PBS News Hour - Full Show - July 31, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Friday on the News Hour, the United States announces a deal to disarm Hamas and withdraw Israeli troops from Gaza, but implementing the agreement could prove an enormous challenge. Tens of thousands of migrants enter Spanish territory bordering Morocco. Plus, after five months of war, a look at how people inside Iran are viewing the ongoing conflict. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amman Abbas. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, the U.S. announces a deal to disarm Hamas and withdraw Israeli troops from Gaza. But implementing the agreement could prove an enormous challenge. Tens of thousands of migrants enter Spanish territory bordering Morocco most then return home. A closer look at the chaotic, unprecedented crossings. And after five months of war, a look at how people inside Iran are viewing the ongoing conflict. Overall, there's sort of a feeling of despair and just feeling like they kind of got the worst of both worlds now. Welcome to the News Hour. We begin tonight in the Middle East, where there is a major development in the effort to bring lasting peace to Gaza.

Hamas says it has agreed to a U.S.-backed framework that could ultimately see the militant group give up its weapons and control of Gaza, while Israeli forces withdraw from the territory. The U.S. and the U.S. sponsored Board of Peace admit implementing the U. agreement will take time and could be derailed. But President Trump today called it a great breakthrough. Nick Schiffman's been tracking it all and joins us now. So Nick, what exactly has been agreed to here? U.S. and Board of Peace officials say that this is a new roadmap that provides a path for Hamas to disarm Israel to withdraw from Gaza and for Gaza to be reconstructed. It is an understatement to say that those steps have enormous challenges, but let's go through the roadmap. It would begin when Hamas police

transferring their small arms to a new police force that's being trained right now outside of Gaza by international troops, known as the International Stabilization Force. Number two, a new government would move into Gaza. It's called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCG. It calls itself transitional, technocratic, and apolitical. This is not the Palestinian Authority. This is a new administration almost from scratch. And then, number three, international troops would deploy into Gaza.

Now, currently, Israeli defense forces are deployed to a yellow line in Gaza. You see that there. They've since expanded to an even larger footprint. But the idea is international troops would replace those Israeli troops. So back to the roadmap. The next step is the hardest. Disarming the Qasan brigades, that's Hamas's military wing. This would be Hamas heavy weapons, depot production sites, and tunnels decommissioned and stored

by the interim Palestinian government, not by Israel or the international community. the step would be, quote, gradual, sequential, and time-bound, unquote, and linked to an Israeli withdrawal in phases. Today, President Trump called it a, quote, big step and linked it to the war in Iran. It's a great breakthrough. Nobody's ever thought that would, nobody thought that would be possible to disarm Hamas. That shows you how much success we're having with Iran. The senior administration official told reporters last night that Iran tried but failed to pressure Hamas not to accept the deal.

Nick, it would be helpful to take a big step back here at this moment and just answer how feasible is it that both Hamas and Israel actually follow through on all these commitments and that this actually works. Let's take those two questions, Hamas and Israel one by one. Let's look at Hamas, first of all. Every expert we spoke to today pointed out that Hamas agreed to a particular kind of disarming. The weapons would go to Palestinians, not to Israel. Hamas leaders today said they were putting weapons in, quote, storage.

inside Gaza and that Israel had to go first. Hamas is serious, but does not think that Israel is, says Yusuf Munair of the Arab Center, Washington, D.C. This is unprecedented in so many ways. Hamas as a movement is a militant movement, and it has long touted the ability to use militarized resistance against Israel as the pathway towards liberating Palestine. So it's never really happened before that they have been officially willing to disarm. Hamas, along with the mediators and the United States, have hammered out a pathway in which disarmament can happen. And now Israel has to agree whether or not it's willing to accept that. So that brings us to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin, now who today said nothing, but an Israeli official sent me this statement,

quote, Israel has reiterated that there will be no withdrawal whatsoever of the IDF from the current yellow line. unless Hamas undergoes a genuine disarmament. So that is not exactly an endorsement. It also highlights a chicken and egg problem of who goes first. All of this adds up to something that is highly unlikely to work, argues Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment. Given the leaders we have and Hamas and Israel's red lines and Donald Trump's distractions,

this plan is tethered, frankly, to a galaxy far, far away, rather than to the realities back here on planet Earth. The red lines that each Hamas and Israel have defined are red lines, I don't think, Hamas is prepared to cross without extraordinary deliverables on their end. And one that I know the current government of Israel with less than three months before an election

is prepared to cross. So one key question, Amna, will President Trump pressure Netanyahu ahead of that election, senior administration official says, if Israel does not follow through with its commitments, President Trump will be, quote, very, very disappointed, unquote. So what happens next? The roadmap demands that Israel stop military operations, including operations that were launched just this week. Palestinians say Israel's killed more than a thousand Palestinians since the ceasefire

was enacted. Israel says it's been hitting Hamas leaders who are trying to rearm. Within two weeks, there's supposed to be a timetable for all of the steps that we talked about. And after that, the interim Palestinian government is supposed to enter Gaza. We'll see what happens. A senior administration official put it to us last night this way. This is a totally impossible task, but we've already accomplished several miracles, and we're going to continue to aim for miracles. Nick Schiffran, beginning our coverage tonight.

Nick, thank you. Thank you. In the day's other headlines, Spain is rushing troops and research. resources to one of its territories in North Africa after tens of thousands of migrants crossed the border from Morocco into the small enclave of Souta. On the shores of Suta, Spain's enclave in North Africa, wave after wave of migrants swam ashore Thursday, overwhelming the city, filling the streets, charging the fences, some dropping to their knees in the sand grateful to reach dry land.

In roughly 48 hours, more than 60,000. thousand migrants have entered Suta equal to roughly 70 percent of its entire population. Suta sits on the northern tip of Africa, bordered by Morocco and separated from mainland Spain by about 11 miles of sea. Many say they made the journey in search of a better life. I came here to seek a better future. I work as a waitress, but the salary I get is not enough. As I take care of my parents and I have a daughter, I have to find better opportunities.

Thank God help us. I came from Casablanca this morning. Today, to, like all young people, find an opportunity, find a future, a good future for myself. One possible factor for the wave of migrants, according to a top Spanish official, a Spanish court ruling this month that migrants stopped at sea can't be immediately turned away, though they can still be deported. In the meantime, the city is at a breaking point. Spain has deployed its military.

And with food and water running short, the Spanish government says at least three-quarters of the migrants have already turned back toward Morocco. Among them, this man with a warning for anyone thinking of following. What we were doing, it's not good at all. And it's not fun either. What's more, I mean, people are dying here. I beg you, please. If you haven't come yet, don't come.

At least 57 people have died attempting the crossing. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez rushed to the enclave and today called the surge an attack on his country. I would like to define what happened yesterday as an attack, a violation of territorial integrity of Spain. Suda is a Spanish city and what happened yesterday deserves all of our rebuke, all of our condemnation in the strongest possible way. The fallout is spreading across Europe.

Prime Minister, Georgia Maloney, said the country would temporarily suspend a border-sharing agreement with Spain. And France said it would reinforce its Spanish border. And the crisis is echoing here at home. At Camp David today, President Trump seized on the images, casting them as a warning ahead of the midterm elections. It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people. And that same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected, except worse. much bigger. Back in Suta, soldiers patrol the beaches and thousands wait on both sides of the fence.

Some for a way into Europe, others for a way home. Also today, officials in Japan say this week's powerful earthquake has claimed at least 34 lives. Emergency crews are racing to find survivors in a collapsed shopping mall in Kumamoto. Officials call today a critical window. The odds of finding anyone alive or fading by the hour, even as other rescue operations wind down. The disaster is also straining daily life. Brocery shelves sit empty in several towns as thousands of residents stock up on essentials.

And with power out across wide areas, many of the displaced say they have no choice but to sleep in their cars, enduring punishing summer heat with no relief in sight. I have been living inside the car. We go out during the day to do some shopping, we drive to get food for the day, and we eat inside the car.

At night, I haven't been able to sleep. Nearly 10,000 people remain under evacuation orders across the three hardest-hit provinces. And in Kumamoto, authorities say close to 80,000 homes are still without running water. Here in the U.S., a sweltering heat dome descended over much of the west today, and forecasters say that heat is here to stay through the weekend.

Peak temperatures are expected in many places on Saturday, from Arizona to Montana. Some parts of Utah, Nevada, and California could reach between 100 and 120 degrees. Experts warn those conditions create a heightened risk for heat-related illness, and dry vegetation could add fuel for wildfires. President Trump says the U.S. has not yet agreed to let Ukraine build Patriot missiles to aid in its fight against Russia. Speaking at that cabinet meeting from Camp David, Mr. Trump said he needed to be judicious about allowing foreign manufacturing of the sophisticated U.S. technology. We have to be very careful about letting somebody build them.

We're talking about it. But it's a hard thing to give away that kind of technology. And I don't think this would ever happen. But, you know, those people that you give that technology, they can someday turn on you. That appeared to be a backtrack from a promise President Trump gave to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a NATO summit in Turkey earlier this month, saying he'd, quote, give Ukraine the right to build the missiles. A Marine Corps fighter jet crashed today at Miramar Air Station in California, erupting into flames and sending a plume of smoke into the air.

The F-35B stealth fighter jet appeared to go down just short of the runway. Fire crews covered the records with foam and work to extinguish a grassfire sparked by the crash. The pilot ejected safely and was recovered. The cause of the crash is under investigation. The Seattle Police Department has a new interim head after its police chief abruptly resched. over the department's handling of last weekend's food festival shooting. In a statement, Chief Sean Barnes wrote that he hoped his departure would, as he put it, returned full focus to what matters most, addressing youth gun violence.

Barnes faced criticism that the department was too slow to release initial information about Sunday's deadly shooting. Today, city officials, including the mayor, apologized for how public communication was handled. I definitely want to own my part in that, right? So, you know, I think part of this is communication failures within SPD, and part of that is communication failures between SPD and my office. Meantime investigators are still searching for other suspects who may have been involved in the shooting. Cyber security concerns are mounting after Anthropics said its AI models hacked into three organizations during testing.

The company behind Claude said it happened during a large-scale security run to see if its models could access the Internet from testing environment. that are meant to be sealed off. Anthropic launched the review in response to a similar incident last week when one of OpenAI's models went rogue and hacked another company. Anthropic said two of the three models involved in the hack were publicly available versions of Claude and that they used basic techniques like exploiting weak passwords. Major oil companies reported some of their highest quarterly profits in years as the U.S. war with Iran has driven up energy prices across the globe.

ExxonMobil, the large. oil company in the country more than doubled its profits from this time last year. Chevron quadrupled its second quarter profits. Across the country, gas prices after peaking in May and declining in June are once again on the rise. On the Wall Street, stocks finished positive to end the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its fourth straight winning month to end July. The NASDAQ rose by an even 1%. And the S&P 500 also made a solid gain. Still to come on the news hour, A new conservation plan addresses the shrinking Colorado River. Unaccompanied migrant children find themselves at risk of losing legal representation.

And David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's news. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. Today, Iran launched a drone attack targeting U.S. forces in Kuwait. That comes as U.S. officials investigate whether Iran was also. also behind a cyber attack at dozens of water systems in Minnesota. Meanwhile, as the war enters its sixth month, the toll continues to grow. The UN says more than 2,500 children have been killed or injured in Iran alone.

For more on the impact of the war inside Iran, I spoke earlier with New York Times reporter Yegane Torbati, whose work has focused on the lives of everyday Iranians. She joined us from Istanbul. Yegene, welcome to the NewsHour. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me, Omna. So this war has now entered its sixth month. And while much of the focus has been on U.S. strategy and the widening conflict, we know inside Iran the repercussions of the military strikes and the economic pressure, those are born by everyday Iranians.

So tell us what you hear from them about the impact of this war. What are the stories they're telling you? I think for most of the people that me and my colleagues are able to speak with, things have really got. gotten a lot worse for them since this war started. And I would say that even includes people, a significant portion of the people that we would speak with in January or even last year, wanted some kind of military intervention because they saw it as perhaps the only way that they could dislodge this government. But even among some of those people when we speak to them now, there's really just a sense

that everything has gotten worse for them and this government is still in place. is even more willing and able to kind of carry out really brutal violence and repression. People talk about the economy a lot. Inflation has gotten even worse than it was prior to the war, and it was already pretty bad then. There's been job losses as a result of the war and the internet shutdown that the government implemented for three months. Infrastructure has been damaged, and it's unlikely that the government will have enough

resources to really fix everything that needs to be fixed. So overall, there's sort of a feeling of despair and just feeling like they kind of got the worst of both worlds now. In terms of you and your colleagues, even being able to do your jobs from afar, how hard is that? How difficult is it to connect with people inside Iran and get them to talk to you? It's really difficult. I mean, so first of all, for a large portion of this year, both during the protests in January and And then also during the war, the internet was just completely shut off. And there were very few ways to really get in touch with people. What we're seeing now also is there's just a lot of fear in society right now.

You know, the pace of executions has really picked up. The government is going after people who even just criticize it on social media. And so the idea of kind of speaking to a Western reporter outside the country just carries a lot of perceived risk for people. And that really hampers our ability even to report on, you know, for instance, the civilian casualties of the war and of U.S. strike. So we're finding that reporting quite challenging on all fronts, although, of course, we continue and we reach out to people and we try to keep doing that work. You do continue. You felt a number of reports. One of the most striking themes in your reporting, too, is this gap between the government's narrative.

of resilience and persistence and strength and what people tell you about what they are living through. So what do people you talk to say about the government's claims of strength? I think, you know, one thing if you look back at Iran's history and I think it's true today is the government is sort of most successful

and most kind of able to portray itself as successful when it has an external enemy to fight. I think the part where the government has more of a challenge is in the actual day-to-day domestic governance. And that is where people see kind of the biggest gap, this dual narrative. On the one hand, they want to project strength, but then on the other hand, when you sort of look a little bit more closely, sometimes you sort of see a different picture.

Last year, we saw water shortages in Tehran in many places, and those issues have not been addressed. So I think, you know, Iranians sort of experienced these things day-to-day, and those are the sorts of things that they tell us about. Yeah, and I, while I have you, I want to tap into your expertise and ask you about some news. I know you've been following this week as well, which is now that U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly assessed, Iran was behind a coordinated cyber attack on dozens of local water facilities across Minnesota. It's not a definitive conclusion yet. But given your reporting on this, does this line up with previous Iranian tactics?

I think it is actually kind of a callback to a sort of earlier generation of U.S. Iran. confrontation, where, you know, the U.S. has carried out cyber, you know, operations against Iran, particularly targeting its nuclear program, and Iran has invested in cyber capabilities within its military and intelligence services. And so, you know, the countries kind of used to sort of have these attacks against each other that were sort of less out in the open than the military attacks that they're now having. If Iran feels like you know, its infrastructure is being attacked. You know, it's shown the willingness to sort of do what it sees as tit for tat strikes.

And so it raises a lot of questions about whether it would use this kind of capability as sort of a retaliation tactic. We so appreciate you sharing your experience and your insights with us. That is Yegane Torbati of the New York Times, joining us from Istanbul tonight. Yagena, thank you. Thank you so much, Amma. After years of battle over its use and a long-running drought, states that rely on the Colorado River are facing the prospect of further cutbacks. The river supplies nearly 40 million people across seven states and northwestern Mexico and is vital to agriculture across the west and southwest.

But years of gridlock among the states have prompted the federal government to step in. A new blueprint released today lays out new requirements for managing the shrinking river. Some scenarios could eventually lead to steep cuts, but the most of the same. immediate effects will be felt over the next two years. Our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, is here to explain what's at stake and what could be in store part of our series, Tipping Point. Miles, it's always great to see you. So for the unfamiliar, explain how it is that seven states rely on the Colorado River.

Yeah, this is a problem, Jeff, that has roots that are more than 100 years old. You have to go back to when the river was divvied up in 1922, the Colorado River Compact, dividing it into the upper basin, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, and the lower basin, California, Arizona, and Nevada. Each of them was assured 7.5 million acre feet, that's about 2.4 trillion gallons of water, and that was a number, not a percentage, kind of set in stone. The problem is that agreement occurred at a particularly wet time for the river, and over time the river has not delivered anywhere near that amount of water. and over the past 25 years, during a climate change-fueled epic drought, it's become even more acute.

The river is now 20% less flow than was envisioned in 1922, and it's very difficult for the seven states to negotiate with a pie that is shrinking that fast. And so they are at loggerheads. The states have known this has been coming for years. Why haven't they been able to reach a deal? It's just difficult to share cuts.

like this when things are diminishing. And so what has happened is the federal government in the form of the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the big dams along the river, the Glen Canyon Dam, which creates Lake Powell, the Hoover Dam, which creates Lake Mead, those two giant reservoirs, seeing critical shortages there, all-time lows there, has decided it's time to step in. And so what they're saying, although the rules haven't come out yet, they released an environmental impact statement, which lays out a 10-year plan, which allows it to adapt to the hydrology of the river. As there's less water, they will make decisions on how much water they will discharge, and making decisions about how healthy the reservoirs are and how much of a shortage farmers and cities south of those dams will have to face.

But it's a difficult situation, and the rules will probably involve, some significant cutbacks. And those cutbacks ultimately may not be enough. So we're just going to have to wait and see how this plays out. And the federal government is now stepping in? What's the government doing about all this? Well, it's kind of unprecedented. Sarah Porter, an expert at Arizona State University, said it's the first time in decades that the federal government has stepped in. You know, it is a problem which ultimately leads us to agriculture, Jeff. 75% of the water used on the Colorado River is used by agriculture. Cities in the West have grown rapidly,

but they've done a very good job conserving. And so as a result, closing the gap is frankly going to mean asking farmers to use less water, plant crops that need less water, or getting out of business entirely. Here's a little more on that from Colorado State University climate scientist Brad Udall. You have large municipalities like Phoenix. which is 40% dependent on Colorado River water,

or Tucson, perhaps 80% dependent, or Los Angeles, 25% dependent, that frankly can't take a back seat to agriculture. You can't have 500 farmers taking water from 5 million people in Phoenix. It just won't work politically. It makes no sense economically. More details on the actual plan next week,

but we do know the parameters now, Jeff. It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. out, probably almost certain this is going to end up one way or another in the Supreme Court, proving once again the adage attributed to Mark Twain, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over, Jeff. Miles O'Brien, our thanks to you, as always. You're welcome. Thousands of unaccompanied migrant children could lose legal representation as soon as today, now that a federal contract with legal aid groups representing the minors is expiring.

Our justice correspondent Ali Rogan has more on what happens next. Omna, that contract held by the nonprofit Acacia Center for Justice, has funded legal services for unaccompanied children for the last five years. But Acacia claims the Trump administration stopped making those payments late last year, and so far has withheld $65 million owed. That's forced legal groups across the country, lay off staff and take fewer new cases. It comes as the Trump administration has pressed legal services providers to give up information

about their clients. For more, I'm joined by Shana Aber, Executive Director of the Acacia Center for Justice. Shana, thank you so much for being with us. It's a pleasure to be here, although I wish it was under different circumstances. First, can you tell us about when and why this program started and the services that it provides? Sure. The commitment to provide children with legal access, legal representation, and for them to have their needs assessed and have their options understood began in 2005. There was a pilot program that kicked off in that time period. And then by 2008, there was a bipartisan, I think it was a unanimous Congress, that started. sought to memorialize this commitment to unaccompanied children, in particular to break cyclical trafficking risks that they were seeing as children would be trafficked over the border, sent back

to their traffickers and trafficked back over the border, really to give children ability to have their cases heard, have their rights understood, and to explore what legal options they had available. How many minors are you and the organizations you work with currently, representing, and what do their age ranges tend to be? So we're representing over 20,000 children around the country. Those are children that are both within immigration custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which sits in HHS and children who have been released from that custody, and are living in communities, going through their court proceedings,

and going to school along with our kids. They raised an age from toddlers to teens. And what I can tell you about every single one of these kids is their kids, just like our kids. And fundamentally, this is not about a contract. It's not about politics. It's about children and children's ability to understand their rights and have their voices heard. These children, though, of course, do depend on this contract. for that representation. So what can you tell us about why this contract is not being renewed?

It really comes down to, first of all, you know, the government has wanted to strip children of legal representations since about day one of this administration. They attempted to cancel the contract in February of 2025. And then again in March, they dismantled kids' specific dockets where judges were trained in trauma-informed adjudication techniques. So there's been a priority by this administration on dismantling children's legal rights and our sense is that this is the culmination of that goal. And we have reached out to HHS for comment. They have not yet responded to us.

But I know that they've been asking for some information. Can you tell us about what they've been asking for and what Acacia's response has been? In late April, early May, they just demanded a whole slew of information including details about children's cases. Now, we provide the government with monthly reports, lots of data, ad hoc requests we provide on a regular basis, but we can't actually betray children's confidences. That is something that is a foundational principle of our legal system, that there's attorney-client privilege and the kinds of information that they were asking for, including unredacting information

where we had kept children's identities private, is a completely novel request and isn't in our contract and would breach our ethical obligations to children. And what happens when this contract expires? Are these children going to lose access to counsel immediately? I mean, I think that some will. The fact is we don't know what the government's plan is, and the secrecy is part of the problem. We're trying to counsel children around the country right now on what their best options are, on who's going to represent them tomorrow. These are kids who have been failed by multiple adults in their lives. And when I think about these kids waking up in their beds tomorrow and having

no sense that they still have an adult who understands the system fighting in their corner, it breaks my heart. I think it will read to those kids who've already been failed by many adults as a breach, just another breach of their trust. Shana Aber with the Acacia Center for Justice, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Now to discuss Todd Blanche's stalled confirmation to be Attorney General, turmoil inside the Democratic National Committee and more. We turn to the analysis of Brooks and Caphart. That's the Atlantic's David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS Now. Good evening, gentlemen.

So we have been tracking the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General. President Trump now says he might just simply withdraw Blanche's nomination and bring him back after Senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis are gone. And that's because those Republicans are demanding assurances that this $1.8 billion fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they were wrongfully prosecuted. They want that fund to be no more. David, what does it say that the president is apparently willing to sacrifice his attorney general's confirmation rather than make concessions on this settlement fund? All hail the king. The government is there to serve the president, not to serve the government. And so he wants that $1.8 million slush fund. Billion. Billion.

Billion, sorry. I was only counting my share. But he also wants immunity from prosecution from the IRS. And that's the key, because he's made boatloads of money, even in the millions, to quote whatever that, never mind. But so he wants that. this story in his head, which is like the core of his identity these days. He was robbed at the 2020 election. The January 6 people were perfectly nice people, and the prosecutions that he endured in his years out of power were the deep state going after him. And that's central to his identity,

and that's going to always be the priority. Is this an institutional line being drawn by these Republican senators, or is this just two lame duck senators now with enough leverage to gum up the works over this issue that they feel deeply about? I think both things can be at the same time. Maybe their spine was stiffened by the fact that they are lame ducks, but I am glad that they now have spines. Before I went on vacation,

and, you know, the hearings had happened, and I just thought, by the time I get back, Todd Blanche will have been confirmed because the Yolo caucus will fold again, and Tillis and Cornyn and all these folks won't follow through on their very strong convictions. And yet here we are. are they're standing true and they're standing strong and I apply I applaud them for it I just

hope that more folks join them in other spheres of what the what the administration is trying to do and I do think it's either corner Senator Cornyn or Tillis who is saying it's not just us when it comes to then let's be clear the one point seven seven seven six billion dollar anti-weaponization fund because they're you know real cute with the numbers in a 250th year that there are other people, other Republican senators who are not down with this and are basically using Tillis and Cornyn as their human shields.

Let's talk about the Democrats, because the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, is moving forward with this plan to put South Carolina first in the party's 2028 presidential primary calendar, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire. This still requires full DNC approval. And it comes as the DNC faces broader questions

about its direction under DNC chair, Ken Martin. You've got internal management issues, weak fundraising. And David, Democrats have spent the better part of two years saying they want something different from the party. Is there this disconnect between the Democratic base demanding change and a Democratic establishment that still seems most comfortable with the structures and constituencies of the Biden era? I like the fact that all of Washington went into a tizzy because Ken Martin, the DNC, chair, threw a phone at somebody. And I was thinking back to my early editors when I was as a Chicago journalist, like if somebody had thrown a phone, that would have been the nicest thing.

Anybody said to me that week. It was just another day. But, you know, there are a couple things going on here. One, since I was a baby, the DNC has been trying to build an infrastructure at the state party level. And for some reason, it just never seems to happen. And Ken Martin invested a lot of money in trying to do that, and now they're in debt. And so that's a big problem. I think the two bigger problems, one, which you alluded to the question,

there's just no imagination coming out of the D.C. Democrats. least the DSA people are saying something new. And second, they're overvaluing money. Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton outspent Donald Trump by hundreds of millions of dollars. Money is not the be-all and end-all of politics. Once you hit a threshold, the money barely does anything. And so, as usual, they're over-fix-hitting on the money and they're under-fix-fitting on having a new message. How do you see it, Jonathan? The DNC has not been sort of the face of the Democratic party for a few cycles now. And for folks to think that the problems at the DNC and with Ken

Martin are emblematic of the party as a whole haven't really been paying attention. The money woes of the DNC have nothing to do with the tons of cash that's being raised by minority leader Jeffries, by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, by all these various PACs that are around the Democratic leaning packs simply because the DNC has shown itself to not be very effective. And to David's point, both Hillary Clinton and, more importantly, Kamala Harris, raised tons of money. Billions of dollars, Senator, I'm sorry, Vice President Harris raised. That was not the DNC.

That was her campaign and a bunch of other folks. So I think let Ken Martin figure out what he's going to do. they're in the party, get that settled, and to David's point, and I think to a lot of Democrats' point, come up with a viable message that resonates with the American people. And I think Democrats writ large have done that if you go all the way back to last summer when the conversation was affordability and health care. And folks were like, what are you doing? And that became the conversation this time last year. And affordability. is still the conversation.

Well, you mentioned, you both mentioned former vice president Kamala Harris, and to your point about Democrats finding a message, it appears she is testing a message. She was at the National Urban League conference today in Nashville and spoke in support of expanding the Supreme Court and statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Take a look. We need to revisit the Electoral College.

We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices like we have 13 district courts. We need to revisit, if they so want, statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C. So that's the thing. Democrats are saying they want a candidate who will fight for the things that Democrats say they care about.

What do you make of that message? Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, the two most democratic areas in our whole country? It's not exactly controversial. I think the Democratic Party became gross. by fighting a two-front war. They fight the Republicans, obviously, but they also fight the left.

Hubert Humphrey, for example, in Minnesota in the 1940s fought off the Republicans. He also fought us the communists and the Democratic Party. The Democratic mainstream now has the opportunity to do that. And when you do that, first you show how tough you are because it's easy to fight the Republicans. To fight the left is a lot harder.

And two, you figure out what you believe. You say, I'm further left than those guys, but I'm not as far left as those guys. This is what I believe. What Hubert Humphrey did, what Walter Mondale did, that hardened a generation of Democratic politicians. To me, that's the crucial issue, because if you let the DSA define the Democratic Party, which is the nature of happening, that's problems.

Is the disconnect, or rather is the divide, the perceived divide within the party, is it about ideology, or is it about Democrats wanting a candidate who is less managed, less cautious, less institutional? It's that. I mean, you take a look at what Senator Assoff is doing in Georgia, running for re-election. He is pulling no punches. He is speaking in language

that I never thought I would hear a senator from Georgia running for re-election in, at the time, a very close, seemingly, a very close race. I think with Vice President Harris, one, I would love to see the context of what those comments were,

and then to hear the entire conversation, because what I don't know, know is maybe she did talk about a whole bunch of other things that gets to David's point. But to David's point, D.C. statehood, that's not controversial. Expanding the court, she's a former Attorney General of California. That's not controversial. The Electoral College, she has been about, she's supported that for a very long time. What I would like to hear from her and other folks who we talk about running for the Democratic nomination is what are they going to, what What are their ideas for the economy?

What are their ideas for fixing democracy? What are their ideas for holding people accountable who wrecked everything? I want to get in some breaking news before we wrap up here because as we've been on the air, the Justice Department this evening moved to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian, an Olympian canoeer with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. And the government lawyer said in this 20-page court filing that information provided since the indictment of David Hearn shows that the damage was the result of, quote, flawed installation

by the contractor as well as the rush to complete the project prior to the events associated with the America 250 celebration. I'm sorry, I don't need to giggle. This is very serious. But anyone paying attention knew that that would be the case. And the thing that is most fascinating about this is that the administration will always end up telling the truth in court documents, usually. I don't want to give a blanket because I know there's some instances.

But here, they have told, the administration has told the truth. And so, yeah, good, good that this has been withdrawn, whatever it is. Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks. Thanks to you both. Thank you. Thanks. Larger theater companies, music venues, and museums typically get more attention. But across the country, it is smaller arts organizations that are often closest to and addressing the needs of their local communities. Facing tougher economic pressures today, though, many are struggling to do that.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown traveled to the Twin Cities for our series Art in Action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy, part of our Canvas coverage. It's visually exciting, orally electrifying, a full-body explosion of movement and powerful sound. Here at Tyco Arts Midwest in St. Paul, Minnesota, where this small but mighty collective was rehearsing for an upcoming performance of the ancient Japanese art form, drumming is a way of life. They're incredible because they're so large that when we play them, you feel it. You feel your ribs rattle a little bit. Jennifer Weir is the executive director of the organization

and has been studying, performing, teaching, and composing Tycho for over 25 years. What does it do for you? We get this immediate response and it immediate connection with people and we find that it's healing, it's empowering, and it's something that brings people together. For many, coming together has never felt so urgent, so necessary here in the Twin Cities. Waves of trauma from the murder of George Floyd to the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent ice surge that left Renee Good and Alex Pretty dead have rocked the region over the last six years. Small community groups like Tycho Arts Midwest have been on the front lines, getting out of the studio and into the streets, even in the freezing cold.

We show up with our drums, and then it just amplifies the feeling. It's like getting plugged in to a collective energy source. I've never experienced anything like it, and that's after, like, being on stage and having lights and costumes and all those things. All the normal performance type. Yeah, yeah. But when you're like in community, really truly in the thick of it, it's profound. Another local arts group, Mixed Blood Theater in neighboring Minneapolis, has also been in the thick of it.

A group of writers was recently commissioned a chronicle events during the ice surge in a series of monologues. The performance also raised money for the immigrant law center of Minnesota. It's doing what's right. Through theater. Through theater. A lot of the work that we've been doing is around rapid response. Mark Valdaz is the artistic director of mixed blood, which has been around for 50 years.

We are foremost a social justice organization, secondarily a theater company. That's how you think of it. That's how I interpret that. Correct. We use the tools of theater. We use the tools of creativity, of art making to disrupt injustice, to build community, to advance racial equity. At its core is an idea known as radicalized.

hospitality, which mixed blood applies through free admission to shows, transportation assistance for people with disabilities, collecting stories while building relationships with neighbors and more. All says Valdez is an artistic response to crisis. So one of the most successful things that we did was we offered say your rights out loud trainings. So we invited people to come in. We hired actors to play the parts of ICE agents.

And participants came in and would just practice saying their rights out loud just to prepare themselves for. So a kind of rehearsal or a kind of performance, but with real consequences? With real consequences, yeah. We are now at a point who we have to decide what kind of a community do you want to live in. But that kind of decision also comes at a moment of existential financial crisis for many arts groups here and around the country. According to national data from 2024, arts nonprofits revenues have not kept pace with inflation,

while individual, foundation, corporate, and public support declined. And that's before recent cuts and pushback from the Trump administration. That combination of lack of resources and enormous responsibility and pressure of all of these kind of compounding crises that we're living through, I think is a really tough a tough moment for local cultural organizations. Are we losing some of them here in the Twin Cities? Absolutely. Here in the Twin Cities around the country.

Laura Zabel served as longtime executive director of Springboard for the Arts, a St. Paul-based organization that provides resources for artists. She's now taking the work national as founding director of the new Creative Change Coalition to build a larger network of local cultural organizations around the country. We have these foundational bedrock, usually very small, local cultural organizations in almost every community in America. And they are in this moment being asked to respond to the kind of highest needs of their community, whether that's economic security or the opioid crisis or climate, social

connection and the loneliness epidemic. And they're doing all of that with like. the lint from their pocket. Zabel believes arts groups should double down on their community ties, proving their value. Those organizations, I think, are some of the last organizations that have the trust of their communities. Yeah, if you think of this as a lever and your pink group is going to snap right at the end.

Yes. And then now, stretch up. Stretch up. Back at Tyco Arts Midwest, I got my own lesson in sound, movement, and power, banging the Hira-Dico drum. There you go. to be pretty. There's no wrong or right way to do this. Exhilarating, exhausting. The kinds of emotions Jennifer Weir says she experiences daily, both in her art and keeping her organization alive.

Operating at a deficit and we're just like trying every day to fill that gap. So it's a survival issue. It is. And I don't think everyone will survive. And I think much like your small businesses or your immigrant businesses, like people have to show up to show what they value or it won't be there, you know, in the next year. And that's especially true in the arts. But on the flip side of that and all that sort of like existential and like financial terror is this feeling that what we're doing has never had more importance or more of an impact. Like it's more important now than ever. For now, the beat and the work go on. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In at least one state, changes are coming to the commonly used sell-by-dates on groceries. PBS News multi-platform reporter Tim McPhillips spoke to two experts to get their take on the food labels and how you can save both your food and your money. Are sell-by dates on groceries past their prime? California became the first state to ban public-facing sell-by dates at the start of July. And other states are following close behind. Why? Well, we've all been there at the grocery store buying bread

or looking in the fridge hoping your chicken is still good. So you check the date. But what that means is anyone's guess. Sell by, enjoy by, freeze by, best buy, used by, best if used by, what in the world? Date labels are really confusing today. It turns out, sell by dates weren't meant for us. A sell by date is actually meant for the retailer.

It's not actually an indicator for the consumer of consumer safety or anything else around the product. Enter California's new law. What it did was really simplify date labels. There's over 50 currently in the marketplace and simplify those down to two very specific terms. So what will Californians see? You're going to see two separate labels. One is best diffused by and that's for quality. And then there's going to be used by date and that is for safety.

You should use it by that date. If not, it should be composted or thrown in the fresh. In New York State, a similar law is awaiting Governor Kathy Hokel's signature. There's multiple other states with very similar policies out there, including Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and many others. Why standardized food labeling? It seems innocuous. But...

Date label confusion contributes to about 3.5 million tons of food going to waste. That has an economic value of about $19 billion. The consequences are twofold, Burnett says. Good food doesn't get donated, and our landfills fill up with more waste. Food waste in America is a major issue. According to the USDA, 31% of all food, from farm to store to plate, is wasted. 31%. That is like walking out of the grocery store and you have three bags of groceries, you only put

two in your trunk, one goes to the trash. Simplifying food labels could help. We are the number one source of food waste in the United States is in our own homes. To the tune of about $750 worth of products that we dispose per person per year. What else can we do to save our food and our money? Handling your food, storing your food,

all of those things are super, super important, I would say as much or even more important than those dates on the package. You want to make sure your fridge is under 40 Fahrenheit, or if you are freezing foods, than, you know, zero Fahrenheit. And if something is past its date? Look for signs of potentially if there's visible mold, for example,

or if the can is swollen or, you know, there's a dent or something that is leaking out of the package. But maybe don't give that old milk a taste. We are not good at all at detecting pathogens or microorganisms that could make you sick. For PBS News, I'm Tim McPhillips. And you can find much more of our coverage on that and other issues on our website and across all of our social media accounts. And be sure to tune in to Washington Week tonight.

Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel discuss President Trump's handling of the Iran war and new questions about transparency. On Horizons this weekend, William Brigham explores a pressing question, where are all the birds? Why are they disappearing? And on compass points, Nick Schifrin and his panel explain why Iran-backed militias are now getting involved in the widening war. You can watch both horizons and compass points on our YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts and on your local PBS station. And that is The News Hour for tonight. I'm

Omna Nawaz. I'm Jeff Bennett for all of us here at the News Hour. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us and have a great weekend.