>> She's a senator and Purple Heart veteran who says the President is unfit to be commander in chief, this week on "Firing Line."

>> Trump fundamentally cannot understand the notion of sacrificing for your nation, the idea of fighting for something greater than yourself.

>> A combat veteran of the Iraq war, Tammy Duckworth's helicopter was hit by enemy fire in 2004.

She was severely injured and lost both of her legs.

Four years ago, Duckworth became the junior senator from Illinois, elected to the seat once held by Barack Obama.

The first senator to give birth while in office, she was on Joe Biden's VP short list.

>> Joe Biden has common decency.

That's the kind of leader our service members deserve.

Instead, they have a coward in chief.

>> With Washington reeling from a COVID outbreak at the White House and this week's VP debate the subject of intense scrutiny... >> The greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.

>> President Donald Trump has put the health of America first.

>> ...what does Senator Tammy Duckworth say now?

>> "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by... And by... Corporate funding is provided by... >> Senator Tammy Duckworth, welcome to "Firing Line."

>> It's good to be on.

Thank you.

>> Did the vice presidential debate restore your faith in Americans' ability to disagree civilly?

>> Well, it did.

[ Laughs ] Boy, what would a change from the presidential debate, huh?

>> It was a marked change.

The thing that struck me is that, even though there was a discourse that was full of content, both of the candidates dodged some of the most serious questions before them.

It would be refreshing, I think, for the Americans to have straight answers to some of those difficult questions, especially the one about what would happen if the person's running mate became incapacitated in the White House.

What's your take on that?

>> Well, I mean, I think that's a legitimate question to ask a vice presidential candidate.

I think that Senator Harris is more than qualified to be -- to step into the role of president.

But I will tell you that, you know, from watching Joe Biden ride his bike around, that I think he's gonna be around for a long time to come yet.

But I'm fully confident in Kamala Harris's ability to step in and perform the duties of president should she need to.

>> How about just answering the questions, though?

What's the -- What's the strategy?

>> Well, number one, I was not part of the debate prep team, so I don't know what the strategy there is.

But I do think that Senator Harris's mission was to really focus the conversation on healthcare and this crisis of the global pandemic that we're in.

And so, you know, I suspect that's what she was doing.

>> Well, it certainly succeeded in the sense that the pandemic really did take center stage in the debate.

Take a look at this montage we put together.

>> They knew, and they covered it up.

The President said it was a hoax.

They minimized the seriousness of it.

The President said you're on one side of his ledger if you wear a mask -- you're on the other side of his ledger if you don't.

>> Under President Trump's leadership, Operation Warp Speed, we believe, will have literally tens of millions of doses of a vaccine before the end of this year.

The reality is, when you look at the Biden plan, it reads an awful lot like what President Trump and I and our task force have been doing every step of the way.

>> If this country's COVID response had not been led by President Trump and had been led by Democrats instead, Senator, how many lives do you think would have been saved?

>> Oh, I think we'd have -- hundreds of thousands of lives would have been set -- would have been saved.

Let me say this -- it's not even about a Democratic alternative.

It's if the COVID response had actually even just followed any type of scientific recommendations, you would see a much better response and fewer death rates and fewer spread of the virus than it has under President Trump.

Remember that this is the administration that actually defunded the pandemic response office that had been set up following the Ebola crisis and the previous SARS crisis.

>> Of course, John -- that was under John Bolton's tenure.

He was on this program, and his argument was that it didn't go anywhere.

It was streamlined.

>> They zeroed out the budget.

[ Laughs ] So if you take away the budget and you really, you know -- basically, they sidelined that office so that it could not do the job that was supposed to do.

But even if they had just followed doctor's orders and what CDC and the World Health Organization was saying that we should be doing, we would be in a better place.

And remember that the World Health Organization actually offered help to the United States at the very beginning, and President Trump turned it down and then withdrew the US from participating with WHO efforts to really combat this pandemic.

And so this is a real failure of the Trump administration in particular.

You know, I've watched Republican administrations previous to this one respond to global pandemic in a -- you know, sufficiently.

President Bush did.

So, I would think that it's not just about Democrats or Republicans -- it's about President Trump's failures.

>> So, the civility from the vice presidential debate has disappeared almost immediately because, within hours, President Trump called Senator Kamala Harris a disparaging name repeatedly and suggested that Gold Star families may have been the source of his getting the COVID virus.

He said that he will refuse to participate in the next debate if it's virtual.

Do the American people need to hear another debate between President Trump and Vice President Biden?

>> Well, I would like to hear a first debate instead of a shouting match, with President Trump shouting over Vice President Biden as much as he did.

But, look, you know, I think it's shameful that he would, again, blame others for him catching this virus when we know that he has been the one who's been modeling very bad behavior -- going to rallies, he's not wearing masks.

He's told people not to wear masks.

And even now, during a time period when we know that he is still contagious, he's still not wearing masks and subjecting those around him to this pandemic.

And in fact, earlier, he had blamed military men and women and police officers for exposing Hope Hicks.

So, you know, he keeps trying to put the blame on others, but he is the one that's not wearing a mask, and he is the one that is preventing other people from wearing masks.

>> Then you have Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has started talking about invoking the 25th Amendment.

Do you think that's appropriate?

>> You know, I think that -- No, I think that we should be talking about the election.

The American people, in less than 30 days, have a chance to make their voices heard, and in many states, are already casting their ballots.

Let's just let the American people exercise their constitutional rights, and let's just let them speak as to who they want to be their next president.

>> So, I want to show you an image of a US Marine outside of the West Wing this week, signifying President Trump's return to the Oval Office after having been in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

And you are a veteran who served for 23 years in our armed services.

You spent a year recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital after you were gravely injured in Iraq.

What does that image say to you?

>> It shows that President Trump has no loyalty, and he demands loyalty from his subordinates, but he has no loyalty towards them.

And for him to expose those around him to this deadly virus, it shows an utter and complete lack of loyalty from the commander in chief for those around him, especially the military men and women who serve under his command, and it's also just negligence on his part, that he would expose the porters and the -- all the aides in the White House.

And think of all the people who work to keep that White House running, who, by the way, have to catch public transportation to get to work, further potentially spreading this virus around in the public realm.

And so, you know, he's just so self-involved and so worried about his own image that he cares nothing about the people around him and nothing about the American people.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have 210,000 dead Americans at this point.

>> So, all but one member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has had to self-quarantine after a Coast Guard admiral tested positive for the coronavirus.

And it looks like a meeting in one of the Pentagon's secure meeting rooms is the source of concern.

Did military leadership let their guard down here, Senator?

>> Well, you know, I don't know if they did or not 'cause I wasn't there.

But, you know, when you're in that meeting -- I will tell you that I have been in a secure meeting room with other senators, and none of the Republican senators wore their masks.

And we were still separated, the 6 feet social distancing, but I kept my mask on.

A lot of the Democrats -- and not all the Democrats -- but most of the Democrats kept our masks on.

I can see that, in that situation, where you think you're socially distanced, you go ahead and take off the mask, and we know that that is, you know -- masks are effective, but ventilation and all of that is important, as well.

And if you want to keep yourself and those around you safe, you should be adhering to all the protocols, as recommended by the CDC.

I couldn't tell you what the military leaders were doing, but I can tell you that, right now, the actions of the Trump administration can still set an example.

He can still set a good example, as opposed to where we are right now, where we have -- the commander in chief has been in the hospital, and now leaders of our military are quarantining.

That does not bode well for our national security.

>> As a veteran and someone who observes the military now from the Senate, you know, it has been observed by some that the military has actually done pretty well with COVID, especially since the first incident, an outbreak of COVID-19 in the South Pacific earlier, when the pandemic just set in.

Is that your observation, Senator, that that the military got something right here that the rest of us could learn from?

>> I do think so -- that our military has done fairly well with the -- with their response to COVID-19.

And I've been working very closely with military leaders to see how they've handled it.

I'll give you an example.

We're still sending young recruits through basic training, and they actually take them in, they isolate them as a pod, including the instructors, and then they move forward together as a pod.

So we can do this.

But, you know, the military is a very different organization than civilian life.

They can control the environment that military members live and work in.

And so it's a little bit easier to do that.

And certainly, you know, your commander gives an order -- wear masks, social distance, do all of these things -- the military men and women will follow orders and do it.

>> Yeah, there's no free will.

[ Chuckles ] >> [ Laughs ] Well, you know, you follow lawful orders.

If the orders are not lawful, then you don't -- then you don't have to follow them.

But, yeah, our military men and women give up a lot of their own -- you know, they look out for one another, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

And they understand that loyalty goes both ways.

So they know that, if they are sick, they will speak up and they will isolate themselves from others because it's not just about the one person -- it's about everybody around them.

And unfortunately, we're not seeing that in the White House right now.

>> Yeah, well, let me ask you about some of the other COVID relief -- the economic relief, in particular.

President Trump this week ended negotiations on a stimulus relief bill until the election.

And then, hours after he did that, he called for standalone bills -- airline relief, small-business aid, and stimulus checks.

Do you support the standalone bills, Senator?

What is your take?

>> I'm somewhere in the middle.

Look, I think there should be a single bill that has everything in it, so that -- that's the art of compromise, right?

Everybody gets a little something that they want, and there are things in it that you don't want.

So, for example, I want protections for families and workers.

I want another round of stimulus payments.

And so, for me, it's -- you know, compromise means coming together and putting something together.

The President wants to cherry-pick and I don't know that cherry-picking is good for our country as a whole.

I, for example, want money in there for our municipalities who've lost so much tax revenue and who are, you know, right now facing severe financial distress.

Peoria, Illinois, has just had to lay off firefighters.

Rockford, Illinois, is leaving police officer positions unfilled because they're in crisis with their budgets right now.

I want money to go to them.

So I think we need to put something together.

I'm not saying I would be, you know, opposed -- that I would be opposed to doing something important that would stand alone.

But I think the better course of action is to put it all together.

>> Which brings me to, you know, how this is affecting individuals and people at home.

You have two young daughters, and one of them, Abigail, was supposed to be starting kindergarten and instead you are now homeschooling her while being US senator.

You have said that doing the bulk of teaching is harder than flying a Black Hawk helicopter.

Do you think that more schools should have opened promptly this year?

>> I don't want schools to open if they can't keep our children and our teachers safe, and I will tell you what has happened with Abigail is very typical of what's happening in this country, which is very unfair.

I've actually -- after homeschooling her since March, I have now put her into a private Montessori program, taking her out of the public-school program that she was supposed to be in, because the Montessori is a small school and they can keep her safe and they can have in-person learning, and she has blossomed.

The difference between her being in school and distance learning has been really difficult, but that's where we are in this country.

99% of the children in this country do not have parents who can afford to put their children into a private-school program, and that is wrong.

We should be providing funding to our school districts so that they can open schools in a safe way, while keeping students safe, keeping teachers safe, with widespread low-cost or free testing.

And that should be in the next COVID relief package, and it isn't as far as the Trump administration is concerned right now.

>> It strikes me, Senator, that this is something that -- it seems like Congress would have thought about before the school year started, sometime in the summer when we were going through the funding coming for the fall.

Why didn't Congress take this up earlier?

>> Well, they did -- it's in the Heroes Act.

It's in the bill which passed the House of Representatives, but Mitch McConnell has refused to allow us to vote on it in the Senate.

>> If the virus is still with us three years from now and there's no vaccine and no herd immunity, would you still expect that families would keep their kids away from school?

>> Well, let me just say that the virus will probably still be with us three years from now.

I hope that there is a vaccine, but whether it's this virus or some other future pandemic, what we have learned is that we need to be able to respond to pandemics and we have to have protocols in place.

So I want schools to reopen, but the path to reopening schools and the path to reopening our economy is testing, is making sure that there's low-cost and free testing everywhere.

So that, when you get sick, you know to stay home, we should have paid leave so that you can actually afford to stay home for the 14 days to keep others from getting sick.

That is how we reopen schools.

That is how we reopen our economy.

There's no magical virus -- you know, a pill that you can take or a shot that you can take that is going to defeat this virus forever.

This virus will be with us three years from now.

It's how we manage it that's going to determine how we open our economy.

>> How are we going to have cheap testing everywhere?

What's it going to take?

>> It takes government investment.

It takes us coming together and deciding that this is a priority.

We gave $2 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of this nation.

We can afford to make sure that there is widespread low-cost and free testing so that the front-line workers, the people who are keeping my daughter supplied with Chicken McNuggets -- 'cause that's all she'll eat some days -- are the ones that are getting testing when they need it and don't have to decide whether or not, you know, they can afford the $200 for a test.

>> With respect to the Heroes Act, of course Senator McConnell wouldn't bring it to a vote -- that's no surprise.

It was a Democratic bill that was far more than they were interested in spending -- Republicans were interested in spending.

But why not compromise?

Where is the art of compromise?

I know these are difficult times before an election, but they're also desperate times, as you know.

Why not try to move it forward?

I mean, we've seen so many examples where there has just been no willingness to give an inch.

>> Well, I would have to disagree with you from the Democratic perspective, because I think we have been giving an inch -- I think we've been giving a lot.

I would actually support the compromise.

I will tell you, though, that Speaker Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin have been negotiating for the last month, and they've actually been making progress.

I was actually very, very much optimistic that we were going to get to an agreement, and then the President said that he did not want to have a bill, and that kind of stopped their conversations.

But I will tell you that Secretary of the Treasury has actually been somebody that you could negotiate with, and that's been a pleasant point in all of everything that has been going on.

Unfortunately, Speaker -- Leader McConnell has not come to a single meeting, so he's not even participating in the negotiations.

So, if there's a need for compromise here, it's going to be -- Leader McConnell actually has to show up to a meeting.

You can't actually negotiate with someone if they don't actually show up.

>> And yet, they've still passed almost $4 trillion worth of fiscal stimulus.

Listen, Amy Coney Barrett is -- been nominated, and her confirmation hearings are on Monday, after several GOP senators have recently tested positive.

Senator Ron Johnson tested positive and says that he will show up to the vote wearing a, quote, "moon suit," if needed.

Is it safe to hold a vote this month?

>> It is not safe to hold a vote this month.

And I am very much disappointed in Senator Johnson that he would expose his colleagues to this virus, and for him to expose not just his colleagues, but, again, all of the staff members and the workers at the Capitol to this virus is irresponsible.

>> As you know, Senate rules require members to be physically present in order to cast their vote on the floor.

You know that very well, I know.

Would you support a move to vote by proxy?

>> I would take a look at it.

For me, it would deal with how -- what their rules would be regarding voting by proxy.

I certainly would -- can see that, you know, in a global pandemic, a national declared emergency, that voting by proxy might be a viable thing.

So I'm not -- I would not say no to that, but I would have to see what the rules around that would be.

>> Yeah.

I love this part about your bio, how you became the first sitting senator to give birth while in office, and your daughter was the first infant on the Senate floor when you secured this historic rules change that allows senators to bring infant children onto the floor, but you've been very public about the fact that you conceived your children through IVF.

And that's one of the reasons why you can't support Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

Tell me more.

>> Well, this really started around 2013, 2014, when I was undergoing IVF for my older daughter, Abigail.

At the time, there were personhood amendments that were being proposed by many members of the Tea Party that says that life begins with the fertilization of an egg, that that is a person with full rights -- not even an embryo yet, just a fertilized egg.

And at the time, I was getting IVF, and my doctor said, "Okay, you know, we're harvesting these eggs from you.

We're going to fertilize them, and then we're going to look at the three eggs that we fertilized, and one of these is not that viable.

So we're going to discard that one 'cause it's probably not going to survive the process, and we're going to implant two in you."

And he said, "Oh, by the way, if this personhood amendment -- if this concept of life beginning at fertilization happened, I would be -- I could be convicted of manslaughter for disposing of that one egg that does not look viable, that only has a 20% chance of viability."

And that just blew my mind, quite literally.

And unfortunately, you know, the current nominee to the Supreme Court -- she has signed on to ads from, you know, of groups that have said that they oppose IVF treatments, and they actually believe that doctors who perform IVF treatment involving the destruction of a fertilized egg -- that they should be criminalized.

And that would mean that so many families like mine couldn't become families.

People struggling with fertility treatments could not actually use the miracle of IVF to have their children and become loving families the way mine has become.

>> You wrote a letter, in fact, calling on your Republican colleagues to consider voting no and urging them that -- that they consider the message that it sends to "vote in favor of a Supreme Court nominee who appears to believe that my daughters shouldn't even exist."

Have you gotten any response from any of your colleagues?

>> Well, I've got a lot of response from the Democrats.

There are nothing but crickets from the Republicans -- I'm happy -- of course, this has happened since we've all gone home, so we're not on the floor to talk to each other.

I'm happy to talk to my Republican colleagues.

I'm happy to have those conversations.

But, at this point in time, I think my Republican colleagues are willing to set their personal feelings aside and just shove through in this power grab to try to tilt the Supreme Court.

>> Let's take a look at something that Judge Barrett said at her nomination speech.

Take a look at this.

>> I clerked for Justice Scalia more than 20 years ago, but the lessons I learned still resonate.

His judicial philosophy is mine, too.

A judge must apply the law as written.

Judges are not policy makers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.

>> Senator, why not take Judge Barrett at her word that she will apply the law as written, as opposed to impose her personal views onto the law?

>> Well, because she's actually written things, both as a judge, both as a law professor to show that she won't just do that.

She's saying that now because she wants to be on the Supreme Court, but she actually has written opinions where she has said that she does not recognize judicial precedence.

And President Trump has time and again said he is only nominating Justices through to the Supreme Court who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

So we know for her, from what she has written, from the groups that she has supported, that she will actually let her personal opinions come into play.

>> Her views are well-known, and we know what her personal views are.

I think some of her -- what her supporters would say is that there have been plenty of examples where cases have come before her, where she has ruled counter to her own opinions -- there was one where she wanted to protect the people who are using the services of an abortion clinic from protesters.

In other words, there have been examples where her personal opinion hasn't made its way to her judicial writings and her judicial judgments, her opinions.

I guess that's -- my question for you is, while her opinions are well-known, why are we so sure that she won't take the text as it is written, as opposed to seeking to change the text, which conservatives, frankly, call judicial activism?

>> Well, let me just say that my opposition to her is on many fronts.

So, even if that were the case, there are other reasons to not vote for her, right?

They're trying -- These supporters of hers are trying to distract the American people from some of the real issues at hand, which is that she has said that she thinks that we should get -- that the Affordable Care Act was an overreach and needs to be repealed.

And so, if she had her way, she would -- and she has the potential -- if we push her through before the election, to seven days later be hearing a case that could eliminate the Affordable Care Act as we know it, which would then take away health insurance from 20 million-plus Americans and take away the protection for preexisting conditions.

So don't fall for this argument where they tried to get you to focus on this one thing, because there are many things about her that make her not worthy of this seat on the Supreme Court, especially the seat formerly held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

>> "Firing Line," of course, was hosted by William F. Buckley Jr., initially, for 33 years.

Take a look at this clip from 1973, where conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly was discussing her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and the subject of women in the military came up.

Take a quick look at this.

>> Women are exempt from the draft.

Selective Service says only young men of age 18 have to register.

But the Equal Rights Amendment will positively make women subject to the draft and on an equal basis with men.

Nor could you have a system whereby the women would get all the nice, easy desk jobs and the men get all the fighting jobs.

It would have to be equal across the board -- in combat, on warships, and all up and down the line.

>> I just love that because it's the women who get all the nice, easy -- easy desk jobs.

I pose to you, as a woman who flew helicopters and was shot down serving her country in Iraq, how do you reflect back on how far we've come?

>> We've come a very, very long way, but nowhere near enough.

I think, you know, to -- that argument was very insulting to the moms of boys 'cause it's to say that men's lives are less precious than women's lives, so that the men should face the dangers and women shouldn't.

I'm sorry, but America's daughters are just -- just as capable of defending liberty and freedom as her sons are.

And, you know, we're better -- we're better when there's diversity going forward in terms of anything that we do in our society and including the military.

>> Senator Duckworth, thank you very much for joining me on Firing Line."

>> My pleasure.

Thank you.

>> "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by... And by... Corporate funding is provided by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> You're watching PBS.