JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: on the stage.

We lay out what to watch for in the first presidential debate.

Then: one million lives lost.

We mark this global COVID milestone and what it means for the pandemic going forward.

Plus: back to school.

How virtual education is a challenge to parents and students.

GABRIELLE VOID, Student: Positives to virtual learning are, I can get my work done a lot faster.

I could be more creative when it comes to doing my work.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: It is debate night.

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden will shortly be face-to-face for the first time in this election season.

To help guide us on what to watch for, our own Yamiche Alcindor and Lisa Desjardins.

So, hello to both of you.

Yamiche, set the scene for us.

What do we know about the format tonight and what we should expect?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, we should expect a pretty feisty and personal debate between Vice President Joe Biden -- former Vice President Biden and President Trump.

Both men are going to be making the case that the other person is dangerous to our very democracy.

They're also going to be talking about six particular topics.

They were chosen by the moderator, Chris Wallace.

I'm going to walk you through what those topics are.

The first is Trump and Biden's record, looking at possibly how both men did on things like trade and possibly the environment, how they approach those topics.

The next is the Supreme Court.

This is a big topic, of course, after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, justice, and Trump's nomination to judge -- of Judge Amy Barrett to the court.

COVID-19 will also be on there.

And it's more, of course, than 200,000 Americans have died from the pandemic, top of mind.

The economy, an important topic, with millions out of work.

Race and violence in our cities.

Some worries this conflates fighting racism with violent outbursts, given that the vast majority of protests have been peaceful.

So we have to watch out for that topic.

And, lastly, the integrity of the election.

This is, of course, another crucial issue, because President Trump has been saying that mail-in voting is filled with fraud, without providing any evidence.

He also, of course, has not said that he wants to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

We're going to see no handshakes.

We're going to see no masks.

That, of course, is because both men will be socially distanced.

The campaigns have agreed to that.

And we should also expect for President Trump to go after Joe Biden on really, really ugly terms.

That's the only way to put it, because the president has already been suggesting that Joe Biden should take a drug test before this debate, and that he might be hiding some sort of listening device in his ear.

He's saying that Joe Biden should have been searched for electronic devices.

The Biden campaign has said, that's not going to happen.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Lisa, two of the things Yamiche mentioned, COVID and the Supreme Court, give us a sense of how these things are unfolding in real time as this debate takes place.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

It's important to understand that, as this debate is happening, the leaders in Congress, Speaker Pelosi and also Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, a man who works for President Trump, are trying to figure out a coronavirus deal.

They spoke on the phone today.

They will speak again tomorrow.

It's not clear if they can get there.

Judy, Congress and the president have not passed any significant coronavirus relief since March.

And now we know that unemployment benefits, the added benefits, are running out.

Small businesses are becoming worried.

This certainly is something that you will hear about in this debate, also, Judy, that Supreme Court nomination.

I'm going to show you all some video.

Look what happened also today up on Capitol Hill.

There you have it, Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, meeting with Republican senators, Mitch McConnell.

She was escorted there by Vice President Pence.

And that all is unfolding as well tonight.

You can expect for both men to be questioned about the process and the policy of this Supreme Court nominee.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Lisa, you have been talking to the Biden people.

Staying with you, how are they preparing?

How's he preparing for tonight?

LISA DESJARDINS: It is interesting, Judy.

They are not divulging many specific details, only to say that Vice President Biden is preparing.

We know, in the past, in past cycles, when he ran with President Obama, he did some mock debates.

So, that is a possibility.

But, in general, they're talking more about his approach tonight, Judy.

They're saying, for one, that the Biden is ready to defend his record and to point out the facts when he's challenged about his record.

But the word fact is an important one, Judy.

The Biden campaign has gone out of its way today to tell reporters that the former vice president is not planning to be the fact-checker of President Trump.

They believe that's the job of journalists and the moderator.

However, Chris Wallace has said he does not believe it is his job.

So, there could be some interesting back-and-forth here.

See how Vice President Biden handles that.

How the Biden campaign is handling anything they think is incorrect, on Twitter, they will have a handle called @Truth at which they will question and put out what they believe are the facts to anything they say that President Trump is getting wrong on during this debate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Really, really interesting.

And, Yamiche, tell us how the president -- what's known about how the president is preparing.

And, in addition to that, what are his people saying about how much effect they think this debate can have on this race?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, the president has said that he does not want to do any sort of traditional debate prep, and that is what sources on the Trump campaign have been telling me.

The president has been meeting with some close advisers, like Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, Chris Christie, who worked on the presidential campaign in 2016 of President Trump.

But he is not having a sort of mass debate.

He's not having one person play Joe Biden.

I was told by a campaign source today this is an unconventional president.

He was an unconventional candidate in 2016.

Thus, his debate is also unconventional.

Another thing to note is that the president thinks that he has been preparing for this debate because, one, he's been running the country.

So they feel like he has a pretty good grip of all the different issues before him.

Also, he's been taking questions, they said, from a lot of journalists.

So he feels as though, because he fields a lot of questions from reporters, he's able to think quickly on his feet and be able to be witty and do all the things that need to be happening in a debate, though, traditionally, experts have told me that incumbent presidents often overestimate how prepared they are.

And, as a result, they sometimes falter in the first debate.

Another thing to note is that the Trump campaign is saying that, in 2016, President Trump had to prove himself.

He had to prove that he was a conservative.

He had to beat out 16 other Republicans.

This time around, they feel like this is an important debate because they do want to get to some undecided voters and make the case that President Trump should be reelected.

But they don't think that they're going to be a bunch of people who are undecided who are going to then be swayed by watching this.

They think that the president should also be going out onto the campaign trail holding events, having paid advertising in different battleground states.

They think that's more important in some ways than this debate, though, of course, they are still going and participating in this debate.

So that tells you that President Trump is still seeing this as an important place to be on this, of course, election -- on this first election debate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So much to be watching for tonight.

Yamiche Alcindor, Lisa Desjardins, you will both be on it.

Thank you.

So, we don't know much about how this debate will affect Americans' votes, but it's safe to assume both candidates want to do well.

To talk about what's at stake for each one, how they may be thinking about tonight, two guests join us.

Brett O'Donnell is a Republican strategist who has worked on debate preparation for five presidential candidates, including George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

And Jennifer Palmieri is a Democratic strategist who served as communications director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, as well as in the Obama White House.

And we welcome both of you to the "NewsHour."

I want to start by asking you both what you think each candidate's goal should be tonight.

Jennifer Palmieri, to you first about Joe Biden.

What do you think he needs to do?

JENNIFER PALMIERI, Former White House Communications Director: So, this is a big opportunity for him.

I think that what I found in the '16 campaign was, it was really hard to get control of the public narrative, because Trump takes up so much oxygen in the media.

And so, for Biden, this is an opportunity for him to have an enormous audience.

In 2016, 84 million people watched the first debate.

So, we're likely to have those kinds of numbers again.

And people don't hear from him that much, probably because of COVID, partly because Trump does get so much attention.

And there is about 5 percent of voters that are undecided, and he has got an opportunity to make a case for them on COVID, on the economy, where he would take the country.

I think he should be much more focused on making his own argument than in responding to anything that Trump throws his way.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Brett O'Donnell, how do you look at what the goals should be tonight for Joe Biden?

BRETT O'DONNELL, Republican Strategist: Well, Joe Biden's goal is to keep this election about Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's goal is to make this a choice election.

He wants to make this about the race between him and Joe Biden, rather than just a referendum on his presidency.

I think both of them need to remain on offense, if they're to be successful.

The trap of incumbent presidents happened to Ronald Reagan in 84, happened to George W. Bush in 2004, and happened to Barack Obama in 2012 That trap is, you have got a record of four years, and so you fall on to defense, as opposed to playing offense, like a candidate who has not been president before.

And so, really, that's the pitfalls that Donald Trump faces.

But his goal should be to be focused on Biden and to make it a choice election.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jennifer Palmieri, what would you add to that?

What -- how do you see what the president's goal should be tonight?

JENNIFER PALMIERI: I think Brett's probably right that voters know what they know about Trump.

I don't think that they're looking to learn more about him in order to make their decision.

So, from his perspective -- and it might not be great to watch, but for him to attack Biden could -- that's probably the best use of his time on stage.

He has started already saying - - questioning the vice president -- the former vice president's capabilities.

He wanted him to have a drug test.

He's claiming that there's some kind of device in Biden's ear giving him answers.

And if that's what he's -- if that's the setup for going into the debate, I think that's what Biden can expect.

Now, the problem for Trump in doing that, though, is, he is setting expectations very low for Joe Biden's performance.

Biden's kind of a gamer.

He has been on big debate stages before, as vice president, all throughout the presidential primary this cycle.

And he's pretty good at it.

So I don't think you're going to see him falter.

And if he has a really strong performance tonight, is able to win over some of the people that are undecided this -- that could put Trump in a really precarious place, with 30-plus days to go.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Brett O'Donnell, for the president, smart for him to just keep up that very aggressive approach that we know him so well for?

BRETT O'DONNELL: Absolutely.

I mean, part of the advantage for the president is, no one has yet really successfully figured out how to debate Donald Trump.

He is a very unconventional candidate.

Candidates that took him on in the primary debates back in 2015 and '16 had trouble with him, whether it was they debated him as a conventional candidate.

They didn't do so well.

Or when they tried to be unconventional, like Marco Rubio, and debate on his level, that also didn't go very well for him.

So, if the president recaptures that spirit, that same debater that he was in 2016, that will serve him very well tonight.

If he falls into the trap of playing defense and worrying about defending every minutia of his record, that's what got -- that's what got prior presidents, incumbent presidents, into trouble.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Jen Palmieri, we heard a little bit from Lisa Yamiche about how they're preparing, or actually not very much about the specifics of how they're preparing.

But what should each one -- I know you just talked about their goal, but what kinds of things can you do to get ready for a night like this?

JENNIFER PALMIERI: For Biden -- I mean, I know a little bit about how Biden works.

When we prepped Hillary Clinton, she would do both sort of big, fat briefing books -- but that works for her.

It doesn't work for everybody - - as well as mock debates, stand up, do the actual 90 minutes, have somebody play Trump, go through that a few times.

It's not how Biden works.

Biden likes to just sort of talk through -- just sort of talk through what his answers are going to be, what his best arguments are.

The most important thing -- it's going to sound trite, but these are humans, and it's so important -- is that they feel prepared, that whatever that it is that they need to do to feel confident when they walk out on the stage, they know there's sort of three offensive points that they want to hit.

They know how they're going to approach attacks from the other side.

I don't think Joe Biden should go down rabbit holes.

I don't think he needs to fact-check Trump.

There's probably a couple of times, if Trump says things about his record, about Biden's record, that aren't true, that are important to correct in real time.

Otherwise, he should play his game.

And so, when you're preparing him, the most important things -- I mean, this is such a big audience that they're going to be speaking to -- is, you have the proactive points that you want to make ready to go.

You don't walk off the stage without having done that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Brett O'Donnell, I mean, we have heard time and again President Trump not the conventional candidate, not the conventional debater.

What -- can you imagine how he's getting ready for this?

BRETT O'DONNELL: Well, Jennifer is actually right.

I mean, it's about doing what your candidate thinks is best to get them mentally ready for that particular debate.

And so I have worked with several presidential candidates.

Each one of them wanted to prepare in a slightly different way.

Some people want to just study their material.

Some folks want to do more on-your-feet practice.

Some candidates like to just sit around a conference table and talk through questions and work out answers that way.

The job of a good political debate coach is to make sure you adapt your preparation method to what will have your candidate ready to walk out on that stage.

It's all about message and moments.

It's about having them ready to drive a message that the public will remember and create moments which will reinforce that message and capture the press narrative, so that you can write the headline for the debate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, just finally, just a few seconds from each of you on how many people out there, do you think, are really open-minded, ready to be persuaded one way or another?

Jen Palmieri?

JENNIFER PALMIERI: I think it's about 5 percent of voters, which sounds like not very much, but those are the people who are going to decide the election.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And Brett O'Donnell?

BRETT O'DONNELL: I agree, though these will be the most watched debates in debate history, in my prediction.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Even bigger than the 80-some million we saw in 2016?

BRETT O'DONNELL: I absolutely think so.

We have been deprived of a normal campaign to this point.

And so I think people are hungry to watch these two on the stage.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You are probably right.

Brett O'Donnell, Jennifer Palmieri, we thank you both so much.

Thank you.

BRETT O'DONNELL: You're welcome.

JENNIFER PALMIERI: Thanks, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: The pandemic's human cost came into stark new focus, with one million people dead worldwide.

That includes 205,000 deaths in the United States.

And the head of the World Health Organization warned, there is no end in sight.

We will talk with a top WHO official after the news summary.

There is also fresh evidence of COVID's economic cost.

The Walt Disney Company says it is laying off 28,000 workers at its theme parks in California and Florida, two-thirds of whom are part-time.

The Florida sites have reopened, but with restricted attendance.

And the California parks remain closed.

Hundreds of thousands of students went back to elementary school in New York City today.

Their return -- excuse me -- their return had twice been delayed.

In Brooklyn, children wore face masks and had their temperature taken at drop-off.

But Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced the daily rate of positive COVID tests rose above 3 percent for the first time in months.

BILL DE BLASIO (D), Mayor of New York: Obviously, everyone is concerned about that.

That is something we all have to work on together to address, and something that says to us, we have to be on high alert to make sure we fight back this challenge.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also today, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported infections in children have risen, so that they now make up 10 percent of all U.S. cases since schools began reopening.

Most cases in children are mild.

The National Football League is facing its first COVID-19 outbreak.

Three Tennessee Titans players and five staffers have tested positive.

The Titans played the Minnesota Vikings last Sunday, and now both teams have called off practice through Friday.

It is not clear if either team will play this weekend.

In pro hockey, the Tampa Bay Lightning celebrated their second Stanley Cup today played in a league-wide quarantine.

They beat the Dallas Stars last night to clinch the title, and then they showed off the cup before an empty arena.

The game took place in Edmonton, Canada.

Part of Northern California is under a state of emergency, after wildfires killed three people and burned nearly 100 buildings.

The wind-blown fires spread across Napa and Sonoma counties and farther south into -- or, rather, north in Shasta County.

Some 70,000 people are under evacuation orders, but winds are dying down today, and weary crews say they hope that that will help quell the fires.

BILLY SEE, Assistant Cal Fire Chief: It's been a long season.

Most of them have been going since the middle of July without rest, from fire to fire to fire, here in the northern part of the state.

So, we're doing the best we can with the resources we have on the incident.

JUDY WOODRUFF: California is having an historically bad fire season, with more than 8,100 fires, 29 people killed, and 7,000 buildings burned.

Computer outages across the country are under investigation.

On Sunday night, more than 250 hospitals and other facilities run by Universal Health Services lost computer access.

Employees say hackers demanded ransom to unlock the system.

And, last night, several states lost emergency 911 services.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 131 points to close at 27452.

The Nasdaq fell 32 points, and the S&P 500 slipped 16.

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was buried today at Arlington National Cemetery.

The ceremony was private.

Ginsburg was laid to rest beside her husband.

She is the 14th justice to be interred at Arlington.

And the ruler of Kuwait, Sheik Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, has died at 91.

He had presided over the small oil-rich country since 2006.

Hours after his death, his half-brother, the Kuwaiti crown prince, was named emir.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": we mark one million COVID deaths across the globe; how the pandemic is changing education across the U.S.; an inside account from Robert Mueller's team and where the special counsel fell short; plus, much more.

The global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic is now above one million people, and there have been 33 million cases of infection worldwide.

The numbers are almost too staggering to comprehend.

But William Brangham is here tonight with some perspective and a conversation about all of this.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Judy, this death toll is now four times greater than the number of people who lost their lives in 2004 in the tsunami that hit Indonesia.

But, thankfully, so far at least, this pandemic is nowhere near as bad as 1918, when the influenza virus killed an estimated 50 million people globally.

Still, this pandemic has taken far too many lives in roughly 10 months.

More than 5,000 people die every day, on average.

Ten countries account for 70 percent of the deaths, led by the United States, which has more than 20 percent of all global deaths.

Brazil, India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom round off the top five.

The elderly still make up the largest percentage of those who died globally.

And the epicenter has also shifted, from China and Southeast Asia to Europe, then to the U.S., and now to India and South America.

For more on all of this, I'm joined by Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization.

Dr. Van Kerkhove, very good to have you on the "NewsHour."

Obviously, this is a terribly sad day, to have lost now a million people at least to this coronavirus.

Why do you think we are still having such a hard time getting our arms around this pandemic?

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, World Health Organization: Well, thanks for having me on the show.

And, indeed, this is a completely tragic milestone that we reached of at least a million deaths due to this virus, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, a virus we didn't know about 10 months ago.

And I think we do need to take a moment and pause and reflect on how tragic this actually is.

These are one million people who have died because of this virus.

These are mothers and fathers and children and sons and daughters and friends.

And we were thinking about this today, and I was trying to wrap my head around a million people.

And if you think about sporting events that all people go to, if we think about football in the U.S. and baseball stadiums, between 50,000 and 1,000 people in each one of those stadiums, that's 10 football stadiums' worth of people who have passed away.

And that is really tragic.

And we, as WHO, we are working with all countries, with everyone everywhere to do everything that we can to prevent as many infections as we can, prevent as many deaths as we can, because there is so much that we can do to turn this around.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Help me understand, though, how we have gotten to this.

We know the difficulties that each nation have had, but why is it that this -- we have hit this mark?

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: Yes.

Well, it's a new virus.

And it's a virus that we're continuing to learn about.

And the entire world is susceptible to infection.

And this virus spreads.

It's a respiratory pathogen, and so it could spread easily between people.

And we have a globally interconnected world, and it spread around the world.

And I think what we are seeing with many countries, and many countries that have had experience with other similar pathogens, like SARS, like MERS, like polio, like highly pathogenic avian influenza, like Ebola, many of those countries knew immediately the seriousness of this and immediately knew the threat.

And what they did is, they activated a public health system that's been in place for decades that is based on the fundamentals of active case-finding, contact tracing, testing, isolation of cases, quarantine of contacts, really readying their system, and, in many respects, immediately seeing that this was not just a health issue.

This was something that needed an all-of-society approach, working across many different sectors.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, these are nations that you're saying that had been burned before and knew to be afraid of the flame when it came around the next time.

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What about the nations like we have seen, like India or Brazil, that have seemingly swerved somewhat wildly in their response?

How would you characterize their reaction?

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: What we like to do is -- I mean, it's important that we look at a national level and we look at these national numbers and surveillance numbers of cases and hospitalizations, ICU.

What's most important is, we look at the sub-national level.

This virus doesn't spread uniformly across all the population.

It operates in clusters.

And so what we need to do, and especially in large countries, Brazil, India, the U.S., we need to break it down into the smallest level possible, and the smallest administrative level possible.

It's important to have strong national plans.

This is about what the goal is.

And our goal for this is to suppress transmission, save lives, and save livelihoods.

But the actions need to be targeted and implemented at the most local level.

We're in a very, very different position than we were in five months ago, six months ago.

We know so much more about this virus.

We know what works.

We know what works in terms of breaking chains of transmission, in terms of controlling transmission.

And we know what works in terms of saving lives.

Right now, it's about having the will to do that and having the systems in place and activating that to make sure that it happens.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Certainly, here in the U.S., we have seen a disproportionate share of infections and deaths have fallen on poorer, minority communities here.

Is that true globally?

Are we seeing a similar pattern enacting elsewhere around the world?

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: It is, yes.

We know that there are -- there are many vulnerable populations in every country of the world, and vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected by this virus.

You know, it's a double injustice that we are seeing, with this virus and with the inequities that we are seeing across the globe in many populations, populations that have lesser access to health care, have lesser access to insurance, have higher rates of underlying conditions.

And we know that people who have underlying conditions of any age and people who are over the age of 60 are at a higher risk of severe disease and death.

And we're seeing that across all countries.

And, as I said in the beginning, there's so much that people can do to protect themselves, protect themselves, and protect their loved ones.

This is at an individual level.

And it's the basics.

These are the public health basics.

This is about hand hygiene.

It's about wearing a mask.

It's about practicing respiratory etiquette.

It's about avoiding enclosed crowded spaces with poor ventilation.

It's about improving ventilation when you have to go indoors.

It's about staying healthy, keeping yourself mentally healthy as well, with this infodemic of information that is just bombarding us all the time, making sure that you are well-informed.

What we are advising now is a risk-based approach for everyone to take in terms of their daily life.

Do I -- can I work from home if possible?

Do I need to do this barbecue with my friends?

Do I want to?

Yes, I do.

But do I need to right now?

And what are the small sacrifices that each of us can make towards this common goal of ending this pandemic?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization, thank you very much for joining us on this really awful day.

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: Thank you for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Roughly 300,000 students in New York City Public Schools are returning to small and socially distanced in-school classes this week.

But, like nearly two-thirds of the largest school districts, many still will be doing distance learning.

Amna Nawaz looks at how the experiences teaching and learning this year have varied greatly.

But, first, let's hear from parents, students, teachers and school board members about what the first month or so has been like for them.

DEVIN EVANS, High School Teacher: My name is Devin Evans.

I'm a threat grade African American literary history instructor at a school in the Far South Side.

We are hardworking on weekends, nighttime, mornings, and it takes a lot more time to prepare an engaging lesson for remote instruction.

BRIANNA GONZALES, Student: Hi, my name is Brianna Gonzales, and I'm a seventh grader.

School is a lot harder this year with remote learning, because it feels like we have a lot of schoolwork.

It's really not that much, but it feels like a lot, because you have to keep track of everything by yourself.

AMANDA PRIETO, Parent: My name is Amanda Prieto, and I live in Miami-Dade County.

I have two children in the Miami-Dade County public school system.

The first day school started with the students logging into the same platform, and what happened was, they all experienced a whole bunch of errors, so they were not able to communicate with their teachers or their classmates.

TRISHIA BERMUDEZ, Special Needs Parent: My name is Trishia Bermudez, and I live in Rockaway.

Queens.

And Matthew is a 7-year-old boy with a rare chromosomal deletion.

He goes through the summer.

He's in District 75, which is a specialized program in New York City for students with severe disabilities.

GABRIELLE VOID, Student: My name is Gabrielle Void.

I'm 14 years old, and I attend Frederick Douglass High School.

Some positives to virtual learning are, I can get my work done a lot faster.

I could be more creative when it comes to doing my work.

JENNIFER VALEK, Parent: My name is Jennifer Valek.

I live in Charleston, South Carolina, and I have children in the second grade and sixth grade.

A month before school started, they called a special board meeting and took the five-day face-to-face option away, and said kids would go in cohorts.

So, half the students would go two days a week.

ROB BARRON, Des Moines, Iowa, School Board Member: My name is Rob Barron.

I'm born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa.

I'm a father, and I'm currently serving my second term on the Des Moines School Board.

The governor has said that, unless we reopen our buildings, we face a handful of sanctions, possible repetition of school days at the end of the year, accreditation for our district, sanction on our administrators licenses.

DEVIN EVANS: I am starting to master -- it's a platform called -- I think it's Nearpod, where you make interactive PowerPoints.

Now, I'm not 100 percent efficient with it, but I was able to begin last week the tutorials.

And I made a couple of slides that kids can begin to mark.

So, once I figured out how to get that one part done, I was so happy.

BRIANNA GONZALES: I'm excited to go back to school and see everybody again, even though we will be wearing a mask on.

AMANDA PRIETO: Because of numerous difficulties, during week two, we actually had a big school board meeting, and they unanimously voted to change the system mid-semester.

So, now we have transitioned to other district-approved tools, like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and so teachers are transitioning to those tools right now.

TRISHIA BERMUDEZ: We had a summer school teacher.

And she had a strict, like, timeline and was interactive with the students.

At one point, they told me I could leave.

I appreciate all his angels, because they are, that have helped him throughout this.

GABRIELLE VOID: Virtual learning has been a very interesting experience, to say the least.

But I do hope, in a couple of months we do get to go back into the classroom.

JENNIFER VALEK: Our superintendent, when we originally were told that we were going hybrid, that, April 8, we were to be face-to-face.

Now she has backtracked to that date.

We have got to push our board go to five days face-to-face.

It's exhausting.

ROB BARRON: We're looking at their success in the virtual model and trying to ascertain who needs to be back in that -- in those buildings.

This is all on a path to eventually having students back in buildings, but figuring out when and how is no small feat in a district like mine.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's look at some of these tough questions that educators and families are facing now and how decisions are made to reopen schools.

Dan Domenech is executive director of The School Superintendents Association, and he joins me now.

Mr. Domenech, welcome to the "NewsHour."

As you heard from all those folks there, schools, in terms of how they're carrying out their learning, are all over the place across the country.

When it comes to where schools landed, going hybrid or all remote are all in-person, how are most districts doing that?

And how have we seen that unfold over these first few weeks of school?

DANIEL DOMENECH, Executive Director, The School Superintendents Association: You know, Amna, it changes almost on a daily basis.

At this stage of the game, the majority of schools are actually doing remote learning.

Second to that are schools that are doing hybrid, and the smallest number are doing in-person learning.

But we see this changing constantly.

A school that is doing remote today may be doing in-person tomorrow, or a school that is doing in-person today may have to go remote tomorrow because there is an infection in the student on the part of students or staff.

So, it's a very fluid situation that changes on a regular basis.

And I suspect that this is going to be pretty much the course for the better part of this semester, if not the entire school year.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, this hybrid model was supposed to be sort of the best of both worlds.

It allows students some kind of in-person instruction, but it doesn't have them in school all the time and therefore increase the risk of infection, goes the argument.

In the places that you have seen it unfold, how has it been working?

Are the pros outweighing the cons?

DANIEL DOMENECH: The pros are outweighing the conservative, because at least we're able to get the kids in school.

The problem, of course, is that they're only in school perhaps two days a week, and the rest of the time, they're doing remote learning.

So this does not satisfy the need, for example, that parents that are working and need to have their children in school all of the time.

But it certainly is the best of the possible alternatives at this point in time.

AMNA NAWAZ: And you mentioned very briefly that the minority of schools are doing full in-person learning.

Where, by and large, are we seeing that happening?

And why is it allowed to happen there?

DANIEL DOMENECH: It's happening mostly in remote areas, places like New Hampshire, Maine, Wyoming, Montana, where you have remote areas, where they really don't have the infection rate that we have in other parts of the country.

The population is smaller.

The number of students in school is smaller, so the social spacing issue is not there.

They can wear their face mask.

So, that's where it's happening.

And it's working in those areas, primarily because they are remote and because they have not been as affected by the pandemic as urban areas are.

That's why you see that most large urban school systems are doing remote and probably will be doing remote for a while.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should mention you're in Florida right now.

That's where we're talking to you.

And Florida, as we remember, was heavily criticized for really pushing schools en masse to reopen in-person.

A lot of people worried that would lead to a huge spike in cases.

And, so far, one recent analysis found they haven't really seen that huge a spike.

How is that informing how aggressively other schools are planning to reopen?

DANIEL DOMENECH: Well, the problem here in Florida -- and I am here at this particular point in time -- is that, at the same time that schools are being pushed to reopen in-person, the governor is also removing the edicts on restaurants and beaches and other places in terms of large grouping.

It's almost business as usual.

And that almost guarantees that we're going to see a spike again and that a lot of these schools that are opening in-person may have to shut down, as we see an increase in the number of cases in terms of students and staff.

This has been the play in other places.

We have seen it happen.

Unfortunately, it probably will happen in Florida as well.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should note, the kids who already struggled to learn, kids who don't have full-time parents overseeing their education, who don't have Internet access at home, kids who have special needs and require more attention, they're falling further behind as they're in hybrid or remote learning.

You mentioned you're going to see distance learning for a while.

What does that mean, through the fall, through the spring?

DANIEL DOMENECH: Probably for the better part of this first semester.

A lot of it, in terms of what happens after January, will be dependent on, is there a vaccine?

Is there enough herd immunity?

What -- all of these factors, I think, will come into play.

But we have heard the director of the CDC say, for example, that, even with a vaccine, a mask and spacing will still be the best practice in terms of avoiding getting the disease.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I know a lot of families out there are wanting to get back to school, but safely, to do it safely.

That is Dan Domenech, executive director of The School Superintendents Association.

Thank you so much for your time.

DANIEL DOMENECH: Thank you for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: One topic that is likely to come up in tonight in the debate is China.

How the U.S. deals with Beijing over the next decade will have major consequences for the world.

Here now is Nick Schifrin with the United States' top diplomat in China as he prepares to leave his post.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Judy, one of the Trump administration's signature foreign policies has been what it calls confronting China over technology, trade in the South China Sea and Hong Kong.

And from the beginning, the administration's man in Beijing has been Terry Branstad.

He's the former six-term Republican governor of Iowa.

He campaigned for candidate Trump in 2016 and was one of the president's first ambassador choices.

He's now stepping down to return to the U.S. And he joins me from Beijing.

Ambassador Branstad, welcome to the "NewsHour."

When President Trump chose you to become ambassador, Beijing called you -- quote -- "an old friend" of the Chinese people.

As you leave, bilateral tensions have increased, and the nationalist tabloid Global Times called your tenure embarrassing.

What changed?

TERRY BRANSTAD, U.S.

Ambassador to China: Well, first of all, obviously, that's communist propaganda.

I have represented the United States of America, and some of the leaders here have not been happy with our policies.

But I'm proud of the progress we have made.

We have achieved the phase one trade agreement to get us more fairness and reciprocity and address issues like protecting intellectual property rights and preventing the involuntary taking of technology.

We have also addressed the fentanyl issue, in which China has made all of fentanyl and its derivatives controlled substances.

And I believe that is saving lives in America, and we're seeing more cooperation in that area.

In the past, we were hopeful that China was going to change and become more democratic.

It's not happened.

And, consequently, we want to make sure that the ambassadors and the diplomats here in China and our media are treated the same way that the Chinese are in America.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I want to get to some of those specifics in a second.

But let's talk about the overall relationship right now, Beijing and Washington cutting back on cultural and academic exchanges, restricting access for diplomats, targeting each other's media outlets.

And there's even large-scale military exercises that are close to each other.

Do you fear that there is an increase in conflicts going forward?

TERRY BRANSTAD: I know they want to be a rich and powerful country, but they want to be respected.

And the only way that China is going to be respected is if they play by the rules.

And one of the big disappointments in the world is the cover-up of the virus that started in Wuhan, and the fact that the rest of the world was not warned about this.

And the consequence were, it became a worldwide pandemic.

It's cost a lot of lives.

And it's really had a big impact on the economies of countries throughout the world.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You rightly point out some of the doctors in hospitals in Wuhan were silenced by hospital administrators and local officials, and that both local officials in Wuhan and Beijing restricted some information in those early days.

But, by January 20, Xi Jinping said publicly to the country that they should help the world talk about COVID-19, and Beijing talked about how COVID was human-to-human transmission at that point.

And yet it took President Trump months to acknowledge some of those points.

So, why do you blame Beijing for everything that happened with COVID since January?

TERRY BRANSTAD: Well, it started in China.

And had they really acknowledged the reality early on in December and January, something could have been done.

And then, of course, what happened is, a lot of the virus was spread from people that went to a big event in Wuhan for the Chinese new year, and then went to Europe and other parts of the world and spread the virus.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Let's talk about trade.

You have said that the phase one trade deal is what you're most proud of during your tenure as ambassador, but has Beijing lived up to its promises in the phase one trade deal?

There are critics.

And these critics say that there's no enforceability in the trade deal.

And they point out the Department of Justice continuously unveils examples of Chinese espionage, and that Chinese behavior has not changed.

TERRY BRANSTAD: Well, first of all, there are penalties for failing to abide by the trade agreement.

And I'm complimentary of the Justice Department for going after the Chinese.

I think, for too long, we were naive about some of the espionage that was going on in research at our universities and different places.

And, consequently, this administration has taken that very seriously and is going after enforcing it.

So, I think that's a good thing.

I don't agree with those that want to decouple with China.

This is a huge market.

And American products are very well liked by the Chinese consumers.

And we need to reduce the trade deficit and increase our exports, not just of agriculture products, but of manufactured goods and energy as well.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Your son Eric is an adviser to the Trump campaign.

You have said that you're willing to campaign for the president.

But former Vice President Biden has vowed to be tough on China.

Do you believe that a President Biden would stop the policies toward China that you believe have been successful under the Trump administration?

TERRY BRANSTAD: Well, if you look at his track record on foreign policy, it's a disaster.

Biden has been on basically the wrong side of most of these things throughout the long period of time.

I want to go back and share with the people in Iowa and throughout the United States why the changes, insisting on fairness and reciprocity, that President Trump has put in place.

So, I'm proud to go back and support my friends, many of whom I helped recruit, that are up for election or reelection this year.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Ambassador Terry Branstad, thank you very much.

TERRY BRANSTAD: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robert Mueller, his name is tied to many key moments in recent U.S. history, and as the special counsel at the heart of a major investigation into Russia and President Trump.

Today, the typically silent Mueller is speaking out about a new book.

Its author, a senior member of what was his investigative team, attorney Andrew Weissmann.

I spoke with Weissmann earlier today about "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation."

Andrew Weissmann, thank you very much for talking with us.

Just as we were preparing to do this interview, there was a statement issued by the former special counsel Robert Mueller, in a rare public statement about your book.

And I want to ask you about that, because, in the book, you write that, as much as you respected him going into this investigation, you end up critical of him for -- quote -- "understepping his role."

You wrote "failing to fulfill his mandate to offer a recommendation on obstruction of justice."

You say you were flummoxed by his thinking.

Why?

ANDREW WEISSMANN, Author, "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation": So, this was a very difficult book to write, because I have enormous respect for Director Mueller.

I have worked with him in various jobs.

And it would have been easy to write a book that just said, look how we were undercut by the president and by Attorney General Barr.

But, in writing the book, I decided it was really important to be as candid as I could be about the challenges that we faced and what we met head on, and, frankly, what I disagreed with, understanding that special counsel Mueller was the boss, and, ultimately, they are his calls.

But I thought that the public was owed a duty of candor and my frank and candid assessment of where I thought we met the challenges well and where I would have done things differently.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, he says in this statement today, he says: "It is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information."

He stands by his decision, the decisions he made.

What do you think he means by incomplete?

What did you not have access to?

ANDREW WEISSMANN: So, I don't know what that is a reference to.

And, obviously, I think the world would be waiting to hear him speak about the report and his conclusions.

What I tried to do in my book is really outline where I had disagreements.

And those are principally three things.

I thought that, ultimately, we needed to do a more complete financial investigation.

I thought that, after making all sorts of accommodations to the White House, I thought that we needed to subpoena the president.

I was concerned about the precedent we set by not doing so.

And the third is, I thought that we should have given a recommendation to the attorney general with respect to whether we believe the president had obstructed justice.

And I understand, on all three of those things, that the special counsel is the ultimate arbiter.

But that is his job.

And my job in writing this book was to be as candid as possible about the internal deliberations and the pros and cons that led to those decisions.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You said that, as you just said, you believe that there should have been a recommendation or a finding that the president committed obstruction of justice.

What should have happened, in your mind, to the president?

Because the Justice Department had a ruling that a sitting president, this president, couldn't be prosecuted.

So, what did you have in mind with that?

ANDREW WEISSMANN: The special counsel rules that we operated under required us to give a private report and private recommendation to the attorney general.

And so it was incumbent on us to give our recommendation.

That's what the rules require.

Instead, the special counsel, special counsel Mueller, for very noble reasons, knowing that the report would become public, didn't think that it was fair to the president to make a conclusion with respect to whether he had obstructed justice, if he couldn't then be indicted and have his day in court.

And my argument was that we weren't making a decision whether to make this public or not.

That was a decision made by the attorney general.

Under the rules, we were just making a recommendation to the attorney general as to what happened.

Going forward, I actually think that the special counsel rules should say that our report should be made public and that we should make a finding, very much like the 9/11 Commission report, because I think most people in the public and journalists thought that we were going to be making that kind of assessment.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, just quickly, to clarify, you are saying you believe the president should be held accountable once he leaves office?

I just want to understand that.

ANDREW WEISSMANN: Well, I think that is -- that's actually a very complicated issue.

You don't want to set a precedent where we're so politicized that we start going after our political opponents.

On the other hand, you also don't want to set a precedent where people commit crimes that are serious, particularly if the crimes were even before someone became president, and they know that, if they're elected, they will never be held to account.

So that is going to be a complicated issue.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Another thing I want to ask you about is:, you describe the lengths the White House, the president's lawyers, the president himself went to avoid cooperating with the special counsel, to intimidate, to threaten, to fire the special counsel.

Was there anything more that you think the special counsel himself or your investigation could have done to get more cooperation from the president than you did?

ANDREW WEISSMANN: Well, the key thing that we didn't ultimately do is, we didn't issue a subpoena to the president.

The special counsel, I think admirably, bent over backwards to try and accommodate the presidency, to see if there were ways that he would sit for an interview.

But, ultimately, in spite of the public pronouncements of the president that he wanted to meet with us and give an interview, he ultimately said no.

And we ultimately had the power to issue a subpoena that would have required him to testify.

And the reason I think it was important to do that is -- as I explain in the book, is, I think we really had "Hamlet" without Hamlet.

The main character was not called to give his testimony about what happened.

And I'm really concerned about the precedent it set for the next time we have a special counsel or independent counsel for the executive to be able to say, see, you don't need it, and here is an example of the special counsel who went forward without that critical piece of evidence.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Andrew Weissmann, thank you very much.

The book is "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation."

We appreciate it.

ANDREW WEISSMANN: Thank you very much.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On the "NewsHour" online: Stay tuned for our special digital debate preshow that starts right now.

Also, you can now watch all of the presidential debates dating back to 1960.

You can find that and more on PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Join us at 9:00 p.m. Eastern for special live coverage of the first presidential debate.

For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, please stay safe, and we will see you soon.