September 20, 2020 - PBS NewsHour Weekend full episode

President Trump announced he intends to nominate a woman for Justice Ginsburg’s seat and several Republican Senators, who in 2016 opposed filling a SCOTUS seat in an election year, are supporting a vote. The contentious issue of the SCOTUS seat, which helped the Trump campaign in 2016, has galvanized the liberal base six weeks before the election. Jeff Greenfield joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss.

Eastern Iowa is reeling a month after a rare windstorm called a derecho devastated the region, destroying hundreds of homes and half a million acres of corn. Newshour Weekend’s Christopher Booker reports on the financial burden of the derecho, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This November, Illinois will be going to the polls for the presidential, Senate and other local races, resulting in several competing ideologies on both sides of the political divide. At the national level, urban voters, especially in Chicago support Biden while President Trump has support among rural voters.WTTW News Director Hugo Balta joins to discuss how COVID-19 is impacting the races there.

The COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. is nearing the 200,000 mark, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center. Even though the death rate is lower than it was in the spring, 850 people on average are dying every day of the disease in the country, according to the New York Times. ProPublica reporter Caroline Chen joins to discuss.

Iowa, a competitive purple state which has leaned blue, voted for President Trump in 2016 by a big margin. This election, the Biden campaign has managed to narrow that lead, making the state a toss-up. Iowa PBS Senior Producer and Director Andrew Batt joins Hari Sreenivasan from Des Moines to discuss the race in the state as part of our ongoing series, “Roads to Election 2020.”