PBS News Hour - Full Show - July 24, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Friday on the News Hour, the Trump administration again levies tariffs on trading partners, this time claiming it's trying to combat forced labor. One month after earthquakes hit Venezuela, a look at the shift from emergency response to long-term recovery. Plus, Ukraine reinvents the war supply chain by linking soldiers with manufacturers, including volunteers making weapons with 3D printers. 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. Jeff Bennett is away. On the news hour tonight, the Trump administration once again levies tariffs on many of the United States trading partners, this time claiming it's trying to combat forced labor. What is going on here is, frankly, a very obvious search for any pretext possible to impose tariffs on the world. One month after earthquakes hit Venezuela, a look at the United. shift from emergency response to long-term recovery. And Ukraine reinvents the war supply chain by directly linking front-line soldiers with manufacturers, including volunteers making weapons with 3D printers. A lot of these items look like toys, but they're actually very dangerous weapons. They say necessity is the mother of invention.

And during this war with Russia, Ukraine has been incredibly inventive. Welcome to the NewsHour. The latest set of tariffs from President Trump took effect today for more than 80 countries covering virtually all U.S. imports. The levees range from 10 to 12.5 percent. And they replace another set of temporary tariffs the president put in place after he lost a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year. Today in the Oval Office, he defended the move. We put the tariffs on the very standard tariffs. The other way it was easier that the decision by the Supreme Court was not a good one.

But we have many forms of tariffs. Liz Landers takes a look at this latest turn of events. Omna, the administration says these new tariffs target countries that import goods using forced labor. That characterization quickly drew objections from several allies and training partners who called it unjustified. It all comes after the president announced new 50 percent tariff. on a slew of Canadian products set to go into effect in mid-August. For more, we're joined by Christia Freeland. She's the former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Canada,

serving under Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney. So we're going to get to the relationship between your country and the United States here in a second. But I just want to get your initial reaction to this new round of tariffs and the administration's justification for them. This, for me, Liz, I have to say, is a really sad, It's a sad moment in history. It's a sad moment in America's relationships with its closest allies. Because what we are seeing is the United States beating up more fiercely on its allies, on its close friends, than it is on the countries to which it is antagonistic. And it may feel good for some people in the short term. But I hope that Americans will recognize.

that your country is going to be weaker in the medium and long term if your country continues to treat countries that have been your allies over decades so terribly. That's what I think is happening. The U.S. trade representative Jameson Greer told Congress earlier this week of these tariffs, quote, the specific authorities this administration is using have changed, but the trade strategy has not. What has been the impact of this trade strategy and what do you expect will be the impact of these tariffs going forward? So economically, the trade strategy is making everybody poorer because trade actually works.

It makes us richer. That's why we do it. It also is a tax on American consumers and it is one of the things that is driving inflation. inflation is still high in the United States, and these policies are keeping it there. But I think, you know, the other thing that is really important to bear in mind when we're looking at these tariffs is this is not what President Trump campaigned on. It's not what he campaigned on in 2016. It's not what he campaigned on in 2024. What is going on here is, frankly, a very obvious search for any pretext possible. to impose tariffs on the world and to impose tariffs with particular vigor, paradoxically, against America's allies.

I think that if this administration wanted to be serious about saying, we're really worried about forced labor, we're really worried about the role that China is playing in the world and how China is treating its own people and the impact that is happening having on the global economy. I think a U.S. that wanted to lead a coalition doing that could be very successful. But that's not what that is not what is happening right now. As we were talking about, the president announced new 50% tariffs on a wide array of Canadian goods. He said that they were in response to, quote, Canada's discriminatory treatment

of American products. What is your response to the idea or to this allegation that Canada is engaging in unfair trade practices. How significant is this standoff between these two allies? The U.S. action is significant. It covers around $20 billion worth of trade. It's a big breach. It comes after a series of U.S. actions since the re-election of President Trump that have been designed to hurt Canada.

tariffs were imposed on Canadian steel aluminum cars and car parts last year. Those are still in place. This comes on top of those. You were Canada's lead negotiator during Trump's first presidency when Canada, the United States and Mexico were negotiating the USMCA, that trade deal between the countries. What did you learn from that experience? I learned that at the end of the day, you can get a win-win outcome,

even with the Trump administration. And the reason that was possible is the relationship, including the economic relationship between Canada and the United States, is a really good one. It's mutually beneficial. And at the end of the day, that recognition prevailed. Two things really helped. One was that we took the case outside the White House.

And we had huge numbers of Americans, whether they were congressmen and senators and governors to just regular people whose jobs and whose companies depended on trade with Canada speaking out and saying, why are we breaking up a good thing? That was really important. The other thing that was important was, I really think with President Trump,

the only thing he understands is strength. And it's a really hard thing for a country to choose to retaliate with tariffs. It's difficult. it's painful. In some ways, it's kind of a dumb thing to do because it makes your own country poorer. But I think the only way to get a good deal with President Trump is if he hits you, your country has to be prepared to retaliate. We've seen that China has managed to get a strong relationship with the president. And I think they've done that by being strong. I think that's what America's allies need to do too.

What do you think is the future of free trade in North America? Well, I hope that we continue to have a strong trade deal on our continent and a strong trade deal between China and the United States. If the United States chooses not to have that kind of a relationship, Canada will survive, but it will make all of us poorer. And regular Americans will face higher prices. They will face inflation. they will be a little bit less well off and really for no reason because, you know, look, Canada is amazing. We're a great country. I don't think Americans see us as a national security threat. And that's the justification for some of these tariffs. Thank you for joining the News Hour. And a note that we did invite the U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer to join us on the News Hour this week. The administration declined. We start the day's other headlines with two health updates from the CDC.

The agency says the U.S. has now seen more cases of measles so far this year than in all of 2025. More than 2,300 infections have been reported nationwide, making this the worst year for the disease since 1991. Outbreaks in South Carolina, Utah, and Arizona have sickened hundreds of people, most of them, unvaccinated. The spike comes as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has downplayed the risk of measles and raised questions about the benefits of vaccines. The CDC also says a massive cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce from Mexico has now expanded to four additional states, bringing the total to nine. Officials say cases of the severe stomach illness are now in Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

That's an addition to Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. The CDC has now confirmed nearly 2,000 cases across those nine states and at least 98 hospitalizations, though the number of suspected cases nationwide is much higher. Turning now to the war with Iran, President Trump provided few clues this afternoon on whether he would order a major escalation of attacks. Speaking in the Oval Office this afternoon, Trump said there are a lot of possible exit strategies for the U.S., And he refused to answer a question about whether any strikes on civilian infrastructure, which he has threatened, would be a war crime.

Instead, he insisted that talks are ongoing and that the U.S. remains ready to carry on with its attacks. We're locked and loaded and ready to go, but we're talking to them. So I think while we're talking, we'll see what comes in it. Meanwhile, Iran struck U.S. military targets in the region earlier today in response to the latest U.S. strikes. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbasaragchi said that Tehran will not bow to U.S. bullying and said the U.S. must change its approach towards negotiations. The Israeli military is deploying more troops to the occupied West Bank after one of the deadliest shootings there in months. Palestinian health officials say the Israeli military shot and killed four Palestinians in the village of Tel in the northern West Bank. The bodies of those killed were taken to a nearby hospital.

Four others were wounded, some of them critically. In the meantime, Israelis buried a 32-year-old reserve soldier who was killed in the shooting, one of at least two Israeli fatalities. Both sides are offering different accounts of what led to the shooting. In Ukraine, officials say at least 10 people were killed by a Russian ballistic missile strike today in the Keeve region and nearly 100 others injured. The attack happened near a defense industry event. It comes a day after President Zelensky met with the American defense manufacturer Raytheon, which makes the Patriot air defense systems that Ukraine says it needs. The meantime, in St. Petersburg, plumes of black smoke stretched into the sky after the latest

Ukrainian drone attack on warehouses owned by Russia's largest online retailer wildberries. Keeves says the retailer supplies the Russian military, which the Kremlin denies. In Western Europe, raging forest fires are forcing tens of thousands of people to flee. In southwestern France, fires have consumed around 50 square miles, not far from Bordeaux, since Wednesday. Some homes were reduced to rubble. Authorities in Spain have declared a national emergency as fires burn near Madrid. Shelters are filled with evacuees. One survivor described how quickly the flames consumed his home.

I had to run from my house. It was a ball of fire. and if I'd been five minutes later, it would have wiped us out. My wife put her foot down, and that proved crucial. The fires come as Europe has suffered intense heat waves in recent weeks. Both France and Spain are getting help from neighboring countries to combat the flames. Member states of the International Criminal Court reportedly voted today to dismiss the tribunal's chief prosecutor over allegations of sexual misconduct.

British barrister Kareem Khan was first accused of misconduct related to a feat. female aid nearly two years ago. He denies any wrongdoing. It's the first time an ICC chief prosecutor has been removed from office. And it comes as the Trump administration has launched renewed efforts to dismantle the body, saying the court is a threat to America's sovereignty. In Georgia, a teenager pleaded guilty today to all 55 counts in a school shooting that killed four people and injured several others. Sixteen-year-old Colt Gray, who was charged as a as an adult entered the plea after previously pleading not guilty. He was 14 at the time of the shooting at Appalachie High School in 2024, about 45 miles northeast

of Atlanta. Gray faces a minimum sentence of life in prison, though the judge can decide whether he should be eligible for parole. In March, Gray's father was found guilty of second-degree murder, among other charges, for giving his son the gun that was used in the shooting. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed, even as oil prices cooled for the first time in a week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added more than 230 points. The NASDAQ slipped about 160 points or more than half a percent.

The S&P 500 ended the day nearly flat. And LeBron James is heading to the Philadelphia 76ers for his record 24th season. The NBA's all-time leading score made the announcement on social media, writing, quote, This is my last decision. I'm not going for money. I'm not going for family. I still want to compete, to win, and to have a chance at the feeling of winning another championship. Terms have not been made public, but ESPN is reporting that he's set to sign a two-year $8 million deal. Sixer fans are rejoicing, including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro,

who proclaimed today LeBron James Day in the Commonwealth. Still to come, on the news hour, David Brooks and Ruth Marcus weigh in on the week's political health. headlines. Ocular prosthetics as art and a means of self-expression. And a look at the future of the national parks in Judy Woodruff's latest podcast. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. Today marks one month since powerful earthquakes devastated parts of Venezuela, triggering a humanitarian crisis that is far from over. Damage to schools, health facilities, and

and water systems has left communities without essential services, complicating an already difficult recovery. Joining me now is Nate Mook, who leads the aid organization, all hands and hearts. He's just returned from Venezuela. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Omna. You literally got back to the United States today

after a week on the ground. So just tell us what does it feel like, what does it look like on the ground in Venezuela? It's really hard to describe in words, the scale of the devastation. You know, it's a little surreal because Caracas, the capital city, has mostly been spared by the earthquakes. And so it's sort of getting back to normal. But as you drive north to the seaside, which is the community of Ligwira, which was hit by the two earthquakes back to back, it just looks almost like a war zone.

You know, I've spent time in Gaza, and that's kind of the closest I can describe it, just buildings completely brought down to the ground. And I think what's so tragic is now a month later, Venezuelans are still there, standing on these buildings, digging down, trying to find their loved ones. Tell me about some of the people you met on the ground. So we met this amazing woman named Laura, and Lauda lost her brother-in-law and some other family members that were in one of the buildings

that came down. You know, it happened so quickly. Just the scale of these massive towers, building towers, brought down to the ground, is just really hard to describe. So Laura has been there from the start with friends and other people who lived in the building just digging. She has, you know, shovels and buckets and people are doing what they can with sort of power tools that you would get at a Home Depot, for example. They have some heavy equipment in Venezuela, but not to the same. scale that's needed. So for the most part, they're just on their hands and knees kind of working and trying to

get through. They know generally in the building where their family members were. But accessing those areas and getting to those bodies now is what's difficult. And Laura told us that, you know, she can't leave because, you know, she needs to, they need to have closure. They need to give their family member a burial. You've been in a lot of disaster zones. You've seen a lot of responses.

What do you make and what can you tell us about the Venezuelan government response, knowing they were already facing economic and political crises before this, and also the U.S. government response, knowing organizations like USAID are not what they once were. Yeah. So it's really been incredible. I think you have a few different pieces. You have the U.S. government, which surged in resources and support right away. You know, this has been one of the biggest responses from the State Department to

disaster in a very long time and you have marines on the ground running the major airport there you have a lot of cargo flights bringing aid in you also have the Venezuelan government that has mobilized a lot of members of the military and police and you see them out and they are assisting and there's there's a lot of civil protection out there kind of helping to even helping to dig in some cases and support families and then you have the international NGO community that is all surged in support like all hands and hearts and our local partners on the ground. We were active from day one

Just trying to surge in what we can but the scale of kind of the the the damage And how it is so spread out because the earthquake it's not sort of in one spot It's it's really you know quite a a wide area that's affected and so you'll see a huge amount of assistance in certain areas and then in other areas There really isn't much help at all we have a Venezuelan team on the ground We have Venezuelan partners, and they are working 24 hours a day. One of our partners, Claudia, runs the Impact Hub there. This is sort of an entrepreneurial center. Think of like a we work.

And yesterday she went and delivered tools to family members that are digging. And she literally, you know, is going to hardware stores. And so there is something truly amazing to see of the Venezuelan people kind of surging in support. I think the big question is where do we go from here. Yeah. I mean, that is the big question. You guys, your organization's been on the ground since the beginning of this. As you mentioned, other organizations are there.

You've delivered food, clean water, shelter, tools, communications equipment, but the UN says nearly half a million people are still in need of humanitarian assistance. Tens of thousands are in temporary camps. What's the most urgent need right now? Yeah. So what we're seeing now is this sort of shift from the rescue to kind of see stabilization and eventual recovery. I was just at a community camp that is called El Campito,

and it's at a baseball field. They literally turned a baseball field and started building little kind of shelters with tarps, and so we brought in clean water and a Starlink, so they'd have some internet connectivity. We've kind of tried to find these pockets of support. There are also people living on the streets. So, you know, if their home was damaged

or maybe wasn't fully demolished, people don't want to leave. Their whole lives are there. All of their stuff is still in their house. And so they've sort of set up camps right outside. And so I think what's difficult is there is not a centralized kind of single location to serve these thousands and thousands of families.

I talked to a gentleman who was at the Campito and he had sort of built up his little tent structure and he was even building a little garden. And I asked him, you know, how long are you going to be here? And he said, you know, he expect to be. or at least a year, maybe longer. They don't know where they can go from here. How do we transition from this moment of displacement

to try to get people into housing and what can be built? But the scale of the debris removal and the cleanup that needs to happen, that really hasn't even begun yet because family members, as I said, are still searching through the rubble. Certainly a very long recovery ahead.

Nate Mook, can't thank you enough for being here and making sure we don't let this fade from the headlines. Thank you. Thank you so much, Omna. Last week, Ukrainian President Beloldemir Zelensky dismissed his tech-savvy defense minister. That sparked protests among supporters who credit him with helping to transform Ukraine's defense capabilities

over the past six months. Special correspondent Simon Ostrowski and producer Katya Patton report on the revolutionary technologies and policies that help drive that transformation. And a warning, this report includes graphic descriptions of war. Victory gardens, war bonds, ration books. Every war has its home front.

In Ukraine, a secret group of volunteers, including this woman who goes by the call sign Little Witch, are supporting their troops by making weapons using 3D printers. Like so many others in this country, she's transformed her small apartment into a high-tech printing armory. It's hot as hell in here. An IT specialist in Kiev, Little Witch is one of more than 3,500 civilians volunteering for an organization called Druk Armia, Ukrainian for Print Army. Their network of at-home 3D printers is revolutionizing modern warfare.

People like her are able to connect directly to soldiers on the front line through an online marketplace where troops can browse products, place orders, and even leave. reviews. Everything is free, funded entirely through voluntary donations. Our guys sent me video with ant's thread we printed at home and said like yesterday you sent it to us and today your items killed. Russian guys. They said like perfect quality. She told us each printer costs around a thousand dollars and uses spools of plastic thread to make gear like gun magazines, casings for explosives or bodies for handheld drone.

detectors. So this is the casing that they produce here right at home. And obviously this doesn't have all of the insides that it needs to fly, but it's a critical part of the interceptor drone. Drones like these are used to shoot down Shah heads that Russia fires at Ukraine routinely. So what made you get involved with this in the first place? Help our guys to survive. We want Ukraine to be free. And we want the to us, leave us alone forever. Four years into a war against a country with an economy ten times its size, Ukraine is fighting back with ingenuity instead of scale.

On another platform called Brave One market, soldiers earned points for confirmed kills and can redeem them for weapons, a gamification of war designed to keep them motivated. With a helicopter. Andri is one of the employees at Brave One, whose job it is to verify kills in order to correctly award those points. Do you find that it is an effective motivation tool? Why are soldiers so interested in collecting these points? First of all, you have some kind of cashback. You have used two drones on a Russian.

You've killed them. Then you've got your two drones back from the marketplace. Then you'll use it again and again and again and again. Andri told us he's able to confirm the accuracy and point value of every kill, because on the war's tech-dominated front line, nearly every mission is now recorded by drone or by a soldier's head camp. He says he watches hundreds of mission videos every day. What's the most difficult video you've ever had to review?

Oh yeah. I remember this guy's face. They hit him with Mark 19 grenade. He was wounded. and the second one tear him open, his belly, his guts went out. And then the third hit was with the M-67 grenade. It just landed in his guts, like in the stomach. You can imagine the results.

Remarkably, Brave One and the print army's products both get delivered directly to soldiers on the front line, reaching positions at Amazon Prime speed. Newsauer followed one of the deliveries from the Print Army to a soldier serving in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. To make this work when it's dropped from a drone, we used an inertial firing pin. This Ukrainian soldier showed us how 3D printed items are also used to adapt conventional weapons for modern drone warfare.

A lot of these items look like toys, but they're actually very dangerous weapons. They say necessity is the mother of invention. And during this war with Russia, Ukraine has been been incredibly inventive. The Army of Volunteer 3D printers is just one of the ways that Ukraine has adapted to fight a much larger enemy. The Print Army says its volunteers shipped more than 527 tons of printed products like this last year alone. Got it. Yulia Mirno was preparing to enlist in the Ukrainian army before she joined the government-backed Brave One platform. dedicating her digital marketing experience to reinventing the supply chain of war.

Is it fair to characterize the Brave One marketplace as something like an Amazon for war? It's much more than I think Amazon, because we not only offer them a big catalog. If we speak about our companies, so we help them to see how effective their product on the front-pland- and how they can improve it. While the print army brings manufacturing into the home, Brave One brings the battlefield to the manufacturer. Products purchased on Brave One are tracked and analyzed, generating data gold for weapons makers

who are able to see which weapons are making the biggest difference in the war. Brave One isn't just a marketplace or an Amazon for soldiers to get the equipment that they want. It's also a venture capital space. where technologies are put forward, and the promising ones attract funding from the government and private investors. And it's thanks to the platform

that many of the weapons in this room got developed in the first place. Brave One is reimagining the entire model for military procurement, offering each type of user a different service wherever they are on the battlefield. And they're doing that by incentivizing soldiers to be as effective and lethal as they can possibly be, doling out the maximum points for eliminating targets that the Ukrainian government has identified as its top priorities.

Some of the highest point values are awarded for taking out a plan or helicopter, evacuating wounded soldiers, and destroying enemy air defense systems. Capturing a Russian soldier is worth 10 times the value of killing one. While Andri works from a desk in Kiev, the hundreds of videos he's very much verifying offer an up-close and gruesome view of life and death on the front line. How does it feel? I mean, how do you feel after having watched so many kill videos yourself? Well, that's war. We are fighting our own, small war. I have a sense of duty, and I also want my father to get back home safe. Your father fights on the front lines? Is it a tough job?

In a way it is. What's tough about it? The gruesomeness of this, it's kind of, like if you watch one video that's okay, two, three, four, okay, but several hundred a month like this. Yeah, it kind of... It affects you psychologically. Yeah. Last week's removal of the chief architect of Ukraine's digital wartime transformation, Defense Minister Mikhailo Fyodorov, is the biggest military leadership shakeup in the country since Russia invaded,

leaving Ukrainians wondering whether his military reforms are here to stay. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Simon Ostrovsky in Kiev. Now to discuss the economic and human toll of the Iran War, elections here at home and more, we turn to Brooks and Marcus. That is the Atlantic's David Brooks and Ruth Marcus of the New Yorker. Jonathan Capehart is away. Good to see you both. Hi.

Let's start with the Iran War and how it's resonating here at home. As you both know, gas prices now, according to AAA, are at $4.11 a gallon as the national. average. And while we've long seen Democratic opposition to the war, here's what a new political poll tells us that some 37 percent of self-described MAGA voters think the war should continue, even if prices go up. That is down from 50 percent in May. As you both well know, the human toll is also rising. We saw four service members killed in just the last week. That's on top of 14 others, the Pentagon previously reported. And right before he attended the dignified transfer of those four, the president shared this post, comparing the

death toll of this war to others and writing, these are the facts report them. So, David, at this point, costs our Americans and supporters of the president willing to tolerate here. Yeah, I try not to make predictions because I'm not a total idiot, but I do think, I would not surprise me if this war were still going on in January of 2029 when Trump loses. I just don't think he cares. I don't think he cares about the midterms. I don't think he cares about gas prices.

I think he cares about legacy. And he wants to see himself as a man who remade the Middle East. And he would not be the first U.S. president who had that illusion. And he talks about there's scuttle but today that the cabin is gathering to think maybe we should do a big massive expansion of the war. I don't think we have the material to do that, like the missiles, all that kind of stuff. So it would not surprise me if this dragged on with this, what we've been seeing in the last couple months of a missile, missile, missile, missile, exchanges, small exchanges.

is this, that, talk, non-talk. And that could go on forever. And, you know, Maga came into office saying, we will have no more Forever Wars. Well, here we are. I have that written down right here. He's gotten us into the kind of Forever War that he's pledged that he was going to avoid.

And it's not even a Forever War. It's like a Groundhog Day War, because we're in this same cycle of threats and then retrenchment and threats and retrenchment. we have an MOU and we don't have it. I don't actually see how this could continue, even if he wanted it to through January of 2019. Is that where we're having to get to?

For this reason, exactly what you said, Amna, people are fed up. Maga is fed up. I filled up the other day at the pump, and it is painful, and it's painful for a lot of people. And I just don't think even if he wants to, Even if he doesn't care about the midterms, the midterms care about him. And even if he wants to persist, Congress at some point, the first rule of politics is self-preservation. They have not shown a willingness to stand up to him and defund the war yet.

But that if we are slinking whatever towards 2029, I think we will see that at some point, because this is intolerable for people. It's intolerable for the global economy as well. You use the word painful. We should underscore most painful for the families who've lost someone in this war. While we're talking about the region, because it's already undeniably rippled across the region, this is the same week the Trump administration signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that lets U.S. companies supply nuclear reactors and fuel for a nuclear energy program in the kingdom. The president says that this deal bars them from uranium and Richmond for weapons purposes.

He also said yesterday the deal hinges on Saudi Arabia, essentially normalizing relations with Israel, which Saudi leaders have said they will not do unless there is a path for a Palestinian state. David, we have talked about this before, but the president announces a deal and then throws a wrench in it. What's going on here? Well, he likes doing deals with the Saudis. He thinks he can make money for American corporations. And this little wrinkle is probably going to make it not happen unless Trump drops the wrinkle. The big picture here is that as U.S. nuclear umbrella withdraws from the world, as America begins to play a smaller role in the world, all sorts of countries around the world are thinking, holy cow, we need nuclear weapons.

The Saudis are thinking that. The Japanese are thinking about that of all nations. The Poles are thinking about that. They would know. And they've suffered. So you could see a dozen, 15 countries not getting nuclear weapons, but considering it because the U.S. is no umbrella is no longer there. you wonder what the effect of U.S. power is, whether it's a force of stability or not. Here's your sign. It is a force of stability, and when you withdraw that force, the world gets

a lot more dangerous right quick. I mean, that's a major reworking of the global security landscape, Ruth. And that's precisely why this is a bad idea, this nuclear deal is a bad idea, because more proliferation is, and the risk of proliferation is worse than non-proliferation. And And we are admired in this situation with Iran because we help them get nuclear technology when the Shah was in power. How did that work out for us? So Trump, and it was a bad idea, by the way, when the Biden administration was talking about doing this, so it at least had the prospect of getting the benefit of Israeli recognition.

Here, you know, Trump, he's so erratic. He knows that Saudi Arabia can't, at the last minute, agree to the... Israel recognition and he throws it in any way like he's still negotiating leasing the top two floors of Trump Tower or something and thinks he can bring something else out of people at the last minute. It's not going to work and I think we should probably be semi- thankful for that. Well, while I have you, I want to ask you about some political takeaways from election results we saw this week because back here at home, we saw the crucial swing state of Arizona hold their primary elections. On the Republican side in particular, we saw three prominent election deniers

win their races, these primary races, for governor, for secretary of state, and for attorney general. David, when you look at these results, what stands out to you? What does it say to you about the party or just about Arizona? Yeah, I once interviewed a guy who has got the nomination of a major party, and they said, what did you learn when you get the nomination? And he said, I learned we have no party. We call it a party, but there's nothing in the, it's like a box with nothing in there. Donald Trump has actually filled in the box. Some of it is just the Trump persona. But he actually has, a structure, he has an organization, around the country, they control the local activist community, and therefore they win these primary elections, at least, because they actually have a party. On the Democratic side, it's not clear they have a party yet, because you look at the candidates

that have been championed by the Washington Democrats, they have a pretty poor batting average. They won one out of two in Arizona, let alone what happened in New York and other places. And so the Democrats don't have a party. And Trump has a party. It just means it involves nominating a lot of election deniers. But they do have a structure. And I wonder whether it will last after Trump, whether MAGA is a thing after Trump. And I think it's not just the Trump personality.

I think they actually have cadres. They have a structure. They have believers. So it works the way a party used to work, frankly. So I think you're a lot more bullish on the future of the Republican Party than you should be. And I don't think this is just wishful thinking. For this reason, if you're looking at this election in Arizona through the lens of Donald Trump,

who doesn't care about the midterms, but kind of cares about the midterms, you're going to feel pretty good about this. He asserted his power. He has, I agree with you, shaped the party and bent it to his will. But here's a situation. In Arizona, there are 313,000 more Republican voters

than Democratic voters. Yet there are two Democratic senators from Arizona and the top three. statewide officials in Arizona, including the governor, are Democrats. Why is that? Because Republicans, led by Trump, are hiring, nominating precisely the wrong kind of people. So, bully for them that they got their election deniers in the primaries. That's not that hard. How are they going to? You see the nominee, Andy Biggs, for governor, trying to remake himself, but let's be serious. He is the former head of the House Freedom Caucus and a leading

election denier, he can deny that now or try to soft play that now. But this is going to be a harder road for Republicans to regain power in the state than it would have been if they had taken a less Trumpy, more sensible approach. Just a quick minute left here, but I want to get both of you just more than a week after the president delivered a prime time address and blamed China for election interference in 2020. Every time he is asked about it, there do not seem to be any repercussions for that alleged interference. David, Why not? Because he's the present tense man.

Everything is happening at that moment, and what happened yesterday doesn't matter what happens tomorrow, doesn't it? He's doing what's happening at this moment. And in this case, I happen to be glad because the China charges were bogus, and we need to have a relationship with China. And so he's letting us have a relationship with China and not letting bogus charges get in the way. So I'm glad he forgot what happened yesterday.

This was never about calling China to account or punishing it or cracking down on it. This was just about convincing the voters if he is to lose in November that they shouldn't trust that. It's not about China. It's about the United States and about diminishing confidence in our election system. And we'll be President Xi will be visiting the White House in September. Ruth Marcus, David Brooks. Great to see you both. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Well, prosthetics are typically designed to blend in as replacements for missing body parts. But increasingly, they're becoming tools. for creative expression, especially in the niche community of ocular prosthetics or artificial eyes. Our senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown meets a Portland eye maker whose designs are helping clients see themselves in a new light. It's part of our ongoing coverage of the intersection of arts and health for our Canvas series. If I'm going to wear something like this.

Many people accessorize with jewelry or purses. Getting more formal. 36-year-old Rachel Yee does it with eyes. I'll do my first ever fun eye, which is this gold one, and have the two together. You accessorize. That's how you think of all the eyes you have now. Yeah. I'm lucky enough that I get to accessorize with something that is a medical necessity.

Yee lost her left eye to cancer at 18 months old and spent years wearing a prosthetic designed to mirror her natural eye. I knew I was different. I never felt like I was missing something. It wasn't until I was older that I got a little more self-conscious about it. I felt like a prosthetic in general wasn't to make me feel good about myself, but it was to make others feel comfortable looking at me. Everything changed in 2021 when she started wearing a new eye featuring a shimmering gold

iris that was meant to grab attention, not deflected. Standing out to me is more important, in fact, than just hiding who I am to make others around feel comfortable. In an office in nearby Portland, Oregon, where decorative eyes watch from nearly every corner, Christina Leitzel, board certified as an ocularist, crafts the bold designs that have now become her trademark, so-called fun eyes. I think there's something in me that I've always wanted to help people. I originally wanted to make prosthetic limbs. As an art student in Philadelphia, she was drawn to artists like Sophie de Oliveira Barata who turned prosthetics into powerful art pieces.

I just thought it was such a beautiful art form to blend both art and science and then give someone back something that they lost. Most eye prosthetics have two parts, a custom acrylic shell and a surgically implanted sphere that restores volume to the eye socket. The implant is often made from a porous material that allows tissue to grow into it, helping the prosthetic move with the wearer's natural eye. Half of Lightsell's work is still creating prosthetic eyes that seamlessly match the real thing.

But it's the fun eyes where her artistry comes alive, each one telling a story. They could be anything from a cat eye where it's a pet that had just passed. I asked Christina to make me an eye so I can remember noodles more and just kind of have her with me all the time. Or a portrait of a wife who died.

The message that I got was, can you paint the portrait of my wife because I would like to have her see everything I'm seeing. Wow. It's moving and it's like, wow. On social media, her creations range from glittery, glow in the dark, and color-shifting eyes to American flags, sparkling night skies and soccer balls. When you have an ocularest, most people, like, they confide, they show their stories. So this is a very close relationship. Very personal. And it's kind of scary to be so vulnerable and share that part of you.

So I think it's special in that way to be a part of someone's life and change them. Some come to Leitzel with the trauma of having recently lost an eye. Bree was 27 when she lost her eye to ocular melanoma, a rare form of cancer. I went under with perfect vision, 2020, no pain, and then I woke up with only one eye and no depth perception. I couldn't grab anything in front of me. It broke me. Her first prosthetic was a close match to her remaining eye, but...

When I first got it and looked in the mirror, it felt like somebody else was looking back at me. It felt very uncanny. I've always loved to stand out. And I wanted an eye that reflected that. So the eye that's in now is a cat's eye. It is a replica of my current cat who only has one eye as well. He actually has the opposite eye of me.

So when he's up on my shoulder and we look at each other, we see eye to eye. So many people who wear eyes talk about their close relationship with their ocularis and how just being able to talk through it with somebody who has seen this over and over is therapy. Dan Roach is a professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, an author of the book, Eyes by Hand, prosthetics of art and healing. He also wears a prosthetic eye himself. This one. So it's your right eye.

It's my right eye, yeah. And you know, it's, I sometimes I look in the mirror and I can't tell which, I forget which is which. His book traces the long history of prosthetic eyes, from the inlaid eyes placed in mummified bodies in ancient Egypt, to rudimentary eye coverings designed by a French surgeon in the 1500s, to eyes made by glassblowers in Venice in the 18th century and on. It's a very slow history, not a lot of major changes over the course of time. Today there are fewer than 200 board-certified ocularis in the United States and Canada,

who served the roughly 20,000 people who lose an eye every year. Which is smaller number than it used to be. Once OSHA regulations came in, it used to be farm accidents and industrial accidents. People would be losing eyes all the time, relatively. Most opt for a matching eye, like Roach, who spent his first 50 years with a cataracted. cataract that clouded and blinded his right eye. I just dreamed for years and years about having two eyes that match, just sort of a normal gaze. And when I looked in the mirror the first time and saw that, that thing that I had

been dreaming about for decades, it was, I mean, as trite, but kind of a dream come true in that regard, yeah. Because ocularistry sits at the intersection of art, medicine, and psychology, insurance coverage is often inconsistent. Some plans will cover the. the cost of a traditional prosthetic eye, which can range from $2 to $10,000. But insurance will not cover a fun eye. Having access to someone that will create fun eyes was hard enough on its own and paying for it on top of that is not doable for a lot of these families who have already gained so much

medical debt. That's us. 12-year-old Gracie Corrigan lost her eye at two years old to retinoblastoma. The same rare and aggressive eye cancer that impacted Rachel Yee. She also shared a frustration with traditional prosthetic eyes. People could tell, like, this one wasn't matching this one, or it wasn't moving the same. Some kids have said something, like some kids are rude about it.

In 2022, Corrigan decided she was ready to get a fun eye of her own. Rachel Yee decided to help. I am raising the money for Gracie to get a fun eye. I went to social media and I said, is there any chance that you guys want to donate within an hour we had paid for Gracie's eye. By the next morning, three more eyes had been paid for. The extra dollars became the Fun Eye Fund, a nonprofit that helps people afford custom prosthetic eyes.

Having the fun eye is way better than a regular eye that would match this eye. It's just fun. It looks cool. Being cool, looking like your own version of you. It's a new, perhaps unexpected mix of medical care and art. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in Portland, Oregon. Finally tonight, we have an excerpt from Judy Woodruff's podcast in pursuit of happiness. This week, Judy explores how America's national parks preserve not only the nation's most

spectacular landscapes, but also some of its most important history. Our guest is Jason Epperson, a podcaster and RV traveler who spent years getting to know the parks with his family. Do you have favorites that you like to share that you've been to over and over again? Yeah, Fort Sumter is really interesting because it's, you know, one of these cool coastal forts. We have all these coastal forts along the East Coast where they were sort of built right after first the Revolutionary War and the of 1812 to protect from, of course, battleships. And during the Civil War, it was very clear that they were absolutely useless. But Fort Sumter is where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. And when you go there and you visit and you experience it, you take a tour out there, you get on a

boat and Ranger takes you through the place. And they invariably show you the bricks that the fort is built out of. And these bricks were forged by enslaved people. And when you go, look closely at them, you see in the bricks fingerprints and not just fingerprints of enslaved people, but enslaved children. And, you know, you can look at sculptures of people all day. A sculpture is a representation of somebody's idea of what somebody looked like. When you say somebody's fingerprint and something, it's sort of this indelible idea that they were there. And it really brings home sort of this idea of what the Civil War was fought for at the place. place where it began. So I love that history. I look, White Sands National Monument. White Sands in

New Mexico is our children's favorite place in the National Park Service. They feel like they're in episode of Star Wars. It's one of the few parks, most of the parks, you've got to stay on a trail, right? That white sands, you can just kind of go anywhere you want to. And it is these weird white gypsum dunes. It's not actual sand, it's gypsum, which is what drywall is made out of in the middle of New Mexico that sort of contrasts completely with the landscape. And at White Sands, they've found the oldest human footprints in existence. White Sane, just in the last couple of years, they found footprints in white sands that make humans older than we thought they were in the United States.

And so the human history goes way, way back, right? It's beyond the Native Americans, and it goes very far back. in the National Park Service. But then this White Sands Missile site, which is right next door, is also where the atomic bomb was tested. And in White Sands National Park and in areas around it, you can still find slivers of green glass, which is, which is was instantly formed when the, when the atomic bomb was first tested. So again, beautiful, natural area that is that is sort of this surprise out of the middle of nowhere, but has this wild human history to it. And you can watch that full episode of In Pursuit of Happiness on our YouTube page or wherever

you get your podcasts. Tonight on Washington Week, analysis of the increasing costs of the Iran War. That is right here on PBS. On Horizons this weekend, William Brangham and his guest discuss uterine fibroids, impacting up to 80% of women but still widely misunderstood. And on Compass Points, Nick Schifrin and his panel examine the Trump administration's remote control of Venezuela. You can watch both horizons and Compass Points on our YouTube channel, wherever you get your podcasts, and on your local PBS station. Check your local listings.

And that is The News Hour for tonight. I'm Amna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us and have a great weekend.