PBS News Hour - Full Show - August 13, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Wednesday on the News Hour, European leaders underscore priorities for any Ukraine ceasefire deal ahead of President Trump's summit with Putin. Troops begin deploying on the streets of Washington even as funding is cut for community-based crime-prevention efforts. Plus, how deals for companies to pay a percentage of chip sales in China reflect Trump's larger views on security and capitalism. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. Jeff Bennett is away. On the news hour tonight, European leaders underscore their priorities and red lines for any Ukraine ceasefire deal ahead of President Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. National Guard troops begin deploying on the streets of Washington, D.C., even as funding is cut for community-based crime prevention efforts nationwide. Why would you want to stop something that's not just saving people's lives, that's bringing quality of life to a community? And how deals for some tech companies to pay the U.S. a percentage of their chip sales in China reflect President Trump's larger views on security and capitalism.

Welcome to the NewsHour. President Trump today issued a new threat to punish Russia if it doesn't end the war in Ukraine just two days before a high-stake summit in Anchorage with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Trump also spoke with European leaders, including Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who said that Mr. Trump agreed to their principles on the best way to try and end the bloody three-and-a-half-year war. Nick Schifrin reports. As Ukrainian soldiers today struggle to hold the front line, 5,000 miles away, President Trump lobbed a new threat at Russian President Putin. Will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war after your meeting on Friday? Yes, they will. There will be consequences.

There will be. There will be, I don't have to say, there will be very severe consequences. U.S. officials tell PBS NewsHour, President Trump could target Russian energy exports or countries that import Russian oil. But President Trump has made similar threats before, and he would only punish Putin if, and it's a big if, President Trump concludes Putin is unwilling to end the war. If Friday's Anchorage Summit goes well, President Trump said today he would push for a follow-up meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin. If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick second one. to do it almost immediately. And we'll have a quick second meeting between President

Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself if they'd like to have me there. If the second meeting takes place, now there may be no second meeting, because if I feel that it's not appropriate to have it, because I didn't get the answers that we have to have, then we're not going to have a second meeting. In Berlin today, Zelensky, alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz met with other European leaders for a virtual summit that included President Trump. They presented a united front and said President Trump agreed with their requests. Any deal must start with a ceasefire, provide Ukraine security guarantees, and only Zelensky could decide whether to swap land with Russia.

Fundamental European and Ukrainian security interests must be safeguarded in Alaska. That was the message we Europeans conveyed to U.S. President Trump today. and I can say that we were in broad agreement. We had a very good call. He was on the call. President Zelensky was on the call. I would rate it at 10. But Russia said today its soldiers would keep fighting for the same maximalist demands. Right now, Russia controls nearly one-fifth of Ukraine, including nearly all of the eastern province of Lujansk. Moscow is demanding Ukraine withdraw from neighboring Donetsk as well as Zaporizia and Herzl,

even though Ukraine holds some of those regions. Russia's also demanding international recognition it controls those regions and controls Crimea, occupied by Russia since 2014. Speaking about the principal position on the settlement of the crisis, Russia's position remains unchanged. Those demands are non-starters for Kiev and Europe. Multiple European officials told me today the call with President Trump went as well as they thought it possibly could have. But they are still concerned about what he might agree when he meets with Putin without Ukraine in the room. As a senior European official told me today, they're determined to help Ukraine resist a bad deal if it comes to that.

For a perspective on all this, we turn to Samuel Cherup, senior political scientist at Rand. He served in the State Department during the Obama administration as the co-author of everyone loses the Ukraine crisis and the ruinous contest for post-Soviet Russia. Thanks very much. Welcome back to the NewsHour. I just laid out that European officials are saying today that President Trump agreed to their principles for how they, think the war should end, ceasefire first, no legal recognition of Russian occupation and security guarantees for Ukraine. Are those principles that Vladimir Putin is likely to accept? I don't think so.

I mean, I think we've seen that for him, the ongoing fighting is leverage, and that means that agreeing to a ceasefire up front will deprive him of his leverage. So he's likely to insist on understanding essentially what the contours of the endgame are going to look like before he agrees to stop the fighting. the question of no legal recognition there, I think there's probably a bit more flexibility. At the end of the day, Russia's lived without anyone recognizing the annexation of Crimea for 10 years and, you know, lived just fine. On security guarantees, we've got a lot of words that coming from European leaders on this score, but without much concrete facts on the ground in terms of what

that really looks like. So it's a bit vague there. We focused at the end of our story on the map. The Russian foreign ministry spokesman made this point today. But is that Putin's primary concern, land swaps or what percentage of Ukraine that Russia holds, or is it more what Ukraine's political future looks like? I think at the end of the day, this is not a war about territory for either, and particularly for Putin. For him, the status of Ukraine, its potential future membership in NATO, the nature of Ukraine's future security relationship with the West, you know, the political

character of the Ukrainian state, the size of the Ukrainian military, all of these things are ultimately more important than where the line is drawn. That, at the end of the day, is somewhat important, but the political and security issues come first for him. We, of course, heard President Trump today make a new threat. He was asked if President Putin doesn't end the war. That was the words of the question. after the summit on Friday, would there be consequences?

The president said, yes, there would be severe consequences. U.S. officials talk about the possibility of more energy sanctions, secondary sanctions perhaps on countries that buy Russian energy. Or is that threat or perhaps the execution of that punishment sufficient to get Putin to be more flexible about Ukraine? I think on the margins, yes, he would like to avoid those kinds of outcomes. But if it comes to choosing between pursuing his objectives, in Ukraine and enduring more economic pressure from the United States, he will pursue his objectives

in Ukraine. Let's zoom out. What do you think is the best case scenario for the summit in Anchorage on Friday? And what are the risks of this summit, or perhaps if the summit doesn't go so well? So I think in the best case, the two leaders could agree to actually start a real peace process that, you know, with a place, concrete people, objectives, a timeline, and, of course, we're a place for Ukraine and the Europeans at that table, a process that could take a while, because I think we're not at a position where the war is going to end on Friday

or there's going to be an immediate peace agreement. That just is not how these things work. You know, these have been countries that have been going at it for over three and a half years now, and clearly there's no trust there, and it's going to take a while to get to a point where they're actually agreeing to stop the fighting. So I think if we get a real process coming out of Anchorage, would be a huge success. I think the downside risks, as I think you've heard from Europeans, is that there's some deal that Trump and Putin themselves make that is acceptable to Trump, but not to Zelensky, and then basically the Trump is in a position of putting the screws on Zelensky to accept whatever it is that he and Putin agree to. But another negative

outcome could be no deal at all. If, you know, a summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents occurs and nothing comes out of it, that could be a real setback to both President Trump's and broader efforts to bring the war to a negotiated end. Samuel Chair, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. We start the day's other headlines in the Middle East. Gaza's health ministry says Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people seeking aid across three separate aid distribution sites.

Two of the centers are operated by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which insisted today there were no incidents at or near their sites. The meantime, Palestinians in Gaza City mourned their loved ones following the latest round of Israeli strikes. Family members say nowhere is safe. My cousin's house was targeted. While they were sleeping at three in the morning, sleeping in peace, where do people go? do people go, Arabs and Muslims. Now all of Gaza is targeted.

The latest strikes come after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will, quote, allow Palestinians to leave areas like Gaza City that are being targeted by Israel's military. But he insists they are not being pushed out. Wildfires raging across Europe have now killed at least three people across Albania, Spain, and Turkey. In Greece, a blaze burning near Patras has torn through homes, orchards, and prompted evacuations of dozens of towns. Firefighters say they're losing the battle to protect the perimeter of the country's third largest city. What does it look like? It looks like doomsday. We came from Athens with our Volunteer Association, but we can't do anything more. May God help us and help the people here.

Meantime in Spain, thousands have been displaced by fires north of Madrid. The country's Interior Ministry says they're asking Spain's European partners for help. Officials across the Mediterranean regions say firefighting resources are being stretched thin after weeks of scorching heat. Authorities in Tennessee say at least three people were killed and one other remains missing after downpours flooded parts of the state. Meteorologists tracked nearly seven inches of rain in the Chattanooga area yesterday. the second wettest single day in nearly 150 years. Officials say that a mother, a father, and their child all died when a tree uprooted in the wet soil and fell on their car. Rescuers are also searching for a man who was last seen walking through a flooded road.

Forecasters are warning of more flash flooding across central and eastern Tennessee tonight. A federal appeals court is allowing the Trump administration to move forward with billions of dollars in cuts. to foreign aid. At issue is funding that includes a nearly $4 billion for USAID to spend on global health programs and more than $6 billion for HIV and AIDS programs. By a two-to-one vote, the judges found that the aid groups that had challenged the cuts lacked the legal right to do so. But they did not weigh in on whether the government's cuts had infringed on the spending powers of Congress. More Americans appear to be heeding warnings about the health risks of alcohol. According to a new Gallup poll, just 54% of adults say that they drink, that is an all-time

low. And a record 53% say moderate drinking, or one or two drinks a day, is bad for their health. That's compared to 28% a decade ago. The shift is driven largely by young adults. Moderate drinking, like having red wine at dinner, was once thought to be good for your heart, but evidence now shows even moderate drinking leads to negative health outcomes and is a leading cause of cancer. On Wall Street today, stocks moved higher as hopes for interest rate cuts gather steam. The Dow Jones Industrial average jumped more than 460 points. The NASDAG posted a more modest gain of about 30 points. The S&P 500 also ended in positive territory. And President Trump today announced the first class of Kennedy Center honorees since he took over as

chairman. Country music star George Strait, film icon Sylvester Stallone, Broadway actor Michael Crawford, disco queen, Gloria Gaynor, and the rock band, Kiss, will all be honored. The president said he had an active role in this election. Today, I was about 98% involved. No, they all went through me. They came over. Trump also said he plans to host the awards program,

a first for a sitting president, and he wants to, quote, fully renovate the site to make it a crown jewel of arts and culture in the U.S. In February, Trump fired long-term staff and took over as chairman of the Kennedy Center, filling its board with loyal supporters. Still to come, on the news hour, who is Laura Lumer, the controversial far-right activist who has the president's ear? And educator and YouTuber known as Miss Rachel uses her platform to call attention to the plate of children in Gaza.

This is the PBS News Hour. from the David M. Rubinstein studio at W.E.T.A. in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. The Trump administration moved this week to take over policing in Washington, D.C., and yesterday deployed the National Guard in the city claiming a spike in crime. The president has suggested similar action could be taken in other cities. But the data doesn't back up many of his claims. Murder and violent crime dropped significantly across the U.S. last year, a trend that's continued so far in 2025.

And as John Yang reports, the federal law enforcement crackdown comes even as the administration cuts funding for other kinds of crime prevention work. This summer basketball league in West Detroit is about more than just layoffs and dribbling. These young men are part of forced Detroit, a nonprofit group focusing on community. community violence intervention or CBI. The goal, stop conflicts before they escalate. We got to take the emotions out of it. This is screaming. One, two, three, four.

Force Detroit targets people at risk of either committing or becoming victims of violence, offering services like mental health support and career placement. I couldn't even think of where I'd be without force right now, to be honest. One of my main goals was to get back in school, and they asked me to get back in school. The group relies on the influence of people whose backgrounds give them credibility in their communities, like Executive Director DeWanzo Kennedy. He grew up in this neighborhood and spent almost 15 years in prison on manslaughter and drug charges. If a house is shot up in our community, we go do outreach, figure out who's responsible or who they're saying responsible,

and we're going to try to negotiate and mitigate that conflict. mitigation can give you the time you need to really develop a person and change a person's core belief. For decades, Detroit had the reputation of a blighted city plagued by violent crime. But now, parts of the city are showing signs of revival, and crime has plummeted. Last year, non-fatal shootings dropped 25 percent, and the city had its fewest homicides since 1965. But now some worry that progress is involved. progress is in jeopardy. In April, the Justice Department terminated almost $170 million in grants for CVI efforts across the country, including roughly $2 million for forced Detroit. In a statement

to PBS News, the Justice Department said many grant recipients provided indirect and often vague support to law enforcement or crime victims. Organizations seeking taxpayer money must show how their programming will further the administration's priorities and help improve public safety. Here you have an administration that would make up excuses why this type of stuff shouldn't be done. Why would you want to stop something that's not just saving people lives that's bringing quality of life to a community? In 23, Detroit launched a program called shot stoppers. It helps measure the successive groups like forced Detroit. It works like this. CBI organizations devise strategies to tackle violence in their own parts of the city. Groups get bonus funding if shootings in those

areas drop more than in the rest of Detroit. Last fall, for the first time, all six areas achieved that goal, with reductions between 37 and 83 percent compared with a 35 percent decline outside those zones. This right here saves lives. Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettson helped create shot stoppers when he was deputy mayor. I can't bully police officer

on every block 24 hours a day, but those community violence interrupters, they're able to move and influence in a way that we don't. But there are skeptics. In some cities with CBI groups, crime has gone up. I do not think that the available research

really has attempted to evaluate in the way that I would want to evaluate whether or not CBI works as an intervention. Charles Fane Lehman studies crime at the Conservative Manhattan Institute. I think there are lots of other more promising interventions, both things that we know work, like policing, we have a lot of evidence that policing works,

and also things that I would like to invest in more at the margins. If you force me to choose between starting a community violence intervention program and fixing all the street lighting in my city, I would fix all the street lighting because I know that works. the federal cuts have left dozens of similar programs scrambling. Tyrone Kent is the director of a CBI group called Roka Baltimore, a city that's also fought a high crime reputation. But through July, Baltimore saw its fewest homicides in more than 50 years. We still have work to do because even though the numbers decrease, we're still talking about losing lives in the city.

Roka focuses on those at the center of gun violence, young men like Svion. Hardison. Most young people is either the jail or death. Hardison survived a shooting when he was just 15 and has been in and out of jail for the better part of a decade. Thanks to Roka, he has a job and is working on communication and coping skills. If there's less program like Roker, then it's more crime. Why not keep the funding going? Why not have more funding to help? Because it's working. We're going to be there no matter what. Roka has an act of caseload of about 250. Persistence is a key part of its model, sometimes making dozens of visits before a young person takes the first step and agrees to talk. DeAndre Gordon is an assistant

director. We see there's no food in the refrigerator. We see you don't have no furniture. We see the lights off or whatever the case may be. So us as Roka, we can meet that so that you're comfortable enough with us, the way as though you can start to at least listen and give us an opportunity to show you what we can offer. In April, the Justice Department clawed back about half of the $2 million grant, Roka Baltimore received in 2022, despite the objections of Maryland's governor

in Baltimore's Police Department. While Roka's appeal is pending, it's had to cut staff and pause referrals for new clients. The programs are definitely needed. Without these programs, the city will be, it will be disastrous. Charles Fane Lehman says he'd rather see, federal dollars spent on things like hiring more local police.

In order for community violence intervention to work, a lot of things have to go right. Sometimes it works, and that's fantastic. But there are many more points at which failure is possible in that approach than there are in much simpler criminal justice tools like arrest or incarceration. It's crazy because the violence can go up and law enforcement funding will go up. Earlier this month, Latania Abyss Denson attended a seat. BBI Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago. She started Abu Unity Incorporated in Newport News, Virginia after her daughter's father was

killed by gun violence. Violent crime in Newport News went up about 12 percent in the first five months of the year. For some reason, with community violence intervention prevention programs, if violence goes up, there's a whoa, whoa, you can't fund you any longer because something's not working. Just like with law enforcement, just give us the opportunity. to continue to do the work. In May, five groups whose grants were canceled by the Justice Department went to court

to get the money restored. A federal judge called the cuts shameful, likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. But he said the court lacked jurisdiction, and he dismissed the case. The plaintiffs, including forced Detroit, are appealing. Imagine someone being 20 to 30 feet away from you,

bleeding, dying. And you're trying to get over there. You got people throwing stuff, putting stuff in your way, pushing you. That's what it feels like. It feels like somebody's actually trying to prevent you from saving all the people you grew up around in the community that you live in. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm John Yang in Detroit. President Trump stunned many in the tech world after announcing a controversial deal with chip makers

Navidia and advanced micro devices, allowing them to sell advanced artificial intelligence chips to China in exchange for giving the U.S. government a 15% cut of their revenue. Now there are questions about the legality of this deal and its implications for national security and beyond. For more on this, I'm joined by Scott Kennedy, Senior Advisor, in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Scott, welcome and thanks for joining us. Let's just start with your take on this deal itself for the U.S. to be taking a 15% cut of these private companies' sales to China.

Is there precedent for it and is it legal? I have never heard of a deal like this. As long as I've been watching U.S. government business relations or the tech industry, the U.S. government taking a cut of exports. I think it's pretty unprecedented. We know the president is a source of a lot of creative ideas. I don't think this is necessarily the best one that he's come up with. It has huge implications for the semiconductor industry

and actually all of high-tech as well as the export control regime as well. And is it clear that it's a legal deal? Is a legality issue still at play here? Well, if you read the Constitution and look at Article 1, Section 9, you will see that the U.S. is not supposed to impose export taxes on American companies. Now, it says Congress is not supposed to, and Congress has not had. This is the president asking for this. But it would require someone to challenge this in court for it to be determined to be unconstitutional. And there's a lot of things the Trump administration has done where people

take issue with it and it gets to the courts and they either haven't reached a verdict or have found for the president. So I think at this point, it's not a question of whether it's legal or but whether it makes good sense for American foreign policy or even economic policy to be doing this. We should note it's a huge departure from previous policy that was restricting China's access to these advanced semiconductors, largely due to national security concerns that they could be used for military technology. But the president, President Trump has said that this deal is limited to Navidia's older H20 chips and a similar AMD chip. Take a listen to how he justifies it. This is an old chip that China already has, and I deal with Jensen, who's a great guy, and

Navidia. The chip that we're talking about, the H20, it's an old chip. China already has it in a different form, different name, but they have it, or they have a combination of two will make up for it and even then some. So, Scott, does the president's explanation there address any national security concerns you or others might have? Sure. Well, I mean, there's two ways to look at this. The first is the way the Trump administration originally looked at this, which is in April, in April, when the Commerce Department put controls on this chip and said that it shouldn't be exported.

And we've not heard anything from the Commerce Department yet saying that their evaluation of the national security risk for this chip differ. and I think the Biden administration would have ended up in the same place. There is an alternative argument that says it is really important to promote American technology around the world. And if the Chinese are developing similar chips, we'd rather them use our chips and have those profits go back to American companies and be plowed into our R&D to maintain our tech leadership. But that's not what he's saying there. These still are really quite advanced chips and they potentially could go towards purposes that help the Chinese military. China is a place where it is very difficult to make sure when you export a technology, it doesn't get

diverted for purposes for which it wasn't originally approved. So I think there are some real risks here despite what the president has said. There seems to be also the confluence of economic policy and national security policy at play here. There's a bigger concern about whether this sets up a sort of pay-to-play trade policy, sets precedent for other firms who have restricted exports to China. Do you share that concern? Yes, I'm worried. In the semiconductor industry, which is the crown jewel of crown jewels of America's economy, it takes five, ten, ten, fifteen years for these companies to make plans on what they're going to do, the chips they're going to design, where they're going to be fabricated, who they're going to go to. And they need as much runway as possible, and they need as much support as they can. So instead of taxing them on their sales, we should be providing economic relief. and government grants to further support them. And this is also going to be something

that other companies and other industries are going to be looking over their shoulder with Secretary Bessent said this is a beta test. I'm not sure this beta test is going to turn out the way the administration is thinking it was. And if not, I hope that they decide to abandon it. A lot more to talk about. We'd love to have you back as this develops further.

Scott Kennedy's senior advisor in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thank you for joining us. Sure. A right-wing political activist who spread conspiracy theories and used hate speech has become a central figure in the hirings and firings of Trump administration staffers. Laura Lumer has successfully lobbied to remove AIDS from several key government roles, including the National Security Council. Despite her close alliance with the president, she's drawn some foes within the Republican Party, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green.

Stephanie Sy has more on her mission to shape the Trump administration in her vision. The state of Minnesota is a Somali hush. I don't have any sympathy for self-aiding liberal Jews. We need to be focused on America first, not black. black people first. She regularly utters disgusting garbage. That's how Republican Senator Tom Tillis once described the self-styled journalist Laura Lumer. All of the meritless DEI-Shaniquas talk the same way. But despite her detractors, the online influencer seems to wield real influence, and she knows it. I got multiple people fired this week. Observer say it's not a coincidence that more than a dozen

high-ranking officials in the Trump administration have either lost their jobs or had their nominations revoked after Lumer questioned their loyalty to the president. If, you know, you think he's all these terrible things that all of his detractors call him. Why do you want to work for him? Aren't I doing you a favor? She doesn't like things going on that she thinks are bad for the country. I like her. The woman Trump calls a patriot got her start in media with Project Veritas.

Known for using deceptive tactics, including undercover videotaping, often to make false or exaggerated claims about its targets. How can I help you, are? I just have some questions about... To get to where she is today is, it's truly mind-boggling. David Gilbert has covered Lumer's Rise for Wired. I don't think anyone would ever have guessed 10 years ago, starting out with kind of gotcha clips for Project Veritas,

that she would end up being where she is today. This is unacceptable. You cannot. Get all this day. In 2017, she stormed the stage of a controversial Shakespeare performance in New York. Security, please. In the production, Julius Caesar, who's assassinated, bore President Trump's likeness. That got her arrested, but it also more importantly got her on the radar of figures like Donald Trump and the wider MAGA movement.

Her ambush interviews put Trump's political opponents on the spot. What happened to your 33,000 emails? You're going to get prosecuted, Comey. Rashida, are you willing to admit as a congresswoman that Hamas is a terrorist organization? In 2018, after unleashing a tirade of Islamophobic tweets about then-congresswoman-elect Ilhan Omar, she was banned from the platform for hateful conduct. Lumer handcuffed herself to Twitter's headquarters. in protest. She was also banned from Lyft, Uber, Instagram, and several online banking platforms.

My life is ruined. Does anybody understand how ruined my life is? I'm sick of it. I don't want to do. What she really wanted to do was get the attention of Trump and his base by basically going one step further than anyone else in terms of making extreme claims, making up conspiracies. and, you know, posting openly racist and Islamophobic content online simply in order to get clicks, likes and follows on social media. A fighter is running for Congress, and her name is Laura Lumer. Two runs for Congress followed, with a million dollars in financial support from the likes of Alex Jones, Roger Stone and Matt Gates,

fellow bombastic personalities and conspiracies on the radical right. She refused to accept her 2022 primary loss. I'm not conceiving because I'm a winner. Election denialism inspired by Donald Trump, who Lumer redoubled her support for in the wake of her electoral losses. During the 2024 campaign, Lumer posted, if Kamala Harris wins, the White House will smell like Curry. But now on Elon Musk's rebranded X platform, the post was left live,

although again tagged for potential hateful content. A fantastic woman, a true patriot, Laura Lumer. Trump mentioned her in fond terms on the stump, and she was spotted getting on his campaign plane last fall. But he's never given her a job. Still, she fights for him. I'm starting to have some serious doubts about who is in control in the Oval Office because I have just seen so many instances of Donald Trump giving orders

and then his orders not being respected by his own staff. And Donald... After an Oval Office meeting with Lumer in April, the president fired six National Security Council officials. She makes recommendations of labels and people. And sometimes I listen to those recommendations like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody that I make a decision. Even when the president doesn't give it,

Lumer has taken credit for the firings or resignations of more than a dozen people. including his nominee for Surgeon General, the top lawyer at the National Security Agency, and the vaccine chief at the FDA, who was rehired last weekend. I'm not working for President Trump. I'm not getting paid by President Trump. I'm not in the Trump White House. I wasn't even on the Trump campaign. And yet, I feel like every single day it's a full-time job just to make sure the president is protected and that he's receiving the information that he needs to receive. A full-time job. No one hired her or elected her to do.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Stephanie Sye. She's a preschool teacher to millions of children, though most of her students have never set foot in her classroom. Rachel Accurso, known to the world as Miss Rachel, is the creator of the wildly popular YouTube series songs for littles. That's a lifeline for parents. But she's been making headlines and facing scrutiny for taking a stand on her social media platforms on current events. Jeff Bennett spoke with her yesterday. Her videos built on repetition, music and respect for young minds have helped countless toddlers share their first words and make their first connections. But Ms. Rachel's reach now extends far beyond sing-alongs and story time. She's now using her platform in a different way,

speaking to adults about the crisis in Gaza, highlighting the experiences of children there and sparking conversations that transcend the world of children's media. Can't let children starve. That is not who we are. Rachel O'Kerso joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me, Jeff. So let's start at the beginning. You started songs for littles after your son experienced a speech delay, and you had a hard time finding suitable resources for him. When you first pressed record and launched this account, what was your intention?

I wanted to create videos for him, and I thought maybe some other moms and dads and parents were looking for videos like this for their little ones since I saw a need, but I had no idea anything like this would happen. Your style has been compared to Mr. Rogers, the gentle pacing, the respect for children, and the genuine connection. What about his approach first inspired you, and how are you making that your own? So Mr. Rogers,

the way he felt media and kids programming that we have such a big responsibility, I learned that he imagined speaking to one child or to children through the camera. And since I worked in a classroom and I have children and I've worked with children for a long time, I just imagine one child. and I show that genuine care,

and I think that deep care for all children is felt by the audience. And when you mention the deep care for all children, you have taken a public stand on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, sharing stories, raising funds, speaking out. What responsibility do you feel that you have to address that crisis given your platform? My deep love and care for children doesn't end at my children, at children I know, at children in this country.

It is for all children in this world. And it's so important for me to speak out for children whose human rights are being violated. That's our responsibility as grown-ups is to stand up for kids when they're being denied access to food, water, education for two years. 18,000 children have been killed.

Everyone should be saying something. It's a good thing to care about all kids. When did you first know that this was something that you had to do? Well, I prayed a lot about it. I'm a religious and spiritual person. And I think I realized that there's not another children's media person that is, all of them are a character. And so I said, I think I need to speak out for kids in this world. The zero to three brain development is so crucial.

And if you have a malnourous child who's traumatized and losing family members and displaced, what is that doing to the brain? We know what that does to the brain. And that's not right. Your advocacy, we should say, lives on Instagram, which is separate from your children's programming. How do you draw that line, that distinction? Well, I really serve children on my program zero to three primarily, and it does go up to about five. So we are having Rahaf on our show, and I'm really excited about that.

This is a three-year-old double amputee whom you met. How did that meeting happen? How did you meet her? So the Palestine Children's Relief Fund reached out to me when they saw my advocacy and asked to do a meeting. Let's go back to sleep, Rahaf. And then they told me Rahaf loved the show. And then they said, would you want to meet her and have her on the show? And I said, I'd love to.

Knowing that there are children in Gaza watching your videos, perhaps as one of few moments of joy, how does that make you feel? There really aren't words to express how that makes me feel. I'm so honored that I could be helpful or I could provide a moment of relief or joy in the midst of a genocide. And there has been backlash, as you well know. This past spring, the pro-Israel group, it's called Stop Anti-Semitism. They published an open letter calling on the Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether you were acting as a foreign agent who was being paid, this is a quote, to disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers.

What is your response to that? And how have you been navigating the criticism? I think it's sad to take someone's dedication and love for all children and try and make that wrong. It's not wrong. It's wonderful to be an advocate for all children and deeply caring for a group of children who are in an emergency situation who are starving. It doesn't mean you don't care equally about all children. That's false. And it's painful.

But no amount of pain is going to compare to what people in Gaza are going through. Every time I got worried about it, I just thought about a mom in Gaza who I have a baby who's six months old. She takes formula. I breastfed my first son. When you have a baby who is crying because they are hungry and you're looking at them and you're feeding them and nourishing them, it's just a wonderful thing. And the thought for a minute that you would have formula miles away that can't get to them. And I told my son today, I'm going on PBS News Hour

to try and help the kids in Gaza get food. And I said it's miles away from them and they can't get it. And he said, do they have cars? We talked to kids. Another kid came up to me today and said, Miss Rachel, keep trying to help the kids in Gaza. Our kids are looking at us.

They're saying, why can't these children have food? It's miles away. Why can't you drive it to them? and the mothers are too malnourous to breastfeed. I just shared a poem by a Palestinian mother. She was one of the top ten teachers in Gaza, and her husband is a novelist and professor, and they're living in a tent,

and they have four children. One had a dream to be a surgeon. One had a dream to be a dentist. She said, we're not living in Gaza. We're waiting. We're waiting for food. We're waiting for water. We're waiting for our kids to come home

and wondering if they're going to be one less child in the morning. As a mother, she's not different than me. They're so dehumanized. People have made up stories about them. And it's an excuse to conduct a genocide. And I just wish people could, I wish leaders would hear their voices and sit with Rahaf and her mom

and see that Rahaf doesn't have legs anymore. And this girl is so bright. And every three-year-old I've worked with across all communities, they're all different and unique and beautiful, but they're all the same. And to look at her and for people to think that it doesn't matter that they're the largest cohort of amputees in history, it doesn't matter that 18,000 children have been killed.

It doesn't matter that there's that new acronym, wounded child, no surviving family. Like, it matters. What do you hope is the most enduring impact of Ms. Rachel on the children and families who watch your work? I hope they all know that they're welcome and that they're valuable and that they're worthy

and that they're loved and that they belong and that they're equal. Rachel LeCurso, better known as Miss Rachel, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you so much for having me. And we'll be back shortly, but first take a moment to hear from your local PBS station. It's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like this one on the air.

For those of you staying with us, special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro brings us an encore report about an ancient musical tradition using the violin. It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas. The violinists come from musical traditions as distant as their respective hometowns. Sumant Manjunath's home is right here in Mysur, a rising star in Carnatic music who has performed across the world. Arianna Kim from St. Paul, Minnesota, Grammy nominated a violin professor at Cornell University, far more familiar with the musical scores of Bach or Handel

than this Raga in the Carnatic tradition, improvised entirely. Kim is spending a sabbatical in India, learning a very different adaptation of her instrument, learning that's taken some unlearning, like posture. One of the hard things is to resist the temptation to do what my Western sort of muscles and ear want to do. Like learning how to use these muscles,

differently and using this muscle differently. The instrument sits like an inverted cello, resting on the foot, artist seated on the floor. The traditional tambura strings here replicated via a phone app. You just plug it in and it makes this beautiful drone to play against, and wherever they set that up is their sa. The sa, another adjustment for Kim, tuning her instrument to the Karnatak scale, or Raga. So Dori Mifasolasi is Saragamapadani. So they all have a direct equivalent.

Not quite that simple. The scales are, as she puts it, ornamented. Carnatic music is played mostly in South India. The oldest form of Indian classical music, originally intended as devotional, not necessarily entertainment, and oriented toward the human voice. That likely explains why Carnatic Maestro's from the 18th and 19th centuries saw the violin as a good fit. Kim's three weekly sessions are, with both Sumant Manjunath and his father, Mysore Manjanath, one of India's most renowned Carnotic violinists,

who was away when we visited. Beautiful, once again. Yes, there is no tension. You can play it peacefully. We don't need to make it a little bit faster. You can also take time when you play Magamaga. The learning here is oral, though she takes copious notes. The ancient Raghaz, if written at all, were only loosely outlined by their composers.

Individual artists improvise and build on them, just as jazz musicians do. It's a big change for a musician's school to faithfully follow notes or scores as the composer wrote them. I've always had sort of an interest in music from other parts of the world and how symbiotic they can be. Just as nature inspired thousands of Raga, as she says, the experience here will profoundly inform all her work in future. It inspires new creativity in the way I think about Bach. And when I play American Bluegrass and old-time music,

it makes me think differently about how I might improvise a cadenza in Mozart. And likewise, the similarities between Korean music which I studied in my last sabbatical and chronic music, how the gamakas function, how you sort of unveil a Raga, how you sort of welcome the audience in through an audience. audience in Thurana. And you have the responsibility of understanding sort of the tone and the feeling. Dr. Manjanatha and his son, Sumant, they're just their masters at feeling that internal pulse.

Ariana has been grasping all the minute microtones. Sumant Manjanat was himself complimentary at this recital in the home of a retired Indian diplomat. The amount of observation that she does about the fingering techniques that we played is amazing. She'll return home soon and hopes to jam occasionally with Carnotic artists in America, helping preserve memories, including those in the muscles she awakened, while learning Carnatic violin. For the PBS, NewsHour, I'm Fred de Sam Lazaro in Mysore, India.

And Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Under Told Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Finally tonight, a story from PBS Student Reporting Labs, our high school journalism training program. They traveled to Maryland to learn about one man's very unique job as a so-called riverkeeper. Give your hand and get that up on the deck. Going up. My name is Fred Tutman, and I'm the riverkeeper on the Patuxent River for the last 21 years. As the riverkeeper, I'm an advocate for clean water on the state's longest and deepest inside the state river.

This river doesn't go anywhere except Maryland. My main mission as a riverkeeper is to not only protect the resource to the best we can, so we do file lawsuits and lobby for policy change and new laws and better laws, but also to preserve, particularly on the Patuxent, the tradition of community activism. I kind of stumbled into this work. I was a late life law student after a career in television and radio. I just thought this was made for me. I grew up next to the Patuxan River, and so this was my home river.

I grew up as a boy playing on the river, having little adventures. You know, kind of like Huck Finn or, you know, Mark Twain's novels. I was a kid who played around building my homemade rafts and trying to catch fish in various ways. So the summer camps are a passion project of myself and the people who work here at Patuxan Rorykeeper. All of us have had mentoring. All of us have had people who have been kind to us and shown us stuff. and shown us stuff along the way. Everybody needs mentors. I've seen kids really transformed. I've seen kids come here scared of the water

and leave this camp thinking, ah, I got this. I love that. I think that's really exciting. And who knows? Maybe we'll find another riverkeeper. I'm not a young man anymore. I've had two careers behind me, you know, and I look ahead to some form of succession someday and think if there's going to be a riverkeeper, maybe it'll come from this community that we've started to build. And I think the isms, you know, classism, racism, racism, sexism, those infect every institution, not just the environmental ones. The truth is, the environment is, whether it's intentional or not, is segregated. What people experience in the environment is unique to their social orientation.

And I think that's where we have to really integrate these movements. These movements are dying for more participation, from people, from people of color, people from all walks, clean water. We cannot live without it. And the reality is I don't think the planet's going to get cleaned up by just white people doing all the work. And the rest of us standing around saying, oh, I'm going to be diverse. You know, I mean, how crazy is that? How incomplete a story? The story of America is the story of everybody. Terrific student journalism there. And that is the news hour for tonight. I'm Omna Vaz. On behalf of the entire. NewsHour team. Thank you for joining us.