JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: A grim picture emerges.

We are on the ground on the Florida Panhandle, as the scope of Hurricane Michael's destruction comes into focus.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Nobody has water.

Nobody has power.

The grocery storms are closed.

The gas stations are closed.

So, how long residents here can keep living like this is not clear, but they have months and months before anything gets back to normal here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Then, one-on-one with Al Gore.

The former vice president discusses dire warnings from the latest international climate report and how global warming contributes to extreme storms.

AL GORE, Former Vice President of the United States: All of us need to connect these dots.

The scientists not only predicted these consequences.

They're telling us they're going to get a lot worse still, until we stop using the Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And it's Friday.

Mark Shields and David Brooks consider a busy week in politics, including the president's role in the upcoming midterms.

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

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: The death toll from Hurricane Michael rose to at least 13 people to -- excuse me -- people today in the wake of the storm's devastation across five states.

Five are known dead in Virginia, including a firefighter, another four in Florida, one in Georgia, and three who died in North Carolina.

Search-and-rescue teams combing through the catastrophic destruction in Mexico Beach, Florida, have found more bodies.

But they have yet to be added to the official death toll.

William Brangham is in the Florida Panhandle, and has this report.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What was a vacation destination now looks more like a war zone.

The destruction in the small town of Mexico Beach is near total, all homes and buildings wiped completely off the white sand beach.

Entire blocks are now just piles of rubble and debris.

FRAN BOAZ, Hurricane Victim: Total devastation.

Every piece of property, if it hasn't got something wrong with that, it's leveled.

Things that were on the beach are now on the other side of the street.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Some people here but they could ride out the storm.

But then came winds at 155 miles per hour, driving an enormous wall of water right into town.

DAWN VICKERS, Hurricane Victim: I noticed that things seemed to be moving outside.

And I thought that trees were going by.

And I realized it was our house.

It had been broken off the foundation and was floating around, as were both of our vehicles.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Here in Panama City, which is about 20 miles from Mexico Beach, a lot of residents here also chose not to evacuate.

Earlier this week, the governor had issued a mandatory evacuation order for this region.

But you have to remember that, back then, Michael was only a Category 1 storm.

Cory Clifton Trench (ph) was in his house when Michael hit.

His grandmother and 10-year-old sister evacuated, but he and his dad stayed.

MAN: Barricaded my father, put a chair in, put the helmet on.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Really?

MAN: Yes.

I was praying that it would hurry up and end, because we didn't have too much longer.

We had the bathroom at that end, because my room -- blew off part of it.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You were hunkered down in the bathroom the whole time?

MAN: I thought I was going to get crushed.

I thought I was going to die.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The back of their house was torn off, as was the roof.

They have lost everything.

Did you guys have any insurance on this?

MAN: None.

We couldn't get any because the roof was in such bad shape before.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So what are you guys going to do?

MAN: Whatever we can, I guess.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Neighbor Terry Stewart was in his home next door when Michael hit.

TERRY STEWART, Hurricane Victim: I have stayed through a few of them.

But this one was the final one.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Why did you decide to stay?

I'm curious.

TERRY STEWART: We were just going to get rain off of this.

And then, if it was Category 3 or less, I was staying.

And then, at the last minute, I'm just like, well, I'm staying now.

WOMAN: It will be my last one, I promise you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Meaning next time one comes, you're out of here?

WOMAN: Oh, yes, yes, because, I mean, we didn't expect it to be like that.

And then it just changes so quickly on you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In these communities now, there's no power or running water and very limited communications.

BROCK LONG, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency: There's no infrastructure there to support you.

And, quite honestly, it's a dangerous area to go back into.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: FEMA Administrator Brock Long said crews are moving food, water and other supplies to the area.

But he had some strong words for those who chose not to evacuate.

BROCK LONG: It's frustrating to us, because we repeat this cycle over and over again.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Long said he expected the death toll to climb as crews finally begin reaching the hardest-hit communities.

BROCK LONG: It's not the wind blowing them apart.

It's the ocean and crashing waves going in.

And very few people live to tell what it's like to experience storm surge.

And, unfortunately, in this country, we seem to not learn the lesson.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: After hitting the Florida Panhandle, the remnants of Michael caused deadly flash flooding across North Carolina and Virginia overnight, before heading out into the Atlantic Ocean today.

GOV.

ROY COOPER (D), North Carolina: Today, our state begins recovering from yet another storm.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said rescue crews were working around the clock, this coming just a month after Hurricane Florence struck the eastern part of his state.

GOV.

ROY COOPER: During Michael, we saw rain totaling almost 10 inches in Allegheny County and most things in between.

This morning, nearly half-a-million North Carolina homes and businesses are without power.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Back in Panama City, people are starting to put their lives back together.

They're glad to be safe.

And, to a person, everyone told us that this is the last hurricane they will try to ride out.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And William joins me now.

So, William, you are now in Panama City.

That's close to where the hurricane came ashore.

Tell us what you're seeing there.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Judy, the scale of destruction here is just incredibly vast.

Out on the coast, which is about a mile in that direction, we saw what the storm surge did to those communities.

That wall of water just ripped buildings right off their foundations.

Further inland, which is where we are right now, the destruction is much more vast.

It's over a much bigger area.

And it's largely the wind that brought down these trees.

Everywhere we go, we see trees that have come down.

They have pulled power lines down.

They have damaged people's houses.

I mean, the street behind me right now is probably the clearest road we have seen all day long.

You can probably hear chain saws behind me.

Everyone is working to try to clean their house as best they can, put a tarp on the roof if the rains come again.

But, basically, nobody has water.

Nobody has power.

The grocery storms are closed, the gas stations are closed.

So how long residents here can keep living like this is not clear.

But they have months and months before anything gets back to normal here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what about the relief effort?

Are there enough rescue, recovery people there in the area?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well, right now, Judy, there are plenty of rescue crews.

We have seen ambulance fire, police.

We have seen FEMA.

We have seen a lot of volunteers.

We have seen the Cajun Navy.

Those folks are here as well.

So one of the biggest issues is that they're - - just because of all these trees are down.

They basically need a million chain saws to come into this area, clear those trees out.

And only then can they start to reestablish power.

The other thing that's very difficult is the issue of communication.

There's almost no cell phone connection here.

Nobody has actual landlines to make phone calls.

And so a lot of people that we know of who live outside of this area, they have friends or family and loved ones who were here during the storm.

The minute the power went out, the minute the cell phone towers got knocked out, they lost that communication.

So there's just a great deal of confusion.

People have been asking us all day, what can we tell them about what it's like in the next town over?

Where can they find power?

Where can they find gas?

So, people are just confused as to whether their loved ones are OK, where to go, what to do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: William, we heard from FEMA Administrator Brock Long today.

He was expressing disappointment that more people hadn't evacuated.

Are you getting a sense of why people chose to stay?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: There are a lot of reasons why people didn't evacuate.

One, the Florida Panhandle hasn't seen a storm like this in a very, very long time.

So residents here simply don't have an experience with that kind of a storm.

Secondly, it's important to remember that, Tuesday morning, this was a Category 1 storm.

And almost overnight that turned into a near Category 5 storm.

So, by the time people finally decided maybe that they should go, it might have been too late for them.

And that rapid intensification of a hurricane has become something we have seen more and more of recently.

We have seen three, four, five storms like that in the past year, most notably Maria that destroyed Puerto Rico.

And this intensification is caused by a lot of factors, but one of them is warmer Gulf waters.

If a storm can get over a warmer body of water, it will rapidly accelerate.

And that's what we saw here.

And this is what climate change models have always predicted, that, as waters warm, these kinds of storms will intensify.

And so, obviously, the problem we have here is that more people are moving to the coast, and now we know we are going to have more of these intensifying storms.

There's a conflict there.

JUDY WOODRUFF: William, thank you, William Brangham reporting for us from the Florida Panhandle.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Thanks, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: An American pastor under house arrest in Turkey for the past two years has been freed and is en route back to the United States.

A Turkish court convicted Andrew Brunson on terrorism-related charges today, but it sentenced him to time he had already served, allowing his release.

President Trump said today that Brunson will most likely meet with him in the Oval Office on Saturday.

And in a separate development, Turkish government officials told the U.S. they have video and audio proof that a missing Saudi Arabian journalist was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

The recordings were first reported by The Washington Post, where Jamal Khashoggi is a contributor.

Saudi Arabia dismissed the claim as -- quote - - "baseless."

We will take a closer look at both cases later in the program.

Pope Francis accepted Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald Wuerl's resignation today.

It came amid a growing outcry over the cardinal's handling of sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church.

Wuerl will remain in his post temporarily until a successor is found.

He will also continue to serve on the Congregation of Bishops, which helps to select future bishops.

Even so, a Vatican spokesman said the resignation opens a new chapter.

GREG BURKE, Vatican Spokesman: This is about moving forward.

That's a phrase that Cardinal Wuerl used last month.

And moving forward means it's for the good of the church, especially for the unity of the church, which is so important for her to fulfill her mission.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We will have more on the pope's decision to permit the cardinal to maintain his influential role in the church amid his efforts to crack down on abuse later in the program.

Mudslides from torrential downpours in Eastern Uganda have left at least 34 people dead.

Large boulders and chunks of mud rolled through the mountainous area, destroying homes and roads in at least three villages.

Residents described the devastation.

PAUL ODOKI, Uganda (through translator): The rain was too much, and we sheltered under a veranda.

Then my friend decided to go and remove his motorcycle from under the rain and saw a house being carried away by the mudslide.

That's when he came back and we took off.

But whoever remained behind was swept away, schoolchildren, those who were drinking, market vendors.

They were all swept away by the rain.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The death toll is expected rise once rescue teams are able to access the worst affected areas.

Facebook now says that hackers accessed names, e-mails and phone numbers for 29 million users worldwide.

That's fewer than initially estimated.

It was all part of a data breach the tech giant announced two weeks ago; 14 million of those users also had their hometown, birthday, and recent search history compromised.

Facebook didn't say where the affected users were located.

But it acknowledged that the breach was -- quote - - "fairly broad."

In economic news, China posted a record $34.1 billion trade surplus with the U.S. in September.

Chinese exports to the U.S. also increased by 13 percent over last year.

Analysts attributed that to a surge in orders before us tariffs on goods imported from China took effect.

And on Wall Street, stocks clawed their way back into positive territory, after suffering steep losses the previous two days.

The Dow Jones industrial average gain 287 points to close at 25340.

The Nasdaq rose nearly 168 points, and the S&P 500 added 38.

Still, for the week, all three of the major us indexes shed roughly 4 percent.

It was their biggest weekly loss in six months.

Still the come on the "NewsHour": one-on-one with Al Gore to discuss the urgent new climate change report and the coming midterms; Turkey releases an American pastor, as questions remain about the disappearance of a Saudi dissident; the pope accepts the resignation of the archbishop of Washington, D.C. in response to a sexual abuse scandal; and much more.

Now to an exclusive interview with a man who has been at the center of the debate over climate change for decades.

Former Vice President Al Gore has long warned about the potential dire consequences of a warming world.

Recent extreme storms, like Hurricane Michael, have again brought the issue to the surface.

I spoke with Al Gore this afternoon and began by asking if he sees a connection.

AL GORE, Former Vice President of the United States: Well, absolutely.

And, more importantly, the scientific community has long been convinced and has been warning policy-makers for some time.

The earmarks of this latest storm, Judy, are worth paying attention to.

Starting with Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston, Texas, a year ago and dumped five feet of rain, we have been seeing a new pattern.

And Hurricane Michael intensified as it reached the coast.

And that's something relatively new.

And the reason for it is, the ocean waters are much warmer than normal, so it's not getting cold waters churned up to weaken the storm.

It just keeps on getting stronger.

The scientists not only predicted these consequences.

They're telling us they're going to get a lot worse still, until we stop using the Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer for 110 million tons of manmade global warming pollution every single day.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let's talk about the science.

You mentioned that.

There was this major report from the U.N. Scientific Panel, the group that you shared a Nobel Peace Prize with, what, about 10 years ago.

They are painting a much more alarming picture of what we face than we had previously known.

What is significant to you?

What is -- what is most significant in this report to you?

AL GORE: The language the IPCC used in presenting it is torqued up a little bit, appropriately.

How do they get the attention of policy-makers around the world?

The manmade global warming pollution accumulates in the atmosphere, and it stays there a pretty long time.

And it now traps as much extra heat energy every day as would be released by 500,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day.

It's a big planet, but that's an enormous amount of energy.

And more than 90 percent of that extra heat energy is going into the oceans.

And that's distorting and disrupting the water cycle by evaporating much more moisture into these storms.

And even without hurricanes, we get these so-called rain bombs that just devastate the places where it falls.

North Carolina with Hurricane Florence is another example.

And as the scientists have pointed out -- this wasn't true of Hurricane Michael this week, but Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Harvey just stayed in place for days and days and days.

That's something new too.

And it's because we're beginning to see the disruption of wind currents, along with ocean currents.

And so the Northern Hemisphere jet stream that normally moves these storms out to the east is getting loopier and wavier and sometimes disorganized.

So this is really serious stuff.

We have a global emergency.

And you use a phrase like that, and some people immediately say, OK, calm down, that it can't be that bad.

But it is.

And what the scientists have warned us in this recent report is that if we do not take action quickly to switch away from dirty fossil fuels, and shift to electric vehicles, and make agriculture and forestry much more sustainable, and deal with the waste loops in manufacturing, all things that we can do -- we know how to do them.

And we ought to be doing these things for other reasons anyway.

But if we do not begin taking action very quickly -- and creating jobs in the process, by the way -- then the scientists warn us that the consequences down the road would be far, far worse than what we're experiencing now, and could actually extend to an existential threat to human civilization on this planet as we know it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me -- I do want to ask you about the political response.

As you know, a number of conservatives, other scientists are saying they these dire future predictions are just not borne out by evidence.

But the other thing is, the political... AL GORE: Well, hold on.

Hold on.

Let me stop you there.

When you say other scientists, not really.

There are a few -- there are a few outliers, but 99-plus percent of the scientific community is aligned on these objectives.

You still have some people who say the Earth is flat and not round, but you don't give them equal time and saying some people say round, some people say flat.

JUDY WOODRUFF: No, you're right.

AL GORE: I'm sorry to interrupt.

JUDY WOODRUFF: No, they are a minority, but they are cited by -- by political conservatives.

But the question I want to ask is, one of the recommendations, for example, from this U.N. group is, you need to raise taxes, raise prices on those groups that emit carbon.

Is that, though, politically realistic, in the world we live in here in the United States right now?

AL GORE: It is tough politically, of course.

That's what China's beginning to do.

That's what the European Union is now doing.

And whether it's direct, as a carbon fee or tax, or indirect in the form of a trading system, which some people don't like, but actually it can be made to work, one way or another, we should put a price on the pollution that is the posing such a deadly threat to the future of our civilization, yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, when it comes to political reaction, the president, President Trump, people in his administration don't seem to be taking this new U.N. report very seriously.

The president said something like, I can give you reports that are fabulous, I can give you some that aren't so good.

He and the people around him are saying, we're mostly focused on the economy, and what we're doing is rolling back those regulations, environmental regulations that have hurt our economy and slow down business in this country.

AL GORE: Well, his proposal is literally insane.

And his reaction to the scientific community's warnings is an outlier reaction.

It's making the U.S. come off like a rogue nation and being different from any other nation in the entire world.

And, of course, everybody knows it's because the large carbon polluters are his buddies, and he wants to use them as a way of signaling to ultra-conservatives that he doesn't care about what the truth of the matter is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump is out right now on the campaign trail almost every day trying to stir up his base voters.

He's saying the Democrats are like an angry mob coming off of the Kavanaugh nomination to the Supreme Court.

He's clearly trying to stir up his base.

But my question to you is, is that an effective tactic on his part?

AL GORE: Well, we will find out this November.

I don't know, Judy.

I'm not a great political analyst.

But my personal impression is that there are tens of millions of Americans, some of whom wanted to take a chance on Trump last time around, changing things up, trying something new.

But I think there are tens of millions who gave him a chance and are now a little bit heartsick that he has been acting out every day, telling falsehoods almost as easily as he breathes.

And I know some people will hear me say that and think, oh, that's just a Democratic reaction.

I get that.

We have more tribalism, to use the buzzword that's common these days, than is healthy for our nation.

But common sense and a respect for reasoned discourse has always played a balancing role in American politics.

I have a feeling that it's going to play a role in this election.

I think that, if ever there was a time for the reinstitution of the checks and balances that our founders put into our Constitution, now is that time.

And I think a lot of Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats, are kind of quietly itching for the opportunity to go to the polls and send a message to President Trump to, calm down, don't be so crazy, don't be so harmful to our country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What should the Democratic Party's message be this year, and then going into 2020, with a president who has made his own personality such a big issue?

AL GORE: Well, he's -- a talented entertainer and a reality TV star.

But his term as president is not really going well, in my opinion.

The economic recovery, which began under the last administration, has continued unabated, even with the stock market roller coaster this week.

I expect that -- hope it will continue.

But the damage he's doing to the good name of the United States of America is just incalculable.

And I think people do not want this kind of anger and repeated falsehoods in our political discourse.

And you asked me what the Democrats should do.

Well, I guess the right strategy would just be to say, look, give us a chance to kind of rein him in a little bit and prevent so many of these excesses, so that he doesn't have free rein to put the polluters in charge of environmental policy, to take away protections the American people need in all these other areas of our lives.

And I kind of think the American people are going to want to do that in November.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Former Vice President Al Gore, joining us from Los Angeles, thank you very much.

AL GORE: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As we have reported, there are two major stories coming out of Turkey today.

Nick Schifrin reports on how both reveal tensions between the U.S. and critical allies.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, 50-year-old Pastor Andrew Brunson was released from Turkish custody, and the U.S.-Turkey relationship was released from its most serious point of contention.

Brunson left the courthouse in a convoy after being convicted on terrorism charges, and was set free on timed served.

He spent two years in custody and recently became a media sensation as he went between court and house arrest.

The charges against him blocked all other progress on U.S.-Turkish relations and became the main irritant between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the U.S. MIKE PENCE, Vice President of the United States: Release Pastor Andrew Brunson now, or be prepared to face the consequences.

NICK SCHIFRIN: From July to yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence and the administration maintained pressure on Turkey with sanctions and public statements.

MIKE PENCE: We will continue to stand strong until Pastor Andrew Brunson is free.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, President Trump tweeted in all caps: "PASTOR BRUNSON JUST RELEASED.

WILL BE HOME SOON," unfreezing the Turkey-U.S. relationship, says Washington Institute for Near East Policy senior fellow Soner Cagaptay.

SONER CAGAPTAY, Director, Turkish Research Program, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: U.S.-Turkish relations hit an all-time low when President Trump slapped sanctions against Turkey because Turkey kept detaining U.S. Pastor Brunson in jail there.

And Erdogan decided that it was time for him to turn their relationship around, primarily because he needs U.S. assistance also to push back another front against Saudi Arabia.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Turkey accuses Saudi Arabia of murdering Jamal Khashoggi inside its Istanbul Consulate.

Turkish officials released CCTV images of what they call a Saudi hit squad that killed Khashoggi.

And Turkish officials have anonymously claimed to have video and audio proving murder.

SONER CAGAPTAY: Turkey had to respond to the alleged murder of Khashoggi in Istanbul, number one, because this violated Turkey's sovereignty.

Turkey is very sensitive over what it sees as violations of its sovereignty.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But Erdogan's criticism has stopped short of murder charges.

The Turkish currency and economy are struggling, and he would like assistance from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who's been personally connected Khashoggi's murder.

SONER CAGAPTAY: Erdogan wants the Saudi crown prince to take the graceful exit out, and let's say blame it on rogue elements or on people that are responsible in his administration and throw them under the bus and get out of this.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But if that doesn't happen, Erdogan would confront the Saudis.

And either way, he needs U.S. help, says Cagaptay, the author of an Erdogan biography called "The New Sultan."

SONER CAGAPTAY: Erdogan knew that, if there was a day for him to reset with Trump, it is today.

He should make it up with Trump today, so he can call him tomorrow and ask for his assistance in what will be a very friendly phone conversation in the case of Khashoggi, number one, so that maybe Trump will convince the crown prince to take the graceful exit out.

And if that doesn't work, then maybe he has U.S. backing to push back against Khashoggi incident.

NICK SCHIFRIN: There's no guarantee that will work, and there's no guarantee the U.S.-Turkey relationship will smooth over entirely.

There are still major disagreements beginning in Syria.

The U.S. teams with Kurdish fighters to fight ISIS, but Turkey calls the Kurds terrorists.

Turkey plans to buy the U.S.' most advanced jet fighters, but it also wants Russian missiles that threaten those fighters.

And the U.S. and Turkey disagree over Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, that Turkey says launched a failed 2016 coup, as Erdogan told the "NewsHour"s Amna Nawaz last month.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, Turkish President (through translator): We asked for it.

We asked for extradition.

And we signed all the necessary documents and paperwork.

They could have reported him with an administrative decision.

But, unfortunately, the U.S. didn't extradite him.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Despite the tensions, Turkey is a NATO ally with vital geography.

SONER CAGAPTAY: They're the only country that borders Iran, Iraq, Syria, ISIS-held territory, and Russia across the Black Sea.

Whatever U.S. policies are regarding those five entities and countries, they're much easier with Turkey on board.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And any cooperation is much easier now that Brunson's been released.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.

Coming up on the "NewsHour": Mark Shields and David Brooks break down the week's political news; and a look at race and policing in the new film "The Hate U Give."

Now we return to the turmoil in the Catholic Church and its response to a history of abuse.

John Yang explores the latest, with Pope Francis accepting the resignation of Cardinal Wuerl, archbishop of Washington.

JOHN YANG: Judy, there had been pressure on Wuerl to step down since August, when a Pennsylvania grand jury report implicated him in covering up sexual abuse by priests during his 18-year tenure as head of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

In a statement today, Wuerl said: "Once again, for any past errors in judgment, I apologize and ask for pardon."

The pope's action wasn't enough for some survivors of clerical sexual abuse.

David Clohessy, a former national director of Survivors Network for Those Abused by Presets, said: "Wuerl is guilty of serious wrongdoing.

The simple fact is, he endangered children."

For more on all this, we're joined by John Carr.

He heads the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

Previously, he had worked for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on human rights and social justice issues.

Mr. Carr, thanks so much for joining us.

JOHN CARR, Director, Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, Georgetown University: Glad to be here, John.

JOHN YANG: We should also say that you worked with Cardinal -- in the past work with Cardinal Wuerl very closely.

But you also said that he had to go in this episode.

JOHN CARR: Yes.

JOHN YANG: Why?

JOHN CARR: Well, this was an important day, a necessary day and, for me, a sad day.

Here, you have one of the leading churchmen in America, my pastor, my archbishop, my friend, and Pope Francis accepted his resignation because he had become a symbol of the church's failures.

Cardinal Wuerl in many ways was a leader of this church in so many areas, and he was better than most on sexual abuse.

But it wasn't good enough.

And, today, the church acknowledged that, in that case, he had that step down to provide new leadership for this local church and some healing for victims.

JOHN YANG: You said he'd become a symbol.

But in his -- in accepting the resignation, Pope Francis said Wuerl had -- quote -- "sufficient elements to justify your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not deal with problems and to commit some mistakes."

How does that characterization stand up against what the Pennsylvania grand jury found?

JOHN CARR: For many years, victims and people concerned about the church's failures have said, we need not more words, but more action.

Today, we got action.

And I think actions speak louder than those words.

This is a distinguished leader of the church.

He's done a lot of things.

In this case, he had done some things that failed and endangered children.

And it was time for him, he decided -- and I agree -- he had to go.

And Pope Francis decided.

It's one step in a long road.

JOHN YANG: Critics point out that Wuerl will remain on the body that will help choose bishops in the future.

What do you say to critics who say this is - - falls short of accountability?

JOHN CARR: Take a look, what just happened.

One of the senior churchmen in America, one of the pope's closest advisers, the archbishop of Washington, stepped down because of what had happened in Pennsylvania and in Washington.

This is the Roman Catholic Church.

It's my home, my spiritual home, my professional home.

It has been broken by this.

And the pope, Pope Francis, by his actions on Cardinal Wuerl, by the investigation of Cardinal McCarrick, by calling all the Bishops Conference to Rome, is understanding that actions are required.

He was too slow to act, but he has been listening to victims and survivors.

And he is acting.

Today is a crucial step forward.

JOHN YANG: Mr. Carr, you have recently spoken out for the first time about your experience as a survivor of clerical abuse.

Why did you decide now is the time to acknowledge this?

JOHN CARR: Well, for me, sexual abuse is personal, it's professional, it's institutional.

It's haunted my service in the church for 50 years.

I found myself talking to people, talking to journalists, and saying a big part of the problem with this evil is secrecy.

And then I had to acknowledge that I have my own secrecy.

And I broke my silence.

I talked to my wife.

I talked to my family.

For the first time, I said what had happened to me as a high school student.

And my experience working for the church is, there are not enough parents, there are not enough survivors, there are not enough victims in the room when decisions are made.

And my hope is that the church has finally understood this and that the anger and anguish of survivors and their families will be heard and will lead to reform, renewal and ultimately healing.

And today is a day that takes a step in that direction.

JOHN YANG: John Carr, we appreciate what it takes to speak up, as you just have.

John Carr of Georgetown University, thank you very much.

JOHN CARR: Thank you, John.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We turn now to another busy week of news.

With just over three weeks to go until the crucial midterm elections, President Trump is headlining rallies almost daily across the country, hammering Democrats, and trying to energize Republicans to get to the polls.

A cue for the analysis of Shields and Brooks.

That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Hello to both of you.

It's Friday.

So we do have the president, it seems, out on the campaign trail every single day, jetting out to whether it's Tennessee or Pennsylvania or another part of the country.

Today, Mark, he is in Ohio trying to energize the Republican vote, the base, trying to get them out.

Is it working, do you think?

MARK SHIELDS: Republicans feel it's working better than it did two or three weeks ago, Judy.

But I think what is remarkable about it is how constant it is.

You said about energizing the base.

It's about inflaming people.

Donald Trump's message is never about forging a coalition, reaching across the divide, trying to enlist the majority.

It's always about coming back to, it's us against them, and we may not be perfect, but, boy, those other guys are really bad.

And I think that's the message.

It's going to be a referendum, as it is every midterm, on the president.

And his numbers right now are just about the same point where Barack Obama's were in 2010, when the Democrats suffered enormous defeat, Bill Clinton's in '94, when the Democrats suffered a big defeat, and 2006, George Bush's, when the Republicans lost control of the Congress.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But you do have the president, David, out talking about Democrats are part of an angry mob, calling them evil, I mean, using some of the strongest language he has used.

Is that likely to get his base even more fired up?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

Yes.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: I think it's working.

We're in an age of negative polarization.

And that means you don't have to like your own party.

You just have to hate the other one.

And that means it's all about contempt.

And has the other side made you appalled?

Have they made you feel contemptuous?

And one thing the Kavanaugh hearing has done is, it made both sides feel the other is appalling.

And so that has fired up both bases.

And the effect is -- and it's always worth reminding ourselves that we no longer having one election anymore.

We have a red state election and a blue state election.

And they're increasingly disconnected.

And so the odds are looking pretty good.

The polls have been shifting in a Republican way on the Senate side in all those red states, Texas, Montana, and those places.

And the Senate is looking more secure as of this moment.

The House is looking more endangered for the Republicans at this moment, as suburban women move over to the Democratic side.

So we have two different elections.

And there seems to be pretty strong momentum in opposite directions.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How are Democrats countering this, I mean, this approach by the president, Mark?

There's this couple of polls, including the one we did with Marist and NPR this week, that came out showed, yes, the enthusiasm gap has narrowed.

It was the Democrats who were more energized.

And, indeed, Republican seem to be more energized.

What -- how to Democrats come back?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, the first thing they ought to do is stop picketing and stop boycotting and organize.

I mean, the most Democratic group in the entire electorate of voters is age 18 to 35.

And they live everywhere.

They aren't concentrated in certain districts, like perhaps African-American or Latinos are.

They are everywhere.

And if they vote, the Democrats will win big.

I will say this.

I think the most encouraging sign for the Democrats is, the Democrats do have a national macro message in this campaign.

It's about checks and balances on the president.

It's not a new message, but it's a message that certainly resonates with an awful lot of voters.

It's about preserving the strength of health care, particularly the preexisting condition provision.

But, most of all, I think it's contrast with the Republicans, who don't have a national message.

They really don't.

They're running micro campaigns.

In one camp -- one district, it's you double parked, and you got several parking tickets, or you were late on your library books, or you missed your mother's birthday.

I mean, they're running very personal campaigns in a very micro sense.

I think that's good.

The final thing I would say is, look at the governor's races, the governor's races across the country, if you really want to see which way the country's going.

They're going blue.

They're not -- they're not going red.

When you have got Democrats competitive in places like Oklahoma and Kansas and South Dakota, which they are right as we speak here tonight, then there's a possibility of the Democrats sweeping that entire belt from the Midwest all the way to the East Coast.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We did hear, David, Al Gore, saying -- talking about checks and balances, that that's a good motivating thing for Democrats.

But what about that?

I mean, is -- are we seeing Democrats united in some way, in some -- in a message that they're... DAVID BROOKS: Yes, unity is not any parties' problem right now.

They're both -- they're all pretty unified.

To me, one of the -- an interesting debate is happening -- you could call it the Michelle Obama-Hillary Clinton debate.

And when Michelle Obama famously said, when they go low, we will go high, and she's sticking to that.

And Hillary Clinton says, no, they are going low, we got to go low too.

And you see that debate.

I think, in this age, having the moral high ground is a bit of an advantage, a major advantage.

And because of Donald Trump's behavior, he has put the Republicans at a moral disadvantage.

And keeping go -- staying high, staying reasonably civil, not totally going into the gutter with Donald Trump strikes me as the right Democratic strategy and the right strategy for any movement, because once you go down there, you self-corrupt.

And so I -- one begins to see -- Eric Holder said, if they go after us, we kick them.

You're beginning to see a lot of people getting so angry about Kavanaugh and other things, any means necessary.

To me, that is a mistake just for the soul of your party.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I mean... MARK SHIELDS: Let me say, I agree with David.

I think it's not only the right thing to do, but the wise thing to do.

I think it's in the best interests of the country.

And I would say, at a practical level, you can't compete with Donald Trump.

He's just better at it than anybody else.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Better at what?

MARK SHIELDS: Better at finding, identifying the weakness or shortcoming of his opponent, and then exploiting it.

It is a major talent.

He did it serially to each of his Republican challenges in 2016.

He did it to Secretary Clinton in the election.

And that's really what makes this midterm election.

He is searching for an opponent that he can do the same thing.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

And the politics he specializes in is, I don't really like those kind of people.

Like, we used to have debates about health care, about economic policy, about foreign policy.

Now it's just, those people are really bad.

Those people who say you're bad, actually, they're the bad ones.

And that's a style of politics.

Somehow, we have gotten away from issues.

And the governor's races are -- maybe that's a third electorate, because the governor's races tend to be a little more about issues.

And they are swinging to the Democrats.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And in one -- one governor's race, I don't know if it's swinging to the Democrat, but it's in Georgia, Mark, where you have Stacey Abrams, African-American woman running for governor.

She is now working -- pointing out her Republican opponent, who's the state attorney general... MARK SHIELDS: Secretary of state.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I'm sorry, secretary of state - - pointing out that he is, by virtue of an action he's taken in the last few weeks, suppressing the votes, she says, of 53,000 potential voters.

What, I think most of them, more than two-thirds of them happen to be African-American.

And she's trying to make an issue of this, saying he should step down as the state -- as the secretary of state.

Is that something that, in a place like Georgia, is likely to be effective?

MARK SHIELDS: Certainly, Stacey Abrams' campaign is interested in registering and turning out African-American voters.

The idea of any minority group, especially one that has been a marginalized minority group, electing one of its own to the governorship is a motivating factor to vote.

The fact that Brian Kemp, the secretary of state, has not recused himself, and that his office has -- seems so overtly engaged in the suppression -- 70 percent of the 53,000 people who now, as registration has closed, have been told that they couldn't vote, it does seem beyond bad play or bad form.

It really seems like just bad ethics.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As secretary of state, David, he oversees elections.

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, he's also running for governor.

DAVID BROOKS: I don't know how clear the suppression is.

He -- the Republicans are claiming that, if you come to the polls with I.D., you will be able to vote.

So it's unclear to me how serious that is.

But it's a no-brainer that, if you're running for an election, you shouldn't be supervising the election.

Like, you're the -- you're the hitter and the empire.

And that doesn't work.

And so he should have recused himself long ago.

And, to me, it's just a no-brainer.

That's obviously what you do in any normal circumstance.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Few minutes we have left, I want to ask you about the -- what's been going on this week with Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Mark, the Saudi journalist who disappeared is believed to have been murdered inside the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, in Istanbul, Turkey.

The -- Trump -- President Trump and the people around him seem to be holding back in their criticism of Saudi Arabia.

The president said it's not good, it doesn't look good.

But where -- what should an administration that has had a -- tried to be close to Saudi Arabia be saying right now about what appears to be this unspeakable thing that happened?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I mean, an American administration would be expected to have a moral bearing, a Republican or Democrat, and a moral foundation.

This administration, this president has never made any pretense to it.

I mean, he lives by the golden rule.

And that is, he who has the gold rules.

And he is quite open about it.

I mean, he has reduced this -- the charge is so serious that a crew recruited by the Soviet -- by the Saudis themselves, by the powers to be, of 15 people went in and took Khashoggi, and then dismembered him, went in with a saw that cut up bones.

I mean, it is that beyond human decency.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Unimaginable.

MARK SHIELDS: So, it's unimaginable.

So, I mean, to me, that is -- that's what's missing here, is any sense of morality, most of all.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Just 30 seconds.

Sorry.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

I mean, usually, when you sell your soul for money, you try to hide the fact, but it's our official policy now that, if you're rich and you buy a lot of stuff from us, then you can do all sorts of monstrous things.

And it is a commercial mentality that is not what we have stood for all our lives, or not what we would expect in any human being.

Saint Augustine said, we have different loves, and some are higher than others, and our love for basic decency should be higher than our love for money.

MARK SHIELDS: Amen.

(CROSSTALK) JUDY WOODRUFF: On that note, David Brooks, Mark Shields, thank you.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally, I think we'd all agree it's a turbulent time in American life, with many of the issues we're grappling with appearing in a place we often go to escape, the movies.

Tonight, Jeffrey Brown starts our occasional series, Fall Films, with a film that explores race and policing through a new lens.

AMANDLA STENBERG, Actress: Man, you coming at me for my music, but you listen to this old stuff.

ACTOR: Old stuff?

JEFFREY BROWN: It's a story straight from the headlines, two young black people in a car at night pulled over by the police.

ACTOR: Out of the car.

AMANDLA STENBERG: Go back where he told you.

I'm not playing.

Go back where... JEFFREY BROWN: A young man shot and killed.

AMANDLA STENBERG: What did you do?

JEFFREY BROWN: The new drama "The Hate U Give" is fiction, but based on now all-too-familiar cases around the country.

Amandla Stenberg plays Starr Carter, who witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Khalil.

AMANDLA STENBERG: I think we had understanding on set that what we were portraying wasn't just contrived, or it wasn't just fiction, but that it was real and reflective of real events and reflective of real pain and real trauma.

RUSSELL HORNSBY, Actor: Maybe I made a mistake driving him.

Maybe I didn't do nothing at all.

You are going to see me with my hands like this on the dashboard.

Go on.

JEFFREY BROWN: Part of that reality, the talk the father played by Russell Hornsby gives his children on what to do when confronted by police.

RUSSELL HORNSBY: Now, you keep your hands posted, because moving makes the police get all nervous.

Director George Tillman Jr., whose previous films include "Soul Food" and the "Barbershop" series, said this one was different.

GEORGE TILLMAN JR., Director, "The Hate U Give": As a director working in Los Angeles and working in Hollywood, there's entertainment - - entertainment, there's commerce, and then there's films where you got -- you have a chance to say something.

And, usually, those films are like smaller.

And I just feel like it was my responsibility as a filmmaker to tell this story.

JEFFREY BROWN: The film is based on a bestselling book for young adults, the story of a young woman living between two worlds, her working-class largely black neighborhood, where she's one star, and the mostly white prep school where she dates a white student, where she's another.

Author Angie Thomas grew up with that experience of code-switching.

ANGIE THOMAS, Author, "The Hate U Give": I wanted to talk about black girls, what it's like to be a young black woman in a society that sometimes says you're not enough or you're too much.

How do you navigate those spaces, knowing those things?

So Starr is very careful of who she is where she is.

When she's in her neighborhood, she can't act too white.

When she's at her school, she can't act too black.

So she feels as if she has to put herself in a box in both of these worlds and make herself acceptable to those around her.

JEFFREY BROWN: Nineteen-year-old actress Amandla Stenberg, previously known from "The Hunger Games" and other roles, says she too grew up between two worlds.

AMANDLA STENBERG: I think, early on, that kind of gave me this sense of, oh, it's not OK to show up as my full authentic self in certain spaces.

And I need to learn how to adapt to that space.

And I think, in some ways, it was detrimental.

In some ways, it's just an inherent part of being a person of color.

But I think it wasn't until I was older that I was able to kind of marry those identities and understand that they were both really beautiful parts of me, and it was OK to be myself.

JEFFREY BROWN: The shooting in the film comes after gunfire at a party when an officer stops Starr and Khalil in their car and shoots him, thinking the hairbrush he's reaching for is a gun.

In the aftermath, Starr's life spins out of control, as tensions rise at home, at school, and in her neighborhood.

The title of both book and film came from the words of rapper Tupac Shakur, who himself died a violent death in 1996.

AMANDLA STENBERG: It's thug life, the hate you give little infants.

(CROSSTALK) RUSSELL HORNSBY: Everybody.

I know what it stands for.

What do you think it means?

AMANDLA STENBERG: I think it's about us.

RUSSELL HORNSBY: Us who?

AMANDLA STENBERG: Black people, poor people, everybody at the bottom.

JEFFREY BROWN: Other adults in Starr's life include her uncle, a black policeman played by the rapper and actor Common.

COMMON, Actor: We live in a complicated world.

AMANDLA STENBERG: It doesn't seem that complicated to me.

JEFFREY BROWN: A community organizer is played by Issa Rae.

ISSA RAE, Actress: Violence, brutality, it's the same story, just a different name.

JEFFREY BROWN: Director Tillman says he studied real-life cases and their aftermaths to present an honest portrait.

GEORGE TILLMAN JR.: I felt like we were doing the right thing in just honoring them.

So, all that research and all that time speaking and talking to all these organizations, it was all just about to make it feel right.

For example, the uprising, the protests, I mean, that was six days, six nights that we shot that, but it took us, like, months and months looking at Ferguson and looking at what is important.

JEFFREY BROWN: All involved told us they wanted to offer a nuanced view of both black and white communities, and a story not anti-police, but anti-police brutality.

For her part, Amandla Stenberg has used her celebrity on social media as a kind of megaphone on the issues of concern to her, including the Black Lives Matter movement.

She sees her acting in the same light.

AMANDLA STENBERG: For me, my artistry is always driven by a desire to create representation and humanize marginalized groups.

If that manifests projects like "The Hate U Give," it's the hugest blessing, because that's exactly what I want to do.

And I think we're able to do that through the film.

That's kind of the only way I'm interested in being a part of this industry.

I think media completely shapes how we think.

It shapes how we think about other groups of people who we don't have the personal experience with to empathize with.

RUSSELL HORNSBY: When you are ready to talk, you talk.

JEFFREY BROWN: Stenberg and Tillman told us they're eager to reach young people with "The Hate U Give" and worked to secure a PG-13 rating for the film.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Have a great weekend.

Thank you, and we will see you soon.