PBS News Hour - Full Show - December 18, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Thursday on the News Hour, new economic numbers show a slower-than-expected rise in prices, but Americans remain concerned about the cost of living. We fact-check the claims President Trump made in his year-end White House address. Plus, the U.S. announces a multi-billion-dollar weapons sale to Taiwan, prompting condemnation from China. 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, new economic data show a slower than expected rise in prices, but Americans remain concerned about the cost of living. We fact-checked the claims President Trump made in his year-end White House address. And the United States announces a multi-billion dollar weapon sale to Taiwan, prompting condemnation from China. I think the Russia-Ukraine war is a wake-up call for Taiwan. Like Ukraine, we have a powerful adversary nearby. Welcome to the news hour. Inflation is showing fresh signs of cooling, ticking up 2.7% year-over-year, nearly half a point

lower than many economists had expected. The new data follows the release this week of a long-delayed jobs report that showed weak growth and the highest unemployment rate in four years. Taken together, the numbers could bolster the case for more rate cuts in 2026, though economists caution data collection for both reports was significantly affected by the government shutdown. Last week, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time in four months, citing downside risks in the employment market as its major concern. For a perspective on the economy, we're joined now by Austin Goolsbee, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Welcome back to the program.

Thank you for having me. So let's start with today's inflation report. What stands out to you in these numbers? Well, there's a lot to like in the report that we saw today. If you remember, because of the government shutdown, we just literally went dark on inflation data. And what we saw right before it went dark was a little bit disturbing. there were some categories of inflation that looked like they were going up or not coming down. This report today, what struck me overall is that the headline numbers were much below

where they were expected, and that was pretty broad-based, and it wasn't just concentrated in one freak thing. Now, one-month data is no months, as I like to say, because there's a lot of variability. And that's especially true when you're kind of reaching down and pulling the bottle out. We've got to brush the dust off of it. There are imputations and things. We would want to see this sustain, but there was encouraging, it was encouraging news the improvements that we saw on inflation today. Encouraging news. For months now, the economy has been sending these mixed signals, inflation easing, but the labor market showing real signs of weakness. When you step back and look big picture. What concerns you the most right now? Well, what concerns me the most is

if we were to get more readings like the ones we were getting before the data turned off, where both sides of the so-called dual mandate for the Fed, which the law says when we set monetary policy, we're trying to maximize employment and stabilize the prices. If both sides are getting worse at the same time, that's a very uncomfortable position for the central bank to be in. And that's where we were. In progress on inflation stalled out, but the job market weakening slowly, showing some stability, but weakening pretty steadily. If we return to a circumstance like that, that'd be the biggest concern. The more we get readings like the price readings that we got today on inflation, the more confidence we would have. Now, look, we're on,

we could be on path back to 2%, and then, in my view, rates could start going back down again to some settling point that's below where we are today by a fair amount. So is there enough information that would support cuts? I don't, I mean, for me, one month is not enough information, certainly, but the more information you get, you just want to have some assuredness that we are on path back, to 2% if we make progress like this multiple months in a row that that gives you that kind of confidence you just want to be a little careful one there were as i say if you get down into the weeds of these inflation readings there are a lot of imputations where they said well we didn't have any

information in october so let's assume it was zero kind of thing you wouldn't want to rely just on one month's number when the number is noisy like that. But as I describe it, there's a lot to like in this inflation report. Let's get some more reports like that, and then we'll be feeling much better. Got it. You know, bottom line, affordability remains Americans' top concern. There was a new PBS news poll that shows prices are the single biggest issue for voters across the political spectrum.

70% of those people who were polled said that the cost of living in their area is not affordable. What realistically can the Fed do to ease that burden? 70% is a big number. That matches out here in the heart of the Midwest, the 7th district of the Fed, all the business people I'm talking to, all the consumers that I'm talking to, they're mentioning prices as a major component. The nature of what does affordability mean, there's some aspect of that that has to do with incomes, too, not just what the price level is. And all of those things in the economy are mostly not under the Fed's direct control or intervention. You've got to remember, the Fed is taking the lead on economic stabilization.

We're trying to figure out where are we in the business cycle? If there's danger of recession, then we want to consider loosening to try to ease those dangers. If the economy looks like it's overheating and inflation is getting up too high, we're going to work on that. But what we do is not directly about long-run economic growth, long-run incomes. We're just trying to stabilize inflation and get it back to 2%. That's what we've stated as our goal. And we're going to do that. It's just we've been elevated for a long time now, and it's not as easy as you'd hope it would be.

Gouldsby, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Thanks again for your time. Yeah, wonderful to see you again. In the day's other headlines, police in North Carolina say retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffel and his family were among seven people killed when their private jet crashed this morning outside of Charlotte. Officials say the C-550 had tried to land shortly after taking off from a regional airport used by several NASCAR teams and Fortune 500 companies.

Eyewitness video captured the fiery crash and a large plume of smoke. The NTSBNFAA are investigating. The NewsHour spoke to Biffel last year when he used his own flying experience to deliver supplies to communities hit by Hurricane Helene. For me, it's people helping people. Our motto in this country is, you know, we don't leave an American behind.

And I had the opportunity in front of me to help more people and bring awareness. I would expect someone to do that for me. That's why I want to do that for these folks. Biffel won more than 50 races across NASCAR's three circuits, including 19 at the Cup Series level. He was 55 years old. The U.S. government has admitted to liability in January's deadly air collision in Washington, D.C. In its official response to a lawsuit from one of the victim's families, the Justice Department said, quote, the accident could have been avoided if the helicopter pilot, quote, had maintained visual separation by seeing and avoiding the airliner.

67 people were killed when an Army Blackhawk helicopter crashed into an American Airlines plane as it was coming in for a landing. Today's filing opens the door for families to seek damages in the deaths of their loved ones. The White House announced today that Washington, D.C.,'s leading performing arts center will bear the president's name and be known as the Trump Kennedy Center. I was surprised by it, and I was honored by it. This afternoon, Mr. Trump spoke about his reaction to the renaming. He handpicked the board and is himself chairman. Members of the Kennedy family fired back. Maria Schreiber, who's the niece of John.

F. Kennedy wrote, quote, it's beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy's name is acceptable. It is not. And House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffrey, said the board has no authority to rename the center without legislative action. The Democratic National Committee says it won't issue its report on the party's poor showing in last year's elections. DNC chair, Ken Martin, says that dwelling on the past would be a, quote, distraction,

adding that Democrats are, quote, already putting our learnings and motion. We're winning again, even in places that haven't gone blue in decades. The decision comes after Democrats have enjoyed a string of recent wins in special elections and off-year statewide votes. It also spares top figures like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris from further scrutiny of their failed campaigns. New York has a new archbishop after Pope Leo tapped 58-year-old Bishop Ronald Hicks to serve the areas more than 2 million Catholics. Like Leo, Hicks is from the Chicago area. He'll replace the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan,

who recently confirmed a $300 million plan to compensate victims of sexual abuse. Today, the outgoing Dolan introduced Hicks at a press conference, where he pledged continued, quote, accountability, transparency, and healing. As a church, we can never rest in our efforts to prevent abuse, to protect children,

and to care for survivors. Hicks is widely seen as a moderate whose style is similar to that of the popes. He largely avoids political matters, though last month he endorsed a condemnation from his fellow bishops of the Trump administration's immigration raids. The Islamic State Group today praised last weekend's attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Australia's Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed. The group called the killings a, quote, source of pride but did not claim responsibility. This comes as the youngest victim, a 10-year-old girl named Matilda was laid to rest. At a vigil today, Morner sang the Australian folk tune that shares her name in tribute to her and all the victims of Sunday shooting. Elsewhere, a funeral was held for the oldest victim.

That's 87-year-old Alex Kleitman, a Holocaust survivor who died shielding his wife. wife from gunfire. In corporate news, TikTok has signed a deal to sell its U.S. unit, meaning it can continue operating in this country. That's according to a memo seen by the AP and others. It says that Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX would together control about 45% of the new entity. The sale would end years of efforts to force the company's Chinese parent, bite dance,

to divest its U.S. business over national security concerns. The deal is expected to close in January. Meanwhile, the parent company of President Trump's truth social platform says it's merging with a privately held fusion power company. They say the combined company will be valued at more than $6 billion and will aim to provide the electricity needed to power artificial intelligence. Trump media shares jumped more than 40 percent on the news, but they're still down sharply on the year.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, stocks ended higher after that encouraging inflation data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a modest gain of about 65 points. The NASDAQ jumped more than 300 points. The S&P 500 also ended higher on the day. And journalist Peter Arnett has died. A high school dropout from New Zealand, Arnett covered more than a dozen wars over a four-decade career. In 1966, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War.

Later, he was one of the few Western journalists to stay behind after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Arnett spoke to the NewsHour about his decision to stay while revisiting the country in 2015. The reason I stayed behind is that I'd been there at the beginning, say, 1962, and I'd covered it throughout those intervening years. So I felt that I just had to stay behind to see what would happen to Saigon when the communists arrived.

Arnett went on to join CNN, where he won a claim for his live updates from Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War. But his career was not without controversy. He left CNN in 1999 after a flawed report on a Vietnam War atrocity that apparently never happened. And NBC later fired him after he said on Iraqi State TV that the U.S.-led war plan was failing. He eventually retired from reporting in 2014. Arnette's family says he'd been suffered. from prostate cancer. Peter Arnett was 91 years old. Still to come, on the News Hour, President Trump eases federal restrictions on marijuana. The Trump administration's plans

to cut funding for hospitals that provide transgender care for minors. And the former ambassador to Venezuela weighs in on the U.S. blockade on sanctioned oil tankers. studio at WETA in Washington and in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. President Trump addressed the nation last night in a politically charged primetime speech. In front of Christmas trees at the White House, he blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, and the Democrats in general for economic challenges and inflation. Our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, has this fact check.

Good evening, America. As the first year of his second term comes to a close, President Trump projected positivity. Over the past 11 months, we have brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history. There's never been anything like it, and I think most would agree. The roughly 20-minute speech mostly focused on the state of the economy, as new polling shows Americans concerned about the price of goods and souring on his handling of the issue. In the latest PBS News and PR Marist poll, 57% disapprove of the job he's doing on the economy. Just 36% of poll respondents approve, a record low across both his terms. Throughout the address, the president falsely referred to inflation as a solved problem.

When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years. And some would say in the history of our country, inflation is stopped. Wages are up. Prices are down. Our nation is strong. As we reported earlier in the program, inflation has slowed, but year-over-year inflation remains higher than the federal reserves 2 percent target. Inflation was at a four-decade high in 2022 under President Biden, but had been higher

at multiple points in the 20th century, most recently around 1980 at nearly 14 percent. It had fallen to 3 percent by the time Trump took office in January. The last administration and their allies in Congress brought in millions. and millions of migrants and gave them taxpayer-funded housing while your rent and housing costs skyrocketed. The president repeatedly pointed his finger at both the Biden administration and immigrants for rising costs. Deportations have been a major piece of the second Trump administration's agenda.

At times, receiving criticism for using potentially illegal tactics. There is no clear evidence that immigration substantially contributed to rising housing costs for citizens. Democrat politicians also sent the cost of groceries soaring, but we are solving that, too. Consumer price index data actually shows that more grocery items have increased in price this year than decreased. The price of eggs is down 82 percent since March, and everything else is falling rapidly, and it's not done yet, but boy, are we making progress.

Nobody can believe what's going on. The wholesale price of eggs has fallen more than 80. But retail prices have fallen just 44% from March to September. And the consumer price index rose by 3% in September. Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon in much of the country. In some states, it, by the way, just hit $1.99 a gallon. This is an exaggeration. Estimates show that national gas prices average closer to $2.90 per gallon.

And while some stations in certain states have prices below $2, that's including membership promotions. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taken advantage of our country for many decades, to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600 percent. In other words, your drug costs will be plummeting downward. While costs for some drugs may drop next year, the price cuts the president talked about are not mathematically possible. A 100% cut would mean prescription drugs would be free. I've secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States, which means jobs, wage increases, growth, factory openings, and far greater national security. Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs. President Trump's own White House press office has tallied half of that number in investments,

$9.6 trillion, but that includes many informal pledges from foreign countries and already announced projects. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have each pledged more than $1 trillion, but that's more than their gross domestic products. The president's speech included falsehoods and hyperbole. One of the only new initiatives he announced was what he called a warrior dividend for military service members. But the money comes from previously approved funds by Congress. In honor of our nation's founding in 1776, we are sending every soldier $1,776. Think of that.

And the checks are already on the way. He claimed that tariffs and the Big Beautiful Bill tax package will help pay for the dividends. Senator Roger Wicker praised the move, noting in a statement the 2.9,000, billion dollars in funding comes from the bill passed over the summer. It was allocated to offset housing costs and cost of living increases and meant to be doled out over two years instead of a lump payment. But the funds do not come directly from tariff revenue. We're poised for an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen. The president ended his message with defiance as he looked ahead to next year. We are respected again like we have never been

respected before. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Liz Landers. on cannabis use and research. William Brangham joins us now with more. That's right. For many years, marijuana was a Schedule I drug in a category with heroin and LSD, meaning the government considered it dangerous to use with no medical benefits.

Today's move will slide marijuana down into Schedule 3, with drugs like Tylenol with codeine and testosterone. While this doesn't legalize marijuana, this shift would allow for greater research about the drug, which is something President Trump touted during his announcement today. This reclassification order will make it far easier to conduct marijuana-related medical research allowing us to study benefits, potential dangers, and future treatments. It's going to have a

tremendously positive impact, I believe. So for more on this policy shift, we are joined again by Bo Kilmer. He's with the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Bo, thank you so much for being here again. Let's walk through some of the impacts of this shift. The first one being research. We just heard the president say this is going to open up the floodgates for new scientific research. Is that true? What kind of research will they be doing? What kind of questions might scientists be asking?

Yeah. Well, so you can do research on Schedule 1 drugs, but there's a lot of paperwork and a lot of hoops you need to jump through. So traditionally, when you would move from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 drug, it would mean less bureaucracy to deal with. and it should increase access to research. However, the Congressional Research Service put out a report last year saying that because of a law, that they didn't think that rescheduling cannabis was actually going to have that much of an effect on research because of this bill that had already been assigned into law. Now, look, on the margins, this could increase access for research and maybe it will reduce the stigma for some researchers.

But the bigger question I have is who's going to pay for the research? Typically, the National Institutes of Health would support a lot of this research as, you know, trying to figure out the benefits and the risks associated with cannabis. And so the question is, is will NIH continue to fund this research? Will they prioritize it? Will they put more money into it? That, to me, is the bigger question. And what do you think any other major shifts this categorization change might trigger? Oh, it's going to make some cannabis companies.

is a lot richer. As part of the federal tax code, there's a section called 280E. And essentially, what this part of the code requires is that if you are trafficking in a Schedule I or a Schedule 2 drug, you can't claim normal business exemptions under federal taxes. And so that means there's quite a burden for these cannabis companies. But by moving cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, that 280E part of the tax code no longer applies. So the cannabis companies are going to be very happy with the shift. President Trump today said he didn't want this to be seen as condoning the use of marijuana, which he kept saying is bad, kids don't do it. Do we know if that is true? I mean, we've had all these states legalizing recreational marijuana. Do we know, is it a net benefit

to society? Are there downstream health impacts? Yes. I mean, we're still learning a lot about the products that are being sold in stores. That is, you know, most of the health research that goes on with respect to cannabis isn't necessarily focused on the products that you would get in the dispensaries. So there's a lot of research that still needs to be done in terms of the potential benefits as well as the risks. Do you have a sense as to why this has taken so long? I mean, drug policy advocates have also argued for this for a long time. many other administrations said they would get to this, never did.

Are you surprised it happened during the Trump administration? Well, look, I mean, people have been debating rescheduling in dorm rooms and dinner parties for decades. But it was actually during the Biden administration that they began to make this move toward rescheduling. And, you know, there are two ways to reschedule drugs. You can either pass legislation or you could go through the executive agencies and it requires input from the Department of Health and the Human services, as well as the DEA. And so this process was started during the Biden administration, health and human services put out this report. And then the DEA put into the Federal Register that they were going to be considering this. And then based on that, there was, I think, over 40,000

public comments. And then there were supposed to be some hearings. And then in theory, after those hearings, then the DEA would make a decision and then put that into the Federal Register. Well, over the past couple of years, things got really hung up with those hearings. So it's not entirely clear to me what's going to happen. Are we going to skip those and just go right to the DEA, putting something into the Federal Register about it being reclassified to Schedule 3? Or will there be hearings where policymakers as well as the public will hear more about the health implications of cannabis? Is it your sense that this change might prompt more states to legal, legalize recreational or medicinal use?

I don't know. I mean, we already have about 40 states that allow cannabis to be used for certain medical purposes. And, you know, about half the states have passed legalization for adult use. You know, moving from Schedule I to Schedule 3, the big change there is to be a Schedule 3 drug. It means that the federal government actually recognizes that there's medical value. Now, whether or not that shift from one to three is enough to kind of move public sentiment, enough to where you're going to get more of these bills passed or initiatives passed in different states, I'm not entirely sure.

But this is, I mean, the thing to keep in mind is that this isn't going to legalize what's happening at the state level. I mean, everything you see with respect to medical legalization as well as adult use legalization, this is still all illegal under federal law. And just moving from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 doesn't necessarily, you know, make these things and make any of this activity legal, you know, in the eyes of the federal government. All right. That is Bo Kilmer at the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Bo, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, William. The Trump administration has approved the largest,

single package of weapon sales to Taiwan in U.S. history. Many of the systems mirror those the U.S. has supplied to Ukraine. The move is part of a broader U.S. effort to help Taiwan, like Ukraine, deter and, if necessary, defend itself against a far larger neighbor. Beijing has responded angrily. Nick Schiffran reports. In Taiwan, the military prepares for war. with American artillery designed to sink Chinese invaders. It's the very same weapon the U.S. provided Ukraine to target Russian invaders.

Taiwan is ordering $4 billion worth of this mobile artillery system, Haimars. And $4 billion worth of self-propelled artillery also widespread in Ukraine. Today's package also includes a billion dollars worth of autonomous drones made by by U.S. manufacturer Andro. For years, the U.S. has urged Taiwan to focus less on big, expensive weapons systems that are unlikely to survive a Chinese invasion, and instead fight like Ukraine. Ukrainian soldiers used less expensive mobile weapons like the javelin to disable Russian tanks. After years of debate, Taiwan has embraced the same weapons.

idea of fighting like a porcupine, making itself impossible or fatal to swallow. Including with the javelin, $375 million worth including in today's package. I think the Russia-Ukraine war is a wake-up call for Taiwan. Like Ukraine, we have a powerful adversary nearby. That's why we need more asymmetric weapons to strengthen both our defense and ground forces and counter a powerful air force such as China. China's People's Liberation Army, or PLA, has launched one of the fastest military modernizations in world history.

The U.S. says the build-up is custom designed to prevent U.S. forces to come to Taiwan's rescue, as demonstrated in these propaganda videos, and to be able to invade Taiwan by 27. Today's package of weapons designed to stop this from happening. These are weapons that will really prevent the PLA or maybe even prevent Xi Jinping from making a decision to send the PLA across the strait because they will impose very high cost on an invading PLA. Bonnie Glazer is the Indo-Pacific program managing director of the German Marshall Fund. It's a great honor to be with a friend of mine.

Glazer says there was no guarantee President Trump would send Taiwan weapons when he's made clear he wants a deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. But the new national security strategy declares deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. Many people have suggested that President Trump is softening his language toward China, that he may be willing to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip, and that he doesn't really care very much about Taiwan's security. But I think that this language tells us otherwise. He is not pursuing a more isolationist strategy or pulling back from our commitment to Taiwan. Which is exactly what angered Beijing today, calling the weapons announcement a violation

of diplomatic agreements and an attack on Chinese sovereignty and security. The U.S. side is already covering itself from the fire it's ignited. The Taiwan question is China's core interest and the first impassable red line in Sino-U.S. relations. No one should underestimate the firm will and strong capability of the Chinese government and people to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a bit of a warning message. However, it is only rhetoric. And this is the third arm sale that has taken place since the two leaders met. And China's reaction has been limited to tough rhetoric.

But the new head of Taiwan's opposition party, Chung Li One, is worried about Chinese rhetoric and argues Taiwan should limit its defense spending and says more weapons could provoke the very war they're designed to avoid. She also recently told Georgia Vela NATO was to blame for the war in Ukraine. Putin is a president elected through Democratic votes. You can't label him a dictator. Pining that label on him is unreasonable and unfair. But the Taiwanese government, with the help of the Trump administration, is trying to arm itself.

To avoid the war, the Ukraine has had to fight. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Schifrin. of Health and Human Services unveiled a series of actions meant to effectively ban transition-related medical treatments nationwide for those under the age of 18. Stephanie Sy has more. Jeff and Omna, the moves announced today include cutting off federal Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide those treatments and prohibiting Medicaid funding from paying for such care. Here's what Secretary Kennedy had to say. This morning, I signed a declaration, Sex-rejecting procedures are neither safe nor effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria.

These procedures fail to meet professionally recognized standards of care. Medical professionals or entities providing sex-rejecting procedures to children are out of compliance with these standards of health care. We'll delve into those controversial assertions in a moment, but we should say that before these policies are enacted, there's a lengthy rulemaking process that has to take place. and groups such as the ACLU are already threatening lawsuits. To break some of this down, I'm joined now by Selena Simmons Duffin, who covers health policy for NPR and was at today's announcement. Selena, thank you so much for joining us. We know that about 45% of hospital spending comes from Medicare and Medicaid,

so threatening to cut that off would be existential, I imagine, for most hospitals. Even though these are only proposed rule changes now, Are we going to see widespread stoppage in this care? What might the impact be? Yeah, I mean, children's hospitals have been pioneers in this treatment for transgender young people, which can include puberty blockers, hormone therapy. Very rarely, it can include surgery. But part of the reason why children's hospitals are attractive to parents, children who are

considering this treatment, is because they're interdiscipline. and they have really high quality teams that you can talk to therapists, you can talk to psychiatrists, you can really get that full spectrum of care. And I think that if these rules are enacted, this care will no longer happen at hospitals across the country. And that includes in places where it is legal, even though there are 25 plus states that have banned the care at the state level. Help us understand how unprecedented it is to have the government tell hospitals they won't have access to federal funding if they provide a certain kind of medical care. It is extremely unprecedented. This type of rule is called the condition of participation, and

it's used to create kind of a bare minimum of standards for health and safety in hospitals normally. So rules such as you must have a crash cart available if you're providing, you know, care for people in emergencies, you know, you must have a certain number of staff to patient ratio. You know, those kinds of things, very, very, very basic kind of the floor of health and safety. And you could imagine that the same approach using conditions of participation, as you say, this kind of existential tool to over, hospital budgets, you could use it for any variety of care that any health secretary now or in the future disfavors. And, you know, we're talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current health secretary who has talked skeptically about a host of medical care that is regarded as the standard of care and regarded as safe and effective from antidepressants to vaccines. So it really opens up

an enormous can of worms if these rules take effect and are allowed to stand through the legal challenges that will, for sure, be coming. For all the talk of gold standard science at the announcement today, there were a few non-scientists who made declarative statements dismissing gender dysphoria altogether. I want to play what Jim O'Neill, Deputy Secretary at HHS, who has no medical degree, had to say. Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men. At the root of the evils we face, such as the blurring of the lines between sexes and radical social agendas,

is a hatred for nature as God designed it. Both sides, Selena, of the treatment debate, claimed to have science on their side. and accuse the other side of acting ideologically in a way that harms children. How are we to separate the science from ideology? Is anything definitively known about safe and effective treatment? Well, I think you can really hear ideology at play in those statements from Jim O'Neill. I mean, he did not say, you know, the evidence doesn't support the use of these treatment among the pediatric patients because they have these side effects, et cetera, et cetera.

No, he was saying men cannot become women. Women cannot become men. He's speaking about adults, and that is kind of the foundation of understanding what it means to be transgender. So there was that thread throughout the whole event today that transgender people don't exist in the worldview that you were hearing

from the health officials in this Trump administration. What you see in the materials from this HHS is kind of a rejection of the premise that there are people for whom there might be benefit from this care. And so I don't think that this is really a good faith debate about whether the care works or not or what the protocol should be. It's really kind of more of a bigger picture conversation like Jim O'Neill said about God and about gender and about sex and what's changeable and what's not. And so I do think that it is striking that even under immense pressure of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, all of these

organizations that are composed of doctors that actually see these patients and engage with this care don't agree and really roundly reject this characterization and the way that this administration, this health department have been presenting the evidence. That is Selena Simmons-Duffin with NPR joining us. Thank you. You're welcome. Brazil's president said today that his country is willing to help prevent an armed confrontation between the U.S. and Venezuela.

The remarks come one day after the Trump administration announced it would block sanctioned oil tankers traveling to and from Venezuela and after weeks of escalating pressure on the government of Nicolas Maduro. Last night, we heard from a critic of the Trump administration's approach. Tonight, a different perspective. Jimmy's story spent 25 years in the U.S. State Department and most recently served as ambassador to the Venezuela Affairs Unit based in neighboring Colombia. He now works as a partner at an international consulting firm. Thanks for being with us. It's a pleasure to be here, Jeff. Thanks for having me. You spent years on the ground dealing with Venezuela.

From your vantage point, how significant a turning point is this moment in U.S. policy toward Maduro? Well, this is a significant moment, and particularly the interdiction of the ship, the skipper, who was falsely flying the flag of Guyana, is a big move because the Maduro dictatorship, Maduro regime, lives off of exporting. oil on the black market to certain markets internationally. So this is going to have a chilling effect on both legitimate and illegitimate traffic. Something I advocated for, frankly, for quite a number of years. I think this is within international legal norms. And certainly it was something to have a big impact on the Maduro regime. So walk us through precisely why you think stopping the sale of Venezuelan oil will lead ultimately to the downfall of the

of the regime. Well, part of this is, we've got to go back to July of last year when Nicholas Maduro lost an election that was neither free nor fair, but an election that he allowed to go forward not with the candidate that won the primary of the opposition, Maria Quedino Machado, nor with her selected replacement, but with her second choice who was Edmundo Gonzalez. They weren't anticipating that the Venezuelan people would come out in droves and overwhelmingly vote him out of office, and he's just refused to leave office. So he remains in office because he's supported by people who are making money through various

methodologies. Narcotics trafficking is one of them. Of course, gold smuggling would be another. And finally, it's the export of oil, particularly in the black market, to certain markets in Asia, that gives him the money that he needs to pay off certain generals. in his employee. So this will have a big impact on his ability to pay to stay in power.

What about the president's talk of taking back Venezuelan oil? Doesn't that hand Maduro a ready-made narrative that the U.S. is motivated by resources, not by democracy? You know, when I think about the issue of Venezuela, the resource issue is like number five or six on the list of reasons.

They are a failed state that provides, safe haven for foreign terrorist organizations, such as the FARCD, the ELN, Esbalah, and others. They allow the Russians to undermine democracies across the region by using Venezuela as a launching pad for their online platforms. They've forced out 25% of the population of Venezuela, some 9 million Venezuelans have left that country. They're under indictment for narcotics trafficking. They're under indictment in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. So I was surprised that the president focused in on this piece of it when there's so much other, so many other issues to focus on.

How should the administration strike the right balance between pressuring the regime without worsening conditions on the ground for ordinary Venezuelans? As a former diplomat, as a retired ambassador, I fully believe in the art of diplomacy and the art of the possible when it comes to negotiations. And I think that framing needs to start with Maduro's departure. And then frame out, well, how do you build a robust democracy in a country where the institutions of state have been undermined for so long? I think our focus really needs to be on let's support with the Venice women people that have requested being an election. Let's work on transitional government and transitional justice. And then how can the international community come together to make certain that democracy takes place and stays in power there in Venezuela? So with this Trump pressure campaign, what does success actually look like, and how will we know that we haven't traded one form of instability for another?

Well, one of the key indicators will be, will people are people, will people still be leaving Venezuela or will they start to return? Are people having access to food and medicine, the things that they were denied under a very corrupt, very cruel criminal enterprise there in Caracas? And also, to what extent is Venezuela presenting itself as a threat to its neighbors, neighbors such as Trinidad and Tobago, neighbors such as Guyana, and even with Colombia, where they share a very long, a very unstable border where criminal organizations regularly cross back and forth between the two. So I think those are kinds of things I'd be looking at up front. And then finally, I'd say what the role of the military is. I think we learned a lesson in Iraq with debathification. There are some bad actors in the military, the cartel of the sons, some of them are involved in that. Others have been involved in crimes against humanity.

To what extent, though, can the military be brought in to this experiment or this process of re-institutionalized in the country? I think that's going to be very key. Jimmy's story. Thanks so much for your insights. We appreciate it. Jeff, it's a pleasure to be with y'all. Thank you. Well, it's been said that nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless they've had a dog. Billy Collins agrees.

The former U.S. poet laureate is a literary lion of the New York Public Library and member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He recently released his 12th volume of poetry called Dog Show. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown spent time in New York City with Collins and with dogs to explore this enduring relationship and how Collins translates it to the page. It's part of our arts and culture series, Candace. Hey, buddy. Hey, what's going on? Billy Collins, a dog lover and owner who's been writing about them for decades.

He's now pulled together a selection of those poems in a volume he's dedicated to 85 dogs. those of friends as well as his own. Watercolor illustrations by Pamela Stuybell helped show what's beguiled Collins ever since he got his first dog as an only child. All right, so you like this dog's life? I do, yeah, yeah. Yeah?

Tom's like to be out. When I'm writing, I'm part dog. When you're writing, you are part dog. We talked recently in New York at the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog about why dogs have been such a compelling topic for him. If you write long enough, you discover these obsessions that you might not have been aware

of. Did it look like an obsession? Well, it didn't until I raked them together until I went through all my poems and picked out the dog poems. Then it seemed like, wow, that's a lot of dogs for one person. The young Collins only got a dog of his own after much cajoling of his parents. And his father's reaction has stuck with him. When we got a dog from the pound, my father said, we're going to get a dog.

But remember, we're buying a heartache, which was the dog's going to die before we will, which is a fact of dog and human life. Somebody said, the only dogs are flawless except they die too soon. And this became a kind of theme in some of the poems, right? Absolutely. One of the things about a dog poem or a pet poem, could be a goldfish, is you really have to avoid sentimentality. Which you want to avoid.

That's what we're trying to avoid is the, bring up the violins. But I do have that poem, you know, I think, a dog on his master. So here the dog is quite aware of his own mortality and is wondering if the owner, see it reverses, if the owner shares that awareness, a dog on his master, as young as I look, I'm growing older, faster than he. Seven to one is the ratio they tend to say. Whatever the number, I will pass him one day and take the lead the way I do on our walks in the woods. And if this ever manages to cross his mind, it would be the sweetest shadow I have ever cast on snow or grass. It also goes to the relationship of how much does the dog understand us or lead us? Right. And if we think of friendship, as I do, as a relationship without purpose,

you don't want anything from me, I don't want anything from you. We're just friends. And the only thing we really want is to spend some time together. That's it and a pure friendship. So many of the poems are just about odd features of dog life. One is about when people dress up dogs in a soldier's coat or a lab coat or something. Another one is trying to talk to a dog in Paris and explain English idioms to the dog quite late at night. And there's a poem where I wonder why the dog gets up every once in a while and moves from this room to the next room.

I know you're asked all the time, like, what starts a poem? Now, do you start thinking I'm going to write a poem about a dog? Yeah, something about a dog that I want to write about, and I'll have that much going into it. There's a poem called Dharma where I'm investigating the dogs. I'm impressed by the dog's lack of possessions, the fact that the dog doesn't have any money or clothing, or they seem, and that leads to thinking that they are kind of Buddhist,

they're free of these encumberments of money and jobs and all that. The way the dog trots out the front door every morning, without a hat or an umbrella, without any money or the keys to her doghouse, never fails to fill the saucer of my heart with milky admiration. Who provides a finer example of a life without encumbrance, Thoreau in his curtained his hut, with a single plate, a single spoon? Gandhi with his staff and his wire spectacles. Off she goes into the material world with nothing but her brown coat and her modest blue collar. While endlessly intrigued by what dogs can tell us about the human condition,

Collins is written on subjects of all kinds, including when he was poet laureate, his poem for the nation entitled The Names, honoring victims of 9-11. Yesterday I lay awake in the palm of the night, a soft rain stole in, unhelp by any breeze. And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows, I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened, then Baxter and Calabro, Davis, and Eberling, names falling into place as droplets fell through the dark. Your poetry in general has a kind of simplicity to it, a clarity to it,

but a lot of craft comes into it. I think the craft part comes from having taught English literature for many, many decades and having this kind of rolodex of poetic stuff revolving and teaching semester after semester, Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Hardy. So the voice in my poems is very straightforward. forward. It's without guile and even kind of chummy with the reader. Someone said, no line must sleep. Every line needs to be aware of the lines around it, as opposed to prose, where the sentences just drive forward. Poetry is a language that means more and sounds better

than other written expressions. And then there's still a place for it. I mean, even... Oh, absolutely. There'll always be a place for it. Yeah. It takes us into kind of extreme exercises of the imagination and gives us a new sense of how to look at the world

and intensifies, I think, our sense of being in the world. It makes us take ourselves more seriously. Meanwhile, back in the dog pocket, the party went on. It's like a cocktail party. You'll see people are dogs getting into different groups. Yeah. There's some loud mouth, you know, barking bully.

Little toy dogs are barking. I don't know, it's just they're socializing. They're social groups. And you feel at home at the party? Very much so. I'm not sure what my role is, except the observer. I feel at home, yeah. I'm glad to be invited.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in New York. Well, that's the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us.