JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight... DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I just want to make something clear.

It's very important.

Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back.

And we're starting the process.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Pandemic politics.

The House votes on a relief bill opposed by the Senate majority, as the president pushes the country to reopen, despite warnings from health officials.

Then: an in-depth report on the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, based on interviews with dozens of former staff members.

Plus: the pandemic abroad.

COVID-19 exacerbates already dire public health and refugee crises in densely populated Bangladesh.

ASIF SALEH, Executive Director, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee: Beyond the public health crisis, there's a massive economic and humanitarian crisis that is emerging because of this lockdown.

They're practically facing severe starvation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And it's Friday.

Mark Shields and David Brooks break down the divide over reopening too soon and the allegations against Biden.

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

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: Another week ends in the era of COVID-19.

As of tonight, more than 87,000 people have died nationwide.

More than 300,000 have recovered.

More of the country is reopening, or getting ready to, from the Grand Canyon to the Jersey Shore.

And more federal relief is moving through the U.S. House of Representatives.

Amna Nawaz begins our coverage.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the Capitol today, fervid debate over the newest coronavirus aid bill.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): We hear members talking about how much they love America, how much they love their constituents.

Put up or shut up.

Now is the time to do it.

REP.

ROB WOODALL (R-GA): This is the single largest borrow-and-spend bill the country has ever seen, and it included not one Republican amendment.

AMNA NAWAZ: Proposed by Democrats, the 1,800-page, $3 trillion relief package would send almost $1 trillion to state and local governments, renew $1,200 in direct cash payments to individuals, and provide hazard pay to health care workers and others on the front line.

Democrats argued more federal support is needed for struggling states and businesses.

Congressman Alcee Hastings of Florida: REP. ALCEE HASTINGS (D-FL): Americans are afraid, not just of how they're going to make ends meet, but whether they're going to make it through this pandemic at all.

AMNA NAWAZ: But Republicans accused Democrats of pushing through a partisan bill.

Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma: REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): So, let's do what we have done four times in a row, sit down, work together and craft a bipartisan bill.

We have proven we have done it, and can do it again.

AMNA NAWAZ: Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell has dismissed the House proposal as a -- quote -- "totally unserious effort."

And the president has threatened to veto it.

But today's vote came as the number of Americans in need of help continues to grow.

New figures this week reveal a total of 36 million Americans have now filed for unemployment in just the last two months.

And new Commerce Department numbers today showed retail sales in April plunged a record 16 percent.

In an attempt to soothe the financial strain, more than 40 states have already announced plans to reopen or are in the midst of doing so.

In Frederick, Virginia, Mike Mansfield's gastropub began a phased reopening today.

MIKE MANSFIELD, Owner, J. Brian's Tap Room: We want to do something.

Everybody wants to work and just get busy.

But we want to take every precaution also.

It's a little scary, but we're ready.

AMNA NAWAZ: In parts of New York state, Governor Andrew Cuomo allowed restrictions to ease while extending stay-at-home orders for most of the state, including New York City, until May 28.

GOV.

ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): There's no politics to this judgment.

There's no arbitrary nature to this judgment.

It's all on the numbers.

AMNA NAWAZ: Back in Washington, the sounds of protesting truck drivers honking their horns, frustrated by low freights during the pandemic, pierced the president's White House event, promoting the administration's efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

Though Drs.

Birx and Fauci of the Coronavirus Task Force wore masks, the president did not.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I want to make one thing clear: Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back.

And we are starting the process.

And in many cases, they don't have vaccines, and a virus or a flu comes, and you fight through it.

AMNA NAWAZ: According to National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, large-scale trials for a possible vaccine aren't expected until July.

And now new questions about a COVID-19 test made by Abbott Labs and used daily at the White House.

The Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday the test can sometimes give a false negative, clearing the person tested as virus-free, when he or she isn't.

And, today, a blistering editorial from the "Lancet" medical journal, bashing the national pandemic response as -- quote -- "inconsistent and incoherent," accusing the Trump administration of -- quote -- "marginalizing and hobbling" the CDC, and calling on Americans to vote for a president who -- quote -- "will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics."

Overseas, in China, officials said they marked one full month with no new COVID deaths.

But vulnerable populations, like here in Bangladesh, are bracing for a blow.

In this crowded camp, home to one million Rohingya Muslims, the first coronavirus case was confirmed just today.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Amna Nawaz.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: Former Vice President Joe Biden says that, if elected president, he would not pardon Donald Trump or his associates of any crimes.

Instead, he says he would let any investigations play out.

The presumptive Democratic nominee spoke in a virtual town hall on MSNBC last night, and he accused Mr. Trump of abusing his power.

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential Candidate: We never saw anything like the prostitution of that office like we see it today.

It is not something the president is entitled to do, to direct either a prosecution and/or to decide to drop a case.

That is not the president's role, responsibility, and it's a dereliction of his duty.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Biden also denied again the sexual assault accusations by Tara Reade, one of his former Senate staffers.

But he said Americans who believe her probably should not vote for him.

We will take an in-depth look at the Reade allegations later in the program.

The U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, blamed the Islamic State group today for an attack that killed 24 people at a maternity hospital.

He tweeted that the militant group has -- quote -- "demonstrated a pattern for favoring these types of heinous attacks against civilians."

Meanwhile, the Taliban condemned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for blaming the attack on them.

A tropical weather system off the Florida coast could become the year's first named storm in the Atlantic.

It was blowing over the Northwestern Bahamas today, and already bringing high winds and downpours to South Florida.

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season does not officially begin until June 1.

And on Wall Street, stocks eked out gains to end the week, despite sharp drops in retails and industrial output.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 60 points to close at 23685.

The Nasdaq rose 70 points, and the S&P 500 added 11.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": questions remain about a new complication from coronavirus affecting children; the pandemic exacerbates already dire crises in densely populated Bangladesh; an in-depth report on the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden; Mark Shields and David Brooks break down the week's political news; plus, much more.

While just a small percentage of the children infected with this coronavirus get seriously ill, researchers are now learning about a new potentially dangerous syndrome in young people that seems to be caused by the virus.

In more than 100 cases in New York and 60-plus across Europe, young people have developed an inflammatory response similar to what's known as Kawasaki disease.

It's led to concerns that we still don't fully understand the full impact that COVID is having on young people.

William Brangham gets some answers about what is known.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For more on this syndrome, I talked with someone who is both seeing and treating patients with this syndrome.

Dr. Jane Newburger is a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children's Hospital, and she's also a member of the Young Hearts Council of The American Heart Association.

Dr. Newburger, thank you very much for being here.

First off, could you just help us understand, what is this syndrome that you're seeing in your young patients?

DR. JANE NEWBURGER, Boston Children's Hospital: So, this new Pediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome strikes children... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's the technical term for it, you were saying.

DR. JANE NEWBURGER: Yes.

It strikes individuals who are under 21 years of age.

And it's manifested by either an extreme inflammatory response and by at least one organ, often two or more, that are not functioning properly because of the inflammatory milieu.

To have it, you can't have another explanation than your recent exposure to COVID-19.

So you must have either current evidence of COVID-19 from a nasal swab for SARS-CoV-2 or evidence much more often of a recent infection because you were antibody positive, or else you need to have been exposed closely to somebody who had COVID-19 in the past four weeks.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I see.

Do we know why coronavirus is causing this syndrome?

DR. JANE NEWBURGER: We think it's causing this syndrome as a kind of immunologic reaction.

In other words, it doesn't seem to be related to an acute infection with COVID -- with SARS-CoV-2, but much more related to the body's immune response to having been exposed to that virus.

And so one has a tremendous inflammatory response to the trigger, really, that is the virus.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what is the outcome, generally speaking, for the kids, for the young people who develop this syndrome?

DR. JANE NEWBURGER: Well, we think parents can be very optimistic if a child does develop this syndrome.

With careful -- careful support and the right medications, the majority of children seem to be recovering very well.

It is a new wave of illness that we still are characterizing.

So we don't -- we don't have big statistics or reliable numbers that we can give people yet.

But, very quickly, people are gathering their cases, and we're hoping that every child or teen who has this illness is logged into a registry of some sort, so that we can provide very quantitative information in the future.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Can you help us put this in perspective?

I mean, my just quick back-of-the-envelope calculation is that this is affecting a relatively small number of the children who we believe who have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

So help us weigh -- for the parents who might be out there hearing about this, seeing this in the news, how worried should parents be, given how few cases we seem to see of this?

DR. JANE NEWBURGER: This is a very rare reaction or phenomenon compared to all the children who've been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

I wouldn't be extremely worried as a parent.

I think you can be reassured that the vast majority of children have either no symptoms or very mild symptoms in response to the virus.

So, very few children are having this new syndrome.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Let's assume that there are parents who do worry their child might have been exposed to the virus.

Are there symptoms particularly of this syndrome that they ought to be on the lookout for?

DR. JANE NEWBURGER: Yes.

So if a child has fever and seems inflamed, with a rash, red eyes, red lips, any signs of what we call Kawasaki disease, and if they have G.I.

symptoms as well, which seem to be very, very common, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, they should be in contact with their primary caregiver or their pediatrician.

If the child really seems sick, in a sense - - the way that a parent's sixth sense tells you, and they don't seem responsive or their color doesn't seem right, then they should go to a hospital, if they're worried.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is all some very, very helpful advice amidst a lot of confusion and nervousness and fright on a lot of parents' part.

Dr. Jane Newburger, thank you very much for being here.

DR. JANE NEWBURGER: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We continue our look now at how COVID-19 is reverberating across the globe.

Bangladesh, in South Asia, is about the size of Iowa, but has 50 times as many people.

That makes containing coronavirus a huge challenge, as does the recent influx of a million refugees from neighboring Myanmar.

Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on efforts by one Bangladeshi non-governmental group trying to tackle the problem.

It's part of his series Agents for Change.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Testing is only now ramping up in Bangladesh, so the 20,000-odd COVID cases and 300 deaths reported so far could rise significantly in the days ahead.

That's especially true in Dhaka, a bustling, chock-a-block capital city, home to more than 20 million people.

Like the rest of the country, Dhaka has been in lockdown since late March, squeezing people into even less space.

The infection control challenge is plain to see, how to practice distancing when there's so little space or handwashing when most homes lack running water.

ASIF SALEH, Executive Director, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee: We are trying to plug holes in the public health care system to support the government.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: From my home in Minnesota, I reached Asif Saleh with the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, or BRAC, the world's largest non-government aid group.

BRAC plans to set up 600 testing kiosks across the country and is working with the military to expand quarantine facilities.

Most urgently, it's also supplementing efforts by the government to get food to people.

WOMAN (through translator): They are distributing rice and dhal lentils, and I'm here to pick that up.

I am hungry.

I have not had anything for four days.

MAN (through translator): I'm here because I'm trying to survive.

I'm jobless.

Everything is closed.

QUESTION: How long will this food last you?

WOMAN (through translator): Hardly two to three days.

They give us 10 pounds of rice, and there are seven to eight people in my family.

This is the kind of pain we're facing.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Tens of millions of already struggling Bangladeshis, like rickshaw pullers and laborers who rely on daily wages, have lost their means s of survival.

ASIF SALEH: Beyond the public health crisis, there's a massive economic and humanitarian crisis that is emerging because of this lockdown.

People who don't -- who are not monthly wage workers, they don't have any savings.

So, they're practically facing severe starvation.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Two hundred and fifty miles southeast of Dhaka lives another particularly vulnerable population, more than one million Rohingya refugees who've fled here from what the U.N. has called genocidal violence in neighboring Myanmar.

The first confirmed COVID case inside the camp was reported yesterday.

But there's not much testing available, so no way to know how widely the virus has spread here.

What has spread, in the camp and across the country, is misinformation and fear.

ASIF SALEH: They're thinking that, you know, I'm going to die, or I'm going to get taken away, or we're not going to be able to get food.

We need to move out of the lockdown situation and come up with a post-lockdown strategy FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For BRAC, that means awareness campaigns to spread accurate information involving local communities to create quarantine spaces, and train contact tracers for a possible outbreak.

For the government, a key priority has been to get people back to work, especially garment workers like Parul Begum.

PARUL BEGUM, Garment Worker (through translator): We are here sitting in the middle of the road because we are hungry.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In Bangladesh's economy, there is perhaps no more essential employee than the garment worker.

Four million of them, earning about $100 a month, work in thousands of factories and produced 80 percent of this country's total exports earnings.

It all ground to an abrupt halt when the government declared a total lockdown.

Garment workers were sent home, many without being paid, and throughout the shutdown, there have been protests in the streets.

QUESTION: Have you been paid for March?

WOMAN (through translator): How can we live?

Our rent is due and the landlord is kicking us out.

we have kids.

We have school fees.

Our house is running out of food.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: They have been impacted not just by the COVID lockdown here, but by European and American clothing retailers facing a meltdown in demand, says workers rights advocate Kalpona Akter.

KALPONA AKTER, Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity: Many brands and retailers started canceling their orders by saying that all the shops are closed and consumers are not buying at this moment, so they cannot take the product, which already made, and those are already in the production.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Several brands reversed course, she says, after a campaign her group conducted with the Washington, D.C.-based Workers Rights Consortium.

It launched a site tracking which brands are and are not honoring their earlier purchase commitments.

Still, Bangladesh factory owners spokeswoman Rubana Huq says they're down more than $3 billion in canceled orders and stuck with nearly $2 billion worth of fabric.

RUBANA HUQ, Spokeswoman, Bangladesh Factory Owners: For all the raw materials, the entire liability is on our shoulder.

We are very, very sympathetic to all the retailers who are suffering, because, without them, there would be no business.

It's just that we want them to also kindly realize that there's a different reality out here.

The reality is, there are lots of people who are going to go hungry.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: We reached out to American companies the tracking site claims went back on their Bangladesh commitments, including Gap, J.C. Penney, and Kohl's, but have received no response.

Amid all the uncertainty and a lockdown, garment factories were allowed to reopen in late April.

There are still plenty of pending orders, and owners say they have added safeguards to sanitize the workspace and put more distance between workers.

Workers advocates say it still leaves a lot people in still-crowded spaces in a country ill-equipped to handle COVID outbreaks, but one that's counting on this work force to anchor its economic recovery.

The fate of Bangladesh's garment industry post-COVID will depend heavily on consumer behavior in wealthy countries.

Will they come back to malls, go online, and buy like they used to?

Or will appetites and fashion have shifted?

Most critically, when will all of this start to become clear?

For the "PBS NewsHour," along with Salman Saeed in Dhaka, I'm Fred de Sam Lazaro outside the shuttered Mall of America in Minnesota.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Under-Told Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

Two months ago, allegations arose accusing former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault.

Tara Reade, Reade who in 1993 worked in the office of then Senator Biden, said that he assaulted her.

Biden has categorically denied the allegations, which now face examination from the public.

Our own Dan Bush and Lisa Desjardins did extensive reporting, talking to 74 former Biden staffers to learn more about the vice president, the culture in his offices and their thoughts on the allegations.

The two join me now to share what they have learned.

Hello to both of you.

And I'm going to turn to you both, but, Lisa, to you to begin.

Take us through what you did and what you learned in all from talking to all these people.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, Judy, we reached out to -- tried to reach out to some 200 former Biden staffers.

Of that, we were able to have in-depth interviews with some 74 of them.

Now, 62 of these former staffers were women.

And to a person, Judy, those women told us they had never had any experience that was uncomfortable with the former vice president or ever heard of any experience that was uncomfortable or, worse, many of them said they had spent time with him alone during work hours and that they had -- they wanted to say that they -- most of them didn't want to reflect on whether on what Tara Reade is saying was true or not.

But they did say that it did not reflect their experiences at all, especially in a workplace that Dan and I both heard from them they felt empowered women.

DANIEL BUSH: That's right, Lisa.

I would add to that also that a lot of the former staffers we spoke to said that, while they never felt uncomfortable, they did confirm what we all know about Joe Biden, which is his history, his habit of reaching out, making physical contact with people he speaks to, touching them.

We spoke to people who said at the time of this it was known about Biden that he would rub your shoulders, squeeze your shoulders, give people hugs and kisses.

And, again, while the people we spoke to say they themselves didn't feel uncomfortable, they did acknowledge that former Vice President Biden doesn't seem to have strong -- a strong social signal in terms of when that kind of contact is wanted or not.

That came up last year on the campaign trail and now again here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Lisa, you also uncovered, frankly, new details that reflect on Tara Reade's allegation, that she says she was forced out of the office because she complained about being uncomfortable about the sexual incident.

Tell us exactly what you learned about that and why it matters.

LISA DESJARDINS: Well, Tara Reade says that she complained about previous sexual harassment in the office and that, after she complained, she said she was retaliated against, and in a couple of ways, and that that eventually forced her out of the office.

We spoke to the man who shared an office with her.

His name is Ben Savage.

They worked together on constituent mail.

Ben Savage told us that, actually, it was a performance problem with Tara Reade that he himself raised to supervisors.

In some cases, he said she was throwing out constituent -- important records of constituent mail, and that the problem was bad enough that he raised it to supervisors.

He believes that's why she left.

And here's some of the interview that I had with him over the phone.

BEN SAVAGE, Former Biden Senate Staffer: And of all the people who held that position, she's the only one during my time there who couldn't necessarily keep up, who found -- or who found it frustrating.

LISA DESJARDINS: We, of course, reached out to Tara Reade.

She declined our request for an interview.

But her attorney did give us detailed responses to our questions, among them to this exact issue.

He said that story is flat wrong.

Here is what Doug Wigdor wrote us in response.

He wrote: "Ms. Reade recalls there was a lot of nitpicking regarding her performance in the office.

She was also very nervous at that point and distracted, so it's possible that, from time to time, there was a mistake made.

But her performance had nothing to do with her termination."

Judy, we do know that Reade worked in that office for about nine months.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Dan, you also learned new information from Reade's attorney about the location that Tara Reade says is where Joe Biden assaulted her.

So tell us about that.

DANIEL BUSH: That's right, Judy.

Reade's attorney provided us with new information about this assault, this alleged assault, saying that Reade claims that it took place somewhere between the Russell Building, where Biden had an office at the time, and the U.S. Capitol Building.

We want to show you what these spaces look like.

So this is the hallway where Biden's office was.

It's essentially unchanged to now.

To get to the Capitol, you go down a flight of stairs, and then take a tunnel, where there's a subway that takes lawmakers to the Capitol Building.

Now, anybody who had been to this part of the Capitol knows that there are a lot of people moving through these spaces, especially when Congress is in session, lawmakers, their aides, reporters.

There's a police presence as well.

And what a lot of these former Biden staffers told us is, look, these are public places.

If this allegation is true, if it took place, it would have been extremely brazen, Judy, because the likelihood it would have been seen by someone was very high.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, separately from this, Lisa, Tara Reade has identified other details of what occurred during that time.

Take us through what you learned when you talked to these other staffers about those.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, Judy.

Some of these accounts corroborate what she's saying.

Let's look at a couple of things.

First, she said that the vice president reached up her skirt when she was bringing him a gym bag on this path that Dan described.

We know that the vice president or the former - - the senator at the time did go to the gym.

Many staffers told us that, and that Reade's job is one that would have run errands, for example.

Another thing that comes up that is Tara Reade says that she was asked to serve drinks at a fund-raiser because the then senator liked her legs, liked her looks.

Staffers told us that, actually, that's contrary to their experience, that, at that time, people who worked there - - and we spoke to about 20 of them -- said junior staff and no staff really was asked to go to fund-raisers.

That was a campaign function only.

And, moreover, two men who were junior staffers at that time with Reade recall -- or around the time that Reid was there -- recall that Biden had a policy that he asked men to do menial tasks, like bring him coffee or drive him, specifically because he didn't want women to be seen as serving him.

And one more thing, Judy.

Reade claimed that she was admonished for how she dressed by a supervisor, and that that was part of the retaliation.

Judy, we can confirm from a staffer who was with Reade at the time and didn't want to be named that she remembers that conversation.

She remembers Reade telling her about the admonishment about her dress.

That is something that we have confirmed.

Now, there are different opinions.

Reade believes there was no cause for that admonishment, that it was made up and it was retaliation, that her dress was normal and professional.

But three co-workers said, no, they felt that it was not professional.

We raise that only because it speaks to this issue of retaliation and kind of what was going on in the office toward her.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, in addition to all this, you both looked at the culture in 1993, what was going on at that time with regard to women, women working, women working on Capitol Hill.

What did you find about that and about how Joe Biden was seen in that period?

Lisa?

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

Judy, this was not just any time or any senator.

Joe Biden around that time was writing the Violence Against Women Act.

He was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

And in the months just before when this attack is alleged to have occurred, just a few months earlier, was when he chaired the Anita Hill hearing on sexual harassment.

He's criticized to this day for not allowing other witnesses to corroborate her.

But also at that time, Judy, there was a real culture that we heard from many of the female staffers at the time who were there of men feeling that they could put their hands on them, that it was pervasive, sexual harassment in many offices.

Senator Bob Packwood, who later would leave under a shame because of allegations of sexual misconduct with his staffers, was present.

Judy, these staffers described a list of senators to stay away from, senators you wouldn't get in the elevator with, like Packwood.

And they said those who worked for Biden -- and we talked to some who did not work for Biden - - said that Biden was not on that list, that he was regarded as someone that had women high in his office.

However, he was known as someone that would put his hands on you, but not this list of sort of more egregious, stay-away-from senators.

DANIEL BUSH: And just to underscore that, Judy, just as Lisa is saying, this was commonplace, as a lot of aides told us.

And they gave us specific anecdotes either of treatment of women that they saw themselves, that others told them, or that they even experienced.

One woman described someone -- a man coming up when she was a young staffer, rubbing her shoulders in a way that made her feel very uncomfortable.

Another staffer told us about walking into an office setting where a female deputy chief of staff was sitting in a senator's lap.

We spoke to someone else who asked to be named who described a sitting senator in the elevator with his arm around a young female staffer's waist.

So, this is the kind of culture that was in place in the Senate around the time that we're talking about.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, the story is so important, all these stories very important.

You have done some extensive and excellent reporting.

Dan Bush, Lisa Desjardins, we thank you.

And now we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.

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

Hello to both of you.

David, let's go right to what we have just been hearing from Lisa and Dan Bush and their extensive reporting, exhaustive reporting, talking to 74 former Biden staffers, and coming away with no one saying they were aware of any anything like what Tara Reade has alleged.

What do you take away from this?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, they have taken -- Lisa and Dan have taken us as deeply into the Biden office at that time as I think it's possible to go.

And I think we have a pretty good sense of it.

And it reveals that Joe Biden is a very transparent person.

He had -- the culture they described is certainly the culture I knew when I was covering Senator Biden, and the person I know him to be.

And it raises more skepticism about the claims.

I would say this.

And, in addition, there's a Politico report looking into some Tara Reade's past allegations in other cases, other parts of her life.

And I think the bottom line is, if you were a person who was saying, should this issue be a problem for me in voting for Joe Biden, I think the arrow has moved into less of a problem.

We don't know that it didn't happen.

We can't know that.

But, certainly, the degree of skepticism has to be a little higher because of this reporting.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Mark, I mean, you're somebody who's covered this city for a long time.

You have walked the halls of these Senate office buildings.

What do you come away with here?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I come away, first of all, with great admiration for both Lisa and Dan.

I mean, 74 people on the record is remarkable.

That had to have been a couple hundred calls they had to make to get that.

And I think it does confirm what has been sort of the emerging consensus among political people who don't have a dog in the fight.

And that is, Joe Biden was 50 years old in 1993.

And he's -- 27 years ago.

And that suggesting that this was the one and only time in his entire life that he sexually assaulted a woman who has reported it just seems increasingly unlikely.

That's all.

I mean -- and, yes, Tara Reade deserves a hearing.

But I thought that Joe Biden's own statement, if I believed what was charged of me, I wouldn't vote for myself, and nobody should, I thought that was a reasonable conclusion.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we -- certainly, the case is always open.

We continue to report.

If new information comes in, we certainly will report that as well.

But I want to turn you both now to what we saw this week.

And come back to you, David.

Anthony Fauci testifies on the Hill that it's a mistake to move too fast.

We heard from the whistle-blower Rick Bright, the scientist who says he was pushed out because he was trying to get the administration to do more on COVID-19.

On the other hand, you have President Trump saying, we're going to move ahead no matter what.

I mean, who has more credibility on this pandemic at this point?

DAVID BROOKS: This is not really a close race between Fauci and Donald Trump.

Fauci is one of the heroes of American government over the last 20 years, an extremely humble man, an extremely direct man.

And so I think he's right.

I think he underscores the fact that -- I keep saying we're not winning this.

The number of deaths just is up in the 1,700, 2,000 day after day after day.

It goes down in New York, but it's rising in other places.

But one thing that strikes me is not to politicize this too much.

If you look at actual behavior, people locked themselves down before any politician took a move.

And even in those states where the politicians are opening up, people are still locking down.

And so one of the things that's been interesting to me is, you look at the movement based on cell phone tracking, red and blue states have the same amount of movement.

The same number of people basically in state after state are staying home.

And red and blue states, there's no correlation between whether it's a red and blue state and whether people are doing better or worse.

And so I think the key decisions right now are not being made in statehouses and certainly not the White House.

They're being made in living rooms, as people decide, is it safe?

Can I go out?

And most people are trying to find a balance.

But I'm sort of impressed that most people are being reasonably cautious right now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And yet, Mark, again, the president - - and he said it again today -- we need to move ahead, whether we're ready or not, on the -- in the direction of opening up.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, he did, Judy.

And the president proves once again he's not actually strategic or tactical in his political fights that he engages in.

He's visceral.

He's instinctive.

He went -- you should always, if you're going after somebody politically, go after somebody who's a lot weaker than you are politically or less popular.

I mean, Democrats won five consecutive presidential elections running against Herbert Hoover, because he was there in the Depression and unpopular as a Republican president.

But he picked Anthony Fauci, Dr. Fauci.

David mentioned, he has been there since the Reagan years, but not only that.

When -- in a presidential debate, when George H.W.

Bush was asked to cite a contemporary American hero, he cited Dr. Anthony Fauci.

And when his son had a chance to give the Medal of Freedom in 2008, he gave it to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

So it's no surprises that in the poll CBS News did yesterday, whom do you trust more on coronavirus information, Anthony Fauci stood at 62 percent, with a majority of Republicans saying they trusted him.

Donald Trump, at the same time, had a resounding 38 percent trust, 62 percent distrust.

So, I think this is a decision that has been made by voters already who do want solid, knowledgeable information from somebody without any agenda, politically or personal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, meanwhile, as the three of us are talking right now, David, the House of Representatives getting ready to vote on a measure being pushed by the Democrats, $3 trillion in additional aid to people suffering as a result of COVID-19.

The Republicans are pretty much uniformly against it.

Even some Democrats say they think it's too much.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve said this week, we need to do more for those -- for people who may end up with businesses that are gone or people who are - - have lost their jobs.

What are we to make at this point of moving ahead with a $3 trillion proposal?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think that it is a mistake.

It's a political ploy.

I think it's a mistake to put -- come together a proposal where you have had no negotiations with the other side, where it's clearly going to go nowhere in the Senate.

It's just sort of a political poster that you're putting up on the wall.

I just think that's a mistake.

At the same time, I think we're going to have to spend a lot more money.

And the heart of this bill is correct, which is aid to states.

State revenues have collapsed.

State fiscal situations are disastrous right now, unlike any we have seen in this country's history.

And if you care about the things states do, like schools or state universities or anything else states do, they need money.

And they - - when this country started, Alexander Hamilton took on the state debt that they had built up in the Revolutionary War, and he nationalized it.

He gave them a bailout, essentially.

And that's how this country started.

That's the role of the federal government.

And so shoveling money out to states is an absolutely necessary thing to do.

Shoveling more money out to individuals who are wondering where they're going to get their new grocery bill is the right thing to do.

I don't think it's useful to do it in a way that's just a sort of a political gesture.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Mark, what's the right approach?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, the right approach, Judy, is not that recommended by the Senate majority leader, who says we have not yet felt the urgency of acting immediately.

This is, in the view of, as you mentioned, Chairman Powell, no radical leftist, who pointed out that this is the most serious economic crisis the country has faced certainly since the Great Depression, certainly since World War II, he said.

And he pointed out, Judy, that 40 percent of the people of the country, households that were earning $40,000 a year or less in February, 40 percent of them lost their jobs in March.

And these are real people.

These are waiters, waitresses, hotel people, taxi drivers, nurses aides, the people who bathe the sick of the hospitals and change their dressings.

And they are really desperate.

And they need help.

And that's in this package.

And David's right.

I disagree with him on the total politicization of it.

You have to start somewhere.

The Republicans say they don't want to do anything.

Mitch McConnell says, let the states go into bankruptcy.

That is unacceptable.

The states provide great services.

We're talking about the people who are at the front line of providing, whether it's police or fire or first responders.

So, yes, are there some political sweeteners in there?

No question.

Are there some political gotchas in there?

Yes.

But you have to begin somewhere, and you start the debate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, in any event, the Senate, we are told, won't be taking this up until - - until June.

But I want to conclude, in less than two minutes, just quickly right now, with what happened with Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina this week, David.

The FBI came to his house unannounced and said, we're going to take your cell phone.

He is suspected of having traded on inside on the pandemic.

And, meanwhile, the Georgia - - another Republican senator, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, is turning over -- she says she's cooperating with investigators.

How serious is all this?

We have heard a little bit about it before.

But now, when the senator, Senator Burr, steps down as chair of the Intelligence Committee, it looks like something we pay attention to.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, the FBI does not raid a United States senator's home and seize his cell phone without some real cause for suspicion.

And so I take this extremely seriously, both as a legal matter and just simply as an ethical matter.

If you're chairman in Senate Intelligence Committee, you don't do trading.

You have your money in a blind trust.

You don't take a moment of national crisis and think, oh, I can make some money off this.

It's just not what you do as a leader.

And so it reflects just -- I don't know about the crime, but it reflects extremely poorly on the character of the senator.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Mark, less than 30 seconds.

MARK SHIELDS: Less than 30 seconds, Judy, if, in fact, anybody made a quick buck off of inside information on something that has taken 85,000, approaching 85,000 American lives, we're talking about blood money.

But Richard Burr finds himself friendless in the White House.

Why?

Because, in an ocean of political polarization in the United States Senate, his committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been an island bipartisanship.

And they have agreed and come to the conclusion that, yes, Russia did engage and interfere and subvert the election in 2016 on behalf of Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton.

So, he will -- the charges will stand on their own.

But he will find himself without the support of the president of the United States, who feels he's been let down by Senator Burr.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Kind of a remarkable turn of events here at the end of this, another tumultuous, tumultuous week.

David Brooks, Mark Shields, thank you both.

Please stay safe.

As another devastating week comes to a close, we want to take a few minutes to honor just some of the remarkable individuals who have fallen victim to COVID-19.

Fifty-year-old Bobby Pin was known for his blue hair and infectious energy.

Photography and filmmaking took Bobby around the world.

He took photos at Burning Man festivals and filmed in Nepal and India, making countless friends along the way.

A perfectionist, Bobby excelled in more than just art.

He was also a scuba diver, completing over 150 dives.

Last year, he made one special trip to Cambodia, where he was born.

Bobby's family fled the country during the Pol Pot dictatorship, when he was 5 years old.

Fashionable, talented and full of curiosity, Chianti Jackson Harpool lit up every room, from political fund-raisers to girls nights with friends.

A Baltimore native, Chianti worked as a social worker for the homeless, before launching her dream business, Chianti's Charm City Chocolates, inspired by her father's mobile candy truck.

She was 51 years old.

Valentina Blackhorse dreamed of one day leading Navajo Nation.

Born and raised in Kayenta, Arizona, Valentina participated in Native American pageants, where she demonstrated her deep knowledge and affinity for Navajo culture, skills, and language.

Quiet, warm, and caring, Valentina was dedicated to passing on her culture to younger generations, including her 1-year-old daughter.

She was just 28 years old.

Mahmooda Shaheen was known as the universal mother in her Brooklyn community.

Humble, spiritual, and a great listener, she cared for her neighbors as if they were family.

Mahmooda was also an athlete.

She coached and played badminton, netball, and tennis in Pakistan, where she grew up.

Her principles of generosity and activism inspire the work her three children do today.

Mahmooda was 71 years old.

Don Spitko was his Pennsylvania neighborhood's Mr. Fix-It, always there to offer a helping hand.

The 81-year-old electrical plant supervisor loved working with his hands, from remodeling homes to camping and gold-panning.

With every project, he taught his five daughters and son the trade.

A proud Marine veteran, Spitko enlisted before graduating high school, eager to serve his country.

It is that time of year when graduates of all levels are usually crossing the stage, shaking hands and receiving their diplomas.

But the look and feel of these events this year is, of course, quite different, almost all of them virtual.

The notion of commencement, or the beginning of a new chapter, is tougher for students to imagine.

As part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas, we hear now from a variety of leaders in their fields, including my message to my alma mater on how to embrace that uncertainty.

OPRAH WINFREY, Producer/Philanthropist: It's vital that you learn and we all learn to be at piece with the discomfort of stepping into the unknown.

The noise of the world drowns out the sound of you.

You have to get still to listen.

So, can you use this disorder that COVID-19 has wrought?

Can you treat it as an uninvited guest that's come into our midst to reorder our way of being?

Can you, the class of 2020, show us not how to put the pieces back together again, but how to create a new and more evolved normal, a world more just, kind, beautiful, tender, luminous, creative, whole?

We need you to do this, because the pandemic has illuminated the vast systemic inequities that have defined life for too many too long.

TIM COOK, CEO, Apple: It can be difficult to see the whole picture when you're still inside the frame.

But I hope you wear these uncommon circumstances as a badge of honor.

Those who meet times of historical challenge with their eyes and hearts open, forever restless and forever striving, are also those who leave the greatest impact on the lives of others.

STEPHEN CURRY, Golden State Warriors: There's no bigger white flag right that's being waved in your face right now than what's going on, and the adversity that you face moving into your new situation.

So, I encourage you to push through.

Continue to work hard.

Continue to believe in yourself.

Continue to surround yourself with people that are going to encourage you and support you on that journey.

TOM HANKS, Actor: Congratulations to you chosen ones.

And I am calling you the chosen ones because you have been chosen in many ways.

You have not returned to the starting line, like all of us generations before you.

You're just approaching it now for the first time.

You have just arrived.

You are chosen in that way to enter into the competition of life, just when so many have had to recover and refresh and restart and reawaken, and to retake up the hard work and the unshirkable responsibilities of making the world not only our own, but of your own.

JUDY WOODRUFF: When the sun shines again, the creativity of this class will shine with it.

You will go back to relishing relationships, sharing funny stories, cheering for all our Duke Blue Devil athletes.

MELINDA GATES, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: This may feel like a daunting time to begin this next chapter.

It is also a moment when the world desperately needs your skills and your creativity.

KEN JEONG, Actor: Never deny your potential.

I am proof of what potential is all about.

When I entered Duke University, I had no idea I would go into comedy and acting.

I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.

I didn't know what my passion was.

It was because of Duke drama, I discovered my love of acting, performance, comedy.

ELLEN DEGENERES, Host, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show": In my life, I have been through some incredible highs and some tremendous lows.

And the one thing that's true about both of them is that they pass.

So, cherish the good times.

And in the bad times, remember they won't last forever.

It does get better.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR., Professor, Harvard University: To quote from one who throughout his all-too-short life knew struggle and pain, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, in 1961, had this to say.

And I quote: "All life is interrelated.

We're tied in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

You will shape your future and the future of our great country and our miraculously wonderful, resilient world.

BEATRIZ CORTEZ, Multimedia Artist: About the uncertainty, embrace it.

Improvise.

Be bold, daring, have courage to not know where will you end up.

Your work will be much better for it.

Keep making your art, no matter the circumstances, the materials available, quarantine or no quarantine, studio or kitchen table.

Keep creating your music, your films, your dance, keep making your art for today, for the future.

GENO AURIEMMA, Head Coach, UConn Women's Basketball Team: Each generation has a defining moment.

My generation had Vietnam.

Then another generation had 9/11.

Now this is your time.

It's great to be uncomfortable, because that's when you find out just how great you can really be.

JOHN WARNOCK, Founder, Adobe: Because of the rapid progress of information and technology, your need for education, constant learning, and understanding of the world will be never slowed down or paused.

Continuing education will be with you for the rest of your life.

Your life is not a spectator sport.

Your job in life is to be an active player, to make the world a better place.

SHAQUILL GRIFFIN, Seattle Seahawks: Know your worth.

Know the sacrifices you made to get here today to graduate.

And you all earned it.

You all deserve it.

SHAQUEM GRIFFIN, Seattle Seahawks: Help somebody out.

Be great.

Change the world.

That's what we're here for.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What great advice.

An honor to be just a small part of it.

Thank you, all of you, who participated.

And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

Before we go, as we watch some of the country start to open up, it's a moment to note that this terrible time has brought Americans together in a common cause like we haven't seen since World War II.

The news we report often focuses on sad numbers of those who've died or who've lost their jobs.

And we don't all agree on when to go back to normal.

But, by staying at home, we have been and we are saving lives.

And we are doing it together.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Have a good weekend.

Thank you, please stay safe, and good night.