JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: mixed rulings.

In a blow to President Trump, the Supreme Court upholds prosecutors' right to see his tax returns and financial records, while rejecting Congress' push for access to many of the same documents.

Then: surging COVID infections.

Officials scramble to flatten new curves, as the debate on when to reopen schools heats up.

Plus: defying the odds -- a Maryland nursing home with zero COVID-19 infections and the early steps that kept residents alive.

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT, Director, Maryland Baptist Aged Home: When I heard the president say, we only had 15 cases and he thought that by the end of the week it would be zero, I knew that it was time that we take action.

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

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: There are two major stories tonight.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules on subpoenas for President Trump's financial records, and underscores that no one is above the law.

And the nation struggles to stop COVID-19, as surging infections show no one is beyond its reach.

First, today's Supreme Court decisions.

John Yang begins our coverage.

JOHN YANG: The Supreme Court flatly rejected President Trump's claim that he is completely immune from a state criminal investigation as long as he is in office.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision, saying: "No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding."

The 7-2 majority included Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the court's two to Trump appointees.

Roberts also said: "A president may avail himself of the same protections available to every other citizen to try to block a subpoena."

So, the case was returned to the lower courts to give President Trump an opportunity to make those arguments, meaning the question may not be finally settled for sometime.

The dissenters, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, said, a sitting president deserves special consideration.

Alito wrote: "It is unrealistic to think that the prospect of possible criminal prosecution will not interfere with the performance of the duties of the office."

Today's ruling was a milestone, the first time justices said whether a president must comply with a state criminal investigation.

It was a stinging rebuke for a president who has a sweeping view of his powers.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: This is a political witch-hunt, the likes of which nobody's ever seen before.

It's a pure witch-hunt.

It's a hoax.

JOHN YANG: Marcia Coyle is chief Washington correspondent for "The National Law Journal."

Is there a message to a president who says he has -- his Article 2 powers allow him to do whatever he wants?

MARCIA COYLE, "The National Law Journal": John, I think that opinion is a clear message to a sitting president that your Article 2 powers are not unlimited, very clear message.

This was, you know, across ideological opinion, a very strong precedent for the future.

JOHN YANG: A Manhattan grand jury convened by district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. subpoenaed records, including the president's zealously guarded tax returns, dating back to 2011.

Andrea Bernstein co-hosts WNYC Radio and ProPublica's podcast "Trump, Inc." ANDREA BERNSTEIN, WNYC: The president consistently files different sets of information on his tax documents and on other documents, for example, bank loan documents, when you want your value to look high.

The numbers don't necessarily match tax documents when you want the numbers to look low.

So you pay less taxes.

So, that is a pattern that the district attorney could possibly turn up as a byproduct of this investigation.

JOHN YANG: In a separate case, the same 7-2 lineup rejected the president's arguments about broader subpoenas issued by several House committees, but it also turned away the congressional claim to virtually unlimited subpoena power.

Again, Roberts wrote the majority opinion: "Far from accounting for separation of powers concerns, the House's approach aggravates them."

MARCIA COYLE: The chief justice was very disappointed.

He said, traditionally, the House and the - - or the executive branch and the legislative branch work these things out together.

But, apparently, he said, that process is broken down.

Robert said, what we need here is a balanced approach.

And it has to take into consideration that these are two independent branches of our government.

JOHN YANG: This matter, too, was sent back to the lower courts with instructions to determine whether the House subpoenas serve a legislative purpose and are not too broad.

In his dissent, Thomas said: "Congress has no power to issue a legislative subpoena for private non-official documents, whether they belong to the president or not."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to keep seeking the material.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We will continue to press our case in lower courts.

JOHN YANG: Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen plays a key role in both subpoenas.

His claim that he was the middleman for hush money payments to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Mr. Trump, which the president denies, is part of the New York grand jury investigation.

ANDREA BERNSTEIN: He turned over records.

We have seen them.

He turned them over when he testified before the House in 2019, the check signed by Donald Trump for $35,000, part of the hush money payment.

So we know that those documents exist.

JOHN YANG: And his congressional testimony triggered the House request.

MICHAEL COHEN, Former Attorney/Fixer For Donald Trump: It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets.

JOHN YANG: House committees want the records to look for possible financial wrongdoing in property deals and whether overseas loans make the president vulnerable to foreign influence.

But the need for more court proceedings and rules about grand jury secrecy means it's unlikely that any of these documents would be made public until after the election.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now that the Supreme Court has spoken, what consequences will these rulings have on the powers of the president and those who seek to investigate him?

We get two perspectives tonight.

Mary McCord is a former prosecutor who became the Justice Department's top national security official during the Obama administration.

She's now at Georgetown University.

And Jesse Panuccio was the department's number three official, the acting associate attorney general in the Trump administration, just until last year.

He's now in private practice.

And we welcome you both to the program.

I want to begin with the justices' ruling on the Manhattan district attorney general case.

And, Mary McCord, to you first.

What do you make of the justices' reasoning here?

And how much of a setback do you think this is for the president?

MARY MCCORD, Former Justice Department Official: Well, this was an important decision, because all nine justices, including the dissenters, agree that there was no absolute immunity that the president could assert that would prevent him from having to respond to a criminal subpoena.

And the justices were very, again, unanimous in this.

And although some differed in their rationale, it's important, because, historically, for 200 years, as the chief justice pointed out, no person has been above the law, and that includes the president.

So, this was a real victory for the New York attorney Cy Vance.

It was a real rebuke to the overreach, the assertion of absolute immunity, which even the president had gone farther than the solicitor general had gone in that case.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Jesse Panuccio, was it a miscalculation for the president's attorneys to make the argument they did, to try to argue that the president was immune?

JESSE PANUCCIO, Former Justice Department Official: Well, Judy, good evening.

Thanks for having me.

I don't think it was a miscalculation.

If you look at what the Supreme Court did today, it gave the president a loss on absolute immunity.

But, politically, he probably got a win.

These cases will continue to be litigated.

They will be litigated well past the election.

So these subpoenas, if they are ever enforced, will be enforced after that time.

And then, legally, in both the New York case and the congressional case, the Supreme Court gave the president a lot to work with in terms of making arguments going forward.

Concentrating on the New York case, the Supreme Court was very clear in recognizing that local prosecutors can be motivated improperly by politics or political retaliation or bad faith.

And the court made very clear that the federal courts must be open to the president to protect him from that kind of local prosecutorial misconduct.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, the president doesn't seem to think it's a win.

As you heard, he's calling it a political witch-hunt and a hoax.

But, Mary McCord, back to you on what recourse the president now has when it comes to his ability to stop what the Manhattan DA is trying to go after.

He can rest now, as I understand it, on an argument, I'm just an ordinary citizen, but I still think what you're doing has no foundation, can he not?

MARY MCCORD: So, in this case, the president had, again, put all of his eggs in one basket when he brought this case to try to stop these subpoenas.

He had argued he was absolutely immune.

So, he had never made other arguments that an ordinary person might make, such as saying, this subpoena is too burdensome, this subpoena is brought in bad faith or for harassment, this subpoena -- those types of arguments - - this subpoena causes constitutional problems.

So what the Supreme Court says is, we're not vacating the lower opinion, right?

We're affirming the lower court opinion, which denied absolute immunity.

That was the Second Circuit opinion.

But they said that even the Second Circuit had said this case should go back to the district court, in case the president has any other arguments to make, such as burden, such as harassment, such as abuse, that then he could make those, like an ordinary citizen.

The only thing the -- so the Supreme Court was essentially just affirming what the Second Circuit had already said, which is no absolute immunity, but you can make other arguments you might want to make, President.

I think it's important, though, to recognize that, even in doing that, the Supreme Court did say, in considering the arguments that would be made, the lower courts should consider the fact that this is the president, right, not necessarily special treatment, but in analyzing the arguments, the person making the arguments, in this case, the president, just like any other person would make arguments unique to him.

In this case, he had made no arguments at all unique to this subpoena by Cy Vance in this case about how it might burden him, how it might have been abusive or harassing, and he's saying the things he's saying, but he will have to make arguments that would convince a court that this is overreach.

And there's nothing about the Supreme Court's decision that suggests that the Supreme Court thought that these subpoenas were overreach or abusive or harassing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Jesse Panuccio, I hear you saying that you think that is what the president's attorneys are now likely to do.

Is that right?

JESSE PANUCCIO: Well, I think that's right.

And, respectfully, I don't think it's true that there's nothing in the opinion that speaks to whether the court thought the subpoena by Mr. Vance was overreaching.

At the very outset of the opinion, the Supreme Court calls the investigation opaquely described.

It notes, reading between the lines, I think with some disapproval, that the subpoena simply was a word-for-word copy of a congressional subpoena.

And then after it rejects claims of absolute immunity, it goes on very clearly to say that the president is a special office under the Constitution, that separation of powers does matter, and there are special considerations when it comes to a president and local prosecutors, such as the fact that a local prosecutor can be improperly politically motivated.

And I read the opinion as saying the president can begin to probe those motivations.

And, most interestingly, this is going back probably to the SDNY.

This is the very same court that a few years ago said that the state of New York could take discovery into the motivations of Secretary Wilbur Ross in the census case.

So, if I were the president's lawyers, I think I would say, I want discovery into the motivations of Cy Vance.

I want to know what his prosecutors did to come up with this subpoena, whether they had contact with any political actors, whether they are retaliating against me because of decisions I have made in relation to the state of New York in federal policies.

I think that's all open now under the Supreme Court's special opinion.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will wait and see what happens in that regard.

But, more broadly speaking, in terms of the powers of the presidency, the office of the presidency going forward, I saw, Mary McCord, some analysis today saying that the fact that the justices were even asked to say what they said today in a way weakens or takes something away from the president's prerogative.

How do you see that argument?

MARY MCCORD: Are you speaking particularly of the second case, the case involving the House subpoenas?

JUDY WOODRUFF: I think both cases.

MARY MCCORD: Yes.

So, you know, historically, you really saw this in the Supreme Court's decision in the Mazars and Deutsche Bank case, that, historically, these types of disputes between branches -- now, granted, the Cy Vance case is not a dispute between branches -- but, historically, disputes between branches have been resolved between the branches.

They haven't gone to the courts very often, and they have never up to the Supreme Court.

And so I think what you saw was a level of disappointment, frankly, from the Supreme Court that it really has to be dealing with these things, notwithstanding that, of course, it accepted cert in these and granted certiorari, so it could review them, because they were important issues that were being pressed by the president and by his attorneys, in the face of rulings against him below.

It's also important, I think, to recognize that, in the second case, the Mazars case, even though that ends up in a vacater of the opinion and a remand, there really wasn't a clear winner in the case, because, essentially, what the Supreme Court said is... JUDY WOODRUFF: It's gone back.

MARY MCCORD: ... is both parties' positions were too extreme, and both parties, what they have asked for would -- runs into separation of powers concerns, because you have got two political co-equal branches in conflict with each other.

The president wanted to go too far that would undercut Congress' important Article 1 functions.

And it thought that Congress went too far as well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just quickly, Jesse Panuccio, what about -- do you see a cost to the office of the presidency in the fact that the court had to deal with this issue?

JESSE PANUCCIO: Well, (AUDIO GAP) there can be a cost, because you ultimately get a ruling, and that can constrain what you can do as president going forward.

But I think, in both of these opinions, the court was at pains to leave many questions open for another day.

In the congressional opinion, the court notes toward the end that one case every 200 years is not enough to flesh out all of the considerations that may matter to federal courts and to Congress and the president going forward.

So, I think while, ultimately, the claims of absolute immunity were rejected today, the court left open plenty of avenues for this president and future presidents to make arguments about presidential prerogative, and, frankly, to future Congresses.

And I think the court was cognizant of the fact that you don't know what exact shape future controversies will take place between Congress and the president.

You only know that, since the founding of the country, they have existed and they will continue to exist.

And so the court left a lot of room for, I think, future maneuverability.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For sure, two important rulings.

Jesse Panuccio, Mary McCord, thank you both for joining us to explore all of this.

Thank you.

JESSE PANUCCIO: Good night.

Stay well.

Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now the latest on the summer surge of the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of dead topped 550,000 worldwide today, including 133,000 here in the United States.

And the number of new infections shows no signs of abating.

White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor reports.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Day by day, the new surge in COVID-19 cases is growing.

Much of the country is now steadily reporting increased infections.

And, today, there were new single-day highs in Alabama and Montana and other parts of the country.

Only two states, Vermont and New Hampshire are seeing infections decline, according to The New York Times.

Governors are scrambling to try to flatten the new curve, after their states reopened.

GOV.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL): If you're in those vulnerable age groups, or you have the comorbidities, be very careful about types of close contact you have, avoid crowds at all costs, because those are going to be situations where you're going to be most at risk.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Today, the nation's top infectious diseases doctor advised states to pause lifting restrictions.

Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke on an online forum in Washington.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID Director: So, rather than think in terms of reverting back to a complete shutdown, I would think we need to get the states pausing in their opening process, looking at what did not work well, and try to mitigate that.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Meanwhile, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention insisted his agency is not revising its guidelines for schools to reopen.

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC Director: It's not a revision of the guidelines.

It's just to provide additional information to help the schools be able to use the guidance that we put forward.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Robert Redfield spoke a day after President Trump called the CDC standards impractical.

Yesterday, Vice President Pence said new guidelines would be coming out next week as a result of the president's criticism.

At the Capitol, debate also heated up over reopening schools.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned against putting children at risk.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This administration seems to be turning its back on science and instead saying, open up, take a risk.

Oh, by the way, open up the schools.

Overwhelmingly, the teachers want to open up the schools, but it has to be safe for the children.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy argued that remote learning will hurt a generation of students.

And he urged incentives for schools to resume.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): You can protect them from liability, so schools will actually have a willingness and a desire to open, and not a fear that they're going to be sued.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The pandemic's economic damage keeps mounting as well.

The Labor Department said today more than 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week.

The world's other hot spots are also struggling to make headway.

Today, India reported 25,000 new cases in 24 hours.

In hard-hit Mumbai, doctors went door to door to test residents for the virus.

And the government of Serbia dropped plans for a weekend lockdown, after two nights of violent protests over the restrictions.

Officials also banned gatherings of more than 10 people in Belgrade.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Yamiche Alcindor.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: President Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had returned to federal prison.

He'd been seen dining out in Manhattan over the weekend, and prison officials say he rejected terms of his home confinement.

Cohen was released in May, after serving 10 months for tax evasion, campaign finance fraud and lying to Congress.

His full sentence runs through November of 2021.

The judge in the Michael Flynn case is now asking a full federal appeals court to consider the case.

The former national security adviser initially pled guilty to lying to the FBI.

Later, the Justice Department moved to drop the case, but the judge refused.

Last month, a panel of the appeals court ordered the charges dismissed.

The ousted U.S. attorney in Manhattan was interviewed today by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Geoffrey Berman had been leading probes of President Trump's associates when he was forced out.

He told lawmakers that Attorney General William Barr offered him another position to leave of his own accord.

Afterward, Democratic committee chair Jerry Nadler was sharply critical.

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY): The attorney general repeatedly attempted to entice Berman to step down voluntarily, after -- even after Berman made clear that his leaving would disrupt certain sensitive cases.

We don't know yet if the attorney general's conduct is criminal, but that kind of quid pro quo gets awfully close to bribery.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Attorney General Barr goes before the committee later this month.

Sheriff's investigators in Southern California confirmed today that a black man found hanging in a tree died by suicide.

They said that Robert Fuller suffered from mental illness.

The discovery of his body in Palmdale last month sparked a protest.

His family has said that Fuller would never have taken his own life.

The Trump administration has banned three senior Chinese Communist Party members from entering the U.S. Today's action accuses them of subjecting Uyghurs and other minorities to forced labor, mass detentions and other abuses.

One of the three officials is a member of the ruling politburo.

In the presidential campaign, Democratic nominee-to-be Joe Biden offered a sweeping plan to rebuild manufacturing after the pandemic.

He spoke in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, and called for spending $700 billion on American-made goods and on research and development.

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential Candidate: We need to strengthen our industrial base as long-term sourced -- sources of middle-class job creation.

Let's use this opportunity to take bold investments in American industry and innovation, so that the future is made in America, all in America.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On the Republican side, Vice President Pence also campaigned across Pennsylvania today.

The Wisconsin state Supreme Court today upheld laws that limit the power of the Democratic attorney general.

They were passed by a lame-duck Republican-led legislature after the 2018 election.

The measures also targeted the Democratic governor who was elected that same year.

On Wall Street, stocks mostly lost ground on worries about the COVID-19 surge.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 361 points, to close at 25706.

The Nasdaq added 55 points, but the S&P 500 slipped 17.

And for the first time, a woman is joining the U.S. Army's elite Green Berets.

Officials have not released her identity, but they say she was graduated today from the Special Forces qualified course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

In all, the Army has about 6,700 Green Berets.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": international students at U.S. universities on the administration's threat to deport them; one-on-one -- White House trade adviser Peter Navarro talks trade, economic recovery, and the response to COVID-19; plus, a Maryland nursing home with zero infections.

New rules for foreign college students sent shockwaves through American academic institutions this week.

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said all of the roughly one million international student students who are currently enrolled in the U.S. must attend at least one in-person class this fall, or they will be denied visas to either enter or stay in the country.

The news came as both colleges and students are struggling to make plans for the fall semester in the middle of a pandemic.

We start by hearing from some of the students reacting to the news.

ELIZABETH GIMBA, College Student: I'm Elizabeth Gimba,.

I'm from Kenya and South Sudan, and I'm currently enrolled at Skidmore College.

RAUL ROMERO, College Student: I'm Raul Romero.

I'm from Caracas, Venezuela.

YUXIU "ISABEL" WU, College Student: Hello.

My name is Yuxiu Wu.

I also go by Isabel.

I'm originally from China.

I study Latin American history, JASKIRAT PANJRATH, College Student: So, I'm Jaskirat Panjrath.

I'm originally from India, but I reside in New York City.

NILE NAIR, College Student: My name is Nile Nair.

I am from the islands of Fiji.

I'm proud to say I'm one of the first geneticists out of the Pacific Islands.

My entire world view of how we should be approaching science and medicine changed by the opportunities I was afforded by coming to the United States.

YUXIU "ISABEL" WU: My research is based on - - solely based on the library sources I have.

And the California library system is one of the largest library systems in the U.S., in the world.

And this is just a tremendous resource for researchers like me.

JASKIRAT PANJRATH: You have hands-on experience of what you dream of in the United States.

And now it's being taken away from me in many ways.

So, I don't know what to think about it.

NILE NAIR: The new regulation, again, blindsided us completely, and the choices I'm faced with is either risk my life and health and go to class in person, or risk being deported, even though I am legally here.

RAUL ROMERO: We're basically having to make the choice of staying, continuing our education, and becoming deportable, or going back to our countries that in many cases face a certain amount of risks.

In Venezuela, it goes beyond the humanitarian crisis and the violence.

There's also, you know, very poor Internet connection.

Blackouts occur daily.

There's no constant supply of water.

ELIZABETH GIMBA: I'm most concerned about my education, because I don't think I have the luxury or the option of, for instance, taking a semester gap, or deciding to go back home, and take a break, or anything of the sort.

JASKIRAT PANJRATH: There's, like, this constant, you know, feeling that, like, I don't belong here, even though I'm paying so much money and there's so much -- and I'm on a student loan.

RAUL ROMERO: We're here temporarily, and we're not even being allowed to stay here temporarily.

ELIZABETH GIMBA: I mean, it's -- it's tiring, it's hectic, it's frustrating, it's really draining, and there's not much we can always do from our side.

YUXIU "ISABEL" WU: This law makes me and a lot of international students feel that we are deserted by the country, we're unwelcome here.

What is the most devastating thing for me is that feeling of rejection.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Harvard and MIT quickly filed a lawsuit to block the new rule, saying that it risks the health of students and faculty.

One of the major institutions grappling with the change is the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Jeffrey Brown spoke with its chancellor, Rebecca Blank, a short time ago.

JEFFREY BROWN: Rebecca Blank, thank you for joining us.

We just heard from several students.

I understand you have some 5,800 foreign students on campus there.

What do you think is the impact on them?

REBECCA BLANK, Chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Madison: So this is an unwise and a terribly disruptive policy.

We have many students who are in the middle of programs, many of them doing research work in labs with faculty.

Having to tell them all to go home if they can't take in-person classes simply doesn't make any sense.

Now, we're trying to run a hybrid model of both in-person and online classes this next semester, so I'm hoping many of them will be able to stay in Madison.

But some students can't get home.

Some students, it's not safe for them to be in their home country.

The infections are far worse there than here in Madison, you know, and some students, if they stop out, are just not going to get back.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ken Cuccinelli, who's the acting deputy secretary of DHS, he said: "If they're not going to be a student, or they're going to be 100 percent online, then they don't have a basis to be here.

They should go home, and then they can return when the school opens."

What is wrong with that logic?

REBECCA BLANK: So, there are a lot of reasons for a student to be here on campus in the United States while they are a registered student at our campuses.

As I say, some of them may well be working with faculty, doing lab work, and research, even if they are taking classes online.

Some of them will be in situations where there are literally no flights back to some countries right now.

They can't get there.

We had a whole number of students who stayed last spring when we went online.

Almost all of them were international students.

Many of them stayed over the summer, because they were reasonably certain, if they went home, they wouldn't be able to get back to school here this fall.

It's quite clear that, when schooling gets disrupted in this way, that, once you stop out, you know, once it becomes hard, it's just that much harder for students to get back in and finish their degree.

And we want all these students to get an education and to finish their degrees as fully and quickly as possible.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, we're talking about the impact on students.

What about the impact on schools like yours?

Where are you in planning for the fall?

And how much does this -- how much of an impact would this have?

REBECCA BLANK: So, we are very busily trying to change our entire mode of operation, so that we can have students back on campus and do so in a way that's safe for both our students, as well as our faculty and staff.

If we're able to accomplish that -- and we believe we're going to be able to -- then our international students should be able to stay under this order.

But, of course, it's possible that infections get a lot worse, various things happen, and that we would have to go to an all-online program at some point in the fall.

And at that point, all our foreign students would be under threat of going home.

The effect on the institution, obviously, there's institutional financial effects on this, but that's not the primary issue.

Our students are part of our campus community.

They're integrated in, in a number of ways.

We want them to be as safe and as healthy as possible, and, in many cases for them, even if we're online, being in our dorms and staying here in Madison, and not trying to get home to what are sometimes much more uncertain situations in their home countries.

JEFFREY BROWN: But there are financial implications.

Right?

A lot of these students would be paying full tuition.

You wouldn't be getting that.

So, what would happen if this goes through and you lose these students?

REBECCA BLANK: Well, you know, the effect on our tuition from our international students is about $200 million.

That's not zero.

Of course, if we go to a virtual and online situation, we will be having students dropping out who are domestic students, as well as international.

But, as I say, my main concern about this policy is not the financial implications.

We're going to do everything we can to try to be open in the fall.

My concern is its impact on the education of students.

And I should say, the presence of foreign students at American universities has been incredibly important to this country.

They go home, they become business leaders, they become political leaders.

Their connections back to the United States, from having been to our schools and having spent time in the U.S., are just golden, in terms of creating long-term relationships between this country and other countries.

JEFFREY BROWN: Several critics of this administration and this move have seen it as an attempt, a political attempt, to force colleges to reopen in the fall.

Do you see it that way?

REBECCA BLANK: You know, I can't judge the motivations behind this regulation.

As I said, I just think it's a very unwise regulation.

It was issued with, as far as I know, no consultation with any of the universities or higher education organizations, and caught everybody by surprise, which, of course, makes it all the more disruptive.

JEFFREY BROWN: And so, briefly, what is the next step for you?

I know several schools, Harvard and MIT among them, have sued already.

You have not joined that suit, I don't think, yet.

What's the next step?

REBECCA BLANK: So, you know, we're clearly trying to message to all of our students that we're doing everything we can to have online classes available to them, and that we're going to work with them to be able to stay here.

We're looking at our legal options, whether it makes sense to join or not.

As a state institution, we have certain constraints on that.

But I have issued a very strong statement of opposition to this particular regulation.

We have talked to our delegation in the U.S. Senate and Congress.

And they -- some of them have been very supportive of this.

And I hope we can actually get ICE and the administration to really rethink what they're doing here.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Rebecca Blank is the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Thank you very much.

REBECCA BLANK: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump's new North American trade deal, the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, known as USMCA, was celebrated at the White House yesterday.

Along with it come questions about the trade deal and what it means for the American economy.

Peter Navarro is President Trump's trade adviser.

And he joins us now from the White House.

Peter Navarro, welcome again to the "NewsHour."

So, President Trump called the predecessor to this deal the worst trade deal ever.

In a sentence, how is this trade agreement better?

PETER NAVARRO, Director, White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy: NAFTA, which Joe Biden and a lot of other people voted for in 1992, was structured in a way, Judy, so that American jobs were lured into Mexico by Mexico's cheap labor and NATHAN LAW: environmental controls.

And Mexico lost a lot of its supply chain to China.

What USMCA does is turn that completely on its head.

It's structured in a way to make North America the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, in a way that helps American workers.

And this is the most important part.

It has local content regulations, which provide, for example, in automobiles, that a certain percentage of that has to be American-made.

And to ensure that the jobs don't go south, there's also strict wage and environmental restrictions on Mexico.

So, this is a situation where, rarely, in a trade deal, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. all benefit.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, let me ask you about that, because, right now -- this deal does take effect as of yesterday, but it comes as all three countries are mired in recession because of the pandemic.

And my understanding is that many of the deal's requirements, like expanding worker rights, opening up the flow of agriculture, these things have not been fully met, even as it has been signed.

So, there's still work to do.

PETER NAVARRO: Well, there's certainly work to do, but it's nonetheless very good news for our manufacturing industries in North America.

And, also, it has things in it like relief for dairy farmers in places like Wisconsin, where the Canadians were putting exorbitant tariffs on.

But the bigger picture here, Judy, is that we're in a situation now where, in the 2000s, China cheated on its trade deals, and we lost millions of American jobs.

What we have now is a situation where the Chinese Communist Party lied about this virus.

The pandemic came here.

And now not only are Americans dying in large numbers.

We have 30 million Americans unemployed.

And we're facing significant structural headwinds because of the Chinese Communist Party.

Now, what I can tell you is that we are working overtime trying to make sure that we're bouncing back.

So far, the numbers look good.

But it's also true, Judy, that we're going to face structural headwinds as we move in time, as industries, like hospitality and transportation, entertainment all suffer from these pandemic effects from China.

And what the mission of the president is, is to use his deep understanding of economics and business to make sure we navigate through those shoals.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well... PETER NAVARRO: So, in the next couple of weeks, there is going to be a new phase four deal that's going to be negotiated on Capitol Hill.

And, in the meantime, we're doing everything we can to bring our manufacturing jobs back to U.S. soil, which is going to be the key to reemploying those service sector refugees we lose in those -- the beleaguered sectors.

JUDY WOODRUFF: OK.

So you're making a number of allegations here about the Chinese.

And I know a number of other countries have looked at this virus as well.

But they seem to be doing a lot better than the United States in terms of keeping it under control.

You're putting all the blame right now on China.

PETER NAVARRO: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And yet, the United States, as you know, is leading the world in the number of people infected, the number of people who have died.

And there's -- there are fingers pointed at this president's leadership.

PETER NAVARRO: Sure.

And... JUDY WOODRUFF: So, I mean... PETER NAVARRO: Let me say... (CROSSTALK) PETER NAVARRO: Sure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what I want to ask you is, if you look at this economy, and you look at the president's leadership, I mean, you can't just point at China.

PETER NAVARRO: Well, I can just point in China, in the following sense.

The reason why we have so many cases, and China has less, is this.

Not only did China spawn the virus in November.

They hid it about two months.

During that time, China restricted travel within China to contain the virus, but they sent thousands of Chinese nationals on aircraft, which many of them were infected... JUDY WOODRUFF: Well... PETER NAVARRO: ... then spread the seed of that virus.

So, that's part of the problem we're facing now.

Now, here's the thing, Judy.

We're now in a situation, after going through several months of lock -- economic lockdown, where we have really hard choices to make.

And these are the hardest choices a president ever has to make.

How fast do we open up the economy?

What we have learned in the first wave is that a complete shutdown has tremendous economic damage, but it also kills people.

It kills people through alcoholism, depression, more drug use, things like that.

So, what we're trying to do now is balance that as we open up, and it's a work in progress.

We had hoped that the virus would subside somewhat in the summertime with the heat and humidity.

Virtually every scientist thought that was going to happen.

It hasn't.

But we're managing that.

And the good thing here, Judy, is that -- and I'm directly at the center of much of this - - we are building our strategic national stockpiles with personal protective equipment and medicines.

That's going very well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, I don't... PETER NAVARRO: We're much more sophisticated now about managing the issue.

But, you know, this is war.

This is a wartime president.

This is the Chinese virus.

And I'm not going to sugarcoat anything today.

We have got a fight on our hands.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well -- and there are so many things to raise with you about all that you have said, Peter Navarro.

But, specifically, let me just move quickly ahead to what Joe Biden said today.

He raised - - he has now rolled out his own plan for improving the economy.

He said, this president has created an economy that caters to Wall Street.

And what he's doing -- he said: "I have got a plan that's going to bring back jobs that have been lost this year.

I'm going to create at least five million more jobs, with sweeping investments in domestic technology.

I'm going to reduce our dependence on foreign countries that supply critical goods.

I'm going to implement trade and tax policies that empower U.S.

workers."

In other words, he is saying this president has failed on all those fronts.

PETER NAVARRO: So, Joe Biden was around for 44 years, and basically helped oversee the offshoring of American jobs, turned his back on workers.

In three-and-a-half years, leading up to January 15, this president was the greatest president, jobs president, in history.

And in terms of catering to Wall Street, guess what?

We had the lowest unemployment rate ever in history for blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women.

And this -- everything looked great because of the president's policies.

Now, I thought it was -- you know the saying imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

When I looked at Joe Biden's plan, all he was doing was copying all the things that we have been doing as an administration with respect to buy American, onshoring jobs, increasing manufacturing.

Don't forget, Judy, during the Obama-Biden years, they lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs net.

During this presidency, we have added over a half-a-million.

So, remember, 44 years of Joe Biden, nothing but offshoring American jobs, three-and-a-half years, the greatest jobs president in history.

JUDY WOODRUFF: If I could quickly quote, there's reporting today that Steve Bannon, who, of course, has been a close adviser to the president, said, when it comes to this buy American proposal from Joe Biden, that the Trump administration was caught flat-footed.

There's reporting that the administration's been trying to get -- put together its own proposal, -- quote -- "buy American proposal," but it hasn't been able to come to an agreement.

Has the administration, has the White House been delayed in trying to come up with your own proposal on how to improve the economy?

PETER NAVARRO: Yes, I have personally watched the president sign five different buy American orders.

We have had a tremendous reduction in waivers.

We have had a tremendous increase in the amount of government procurement that goes to buy American.

We have had a great success with buy American.

It is the president's two simple rules.

The next challenge we face, and this is going to be a very difficult one, but we are committed and engaged, which is to bring our medicines and our medical splice and equipment, production and supply chains, home.

And it's a struggle, but we have seen -- for example, we brought factories in Arizona and Rhode Island on N95 masks.

We have stood up a factory in 17 days in Kokomo, Indiana, by General Motors.

And we have become the ventilator export king of the world.

We are producing 20 million swabs now a month in Guilford, Maine.

So, we are the buy American presidency.

And I'm proud to have been at the president's side when he signed the orders.

And I have been very active in terms of implementing them.

We have work to do on the pharmaceutical and supply chains.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Two other quick questions about China.

There was a China trade deal that had been negotiated before the pandemic hit.

It required China to buy more U.S. goods, but there wasn't enforcement as part of that.

Can you require that China do what it was supposed to do under that agreement?

PETER NAVARRO: There are clear enforcement mechanisms in the phase one deal.

The -- to date, it's absolutely true that China has underperformed with respect to its purchases, but we have been assured by the Chinese that, by the end of the year, they will make good on those.

But this is Ronald Reagan territory, trust, but verify.

Let's see what happens.

Let's remember what I told you at the beginning of this interview.

During the 2000s, China cheated and stole our jobs.

Today, they lied to us, and they're killing Americans with that virus.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And does President Trump still consider President Xi Jinping a friend?

PETER NAVARRO: You would have to ask the president that.

But I can assure you that there's no one inside the perimeter of this White House that has a high level of trust in the Chinese Communist Party at this point, particularly with respect to their behavior on this Chinese virus.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Peter Navarro, thank you very much.

PETER NAVARRO: Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Of the nation's nearly 130,000 coronavirus deaths, more than 40,000 have been in nursing homes.

Amna Nawaz brings us the story of one facility that is beating the odds.

AMNA NAWAZ: I'm joined now by Reverend Derrick DeWitt.

He's the director of the Maryland Baptist Aged Home.

It's a 100-year-old nursing home that has had zero cases of COVID-19.

Reverend DeWitt, thanks so much for joining us.

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT, Director, Maryland Baptist Aged Home: Thank you for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, everyone knows the numbers, right?

When you look at COVID deaths in long-term care facilities around the country, they make up some 40 percent of all COVID deaths in the nation.

In Maryland, I think the number is over 60 percent.

How did you beat the odds?

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: Well, I think the key was early, early mitigation, early proactive steps to make sure that this disease did not enter into our nursing home.

And one of the things that I did was, I just listened to the news around the world and how this was affecting other countries.

And then, when I heard -- when I heard the president say, we only had 15 cases, and he thought that, by the end of the week, it would be zero... DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero... REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: ...

I knew that it was time that we take action.

AMNA NAWAZ: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you basically didn't believe the president and took early action to lock down.

Is that correct?

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: Well, that's correct, in a sense.

I mean, I think us being in an underprivileged and underserved area of Baltimore City, we have kind of gotten used to the fact that, if help is going to come, it's probably going to come too late, so we need to be prepared to take care of ourselves.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, tell me a little bit about what exactly you did.

When you say you acted early, what steps did you put into place back in February?

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: Well, the first thing we did, probably very end of February, 1st of March, we locked down the facility.

We allowed no visitors in or out.

We knew that, if the disease was going to get into the nursing home, it was going to come from the outside.

And probably it was going to be an employee that brought it in.

So, we have a very rigorous screening process when they come to work.

And it's almost an hour-to-hour detail on what you did the 12 hours or 14 hours that you weren't at work.

Who did you see?

Who were you with?

We take their temperatures.

Everybody's wearing masks, gown, gloves when they have any contact with residents.

We had a full-time quality assurance infection control nurse for years who set up a lot of measures that would help us in time of catastrophe or pandemic or even an epidemic.

I took a lot of criticism for having a full-time person in a 30-bed facility, which most facilities even three times as large don't have a full-time infection control person.

But, then, being a faith-based facility, a lot of people said, hey, you're overreacting.

I thought you were a man of God and you had faith in God.

And I just simply replied that, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

And I have faith in God, but I still wear my seat belt when I get in the car.

AMNA NAWAZ: One of the things we have heard from other people who run nursing homes and long-term care facilities is that they waited in some ways to lock down because they're also worried about the emotional well-being of their residents.

And locking everyone down and keeping everyone in their rooms isn't necessarily good for them.

How did you weigh that consideration?

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: Well, that weighed very heavily in what we did.

So, one of the things that we did, we brought in extra activity staff to make sure that our residents had visits every day.

And then, because they were taking meals within their rooms, we brought in a chef, a culinary expert, that could help our staff make sure that the meals were prepared in a way that was more pleasing for the residents.

So, putting a flower on the tray kind of meant a lot.

It's small things like that mean a lot to them, making sure that mealtime was still a happy time for them.

And so we made sure that we took seriously the emotional health of our residents.

AMNA NAWAZ: Reverend, we know now, nationally, the toll the pandemic has taken on black communities in particular.

We know black Americans are disproportionately getting infected and dying as a result.

What is it like for you to be kind of an island of safety, a COVID-free island right now, while the community around you is still very much in harm's way?

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: Well, Amna, we have had to -- even at my church, with this pandemic going on, our neighborhood is unfortunate that we don't have even a supermarket within the entire zip code of where my church is located.

So we're having to feed people seven days a week.

Sadly to say, we are used to the disparities.

This pandemic is affecting black and brown communities in a way.

And it's because of the systemic racism that's built into the system that don't allow -- food insecurity, for one, lack of access and affordability to proper health care.

And so we know that we have to take additional extraordinary measures to protect ourselves.

AMNA NAWAZ: And amid all of this, you have managed to keep your residents, your team, who the statistics say should be among the worst affected, you have managed to keep them safe.

Do you think that you can keep that up, knowing we're still in -- as experts say, in the first wave of the virus?

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: It is a massive undertaking to keep this going, because people are getting tired.

People are getting frustrated.

But we just try to encourage them to continue to be patient, continue to be strong and courageous in this fight, and to make sure that, keep your faith -- keep your faith in God and keep doing what you know are the best practices for your residents.

And we always simply err on the side of caution.

If it's a minute, 1 percent chance that a resident is going to be affected, then we do not take that chance.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, we wish you safety, and we wish you good health and good luck ahead.

That is Reverend Derrick DeWitt, the director of the Maryland Baptist Aged Home.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.

REV.

DERRICK DEWITT: Amna, thank you so much for having me.

And thank you for telling our story.

God bless.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On the "NewsHour" online right now: States are grappling with how to reopen, as coronavirus case numbers climb.

Our William Brangham talked with Dr. Ashish Jha, who is director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, to answer some viewer questions about the road ahead.

You can find that on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.

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