60 Minutes - 03/23/2025: Death on the Chazy River, Larkin’s War, Mr. Clooney Goes to Broadway

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Correspondent Cecilia Vega reports from the U.S.-Canadian border – the longest international land border in the world – near the Chazy River, where migrants are crossing with the help of human smugglers who openly promote their services on popular social media platforms. Vega speaks with one of those smugglers, a Sinaloa cartel member who claims that there will always be ways to bypass barriers, no matter what steps the two countries take – and with an American sheriff who has seen the impact of President Trump’s policies to reduce illegal immigration from the north. Frank Larkin’s commitment to America is remarkable. A former Navy SEAL, he served in the Secret Service, at the Pentagon and as sergeant-at-arms of the U.S. Senate. However, as correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Larkin’s most significant contribution may be what he’s done since his son, Ryan, took his own life. Ryan was, like his father, a decorated Navy SEAL, and his death by suicide was attributed to depression. But Frank Larkin did not accept this explanation, and when pathologists discovered Ryan suffered from scarring in his brain, likely due to repeated low-level blast exposure, this father campaigned for a change in how Special Operations and the rest of the military train and protect their service members. Correspondent Jon Wertheim goes behind the scenes as George Clooney makes his Broadway debut, starring in an adaptation of the 2005 Oscar-nominated movie “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Clooney co-wrote both the original screenplay and this play, which tell the story of pioneering journalist Edward R. Murrow, who took on Senator Joseph McCarthy. Clooney calls it a fight for the ages and says the plot, which revolves around themes of truth, intimidation and courage in corporate media, resonates today. At 63, the actor tells Wertheim why he finally feels ready to take on the role of Murrow himself. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here? And maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.

He goes by the name Javi and agreed to speak with us only with his camera off. He told us he's a smuggler for a Mexican cartel guiding people into America across the Canadian border. Do you work only with humans, or do you move drugs also? Everything. How much fentanyl do you move across that border? Lately, it's been quiet, but for a while there, we were bringing in 30 kilos per month.

Wow. Frank Larkin was a Navy SEAL, and so was his son, Ryan. Ryan took his own life after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but his father suspected there was more to Ryan's suicide than depression. Tonight, how a father fought for his son and continues to fight for those who serve. Failure's not an option. When the other three estates fail, when the judiciary and the executive

and the legislative branches fail us, the fourth estate has to succeed. Has to succeed. As 60 Minutes is here right now on our first day. George Clooney is about to star on Broadway in Good Night and Good Luck, a history lesson that resonates today. Governments don't like the freedom of the press. They never have. And that goes for whether you are a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you're on. They don't like the press. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker.

I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality,

threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here

and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. On February 1st, President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on nearly all goods imported from Canada. Since then, his administration has engaged in an on-again, off-again trade war with our longtime ally. The tariffs were imposed based on the exaggerated claim that millions of criminals and tons of deadly fentanyl have been pouring over the border into the United States, and that Canada has allowed it to happen. Last month, we went to the northern border to the Shazy River, where even in the middle of winter, migrants continued across its frozen banks, often guided by human smugglers who openly advertised their

services on Facebook and TikTok. If President Trump and the Canadian government really want to tackle illegal immigration there, they might want to start online. Search for border excursions on TikTok and Facebook, and you'll find a black market set to music that guarantees migrants safe passage across the northern border. There are posts in Spanish, English and Punjabi, and reviews like you'd find on Yelp. These men in the back of a car on their way to a new life in the United States, give their smugglers five stars and a thumbs up. Stretching more than 5,500 miles,

the U.S.-Canadian border is the longest international land border in the world. That's the U.S. on the right and Canada on the left. In February, we traveled to an area the U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls the Swanton Sector, which runs from New Hampshire to upstate New York. Last year, more than 80 percent of migrant apprehensions at the northern border happened here. The Swanton Sector is where this video was recorded in January. A group of men who just crossed the border ran to an SUV that drove them deeper into New York. You'll also see a woman getting out of the car and go north to Canada. This man told us he coordinated the handoff and took the video.

Can you tell us who you work for? For the Sinaloa cartel. He goes by the name Javi and agreed to speak with us only with his camera off. He said he can't risk his identity being exposed. How does this work? They tell you where to go? They tell you how many people you have to bring across each week? Exactly. That's how it goes. They provide the people. They have more people who are behind all this, looking for customers, finding them and summoning them to certain locations.

We found Javi through his online ads, which he says TikTok recently took down. In a conversation with our producer, he did briefly turn his camera on and allowed us to record his masked face. While it's not possible to verify everything Javi told us, he sent these pictures of what he says are his guns as proof of his ties to the Sinaloa cartel. A source in Canadian intelligence told us Javi's story is consistent with the cartel's human and drug smuggling operations. The Sinaloa cartel is one of the largest and most notorious in Mexico. These are videos Javi sent us of his work. He says he's part of a team of four.

Some drive migrants to and from the border and plan logistics, while Javi says he guides people through the woods. The migrants pay about $3,000 each. Javi told us he makes about $1,000 per person. $500 go to the cartel, the rest to the drivers. Some smugglers offer discounts for children. What's the youngest child you've ever crossed? Three months.

Yes, babies. What happens if one of the migrants you're working with doesn't pay? They cannot go. They're held hostage until they pay up. Until what? Until they pay. Do you work only with humans or do you move drugs also? Everything. How much fentanyl do you move across that border?

Lately it's been quiet, but for a while there we were bringing in 30 kilos per month. Wow. The drugs come from the China? From China. The China. I get more into the U.S., but also it goes from the U.S. to Canada and weapons. A lot of fentanyl comes through. How many pounds of drugs come across the northern border into the United States is unknown.

President Trump claims tremendous amounts of fentanyl pour into the country through Canada. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border compared to more than 21,000 pounds confiscated at the U.S.-Mexico border. And while the southern border saw 1.5 million illegal crossings last year, there were fewer than 24,000 illegal crossings from Canada. See this wood line up here on the left? They come from way over there on the other side of, you know, back side of Canada and walk along the edge of that wood line. And if the wood line continues and goes down to the creek, then they would follow the creek.

Sheriff David Favreau oversees Clinton County, New York, which includes about 28 miles of border. Where are the smugglers in all this? They're hiding. They're the cowards that are just taking the money, not caring about the people that are crossing and what hazards those people might run into. So they're the ones that are just running the business and collecting the cash. Last year in the Swanton sector,

there were more illegal crossings than the previous 17 years combined. More than 19,000 migrants were arrested there. They came from 97 countries, mostly from India and Mexico. And they cross year-round, even through blizzards. In the middle of winter, authorities respond weekly to 911 calls from migrants. In January, six Haitians, including a nine-year-old girl, became lost in the woods and some were hospitalized with serious injuries. Last month, this man from Spain suffered severe frostbite. Sheriff Favreau took us down a local road divided by the border. The area is covered by surveillance cameras on both sides.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police saw us and soon after drove by on patrol. When someone is crossing in the dead of winter and there's feet of snow, what are they up against out there? They're up against a lot. The worst thing that they're up against is the freezing cold because the temperatures. You're walking through the snow, your pants are getting wet, your boots are going to start soaking through eventually, and they don't even realize they're so desperate and so quick to try and get to where they want to be that they don't realize frostbite is setting in. And that's one of the biggest dangers. The case Sheriff Favreau says he'll never forget is the death of Ana Vasquez Flores. Residents of Champlain, New York, erected a memorial in honor of her and her unborn baby.

The 33-year-old supermarket worker was five months pregnant with her first child when she and her husband flew from Mexico to Montreal in December 2023. They found this Colombian man who advertised on TikTok and hired him to guide Ana across the border. Text messages taken from court documents show they paid him $2,500. Ana's husband asked, is it safe? Well, look, truth is, the only certain thing in life is death, but we are effective. On the evening of December 11th, Ana began her walk alone through the snow. The alleged smuggler tracked her by GPS on their phones and texted directions. It was dark and the temperature was below freezing. Ana's husband had a visa to work in the United States and was waiting for her in New York.

He wrote, Have you already picked her up? She is crossing, friend. I am very nervous, her husband said. Forty minutes later, the alleged smuggler wrote, Bro, hello, I think she got wet or turned off her cell phone. Investigators think Ana was following his instructions when she stepped into the icy, shazzy river. She was already in America.

Three days later, park rangers and Sheriff Favreau's deputies found Ana's body. The alleged smuggler was arrested at his home in Quebec by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the request of the U.S. Justice Department. He was extradited to the United States in February. He pleaded not guilty to smuggling charges and is being held at the Clinton County Jail. Sheriff Favreau says that's the type of coordination that should happen between neighbors. I find it unusual that up here along the northern border, with all the attention that we've had, I haven't been contacted by anybody at a federal level, really, other than the Border Patrol.

We work hand-in-hand with the Border Patrol. But you've not heard from Washington, from the White House, from anybody in the president's administration who have been looking intently at your border here? No. This six-time elected sheriff, a Democrat, does credit President Trump's immigration policies for the drop in illegal crossings

that he's seen at the northern border. And while Sheriff Favreau welcomes a lull, after 43 years in law enforcement, he says the quiet rarely lasts. Today our state of mind is, when is something going to happen? That's the big concern, and that's always in the back of,

I think, every law enforcement member's mind. When is something going to occur? When the numbers are down, it gets eerily quiet. We kind of worry about quiet. We like it when things are just steady so that we know what's going on, have a better handle on it. You don't trust the quiet, that it's going to stick? We just don't trust that quiet is going to stick.

We didn't ask for this fight. The Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. Canada's new Prime Minister Mark Carney retaliated with tariffs in response to President Trump's tariffs. But the Canadian government did concede to Trump's complaints about the border, and announced a nearly billion-dollar plan to strengthen border security by adding more boots on the ground, helicopters and drones, and appointed a fentanyl czar. Are tariffs the answer? The tariffs have disrupted relationships between our two countries,

both economically and socially. I mean, I don't see Canada as really being the issue here. Yeah, the border needs to be secured, but there's better ways of doing it than threatening your largest and longest standing partner. Professor Kelly Sundberg spent 15 years as an officer in the Canadian Border Services Agency and now researches border security at Mount Royal University in Calgary. We've done a lot of great steps in trying to keep the border open. On the Canadian side, we have fallen short in keeping it secure.

We do not have a border patrol such as the United States. We have very few officers. So equivalent to ICE, Syrian Immigration Customs Enforcement in the United States, which has thousands of officers, for our entire country, we have 400. Clearly, if we're going to address the concerns of President Trump, let alone the concerns of many Canadians also, is we need to increase those numbers. You'd like to see more.

For the number of cases that we have, I've calculated we probably need around 4,000 to 5,000 officers nationally. Last month, Canada and the United States on the same day declared the Sinaloa cartel a terrorist organization. We spoke to Javi again this week, and he told us the cartel has since had to change the way it moves drugs across the northern border. But the designation has not affected how many people they smuggle into the United States illegally. What has the return of Donald Trump meant for your business?

There's always going to be business. Later on, Donald Trump's time will pass and this will continue. This is not going to stop. If they put more Border Patrol officers at the border, if they put more Border Patrol officers at the border, if they put more checkpoints, is there anything anyone can do to stop you from moving people across the border? No. Nada.

No, nada. There's always a way. The border between Canada and the U.S. is much bigger than the one with Mexico. You can always get in. You'll find another way. Siempre. Always. When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners? Like that woman over there with the Italian leather handbag, is that

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Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer groceries that over-deliver. Frank Larkin's service to America is extraordinary. A former Navy SEAL whose government career included the Secret Service, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Senate. But Larkin's greatest contribution is happening now, in retirement, after his son Ryan, a decorated Navy SEAL himself, took his own life. Ryan's death was put down to mental illness, case closed. But Frank Larkin didn't buy it.

He suspected his son's military service resulted in an invisible brain injury, a kind of wound unknown to science. If Larkin was right, it might explain many military suicides. And so began Larkin's War, which would send a shockwave through the Pentagon. It began in April 2017 when Larkin and his wife opened the door to a silent home. I went in the house. We started calling his name. Didn't hear any response. And so I went into the basement and I found him. He had taken his life sometime during the night. He was dressed in his SEAL Team 7 T-shirt, had a pair of red, white, and blue board shorts on, and had illuminated a shadow box next to him

that had all his medals, ribbons, and other key insignia. It was a shadow box that I had made for him the previous holiday to just capture, you know, how proud I was of him and what he had done and as a symbol of his service to the nation. And then he had also burned a hard drive in the fireplace with all his deployment photos that he had had from, you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa. You know, I've spent over 40 years of my life rescuing other people, and in the end, I couldn't rescue my own son.

His son, Ryan, was 29. For him, the military was destiny. Ryan had been 13 years old in September 2001, when his dad was assigned to the New York Secret Service office across the street from the World Trade Center. He was motivated by 9-11. I had been on the ground on 9-11 in New York City, had gotten caught up in all that turmoil. And he had witnessed that from a hillside west of the city, a town that we lived in in New Jersey. And it, you know, emotionally impacted him. I didn't realize how much. So much that Ryan joined the Navy out of high school and rose to elite special operations, a SEAL, or as Navy slang has it, a frogman. This is Ryan on one of four combat tours,

to an Iraq, to an Afghanistan. One stretch lasted about a year. When did you notice that Ryan was not the Ryan that you knew? It was coming off that year-long deployment. He became short-fused. You know, he stopped laughing, which was a key sign. You know, he became very stoic in his facial expression. I would almost characterize it as putting a mask on, where at times he would get into this, you know, mode where he was almost looking right through you.

Burn all! Ryan had returned from the wars to become an instructor in training like this. Boom! Boom! But his mood only darkened. Navy doctors scanned Ryan's brain but saw no physical injury. He was treated for depression, alcoholism, in and out of the hospital.

But at no point had they ever settled on a clinical diagnosis as to what was wrong with him. And it just tore him apart. He said to me, Dad, I don't even feel like I'm in my own body. In August 2016, Brian wrote the Navy, and he said, quote, I need help. I just want to feel normal again and live a purposeful life.

I loved being a SEAL. What is he asking for? He's asking for help. I will say that there are some very good people that were trying to do the right thing for the right reason, but maybe all the wrong way because they just didn't know what they didn't know. While others couldn't be bothered with, you know, a broken frog man, you know, let's get rid of it. Let's get rid of the problem. In 2016, Brian was discharged honorably. He was released from a Navy medical center

with an illness no one could correctly diagnose. And he said, if anything ever happens to me, I want you to donate, you know, my body, my brain for traumatic brain injury research. And of course, as a father, I'm saying, hey, look, I'm here for you. We're going to get through this. We're going to figure this out. I said, you know, please tell me you're not thinking about hurting yourself. You know, no, Dad, I never will go that way. I'm telling you, I'll never go that way. And about a month later, that's exactly what happened. Frank Larkin's four decades of service prepared him for what came next. A Navy SEAL in the 70s,

he spent 20 years in the Secret Service, then led a Pentagon project to defeat roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, he became sergeant at arms for the U.S. Senate in charge of security. Larkin knew people, knew the military, and the ways of Washington. And that put me on this path that I'm on right now, to try to effect change so that we have no more riots. A war of your own. That's right. And failure's not an option.

Larkin donated his son's brain to Dr. Daniel Pearl at the Uniformed Services University, the military medical school. We met Dr. Pearl in 2017 while reporting on how autopsies discovered microscopic scars in the brains of veterans who had taken their own lives. Depression overwhelmed them months or years after the enormous blast of a roadside bomb. And with the explosion comes the formation of something called the blast wave. And it is sufficiently powerful to pass through the skull and through the brain. Dr. Pearl found scarring in Ryan Larkin's brain, but there was one big difference.

Larkin had not been hit by a roadside bomb. Most of what he endured was low-level, repeated shocks from his own weapons. For example, this large caliber rifle, notorious for leaving gunners dizzy. But even more, there was his job as a trainer. Students came and went, but Ryan supervised every blast, every raid, every day. Ryan died from his combat injuries, from his service to this nation. He just didn't die right away. Injuries from routine weapons and tactics. Frank Larkin took the evidence to old friends, now in command of Special Operations. They, to their credit, aggressively started to peel the onion on this.

And started saying, there's something going on here. We've got to understand this. In 2019, Special Operations launched a preliminary study to look for brain injuries from cumulative low-level blasts. At Frank Larkin's urging, Vice Admiral Tim Szymanski found four million dollars and 30 active duty volunteers who were suffering symptoms. The symptoms were broad and they encompassed cognitive symptoms like difficulty with memory and attention, physical symptoms like dizziness and headaches, as well as psychological symptoms like depression and disinhibition.

Harvard professor Dr. Brian Edlow led the research at Massachusetts General Hospital. He put the troops into scanners twice as powerful as a typical MRI and discovered changes in brain structure. And this particular region of the brain is critically important because it modulates emotion and cognition. And a person who has pathology in that part of the brain would have what kind of symptoms? They could have a broad range of symptoms that could include difficulty with higher-level thinking or decision-making.

They could have difficulty regulating their emotions. They could have disinhibition or difficulty controlling anger, for example. And you put it all together, and what do you find? We find that blast overpressure waves may be penetrating the skull into the brain via the orbits, the eyes, because this location within the brain is just behind the eyes. In 2023, Ed Lowe showed that to Special Operations.

A larger, long-term study will be needed to confirm the results. But Special Operations Commanding General Brian Fenton isn't waiting. There's a lot more questions than we have answers right now. But all of it, if I could put it into, I guess, a summation, less is better in terms of exposure to blast overpressure. And we've got to get after that. Today, Special Operations is testing a door-breaching charge with half the blast pressure. Training rooms are now designed to absorb shock waves. And they're training with no blast at all.

Augmented reality and virtual reality training. I think that's very important to us as we go forward. And real weapons modified for less shock, are being studied. Can you be effective in the field with these modified weapons? We will not be ineffective with these weapons. And if we are, we won't use that weapon. We'll be able to accomplish the mission and protect our force at the very same time. And also, by extension, with the

work we're doing, do that for the rest of the services. The rest of the armed services are modifying training and weapons, in part, because Frank Larkin pushed Congress to pass two laws requiring action. A new five-year study is being planned with 200 subjects. These are early days. Typical MRIs can't see the injury so there's no test and no diagnosis. But if this is a turning point, it is thanks in part to a father who believed in his son. Ryan is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, and I know that you go out there from time to time. I wonder what you say to him.

Well, I talk to him. First of all, I want to make sure he's behaving himself. And I told him that, you know, I'm not giving up. And I got to tell you, Scott, he's here with us right now. You know, much of what I'm saying is him, his words speaking through me. I didn't like what he did. I didn't support what he did, but I've grown to understand why he did it. He wasn't taking the easy way out. It wasn't weakness. He was all about solutions, and this is how he was going to get their attention. Peter Robinson Ryan accomplished his last mission?

To a great degree, yes, but we still have a ways to go. That will be accomplished when we see where these men and women are getting the care that they need, but more importantly, you know, buying down the risk on the front end with prevention, that's when we can slap the table. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points.

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the 2005 Oscar-nominated movie Good Night and Good Luck. Clooney co-wrote both the original screenplay and this play, telling the story of pioneering journalist Edward R. Murrow, who took on strong-arming Senator Joseph McCarthy, all while withstanding pressure not to make waves at his own news network, this network, CBS. The plot revolves around themes of truth, intimidation, and courage in the face of corporate media. It is set in the 1950s. Clooney always meant for the story to echo today. He just didn't realize how loudly it would. Ooh, it's cold.

Oh, wow, it's cold. Deep February, Winter Garden Theater in the heart of Broadway, the set still under construction. George Clooney arrives in character. This is how they treat the two-time sexiest man alive. You see that? Oh, there he is. Hey, John. How are you, man? Ever the everyman, he doesn't stand on ceremony.

He hurtles over it. They don't care. They don't care. But now it can be told. Hollywood's famously cool leading man has the jitters. I mean, look at this place. This is proper old Broadway. And it's exciting to be here, you know. Look, let's not kid ourselves. It's nerve-wracking. And there's a million reasons why it's dumb to do.

What do you mean? Well, it's dumb to do because you're coming out and saying, well, let's try to get an audience to take this ride with you back to 1954. One minute! We need a live mic on the floor. It's front loaded. How much? By about five seconds. Five seconds? That's too much!

The play brings to life the humming CBS newsroom of the 1950s, all typewriters and smoldering cigarettes. Having dyed his hair, upsetting that familiar salt and pepper ratio, Clooney plays the protagonist Edward R. Murrow, host of the weekly television news program See It Now. Good evening. A few weeks ago, there occurred a few obscure notices in the newspapers about a Lieutenant Milo Radulovich. We propose to examine insofar as we can. You wrote the script to the film

more than 20 years ago. You played Fred Friendly, Murrow's producer. You didn't play Murrow. No. Why did you not want to play him? Murrow had a gravitas to him that at 42 years old I wasn't able to pull off. Murrow earned his gravitas during World War II.

Just overhead now, the burst of the anti-aircraft fire. With eyewitness radio dispatches from London amid the Blitz. Good night and good luck. His trademark sign-off doubles as the play's title. Clooney wrote the story with his longtime friend and creative partner, Grant Hesloff. We have the same suit on. Is it the same color? How does this partnership work? Who's at the keyboard?

Oh, you're at the keyboard. He doesn't know how to use a computer. He can barely... No, I'm like this. I'm the Luddite. Through the first writers' meeting... They met in L.A. in the early 80s when both were struggling actors. Now they run a production company together. Full disclosure,

the three of us collaborated on an unrelated sports documentary out later this year. Clooney and Hesloff conceived of the story of Good Night and Good Luck in the early 2000s, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq. You know, I just thought it was a good time to talk about when the press held government to account. Because a report on Senator McCarthy is by definition controversial, we want to say exactly what we mean. A show within a show, the play recreates the historic television face-off between Murrow and Joseph McCarthy, with McCarthy essentially playing himself through archival footage. Mr. Edward R. Murrow, as far back as 20 years ago, was engaged in propaganda for communist causes.

At the height of the Red Scare, the Wisconsin senator led a crusade to weed out supposed communist infiltration of the U.S. government. We're going to go with the story because the terror is right here in this room. Murrow and his team overcame the climate of fear and intimidation to expose and help take down McCarthy with measured, fact-based editorials. His proposition is a very simple one. Anyone who opposes or criticizes McCarthy's methods must be a communist. Are you guys using McCarthyism as a parable for today?

Originally, it wasn't for today today. But this is a story that stands the test of time. I think it's a story that you can keep telling over and over. I don't think it will ever thematically get old. Hey, guys. Hey, George. Good to see you. I'm so happy you're here. At the table read in a downtown Manhattan studio...

I'm a little nervous. Yeah, I'm a little nervous. Yeah, I'm a little nervous too. Clooney met the cast and wasted no time addressing what he sees as the parallels to today. When the other three estates fail, when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us, the fourth estate has to succeed. Has to succeed. As 60 Minutes is here right now on our first day. Kidding aside, Clooney made the point, these are chilling times for the news media.

ABC has just settled a lawsuit with the Trump administration, and CBS News is in the process. The process he's talking about? President Trump has lodged a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS, making the unfounded allegation that 60 Minutes engaged in election interference. CBS has since filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. All this as the network's parent company, Paramount, is trying to close a merger deal which requires approval from the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission. We're seeing this idea of using government to scare or fine or use corporations to make journalists smaller.

Governments don't like the freedom of the press. They never have, and that goes for whether you are a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you're on, they don't like the press. What does this play tell us about the media's ability or willingness to withstand this kind of pressure? It's a fight that is for the ages. It will continue. You see it happening at the LA Times. You see it happening at the Washington Post, for God's sake. You guarantee the corporate would have no influence over news content.

Journalism and telling truth to power has to be waged like war is waged. It doesn't just happen accidentally. You know, it takes people saying, we're going to do these stories, and you're going to have to come after us. And that's the way it is. Place us for top of scene two, please. Boom, boom, boom,'s the way it is. Places for top of scene two, please. Boom, boom. When we dropped in on rehearsals, the mood was as light as the material was heavy.

You're insured, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comedian and producer Alana Glazer plays CBS news writer Shirley Worshbaugh. How is George Clooney doing leading a troupe of stage actors? It's shaky. It's shaky stage actors? It's shaky. It's shaky, John. Stop. No, I'm just kidding.

This is doing live. This is doing live. We're all so focused on this material, and it's serious, and I'm trying to make it as honest as possible. So George really will let the tension release and break the tension with a joke at the right time. Wait, let me just jump in a second. One of Broadway's most in-demand directors, David Cromer, is the man in charge. This has to do with the pressure on you. Your Murrow character is being portrayed by someone with considerable star wattage. What challenge does that present to you?

It doesn't present a challenge. It helps. Edward R. Murrow was a star. He was the most trusted man in America. He had this very serious news show, but he also had this incredibly popular entertainment show, which was on Friday night, which was called Person to Person.

And he went into Liberace's house, and he went into all these people's houses. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much. Good night, Lee. Good night, Ed. If he were playing Willie Loman, that would be different. You know what I mean? A smaller figure than Murrow.

If he were playing a little man. If he were playing a little man. He's playing a great man. He's a great man. He's playing a great man. Next week, we'll take you to Beverly Hills, California. As for the play's setting, Clooney knows his way around a newsroom. His father, Nick Clooney, was a longtime journalist in Anchorman.

When I was 12 years old Clooney, was a longtime journalist and anchorman. When I was 12 years old and my dad was working at WKRC in Cincinnati, I would run the teleprompter. In those days, a teleprompter was sheets of paper taped end-to-end with a camera pointed down, and you'd feed them like this underneath the camera, and my dad would be able to read it on the teleprompter. And then at the commercial, they'd say, okay, cut three minutes out of that story.

And you had, at the end of it, a paper cutter. Literally cut. You really are old. I'm old, man. It's like I'm running for something. Clooney says he's running for nothing. So, yeah, exactly. But he makes no secret of his politics.

A lifelong Democrat, he made news last summer when he wrote a pointed essay calling on Joe Biden not to seek re-election on account of his age. Looking back on that, happy you did it? Yeah. I'll make it kind of easy. I was raised to tell the truth. I had seen the president up close for this fundraiser, and I was surprised. And so I feel as if there was a lot of profiles and cowardice in my party through all of that.

And I was not proud of that, and I also believed I had to tell the truth. Truth, an increasingly elusive concept. Clooney says that for all the parallels between the play and these convulsive times we live in today, disinformation is one critical distinction. Here's where I would tell you where we differ from what Murrow was doing. Although McCarthy would try to pose things that he'd show up a blank piece of paper and say, I've got a list of names. Okay. So that was his version of fake news. We now are at a place where we've found that it's harder and harder and harder to discern the truth. Facts are now negotiated.

You and I can agree or disagree, but if we can't reach a consensus that this chair is brown, we're in trouble. That's right. Can we turn the camera on and look at the opening shot? By March, rehearsals had moved into the theater. A big production issue on this day, the prop cigarettes. Any trouble with cigarettes, lighters, ashtrays, anything like that? We'll have to talk about ashtrays. The hardest part for me is smoking.

What do you mean? We smoke a lot. And we smoke a lot in the play. Everybody smokes in the play, so the place is covered in smoke. And smoking in our family is a big, you know, problem. I grew up in Kentucky, a lot of tobacco farmers, and almost all of my family members died of lung cancer. My father's sister, Rosemary, died of it.

She was a wonderful singer, died of it. And my dad's 91 because he didn't smoke. So smoking has always been a, it's a hard thing to do. Set up now, butyrol nebulizer. Let's get a pulse ox right away. It's easy to forget, George Clooney has been an A-lister for 30 years now. Usually he sleeps on the foot of my bed, but he's gotten so fat. In 2003, he was a bachelor living with a pet pig when 60 Minutes profiled him. You were in the sexiest man of the year phase?

Sure, that was a big time for me. Not that you're not sexy now. It's okay, I'm not hurt, John. He's married now. His wife and their two kids left the home they keep in Europe to spend this spring run with him in New York. Clooney is also in a different phase of his life professionally. Look, I'm 63 years old.

I'm not years old. I'm not trying to compete with 25-year-old leading men. That's not my job. I'm not doing romantic films anymore. So we just put the catwalk in up here. Opening night, set for April 3rd, George Clooney's turn on Broadway puts him a few feet from his audience.

They can see you. You can see them, too. I'm not looking at them. I'm putting my wife in the very, very, very back. You wish you had done this earlier in your career? I don't know that I could have. I wasn't, I didn't do the work required to get there. But I saw the smile when you came out here.

Oh yeah, it's cool. Looked out here. Anybody who would deny that would just be a liar. I mean, there isn't a single actor alive that wouldn't have loved to have, you know, been on Broadway. So that's, that's the fun of it. It's, it's tricky the older you get, but why not? And so the question is a very simple one. Not what power unchecked will do. We've seen that answer. The question is, what are you prepared to do? Good night and good luck.

Now, the last minute of 60 Minutes. Two years ago, we traveled to Prague to visit the headquarters of Radio Free Europe, one of the U.S. government-funded broadcasters that had its funding cut off earlier this month by President Trump. Our tour guide was then President and CEO Jamie Fly. We're an international public broadcaster and we operate in countries where freedom of the press either does not exist or is under assault. This modern newsroom is like a journalistic version of the United Nations. Each service, Russian, Ukrainian, Iranian and 19 others, is made up of emigres and expats from those countries.

They have their own newsrooms and broadcast facilities. Last week, Radio Free Europe filed a lawsuit saying Congress, not the president, granted money for its mission. And if it's permanently cut off, many of its journalists could be forced to return to their home countries, where they could be imprisoned or tortured because of their work for RFE. I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. There's a lot going on right now.

Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.