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

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Friday on the News Hour, President Trump sues The Wall Street Journal, amid questions about his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The former head of the State Department's effort to combat human trafficking discusses the effects of cuts to that office. Plus, a look at life for some of the only refugees to arrive in the United States since President Trump took office. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening, I'm John Yang, Jeff Bennett and Amna Nawaz are away. On the news hour tonight, President Trump sues the Wall Street Journal amid questions about his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The former head of the State Department's effort to combat human trafficking discusses the effects of cuts to that office. And we examine what life now looks like for some of the only refugees to arrive in the United States since President Trump took office.

There's neighbors and family who we were going through the process of resettlement together with, and they are still really suffering awaiting to be relocated. Welcome to the NewsHour. Nearly six years after he died, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is still at the center of controversy. Parts of President Trump's political base are angry over the Justice Department's handling of the files

from the investigation into Epstein's death in a New York City jail cell and charges of sex trafficking. Some say Mr. Trump himself has become part of the cover-up that they accused the Biden administration of perpetrating. I still love the president, but there's Epstein stuff not going away. As President Trump's MAGA base demands more transparency, last night he made a concession, posting that he wants Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a court to make some Epstein investigation documents public.

It came as the Wall Street Journal said Mr. Trump had set Epstein a 50th birthday greeting in 2003 that included the outline of a naked woman and closed with, may every day be another wonderful secret. The president called the story fake and filed a lawsuit. House Democrats have seized on the division among Trump supporters to press a bipartisan resolution sponsored by Republican Representative Tom Massey of Kentucky

and California Democrat Ro Khanna. It calls on the Justice Department to release material from its sex trafficking investigation into Epstein. We should put everything out there and let the people decide. On a podcast earlier this week, speaker Mike Johnson, who rarely breaks with the president, agreed with critics who say the attorney general must be more transparent. She needs to come forward and explain that to everybody. So far, Mr. Trump has

backed Bondi who once claimed to have Epstein's client list on her desk but now says no such list exists. On a podcast last fall before the election Mr. Trump also referred to a list. It's just very strange for a lot of people that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public. Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it? Probably will be, by the way. So if you're able to, you'll be... Yeah, certainly take a look at it. So did his running mate.

Seriously, we need to release the F-scene list. Online, conservative influencers and activists have harshly criticized the president. Total disaster the way Trump handled all this. The young men and the Gen Z audience that I represent, they are flaming mad right now about this stuff. Who is Trump protecting? Because he's clearly protecting someone, is it himself? But today, even some of the conservative critics of the president's handling of the Epstein matter rushed to defend him over the Wall Street Journal report. Charlie Kirk posted that he doesn't believe it.

Elon Musk wrote that it didn't sound like Mr. Trump. And activist Laura Loomer called it totally fake. For more on all of this, Glenn Thrush, who covers the Justice Department for The New York Times, and Dave Weigel, who covers politics for Semaphore. Glenn, I want to start with you. The request the president made of the attorney general

was to ask a judge to release pertinent grand jury transcripts. Why now? Why make this request now? Well, I think it's purely for political reasons. There are not important investigative reasons. In fact, it's coming around 10 days after Pam Bondi closed down the investigation altogether. So it represents a bit of a reversal, of reasons. In fact, it's coming around 10 days after Pam Bondi closed down the investigation altogether. So it represents a bit of a reversal, of course. Let's talk a little bit about what is

available. First of all, we don't know which grand jury we're talking about. Is it Jeffrey Epstein's grand jury, which was convened prior to his death, his hanging, or was it Ms. Maxwell, his associates, which was convened in 2020 or 2021 and ultimately led to her conviction. There was also some grand jury activity in Florida and perhaps in some other states, I was told. So we don't know where they're going to release this testimony from. The other question is how do they define pertinent? We don't know.

Is that just relating to Epstein? But the deeper question here is what are we even talking about? These are transcripts that are very narrowly tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case. The real trove of documents, the ones that Bondi, Kash Patel, the FBI director, Dan Bongino, his number two, have referred to, is this group of documents, thousands and thousands of documents and videos that are stored in Winchester, Virginia outside of DC, that they have spent the better part

of three months pouring through anyway. So in general, I would just say there is a great deal less here than meets the eye. And given those limitations, is this gonna satisfy the people who are demanding more transparency on this? It isn't now. I mean, I think it's putting a band-aid on a wound that is way too significant to be able to cover up. I think what it does is it gives him a talking point and it gives his allies on social media and in Congress a way to sort of say that he is taking decisive action. And it gives Pam Bondi, who has been an even bigger target of Donald Trump's far-right

influencer class, a little bit of cover. But I think at the most it gets him a couple of days. And this story is not going to go away even though we're seeing this concerted effort on the part of the White House and all of their surrogates to cast doubt on the Wall Street Journal, to raise counter issues, to bring up new questions about the previous DOJ under President Biden. So I just think we're seeing a lot of the same patterns we've seen in previous Trump crises of distraction, counter attack,

but ultimately this is a different kind of a crisis that is going to require a different kind of a solution. And one, frankly, I don't think the White House or the Justice Department have yet figured out. Dave, these conspiracy theories about the Epstein investigation have been part of MAGA for a very long time. And a lot of it was fueled by President Trump

when he was in the White House the first time as a candidate. He wants his supporters to move on. Are they going to? They haven't been. And let's define his supporters. Elon Musk is probably the most influential of the people who were advancing this line that something was in the Epstein files, the catch-all term for all this, that would reveal perfidy, crimes, pedophilia by pick

a name out of a hat of your liberal enemy. You can see him before the election talking Tucker Carlson, suggesting that people like Reid Hoffman might be in the files, Bill Gates might be in the files, and there are people we've talked about all week, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, who are advancing this, that there must be something in these files that the elites don't want me to know. The way Elon put it was the elites don't want Kamala to win. They're giving her all this money because they know they'll be something in these files that the elites don't want me to know. The way Elon put it was, the elites don't want Kamala to win. They're giving her all this money because they know they'll be exposed in the files. With that not happening, that is a great disappointment.

That is the religion predicting the world is going to end. It doesn't end and people wake up the next day. That's what's been happening to true believers of this theory. They're also true believers of the president, and that is where Glenn was putting this really well. The story has been moving. And the Trump strategy of just being on the attack constantly, you've already seen where that's been moving, not just attacking the Wall Street Journal, but using the powers

that they have in the DOJ, all the intelligence apparatus, to say, well, look at this. Look at this new information about the Russia investigation in 2016. Look at this new information about, for example, this was more recent, how the Biden administration was looking at families that spoke up at school board meetings. That's already where this is going, is look at the ways that Donald Trump

and his administration now in power is delivering on other things you care about. Please forget how much you cared about the Epstein story. Politically, how serious is the fact that some of the supporters are sort of disenchanted with him over the Epstein case? It hasn't been that significant. There has been polling on this except for how is the administration handling this.

And that's been terrible. This is the first thing, a Quinnipiac's polling was only 40% of Republicans said they were satisfied with the way the president was handling the Epstein files. That's not good. They are not turning around and saying, I'm going to vote for Democrats. They're the hardest to, the people who are disappointed in this, we talked a lot in the press about the podcast, culture, the new media.

There are a lot of people who came in, voted for Trump for the reasons that I was discussing. Elon Musk supported Trump, who are not gonna be enthused and are gonna be disappointed. It'll be hard to convince them that actually they should care about some other investigation, some other revelation instead,

because that one's not putting Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates in jail, frankly. And with Democrats, you don't find a lot of... they certainly don't believe that if there are files that are going to reveal everything about their enemies, they have these photos. We've all had the photos of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein together. They've always seen this as something sort of embarrassing to Trump, but something that wasn't going to take him down. Dave Weigel of Semaphore, Glenn Throsch

of the New York Times, thank you both very much. ["The New York Times Newsreel"] We begin the day's other headlines in Brazil, where the country's Supreme Court has ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to wear an electronic ankle monitor. In the capital, Brasilia, today, federal police searched his home and his party's headquarters. Bolsonaro is on trial for allegedly attempting a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss. The court also barred the 70-year-old from leaving his house at night and from communicating

with key allies. That includes his son, Eduardo, who has been in the United States lobbying the Trump administration on his father's behalf. Today, Bolsonaro called the measures a supreme humiliation. There's nothing concrete there. There's no proof of anything. Besides, I've never thought of leaving Brazil. I've never thought about going to the embassy.

But the precautionary measures were imposed because of that. Bolsonaro also told the Reuters news agency that he thinks the court orders are in response to President Trump's criticism of his trial. Both men have called it a witch hunt. And last week, Mr. Trump said he would impose a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, tying them directly to Bolsonaro's legal problems. At the White House today, President Trump signed into law the first major legislation aimed at regulating cryptocurrencies. During an event in the East Room, Mr. Trump signed

the Genius Act, which sets initial guardrails and consumer protections for stable coins. These are a type of cryptocurrency that are tied to assets like the U.S. dollar. As such, they're meant to be less volatile than other forms of crypto. Its passage by Congress this week was seen as a major step forward for the industry's efforts toward mainstream usage and acceptance. Venezuela released a group of jailed Americans today in a three-nation deal that also included El Salvador. Under the agreement, 10 Americans who had been

seized by Venezuelan authorities will be freed. In exchange, El Salvador was sent back some 300 migrants to Venezuela who had been deported from the United States and were being housed in a notorious Salvadoran prison. The Trump administration had paid El Salvador six million dollars in March to take those Venezuelans, accusing them without evidence of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang. In Syria, violence between Druze militias and Bedouin clans has returned to the southern Suwaita province. Clashes erupted overnight after a brief period of relative calm following a ceasefire agreement. Today, smoke rose over buildings and Syrian government forces rolled back in and tried

to restore stability. The conflict between the Druze and the Bedouin tribes broke out Sunday. Fighting has already killed hundreds of people and displaced nearly 80,000 others. Government-linked forces are accused of siding with the Bedouins, executing Druze civilians and burning their homes. Health officials in the Gaza Strip say overnight Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 people, including children. Morgue records show that one strike in the southern city of Hanunis killed four members

of the same family. People there dug through the rubble, looking for the remains of their relatives. They are still under the rubble. We haven't been able to get them out yet, even in small pieces. The largest piece is the size of the palm of your hand. The rest of the pieces are not there. Also today, Christian leaders from Jerusalem visited Gaza's only Catholic church a day after Israeli shelling struck its grounds.

The attack killed three people and wounded 10, including the parish priest. Both Pope Leo and President Trump condemned the attack, and Israel issued a rare apology saying it was an accident. In Pakistan, authorities say intense floods have killed at least 57 people over a period of 48 hours. Relentless monsoon rains swept through Punjab this week, leaving a trail of destruction in the nation's most populous province Officials say falling buildings caused most of the deaths among them were 24 children This week surge brings the death toll to at least 180 people killed since Pakistan's monsoon season began in late June

On Wall Street today stocks ended an otherwise strong week on a quiet note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped about 140 points on the day. The NASDAQ managed a slight gain of just 10 points and the S&P 500 ended virtually flat. Felix Baumgartner, the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, has died. Baumgartner made headlines in 2012 when he jumped from a capsule 24 miles above Earth, reaching a speed of over 800 miles an hour. That's well above the speed of sound. Known as Fearless Felix,

Baumgartner started skydiving when he was just 16. He grabbed worldwide attention in 1999 by jumping off Brazil's famous Christ the Redeemer statue and later crossed the English Channel using a specially designed carbon fiber wing. Speaking shortly after his space jump in 2012, Baumgartner reflected on what it means to be in the air. It doesn't matter if it's paragliding or skydiving or flying with my wingsuit or the wing, which I was using when I crossed the English Channel, or flying helicopters.

Most of the pilots, you know, when they land, it's like they feel at home. For me, it's the other way around. I'm at home in the sky. Officials in Italy say Baumgartner died yesterday in a paraglider crash. The cause of the incident is still being determined. Felix Baumgartner was 56 years old.

And Oscar-winning lyricist Alan Bergman has died. In 1974, Bergman and his wife Marilyn won an Oscar for The Way We Were. The way we were. That fan favorite was featured in the Barbra Streisand film of the same name. As a writing team, they collaborated on hundreds of songs for movies and television, winning the first but had continued to write songs till the very end. Alan Bergman was 99 years old. Still to come on the NewsHour, David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines.

CBS cancels the Late Show with Stephen Colbert citing financial considerations. This is the PBS NewsHour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington and in the West from the Walker Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. The intense focus on President Trump's handling of the files from the Jeffrey Epstein criminal investigation has renewed attention on the problem of sex trafficking in the United States and around the world. 25 years ago, Congress mandated

that the State Department have an office tracking the scope of human trafficking and working to combat it. According to that office, of the 25 million plus victims globally, in 2023, just 134,000 victims were identified worldwide. That led to more than 18,000 prosecutions. Last week, the Trump administration

drastically cut that office's staff. Here's how the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources explained the decision. -"For too long, single-issue offices have mushroomed in number and influence, often distorting our foreign policy objectives to serve their specific interests, slowing down the department's ability to function. For more on all of this, we turn to Cindy Dyer, who during the Biden administration was the state

department's ambassador at large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons. Madam Ambassador, your reach was global, but let's talk about the United States. How big a problem, how widespread is this problem in the United States? Human trafficking is a huge problem in the United States, both sex trafficking and labor trafficking. And it is a problem that we share with other countries too,

which is why the work of the trafficking in persons office is so critical. Talk about the problem globally as well. Our records for the 2023 show that more than 10,000 victims, both domestic victims and foreign national victims, received services from DOJ-funded grants. And so that's more than 10,000 individual victims receiving services. And we know that there are many more victims who never access services or who never self-identify.

And the term trafficking covers a broad range of activities. It's not just what I think people imagine from television shows and movies. Talk a little bit about that. What's the range of things that fall under that? In the United States, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act says that severe forms of trafficking include exploitation in forced labor and exploitation in commercial sexual exploitation or sex trafficking. In the United States, we see both types of victims. Of those victims who received services from Department of Justice monies, we know that 69% were victims of sex trafficking,

19% were victims of labor trafficking, and importantly, 7% were victims of both types of trafficking. Labor trafficking, what does that look like? That is when a person is forced through force, fraud, or coercion to engage in labor that they don't voluntarily consent to do. And so it can include many things,

it can include being forced to work in a plant and not being paid, or it can also be importantly, forced criminality, forced to engage in a crime that you did not want to do. You heard the current Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources explaining why this. He said this is being cut. He said these single issue offices have mushroomed.

He said, and they've gone beyond the intent and sort of serve other purposes. What do you say to that? Well, I would say that this single issue office was created by a mandate from Congress. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which has been a bipartisan piece of legislation in place for 25 years, mandated the creation of this single issue office. And it has received broad bipartisan support for 25 years.

And I think it's important to note that the reason Congress created this office is because Americans demanded that the United States do something. They don't see this as a fringe issue. Americans do not want children being sexually exploited. Americans do not want to purchase goods made with slave labor.

And American companies definitely do not want to purchase goods made with slave labor and American companies definitely do not want to compete with companies who don't have to pay their workers So that's why Congress created the OSH the office and it was created as a single issue office because Without the office these topics would not receive the attention that the American people want The administration also says that other parts of the State Department could do this. It doesn't have to be centralized here. What do you say to that? I would say that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act outlines very specific duties that the trafficking in persons office must do. They are complicated, they are legally convoluted and they require the

attention of people who are experts in this issue. One of the things that we have to do is to every year publish a report that analyzes government efforts to combat trafficking in persons in 188 different countries. Plus, we are required to represent the United States and make sure that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is being implemented, that the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, these are things that require specialized expertise. What do you think are the effects of these cuts

that the Trump administration has made on the issue and also on people who are being trafficked? These cuts will make it impossible for the staff at the Trafficking in Persons office to comply with their statutorily mandated obligations. With the staffing levels that are left, there is no way they can comply with what Congress is requiring them to do. That includes releasing the Trafficking in Persons Report, but it also includes overseeing foreign assistance, such as our Child Protection Compacts, which we work with other countries to implement to make sure that children are safe

from sexual exploitation and forced labor. The office simply cannot do those statutory obligations at the current staffing levels. So what's gonna happen to people who are being trafficked in the conditions you were just speaking about? There will not be as many services available for victims of human trafficking in other parts of the world,

in countries where we had been providing support. I think that you will also see a reduction in prosecutions of traffickers, which does not help the situation here in the United States because we know that this is a crime that transcends barriers. So it'll be hard. It will be hard for victims and it will be hard for those

who are trying to hold perpetrators accountable. Former Ambassador-at-Large Cindy Dyer, thank you very much. Thank you. Shortly after being sworn into office, President Trump indefinitely suspended refugee admissions to the United States. After months of legal challenges, only a small group of refugees has been allowed into the country. White House correspondent Laura Barone Lopez has an exclusive report

on one family's journey here. In the early morning hours last Saturday, John, Anna, and their six children arrived at Bradley Airport in Hartford County, Connecticut, ending a journey more than a decade in the making. Our journey was long. We were very tired when we arrived. But the manner in which we were welcomed, all the exhaustion faded away. That welcome came from staff at the Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, a local nonprofit that resettles refugees.

John and Anna, whose names we've changed for their safety, met and lived in a refugee camp in Zimbabwe for nearly 20 years. Both had fled their own countries, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fearing for their lives. They built a family, but were never able to live outside the camp or put down roots. There was no purpose to our lives, and every day was a struggle. When we got the news that we could travel to the U.S., we were very happy. But the family's arrival in their new home is five months late. They were all set to come to the U.S. earlier this year, after packing up, giving most of

their possessions away, and leaving the refugee camp. But then, hours after taking office on January 20th, President Donald Trump indefinitely stopped all refugee admissions, following through on a campaign promise. On day one of the Trump presidency, I will restore the travel ban, suspend refugee admission, stop the resettlement. What did you think when you found out you could not come to the U.S. anymore? Okay, I mean...

I felt very bad because we had already given everything away. We didn't have anything else to sell to get funds when we returned to the camp. A promise has been made and a promise should be kept. Mark Hetfield is the head of HIAS, one of 10 mostly faith-based organizations that the federal government has long contracted to resettle refugees. HIAS joined a class action lawsuit in February to restore the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. In the meantime, they argue, all refugees who have already been approved should be allowed to enter the country. What is the legal argument for why these 128,000 that had previously been approved should be

able to come in? That these refugees have already been through an exhaustive process, that Congress authorized this program, and that these refugees have already established their eligibility for it. And they have the approval notices to prove it. In May, after months of appeals, a district court partially agreed. Thousands of refugees who had booked travel

to the United States must now have their cases reconsidered by the government. And the federal judge ruled that 160 refugees who were due to arrive within two weeks of Trump's executive order, be immediately admitted. That number dropped to around 80, after President Trump imposed a new travel ban in June. But for John, the news his family could finally enter the United States felt like divine intervention.

From my side and my family, we felt as if the heavens had opened up for us. I swear it was like news that had come to wipe our tears away. John and his family are the first refugees that HIAS and partner organization Jewish Family Service have resettled since January 20th, said Rabbi James Green. But our team jumped into action. The team that used to be our reception and placement team, the gang got back together and set about doing all of the things that we are trained and experts in doing.

That included packing hygiene kits, stocking up on groceries, and even finding community members to make a home-cooked East African meal. And even finding community members to make a home-cooked East African meal. For Abu Bakari Bigi Ramana, John and Anna's case manager, this work is personal. Because I have been there, I have been a refugee, and I really understand, I know those kind of situations they have been in. JFS helped him resettle when he arrived to the U.S. from a camp in Tanzania in 2017. He says this year has been a difficult one.

When you've been doing this kind of work, helping people, you just get orders that you're not going to do that anymore. That is a challenge. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, President Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act into law with unanimous bipartisan support in the Senate, establishing today's resettlement system. Until recently, the U.S. admitted more refugees than all other nations combined. During the first Trump administration, the number of refugees dropped a record 85%. President Biden rebuilt the program with more than a hundred thousand refugees arriving last year alone.

But after retaking the White House, Trump almost entirely shut down resettlement with one exception, Afrikaner South Africans. White farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa. Trump has repeated false claims of mass killings of white South Africans and in May granted refugee status to 68 members of the minority. The White House did not provide anyone for an interview nor responded to questions about refugees like John and Anna. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to the NewsHour that the Trump administration is working to

undo the damage caused by the Biden administration, who admitted countless poorly vetted migrants into the United States. But, experts say, the process to become a refugee in this country requires intensive screening, including interviews with U.S. and U.N. officials, medical examinations, and interviews with U.S. and U.N. officials, medical examinations,

and mandatory cultural orientation. It is a very arduous process. There is no person who comes here who is more thoroughly vetted over a longer period of time than a refugee. And when people talk about waiting in line to come here the right way, these are people who are waiting in line to come here the right way. These are people who are waiting in line. Back in Massachusetts, Alina Duchenko, who is from Ukraine, helped JFS resettle 481 refugees last year.

Apart from John and Anna, she now only works with clients already in the U.S. How has it felt that the work that you initially were doing is now stopped? It's sad, but the end result is the same. The goal stays the same, to help families achieve self-efficiency and build their life in the United States.

Do you feel like the United States is still a welcoming place for refugees or for people like your family who fled a war? No, not at all. It's very sad to see what is happening. I don't think it feels welcoming at all. I think there's a deep sense of pain and a deep sense of loss and sadness. Rabbi James Green says John and Anna will likely be the only refugees

his organization resettles this year. In this family's arrival is an acknowledgement that there are thousands of other families who had assurances who won't be arriving this year and potentially for years to come. In the same court case that ordered John and Anna be admitted, a federal judge ruled Monday that the government must allow entry to the 80 additional refugees who were blocked by Trump's travel ban. Less than a week in the U.S., John, Anna and their children are adjusting to their new home. Firstly, we feel very safe. Secondly, we aren't hungry and we sleep in a great place. We definitely see the difference between where we were living and where we are now in the

U.S. We are now finally starting our lives. Our expectation is that our kids can get a great education so they can help themselves. We can also help ourselves. We can now live peacefully with everyone else. John thanked America for his family's warm welcome, but made one final appeal. On our end, we already have gotten a durable solution. But there's neighbors and family who we were going through the process of resettlement together with, and they are still really suffering waiting to be relocated. Those refugees, like more than 100,000 others, are still waiting.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Laura Barone Lopez in Western Massachusetts. We want to thank Laura Barone Lopez for that story and for all of her terrific work here at PBS News. She's moving on to a new opportunity, and we wish her the very best. The MAGA debate over releasing the Epstein files intensifies while congressional Republicans deliver a win for President Trump by clawing back $9 billion in foreign aid and public media funding. For analysis of the week, we turn to Brooks and Capehart.

That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, Associate Editor of the Washington Post. It seems like this week, the biggest name this week was dominated by a guy who's been dead for six years, Jeffrey Epstein. David, what do you make of this? Why? I was looking at a study this week. 20 years ago, there's an Australian think tank

that analyzes which country has the technological lead in all sorts of different technologies. And 20 years ago, America had the lead of the 64 most important technologies. America had the lead in 60 of them. Now, China has the lead in 57. So we've seen a massive shift, the decline in American supremacy

on all sorts of technological fronts and the rise of China. This is a major shift. And I'm spending two weeks thinking about Jeffrey Epstein. Like, this is crazy to me. It's like, and I have to take Candice Owen, the people who, like seriously, like the people who invented the QAnon theory, somehow all political conversation

revolves around them. As far as I can understand, and this has been looked into, there seems to be no evidence so far that anybody can find that there is an Epstein list. There are a lot of people, and the fact that Donald Trump knew Jeffrey Epstein back in the day is the least surprising fact in American life. They're two rich guys with little playboy tendencies.

But like a lot of people, Donald Trump had a fight with Epstein, apparently in 2004, over real estate, and they broke. And Epstein was then arrested and indicted a couple years after that. So a lot of people knew Jeffrey Epstein in those days, and a lot of people broke with him. Bill Clinton, Les Wexner.

And so to me, I just don't see the story there unless you've got some crazy conspiracy theory that there are a million pederasts running around, which I do not believe there. Jonathan? Well, that's the thing. There are a lot of people who believe that there are millions of pederasts running around out there who are part of the quote-unquote deep state

and running the country. And the conspiracy theory also says that these pedophiles are Democrats. And the problem theory also says that these pedophiles are Democrats. And the problem the president has is that he helped fan some of those flames. He was elected by people who believed in when he said, like, we're gonna get to the bottom of the Epstein thing.

And when you have Cash Patel, Don Bongino, Pam Bondi, all people who dabbled in the conspiracy theory, going before the cameras and saying, yeah, no, there's nothing here. There's no list. There's no conspiracy. Of course, these folks are going to be upset. And I think the way the president is handling this, just to get into the realm of politics, because I'm with David, is I can't believe I'm trying to understand this entire web, but this is a political problem of the president's own making. His whole handling of this, the moment he said the word hoax was the biggest tell. And I think for his followers, that was also a tell for them because, wait, you used hoax about

the 2020 election, about the Russia investigation, about anything where he's gotten into trouble. And so how he gets out of this with his supporters, I'm not sure, but suing the Wall Street Journal is not the way to go about it. Again, another tell. This is all part of a pattern. When he gets into trouble, he uses hoax and then he sues. But as we all know, part of suing is discovery and depositions. And I guarantee you, Donald Trump does not want to be a part of any of that.

David, sort of on the political part of the Quinnipiac on a poll on this, they asked Americans what they thought, whether they supported or disapproved of what the president was doing on this. And among Republicans, it was 40% approval, 35% disapproval, so it's pretty close, pretty narrowly margin. And as Jonathan said, the president responded by going on Truth Social and said the 35%

who opposed it had fallen for a hoax. Could there be political ramifications of this? It's the first time we've seen the MAGA alliance split in this way. I mean, I can't think of another issue where it's been so split. A little beginning on immigration, people are taking a look at those ice rates and a lot of Republicans are saying, whoa, whoa. But on that, something almost close to a 50-50 split, that's pretty unheard of.

And the problem, and just building on what Jonathan said, the people who voted for Trump, a lot of them really have been betrayed over the last 40 or 50 years. But their lives have been made worse by impersonal forces, like technological change, globalization. But it's very easy and satisfying to say, no, it's not impersonal forces, it's evil

people. There's an evil person, and it's those evil elites. And Jeffrey Epstein comes packaged as the personification of the evil elite, who is not only insular and spoiled and too rich, but predatory.

And so they pick that one person and they revolve the whole worldview around it. And the problem is that one person and they revolve the whole worldview around it. And the problem is that Donald Trump trafficked in those kinds of simplicities. And so now he's being hoisted on his own mythological pittah. By the way, I said 35% disapproval, it's actually 36. But Jonathan, is there an opportunity for Democrats here? Sure. I mean, if you just take out the personalities and just look at, you know, the entities.

Republican president in deep trouble with his own supporters over a fundamental thing that they cared about. The opposition party, the Democrats look and see an opportunity to basically just beat the hell out of them. This is what they're doing. And I don't blame them for it. Every time they've tried to attack President Trump on policy and substance, on the merits, it doesn't really seem to get anywhere.

But on this, I think they see an opportunity and an avenue to try to hurt the president, but then at the same time, get in there and say, like, this isn't the only thing he's doing. Let's pay attention to the economy. Let's pay attention to the ice race. Let's pay attention to all these other things we've been banging the drum about since January 20th, but not getting a hearing. Jonathan, sticking with you, the Senate passed, the House passed as well, the rescission bill after the Senate made a couple of changes to pick up one or two votes to get it across

the finish line. House Speaker Johnson says there's going to be more, that this is the A major way they're going to cut federal spending. What do you think of that? I mean, is anyone surprised? Anyone read Project 2025? The budget director, Russ Vogt, chief architect, this has been the plan all along.

I'm not surprised that Congress has passed this. Why? Because Congress has basically given up its role as a co-equal branch of government. It is now just basically the staff arm of the White House. So, yeah, they rescinded $9 billion. They're going to rescind more simply because the president can count on Republicans to pass these things. But the money that's being taken away,

the problems that it will cause for American soft power with foreign aid, the problems it's going to cause here at home, the money taken away from public media. Do Republicans understand that a lot of the radio and television stations in their districts depend on that money? I don't think that's quite hit yet. David? Well, first, let's compare two numbers, $9 billion, $3 trillion. And that's the cost of the tax cut to the deficits. It turns out that $3 trillion is actually bigger than $9 billion by a lot.

I'm mathematical that way. And so the idea that this matters to the budget deficit is absurd. And here I'll do my full confession back when I was a baby pundit in my 20s, working in places like National Review and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. I recall writing pieces that said defund the left. And in those days, we conservatives were upset about something called the Legal Services Corporation, which we thought was skewed left. And since then, to be fair, the government has contracted with, I think, two-thirds of the

nonprofits in this country to provide services. And a lot of those money goes to pretty left-wing organizations. So conservatives had some basis in thinking that a lot of federal spending was going toward one ideological side more than the other. And so that defund the left, which conservatives have talked about since I was a baby pundit many centuries ago, now they're actually doing it. The problem is that, say, well, we'll talk about ourselves, Corporation for Republican Broadcasting.

Republicans have been going after that since diapers, since we were all in diapers. But there are always enough Republicans who understood what Jonathan just said, that, hey, I'm in Maine here, and I like having some local media. And so there was always that rump that would stop it. That rump is gone.

And so all the defunding of the left the conservatives have been dreaming about for decades now, they're doing it. And I should say perceived left. It's not always at the institutions they think are left are left. Anybody who doesn't agree with them is left. And so they're having their way.

But, and the one thing, just one final thing, because of Susan Collins Center for Maine, they were able to save some of the PEPFAR money, the HIV. But they've gutted the actual infrastructure of PEPFAR. There are all these medical facilities across Africa, the offices here, they've destroyed it. So whether they appropriate the money, there's no PEPFAR. And so the cost in human lives will remain gross.

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both very much. Thanks, John. Thank you. The late show with Stephen Colbert is being canceled. Last night, Colbert announced the change, which took him and many in the industry by surprise. Paramount, CBS's parent company, called it purely a financial decision. But as our Stephanie Sy reports,

the timing is raising questions. If a bombshell can be casually dropped, he did it. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending the Late Show in May. And... Oh! A chorus of boos when Stephen Colbert announced the cancellation of the long-running Late Show at the taping for last night's program. It's not just the end of our show, but it's the end of the Late Show on CBS.

I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away. Colbert, who took on politics and President Trump in sharp-tongued monologues, will end his 10-year run next May. This despite the show being nominated for its 33rd Emmy just this week. In a statement, CBS and parent company Paramount called the change purely a financial decision, adding, it is not related in any way to the show's performance,

content, or other matters happening at Paramount. Despite being the highest rated legacy late night show, Colbert's program only averages 2.4 million viewers a night. Declining ad revenue and a shift to streaming have upended broadcast network' traditional business model. But for many, the timing suggests there may be other reasons for the late show's demise. Paramount is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar merger with movie studio Skydance, a deal that will require the Trump administration's sign-off.

This settlement is for a nuisance lawsuit Trump filed. And on Monday, Colbert's monologue made no bones about his take on the company's $16 million settlement with the president over a 60 minutes interview. Now I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's Big Fat Bribe. Colbert took over the late show chair in 2015 after a 22-year run by the show's original host David Letterman. Last year he told

NewsHour anchor Amna Nawaz he relished the work even in trying times. It's a gift for to us that we get to go out there and do the jokes for the audience and we get to realize that we're not crazy and that these things that are driving us crazy or making us anxious are also resonating with the audience. President Donald Trump today expressed his satisfaction with the cancellation saying, I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. For more on all of this and the many questions being raised

about this decision, I'm joined by NPR's television critic Eric Deggans. Eric, thanks so much for joining the NewsHour. You just heard President Trump's gleeful reaction there. How does that fit into the questions surrounding this move by CBS and whether it was truly just a financial decision or one as critics say to appease President Trump? or one as critics say to appease President Trump? Well, CBS has insisted in statements that this was a financial decision. And of course, those of us who've been watching the late night space for a while

know that viewership has been dropping, ad revenue has been dropping. And a lot of the shows have been trying to find ways to cut costs. Late Night with Seth Meyers, for example, let go of its in-house ban last year to try and save money. And CBS wound up walking away from James Corden. And also the show After Midnight,

shows that aired after Colbert, probably because they cost too much and they weren't making money. So obviously there is some truth to this idea that there was a financial incentive here But the backdrop of course is that paramount the owner of CBS is trying? To complete a sale to Skydance Media They need federal approval for it to happen and of course everyone understands that the Trump administration can punish media outlets that it views as in opposition to their goals. So there's always these questions

about whether or not CBS and Paramount are taking action to appease Trump when they do things like this. Eric, you have to wonder if Stephen Colbert's late night show can't survive which ones can it's been the highest rated show on at least on the big three networks for nine straight seasons notably Fox's 10 p.m. show Gutfeld which Trump praised in his true social post has been beating all three of those programs but what does losing the late show portend for the other programs in this format? It'll be tough to prognosticate what might happen here because, you know, it's entirely possible that some of Colbert's fans may wind up turning to some of these other shows in

order to get their fix. Also, when you're trying to figure out whether a show is profitable, you have to look at their expenses. Colbert, there's some reporting that indicates that Colbert was earning at least $15 million a year as hosted the show. They had a wonderful but also expansive in-house band on that show. It's entirely possible that there might be a way for some of these other shows to streamline their costs so that, you know,

they have a better chance of making money. I think one of their big problems is that younger audiences, which used to be sort of the bedrock audiences for shows like Late Night, back when Conan O'Brien was hosting it and when Jimmy Fallon was hosting it, they have shifted to streaming. The question remains, can late night TV shows reinvent themselves to the point where they might become

profitable? If you look at The Daily Show, for example, John Stewart returned to hosting it once a week and its ratings have risen from the time that when they had guest hosts. You know, I'm old enough to remember when David Letterman was hosting the late show and those were big shoes to fill for Stephen Colbert. Speaking of the daily show, can you see Colbert landing somewhere back once his stint at CBS is over next year?

I think it's much more likely that Colbert may establish a separate media company, an independent media company, in the way that Conan O'Brien did once he left TBS. Now Conan O'Brien has a company that does podcasts, does video podcasts, has a deal with SiriusXM, but he's in control of his own company and his own programs. I think that's something that you would expect from a talent like Colbert creating a company where he has more control over what he's doing and the longevity of the programs that he's creating.

And you know I think this is something we might see other talents do as well. If it gets to the point where NBC and ABC don't want to pay for these shows, I could easily see a Jimmy Kimmel or a Jimmy Fallon hanging out their own shingle, creating their own media company, putting their own programs on YouTube and on SiriusXM and on Instagram and on TikTok, and creating their own little mini media empires where their fans can more directly connect with what they're doing.

I think it's a shame that network TV and these big media companies have not found a way to make these shows more profitable and keep these talents on the major platforms that they've been on. But I don't expect these people to go away. Many of them are relatively young and they just may have to establish their own media companies, create their own media platforms and speak to their audiences that way. Eric Deggans, TV critic for NPR. It's a pleasure having you on the program. Thank you for having me. Remember, there's a lot more online, including the latest PBS News Weekly, which looks at

the effects of the Trump rescission package and his big, beautiful bill that is now law. That's on our YouTube page. And be sure to watch Washington Week with The Atlantic tonight on PBS. Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel will be discussing the consequences of the MAGA movement's growing

anger with President Trump's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. And tomorrow on PBS News Weekend, we meet some of the thousands of transgender service members who are facing removal from the military.

That's Saturday on PBS News Weekend. And that is the news hour for this Friday. I'm John Yang. We'll see you again this weekend and next week we'll be here. Have a great evening.