PBS News Hour - Full Show - July 27, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Monday on the News Hour, Seattle police search for another suspect after a deadly shooting at a crowded festival beneath the Space Needle. The weekend passes with no new U.S. attacks on Iran as experts worry about America's shrinking weapons supply. Plus, massive youth-led protests lead to the resignation of India's education minister, exposing cracks in the nation's government. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Nawaz is away. On the news hour tonight, Seattle police search for another suspect after a deadly shooting at a crowded festival beneath the Space Needle. The weekend passes with no new U.S. attacks on Iran that says experts worry about America's shrinking weapon supply. And massive youth-led protests lead to the resignation of India's education minister, exposing cracks in that nation's government. He fears losing. power. They know if this protest goes on for a long time, the government can fall. Welcome to the News Hour. Seattle police are hunting for a suspect tonight after gunfire erupted at the food festival yesterday, killing at least three people and wounding at least four others. One suspect is already in custody. A third shooter is believed to have died at the scene.

Tonight, a city is grieving and on edge. The scene of another mass shooting in America. This time, in the shadow of Seattle's iconic space needle. Oh my God. Oh, my God, good. On Sunday, just after 6 p.m. local time, gunfire rang out at the popular bite of Seattle food festival, a gathering that draws hundreds of thousands of people each year,

including many families. We suddenly heard some firecrackers. What I thought were firecrackers, and people started yelling, shooter, shooter, and there was like a stampede of people just running. Get down, get down, get down, get down. Food vendors in their tents forced to duck and hide as crowds hurry to safety. A massive police presence descended on the scene at Seattle Center backed by armored SWAT vehicles.

People just falling over strollers, people was hiding. It was like everybody was fearing for their life. I didn't know what's the situation. If I ran over there, it was fast to camera my camera and that's when I saw people on the ground. First responders tended to multiple victims caught in the crossfire as investigators believed the suspects were shooting at each other. In addition to the dead, four others were wounded, including a two-year-old. They were taken to a nearby hospital and all have since been released, except the toddler

who is listed in satisfactory condition. One suspect, a 15-year-old, surrendered at the scene, but the search is on for another who officials say may have fled. Court documents reviewed by the Associated Press say a third died in the gunfight. Officers combed the site searching for evidence, finding two guns. Despite the ongoing search, law enforcement and local officials stressed there is no ongoing danger to the public. Our officers, as well as members from the fire department, medic team, ran toward gunfire

in an attempt to render life-saving aid and to disarm someone who was actively firing a weapon into a crowd. But last night, the city's mayor said the shooting reflects a deeper problem. We have far too much gun violence in this city. and in this country. And we're coming off of a week in Seattle where we've had three major incidents of gun violence in just a few days. We have a lot of work to do as a city and as a country to make this better. Shifting our focus overseas now. Today, firefighters in southwest France are battling a wildfire that's burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced

more than 200,000 people to flee. The country's interior minister said today, the fire that's burning near the city of Bordeaux is no longer growing, but remains dangerous. More than 100 homes in the small coastal town were burned. Meantime, Spain continues to battle its worst wildfire in recent history, including one that's burned in area five times the size of Barcelona. Spain's prime minister says climate emergency has created the conditions for the fires. What we are living is not a succession of isolated events. This is no longer an exception.

It is the new reality. Summers are becoming increasingly difficult, destructive, and therefore deadly. Around a dozen countries have sent planes, helicopters, and other help to Spain and France so far. Firefighters in both countries are racing to combat the blaze ahead of a heat wave that's expected in the region later this week. Meantime, nearly 100 million Americans are under active heat alerts as climbing temperatures, and severe humidity grip much of the country for a third straight day. Extreme heat warnings were in effect today, from California and Arizona in the west to Illinois and Kansas and the Midwest

and Mississippi in the south. The heat index in parts of the north and southwestern U.S. is expected to exceed 105 degrees. The extreme conditions are the results of the latest heat dome that traps hot air causing more extreme temperatures. And in Wisconsin, a tornado caused extensive. damage today, leaving thousands there without power. This is the main street in Manasha.

Video shows the wreckage left behind, with damaged homes and cars flipped over. The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado hit Winnebago County, about 90 miles northwest of Milwaukee, and described it as extremely dangerous. Weather officials are warning that damaging winds and hail could continue as storms move across the region. Traffic began flowing over a new international bridge. connecting the U.S. and Canada today, even as trade tensions between the two trading partners remain high. Footage of the first truck crossing the mile and a half long span was posted to

social media. The Gordy Howe Bridge was named after the Canadian hockey icon and is meant to serve as a vital route for trade and tourism. Last week, President Trump announced a plan to place 50 percent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods. Today, he was just south of the Canadian border in Michigan making his economic case. Michigan finally has a president who stands up for Michigan auto workers. Mr. Trump told a crowd at a GM facility that his policies are good for their business, Michigan's economy, and especially the auto industry, relies heavily on Canada. In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Mears is calling for tougher security laws after it emerged

that the suspect from this weekend's Berlin pride attack had tried to join ISIS. Flowers and candles marked the scene where one woman was killed and more than two dozen others were injured on Saturday when the suspect allegedly drove a van into a crowd and then started attacking people with a machete. The 21-year-old German citizen was shot and killed on Sunday following a 24-hour search. He had previously been sentenced to prison and had only been released two months ago. Merris called his actions an attack on our free society. Georgia's Okifanoke swamp is the newest U.S. location added to the list of UNESCO protected world heritage sites. The Okifinoki is the largest blackwater swamp in North America and the largest freshwater ecosystem making it an ideal sanctuary for wildlife. Also added to the list

on beaches called Utah and Omaha and sword and gold and juno they come ashore. The famous D-Day Landing beaches in northern France. They were recognized for their central role in liberating Western Europe from Nazi occupation. And Mount Olympus in Greece was also selected. It's the country's highest peak and the mythical home of the 12 Olympian gods. In business news, the CEO of Cracker Barrel is stepping down nearly a year after a rebranding effort sparked a nationwide backlash. Julie Messino was behind the move to replace the chain's longtime logo featuring an old man in

overalls with a more streamlined image. Fans of the restaurant chain were outraged. Even President Trump weighed in. The company quickly reversed course and returned to its original logo. Shares of Cracker Barrel fell more than 2% today. Across the rest of Wall Street, stocks ended mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained around 260 points. The NASDAQ fell around 40 points. The S&P 500 ended roughly flat to start the week.

Still to come on the news hour, the ongoing cyclospirias outbreak and rising number of measles cases raise questions about public health. Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest political headlines. And a new documentary explores why mothers in the U.S. lack the support systems found in other countries. This is the PBS News Hour

from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. The high-intensity exchange of fire between the U.S. and Iran paused over the weekend. And today, President Trump played up the prospects for negotiations. Our Nick Schiffran reports now on the state of the war. Today on the waters where one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas used to flow, ships are stuck, and there is an eerie quiet.

It's a very different sound than the last two weeks of nightly U.S. fire, and Iranian missiles and drones launched at the U.S.'s Gulf allies. Today, President Trump said the recent sound of silence was giving diplomacy a chance. We're having good talks, so we'll see what happens. I think there's a good chance that something could happen. And if it does good, if it does it, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago. Although Iranian spokesperson Ismail Bagai said there were no direct talks. Mediators make convey messages from the American side to us regarding the current developments in the region.

But at present, we have no negotiations with the American side. But the U.S. pause isn't only about diplomacy. It's also about the inventory of American air defense and Arab warnings. Two U.S. officials tell me that late last week, the military presented the president with multiple options. The military argued if the president decided to escalate, that would erode Iran's capability to attack ships and U.S. bases and would therefore save precious American air defense interceptors.

But the U.S.'s Gulf allies were warning the president against escalation, fearing Iranian attacks on Arab capitals, desalunization plants. and commercial centers that the U.S. could not prevent. The military also told the president that if instead the strikes are continued at the same level as they had been over the past two weeks, Iran would continue its missile and drone attacks, and that could challenge the U.S. ability to defend its own bases from Iranian attacks. In the end, the president opted to pause entirely.

And today, the president denied the pause was because of weapons shortages. We're in very good shape. For some of the more sophisticated stuff, we'd certainly like to have more. But war has its own momentum, and this one is threatening to escalate. Today, the Iran-backed Houthis released video of what they said was a shot-down Saudi drone. This weekend, Houthi struck two major Saudi oil facilities on opposite coasts, separated from each other by 900 miles. Earlier this month, the Saudis bombed a Houthi-controlled airport.

The violence threatens to end the Saudi Houthi shaky, four-year-old ceasefire. Today, the Houthis threatened the war would widen. We will not hesitate to expand our military movements and escalate our actions in the coming hours and days in line with our policy of blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation. Saudi Arabia is leading the military response to the Houthis with U.S. encouragement. But today, President Trump expressed a willingness to help. We're not involved with that, but we may, you know, if there are a very, if there are a problem will probably have to get it both.

But the U.S. military is still involved in an ongoing Iranian port blockade. The military said it boarded two ships and redirected a dozen after they did not comply despite, quote, repeated warnings. In a statement sent to the news hour, Stephen Chung, White House Communications Director, said, quote, the United States military has enough weapons and munitions to serve all of the commander-in-chief strategic goals. It would be wise for Iran to work toward a negotiated deal. Otherwise, they know what will happen.

We look now at one challenge the U.S. confronts in the war with Iran, as well as in other conflicts over the last few years, a shortfall in error defense. For that, we turn to Jerry McGinn, a former senior official in the Defense Department's Office of Manufacturing and Industrial-Based Policy, who's also worked for defense contractors. He's now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Jerry, welcome. Thanks very much for being here. Great to be with you, Nick. As we just heard, President Trump today denied that shortages. had anything to do with the pause, but he did acknowledge the U.S. wanted more, quote, sophisticated weapons. That's presumably a reference to things like the Patriot Air Defense.

The U.S. has used Patriots for years in many places, but is there a shortage today and why? Well, we've done analysis on Operation Epic Fury in Iran and other recent areas, and there has been, you know, we've used a lot of munitions, as you've seen over the past several months, particularly interceptors like Patriot and Theater Air Missile Defense. But, you know, we have enough for, you know, the current contingency. The question is, the risk is in, you know, if we were, if a situation weren't happening elsewhere in the world. Meaning we have enough for the Iran war, according to your analysis, but if something were to happen in Taiwan or elsewhere, that's where the U.S. would actually be short. Why can't Patriots, why can't air defense systems be made

like trucks, where they come off the assembly line, you know, in high batches quickly? Yeah, that's a great question. Well, you see, the Patriot and the munitions we use today were principally designed for performance, for having dramatic effects on the targets. And they are tremendous. They are exquisite weapons. However, they were not built and designed to be built like Ford trucks. They are essentially handmade in a lot of ways.

And it takes 24 months to create a... from contract award to delivery to create a Patriot missile. Likewise, Tomahawks take about three years. So you can't stamp them, you know, crank them out in a really quick manner. So perhaps this is a stupid question, but is there a way to make them like Ford trucks rather than, I don't know, Faberger eggs? Yeah, no, that, well, that's what the department is trying to do. They've launched efforts to build lower cost interceptors that can be built quickly as well as munitions, a whole new class of munitions, which we'll talk about hopefully.

Whole new class of munitions, but it's still the challenge that the department faces, that the U.S. military faces, that simply it is not possible to build more quickly for the challenges that we face today, right? Well, it is, but you know, you have to start building more patriots in, like, different places, you know, in other facilities or in other, you know, in other countries. So you can get there. It's just going to take a while to ramp up. And likewise, what the department is doing is building what I call the, the breadth of munitions, you know, building lower cost options they can deliver sooner, you know, as opposed to some of these more exquisite munitions. So talk about that. I mean, we've heard efforts from the Biden administration. We've heard efforts from the Trump administration. We've heard announcements by companies like Lockheed, the PAC 3-Ace, a kind of cheaper version of the Fabergerge egg style, Patriot Air Defense

missile. I mean, how much improvement has there been over the last few years between the Pentagon and industry to try and make more faster? Well, I think there has been a lot of effort. What's different since the Trump administration has arrived is the real scale. They really have put a lot of effort and a lot of money into a southern end production. Through the agreements to build more patriots and these exquisite munitions, to building what the Air Force calls the family of affordable mass munitions. These are simpler designed munitions that are much less expensive,

but have about 85, 90 percent of the capabilities. And these are going to be delivered in fiscal year 27 or 28, according to the president's budget requests. And, you know, when I talk to industry, they always complain that the budgets aren't long enough, guaranteed for long enough, right? I mean, you've heard this for years. Is that a legitimate complaint that the Pentagon can't guarantee a steady order

stream from industry, or is industry being greedy? No, I think both things are correct. I mean, the demand signal for ultimate demand signal for a company is a contract. But the Pentagon can only obligate the money that it has. Congress has to appropriate money. So like these longer-term deals that the Pentagon is signing with companies are seven years, but they can't, they're not guaranteed. They're not contracts.

They are, you know, they are best effort agreements. And so they are about as good as the government can give a demand signal for the companies. And in return, the companies are making investments. And they're doing things like RTFs announced last week almost $700 million in capital expenditures for this quarter alone, a 26% increase year over year. And quickly, how would it improve things if Congress were able to actually pass budgets? And so we had less fluctuation and longer-term expectations that we could actually predict. Yeah, there's a couple things. One, Congress can grant multi-year appropriations, which they've done on a number.

number of munitions that allows for longer, you know, two-year contracts that allows money to be spread over period of time, which, again, helps with that demand signal. And then passing budgets on time is very critical. And, you know, that's been a challenge, as you know. Yes, it has for many years. Jeremy again, thank you very much. Great. On Capitol Hill, it is a split screen. The House is out for summer recess, but the Senate is very much in session, working through a packed and complicated agenda that includes a first vote tonight on President Trump's pick as the National Director of the Director of National Intelligence. Our Lisa Desjardin is here with more. So Lisa, let's start with the action tonight, this key vote on President Trump's pick for DNI. Tell

us more about it. Right. This vote for the Director of National Intelligence is about the position created after 9-11 to coordinate intelligence, so it is a very big deal. For the past four months, this agency has been run by an acting and controversial selection who really has focused on just shrink in the agency. Let's talk about the permanent nominee. That is Jay Clayton. He right now is the U.S. attorney for Manhattan. And if you look at the Senate floor right now, you can see the vote underway. This is seen as an experienced nominee, and he has just gotten enough votes to advance. We expect his final confirmation tomorrow. But until then, Jeff, Bill Pulte remains the acting DNI. He is controversial for a few reasons, but one is he's continuing to make major decisions even now.

Last night he posted on X, quote, as of this evening, we just finished a fourth round of thoughtful, measured layoffs. The agency didn't respond to my request for exact numbers, but sources familiar tell me that Pulte has laid off some 200 or more people just in the few weeks that he's been acting director. If Jay Clayton is confirmed tomorrow, this will be Pulte's last full day on the job. Another thing we're watching, Lisa, is President Trump publicly criticizing the Senate Republican leader John Thune. that isn't entirely new, but the fact that Thune is pushing back, that is unusual. Right. This whole situation is a bit rare, except for the Trump factor, when you have these public airings that are unusual. Now, this tension is in part because Thune is a defender of the Senate, but he also can count, Jeff. He knows there are not 60 votes for much of the Trump

agenda. So let's dial back to what we've seen back and forth. Trump had some important jockey in this morning. He wrote on True Social, I can't believe how lucky the Democrats got with the Senate leadership. That's a jab. But Thune has responded consistently to me and to others. He has said, if President Trump wants the vote, he needs to work the phones and try and get the votes, which, you know, sounds normal,

but that's unusual to say something about President Trump that way. It's interesting late today, Trump had a different tune on Air Force One when he was asked about his relationship with Thune. It's fine. It's fine. He's got to get his job done. It's fine. I have a good relationship with John Thune.

Just got to get his job done. Good relationship. Got to get his job done. The truth is that Trump knows he can't get the 60 votes himself. And why? Because he himself is responsible for some of those senators' careers ending because he attacked them. So what's at stake here? What are Republicans trying to do exactly?

I'm excited to talk about this. It can look like a big blurry picture. The Senate has a stacked agenda. Not much time. The Senate's here just this week and next. But let's take a look at what's on the to-do list and try and simplify things. First, these are some six items that are on Republicans' to-do list. Fund government by October.

Fund the Iran War at some level. Reauthorized spy powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, passed a key defense bill to NDAA, a farm bill, the elections bill, the Save Act. That's a lot. Let's organize things, shall we? Let's put him in three columns so I can help people understand where things stand. There on the left, you see what's really possible when I talk to Republicans? They think they can get a bipartisan funding deal.

They think somehow they can figure out an Iran. war funding formula, but those middle three, they are in limbo. That's FISA, the defense bill, and the farm bill, probably until after the election. What's least likely is the Save Act. And what's amazing, Jeff, that's the thing President Trump says has to pass or he won't support anything else. So Trump is really the threat to a lot of the Republican agenda. The question is, how far will he go? And Senate Republicans have another issue, and this is the prolonged absence of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. There was an update today on his health. That's right. There was. first of all, he is needed for the Farm Bill to move forward out of committee.

This is the update. We got a new photo from his team. It shows him, again, they say, in rehab. The statement from McConnell said he's intensely working through rehab, trying to work when he can. Interestingly enough, the Capitol's attending physician also sent a statement saying, again, the rehab is due to his fall and McConnell's related childhood polio. But something I hadn't seen before from the attending physician of the Capitol, they noted that McConnell has doctors from the Capitol visiting him every day.

There's no word on when he'll return. Lisa Dezraudan, thanks as always. You're welcome. They call themselves the cockroaches after a top official compared India's jobless youth to the pests. Now, days after their protests toppled the education minister, students say police are coming for them. What started as outrage over leaked medical entrance exams has turned into one of India's largest youth-led protest movements challenging India's prime minister. Newshour producer Zabavarzi reports now in how. India's Gen Z took on one of the world's most powerful leaders

in what it means for the country's future. The world's largest youth population just made their powerful government buckle under pressure. Beneath the celebration was something remarkable. India's youth discovering the power of their own voice. The government have messed with the wrong Gen Z people. You can break bodies but not baddies. It's a victory for the constitution of war.

India, it's a victory for the people of India and it's a defeat for the dictator. That's Abhijid Dipke, a graduate student at Boston University who sparked a movement from an insult. After India's Chief Justice compared unemployed young people to cockroaches, Dibke launched the satirical Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a play on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP. Today, its Instagram page has grown to over 25 million followers. more than twice that of the BJP. It all began with a leak of a national medical school entrance exam taken by 2 million aspiring medical students across the country.

It's an exam they can prepare to take for years with private tutors and offers a way out of poverty for those who do well. The decision to invalidate the test results was unbearable for many students like Pradeep Kumar. His mother, Susheela Devi, says her son was so distressed that he took his own life. He felt that if the exam was held again, then he may or may not be able to do so well.

There was already so much debt burden on his father, he just decided to die. More than 20 other young students made the same tragic decision. Their unfulfilled dreams have become a generation's grief. That turned to anger. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets calling themselves cockroaches, demanding the dismissal of the education minister.

Last week, they marched toward the parliament. The government responded with a violent crackdown, beating unarmed students with batons, using tear gas and even pellet guns. Students, journalists and witnesses gathered video to document and verify the attacks on a digital platform that became known as the protest record. International human rights organizations have called out

the Indian government for using excessive force. And if the government's goal was to empty the streets, it had the opposite effect. The protests started in New Delhi and quickly spread across the country. Indian politicians who opposed Prime Minister Modi, including opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, backed the students, demanding accountability for what they called a brutal clampdown. For weeks, the revolution was not televised, as most mainstream media in India support the government. But news spread on social media, with tens of thousands of Instagram reels watched by millions. Students can be seen mocking the police force that beat them. And the posts turned

protesters into Instagram celebrities. Analysts say India has witnessed widespread protests before, but this moment feels different. Who is the dog dog? and criticizing his divisive politics. Thank you, friends. It took seven weeks of protests, but Modi finally relented and promised to get to the bottom of the medical exam leaks. This weekend, the Education Minister resigned.

He fears losing power. They know if this protest goes on for a long time, the government can fall. Raised in a family of devoted Modi's supporters, 22-year-old Oman Gupta once led her university's chapter of Modi's BJP party. But its crackdown on the cockroach protesters changed everything for her. I have joined the protest against my parents' wishes. So many kids have stood up to their parents, and they are getting beaten up. They are being called terrorists.

She said India's youth is now determined to take action against what they see as democratic backsliding. When there is a fire within, we can stay hungry to. When there is courage within, we are unstoppable. That is the power of every youth. The youth is the future. The cockroach movement may be over for now. But today, its leaders said dozens of students are still being targeted by police across the country, particularly from minority groups.

Students say protests will resume unless those cases are dropped. Nobody believes that this victory, is because of the benevolence of the government. People are very, very, very frustrated even now. Student leader Neha Bora spent 23 days on a hunger strike. And emerged as one of the movement's leading voices. This anger, this deep, bone-deep frustration with the way things were. All of that, being handled with brute force.

They're just tired of the same old script. whole script. Bora said Prime Minister Modi may have figured a way to slip out of this crisis. But the students will continue to hold him to account. It's a good thing that he accepted one demand of ours because the next demand is his resignation. India's youth have made themselves impossible to ignore. And they've shown that even the most powerful governments can be forced to bend to the will of the people.

For the PBS News Hour, I'm Zaba R.C. Public health concerns are growing as cyclosporiasis cases surge, and now a salmonella outbreak across 17 states has many Americans raising concerns about U.S. food safety. William Brangham tells us more. Jeff, these back-to-back cases where people are getting sick from food, have put many people on edge and raised questions about the nation's food supply. With nearly 4,200 confirmed cyclosporic cases nationwide, across nine states and more than 7,400 additional unconfirmed cases, plus a salmonella outbreak

linked to eggs that is sickened almost 100 people so far, consumers are wondering if enough is being done to keep unsafe food out of our stores. For more on these concerns, we are joined again by Caitlin Rivers. She's an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. Caitlin, so nice to have you back on the program. Let's start off with this troubling pattern. We've got this very, very big cyclospora outbreak happening, really concentrated in Michigan, but we're also seeing the salmonella outbreak. Is this just a particularly bad year, or is something else going on here? I think both are true here. There is no question that this is a very large outbreak of cyclosporiasis. To my knowledge, it's the largest on record. And so that is absolutely consequential.

The addition of the salmonella outbreak in eggs is unsettling, but actually not uncommon. There are one to two large outbreaks of something, some sort of foodborne illness each month, and so currently it's salmonella and shelled eggs, but the existence of a second sizable outbreak is not in itself notable. Is there a connection between these two? I mean, I know cyclospora, we have seen linked to contaminated water being sprayed onto lettuce, and in some cases, berries, but we're still searching for the root cause of that, or the root causes. Salmonella, as you mentioned, linked to eggs, is there any linkage between these two things?

Are they just separate outbreaks? They're just separate outbreaks. They're caused by different pathogens, different food items, different states are affected. What they have in common is that our food system is very interconnected. There are very large food producers that distribute to many, many states reach often millions of consumers. And so when we see outbreaks like this, it's because we largely share a food supply with our neighbors. There have also been a series of cuts made by the Trump administration to some specific surveillance monitoring programs, as well as much, much broader cuts that have trickled down to the public health world writ large. Is it fair to say that those cuts are somewhat complicit in this or not?

It's hard to draw a straight line because we don't necessarily see the inner workings of the people who used to work there but are now Rift, that is to say, laid off, or the direct line to budget cuts. But I can say with confidence that when you lose a quarter or a third of your public health workforce, when you are under strain for coming up on six plus years, coming out of the pandemic, the consequences of that do matter. They do manifest. And we like to say in public health that when we do our jobs right, nothing happens. And we're seeing now the opposite of that where things are happening. And I think we need to recognize that there are things we can do, which is to say investments

and support that can help to reverse that trend. Cyclospora in particular is hammering Michigan. Do you have any sense as to why it is so bad in that state? I think there are two probable reasons. One is that they received the contaminated product, right? They had the shredded lettuce, the iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms. But I also think Michigan has done a very good job alerting the public to the existence of this outbreak and educating providers on the need to identify and test cases. And so although you may see higher numbers and think, oh, dear, that's worse.

In some ways it's better because it means that public health officials have more information to be able to identify the source and take the necessary actions to keep people safe. Alongside those two outbreaks, we've also seen another virus reemerge, and that is measles. And we have got this a record number of cases this year. I believe it's 2,300, which is, I think, the worst in 35 years, I believe it is. This was a virus that we had once basically eradicated in the U.S. Why are we seeing a return of that virus? It's true. This is already a record year for measles.

We have surpassed last year's total already in January. July, and this is the biggest year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2001. We have a safe and very effective vaccine against measles, and so the reason that we're seeing these increased cases is because that vaccine coverage is falling. The good news here is that the trend is reversible. If we are able to increase vaccine coverage, then we will be able to return to a state where we can say measles no longer circulates. But unfortunately today, that's not the case. And some of what you're talking about is, I think, driven by some messaging that we've been hearing coming out of HHS and the health secretary, Mr. Kennedy. Do you think, though, that state and local public health departments are able to step in when you're talking about salmonella and cyclosporiasis and measles and the messaging involved in that?

Are they up to that task? Oh, absolutely. state and local public health officials are actually the front lines. Many people don't know that public health in the United States is federated, which means it's the state and local officials who have the power and the ability to act, whereas federal officials, at least on the CDC side, it's different for FDA, but they act in a more advisory technical capacity. And so I have absolute confidence in our ability, our state and local officials' ability to combat these threats, but they do need resourcing and support. They can't do it in the absence of money and people. And so that really comes

back to the need to continue to invest in public health and give our systems what they need to thrive. Caitlin Rivers of Johns Hopkins University, always great to hear from you. Thank you so much. Thank you. With fewer than 100 days to go until the midterms, both parties are gearing up for a combative and expensive battle for control of Congress. With more and what comes next, we're joined now by our Politics Monday duo, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. So we are officially inside 100 days until the midterms. Are you excited? Oh, so excited. Can't contain it. It's palpable, isn't it? Always. Yeah, so big picture, what does each party

need to do between now and November, and which side has the harder job? Tam, we'll start with you. I think that they both have hard jobs, actually, though Democrats arguably have an easier job because there is this huge anti-incumbent, anti-establishment mood in the country that they, in theory can ride. Republicans need to motivate voters who are not typically motivated in midterm years. President Trump won with a very broad base of people, many of whom only vote in presidential years

and possibly only vote for people named Trump. And so they're trying to figure out how to rebuild their 2024 base in 26, which is a very different year and has a lot of, challenges, including the Iran war and the cost of things and just general voter angst and frustration. Amy? Yeah, for Democrats or for Republicans? For both? Oh, for both. So I match it up as it's really a clash between the environment and the structural realities. And the environment benefits

Democrats. The president's unpopular. People are upset about inflation. Enthusiasm is a real factor Democratic voters are much more fired up to go to the polls. But the structural piece is real, and it's a big challenge for Democrats. There just aren't that many competitive seats held by Republicans in the House, enough for them to be able to win back. They only need three seats to win back the House. But on the Senate side, they're going to, they still have to win in these very dark red states. And what we're seeing in the polling right now is that even as the president is unpopular, the Democratic image remains also pretty toxic in those red states. And to me, that's the challenge that Democrats really have.

The environment, I don't think, is going to get better for Republicans between now and the election. Gas prices are going to go up and down. But I think overall, voters are pretty pessimistic about the way the president's handling the economy, and that's not going to change. What is going to be interesting as we move from primaries to the general election is how much this debate within the Democratic. Party about who are we? Are we Democratic Socialists? Are we over here on the left? Are we here in the center? Will that continue to be an issue as we go into the fall campaigns? Republicans are

absolutely going to paint every Democrat as far left. Is that going to work for candidates who don't take those positions? We're going to have to see. Well, Democrats aren't helped at all by this latest turmoil surrounding the DNC chair, Ken Martin. And the context here is that he's facing renewed criticism over fresh media reports about fundraising struggles, internal financial pressures, having to put up the DNC headquarters as collateral to obtain a loan. There are allegations of this volatile confrontation with staff. He allegedly threw a phone at a young aide. And the reports have revived questions about his leadership at a time when Democrats are obviously trying to rebuild ahead of 2024, the midterms. So, Tam, you know, Democrats have spent months

arguing about how they need this stronger message and what should that message be. They're not helped at all by what's happening right now with the DNC. Yeah, the Democratic National Committee is essentially turfing some of that out to the states. That's where some of that money has gone. Just to give a picture of the financial situation, when you subtract debt, the Democratic National committee has negative two million dollars. Now, compare all of the Democratic committees and the main super PACs to all of the Republican committees and President Trump's MAGA PAC. And there is a deficit of $700 billion, sorry, not billion, million, $700 million for Democrats. They are way behind Republicans in fundraising. Now, what the DNC and all the Democratic committees will say is,

Yes, but their candidates are raising the money. And yes, absolutely, John Ossoff in Georgia, James Tala Rico in Texas. They are raising piles of money. And that is also a reflection, though. The money is following where donors think they're making a good investment. They don't think that the DNC is a good investment. If they did, the DNC wouldn't be in a $2 million hole. How do you see it, Amy?

Yeah, and the challenge since the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance makes this chasm even more problematic for Democrats. Before the Supreme Court decision, that gap would be important, but both of the campaign committees were prohibited from contributing directly to campaigns. And so they both had to spend a lot of their money on overhead, essentially. Now they can funnel it directly to the campaigns. And so what it allows Republicans to do, I think, is to help shore up some of their most vulnerable incumbents or candidates who, in years past, might have fallen off because they just didn't have enough money to help them. Again, it's not enough to change the political environment. It just may be enough, if you think we've talked about sort of shoring up the wall that is protecting them, the seawall from the storm that's coming. This is just a little more cement on that seawall, but it's still going to be tough to hold.

I like that imagery. We've got about, what, a minute and a half left. I want to talk to you about the proposed 2028 presidential calendar. Again, for Democrats. So right now it starts in South Carolina, then it moves to Nevada, then New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia would all be permitted to hold early contests. This map looks a lot like the old map. What does it say about Democrats' priorities, Amy? Right now it says that with Nevada and South Carolina, well, South Carolina first and then Nevada, that they're putting a priority on voters of color early in the process. New Hampshire, Iowa, 90% white, those two states, South Carolina, Nevada, not. However, as we also know, the first two states, while they may not be determinative of who ultimately wins the nomination, they do winnow the field out a lot. And so the kinds of candidates that can appeal in South Carolina,

Carolina, Nevada, which are two very different states in the same way that Iowa and New Hampshire were. So all the candidates are going to have to do, I would say, my number one advice to campaigns is to understand all of the rules and delegate math around the map, not just those first two states, because at the end of the day, it's the number of delegates that you win, not just who wins the very first state. And Tammy, even as some Democrats have this sort of reckoning about what will the party be? South Carolina going first again in 2028 in much the same way as it did back in 2020 with President Biden. It's because South Carolina has the infrastructure. Yeah, and the voters. South Carolina chooses presidents, as the saying goes. It is a state that has a lot of black voters

and black Democrats tend to be a little bit more conservative than white progressive Democrats in some of these other states. So it's just a different electorate there. Tamara Keith, Amy Walter. Thank you both. You're welcome. Thank you. A new documentary explores the realities of motherhood in America from the high cost of child care to the latest culture wars over parenting and raising a family. Amna Nawaz recently spoke with the film's creators for our arts and culture series, Canvas. The debate over a modern motherhood is often framed as a choice between career and family. A new documentary film called No Country from Mothers dives deep into the so-called Mommy War.

unpacking the systems that exploit and perpetuate those divides and what it would take to end them. Here's a clip. Working moms versus stay-at-home moms. You have working moms, you have stay-at-home moms, and then you have work from home, stay-at-home moms. Everything that structurally is set up is set up to make motherhood so damned hard. Does housework count as, well, real work? Culturally, we've never really told the truth about. motherhood. If we're going to win the culture war, we have to start at all. The film is made by the

CEO of Mom's First. That's Reshma Sajani, an executive produced by Tan France. They join me now. Welcome to you, though. Thank you so much for joining us. Reshma, I'll start with you because you meet with a lot of different moms in the film. You share your own story as a working mom, too. What did you find as you dug into this? Were the struggles of these moms universal? Yeah, I mean, look, this film is an investigation into the lies we tell about American motherhood to distract and divide us from getting the things we need to make motherhood tenable in America, which is paid leave and child care. And what I found as I went across the country is we all want the same thing. But we're being tricked into thinking our choices are binary, that I got to be a trad wife or a girl boss, neither which, you know, like no one wants to spend their time hustling so hard they don't see their kids or milking a cow. We all want something in between.

But it's the culture wars that are preventing us from actually making America and American motherhood actually tenable. And so I ended this film with a whole lot of hope in thinking that if we can come together, we can change everything. Tan, we should note you are also, of course, a parent. But this is a conversation moms often have amongst themselves, right? Men and fathers can be excluded or we expect them to not be part of the solution. So why did you want to get behind this film? For so many reasons, as you mentioned, I'm a parent. I'm a gay parent. There are two dads as no mother in this situation. And so I think I understand even to a tiny extent what mothers are experiencing in America. But most importantly, I was born and raised in the UK where the laws are very different. Also, I'm surrounded by moms. All my friends are women, moms. And I see the struggle. And it's exceptionally sad to see that we're in this position. We want our country to be great. It starts with taken care about mothers and our children.

Rush, may you talk about this moment, but it's also how we got here. And there is a turning point. You talk about the pandemic, what it did to American mothers, the impact it had, forcing women out of the workforce. Have we recovered from that yet? Where are we now? No, we haven't. In fact, the pandemic in some ways was a gift because it showed us what's possible.

We started increasing benefits on paid leave and childcare. We started allowing remote work, offering mothers grace. We recognize that often most mothers are, both working and their caregiving, and they shouldn't have to hide either one of their identities. And so we were able to finally build a workplace that worked for moms. But, you know, after the pandemic, we pulled all that progress back. You know, most recently, Deloitte and Zoom have basically, you know, reduced the amount of paid leave benefits. You're seeing companies pull back. And the reason why we have this rollback is the culture wars. Every time women start making progress, we hand them a

culture war. You have to remember right before the pandemic, For the first time in the history of our country, 51% of the labor force was female. And last year, you know, 500,000 women left the workforce because they had children under the age of five and they couldn't afford or find child care. It's structure and structural obstacles that are impeding the progress of women and families. The culture wars, the political wars at the heart of it are something you trace to. All of this well predates the pandemic. You dive into some of the history here about how the Equal Rights Amendment and the ERA had actually been on both political parties' platforms at one point until it wasn't.

Here's a clip of how that happened. Going into 1980, Ronald Reagan drops the ERA from the platform, and they take up the cause in their platform of being pro-life and its family values. An identity structure as what a good woman is. And the debate gets framed as an us versus them. And that's really important to remember as we go into the battles we're having now. Tan, how does that history help us understand some of those battles that Rushmond was mentioning earlier, this choice between being a trad wife and staying at home and only having kids and no career or being a girl boss? How should we understand about how we got here?

Quite frankly, what we see historically is that there wasn't ever really a choice you were forced into a situation. you are having to, so many women are having to leave the home because they can't afford to stay at home and take care of the kids because our governments aren't taking care of them. Or they have to stay at home because they can't afford the childcare. We've seen this decade after decade. This has been the case for decades now, I think, since time began. And so it was really important for context to show. This isn't something that's new. It's not going to win.

And therefore, it does require massive change. but it requires by parts and buy-in. Greshma, there's a moment, sort of an aha moment in the film, because you speak to mothers of all different backgrounds, different political persuasions, different economic circumstances. You have a focus group that you're watching unfold, and this group of women who come from varied backgrounds all coalesce around the idea of what would help them,

and that is universal free childcare, regardless of their backgrounds and how they come to this issue. And you actually asked, then candidate, Donald Trump, about what he would do as president to try to work towards affordable child care back in 2024. Do you see any signs of a country working towards that when it's so widely supported? Yeah, I mean, when I asked President Trump that question when he was running for office, he acknowledged an interesting answer that child care is child care. You got to have it.

And then, you know, most recently at a breakfast during Easter, he kind of announces that, well, child care's too expensive. You know, I'm spending, we need to spend resources, you know, quite frankly, on protecting the homeland rather than daycare. It's too expensive. We can't do it. And to me, that message was so offmark of understanding where American families are. You know, 50% of Americans can't afford the basics. That's the essentials, like diapers and food.

And childcare is the linchpin of affordability. It's the one line item on most families' budgets that if you shifted it, if you made it cheaper, it was. would change everything for that. Well, the way in which you're rolling out this film is as much a part of the story as anything. The film has already made history. It's set records for the most producers credited on a film. Over 2,500 mothers, caregivers and advocates are listed in the credits. You're also not streaming it.

It's not on YouTube. It's not on Netflix. The only way for people to see it is in community screenings. You've hosted over a thousand so far across the country. Why that decision? Tan, I'll come to you first. You know, Rashma, the team really started to talk about that quite some time ago, and I loved the idea.

I come from a traditional entertainment background now. I've been on streamers for many, many years, and I thought, okay, this will go to a streamer, we'll sell this documentary, and it will get seen by millions. However, after hearing the importance of doing this way, where we're doing private screenings, we're encouraging people to do screenings with their communities, it's so that women are watching on their own in silos thinking,

am I the problem? What's the problem? How do we talk about this? How do I talk about this? My friends and family. Now we want you to do screenings with your friends and family. Listen, we didn't go to a streamer because we knew that we didn't want moms to watch it by themselves and think, yep, this is my personal problem. I'm just a bad mom. I just can't make it work. And so we wanted you to watch it in community because that's how we get to paid leave and child care. The second thing is, let's be honest, we're living in. a moment where we are suppressing women's content. And I was worried that if we gave it to a streamer, it would be buried. And what we've been able to do in this past four weeks is like

nothing I've ever seen. And these are moms coming together, sometimes at church. You know what I mean? Sometimes in their community, some are in their library, sometimes renting out their own theaters. And they're staying till midnight, talking, crying, holding each other, hugging each other, talking about the laws they're going to change, the policies are going to pass, the neighbor that they're going to help. Like, this is the match that we needed to, quite frankly, burn it all down and finally build a country for mothers. The film is no country for mothers. The two forces behind it are Tan France and the CEO of Mom's First, Reshma, Sajani. Thank you so much to you both. The real pleasure to speak with you. Thank you. And that's the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett.

For all of us here at the PBS News Hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.