PBS News Hour - Full Show - July 8, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Tuesday on the News Hour, a community in Texas is banding together to help neighbors recover from historic floods. President Trump's latest tariff threats, mostly on Asian countries, add to global economic uncertainty. Plus, California's controversial crackdown on homeless encampments. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening. I'm Omna Nawaz. Jeff Bennett is away. On the news hour tonight, we're on the ground in Texas, where a community is banding together to help their neighbors recover from historic floods. With the camps that it flooded with especially camp mystic, just kind of hearing about that pushed me even further to come out here and do what I can. President Trump's latest tariff threats, mostly on Asian countries, add to global economic uncertainty, and California's controversial crackdown on homeless encampments. I can sympathize with a lot of people who want to address the homelessness issue in California, but criminalizing homelessness and banning encampments is going to make the problem worse.

Welcome to the News Hour. Search teams continued to comb through large parts of central Texas today, looking for survivors five days after deadly floods. But hope is starting to fade. No new survivors have been found in days, and the death toll is still rising. At least 109 people were killed, 94 of them in the Kerr County area. Special correspondent Christopher Booker has our report from Texas. Just along the Guadalupe River, a community has come together.

This disparate group of people from all over the state, area law enforcement, firefighters, and volunteers have now shifted their focus to recovery. May we be able to give strength to this community, and may we be able to stay strong throughout this day. Hi, Dasha, are you ready to work? She has a trained cadaver recovery. Crystal Smith answered the call with her cadaver dog, Dasha. Why is she here today?

To help, see if we can help it all with any sort of recovery or, all of the search efforts, really, anything, and try to help bring some closure and reunite some of these families. Michael Watkins has been helping since Sunday night. I actually have camp next week I'm heading to, and with the camps that it flooded with especially Camp Mystic, just kind of hearing about that, pushed me even further to come out here and do what I can.

Lieutenant Tim Stack is here with 16 other members of his police department. There's always an opportunity and there's always hope that somebody's still going to be there alive. I mean, they found a guy in a tree, a couple days after the incident because he just got washed up there and no one saw him. And I was telling the guys now is that you never want to pull that branch away and see that person that's maybe deceased underneath there, but you also still want to pull that branch away to find that person.

Less rain in the forecast today offered some relief for search efforts. More than 160 people are still missing. Today, Kirk County personnel dodged questions from reporters about how the county alerted residents about the floods. And we're in the process of trying to put a timeline. You know, that's going to take a little bit of time. As I've told you several times, that is not my priority this time. There's three priorities that's locating people out there, identify and notify the next to kin.

That is what I'm taking is my job as sheriff here to do. Okay. All due respect, sir, I think that the community here is asking these questions. What happened? When did it happen? Was the emergency manager awake at the time? Did they push the button to issue an emergency alert? Sir, it's not that easy when you just push a button.

Okay? There's a lot more to that. And we've told you several times, did it happen to them? I can't tell you this time. Earlier today, in a cabinet meeting, Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noem said she was overcome with emotion

during her trip to the state. I had walked through the cabin where all the little girls died, and I had kind of fallen apart in there, but I walked out of the cabin, and a gentleman was standing there, and he said, that man over there needs a hug. And so I walked over to him,

and I hugged him, and I said, do you work here? And he said, no, my little girl was in that cabin. And he said, and I just found her best friend about an hour and a half ago. She had passed away. She defended President Trump's proposal to start phasing out FEMA and shift disaster response to the states. We as a federal government don't manage these disasters. The state does. We come in and support them.

And that's exactly what we did here in this situation. Right now, I pray that you would comfort everybody here. Back in Texas last night, people gathered in San Antonio, to mourn and pray for the victims. Like Sherry Richardson, who worked at a home for children with disabilities, or Odessa Police Department Officer Bailey Martin, who was on a trip to the Guadalupe River with his family.

An eight-year-old twin sisters, Hannah and Rebecca Lawrence, who were killed by the flooding at Camp Mystic. In Kerr County yesterday, volunteers loaded trucks with food and water for flood victims. For Mother Chavon Justice, the pain is all too personal. I've had a couple friends. who don't have a house anymore, or they've lost their husband. I have a friend who's missing, so, I mean, it's a little difficult,

especially in a town where there's not too many keep right. In this rural corner of Texas, everybody seems to know somebody that's been affected by this tragedy. Omna? Christopher, it's unimaginable what folks on the ground are going through. Can you just give us a sense when you talk to them of what they're feeling, what the atmosphere is like in Kerr County? The atmosphere is strangely calm. It's certainly somber and sad, but all the volunteers we spoke to are very focused on the

task that's before them. They are thinking about where they need to walk through, what they need to search through, and really I think have not let any emotion come into what they're doing. You know, nearly universally, everyone said they are there to provide closure for the victims and for the families, but it's clear that the emotion hasn't really come in yet. They're just focused on what they need to do today to help the victims and help the victims families. And that recovery effort you were following today, I mean, there have to be enormous

logistical hurdles to getting that done. Tell us more about that. Yeah, it is logistically very challenging. A great chunk of this morning was just figuring out who should go with who. They were looking for locals that had knowledge of the terrain to be paired with professional search and rescue operations. We spent a great deal of time with a group that was trying to launch a boat on the river. Now, this seems like it should be something simple, but many of the access points have been cut off by debris. In addition, the ground is soggy, so when they found an access point,

they couldn't pull in their heavy boat and trailer. They also had to negotiate with landowners, basically knocking door to door to see if they could pull their trailer through and launch the boat. Ultimately, they were unsuccessful. Now, this is just one small example of what they're trying to do. We spoke with a group that was heading out on foot,

and they said a successful day for them would be that if they covered just two miles of the river, Omna? Such a long road ahead for them. Our special correspondent, Christopher Booker and team on the ground in Centerpoint, Texas. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, there are still a number of questions about the weather forecasts and why there weren't better warning systems that could have possibly saved lives.

R. Dima Zane spoke earlier with Matthew Capucci, a senior meteorologist from MyRadar.com, and she began by asking him about the origins of the storm itself. and why it dumped so much water. We knew that we had ample moisture in place, absolutely tropical moisture content in the atmosphere. Part of the reason for that was last Monday, Tamalupus, Mexico got hit by tropical storm Barry. Barry moved inland, dissipated,

and then left this big blob of humidity that eventually wafted north into Texas. So we knew the antecedent atmosphere conditions favored very heavy rain, but we didn't see much of a trigger. And so that's why even more than 12, 24 hours out, Yeah, we thought there could be some isolated flooding, but we didn't think we'd see anything more than like six, seven inches, never mind a foot and a half water. What wound up happening, though, was that as we headed towards Wednesday and Thursday, dying thunderstorms in West Texas left something called an MCV or a mesoscale convective vortex, like this leftover whirlpool in the atmosphere, this little teeny eddy.

And this invisible eddy, this little corridor of spinning air, parked over Texas Hill country and did two things. Number one, it helped focus moisture. It gathered storms and really served as like the local trigger to get storms going, and it wasn't moving. So those storms anchored in place. And the other thing, too, this thing was pulling in moisture from the south. So you had an uninterrupted supply of tropical moisture from the Gulf that was aimed directly into these stagnant storms. And it's July. The upper level winds are very weak. The jet stream has retreated all the way to Canada. So there's nothing to move these storms along either. And so you got down. Downpours lasting six, seven, eight hours, dumping three inches per hour. Very quickly, some folks saw a foot to a foot and a half worth of water. Was the storm actually what meteorologists thought that it would be, or did it move in a direction that they didn't even expect it to move? We knew the potential was there for some high-end flooding. We didn't necessarily think the storm would stall for as long as it did. And I think that's when things quickly became problematic.

And it was apparent right around midnight one of the morning as he headed into the 4th of July that something very bad was happening. By then, even though they were updating the forecast, they were issuing the warnings, a lot of folks were asleep. And so even though the warnings went out and made folks cell phones squeal and triggered the wireless emergency alerts with the emergency alert system, I think a lot of people just had gone to bed not thinking much was going to happen. And when they woke up, it was completely different story. There's no good way for a scientist or a communicator to convey a low probability high impact event. And so I think the forecasts were basically, yeah, there could be some flooding. there could be some locally dead flooding. It wasn't until midnight into very early on the 4th of July

when warning operations really were like, that you know what's hitting the fan. This is, you know, going to be a catastrophe. So the warnings were good, the forecasts were flawed. The other frustrating thing, too, has been people trying to use this for political advantage. People saying, oh, you know, doge cuts caused this flood. No, typical national weather service forecast office staffing is like two to three meteorologists for this overnight.

night shift. They had five in place at the weather service in Austin, San Antonio. They were staffed up. They were doing their thing. They knew in advance what was coming, and they had folks there doing a job. Staffing was not an issue. If anything was an issue, the imperfect forecast going in may have been degraded by the reduction of weather balloons over parts of the Great Plains in the Midwest. You have fewer balloons going up to get data because of budget cuts. Then you have less data going into weather models and less accurate weather model simulations. So that may have been a factor, but that's something we have to sort of iron out a little more. What can you tell people as a meteorologist on the situation and how it could be prevented and what really went wrong?

This absolutely could have been prevented. It doesn't take three hours to get to higher ground. A lot of folks had two to three hours morning. Many of the fatalities were children. There needs to be a responsible adult who is making these decisions and keeping abreast of the weather, there needs to be a plan in place ahead of time. Every school, every camp in America should have a NOAA weather alert radio and have a plan for any type of alert that can come their way. And so few people do. And until we live as a more weather-ready society with these plans, taking these steps, listening to the warnings, I don't think anything's going to change. And this is always a question that has to be asked when big weather events like this occur, but was climate change

a factor to the size of this storm? So that's a good question. People always ask about climate change. What I'll say is this. No event is caused by climate change. There will always be floods in flood alley in Texas sporadically every couple years. The atmosphere does have a greater capacity to hold a little more moisture these days because as the environment warms, the air is like a sponge, you had a little more moisture. For every degree of Fahrenheit, the air temperature warms, the air can hold 4% more water. And so that may have led to a bit extra water coming down with this episode. But I think trying to connect it to climate change is challenging, just given this was very unfortunate

meteorology, very unfortunate and coincidental ingredients coming together. And that will always be a thing. Natural disasters will always happen. It's only natural. And so even though climate change is raising the ceiling a little bit, this was a little bit. this was very much a natural disaster. Well, that was news hours Dima Zane, speaking earlier today with meteorologist Matthew Capucci. Meanwhile, just a short time ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was asked about problems with flood warnings on July 4th.

In a testy exchange with reporters, the governor said he was not focused on blame, saying he would focus on solutions and the future instead. Continuing his visit to Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Vice President J.D. Vance and Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, today. Netanyahu's trip, his third this year, comes as Israel and Hamas are negotiating the terms of a ceasefire proposal. Yesterday, the Prime Minister floated the idea of resettling Palestinians abroad in foreign countries. A move he said was supported by the United States. Netanyahu is expected to meet with President Trump again tonight. Lisa Desjardin reports. Today in Washington, efforts to address and end the bloody Israel-Ghasa war.

Gaza is a tragic, it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy. And he wants to get it solved and I want to get it solved. And I think the other side wants to get itself. He is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. today meeting with leaders across the capital. Hamas will not rule there. We will do what is necessary to make this happen.

We will use all our possible force, and if possible, that of others, to realize this goal. There will be no Hamas, and I say it again, because people are saying we can stop, we can leave. We will defeat them so they can no longer fight us. This is a goal we will not give up on. This as other Israeli officials continue indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas in Doha.

The U.S.-backed proposal would see a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas releasing hostages intermittently for 50 days in exchange for Palestinian detainees. There would be a humanitarian surge of aid from both the United Nations and the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. There is no guarantee of a permanent ceasefire, but President Trump would mediate until a final agreement is reached. the Israeli military would deploy to areas of Gaza on the first and seventh day of the ceasefire.

But U.S. officials warned the news hour that there is no day after plan and that the war could very well restart in two months. And last night, while at dinner with Mr. Trump, Netanyahu promoted the resettlement of Gazans abroad. We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say. that they want to give the Palestinians a better future. A sentiment supported by Trump.

And we've had great cooperation from surrounding, meaning surrounding Israel, surrounding countries, great cooperation from every single one of them. So something good will happen. But both Hamas and humanitarian groups have rejected the resettlement proposal in the past, calling it ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, in Gaza, unrelenting death and destruction. An Israeli strike early this morning on a school turned shelter in a refugee camp killed at least nine people, four of them children.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 52 Gazans have been killed in the past 24 hours alone. And according to a World Food Program report, nearly half a million Gazans are expected to face catastrophic hunger. These parents lost their infant last week to malnutrition. It is scarce and often it is an immense risk to collect it. Over 500 Palestinians have been killed near aid distribution points in the past six weeks. Thousands of Israelis nationwide there protested this week to stop the fighting and release

the hostages. Many are calling for the violence to end, but here, bloodshed is still a part of daily life. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Lisa Desjardam. Also today, President Trump ramped up criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin after reversing course on sending additional weapons to Ukraine. Trump told reporters last night the U.S. needs to send more weapons to Kyiv to defend against intensifying Russian attacks. The Pentagon announced last week it would pause deliveries of certain weapons. In a cabinet meeting today, Trump did not say whether he knew about that pause in advance. He also criticized the way Putin is carrying out the war.

Very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless. He's not treating human beings right. He's killing too many people. So we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I've approved that. The president has often questioned the value of sending more military aid to Ukraine and has openly praised Putin in the past. Trump also said today he's considering whether to support more sanctions on Russia. The Supreme Court cleared the way today for president.

Trump's plan to fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The justices lifted a lower court order that had temporarily blocked the layoffs. The job cuts were led by the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, and targeted employees at the departments of state, Treasury, and others. The court said it was not weighing the validity of specific cuts, and technically the measure is temporary while other legal challenges play out. Justice Katanji Brown-Jackson was the only dissenting vote, writing that the order promises quote, the dismantling of much of the federal government as Congress had created it. The U.S. State Department is warning its employees that an unknown person has been using artificial intelligence

to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio. According to a cable seen by the Associated Press, the imposter tried to contact at least three foreign ministers plus a U.S. senator and a governor. Officials say the unknown individual sent voice and text messages last month using AI-powered software to mimic Rubio's speech and writing style. They say the person was likely trying to manipulate government officials to gain, quote, access to information or accounts. The State Department says it is investigating the incident. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants today for two top Taliban officials

in Afghanistan. The judges accused the group's supreme leader, Hibatollah Akunzada, and the country's chief justice, Abdul Hakim Hakani, of persecuting women and girls. and targeting those who defy the Taliban's policies on gender, gender identity, or expression. Since the Taliban retook power four years ago, they've largely banned girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and limited women's access to public places. The court says those actions are evidence of crimes against humanity. Blistering temperatures have returned to Europe after last week's heat wave claimed at least eight lives across the continent.

In Athens, the sun beamed down. on tourists as they were ushered out of the Acropolis. Authorities closed the country's most visited ancient site from 1 p.m. local time as temperatures hovered near 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, in France, hot and dry conditions helped fuel wildfires overnight and into today. The flames reached the outskirts of Marseille on the southern coast, forcing its main airport to close. Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed as investors digest President Trump's latest tariff plans. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 165 points on the day.

The NASDAQ managed a slight gain of nearly six points. The S&P 500 closed just barely in negative territory. And some welcome news for weary travelers. The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, is finally ditching its shoes-off screening policy. TSA has required flyers to shed their shoes since. 2006, several years after a British-born terrorist, dubbed the shoe bomber, tried to take down a flight from Paris to Miami. This evening, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the change is long overdue.

We are excited with the fact that we have the technology now, that we have the multi-layers of screening in place that we've built in over the recent several years. They give us the ability to allow our travelers to keep their shoes on. Nome added that the new policy is being rolled out nationwide with immediate effect and added that other security mandates, like liquid limits and removing laptops, are also being evaluated. Still to come, on the news hour, how a massive budget boost from Republican legislation could impact immigration enforcement. A new look at basketball star Caitlin Clark's extraordinary journey, plus much more.

NewsHour from the David M. Rubinstein studio at W.E.T.A. in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. President Donald Trump is ratcheting up tough trade negotiations by threatening to place much higher tariffs on several countries starting on August 1st. Most of the 14 countries targeted are in Asia, including Japan and South Korea. Some of the U.S.'s largest trading partners and staunchest allies. William Brangham joins us now with more. William. That's right, Omna. In addition to those, some of the other nations targeted are Myanmar and Laos at 40 percent, Cambodia and Thailand at 36 percent. Japan and South Korea will get 25 percent

tariffs. For more on the implications this will have on the relationship between America and its Asian allies, we are joined by Wendy Cutler. She's the vice president at the Asian Society Policy Institute, and previously was acting deputy U.S. trade representative. Wendy Cutler, thank you so much for being here. I wonder how serious are these nations taking these tariff threats? The president argues that he is making them to trigger dealmaking. Do you believe that that's what's going to actually happen here? Look, I think these countries are taking these letters that were sent,

yesterday very seriously. For most Asian countries, the U.S. is their largest export market, so high tariffs would really have serious implications for them. So I expect to see negotiations to intensify until the next deadline set by the president of August 1. I mean, the president argues that he's imposing these tariffs to counter what he argues are unfair tariffs put by those other countries upon the United States. Is that a fair argument that he's making? Well, look, countries could open their markets more, and frankly, I think some success is already being made to get countries to lower their tariffs and get rid of their non-tariff measures.

But take a country like Korea, where we have a free trade agreement, we have zero tariffs with Korea now. So in some ways, a 25% tariff not only doesn't make sense, but goes against our obligations under that agreement with Korea. Right. Japan and South Korea are America's, I believe, sixth and seventh largest trading partners. And as we mentioned, they are key allies in this region, especially when it comes to countering China's influence. Is this ratcheting trade war going to change that dynamic, change that relationship in any meaningful way? I think so. I think there are long-term implications for the continuous pressure we're putting on these countries in the trade area. Both Korea and Japan have been strong allies and on the

economic front have been partners on our economic security agenda, including trying to create and maintain resilient supply chains and bolstering cooperation on shipbuilding and energy and semiconductors. So in some ways, we're missing the larger picture. And I worry that these countries are going to look at us differently and treat us differently going forward, even if they're able to reach a deal on August 1. This has not been a great experience for them. One of the fears that people have raised is that if we do antagonize our allies, that they might move closer in ways large and small to China. Is that a concern that you share?

It's a concern, but I'm not overly concerned in that many countries in Asia have their own problems with China and very much want to maintain a relationship with the United States in order to reduce their dependence on China. So I think there will be some fallout and we'll see more cooperation between some of these Asian countries and China, but I don't see them moving into the China camp because of these tariff wars.

I mean, the president argues that he's doing this and that no previous president has been able to because of his business acumen. And I wonder, does this tariffs on, tariffs off policy seem like, or can you glean a coherent economic policy that the president is trying to articulate here? Look, it's difficult. And, you know, it just seems day by day. There seems to be a different objective for these tariffs, either bringing manufacturing home or raising revenues or getting rid of unfair trade practices. So there is a lot of confusion.

and the deadlines keep, you know, they keep moving. And so there's so much uncertainty and chaos. And this, I think, is impacting our economy and the global economy where forecasts now for global economic growth are being revised downward as we speak. All right, that is Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society Policy Institute. Thank you so much for your insights. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. This week, 10 people were charged with attempted murder of federal agents after a July 4th attack on an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas. Fireworks were shot at the facility and a police officer responding to the scene was shot in the neck. The acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas said that last week's events were, quote, an ambush of federal and local law enforcement officers. The charges come as immigration agents just received a major infusion of funding to carry out President Trump's deportation agenda. The big budget bill passed by Republicans includes billions for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency,

giving it more funding than any other federal law enforcement agency. But speaking at his cabinet meeting today, the president suggested that the administration might not need to spend as much as he thought. I don't think we're going to need so much of it because we had a, we had zero come in last month, so I'm not sure how much of it we want to spend. You may think about that. You may actually think about saving a lot of money because the wall's been largely built, and it obviously worked.

But you may want to think about that. Our White House correspondent, Laura Burrell-Lopez, joins us now with the latest. So, Laura, we heard the president there seemed to downplay the need to use all of the money that was allocated for his deportation agenda. What should we understand about that? The president is somewhat right in that the numbers of border crossings are down. It's not zero, according to his borders are Tom Homan. The June 2025 numbers, just over 6,000 border crossings occurred compared to more than 83,000 during that same time in 2024. But it's not zero.

Now, when it comes to whether or not the administration is going to spend the money that's allocated in this bill, the borders are Tom Homan, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, have made very clear that they intend on spending the billions in this bill. Tom Homan said this week that they want to arrest 7,000 people every day for the remainder of the administration. So billions allocated in the bill, break it down for us. Where are those billions going? So total, there's more than 160 billion that are going to immigration enforcement and the deportation operation. So when you break it down, that means 46.5 billion to building the rest of the border wall, 45 billion to immigration detention centers, nearly 30 billion to high.

hiring and training ICE staff and 3.3 billion to immigration court judges and attorneys. Now, some of those pots of money can be moved around. If they don't want to spend that much on the border wall, they don't have to. They can transfer it to other parts of ICE. But ICE plans to hire an additional 10,000 new agents to the tens of thousands they already have. And also, they want to have at least 80,000 new detention beds. So that increase in funding for ICE, for immigration enforcement, how unprecedented is that kind of? of increase. Well, it's incredibly unprecedented. I spoke to David Beer, who is the Director of Immigration Studies at the Conservative Cato Institute. And David Beer said that the administration

has already moved a significant number of ATF agents, of DEA agents over to help immigration enforcement. And now this bill will dramatically increase ICE's capabilities on top of that. Under this bill, by 2028, you're talking about spending effectively 80% of all federal law enforcement will go to immigration enforcement. And so when you think about the scale that we are prioritizing this type of enforcement over all other types of crimes, you know, everything you can think of is being deprioritized. to focus on deportations, and primarily it's going to be deportations of people without any criminal record, without any arrest record.

So as Beir said, law enforcement being moved from other types of operations, other prioritizing other types of crimes to specifically focusing on immigration enforcement. And David Beer warned that the impact of this law will mean that ICE raids could very well become an everyday part of American life and hit communities that it hasn't necessarily hit already. He warned that he thinks there could be an increase of racial profiling, including of American citizens. And we've seen some American citizens get caught up in these ICE operations already. Some arrested, some put in handcuffs. And he is concerned that that will only increase. Now, another impact of this, according to David Beers and the Cato Institute's number crunching.

And they did this by looking also at the nonpartisan congressional budget offices. estimate, but that they estimate that the U.S., because of this bill, is going to lose some $900 billion in tax revenue that is paid by these immigrants who are potentially going to be picked up and deported by the administration. So we've seen this dramatic increase in funding for ICE. You talked about scaling up ICE's capabilities on the ground, everyday ice operations, as David Beer said. What does that look like in practice? I spoke to a number of former ICE officials, Omna. And, and And they said that reaching that additional 10,000 ICE agents hiring up that many ICE agents

is not necessarily an easy feat and that they could end up using the money to hire out contractors that could help ICE agents that could supplement their operations. I spoke to John Sandwig, a former ICE director. And when he was looking at the big picture, he told me that this bill is ultimately going to allow the Trump administration to build an enforcement in deportation. apparatus that is much harder for any future president to dismantle or to try to downsize. This infusion of capital is not just about the near term and about increasing the size of ice during the Trump administration, but I think it's also about building an immigration enforcement

system that will sustain a much higher number of deportations, not just in the next two and a half three years, but in the next 10 years. We're going to see a nice that it is going to be hard for any future administration to shrink it and its capacity. to deport will certainly be at the highest level it's ever been in the history of the United States. Now, John Sanweg and other former ICE officials told me that they expect private prison contractors to be a big, to play a big role in creating these detention centers, those billions that are going to be allocated to detention centers, they expect that a lot of private prison

companies are going to be getting the majority of that money in order to build out these facilities and what they expect in the near term is soft-sighted facilities. Those tent facilities like the alligator Alcatraz in Florida are what is expected to be built more quickly because it's a lot harder to build brick-and-mortar facilities. Laura, you've reported on this during his campaign. Initially in office, President Trump said he was focusing on violent criminals, on public safety threats. We've seen ICE has gone far beyond that already. So who is and will be targeted for arrest moving forward. The bottom line, Omna, is that there is no way to reach that 7,000 daily arrests that Tom Homan in the administration is talking about without expanding

their targets. Now, ICE arrest data obtained by the deportation data project in the UCLA Center for Immigration Law shows that a majority of the undocumented immigrants that have been arrested since Trump took office did not have a criminal conviction. And David Beer and other experts that I've talked to said that now they expect the administration to increase their targeting of undocumented immigrants that are either recent arrivals or ones who had their legal status stripped away more recently. And we saw that increased, those increased operations already in Los Angeles this week where there were troops as well as ice agents and military vehicles that descended on MacArthur Park. This is near a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

and the Karen Bass, the L.A. mayor there, said that this is another example of the administration ratcheting up the chaos. But bottom line is that there is an expectation that more and more operations are going to be carried out in communities and at work sites like Home Depot's and other areas across the country. White House correspondent, Laura Barone Lopez. Thank you. Thank you. California is home to the nation's largest homeless population, many of whom live in encampments, one of the most visible symptoms of the state's dual housing and homelessness crises. Governor Gavin Newsom, whose administration has spent more than $20 billion on housing

and other programs, recently urged cities and counties to pass laws that effectively ban, quote, dangerous and unhealthy encampments. While some welcomed the move, as Stephanie Scire reports, others worry about the health impacts on the state's homeless population. Tucked between a freeway and a waste processing plant in southeast Los Angeles is a community. What may look like things discarded are people's precious belongings. Everything's ready to go, right? On a recent morning, outreach workers turn up. Jackie Herrera and David Mendez are moving.

The couple can only bring what they can fit into these plastic bags, plus their bikes. They gaze out the window nervously as they're transported to their next stop. The criteria is, are you here and are you experiencing homelessness and are you willing to come inside? Carter Hugley is a senior manager at L.A. County's Homeless Initiative, which runs the Pathway Home Program. You guys will be living together. You're on place. Today was weeks in the making. Herrera and Mendez, along with 21 other households, are moving into temporary housing in area motels. All of the people going into interim housing today will have on-site supportive services, intensive case management, life skills development, and mental health supports at the location they're going to.

After hours of filling out paperwork, learning the rules and meeting with a caseworker, they're finally shown their room. The tension of the day. seems to fall away. What did you think when you walked into this room, this air-conditioned room of your own? To be honest. Yeah, be honest. I was extremely thankful, actually. Like I get to fix my life up because like this is basically like what kind of stopped me in the sense. You're not being able to like, you know, on a daily basis shower or whatever and go look for a job or like. I have a restroom. Yeah, and all that.

L.A. County is banking on programs like Pathway Home to reduce the number of homeless encampments, which ballooned across the state during the COVID pandemic. It's resisted recent calls by Governor Gavin Newsom for cities and counties to adopt ordinances that would effectively ban encampments on public property. It's time to take back the sidewalks. It's time to take these encampments and provide alternatives. It's time, I think, to just end the excuses. Newsom's announcement is part of a broader trend toward more aggressive enforcement against homeless encampments across the state. After a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June made it legal for governments to penalize sleeping and camping in public places, cities like San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, some of the most liberal in the country, began to enforce and adopt measures aimed at curbing encampments.

Last November, Garden Grove, a city in Orange County, passed a ban on public camping spearheaded by council member George Breitigam. Do you think you're a model for other cities? I know we are. I mean, we've got the best success. I do have fault if that's all cities are going to do is pass an ordinance and shoe off their problems to other cities. I think that's not a very responsible methodology. and Grove had already successfully reduced its unhoused population of only a few hundred people by 39 percent between 2022 to 2024. It's something Bridegum attributes to providing services,

such as health care and a new regional shelter that offers drug treatment and job training. We've got all the carrots, and we needed that stick to progress with the harder to get to homeless individuals. you feel like you needed the stick when you were already enjoying so much success? You know, we know we're getting the easy ones now. The ones who are willing to cooperate, you're going to have less success when you're dealing with the hard people. And so how do you motivate people to take advantage of the programs? How do you motivate them if there's no consequences for their negative behavior?

We're not very heavy-handed on this ordinance at all. Garden Grove Police Officer Jesse Lukatero says his unit prioritizes offering services and shelter and uses the ordinance as a last resort. He says they have issued fewer than a dozen citations since the law came into effect last December. So like 99.9% of the time when we have like someone that's in violation of this camping ordinance, we get compliance and they will like willfully just move on. For critics of public camping bans, forcing people to move on is more of a problem than a solution. It's just like the leaf blowers. You blow the leaves to this side of the street, and they blow them right back. That's all they're doing. Before getting housing and becoming an advocate, Sean Pleasance lived in an encampment in Los Angeles's Korea town for 10 years. He's been through encampment sweeps.

Sweeps are probably some of the most devastating events that you encounter as a person living on the streets of Los Angeles. Your journey for housing, just gets pushed back again because now you're back in survival mode. All that stuff resets, resets every single time. That's a pattern Dr. Absalon Galat has seen over and over again. Galad is head of L.A. County's Street Medicine and Mobile Clinic program, which treats 3,500 unsheltered patients a year. A lot of my patients are always moving and they're losing their medications, which are so important on maintaining their health, as well as their documentation that will actually help them go into housing, their IDs, the social security. You're taking away that support that people have for one another. That cycle is made worse with incarceration, which critics warn will happen more often where public camping is made illegal.

I can sympathize with a lot of people who want to address the homelessness issue in California, but criminalizing homelessness and banning encampments is going to make the problem worse. Dr. Salman Kamal researches the health impacts experienced when the homeless are put in jail. People with a history of incarceration typically have a harder time finding jobs, finding housing. In the long term, these folks are going to be back out on the streets. They're going to be in a worse situation and they're going to be farther away from housing. And farther away from medical treatment. The discharge people know.

Dr. Absalon Galat says overdose is the leading cause of death among the city's homeless population and that programs like L.A. County's pathway home support recovery. Before our focus was, how can I keep you alive on the street as long as possible so you don't overdose? Our rates of success is much higher with our patients that have been interim housing. Because now they don't have to worry about where am I going to eat to this? They weren't going to sleep today. County officials say they are seeing promising results overall. In the two years since Pathway Home launched,

more than 1,600 people have moved into interim housing, and one in five are now in permanent homes. Back in his motel room, David Mendez, who also struggles with a substance use disorder, is already thinking ahead. I allowed, you know, my substance abuse, whatever, to just overtake the person. What do you think you're going to get from here

that goes beyond having this place? Like what kind of services do you feel like they can connect you to? I think the biggest one that matters to me right now is like stop like using in a sense. Mendez and Herrera said this could be the fresh start they need. Was it a good day, Jacqueline?

Yeah, it was great. It was like, I did. Yeah, I think it was a great day actually. I mean, I'm just happy. Two Angelinos no longer unsheltered. Still, more than 52,000 others remain on the streets in this corner of the Golden State. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Tsai in Los Angeles. She's one of the biggest names in all of sports today. And a new book, takes a deeper look at how Caitlin Clark got there. From college stardom at Iowa to shattering

attendance records, and now as a top financial driver for the WNBA, Clark's rise and her arrival to the league have come with some controversy. I talked with sports writer Christine Brennan about her book on her game. Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports and asked her how and why playing for the University of Iowa helped to make Clark a superstar. Because at Iowa, she could shoot from anywhere and everywhere, including the next county and the parking lot. And it would go in. You know, she's the high wire act in that way. She's a basketball player, of course, as you know, but she is also an entertainer. And I think the allure and the reason Caitlin Clark is Caitlin Clark and obviously other women's basketball players over the

years have not risen to this, you know, transcendent figure in our culture is because she does have those incredible shots, passes, et cetera. Well, that, of course, is, you know, that of course is you know, where Caitlin Clark was able to do that at Iowa. If you have her go to Notre Dame, which she actually committed, a soft commit, Muffet McGraw, her coach there said to me for the book, she said, you know, if she'd come here, it would have been different. Yeah. She wouldn't have been able to just shoot threes left and right.

The team around her would have been different. Yukon as well. She would have been a cog in a great machine, those schools being perennial favorites, whereas Iowa hadn't been to the final four and a long. time, it's incredible how by Caitlin making that decision to stay home, everything changed. She goes on to break scoring record. She has at least 11 NIL deals. You report in the book worth more than $3 million by the time she's done with college. But in the book, I was surprised you really go hard after the league, after the WNBA for what you say is it's being unprepared for her arrival. The league itself and also not preparing the players. You write about a call

that you had with the WNBA official and you write, what was I hearing? in that WNBA's official's voice, not happiness, not anticipation, not excitement. No, it was something else. What was it? What do you think they got wrong? You know, you've got people barnstorming, Caitlin's barnstorming around the country, you've got people lined up in January and February for games, the TV ratings, 4 million more people watching the women's final with Caitlin Clark in South Carolina than watch the men the next night. I mean, that's a sentence I thought I could never utter. And here it's all coming to the WNBA. And as that official told me, I said, you realize how big this is, and this person said, yeah, this is the biggest thing to happen to the WNBA since Maya Moore.

We heard from several people saying the players were having some tough times dealing with this, or Sheila Johnson, of course, talks about that that would be hurt feelings if Caitlin Clark winning an award, but the other players not. So if the league had been more prepared, and these are not necessarily my words, Dr. Harry Edwards, the great civil rights leader, the man who was the impetus for the black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, And Brianna Scurry, the great goalkeeper, their words in the book. I'm so appreciative that they talk to me about, you have to understand that a 74% black league, and you've now got a white woman who's becoming the biggest star they've ever had in our polarized society today, we can see that could be an issue. I can understand that. We all do.

And so if the league, as Harry Edwards says, seminars, Zoom calls, talk to the players, explain to these wonderful players that she's coming along after them, that this is that opportunity and you were there to start this process. And that's where the WMBA failed the players, according to Dr. Harry Edwards. And as you note, a lot of the conversation around the hits she takes, around some of the rivalries that followed her from college to the league do break down along racial lines. Because this is a league, as you mentioned, built on the backs and run by, dominated by black women athletes here. You get pulled into this in one reporting incident too. There's a clip that goes viral, a player named Dijunay Carrington who accidentally

hits Clark in the eye during a game. You ask her about that moment, whether she intended to, what that play was about. And the players' association comes after you. They issue a very strong statement. They accuse you of trying to bait an athlete into participating in a narrative that's false, designed to fuel racist, homophobic, misogynistic vitriol. They call for your credentials to be pulled? What did you take away from that interaction? And I know you respond in the book, but I want to give you a chance to respond here as well. Sure, no, thank you. And obviously that failed. I did not lose my credentials. You know, as I've asked tough questions of athletes, male and female, for years, was the Players Association saying that these female athletes couldn't

handle those questions, that we shouldn't be asking similar questions? And you ask a specific question, Omna, to give that athlete the chance to hit it out of the park, to take it any which way she wants. And what was happening online was terrible. We know that Twitter, X, is a cesspool. It's worse for women than men, and it's certainly worse for black women than white women. And there were millions of responses and tweets and posts talking about Dijna Carrington accusing her of going after Caitlin Clark. How do you, as a journalist, try to get an answer, which also then gives the athlete the chance to clear the air, you ask the specific question.

That's exactly what I did. And I do feel a sadness for the league, as I'm reporting this, I'm a journalist, I'm reporting it, but as someone who's cared about women's sports for years and covered the WNBL these years, that they weren't more prepared for the national scrutiny that was coming. How on earth is Dijunay Carrington not prepared to be able to answer that question

without getting angry that it was asked? And again, it's something that most pro athletes understand. They've been helped by their leagues or their players association, whatever, their agent, to the point where they know you get a question like that, you want that question, because then you can clear the air. And that's all that was. Underscoring all of your reporting in this book is the idea of the business of the game around Caitlin Clark and how it is completely changed with her arrival at the WNBA.

You note that the videos that the Indiana fever produced have been great crowds, been top among all the major leads. No team in the NBA, NFL, MLB, or WNBA got more video views. Ticket sales, jersey sales, all up exponentially. The impact beyond just her team, though, are we seeing that? Is this a sense of like a rising tide lifting all boats? We saw a statistic just a few weeks ago that I think tells the story, not in the book, because it just happened. Caitlin Clark, when she was injured the first time, missed five games. And during those five games, more than half of the viewership of the entire WNBA, not just the fever, but the entire WNBA, more than half, disappeared. Meaning that when Caitlin Clark is gone, more than half of the audience goes.

You now have tangible proof of just the importance of Caitlin Clark, is that when she is gone, then more than half the viewership leaves the league, that is wonderful, actually, to know for the players as they go into the collective bargaining agreement, because she is, as you said, they had an economic rocket ship leading the way, use her. She's obviously a player that you will all make more money and have a better contract knowing the power of Caitlin Clark and knowing that that light shines on her and it also shines on all the other players. The book is On Her Game, Caitlin Clark and The Revolution in Women's Sports. The author is Christine Brennan. Christine, always great to see you. Great to see you. Thank you, Amna. Remember, there's always a lot more online, including a look at financial accounts for kids

in the Republicans' mega budget bill, what the so-called Trump accounts entail and who is eligible to receive them. That is at pbs.org slash news hour. And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Omna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us. Thank you.