So, if you take trade, you have every senator and congressman that has a different view, that all have special interests that need to be vetted, and, by the time that you get to the efficacy of any trade agreement, it’s illusory. So, I think, somebody like Mr. Trump coming in, saying, “Look, I don’t know. I’m not sure on the trade side, I’m not sure on central bank intervention.”

PAUL SOLMAN: But, blow it up.

TOM BARRACK: Not blow it up, I’m gonna bring the best minds that I can find, and I’m going to take it apart and I’m gonna make it better, because I have no vested baggage in it.

PAUL SOLMAN: But to Tom Barrack, Hillary Clinton is part of the economic system and that system is broken: over-indebted, over bureaucratized, overregulated, overtaxed — problems papered over by a Federal Reserve that’s printed too much money.

Are you saying that the economy, the United States economy is a mirage? The extent to which things look good, markets look good? Unemployment is down?

TOM BARRACK: Of course, it’s artificial stimulation and an illusion.

PAUL SOLMAN: And it’s going to end catastrophically?

TOM BARRACK: My belief is, unless something happens, it will end catastrophically, one way or the other.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so, the, something that would prevent it from happening would be?

TOM BARRACK: A disruption.

PAUL SOLMAN: Like Mr. Trump’s election.

TOM BARRACK: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, is that what’s fundamentally driving you economically?

TOM BARRACK: Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent.

So, I think whoever the next president is, it’s going to be high on their list, and that Congress will pay attention this time. And that they’ll move it. It’ll move 15 degrees with one, seven degrees with the other, but I think the debate will have done a good job of getting them to move period.

PAUL SOLMAN: Tom Barrack, thank you very much.

TOM BARRACK: It was great to be with you, thanks.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Rarely has the female vote held as much sway in a presidential race as this year, even before the recent allegations of sexual aggression were leveled against Donald Trump.

This week, I traveled to the crucial swing state of North Carolina — a state that voted Obama in 2008, but flipped to Mitt Romney and the Republicans in 2012. Four years later, there is no slice of the electorate being fought over more than college-educated, white women — and that’s who we went looking for.

ELIZABETH WAKEFORD: I originally thought this cartoon of a man is not going to get very far. How could he? And here we are. And I am disgusted.

MICHELE HILMEY: This is just basically saying, “Well, boys will be boys.” Not acceptable. Not acceptable to me. And certainly not becoming of someone I would wish to be our president.

KYLA GARRETT WAGNER: I wouldn’t want that man in my home, I wouldn’t want him in my classroom. So, I don’t want him in my White House.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A few of the reactions from women voters we talked to in North Carolina. Even women looking for a Republican to support, were repelled they said by the 11-year-old video of Donald Trump.

DONALD TRUMP (R), Presidential Candidate: I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And coming in the final month of the campaign, it and the accusations of the past few days have thrown the already-crucial women’s vote here into sharper relief.

HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEER: Are you guys registered to vote?

JUDY WOODRUFF: If you needed proof of how much the Tar Heel state’s 15 electoral votes matter, look no further than the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Clinton volunteers were in a last-minute push to meet today’s voter registration deadline.

Among the most coveted voters are college-educated white women, who in 2012 gave Mitt Romney a six point advantage nationally. This year, polls show Donald Trump is losing them by a staggering 30 points.

FERREL GUILLORY, Director, Program on Public Life at UNC: Frankly, women, women are gonna make up their own minds, you know, unlike you know, kind of the old South, where everybody voted together. And women went to vote the way their husbands did. I — I don’t think that holds.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Ferrel Guillory, a professor at UNC’s School of Media and Journalism, says energizing millennial women is one part of Clinton’s challenge.

FERREL GUILLORY: The millennial generation is now larger than the baby boom generation, but it doesn’t vote with the same potency. So, she has the opportunity to bring new voters into the electorate, particularly women.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We sat down with two millennials, 18-year-old freshman Kim D’Onofrio and 25- year old PhD student Kyla Wagner. D’Onofrio had supported Bernie Sanders early in the primary process, but —

KIM D’ONOFRIO: When Hillary won the nomination, I just sort of accepted it immediately. It’s important to have somebody who understands how that world works. But do you really think that Donald Trump would be able to — you can’t just shove your foot through the door when it comes to American politics. You have to take your time. It’s difficult.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Wagner is a registered Republican who wanted to see the White House back in GOP hands. And when Trump beat out the others, Wagner says she did give him serious consideration at first.

KYLA GARRETT WAGNER: I’d like to think I gave him an honest opportunity, but as a young woman, newly married, interested in not only the progress I’m going to have as a career woman, but as a mother, I just really did not feel and still do not feel like Donald Trump understands the needs of the holistic American woman. I do feel that Hillary Clinton will work tirelessly to get some of the issues I’m most concerned about addressed, paid paternity leave, reassurance that Roe v. Wade will stay, and the overall protection of women’s health.

JUDY WOODRUFF: North Carolina is a top priority for both campaigns. President Obama was here just this week, Michelle Obama last week. On Tuesday, Mike Pence showed up in Charlotte. And today, Donald Trump is in Greensboro.

The voters they’re looking for live in towns like Apex, which are exploding in population. Much of that growth is fueled by an influx of college educated workers who have come here to raise their families. The men tilt Republican, but statewide, college-educated women — who went for Mitt Romney four years ago — this time are struggling to support Donald Trump.

Fifty-one-year-old Elizabeth Wakeford has lived in North Carolina for decades. She’s voted for both parties in past presidential elections, but not this year — she plans to write in a candidate.

ELIZABETH WAKEFORD: I would love for a woman to be president, I’m certainly not adverse to that, just not this woman. The emails are concerning in terms of national security. I do worry what might have been in there that got carelessly shared with others.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, that’s Hillary Clinton. What about Donald Trump? What’s your sense of him?

ELIZABETH WAKEFORD: It’s kind of like a junior high student beating his chest going, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to get you, and this is how.” And you think, really? You’re an adult? You’re running for office — the highest office in the land. What are you doing?

I cannot tell you how much I cannot stand that candidate. If I may make a comparison, Donald Trump is overtly distasteful. I find Hillary more covertly distasteful.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Just 11 miles away, 41-year-old Kristen Wynns lives in Cary with her husband Kevin and two children, Zoe and Logan. A registered Republican, she runs her own psychology practice, went to an all women’s college and is still struggling about what to do in November.

KRISTEN WYNNS: Putting my blood, sweat, and tears into my own practice for the last nine years, clearly, some of Trumps tax laws and his views on taxes and small businesses are quite appealing to me as a small business owner, but then I’ve got the women’s college blood coursing through my veins. Love the idea of a women president. I’m raising two daughters, and some of Hillary Clinton’s beliefs about closing the wage gap, affirmative action, girls and women not being the victims of abuse or assault.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you still struggling with your decision?

KRISTEN WYNNS: I am.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You think you’re leaning one way or another at this point?

KRISTEN WYNNS: Can I be struggling and leaning at the same time?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.

KRISTEN WYNNS: OK, then I think that’s where I am.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That day, Wynns told us she was leaning Trump. But we’ve stayed in touch and today, she told us in light of all the allegations made by women this week, she’s now truly stumped.

FERREL GUILLORY: Trump, with his words and with his life story, has demeaned women. It’s the coarseness of the way he sees the world of men and women. And I think that’s — that is destabilized a segment of the electorate that would ordinarily vote for a Republican like Mitt Romney or a Republican like John McCain.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Eight miles south of Cary, in the Raleigh suburb of Apex, the evidence of exploding growth is plain to see — new homes popping up everywhere.

Michele Hilmey, a New York transplant and registered Democrat, says the tone of the campaign has been particularly difficult, especially for her 8-year-old son Nate.

MICHELE HILMEY: Donald Trump was accepting the Republican nomination. We were all gathered around, we were actually visiting some family out of town, and I happen to look over at him and he was crying. And he was confused. He thought that Donald Trump was the president at that point. We had to explain that he was just accepting the nomination.

But when I pressed him as to why he was crying he said, “Mom, I hear on the TV all the time that Donald Trump hates women.” That was shocking to me, I just couldn’t believe that he absorbed that, that he gleaned that from conversations knowing that his mom, and his sister, and his grandma that he loved so dearly are women.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For now, Hilmey is undecided, but leaning toward Clinton. But she says she hopes for the sake of both her family and the country, the politicians who do get elected will work to find common ground.

MICHELE HILMEY: We cannot continue as a country to say, “I’m a Democrat, you’re a Republican, there is no space in the middle,” we cannot continue to have these extreme one-sided beliefs. There has to be ground in the middle or we’ll never move forward.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And a note, as we reported at the top of the program, late today, North Carolina extended voter registration in 36 counties due to the flooding.

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An employee poses for photographs with Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note 7 new smartphone at its store in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Passengers and flight crews will be banned from bringing Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on airline flights under an emergency order issued Friday by the Department of Transportation in response to reports of the phones catching fire.

The order, which goes into effect on Saturday at noon EDT, says the phones may not be carried on board or packed in checked bags on flights to and from the United States or within the country. The phones also can’t be shipped as air cargo.

Passengers caught attempting to travel with the phones will have the phones confiscated and may face fines, the department said.

Samsung has recalled more than 2.5 million of the smartphones, citing a battery manufacturing error. The South Korean company discontinued the product earlier this week, less than two months after its August release.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says there have been nearly 100 reports of batteries in Note 7 phones overheating in the U.S. One fire erupted on a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this month. In another case, a family in St. Petersburg, Florida, reported a Galaxy Note 7 phone left charging in their Jeep caught fire, destroying the vehicle.

The Federal Aviation Administration had previously warned passengers not to pack the phones in their checked bags and to power them off and not charge them while on board planes.

“We recognize that banning these phones from airlines will inconvenience some passengers, but the safety of all those aboard an aircraft must take priority,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “We are taking this additional step because even one fire incident inflight poses a high risk of severe personal injury and puts many lives at risk.”

Samsung has announced that it’s halting production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. The news comes after reports of the replacement phones catching fire — just like the original models — and on the same day that the battle between Apple and Samsung was set to be heard before the Supreme Court. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Backchannel’s Jessi Hempel for more.

Samsung said in a statement that it is working with the department to make customers aware of the ban. The company also urged Note 7 customers to get a refund or exchange their phones by visiting their phone service provider or retail store.

The Note 7 isn’t the only gadget to catch fire thanks to lithium-battery problems, which have afflicted everything from laptops to Tesla cars to Boeing’s 787 jetliner. At least three U.S. airlines are adding new fire-suppression equipment to fleets in case a cellphone or laptop battery overheats, catches on fire and can’t be extinguished.

Rechargeable lithium batteries are more susceptible to overheating than other types of batteries if they are exposed to high temperatures, are damaged or have manufacturing flaws. Once overheating starts, it can lead to “thermal runaway” in which temperatures continue escalating to very high levels. Water can extinguish the flames, but doesn’t always halt the thermal runaway. Flames will often reappear after initially being quenched.

Lithium batteries are ubiquitous in consumer electronic devices. Manufacturers like them because they weigh less and pack considerably more energy into the same space than other types of batteries.

Earlier this year, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency that sets global aviation safety standards, banned bulk shipments of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries as cargo on passenger planes until better packaging can be developed to prevent a fire from spreading and potentially destroying the plane.

WATCH: How the demise of its flagship phone will hurt Samsung

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Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, speaks in support of Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 21, 2016. Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, economics correspondent Paul Solman sat down with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to discuss why he’s standing up to Donald Trump and urging others in Silicon Valley to follow suit.

Today, we have a conversation with Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital and a Trump advocate. Barrack is a longtime friend of Trump as well as an economic adviser and fundraiser for the real estate mogul. Below, Barrack explains why he thinks Trump is the man to address economic inequality and “radical Islam.”

For more on the topic, tune in to tonight’s Making Sen$e report on the PBS NewsHour. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

— Kristen Doerer, Making Sen$e Editor

PAUL SOLMAN: Your main reason for supporting Mr. Trump, besides being his friend, is economic policy, right?

TOM BARRACK: Yeah, his change. His progress. I have the blessing of having entrepreneurial DNA from my Lebanese heritage and the beauty and gift of American entrepreneurism. And that American entrepreneurism is bred in a transparent environment that offers opportunity to people who take risk at every level. And that road is quite complicated when it starts being intervened by rules and regulations and tax codes and legacy establishments.

And what happens over time is, naturally, the institutionalization of those establishments takes on a life of its own, and it starts crushing the very essence of what that capital program and plan was, the very fabric that holds us together. And as time has gone on and as I’ve gained wisdom and age, I noticed that most of us who participate in that sandbox don’t want to participate in the political process that creates the sandbox.

PAUL SOLMAN: You’re a very successful businessman. Do you feel constrained, encumbered by government bureaucracy in your business?

TOM BARRACK: I don’t feel constrained or encumbered. I don’t understand it, and it’s really simple. I make a payroll every Thursday night for the people who work for me. So I understand what the expenses are, what the revenues are, and I have to make it work. So I understand every line item of both of those entities. I pay taxes like we all do, and I couldn’t tell you what any of the line items are!

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I couldn’t tell you what the Department of Commerce does, what the Department of Interior does, I don’t know what Office of Management and Budget does, I don’t know what I’m paying for in military defenses. I don’t know what a $20 trillion dollar debt is or what the difference between a $20 trillion dollar debt bill and a $30 trillion dollar debt bill is when it’s not backed by gold or silver or full faith and credit of the United States. So accountability is what it’s about. It’s not about whether it is harder or easier for me. It’s about accountability.

We have an unequal barbell society. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, the middle class is evaporating. I see it every day in our businesses. So somebody has to intervene other than professional politicians who are paid to increase the bureaucratic morass of what everybody else is dealing with.

PAUL SOLMAN: But Mr. Trump’s policy with regard to, for example, taxes, would actually cut taxes more on the people who are on the the richer side of the barbell!

TOM BARRACK: Well, I don’t think it’s fair to say that. Right? The concept is that if you incent people to take risk, they will take risk. They’ll infuse more capital into the system, and at the higher end of that equation, that will eventually produce more growth, and growth will produce more opportunity, and the tax base itself will increase.

A single lower tax bracket, for years, starting with Reaganomics, was something that people thought was sensible. But to take the 180,000 pages of tax code and say, “Now we’re gonna equalize it across all the special interests who have so much invested in keeping it the way it is,” it’s not easy. And whether it’s Mr. Trump or whether it’s Hillary or whether it’s a follow-on, it takes congressional interaction, and it’s not simple. But it takes all of us on the outside, gently knocking at that door and saying, “It’s time to reexamine these things. Let’s do it.”

PAUL SOLMAN: “Conciliator,” you said of Trump in one interview.

TOM BARRACK: Yeah. Absolutely. So to do this, you have to explain to people what are the benefits and what are the detriments. And I think we’re all waiting for that next chapter. So I don’t think Donald is being harsh, I think he’s saying, “Look. You have two choices. You’ve had 26 years, basically, of what you’re listening to.” And the verbiage from Hillary, who’s obviously very qualified, very talented, and she can’t take blame for everything that’s happened that’s bad, and she can’t take credit for everything good that’s happened. But she’s been a part of the team, and a very competent part of the team.

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So if you like that, vote for Hillary! You have Donald, who has no political background, but who has a very good background in being able to coalesce these constituencies, most of the time successfully, sometime not successfully, who is saying, “I will challenge that system, and I’ll bring in people who understand the system, but people who are not of the system.” And so to me, that’s the debate. That’s the dialogue.

PAUL SOLMAN: But is he a “conciliator”?

TOM BARRACK: Sure he is. I mean, if you look in this city and you think about the difficulty of building a Trump Tower or the West Side Yards or any of these projects, you start with a concept, and that concept then has a thousand arrows being shot at it by people in the environment — by the mayor, by everybody that you have to get a permit from, by the unions, by the contractor, by an architect, by the tenants. I mean, you have a hundred constituencies that you have to bring together, and then you have to be able to sell it to somebody who’s going to lend you the money! And then, you have to be able to lease it to somebody who is going to have to use it.

This consensual operation takes five or six years, and that’s just for a single building! Now you take that exponentially to the things that he’s done along a broad basis. Making deals and negotiations to me is where the United States is going to have to go in the next decade. We haven’t been good at it. He is a very good deal maker, he needs to learn some of the political process, which is what we’re criticizing him for.

PAUL SOLMAN: But he’s giving no indication that that’s what he’s like when he appears in public, at the debate, at rallies and so forth, right?

TOM BARRACK: I think a man who has the courage to say, “Look. Interpret it however you want. I’m not a political animal, so I make mistakes, I parry and thrust in all of these fabrics, take it for what it’s worth, and that’s who I am,” is refreshing! And I think a big segment of population looks and says, “It’s refreshing! The man is who he is.” He’s not anti-female. He’s not a racist, he’s not anti-Islam, he’s not anti-Semitic, anti-Hispanic, he’s not anti any of these things!

PAUL SOLMAN: He sure makes it seem, sometimes, as if he is! Certainly there are people who think he is, all of those things!

TOM BARRACK: Sure. But, for example, I’m an Arab American. I happen to be a Catholic, but I was raised with Shias and Sunnis and Druze, and he knows that.

He also has many Muslim partners. What he’s saying, which Muslims will tell you too, is radical Islam can only be solved by hope and tolerance and understanding and Islam self-enforcing the abrogation of radicalism. So rather than explaining it in those terms, that this is an attack against all Islam — we’re not going to take anybody who is reading the Quran and hold them in a holding tank for seven hours until we understand it — it’s more of a message to our friends, our allies and our partners across the Middle East. But, remember, the Middle East is only a tiny part. It’s only 300 million of that two billion in the world.

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He’s saying, everybody has got to weigh in, and until we all weigh in and have a consensual process of how we fight this terrorism process, we’re gonna have a postage stamp up and just say, “Halt.” And you help us!

PAUL SOLMAN: But surely that’s not how it’s playing in America. I mean, in America, it’s playing to people who are afraid of terrorism, who are more afraid of Muslims as a result of what Donald Trump says, right? And who were worked up by what he’s saying. Am I missing something?

TOM BARRACK: No, I’m sure they’re worked up. I’m not so sure they’re worked up by what he’s saying. I think they’re worked up by the San Bernardino, by 9/11, by events that are caused by a process that they don’t understand, which are a few bad actors within the realm of a great religion that we know.

PAUL SOLMAN: But it’s stoked by him in the wake of those events.

TOM BARRACK: Yes. Because, I think what he’s doing is sounding alarm and saying, “This is critical. We need to get a handle on it.” By the way, the Arabs are saying the same thing. Many of my close friends are leaders of Arab countries — Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Tahnoon in Abu Dhabi, the Emir in Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, and Prince Mohammed in Saudi Arabia. They would all tell you that what they need in order to be able to help enforce against radical Islam is a consistent and predictable American foreign policy, which they have not had.

The post Why billionaire Tom Barrack believes Trump can fix inequality appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day’s other news, Medicare is about to have one of the biggest overhauls in its 50 year history — changing how it pays doctors and other clinicians. Starting in 2019, they can choose to be compensated for quality of service, rather than quantity. If they do, they’ll be paid more. The new system rolled out in detail today is the product of bi-partisan legislation that passed Congress last year.

The flood tide from Hurricane Matthew kept pushing toward the North Carolina coast today, and the death toll count kept rising to at least 24. Swollen rivers have put parts of some towns ten feet under water. Today, Governor Pat McCrory visited the hard-hit city of Tarboro, and promised aid.

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), North Carolina: The people don’t know how difficult a situation they’re about to enter when the water clears. I’d say 80 percent of this town is under water at this point in time. And we’ve got to prepare them for that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A judge also ordered 36 counties in North Carolina to extend voter registration due to flooding, after the state’s election board was sued by the Democratic Party. The deadline was also extended in and around Savannah, Georgia.

In Syria: fresh air strikes blasted the city of Aleppo, as rebels warned food and medicine is running low. The city’s rebel-held east is again under heavy bombardment, and President Bashar al-Assad is insisting that it be recaptured. He spoke to a Russian newspaper.

PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD, Syria: First of all, it has political gain, on the strategic level, political gain and national gain. It’s going to be the springboard as a big city, to move to another areas, to liberate another areas from the terrorists. You have to clean. You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There’s no other option.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All of this, as Secretary of State John Kerry prepares to meet with his Russian counterpart tomorrow, in a new effort to rekindle ceasefire talks.

Buddhist funeral rites have begun in Thailand, for the man who was the world’s longest- reigning monarch. Thousands gathered in Bangkok today for a royal procession and ceremonies to mourn the king, who died yesterday. He ruled for 70 years, enjoying enormous popularity and ties to the military regime. The body will be cremated in the months ahead.

Back in this country, the Transportation Department has banned all passengers and crews from bringing Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on board planes. They issued the emergency order after reports of the device catching fire. Samsung had already discontinued the phones earlier this week.

United Airlines says it has resolved an overnight computer glitch that delayed thousands of passengers worldwide. Travelers from Paris to New York reported waiting up to several hours. It comes just two months after Delta Airlines canceled thousands of flights after a power outage affected its computers.

As of today, it’s a lot easier to bring Cuban cigars and rum into the U.S. The Obama administration says it’s relaxing limits on bringing those products back from Cuba. Now, returning travelers will be allowed up to 100 cigars, and several bottles of rum. It’s the latest loosening of the trade embargo on Cuba.

The U.S. Treasury Department reports running a $587 billion budget deficit this past fiscal year. That’s up 34 percent over the previous fiscal year, due to a slowdown in revenues and higher government spending.

And on Wall Street, stocks closed higher, led by gains in the technology and banking sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 39 points to close at 18,138. The NASDAQ rose nearly a point, and the S&P 500 added half a point. For the week, the Dow lost a fraction of a percent, and both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 fell around 1 percent.

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