PBS News Hour - Full Show - February 17, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Tuesday on the News Hour, how the Trump administration is not only changing recommendations for existing vaccines, but also creating barriers to developing new ones. Repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure leave millions to face cold temperatures without power. Plus, remembering civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who spent decades advocating for the poor and confronting injustice. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, the shifting vaccine landscape, how the Trump administration is not only changing recommendations for existing shots, but also creating barriers to developing new ones. Children are going to die in this country needlessly. More and more are going to die because of what's happening here. These are not harmless policies. Repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure leaves millions to face record-setting cold temperatures without power. We stand strong because we want victory.

Nothing will break us, not the cold or hunger. We're ready to survive anything. We're not giving up. And we remember civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who died after a lifetime spent advocating for the poor and confronting injustice. Welcome to the News Hour. Geneva, Switzerland played host today to not one,

but two rounds of high-level talks aimed at resolving two separate international disputes. We start with Iran and a U.S. official who told Reuters that progress was made in roughly three hours of indirect talks over limiting Tehran's nuclear program. U.S. special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, laid out their case today with mediators from Oman. Speaking to reporters following the talks, Iran's foreign minister said, a new window has opened for reaching an agreement, though more work is needed.

We now have a clearer picture of what needs to be done and what needs to be done down the road. Of course, both sides still have positions that need to be brought closer together, but at least now we have a set of guiding principles and a clearer path to follow. Meantime, Iranian officials temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz for live fire military exercises broadcast on Iranian state television. The strait is responsible for the transit of around 20% of the world's oil. It comes as the Pentagon has added more naval firepower to the Middle East in recent weeks with another aircraft carrier, the USS, Gerald Ford, still en route. Back in Geneva, U.S. negotiators Whitkoff and Kushner also brokered the first of two days of talks with officials from Ukraine and Russia.

Russian state media described the talks as tense, and Ukraine's delegation has said they approached the meeting without excessive expectations as the four-year anniversary of Russia's invasion looms next to. week. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore a slavery-related exhibit at George Washington's former home in Philadelphia. I have great news. We just won in federal court. Supporters celebrated the ruling outside the courthouse, calling it a tremendous victory. Last month, National Park Service workers took down displays that described the local history of slavery on the site, including the nine enslaved people Washington kept there. And her decision, Judge Cynthia Roof cited author George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, arguing the Trump administration does not have the power to, in her words, disassemble historical truths. Repair work is underway

to fix a sewer line on the Potomac River, even as a political battle is raging over what's been called one of the largest sewage spills in U.S. history. In a social media post today, Mr. Trump called on the governors of Maryland and Virginia and the mayor of Washington, D.C., to quote, get to work immediately, adding, if they can't do the job, they have to call me and ask politely to get it fixed. A day earlier, the president placed blame directly on Maryland governor Wes Moore, who fired back, saying the president has his facts wrong again. The busted pipe is under the jurisdiction of a DC-based water authority and the federal government. The president has directed FEMA to assist in the cleanup. In Georgia, a public school in the city of Savannah is mourning the death.

of a special education teacher, Linda Davis, who was killed in a car crash that involved a man-fleeing ice agents. The Department of Homeland Security says Guatemala native Oscar Velazquez Lopez tried to evade a traffic stop early yesterday and collided with Davis' vehicle. Police charged Lopez with first-degree homicide and reckless driving, among others. In a statement, the school's principal called Davis a beloved member of its community, saying her contributions to the students and staff will not be forgotten. The top spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security is stepping down. The person familiar with the decision confirms to the news hour that Tricia McLaughlin will be leaving the administration next week. The source says her departure had been planned since December, but McLaughlin stayed on following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretty in Minneapolis. In her time at DHS, McLaughlin became known as one of the most vocal defenders of President Trump's deportation campaign.

Her exit comes amid growing public disapproval of the administration. hardline immigration policies. Netflix is granting Warner Brothers discovery a seven-day waiver to restart takeover talks with Paramount. Warner Brothers had already backed a deal for Netflix to buy its studio and streaming business. Now Paramount has until Monday to come up with what they're calling a best and final offer to upend that deal. In the meantime, the Warner Brothers Board is advising shareholders to stick with the Netflix offer. Its stock ended the day more than 2% higher. Elsewhere, on Wall Street today, stocks ended largely unchanged.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained around 30 points on the day. The NASDAQ added about 30 points. The S&P 500 also posted a modest gain. Several major celebrations and religious observances are overlapping today. Let's start on the streets of New Orleans and Mardi Gras. Marching vans and floats cruised the streets of the Big Easy, with the traditional tossing of beads and candy to revelers. Martigra is of course French for Fat Tuesday, the last day before Christians begin the season of Lent.

In Egypt, shoppers stocked up on treats and decorations as Muslims prepare to enter the holy month of Ramadan. Those observing the traditional fast will abstain from eating, drinking, and other activities during daylight hours. And in Beijing, traditional lion dancers marked the Lunar New Year holidays. and the start of the year of the horse. Millions will be traveling to visit family, exchanging gifts, and taking steps to ensure good luck for the year ahead. And in Winter Olympic action today, Team USA made the podium in several big events,

but came up short in others, a warning some spoilers are ahead. The U.S. men won silver in the speed skating team pursuit, while the women's team barely missed a medal coming in forth. Mack forehand secured another silver for Team USA in an epic first. free-ski-big-air final amid practically blizzard conditions. And in the men's two-man bobsled, it was a fourth-place finish for the U.S. while Germany swept the event, winning gold, silver, and bronze for their second straight Olympics. Looking at the total medal count, the U.S. remains in third place with 21 medals behind host nation, Italy and overall leader,

Norway. Still to come on the news hour, how the Justice Department is being reshaped by controversial priorities and widespread resignations. Stephen Colbert calls out CBS for blocking an interview with a Democratic candidate. And a new book aims to help readers see Tony Morrison's literary genius with fresh eyes. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced recently it will not review Moderna's MRNA flu vaccine despite late-stage trials showing it was safe and effective. The rejection of the experimental flu application, at least for now, has many in and outside the industry concerned about the Trump administration's approach to vaccine development and recommendations. It's the latest move that reflects health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr's criticism of MRNA technology, which was used by Moderna and Pfizer to combat the coronavirus.

Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and he joins me now. Dr. Osterholm, welcome back to the NewsHour. Thanks for being with us. Thank you very much. So let's start with Moderna's flu vaccine. For those who don't follow this very closely, why exactly is this decision causing some concern? Well, first of all, let me just say that the work that was done by Moderna actually was really well done and should have been reviewed. it's an important step forward to have an MRNA vaccine for influenza. What happened was, despite the vast majority of the FDA staff supporting it, a single individual,

Dr. Prasad, basically decided against approving it coming forward. And this chills up the spines of all of us in public health and the vaccine work because it's so arbitrary. There was absolutely no basis for which to do this. And this really leaves other manufacturers concerned about what might their future directions be in terms of confusion and recommendations. So just for context, Darren, you mentioned there's one FDA official who overruled career scientists recommending the review go forward. How often does something like that happen? It rarely happens. And more importantly, when it does happen, there's the data are presented as to why.

This was, there was no data presented other than to say that they had not tested the vaccine against the basic best vaccine out there, which is one that's only licensed for those 65 years of Asian older. They actually did test up against the vaccine that the vast majority of Americans in this country received every year. So that's just an artificial reason for not going forward with this vaccine. And I think the only thing it speaks to is the ideology issue. We're now running the science component of public health on ideology, not on facts. And so this concern that they raised, you touched on briefly there, the FDA said that it rejected the application because it considered the trials too risky for older Americans? You're saying those risks are not real or significant.

Well, first of all, what could have happened is if, in fact, they didn't have the data for over 65, they could surely license it for those under 65, because that's the standard vaccine that we are getting in this country. And so from that standpoint, that didn't make any sense. They also did do testing to look at how well their vaccine worked in terms of providing an immune response and found that it was superior to the high-dose vaccine. So, There just really was no basis for this. There was no prior warning that they were going to apply this new standard that they did to this vaccine. And this is what's sending chills up and down the spines of all of us in public health.

We don't know how we're going to get new vaccines in the future when they're so arbitrarily decided upon by the agency. You've said that twice now. It's a powerful statement that it sent chills up and down the spines of those in public health. What are you hearing from those in the world of developing vaccines? Right now, we're seeing on a global basis a retrenchment in vaccine research and development because the United States is, in fact, the 800-pound gorilla in the corner that really drives how vaccines are purchased, how they're used. And if, in fact, you have the U.S. government saying we're not even going to review this

particular process, why does anybody else want to invest in these? These studies that Moderna did cost millions and millions of dollars to do. And so we're going to just see, I think, the well dry up on new vaccines. and that's a huge challenge right now as we surely need vaccines for our old flu vaccines, for COVID, et cetera. So again, it just makes no sense whatsoever. Can I ask you about what we've already seen with childhood vaccine recommendations, which we covered recently last month.

The U.S. took the unprecedented step of reducing the number of vaccines recommended for every child from 17 to 11. They're basically emphasizing individual doctor-patient decisions rather than making. universal recommendations. We're in new territory here, but what could be the impact of this, both short-term and long-term? Well, the impact has already been felt, and that is the fact that parents, often, you know, in their 20s, with their young children, wanting to do best for their child, is now hearing about this discussion or debate or recommendation that maybe we hold back on vaccines.

Well, when you're a physician, a nurse practitioner, a pharmacist trying to administer these vaccines, you have to try to explain, well, no, really. they still are just as recommended, but they're really not because the government says they're not. This kind of confusion just adds to the decreased uptake of these vaccines. And in fact, again, the FDA's position on these vaccines of what came through the ACIP, the advisory communication practices, is not based on good science. There's no science to support any of their recommendations. They just came out and declared that these vaccines would now no longer be standard recommended vaccines. So this is dangerous. And to suggest,

we're getting too many vaccines, actually they compared us to Denmark, a country where it's the lowest level of vaccines per country around the world, including a number of low-income countries. We were right in the middle of the number of vaccine doses a child received, and there is no scientific basis on top of that to say that these doses are a problem. So again, smoke and mirrors, sending up a smoke signal that will make a decision based on ideology, not on science. We now have this Moderna flu vaccine review rejected. You've got this change to the childhood vaccination recommendations. How would you say all of this fits into the broader pattern, both in rhetoric and policy of what we've seen from the Trump administration?

Well, let me just put it in very simple terms. For every parent, grandparent today, children are going to die in this country needlessly. More and more are going to die because of what's happening here. These are not harmless policies. These are dangerous policies, and we can't say that strongly enough. And so I hope parents hear that message that, in fact, do listen to your physician, listen to your nurse practitioner, listen to your pharmacists. Don't listen to the federal government because they are not basing their recommendations on science. That is Dr. Michael Osterholm, the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Osterholm, thank you. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Russia launched nearly 400 drones and 29 missiles at Ukraine overnight. The full-scale invasion and war will enter its fifth year next week. Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure, leaving millions there without heat or electricity for weeks at a time. Producer and videographer Amanda Bailey in Kiev and Nick Schiffrin report now on residents of Ukraine's capital, under fire, in record-setting coal.

In Kyiv, this is a dark, bitter winter. A once bustling European capital, now the night streets lie mostly desolate and cold. A city whose homes look as Russia wants them, empty, its residents living in shadows. Seventy-year-old Lutmila Bakurina cooks in her 19th floor apartment by flashlight and gas burner. This winter, the temperatures drop to minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The windows are lined with ice. She helps her daughter stay warm.

The power plants here provide both light and heat. They've had neither for up to 17 hours a day. I'm tired. It's really tiring, to be honest. When you don't go outside and you don't see the sun, when there's no light and you can't just go down to the store. When my husband is at work, my mother and I are dealing with all this together. My mother and I, we support each other.

There is no limit to the support. that 63-year-old Vassal Ivanovitch will give to his 40-year-old son, Taras. But in blackouts, the burden is heavier. Taurus is disabled and can't walk. And no electricity means no elevator. Vassel says he feels like the war has set them back hundreds of years. Inside, no power or heat. So the warmth comes from Vassel, caring for his son and from the Orthodox.

Orthodox Christmas trimmings. But this family is especially vulnerable. The closest shelter is two blocks away, and sometimes the missiles land without warning. Since the start of the year, Ukraine says Russia has attacked the energy grid more than 217 times, including at least six strikes that damaged all three of Kyiv's major combined heat and power plants. It's not all the time. Vasa Levanovich invited us back when the family had power. He used to work at the local subway station. Now he is his son's full-time caregiver.

He keeps a car battery in the kitchen for charging. When people are left without gas and heat, I'm sorry, but it's very difficult, especially children, pensioners, the elderly, and people with disabilities. He shows himself in younger days and his family. his grandfather wearing a Soviet uniform. Today he calls Russians terrorists. I can't imagine these children will grow up and remember these times, Russia, and these people who did all this.

And I'm not even talking about those who have seen someone die with their own eyes. And yet, Ivanovich maintains his humor and appetite, even if he knows the power is not reliable. He starts comparing today to Soviet times. Who knows what's better at the end? But the power just went out. The elevator isn't working. There's no light.

But that's okay. Because of the cold, extreme cold, they have the same that we do. Last month at a cabinet meeting, President Trump announced a deal with Russia to spare Ukrainian power. I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kiev and the cities and towns for a week. That was Thursday, January 29. Three days later, on February 1st, a Russian drone hit a bus in southeast Ukraine. The strike killed 12 coal miners, considered members of Ukraine's energy sector.

And then two days later, February 3rd, Russia's largest strike on Kiev so far this year, damaged two power plants. They want to take advantage of the cold because they cannot subjugate us with their assaults. Every Russian strike hits not only our energy sector, but also those leaders who talk to Russia and receive continued war in response. That continued war has forced millions in Kyiv to fend for themselves in sub-zero temperatures, often for weeks at a time.

But Ukrainians are resilient and sometimes turn the cold into celebration. A DJ led a rave on Kiev's frozen Nipro river. Dancing for defiance, because just hours before, Russia had launched 375 drones and 21 missiles at Kiev and Harkeyev, leading 1.2 million Ukrainians without power. The strikes and blackouts are so common, Kyiv created invincibility points, fitted with heat, power, water, and food. A tent where Kiev residents can find brief distraction from the war. 79-year-old Vyachislav Pionkowski and his 78-year-old wife, Katerina, live on the 12th floor

of a nearby apartment building. They've come for some much-needed heat and to recharge their phones and their resolve. We stand strong because we want victory. Nothing will break us, not the cold or hunger. We're ready to survive anything. We're not giving up. But the relentless attacks are too much to bear for others like Natalia Sponarska. Emotionally, it's the fifth year.

We can't keep coping. I'm tired. These kids grow up in war. It is hard for her eight-year-old son, Mark, to watch his mother cry. But in this tent with 10-year-old Nastya, at least the family can stay warm. They haven't had heat for three days. At home, there is no power, no water, no heating. We live on the 16th floor.

It's so cynical what that jerk Putin says about wanting peace with Ukraine. He kills every day. This is his peace? This is not peace. This is war. And war can be cold, dark and relentless. For the PBS NewsHour with Amanda Bailey in Kiev, I'm Nick Schiffen. Shortly after she was confirmed, Attorney General Pam Bondi told lawyers at the Department of Justice

that it was their job to, quote, zealously advance, protect and defend the policies of the United States as set by the president. It was an early example of the ways in which the Trump administration has sought to transform the DOJ into the president's tool for promoting his agenda and challenging detractors. Justice correspondent Ali Rogan and the NewsHour politics team have been reviewing the events of the past year. to better understand how this transformation is playing out. And Ali joins me now.

So, Ali, we know a big part of this story is the number of attorneys who've left the DOJ. What have you found? Yeah, Omna, since last January, the DOJ workforce has fallen by about 8%, which represents about 9,000 employees. About a fifth of that were people who accepted the Doge offer at the beginning of the administration to retire or leave.

But if you look at this chart of total DOJ staffing changes by fiscal year, they're usually not that drastic. They increase a little one year, they decrease a little the next year. But then in fiscal year 2025, there is a significant drop. To what should we understand about that? Why are people leaving? Yeah, I've spoken to a number of attorneys who have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, many of them including the First Trump administration,

and they say that it is normal for policy priorities in the Department of Justice to change, depending on who's in office, what party. That's even what was done in the first Trump administration, but they say this time is very different. And Attorney General Bondi seems to be taking directions directly from President Trump. These attorneys have many different reasons for leaving. Some of them were motivated by the dismissal

of some prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases. Others left after the prosecution of Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia after he was wrongly deported. Some lawyers have quit in response to the DOJ's hands-off approach to the immigration actions we're seeing across the country. In Minnesota, a group of attorneys quit after the DOJ declined to prosecute the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good. And also, Omna, we've seen the DOJ decimate or completely eliminate entire offices. What does all this mean for the work of the DOJ, their ability to investigate and prosecute cases? One of the things it means is that attorneys are stretched thinner and people are prosecuting cases on which they have little to know subject matter expertise.

In fact, in Minnesota, one of the prosecutors who resigned was actually leading many of the social services fraud cases that had initially drawn the attention of the Trump administration to this state. Another benchmark I'm tracking is the failures to return indictments before grand juries. The bar for returning indictments is relatively low. They have to find probable cause that an offense took place. And it doesn't need to be unanimous. There's an old saying here that you could indict a ham sandwich. And that's why in recent years, the DOJ has pursued more than 100,000 cases. And in most years that we have data for, they've only failed to get no true bill,

which is what failure to indict is known as, in a handful of cases. In this DOJ, one official told me, former official said there was a shockingly high number of no true bills. Notable cases include two failed attempts to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, the case against the so-called sandwich guy involving a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent. And more recently, last week, six lawmakers who taped a video saying that service members did not have to obey illegal orders from the president. What are we hearing, meanwhile, and seeing from the leaders inside DOJ? We've seen allegations of retribution. Are we seeing that action?

We're hearing some of it. In November, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that there was a war against judges. And the Justice Department is also trying, reportedly, to impeach judges that they consider obstructive. And for context, since 1803, there have been 15 impeachments of judges, and eight of them have resulted in conviction and removal. The DOJ has also taken the unusual step of overriding some judges' choices for people to serve as U.S. attorney if no one's been Senate confirmed to those positions. This happened in New Jersey where judges picked a prosecutor. The DOJ overruled them and installed Trump's personal lawyer, Alina Haba. Where recently it happened in New York where judges appointed a veteran prosecutor, and then a few hours later, Todd Blanche tweeted that the man had been fired.

And, Anna, we reached out to the Department of Justice with a list of questions about all of this. They have not yet responded, but we will update if they do. All right, that's our justice correspondent, Ali, Rogen. Allie, thank you. You bet. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate, died peacefully this morning at the age of 84. He's being remembered for his decades of activism. His family wrote, in part, Our father was a servant leader, not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless,

and the overlooked around the world. From the civil rights movement of the 1960s, to protesting police brutality some six decades later. We're all precious in God's sight. Jesse Jackson was one of the nation's most prominent civil rights activists and a political pioneer. His history making bids for the White House in the 1980s sparked a movement. I see the face of America, red, yellow,

brown, black and white. We're all precious in God's sight, the real rainbow coalition. Jesse Jackson was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, where he attended racially segregated schools. His first major protest was in 1960, where he was one of eight students to organize a sit-in at the local whites-only library. While attending North Carolina A&T, a historically black institution, he continued to participate in protests against segregated businesses. After graduating, he moved to Chicago to attend Chicago Theological Seminary. He eventually dropped out to focus on the civil rights movement. During this time, he met and worked with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Jackson was one of hundreds who marched from Selma to Montgomery, and soon after began organizing in Chicago for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jackson grew close to Dr. King and soon became a member of his inner circle. On the night of Dr. King's assassination, Jackson was in Memphis with him and witnessed the shooting. The moment would shape the rest of his career. He dreamed not just of the privatized notion of content of character rather than color of skin. He dreamed of the public policy notion or once we change the law, he used his faith. to challenge the law.

After Dr. King's death, Jackson was involved in multiple debates and disputes over how to approach the future of the civil rights movement. He eventually left the SCLC to launch his own organization Operation Push, dedicated to improving economic conditions in black communities across the country. We are just like it. Cut us in. I'll cut it out. The group received national attention for pressuring. major corporations to hire more African Americans, sometimes by threatening boycotts. Jackson decided to step away from the group in the early 1980s to influence policy in a different

way, running to lead the country. In 1983, he announced his first campaign for the White House. His campaign, he said, was not solely about winning the nomination, but about fighting for the rights of a diverse so-called rainbow coalition. of Americans. America's more like a quilt, many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. While the tractors wrote him off as a fringe candidate, he finished in third place in

the Democratic primaries. He announced a second bid for the White House in 1988 and found more success. Jackson won primaries and caucuses in 11 states and refused to exit the race until the convention. He ultimately finished second in the race. It was the first time a black candidate was widely viewed as a viable contender for the presidency. Former PBS News Hour co-anchor, the late Gwen Eiffel, covered him for the Washington Post. The most disorganized, exhilarating, inventive campaign ever because he would just show up places and could attract crowns. Jackson remained a prominent presence in American politics, serving as one of Washington, D.C.'s

first shadow senators, a position that primarily advocated for D.C. statehood. He also frequently met with foreign leaders. He negotiated the release of dozens of hostages during wars and conflicts, often without approval from presidents or Congress. In 2007, when fellow Chicago Democrat Barack Obama announced a bid for the White House, Jackson endorsed him. Their relationship grew complicated at times over the course of the campaign. But at Obama's victory rally, Jackson was in tears over the historic election of the country's first black president. Jesse Jackson's family followed in his political footsteps. One of his sons, Jesse Jackson Jr., represented Illinois in Congress for more than 15 years,

before stepping down in 2012 after being accused and eventually convicted of defrauding campaign donors. Another son, Jonathan Jackson, now represents Illinois in Congress. Jackson had several health concerns in recent years. He was hospitalized in November to treat the neurogenerative condition called progressive supernuclear palsy, or PSP, initially diagnosed his Parkinson's disease in 2017. But despite the health setbacks, Jesse Jackson continued his advocacy work, including participating in Black Lives Matter protests, and getting arrested during demonstrations in citizens. in support of social justice issues.

And we turn now to someone who stood alongside Jesse Jackson during some of the most consequential chapters of the modern civil rights movement. Ambassador Andrew Young is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former mayor of Atlanta, and longtime lieutenant to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I spoke with him earlier today and asked him about Reverend Jackson's role in pushing for civil rights.

Well, Reverend Jackson was the... second or third generation. But in a way, he follows best under the generation of students coming out of the 60s and the sit-ins. And he was a member of the group in North Carolina, A&T, agriculture, and Texas. Technical College that started the sit-ins. This was five years after Martin Luther King started the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It was this background and the fact that he grew up in the Negro church that prepared

him for leadership. His preaching and speaking was very much like that of Martin Luther King, so much so that he often quiet in the early days tried to imitate Martin Luther King. As he matured in the movement, he developed his own style of speaking, which was a combination of the Black Church and the movement of students. Well, let me ask you more about that, because his 1984 and 1988 campaigns reshaped politics, reshape the Democratic Party, reshaped coalition politics.

What did his voice as a preacher allow him to do, allow him to say that a traditional politician could not? Well, it was not so much that it allowed him to say anything different. He was basically saying, the same thing that Martin Luther King and his father was saying years before, and even Martin's grandfather. But Jesse mixed it with the modern jazz of the 60s and the kind of a hip-hop sort of give and take.

speech as though you're preaching to yourself. You ask a question and then you give the answer. But he was a very effective speaker, partially because he had a great voice and he was really a good-looking kid. He spoke the language of the young people, which was more rhythmic and give and take. And he was funny. He could turn a phrase. And I am somebody became an effort of asserting his identity in a society that did not really recognize him.

When history writes about Jesse Jackson, what do you hope it understands about his place in the long arc? of the civil rights movement? Well, I think that he certainly deserves an important place, if not for his runs for presidency, for his ability to mobilize large numbers of people. He was a great speaker before a crowd, and he was always able to gather a crowd. In fact, every Saturday morning, he rallied the churches of Chicago.

first in Operation Breadbasket, and then Operation Push, which were efforts on his part to get the economy of Black America integrated into the economy of, in this case, the supermarkets and department stores. and he was something of an economic profit before he started his run for the presidency. Ambassador Andrew Young, thank you for your time, sir, and my condolences on the loss of your friend. Thank you. Late night show host Stephen Colbert is going after his soon-to-be former network, saying CBS blocked him from airing an interview on the broadcast.

That interview was with James Tala Rico, a Texas Democrat running for Senate, who's also been a vocal critic of President Trump and his policies. Colbert said he was told the interview could violate the so-called equal time rule, which mandates that all political candidates receive equal on-air opportunities. Entertainment shows, including late-night and daytime talk shows, have long been the exception to that rule. But back in January, FCC chairman Brendan Carr released a letter saying that could change. Here's Colbert from last night.

In this letter, Carr said he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows because he said some of them were motivated by partisan purposes. Well, sir, you're chairman of the FCC, so FCCU because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself. Sir, you smelt it because you dealt it. For more, I'm joined now by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez. Welcome back to the News Hour. Thanks for being here. Thank you. It's good to be here. I should also note we did invite FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to the show, but his office did not respond. He's welcome to join us in the future. I want to put to you some confusing narratives.

We have here. Colbert we've heard as saying he was told by CBS lawyers Tala Rico could not be on the broadcast. So he ran the interview on YouTube instead. But CBS in a statement today said that Colbert was not prohibited from airing the interview. He was told it could trigger the FCC equal time rule and that he chose to stream it on YouTube instead. What do you make of these two narratives? Well, I don't know between the two facts that are being provided, but I do know that what the FCC did this year was it put out a notice about the equal time rule

that doesn't really give us anything new. The equal time rule has been on the books for a very long time. It's a part of the statute. And what it does is it allows legally qualified candidates to request equal time. if a show puts on another legally qualified candidate. Okay. But there's something called a bona fide news exemption. And that is something that basically says

if you are providing programming that is newsworthy, then you are exempt from this equal time requirement. The FCC has longstanding practice of declaring entertainment programs to be newswomen For example, The Tonight Show, Sally Jesse Raphael, politically incorrect, Donahue. Those were all found to be bona fide news exemptions because of the newsworthiness of their programs. So is that a rule that the FCC chairman could change? Could that equal time rule now be expanded to include daytime and late night shows that were previously exempt?

Well, what the FCC did was it put out a public. notice that said, hey, just because we have this precedent doesn't mean that everything that you are doing is actually subject to this news exemption. And we want to now review everything that you're doing in order to make that determination. One of the things that's really important to note is that in declaring whether something is subject to the bona fide news exemption, what it does is it says, has the producer, the independent producer or the broadcaster, made a decision that is reason that is reason for, about the newsworthiness of that particular programming

as opposed to having the candidate, the programming, the format, the content being done for purposes of harming or helping a particular candidate. The FCC relies on the reasonable good faith judgment of the broadcasters in making that determination. So the point that I'm trying to make here is that this public notice that the commission put out is not anything new. It is saying we have this equal time rule, and we want people to be aware of that. Yeah.

And yet at the same time, it's now triggered this episode that we're all talking about. I mean, you did accuse CBS of corporate capitulation to administration efforts to censor and control speech. And Texas state-ripe James Tolariko in that interview that aired on YouTube said sort of the same thing. And take a listen to how he put it. Corporate media executives are selling out. the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians. And a threat to any of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all of our First Amendment rights.

There are those who are going to say, though, the interview was published, right? We are airing it, others are airing it, people are talking about it. Why censorship concerns? The concern here is because this is a part of a broader pattern by this FCC and this administration to get our corporate parents of our broadcasters to capitulate and to modify how they are reporting the news to do so in a way that this administration likes. Anything they don't like, they want to control and they want to censor. So in this case, it's just part of a broader pattern.

Now, maybe it's true that the facts between CBS and the Colbert show are different, but the fact that we're in this moment and talking about this tells you that we're, We are in a very precarious moment for our First Amendment, and the FCC needs to stay out of content regulation because our First Amendment prohibits it. So what is the impact of that pattern as you lay it out? How could it change programming, especially when we're talking about a year in which there are midterm elections coming up? Broadcasters are already self-censoring because they don't want to get before the crosshairs

of this administration, and that is bad for the First Amendment. It's bad for the freedom of the press. We need broadcasters. We need all journalists to hold us to account because that is their role in our democracy. So this is very serious. That is FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez joining us tonight. Commissioner Gomez, thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. In her new book, award-winning novelist Namwali Serpelle takes on one of the towering figures in American literature, Tony Morrison. Sarpel guides readers through Morrison's extraordinary body of work from her cellul. celebrated novels to her criticism, poetry, and plays, offering close readings that illuminate the depth of Morrison's imagination, innovation, and craft. And it asks what it means to read Morrison with fresh eyes in our time. I recently spoke with Namwali Sarpell about her book on Morrison. Namwali Sarpal, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me.

In this book, you focus on the entirety of Tony Morrison's work, the 11 novels, the play, beyond. And early in the book you write, I never met Morrison. I never tried to either. I have loved knowing her through reading her over the decades of my life. Why was it important to establish that distance at the beginning, to make clear that the work, not the woman, was the primary focus? Thank you so much for that question. Morrison herself had aversion to what she called biographical writing.

She thought that human beings had a kind of copyright on their self. And so she said, you know, for her writing was very much about invention, imagining someone from the curl to the full human being, she said. She often advised her creative writing students. I don't want to hear about your little selves. Don't write about yourself. I want you to write about other people. And when she contracted to write a memoir, she ended up canceling that project because she said, my life's not that interesting. So I sort of feel like I have the privilege of getting to know Morrison through her work

in a way because she gives us that permission. Reading and writing were also so foundational to what she believed and to how she herself related to other people. She said, writing for me is a slow and advanced form of reading. And so in that sense, I felt that kind of literary relationship was something that that I really wanted to unfold in my analysis of her work. Rather than thinking about her as this kind of monument, right, to Black Excellence, I wanted to really dig in and play with her language. And her work is so often understood to be and described as difficult, sometimes

as a criticism, sometimes as a warning. And in the book, you argue that the difficulty isn't a flaw. It's really a demand placed on the reader. Tell me more about that. Morrison was very good at articulating why she did the things that she did in terms of her choices, her formal choices, the choices of design. And she spoke about, for example, having gaps and spaces in the work so that the reader has to step in to piece things together. And for her, this was part of an ethos that had to do with egalitarianism, treating the reading experience, the writing experience, the whole literary experience, as a kind of communal, mutually enforcing engagement, you have to actually work to make the work come to life with her. And I think for her that was very important,

very much a part of a black aesthetic. When you're in a jazz show, the hoots and hollers and the calls and the clapping is as much part of the performance as the playing of the music. A question just occurred to me. How can a writer like, Tony Morrison be fully institutionalized in the sense that she is taught everywhere and yet fundamentally misunderstood and not read on her own terms?

This is a really, really key question. And it's a paradox that her very good friend, Fran Lievowitz, articulated when Morrison passed away. She said Morrison's writing was underappreciated, curiously enough, perhaps because people always looked at it through the prism of her being black and her being. a woman, there's a way in which her stature, her success, came to overshadow the work itself. There's a kind of presumption that Morrison's work is brilliant, it's beautiful, but people don't actually need to read it. And in this way, there's been a lack of attention to how experimental her writing was and

how innovative her writing was, how much she broke the form of the novel open. I also think for a long time there were not readers able to bridge, as she did, her understanding of the novel with her understanding of black cultural forms. Things like signifying, things like shade, things like jazz. And it's by having this kind of balance of the two forms of knowledge as a professor myself, as a black woman, as a writer, that I feel like I wanted to contribute to. to the conversation about Morrison's work, focusing on her mastery of black form. It's interesting, I hear you say that the paradox of Tony Morrison was that the more she was celebrated,

the less rigorously she was read. And in this moment that prizes clarity and accessibility and instant comprehension, what added value does Tony Morrison's work yield? I think Morrison wanted to go back to what she described as village literature, which is a notion that literature is a social form. It's a community form.

And therefore, it can't just tell you the individual reader what to do. It has to open up questions so that we can talk about it as a community. We're not just being given a message or a single slogan. We're being given an experience. and that experience is raising questions, is opening up all sorts of topics for debate so that when you close the cover of the novel, when you turn to the final page,

you immediately want to seek someone out and talk to them about it. That, to me, is the power of literature. You end the book by saying that you aspire to Morrison's freedom to be at ease with being difficult. What does that freedom look like, especially for black women? It's a very tricky,

time to be willful, to be unreasonable, to be angry. These are all ways in which black women get relegated to the category of being difficult. But I think we have to have a faith and a commitment to the complexity of our experience, to the complexity of our lives, and to the incredible complexity of art itself. Morrison said when someone considers you difficult, that's a good sign. It means that you've insisted on being taken seriously. And to me, that's what I aspire to. I want my work to be taken seriously. I want to be taken seriously. I don't want to be thrown into a position where I'm here nearly to comfort or placate or translate things for people. I want to inspire them. I want to engage with them and I want to make

them think. The book is extraordinary. Thank you so much. On Morrison, I'm Wally Serpell. Thank you for being here. Thank you. And that is The News Hour for tonight. I'm Omna Navaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett for all of us here at The News Hour. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.