PBS News Hour - Full Show - April 15, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Wednesday on the News Hour, diplomats lay the groundwork for a new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran as Americans' appetite for a prolonged conflict grows thin. A jury finds Ticketmaster and Live Nation monopolized the market and gouged ticket prices. Plus, Judy Woodruff looks into how and why the long tradition of volunteering took root in the United States. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, diplomats lay the groundwork for a new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran, as Americans' appetite for a prolonged conflict grows thin. A jury finds Ticketmaster and Live Nation monopolize the market and gouged ticket prices. And Judy Woodruff looks into how and why the long tradition of volunteering took root in the U.S. A lot of volunteers just, they look and they say, Someone ought to do that.

And then they say, well, I'm someone. I'm going to do it. Welcome to the News Hour. International mediators tonight are pushing for new peace talks between the U.S. and Iran, and they're seeking to extend the ceasefire that's set to expire next week. But nothing is set in stone. And the sides remain far apart on issues like the fate of Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.

White House correspondent Liz Landers has been tracking it all and starts our coverage. The waters remain quiet through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military says its naval blockade of Iran's ports is, quote, fully implemented as it approaches its third full day. But with the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran expiring in less than a week, beneath the surface and behind the scenes, there's been a flurry of diplomatic conversations. Regional leaders like Turkey's president, Rejep Tairdewan, said efforts were underway to restart talks between the U.S. and Iran and to buy more time. We are making the necessary suggestions and attempts to reduce tensions. Extend the ceasefire and continue the negotiations.

More regional officials say they're making progress on both fronts after last weekend's failed talks, including that the U.S. and Iran have agreed in principle on extending the ceasefire. Publicly, however, U.S. and Iranian officials say they've not formally agreed to anything, and that engagement continues. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt today. That these conversations are productive and ongoing, and that's where we are right now. I've also seen some reporting about the potentiality for in-person discussions again.

Those discussions are being had, but nothing is official until you hear it from us here at the White House. In Iran today, Pakistani military leaders arrived as mediators to discuss plans for a new round of talks. And Pakistani Prime Minister Shabasharif, who hosted the last round of talks and is considered a top intermediary, visits Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey through Saturday. President Trump has suggested that talks could be imminent, and in an interview this morning on Fox business, he said once again that so could the end of the war itself. Well, you keep saying was, is this war over? I think it's close to over. Yeah. I mean, I view it as very close to over.

But on the biggest sticking point in the talks, any nuclear threat coming from Iran, the president implied a more open-ended mission. And again, threatened Iran's civilian infrastructure. If they're going to have a nuclear weapon, we'll be living with them for a little while, but I don't know how much longer they can survive. As an example, we could take out every one of their bridges in one hour. We could take out every one of their power plants, electric power plants, in one hour. We don't want to do that.

But many experts say Iran was nowhere near a nuclear weapon. While visiting Asia today, Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.S. United Nations nuclear watchdog, Sitterrand's nuclear activities are a reality that must be monitored. Iran has a very ambitious, wide nuclear program. So all of that will require the presence of IAEA inspectors. Otherwise, you will not have an agreement. You will have an illusion of an agreement.

At an event with young conservatives last night, Vice President J.D. Vance said that the U.S. wouldn't settle for a small deal with Iran. Right now the ceasefire is holding. And what you're seeing is, the president wants to make, he doesn't want to make like a small deal. He wants to make the grand bargain. But Vance was also heckled in the same event by members of the audience who clearly oppose the wars in the Middle East. I certainly think the answer is yes. And I agree. Jesus Christ does not, I agree, Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide, whoever yelled that out from the dark, he certainly does not. Vance would acknowledge their concerns.

I recognize that a lot of young voters don't love the policy that we have in the Middle East. Okay, I understand that. Today, in a test of Congress's appetite for prolonging the Iran conflict, the motion is not agreed to. Senate Republicans stood behind President Trump and struck down another Democratic-driven war powers effort to block his ability to launch further strikes. The Treasury's Secretary today suggested, the U.S. could strike Iran in a different way, economically.

The Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities. Regardless of political leanings, almost all Americans are feeling the pain at the gas pump as the result of the war. Average prices remain above $4 a gallon. The Treasury Secretary telling Americans this tax day, the message is the short-term volatility for long-term gain. That optimism will be roundly challenged in the waters of the Gulf as the White House navigates a tense and narrow straight.

For the PBS News Hour, I'm Liz Landers. Now to Lebanon, where the toll of the wider war has been severe. More than one million Lebanese are displaced. Israel has invaded the country south again and is demanding people vacate more land. The United Nations top refugee official is there on a mission to survey the crisis, and he sat down earlier today with special correspondent Sima. monofolde. Dr. Bartham Salle, thank you very much for speaking to the News Hour.

Thank you. Israeli bombardment on Lebanon has displaced more than a million people that's around a fifth of the population. What has been the humanitarian impact? It's undoubtedly very profound. This is truly a rapidly deepening humanitarian crisis. Imagine the impact that this is causing to the entire society, to the entire country. I've visited a number of places, including the people.

shelters. And these are heart-wrenching scenes, the stories that you are told, people leaving everything behind literally in a matter of minutes walking miles on foot to get to safety areas and so on. This is truly a humanitarian catastrophe by all standards. And remember, Lebanon has been a host of refugees for so long. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have taken residence. in this country for more than a decade, not to mention refugees from other places in the Middle East, for Lebanon to be impacted this way. Time and again to be fair is really very sad, very painful. During our reporting, we've seen people sleep in their cars, sleep under tents.

The schools that have been turned into displacement shelters are at capacity. What are some of the bottlenecks that the Lebanese government and the international community are facing? To be fair, the government is doing a lot. The government is extremely challenging. extremely challenging and it is operating in a very difficult political as well as economic condition but to be fair this government is trying hard I think it's incumbent upon us in the international community to help the government of Lebanon to help the state of Lebanon but no amount of humanitarian assistance can

really deal with the scale the scope of this crisis but nothing can replace losing your home and many of these people have already seen their homes destroyed and even the prospects of the returns to their communities somewhat in doubt. The Lebanese government has just issued fresh statistics saying that more than 37,000 housing units have been destroyed, many of them in Lebanon South. This means that even when the fighting stops, many families won't have a place to return to. This is a very serious problem. Many of these homes have been destroyed in the South, so these displaced people, at the end of the

day they need to go back to their homes and the homes are already destroyed. is going to cause Lebanon, cause the people of Lebanon, not to mention the victims themselves, a huge, huge problem. More than 2,000 people have now been killed by Israeli bombardment. More than 300 on April 8th alone in what is now known as Black Wednesday. Roughly a third of that were women, children and the elderly. Israel says it's targeting Hezbollah. You have visited some of these strike locations.

Was there anything to suggest that these buildings that were being hit were military objects? No doubt many of the characters. Many of the casualties are civilians and deniable so that the evidence speaks for itself in that sense of the world, whether Hezbollah's were there or not. At the end of the day, attacking civilians, whether in Lebanon in the way that we've seen, in northern Israel that we have seen, these are all acts that are unacceptable and should not be happening. Targeting civilians and targeting civilian infrastructure is something that is totally unacceptable. This violence, this conflict, this war really needs to be brought.

to an end and there is no military solution to this. There has to be a political diplomatic settlement based on security, based on respect for sovereignty and respect for the rights of the people in this part of the world. Israel has maintained that it wants to keep a depopulated buffer zone in Lebanon south. Does that concern you? Of course it concerns me. Unless of these diplomatic initiatives and efforts are going to lead to a lasting security and peaceful settlement that will and these type of arrangements because at the end of the days any of these areas are homes to people who have lived there forever and for them to have to leave their homes is not something that anyone can condone or accept.

Do you see that there is sufficient appetite on the part of international donors to support the Lebanese government and what is the funding gap at the moment? I think to be fair, the United Nations has already published an appeal, a flash appeal calling for $308 million for various UN agencies. SCR has called for about 61 million specifically targeted at Lebanon and to deal with the displacement crisis. We have been receiving some contributions. We're grateful for those, but they are nowhere near enough to deal with the scope and the scale of the problem that we have. We need more. We need more engagement. And remember, also, we're not only dealing with the displacement that is happening as a result of the last few weeks of war.

We are also dealing with large, large numbers of Syrian refugees who remain here. who have already been because of these events have been displaced year again. And so you can imagine the kind of humanitarian consequences that this is bringing to bear. And our teams are working hard at this to try to deliver the assistance needed for the people who need it. Dr. Barham Saleh, thank you for speaking to the news hour. Thank you. And late this evening in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered an expansion of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon to occupy more territory and to march eastward to expand

what they call a security zone along Israel's northern border. In the day's other headlines, time is running out for Americans to file their taxes, and new data shows refunds are larger this year, though not nearly as big as the Trump administration had projected. The IRS says the average refund so far this tax season is just under $3,500. That's up around $350 from last year. But it's far short of the thousands of dollars or more that the White House projected back in January. We don't believe you should send it all here to Uncle Sand. We want you to keep them.

On Capitol Hill today, House Republicans touted new tax breaks, which include no taxes on tips and overtime, as well as deductions for some seniors. Democrats, meantime, countered that any gains are being wiped out by higher prices. The American people are seeing their cost increase, even if they get, a tiny bit of relief filing their taxes. Every month, they're paying more. Also, on Capitol Hill today, the head of the IRS told a Senate committee that his agency is working to address the tax gap.

That's taxes owed but not paid. That's even as the IRS has seen its workforce shrink around 27 percent since President Trump returned to the White House. Officials on a group of U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean are assessing damage from tropical storm Sinlaku. which battered the region with fierce winds and rains. Eyewitness footage shows the aftermath of what was the year's most powerful tropical typhoon, which flipped cars and left many without power.

Meantime, in other parts of the country, powerful storms ripped through parts of Michigan, toppling trees and damaging buildings. Some areas also saw flooding. While in Iowa... A tornado warning remains in effect until 6.45 p.m. for Northeastern Jones. Storm chasers filmed this tornado, which touched down yesterday, It's part of a severe weather pattern that's been hammering the plains and Midwest. And it comes as a heat wave sweeps across the East Coast today with record temperatures expected in cities like New York and Philadelphia.

Forecasters expect the heat to last well into the weekend. In Turkey, officials there say a student opened fire on two classrooms in a middle school today, killing at least nine people. It's the country's second school shooting in as many days. Chaos unfolded outside that school as parents and emergency personnel rushed to the scene. Turkey's Interior Minister says the suspected gunman is a 14-year-old student who was killed, though he did not specify how. The motive remains unclear. This incident was an individual act committed by only one of our students.

It is not an act of terrorism. I want to express once again how deeply saddened we are. Officials in Turkey have imposed a nationwide ban on publishing images from the shooting that are considered traumatic. School shootings are rare in Turkey, making this week's attacks all the more striking. Sudan entered its fourth year of war today, with millions facing the threat of ongoing violence and famine. In eastern Sudan, health workers are reporting a spike in malnourished children since the fighting started. A UN-backed group has warned that some 800,000 people will suffer from severe acute malnutrition across. Sudan this year. Meantime at an aid conference in Berlin, European countries pledged

more than one and a half billion dollars in humanitarian aid. A U.S. official at the meeting says the Trump administration, quote, remains steadfast in its commitment to ending this war. We are working closely with partners in this room and beyond to press for an immediate shift from battlefield to the negotiating table, from violence to dialogue, and for ending this world's biggest humanitarian crisis. The war between Sudan's military and the rapid support forces paramilitary group, or RSF, erupted in April of 2023. Since then, officials say around 59,000 people have been killed,

and at least 13 million have been displaced. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed as hopes rise for a possible end to the war with Iran. The Dow Jones Industrial Average flipped about 70 points on the day. the NASDAQ jumped nearly 400 points to a new all-time high, and the S&P 500 continued its rally from recent lows. And Major League Baseball is celebrating Jackie Robinson Day. The annual event marks the day back in 1947 when Robinson broke the sports color barrier. Every child who dares to dream, and every voice that lifts and inspires others, Jackie lives on. This year, the MLB rolled out a splashy campaign in his honor, and across the league played.

coaches and umpires are wearing his iconic number 42. Still to come on the news hour, the Department of Justice moves to negate more convictions for capital insurrectionists. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance continue their attacks on the Pope over the war against Iran. And author Susan Page discusses her book on the late Queen Elizabeth's relationships with U.S. presidents.

This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubinstein studio at WETA and YHA. Washington headquarters of BBS News. A federal jury has found Live Nation and its subsidiary ticketmaster have been operating as a monopoly in violation of federal and state laws. It's the long-awaited conclusion to a blockbuster antitrust trial that could have big implications for both the company and the entertainment industry at large. Dozens of states were party to the suit, which argued that Live Nation used its combined control of ticketing platforms and a nationwide network of concert. venues to force artists into bad deals and drive up prices for consumers. For more on this, we're joined by Gem Oswati's music editor at Variety.

Jim, thanks so much for being with us. Before we get into details, just for context here, how big a moment is this for Live Nation, Ticketmaster, and the industry? It is a big moment, but nobody knows yet what exactly it is going to mean. It is very much a rebuke to the Department of Justice's decision early last month. to settle with Live Nation and, you know, have them modify some of their policies and pay a few fines. I think it was $260 million, which Live Nation earns in a couple of days. We should point out that suit was first filed by the Biden administration.

That's when the DOJ was involved when the Trump administration came into office. The DOJ a few days in walked away. States decided to continue with that lawsuit, which is how we ended up where we are today. But in retrospect, that settlement that they reached, how does that look right now? Well, it was never approved by the judge. This is all being decided by one judge, Aaron Subramian, I think is how you say his name. And he was furious over the settlement because it was basically done in a smoke-filled room. There was a deal between DOJ officials and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and presumably some other people.

and the judge didn't even know. So he was furious over that, and the states decided to continue pushing ahead. Now, does this mean that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are going to be broken up, and tickets are going to get a lot cheaper? Absolutely not. We'll get into more on that

and what we could expect ahead in just a moment, but I want to remind folks about what the argument was here behind the monopoly prosecution. So DOJ was basically arguing that they were stifling innovation, they were causing higher prices for consumers. Remind people how they were doing that.

What were the actual practices they were alleged to have engaged in? I mean, there are so many, it's a little hard to begin. The practices that they were really being criticized for really only trickled down to consumers, quite honestly. But it was things like, I got to be careful with the verbs here, like persuading venues to use Ticketmaster, their ticketing service. And Rapino is heard in a recorded phone call, kind of threatening a venue by saying, well, if you don't go with Ticketmaster and you go with our competitor, boy, I don't know, we're going to have a hard time routing some of our big artists to your venue.

And that venue is Barclay Center in Brooklyn, one of the biggest arenas in the tri-state area. Rapino, we should know as the head of Live Nation and those stories. I know we're reported on for so long. As you mentioned, though, we do not yet know what the remedies could be. We should point out in the verdict that the jury found Ticketmaster overcharged consumers by about $1.72 a ticket. Is there a chance here that concert goers could see some of their money coming back? It is really hard to say. It's very early in this process, quite honestly.

And we need to be fair to Live Nation here. They did not create this system. The problem stems from when ticketing went online. Because before, when it was just hard tickets, you know, you couldn't have a bot buying up thousands of tickets and flipping them for, you know, exponentially more than their face value. And Live Nation has tried to fight that syndrome. Sometimes they're successful. Sometimes they're not. They're up against the most sophisticated bots in the world.

So in sympathy to them, they are trying to keep things in the stakeholders, the people who actually put money and, you know, have skin in the game with putting. on shows, venues, artists, managers, promoters, people like that, instead of bots and scalpers. But they do play rough, you know. And I mean, this is a capitalist society. We're allowed to push the limits to a degree. But the question here is whether they push them too far. And the jury today found that they did. I mean, Live Nation has in arguably been an absolute force in this industry, right? According to some of the trial testimony, they sold about 10 times the number of tickets as the next closest competitor. What else have we heard from them over the course of this trial? What's been their

response to the accusations about their practices? Oh, throughout, they've been saying, we're not a monopoly, we play rough. They don't say we play rough. They say we're competitive and we're aggressive, all of which is certainly true and somewhat defensible, but when you start getting into some of the details, like, you know, with them trying to explain away, you know, those famous Slack messages where people were saying like, oh, my gosh, can you believe these suckers, meaning concert goers, paying for tickets, you know, it wasn't that exactly words, exactly those words, but it was the sentiment. The particulars they were less strong on, but generally they're just saying, we are not a monopoly. They dispute a lot of the numbers. You know, the percentages of how much of the ticketing market they have, the prosecution said it was about 86%.

And they said, oh, no, no, it's more like 44%. And with anything like that, it's how you slice and dice the numbers. But they've basically been saying, we are playing by the rules. And it is up to the jury to decide whether or not they believe that. We will see what happens next. That is Jem Oswald, music editor for Variety. Jim, thank you so much. Thank you.

The Justice Department is at the center of multiple major developments this week from a new report alleging political weapon under former President Biden to fresh efforts to reverse January 6th convictions to an unusual visit connected to an inquiry involving the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Our justice correspondent, Ali Rogan, joins us now with the latest. So, Ali, let's start with this legal effort to drop the convictions connected to the most serious crimes related to January 6th. What more do you know? Yeah, so to understand this latest news, it's helpful to go back to the beginning of President Trump's term

right after inauguration when he issued a blanket pardon for most of the January 6th rioters, more than a thousand people. Trump did not pardon everyone, though. There were 14 members of the extremist groups, the proud boys and the oathkeepers, whose sentences he commuted, meaning he reduced them, but he didn't outright pardoned them. Those people included oathkeepers head, Stuart Rhodes, who was facing 18 years in prison and was among, had the most serious convictions against him. So those 14, once those commutations came in, they were released from their sentences, but their cases were still making their way through the appeals process. Now what has happened is the Department of Justice is asking the D.C. Appeals Court to

completely dismiss these cases with prejudice. That means that the cases will permanently be closed. and the DOJ said in a short filing that this is in the interests of justice. This is, however, a major blow to those attorneys who previously were at the DOJ and prosecuted these January 6 cases, many of which had already been wiped away. But some of them today said that this was a reminder that the administration does not care about constitutional due process, Jeff. And separately, the Justice Department released a report alleging that the Biden Justice Department weaponized the agency against its perceived enemies, which is the very thing the Trump

Justice Department is accused of. How did this come to be? Yes, this is the first product of the so-called weaponization working group, which is something that former Attorney General Pam Bondi stood up. The stated goal was to uncover instances of the Biden administration using the levers of government power to achieve political ends. This report is about the Biden DOJ's application of a law that criminalizes interfering with someone who is seeking to access reproductive care, including abortion. It's known as the Face Act, and the report alleges that the Biden administration selectively enforced the act by protecting abortion clinics, but not other pregnancy centers that oppose abortion rights, that they coordinated with pro-abortion rights advocacy groups,

exercised prosecutorial misconduct, including screening jurors based on religion, and that they sought longer sentences for defendants who oppose abortion rights than for those who support those rights. Meanwhile, a former leader of the Biden era's DOJ Civil Rights Division says that that team enforced the law even-handedly. And what more have you learned about the way the Trump Justice Department purged the people, the prosecutors who worked on past cases? That's right. I heard today from a department spokesperson who said that the department has fired personnel who worked on those Biden-era-face-act cases who had previously remained employed at the Department of Justice. Jeff, of course, all of this is happening as President Trump has repeatedly and directly called

for the Department of Justice to prosecute his political adversaries, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in an interview with NBC last night defended that contact. That type of communication from President Trump should make every American happy because it means that there's an executive, a chief executive, that is making sure every one of his cabinet members are working as hard as they should. The president is a driver of results, and so I don't have any issues with that. And as a matter of fact, I think it's why he was elected. So add to all of that, the DOJ continues to investigate the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, and this includes

a visit to the construction site where the Fed headquarters is undergoing on renovation. What more do you know? This was an attempt to progress in that investigation, which has seen multiple roadblocks yesterday. these employees from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office made an unannounced visit to the site of the Fed renovation. They were trying to check on progress at the site. This after last month, the federal judge threw out subpoenas the Department of Justice issued to the Fed saying that there was abundant evidence that the main purpose of these subpoenas and this investigation was to harass and pressure Fed Chair Jerome Powell to either resign or yield to President Trump's policy demands.

Upon hearing of this unannounced visit yesterday, outside counsel for the Fed emailed the employees who tried to seek access and told them that the federal judge had concluded that their interest in this site was, quote, pretextual and asked that they commit not to seek to communicate with the Fed outside of the presence of counsel, Jeff. All right, lots to track. Allie Rogan. Our thanks to you, as always. You bet. The battle between the President and the Pope continues to play out on the world stage. And some allies of President Trump are piling on to defend the war in Iran.

The Pope has not backed down from his criticisms of the conflict either, but he's taking a different approach during his visit to Africa. Good morning, everyone. On his flight from Algeria to Cameroon today, Pope Leo avoided President Trump's war of words and told journalists that the world needs peace. Although we have different beliefs, we have different ways of worshipping, we have different ways of living, we can live together in peace. His message came after a new social media post from the president this morning,

sharing an image of himself being cradled by Jesus. President Trump deleted a controversial post from earlier in the week of himself depicted as Jesus that prompted criticism for many Christians. But Christian and even Catholic members of the Trump administration, are standing behind the president. At a turning point USA event in Georgia last night, Catholic convert and Vice President J.D. Vance disagreed with Leo's theology

and suggested the Pope should be careful. When the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand year, more than a thousand year tradition of just war theory. Now, we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think that it's important, in the same way that it's important, for the Vice President of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy. I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. Many Republicans have stayed quiet or urged the president to leave the church alone.

But today, House Speaker Mike Johnson backed Vance and the president. Obviously, if you wait into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the popes receive some of that. The battle between the Vatican and the White House began last week. weekend when Pope Leo spoke out in his strongest terms yet against the war in Iran. Leo denounced the, quote, delusion of omnipotence that he argued was fueling the war in Iran and other global conflicts. Trump unloaded with a truth social post, calling Pope Leo, quote, weak on crime and terrible

for foreign policy, and said if it wasn't for his reelection, Leo wouldn't be the first American pope. On Monday, he doubled down. We believe strongly in law and order, and he seemed to have to have a re-election. a problem with that, so there's nothing to apologize for. He's wrong. And that same day, Pope Leo was defiant. I do not look at my roles as being political, politician. I don't want to get into a debate with him.

I don't think that the message of the Gospels meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. And I will continue to speak out with it. We're joined now by Reverend James Martin. He's a Jesuit priest, an editor-at-Large of America magazine. Father Martin, welcome back to the NewsHour. Thanks for being with us. My pleasure. So let me just ask what you thought when you heard Vice President Vance warn Pope Leo to be careful on matters of theology.

What was your reaction? That you have the Vice President warning the Vicar of Christ, who is an Augustinian, who was at that time visiting the birthplace of St. Augustine, and who knows more about St. Augustine than most people have forgotten, that he doesn't understand just war, and that he doesn't understand just war, and that he doesn't understand theology, I just found that really hard to swallow. Father Martin, this idea of just war, what should we understand about that?

Well, it's an ancient concept in the Catholic Church and in the Christian Church more broadly that talks about the types of requirements that are needed for a war to be considered just. And people can go online and find them all. For example, there has to be a proportionate response. It's usually in defense. And pretty much every theologian,

including Cardinal Robert McElroy, who's a doctorate in theology and political science, Archbishop Timothy Brolio, former head of the USCB, have concluded this is not a just war in Iran. So it's a certain number of qualifications that they needed to consider a war to be just. You posted a very lengthy response online, called out what you saw as the ironies of Vice President Vance's criticism of the Pope. You also noted his conversion, and then you wrote, we rejoice over everyone entering the church. What most of us do not rejoice over, however, is a deadly combination of inaccuracy and hubris.

What did you mean by that? Well, the inaccuracy is that he doesn't seem to understand the tenets of just war, which you can look up all the Catholic leaders and cardinals and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that have talked about that in the past couple of days. And the hubris is telling the Pope of all people, who has a doctorate in canon law from a pontifical university

and who has been an August inning for many years that he doesn't understand theology. It's really pretty hard to imagine calling it anything other than hubris. And as we just reported, Father Martin, I have to ask you about these pictures. The president posted that AI image of himself being cradled by Jesus that followed

an AI image of himself as Jesus, that he later deleted that followed. We should remind people. An AI image of himself as Pope. Do these images go too far in your view? Yes. I mean, particularly the one where he is picturing himself as Jesus. Some people have used the term blasphemy. I think it's more appropriate to call it idolatrous. The first commandment is, you shall have no other gods before me. And so to picture yourself as Jesus is really trespassing into that territory. And it's not just

Catholics who are upset, I think any Christian who saw that would have to scratch their heads or be offended. You know, we saw there Pope Leo say that he does not fear the president, right, indicating he'll continue to speak out if he disagrees with something that he sees. Is it fair to say that this is a Pope who is more willing to publicly disagree with or to take on the president of the United States than before? I think that's not a particularly good way of looking at it because as it sets it up as a battle. He's basically preaching the gospel. And look, in the gospels, Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers, not blessed are the warmongers. And after the resurrection, he appears to the frightened disciples and says, peace be with you, not vengeance is mine.

So the pope is proclaiming the gospel and these Christian messages of peace. And if it has a political implication, I think he feels so be it. But he's not looking to fight with President Trump or any other political leader. Do you worry at all that this pulls him into what are seen as partisan or political battles. No, I'm not worried at all because he's sticking to the Gospels. I think what worries me the most is that when President Trump attacks the Pope, attacks the Holy Father, he gives a free reign to a lot of anti-Catholicism and also, you know, just sort of denigrates the office and denigrates a really important moral voice, which I think people should listen to.

What are you hearing from members of the Catholic community at this time about all of these headlines about the Pope's leadership and these public feuds that we're seeing? Well, I would say Catholics from traditional Catholics to progressive Catholics were really pretty appalled. And, you know, people have been saying it's ironic because, you know, this is the one thing that has sort of pulled the Catholic community together in the United States. But there's a great deal of love and affection for Pope Leo. I think he has something like an 84% approval rating, but people like the guy. And so to see someone disparaged the Pope, which is really, you know, disparaging the representative of the Catholic Church and therefore disparaging the Catholic

Church is very hard for people to take. So pretty much all the Catholics I've talked to have been appalled. Do you think there's anything to this being the first American Pope that makes him more of a focus of the American president's ire when he feels he disagrees with them? I think that's accurate because I think you can no longer use the excuse, as some people did under Pope Francis, and even Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul, that the Pope doesn't understand the United States. United States. So I think that gives his critiques, or what it perceived as critiques, a lot more weight. That is the Reverend James Martin, editor-at-Large of America magazine, joining us tonight. Father Martin, thank you. It's always good to speak with you. My pleasure.

Before the United States was founded, the spirit of volunteering was already taking hold in the colonies. Today, Americans give more of their time than citizens of any other country. During this national volunteer month are Judy Woodruff set out to explore how this tradition started and why it remains such a defining part of the nation's identity. It's part of her series, America at a crossroads. The Patagonia All Volunteer Fire Department has been a fixture of this small Arizona border town for 102 years. Its firefighters cover 333 miles of surrounding land, fighting every fire that comes their way, while also providing vital emergency medical services to the largely rural mining and ranching community.

I think you find a lot of volunteers just, they look and they say, someone ought to do that. And then they say, well, I'm someone. I'm going to do it. Zay Hardigan is the fire chief here. Just the jacket here is a pretty heavy item. Overseeing 35 other volunteers who are following what it turns out is a long American tradition. tradition. In 1736, founding father Benjamin Franklin established the first formally organized volunteer fire brigade in the colonies. The Union Fire Company in Philadelphia had 26 members

and would become a model for how fires in the new nation would be fought. Today, at least 65 percent of firefighters in the United States are still volunteers. Rates of volunteering are. Elizabeth Clemens of the University of Chicago studies the roots of volunteerism and the way volunteer groups organize. We spoke at another hub for volunteers in the warehouse of the Community Food Bank in Tucson. When we think about volunteerism, we think about well-meaning individuals who give freely of their time and money. And that's absolutely important.

But what it misses is the extent to which the sort of governance of American society was done by these groups. These groups become powerful and critical. What was it about the founding of the country that left it important for American citizens to come up with some of these structures that would get the country up and running? Well, there wasn't much things. There wasn't much government, and to have a revolution to establish a government is done by committees, some of which look very voluntary. So this idea that you can do public action, whether it's responding to a natural disaster or supporting an ally in war, that you don't have to wait for government to do it.

We could not do what we do without our volunteers. Natalie Jero is the CEO of the Tucson Community Food Bank, which on the day we visited served 1,621 people with emergency food boxes. Have a good day. Thank you. What would it mean if these individuals weren't giving their time to this place? A lot more people would be hungry. 80 percent of everything that comes into a food bank comes from private sources, and that's

private donations, that's food from manufacturers, retailers, but that's also all the labor that our volunteers give us on an everyday basis. It's an idea that Clemens says differs from the European countries our founders left behind. In American political development, there is a suspicion, I think, of government doing too much. And so we have been more reliant on ways of providing public goods that don't look like government, even if there's a fair amount of government hidden in them. I just like helping people.

Everyone's not always going to be as fortunate as others. So being able to come out here for a few hours a day and kind of just help other people out just brings me a little glow in life, a little light. We're all part of a community. We should be helping each other out and do what we can to help our neighbors. I think it's just a national trait that we do this. It's unselfish. All told, last year, volunteers here donated more than 100,000 hours of their time.

That's equal to the work of nearly 50 full-time paid employees. What great volunteer organizations do is remind you that you can make a difference, and you do matter, and we need you. When you think about it, almost... Brothers, Tim and Mark Schreiber have both harnessed the power of volunteers in their work at international organizations like the Special Olympics and save the children. People want to get involved. I mean, human beings are social animals, right?

We want to be together. We want to do something that's good for the community, good for your neighborhood. They say they learned about the value and power of service from their parents, Sergeant and Eunice Kennedy Schreiber. Sergeant Schreiber founded the Peace Corps and then pivoted to fight President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, creating programs like Head Start and Vista. America needs Vista volunteers. Or volunteers in service to America.

He wrote about it all in a new posthumously published memoir. We called it a war. Daddy was a trained lawyer, and he was a political realist, and he was very tough-minded. But he also paid a lot of attention to our mom. And she believed as much in the goodness of volunteers. She, while he was building Head Start, she was building the Special Olympics movement. So our mom was always telling him, those scholars you like Sarge from Harvard and Yale, don't forget the teenagers, don't forget the moms.

Did you hear these conversations? I heard that conversation. And he didn't want a Democratic war on poverty. He wanted an American commitment to ending poverty. He knocked on his many doors of Republican members of Congress and the Senate as he did of Democrats. Back in Patagonia, as in many. other small and mid-sized communities across the country, volunteer fire crews save the local government money.

Nationwide, the time donated by volunteer firefighters adds up to almost $50 billion a year. This is a big responsibility you're taking on. It's dangerous, and yet people still want to do it and not be paid for it. I think there's a certain pride in just stepping up and filling a need and not putting a price on it. I'm useless. Volunteers in this department come to the job from all different backgrounds. But for Dan Goff and Annette Walker, their reasons for volunteering are the same.

This town has been very gracious to us. Very gracious. How has this town been good to you? My kids, my husband, had an accident a couple years ago. Totally lost everything. And then this department gave them something to do. I joined in right after. It was my way to give back to our town who stood by us the entire time.

I'll be up front with you and I know there's a stigma to this. I'm actually a heroin addict in recovery and being of service is sort of part of that recovery. So it helps me with my tackling my addictions and helping the community. That's really powerful to hear. I got an Arcana department and was able to help people who were in a situation like I was in the past. So you're able to pay back. Absolutely.

And it feels great. And from one of Patagonia's longest serving firefighters, Richard Connolly. I think that's part of the United States, is volunteering and helping others. And to keep that tradition going and make it even stronger, the more we can do, the better. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Judy Woodruff in Patagonia, Arizona. Like countless powerful women throughout history, Queen Elizabeth II was routinely underestimated. But during her record-breaking 70-year range, she deftly managed the important strategic relationship between the U.K. and the U.S., meeting with 13 sitting presidents, more than any other American or foreign leader. USA Today, Susan Page, traces this and more in her new book, The Queen and Her Presidents, The Hidden Hand that shaped history.

I spoke with her earlier today. Susan Page, welcome back to the News Hour. It's so great to be here. In this book, you make the point that Queen Elizabeth had no formal past. power over policy, but you argue that she was genuinely consequential. What did her influence look like in practice? Well, you think about, say, her first trip to the United States as Queen. It was in the aftermath of the Suez crisis. Relations between the United States and the United King were as bad as they had been since the start of the special relationship.

And somehow, through her charm and her personality, her connection with President Eisenhower, she healed that wound. And in the aftermath, suddenly relations kind of resumed again. It's not that she negotiated with the president. It's that she laid the groundwork for the kind of special relationship that was so important to Great Britain and so important to her. You mentioned President Eisenhower. You described her bond with him as something special.

She knew him when he was a wartime general before he was president. How did that early relationship differ from the ones she had with presidents? she met only in their official capacities. So she revered Eisenhower, and he was like an uncle. She was a friend of her father's. They had had a real partnership. But by the time you get to say President Reagan, she is a peer. And she and President Reagan became, I think, as close as she was to any of the 13 American presidents she met while they were in office.

They bonded over horses, as you might expect, and over Hollywood, because she was an enormous fan of the movies. had seen Reagan acting in movies before he went into politics. That special relationship, she saw maintaining that, you write, as really central to her role. How conscious and strategic was she about that? So she was, as it turned out, a deft diplomat. She was a smart politician. She was a shrewd judge of character. And I think these are things people didn't recognize in her because it was so behind the scenes.

You know, she didn't write a memoir. She didn't give interviews. But she did deal with presidents in a way that protected the interest of her country over seven decades. I didn't know this until reading your book, but she had access to extraordinary intelligence briefings. How did that work? So almost every day she would get briefing papers. Every week she would get top secret intelligence documents. And so over the period of decades, she was as informed about intelligence issues around the world as any other person.

Over a longer period of time than any leader, and even over issues, say, contingency plans for a nuclear war. She was the one person, I think, who was involved in, aware of what the contingency plans were over that whole narrative, over that whole time when nuclear war was such a threat. You write that there were presidents who were smitten by her to include Truman, Reagan, George W. Bush, but soft power can only go so far in many respects. So give us an example where she tried to use her influence, but it simply didn't work. Well, no one was more smitten with her than President Trump.

He told me when I interviewed him for the book that one of his earliest childhood memories was being six years old, sitting next to his mother, watching Elizabeth being crowned on television. And when Queen Elizabeth met with him during his first term, there were high hopes that this would lead to a trade deal that would be beneficial to Great Britain. That didn't happen. There were other factors, of course, in that. There was finally a trade deal, but it was after her death. So it didn't mean that she always delivered. But she was very disciplined, and she was always out there trying to deliver. Winston Churchill told her, stay close to the Americans, and that is what she tried to do.

That Trump meeting, you report that a senior British official described the queen wearing the Obama brooch on the day of President Trump's arrival as a silent act. of resistance. That is a striking claim for a monarch who was really studied in neutrality. A rare example of that. But this was a broach that Michelle Obama had given her. She had worn it only once, and that was for the reciprocal dinner with the Obama's. For seven years, she had not been seen in public. Then on the day that President Trump arrives in England, she is in a formal meeting with some religious leaders, and she's wearing it. And I think those close to her told me there was no other way to interpret that, but to, interpret it as a statement of resistance to Trump and a statement of support for President Obama

with whom she was actually quite close. The Queen, as you mentioned, gave no interviews, never wrote a memoir. She kept a diary. How did you go about reconstructing her in her life? So watch what she did, not what she said, because what she said was, let's toast our special relationship, she was never critical in public of any American president. But there were presidents she clearly liked and wanted to spend time with. And there were presidents she did not. You know, she spent a lot of time with Reagan and a fair amount of time with George W. Bush. She spent very little time with Jimmy Carter. And I think there was a message there. You've covered Washington for decades. What did you learn about the presidency itself,

not just the queen, by looking at 13 presidents through her eyes? You know, we think about the force of history, of historic events. And maybe it's easy to forget the power of personality. And the way in which these relationships can really matter, can have an effect. Thinking about the Falklands War, there were some in President Reagan's administration who didn't want to come down on the side of Great Britain.

And the relationship between the Queen and President Reagan and his very strong interest in that horseback ride in Windsor Park contributed to the decision to come down hard on Great Britain's side. Susan Page, the terrific new book, is The Queen and Her Presidents, The Hidden Hand That Shaped History. Always great to speak with you. Oh, it's so nice to see you. Thanks.

As always, there's a lot more online, including a look at the hidden reasons. Airlines are raising bag fees for some passengers. That's at pbs.org slash news hour. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Omna Navazz. And I'm Jeff Bennett for all of us here at The News Hour. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.