sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. this is pbs newshour weekend. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. with 16 days to go until election day, democrat hillary clinton has her largest lead yet in a national poll of likely voters. the "washington post-abc news" survey out today shows clinton preferred by 12 points over republican donald trump-- 50% to 38%. libertarian gary johnson receives 5% and green party candidate jill stein, 2%. today, clinton campaigned in north carolina, one of the closest battleground states in the past two elections. >> so, i believe when we vote in this election, we're standing up for who we believe america is, and we're standing up for our rights-- for voting rights and civil rights, for women's rights and workers rights, for l.g.b.t. rights, for the rights of people with disabilities. >> sreenivasan: she campaigned with running mate tim kaine yesterday in pennsylvania, where statewide polls show them leading as well. >> if you look at our schedules for the next 17 days, yovu'll know we're not taking anything for granted. >> sreenivasan: trump shifted from pennsylvania to florida today as 69% of likely voters told that same "washington post- abc news" poll they disapprove of his response to allegations-- now by 11 women-- that he made unwanted sexual advances in the past. trump calls them "liars" and is threatening to sue them all. today, trump campaign manager kellyanne conway said they're still counting on swing voters to win battleground states. >> we're not giving up. we know we can win this. and we are certainly not conceding to the same chattering class that's been wrong about donald trump for about a year and a half. >> sreenivasan: even if hillary clinton wins the white house, she might have a hard time governing with both houses of congress controlled by if the republican party. republicans are defending 24 senate seats this election, and if the democrats gain 5 of them-- or four if clinton and kaine win-- they'll regain the senate majority. one of the most vulnerable republican incumbents is senator pat toomey of pennsylvania. in tonight's signature segment, special correspondent jeff greenfield looks at toomey's challenge to win a second term, and particularly the dynamic of being on the ballot the same time as donald trump. >> reporter: this is trump country: wilkes-barre, in northeast pennsylvania-where his fervent backers offer cheers for the republican presidential nominee. >> everyone in pennsylvania wants trump you know. ( cheers ) >> reporter: but outside the event, trump backers offer tough words for the party's incumbent republican senator, pat toomey, who is the only senator running for reelection who hasn't said whether he supports or will vote for trump. >> he should endorse trump. he's a republican. he should've done it. >> he's not listening to the will of the people. >> i don't like the arrogance, and he's part of the establishment. >> reporter: a day later, at a toomey breakfast 100 miles to the south, in the philadelphia suburbs, the senator offers them no comfort. >> i had hoped that donald trump would persuade me to be an enthusiastic supporter. that had been what i hoped. i've supported every republican presidential candidate since ronald reagan without exception. but at this point, i remain unpersuaded. >> reporter: to many of the voters at this event, that is exactly that distance they admire. >> i don't believe that you have to think the same way as everybody else all the time. >> reporter: elected as a conservative republican during the 2010 midterm wave, toomey points to his ability to work in a bipartisan fashion, passing legislation signed by president obama to help small businesses and working with democratic senator joe manchin after the newtown school massacre to require universal background checks for anyone buying a gun. katie mcginty is toomey's democratic challenger. she worked for two pennsylvania governors and in bill clinton's administration, and hillary clinton lent her support in pennsylvania this weekend. >> i hope that philadelphia will send katie mcginty, on behalf of pennsylvania, to the united states senate! (cheers) >> reporter: both are tying toomey to the top of the republican ticket. >> every day when ever more horrific evidence comes to light about what and who donald trump is and pat toomey fails to have the courage to say this is wrong, this is beneath human dignity. pat toomey is making clear where he stands. that's with donald trump and that's against the values, the family values that pennsylvanians really stand for and honor. >> i think pennsylvania voters are totally capable of distinguishing between the presidential race, which has in my view, two very badly flawed candidates, and the senate race, which is a totally different thing. so i am running an independent race . d i think that pennsylvanians will make a separate judgment. >> reporter: that's why toomey invited maine republican senator susan collins, who has flatly said she will not be voting for trump, to underscore his message. >> he puts people ahead of politics; he is beholden to no one. >> reporter: toomey's struggle to open daylight between himself and trump is playing out across the country for other republican senators in battleground states where trump is trailing or falling in the polls. some-- like john mccain and kelly ayotte-- broke with trump following the release of the access hollywood video showing trump speaking lewdly and disparagingly about women. >> if one of the two presidential candidates wins let's say seven, eight, nine points, i think it's gonna be very difficult, if not impossible, for the senate candidate in the other party to prevail. >> reporter: terry madonna directs the center for politics and public affairs at franklin and marshall college in lancaster, pennsylvania. >> toomey needs to do two things. win a high percentage of the white, working class voters, particularly in the southwestern part of pennsylvania and the northeast, that's trump's biggest area of support. and win the suburban counties with the college-educated voters that hillary clinton is winning right now. so he's on that tightrope. somewhere he's got to find a middle road to get both of them. and that's very difficult. >> reporter: and it's especially difficult, madonna adds, because pennsylvanians and voters nationwide are splitting their tickets much less than in past elections. that is, they are more likely to vote for a presidential candidate and congressional candidate of the same party. the problem for senator toomey, as with many other endangered republican incumbents, lies in places like this: these are the suburbs of philadelphia. once reliably republican, they've grown increasingly democratic in presidential years. a trend likely to accelerate given who is at the top of the g.o.p. ticket. the four large suburban counties surrounding philadelphia make up more than a fifth of the state's electorate, and a recent poll of likely voters in these counties found clinton is preferred over trump by 28 percentage points. at main line school night, a non-profit community education program in delaware county, i sat down with three women who have voted republican in the past, but who don't support trump. carole rubley supports clinton. >> i was a republican until one month before the primary, when i realized it was going to be, at that point, between trump and ted cruz. so, i switched. it was really hard after 40 years. >> reporter: so it sounds-- it sounds like again, if the republicans had put someone else on the ticket like a kasich or a bush or a rubio or somebody, you might have been tempted to vote republican? >> i would have considered that candidate, absolutely. >> reporter: constance corino says she's not voting for either presidential candidate, but will likely support toomey in the senate race. what do you think is leaning you more towards toomey than his opponent? >> i don't like one party in control, okay. and i'm really very worried about the senate, in particular, turning. and so, i would like to have a balance. i think it's the only chance. >> reporter: the check and balance of a republican congress-- >> right. >> reporter: --and a democratic president appeals to you? >> it does. it does. it really does. i like it. >> reporter: barbara cohen is for clinton and says she plans to vote for democrat katie mcginty because of the trump out this, and it's just i hard don't trust toomey. i feel he's trying to straddle a fence in so far, he hasn't endorsed trump. on the other hand, he hasn't come out in a brave open way, the way senator mccain has done, for example. i respect that. for democrat katie mcginty, the argument is very simple. whatever senator toomey says, he and donald trump are two peas in a pod. even when she was campaigning with democratic new york senator kirsten gillibrand for better childcare for working parents, trump was still front and center. the argument that your opponent is making that i can work across party lines, i have shown that, i'm not a rubber stamp, and that you would simply do what a president clinton wants, we need checks and balances, to which you say? >> well, it's time for senator toomey to stand up right now today, and show us that he's ready to stand up to donald trump, not in washington, right here and let us know: are you voting for donald trump, or are you not? >> reporter: it's a question dominating their tv ads-- so many, this campaign has become the most expensive senate race in the country. >> even after trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, toomey stood by him. >> what's important for pennsylvanians is having a senator who will stand up to any president's bad ideas. >> reporter: the bipartisan bill to tighten background checks for gun buyers failed to pass the senate. >> the goal was to see if we can find a way to make it a little bit more difficult for the people who have no legal right to have a gun, for them to obtain it. >> reporter: toomey's stand earned him the endorsements of gun safety leaders like former congresswoman gabby giffords and former new york city mayor michael bloomberg. but toomey's stance cost him the support of some gun rights advocates in pennsylvania. david dalton is the founder of the pennsylvania-based american gun owners alliance. he won't vote for senator toomey. >> it's a scary situation. but i honestly believe and so do many other groups in the state, that if we do vote for toomey, we're giving credence to him and bloomberg and giffords. it's basically come down to vote for anyone but toomey if you believe in gun rights. we want to tell the republican party: ¡enough is enough.' if you don't want to back us anymore, we're not going to back you. >> reporter: mcginty argues her positions on gun control are even stronger than toomey's and that he's out-of-step with pennsylvanians on several key issues. >> pat toomey is not only right, he's extreme right. not only wanting to de-fund planned parenthood but shut down the entire government to do it. a rare republican vote against bipartisan legislation that offered tax cuts to families to afford college. pat toomey's way out of the mainstream. >> reporter: toomey remains optimistic that his message-- that he can build bridges if he is sent back to washington-- is connecting at home. >> this has been a very polarizing election at the top of the ticket. it's been ugly. and that does make it more difficult. but that doesn't mean we give up. with just a little more than two weeks until the election, the latest polls show the race between toomey and mcginty virtually tied, which means that a handful of pennsylvania voters could well determine who controls the senate next year. >> sreenivasan: if federal regulators sign off, there will be a huge new media company on the landscape next year. telecom giant at&t will buy time warner for more than $85 billion-- in a half cash, half stock deal. at&t, the nation's second largest cell phone carrier, will gain control of tv networks like hbo, tnt, and cnn and the time warner movie studio. the boards of directors of both companies approved the deal last night, and say they expect it to close next year. this is the biggest deal of its kind since comcast acquired nbc/universal five years ago. joining me now for more analysis, and what it might mean for you, is one of the "wall street journal" reporters who broke the news, keach hagey. so why did they do this? >> well, the reason is both companies are facing rapidly changing world, where basically your telephone is becoming your television. and they have gotten it different ways. at&t is facing slower growth on its side. they need to grow by acquiring businesses. as we've seen them do, they acquire directv. and time warner is struggling with the fact that people are migrating away from paying these big fat cable bills where a lot of their money comes from. they are going on to streaming services, to netflix and their business is being cramped. and the other thing is time warner is one of the prettiest girls at the dance, a lot of people call it. they are a company that could be bought. and as the industry is facing this koition, they're going to be the first one to go. >> so now we have these titanic forces lining up much we've got verizon who bought aol and is in the process of finishing up an acquisition of yahoo, comcast, universal, and then this. these are huge companies now that we didn't really see a couple of years ago. >> wild, so we are seeing vertical int graiks it seems like regulators are okay with that. they have been approving these deals whereas long as it is a supplier are you buying, not a direct competitor, that's fine. these mergers have conditions on them. but generally speaking that's the way that folks are bullking up. >> time warner was bought am usually by-- famously by aol before, didn't turn out to be a great deal. has the community learned from what is gone wrong and also have the regulators learned from what has happened in some of these acquisitions that didn't make sense at least from the regulatory side. >> folks at time warner say what is different this time is that the distribution mechanism is so much more important to whether trvetion succeeds or fails. whether you watch a show, you need to be able to watch it on a mobile device, on demand. the distributers have so much control over that, it's quite different than it was circumstancea 2 thousand. as-- cirquea 2 thousand, as far as the regulators we saw comcast buy-- and the regulators did put conditions which was that when comcast tried to buy time warner cable, they felt like comcast wasn't really a perfectly good actor about those and those conditions didn't work out so well. learned and people said youto know, i don't think that deal, comcast, universal would have been approved today. we will have an interesting year to see if it gets approved. >> other concerns from a consumer standpoint f i have, for example, an at&t phone that i could have access to hbo or free, that is great if i'm an at&t consumer but it might not be that great if i'm a t mobile customer. >> that is the central question. in order to actually get sinner gees when you don't have overlapping businesses what is the benefit to at&t unless it can do something like that however, there is a lot of-- there is a general feeling from everyone i talked to that they are not going to be able to do that they are not going to be able to have an offering where they have exclusive access to time warner content. as the c.e.o. of at&t said on a call last night, time warner has built a great business out of selling its content to many distributers and it is going to continue to do that. nothing's going to change. we'll see. >> all right, keach hagey from "the wall street journal," thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> sreenivasan: iraqi government troops allied with kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, launched a new offensive today on towns and villages around mosul, the country's second largest city. the kurdish forces say they've advanced to within five miles of mosul, gaining control of villages and highways along the way. the long-planned offensive, which began last week, involves more than 25,000 iraqi forces as well as u.s.-led coalition aircraft and advisers. the battle for mosul presents a challenge, to say the least, for the civilians still living in a city controlled by isis for the past two years. the united nations warns as many as a million residents of mosul could be displaced during the battle. to discuss these humanitarian concerns, i am joined by skype from baghdad by katharina ritz, the head of iraq delegation for the international red cross. thanks for joining us. from your position now, what are the largest source of concern for you on a humanitarian front. >> the largest concern at this stage is obviously it's very challenging to reach people. most of the people are still in cities or in the city centers. we talk maybe about around 5,000 families or persons who could leave from the villages. but they are not yet at the outcircuits. so there are challenges. we know there is displacement going on. there is-- smoke which is toxic up to a certain extent. this also affect the residents of the villages which are around, or people displaced to these camps, which makes everything-- because we have to look at the safety of our staff. but still try to dispatch medical supplies to this area which are now under an additional stress. >> sreenivasan: are there any safety corridors or avenues where civilians could get out as the troops advance closer and closer to their cities. >> most of the places have not seen massive displacement of civilians. but generally they try, or they try to have a safe passage open. how this is going to work out when you talk about thousands of civilians, i think it is not yet very clear. they are making plans of opening safe pass ages for civilians to leave. >> sreenivasan: how quickly after the city is under the control of iraqi forces can humanitarian aid agencies get in there and try to either treat the wounded or evacuate who needs to be? >> well, we have a little bit of experience with the situation that happened in ramadi and fallujah. i think it's very difficult just to think that we can go quickly inside. because we do expect thereumight be heavy mines, contamination of mines or booby traps or maybe still some security concern for the humanitarian workers. so i think the the first thing preferably is to clear and that the people we can assist might not be in front of the front lines. >> sreenivasan: finally, what's the most immediate oppressing concern. as a city gets cut off like this, what happens to water or access to food or certainly medicine when there's not any goods or services coming comingr out. >> if it is a city in isolation over a long period, this might put lots of pressures on the civilians which we have seen also in fallujah. but i think that the major concern is to get access to the the people, to evacuate the wounded and get treatment and i think if nobody works any more in the hospitals or can go safely, it makes it a real concern and i think people will lose life just because they cannot access hospitals and health structures. >> sreenivasan: katharina ritz joining us live via skype from baghdad today, thank you very much. >> thanks so much, thank. 7 >> sreenivasan: in syria, fighting intensified today in the divided city of aleppo, after a three-day ceasefire ended last night. rebels shelled a government- controlled district in the west, while syrian government forces, backed by russian warplanes, launched airstrikes on rebel- controlled areas in the eastern side of the city. the united nations estimates 200,000 people live in those areas, and few of them took advantage of the three-day lull in the fighting to evacuate the city. the britain-based "syrian observatory for human rights" says more than two thousand civilians, including about 500 children, have died in the siege of aleppo during the past six months. the expiration of a three-day ceasefire in yemen has led to renewed fighting there. warplanes from the saudi arabia- led coalition attacked rebel- held positions in the capital of sanaa today. this, as a united nations envoy arrived for talks to achieve a truce in the 19-month civil war has killed 7,000 people. the california high patrol says at least 13 people died today when the tour bus they were on collided early this morning with a truck on interstate 10 near desert palm springs. 30 other bus passengers were taken to hospitals for treatment. the bus was returning from a casino, and it was still dark out when the accident occurred. this is "pbs newshour weekend" sunday. >> sreenivasan: police in north dakota have arrested 83 people protesting a 1,200 mile crude oil pipeline being constructed near a native american reservation. police used pepper spray to disperse protesters yesterday after they attempted to breach a police line guarding construction equipment. the standing rock sioux tribe-- along with other tribes and environmental activists-- want to stop construction of the four billion dollar pipeline, because they fear it could contaminate their water supply and encroach on their burial sites. the pipeline would bring oil from north dakota to refineries as far as the gulf coast. more than 200 people have been arrested in protests that began in august. tomorrow, france is expected to evacuate nearly 7,000 migrants and refugees from a camp in calais. their aim is to demolish the camp, the closest entry point to the u.k. after removing everyone. correspondent jenny longden from itn has more. demolition teams are preparing to move in on the the camp known as the jungle and hope to have it razeed to the ground within a week. but it is still home to up to six and a half thousand refugees and my grants who hope to come to the u.k. where many have family and can speak the language. tensions are growing between those living in the the camp and the authorities. last night police retaliated with tear gas when stones stonee thrown across a fence. the french authorities have set up the sectors across its which but aide workers say they don't know where they will be taken. >> we do not know know exactly where the the reception centers are situated, how many people will be there. will the friends remain together or will they be separated. the situation is extremely confused. >> reporter: the french authorities want to stop calais from being a flash point for immigration, they're preparing for some resistance from those living in the camp before they begin clearing it tomorrow. i tv news. >> the first woman to climb mount everest has died. she attended the world's highest mountain in 1975. she was 77 years old am and finally, the the two teams that have gone the longest without winning baseball's world series will play each other. the chicago cubs are in the fall classic for the first time since 1945 after beating the l.a. dodgers last night to win the national league pen anti. the cubs who haven't won since 1908 face the cleveland indians starting tuesday. the indians last won the world series in 1948. on tomorrow's newshour views from inside the syrian war in this 6th year of constant fighting. that's it for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. 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