PBS News Hour - Full Show - July 3, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Thursday on the News Hour, Republicans hand President Trump a major win by passing the massive bill that extends tax cuts and slashes Medicaid. Ukraine fears it won't be able to keep fighting off Russian attacks after the U.S. holds back promised weapons. Plus, the Trump administration freezes the release of billions of dollars for school programs. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening. I'm William Brangham. I'm the Navaz and Jeff Bennett are away. On the news hour tonight, the motion is adopted. Republicans hand President Trump a major win by passing the massive budget bill that extends tax cuts and slashes Medicaid. Ukraine fears it won't be able to keep holding off Russian attacks after the U.S. holds back promised weapons. And the Trump had administration freezes the release of billions of dollars for school programs. This is just devastating. This is 1.4 million kids in 10,000 sites across the country.

Welcome to the News Hour. Now missing just his signature, President Donald Trump's agenda will have the force of law tomorrow. The so-called one big, beautiful bill overcame thin Republican majorities and weeks of tense negotiations, just meeting the president's self-imposed Independence Day deadline. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin takes us through the policy and politics of the Republican signature bill. Yaser 218, the Naser 214, the motion is adopted. For the GOP of victory years in the making. House Republicans cheered after a long week of overnight and nail-biter votes ended historically. Passage of what they named the one big, beautiful bill, with some $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $1.4 trillion in spending cuts.

Both are records. As is the $3.2 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office says this could add to the deficit. This is the vote tally card. We're going to frame this one, okay? For House Speaker Mike Johnson, a hard-fought moment. to savor. Mr. Speaker, with one big, beautiful bill, we are going to make this country stronger, safer, and more prosperous than ever before.

And every American is going to benefit from that. President Trump was jubilant about his most sweeping legislative accomplishment. We're sort of celebrating like the biggest bill of its kind ever signed, and it's going to make this country into a rocket ship. The president was the closer-in-chief, pushing and pressuring the bill through, especially when it hit a wall last night, a House vote was frozen, as Republican opponents refused to let the bill advance. Trump posted shortly after midnight, this should be an easy yes vote, ridiculous. Then he was on the phone with the holdout, who had wanted more conservative

social and fiscal policy. Not long after that, the vast majority flipped. A day earlier, Texas Republican Chip Roy and others had posted their lists of problems in the bill. But today from those opponents. Don't count out Trump. That gum, that guy. I wouldn't want to play poker with him. Full embrace of the bill. A day of go, many of you had major problems. And yet the bill did not change. Your vote did. Yeah, the timing of everything. And Trump understands that. And I believe that's why they called the vote last night because that put everybody at the table. And they said, this is the deadline. I spoke with him. I spoke with the Vice President Alto. And after listening to them and thinking about it for a while, I went ahead and made the vote.

Per multiple holdout members, Trump gave assurances about how he would implement the bill and tighten benefits, stepping up checks for possible undocumented immigrants. Immigration policy is also in the bill, $150 billion, including for a border wall and mass detention. It cuts billions in tax credits for wind and solar, and it makes the largest changes ever in the social safety net. Republican reforms of systems they don't trust. cuts to snap benefits and hundreds of billions cut in future Medicaid spending. Earlier this year, Trump pledged not to harm those eligible. Medicaid, we're not going to do anything with that other than if we can find some abuse

or waste, we'll do something, but the people won't be affected. It'll only be more effective and better. But the CBO concluded that overall, nearly 12 million will lose health insurance because of the bill, including millions now on Medicaid. If cutting a trillion dollars out of Medicaid is what we call progress, I'd like to see what failure is. This was central to Democratic outcry over the bill, one they see as dangerous to those most vulnerable. House Democratic leader Hakim Jeffery spoke for nearly nine hours on the House floor, further delaying the vote and breaking a record for talk time in the chamber.

Never, in my time here in Congress, have I experienced legislation that benefits so few people. But Republicans are betting that their tax cuts spark massive economic growth. They'll celebrate more tomorrow with a July 4th signing ceremony. Now, this was a messy. tricky process, House leadership and Senate leadership threading multiple needles, overnight votes, reading bills late. But in the end, William, one Republican leadership source said, voters don't remember the process.

They remember the result. Lisa, this came down to those so-called fiscal hawks, the holdouts. What else do we know about why they changed their minds? What kinds of assurances did they get to got them to yes? In the end, I think it really was just Trump pressure, but they told me a few things. One, that the president indicated to them that he was going to put new tariffs on solar and wind products all along the supply chain.

Now, that's interesting because already there are very heavy tariffs, as we've reported on this show, on that. But they felt reassured because they were worried that the bill didn't do enough to cut solar and wind. The president said he's going to do more. Now, in addition, on undocumented immigrants, that's a limitation that was in the House bill cut from the Senate. The president told them that he plans to step up eligibility. requirements or eligibility checks in things like Medicaid and make sure undocumented immigrants are not on the federal plan. Now, already there's a lot of eligibility checks, so we have to watch what that means.

So what does each party see about what happens next? Right. This is fascinating because this bill really could drive the next political cycle entirely on its own. Republicans are going to start messaging that they believe the economy is being unleashed here, that this will be good for business, this will be good for individuals. They will be talking a lot about this. Now, Democrats, on the other hand, aren't worried about that message

because they believe the effects of this bill. People will feel them in their own lives. People will be losing health care. They may be having more struggles, especially with those kinds of things. So Democrats think in the end, because they see this bill as dangerous, that it will benefit them, both parties acknowledge that this will be something probably that will affect them on the ballot in 2026. And what do we know about the effects of this bill and when those might be felt by

voters. Right. The biggest effect is one that actually no one will feel. The tax cuts in this bill largely are mean that tax rates don't change at all. That's the most expensive part of this. So it's staving off a tax increase. But that is something that people should be aware of. Now, otherwise, there are some cuts already being felt like Medicaid cuts, even though technically they don't go into place until 2027, 2028. Today, there's a community hospital in Nebraska in the last 24 hours that came out and said this. This is Community Hospital in Curtis, Nebraska, writing that they feel that now,

because of anticipated Medicaid cuts and other financial problems they've had, that they're going to close that clinic in Curtis. I spoke to officials in that town, it's a very small town. They said to me they only have a physical therapist in that town. The next closest medical facility is 40 to 50 minutes away, and they have a small college there as well.

So they're concerned about this. One other thing I want to talk about that we could see immediate effects from, is the immigration money in this bill. We're talking about tens of billions of dollars for enforcement, detention, deportation. That's money that will go out almost immediately. And we know that the Trump administration wants to use it.

Lisa Desrodin, you have done such incredible work all week long for us helping us stay up to speed. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Among the biggest winners with today's budget bill are corporations and small businesses. The bill would make permanent the tax breaks from President Trump's first term,

as well as expanding provisions on company expenses and itemizations. Manufacturers in particular are supportive of the bill. Companies could fully and immediately deduct the cost of new manufacturing plants. It also has incentives for producing semiconductors. So for a business perspective on all of this, I'm joined by Jay Timmons. He's the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. Jay Timmons, thank you so much for being here. How, in this bill, how vital was the making the 2017 tax cuts permanent?

How much of that was a factor for you all? Honestly, William, it was huge. Look, in 2017, I think we had a great victory for manufacturing in America, but it was a temporary victory. We knew all along that, especially for small manufacturers who are so critical to the supply chain, for manufacturers, larger manufacturers, we really only had a victory that would last until 2025. And in fact, some provisions in that bill, as you know, interest deductibility, full expensing, research and development credits, those already expired. So the big challenge was making sure that the pass-through deduction for small businesses did not expire at the end of this year.

It would have cost six million jobs, one million of those in manufacturing. and about a $1.1 trillion hit to our economy. But I think kind of the unsung good news of this bill is that the corporate rate didn't change. Even just a few weeks ago, there were folks talking about, well, maybe we should put a few more points on the board, on the corporate side.

That's not a good message for manufacturers who we would like to invest in their new plants and equipment here in this country. When it comes to different manufacturing sectors, who is most likely to benefit? I mean, which sectors are most likely to be able to pounce on this and do something with it?

Well, look, I think, frankly, I think all manufacturing will benefit from this. I think all businesses will benefit. And then in the bottom line is America will benefit because you will have more investment, you'll have more jobs, you'll have higher wages. That leads to more dollars

into the U.S. Treasury so that Congress has more dollars, to disperse for programs that are necessary. But if I think about some of our members at the NAM, some of our 13,000 members, the certainty that it provides, that this bill provides, especially for small manufacturers,

those folks that are part of the supply chain, that is really critical because I've heard from so many over the years that they really want to make investments, but they're just a little concerned, that the tax policies weren't going to be renewed or that the regulatory regime was going to be too expensive for them. So all of those, you know, those small businesses, I think, will benefit greatly.

Most analyses of this bill indicate that it will drive up the national debt by more than $3 trillion. Won't that drag on the federal budget and the government's ability to invest counter some of the positive things that you're describing here? So, look, I happen to be somebody who is concerned about the deficit, right? And I firmly believe, William, that the most important thing that any government can do, whether that's the federal government, the state government, local government,

you have to have the right tax policies in place that encourage growth in the economy. And I understand all of the negative back and forth on the bill from folks who didn't like some of the spending provisions. But this is really the first time that I've seen in my lifetime that we've actually gotten it right on the growth side of the equation. So if you think of the Reagan tax cuts, those were, you know, those were heralded to a great degree, and they were very welcome at the time, but they weren't targeted specifically for growth. They were targeted more toward providing more dollars in the pockets of consumers. Not a bad thing, by the way. But that's not necessarily growth-oriented.

The same thing happened in the Bush tax cuts earlier in this century. This is the first time that these tax cuts have been really specifically designed to supercharge. The president said rocket fuel at our board meeting in 2017. I actually think he was right to supercharge the American economy. And what that does is that leads, again, to more investment, jobs, and tax revenue to hopefully mitigate some of the some of those deficit concerns in the future. All right, that is Jay Timmons, the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Thank you so much for being here. Great to be here. So for more on how Republicans, even those who were staunchly opposed to this bill have since come around, as well as how voters see it, we are joined again by Sarah Longwell. She's a Republican strategist and publisher of the bulwark.

Sarah, it's so nice to have you back on the program. Help us understand this. How did some of these GOP members who were once committed diehard nose suddenly get to yes? It's actually very simple. Donald Trump demanded it, and they all fell in line. And it is actually a little bit stunning because they were such firm nose when it came to the Senate version of this bill. And for some of the fiscal hawks, they were nose because it added somewhere. between $4.1 trillion and $6 trillion to the debt. And then for the moderates, for some of those

legislators, there was a real concern about the cuts to Medicaid. And so a lot of those legislators had said, absolutely not. We will not vote for this bill. And then Trump and J.D. Vance simply went to work on them, calling them and cajoling them and browbeating them. And there was a lot of peer pressure. And I think it's really become one of the pieces of orthodoxy now in the Republican Party. It even transcends the commitment to tax cuts is the commitment to doing whatever Donald Trump says you've got to do. You recently wrote about Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican from Alaska, saying she was one of those nos. She then fought for certain things to be changed that would help Alaska. And then she got to yes.

You wrote that her actions seem to epitomize this political moment that we are in right now. How so? Well, there's a lot of forces that Donald Trump has unleashed on the country. One of them is sort of, I get mine and whatever happens to everybody else, well, they can sort of go pound sand. That is how Donald Trump operates. And that's a bit what Lisa Murkowski did by getting a carve out for Alaska. on some of the pieces of the bill that she saw as the most harmful to people. And she was very clear that this was a bad bill and that it was going to do damage to a lot of people

who's going to take away snap benefits and Medicaid coverage to a lot of people who needed it. And she basically fought to have her state exempt from those cuts. And in the horse trading to get her on board, Alaska was spared some of the more deleterious elements of the bill. It was also just sort of the quintessential cowardice that you see in the Trump era from Republicans. They're afraid of Trump voters. There are, have sort of a go along to get along mentality

when it comes to their colleagues, right? They don't want to sort of, it's almost like cafeteria style pressure, right? They don't want their colleagues to be mad at them. But she certainly had the power to stop it and chose not to. I want to drill into those, that issue about Medicaid that you mentioned, which is that President Trump said Republicans are not going to touch Medicaid. And you saw some Republican senators like Josh Hawley really raise considerable critique of that

bill over Medicaid. And yet he too got on board. How do you explain that? While Donald Trump and Republicans have promised two very key things, one was that they would not touch Medicaid, the other was a promise of fiscal discipline and not adding trillion. of dollars to the debt. Ultimately, in order to get this bill passed, they simply decided to forego both those promises, and they did it because there was no other way to sort of pay for this and get it done. And I think ultimately, and this is another reason this bill, I think, is bad on its merits, is that they just wanted to pass something. This is the only piece of legislation that Republicans have put forward. They've got nothing else on the agenda. They've had nothing else.

Congress has done almost nothing. They're trying to get it done with this one shot. I mean, even when Obamacare was being debated, you know, it was, we had months and months of debate so people could try to learn what was in the bill. People are going to be finding out what was in this bill for years to come. Do you think voters, in the end, when they do find out the details of this bill,

will punish Republicans for this? I do. I mean, this, to me, seems sort of like politics 101 for the Democrats. First of all, Democrats, one of their better issues in terms of where they get trust from the voters is on health care. And this is a pretty straightforward argument. It's, you know, Donald Trump gave tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and he paid for it by cutting health care for the poorest Americans. And I think if you throw in there the lack of fiscal discipline and the blowing up of the federal debt and deficit, that's a potent message for 2026. The other

notable thing is that the people who make up Republican voters now are much more often low-income voters than they used to be. I mean, back in 2009, about 26 out of 100 congressional districts that Republicans won were among the lowest income. Today, it is 56 of the lowest-income districts are voted for the Republican. And so Americans are going to see the effects of the this bill in certain areas pretty quickly, and I guess they'll decide if they like it when they do. All right, that is Sarah Longwell, Republican strategist and publisher of the bulwark. Always great to talk to you. Thank you. Thanks so much. women's and girls' sports. The cases, one in Idaho and one in West Virginia,

involve lower court rulings that cited in favor of transgender athletes at both the K-12 and college levels. This comes just two weeks after the High Court upheld a ban on gender affirming care for minors. And just this week, the University of Pennsylvania resolved a federal civil rights case by agreeing to limit transgender participation in sports. Kilmar, Abraigel Garcia says he endured severe beatings and other forms of torture while being held at a notorious prison in El Salvador. It's his first account of his time there after the Trump administration mistakenly deported him back in March. In a new court filing, Abrago Garcia described being stripped naked, head shaved, beaten, and forced to kneel for nine hours

straight overnight. He says he lost more than 30 pounds in two weeks. Abrego Garcia is currently being held at a Tennessee jail as he awaits trial on human smuggling charges. Health officials in Gaza say Israeli gunfire and airstrikes killed nearly 100 Palestinians across the strip overnight and into today. Forty-five of those deaths were Gazans attempting to get food from aid distribution sites. Israel maintains that it targets only Hamas militants or fires warning shots to keep crowds at bay. Strikes across the the Strip also hit displaced Palestinians who were sheltering and sleeping in tents. In southern Gaza, at least 13 members of a single family were killed.

Another strike left 15 dead at a school in northern Gaza City. We woke up to the sounds of explosions. We found fire spreading all over the roof. It was a huge fire. When we started to put it out, we found charred bodies of children and women. These dozens of deaths come as Israel and Hamas may be inching closer to a possible ceasefire. Hamas is seeking guarantees that any proposal would eventually lead to the war's end. But today, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, reiterated that Hamas has no future in Gaza.

In Europe, a record-breaking heat wave is moving east, bringing some much-needed relief to Spain and France, but sizzling other parts of the continent, like the Balkans. In North Macedonia, residents leaped into rivers in order to stay cool amid triple-digit temperatures. But elsewhere, the heat, along with a severe drought, has allowed wildfires to rage in Greece, Germany, and Turkey. The blazes have killed at least one person and forced thousands to evacuate. There is good economic news heading into the United States.

the July 4th weekend, U.S. employers kept hiring at a steady clip in the month of June while unemployment fell. The stronger than expected 147,000 added jobs beat expectations and were in line with the 144,000 new jobs back in May. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% in June. It was 4.2% the month before. All of this points to a stable labor market. And experts say that likely means Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell won't be in a hurry to lower interest rates when the Fed meets later this month. Stocks rose today on the job numbers news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added nearly 350 points, while the NASDAQ gained more than a percentage point. Both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 hit new record highs.

The Chicago suburb, where Pope Leo the 14th grew up, has approved place. plans to buy his childhood home. The board of trustees in the village of Dalton, Illinois, voted unanimously to purchase the small two-story house. The city will preserve it and turn it into a historical site. Many visitors have already flocked to the home since the new Pope's election in May, some of them treating it as a pilgrimage. And acclaimed actor Michael Madsen has died. He was found unresponsive in his Malibu home. His manager said the apparent cause of death, was cardiac arrest. Among his best known roles was his menacing performance as Mr. Blonde in the crime

thriller Reservoir Dogs. Madsen often teamed up with director and friend Quentin Tarantino, lending his chilling character portrayals to other films like Kill Bill and The Hateful Eight. He had an acting career that spanned over four decades. Michael Madsen was 67. years old. Still to come on the NewsHour, the Trump administration withholds billions to fund critical school programs. A drive-by mass shooting in Chicago highlights the perpetual problem of gun violence. And author Robin Givon discusses her biography of revolutionary designer Virgil Ablo.

This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at W.E. V.A. in Washington and in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. This PBS News Hour podcast is supported in part by Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Life sustains itself by cell division. So does cancer. Breast cancer cells multiply faster because of CDK-46 proteins. But what if we could block those proteins and stop runaway cell division? To that end, Dana Farber laid the foundation for CDK-4-6 inhibitors, drugs designed to treat many advanced breast cancers. Dana-Farber keeps finding new ways to out-maneuver cancer. Learn more at

Danafarber.org slash everywhere. Today, the Russian military confirmed that Ukraine killed Major General Mikhail Gudkov, the deputy head of Russia's Navy, and one of the most senior Russian military officers to have been killed since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Also today, President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and confirmed that the U.S. is withholding some weapons from Ukraine. We're giving weapons, but we've given so many weapons, but we are giving weapons, and we're working with them and trying to help them, but we haven't. You know, Biden emptied out our whole country, giving them weapons, and we have to make sure

that we have enough for ourselves. That decision has sparked intense debate this week from Washington to Keev. Nick Schifrin has more. The weapons deliveries that the Trump administration is withholding from Ukraine, include a number of Patriot Air Defense missiles that had been appropriated by last terms Congress and authorized by the Biden administration. It's also holding back 155 millimeter artillery shells and other weapons, as Russia has been pounding Ukraine on the front lines and,

missile and drone barrages every night. Ukraine says it needs these weapons to defend itself, but as the president suggested, the Department of Defense concluded the U.S. needs these weapons to be ready for its own contingencies. So is this move in America's interests? For that, we get two views. Kimberly Kagan is the president of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think take, and Jennifer Kavanaugh is a senior fellow and director of military analysis at defense priorities, which advocates for restraint in U.S. foreign policy. Thanks very much. Welcome both of you to the News Hour. Jennifer Kavanaugh, let me start with you. Bottom line, do you think the Trump administration has made the right call to withhold some of these

weapons to Ukraine? I do think it's the right call, and it's a necessary call. The number one priority for the Pentagon has to be making sure that U.S. military forces are ready to protect themselves and to execute their top priority missions abroad. And right now, the Pentagon has made clear that those are, number one, homeland defense, number two, Asia, number three, Middle East. Ukraine is simply not an existential threat to the United States. It's the lowest priority. The Pentagon has also made clear this is a pause, not a halt. They're reviewing arms deliveries, and they're continuing to provide other types of weapons that are in greater supply.

But U.S. stockpiles are very low, even to the point of interfering with training. So this isn't necessary, and I believe, the right decision. Kagan, take on those arguments. Stockpiles are low, and Ukraine is not existential for the U.S. The purpose of U.S. engagement in Ukraine is actually the protection and security of the United States and its allies and partners abroad. The reason to supply Ukraine with arms and weapons is that it is essential to stop Putin on the battlefield because Putin doesn't want to negotiate for a ceasefire.

And so Ukraine needs those weapons in order to be able to continue to defend itself. And providing those weapons shows that the United States is strong, tough, and serious, and willing and able to support friends and allies abroad. So Jennifer, I don't take those arguments. The weapons can stop Putin on the battlefield, and that, last point, Kim Kagan was Megan, that showing the U.S. is committed to Ukraine does have more strategic impacts, for example, on China. Well, first of all, Ukraine's biggest problem right now is not a shortage of weapons, but a shortage of manpower. They simply don't have enough personnel

to man their front lines, and they're suffering very high desertion rates, which is understandable given that their soldiers have been fighting now for over three years, some of them without a break. So more weapons isn't going to be the solution to Ukraine's real problem here. Thinking about Putin's calculus. Putin in his call with Trump today made it clear that he has a set of goals that he aims to achieve and he will push until he achieves those goals almost regardless of what the West does. So this isn't going to change his calculus either. As far as how the rest of the world interprets the U.S. decision, you know, I'm sure Beijing and Iran and other U.S. adversaries would love to see the United States continue to send its valuable and precious munitions to Ukraine

because it means that there's fewer that the United States can use in conflicts in those regions. If anything, the number one U.S. adversary China would see this as a sign of resolve that the United States is finally doing what it said it's going to do

for the past over 10 years of beginning to prioritize and conserve its military resources to focus on the Asian theater. So Kim Kagan take those arguments. on. The better way to deter China is to prioritize weapons toward China, and also more weapons will not make a difference on the front line in Ukraine. First of all, the bureaucratic reprioritization of weapons allocation is not going to deter an aggressor like Xi Jinping. The way that the United

States needs to deter Xi Jinping is to show, first of all, that it has the capability, to act both militarily and through other means. The second way is to show that it will actually support vulnerable partners in the region in order to make sure that they are protected from conquest. So there's a direct relationship between what happens in Ukraine and what happens in Taiwan. And furthermore, it is essential that,

that the United States recognize that its ability to deter and defend itself is actually really about developing the defense industry and the military capability of the United States and the free world. Right now, saving several dozen Patriot interceptors that could save the lives. lives of civilians in Ukraine does not actually prepare the United States for a conflict with China,

were defended against Iran. Investing in the capability to manufacture and develop sophisticated missile interceptors is what we need to protect ourselves in the future. If only got about a minute and 20 seconds left, so this will be a bit of a lightning round for a key question for both of you. As you said, Jennifer Kavanaugh, President Trump referred to his call with Putin tonight. He actually said, quote, I'm not happy about that. I didn't make any progress with him at all very quickly. What do you think the best way to get toward peace in Ukraine is? And ultimately, it has to be a decision of the two combatants to be ready to stop fighting. And it's clear that we're not at that point yet. So there's really little that the United

States can do right now, in my view, to force Putin to negotiate. Zelensky has been more open to a ceasefire, but his terms, the terms of the deal that he's looking for, are still quite maximalist. So ultimately, there isn't that much the United States can do. I think that if we look into the future, maybe the fall, there could be an opening for more serious diplomacy, but in the very near term, the number one thing the United States needs to do is to protect its own interests and conserve those munitions. Kim Kagan, the best thing the U.S. can do? The United States needs to support Ukraine so that Ukraine can not only do as it has been doing, which is holding the line against Russian assaults,

causing one million Russian casualties, and making it so that the Russian rate of advance in Ukraine would gain it Ukrainian territory in 83 years. So the United States actually needs to arm Ukraine so that it can continue the war and change Putin's expectations that either the United States or Ukraine will simply surrender. Kim Kagan, Jennifer Kavanaugh,

Thank you very much, Tia both. Thanks for having. Thank you. Millions of children and working families will soon feel the impact of a funding freeze that will put a halt to key summer programs for kids and more. Laura Barone Lopez has the details. William, with very little explanation, the Education Department abruptly blocked the release of nearly $7 billion set to be distributed on July 1st.

The money, which Congress already approved, helped support six grant programs, including after-school and summer learning, English-language learning, and professional development for teachers. For more on what this loss of funding means for students and working families, I'm joined by Jody Grant, Executive Director of the After-School Alliance. Jody, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. The start of the school year is just around,

the corner a couple of months away, and public schools rely on this funding to keep their after-school programs going. How critical is it for them? I mean, this is just devastating. This is 1.4 million kids in 10,000 sites across the country. And I want to be clear, this funding was due on July 1st. So we have summer programs that are also in danger of shutting down right now. So there are places where some of the summer camp, summer learning programs, we'll be able to continue. And then, you know, we are just hearing from providers across the country that are extremely alarmed that they may have to close their doors before school opens. You mentioned summer programs may already feel the effects, but what other programs specifically could be affected by this loss of funding

and which communities may feel at the most? So it's 10,000 sites across the United States. These tend to be sites that have low-income communities. As I said, they are red, purple, and blue. And for many of them, this is their source of funding for after school. So they're doing everything they can to scrimp and save and see if they can keep their doors open a few extra days, a few extra weeks. But I think many of them are in grave danger of shutting down. And I think the worst hit communities are going to be rural communities in smaller states. And of course, the parents, because these programs are an absolute lifeline for working parents and their employers when parents start struggling with being able to go to work because their kids have nowhere to be.

The Trump administration says that this funding is under review. And in a statement from the Office of Management and Budget, they claimed in part, quote, initial findings have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda. They say including for undocumented immigrants and for teaching LGBTQ topics. What's your response to this? Yeah, my response is we are talking about 1.4 million kids. These programs are extraordinary.

99% of parents that we polled said that their after-school programs are excellent, very good, or good. 90% of voters across the board said after-school programs are an absolute necessity in their communities. And there's a reason the public likes these programs so much. It's because of the difference they make.

And as for, you know, programs, of course, they follow the law. And if they don't, the U.S. Department of Education can investigate them. The Trump administration has tried to do this with other pots of federal money, essentially stopping these monies from being dispersed. Judges have ruled against the president in some cases calling the blocking of this money illegal when he's tried to do it to infrastructure projects. So I know that some lawsuits are potentially expected, specifically on these education cuts. When it comes to how it will impact rural communities, though, specifically, does it impact not just children's learning,

but also working parents in those types of communities as they try to make sure that their kids have some engagement while they're at work? I think the ripple effect is huge. So this is not just impacting children who we know, you know, their attendance is better, their behavior is better, their course works better when they're in after-school programs, but they're working parents and then they're employers on Main Street. So you have whole businesses that can be impacted if you stop the funding for some of these after-school programs. Looking ahead, if these funds stay blocked, are there any other options for these districts?

Are there any other sources of funding that they could potentially pull from? I think most of our school districts, I should say, these grants are state grants that also it's community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, but most of them are really struggling right now. They're desperate for these funds, and they will do everything they can to keep providing services to kids, but we will see a lot of these programs shut down. Jodi Grant of the AfterSchool Alliance, thank you for your time. Thank you.

At least four people were killed and 14 others were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Chicago overnight. Witnesses described the scene as a war zone. Police say the attacker fled and no one is in custody. Despite this horrific shooting, the city of Chicago saw a historic drop in Hong Kong. homicides in the first half of the year. That's a trend that's largely been mirrored nationwide. So for a deeper look at the state of violent crime in the U.S., I spoke earlier today with Jeff Asher. His real-time crime index compiles data from hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide. Jeff Asher, great to have you back on the program. Let's talk about this event in

Chicago overnight. Horrible drive-by shooting. People see headlines like that, and they certainly are led to believe that we are in this violent crime spiral. Help us put these kinds of events into context. Well, it's very difficult. First off, you don't ever want to downplay the tragedy, downplay the horror. Even when you're talking about dramatic declines in gun violence, dramatic declines in murder, you're still talking about too many of these incidents, too many of these tragedies. That said, it's difficult for people, I think, to put these things in context because very rarely or never you see a story, there were no shootings yesterday, there were no murders yesterday. It's only in the presence of these tragedies that these things come to media attention. So the fact of the matter is

Chicago is seeing, I think, a 40% decline in shooting victims this year compared to the same timeframe last year. It's seen a 30-something percent decline in murder. Nationwide in cities of all sizes, we're seeing double-digit 20-something percent declines in murders. So, we are seeing these declines occurring pretty much everywhere, including in Chicago, but you also have something like this that comes to the public attention that very rightly so gets a lot of press and a lot of attention. It's just very challenging, I think, to balance that with the overall big picture trend, which is certainly far more rosy. Do you have any sense as to why those numbers are coming down so dramatically? It's literally a billion. It's literally a billion.

million dollar question in terms of if you knew the amount of resources and effort that you would put into it would be tremendous. There's a real challenge to the answering the question why we know that there aren't more police officers in the vast majority of cities nationwide compared to where we were even two or three years ago much less five or six years ago. We know that the root causes of violence really haven't been fixed. Poverty is still around. Education in a lot of cities still struggle. We know that the the country is still awash in guns, still a wash in firearms. There haven't been any tremendous changes there.

We know that murder clearance rates especially have kind of bounced around, but they're still low by historical standards, even despite the drop in murder that we've seen over the last two years. So putting all of that together, I think the most satisfying explanations are the big national explanations. The one that pops to my mind the most is that after COVID, we had all of this, spending on social programs, a 90% increase in construction from local and state governments on social and neighborhood centers, 50% increase in public safety spending construction,

20% interest increase in highway spending from state and local governments. You had all of this spending, all of this hiring, all of these things that maybe weren't specifically tied to violence reduction, but that have had this kind of ancillary benefit of helping to interrupt these cycles of violence that started in 2020 and 2021 and bring violence to what could be some of the lowest levels that have ever been recorded in the country. One of the things you mentioned as possible factors in this decline might be reversed soon. The Trump administration has eliminated a lot of grants to community-based violence prevention efforts. Do you have any concern that that might have a negative effect on these positive trends

you're seeing? I think the greater concern for me rather than changing these programs is going to lead to an increase is that at some point, whether it's six months from now, three years from now, 10 years from now, we're going to see crimes start to increase. These trends, these historic declines are not going to continue forever. When that change happens, these are programs that are useful for arresting that change, for interrupting cycles of violence. And if we have divested from these programs, then we're in a much worse position

when these trends inevitably change for whatever reason to respond to that change. All right, that is Jeff Asher, who is the co-founder of AH DataLivics. Always great to talk to you. Thank you very, very much. Thanks for having me. Virgil Ablo was a boundary breaker and a cultural translator,

a designer who made streetwear luxurious and luxury feel accessible. Ablo was the first black artistic director at Louis Vuitton and the visionary behind the fashion brand off white. But beyond the runways, he built bridges between worlds that rarely intersected, hip-hop and high fashion, skate culture and couture. Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic Robin Givon has written a new book called Make It Hours, which traces Abelow's unconventional path and the deeper meaning behind his work. Jeff Bennett sat down with her to talk about Ablo's legacy, his critics,

and how his work helped redefine what fashion can say and who it can speak for. Robin Gavon, welcome back to The News Hour. Thank you so much. Virgil Ablo, his workspanned, music, architecture, skateboarding, even DJing. You describe him as a remixer. What about his approach really allowed him to drive innovation and fashion and design? I think some of it was just sort of his generation, right? He came of age at a time of blogs, which sounds so retro today.

But, you know, blogs and Tumblr and Pinterest and just being able to kind of cut and paste your way through inspiration on a computer. And he was also a DJ. And, you know, a DJ isn't necessarily writing the music. They're taking melody and lyrics that someone else has created and they're putting their own spin on it. They're remixing it. They're cutting and pasting it. And essentially creating something that, you know, has their mark. You know, he hesitated to call himself a designer. And I think some of that was because he recognized that he had a very different approach to aesthetics than a lot of trained classical designers. And I think it was also a bit protective as well, because he knew he wasn't a trained designer. And it was a way of sort of

fending off the criticism. And you once critiqued Abelho's early collections as lacking depth. What made you rethink his work, rethink his legacy, and have a different understanding of what he was trying to do? Yeah, I looked at his work, I think, through the eyes of a critic who had been sort of assessing the fashion industry for a long time and looking for, okay, have you built a vocabulary that you are using to tell different stories each season? Have you contributed to sort of the progression of the way that clothes look? And applying those things to Virgil, you know, I sort of came up with this sense of lacking. But when he passed away, I was really struck by the way that people, his fans responded. And it was as if, you know, someone that they knew intimately had passed away. And that was very different from the way that people connected with most other decisions.

designers. And so for me, there was kind of a tension between those two things. He really did make streetwear a vessel for luxury. How did he go about collapsing the space between the two? And how did that open up luxury brands for different types of people? Well, I would say that, you know, the space was already collapsing. You know, a lot of designers sort of set the stage for Virgil to be able to succeed. But I, but the thing that really sort of pushed him into the stratosphere and really drew the attention of Ritton was a collaboration that he did with Nike in 2017. And Nike was losing a bit of market share. It wanted to sort of, you know, juice its sales. And it thought that the way to do that was to reissue 10 of its most sort of iconic

sneakers styles. And they worked with Virgil to reimagine them, you know, not. Nike is a massive, massive company much bigger than the luxury brands. And the success of that really blasted his name and reputation. Yeah, there's a real tension in the book between his radical accessibility and the role he had at Louis Vuitton, which is, to your point, sort of the pinnacle of elite fashion. Did he see himself as an insurgent or an insider? How did he navigate that dualism?

He had this way of talking about how people were both insiders and outsiders, sort of simultaneously, just sort of depended on the context. And he liked to describe himself as a fashion outsider. But he also was an insider for many of the people who followed him, many of the people who connected with him over social media. And for them, the fact that he would share. prototypes with them that he wouldn't just have a one-way conversation on social media but would respond to their DMs. He hired people over Instagram. He invited them to his shows. I mean, the first time I actually really sort of wrecked, sort of noticed that sensibility was right before Virgil had gotten the appointment at Witton, and it was one of his off-white shows. His

brand that he was showing in Paris, this narrow little street. And typically, you know, the entrance is crowded and there's a bit of a scrum to go in, but, you know, nothing terrible. This particular night, it was like a mosh pit. And I later learned that it was because earlier in the day, Virgil had had a sneaker event. And he had basically posted on Instagram, Hey, I'm having a big fashion show. Come on over. Designers do not do that. The designer of Chanel does not do that. But all of these sneaker fans and Virgil fans just showed up. And it was, yeah, a little bit of chaos. But it really showed his desire to be transparent and open doors. And it showed the degree to which people loved him. Yeah. Virgil Ablo passed away at the

of 41 from a rare form of cancer, you write that his voice stopped mid-sentence. What do you think he was building toward? He was such an interesting sort of centrist when it came to his desire to disrupt fashion. He talked about not being a flamethrower, not being a rebel, someone who didn't want to disrupt the establishment, but wanted to invite more people to be part of the establishment. And he got a bit of pushback on that during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. And he started to more publicly discuss issues related to diversity and inclusivity and what it meant to be a black man in his position. And I think his work became a bit more nuanced and the emotions became, I think, more deep, I think more deep. I think more deeply felt.

So I would have loved to have seen how he would respond in this moment and to see whether or not he became less of a centrist or if he felt that that was, in fact, the most powerful message that he could deliver, or if he felt he needed to switch gears and become maybe not a flamethrower, but a bit more of a rubble. Yeah. Make it ours crashing the gates of culture with Virgil Abla. Robin Gavon, thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.