GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

Amna Nawaz is away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: President Trump visits Japan to meet its newly elected conservative prime minister, one stop on a multicountry trip to Asia with a focus on trade.

Hurricane Melissa is set to make landfall in Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm, barreling through the Caribbean.

And Vermont's recent floods reveal with devastating clarity how climate change can magnify the already critical shortage of affordable housing.

ARION THIBOUMERY, Owner, Heartbreak Hotel: We live in a whole new world.

Kind of all bets are off.

Nobody should be living in the floodplain.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

The U.S.

and China said today they have agreed on a framework for a potential trade deal, once again trying to pull back from a trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The announcement comes before a high-stakes meeting between President Trump and China's Xi Jinping later this week in South Korea.

But,tonight, President Trump's tour through Asia takes him to Japan.

Nick Schifrin has more.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, President Trump received a royal welcome in Tokyo's Imperial Palace.

The American president who's floated pursuing a third term praised the inheritor of the world's oldest hereditary monarchy.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: A great man, great man.

NICK SCHIFRIN: President Trump will soon meet the man he's called a great leader for perhaps the single most important meeting of his new term.

President Trump predicts he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will strike a trade deal that will focus in part on a rare critical resource whose production Beijing dominates.

China recently tightened restrictions on the export of heavy rare earth elements and powerful magnets.

Beijing controls nearly all the world's processing of rare earth magnets, essential for everything from the United States' most advanced fighter jets to the world's leading electric vehicles.

A senior U.S.

official tells "PBS News Hour," under a deal, China would pause those export restrictions for one year.

Beijing would also resume purchases of American soybeans.

SCOTT BESSENT, U.S.

Treasury Secretary: We had a very good meeting.

NICK SCHIFRIN: From behind President Trump on Air Force One, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out the trade deal's framework.

SCOTT BESSENT: We discussed the wide, wide range of the things, from tariffs, trade, fentanyl, substantial purchase of U.S.

agricultural products?

QUESTION: And rare earths?

SCOTT BESSENT: And rare earths.

QUESTION: But nothing has been agreed to yet?

(CROSSTALK) DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We feel good.

NICK SCHIFRIN: They will also discuss Taiwan amid regional fears that President Trump would abandon the island for a good China trade deal.

In a statement following a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said: "Earlier China-U.S.

economic and trade ties had encountered new frictions, but in recent talks the two sides clarified their positions, enhanced mutual understanding and reached a framework consensus.

On North Korea, U.S.

officials say they have no plans to repeat one of the president's most iconic first-term moments, though President Trump today said repeatedly he'd be open to it.

DONALD TRUMP: If he'd like to meet, I'm around.

I will be in South Korea, so I could be right over there.

QUESTION: But what could the U.S.

offer him at this point?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we have sanctions.

What?

That's pretty big to start off with.

I would say that's about as big as you get.

(CHEERING) NICK SCHIFRIN: But before Korea, President Trump meets with Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi just one week after she was sworn into office.

It's a diplomatic test for Japan's first female leader and its most conservative since World War II.

And to talk about President Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Takaichi and what's at stake for U.S.-Japan relations, we turn to Kenji Kushida, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Thanks very much.

Welcome back to the "News Hour."

Prime Minister Takaichi and Japanese officials have talked about sweeteners to make sure that the prime minister's meeting with the president goes well, even talking about buying Ford F-150 trucks.

Why is it important to the prime minister and to Japan that they create a positive personal relationship?

KENJI KUSHIDA, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Yes, well, Japan's security depends in large part on the U.S.

security umbrella, especially the nuclear umbrella that the U.S.

provides for Japan.

And, at the same time, the U.S.

has been Japan's biggest trading partner.

But, of course, the tariffs hit and they hit at 25 percent and they hit a lot of Japan's major industries, especially automobiles and precision machinery and these things.

So, economically, Japan is in a tight spot.

Prime Minister -- Former Prime Minister Abe's personal relationship with Trump, where they got along really well, Prime Minister Takaichi has positioned herself as Abe's successor in economic policy, foreign policy, her sort of conservative stance, her rhetoric about becoming a strong Japan again.

And so her positioning herself as a successor in Abe, she hopes that she can translate that into a good personal relationship with President Trump.

NICK SCHIFRIN: She has accelerated Japan's promise to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense.

But does that actually mean that she has advanced Japanese defense spending and can she meet even higher calls from the U.S.

to spend even more?

KENJI KUSHIDA: Yes, the acceleration of expenditures for defense, part of that is actually just the weakening of the yen and the rising cost of everything else.

So she actually hasn't actually spent a whole lot more very quickly compared to the initial plan.

That being said, she wants to aggressively spend government funds.

So defense is a good place to do this.

So, in a way, if the U.S.

demands for greater defense expenditures, she's very willing and prepared to spend more because that's been her stance to begin with.

NICK SCHIFRIN: On the trade side, the U.S.-Japan trade agreement from earlier this year has Japan pledging to spend $550 billion in the United States, with the provision that the Trump administration selects the actual projects.

Is that a commitment that she can actually meet?

KENJI KUSHIDA: Yes, the $550 billion expenditure commitment is -- in terms of amount, it's approximately Japan's entire tax revenue for a whole year.

So it's an enormous amount.

But I think she is prepared to move forward on a lot of the commitments and demonstrate with the next step beyond just a pledge actual - - some funding flowing to placate the U.S.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But is there even that level of interest required among Japanese investors in investing in the United States?

KENJI KUSHIDA: Yes, it's a mixed picture, but much of Japan doesn't feel like they have an option because the U.S.

could then come back and say, if you're not actually investing the $550 billion, we're going to raise tariff rates.

And that's going to hurt a lot more than a lot of the investment commitments.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And, finally, zooming out, some officials from East Asia have quietly been talking to me about their concern about the long-term reliability of the United States security umbrella, of the United States nuclear umbrella, especially if President Trump looks for a large trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Are those concerns shared by Japanese officials?

KENJI KUSHIDA: Yes, certain parts of people in Japan do see U.S.

potential unreliability as one of the big existential threats to Japan.

If Trump can claim that he solved East Asian security, he solved the Chinese security threat by, for example, saying, well, go ahead and you can have Taiwan, this would be a big issue for Japan.

And Japan has solidly pledged their commitment to the U.S.

And it's been described by some experts as there's no plan B. So this actually helps Prime Minister Takaichi's arguments that big fiscal expenditures need to happen, strengthening of defense, and possibly even revising the Constitution to allow for a normal military does get some support.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Kenji Kushida of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thank you very much.

KENJI KUSHIDA: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Hurricane Melissa is making its way to Jamaica tonight after strengthening to a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 175 miles per hour.

Authorities have already started mandatory evacuations across the island as they move to close the nation's airports.

Officials have also opened more than 800 emergency shelters.

The storm has already caused extensive damage, as its outer bands have already dropped heavy rain in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

And now it's heading west towards Jamaica overnight and Cuba on Wednesday.

So far, it's claimed three lives in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic.

For more on what the island nation can expect in the hours ahead, we're joined by Matthew Cappucci, senior meteorologist at MyRadar.

Thanks for being back with us.

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI, Senior Meteorologist, MyRadar: Good to be here.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, as I understand it, you flew into the eye of this hurricane last night in a hurricane Hunter plane.

What did you observe about this storm that people should know?

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: Yes, about a week ago, I was trying to figure out my coverage plans in terms of, would I be going to Jamaica?

Would I be chasing it elsewhere?

And we decided the safest option would be to basically attack it from the air.

I reached out to a NOAA P.R., National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and arranged to get myself a seat on this flight into the eye of Melissa.

And for folks to understand, hurricanes are sort of like atmospheric sink drains.

All the air rushes into the eye wall, that buzz saw a ring of winds around the center.

And all the air spirals inwards and upwards.

But then it basically punches into the ceiling of the lower atmosphere, and kind of curves back down, and hollows out the eye with hot, dry, sinking air.

And so as we were flying into the hurricane, the turbulence obviously very extreme, it was like being on Space Mountain at Disney World or a roller coaster in the dark, jostling to and fro, up and down, you name it.

And that lasted about 10 minutes.

And then, suddenly, we were in the oasis of calm, this incredibly calm, picturesque eye.

I could see something called the stadium effect.

Basically, I'm in this zone of calm, but all around me, I can see 50,000 foot thunderclouds swirling around in the eye wall with 150-plus-mile-per-hour winds.

And yet, even just for about 90 seconds where I was, it was perfectly still.

It was super warm too, because the eye was 16 degrees warmer inside than outside.

So I actually began sweating a little bit.

It was breathtakingly beautiful and calm and peaceful, and yet also horrifying, knowing that, all around me, that hellacious buzz saw wind was heading for Jamaica.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, what does this mean for Jamaica when Melissa hits?

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: This will be an unprecedented event in Jamaica.

The last even comparable event was back on September 12, 1988, when Gilbert hit as a high end Category 3.

But it's important people understand that a Category 5 is exponentially stronger, probably an order of magnitude stronger than a Category 3.

Category 3 might cause some structural damage.

Category 5 leads to destruction of entire neighborhoods and isolation of entire communities.

It's a multifaceted threat too.

Far inland, you're talking three, maybe 3.5 feet of rain.

That will cause widespread flooding and mudslides that will wipe out roads and leave communities unreachable perhaps for weeks until roads and bridges can be rebuilt.

At the coastline, where that buzz saw wind comes ashore, a 40-mile-wide swathe of winds gusting upwards of 140, 150 miles per hour will cause tornado-like damage.

Even if any structures survive, the landscape will be altered.

Trees, native trees, will be decimated, forests will be wiped bare.

Only just shredded vegetation will be left standing.

It'll take years for the landscape to heal.

That wind will also push water against the coastline, leading to a potentially devastating storm surge of two to four meters, up to about 13 feet.

Imagine the ocean just rising to the height of a two floor building.

All this together will tax Jamaica to its limit and potentially lead to a humanitarian crisis that could last for a very long time.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is Melissa's trajectory or strength expected to change as it heads toward Jamaica?

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: It really would take a miracle for Jamaica to avert crisis at this point.

We're pretty confident in where Melissa's going.

It's been trending a little farther west than initially anticipated, which might, emphasis on might, be good news for Kingston, but bad news for areas on the southwestern side of the island.

At this point, though, we're very confident this eye wall, the buzz saw of winds will lift directly across Jamaica.

And it might be a high-end Category 4 or a low-end Category 5 at landfall.

It really doesn't matter which.

It's going to cause extreme destruction, to the point the National Hurricane Center is using phrasing like total structural failure.

That's the severity of this.

They tend to be pretty taciturn, pretty reserved in how they use their language.

When they break out phrasing like that, you know it's the real deal.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lots of folks hoping for a miracle tonight in Jamaica.

Matthew Cappucci, senior meteorologist at MyRadar, thanks again for being with us.

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Our other headlines start with day 27 of the U.S.

government shutdown.

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are still off the job to start the week.

The head of the country's largest federal workers union weighed in, saying -- quote -- "It's time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end the shutdown today, no half-measures and no gamesmanship."

The group said reopening the government would allow for continued debate on larger issues like expiring Obamacare tax credits.

Today, on Capitol Hill, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed that health care must be addressed, but criticized how Democrats are approaching the issue.

REP.

MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We have a lot of work to do, but it is not a simple thing.

And I am not going to go in a back room with Chuck Schumer like he keeps demanding with four people and make this decision.

I will not do it.

It's not appropriate.

It's not right.

It's too complicated for that.

GEOFF BENNETT: Democrats warn that the time to negotiate is now because open enrollment begins in most states next week.

Meantime, the Department of Agriculture says federal food aid known as SNAP will not start going out in November.

And more than 11,000 flights have been delayed nationwide in the last two days as the FAA reports a growing number of air traffic controller absences.

Indiana is joining the growing fight over redistricting as each party tries to gain an advantage ahead of next year's midterm elections.

The state's Republican Governor Mike Braun called for a special legislative session to start next week for lawmakers to redraw the state's congressional districts.

The move follows similar efforts by Republicans in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina, and it comes after weeks of pressure from the Trump administration.

Meantime, Democrats in Virginia are expected to push their own redistricting effort as lawmakers there gather this week for a special session.

Former President Joe Biden says he can't sugarcoat the state of the nation and that these are, in his words, dark days.

Biden made the comments while accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston.

He described the current moment as the worst he has seen in his many decades of elected public life, adding that our very democracy is at stake.

He said the country depends on a president with limited power, a functioning Congress, and an independent judiciary.

JOE BIDEN, Former President of the United States: We remain in the battle for the soul of our nation, in my view.

And that means we, all of us, and I mean all of us, have enormous responsibility to protect the institutions upon which the fate of our nation rests.

GEOFF BENNETT: Striking a note of optimism, Mr.

Biden said he believes the U.S.

will emerge stronger, wiser, and more resilient so long as we keep the faith.

He's maintained a low profile since leaving office in January, followed by his cancer diagnosis in May.

The U.S.

Navy is investigating two separate crashes involving aircraft from the USS Nimitz this past weekend.

The incidents involving a fighter jet like the one seen here and a helicopter occurred within 30 minutes of each other in the South China Sea.

The carrier was returning to the U.S.

from its final deployment in the Middle East before being decommissioned.

Officials say all five crew members from the two aircraft were rescued and are in stable condition.

They were conducting routine operations when the crashes occurred.

A U.N.

human rights commission has found that Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In a report out today, the independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine reported hundreds of strikes on the southern city of Kherson.

These include dropping hand grenades on civilians in their backyards and attacking first responders.

The commission found that the strikes are intended to create what it called a permanent climate of terror.

Russia has denied targeting civilians and has refused to cooperate with U.N.

investigators.

President Trump says Argentina's leader had a lot of help from the U.S.

in his party's midterm election victories.

President Javier Milei saw decisive wins in this weekend's vote, giving him a stronger hand in pushing through his aggressive economic reforms.

The Trump administration had offered Argentina $20 billion through a currency swap deal, plus another $20 billion from private banks.

Mr.

Trump had signaled that American support was contingent on Milei's success in the election.

In a victory speech, Milei described the weekend vote as a turning point for Argentina.

On Wall Street today, stocks pushed higher amid hopes of easing trade tensions between the U.S.

and China.

The Dow Jones industrial average added more than 330 points.

The Nasdaq jumped more than 400 points.

The S&P 500 closed above 6800 for the first time ever.

Still to come on the "News Hour": our Politics Monday team weighs in on President Trump saying he'd love to run again in 2028; Sudan's cultural landmarks and artifacts become casualties in the country's civil war; and a new book explores the political legacy of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.

From Texas to North Carolina, from New England to the Midwest, communities are facing a growing threat from flash flooding.

At the same time, many of those regions already lack enough affordable housing, a problem made worse by these storms.

For our climate series Tipping Point, William Brangham reports on how one community in Central Vermont is trying to find a new way to move to higher ground.

JAKE MCBRIDE, Flood Victim: Somewhere around right here would be the front porch.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This now empty space is where Jake McBride's home used to be, the small apartment building in the village of Plainfield, Vermont, that sat next to the Great Brook River.

It was affectionately known as the Heartbreak Hotel, a building where he says a community flourished, one woven into the town's past and future.

JAKE MCBRIDE: So many people I know lived here and then were able to save and buy their own home in Plainfield.

It was a gateway to this area that we just don't have anymore.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Just upstream, Christiana Athena-Blackwell and her husband, Walker, bought their dream home in 2023 next to the Great Brook.

But they're now waiting on a buyout from FEMA and fondly remembering the times before the flood.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL, Homeowner: Two days before, we were having a dance party on this block.

WALKER BLACKWELL, Homeowner: Yes, we had like a little block party.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL: The Fourth of July with a live band and everybody in the neighborhood out having food.

It was just like this is the most ideal place.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It sounds dreamy.

WALKER BLACKWELL: It's sounds dreamy.

Like, this is the most ideal area.

And so that's gone.

WOMAN: Tonight, areas of the Northeast are reeling from storm damage.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On July 10, 2024, the remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl dumped six inches of rain over this area in just a few hours.

Huge volumes of water, uprooted trees and mountains of dirt barreled down the Great Brook before crashing into the concrete bridge just above the Heartbreak, creating a logjam for the floodwaters.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL: Probably, in less than two minutes, we got out of here.

I backed up, but the water was rushing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Oh, my gosh.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL: It was like -- it was up to here by the time I had gathered... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Above your knees.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL: Yes.

(CROSSTALK) WALKER BLACKWELL: Yes.

And That broke and that took out the Heartbreak.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Miraculously, everyone in the building made it out that night.

McBride and his partner were on a road trip the night of the storm.

His housemate called him with the shocking news.

JAKE MCBRIDE: He said: "The house is gone."

I said: "What do you mean the house is gone?"

And he says: "It's just gone.

The whole thing's gone."

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That devastating flood hit Plainfield exactly one year after another deluge.

MAN: And the news this morning is not good in Vermont, a disaster there.

MAN: Some of the worst flooding in nearly 100 years.

WOMAN: It caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Two so-called hundred year events in consecutive years.

In all, 39 homes in the village were lost, making dozens of families homeless in an already tight housing market; 11 percent of the village's tax base was washed away.

ARION THIBOUMERY, Owner, Heartbreak Hotel: It's sort of like frozen in time a little bit here, frozen in disaster.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Arion Thiboumery bought the Heartbreak in 2021.

After the first flood two years ago, he thought it was still a smart investment.

ARION THIBOUMERY: And my thinking at that time is like, OK, climate change is real.

This is happening.

The 100-year flood is now going to be the 10-year flood.

And then the 2024 flood came.

And, to me, it was like we live in a whole new world.

Kind of all bets are off.

Nobody should be living in the floodplain.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Grappling with this whole new world led Thiboumery and a handful of other volunteers to try and chart a new path forward on higher ground.

ARION THIBOUMERY: It's like kind of a nice view over the whole thing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yes.

The village would purchase about 24 acres of private land on this hillside and use federal disaster assistance to develop and sell the lots for mostly affordable housing.

ARION THIBOUMERY: And this spot is in the village on higher ground.

We have municipal water and sewer, power lines, data.

Everything runs right there.

We bring it right up to this property.

We essentially are putting a new neighborhood on a hill that's already in town on 40-feet higher elevation, clearly out of the floodplain.

And there's one-time federal money that's been sent to the state of Vermont targeting our county.

We are really ready to go and move this forward.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As straightforward is that sounds, the devil has been in the details.

MAN: My favorite housing development in Plainfield, but not on this land, not at this density, and not at this cost.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On a recent rainy evening, locals filled the village's old opera house for what was, at times, a tense meeting about the plan.

WOMAN (through translator): All of you, be respectful and kind to us.

Just because we disagree with this doesn't mean we're bad people.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: At issue, should the local board apply for that federal disaster money?

If they got it, it would pay for almost all the estimated $9.3 million it would cost to lay out the site and ready the lots for sale.

WOMAN: I grew up with the understanding that, if I worked, I would be able to afford housing.

And probably for the better part of 20 years, I have been seeking long-term housing in this area.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: While most seem to agree with that broader goal, critics are concerned about the number of lots being proposed, the overall cost of the plan, and the potential financial risk the village is taking on.

MAN: I have concerns about the long-term costs.

WOMAN: I really think we're cramming too many lots on this land.

WOMAN: Don't take all of this money as if it's free to spend.

Run your books like we have to run ours, because we can't afford to be taxed anymore in this town.

MICHAEL BIRNBAUM, Opposes Expansion Project: Sure, it's a good idea to replenish our housing stock.

We want that.

But why would the town want to risk its credit rating, its taxpayers being able to pay their taxes and stay in their homes?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Michael Birnbaum is one of those critics.

MICHAEL BIRNBAUM: I studied forestry, anthropology.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We talked on the grounds of the now-defunct Goddard College in Plainfield.

A developer bought the property and wants to turn it into rental housing.

Birnbaum agrees that's a simpler fix than the town's idea.

MICHAEL BIRNBAUM: There are lots of possibilities for more housing.

Why are all of our eggs in this basket and why is the town taking that risk, instead of somebody whose business is to take that risk?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Supporters of the plan worry that a private developer in search of profit will price too many locals out, and while new housing at the college is welcome they say their community needs an all-of-the-above approach.

ARION THIBOUMERY: We have diminishing enrollment in our schools.

We have an aging population.

We're actually fortunate to be a town that young people want to move to, but are having trouble finding housing.

So having here, we're talking about homeownership, which is different than rental housing.

But we need all of it.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Vermont has one of the highest homeless rates in the country and its Republican governor says the state needs 40,000 additional housing units by 2030 in a state of just 648,000 people.

He and the Democratic state legislature have recently taken steps to ease some building restrictions.

WOMAN: If we do nothing, our taxes are going up.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But ultimately what gets built and how has to be hammered out at the local level between neighbors and communities like this one.

MICHAEL BIRNBAUM: I think there were some people who were openly derisive of our points of view.

They either accused us of NIMBYism or fear.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That you're afraid of change, you're afraid of the new.

MICHAEL BIRNBAUM: Yes.

That's not at all what it is.

We're afraid of the risk to the town and inappropriate use of a particular piece of land.

And that's really different from saying, no, we don't want growth.

JAKE MCBRIDE: There's no perfect solution.

I just want a solution, and I want to be able to work with my neighbors towards that, and I think that we're so polarized right now that we're not being terribly productive.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL: We're just in complete limbo right now.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yes.

MAN: And we just have to live like that.

CHRISTIANA ATHENA-BLACKWELL: Just we don't know what it's going to look like.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Back at their former dream home on the Great Brook, the Blackwells aren't sure what they will do, but they support the new housing plan.

WALKER BLACKWELL: Our community was changed fundamentally and permanently in 30 minutes during the flood.

And what we're doing is simply restoring a little bit of what Plainfield was 30 minutes before all of that happened.

I think it's harder for people to accept a change that's a choice than it is for people to accept a change that's Mother Nature.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Later that evening at the town meeting, the board voted unanimously to move ahead with the grant application.

Even if they get the money, it is just one of many hurdles they will need to clear.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm William Brangham in Plainfield, Vermont.

GEOFF BENNETT: The government shutdown stretches into its fifth week, and President Trump is once again testing political boundaries, this time by hinting at the possibility of a third term.

For more on that and the other political stories shaping the week, we're joined now by our Politics Monday duo.

That is Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Happy Monday.

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Hello.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Hello.

GEOFF BENNETT: So Steve Bannon, former presidential aide, ever the provocateur, seems to be deliberately stirring the pot by floating the idea of a third Trump term.

The president on Air Force One early this morning said that he'd be open to it.

Take a listen.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I would love to do it.

I have my best numbers ever.

It's very terrible.

I have my best numbers.

If you read it... QUESTION: You're not ruling out a third term?

DONALD TRUMP: Am I not ruling it out?

You will have to tell me.

All I can tell you is that we have a great -- a great group of people, which they don't.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy, why does the president keep flirting with this idea of a third term, despite the Constitution's clear limit against it?

AMY WALTER: Yes.

Well, remember, this is a candidate who in 2016 said, I alone can fix this.

And this has been the ongoing mantra of his first term, but even more so his second term.

And, quite frankly, all of the institutions and guardrails that theoretically would have prevented many of the things that Donald Trump is actually going ahead and doing right now have failed to do their job.

And so there's every reason for him to believe that, indeed, even though the Constitution explicitly lays out the fact that a president cannot have more than two terms, that there is a work-around to this.

GEOFF BENNETT: And it seems to be another sign, Tam, that he does not view the law as a meaningful constraint on his power or authority.

What is he trying to do, project permanence here?

TAMARA KEITH: Let's just talk about a purely political reason he might be doing this, because the second he admits that he's not going to be in office in 2028, then he becomes a lame-duck.

And so much of his power right now exists because people believe he's powerful.

And if he loses some of that shine because, oh, he's a lame-duck, then that becomes a problem for him more broadly.

But, as Amy says, this isn't just one time.

This is repeatedly.

Earlier this year, I was on Air Force One.

He had just again flirted with the idea about running in 2028 and staying.

And I asked him, so will you leave?

Can you guarantee that you will leave office on January 20, 2029?

And he said, next question.

So he is leaving this out there.

He isn't ruling it out.

And people are left to wonder, is he joking like he sometimes is?

Or is he serious?

And it's one of those things where you may not know until it's too late.

AMY WALTER: It's also a reminder that the party is Donald Trump and Donald Trump is the party.

TAMARA KEITH: Yes.

(CROSSTALK) AMY WALTER: And so whether I will be here or whether it will be somebody else, there is no Republican who will be in office at a point in the near future that won't be coming from this part of the party, the Trump party.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, right.

I was going to ask you, does this talk of forever Trump underscore how little space there might be for the next generation of leaders?

AMY WALTER: Absolutely.

GEOFF BENNETT: The part of this clip that we didn't play was where he was talking about, well, J.D.

Vance might run against Marco Rubio and we will see what happens.

AMY WALTER: Right.

Right, that there's no room for anybody that's outside of this.

And it's understandable.

I mean, the party itself has very few of those voices left, at least from the before times.

The question Is, which candidate's going to come out of future times that is not going to look like, say, a George W. Bush era Republican, but that's going to be some amalgamation of a person who was sort of raised in the MAGA era, but is taking it further into the 21st century?

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, this is another Monday where we're talking about the government shutdown and nothing seems to have significantly changed, except for the fact that SNAP benefits are going to expire on November 1.

And the federal government, the White House says there's not going to be a specific bailout for folks.

Is that a pressure point that could fundamentally change the dynamics here?

TAMARA KEITH: It is a pressure point.

And there are many pressure points.

That is a big one.

Democrats are very loudly pointing out that the initial contingency plan that the government, the Trump administration put out called for a reserve fund to be used to keep paying those SNAP benefits.

Now the administration is saying they can't do that.

And so that is -- if people can't get food, there are already stronger, greater demands on food banks and other sources of support because the government shutdown is dragging on and people don't have pay.

There are a number of pressure points that are coming.

Another thing that happens on November 1 is open enrollment, where people will go out and buy health plans or shop for health plans and they're likely to get some sticker shock.

That's another pressure point that Democrats -- I mean, that's the whole issue Democrats have been talking about during this shutdown.

That will be another thing.

But the chaplain, the Senate chaplain, was basically praying to end the shutdown today at the start of the session.

And that might be as effective as any of these other things because there just really is no movement and President Trump is out of the country all this week.

AMY WALTER: That's what I was going to say.

What seems to be very clear and it's been clear from the very beginning is this is not going to happen unless Donald Trump is in the room, unless the president is sitting down with the leaders of the House and the Senate to make something happen.

The fact that he has gone this week does speak volumes about whether or not this ends.

But we have been saying now for the last it feels like 300 days, but the last three weeks of this shutdown that what is going to end it is when real pain starts to hit a broad swathe of the population.

People who are federal employees have been feeling this pain for quite some time, those who've been furloughed or laid off.

Now it's going to be some of the most vulnerable among us who could feel that pain.

And we're starting to see it in local press.

The front page of The Denver Post, for example, the other day, had the governor of Colorado asking people to donate to food banks with the expectation that SNAP benefits will be delayed.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Well, it's one week before Election Day in statewide races in New Jersey and Virginia.

Both states, they're set to elect new governors.

We have got the mayoral race in New York.

What are you watching for?

TAMARA KEITH: I am watching energy prices.

It has become an issue in Virginia and New Jersey and in Georgia in some public utility commissioner races.

This is something that both parties are trying to make something of and some Democrats I have spoken to see focusing on energy prices as a potential path forward, depending on how these races turn out.

GEOFF BENNETT: We have also got the California vote on the redistricting referendum?

AMY WALTER: We do.

We do.

GEOFF BENNETT: OK.

AMY WALTER: And that one, right now, polling suggests it's pretty far ahead and is likely to pass, which means Democrats are going to get an opportunity now to basically negate the gains that Republicans are getting from a Texas map.

The other thing that I'm going to look really closely at is the coalition that turns out to vote.

Donald Trump, especially in a state like New Jersey, was able to make significant inroads thanks to support he was getting from traditionally Democratic groups like voters of color.

Are those voters going to show up this time and are they going to vote for Republicans?

I'm going to look for that.

GEOFF BENNETT: My favorite election cliche, it all comes down to turnout.

AMY WALTER: As always, always.

TAMARA KEITH: On Election Day.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, appreciate you both.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

GEOFF BENNETT: Sudan's civil war, now in its third year, has become a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering scale, marked by famine, ethnic cleansing and widespread sexual violence.

An estimated 150,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million have been forced from their homes.

But one part of this story has drawn far less attention, the destruction of Sudan's cultural heritage and what that loss means for its people and for the very idea of Sudanese identity.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: The scene at Sudan's National Museum earlier this year after government forces had retaken the capital city of Khartoum from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, precious artifacts destroyed or looted, treasures that speak to the overwhelming loss and high stakes of Sudan's civil war.

University of Washington historian Christopher Tounsel studies the region.

CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL, University of Washington: One of the reasons why the Rapid Support Forces targeted these museums is because of what they represent, right?

Cultural heritage is a foundational part of how nation-states kind of provide legitimacy.

JEFFREY BROWN: This humanitarian crisis began in the aftermath of the 2019 downfall of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, when two former allies split and civil war ensued.

More than two years later: CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL: It has been a hellscape, right?

Millions have been driven away from their homes.

The war has devastated critical infrastructure from clinics to hospitals, even to water supplies, right?

We still don't really know how many people have been killed because the destruction has been so heavy and so many regions are not accessible to NGOs like the Red Cross.

JEFFREY BROWN: Also hard to assess, the damage to Sudan's cultural heritage sites.

But to observers and experts, there's little question they have been caught in the crossfire and targeted.

HABAB IDRISS AHMED, National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums: I'm an archaeologist.

I can say it loudly.

It seems to be it's like targeted to the disappear or to vanish the Sudanese culture.

JEFFREY BROWN: Habab Idriss Ahmed is a senior inspector at the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, the government agency overseeing Sudan's cultural sites.

She's now living in Scotland after fleeing the fighting in 2023.

HABAB IDRISS AHMED: It seems to be like something organized.

It's not something randomly happened.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sudan's landscape is filled with pyramids, tombs and temples.

It's home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, libraries with historic manuscripts and numerous museums, including the Sudan National Museum, which prior to the war had housed some 100,000 artifacts, with one of the largest Nubian collections in the world.

A UNESCO statement earlier this year said: "The securing of certain institutions by the authorities has shown evidence of large-scale looting and significant damage.

UNESCO strongly condemns these attacks on cultural heritage."

HABAB IDRISS AHMED: We lost a lot, a lot more you can imagine.

We lost museums.

We lost sites.

We lost objects, thousands of objects.

So we are being working more than 100 years in archaeology.

So you can imagine the museum are full of objects.

The stores are full of objects.

We have history.

We have memory.

So, all this kind of shaped the identity of Sudanese people.

JEFFREY BROWN: Most of the blame has been placed on the paramilitary RSF, which has its roots in Western Sudan.

CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL: It really goes back to the Rapid Support Forces being located on really the fringes of national power historically in Darfur.

In the early 20th century, Darfur was really known as a kind of restive location within Sudan that was resisting colonial power.

And that kind of restiveness really continued through political marginalization through the 20th and into the early 21st century.

JEFFREY BROWN: But government Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, have also been cited by the U.N.

for civilian and other abuses in the war, including attacks on mosques and churches.

Habab Idriss Ahmed is now working with international partners to document some of the losses and give them life online.

HABAB IDRISS AHMED: It's like making a virtual museum of the Sudan, Sudan National Museum collection itself.

So we tried our best to rescue, to assess the -- what we have -- been lost.

JEFFREY BROWN: Also threatened, a contemporary generation of artists who've been displaced and forced to leave much of their lives and work behind.

One of them, Reem Aljeally, now living in Cairo, is a curator and visual artist.

Much of her work focuses on the world of women in Sudan.

REEM ALJEALLY, Visual Artist and Curator: I think the art in Sudan is very powerful, it is very personal.

Each artist has its own or her own kind of print and the kind of stories that they're telling.

I think it is very truthful.

It is very powerful.

And I think through this art you can learn more about Sudan and the people of Sudan and these qualities that these people carry with them wherever they're going now.

JEFFREY BROWN: Colleagues who remained in Khartoum have checked on her gallery, which has been damaged in the fighting, while she herself stays in touch with other displaced Sudanese artists.

REEM ALJEALLY: I think we're all doing our best wherever we are, and I think we're doing a really good job looking at the circumstances.

You can find their work all over.

You look in Doha, you find an exhibition, Nairobi.

You look in Uganda, everywhere, they're just doing amazing work.

JEFFREY BROWN: Before the war, Aljeally started the Sudan Art Archive, a digital database to document contemporary work.

Now that too has become a way of preserving potential and actual losses.

REEM ALJEALLY: There was an urgency because we were facing the problem of displacement and exiles, and a lot of artists are more encouraged to actually be part of the archive because we realize the importance of this at the moment.

JEFFREY BROWN: Observers now describe the war as a stalemate, with no end in sight to the loss of life, widespread famine and displacement.

And what of cultural heritage?

Where do things go from here?

What are your biggest fears, or do you see any hope going forward?

CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL: My biggest fear when it comes to the outcome of the cultural heritage is that some of these precious artifacts are never recovered, right, and that future generations of Sudanese citizens are unable to see with their own eyes, right, material history that connects them to the glory of these past civilizations, as well as material that shows how resilient the Sudanese people have been over space and time.

JEFFREY BROWN: And why should the rest of us pay attention?

Because, Habab Idriss Ahmed says, this heritage is part of our history too.

HABAB IDRISS AHMED: I have a message to all the world.

Because we thought that cultural heritage is belonging to the certain geographical area, yes, this is true, but, usually, when we study archaeology, we know archaeology or cultural heritage is -- belong to the all mankind.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown.

GEOFF BENNETT: The Reverend Jesse Jackson is a towering figure in the civil rights movement, but his political legacy is less often remembered.

It's been more than 40 years since Jackson launched the first of his two presidential campaigns, yet the issues he championed in the '80s, economic justice, voting rights, and a more inclusive democracy, still echo in today's politics.

His enduring influence on American political life is the subject of journalist Abby Phillip's new book, "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power."

I recently spoke with her about it.

Abby Phillip, welcome to the "News Hour."

ABBY PHILLIP, Author, "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power": Thank you so much for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

In writing this book, what did you set out to correct in the public understanding about Jesse Jackson?

ABBY PHILLIP: The simple answer is, there's been almost an erasure of Jesse Jackson's role in politics.

I think people know a lot about his activism, but they don't know a whole lot about his political chapter.

And this political chapter was far more significant than people realized at the time.

And one of the reasons the book is called "A Dream Deferred" is because the premise is that it took 20 years for at least some of what Jesse Jackson envisioned to come to fruition with Barack Obama's election in 2008 and perhaps even longer for there to be a full understanding of the ideological underpinnings of what he ran on, this kind of economic populist message and also social justice being intertwined.

So there is a sense when I talk to a lot of people that people, if they lived through it, remember that he ran, but they don't think it was - - it mattered that much.

And the book argues that it did have a lasting impact on Democratic politics and American politics in general.

GEOFF BENNETT: And he's lived such a public life.

What was it like separating the mythology from the man?

ABBY PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, look everybody has an opinion about Jesse Jackson.

This is someone who's been a public figure since he was in his early 20s, when he was 24, 25 when he went into Dr.

King's orbit.

And so he's had this incredibly long history and is a very polarizing figure.

And that is a big part of this book, because you can't talk about him without understanding that he was perceived so differently, depending on who you were, whether you were a white American or a Jewish American or a Black American or what have you.

Everybody viewed him so differently.

And so one of the things about this book is that it gives you a broad overview of who is the man.

But, more specifically, it looks at what he was trying to accomplish when he decided to dabble in politics.

And I think that allows us to take a little bit of the noise away from the polarizing nature of Jesse Jackson's broader legacy and just say, what did he contribute to the political life of this country?

And I think that helps for people who are not sure what to think about him.

GEOFF BENNETT: What was he trying to achieve with those historic runs in 1984, 1988?

He registered millions of voters.

He reshaped the Democratic Party.

What was he trying to achieve?

ABBY PHILLIP: Yes, it wasn't clear that he expected to win.

And so many people, especially when he ran in 1984, thought that he was just running a show campaign.

They thought that he was just trying to make a point.

And, in a way, he was.

He first ran for president to send a message to the Democratic establishment that they can't take Black voters for granted.

But what ended up happening was that I think he saw that the message that he was putting out there was having broader resonance than that.

He was going to rural towns in the South and in the Midwest, in Missouri, in Iowa, in Wisconsin.

And white farmers would show up at his rallies.

These burly white farmers who you would never expect to see at a Jesse Jackson rally would show up.

And what started out as an attempt to send a message to the establishment that Black voters mattered turned into more of a movement.

And by the time he got to 1988, he was a very influential figure in the Democratic Party.

He had control over a good swathe of the base.

And so he had a lot of leverage.

He went pretty far.

He came in second place in that campaign.

And there's a part of the book where we talk about the moment that he and his team realized, wait a second, we could win this.

And that was, I think, one of the first times that he really contemplated what it would look like if he actually did become the president.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

You interviewed him for this book.

You spoke with him.

ABBY PHILLIP: I did, yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: What was that like?

What did he tell you?

ABBY PHILLIP: Yes.

I mean, Reverend Jackson now is 84 years old.

And so when I started working on this book, he was in the middle of this -- is in the middle of this battle with Parkinson's.

And it was already at that point apparent that it was difficult to really understand him.

But what really surprised me was how much he remembered.

He really holds on to granular levels of detail about what these campaigns were about, about what he was -- what his mission was, about some of these events.

I went with him to his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, and he could navigate that town turn by turn, taking you back to where he grew up in the 1950s.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

ABBY PHILLIP: And so it was extraordinary to really hear from him directly what he saw as the connections between his campaigns and where he thinks the Democratic Party ought to go now.

And, in a way, that's sort of the unfinished business.

I don't think that there have been many candidates really in Jackson's mold that have done what he sought out to do.

And I do think he still believes that that could be the ticket for the Democratic Party to regain its footing in the future.

GEOFF BENNETT: I will tell you, when I got this book and I saw the title, I thought, that is a brilliant title.

ABBY PHILLIP: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: "A Dream Deferred" from the Langston Hughes poem has so much emotional and historic weight.

What does that mean in the context of Jesse Jackson's life and legacy?

ABBY PHILLIP: Yes, Jesse Jackson started out wanting to be a part of the civil rights movement, really at its peak, at a time when Black people were fighting just for their basic human rights.

And one of the things that he did on behalf of Dr.

King in the late 1960s and early 1970s was add an economic justice piece to that.

And layered on top of that also was telling Black Americans that now, yes, you have the right to vote.

But here's how you can make your vote powerful.

And I do think that that dream of not just empowering Black Americans with that basic right to cast a ballot, but to show them how they can use their political power to change the country, that was Reverend Jackson's dream, and doing so with a sense of solidarity in mind.

I mean, I think he really envisioned that people of all backgrounds would -- could unite underneath a basic economic vision of fairness for working-class and poor people.

And in many ways, that is actually a message that is very much up for grabs right now in American politics.

You hear it on the right and you hear it on the left.

And one of the interesting things for me was just hearing so much resonance in Reverend Jackson's message in the 1980s and what even Donald Trump is running on, what Bernie Sanders is running on, what people like Zohran Mamdani are running on.

These are live issues in American politics right now.

And his campaigns, Jesse Jackson's campaigns, foreshadowed that conversation that we're still having today in the country.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, the book is terrific, "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power."

Abby Phillip, real treat to have you here.

ABBY PHILLIP: Thank you so much, Geoff.

Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the "PBS News Hour," thanks for spending part of your evening with us.