Azerbaijan. Woodruff all that and more, on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. With fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. Thats fidelity wealth management. Consumer cellular. Johnson johnson. Financial Services Firm raymond james. Bnsf railway. The kendeda fund. Committed to advancing Restorative Justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. More at kendedafund. G. Carnegie corporation of new york. Supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of International Peace and security. At carnegie. Org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff President Trump and democratic rivaloe biden were supposed to meet face to face tonight. Instead, they will wage a kind of ratings war, appearing at the same time, on different television networks. Lisa desjardins begins our coverage. Desjardins in philadelphia today, another strange stage in the pandemic. Former Vice President joe biden will hold a town hall here tonight with abc news, the night when he was to have s second debate with President Trump. That was canceled following the president s Coronavirus Diagnosis nearly two weeks ago. Instead, voters get a network tv faceoff, with Trump Holding a separate town hall at the same time tonight on nbc. Ill see you later on nbc desjardins there was some more traditional campaigning today. The president spoke in greenville, north carolina. 19 days from now think of that. 19 days. Can you believe this . Were going to win the state of north carolina. Were going to win four more years in the white house. Four more years four more years desjardins the crowd was enthusiastic for trump, and many openly defiant of health guidelines, not Wearing Masks and standing closely together. Democrats v. P. Nominee, california senator kamala harris, was also to be in the tarheel state today, but the campaign canceled all harris events through the weekend out of caution, after two people working with her campaign tested positive for coronavirus last night. Test test its Campaign Announced an aviation administrator no flew on biden he pleaj also tested positive for covid1 the Campaign Says harris and biden did no have any recent close contact with the people who tested positive. La night Vice President biden tested negative for covid19. At the same time, there was good news for the biden campaign. Last night, the democratic nominee announced another recordbreaking fundraising haul, 383 million in september. Thats more than ive ever raised in my whole life desjardins the Trump Campaign hasnt yet announced its september fundraising numbers. Bidens cash boost is part of a tsunami of donations reaching other democrats as well. In Arizonas Senate race, challenger mark kelly announced raising 38. 7 million in the past three months, making him the second democrat this year to break the record set by beto orourke in 2018. The other was Jamie Harrison in south carolina, challenging republican lindsey graham. Harrison raised an eyepopping 57 million in quarter three. The question is, how they can spend it all . It is now 19 days until the election. More than 17 million vots in 42 states have already cast their ballots, by mail or by early inperson voting. Woodruff thats a lot of voters. Meanwhile, a new pbs newshour npr marist poll shows former Vice President joe biden with an 11point lead over President Trump in the race for the white hous for more, Lisa Desjardins joins me now. Know you have been looking at these numbers, what is behind this wide gap for joe biden and how much of it is republicans leaving President Trump . We got some of fascinating datee here data, judy, polls can be flawed. He want to look the a things that can be beyond the margin of errors, it is not republican shifting, lets look at what we see, you lack at who is supporting whom. Republicans and democrats are both supporting an overwhelming numbers looking at a graphic, 93 there, 96 , they are supporting thrair candidate. Who is making a difference, independents, look at what in our survey we saw 57 percent of independents going for biden and fascinatingly, judy t is not just any independents who are driving this, lets lack at another graphic a little bit deeper within independents, looking at men and women who call themselves independents, 48 of independents men for biden but look at that, 70 of women describe themselves as independents going for biden. So judy, that is where we see the most movement and where biden is getting the lift. Woodruff interesting. And lisa, i know the poll not only asked people for whom they plan to vote, but how they plan to vote. What did you see there . This is so important, judy. Lets get right to this traffic. First of all people who say that they are going to vote on election day, 62 of them in our survey said that they are voting for trump. Those who are voting early either in person early or by mail, lets look at that. The opposite. You see two thirds or more of those folks voting early are votingor joe biden. Now speaking to a source in the biden campaign, judy, they feel good about this. They say the Trump Campaign is wasting an opportunity by they say making voters scared of mailin voting. But we all need to be aware that it could have an affect on Election Night results if so many of biden support ares are voting early and could be counted later depending on how each state works. Woodruff and i know were going to be following all of that very closely on Election Night and up until then. But just quickly, lisa, with regard, i know you are also following the saddest of these coronavirus economic d relief talks, tell us where that stands tonight. Secretary of treasury mnuchin spoke with House Speaker nancy pelosi for an hour and 22 minute this afternoon, one of their longer conversations. Mnuchin d the Trump Administration have agreed to what pelosi wants, he says on testing. But those two sides are still not on the same page. They will speak overnight and there is one more problem too. The leader of the republican senate, Mitch Mcconnell says he is not close to where the white house is. He wants a 500 billion deal versus 1. 8 trillion. So these talks continue. Well watch them but they are still not there. Woodruff a lot of people waiting to see whether that comes together. Lisa desjardins, thank you so much. Woodruff in the days other news, Senate Republicans vowed to subpoena the c. E. O. Of twitter for blocking a politically charged New York Post story thats uncorroborated. It involved hunter biden, son of president ial candidate joe biden, and his business dealings in ukraine. President trump accused twitter of censoring news to help democrats. The company said the story violated a rule against spreading private information obtained through hacking. The Senate Judiciary committee now plans to vote one week from today on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. The panels republican majority set the schedule today, after a discussion that once again split along party lines. What we are sing here is an exercise of just raw political power. Youre moving ahead with this nomination because you can. But might does not make right. And the American People put us here to dohat we think is right. The disappointment of our mocratic colleagues is real, because theyve been accustomed to the Supreme Court being policymakers. So, i understand their disappointment. But i think their loss is the American Peoples gain. Woodruff republicans are pushing to get barrett confirmed by the full senate before election day. The u. S. Economy is giving off fresh signals that its recovery from the pandemic may be stalling. The Labor Department reported today that new unemployment claims jumped to 898,000 last week. 17 states reported sizeable increases. Covid19 infections in the u. S. Are also surging again, with almost 60,000 new cases a day, spread across 44 states. That prompted fresh warnings today from Infectious Disease expert, dr. Anthony fauci. In an interview, he said things could get much worse, with cold weather coming. You dont want to be in that compromised position, where your baseline daily infection is high, and you are increasing, as opposed to going in the other direction. So we really got to double down on the fundamental Public Health measures that we talk about every single day, because they can make a difference. Woodruff fauci urged americans to reconsider plans for thanksgiving gatherings that could spread the virus. In yemen, warring parties began a longawaited prisoner swap brokered by the u. N. It involves some 1,000 men held by a Saudi Coalition and shiite Houthi Rebels backed by iran. Today, the first of the Saudi Coalition prisoners held by the houthis landed in yemens capital, sanaa, with emotional tarmac reunions. Yesterday, the houthis also freed two captive americans. The president of kyrgyzstan resigned today after a week of protests. Unrest in the Central Asian country started after his allies were declared the winners of disputed parliamentary elections. This is the third time that a kyrgyz leader has been ousted by Popular Uprising since 2006. Thailands capital, bangkok, is under a strict state of emergency over protests aimed at the monarchy and ruling establishment. Despite that, thousands of prodemocracy demonstrators still rallied in the Business District today. Many made a threefinger salute symbolizing defiance. translated a reform of the Monarchy Institution is calling for a change, not an abolishment. We want the monarchy to remain under a democratic system, just like every other nation. The elite system should no longer exist. Woodruff the demonstrations, led by students, have grown over the past three months, calling back in this country, more than 50,000 customers across Northern California went without power today, in the face of extreme fire danger. Pacific gas and electricmposed outages last night, fearing high winds could blow down powerlines and spark new flames. The state has already had more than 8,500 wildfires this year. The u. S. Postal service is reversing changes that slowed Postal Service nationwide. It is part of a legal settlement with the state of montana, and it ends changes that cut retail hours and removed some collection boxes and sorting machines. The agreement also gives priority to election mail. The u. S. Justice department has brought its largest tax fraud case er against an individual. Software mogul Robert Brockman was charged today in a 2 billion scheme. Federal prosecutors say that he used secret accounts to hide and launder money over 20 years. And on wall street, stocks had anotr lackluster day. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 19 points to close at ,494. The nasdaq fell 54 points, and the s p 500 slipped five points. Still to come on the newshour how some investors got word from the white house early on that things were worse than the public heard. With less than three weeks to go before election day, we visit the battleground state of iowa. We compare Media Coverage of the president s campaign to that of his 2016 run. And, much more. Woodruff back in late february, when the pandemic was beginning to take hold in the u. S. , the president and his team downplayed the risk to the american public. But, a new report finds that key advisers to the president were conveying a very different message to other audiences. And, some Financial Traders may have been able to profit in the stock market because of it. Amna nawaz has more of those deils. Nawaz judy, the New York Times reported that in late february, two white house advisers, larry kudlow and tomas phillipson, privately told Board Members of the conservative Hoover Institution that there was uncertainty about the virus and how it could upend life in the u. S. That would later prove true, but neither the president nor his administration were saying that publicly. And, the message delivered privately made its way a number of elite traders, who in turn, reportedly bet the economy would slow down. That would also prove true. William cohan is an author and former investment banker, who worked in wall street finance for 17 years. He joins me now. Welcome to the newshour, that memo from the briefingk we should mention someone who is in the briefings typed up some note, sent them out to a bunch of contacts, made its way to staff, additional contact, basically made its way to a number of Money Management firms within a day. If you are in the business of making money, you are an investor who sees that kind of memo coming from white house officials, what do you do, how does that inform your trading and why. So the question is what is your moral compass. What is your ethical compass. You get a memo like that and you know that publicly these officials are saying one thing, ie the virus is not going to be that bad. 15 cases are going to go to one, it is going to disappear like a miracle, if you are saying things like that publicly and you receive a memo privately that constitutes a briefing from those same officials who are much more worried and your instinct as a trader probably is to trade on that information, and make as much money as you possibly can, which is clearly what happened, what the plication is of the New York Times article. But the question is should you be doing that. And that, unfortunately, is something that you ony you and your morality code an ethical code can decide. As a legal matter its much more complex because youre dealing with information that can move markets but not necessarily nonpublic confidential information of private companies. Or Public Companies that obviously constitute insider trading. Nawaz i want to remind people about the public messages happening at the time. This is what is catching everyones attention. Those meetings we just talked about, the private meetings in late february, the 24th, 259, and 26, publicly President Trump tweeted this on february 24th. He said the coronavirus is very much underontrol in the u. S. A. , stock market starting to look very good to me. Larry kudlow who we know is one of the advisors who conducted those private briefings went on cnbc on february 25th. He was asked about public warnings from cdc official, the virus could spread and this is what he had to say to that. We have contained it. I wont say airtight but pretty close to airtight. Very different messages. The private one delivered as the New York Times reported and these public messages, why would an administration do that . As you know, we know amna from what bob woodward revealed in his book, you know, donald trump said that he was doing that to not get people all riled up, to keep the panic level low. But you know, frankly, if you are a trader, if you are a Hedge Fund Manager and you are getting ahold of that kind of information, your first instinct is to as they said to bet against mart ketgo short, go short everything, to you know, especially essentially bet that the market will fall. And that is of course what happened. And if you do that, you make a lot of money. Why on the one hand they would be saying privately that they are very worried and publicly that it saul under control . Well, frankly t is extremely disingenuous it is frankly damaging. Its probably resulted in tens of thousands of more deaths than were necessary. And there, st rep ri reprehensible. You mentioned this earlier, but there is the question on everyones mind. At the end of the day, what is the accountability . Is there a legal issue, an ethical issue because we should remind people this was all happening and unfolding right before millions of americans plummeted into a recession. Look, there should definitely be accountability for this. A working securities and Exchange Commission, a well working securities and Exchange Commission would be all over this, trying to figure out who got ahold of those memos, who traded on it. What they got out of that, how much money they made. But im afraid am this administration