AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: On the "NewsHour" tonight: Much of the country languishes under extreme summer heat, as the effects of climate change become more apparent.

AMNA NAWAZ: A federal court assesses the controversial river barriers at the U.S. Southern border.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the lawsuit brought by survivors of the racist mass shooting in Buffalo against social media companies, gun manufacturers and the gunman's parents.

FRAGRANCE HARRIS STANFIELD, Buffalo Shooting Survivor: A lot of times, we are considered to be persons who are not injured by this situation, but the trauma that we are experiencing in our everyday life is an injury.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening, and welcome to the "NewsHour."

Tropical Storm Harold barreled through South Texas today.

It's the states first tropical storm of this hurricane season to make landfall, bringing much-needed rain to drought-stricken areas.

AMNA NAWAZ: Some of those areas could see as much as six inches of rain, along with wind gusts of up to 50 miles an hour.

Thousands of homes and businesses in Corpus Christi are also without electricity.

Meanwhile in California, crews in mountain and desert towns are still digging themselves out of mud and debris left behind from Tropical Storm Hilary.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: More than 800 people on Maui are still unaccounted for two weeks after the deadly wildfires first erupted.

Teams have searched all of the single-story residences in the disaster area.

They're now focusing on multistory properties, including commercial buildings.

The confirmed death toll stands at 115 people.

In Greece, authorities have recovered 18 bodies from a major blaze burning in the country's northeast.

They were believed to have been migrants who crossed the border with Turkey.

Hundreds of firefighters are battling infernos across Greece fueled by strong winds.

One hospital had to evacuate patients to a makeshift clinic aboard a ferry boat as flames approached.

NIKOS GIOKTSIDIS, Nurse (through translator): I have been working for 27 years, and I have never seen anything like this.

It's like war conditions, really, stretchers everywhere, patients here, I.V.

drips there.

It was like a bomb had exploded.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, in Spain's Canary Islands, police say a wildfire in Tenerife was ignited deliberately.

But they haven't made any arrests.

That blaze has been raging for a week, and has burned about 50 square miles.

Much of it is now under control.

John Eastman, the conservative attorney indicted with former President Trump, surrendered today in Georgia on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results.

Eastman turned himself in at the Fulton County Jail.

He was a close adviser to Mr. Trump leading up to January 6.

Meantime, two other co-defendants, former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark and former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer, filed paperwork to transfer the case to federal court.

Donald Trump says he will surrender Thursday.

A new U.N. report paints a grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over.

It found that more than 200 former Afghan officials and security forces have been killed by the Taliban in the last two years.

The U.N. documented over 800 cases of serious human rights violations.

The Taliban mostly targeted members of the former army, police, and intelligence forces.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant will start releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean as early as Thursday.

The Japanese government says it's essential so they can keep cleaning the facility.

The water has been accumulating since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused nuclear meltdowns at the plant.

An executive in charge of the release said safety is their highest priority.

JUNICHI MATSUMOTO, TEPCO Executive (through translator): Staying on our guard, we will promptly proceed with the preparations for the release.

We have decided to start by discharging small amounts in a careful manner, while checking the impact of the release on the surrounding environment.

GEOFF BENNETT: The decision sparked protests in neighboring South Korea, where some fear the wastewater release poses a threat to the environment and safety of seafood.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has already approved the plan.

And there are new concerns today about the toll the conflict in Sudan has taken on children.

The group Save the Children estimates that nearly 500 children in the East African country have died from hunger since fighting started in April.

That includes two dozen babies in a government-run orphanage in Khartoum.

The aid group estimates that at least 31,000 children there lack treatment for malnutrition since the charity was forced to close 57 of its nutrition centers.

And stocks were mixed on Wall Street today.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 175 points to close at 34289.

The Nasdaq rose eight points.

The S&P 500 slipped 12.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": how GOP contenders might break through in tomorrow night's debate; the impact on troop readiness from one Republican senator holding up a raft of military promotions; and a new exhibit chronicling how a Massachusetts town helped shape the artist Edward Hopper.

AMNA NAWAZ: A heat wave is baking much of the country right now, leading to record highs and triple-digit temperatures in the Midwest and the South.

It is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have led to damage, destruction and death this summer.

That includes the wildfires in Maui, a month of broiling temperatures in parts of the Southwest, and flooding in Vermont and Upstate New York.

Michael Mann is a presidential distinguished professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania and author of forthcoming book "Our Fragile Moment."

Michael Mann, welcome back.

And thanks for joining us.

These seem like very different events, storms and fires.

But what's the connection between all of these we need to understand behind why they're so extreme and what's fueling them?

DR. MICHAEL MANN, University of Pennsylvania: Yes, thanks.

It's great to be with you.

At some level, this is pretty basic.

You make the planet hotter, you're going to have more frequent intense, heat waves.

And, of course, we're seeing that.

You warm up the ground in the summer.

You drought the soils.

You're going to get worse drought.

You put the heat and drought together, you get worse wildfires.

But the atmosphere is warmer.

So, when you get a storm, there's going to be more rainfall.

It can produce more precipitation, more rainfall.

And so we see greater extremes at both ends of the scale.

But there's also something else that's going on, which is a little bit more subtle.

And it's actually an effect that isn't perfectly captured in the models that we use to sort of predict future climate change and to attribute events to climate change.

So that's an important caveat.

There's something that the models aren't doing very well, which is capturing the way that the pattern of warming -- it's warming more up in the Arctic than it is down here.

And that changes the difference in temperature as a function of the latitude.

Well, it turns out, that's what drives the jet stream.

So you slow down the jet stream and, under certain conditions, you get this very slow, wavy jet stream where the high- and low-pressure centers stay fixed in place for days after day.

That's when you get those heat domes, like that record heat dome we're seeing right now in the Central U.S. That's when you get that excessive flooding like we're seeing up in New England, like we saw in association with that hurricane, that tropical storm that made its way into California.

And so what that means is that, yes, there are some uncertainties in the science.

There are some surprises, but they're not pleasant surprises.

In many respects, we're seeing that the impacts are even worse than we predicted.

AMNA NAWAZ: And if I could just be clear about this, because you did mention climate change, is it fair to say climate change is fueling more extreme storms and with greater frequency?

DR. MICHAEL MANN: Climate change is now showing us all of its weapons.

These last couple of weeks, it's showing us everything it's got to offer, its full arsenal.

And that's what we're seeing.

So climate change is no longer some subtle, far-off, possible thing.

It's here and now.

It's impacting us here and now.

And the dangerous impacts are occurring now.

It's a question at this point of how bad we're willing to let it get.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have spoken a lot about events here in the U.S, of course, but this is all over the world.

We saw those deadly landslides in India after torrential rains, new heat records in Morocco and Japan, another heat wave in Europe.

And I just read recently one estimate put the deaths from last year's heat wave in Europe at over 60,000 people.

I mean, we talk about damage and destruction, but what about the death component of this?

Are these events something we shouldn't look at is something to be endured, but something we will struggle to survive?

DR. MICHAEL MANN: Let's make no mistake about this.

Climate change is deadly.

We are already seeing human deaths that can be attributed to climate change, that are caused by events that wouldn't have been as intense, that wouldn't have been as catastrophic as they were if not for the warming of the planet.

I fear that we're probably going to see a total of as many as 1,000 people from those wildfires in Maui when all is said and done.

And there were various attributes of that event.

And we can get into the complexities.

But, basically, climate change contributed to that event in various ways.

And so, as deadly as the pandemic was, as many lives that were lost due to the pandemic, far more lives will be lost due to climate change, if we fail to act while we still can.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, the last nine years have been the hottest nine years ever recorded on planet Earth.

The science has shown us, to change that trend, we need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Globally, how would you say we're doing on that front?

DR. MICHAEL MANN: Yes, well, we're not doing well enough, we're making some progress.

So it's important to recognize that.

Carbon emissions seem to have plateaued.

They're no longer sort of following that ever-upward trajectory that they were on just a decade ago.

That's the good news.

The bad news is, they have got to come down dramatically.

It's not enough to just be at the summit of that carbon mountain.

We have got to come down it, and we have got to come down it quickly, 50 percent within the next 10 years, and all the way to zero within a couple of decades.

We're not doing that yet.

And what we need to see later this year, when we get COP 28, the next round of international climate negotiations, we do need to see the countries of the world commit to a substantial move away from fossil fuels, ending new fossil fuel infrastructure, putting in place policies that will dramatically move us away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy.

We need to do it now.

It can't be five or 10 years from now.

It has to happen now.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the 30 seconds or so I have left, I have to ask you, because folks will ask.

You look at the summer.

Temperatures are usually hotter.

Is there any chance these events we're seeing are just an outlier?

DR. MICHAEL MANN: No.

Unfortunately, they're even worse than a new normal.

A new normal just means, oh, well, we just got to cope with what we have now.

It will get worse if we continue to warm the planet.

That's the bad news.

The good news is, the science tells us that it will stop getting warmer if we stop polluting.

So, there is an immediate and direct impact of our efforts to decarbonize our world.

That's what we have got to do.

And we have got to do it quickly.

AMNA NAWAZ: Michael Mann, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Always good to have you.

DR. MICHAEL MANN: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: The battle over floating barriers on the Rio Grande reached the courtroom today.

A federal judge in Austin heard arguments from the state of Texas and the U.S. Justice Department over Republican Governor Greg Abbott's use of giant buoys to deter migrants crossing the river.

The Justice Department sued the state, saying the barrier violates federal law and must be removed.

Following the latest is our own Laura Barron-Lopez.

So, Laura, what arguments did the judge hear in the courtroom today?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The central argument from the Justice Department was that this violates a federal law that governs the Rio Grande, and specifically the Rivers and Harbors act of 1899.

Now, I spoke to a Haya Panjwani.

She's a local reporter from Austin's NPR station, and she was in the courtroom today.

And she said that Governor Greg Abbott deployed a number of justifications to the judge for why they implemented these barriers.

HAYA PANJWANI, KUT Radio: Abbott's defense team said that they were acting out of security concerns, and they would repeatedly cite human smuggling cartel activity, illegal immigration along the border.

But the judge repeatedly struck that down and said, today, we're here to talk about water and how it relates to the U.S.-Mexico border.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So, Haya Panjwani said that David Ezra, who's overseeing the case, that Abbott's team did not actually get -- cite a specific statute when they were making this defense, that they simply said that they have the right to defend their border.

And the judge said, no, this is about international water law and about the territory and the fact that this potentially infringed on Mexican sovereignty.

Now, what comes next is that the judge asked the Justice Department and Texas defense to submit their closing arguments.

And he plans to make a determination shortly after those closing arguments, which are expected on Friday.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, as I understand it, the Justice Department confronted Governor Abbott on multiple fronts today, so break down the government's case for us.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So, essentially, the Justice Department said today that Abbott did not have permanent approval from the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees this, that he never got approval to place these floating buoys in the Rio Grande, which stretch about 1,000 feet or so next to Eagle Pass, which is that border community, and that, also, they said in the court today that the this action by Abbott is harming U.S.-Mexico relations.

And they also said in court briefings filed prior to the hearing today that this language used by Abbott around invasion is not accurate.

It's something that he doesn't have the right to determine whether or not there is an invasion occurring to Texas, that that is a federal right.

Now, ahead of the hearing today, local advocates, as well as border residents, came to speak out against Operation Lone Star tactics that the governor has deployed.

Karen Gonzalez from The Border Organization of Del Rio, Texas, took issue with exactly what Abbott is doing.

KAREN GONZALEZ, The Border Organization: Dehydrated individuals denied water in extreme heat, small children being pushed back into the river, razor wire along the Rio Grande injuring and forcing immigrants into deeper water, increasing the risk of drownings, and, worst of all, a pregnant woman stuck in wire having a miscarriage.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Karen Gonzalez captured when a number of residents have been saying, which is that, while they may have supported Governor Abbott's Operation Lone Star at first when it was deployed about two years ago, they aren't supportive of it any longer.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, the governor is undeterred.

I mean, he makes the point that he has the authority and the responsibility to protect the border.

And he's not moving away from this Operation Lone Star program.

What's his argument?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right.

Governor Abbott has doubled down, essentially, in defending this entire operation.

Just recently, another part of Operation Lone Star is the busing of migrants to Democratic-led cities.

He did that recently as -- to Los Angeles in California, as the Hilary storm was actually approaching Los Angeles.

And, over the weekend, Abbott was joined by four other Republican governors from non-border states and again defended his actions.

GOV.

GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The border between the United States and Mexico is turning into a deadly welcome mat for the migrants who are coming here.

As an example, just last year alone, there was an all-time record number of people who died crossing the border.

Joe Biden is responsible for that deadly border.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Now, according to the Department of Homeland Security, in 2022, there were a record number of migrant deaths when they crossed the border.

Those were attributed to drownings.

They were also attributed to extreme heat, which migrants suffer from.

And when Governor Abbott first deployed Operation Lone Star, he was asked if it was going to include any type of resources that would potentially help migrants deal with those conditions.

And he said that he was concerned with Texans.

GEOFF BENNETT: The number of illegal boarding - - border crossings, it's down across the board anyway, isn't it?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: It is overall down, so compared to last year at the same time.

June had a record drop in border crossings and apprehensions.

They were at their lowest in the last two years.

But just this last month, in July, Homeland Security released new numbers recently, and they increased by about 30 percent the border apprehensions.

Now, within that, we should also note that there were more migrants process because they're seeking asylum through the Biden administration's new parole app, which they are trying to make possible where migrants can seek asylum while they're in their country of origin.

But, again, overall compared to last year, border crossings are down.

GEOFF BENNETT: Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you for that reporting.

We appreciate it.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: The first GOP presidential debate will play out in prime time tomorrow, even as the leading contender for the nomination plans to be a no-show.

Lisa Desjardins brings us the latest on what to expect from this historic debate.

LISA DESJARDINS: How do you debate a front-runner who doesn't show up?

That's the question for the eight candidates appearing tomorrow in Milwaukee.

Here they are in their stage positions announced today.

The debate is a major moment, as well as a test for the Republican Party and for the impact of debates themselves.

Gail Gitcho is a GOP strategist and presidential campaign veteran.

A disclosure: She previously worked for candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

She's been in the room for the Republican debate prep in the past, and she joins me now.

Gail, what are the stakes for this debate, and for whom?

GAIL GITCHO, Republican Debate Coach: Well, I think that the stakes are high for everybody.

But, in particular, they're the highest for Governor Ron DeSantis, because he's restarted his campaign a couple of times.

He's done some shakeups.

And I think everybody is going to take potshots at him, just as they have been throughout these last several weeks.

So I think the stakes are highest for him.

But he also has a really great opportunity to throw some punches back if he chooses to.

But, really, what he should be doing is driving his message as to why key would be better, more electable than President Trump.

LISA DESJARDINS: You mentioned potshots and punches.

Those are things that former President Trump excelled at generally in debates, but few others could land punches on him.

One who did was Carly Fiorina and 2015 asked about his criticism of her face.

She also brought up the "Access Hollywood" tape and the former president's own words to Billy Bush about how he felt he could sexually grab women.

Here's what she said.

CARLY FIORINA (R), Former Presidential Candidate: Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said.

I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.

(APPLAUSE) LISA DESJARDINS: I bring this up to ask you, what does work in this environment in terms of landing a criticism or a punch on someone who's opposing you?

GAIL GITCHO: You know, I remember that debate.

And that was the cleanest punch that anybody ever landed on President Trump.

I was with Bobby Jindal at the time.

And he was not on the stage with President Trump.

But we were on the campaign trail.

And everybody, not just our campaign, but all the campaigns were trying to figure out, how do we land something?

Because when you do these silly attacks or these silly insults, he's just going to punch right back.

So, if you're going to punch at Trump, you better landed.

And nobody did that better than Carly Fiorina that cycle.

LISA DESJARDINS: And Trump won't be there tomorrow night.

That is an issue, because the candidates there will be asked about him.

Going back again to that 2016 cycle, here's Ted Cruz in a debate that President Trump boycotted then.

Here's how he tried to handle that.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Let me say, I'm a maniac.

And everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly.

And, Ben, you're a terrible surgeon.

(LAUGHTER) SEN. TED CRUZ: Now that we have gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way... (LAUGHTER) LISA DESJARDINS: How do you think these candidates will handle the elephant not in the room?

GAIL GITCHO: You know, I think that's what their debate prep is about now.

There are a couple of candidates that are probably going to go straight at Trump, and, namely, Chris Christie, because it's not in his DNA to do anything but go straight at Trump.

And we have seen that on the campaign trail.

We have seen that for a couple of years now.

But I think the other person that has the opportunity to take him on very specifically on accomplishments is Governor DeSantis.

But what he could do tomorrow night is say that he handled the pandemic better when he was governor -- during his time as governor of Florida.

He can say, Donald Trump, while you were shutting down the country, I was opening up Florida.

So he's really the only person on that stage with the kind of executive experience where he's able to say, I did it better.

LISA DESJARDINS: Who else are you watching?

A lot of folks are going to be watching Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate you know well.

This is a moment not just about this election cycle, but maybe future ones.

Who are you watching?

GAIL GITCHO: I think so.

I really liked Tim Scott, because this message is so different from anybody else on the stage.

He has a message of positivity, of optimism, because that's who he is.

He's sort of built for this, because he has the resources to go the distance, not just this cycle, but next cycle.

But he's also got this life story to tell that Republican voters are really yearning for, because we haven't heard it in so long.

This optimistic message has gotten pretty far in the Iowa polls, so far, at least.

LISA DESJARDINS: All right, Gail Gitcho, thank you so much.

We will all be watching tomorrow night.

GAIL GITCHO: Thank you.

Have a great night.

GEOFF BENNETT: Last May, a white gunman killed 10 people in a racist mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, New York.

The gunman, now serving a life sentence, drove 200 miles to target that community.

Last week, 16 witnesses of the tragedy filed a lawsuit over the trauma they endured.

They named YouTube and Reddit sites where they say the shooter was radicalized, as well as the retailer who sold his gun and the manufacturer of his body armor.

The suit also names the gunman's parents, who the plaintiffs say knew about their son's violent tendencies, and failed to act.

One of those plaintiffs is Fragrance Harris Stanfield, who was working in Tops that day.

And Eric Tirschwell is the executive director of Everytown Law, which is representing the survivors in this case.

Thank you both for being with us.

And, Fragrance, I read where you said that you initially thought that, a month or two after the shooting, that you would be OK, that the passage of time would bring some healing, but, that ultimately, that wasn't the case.

What has the last year been like for you living with the aftermath of this tragedy?

FRAGRANCE HARRIS STANFIELD, Buffalo Shooting Survivor: It's been horrible.

I didn't think it would traumatize me to the degree that I'd still be feeling the effects, not be able to work and do just regular, normal things or remember things, like I'm suffering now.

So I didn't expect that -- migraine headaches and lots of pain.

GEOFF BENNETT: Eric Tirschwell, this is a fairly novel approach, filing suit on behalf of witnesses, not those who were injured or who might have lost a loved one.

Explain the motivation and why you believe you have standing in this case.

ERIC TIRSCHWELL, Executive Director, Everytown Law: It is unusual to sue after a shooting, even a mass shooting, on behalf of those who were actually not shot.

But, in this case, Fragrance and 15 other individuals who we sued on behalf of, these are folks who were working and shopping at the Tops market last May 14, going about their daily business, and, suddenly, they found themselves literally in the midst of a mass shooting, not knowing if they would live or die, running and hiding for their lives.

And we think it's important to establish a clear precedent in New York that these individuals, that folks who lived through the unimaginable, the unthinkable, what nobody should have to live through, a mass shooting, are entitled to their day in court, and to have their case heard by a jury.

And their injuries should be recognized, particularly with respect to the various companies and individuals who contributed to the harm that they suffered.

GEOFF BENNETT: Fragrance, if I can, can you share what you experienced that day?

And what do you hope comes from this lawsuit?

FRAGRANCE HARRIS STANFIELD: I can say that I saw things that are unimaginable that, still, my brain sometimes doesn't want to accept I actually saw, that I can't forget these things, that it keeps me up at night, that I wake up crying for days and days and days in a row, and that even my daughter, just having regular conversations, because she also worked at Tops and was there that day with me -- we struggle to even have regular, everyday conversations.

But I like the fact that Eric distinguished that these are injuries, because, a lot of times, we are considered to be persons who are not injured by this situation, but the trauma that we are experiencing in our everyday life is an injury.

It feels like your brain does not work like it used to.

You can't control these thoughts that just keep coming back to you.

It could be anything that pushes you right back into those memories.

At some point during the day, something will cause me to be right back there, and I will remember it clearly as if it happened yesterday, but I can't remember yesterday.

So, it's very -- it's a very different life that I live.

GEOFF BENNETT: Eric, as we mentioned, the lawsuit names YouTube and Reddit for their role in allegedly radicalizing the shooter.

We reached out to both companies.

We got statements from both.

I will read part of them, the one from YouTube, part of which reads this way: "YouTube has invested in technology, teams and policies to identify and remove extremist content.

We regularly work with law enforcement, other platforms and civil society to share intelligence and best practices."

Part of the Reddit statement reads: "Our site-wide policies explicitly prohibit content that promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability.

We are constantly evaluating ways to improve our detection and removal of this content."

So, these companies are saying it's hard to pin this tragedy on online radicalization.

What do you say to that argument?

ERIC TIRSCHWELL: It's one thing to say, as these companies regularly do, that they remove and eliminate this content.

But what we have alleged here and what we intend to prove is that YouTube and Reddit were unreasonably dangerous in they -- in the way they were designed.

They are defective products, essentially, and that, through their -- through their algorithms and other mechanisms, they drove content to the shooter, who, as you said -- and, as you say, helped radicalize him, inculcate him in his racist beliefs.

And some of this content provided him with knowledge and information that he used to acquire, and learn how to use military-grade armaments and learn how to carry out this massacre.

So, we believe, under the facts of this case and what we intend to prove, that these companies do bear legal responsibility.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, on that point, what does this case and your approach say about the ways in which Everytown and other advocacy groups are going after and trying to hold to account online sites, gun manufacturers, and, in this case, the shooter's parents?

ERIC TIRSCHWELL: Yes, so we take a holistic approach, and the law recognizes that, when people are injured, when people are harmed, there can be one or more contributing factors.

And, in this case, there's no question that multiple companies and the shooter's parents, their actions combined contributed to the shooting.

GEOFF BENNETT: Fragrance, what's it like in Buffalo now on the city's East Side?

How are -- how are folks they're grappling with this violence, this tragedy that was visited upon them?

FRAGRANCE HARRIS STANFIELD: People are still trying to find a feeling of safety here, trying to redesign the area, so that it doesn't appear the same, much like Tops did with the store.

It looks different.

The city has sponsored and an organization has put on a series of community events in the area to try to change the thought process when people walk by or go by the area.

I personally don't attend, because I try to stay away from that particular area of the city.

But for the majority of citizens there, there is a push to try to find some comfort in that - - in that area.

So I think that's a positive thing.

I think there's a lot more that needs to be done.

But that's for another conversation.

GEOFF BENNETT: Fragrance Harris Stanfield and Eric Tirschwell, we thank you both for your time this evening.

ERIC TIRSCHWELL: Thank you.

FRAGRANCE HARRIS STANFIELD: Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: The Constitution assigns to the Senate the power to approve the president's nominations of officers of the United States.

That includes general and flag officers at the Defense Department.

But, this year, one senator has held up all the promotions, including to some of the highest jobs in the military.

Nick Schifrin has the story.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Near an entrance to the Pentagon, photos of the Joint Chiefs graced the wall, at least the Joint Chiefs whose positions are full.

Those three black boxes represent the officers supposed to leave the Army, Navy and Marines.

None have been confirmed by the Senate.

But it's not just three military services.

The Pentagon says 301 officers are waiting to be confirmed, among them, the commanders of United States Space Command, Northern Command and Cyber Command and most of the senior commanders in the Pacific who deal with China, the Indo-Pacific commander and commanders of the Pacific Fleet, Pacific Air Forces, Pacific Submarine Forces and Pacific Special Operations.

Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has imposed a nomination block.

He opposes the new Department of Defense policy that pays for the transportation of service members who cross from states that don't allow abortions to states that do.

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): This is really about a taxpayers having to pay for something to do with abortion.

National security is not a problem here, because you don't change your position just because somebody's not promoted.

Somebody stays there until the promotion is done.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says it does threaten national security.

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. Secretary of Defense: This sweeping hole is undermining America's military readiness.

It's hindering our ability to retain our very best officers.

And it is upending the lives of far too many American military families.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So what impact is the hold on nominations having on the military and their ability to do their jobs?

For that, we turn to retired Admiral Mike Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

Admiral Mullen, thanks very much.

Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

What difference does it make if a military commander is confirmed by the Senate, as opposed to the job being filled by an acting officer who's not confirmed?

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN (RET.

), Former Joints Chiefs Chairman: I think confirmation really is the gold standard for legitimizing individuals in these leadership positions.

And it's been that way for over 100 years.

So, that's a really important part of this.

I think, if I were to put this in possibly something that the senator would understand, is, if I were an acting head football coach, nobody would really know how long I was going to be there, would somebody really follow me?

How could I recruit?

Would my players stay?

And would it really impact over a period of time my ability to win?

A lot of that is the same thing with respect to our leadership.

I mean, we depend on leaders in our military in everything that we do.

And having somebody that is a permanent leader, confirmed by the Senate, is very much a part of our background and what we need out in the field in the fleet right now.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Senator Tuberville and his aides argue this, that there are actually no vacancies, that each job is filled, even with an acting officer, and that officer is highly experienced.

And, for example, the acting chief Naval officer said last week the Navy was undisrupted and unabated, despite the fact that she is in an acting position.

What's your response to that?

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN: Certainly, that would be the position that she would take.

And, as a leader, she would want to say that.

In fact, she is one of what is now three and soon to be four Joint Chiefs who will be acting without certainty about when they will be confirmed.

And when you're an acting leader, quite frankly, can you lay out a new strategy?

Can you lay out a new plan, per se?

And I would argue that you can't.

And it's -- historically, in Washington, quite frankly, that term of acting is one that is of concern, because people are not really sure if you're going to be there.

And you're not really sure until you go through this confirmation process, which has been proven time and time again.

NICK SCHIFRIN: What's the practical impact, say, for example, what we highlighted earlier in the Pacific, where many of the senior leaders are not confirmed, in terms of planning for a possible conflict with China or if that conflict were actually to start?

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN: I think the senator is actually doing this at one of the most critical times in our history.

We're at a real inflection point with respect to the Pacific and China and Taiwan and the South China Sea and also war in Europe.

And so impacting our readiness, impacting our leadership at this particular time is, from my perspective, irresponsible.

And the longer this takes, the longer we wait, the more it will impact.

So these leaders won't be in place.

And, in every case, there won't be someone who will -- will easily stay, if you will.

And, in addition to the incredible disruption in families, with kids going to school, with spouses trying to figure out how to continue to work in a new location, and get settled in a new home, it really significantly impacts the people who sacrifice a lot.

They're very patriotic.

They're privileged to do it in what is a hard life.

And this just makes it a lot harder.

NICK SCHIFRIN: That personal impact is something that we all have heard about as well.

You talk to folks in the military all the time.

And, of course, they have to be respectful of civilian leadership.

But what is their perception at this point of these holds?

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN: Well, one of the concerns is that the senator is politicizing -- further politicizing the military, at a time when the military is a trusted institution, is degrading in that trust, if you will, with respect to the American people, in great part because of the politics that are going on in Washington.

And I think the senator, he can make his point about abortion and have that debate.

I think that's really important.

That said, keep us out of it.

We need to be apolitical and stay out of the political fights.

And he's putting us -- when he says on the one hand it would be very bad to politicize the military, that's exactly what he's doing.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And, quickly, Admiral, just in the 30 seconds or so I have left, what is the military's plan on how to deal with this hold, if it continues?

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN: Well, we will plow through it.

There's no question there.

And we will do the best we can.

I just think it's going to be -- it will diminish readiness.

Oftentimes, readiness gets reflected in the face of a crisis or a really tragic accident, and people wonder, who is accountable for this, what happened when readiness degrades?

And, in fact, will anybody at any time hold Senator Tuberville accountable for any bad outcomes with respect to the holes that he is actually generating?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Retired Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thank you very much.

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN: Thanks, Nick.

GEOFF BENNETT: Edward Hopper stands as an almost mythical figure in American art.

As a new exhibition at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts, reveals, the artist known for rendering the haunting isolation of urban life mastered his craft spending summers by the sea.

Special correspondent Jared Bowen of GBH Boston reports for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JARED BOWEN: The seagulls sail and squawk over Gloucester, a coastal city and historic fishing port on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

Like the gulls, artists have also long flocked here, including, 100 years ago, Edward Hopper.

OLIVER BARKER, Director, Cape Ann Museum: When you think about Edward Hopper and his ultimate goal to paint sunlight on the side of a house, he, in this series of homes, found that opportunity.

JARED BOWEN: Oliver Barker is the director of the Cape Ann Museum, which just opened its largest ever exhibition, a show that documents house by house, landscape by landscape, how Edward Hopper found himself as a painter.

OLIVER BARKER: This exhibition is about place, but it is also about an artist's process and learning a new medium and seeing the impact of that of that.

JARED BOWEN: Hopper had been to Cape Ann before, but, in 1923 he, took root, spending the first of five consecutive summers here painting the place.

He was single, 40, and had only ever sold one painting.

So his career was stagnant, at best.

He was far removed from the fame that would come from burrowing into the American psyche with his scenes of urban loneliness, most pointedly rendered in his painting Nighthawks.

ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS, Cape Ann Museum: He was really struggling to make a living.

JARED BOWEN: Elliot Bostwick Davis is the show's curator.

She says Hopper was drawn to the sea and drew it himself starting as a young boy growing up in Nyack, New York.

ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS: He lived right on the waterfront.

So, from his second-story bedroom window, he could actually see vessels sailing along the Hudson.

We have in the show an early drawing that he made in pencil.

And his mother was an artist, which is an interesting aspect of him.

JARED BOWEN: It would be another woman, though, who ultimately changed the course of Hopper's career.

In the summer of 1923, he met Josephine Nivison, an artist with whom he had crossed paths before.

ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS: She had a lot to be proud of.

Her work was being shown in the Daniel Gallery in New York.

She also had her paintings selected for an important traveling exhibition in 1924, winter, which was going to be shown in both Paris and London.

JARED BOWEN: In short order, the pair found both artistic and romantic connections.

Also an art teacher, she pushed Hopper, moving him out of his comfort zone, where he meticulously planned his illustrations, and into watercolors.

ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS: Watercolor is hearted harder to control.

It is essentially pigment suspended in water.

Ultimately, it helps him get out of his own way and to let himself be a little more spontaneous and perhaps tap into more of that subconscious.

It is maybe, for athletes, the way you think of that moment of flow.

When you are in it, you know it.

JARED BOWEN: She becomes his biggest champion.

Do we have an understanding of why she started to step away from her own career and identify him as the person who should move forward?

ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS: I think she was a pragmatist.

She understood that one of them had to succeed.

And I think she saw what it took for him to become Edward Hopper.

JARED BOWEN: A year later, the pair was married.

Together, the Hoppers toured Cape Ann, often capturing the same subjects, like Gloucester's landmark church.

Edward was especially drawn to fishing scenes, to the immigrant community in the city's Italian neighborhood, and to the signals of modern times, like utility poles.

He also dwelled on dwellings, and many of Hopper's homes still stand, like Anderson's House and Hodgkin's House.

What do you think it is about this particular house that speaks to that kind of Hopper, is it loneliness, mysteries?

OLIVER BARKER: 1928, he comes back, and the painting in the show is really his first house portrait in oil.

There's almost a split personality between the light facade, which is much more ornate, and then the stock facade on the front, which is much more somber.

JARED BOWEN: And perhaps a metaphor now for the light and dark in Hopper's artistic life.

After that first summer in Gloucester, his career began to crack open.

He sold his first work in more than a decade, this watercolor of a grand Gloucester home.

He had a new artistic eye and fervor.

And it, Davis says, transformed him in ways that can be traced through the rest of his career.

ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS: I love motifs that show up here in Gloucester.

Like, in Tony's House, we have the fire hydrant on a mound in watercolor.

And, of course, the most famous fire hydrant I think anyone ever painted in American art is in Early Sunday Morning, where we see it as the sole object on the sidewalk casting that long shadow.

Hopper for some reason locked intersections.

He loves this unusually shaped building at the corner of Portuguese Hill.

Of course, corner buildings became the subject of his nocturnal drugstore scene in 1927.

JARED BOWEN: And it all happened here, at the intersection of Cape Ann, Josephine and Edward Hopper.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jared Bowen in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

AMNA NAWAZ: A new memoir out today reveals how a family's picture-perfect life hid the turmoil and trauma roiling behind closed doors.

Author Prachi Gupta unpacks how the model minority myth and pressure to succeed impacted her Indian American family in her debut work, "They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us."

We spoke recently here in our studios.

Prachi Gupta, welcome to the "NewsHour."

Thanks for joining us.

PRACHI GUPTA, Author, "They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us": Thanks so much for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, for anyone looking at your family from the outside, you were the picture of success, right?

It's the American dream fulfilled, successful immigrant parents and high-achieving children.

But the story that you detail about life behind closed doors is starkly different.

So why did you decide to share all of those details, often painful ones, with the world?

PRACHI GUPTA: I decided to share them because we need to hear the stories.

We need to hear and really understand what the pressure of success and achievement does to a person's psyche, to our relationships, to our family.

I think we live in this hypercapitalist culture that really only values us for what we can produce in the world.

And as immigrants coming in to this country - - well, my grandparents came to Canada.

And they were -- they came here in search of better opportunity and really had to buy into the American dream, which I think the same pressures exist in Canada, in order to belong, to assimilate, to fit in.

But when they spent all of this energy to focusing on that projecting this image on making sure their kids had these opportunities, there's also a hidden cost and a hidden toll to that and a lot of pressure that comes with having to fit that mold.

And America and I think Canada too really only accepts or wants immigrants if they look a certain way, if they behave a certain way.

And I wanted to write an honest story about what that pressure can do to a person's psyche, what they can do to their relationships.

And my story does not speak for everybody's, but there's so much pressure to hide these things, to not talk about them, again, because of the image that we're expected, especially as Asian Americans with the model minority myth to portray.

And I think we need to be honest about the harm that this myth causes our -- on our bodies, our lives and our within our families.

AMNA NAWAZ: Prachi, you document your father's emotional and sometimes physical abuse too.

One story really stuck with me which you tell him the book of the family driving to a prestigious school that you and your brother hoped to maybe one day attend, and your father becomes angry with your mother and berates her when she can't get the directions and read the map correctly, ends up kicking her out of the car.

And the family goes on to the school.

And you and your brother have to pretend like nothing happened.

I think folks will wonder, how can that disconnect between what you lived and what people saw be so vast?

PRACHI GUPTA: In many ways, I felt like I was living a double life.

And I think that that's a common experience, not just with abuse, but with your -- with our life, my life as the child of immigrants.

I think, for all of us, there's this public face and this public image that we have to portray, and then there's your private life or your home life.

And it -- the pressure to maintain a certain appearance, I think any -- any sort of person of color can relate to that experience in a country where whiteness is idolized and is the standard and is default.

There was a lot of shame in what was happening, but I also didn't know if it was normal or not for people who looked like me, for example, because we just didn't talk about it.

AMNA NAWAZ: You also talk about your family's own struggles with mental health, right, to even acknowledge that there are any issues in your family in the first place.

And, even today, it's worth pointing out that Asian Americans remain one of the least likely groups to seek any kind of mental health support.

I wonder why you think that is.

PRACHI GUPTA: There are so many complex reasons for that.

There are so many barriers to accessing adequate mental health care in this country.

And our mental health institution comes from a very Eurocentric perspective.

So, it's really not designed to acknowledge or address a lot of the issues that people of color are facing.

Another reason is too that therapy for a lot of us has been a form of control and domination.

The British Empire actually ran lunatic asylums in South Asia and used these, what they called lunatic asylums, as a way to assert control.

So they rounded up people of South Asian origin who didn't adhere to Victorian social norms, and then said that they were giving them therapy.

But, really, they turned into for-profit labor camps, where they extracted productivity from them.

That has had an astounding impact generationally on creating stigma, on creating skepticism around what is mental health care and what is it not.

I think, also, there's a culture of struggling with not talking about feelings.

I know that my grandparents definitely struggled with that as well.

And I know that, for me, personally, therapy really only started becoming effective when I sought out a therapist who treated all these conflicts, not as brokenness and not as contradictions, but as normal, because this was part of my normal experience.

AMNA NAWAZ: You write so openly and so intimately about some incredibly painful moments throughout your entire life and your family's lives.

And I just wonder, what has the reaction from your family been to the book?

PRACHI GUPTA: There are a lot of varying reactions.

But I think that the most -- the one that really kind of kept me going throughout the writing process was that of my grandfather's, my dadaji, Who died earlier this year at the beginning of the year, and... AMNA NAWAZ: Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss.

PRACHI GUPTA: Thank you.

Yes, we were very close.

And he is somebody who really inspired me, because he grew up in colonial India and made the very difficult decision to leave India and move to Canada and raise his family there for a better opportunity.

And he was, in many ways, a very conservative, very patriarchal father and husband.

But, in his later years, he actually began to identify as a feminist.

And he said that it was seeing his granddaughters that really changed him, and seeing that -- he didn't see us as future mothers or as partners.

He saw us as full people.

And he wanted us to be able to have all the rights in the world that he had had.

And when I told him about this book and why I needed to write it, even knowing that I would be critical of or interrogating some of the decisions that he had made, unearthing things that we had tried to bury or forget in our family, talking critically about my own family system, he said he understood, and he supported me, and he was proud of me.

And he said: "I understand you need to tell the story, and you need to tell the full story, or it won't have any teeth."

AMNA NAWAZ: You tell that story beautifully in this book.

It's called "They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us."

The author is Prachi Gupta.

Prachi, thank you for joining us.

PRACHI GUPTA: Thank you so much for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: As always, there's much more online, including a visit to a farm outside Detroit where formerly incarcerated people earn an income growing and selling kale, strawberries and other crops as they get a new start in life.

That is at PBS.org/NewsHour.

AMNA NAWAZ: And join us again here tomorrow night, when we will have an inside look at the planned release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.