PBS News Hour - Full Show - August 19, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Wednesday on the News Hour, a left-wing Democrat wins a primary upset in Florida, but now faces a tough road ahead in the general election. States accuse Meta of deliberately designing addictive features for children and negatively affecting their mental health. Plus, Judy Woodruff joins a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist on a road trip to examine the parallels between the Gilded Age and today. 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 Omna Navaz. On the news hour tonight, a left-wing Democrat wins a primary upset in Florida, but now faces a tough road ahead in the general election. Meta on trial. States accused the tech giant of deliberately designing addictive features for children and negatively affecting their mental health. And Judy Woodruff joins a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist on a road trip to examine the parallels between the Gilded Age and today. It's often said that we live. in a second gilded age, we've erased a lot of the 20th century and just gone back to the late 19th. Welcome to the News Hour. An upset win by a progressive candidate in Florida leads a host of headlines from yesterday's primary elections. Florida state rep Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, beat moderate Democrat Alex Vindman. Even though he had a major spending advantage, Nixon said the race challenges the way the right has sought to define progressives.

In Alaska, another key race, moderate Democrat Mary Peltola is the top vote getter in the nonpartisan U.S. Senate primary. She and incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, move on to the November ballot. Our Lisa Desjardin is here to talk us through what happened yesterday. Okay, Lisa, so let's start with a surprise of the night of big progressive win in Florida. Bring us up to speed. That Senate primary victory was a surprise to most, but not to the candidate herself. She is Angie Nixon, a member of the Florida House of Representatives. She's known for pink, including a pink megaphone.

She did just join the DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, but she stresses that she has a unique and important coalition of the young, the suburbs and cities. She easily defeated Alex Vindman. Some viewers may recognize him as the key witness in the first impeachment of President Trump. He outraged Nixon 16 to 1, but look at where Nixon did well. If you look at the map of the results of Florida, you can see it was really all over the state,

not just in cities and urban centers, but in rural parts. And when we talk to Kimberly Leonard, who writes the Florida playbook for Politico, she said Nixon was a tireless campaigner. He's not a polished politician, and she's someone who's more of a grassroots organizer. I mean, when she walks into a room and gets on stage, people are on their feet, they're clapping, they're jumping. She is just really magnetic. And I think that that was a big difference that ended up carrying her over. A progressive member of Congress who obviously liked to see that win, said, you can't take too much away from it, but one of that person's takeaways was that

maybe there are still doubts about polling overall this election cycle. Meantime, Florida's Republicans remapped the state. How did the incumbents do in their new districts last night? The Democratic incumbents who were targeted did well. Let's look at two big names specifically. That's Democrats, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz, each of them prevailed in their primaries in new remapped districts. Washerman Schultz especially got some attention because she was running in what is now a plurality black district. She ran against four African-American challengers. Some say they split the vote of the black community. Of course, Washington Schultz herself is a well-known incumbent. She has a long record in Florida as well.

She moves on to November. There was one incumbent in Florida who did lose, and it was a Republican. I'm talking about Representative Corey Mills. He's in the midst of multiple investigations. You see there, he fell short. He is alleged there are abuse allegations, assaults. allegations, also accusations that he profited off his office. He denies all wrongdoing, but now because of that result, he will not be returning to Congress in January. President Trump endorsed Corey Mills, but today he tried to frost that over. He wrote on truth social, I told Congressman Cory Mills of Florida, a friend of mine, to get out of the race, but he wouldn't listen. Trump has now endorsed the person who beat Cory Mills last night.

And another person endorsed by the president did win big in Florida. Tell us about the Florida the governor's race. That's right. This is a current congressman with also a very large profile, talking about here at Byron Donald, who now represents Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast. He's been known for his ambition in Congress. Last night, he easily beat all of his competitors to get the Republican nomination in the race to replace Ron DeSantis. He will face Democrat David Jolly. He's a former congressman also. Now, given Florida's recent history, it looks like Donald has the advantage here. But it's also interesting that his win last night was part of an important theme. We have seen in primaries now we have seven black nominees for governor,

some Democrats, some Republicans, in states from Florida to Wisconsin to Nevada, in all of U.S. history to date, there have only been just three black Americans elected to governors in a state. And now we have seven on the ballot in November. Well, from Florida to Alaska, what happened there? Let's go all over. It's the other corner of the country. Democrats had a good night in Alaska, but they still have some tough races in November. Let's start. with the U.S. Senate. That's where former Alaska Congresswoman, Mary Peltola, was the lead vote-getter. She's a key hope of Democrats who want to reclaim the Senate. She's challenging the incumbent Republican Senator. There he is, Dan Sullivan. Now, we talked about this race

because it's a toss-up with a twist. There is a second Dan Sullivan, also on the ballot. We spoke with Eric Stone of Alaska Public Media. He said it will be an intense and expensive race. Mary Peltola has a very high statewide profile. She's very well-known in the state. And Senator Sullivan does too. This is a typically Republican-leaning state, and that sort of gives him a little bit of built-in advantage. Both are going to have a hard time beating each other as we get towards the general election. As of right now, the other Dan Sullivan will be on the ballot, but he got just a small percentage last night.

And in the time that remains, let's talk about South Carolina because Republicans will pick the candidate to replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham next week. And last night was the first and only debate for his sister, the sitting senator, Darlene Graham and her primary opponent. Made a lot of headlines. Tell us why. It's a big understatement to say that this was a big moment for Darlene Graham. As our viewers may remember, her brother died just five weeks ago.

And she was appointed to that seat, but to keep it after January, she's got to win this primary. So here was her debate last night. She presented, first of all, a very pro-Trump and pro-military kind of stance, but she did have trouble, and she was very honest about it when she was asked a specific question about whether Taiwan and China are national security threats. I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security. I'm not that informed on national security, so, but I do support the military. My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. military. My dad was in the Army. I'm not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military. Now, Graham has her brother's political organization behind her and a lot of money. So her opponent, Ralph Norman, who's a sitting congressman, is presenting himself as the outsider. He is self-funded a lot of his campaign.

One thing I noticed is both of them were very careful about Iran. Here is what Ralph Norman said, while saying he thinks the president's doing a good job, he did also say this. We've got to end it. I think we're going to have to tell the American people what's it going to take. If the straits of her moves are still dominated by a country that's supposed to be decimated, we've got to have some understanding on that because I'm not for endless wars. You win them and you get out. Next Tuesday is a primary, but you know South Carolina, it's a deep red state.

whoever wins the primary is by far the frontrunner to become the senator. Indeed. Lisa Desardin, for thanks to you as always. You're welcome. In the day's other headlines, U.S. and Canadian officials are expressing confidence they can reach a final trade deal after President Trump paused tariffs on some Canadian goods. I am very confident in these discussions. Canada's Minister for U.S. trade joined Trade Representative Jameson Greer for talks in Washington today. The tariffs were supposed to take effect after midnight last night, but just before the deadline, President Trump said on social media he was pausing the 50% tariffs for a three-day period.

Speaking to reporters at the site of a new White House helipad today, Trump implied that the deal is nearly done, calling it, quote, very fair. It's good for everybody, but our farmers are going to be thrilled, our manufacturers are going to be thrilled. And basically, we have no tariffs going into Canada anymore. But Canada was charging us tremendous tariffs. We no longer have any tariffs. For his part, Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulated the negotiations and said the two sides are, quote, moving towards an agreement. The Israeli military is opening criminal investigations into two high-profile killings by its troops in Gaza. The deaths of five-year-old Hind Rajab and her family in 2024, as well as the fatal shooting of 15 Palestinian medical workers the following year caused international outwashed.

The cases were among 150 incidents reviewed by the military. In the meantime, local Palestinian officials say at least 10 people were killed in two strikes in Gaza today. Israel says it was targeting Hamas commanders. A relative of one of those killed today called for an end to such attacks. Every day they announce a ceasefire. There is no ceasefire. We are exhausted.

Every day is always worse than the day before. Women, elderly, children. They have become scattered body parts. End this misery for us. Following today's strikes, a Hamas official accused the U.S.-backed Board of Peace as providing, as he put it, cover for Israeli attacks. The board was formally established earlier this year to oversee the ceasefire and reconstruction of Gaza and other conflicts.

The United Arab Emirates says it's halting all trade with Iran a day after it accused Tehran of launching missiles toward its territory. The action further isolates the Islamic Republic, which is currently suffering under U.S. sanctions and a blockade. Iran denies the attack. In the meantime, Iranian Parliament Speaker, Mohamed Bahar Kalibaf, arrived in Iraq today for a three-day visit, as Iraq seeks special status for its oil exports

through the Strait of Hormoz. The country relies on oil for about 90% of its budget, with most exports normally passing through the strait. Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky fired one of his most senior officials today amid a corruption investigation. The dismissal of Ereina Mudra as deputy head of the office of the president is just the latest political challenge for Zelensky, though he is not implicated in the probe. It comes a day after Ukraine's recently fired defense minister, Mikhailo Federov, called for national elections in a direct challenge to Zelensky. He's the popular architect of Ukraine's long-range drone campaign targeting Russian energy

sites and warehouses. President Vladimir Putin tried to downplay the impact of those strikes today. Of course, such attacks have no critical consequences. They never have and never will. But they certainly cause us harm. That much is obvious. We understand this. We see it.

And we know it. Meantime, in the southern Ukrainian region of Gerson, local officials say a Russian drone tore a hole through the roof of this bus, killing at least four people. President Zelensky called the attack vicious. Russia has long denied targeting civilians. NASA has released images showing a crater on the moon caused by the crash earlier this month of a SpaceX rocket. This is how the lunar surface looked before impact.

Here you can see the 60-foot crater caused when the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket plowed into the moon at more than 5,000 miles an hour. The rocket was originally launched in 2025, and its defunct portion then drifted into space for more than a year. NASA has said the crash posed no danger to humans, but it's raised concerns about other space debris. Also today, NASA said its dropping plans to try to rescue its aging swift space telescope. Officials had launched a mission to try to boost it into higher orbit, but instead, the observatory will likely burn up on reentry later this year. Pharmaceutical giants Moderna and Merck said today

that their experimental cancer treatment showed signs of success in a study with high-risk melanoma patients. The first of its kind treatment involves an MRNA vaccine that's tailored to individual patients and pairs it with a separate immunotherapy drug, Ketruda. The combination was effective, helping prevent the skin cancer from returning or spreading. The treatment still needs regulatory approval,

and the companies have only provided broad outlines of their findings. But Moderna stocks surged on the news, jumping nearly 177 percent. Elsewhere on Wall Street today, stocks regained some ground after the Treasury Department moved to ease pressure on the bond market. The Treasury also said today that the federal debt topped $40 trillion for the first time ever.

By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 100 points, the NASDAQ managed a small gain of around 40 points, the SNP 500 also ended slightly higher. Still to come, on the news hour, President Trump picks a new nominee to head the FDA amid outbreaks of food-borne illnesses and a decline in vaccinations. How the president is shifting long-standing relationships with U.S. allies, including South Korea. And we report from the world's largest gathering of twins. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News.

Medout is back in court, this time facing allegations that it knowingly designed Instagram and Facebook to keep children and teenagers hooked, even as it learned about the potential harm to their mental health. Attorneys General from California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are seeking changes to how META operates its platforms and roughly 200 billion. million dollars in penalties. They're part of a larger group of 29 states that sued the tech giant over child safety and privacy. The other states will go to trial later. The states argue meta designed its apps to quote, hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data, and hide the truth from the public. A meta spokesperson called those claims unsubstantiated, saying the company stands by its record of protecting miners on their platforms. For more, we're joined by Bloomberg tech reporter Alexandra Levine, who's been

covering this trial. Alexander, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So META and other social media companies have faced similar allegations. They've gone to trial before. How is this trial different? Yeah, well, we've been hearing about alleged harms to children through social media for so many years at this point. I think what makes this moment very different is that in the past, a lot of the focus has been on the content posted the platforms and how that content could be harmful. Right now, the focus is mainly on product design. So how the actual products of Instagram and Facebook have been built to, as the state attorney general was alleged, to keep children hooked and to harm them, certain design features. And these are deep-seated business practices that are integral to both of the platforms.

But I think the difference between the content posts it and the product design is a key difference. The other key difference here, of course, is that in addition to seeking monetary penalties, the state AGs would like to see injunctive relief measures, which would actually fundamentally changes the way that the platforms operate. So tell us more about those design features. I mean, when the states say that Medek literally designed its products to be addictive for minors, what kind of features are they talking about? We're, of course, talking about the algorithm, but we're also talking about certain features

like infinite scroll, which, you know, keep people just continuously scrolling. There are certain features that have to do with likes being displayed. There's features that have to do with push notifications that are going off at all hours of the day and the night when children are supposed to be. sleeping. There are data collection practices. These are all part of the actual design issues that the state age users are pointing out with the platforms. Well, as part of their defense in this trial, META said in a written statement, this. They say, we're proud of our record in protecting teens on our platforms and the amount of effort we've put into developing protections over the years,

even before these cases were ever filed, and continuing to the present day. So Aligandar, what do we know about those protections? What do they point towards? We know that there's certain default privacy protections for minors, that there are restrictions on accounts for people under the age of 18 that wouldn't exist if you sign up for, you know, a regular adult account on some of these platforms. But one of the things that keeps coming up is that so many, so many people under the age of 18 are signing up for platforms using fake birthdays. And what meta has said is that age verification is really not a meta-only problem. This is an industry-wide problem. And therefore, you know, because they have all these other protections that they say, say they've worked hard to build, that they should not be penalized for an industry-wide problem.

It's really more about all platforms struggling to keep people who are underage off of the platforms and protecting them in that way. So we know what the states are arguing here. We've seen what META and other social media platforms have argued. What does the research actually show when it comes to the harm that social media can cause for children? It's an interesting question because META has repeatedly pointed to research saying that there is no scientific link between mental health harms and social media, mental health harms at teens

and social media. But I think on the other side, you have advocates, you've got critics who are pointing to what they say is actually a growing body of evidence showing that being on screens all day and that being hooked via an algorithm is actually very dangerous, especially for a growing and developing mind. So I think it sort of depends who you ask. And there's research on both sides that I think, you know, you keep hearing thrown around in a lot of these debates going back several years. So briefly, before I let you go, Alexander, what exactly is at stake here for META? I think that the potential price tag on this trial has captured a lot of attention. So META has come out to say that they could face a penalty as high as $1.4 trillion, which is a

remarkable number when you look at the fact that META's market value is $1.5 trillion. And then we've heard from one of the lawyers for the state AGs that the number is actually closer to $200 billion, which, to put that in perspective, is roughly equal to META's revenue from last year. Either way, it's an enormous number. And I think that just the financial stakes here have finally started to catch the attention of not only the public, but also meta investors, but even beyond the potential financial penalty here, I think the prospect of META having to rework, rebuild, change the way that its most popular and stickiest platforms have been built to work. This is the way they've worked for many years. And obviously, you know, they have, they have

evolved, they have improved, they have advanced, AI has changed a lot of things. But for META to have to go back and fundamentally change the DNA of its most popular products, I think, would potentially even be more of a threat to the company than any kind of financial award would be. All right, that is Bloomberg tech reporter. Alexandra Levine, joining us tonight. Alexandra, thank you so much. President Trump has tapped one of his top White House health policy aides, Dr. Heidi Overton, to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Overton has been a strong supporter of the president's health agenda, including efforts to

overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule and separate the measles, mumps, and rebella vaccine into individual shots, changes that have drawn sharp criticism from medical experts. She has also advocated tighter restrictions on the abortion drug Mitha Pristone. Her nomination comes at a consequential moment for the FD. as the administration challenges long-standing vaccine policy and the agency confronts broader questions about the safety of the nation's food supply, including food-borne illness outbreaks and recalls. We're joined now by Lauren Gardner, who covers the FDA for Politico. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. So based on your reporting, what stands out about Heidi Overton's background and President Trump's decision to nominate her?

Well, she's a doctor, which in the kind of recent history of the past few decades of FDA commissioners, nearly all of them have been medical doctors. She's double board certified in public health and in general preventive medicine. She also hails from Johns Hopkins. She has an advanced degree from there in clinical investigation. So much like her predecessor, Martin McCarrie, who was commissioner up until a few months ago. But also really notable that she is a top policy aide to the president. You know, she's got a close working relationship with him.

She was a fellow at the White House during President Trump's first term. So she is very plugged in on all of the political constituencies that this administration is juggling right now, particularly in the public health world. So, you know, I think it's really notable that she really has that kind of political operative. background for an agency that historically has tried to really tow the line and present itself as an independent decision maker. And what more is known about her views on vaccine policy and where, if anywhere, has she departed from the scientific consensus? Yeah, she was present at the signing ceremony last week for the president's executive order

on the childhood vaccine schedule that you mentioned, you know, advocating. for essentially a more slimmed down and spaced out version of the current schedule. This is, you know, not something that we've seen a lot of folks who have been kind of talked about in the FDA sphere really kind of publicly weighing in on. And she definitely spoke a little bit more about that and her vision for working with states on some of these issues last week. And I think a lot of folks who are, you know, close watchers of the agency, whether they maybe lobbyists and pharma companies or, you know, just public health advocates are also asking

themselves that question and are really curious to hear what more she has to say once she ends up on Capitol Hill, assuming that Senator Bill Cassidy schedules a confirmation hearing for her this fall to hear what she has to say about some of these broader vaccine questions that have really come to the fore under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership at HHS. And if confirmed, she would take over an FDA that has lost more than three. thousand employees given the administration's cuts. And one area of particular concern is food safety. Looking at data from the FDA and CDC, there have been about 10,500 cases of foodborne illness associated with outbreaks this year. And that is seven times higher than the annual average

between 2021 and 2025. What explains that? What explains what we're seeing? That's a great question. You know, and specifically cyclospora, the one that, you know, we're all really, hearing about right now. That does annually kind of peak during summer months, which the administration has said as much. But like you said, this is a much higher number of cases that we're seeing now compared to years past. You know, FDA and USDA, the Department of Agriculture, obviously both play a role to some degree in overseeing the safety of the food supply. But this isn't an area that Dr. Overton is particularly well known for food safety. I haven't found any record of her talking about this specific issue.

But I do think given the sheer number of cases that we're seeing and the fact that it's affected so many states and has really impacted people's eating habits and consumers purchasing decisions in the last couple of months, I imagine it's going to be a hot topic of conversation as she continues to move through the confirmation process. Are there functions the FDA is having difficulty carrying out right now because they simply don't have enough people?

Yeah, there are some functions within the agency that have had, you know, kind of longstanding issues with either having enough folks or having enough resources really to be able to carry out, carry out their functions, you know, whether it be inspections of food and drug facilities or just the, you know, people who are reviewing applications for different medical products that have to be go through agency reviewed to get on shelves of stores in the U.S. There has been a lot of attrition, and, you know, this is going to be a major issue for Dr. Overton, should she be confirmed as commissioner? And I'm sure this is something senators are going to want to hear a plan from her about in terms of, you know,

how do you attract people to an agency that has gone through so much turmoil in the recent past. Lauren Gardner covers the FDA for Politico. Lauren, our thanks to you. We appreciate it. Thank you. President Trump said today he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again. and soon and reiterated how good his relationship is with the dictator. The president also spoke again of his displeasure with joint military exercises the U.S. is conducting with South Korea, which Mr. Trump already ordered scale back.

I didn't like the fact that we're doing these massive military exercises really against North Korea. It was, you know, exercise against North Korea when I'm friendly with him. And I was not happy when South Korea said, no, they're not interested in helping us with the Harmo Strait, and yet they get 60% of the royal from the Harmo's straight. I said, would you like to help us? He said, no, thank you. I said, that's nice. But in North Korea, Kim Jong-un's powerful sister said she was not aware of any communication between Trump and her brother. In a statement, she said the president's call to reduce

drills with South Korea was, quote, unworthy of comment and called the drills themselves provocative. And she described the relationship between her brother and the U.S. president as excellent. Last night, we spoke to a former Navy admiral about President Trump's treatment of historic allies. Today, we get a different view. Rebecca Heinrichs was a foreign policy advisor to a Republican member of Congress. She's now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Welcome back. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Good to be here.

Let's just start with what the president said. Today, at the same time, he's criticizing a U.S. ally in South Korea. He says he's friendly with the leader of their adversary, North Korea. Why do that? What do you take away from those statements? Well, so first of all, if you just listen to the president's clearly frustrated that South Korea is unwilling to help get the Strait of Hormuz open and to counter the Iranians. But, of course, the North Koreans have been the ones who have been providing missile capabilities component parts to the Iranians. Really, they've done that since the 1980s.

And these military drills that the president is worried about, they're there to help the United States with South Korea to become better integrated to make sure that we increase our readiness. And so they're not there to be provocative. They're there to deter North Korea. So I think this is just an example of President Trump expressing some frustration on the Iran file, but he really doesn't have this right here. And I suspect that at some point he probably will reverse this and get back to a full-scale military drills, which is what we need. In the meantime, does this hurt an historic alliance when the U.S. needs in the region?

Well, I think we should take it in context. So it certainly doesn't help. But just not even two weeks ago, the president signed. a new directive that would permit allies to help the United States do things like build ships. I mean, the United States needs to go fast on building certain military capabilities, and we do not yet have the manufacturing here at home to do that. But we do collectively with our allies. And South Korea in particular is better suited to produce American ships.

And so even just less than two weeks ago, we had this great news that the United States was going to be collaborating more of South Korea. So there's other good things. I mean, the Undersecretary of War for Policy, Elbridge Colby, back in January, called South Korea a model ally because of their defense investments. So I think there are political military reasons why I think that the alliance is going to withstand this. There's what the president does, as you point out, and what other members of the administration say. But when it comes to what the president has to say, arguably the most powerful voice in the country, does criticizing that kind of ally, does that create a strategic wedge in the region, an opening for China to exploit those kinds of partnerships? Well, I do think that it's, I mean, I think that the president should, it'd be better if he kept his criticisms private and not make them public.

I do think that people understand that this is the way the president talks and is frustrated. And so I think that they take that into account when evaluating this. But again, if you look at just the capabilities that are being developed, the closer relationship between the United States and South Korea on whole, even during the Trump administration, I think, that it has a really, really net positive, I think, for the alliance. You mentioned his frustration with the Iran file. just when you take a step back and you look at the frustration the president has expressed with American allies for not joining in the effort. I'm sure you've heard from the allies themselves. They weren't consulted on the war. They didn't support the war.

Do you agree with his pressure campaign on those allies? On the allies in particular to help with the opening the Strait of Hermuz. I think that at this point, I do believe that to have a longer lasting Strait of Hormuz that's open to international commerce, that we do need an international coalition. And I think that the allies would benefit from that greatly. do understand, however, why the allies would be reluctant to do so now they were not consulted to go into this conflict. And I think that, you know, the president hasn't made it easy because of tariffs, et cetera, leading up to this. And then there's other things like the threats to Greenland. However, it's in the allies' interests. And if you talk to the allies, they'll

say they're not unhappy that the IRGC has been significantly degraded. The ballistic missile program in Iran directly threatened the Europeans. And so they have benefited from this operation. There's the pressure campaign and then there's overt threats, right? We've seen the president come out and threatened to bomb Oman, a Gulf ally for the U.S., who've been mediating negotiations with the Iranians. That was over his frustration, over their negotiations with Tehran to manage the reopening of the Strait of Hormoz. But that kind of language, threatening to bomb a U.S. ally. What do you make of that? Yeah, I mean, the president, I think, is using rhetoric that's unhelpful there. We should not threaten to use military force against allies. And I think that

that came out of, again, frustration because the president has said that we're not going to permit, we, the United States is not going to permit any tolling in the strait. And credible reporting indicates that the Omanis may have been getting a little bit soft and perhaps agreeing with the Iranians of some percentage. They wouldn't call it tolling. They would call it fees. Something to that effect. And so I think that that is why the president lashed out there to make that there would be no tolling at all in the Strait of Hermouse. If you take a step further back, we have now seen in recent days the president threatened an Asian ally, a Gulf ally, a North American ally, our neighbor to the north with those

50 percent tariffs against Canada, which the president now says they are close to a deal, we'll see what happens. There are those who say there are times when the president seems to be tougher on U.S. allies than he does on their adversaries. Do you agree with that? Well, no, I mean, look, again, if we look at what happened, just capability-wise, just look at the status of these alliances. You can say, it's not the way I would do it.

I would not use the kind of rhetoric towards our allies that the president does. But the effect has been that the United States is now receiving something like 30% of exports from our alliances across the alliances, significantly higher than it was even five years ago, and taking import significantly fewer from China. So the United States is growing in our capabilities, our integration, especially militarily across the alliances, which is the only way the United States is going to be able to deter what I see as a Cold War and a growing collaboration between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The United States cannot do this by ourselves. We can only do it collectively with our economies and our militaries with our alliances.

Do I think that the president's rhetoric reflects that? I don't. But I think that the effect of what he has done has been to grow the defense industrial bases and further integrated our military capabilities. And that's a good thing. In the minute or so, we have left to want to put to you what we heard from our guests last night, a retired, we were admiral, who said that there's a risk to that kind of transactional approach, and that that risk far exceeds any benefit from the kinds of concessions and deals that you just laid out that happened in the short term.

Do you share that concern? I think we just don't know. I mean, I understand that side of the argument, and it may be true. I think that we're going to have to see it bear out. But the truth of the matter is the United States needs our allies. They're not a burden for the United States on net. Again, we need what the South Koreans can provide us in terms of shipbuilding capabilities.

And so we need these things. And the allies need the United States. There is no other alternative to the United States for these allies at this point. That's the Europeans, the Gulf states. And it's certainly our Asian allies as well. If you look any direction, you've got the Russians, the Chinese,

the North Koreans, and the Iranians. And so, you know, the United States has had crises before with our allies. in the past historically. I think we're going through some bumpy times, but on that, I think it's going to be okay. Rebecca Heinrichs, the Hudson Institute. Thank you so much for being here. Good to be here. Thanks. An historian and a journalist go on a road trip. No, it's not the start of a joke. It's what Judy Woodruff did this summer with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage. For her

latest book, Gage traveled across the country, exploring the people, places, and turning points that have shaped America over its 250-year history. Judy joined her for part of that journey, starting in Chicago. It's part of her series, Crossroads, America at 250. Elaborate tile work, Edison light bulbs, carved woodwork, gleaming silver. The table is quite something. For you and your 10 best friends to have dinner together. At that time, you would have been served things like turtle soup or Angels on Horseback.

Those were the types of food delicacies. Which is what? What is that? These are the trappings of wealth of the Nickerson family who lived here in the late 1800s and helped make Chicago what it is today. Now the Dreehouse Museum, Director Lisa Key, watches over it all and showed historian Beverly Gage and me around. I liken this house and what this room tells you about the family to sort of someone's social

media feed today. It's a curated way to present their values and how they think of their values. about the world. Gage first toured the Dreehouse Museum and almost 300 other sites around the country when she was researching her book, This Land is Your Land, an historical travel log covering 250 years of America's past. One of her chapters begins in Chicago, a city that became a symbol for the gilded age, when industrialization created eye-popping fortunes virtually overnight.

The big story of the Gilded Age is not only about these new concentrations of wealth, but the concentrations of power that that produced. And one of the big questions of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era was, could you run a democracy? Could this country survive as a republic when you were going to have these concentrations of wealth and power? That was front and center in almost every set of political debates during the age. changed everybody's circumstances. Yes, there was this layer of great wealth. That had an effect

on all of society, didn't it? Right. In cities like Chicago, you began to have new cultural institutions that were being funded by the wealthiest Americans, often kind of high art, classical music, public libraries, sometimes as monuments to themselves. But another piece of what happened was that you began to have movements saying that this is not the way the world ought to operate. We don't want these concentrations of power. These concentrations of wealth are unjust. And so you began to have huge conflict between a mostly immigrant working class in a place like Chicago and the people that they saw as their bosses. 20 minutes drive south along the shore of Lake Michigan, Gage took us to another one. relic. Today, it's the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. But in 1893, it was one of the smaller buildings that made up the World's Fair that drew 27 million visitors from around

the world. This was the Palace of Fine Arts, and if you look at it, you can see the scale of ambition, and it was home to all sorts of extraordinary, statuary, and paintings and art from around the world. see some of that even from the outside of it. That's right. You get a sense of the spirit of the fair, right? This classical statuary, the columns. It was intended to sort of say, hey, look, Chicago, we're like ancient Rome. We're like ancient Athens. We are going to be one of the great cities of the world.

Look at us. Exactly. But as Gage told us, along with that greatness, came problems that would go on to have lasting impact. People start to look to a place like Chicago and say, that's the future. That's the future of America, but then that's the future of modern civilization. It's going to be places like Chicago. New, energetic, fast-growing, industrial cities that are something that's almost entirely new in the world. They're also looking to Chicago to say, wow, the problems that are emerging in Chicago, So, class conflict, poor housing, pollution, homelessness, employment and security, those

are going to be the problems that are going to really define modern society. Nowhere was one of those problems, class conflict, on greater display than in Pullman, Chicago, where luxury rail cars by the same name were manufactured. This is one of the executive houses here in Pullman. Roderick Lewis leads tours around the historic neighborhood that was the nation's first planned industrial company town. And is it true as you go in the direction that we're going, the houses begin to get smaller and smaller as you head into workers' territory?

Certainly. It's very hierarchical here. So on the 111 Street at the executive house row there, an executive row, you find the executives. Further down, heading south here, you'll find the workers' houses. Today you'd never guess Pullman was a site of a site of a house. a landmark worker strike in 1894 that forced a nationwide railroad boycott and violent labor conflict, all triggered by wage cuts and high company town rents. So the strike went from May 11th, pretty much, to the middle of July, unsuccessfully

because President Gover Cleveland involved the National Guard, nationalized the local guard here and broke the strike. There was an important moment in labor relations in the United States. It's a huge moment because it proves. that the federal government could step in and actually through its power and authority end up breaking strikes and things and using that power against the individual worker. CARN number 1518, Bell. We met up with 90-year-old Alfonso Kieros, who was the last Pullman worker to still live

in the community. He's worked hard to preserve its legacy, saving papers and artifacts from the dustbin of history. Why have you stayed here? Because I was part of Pullman. I part of me. I just love Pullman. I was born in Pullman. I think my last days of my life was part of me in Pullman.

So Beverly, here we are driving through North Central Indiana. We've left Chicago. We're on our way to Terre Haute. When we were in Pullman, one of the biggest characters in that conflict was a man named Eugene Debs, who is from Terre Haute, and we're heading, to see his home there. Debs was this sort of ordinary American kid from Indiana. He came up with the idea to build one big railroad union for all the rail workers in the country. He called it the American Railway Union. It is one of the things that helped to make the Pullman strike,

not just this little local conflict, but a big national conflict. Debs ended up in jail as a result of the pullman strike. But he was sort of radicalized by that experience, and he went on to become one of the great figures of early 20th century American socialism. The country's hotbed of radicalism in the early 20th century was centered in this two-story frame house, the home of Eugene Debs, the union organizer, who later ran for President of the United States five times as a socialist. Hello.

Allison Dirk showed us around his museum. So much of what Deb spoke about and wrote about and organized war in his time are struggles that are not set and done today, even just from a life and death safety perspective, or these issues of wars that we might not have a say in declaring, or immigration or speech, or who our economy is designed to serve and who's benefiting from our labor at the end of the day. I think these are still fundamental questions about our role in this world today, too. So the ideas that Debs fought for, you're saying, are still out there and unresolved today.

Absolutely. There is a real appetite in Debs' time and today for big transformative change, radical changes even, to really get to the core of some of the problems that we're looking at. It's often said that we live in a second-guilded age. If you look at the statistics on the American labor movement, we look a lot like what the numbers looked like in the gilded age. But in the middle of the 20th century, you really had a moment of significant labor power that has been falling away ever since. So in the 21st century, it's almost as if on these issues we've erased a lot of the 20th century and just gone back

to the late 19th. Back in Pullman, now a National Historical Park, trains still roll in and out. While many of the questions about wealth, work, and power remain. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Judy Woodruff in Chicago and Terre Haute, Indiana. Among the many fairs and festivals this summer, there's only one where seeing double doesn't require a drink. The Twins Days Festival bills itself as the largest annual gathering of twins in the world. While the festival celebrates the unique bond between twins, it's also a hub for scientists studying what makes them so alike and so different. Dima Zane doubles the fun in Twinsburg, Ohio.

36-year-old Vilma and Sassia Gutierrez love being identical twins. My favorite part of being a twin is just knowing that I always have her and like I can always say it's two against the world. Years ago, they stumbled upon a festival that made them do a double take, the Twinsdays Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. Happy Twins Day. For the last 50 years, twins and multiples from across the globe meet every August to celebrate their twinness. Come in here and just kind of remind you how cool it is to be a twin and special and you are special.

I am special. We're in a twin bubble all weekend and people aren't asking you silly twin questions. You feel normal because no one's looking like, are you twins? There's just, you know, no other kind of bond than being a twin. a bond that has its struggles. What about our fights? We fight like no other. And the worst part, I look like him.

But also major perks. We're in the same grade, so we can just help each other on homework or stuff. She couldn't finish her class. She got pregnant, and so I finished it for her. I got her from a D to B, and the teacher was not to say what my grade was. And even a vocabulary of its own.

She's A and I'm B. A is just the twin that was born first and B is the twin that was born second. It's just twin lingo that you catch on to. The twin bond isn't just a theme of the festival. It's baked into the identity of the city that hosts it, says executive director Andy Miller. There's a lot of wonderful fairs and festivals throughout Ohio and the United States. I think one of the thing that makes this special is the subject of our event,

our people, and they just happen to be identical twins. Twinsburg was once called Millsville, until it was renamed after a pair of identical twins in the early 19th century. Aaron and Moses Wilcox were landowners, and they donated six acres of property, which now is the town square, along with $20 towards the first schoolhouse, in exchange for renaming Millsville to Twinsburg in honor of their twinship. The festival began in 1976, when 36 sets of twins gathered to celebrate the city's twin founders. Today, the festival welcomes around 2,000 sets of twins each year.

This year, we decided to have an 80s themes and it's called Twins' Days Totally Tubular with TWA.O. We're paying homage to the late Tina Turner, legendary, the Tina Turner toys. Along with a parade and contests, ranking twins on everything from most alike and least alike to youngest and oldest. 90 and one half. There's one surprising benefit, unique opportunities for scientific research. With identical twins, they share the exact same DNA, so we're able to specifically study whether environmental factors or DNA contribute to them developing diseases.

Dr. Kelly Scarberry is a dermatologist at university hospitals, among the many research institutions set up at the festival. At his tent, twins scan a QR code and fill out a survey. about whether they have certain conditions, skin diseases, and determining whether any environmental factors they've come across in their life is contributing to these diseases. If you see the QR code, fill out the survey, then it's... They can gather enough data in a day and a half up here at the festival that would normally take them about three years to gather that information because it's all contained here and

there's a plethora of subjects to test from. From the FBI to beauty brands have used twin festival participants to study skin aging, burnout and facial recognition technology. Because I'm able to unlock his iPhone. And I'm able to unlock his iPhone. So they haven't gotten it down pat yet. But for the twins, many of whom return year after year, it's the relationships they form that keep them coming back.

Every year we come back, we keep meeting more new friends. This has honestly become like our second family. And fortunately, last year, I met my husband, so I was able to marry a twin. We have a baby now. While Vilma Gutierrez's baby girl is what twins call a singleton without a twin of her own, she's still surrounded by double the love. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Dima Zane. And before we go, we want to invite you to join us tonight for a special live program on our digital and social platforms.

Tipping Point, the Colorado River Reimagined, examines how drought, overuse, and climate change are straining this vital water source and what the future could hold for the millions of people across the American West who depend on it. Our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, is hosting this special program from the banks of the Colorado River, and he's here to tell us more. So, Miles, what can we expect when we tune in tonight? Well, Jeff and Omna, we're going to do a deep dive, but only metaphorically, because if I tried to do it in this river here, I'd get in real trouble. It's only about knee-high right now. It's 100 degrees here in Grand Junction, which is a perfect metaphor for the situation the river faces.

20 plus years of drought fueled by climate change have reduced the flow. The usage on the river continues to go up and up. And meanwhile, the seven states that share this precious resource cannot come to terms on how to share the shrinking pie. We have four of the key commissioners at the negotiating table here to discuss it, debate it, And who knows? Maybe we'll come up with some side of kind of a chord here today as we discuss it. Don't hold your breath, but we will go deep on the Colorado River if you stay with us after the broadcast. And Miles, you've got a big night ahead. This isn't the only project of yours airing tonight. Tell us about your new series. Well, I'm so glad you asked. Resolved to Solve is my new series, two years in the making.

The first one is tonight. And incidentally, we're going to be talking about. about the role of beavers on the landscape as a way to help preserve water in the Colorado River Basin. In addition to that, we have a story about how seaweed can be used as a way to reduce the amount of methane burping out of cows. This is a show about solutions. We meet the scientists and we look at the possible solutions. I've been telling everybody that it's Anthony Bourdain meets Sir David Attenborough. So please tune in tonight and see that my labor of love. love after two years. I think you'll enjoy it. Well, we certainly look forward to watching. Miles O'Brien, our thanks to you, as always. You're most welcome. And you can watch Resolve to Solve

beginning tonight on your local PBS station and join us on the NewsHours Digital and Social Platforms right now for Tipping Point, the Colorado River Reimagined. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Navaz. On behalf of the entire News Hour team, thank you for joining us.