Encore Monday, Nov. 4, 2024 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream now with the PBS app + FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel
In November’s historic election, Americans will decide who will lead the nation for the next four years: Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. Before the votes are cast, as it has for every election since 1988, FRONTLINE will present "The Choice," its critically acclaimed election-year special offering interwoven investigative biographies of both major-party candidates.
Coming in the midst of an unprecedented campaign season that saw the felony conviction of former President Trump, an assassination attempt against him, and President Joe Biden’s exit from the race just four months before the election, "The Choice 2024" is the latest installment in a FRONTLINE tradition that’s been praised as “richly detailed” (The Wall Street Journal), “completely riveting” (The Washington Post) and “essential election viewing” (Variety).
From award winning filmmaker Michael Kirk, who with his team has made five prior installments of "The Choice" and more than 25 documentaries about the Obama, Trump and Biden eras, "The Choice 2024" draws on dozens of revealing interviews with those who know Trump and Harris best — friends, advisors and critics, as well as authors, journalists and political insiders — to present deeply reported narrative arcs of both candidates’ lives, going all the way back to their childhoods.
To trace Harris’ journey from 1960s Berkeley through her rise as a prosecutor, her entry into California politics, and then her time in Washington, D.C., first as a senator then as the first Black, South Asian and female vice president, The Choice 2024 team spoke to some of Harris’ childhood friends, college classmates, advisors in California and in the White House, and journalists who have covered her career.
“Kamala Harris demands respect. If it’s not given to her, she demands it,” says Lateefah Simon, who worked for Harris when she was the San Francisco District Attorney. To chronicle Trump’s path from New York real estate, to entertainment, to politics, "The Choice 2024" taps into a vast collection of interviews from his 2016 campaign days through the present, with everyone from his niece to business and television associates, biographers, and advisors who worked with him in the White House.
“This is, for Donald Trump, a chance to go out the winner he must be,” biographer Marc Fisher says of Trump’s 2024 presidential run.
Taking viewers inside key moments in each candidate’s life, this clear-eyed documentary examines who Harris and Trump are, how they lead, what shaped their lives and their characters, and how they arrived at their dueling visions for America’s future. Offering trustworthy journalism and striking insights at a time when voters are being surrounded with partisanship and misinformation, The Choice 2024 will be compelling and essential viewing for all Americans as November 5 approaches.
Extended interviews from the making of the documentary will be published in tandem with "The Choice 2024’s" premiere as part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, which makes the series’ source material available to the public. The documentary will be followed up in two weeks by "The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz," a separate documentary offering interwoven investigative biographies of the vice presidential candidates that premieres Tuesday, October 8.
Watch On Your Schedule: "The Choice 2024" will be available to stream in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS app starting September 24, 2024, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 9/8c.
Join the Conversation: FRONTLINE is on Facebook / Instagram / X
Credits: A FRONTLINE production with Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser, Vanessa Fica and Philip Bennett. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Nelson Alexander. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
