PBS News Hour - Full Show - June 18, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Wednesday on the News Hour, the Supreme Court upholds a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, Iran rejects President Trump's calls for surrender as it faces more bombardment from Israel and the murder of Minnesota Democrats highlights the increasing problem of misinformation on social media. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, the Supreme Court upholds a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Facing more bombardment from Israel, Iran rejects President Trump's call for surrender. And the murder of Minnesota Democrats highlights the growing problem of misinformation on social media. Trying to access verifiable and accurate information on the Internet at the moment is as difficult as I think it's ever been. Welcome to the News Hour. The Supreme Court is upholding Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender. gender minors. In a 6-3 decision today, the justices ruled that the state's law, which prevents children from accessing treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapy, did not violate

the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. In the court's majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, the voices in these debates raise serious concerns. The implications for all are profound. But he went on to add that the court will leave the issue to the people, their elected representatives and the democratic process. Tennessee is one of 27 states that have enacted some form of legislation limiting gender-affirming care for minors. And advocates say today's ruling is a huge setback for trans rights across the country. John Yang has more. The challenge to the Tennessee law came from three transgender teens, their parents, and a physician. The ACLU said today's ruling was a devastating loss for transgender people and creates a class of

people who politicians believe deserve health care and a class of people who do not. Tennessee Attorney General, Jonathan Scrimetti, who defended the law in court, said the decision recognizes that the Constitution lets us fulfill society's highest calling, protecting our kids. PBS News Supreme Court analyst Amy Howe is co-founder of SCOTUSBlog, and Lindsay Dawson is Director of LGBTQ Health Policy at KFF. Welcome to you both. Amy, let's start with you and talk about what the justices said today.

Now, in 2019, this court said that transgender people had workplace protections against discrimination. Why a different outcome today? We don't know exactly. And that was a six to three decision as well. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was in the majority today in upholding Tennessee's ban, was the author of that decision. The Chief Justice John Roberts also joined that decision. The court's dynamics have changed, obviously. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020. and was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, but that doesn't explain exactly what was going on. You know, one of the things that may well be going on, the court pointed to both Tennessee's interest,

it said, in protecting children, and then to what Tennessee describes as the uncertainty and the risk surrounding these kinds of treatments for transgender children. Lindsay, we've been following a family in Texas. We've given them pseudonyms to protect their identity. Texas, of course, bans gender-affirming care for minors, so they've had to go to New Mexico to get hormone therapy for their 14-year-old trans daughter, Leah. After the court ruled, we spoke to Mary, Leah's mother. Listen to what she had to say. This just kind of gives states the green light to continue to ban this gender-affirming care.

We're lucky that we're able to access this care in New Mexico right now, but I don't know what that's going to mean in the future. I don't know if the current sanctuary states are going to hold up what they're doing or not. The first thought is just look for another sanctuary city. But, I mean, if everybody starts following suit, then we're just stuck. I mean, I don't know what that would mean for us. You know, every time we go, we get another six months of meds and just kind of hold on to that and hope that that's enough. Are there a lot of families like Leah and her family and across the country?

And what's the sort of the general impact on across the country? Sure, so because the Supreme Court decided that the Tennessee law does not violate the Constitution's Equal Protection's Clause, that means that states with bans in place, like Texas or like Tennessee, can continue. And states where there are no bans, there is no restriction, so that those minors can still access care. But what you're faced with is a patchwork of access to gender affirming care, just as we see with this family. And if you're fortunate enough to be able to cross the statewide and get access to care somewhere else, then that's wonderful for your family, but many families don't have the privilege to be able to do that. Amy, Justice Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinions for herself and justices Kagan and Jackson.

She noted that major medical associations say that gender affirming care is appropriate and necessary. And she said that the majority authorizes without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them. What was your take away from that dissent? So she read her dissent from the bench, which is something that justices only do when they feel really strongly and they feel that the majority really got it wrong. It took about 15 minutes and she concluded with kind of an unusual statement. She said, in sadness, which is not something we hear all the time, even in dissents from

the bench. And then she said, I dissent without. including the respectfully that justices usually include. So it was something that she felt very strongly about. Justice Katanji Brown Jackson joined all of her dissent. Justice Elena Kagan joined most of it. And her argument was really that the court got it very wrong. You referenced the earlier case involving LGBT protections

under federal employment discrimination law for LGBTQ workers. And she said, in essence, this case is just like that one. You know, for all of the reasons that the court held in that case, Bostock, that LGBTQ workers are entitled to protections under federal employment discrimination laws. This Tennessee law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Lindsay, where does this fit in with the Trump administrations and the congressional Republicans and Republicans across the country, their drive or their effort to limit the rights of transgender people? So what's been happening in states that have been seeking to restrict this care is similar to what we've been seeing in the Trump administration. The Trump administration campaigned on restricting access to care for transgender youth, and since taking office and since the early days of the presidency in January, have sought to take actions to restrict this care further. So it is really in line with those efforts as this issue has become more politicized and polarized.

Amy, Justice Barrett wrote a concurring opinion in which she stressed that she was writing to emphasize that she does not believe that transgender people are a suspect class, that they do not deserve heightened scrutiny in cases. What does that do to the drive, to work in courts to get to protect transgender rights? So that was a separate opinion that was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. None of the other justices joined that. The court in the Chief Justice's majority opinion said, We don't need to address that question. We've never held that. We're not deciding it now.

But it certainly is something, I think, that will lend itself to other challenges, to other laws affecting transgender children, and then also possibly affecting other transgender people. You know, she mentioned a couple of examples in particular. She said that laws affecting transgender people, because transgender people are not a suspect class, they should not be subject to heightened scrutiny. She said courts shouldn't be weighing in. Legislatures should be making decisions on things involving like restrooms

and boys and girls' sports teams. And so, you know, you do suspect that when these issues come to the Supreme Court, as they likely are to come in months or the years ahead, that at least Justice Barrett and Justice Thomas are going to be skeptical of those challenges as well. Amy Howell, Lindsay Dawson. Thank you both very much.

Thanks for having me. The prospect of direct U.S. involvement has added to fears of a wider war in the Middle East. Tonight, cities in Israel and Iran under fire. The countries at war trading more blows overnight and into today, nearing a week of strikes in the ever-deepening conflict. And here at home... You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question. The major question still unanswered tonight,

whether President Trump would push the U.S. into the conflict and joined Israel's strikes on Iranian nuclear facility. You don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble. We'll see. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week. Maybe less. President Trump speaking with reporters as workers installed new flagpoles on the White House South Lawn said Iran had reached out to him and even proposed coming to the White House for talks. Have you given the Iranians an ultimatum?

You could say so. They know what's happening. Maybe you could call it the ultimate, the ultimate ultimatum, right? Meantime, the death toll in Iran is mounting. A U.S.-based Iranian human rights group says more than 200 civilians have been killed in Israel's strikes. But for its part, Iran sought to project strength today, with its supreme leader rejecting President Trump's call for unconditional surrender.

The Americans, those who are familiar with the politics of this region, know that the damage America will suffer if it makes a military intervention in this field will undoubtedly be irreparable. If the U.S. decides to join Israel in its attack on Iran, one main target would be the Fordo nuclear enrichment site southwest of Tehran. Built deep into a mountain, the facility appeared unscathed in recent satellite imagery taken after Israel's latest strikes. To penetrate and destroy that facility, experts say it would require so-called bunker-buster bombs carried aboard B-2 bombers, both of which the U.S. has and Israel does not. But entering the fight could alienate a part of Mr. Trump's base, those who are against engaging

the U.S. in new foreign wars. Among them, Tucker Carlson, who recently sparred with Senate Republican Ted Cruz on the prospect of regime change in Iran. You don't know anything about Iran. So actually the country. I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran. You're a senator who's calling to the over-throwing the government. You're the one who plays. President Trump today insisted any action against Iran would have a clear end.

Some of people in the base don't want a long-term order. They're afraid that we're going to get into a long-term. What are you looking for a long-term? I only want one thing. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That's it. looking long-term short-term, and I've been saying that for 20 years. Meantime, the U.S. has sent more military aircraft and warships to the region,

staying prepared to defend Israel and American assets as the region awaits President Trump's decision. For perspective on the current state of affairs, we turn now to Ernest Monez. He was Secretary of Energy during the Obama administration and a key negotiator and architect of the Iran nuclear agreement that was signed in 2015. President Trump pulled the U.S. out of that agreement in 2018, saying he could negotiate a better one. Mr. Secretary, thanks for being with us. So Washington right now is focused on whether the president should order a strike on Iran's fordo facility. This is that heavily fortified facility and that it's buried deep inside a mountain. What's

your view? Would you advise military action or urge restraint? Well, I think it's a complex situation, although I will come to a conclusion. First of all, I think the Israeli strike really has put the United States in a difficult position in the sense that the United States has the only capacity to at least potentially eliminate Fordo the underground enrichment site. And without doing that, frankly, the campaign to eliminate Iran's nuclear program even temporarily, obviously, would not be at all complete. On the other hand, if the United States were to carry through with that threat to bomb Fordo, A, we would be involved in the war quite clearly, and B, we cannot bomb the program out of existence. It will just revive in some period of time. It might be years, but it would revive unless the political regime,

in Tehran were to totally change in a favorable direction. That's a big gamble. In the end, weighing all of that, I would argue against the United States bombing Fordo. So is Fordo really the linchpin of Iran's nuclear program? Well, I wouldn't say it's the linchpin in the sense that if other facilities continue to operate, the enrichment could be done there as well. But the reality is, Natanz, the main enrichment site, certainly the above-ground part, I think, has been pretty much devastated. We don't know, at least I don't know, the condition of the centrifuges in the underground facility, but clearly the one place that has not been touched is Fordo.

It has now something that it wouldn't have had under the 2015 agreement, namely an array of much more advanced centrifuges six times as powerful as the ones that the 2015 agreement allowed in operation there. In 2015, when we reached the JCPOA agreement, the Iran agreement, Iran was operating about 19,000 centrifuges. Now, about 1,000 of their advanced centrifuges would be enough to produce the material for a bomb every year. So on that point, how close do you believe Iran is to producing a nuclear weapon? The U.S. intelligence community said previously that not only was Iran not focused on producing a nuclear weapon, that they were years away from being able to produce and deliver one.

Just today, President Trump said he didn't really care what the U.S. intel assessment is that he believes Iran is weeks away from producing a nuclear weapon. Where do you land? Well, I think we're comparing apples and oranges here. First of all, Iran, as we know, had enriched uranium for no good civil reason, civilian reason, to about 60% purity enrichment. That's very, very close to the 90% that you would need for a significant nuclear weapon. And they had enough material there to produce probably about 10 weapons. And they could reach that weapons grade material within weeks, no question about it.

Having weapons grade uranium is the most challenging part of making a nuclear weapon, but it's not the entire weapon. So what the intelligence community statement is about is what it would take then to go from the material to, I would say, an advanced nuclear. nuclear weapon that could be seated on and delivered by a missile. Given the material, I think Iran would go for a much cruder nuclear weapon, one that could be delivered not on a missile, but by other means, trucks, ships, et cetera. It's been shown that they have a hard time delivering weapons on Israel. Certainly weapons of any major size. So I think that's a bigger challenge for Iran.

How would they actually deliver a weapon? Given the material they have, they could pretty easily covertly develop and put together a crude weapon. But again, they have to be able to deliver it. And that's not trivial. President Trump has left the door open, albeit narrowly, to talks.

What would it take for meaning, U.S.-Iran negotiations to resume at this stage? Well, at this stage, I certainly don't think serious negotiations can take place until the hostilities between Israel and Iran are over, and that assumes that the United States has not gotten directly involved in the war other than for defensive purposes in helping to defend Israel against missiles and drones. there's been a fairly public, frankly, preparation by the military to be able to carry out a bombing of Fordo with a very, very large conventional so-called bunker buster, that, of course,

that threat can be carried out, but it's also a threat for a negotiation. I believe the president would still prefer the option, frankly, of a diplomatic solution. And a real serious question will be, will the President, will the United States accept a kind of a two-step in which the first step does not certainly have a complete renunciation by Iran of its nuclear capabilities, but has a serious dialing back of those? and then that would allow for a follow-on negotiation whereby various mechanisms could be used to potentially satisfy both sides. Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, now the CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Thank you for adding some much-needed context and clarity to all of this. We appreciate it. Thank you. We start the day's other news with the U.S. Federal Reserve. Officials left interest rates unchanged for the fourth straight time today. They also said they expect to cut rates twice by the end of the year, even as worries over inflation persist. At a press conference today, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that uncertainty is unusually elevated amid ongoing concerns over the impact of President Trump's tariffs. People will be trying not to be the ones who pick up the cost, but ultimately,

The cost of the tariff has to be paid, and some of it will fall on the end consumer. We know that because that's what businesses say. That's what the data say from past. So we know that's coming, and we just want to see a little bit of that before we make judgments prematurely. Just hours before this afternoon's Fed announcement, President Trump renewed his complaints about Powell's unwillingness to cut rates, calling him stupid and even floating the idea of installing himself as chair. The State Department says it's resuming the process to allow foreigners to apply for student visas. But applicants will now have to make their social media accounts public for review, or they could be rejected.

The Department said its officers will be looking for signs of, quote, hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States. Last month, the Trump administration temporarily stopped scheduling new interviews for such visas. It's part of a broader crackdown on overseas students hoping to study here. The Supreme Court is reviving plans to store nuclear waste at sites in Texas and New Mexico. The justices today rejected a challenge from Texas and a group of landowners over a private company's plans to store the material in the state. The decision is expected to apply to a similar site in New Mexico. The two facilities are meant to be temporary. Plans for a permanent location in Nevada have been delayed due to local.

opposition. Nearly 100,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are piling up at plants across the U.S. It's meant to be stored deep underground for safety. The Food and Drug Administration says today it's approved the world's only twice a year injection for HIV prevention. The drug called Lena Capavir is not a vaccine, but it nearly eliminated new infections in two groundbreaking clinical trials. Its maker, Gilead, says it represents a milestone in bringing the world closer to containing the spread of the virus, which still infects 30,000 Americans each year and more than a million people worldwide. But there are concerns that the Trump administration's proposed cuts to federal funding for HIV prevention could limit

its impact. Federal health officials say a Listeria outbreak in more than a dozen states is linked to meals sold at Kroger and Walmart. Authorities say at least three people have died and 17 people sickened since the outbreak started last August. Food producer Fresh Realm is recalling varieties of its chicken Alfredo products made before June 17th. Officials advise people with those items in their homes to throw them out or return them. Listeria infections are especially dangerous for older people, those with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women. Southern Mexico is bracing for what could be the first major Pacific hurricane of the season. Hurricane Eric is now a Category 2 storm as it churns off the coast of Puerto Angel with maximum sustained

winds around 100 miles an hour. Forecasters say it could make landfall on Thursday as a category three storm. Residents are preparing for a potentially deadly storm surge as well as mudslides and up to 20 inches of rain. As of this afternoon, a hurricane morning was in effect along the coast from Acapulco to Puerto Angel. Don Wall Street today, stocks closed little change. following that Fed rate announcement. The Dow Jones Industrial average slipped about 40 points on the day. The NASDAQ added just 25 points.

The S&P 500 closed a touch lower but basically flat. And astronomers in Chile released a detailed image today of a spiral galaxy located 11 million light years away. This dazzling panoramic shot of the sculptor galaxy contains thousands of colors indicating stars, gas, and dust. Usually, such images have just a handful of shades. Scientists use the European Southern Observatory's very large telescope, or VLT, to record around 50 hours of imagery. They then stitched together more than 100 exposures to create that picture.

They hope it will serve as a cosmic mile marker to allow for further mapping of this galaxy and others. Still to come. On the news hour, we speak to a homeland security official about the Trump administration's immigration policy. The details of a multi-billion dollar settlement with Purdue Pharma over the opioid crisis and a new biography on the life of pioneering LGBT rights activist Marcia P. Johnson. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at W.E.A. in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. This PBS NewsHour podcast is supported in part by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Life sustains itself by cell division, so does cancer. Breast cancer cells multiply faster because of CDK-4-6 proteins. But what if we could block those proteins and stop runaway cell division? To that end, Dana-Farber laid the foundation for CDK-4-6 inhibitors, drugs designed to treat many advanced breast cancers. Dana Farber keeps finding new ways to outmaneuver cancer. Learn more at Danafarber.org slash everywhere. As the Trump administration continues to escalate immigration enforcement operations around the country,

we're joined now by Trisha McLaughlin. She's the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Tricia, welcome to the News Hour. Thanks for joining us. No, thank you for having me. So I just want to ask you first about some reports about Secretary Nome being hospitalized yesterday after suffering an allergic reaction. What can you tell us today about how she's doing? She's doing well, Alna.

Thank you for asking. She was discharged from the hospital last night. And she's doing well, recovering. We just brought her to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. Thank you for that update. I do want to turn down to what we've seen in a lot of headlines,

what I know is a priority for this president and seeing through his pledge of mass deportations. We saw the president on Thursday say that business leader is from agriculture and hotel and leisure had expressed worries to him that your immigration policy was, quote, taking very good long-time workers away from them, impacting their businesses. In the day since, we've seen reports, of course, that ICE agents have continued to carry out raids on some of those businesses and agriculture and hotels and restaurants.

Can you just clarify what the policy is, despite the president's concerns that he raised, are those raids on those businesses still being carried out? Absolutely. And just to clarify this, our number one concern is violent criminals. And part of the ways that we find these violent criminals is through these worksite enforcement actions. That very much is the cornerstone of our operations. Actually, most recently in Los Angeles, we had an operation where we did locate multiple drug traffickers. We're finding that these worksite enforcement oftentimes find human traffickers, labor traffickers, or otherwise exploiting these migrants for cheap labor, unsafe working

conditions. So those are not on pause. Those will continue. So we do know that undocumented workers make up somewhere between four and five percent of our entire nation's workforce. If these business leaders express concern about their businesses being impacted, are you saying there will not be a change to that policy? I'm saying that in the last hundred days under this administration, 75 percent of those immigrants that we've arrested, those illegal immigrants that we've arrested, have had prior criminal conviction. So these are not necessarily innocent individuals that they not only are in this country illegally, but they also have crimes that they've committed. I want to ask you about that number more deeply in a moment, but just to clarify, no change to

that policy coming, correct? No, we will continue worksite enforcement operations. Okay, there was this reported target of 3,000 arrests a day that we'd seen. Can you tell me how often that target has been hit by ICE agents? Now, our ICE enforcement officers, they're consistently meeting their numbers. We want to get those numbers up, though, especially for violent criminals. But I think more than that, we have to look at the culture that has been for the last four years. Our ICE enforcement officers have been demonized.

They're facing a 413% increase in assaults against them. But for the last four years, they were told, don't do your job, don't make these arrests. So we've had to have some leadership changes. We've had to really reinvigorate this organization so they're empowered to do their jobs and make these arrests. Have they been able to hit that 3,000 target on any day so far? They're absolutely working toward it. We're around 260,000 arrests since the Trump administration started. So 260,000 arrests.

I want to ask you more about that because there was a recent analysis that the Guardian did that found that among the surge of immigrant arrests that we have seen under this Trump administration, the biggest increase from January to June was actually among people who had no charges or convictions at all, an 807% increase. There were absolutely people who had criminal records and criminal convictions. among those arrested, but the vast majority, the analysis shows, did not. Is that accurate based on what you've seen? That's not accurate.

I would not rely on The Guardian for any sort of analysis here. This is the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security is telling the American people that 75% of those illegal aliens who have been arrested have prior convictions. The Guardian is by no means a reliable analysis for this kind of data. You're saying 75% of over the 260,000 people, people you've arrested were convicted in a court for a violent crime. Is that what you're saying? That's correct. Can I just add, there's such a gap between the numbers that you're sharing right now

and what we've seen in previous reports. There was another analysis based on internal data that CNN ran and published on June 16th, they found that less than 10% of about 190,000 or so people who'd been booked into ICE custody had been convicted of those serious violent crimes, as you mentioned. Why is there such a huge gap between what reporters and journalists? are reporting based on the data they see and what you're saying now? I don't know where CNN or the Guardian are getting their data, but I wouldn't say that those are exactly nonpartisan outlets. I don't really rely on them for facts or analysis. I do rely on the Department of Homeland Security and our career civil servants who are giving

us this data. I do want to ask you about another trend we've seen, which is the ramping up of arrests in immigration hearings or in federal courthouses. There was a case in San Diego last week of a man named Syed Nasir. He worked with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He was arrested by ICE as he left his asylum hearing at a courthouse. His lawyer says that he was legally paroled into the U.S. He had no criminal record in the U.S. or in Afghanistan. And his life is surely going to be at risk if he's deported back to that country. How is the U.S. safer without him here? Yeah, no, we actually looked into this case. And actually, we're working with the Pentagon on and found that there was actually no verifiable information or data that he did work with

the U.S. government while he was in Afghanistan. But I think fortunately, our message to those who are in this country illegally or have their temporary protected status that has ended is that the U.S. taxpayer so generously is offering these individuals $1,000 and a free flight home. They preserve the option then to return to this country the legal right way. And if not, we will have to arrest them and deport them. This is someone that his lawyer said was legally paroled into the U.S. though. He did legally enter. He was following the legal process by showing up for this asylum hearing. So why should he be deported? So there are a number of programs that the Biden administration administered really allowed people unvetted into this country. We've given people the proper amount of

time to leave this country or apply for asylum. That's still on the table. If this individual wants apply for asylum and he has a legitimate fear, that's something we'll absolutely consider. Patricia, this is someone who did apply for asylum? His case is already being heard. Why not allow it to go through the court system before arresting and deporting? We are allowing it to go through the court system, Omna. He's already been taken into ICE attention and put into expedited removal. His case is not being. While he's awaiting the court, while he's awaiting his asylum hearing, that's correct. So you're saying his case will be fully heard. He won't be, he won't be deported until his asylum hearing is done. His case will be heard.

Among the ramp up of people we've seen arrested at some of the immigration hearings, we've heard concern from folks who say, look, these are people going through the legal process. They are following the rules. Is the message that you're sending to them now, don't show up at the courthouse. Don't follow the rules and follow the legal process because you might be arrested anyway. Of course not. But Omna, you know, we've spent about 10 minutes right now defending those who are here in this country illegally. But I haven't served a single time you talk about a victim of MS-13, a trend day or a trend day or of the 100,000 individuals in this country who die every single year of fentanyl.

So I do think something that's going on with PBS at the public broadcasting stations in this country, including cable news as well, is that there's a major focus on those who are here illegally in this country and not the victims. And there's a reason why the American people voted in a landslide on November 5th, 24 for mass deportations. That's what Donald Trump as a candidate promise, and that's what we're going to deliver in this administration. We've covered, I should point out, a number of those stories and we'll continue to do so.

I'm asking you about some of the changes in policies and enforcement actions that we've seen under this administration. It's not a defense of anyone. It's questions based on what we've seen in the headline. So I guess the question, again, is in terms of these enforcement actions we've seen at immigration hearings, regardless of where people are in that legal process, you're saying if they are here without legal status, they could be arrested and deported. Is that right? They could be arrested and deported, especially have you been here less than two years? you are eligible for expedited removal.

We encourage you to go to your immigration hearing or else. You will absolutely get a final deportation order, and you will be arrested and deported. Tricia, we thank you so much for making the time, being willing to come on and engage and take the questions. That is Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Thank you again.

Omna, thank you for having me. After the interview, we asked DHS for information backing up the claim that 75% of the 260,000 people arrested were convicted of a violent crime. They provided an April press release claiming 75% had convictions or pending charges. They said that number has remained consistent throughout the Trump administration. $4 billion settlement has been reached with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, the drug widely seen as a key driver of the opioid epidemic. A prior settlement had been struck down by the Supreme Court. Our Lisa Desjardin has the update. Jeff, the opioid crisis grew out of Purdue

Pharma's work, and while related deaths have declined, it is still a lethal problem. Last year, more than 50,000 Americans died from overdose involving opioids. Now, all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories have signed on to a new settlement. If approved by courts and the Department of Justice, it would end the Sackler's ownership of Purdue and begin payouts to families and communities devastated by the crisis. Joining me now for more is NPR's National Addiction Correspondent, Brian Mann. Thank you, Brian, for joining us. And help us understand, first of all, where would this money go and how soon could communities feel it? Yeah, the money will start moving out as soon as this deal is consummated.

People have been telling me that could happen as early as next year, which seems like a long time. But after years and years of legal rangling, that's pretty fast. The Sacklers would have to pay about $1.5 billion right out of the gate. The company would also pony up money. And a lot of this money would go to addiction treatment and health care programs around the country. Some of the money would go directly to families and victims of Oxycontin, Purdue Farmer's premier product, this highly addictive pain medication. And this money would then be paid out over the next 15 years. A big plug of money right at the beginning and then more money would

go into the system over the next decade and a half. You said years of wrangling. This really has been a legal and emotional roller coaster, especially over the last five years. One settlement, was rejected by the courts, one big one. Why is this one different? There's a huge change here. The deal that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last summer had a provision that forced everyone to give up lawsuits directed at members of the Sackler family who currently own this company.

There are a lot of people suing members of the family who want their day in court. People who've said they don't want to give up their lawsuits. That last deal included a really powerful legal provision that would have struck down all of those cases. Serbian courts said bankruptcy courts and dealmakers didn't have that authority that sent everybody back to the negotiating table. So in this deal, Lisa, the way that this would work is that only people who drop their lawsuits can participate in this settlement, can benefit financially from this settlement.

But if people want to stay aside from this deal, they can't keep those lawsuits going in court. Of course, the big players are sort of laying down their litigation here. That's the states and the U.S. territories that have now signed on. But the Sacklers, over time, could still face a lot of litigation from a lot of individuals who say they were harmed. Do you think this one will stick? Everybody who've been talking to says this deal is going to go through. Of course, anything could change in a deal this complex. But a couple of big things have changed here.

First, that legal provision that I just mentioned, that's a deal changer, fundamentally less controversial now. The other thing that's really important to understand here is that the Justice Department now is very different than it was a year ago under the Biden administration. Everyone I talked to says the Trump administration's DOJ has shown no appetite for waiting into the middle of this deal and disrupting it. I want to talk more on personal grounds, though. You've spoken to some families that don't like this deal. What is the criticism? Well, very simply, this deal benefits communities, states, counties, native tribes, much more than it does individual victims.

Advocates say that's cool because it means money is going to go to protecting people in the future, right? Preventing addiction, healing people who are currently addicted, helping people still caught up in the fentanyl crisis that's raging across the United States. That's going to be most of the $7.4 billion will go to that kind of work. But that means only about $850 million will go to people who are devastated by OxyContin, people who lost family members to fatal overdoses, people who lost years of their own lives to this, some of them say they'll only get a few thousand dollars in compensation out of this deal. 850 million sounds like a lot of money, but when you divide it up over all the people who say

that they were addicted or lost loved ones, you slice that pie thinner and thinner. Some people will walk away with hundreds of dollars, a few thousand dollars, and some people are really angry about that level of payout. I want to close just in our last few seconds on the Sacklers. Where do they and their fortune stand now? Well, they're one of the wealthiest families in the United States. They will remain one of the wealthiest families in the United States. This money will be a hit to their collective pocketbooks,

but they will be allowed to pay out the funds over a decade and a half. And so this will sting, and they are still vulnerable to those lawsuits that could come in in the future. But a lot of people say that this isn't the justice that they were hoping for. Again, the Sacklers deny wrongdoing. They say they led this company ethically, even though it pleaded guilty repeatedly to criminal activity on their watch. But they're going to walk away from this with a lot more legal protection and a lot of their fortune intact. NPR's Brian Mann, thank you for covering this and for joining us. Thanks for having me. As news about the murders in Minneapolis broke over the weekend,

misinformation began spreading on social media instantly. And in an era of artificial intelligence and limited internal fact-checking, experts say rumors and disinformation are catching fire online in entirely new ways. Stephanie Sy, sits down with experts to separate fact from fiction. It happened almost immediately. Today we are asking for the public's help in locating Vance, Luther, Bolter. While investigators were still chasing down, the man in Minnesota accused of killing a state lawmaker and her husband. It seems like he went after a Democratic legislator because she voted against Democrat Party policy.

Political influencers online were already claiming to know his motives. In Washington, D.C., President Trump, Trump's military parade over the weekend was either huge or puny. There was just no people there. Depending on which set of images one saw. And on the streets of Los Angeles, where most protests of ICE raids were nonviolent, you'd never know that from the sometimes inaccurate images that went viral online. Trying to access verifiable and accurate information on the internet at the moment is as difficult as I think it's

ever been. David Gilbert is a reporter at Wired. He's been covering misinformation for over a decade. When breaking news happens, at this point, you can almost guess what some of the disinformation narratives are going to be. For example, around the LA protests, we saw reusing old footage, people using footage from the George Floyd protests in 2020. We saw people using footage from the Armatree video game, which is a war game, so they used footage from that and that it was from L.A. We saw George Soros being blamed that all the protesters were being paid, something that Donald Trump amplified himself last week. Caesar paid troublemakers. They get money.

You still have all of this, but then you're putting the AI on top of it, making it so much worse. Hey, everyone, Bob here on National Guard duty. AI generated videos like this one, featuring a purported member of the National Guard in Los Angeles, were spread on social media last week. If you looked at the AI videos that people believed were real, there were issues with people's faces, issues with the signs in the background, lots of very clear signals that it was AI.

But people just don't pay that much attention anymore. People want to be the first person to share it. That desire to be first, that desire to be the person who is breaking the story or has the image, it really happens over and over and over again. Renee DeResta is the author of Invisible Rulers, the people who turn lies into reality. She says social media companies incentivize viral,

not necessarily truthful content. People begin to realize that during chaotic events, they could actually capitalize on that chaos. They could push out false and misleading stories. They could dredge up old protest footage, reamplify it, pretend it was happening right then, and they could actually monetize that. They could kind of capture attention.

And certain platforms actually let people who are pushing out what looks like current content, make money off of it. And you say that the social media platforms are aware of these incentives, are aware that people are capitalizing on these events, and do they facilitate that? Well, the incentives are not necessarily made for the worst actors, right? The incentives are there because we should want people to be able to break news in their communities, right? If this was a situation where I'm just out there on my street with my camera phone and I

happen to record something, we should want me to be able to get that information out there. When people do this ethically, it's incredibly powerful. And once viral, content, true or not, often finds its way onto multiple platforms, like this video that was likely posted on Instagram before getting attention on blue sky last week. The officers were wearing NYPD uniforms and they were separating a baby and a mom and it was being pushed out as if this was an ice raid and a family was being separated. It actually took me a while to try to figure out if it was AI generated or not or if it had been edited or not. And in the time it took me to do that, about 6,000 people had retweeted it.

After studying the video, DeRusta believes it's real, but that it likely shows old footage and not a recent ICE raid. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X. Meanwhile, with major platforms rolling back fact checking, more and more people seem to be turned. turning to chat bots to discern what is real. X is GROC or chat GPT, for example. People have been asking GROC, which is built into X and chat GPT to verify images and videos and statements by lawmakers. And instead of coming back with accurate information, it's actually coming back with disinformation. He points to a recent example when California Governor Gavin Newsom posted these images of National Guard troops on his ex account, apparently to prove

President Trump had sent troops that had no place to sleep. So someone asked Grok said, is this photo real? And Grok came back saying it looks like the photo was taken in Afghanistan in 2021 in Kabul airport during the U.S. troop withdrawal. Grok was wrong. The images were real, originally sourced by the San Francisco Chronicle and deemed by the Department of Defense itself as appearing authentic. These AI chatbots, which, you know, have been so lauded as revolution, as cutting edge from a tech perspective still have huge issues in producing accurate, fact-checked, verified information. And this is just the latest example. I think the reliance on these chatbots by a lot of people is a worrying

escalation because people are turning to them now because they don't actually have human fact-checkers anymore at these companies that they can ask. As our reliance on AI grows, so too does fear about how it will shape our future. We're in really chaotic times, and the ability to create very plausible unreality is only getting better, even as our trust in each other continues to decline. As the people and outlets that we put our faith in continues to diverge, more and more it's going to be impossible for us to come to consensus about basic reality, and that unfortunately is where we are. Where we are, itself now a point of contention in a world of fractured realities. For the people, CBS NewsHour. I'm Stephanie Sine.

A new biography called Marsha, the joy and defiance of Marsha P. Johnson, tells the story of the black transgender pioneers fight on the front lines of history as a leader in the early LGBTQ rights movement. In the 2018 fictional film, Happy Birthday Marcia, activist and filmmaker Tourmaline reimagined the hours that led to the 1969 Stonewall riots. In this new book, as well as her children's book,

One Day in June, Tourmaline tells Johnson's story through her own words and those who knew her. I had a chance to speak with Tourmaline earlier before today's Supreme Court decision. Tourmaline joins me here now. Welcome to The News Hour. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks so much for having me. So you already explored a large part of Marcia's life through that film that we mentioned. What made you want to return to it in a deeper way in book form? So I have been documenting, archiving, and sharing the story of Marsha B. Johnson for 20 years now. It has been such a gift to get to know different aspects of Marcia's life from, you know, I moved to New York when I was 19, and it was right shortly after then that I started to hear about Marcia in the West Village and meet her friends and her family. And I wanted to make sure that everyone would be able to receive the gift of knowing Marcia that I got to have.

In researching this book and doing interviews, did you discover anything new about her that surprised you? You didn't know before? Yeah, absolutely. Marcia was a Jersey girl. You know, she was from Elizabeth, New Jersey, and she was born into a really beautiful family, the Michael's family. That's where she started to perform. She was in parades down Main Street in Elizabeth. And I think a lot of people have seen these beautiful portraits of Marcia adorned in flowers with a radiant smile, but don't necessarily know her performance life.

She was doing two performances a day with the off-off Broadway group Hot Peaches, and she was performing during the emergence of the HIV-AIDS epidemic at hospitals and AIDS wards. And that was really part of Marcia's beauty was bringing her magic to the people who needed it most. The P, as her middle initial, she once said, stood for pay it no mine, which basically became kind of like a motto for Marcia. It's even displayed above the entrance to the state park in her name in Brooklyn. What did that phrase mean to her? Why was that so defining? It was so important because Marcia was born into a world with immense, harsh conditions, right? She moved to New York City, Times Square in 1963.

And at the time, if you were a trans person, you could be arrested and put in jail. just by going outside and living out your truth. There were these three articles of closed laws that the New York Police Department used to arrest and punitized transgenit, genie not-conforming people. So Marcia was really aware of the conditions of her life, and she dedicated her life to be a leader for her entire community. And also, it was really important for her to not get tangled up

and in the noise of it all. So she said, pay it no mind to the people who didn't understand her beauty. She said, pay it no mind to people who could never see the value of her community, who didn't understand, you know, the beauty of transgender non-conforming people turning up the volume of their entire life. You document this story as she becomes sort of a celebrated muse and a prolific performer, as you noted, and you write this. You say Marcia never had an agent or a gallery, but she was making art. She was seen as an artist, and she was practicing her art in knowing and intentional ways.

Tell us about that blend of activism and art. Yeah, to me, I'm an artist. So I'm a filmmaker and a photographer. And, you know, part of what I see in Marcia is a real commitment to the arts. She was doing, you know, performances on stage for a crowd that included Stevie Wonder and Andy Warhol. Marcia was an incredible artist,

but she also did it on the street, right? It was a real clear sign when you saw Marcia adorned with flowers, paying at no mind, despite the real harsh conditions. It was a sign that you were welcome here. Tourmaline, as you and I speak now, we're in a time when the administration has been involved in an effort that really revises and erases a lot of transgender history from official government websites. There was reporting about the removal of some information, including related to Marsha P. Johnson's

life from a National Park Service website. How do you look at this moment in American history and what we can take from Marsha's life at this time? To me, it's really important to look at Marsha as a leader who was navigating similar conditions and was fighting for all of us. She demonstrated that when we come together in the midst of a mess of a thing and connect with other people who are navigating similarly challenging conditions, we can build a vibrant movement and transform the world. So, you know, that's one thing that I think about. The second that I think about is that she met Sylvia Rivera, her friend, when Sylvia Rivera was 13 years old in Times Square. So part of the story of Times Square in the street queens in Marsha in the 60s is a lot of young people were leaving their homes because of misunderstandings with their family, hostilities in their homes. A lot of queer, transgender, non-conforming, LGBTQ, LGBTQI, I.A plus young people had to leave their homes and would be houseless. I think to me it's really important to ask, do we really want to go back to that? Do we really want to go back to a time when young people are not able to get the care that they need, are not able to have safe

homes filled with understanding? Because that was the reality that Marsha B. Johnson was navigating, just like Sylvia Rivera and so many other people. The book is Marsha, the joy and defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. Author is Tourmaline. Thank you so much for your time. Such a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you so much for having me. And that's the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Navaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us.