PBS News Hour - Full Show - August 15, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Friday on the News Hour, President Trump meets with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, with the future of the war in Ukraine hanging in the balance. Washington, D.C., sues the Trump administration for the takeover of its police force, yet another test for the limits of presidential authority. Plus, dozens of newspapers close in the latest disappearance of vital local journalism. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, President Trump meets with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Alaska, with the future of the war in Ukraine hanging in the balance. Washington, D.C. sues the Trump administration for the takeover of its police force, yet another test for the limits of presidential authority. And dozens of newspapers close in the West and Midwest in the latest disappearance of vital local journalism. Losing the community's history that has been preserved in those newspapers for years is an

enormous loss of identity. Welcome to the News Hour. The meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an American military base in Anchorage, Alaska, ended with no apparent resolution to the war in Ukraine, a lofty goal that Mr. Trump set as his objective for today's summit. It was the first time Putin, who has been indicted for war crimes in Ukraine, has set foot in the U.S. in a decade. After meeting for about two and a half hours, the two presidents appeared briefly before the press to read statements and both left Alaska a short time later.

Nick Schifrin is in Anchorage tonight and begins our coverage. Just south of the Arctic Circle today a possible thaw in normally frosty U.S.-Russia relations. For years in the West, Vladimir Putin has been a pariah. Today he was a passenger in President Trump's limousine. But in a joint press appearance, President Trump described today's progress as uneven. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven't quite gotten there, but we've made some headway. So there's no deal until there's a deal.

Earlier today with Fox News as Brett Baer, President Trump's goal was explicit. I won't be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire. But President Putin made clear he had not made that agreement or any deal over Ukraine. We're convinced that in order to make the settlement, lasting and long-term, we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict. That's a reference to caps on the size of Ukraine's military and its ability to join Western organizations, including NATO. In fact, Russia arrived in Alaska confident. Its soldiers have achieved a significant advance near a key logistics hub in eastern Ukraine. And publicly, Moscow's

demanding the map redrawn, with international recognition of Russian control of Crimea and four Ukrainian regions, including land that Ukraine still hold. Russia has suggested giving up small territory it controls in other regions. President Trump said he will talk land swaps with Putin, but said earlier today the final decision was not his. They'll be discussed, but I've got to let Ukraine make that decision. And I think they'll make a proper decision. But I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine.

I'm here to get him at a table. Putin also wanted to expand the conversation, including by proposing. posing an extension to the U.S. and Russia's sole remaining arms control treaty and bilateral economic investment. Sooner or later, we had to amend the situation to move on from the confrontation to dialogue. The U.S. delegation included Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, but President Trump said earlier today that larger conversation with Putin had to wait.

He's bringing a lot of business people from Russia, and that's good. I like that because they want to do business, but they're not doing business until we get the war cell. The war's got to stop and the killing's got to stop. He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not. For years, President Trump has envisioned a better relationship with Putin and Russia. Vladimir, thank you very much.

The two met six times in Trump's first turn, most infamously in Helsinki, where Trump sided with the former KGB spy over his own intelligence community on Russia's 2016 election interference. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be.

You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. This term began with President Trump blaming Ukraine for the war, temporarily cutting off military and offensive intelligence help and scolding Zelensky. You don't have the cards. You're buried there, you're people are dying. But after what Zelensky called a historic meeting in the Vatican, and Russia relentlessly targeted civilian areas, President Trump accused Putin of, quote, going crazy.

I've been hearing so much talk. It's all talk. It's all talk, and then missiles go into Kiev and kill 60 people. It's got to stop. It's got to stop. The president's roller coaster rhetoric continued this week. continued this week. I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval. I mean, he's got approval to go into war. Leading to today's landmark

meeting, even if the progress is still unknown. We'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon. Thank you very much, Vladimir. Next time in Moscow. Oh, that's an interesting one. I'll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening. Thank you very much. And Nick Schiffran joins us now from the room where that press conference took place between President Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. So Nick, at the end of this summit, the end of the announcements from both those presidents, what's your sense of what was accomplished here? You heard from President Trump at the end of our piece just now, suggesting it was

all positive. But at the same time, at the beginning of our piece, you really heard President Trump say that they had not had any agreement on some of the major issues. And you heard President Putin say that Ukraine cannot make any progress without solving those root causes. And Putin has been talking about that for years. Those are non-starters for Ukraine, things like capping the size of Ukraine's military or membership in Western institutions or perhaps even the number of NATO soldiers in Eastern Europe that Putin

has been complaining about for years. So while the two presidents definitely made progress just restarting the kind of normal dialogue in the word that many Russian officials use, a normal dialogue between Putin and Trump. And you heard at the end, of course, at the press conference, you know, Putin joke next time we'll meet in Moscow. Trump said, okay, maybe. So certainly a progress toward a normalized conversation, at the least. But in terms of the substance of what Trump came here to get, a ceasefire in Ukraine, the substance of what Trump wanted to hear from President Putin that, yes, he was willing to end the war, It's pretty clear on that tonight that President Trump did not get what he was looking for here. And, Nick, there's a remaining question, of course, about future meetings that do involve President Zelensky, Ukrainian officials.

But if Ukrainian officials are watching all of this closely, European officials are watching all this closely, what did they take away from what just happened? I mean, I do think it's important to note that if there was going to be another meeting, and President Trump did say they made enough progress to have another meeting, that next meeting would be between Zelensky and Putin. So those conversations, those negotiations over that meeting will continue. But as we've been talking about Omna, the Europeans were incredibly worried that President Trump would come in here and offer President Putin something about Ukraine's future without Ukraine in the room.

We don't know exactly what he's offered. We don't know exactly how far he's gone with President Putin. And so the European concerns remain. But if President Trump stuck to the principles that European officials told me that President Trump declared this week to them that he would ceasefire first, no decisions about Ukrainian land swaps without Zelensky making that decision, and yes, Ukrainian security guarantees, if he stuck to those principles and we got the sense that neither Putin or Trump said there was a breakthrough, Well, then those principles will remain a sticking point between the U.S., between Russia

and the rest of Europe. And so European officials will be waiting to hear how far President Trump went. They'll be waiting for those calls just now, probably, and they will respond to how far President Trump went, and frankly how far Trump didn't go, perhaps, in terms of getting what Putin wanted him to agree to. Nick Schifrin, reporting from the site of that historic summit between President Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. Nick Schifrin, thank you.

Thank you. And for more, let's turn now to Andrew Weiss. He's a former State Department official who served in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He's now Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you for being with us. Great to be with you.

So in agreement to keep the talks going, potentially in Moscow. We'll see what happens. What's your early assessment of this summit and what it yielded? I think there was a lot of focus a lot of overinflated expectations going into today's meeting. President Trump at the beginning of the week said, oh, I'm just going to feel Putin out. And then later on, yesterday

was saying it was a 75 percent likelihood of a big breakthrough. What we saw just now is that Vladimir Putin stuck to his guns. That is the same Vladimir Putin who has been saying that Ukraine's not a real country. He repeated that point today. It's the same Vladimir Putin who said that the war will only end if the root causes are addressed, which is code. for the U.S. and NATO security presence in Europe. It's code for cooperation between Western countries and Ukraine. It's a denial of Ukraine's legitimacy to exist. It's the same Vladimir Putin who has been stringing Donald Trump all along.

They alluded to some kind of deal that they are at least going to shop to the Ukrainians and the Europeans, but we'll see what the elements of that are. Last week's Russian proposal was a sham, and we'll see if this deal survives. close scrutiny. So in your view, this doesn't amount to progress. This is Putin buying more time. Ironically, I give Donald Trump high marks. He stuck to the core principles, which is that he's not in the business of carving up Ukraine's territory and handing it away. He's not in the business of shutting down the U.S. presence in Europe or backing away from NATO. There was none of those kinds of big surprises or curveballs that some people had worried about before the meeting. And it

doesn't seem like he went into the press conference very happy that Vladimir Putin had not given him anything. It didn't seem like he was, you know, super rah-rah or promising a positive outcome here. What he was suggesting is we're in a slog, we're going to keep talking. And, you know, Putin, to my mind, indicated that he was still in the mode of just, I'm going to say nice things about Donald Trump. He dumped on President Biden. He claimed that the Europeans and the Ukrainians might sabotage whatever initiative he and Donald Trump are working on. It sounded very much like we're not making progress. You know, President Trump seems to view this conflict as a war over territory

and that territorial concessions could end it. Is his framing correct? No, this is not a war about territory. And I think that the president and his special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, in sort of intermittent phases over the last six months, have tried to suggest that, oh, if we just recognize Russian control over the territory they've claimed but don't actually have full control over or we give them the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia will sort of back off and will go back into its corner. And what we saw again tonight from Vladimir Putin is he wants all of Ukraine. He

doesn't believe it's a real country. He thinks that the Soviet breakup was a catastrophe, and he wants to reassert Russia's full control over Ukraine. President Trump in the past has threatened what he called severe economic consequences. if Putin isn't serious about ending the war. Does Putin really fear these new U.S. sanctions, these possible U.S. sanctions? Does the U.S. have any economic leverage left over Russia? The word sanctions, I don't think, came up. And instead, today, you know, Vladimir Putin drew this very flowery,

sort of unrealistic picture that the U.S.-Russia economic relationship is sort of dormant, but has great potential. That is an overstatement, to put it mildly. The sanctions that have been imposed on Russia over the past nearly four years, or 10 years, if you go back to the very beginning of the war, are the biggest package of sanctions against any major country in international affairs in recent memory. The threat that the United States has over Russia would be a potential total boycott of Russia's oil production, but that would immediately cause a huge spike in global oil prices.

So it's a threat that no president seems comfortable delivering on. There are certain things the United States could do that would demonstrate that it's serious. For example, there's $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets sitting in banks around the world. If the United States and Europe launched a plan to take that money and to say we're going to use it to underwrite all future cooperation with Ukraine, that would be a serious indication of a long-term commitment, and it would put real pressure on Putin. I'd like to get your perspective on the initial optics of this summit, because it started

with a literal red carpet welcome. We saw President Trump waiting to shake the hand of Latin. Putin. There was a warm greeting. Vladimir Putin then got in the presidential limousine with President Trump. He was seen smiling from ear to ear. How did that strike you? And what message does that send to the world? Vladimir Putin has been treated in most international settings for the past going on four years as a pariah. He's someone who's been indicted on war crimes charges by the international criminal court for the atrocities and kidnapping of Ukrainian children. This is a person with considerable reputational harm on himself, who's done tremendous harm

to his own global standing, which will never be repaired. But by welcoming him, I think Donald Trump has suggested that normalization of U.S.-Russia relations remains one of his abiding goals. What that goal will achieve has never really been well defined by this administration. Today we heard, oh, maybe we'll cooperate in the Arctic, or maybe there'll be cooperation in the energy sector. But again, these are like very lofty ideas. The reality is U.S. Russian interests largely conflict,

and until we get this war addressed, there can't really be a new phase in U.S. Russia relations. Andrew Weiss. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you. second special legislative session to try to approve a new congressional map in favor of Republicans. A number of Texas Democrats who fled the state to block quorum say they're coming back for this session, including Ann Johnson, who appeared on this broadcast last night. She wrote,

quote, I'm returning to Texas to continue the fight from the floor of the House. Democratic members have been gone for nearly two weeks to prevent a redistricting plan backed by President Trump that could add as many as five Republican seats to the U.S. House next year. At an event today, Governor Abbott told reporters he was prepared for further resistance. Every strategy is at play. It depends on when and whether the Democrats show up. You know, they talk as though they're going to be showing up today or tomorrow. We'll wait and see.

But we hold a lot more bullets in our belt. California, Governor Gavin Newsom has promised to retaliate if the Texas plan goes through, saying his state will hold a special election this fall to redraw districts and give Democrats five more House seats. Latoya Cantrell, the mayor of New Orleans, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction. Those charges allege Cantrell went to criminal lengths to hide a romantic relationship with her bodyguard, a recently retired police officer.

Prosecutors called it a three-year fraud scheme and said Cantrell, and bodyguard Jeffrey Vapy exploited their public authority. Cantrell is the first female mayor in New Orleans history. Neither she nor her office have commented on the charges. Aaron has strengthened into the first hurricane of this year's Atlantic season, and it's barreling towards the Caribbean. It's currently churning off the North Leward Islands and could become a major hurricane this weekend. For now, Aaron is not projected to hit land.

But forecasters are still warning of downpours, possible flood. flooding and landslides in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as it passes to their north. At least 280 people are dead and an untold number missing after flash floods wreaked havoc on parts of northern Pakistan and India over the last two days. Sudden monsoon rains caused glacial rivers like this one to turn violent, sweeping away cars and triggering landslides. Witnesses describe the horror as this. The deluge hit this Pakistani village, destroying everything in its path.

I was standing here when the flash flood arrived. I have seen several houses washed away. I also saw seven people, including women and children, washed away by the flash flow. The weather has also made rescue operations difficult and deadly. A helicopter carrying relief supplies crashed into the mountains of northwestern Pakistan, killing all five crew members on board. The monsoon rains are common in South Asia this time of year, but experts say they are increasing, partly from climate change and more destructive due to unplanned development in mountainous areas.

Negotiations on a landmark treaty addressing plastic pollution around the globe fell apart today after 10 days of deadlock. In Geneva, UN delegates talked through the night, well past yesterday's deadline, but failed to reach an agreement. oil and gas producing countries, including the U.S., argued that the treaty should focus more on recycling and reuse than on production caps or phasing out fossil fuels. About 100 countries wanted to limit plastics production. The world produces 400 million tons of new plastic each year, much of it ending up in

landfills and oceans. Without intervention, environmental groups say that output could grow by 70 percent by the year 2040. On Wall Street today, stocks ended the day mostly lower, but still closed out another winning week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the only small gain among the major indices. The NASDAQ fell by almost half a percent. The S&P 500 slipped just below the all-time high. It's set yesterday.

And the little good news from the PBS family this Friday, a certain furry red monster found himself a long way from Sesame Street last night. heart right into battle. Don't be afraid. Take their hundred packs of travel. Elmo made his grand old opera debut in Nashville, alongside country singer Lauren Elena. Fairy and training, Abby Kadabie also sang a duet with the late country legend Loretta Lynn's granddaughter, Taylor. Loretta Lynn and many more country music stars have visited Sesame Street over the years, so it was about time the Muppets came to Music City. Performing at the Grand Ole Opry is a country music right of passage, and the venue celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Still to come. On the News Hour, David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week in politics, and how communities are being affected by the closure of more local newspapers. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, and in the west from the Walter Cronkheim. School of Journalism at Arizona State University. For analysis of a busy news week that's culminated with President Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNBC. Good to see you both.

I am, man. So this summit we saw between President Trump and Putin, Jonathan, it began with that handshake on the red carpet, a warm greeting between these two men. the first time Putin was met by a major Western leader since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And as you heard, Nick report at the top of the show, no clear deliverables out of this summit, no questions taken from reporters either, but progress and agreement to another meeting. What was accomplished here? I don't know. After looking at the, well, I was going to say press conference, it wasn't even a press conference.

But maybe this was the diplomatic equivalent of could have been an email. I'm still trying to understand what came out of this meeting. There was a lot of conversation about we've agreed to something and the president's saying that he's going to call NATO and he's going to call Zelenskyy. Putin's saying he hopes basically the Europeans don't throw a wrench in it and yet we still don't know what that is. And so you fly all that way.

At least I was hoping that we would get at least one piece of paper that had the framework of something that they talked about. David, as you know, going into these kinds of summits, there's usually a lot of preparation that didn't happen in this case. There's usually clear deliverables. Was this progress? The fact that the summit happened at all? No, I don't think it was progress just that it happened. He gave credibility to a war criminal. So I don't count that as progress. I want to say this is the weirdest press conference to have to try to comment about. Because it's like watching two guys eat salad. And then I'm supposed to say, here's what it means for world history. Like,

they, like Vladimir Putin talked like Sarah Palin about how close Alaska is to Russia. And then Trump was making moon eyes at his dear friend Vladimir. And they talked about sort of agreements, but there was no, nothing there, as Jonathan said. The words that leapt out of me, there was the word agreement in there. So maybe there's some agreement. The word that leapt out of me is what Vladimir Putin said root causes. Now when Vladimir Putin talks about root causes, that is the same demands he's been making since the start of this war. He wants territory that his army has not conquered. He wants to control who runs the regime of Ukraine, no Zelenskyy, no NATO membership, a whole

bunch of other stuff. No support for Ukraine. These are non-negotiables. This is not, there's no peace with these root causes. So if he's sticking to the same plans which he has stuck with for all these years, there's no big agreement. And so the way I read the presser is that they didn't reach an agreement. they don't want to look like a failure.

And so they're making nice with each other. They're using these vague words about things, but they have nothing to announce. And that might not be the worst outcome. The worst outcome would be that Donald Trump gave away the store or gave away something. There's no chance Vladimir Putin is giving stuff away. And so if it's just a nothing burger, it could have been worse. Jonathan, to that point, you heard Andrew Weiss mentioned earlier. He gives President Trump credit for sticking to his guns, for not, as David said.

agreeing to land swaps without Ukraine in the room for not changing the rhetoric. And Nick reported earlier, sort of this rhetorical roller coaster he's been on for months before this. But if you're European officials, if you're Ukrainian officials watching all of this, what are you thinking right now? What did they talk about? I mean, even with everything we've been talking about right now, if I were a European leader, if I were the leader of Ukraine, I would be really concerned. I would want to get on the phone with President Trump and find it. okay, what is going on? What did you really talk about?

Do we really have to worry that all of that theater was just covering up something really horrendous that you are gonna push us into? And we just don't know. And we're almost imagining that these two guys who are veteran world leaders walked up to those microphones and said, we're not gonna say anything.

And in 20 minutes, somebody else won't have told the press what's actually happened. Like, they had to go affirmatively think, we're just going to say nothing. It'll all be marshmallows. And then Trump's going to get on the plane on the way back. He'll go back and I presume he'll tell us a little more of what actually happened. It's just weird to have a press conference where you seem to have intensely decided to say, we're going to say nothing. And I'll take any questions at all.

We should under school that. We should also point out that the president did use the opportunity to talk about the so-called Russia hoax and how they talked about how they talked about that again. Several old messages repeated and that lots more to cover in that. We sure we will in the days ahead. While I have you both, I need to ask you about what's happening back here in the United States and the heating up around these redistricting battles. We've seen it kickoff in Texas. Democrats there left the state to try to avoid a quorum that would allow gerrymandered maps to go through their push-through by Republicans

and President Trump wants to see. We've now seen all kinds of folks get in on the fight. President Obama joined a Zoom call with Texas Democrats to praise their fight. We've seen California Governor Gavin Newsom say that California is going to run its own redistricting plan to counter the Texas effort. Politico's reporting. Kevin McCarthy is re-emerging to raise $100 million, he said, to fight the California effort. And Jonathan, all of this is happening is Californians themselves say they don't want gerrymandered maps. The majority of people there are some two-thirds say they want an independent commission to be drawing those congressional lines. Is this the right move for Democrats right now? Are we just heading to an arms race and redistricting. Yes. The people in that poll, they say that now. I would like to see that poll when we get closer to November when they have to vote on this. I think Governor Newsom is absolutely right to fight fire with fire. And let's not forget why we're in the situation to begin with. President Trump told Texas Governor Abbott, I want five more seats out of Texas

in order to maintain the Republican majority in the House. In short, steal the 2026 midterm election. And I think for a lot of Democrats, this was the moment where they have finally decided that they're not just going to sit back and just let democracy erode on their watch. Even though the Texas Democrats are coming back and they're going to get rolled, they're not in the majority.

So they're not going to be able to resist what Governor Abbott is doing. What Democrats have always wanted was their elected leaders up and down the roster is to fight. Even if you know you're going to lose, at least show that you are fighting for something that is worth fighting for. And so I applaud Governor Newsom for doing what he's doing and for those Texas Democrats for standing up for their constituents, but also standing up for democracy. David, as you know, the Democratic argument here is you can't do anything unless you win, right? do what you need to do now, by any means necessary, so to speak, to win political power so you can pass through democratic agendas and democratic priorities.

Is this just where we are now? I understand the argument, but let's do a little ethical experiment here. In World War I, the Germans use mustard gas on civilians, and it helps them. Do you then decide, okay, we're going to use mustard gas on civilians? What Trump ordered Abbott to do in Texas is mustard gas on our democracy. Some people would feel, okay, that was terrible. We have to fight back. It's horrible.

It's horrible. But we're going to fight back. It's just that's war. Gavin Newsom is leaping with both legs. And to me, there's a moral stain that will accompany anybody who does this. Because basically, they are destroying our democracy. You don't let politicians pick voters. You let voters pick politicians.

And the people who oppose juror mandering are they're the ones defending democracy. And so what's going to happen is that we're going to have a race to the bottom. in the middle of. And I fully grant you that Trump started it, so I'm not saying it's totally moral equivalent, but there's a moral stain. And what's going to happen is people are going to say it's those politicians. And loss of faith in the system, loss of faith in democracy, and literally less democracy. Because if you are a Texas voter or a California voter, or if New York does it, or Missouri does it, all the states that are going to do this, you are literally disenfranchising people because you can pick the district so carefully that the voters don't matter so much.

between what's happening in Texas and what's happening in California. In Texas, they are rewriting the maps. Those legislators are rewriting the maps without any input from Texans, from rank-and-file voters in Texas. In California, the governor is proposing this, but the voters have to go to the polls in November and say that this is something that they want the state to do. So California voters have a say in whether they will allow

Governor Newsom and, you know, the Democratic, majorities in the state legislature to fight fire with fire against Texas. So it is not this is not apples to apples here. Is there a more ethical way to gerrymander? Yeah, get independent districts. Like California has a system which is a more plebiscite, so they have voters vote. The Texas has, it's perfectly legitimate democratic if your state Senate and your state elected governor passed this thing. That's that's part of democracy too. But it just appalls me that, you know, we're going to be celebrating the 2050th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And we're watching it.

be corroded in front of our eyes. And it just astounds me that people aren't marching in the streets about this. People marched in the streets in Ukraine just recently, because Vladimir Voluntins Zelensky tried to concentrate power in his own hands. And in the middle of a war, they marched against their war leader. It's Filipinos, Serbians, people are marching in the streets when you try to take away their own power. Here? Crickets. We will see what happens next. Donathan Capehart, David Brooks. Always great to see you both. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. City officials in Washington, D.C. are declaring victory after they say the Trump administration backed away from a plan to appoint the nation's DEA chief as an emergency police commissioner, a move they call an unprecedented federal power grab. The deal comes after the city sued. to block the president's attempt to take control of the Metropolitan Police Department. In a court filing earlier today, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith warned, quote,

in my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive. For perspective on this and the unfolding redistricting battle in Texas, I spoke earlier today with Mark Elias, the Democratic Party's leading voting rights attorney and founder of Democracy Docket.

Mark, thanks for being with us. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So as we said, D.C. is now suing the Trump administration for its attempted takeover of the city's police department. There was an emergency hearing today. How does this effort by President Trump to deploy the National Guard to federalize the D.C. police department? How does it fit into his broader strategy of expanding executive power, especially in Democratic-led jurisdictions? Yeah, so look, Donald Trump is an authoritarian. he admires authoritarian. I mean, you don't take my word for it. Look at who he pals around with

and look at who he cites with approval. And one of the things that authoritarianes do, and one of the things he has tried to do, is to exert police power, whether it's through taking over local police, whether it's through deploying the National Guard, whether it's in L.A. or actually deployed the military, whether it is dramatically expanding the use of federal law enforcement in roles that they were never contemplated for. And he is doing this because he wants to show that he is in charge, that he is able to exert power throughout the country, not just in Congress where Republicans do his bidding,

but in blue cities and in blue states. And it is a very, very dangerous thing. What started in L.A. is now spread to D.C., and unfortunately, I suspect we will see it in other cities as well. Let's talk about what's happening in Texas, where, as you well know, Republicans are trying to redraw that state's congressional map, that Donald Trump's urging to claim an additional five congressional seats to shore up their GOP majority in Congress. You have said that Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to steal the 2026 midterm election. What's your theory of the case?

Yeah, I think he's trying to steal the 26 election, to be clear. I think that all of us have an obligation to stand up and not let that happen. But I think that there is kind of a two-prong approach that Donald Trump has here. And this is, by the way, also something he has frankly bragged about. The first is he wants to make it so that the election is voter proof. Now, redistricting five Democratic seats out of existence in Texas is one way to do that, right? His effort to get Florida, Missouri, Indiana to follow suit is his way of trying to deal with the fact that he is fundamentally unpopular, but he wants to frustrate the ability of voters

to vote out Republicans in Congress. The second thing he wants to do is to make it harder for people who disagree with him to vote. And so we have seen efforts by him and his supporters to engage in voter suppression activities. And then obviously we should never lose sight of what he did after the 2020 election. I was proud to have represented President Biden and the Democratic Party in defeating those efforts in court. But, you know, he went to court

to try to overturn the will of the voters and then ultimately escalated that through a political process. And then finally, with a violent insurrection on the nation's capital on January 6th. So people need to take very seriously the fact that this is not someone who is committed to free and fair elections.

He was prepared after in the 2024 elections to pull those tricks out of his out of his bag if he needed to, and I suspect he will be willing to do so in 2026. There will be people, I'm sure, who will say that gerrymandering for better or for worse is politics as usual. What, in your view, makes this moment

fundamentally different from past redistricting battles? Yeah, so two things. The first is people say we've always had gerrymandering, and in some sense, that is literally true. But it used to be that you gerrymandered by taking out a physical paper map and looking at counties and towns and politicians saying, oh, I think those people like me, I think these people don't like me,

and drawing physical maps. What we are seeing now, just as we see AI and technology, make it easier to do other things, the ability to use technology to draw maps that are not just favor a candidate or don't favor a candidate, but really become voter proof is much more dramatic. But the second thing, and this is something that, we have not seen before, is the willingness to not just redraw districts in the middle of an election cycle, but to re-gerrymander a map. In other words, the Texas map that he is squeezing

five more seats out of by telling Greg Abbott to do his bidding, this is an already gerrymandered map. This map was gerrymandered in 2021 to benefit Republicans. And so what's happened now is they have decided in the middle of the game to now re-gerrymandered the map. And that is frankly not something that has any historical precedent. Even Tom DeLay in the state of Texas that did engage in mid-cycle redistricting in 2006, it did so because the map that had been drawn had not been drawn by Republicans before. But if we open Pandora's box now in which the Republican Party can every two years use technology to just squeeze out more and more seats, then frankly, it's going to to look very dystopian very quickly.

Taken together, this Pandora's box scenario that you describe, and the Trump administration's willingness to deploy the National Guard and to federalize local law enforcement where it sees fit. What proactive steps should election officials, should voting rights groups, civil rights groups, and voters be taking now?

Yeah, so the first thing is we need to all speak out. You know, there's a lot of fear right now. There's fear among lawyers. We've seen big law firms competition. there's fear among everyday citizens, and Lord knows there's fear among those of us in the voting rights and pro-democracy community. But we all have to set that aside, and we all need to be willing to speak out and call out what is happening for what it is and not feel like this is someone else's problem. So that's number one. Number two, for election officials and pro-democracy

groups, we need to be very, very clear-eyed about the role that everyone plays in our democracy. the founders gave election administration to state and local officials, not to the president. In fact, the Constitution doesn't give the president any power over elections. And we need to insist that the courts do their job, that they stand up for democracy. You know, one of the assets that Donald Trump or any authoritarian has is cynicism. He wants us to believe that the courts won't protect us. He wants to believe the elections will be rigged and therefore your vote doesn't matter. We have to insist the courts do the right thing.

We have to support our election officials and our pro-democracy advocates. And we have to tell every voter that it is vitally important that they be registered, that they vote, and they ensure their vote is counted. Mark Elias, founder of Democracy Docket. Mark, thanks again for being with us. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Dozens of communities across five Midwestern states are now left without a local news source, and the journalists who served them are suddenly out of work, following the abrupt shutdown of a regional newspaper chain.

Stephanie Sy has more. Facing deep financial troubles, News Media Corp has decided to shut down 23 news operations, six in Wyoming, seven in Illinois, five in Arizona, four in South Dakota, and one in Nebraska. The closures by the Illinois-based company are just the latest in a trend, contributing to growing news deserts in rural America. Over the past two decades, more than a third of the nation's newspapers have disappeared. For more on what this means for the future of local news, I'm joined by Terry Finnaman, journalism professor at the University of Kansas and co-author of Reviving Rural News, transforming the business model of community journalism in the U.S. and beyond.

Terry, thank you so much for joining the NewsHour. I understand that you previously partnered with one of these newspapers in South Dakota, the Brookings Register. The Brookings Mayor said that paper is irreplaceable, a town of 25,000 people who needed this local newspaper. Can you talk about the role of a paper like this in a small town like Brookings? Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely critical. There's a reason that when this part of the United States was settled, a newspaper was one of the first businesses that was established. It made you a real town to have a newspaper. It is a central place in the community, especially in a time when the nation is so divisive. A newspaper is really that central place to get information about your community

that nobody else is covering, to learn what's going around on around you, to be covering your government for you, to be covering when your school wins the homecoming game. Those things are really important to community identity. And so when you lose your newspaper, especially out of the blue with absolutely no warning, it was just absolutely shocking to this community and the others for that to happen. Yeah, I was reading that one of the newspapers in Page, Arizona had been open for 150 years. And a lot of these papers are what's called the newspapers of record, meaning they not only cover local news, they are where public notices are published to meet legal requirements. What happens when those no longer exist? Well, I mean, you're right. Losing the community's

history that has been preserved in those newspapers for years is an enormous loss of identity of being able to go back and learn about your town and what it's went through the obituaries, which remain one of the most popular aspects of the newspaper for keeping a community's history. I mean, this is an enormous loss to figure out what to do. What about the websites of these and all of the online material that was there? What is going to happen to that? And so this isn't just about losing the day-to-day of the news coverage, but really the whole history of the town. News Media Corp, not to be confused, by the way, with the massive conglomerate news corp.

News Media Corp was blamed by some employees for being poorly managed. But as you know, hundreds of local newspapers are going under every year. What are the common challenges of keeping these newspapers going? Yeah, it's a really complex issue, which is why it hasn't been solved yet. So there's numerous things to think about. Number one is that the business model that newspapers continue to rely on today was formed in the 1800s. literally Andrew Jackson was president when this concept of a penny press was created. And that was literally that news was one penny.

In other words, news should be very cheap. And so when you look nearly 200 years later, many newspapers are still only $1 in issue. We need to be charging more for local news. Now, of course, that's challenging when we are in this environment where people think that news should be free. Advertising, we know, has declined rapidly since the internet and especially since the pandemic. So that is a huge gap. I mean, that has sustained newspapers forever is that advertising revenue. You also have the competition from social media and all of the misinformation on social media.

You have all of these other different venues now for getting news. But really, when you look at it, you only have that one local newspaper that is truly covering your community and where you can get local information. And so trying to explain this more to people in the community how important it is to subscribe to your paper, to advertise in your paper, to provide that for your town. I mean, what happened with these two dozen newspapers should really be a wake-up call for others across the nation, how critical it is to support local news so this doesn't happen in your community. In Wyoming, two publishers have actually agreed to purchase the newspapers that News Media Corp was going to shut down in that

state. What do you make of that deal, Terry? Is that the best that local newspapers can hope for in the short term, that there's an in-state buyer or a benefactor to save them? Yeah, and I mean, that is increasingly common because we're seeing a number of publishers who are in their, you know, outside of this, who are in their 70s and 80s who are trying to sell their newspapers and can't find anybody to take them over. And so you will see these neighboring newspapers step in to try to help these towns and save their communities. One of the things that we really need to work on is introducing young, new reporters to the opportunities in rural news. So much of the emphasis is on national media when most of the journalism that happens in this country is taking place in rural areas.

And we need to do a better job of supporting local news in order to save it. Because I am quite worried in the coming years how many aging publishers there are and how many other newspapers may end up going under if there's nobody else to take over these papers. That is Terry Finnaman, author and journalism professor at the University of Kansas joining us. Terry, thank you. Thank you. 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, for those of you staying with us, food can be a tangible and accessible way to understand and connect with different cultures. One chef has led the movement to bring traditional food from her home country of Laos to diners across the United States. Laura Barone Lopez has this reprise report for our arts and culture series, Canvas. Thank you so much for coming. For Chef Sang Luangla, dinner here at her tip cow restaurant in Washington, D.C., is about more than the food. I saw you order a lap alligator. I was like, oh, I got to go to that table. It's amazing.

It's a chance to highlight the rich heritage and culinary artistry of Laos, a country she fled in 1981 at age 12 with her mother, uncle, and two brothers. after her father was taken to a labor camp. We have to across the Mekong River at 3 o'clock in the morning through a small, tiny boat. Then we have to walk about our chest height water to the other side of the riverbank in Thailand. Some 300,000 people fled the landlocked country in the years after 1975. That was after the failure of both the Vietnam War. And the massive covert nine-year bombing campaign in Laos, led by the U.S., known as the secret war.

When we get to the Thai border, we heard gunshots. So we heard people try to escape, either people try to escape after us, or they just shoot up in the sky when they saw us. Many temporarily settled in refugee camps in northern Thailand. That's where Chef Sang, as she's now known, learn to prepare dishes from across Laos

that are still reflected in her cooking today. I have a stronger flavor because of what I had learned in refugee camps and also when I came to America, and I also meet different people from all over Laos. Once she settled in the U.S., her love of food grew. But she only cooked Lao food for her family and people who were already familiar

with the flavors and strong aroma. I grew up having, like, have to hide. You know, my parents would say, if you eat Lao food, don't eat in front of your friends. I was doing that to my son too. I packed food for him, and I said, just be careful because we don't want your friend to smell. It's like something that we were hiding.

Like, why we should be hiding. In 2010, she became a professional chef, buying her first restaurant Bangkok Golden in nearby Falls Church, Virginia. But her friends and family discouraged her from serving Lao food. And they were like, well, you know, you're not, I don't think you should do it because Thai is very,

it's marketable, Lao is not marketable, nobody know where Laos is. And, you know, of course in my mind at time, you know, I use that as my inspiration, as my motivation, people come for Thai buffet. And then we'll ask, you know, are you here for the buffet or are you here for Lao food? A lot of people were shocked. They've never heard of that.

They was like, what is Lao food? So then we start educated people, you know, about, you know, Laos, Lao food. You just have to talk about it. Talk about it and teach how to eat it. Because Lao food is very, it's very punchen. It's a lot of bedak, which is fermented fish sauce. And there's also a lot of different exotic ingredients, like, you know, spice. And also, like, a lot of fresh herbs.

So we also taught people how to eat it. rice instead of eating with lettuce or buy some like the salad. So we taught people how to grab sticky rice and roll it up in the ball and eat it with lap. She renamed Bangkok Golden in 2017 to Paadek, the very sauce she was taught to hide. This DC location, Tip Cow, is a nod to the rice baskets that serve sticky rice, an integral part of Lao cuisine and culture. Can you smell it? Although many Americans are familiar with Thai papaya salad, she showed me how it's

used in the Lao version, known as Tama Kuhn. That has a spice. I can't embarrass my family. I gotta handle the spice. Her recipe for success has won over diners from all different backgrounds, including Lao Americans. I remember bringing my parents here for the first time and seeing non-Lao people eating Lao food was incredible.

I think like my parents were about to cry, I think I was about to cry. It was really special to get to move to a new city and then have a place that felt like home. I knew of Laos as a region, but I've never tried the food. It's really important to recognize where people are from and like, you know, what made them who they are. Chef Sang now runs four restaurants in and around the Washington area and hosts frequent pop-up events like this recent backyard barbecue and market in Arlington. She's also become the godmother of what's known as the Lao food movement that encourages chefs to embrace their heritage in history.

It's so important to learn the culture to teach people. The only way that I would say I thought about teaching people where Laos is, put Laos on the map. The only way I can do is do food. Lao restaurants have popped up across the U.S. in cities big and small in recent years, including Morganton, North Carolina, Rockford, Illinois, and Wasilla, Alaska. Many run by chefs Luang Loth helped mentor along the way. She gave me some advice on what to do and to follow my instincts, follow my gut, follow my palate.

Chef Jeff Chancholin opened his restaurant, Ma Dare, in Oklahoma City in 2021, after spending more than two decades working at Japanese restaurants there. I wanted to go back to my roots to do loud food because I was kind of ashamed and felt terrible about abandoning my culture for so long. The restaurants won critical acclaim in national press. And like chef saying, he emphasizes teaching through food. I'm trying to make up for that now by learning as much as I can. I'm learning every day. And as I'm learning, I am hopefully training and educating my staff so that they can

educate the diners. And those diners, you can spread the word. Because with this food and with this culture, you know, a lot of it kind of spreads. I were to know. Keeping that history alive is what keeps Chef Sang going. It's also bring me a happiness, bring me as a person, a better person. I'm proud of who I am, proud of my culture. Now I can seem out loud, I'm loud, loud and proud.

You can scream it. Yes. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Laura Barone Lopez in Washington. And there is a lot more online, including our digital weekly show that takes a deeper look at President Trump's takeover of the D.C. Police Department. That's PBS News Weekly on our YouTube page. And be sure to watch Washington Week with The Atlantic tonight on PBS. Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel discussed the historic meeting between President Trump

and Russian President Putin. And watch PBS News News. weekend tomorrow for more on the global response to that summit. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire News Hour team, thank you for joining us and have a great weekend.