PBS News Hour - Full Show - January 8 2026 Pbs News Hour Full Episode

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Thursday on the News Hour, the killing of a U.S. citizen by ICE agents prompts more protests and pressing questions about tactics and training. President Trump invites Colombia's leader to the White House in a turnaround from his earlier threats. Plus, we speak with lawmakers after the Senate moves to restrict the president from taking further military action against Venezuela. 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 killing of a U.S. citizen by an ICE agent prompts more protests and pressing questions about tactics and training. We say to our kids, hey, if you see a kid being bullied, you stand up for them, you say something. Renee did that. She stood up. President Trump invites Colombia's leader to the White House, a turnaround from his earlier threats. And the Senate moves to restrict the president from taking further military action against Venezuela. We speak with lawmakers about the administration shifting foreign policy.

Welcome to the News Hour. There were protests in Minnesota today over ICE and the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, on Wednesday. While at the White House, Vice President J.D. Vance strongly defended ICE, saying the officer was defending himself and called Good's death a tragedy of her own making. Local officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, are hammering ICE and its aggressive pressure. presence in the community. State officials also said that federal investigators were effectively shutting them out of the shooting inquiry and blocking them from accessing evidence. Many in the community were reeling from the events of the past 48 hours. Special correspondent

Fred de Sam Lazaro has the story from Minneapolis. This morning protesters clashed with federal agents in front of the Whipple federal building outside of Minneapolis. A city on edge after an ICE agent fatally shot U.S. citizen René' Nicole Good yesterday. The shooting caught on camera by bystanders shows a chaotic scene on the residential street, ending with an agent firing three shots into Goods' SUV. This was an attack on law and order. At a press conference this afternoon, Vice President J.D. Vance reiterated the administration's defense of the agent's actions. What I am certain of is that she violated the law. What I am certain of is that that officer

had every reason to think that he was under very serious threat for injunct. or in fact his life. What I'm certain of is that she accelerated in a way where she ran into the guy. I don't know what was in her heart and what was in her head, but I know that she violated the law and I know that officer was acting in self-defense. But state and local officials sharply disagree about what the video evidence shows. They say Good was trying to get away from ICE not to run down the officer. Vance says ultimately the blame falls on what he calls the far left. I can believe that her death is.

a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers. The officer who local media identified as Jonathan Ross is described as having 10 years of experience with the force and was involved in a separate incident in which he was dragged by a car and deployed a taser, according to a criminal complaint from June of last year. You Do is an activist with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee. To hear Christy Knoem and other federal leaders not show any empathy,

but to start a smear campaign against Renee and Minnesotans is abhorrent and disgusting. A vigil and a makeshift memorial grew Wednesday evening near the site of the shooting, honoring Good, whose family and friends describe her as a Christian who participated in mission trips, a poet who loved to sing and a loving mother of three. At the memorial today, where protesters have put up makeshift barricades, Somali immigrant Dekha Adan came to pay her respects. If you see a kid being bullied, you stand up for them, you say something. Renee did that.

She stood up. She stood up for the rights for people being captured in the streets like herd of animals, and she lost her life because of that. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz urged accountability for goods death. People in positions of power have already passed judgment from the president to the vice president to Christy Gnome have stood and told you things that are verifiably false, verifiably inaccurate. It feels to me like we're at one of those inflection points that's simply asking our government to give us accountability, listen to local leaders, ratchet down the reds, rhetoric. Let people feel safe in their person. And let's let's let our kids go to school without fear. Minneapolis schools were closed today in the wake of the shooting and after immigration

agents clashed with people near one high school yesterday afternoon. For now the city, no stranger to civil unrest, anxiously awaits what's to come while mourning one of its own. The place that Renee was killed yesterday was six blocks away from where George Floyd was murdered, the law enforcement response is the same to lie, to cover up, and to spend a different story on really what actually happened. As of late this afternoon, a GoFundMe campaign set up for Renee Good has raised close to $900,000, Jeff. And Fred, what more have you seen on the streets and heard as you've talked to people there?

Jeff, anywhere you go in this city, there is palpable tension and a sense of deja vu. standing near the site of yesterday's incident, and it's not far from where George Floyd was murdered. One person here, however, told me that unlike George Floyd, which was a one-off, this seems unrelenting. The federal enforcement surge began several days ago, and it is targeting not just immigration enforcement or immigration, but rather also the expanding fraud investigation involving Minnesota state programs, which the administration has vowed to crack down on, and which targets specifically the Somali immigrant community in this in the city. We know the mayor and other Democrats are urging ICE to leave this city.

Based on your reporting, what's expected of the immigration enforcement effort in the days ahead? If anything, Jeff, word is that they are going to escalate. The man in charge of Border Patrol, Greg Gravino, has been cited in several locations in this city. More officers are being dispatched here, so there's no sense that it's going to diminish in any way. for their part, the protesters say they do not plan to let up in any of their activities and their vigilance. We take winter in our stride here in Minnesota, but this one is one that is not going to be forgotten soon. Fred DeSam-Lazero in Minneapolis for us tonight. Fred, our thanks to you. For a closer look at training for ICE agents and what we know, I'm joined now by Juliet Kayam.

Former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, she's now at the heart. Harvard Kennedy School. Juliet, welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So as you see, there's competing narratives now on whether or not the ICE agent was justified in using deadly force here. There are federal guidelines, standardized training of some kind. Walk us through what those guidelines and the training shows when it comes to the use of deadly force. Okay, so the Department of Homeland Security is guided or their agents are guided by rules and protocols regarding engagement with the community. So the number one priority is no loss of life.

That is in DHS's own regulations. The second is de-escalation. We've heard that word a lot lately, which is it's the responsibility of the law enforcement agent to ensure that they do not put themselves in a position in which there is imminent danger. There are all sorts of caveats and qualifications, but as a general rule,

police officers and law enforcement do not shoot into moving cars, do not put themselves in front of cars, because those are things that are easily de-escalated. The car, you can get the license plate, you know where the person likely lives at that stage. And so these rules guide both federal law enforcement and most state and local law enforcement. And that is why the videos are raising so many significant concerns. about that interaction, that moment in which a federal law enforcement officer, the ICE agent, is engaged with a civilian who may or may not have known what they were expecting of her. I just want to add for your audience, because the politics of this are quite loud. The way it's talked about now is as if use of force is on and on or off switch, right? Like someone didn't comply use of force, right? It doesn't work that way. Most good law enforcement and training, you would think about use of force as sort of a dimmer up and down. And it's the responsibility of the armed agent to ensure that you are sort of bringing any sort of tension, any sort of interaction down so that you don't result in the killing of an unarmed civilian who was not under any law enforcement orders or any sort of.

search. So, Julia, based on all of that, let me pull on that a little bit more from you here. And based on what we've seen in the videos, was there another way in which you might have expected the officer to respond in this incident? Yeah. I mean, step aside. Step aside. I mean, you could, at that stage, he could, he saw that it was a woman. She's been accused of lots of things by the White House in terms of what she engaged in activism, when she trying to run him down. He could have easily, and some. people looking at the videos, you know, believe that he actually wasn't in the line of sight of the car or the line of impact of the car. And you let the car go on and either pull it over 10 feet away or get the license plate.

And so this interaction that results in not one, but multiple bullets being put through the window of an unarmed civilian who may or may remain. not have known what ICE was expecting of her, I think shows the challenges of these large deployments, ICE with an unclear mandate of what they're supposed to do, and the fact that you have not local law enforcement so engaged with communities that do not know them and would view them as a hostile force. I want to ask you, too, about the latest and what we've heard on the investigation. Minnesota state law enforcement officials are saying federal agencies are denying the state investigators access to the evidence the Minnesota agency says it's now withdrawing from that probe. We saw the DHS secretary say that it's a matter of jurisdiction. What do you make of that? Is that standard?

No. And it's absolutely not. Basically what has happened is because you had the Secretary of Homeland Security and then the president and then today the vice president so aggressively, conclude what the investigation is. And I have to admit, just sort of with a very shameful maligning of who she is as a human being. I mean, she's a mother and she was unarmed, is, and they called her a domestic terrorist. It is hard to imagine that this investigation would be objective because they've already created that narrative. Now, one could argue that the FBI is not part of those agencies and we'll do this objectively, and one would hope that that was true, especially if it came out of the Minnesota FBI offices.

But the more important thing is in most of these cases, in all, I can't think of another case, where you have an incident like this, you have concurrent investigations because you don't know what's going to result here. It might be a federal crime, but it might not rise to that level, and it would still be a state crime. So in most cases, we often hear of concurrent investigations, concurrent prosecutions, because we don't quite know what's going to happen at the start. Unfortunately, the White House has created a narrative of what this is,

and I would anticipate that the state is separately going to start an investigation because of their lack of confidence in the federal investigation. All right, that is Julia Kayam, formerly of DHS now at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juliet, thank you. Thank you. We start today's other headlines in Iran. Across that country, internet and phone service were almost completely shut off amid widening protests over the state of the country's economy. It comes after exiled crown prince, Reza Palavi posted on social media that demonstrators should take to the streets.

And he warned Iran's leadership that the world and President Trump are, quote, closely watching you. Meantime footage released today shows protesters tearing the Iranian flag in half, with some chanting, long-lived the king, a show of support for Pahlavi, whose late father fled Iran during the country's 1979 revolution. In Ukraine, emergency crews raced to restore power today to hundreds of thousands of people

after Russia's military struck energy targets overnight. The attacks affected two southeastern regions with a local official saying it was the widest blackout since the start of the war. The city of Nipro was plunged into darkness, even as the region is bracing for coal, weather later this week. Ukrainian officials have condemned what they call Russia's strategy of weaponizing winter. Ukraine's energy ministers says power has been restored to one of the affected

regions. United Nations officials are condemning the Trump administration's decision to pull out of dozens of international organizations. That includes a foundational treaty aimed at addressing the effects of climate change. The UN's climate chief called that decision a colossal own goal which will leave the U.S. less secure and less prosperous. President Trump signed an executive order yesterday that suspends support for 66 agencies and commissions, many of them UN-related. The White House described them as contrary to the interests of the United States. Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer announced today that he will retire at the end of his term. The longest serving Democrat in Congress got a standing ovation this morning from his colleagues in the House, where he has served

for more than four decades. In his remarks, Hoyer described his early days in Congress in 1981 when, as he put it, most Republicans and Democrats worked together in a collegial and productive way. He said Congress needs to return to that shared purpose. I am deeply concerned that this House is not living up to the founder's goals. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to examine their conscience, renew their courage, and carry out the responsibilities that the first article of the Constitution demands. Hoyer, who is 86, was the number two Democrat in the House for nearly 20 years, serving twice as House Majority Leader under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi,

who will also retire after this term. White House officials said today that it was more economical to tear down the East Wing to make way for President Trump's ballroom than it would have been to renovate it. The cost analysis proved that demolition and recent, reconstruction provided the lowest total cost ownership and most effective long-term strategy. At a meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission, officials and architects cited structural issues, water leakage, and mold as reasons for tearing down the structure entirely. They also laid out details for the planned 90,000 square foot ballroom.

It was the first time that such plans have been made public. The Trump administration tore down the East Wing in October, leading to a lawsuit from preservationists. The nation's trade deficit has dropped to its lowest level since 2009. The Commerce Department said today that the gap shrank to around $29 billion in October. That's a 39% drop from the month before and comes amid President Trump's sweeping tariffs on imports into the U.S. Today's report was delayed by last year's government shutdown, which has muddled the picture for the health of the world's biggest economy. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed, even as big defense stocks saw a boost from President Trump saying he wants to increase military spending. The Dow Jones Industrial

Average added 270 points on the day. The NASDAQ lost ground giving back around 100 points. The SMP 500 ended virtually unchanged. Still to come on the news hour, the state of U.S. relations with Venezuela's neighbor, Colombia, after a presidential phone call. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle weigh in on the Trump administration's foreign policy. And we visit the Pittsburgh Hospital at the center of the HBO medical drama, The Pit. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. Today, the Venezuelan government vowed to release political and foreign prisoners

who have been held by the regime long before U.S. forces seized President Nicolas Maduro last weekend. That release has been a longstanding demand of the Venezuelan opposition. Meanwhile, Venezuela's neighbor Colombia, a major non-NATO ally of the U.S. appears to be off the president's sights after a single phone call last night. Nick Schifrin has our story. On Venezuelan TV today, what the government called a gesture of peace, a promise to release political and foreign prisoners, an effort by Maduro's former deputies to convince the world they will not continue the policies of the now ousted dictator.

Consider this as the contribution that we must. must all make to ensure that our republic continues its peaceful life and pursuit of prosperity. Human rights groups estimate up to 900 political prisoners are held in Venezuela. Many detained following the 2024 election that the U.S. and international observers say was won by the opposition. Recently those opposition leaders have demanded the prisoners release. The U.S. today continue to demand cooperation. I'm chairing the meeting that we do on this among White House principles to talk about next

steps to try to ensure that Venezuela is stable. And as the president has directed us to do, to ensure that the new Venezuelan government actually listens to the United States and does what the United States needs it to do under our country's best interests. And today, Venezuela was not the only government trying to fulfill U.S. interests. For months, the president has issued verbal attacks. Colombia is out of control. And now they have the worst president they've ever had.

And threats at Colombian president, Gustavo Petro. He better wise up, or he'll be next. He'll be next, too. Culminating on Sunday with an endorsement of military action. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing it forever. So there will be an operation by the U.S. It sounds good to me.

For his part, Petro's been among the president's most vocal critics. We must respond, as humanity has already done, by standing firm and taking to the streets to defend people's rights, the rights of democracy not to be governed by tyrannies. On social media, Petro called Trump's comments illegitimate threats and likened his actions to Hitler's. But then came a phone call last night, and just minutes later, Petro flipped the script, literally. I had a speech prepared for today. Now I have to give another. Expressing hope for continued dialogue and cooperation on clean energy.

The president agreed. Writing the conversation was, quote, a great honor. that Petro has accepted an invitation to meet in Washington in the future. It is a rapid, remarkable reversal and reminder of how much the president's international relations is about personal relations, a lesson that Brazilian President Lula Nasio de Silva learned after a chance meeting. I was walking up to my teleprompter. I said, you know, I don't have a teleprompter. But just before that, I met with President Luna, and I found him to be very good.

personal relations with foreign leaders are really key, a key to how what the nature of the bilateral relationship is more generally. Kevin Whitaker was ambassador to Colombia from 2014 until 2019 under President's Obama and Trump. One of the things that characterizes the Trump administration, especially Trump 2.0 now, is that policy formulation resides with the president full stop. And so getting through to the president and saying and doing things that are pleasing to him are about the only way for a foreign government to manipulate policy.

Whitaker calls Colombia a key U.S. regional ally in confronting the multi-billion-dollar cocaine trafficking industry. But under Petro, cocaine production is at an all-time high. Petro's failure to address the cocaine problem, both by ending any eradication of coca, but also by taking his foot off the pedal in terms of military actions against these illegal armed groups, I think is a real source of friction between the two countries. If yesterday's phone call begins a process of recuperating that relationship, that would be a very good thing. And it would be a thaw, apparently agreed, on a single phone call.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Nick Schiffen. On Capitol Hill today, three major votes testing Trump's policies. and U.S. policy on big issues, including military action in Venezuela and the expired Affordable Care Act subsidies. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin has been covering it all from chamber to chamber at the Capitol where she joins me now. So Lisa, let's begin in the Senate, where we saw a rare rebuke there of the president on the issue of Venezuela.

What happened? Right. The Senate voted today to advance in a bill that would essentially say the U.S. can no longer add any military troops or in or around Venezuela. It would essentially ban much of what the president has said he would be doing. According to the supporters of it, it would mean no blockade, none of that. This was a vote to advance that idea into next week, and in the end, it was a dramatic vote. We didn't know if it had the votes to pass going into the chamber.

It did pass thanks to five Republicans in the Senate who sided with Democrats. You can take a look at who those five Republicans are. Two of them unexpected. Senators Josh Hawley and Todd Young. They were someone who had criticized the president on this, but we weren't sure if they were actually going to vote against him in the end. They did. So as I say, this was procedural, but it's important because it means next week there will be a full debate on the military action in Venezuela, and there will be a vote on this bill. It is expected to pass. Now, it has a steep uphill climb in the House, and President Trump has threatened to veto this bill. So in a way, it is symbolic, but it's a very important symbol because this is Congress asserting congressional power for maybe one of the first times, at least this term of office, against President Trump. And it is about a specific instance. I want to show you what this measure actually says, what it would do about Venezuela. It reads, reading from the text, Congress hereby directs the president to terminate the use of the United States armed forces to hostilities when within or against Venezuela unless explicitly authorized. Now, as I say, it's about congressional power in a time when some like Speaker Johnson, who I just spoke to yesterday, are indicating they really think the president can send the military almost anywhere without congressional authorization short of a full-scale war.

So it was an important vote today, and we'll keep watching us next week. I know you will indeed. Meanwhile, let's turn now to the House where lawmakers passed a three-year extension to those Affordable Care Act subsidies. that is despite opposition from Republican leadership. How did that pass and how likely is it to actually become law? That's right. Strange. Another loss for House Republican leaders on the same day in the other chamber. This was brought to the floor by the rarest of means, a discharge petition,

a literal petition, which is a work around the House leadership brought by moderate Republicans. And today it passed because 17 Republicans signed on to this three-year extension. None of them think it's the perfect way to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, but I'm going to what this vote today shows is so many of them are worried about the health care issue in November, worried about what the expiration of these subsidies mean for their constituents, that they were willing to push this. Now, it was a bit of an easier vote because no one thinks this three-year extension will actually go anywhere. It was rejected by the Senate last year.

But what this vote does mean today is it puts pressure on the Senate, which is trying to negotiate some kind of fix. So tell us a little bit more about that. What is happening on the Senate on this issue and how possible is a deal to fix those expired subsidies there? Okay, let's drill our focus on the Senate because that is really where if the ACA subsidies are extended, that's where it will happen.

There is a framework now being discussed. I want to show you what's in it at the moment by bipartisan senators. First, it's a two-year extension of these enhanced subsidies with an income cap. It also would include in it an expansion of health care savings accounts, and it would possibly extend that enrollment window. The enrollment window ends one week from today for the Affordable Care Act.

So time is really of the essence. They do think perhaps they can do something retroactively if they don't figure this out all by next week, because they probably won't. But they're trying to get this done in the next month. The other issue with this is abortion. Republicans say that the Affordable Care Act policy right now, which separates abortion coverage, is not enough. They want it to say that on the Affordable Care Act, you won't even have the option for abortion coverage. They see that as a major problem.

There's another unusual vote I want to ask you about today. The House voting to uphold President Trump's first vetoes of his second term, even though those were bills that had passed unanimously. Tell us what we need to understand about that, Lisa. We have a real theme here today, right? It is all about President Trump and Republican policies being tested. And this vote, I want to first talk about what exactly was in these bills that were vetoed. There were two of them. First, one of them dealt with a water pipeline that would be completed in Colorado.

The other would be granting more land rights to the Mikosukee tribe in Florida, which is in the Everglades. Now, both of those bills were passed unanimously, as you said, but afterward, the sponsor of the Colorado bill ran into kind of a political argument with the president. And the tribe also criticized Trump's ICE detention center in Everglades. So both of the sponsors believe they were vetoed for political retribution. What it shows today on that, while these passed unanimously, these local bills before, now roughly 180 Republicans voted against them, voted with the president, despite these being small-scale local bills. All right, that is Lisa Desjardin, getting her steps in on Capitol Hill,

covering both chambers for us today and some big votes. Lisa, thank you very much. Welcome. As we've been reporting, Congress has a lengthy list of priorities since returning this week, but it's been the administration's operation in Venezuela and what to do next that's dominated conversations on Capitol Hill. We get two views tonight, beginning with Michigan Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin, with whom I spoke earlier today. Senator Slotkin, welcome back to the News Hour. Thanks for having me.

The Vice President J.D. Vance today dismissed the war powers resolution that was advanced. in the Senate and called the War Powers Act it was based on. He called it a fake and unconstitutional law. President Trump posted on social media, this vote greatly hampers American self-defense and national security, impeding the president's authority as commander-in-chief. To which you would say what?

Well, I would say, my guess is the reason they're complaining so loudly is because it was a bipartisan vote. We had five Republicans who voted with us, who also agreed that if you're going to go get the United States into a conflict. If you're going to go, quote, unquote, own Venezuela and other country, you've got to come to Congress, according to the Constitution. So I think they're complaining loudly because they don't like how the vote went, and that means we're going to be voting on further pieces next week on this war powers resolution. So again, it's something that

Democrat and Republicans presidents always sort of chafeunder, no matter who they are. And I wouldn't be surprised if we went back and saw if Mr. Vance was advocating for war powers issues when he was a senator. President Trump told the New York Times that the U.S. oversight of Venezuela, in his words, could last much longer than a year. And only time will tell how long the U.S. will oversee that country. As a former CIA officer, I know you did three tours in Iraq alongside the U.S. military. What do you see as the implications of a prolonged U.S. engagement in Venezuela? Well, first of all, I think we just have to acknowledge how what a 180 the president has done on these foreign entanglements. He literally ran on no foreign wars and complained bitterly about Iraq and Afghanistan.

And here he is saying that we own Venezuela and it's going to be years that we're going to be responsible for it. First of all, I don't think there's anyone, Democrat or Republican, who's looking to get into another prolonged conflict. But I also think, like, my experience in Iraq is everything we do, military. you know, starts off as a limited plan, right? Iraq was going to be short and in and out. Afghanistan, things like Vietnam. So the president, you know, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. His idea that this is going to be neat and clean and easy and we're going to make a lot of money from our oil companies to me is just a little bit of wishful thinking. And certainly, given our history, not something that the average American is looking to do.

The administration's decision to shift away from supporting Venezuelan opposition figures in favor of working with loyalists to the previous regime. What do you see as the impact of that approach on Venezuela's democracy movement? Well, you know, it's interesting because the president said over and over, and his folks said over and over that the government of Venezuela is illegitimate, right? There was an election in 2022. They didn't win. They falsified that election. and so they're not a legitimate government. And now we're working with that illegitimate government. And I think just as importantly for the president's agenda, you know, he's talked about the oil and the oil fields and getting American executives in there. They don't want to do deals with an illegitimate government where they can be, you know, sued afterwards for that contract.

So, again, it's confusing to me why the president who has spent all this time talking about getting rid of that administration took out Maduro and is now working with this vice president. On the other hand, the administration argues its Venezuela strategy could revive oil revenues, fracture criminal networks, push back the influence that Russia and China has in the hemisphere. If that turns out to be right, I know Democrats have a lot of issues with the way this was done.

But if he turns out to be right, I mean, could this represent a new doctrine of US leadership in Latin America? Well, I think certainly there's lots of talk in the hallways here that he's really taking sort of an approach where American leadership around the world is not really needed. What we do care about is leadership in the hemisphere, right, in our backyard, and that different countries around the world would have zones of influence.

Russia would have Europe as a zone of influence. China would have Asia and we would have the Western Hemisphere. He's clearly talking about that with the Monroe document. But I think the world is a globalized place. And just because you're the big heavy in our region. doesn't mean that things go right across the world. Now, if terrorists are kicked out or drug networks are dismantled, that's good. That's a great thing.

And we like that. But I think this idea that we can just do what we want and do it for the oil, as he said over and over again, is not something that has a great shelf life when you think about other countries doing the same exact thing abroad. You have described the president's actions in Venezuela as a distraction from domestic priorities like health care, rising, housing costs. How should Democrats frame this moment in a way that breaks through and keeps the focus where voters are feeling it the most? Well, I think what the president's doing, I've said this before, I have three brothers, and I remember growing up, you know, they'd wave their hand over here, distract me, and then like gut punch me. I think that's what the president is doing with all these

foreign entanglements, right? He's gone after nine different regions of the world militarily, seven countries, two oceans. That's the most any single. president has done, you know, a diversity of military operations in their first year, more strikes in his first year than in Joe Biden's four years. So he's really a foreign policy president, and I think he's doing that because he doesn't want to talk about domestic issues. He doesn't have a plan for health care. He certainly doesn't have a plan for housing. I just put out something today. And we're all talking about Venezuela, including on this show. And we're not talking about the things that actually capture Americans' interests, which is, can I buy a home? Can I afford

health insurance, can I afford childcare, et cetera, et cetera. So he's doing the foreign thing to distract from him having no plan on the domestic side. And Democrats see an opening? Well, it's not even just a Democratic thing. It's like he's coming up on his one year anniversary when he was sworn in as president, right? He said on his first day, he was going to do all these changes on inflation, all these changes on the price of just being a middle class person in America. Where are we one year out? The guy has just not done any of it. It's almost shocking because he's a populist, right? So it's not a Democrats see an opening.

The American public is saying, like, why are we talking about Venezuela and Greenland and all these places when my health insurance just doubled when I can't buy my first home until I'm 45 years old? So it's not just a Democrat-Republican thing. It's just an American thing. And he ran on this very stuff in his campaign, so he should get it. Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan. Thanks again for being with us. You bet. Thanks.

While the war powers resolution to limit further action in Venezuela advanced in the Senate today, its future in the House is less certain. For a Republican perspective, I spoke earlier to Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke. Congressman Zinke, welcome back to the News Hour. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure. A lot of activity on Capitol Hill today. I want to ask you first, not about what happened in the House,

But what we saw in the Senate where some of your Republican colleagues broke ranks, joined the Democrats, and voted to advance the war powers resolution that would limit the president's ability to take further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval. How do you look at that? Was that the right move? And would you support a similar move in the House? Well, there's always been a tension between Article 1, Congress and Article 2, the president. In this case, I'll stand with the Constitution Article 1. The president has this. authority. And in Venezuela, it's important to realize that if you look at Panama, which was justified under three conditions. One is that Venezuela, in this case, Maduro was a threat to the United States because he was a drug trafficker, 52 pages of indictment would say it was. And secondly, he wasn't a legitimate leader. I mean, the election was fraudulent. In Panama,

he also had Panama Canal. But going forward, the president had the authority to go ahead and and remove Maduro. So I don't think there's any question of legality or constitution. I think the big question in Venezuela is what next? You know, when you exercise the Monroe Doctrine, it's a two-way street, it comes with the responsibility to make sure that now, since Maduro has been removed, that Venezuela, the conditions are set where Venezuela can prosper. I want to ask you more about what's next in Venezuela,

but just to follow up in terms of congressional authority here, the president's also threatened unilateral action in other countries in Colombia, Mexico, Iran, and Greenland. When, in your view, does he require congressional approval to take that action? Well, you know, good question. And I think it's this. Number one, with the president, he never takes anything off the table. You know, that's President Donald J. Trump.

But on Greenland, for instance, those conditions that would require a congressional approval are there. Because in the case of Venezuela, you had a leader that was a narco-trafficker indicted. That is not the case in Greenland. Secondly, Greenland produces, is no threat to us. And lastly, they have a duly elected authority in Greenland. So I think military action in case of Greenland would require a congressional approval by law. So only in Greenland, not with the other countries I name there. Is that correct?

Well, let's say in Colombia, if Columbia continues their operations of trafficking drugs, now their leader is duly elected. So that would not be the case. But the president also has the responsibility constitutionally to make sure we protect this country. Drugs coming to this country kill more people than, say, a missile does. So if the president views that there's a threat and that threat is real in the case of drugs, then I think it's probably on the table. But again, what I appreciate is taking action, but action within the Constitution, I think that's important.

One of the questions we've heard a lot is if this was really about the drugs and Maduro was a narco trafficker, as you have called him as well. Then why leave in place his vice president, who is now acting as president, who was part of this entire regime? What kind of message does that send? Well, what it tells the message is, listen and make sure you take guidance. When the president says we're in control, I can tell you, the present administration in Venezuela doesn't have a lot of latitude to do much other than follow the international

and basically do as they're told to make sure that Venezuela prospers. In the case of oil, it's not about oil. Remember, Venezuela had the largest population of Hezbollah in Hamas outside of the Middle East. And the main influencers in Venezuela were Cubans, not because the Cubans wanted to be there, but because Cuba provided a security force around Manduro because he doesn't have the support of the population itself. So in the case of Venezuela, what I would prefer is we come across as a liberator rather than a conqueror, and we provide the necessary means for Venezuela to have free and fair elections and this prosper. The oil is probably will go to a third country as far as a holding pattern, and then that oil will be distributed in the best interest of the Venezuelan people, which would be helpful.

We've also now seen President Trump say he expects U.S. oversight of Venezuela, both the government, and running the country's oil supplies to last four years. In your opinion, does that send the message that we're liberators and not conquerors? I have a lot of confidence, actually, in Venezuela to put a free and fair election together. Some of the problems are the opposition is not unified. So if you're going to have a free and fair election, you want to make sure there's legitimate, you know, opposition. And most of the opposition, quite frankly, is not in country because they've been forced to leave under the Manduro regime.

So I'm confident, number one, we'll see a plan for the administration. It's hard to dictate a plan when this operation was secret, as it was required to be. I think going forward, what I'd like to see is a detailed plan of going forward. What are the milestones that must be reached and to make sure that Venezuela is free and fair and the foreign influence is removed, especially from our adversaries? If I may, Congressman, I think the opposition in Venezuela, would argue that they are in fact unified. They want about 70% of the vote in that 2024 election. So how quickly would you like to see some kind of democratic transition in that country?

Well, I would like to see a plan that lays out between tomorrow and the end of the year to include free and fair elections. And I think, you know, Secretary Rubio and his team are looking at that. And look, the sooner, the better. The sooner we have a transition where it's free and fair elections and represent the people. and make sure their resources go to help Venezuela. The resources are being siphoned off, you know, well below market. And the idea is to make sure those resources go sold on the open market at fair price and then go in a holding account and then distributed to make sure that Venezuela's people benefit and not just the regime.

But to your earlier point about the regime in place, you're right. They're not our first choice. They're hardly, you know, reputable. and I don't trust them. I don't think we should as a nation either. But right now, they have very little latitude to go outside what America is demanding is that, look, is that this is it. You cannot transport. You cannot be in a narco trafficker. And you need to begin in a process for a transition for elections. Congressman, before I let you go, I just want to ask you briefly about your vote today,

which was against the extension of those Affordable Care Act enhance subsidies that expired. At the end of last year, I believe, some 10,000 Montanaans qualified for those last year. Just briefly, what's your message to them about what your plan is to help them afford their health care? Well, how about not spending more money on a system that's broke? I think the goal of any health care, especially in the United States, is what? Access, affordability, and quality care. And Obamacare didn't deliver that. So let's figure out how to reduce costs, but how to have better care.

And COVID extensions, COVID is over. Now, I think everyone recognizes the health care costs are too much and too great. But why don't we look at the insurance companies? Why don't we look at the pharmaceuticals, which the president is doing? And the insurance companies are making billions of dollars, billions of dollars. Who has control of that? So I think we need to go back and start from the beginning and say, this is what we want.

We want quality care. We want to make sure that access to care and affordability. And make sure rural hospitals in Montana and the $50 billion to share. shore up rural hospitals in Montana was important. So I'm hoping both sides recognize that health care is a problem. The Obamacare, there's a lot of good in Obamacare, especially pre-existing conditions. But there are a lot of things that didn't work, especially giving the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals the edge. All right, that's Congressman Ryan Zinke, Republican from Montana joining us tonight. Congressman, thank you. It's good to speak with you.

Always a pleasure. HBO's pulse-pounding medical drama, The Pit, is back for season two. fresh off critical praise, and five Emmy wins. Its unflinching look at a single emergency room shift struck an especially deep cord with one group, frontline health care workers, to understand why I traveled to the actual pit, the real Pittsburgh hospital that doubles as a key location in the show.

It's part of our ongoing series on the intersection of arts and health, part of our canvas coverage. The moment everybody needed me the most, I wasn't there. Couldn't do it, I choked. In the final moments of season one of the pit, Dr. Michael Robbie Rabinovich, played by Noah Wiley, delivers a wrenching emotional unraveling after an especially grueling shift in the ER. It's the mental exhaustion, just seeing people on the worst day of their lives, and trying their best to help with those people.

Unfortunately, there's also not a ton of time to sit down and kind of grief until later maybe in your shift or maybe when you get home. For Dr. Brent Rowe, the scene is more than just a compelling storyline. He's lived it. Hello, sir. Hi, I'm Dr. Rao. Here at Pittsburgh's Allegheny General Hospital, Dr. Rao, is known as the real-life Dr. Robbie.

He oversees the emergency department. When you first saw the pit, what felt most true to your own experience? The raw emotions that they do show, especially in that first season, the things that I think a lot of us carry with us are probably more the losses, the downs, sights, sounds that you'll never forget, screams that you'll never forget, and unfortunately carry those with you. I think we all do in healthcare, especially in the emergency department. In the series, Allegheny General Hospital, the large nonprofit hospital on Pittsburgh's North Side, becomes the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.

The production team filmed the lobby and all the exterior shots on site. And those real-world details also informed the set back in Burbank. There's no soundtrack to the show. As soon as the show begins, you're immersed in the emergency department. the sounds and the voices and the bells and the whistles and the movement of patients on the gurneys is all you really hear. And so in that sense, it's quite authentic and immersive. It looks like we're well staffed back here, though. We are. Dr. Bobby Kapoor oversees emergency medicine across 14 hospitals in the Allegheny

Health Network. An ER physician for more than 20 years, Kapoor has tracked Noah Wiley's career since his own medical school days when Wiley first appeared as Dr. John Carter on ER. Last year, he and his teenage son sat down together every Thursday night for the first season of the pit. Well, your son Flynn is critically ill, and the longer that we wait, the worst this could get. It would almost be like a commentator on an NFL football game. I'd sit down and he'd watch him, I'm like, I think they're going to do this next, and then they're going to do this, and after that, this will be the diagnosis. And usually, I'd enjoy being right. Really?

And he's like, oh, Dad, you really know what you're doing. So it took the pit for your son to be impressed by what you do for a living? Because I usually don't really talk too much about it. You know, all of a sudden I have, you know, moms who never really talked about anything at home with their kids. And their kids really didn't know what they did, nor did they care. Now they're the big shot, right? They tell their friends at school about what their mom does in an emergency department. Our registration census.

Kathy Sikora is a registered nurse and oversees operations within the emergency department at Allegheny General. She's the hospital's own Dana Evans, the tough no-nonsense charge nurse on the pit. Socorah met with Catherine Lanasa, the actress behind the character during production of season two. Is there a story or a storyline that really, for you, rang true? Well, where Catherine Lanza, as a role of Dana, was actually struck. I was too just a few short years ago pretty severely, struck unexpectedly, and still have residual issues, right, with, you know, concussion. But that's an issue that we face across the country in emergency departments.

Most of the workforce in the United States doesn't expect to come to work and be abused either physically or verbally. But unfortunately, that's our harsh reality. What are you going to do to protect the rest of us? Violence against health care workers is a national problem. And it's only getting worse. Secura says many of her patients' frustrations stemmed from long wait times. Allegheny general had the city's longest last year, and the crowded waiting room depicted

on the show and seen daily in real life became a defining image. You truly need to be a green beret to work in a busy waiting room. As you can imagine, you saw the waiting room, the pit. Right. That was my waiting room. Where do you people think you are? Huh? This ain't Philly?

After a $45 million revamp, Socorah says those issues are far more manageable. We're starting patients in our initial waiting room, and then we're getting them right back really quickly, getting all their tests started, and then progressing them along. So no longer are they coming to one waiting room and sitting there. She says it's a costly renovation to the urban hospital that the pit helped justify. Everyone already knew that to do something in our existing space on our city block here in Pittsburgh on the north side, we were going to have to spend a good deal of money.

What I think the show helped do by what it showed was actually validate what everyone really already knew that we needed to do and spend. The pit is the best medical show that I have ever seen. Outside the walls of Allegheny General, the show's realism has connected with health care workers across the country. I freaking love it. almost a little too real, honestly. It's a little too real. That realism is the product of a deliberate collaboration. Each scene is filmed with an ER doctor on set, guiding the production team through the details of emergency care. The insurance companies are not going to give you an issue.

Dr. Christopher Morris, an ER physician at Allegheny General, consulted actress Fiona Duref, who plays Dr. Cassie McKay on a scene that he's faced many times throughout his 10-year career. What's her name? A car pulled up into the front of the hospital, and there was a female that was unresponsive, presumably from an overdose. And Fiona said she was going to check the pupils. So she wanted me to show her how to do that. Pupils pinpoint.

I need NARCANN. I said, you know, okay, I have to give NARCAN in the scene. How do I do it? So I kind of showed her how to do intranasal NARCAN. And the director was like, okay, Dr. Morris, now how would you pull this young female out of the car? I said, I would just pull her out of the car like any other person would do, you know?

Not responding to Narcan, we might need to intubate. Showcasing this authenticity and medical skill comes at a critical time. After a pandemic that drove physician burnout to its highest level in a decade, rates remain alarmingly high. In emergency departments today, nearly half of all doctors report feeling symptoms of burnout. You know, one day you'd walk outside and there's people holding up signs thanking heroes and then two weeks later you turn on TV and there's people throwing eggs at physicians walk into the hospital because they're all part of some hoax.

No four shots! That backlash against medical science is among the storylines explored in the show's first season. He already looks better. He is not. And by refusing the spinal tap, we don't know how to help him. How does having a TV show that's based on your hospital, how does that amplify the work that you do? It boosts the morale and the pride of the people that are working in the emergency department

and also in emergency medicine across the country. I think it really does show that the work that's being done in the Emerge Department is quite heroic still. Noah Wiley. Another morale boost came in September with an Emmy dedicated to them by the show's star. To anybody who's going on, shift to night. or coming off shift tonight. Thank you for being in that job. This is for you. It's exciting just to be able to see how people can appreciate a little bit more of what we do. Sent to me by my friend afterwards. I mean, that's uncanny, actually. And for Dr. Rao, one extra

perk. And listen, I'm glad that there's a good-looking guy playing me on TV. And a news update before we go. Federal agents were involved in a shooting this afternoon in Portland, Oregon, according to police. Two people were wounded, according to the FBI in Portland. The conditions of those two people are unknown. You can follow us online for more. And remember, there's a lot more on our website, including a breakdown of the latest reporting about the ice shooting in Minneapolis. We're continuing to update our coverage with the latest at pbs.s.org slash news hour. And be sure to join us tomorrow night for the analysis of Brooks and Capehart on this busy week of news. And that is the News Hour for tonight.

I'm Omna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the PBS News Hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.