PBS News Hour - Full Show - June 21, 2025 – PBS News Weekend full episode

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

Saturday on PBS News Weekend, Israel and Iran’s deadly conflict enters a second week as Iran warns that U.S. military involvement could trigger retaliation. The impact of the Trump administration’s decision to end specialized suicide prevention services for LGBTQ+ youth. Plus, travel writer Rick Steves talks about his goal of getting more Americans to transform their world view through travel. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Tonight on PBS News Weekend, the deadly conflict between Israel and Iran enters a second week as Iran warns that U.S. military involvement could trigger retaliation. Then the impact of the Trump administration's decision to end specialized suicide prevention services for LGBTQ-plus youth. And travel guru Rick Steve's goal of getting more Americans to choose. and transform their worldview. I want to embrace culture shock as a good and constructive thing, not something to avoid, but something that is a valuable product of thoughtful travel. It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective.

Good evening. I'm John Yang. The second week of the Israel-Iran war began with a fresh round of Israeli air strikes on missile sites and a nuclear facility in Iran, and Iranian counterstrikes, sending missiles and drones into residential areas of Israel. As B-2 bombers are reportedly being repositioned, there's a new warning to the United States. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would attack U.S. vessels in the

Red Sea if President Trump joins Israel's military campaign. And after his talks with European officials were inconclusive, Iran's foreign minister said there would be no negotiations with the United States as long as Israeli attacks continue.

We have come, unfortunately, to the conclusion that the United States has been in this aggression from the beginning. No, they deny, they They keep saying that they are not evolving, but we have many indications that they have been involved from Taiwan. As Israel broadens its targets in Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says regime change is not an explicit goal, but could be a result.

Nargis Bajoli is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Nargis, Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be saying that the Israeli attacks have given an opportunity for Iranians who oppose the regime to rise up. How likely is that? That, at least at the moment, seems to be quite unlikely, mostly because, first of all, this is a foreign invasion that was an unprovoked attack in a time when Iran was in the midst of negotiations with the United States. So from the citizenry, even those who are angry at the Islamic Republic, of which there are many, but to respond by an uprising from a foreign invasion where bombs are landing in residential areas all across Tehran and other cities,

that seems to be a tall order to want in this moment, and it's not taking place as far as we can tell. Instead, what's happening is a rallying around the flag effect. You had a recent essay in Time magazine, and you wrote that the Iranian state is structured for survival. Explain that. So the Islamic Republic came about through a revolution, and right on the heels of the revolution, Iraq invades Iran in 1980,

and with the full backing of the West at that point, Iran learned in its infancy that to win these kinds of wars of assault onto the homeland is through perseverance and through doing a war of attrition. And so in the aftermath of that, the Islamic Republic built institutions in order to ensure Iran's sovereignty against those who kind of see eye, do not see eye to with it. There was also a report today that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene has named successors not only to the military leaders who may be killed, but also candidates to succeed himself if he's killed. In the same essay you wrote that the deaths of influential leaders would renew the system. Explain that. Yes. Well, first of all, Iran has witnessed Israel's

assassinations of leaders of Hezbollah, of the Syrian army all across the region and of its own military apparatus. And so it has contingency plans for the various different leaders who might be killed. But more importantly than all of that, is that this is a country that has had institutions for many, many generations. Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Iraq. It has institutions that span generations that will withstand sort of aerial bombardments of this kind. President Trump says he's put off a decision about whether to join the military campaign for two weeks, seemingly to give diplomacy a chance. What are the chances that Iran, would start negotiate, restart negotiations under the current conditions, much less give up their

nuclear program? Well, Iran has learned, again, from things that have happened in the region. Saddam Hussein gave up his weapons, he was invaded. Gaddafi gave up his weapons, he was invaded. He was overthrown. So in that instance, Iran in this situation is not going to denuclearize and give up all of its enrichment, nor demilitarize. It's going to now want to maintain military deterrence with Israel in the battlefield.

And then if the United States ends up entering the game, it shifts everything and sort of magnifies what we're all seeing today. What would be the effects, both immediate and long term, if the United States were to join this military campaign? So first of all, I think it's important to note that Iran is four and a half times the size of Germany. So it is a vastive country. It will make the invasion of Iraq look like a walk in the war. the park in many ways. It has a population of 92 million, which also means that we have to think about not only how big the country is, but also then the type of human capital that it has at its disposal, again, many of which will fight for the country. So the other point that I think is very important is that Iran is a state that has built militias throughout the region

to bleed and sort of create chaos for American soldiers in Iraq. That's one of the reasons that Iraq was such a difficult war for the Americans was because of the role that the Iranian militias played. The same thing in Syria. Yes, these forces have been weakened, but Iran retains the capability to be able to foment them again. Nargis Bajoli. Thank you very much. Thank you.

In tonight's other news, activist Mahmoud Khalil is back home tonight with his wife and infant son, after a judge ordered that he be released on bail from a federal detention center. Federal immigration agents arrested Khalil more than three months ago, the first person detained in President Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian student protests. The 30-year-old former Columbia University graduate student

is a legal U.S. resident. He says he was targeted because he's an immigrant who criticized the administration. Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone on this land, you're not illegal. That doesn't make you less of a human. And this is what the administration is trying to do to dehumanize me, to dehumanize the immigrants, to dehumanize anyone who actually does not agree. In ordering his release, the federal judge said it would be highly, highly unusual for the Trump administration to continue to detain Khalil because he's unlikely to flee and he

hasn't been accused of violence. Millions of Americans are under an extreme heat warning tonight with even higher temperatures ahead. The first heat wave of the year is forecast a stretch from the Midwest to the East Coast this weekend and through next week. The National Weather Service predicts triple-digit temperatures in some cities. The Weather Service warns this heat wave could be especially dangerous because it's the first of the summer and our bodies aren't acclimated to the heat yet. So they advise everybody to take extra precautions. General fatigue, headache, people might start to get confused or dizzy. Their muscles might start

to cramp up or you feel nauseous. That's really when you need to start getting inside, starting to hydrate, and you can use, you know, cold ice packs or, you know, towels with cold water to really start to cool down. The National Weather Service also says high temperatures will likely begin in the mornings that will make the days feel oppressively hot. Congressional Republicans have hit a big roadblock in their plans to reform and cut spending for the SNAP program, what's commonly called food stamps. It's part of President Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill that the Senate is considering.

Overnight, the Senate parliamentarian set a provision forcing states to pay a bigger share of the food assistance program does not meet budget rules. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the plan would cut benefits for more than a million people. Senate Republicans want to pass the bill by a self-imposed deadline of the 4th of July. Salvage workers raised the wreckage of a super yacht as investigators seek answers about why it sank in the Mediterranean last summer, killing many of those on board. In August, strong storms and extreme wind flooded the boat. Investigators say it sank within a few minutes. Today, it was lifted out of the waters off Sicily

for closer examination. A British tech magnate, his teenage daughter, and five others died aboard the vessel. And one of the most striking sights from the 2024 Olympic Games will now be a regular fixture in the City of Lights. You may recall that the Olympic cauldron for those games took the form of a helium balloon

floating over the city. Now it's been rebranded the Paris Caldron and it'll be a loft this summer over the Twilary Garden, a public space next to the Louvre. The cauldron will rise again for each of the next three summers. Still to come on PBS News Weekend,

the Trump administration pulls the plug on a suicide hotline for an LGBT-plus youth. And Rick Steves takes us on a journey through his career as a travel writer. This is PBS News Weekend from the David M. Rubinstein studio at WETA in Washington, home of the PBS News Hour.

Weeknights on PBS. Next month, the Trump administration will end a specialized support on the 988 National Suicide Hotline for young LGBTQ Plus callers, a group that has disproportionately high suicide rates. The administration announced the change by saying the hotline will no longer silo LGBT Plus youth services, admitting the T for transgender, and focus on serving all helps. seekers. Lindsay Dawson is director of LGBTQ health at KFF. Lindsay, how long has this been an option on the suicide hotline and how did it come about? So this became an option early on. When Congress started 988, they included directions to have a report to study how to best serve LGBTQ people

who do face desperate mental health challenges, including higher rates of suicidality. They first piloted the line in 2022, and then in July 2023, launched the service nationwide. And what's the argument for having these specialized services? The argument for the service is that because of the higher rates of suicidality and mental health challenges more generally, due to experiences like stigma and discrimination, higher rates of violence and loneliness, that LGBTQ youth and young adults could benefit from a service that specifically meets their needs and challenges. How many users do we know?

So since the line launched, including in that pilot phase, there have been over 1.3 million contacts to the service, and those contacts include calls, chats, and texts. What's the administration saying about why they're doing this? There's two reasons the administration is saying that this line is being cut. The first is that 98 overall can handle the calls that the LGBTQ service would have received. And the second is the administration is saying that the service

was fostering gender ideology beliefs among young people and trying to convince young people of gender ideologies. This is patently not what's happening. When somebody calls the line, they're calling a line because they're in crisis, and the line is helping resolve that moment for the individual. And what does the administration mean when they say gender ideology?

The administration means that somebody has a gender identity that differs from their sex assigned at birth. And they believe that there are only two sexes, which effectively erases trans people and trans identities. One, in fact, we know that transgender people are a part in fabric of the society. And this is not the only thing the administration is doing to sort of pull back on access to services

and help for the LGBTQ plus community in health. What else are they doing? So the administration, more broadly, is seeking to challenge LGBTQ people's access to health care One area that has received a significant amount of attention is youth access to gender affirming care. So with this going away at the 988 call, are there other services available to LGBTQ plus youth? So LGBTQ youth can still call that 988 number, and they will get the same services that anybody else who is calling would get. But they may not get an operator who is especially trained to meet their needs or to understand their experiences.

They can also call the services that the Trevor Project has and that some other projects have that provide support for issues beyond suicide ideation or suicidality. However, some of these projects, like the Trevor Project, receive funding for this service. And so to the extent that they're able to continue to provide the services they can today is something to watch moving forward. And the funding isn't changing for 9-8-8 overall, right? Right. So the funding overall for the line is going to maintain at 5,000.

$520 million. The federal government is saying that the funds for the LGBTQ service have been exhausted for this year. And so another area that's important to watch is what Congress appropriates in the FY26 budget. Lindsay Dawson of KFF, thank you very much. Thank you. Millions of Americans are expected to go on a European vacation this summer, and many of those going for the first time are likely to be following the advice of travel writer Rick Steves. He's the host of Rick Steves Europe on PBS stations. I traveled to Washington State to sit down with him for our weekend spotlight. You've got gargoyles. We've got these, I think, are the only functioning gargoyles this side of the Mississippi.

These stone carvings would fit right in on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. But this is Rick Steve's multi-million dollar travel company in Edmonds, Washington, a Seattle suburb. You know, gargals do two things. They scare away the evil spirits, of course. And they also provide a storm drain for when it really rains hard. And on a good rainy day, the water comes. And the Notre Dame in Paris? Yeah.

At Rick Steves Europe. Steve's researches some of his guidebooks himself. He spends three months every year in Europe filling notebooks with his observations. What to see, where to eat, where to stay. So this would have been 2016, and I did Florence, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice. And so I would go, and my responsibility was to visit the places in the book with other people helping. And I would always have my Moleskine, and I would jot all my notes. And I still, I can't begin to read that now, but I'm.

I can read my writing for 24 hours and then it expires because I can read that shorthand. Here in Edmonds, a staff of about 100, works on his best-selling guidebooks aimed at first-time travelers. Up next, we're going to the Italian Riviera. On his podcasts. This is Travel with Rick Steves. And on his long-running TV series on PBS stations nationwide. Here in Iceland, we experience both the power of nature and the beauty of nature. In Europe, about 240 guides lead dozens of bus tours each year.

Steve said he discovered the transformative power of travel in 1978 when he was 23. That summer, he and a friend spent six weeks going from Turkey to Nepal, the storied hippie trail. It was the epic road trip, Istanbul to Kathmandu. The Beatles were hanging out with the Maharashi in India, you know. And it was a perfect time in my life. remember, this is the last year people could do the hippie trail, 1978. The next year, the Shah fell and Ayatollah Khomeini turned Iran into a theocracy. The next year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. And there's a war zone. You couldn't travel through that. So there's

no more hippie trail. But you didn't know that at the time. I didn't know that at the time. In fact, I was clueless about everything political at the time. I was just a 23-year-old looking for adventure in the world. And it was my coming-of-age trip. He kept a jury. He kept a journal on that trip and put it away years ago, but he dug it out during the pandemic. And I read it, and it was vivid. It was candid. It was raw. It was before I was a travel writer. And every day, every moment, I'd be capturing vivid details. To me, it was like somebody nets butterflies as they flutter by. You know, when you're traveling, when you're far from home and something really cool happens, you go, this is what just makes my trip sparkle, but it's gone.

And there's another one, and what I wanted to do, I felt this need to write it down so I could save it. It was published in February. On the Hippi Trail, Istanbul to Kathmandu and the making of a travel writer made it to the New York Times bestseller list. I have strong mission in my teaching. I have strong ideas of what carbonates your travel experience.

How can an American best broaden their perspective through travel. And when I look at this journal, I can see the roots of that passion. It's a fascinating experience to have written a journal like that and discovered it 45 years later. This has been Main Street for me ever since I was in seventh grade.

And I don't know, when you travel, it's easy to travel when you know where your home is. His family moved to this quiet city on Puget Sound when he was 12. It's where he practices his own brand of philanthropy, and activism. We've got there until the police told us, we can't do it anymore. But this is not allowed to sit here?

Well, we will be allowed to sit here when this is a traffic-free piazza in the center of our beautiful little town. So we're engaging in a little civil disobedience here. This is civil disobedience. So everyone's while, hello. Everyone's a while I like to just sit here and imagine it was traffic-free. Yeah, this is, I call it the piazza. You know, in America, we need the piazza.

Why is Italy my favorite country? In one word, piazza. Communities coming together. For Steve's, that's the power of travel, and his message to encourage it. When you travel, you realize how much we have in common with people. People across this globe love their gelato. He makes numerous public appearances like this one in Bellevue, Washington. We have the American dream.

Not everybody has our dream. I used to think that would be insulting to us, but it's not. Sri Lankans have the Sri Lankan dream. Canadians have the Canadian dream. And it is not joining us. We'll also talk about the difference between a tourist and a traveler.

A tourist to me is, you've got a bucket list, you're checking off things, you're getting nice selfies, you're having some great time on the beach, You're hanging out with your own friends. You're changing the weather, but you're not changing your culture. You see. That's a legitimate kind of travel, but you've got a pretty low bar if that's why you're traveling.

As a teacher, I want to embrace culture shock as a good and constructive thing, not something to avoid, but something that is a valuable product of thoughtful travel. the growing pains of a broadening perspective. I just love this notion, John, that you can learn a lot about your home by leaving it and looking at it from a distance. There's a moment in the journal.

We describe a serendipitous event in India, and you say that this is the moment, sort of moment that makes you choose travel. Could you read that? Yes, this is really a moment. On the road out of town, we came upon four beautiful women carrying huge baskets of grass on their head. I goofed around with them a bit, discovering that they had a sense of humor, and then I made my move.

Crouching under the giant hat of hay, I looked a woman right in the eye, sharing the shade of all that hay, so suddenly, so close together, from opposite worlds, yet sharing the same planet with our noses just inches apart. It was the kind of moment that makes me choose travel. Choose travel. Yeah. Choose travel. Well, that's the kind of moment that travel should be. It's getting up and close.

Even then, his breezy writing and keen observations were evident. There were other dusty journals he hadn't looked at in years. We asked him to read a page from one of them. I mean, this is my journal from the year before the Hippie Trail. July 27, Cairo, we spent two hours poking in and out of markets, stealing photographs, ignoring what time is it now? What is your name in constant hellos? After a while, we tended to forget that we had everyone's attention,

and even distant honks, screams, and hellos were directed at us. If being famous is like this, I'm glad I'm obscure. That's a good line. If being famous is I'm glad I'm obscure. This is good. I've never looked at this either, honestly. Wow. Wow.

So maybe there's another book there. In August 2024, Steve set out on an unexpected journey. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It's something he talks about openly. My personality, I guess, is to try to look on the bright side of things. And I thought, I don't know the language. This is all new to me. I'm going to learn.

I'm going to be okay. And if I'm not, I've had a good life, you know. He was declared cancer-free in February. just as his book was published. The ships that go out here, next stop, Tokyo. You know, I just love that. It's a reminder of a big world. From his home overlooking Cuget Sound,

Steve says he'll continue to preach his message that travel is more than just bucket lists and selfies. You gotta get out of your comfort zone. You gotta create a situation where serendipity is constantly knocking on your door, and then you gotta say, yes, come on in. That's where you get those travel experiences. That's the best souvenir. It stays with you for the rest of your life.

It stays with you for the rest of your life. And that is PBS News Weekend for this Saturday. I'm John Yang for all of my colleagues. Thanks for joining us. See you tomorrow.