PBS News Hour - Full Show - June 24, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Tuesday on the News Hour, a fragile ceasefire holds between Israel and Iran as President Trump meets NATO leaders at a time of tension for the alliance. A briefing for lawmakers is postponed, leading to questions about whether the Iran strikes were as successful as Trump claims. Plus, we delve into the massive GOP budget bill with a look at how its cuts to Medicaid could affect rural hospitals. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. Amnavaz is away. On the news hour tonight, a fragile ceasefire holds between Israel and Iran as President Trump meets NATO leaders at a time of tension for the alliance. A classified briefing for lawmakers is postponed, leading to more questions about whether the Iran strikes were as successful as the White House claims. And we delve into the Republican's massive budget bill with the look at how its cuts to Medicaid could affect rural hospitals. The only way we can make up for it is to cut expenses and which may mean cutting services, and that just hurts.

And that hurts all patients, not just Medicaid patients. Welcome to the News Hour. President Trump is in the Netherlands tonight in advance of tomorrow's NATO summit, while in the Middle East, the ceasefire. between Iran and Israel is holding. Israel tonight described enormous damage to Iran's nuclear program, but the PBS News Hour has learned an initial U.S. assessment of the damage caused by the American bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites suggests the sites have not been as destroyed as President Trump has claimed.

Nick Schifrin is in the Hague tonight and begins with the apparent end of fighting between Israel and Iran. In Tehran, a tense quiet. the city hasn't seen in nearly two weeks, a fragile ceasefire now holding. After final strikes leading up to the truce, Israel said it hit dozens of Iranian missile launchers and military targets. And in the largest city in southern Israel, a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles tore off the top floors of this apartment building. At least four killed, dozens wounded. But some survivors rescued from the rubble by Israeli firefighters.

I went out during the siren, and in the middle of the building, when I was going toward the safe room, it blew up. I saw something close to me. I saw fire in front of me. It was the final Iranian strike before the ceasefire, but Israel says it kept firing interceptors, including this one that fell in northern Israel and accused Iran of two ceasefire violations. That's when Israeli chief of the general staff, Ayal Zamir, warned, in light of the severe violation of the ceasefire carried out by the Iranian regime, we will respond with force.

Quickly, President Trump called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and made a demand in private and online. Israel, do not drop those bombs. If you do, it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home now. 40 minutes later, he wrote, Israel is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home.

Israel restricted its bomb targets to an Iranian radar installation. That wasn't good enough for President Trump, whose own bomb started with F. I'm not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I'm not happy with them.

I'm not happy with Iran either. But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land. I'm not happy about that. You know what? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard

that they don't know what the f*** they're doing. Do you understand that? That unprecedented public anger at Israel preceded President Trump on Air Force One. Two days after raising the possibility of Iranian regime change, he ruled it out. Do you want to see regime change in Iran? If there was, there was.

But no, I don't want it. I'd like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. Regime change takes chaos. And ideally, we don't want to see so much chaos. So we'll see how it does. You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good business people, and they got a lot of oil. They should be fine. They should be able to rebuild and do a good job.

They're never going to have nuclear, but other than that, they should do a great job. Israeli officials are ecstatic with the war's results, degrading Iran's nuclear program and missile inventory, and proving they could fly freely over Tehran, as Netanyahu said tonight. We achieved a historic victory, and this victory will stay. for generations. We removed from upon us two immediate existential threats, the threat of annihilation by nuclear bombs and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles. As for President Trump, after landing in the Netherlands, he held a family photo with what he called his, quote, very good European friends. As he put it tonight, it will be much calmer in the Hague than what I went through with Israel and Iran. And Nick joins us now from the Hague.

Nick, I understand there's a bit of a technical delay between us. But tell us what more you learned about this initial U.S. assessment of the damage done to Iran's nuclear sites. Jeff, according to two officials I spoke to who have knowledge of the assessment, the assessment states that the nuclear facilities have not been obliterated, and Iran could gain access to them eventually. Jeff, there was a robust debate before these strikes, according to the official. I've spoken to about whether these bunker-busting bombs could be as effective as some people were saying they were, especially on the Fordo nuclear site, which is buried underground. This initial assessment, I'm told, indicates those concerns among the people who had

concerns about the weapons impact were more legitimate than some gave them credence to. All that said, Jeff, the assumptions that would support an assessment that the program is set back by only a few months, don't take into account, I'm told, multiple variables, including does Iran have enough scientists after Israel killed many of them? Does Iran choose to work at these sites 24-7, knowing that Israel or the U.S. could attack? And one official says that if the U.S. or Israel is willing to take another strike, then, in fact, the assessment says that the program is still set back years. That said, this is an initial assessment. Jeff, they often change and senior administration officials tonight

are still insisting that the program, quote, has been obliterated. Well, let's shift our focus to NATO, Nick, which kicks off in earnest tomorrow. What is tomorrow's summit expected to announce? Jeff, the headline out of here is a number, 5%. That is the number that all 32 members of NATO have agreed to spend in terms of their defense spending of GDP within the next decade.

What does that include? 3.5% of their GDP on weapons, including for Ukraine, and 1.5% in what's being described as defense-related, everything from cybersecurity to infrastructure like bridges that can carry tanks. Never before have NATO members agreed to this level of spending the previous goal, 2% made back in 2014, even today some don't meet. Much of this increased spending, Jeff, has come because of the threats that NATO faces today, especially from Russia. that full-scale invasion that Russia launched in 2022. European officials tell me Russia has reconstituted its defense industrial base to the point where it can build weapons that go beyond what Russia needs to wage war in Ukraine. But here, Secretary General Mark Ruta has been very clear that he credits NATO's increased

defense spending on pressure from President Trump. Do you really think, if Trump would not have been president, that to worry we've got He would get to the 5%. Are you really thinking that? I am not. This conference is designed to prevent any kind of Trump blow up. It's very short. And unlike in previous summits, Jeff, Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is not invited

to the main leaders' meeting. So does that suggest, Nick, that despite this agreement on spending, that European officials are concerned about the U.S.'s continued commitment to NATO? It definitely does. As you and I have talked about for the last month, senior European officials continue to tell me that they are concerned about President Trump's commitment to European defense, most notably about Ukraine. Biden-era weapons are running out for Ukraine, and the Trump team has not indicated any interest in spending more money to arm Ukraine. Second is the divergence about the assessment of Russia. We just talked about the threat that Russia poses militarily. But

today, Trump once again said he wanted to make a deal with Russia. And recently, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Lando wrote on X in a post that's now deleted, NATO is, quote, still a solution in search of a problem. And then there's European concerns. The U.S. will withdraw some of its troops from Europe. A senior European military official told me today, the new spending requirements assume that the U.S. will keep its troop levels in Europe. President Trump today perhaps reinforced some of these European concerns when he would not commit to NATO's bedrock Article 5 that all member countries would come to any other member countries' defense if attacked.

Are you still committed to Article 5 of NATO? It depends on your definition. There's numerous definitions of Article 5. You know that, right? But I'm committed to being their friends. You know, I've become friends with many of those leaders, and I'm committed to helping them. Are you still committed to mutual defense? I'm committed to saving lives. I'm committed to life and safety. European officials say there is only one definition of Article 5, and that is collective defense

in which the United States would need to be willing to go to war for Europe. And without that commitment, they say, Jeff, the alliance. is weaker. Nick Schifrin reporting from the Hague tonight, Nick, or thanks to you. Well, on Capitol Hill today, planned briefings from intelligence officials on the rapidly changing situation in the Middle East were postponed. The Senate briefing is now set for Thursday, and the House briefing now set for Friday. A short while ago, I spoke with Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and began by asking him about the White House's reasoning.

for pushing back the briefings? Well, they said it's because Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegstaff could appear. They're at NATO now. But we need this briefing sooner than later. I've got a lot of questions. Matter of fact, we have seen, you know, the administration go from when this conflict started, saying United States would, of course, defend Israel, but Israel was on its own. We then had, from American intelligence community, early last week, Monday of last week,

reiterating what Director Gabbard had said that Iran had not made a decision to move towards a weapon. We then saw, obviously, the administration change its position and say they were prepared to go after Iran's nuclear capabilities, but not regime change. And then the president was tweeted and foreign policy by tweet is always a bad way to operate. Said he was for regime change and now that's been taken back, I understand.

So I've got a lot of questions. Questions that long before this even took place like can the bunker buster bombs alone take out the Iranian nuclear facilities? And those questions still remain. Well, on that point, The U.S. military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities last weekend reportedly did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program

and likely only set it back by months. This is according to an early assessment by the Pentagon's intelligence arm. I know you can't discuss specific intelligence, but so far as you know, what should we understand about the strategic impact of those strikes? Well, Jeff, I actually believe that classified information needs to say classified, and I'm not going to comment on any of those public reports about classified information. I will say, ask this, the question I just posed, can dropping a bombs alone completely take out Iran's nuclear capabilities? Because the conflict was already in process, did Iran in any way move any of the enriched uranium to other sites?

The question is also, is now that the United States has attacked, is this, has Iran agreed not only not to strike back against our close to 40,000 troops, whose safety is paramount in region, are they not going to strike directly? Does that also go to their proxies in the region, Hezbollah, some of the Shia militia groups, does that also go to Iran not taking cyber action against, um, the United States. So I wish the administration, the administration should have had that report to us today. They should have frankly notified the whole gang of eight before this attack. But they need to get up here and answer the very legitimate questions that we as senators have, but also that Americans have. Are we still in harm's way? Has this job been fully carried out? And if not, what next? Listen, I would hope it all would work out as the president has proposed, but we can't rely on hope alone. And clearly, Iran, I don't want to mince any words, Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.

This is a rogue regime. But there are reasons that previous presidents, including President Trump in his first term, didn't take this kind of action because these same questions about can you take it all out with. bombs only without additional activities. And then what next? I think the American people and we as their elected representatives need those answers sooner than later. Since World War II, nearly every time a U.S. President has used military force, it has been without explicit prior approval from Congress. What makes this time different? Well, what makes this time different is most of the times that those actions have taken, there's been an immediate action that's required. generally an immediate response. In this case, we actually have the Israeli foreign minister on Saturday

before the attack took place, said the Israeli actions alone had set the Iranian effort back a couple years. Is that true? If it is true, what was the precipitating action of this moment at this time? Did our intelligence get it wrong that Iran had actually decided to move forward on a bomb? Or did our intelligence get it right? And did the president rely or simply depend upon another country's intelligence and totally disregard our intelligence? We've also seen historically that when a president disregards intelligence or, in the cases we saw with Iraq, changes intelligence to meet their needs, those are usually bad outcomes for America and Americans. You mentioned the range of dangers posed by Iran retaliating.

What specific steps should the administration, should Congress take right now, to protect Americans at home and abroad? Well, clearly we've got our troops on heightened alert, but what are we doing to continue to increase our cyber defense capabilities, particularly since this administration on the cybersecurity agency

has literally cut half of the personnel? What are we doing to make sure that we're, for example, China's already penetrated or telecom networks, but we have no plan on getting them out. What are we doing to prevent Iran from taking similar cyber action? And the idea of surrogates, I think one of the things that was good news so far that we had not seen either Hezbollah, even though they're in a much weakened state in Lebanon, or the Iraq-Shiah militias that are very loyal to Iran, take actions against our troops. Does this ceasefire? I mean, you know, those third party actions are also going to be prohibited.

I don't know the answer to those questions. And I think it's incumbent upon the administration to lay out what happened, how much of their goals got obtained, and what is the plan going forward? I also think, you know, our remaining friends around the world, which obviously have been somewhat diminished with some of the president's actions on sometimes treating our friends as foes. and are foes like Russia as friends, how are we going to deal with this on any kind of concertative action by Iran as well? Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. Thanks again for your time this evening, sir. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Jeff. Now to two additional perspectives on the conflict with Iran. Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime State Department official in both Democratic and Republican administrations. And Holly Daggress is a senior fellow at the Washington Institutional. for Near East Policy. She spent her teenage years in Tehran and curates the Iranist that is a weekly newsletter. Our thanks to you both for being here. Aaron David Miller, I'll start with you and your initial reactions to this U.S. intelligence assessment, this early assessment, that

believes the strikes on Iran's nuclear program send it back only a few months at best. You know, as a former member of the intelligence community, I take a clear, clear, accurate, and unbiased and non-politicized intelligence seriously. DIA's estimates have always been pretty conservative in its early days yet, as the Brits would say. This is one assessment. And frankly, since I don't believe in Hollywood endings in this region, game changers, inflection points, transformations, I think we have to be very, very, very sober and clear

about the road that lies ahead. A, in terms of what damage we've actually done, that would in the administration's rule, presidents would quote, totally literate, unquote, Iran's nuclear program. I don't think that's what's occurred. And second, how you convert a tenuous ceasefire into a full cessation of hostilities and then a political agreement, which seems to me the only way to actually, unless we're talking about changing the regime, the only way to, guarantee, if there is such a guarantee, that Iran won't have any clear love.

And Holly Dagress, where does this leave the Iranian regime? Does it emerge stronger just by surviving, having survived these strikes? Well, that's an important question that we're trying to answer right now because we're not exactly sure what are the dynamics between the, within the clerical establishment. I think one journalist from Tehran noted, we don't know where the Supreme Leader is. He's been hiding in a bunker. He, for all, we know he might not be around anymore because of all these rumored conversations about maybe replacing him. So I think that it's key, though, that publicly, at least according to open source intelligence,

we haven't seen those key vulnerabilities with domestically. We haven't seen public defections. We haven't seen mass protests. We haven't seen acute food shortages or whatnot that would suggest that this regime's on the verge. of collapse per se. But, you know, it doesn't mean that these things can't materialize in the near future. So these are really important indicators to watch. And, Holly, is there any reason to think that the regime would reconsider its nuclear ambitions as a result of these punishing military strikes? The Islamic Republic has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on its nuclear program.

It has had its nuclear scientists assassinated over the years. Of course, during, those two weak wars as well. And so this has been a very much a point of pride for the Islamic Republic. They've always chanted that in protest when I was growing up there, nuclear energy is our inherent right. And just to see them actually decide to change that

to actually let go of this program in its entirety, I find it hard to believe because it would be seen as a humiliation and bending the need to what it views as two aggressors Israel and the United States. And Aaron, what do you see as the path forward for how Israel and the U.S. deal with Iran? I think it's going to be really fraught. And I'm not sure there's a ready-made RX or prescription in the road ahead.

Maintaining the ceasefire, I think, is important. But if, in fact, that's going to survive, you're going to need to create conditions. The U.S. is going to have to negotiate both with Iran and Israel separately to talk about expectations. What is a violation? Will there be a monitoring mechanism in order to guarantee or to report in order to preempt or prevent conflict that would flow from such violations? You've got the pattern in Lebanon, the ceasefire agreement that Biden administration concluded last November. You have a monitoring committee. But again, it's hard to believe as the weeks go by that the Israelis won't find it in their interest to prevent and preempt if they find evidence that Iran is doing any number of things, reviving its ballistic missile production facilities, for example, sending precision-guided munitions to Hezbollah, or if the Israelis discover undeclared sites, or we do, in which Iran has moved or has

originally displaced, placed advanced interviews. So I think the road ahead is fraught, and it's going to require a very, very realistic assessment by the administration of what constitutes success. And we have a couple of minutes left. I want to get both your perspectives on this notion of regime change. Throughout this conflict, Israeli officials have talked openly about wanting to see regime change in Iran. The U.S. has said, now they say it's not on the table. President Trump has said it's not on the table after suggesting it might be. Where does that leave things? Aaron, we'll start with you.

You know, if you look in recent years, there are three models of regime change. Russia, Egypt and Tunisia, where there were massive protests in the street, security establishments refused or couldn't control the crowds, and in the case of Egypt, the military edge Mubarak out. That's one. Number two is what happened in Syria.

In December, you have an organized group, HTS, former affiliate of Al Qaeda, surge into Damascus in the face of a hollowed out regime and the regime collapses or the Bush 43 mile. You invade the country and depose its evil dictator. I don't see any of these as appropriate right or conducive to the Iranian case. But I defer to Holly on this. Holly, final word. Well, I want to just note that we've had successive uprisings, including most recently the 2022 uprising,

two uprising known as the Women's Life Freedom Uprising. And it was, the whole goal was positive change because the majority of Iranians want to see this regime gone. And just big picture, if this ceasefire holds, this regime will take a revenge on its people. It'll take revenge on the dissidents, on the political prisoners. It will cause, it will lead to mass executions. It will go after anybody that they see as not in line.

and with the regime's rhetoric. And that's very worrisome, especially in this climate of uncertainty. And so I just want to emphasize that. Holly Dogrus, Aaron David Miller, our thanks to you both for sharing your insights this evening. We appreciate it. Thank you. Today's other headlines, this week's life-threatening heat wave is peaking in some parts of the northeast, with more than 160 million people enduring brutal conditions.

The purple you see represents extreme heat warnings. They cover much of the eastern seaboard, including major cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. All three have declared heat emergencies with temperatures hitting triple digits. Meantime, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season has formed. Tropical storm Andrea is not expected to hit land and is set to dissipate by tomorrow night. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers today that he's hired back nearly 1,000 staff who'd been laid off from the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. Kennedy had vowed to cut 10,000 jobs across those agencies, plus the Food and Drug Administration.

He acknowledged today that some who were let go are needed after all, even as he maintained that shrinking his department remains a priority. Throwing money at this agency has not worked. We need to realign the agency. We need to recalibrate its trajectory so that it transforms our health care system from a sick care system into a health care system. Also on Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told a House committee that the Fed is, in his words, well positioned to wait and see how the economy plays out before making any adjustments to interest rates. That's despite intense pressure from President Trump, who often criticizes Powell personally for not cutting rates immediately. The National Transportation Safety Board says failures at several levels led to a door plug panel to come off

during an Alaska Airlines flight last year. An accident like this only happens when there are multiple system failures. In a hearing today, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homandy blamed Boeing. It's supplier and the Federal Aviation Administration for the incident, she credited the heroic actions of the crew for preventing any fatalities. An investigation had already found that several bolts securing the door plug were removed and never replaced. The NTSB said inadequate oversight by the FAA let that error go unnoticed. In the Gaza Strip witnesses and hospital officials say Israeli fire killed at least 44 people today near aid distribution sites in central and southern Gaza. Relatives of those killed wept outside of morgue and Khan Yunus where many of the bodies

were taken. Survivors say they were trying to feed their families when Israeli tanks and drones opened fire. I was going to bring food to my siblings, my brother. We got injured. There was a lot of fire. It's difficult, difficult. It is food with the taste of blood. Gaza's new food distribution locations have seen almost daily violence and chaos since opening last month. Witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds near the sites.

Israel has said its fired warning shots at suspects who approach its forces. Today's attacks came as Gaza's health authorities announced the total number of Palestinians killed in the war so far has surpassed 56,000. On Wall Street today, stocks neared their all-time highs amid those easing tensions in the Middle East. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added more than 500 points on the day. The NASDAQ jumped nearly 300 points. The S&P 500 also ended sharply higher. And Oklahoma City celebrated its first ever NBA championship today with a parade through downtown. Thunder team members rode atop double-decker buses as thousands of fans cheered their first title since the team

moved there from Seattle back in 2008. Before that, they were known as the Supersonics. Before the parade, the team kicked off the day's festivities by hoisting the Larry O'Brien championship trophy at a ceremony in the city's PACOM Center. The Thunder defeated the Indiana Pacers in game seven of their series on Sunday night. It was the most watched NBA finals game in six years. Still to come on the news hour, the impact the Republican's massive budget bill could have on rural hospitals. The Trump administration rolls back environmental protections for nearly 59 million acres of forests. And we explain the process President Trump is using to try to pull back billions of dollars already appropriated by Congress. This is the PBS News Hour from the

David M. Rubinstein studio at WETA in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. Time is running short for Capitol Hill Republicans hoping to pass the president's massive tax and spending plan by his self-imposed deadline. Republicans don't need a single Democratic vote if they can keep their side of the aisle united. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin joins us now. So Lisa, you were on the hill all day. Now you're here in the studio. And the Senate is trying to pass this bill by as soon as this weekend. Is that right? But the Republicans, even among themselves, have a lot of issues about how this bill's turned out so far.

Bring us up to speak. They do. There are important developments here in just the last two days. And I want to remind viewers, I warned you I would say this again, this could be the largest, by money numbers, bill in American history. So it's so important to pay attention right now. What we're watching, especially, is a Senate parliamentarian. She has the ability to rule whether the provisions in this bill meet the budget rules to go through under the process that they're using. and she has made some important rulings. I want to talk to you about what's in and what's out of this bill. So far, the parliamentarian has ruled out of the bill that limit on courts and their ability to enforce injunctions against President Trump.

That is out of the bill. Also out of the bill per her rulings, a sale of vast amounts, millions of acres of federal land. In addition, out is the initial snap used to be called food stamps changes that would have cut over $100 billion from that program. But today, in the bill, a different version of it. that. And this is what's important to remember is Republicans, as they're getting these rulings day by day, are trying to come up with different versions of these provisions that can pass muster with the parliamentarian. We are waiting tonight to find out about some of the biggest,

which is Medicaid. There is a provider tax change in that. That's a lot of kind of Washington gobbledygook, but it's a way that states can use money, fund money, to get more federal dollars on Medicaid. Republicans see it as a scam. We're waiting to see how the parliamentarian sees it. realistic timeline for the, for the Congress to pass a bill this bit? You know what, reality in Congress are like, I don't know, like water and outer space. Like it just doesn't, they don't really go together. But we are trying to game this out and figure things out.

Senator Thune, the leader, would like to get this passed by this weekend. So under his idea, yes, they potentially could do it if everything comes into place. What is helping him is pressure from President Donald Trump. I want to show you how he is stepping up the deadline pressure. This is what he wrote in social media today, get the deal done this week, and no one goes on vacation until it's done. I can tell you that senators will for sure stay in town this weekend until it gets done, but we don't know about the House. We expect the House to have to react to this. Now, what I also want to talk about is the steps that are needed to pass this bill now.

The timeline is important here. First, as I said, the parliamentarian must go through everything in the proposal. Then, Senator Republicans have to release their draft bill. we don't even have the text of this bill yet, and it is a massive one. Then the full Senate would vote. That would take one to three days, and then it would go back to the House. So this would be lightning speed to get it done by the end of next week. It's not impossible, but they also do not have all the votes pinned down yet. You know, Lisa, it seems like every time a big bill like this is up for discussion, the question is, will it pass? Will it pass? And it always seems to pass.

Might that be the case this time as well? I know. This is people are always saying, you always are making us think like, oh, it's on a knife's edge. I think the question here is not if, but when and what, because they are negotiating some major provisions in this bill, and I'm not clear they can get this done in the timeline they want. I want to look at some of the problems that they're having even right now. First of all, one of the major issues of state and local tax deductions. This is a make-or-break issue. And you can look here. Those are five Republicans in the House that say they will not vote for anything unless it meets their $40,000 threshold for that deduction. Now, the problem is, some senators don't like that either. They want that out.

They disagree with them. Another issue, climate and the tax credits for solar and wind, for example, in this bill. There is a group of Republicans that look at these who are fighting for more renewable energy credits in this bill. Those are four senators. They have the power to make or break this bill. But then you go back to the House, and there are, including one senator, there are enough who want to make those tax credits go away faster. So the Republicans have to negotiate these very difficult groups. And the biggest one is Medicaid, the biggest concern right now, rural hospitals, which stand to lose a lot of money, they say, and could make or break their bottom line, depending on

how the Senate handles this bill. Lisa Desjardana, thanks to you and your team on the Hill. As always, appreciate it. You're welcome. Well, Lisa mentioned those rural hospitals across the country. already struggling to stay afloat, that could face devastating consequences if those proposed Medicaid cuts in that domestic spending bill become law. To help us better understand what's at stake, I spoke earlier with the Director of Reimbursement

for the Citizens Memorial Hospital System in southwestern Missouri, Tim Walters. Tim Walters, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. So tell us about your hospital system, Citizens Memorial. How big of an area do you serve, and what's the makeup of your patient population? So we serve about a seven-county area in southwestern Missouri, around 100,000 population. And roughly 55% of our patients are Medicare, 15% are Medicaid, and several more that our VA are uninsured. So about 77% of our patients are either government or uninsured.

So that's a very heavy government payer mix. That's why we're very sensitive to any cuts to that Medicare or Medicaid funding. So if the proposed Medicaid cuts go through, how serious would the impact be on your health? hospital system. What's in the Senate finance bill would probably cut about $3 million per year of funding for our hospital, which would be coming right off our bottom line when we tend to operate right at break even, so we would have to find a way to make up for those cuts. It's hard to cut expenses at this point, so curtailing services, trying to figure out a way to make up for those cuts would be very difficult for us. Do you worry that rural hospitals like yours might

have to shut your doors? It's a possibility. I mean, we're hoping we've been able to to weather that kind of a cut, but we're not positive. We would certainly cut some services first before we would, you know, hopefully get to the hospital itself, and we'd hopefully be able to withstand that. But a dozen Missouri hospitals have closed in the past decade, and I feel very, very confidently that there would be several more that would close in the light of those kind of cuts. And what's that mean for patient care? Well, just be further distances, they'd be traveling. They'd be, you know, right now, we have, we're about 40 minutes from the nearest urban area, and with our seven-county service area, we've got patients traveling over an hour just to see us,

much less to go on to urban areas. So further out in rural Missouri, if those hospitals closed, there's going to be that much further to travel to access care. Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt said recently, this is a quote, the only people that would lose coverage under Medicaid are illegal immigrants and people who don't qualify or people who choose not to work. From your vantage point, how big of a problem is fraud in the Medicaid system? We just don't see that in our patient mix. I mean, most of our patients are working, for example.

I mean, I'm sure there are some that are not, but in most cases, because they have underlying health conditions or they're taking care of young children or they're elderly, and so we don't see that as a big issue in our area, so, so yeah, that's just not our, not what we are experiencing. As you mentioned, rural hospitals already operate on razor-thin margins. Is there any capacity, any cushion to absorb potential cuts? That's the problem we really don't have that much cushion. As I mentioned, with 77% of our patients being government, the only way we could raise rates

is on that minor population of 23% of our patients that are commercial, and we don't even as a small rural hospital, we don't have the clout to negotiate better rates anyway from them. So the only way we can make up for it is to cut expenses, and which may mean cutting services, and that just hurts all patients, not just Medicaid patients. You've been speaking with lawmakers while you've been here in the D.C. area. What's the message that you're taking and how is it being received? The message is simply, you know, Medicaid is a key part of what we need to operate on,

and we just don't need further cuts in rural hospitals in particular. We live on a very thin margin, and so trying to support that care is something we vitally need Congress to do, is continue to support rural hospitals. Tim Walters with the Citizens Memorial Hospital System in southwestern Missouri. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. The Trump administration is rolling back decades-old protections for nearly 60 million acres of national forest. The so-called roadless rule had prevented logging, mining, and road building in designated areas

across more than 40 states. The new changes would open those sites. It's about a third of national forest land up for development. Environmental groups quickly denounced the plan, but the the administration called the move common sense and said it would jumpstart timber production and aid and fire prevention. For more, we're joined now by Kirk Sigler, a national correspondent for NPR who covers the western U.S. Kirk, it's great to see you. So it was President Clinton in his final days in office who used his executive authority to protect tens of millions of acres of national forest. Give us a sense. How vast was the area that this rule covered and what's at stake now if these protections are rolled back?

Well, this at the time was huge, and it's interesting for those of us who've been covering public lands for so long, this issue had kind of gone away and then suddenly, like a lot of things in the Trump administration, here it is back. When President Clinton first cited as he was leaving office, this was a huge decree of protections, we should say added protections for national forest land across the country, largely across the west here and in Alaska. And when he signed the decree, it, of course, then was litigated for years and years. But I think looking back on it, it's interesting to think that this really did set a precedent for future Democratic presidents anyway. President Obama went on to use his patent executive order to protect large national monuments in Utah and other states. So looking back on the roadless rule, it sure did lead to a lot more protections and a lot of controversy because, you know, by federal law and, traditionally, it's Congress that has to designate wilderness areas. And these forests that we're talking about, many of them are remote, they're hard to reach.

I mean, do you expect that we'll see a surge in logging and mining and drilling and development? Well, this is a kind of hard question to answer right now, because like anything, I kind of hate to compare it to, say, the onshoreing of domestic manufacturing or that push to sort of bring logging back to places like the Pacific Northwest where I'm talking to you. This will take years. And as you say, a lot of these roadless areas are very remote. They're also hard to reach, expensive to develop, and it's not, in many cases, politically popular. Looking at the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, this has been subject to controversy for years. Closer to home in the Pacific Northwest here, the Frank Church River of No Return, and the adjacent roadless areas adjacent to that will be. area in central Idaho, just vast. These are places that aren't necessarily easily going to be developed. And the timber industry has been pretty, I would say, curtailed, at least in the Pacific Northwest recently in the recent years, really since the 80s and 90s. So it's very hard to imagine right now just immediately flipping a switch and saying these places are going to be logged because a lot of the timber companies that are left have really moved to private land

for a number of reasons. So, Kirk, you've been speaking with environmentalists and conservation groups as you've been reporting this story. What are their main concerns? Well, they're saying that this is being done as part of a, you know, under the guise of decreasing wildfire threats and getting in and doing more forest management and active forest management. But they're pointing out that, or at least telling me, that a lot of the cases, the wildfire

risk is more closer to cities here in the West where that are built out. into the woods or directly adjacent, and these roadless areas are far more remote and in areas that don't typically burn to the scale that we've been seeing in the large catastrophic fires in California, Hawaii, and Colorado in recent years. They also say that this has been basically ignoring two decades worth of a lot of public input in favor of this roadless rule being enacted. You know, there have been something on order of about a dozen lawsuits since 2001 in the early aughts about this, and it's largely been considered settled. The environmentalists are ready to sue again, though, so we'll have to see exactly when and how this roadless rule

gets reversed, but they seem to be eager to go to court again. Well, our team spoke with Scott Dane. He's president of the American Loggers Council, and he makes the point that this logging can be done in a responsible fashion. Take a listen. The loggers are actually the tool to allow forest managers, foresters, to achieve their objectives and their prescriptions of addressing forest health. And so what people think about logging from 50 years ago is not logging today. We go in and we harvest timber based on civil cultural scientific practices. Access to timber has been choked off access to these national forest lands. So opening those back up and supplying timber in these areas could go a long way in reducing the mill closures that we've seen across the country.

So what should we know about the points that he made there? Well, I think you do hear that a lot from the timber industry that access has been cut off. And in fact, a lot of timber companies that I've reported on over the years, particularly in California, have started to move over to just doing business on private land. because U.S. Forest Service land carries a lot more restrictions with it, a lot more red tape, they'll tell you. And I think there's a signal from this administration that that's going away. On the other hand, he mentioned there that there have been so many timber closures, the kinds of logging that they're wanting to see by opening up these roadless areas and other places around the West. President Trump signed an order saying he wants 25 percent more logging across the Forest Service in the next four or five years.

that kind of stuff that they're going to try to increase volumes. It's unclear whether or not there's enough infrastructure on the ground right now, particularly in the Northwest here, to actually be able to process all those logs. So that's kind of remains to be seen. But yes, the industry has been frustrated, I think, over the years, looking at the federal partners in a system that was sort of set up historically that the U.S. Forest Service land would feed basically the timber companies. And that, of course, changed quite a bit with the advent of, you know,

rampant environmentalism starting in the 60s and 70s. Kirk Sigler, national correspondent for NPR. Thanks so much for sharing your reporting and insights with us. Glad to be here. The House has approved President Trump's request to claw back billions of dollars in funds already appropriated by Congress for things like foreign aid and public media, including money that supports this program. That request now goes to the Senate, which will hold a hearing on it tomorrow. We want to take this moment to explain this process and some of the arguments around

it. Here's Laura Barone Lopez. So help me go. Congratulations. Almost immediately after taking office for the second time, President Trump moved to slash government spending. He halted almost all foreign aid, paused federal grants and loans, and pulled money for everything from scientific research to libraries. A flurry of lawsuits followed, and many of the cuts are now paused. But the moves have brought renewed attention to a critical question about the separation of powers in the U.S. Can a president just refuse to spend money that has been appropriated by Congress?

The Constitution clearly outlines that the power of the purse resides with Congress. The executive branch is then tasked with the execution of those funds. So it is legally mandated that executive branch agency, follow the laws as written by Congress to spend appropriated funds as intended. But what happens when an administration doesn't like the way Congress has told it to spend money? For a long time, this wasn't an issue. There is a commonly cited example that dates back to the 1800s. There was a lot of money appropriated for war with France that didn't end up needing to be spent.

So President Jefferson didn't spend it with the connection. and sent an understanding of Congress. Through much of this country's history, this was worked out in more informal ways. That all changed with President Nixon. In the early 1970s, amid the Watergate scandal, he decided not to spend billions of dollars for all sorts of programs he didn't like, what's known as impoundment. I will not spend money if the Congress overspends. The constitutional right for the President of the United States to impound funds, that right

is absolutely clear. But the courts disagreed. In lawsuit after lawsuit, judges found Nixon overstepped his authority. In one case, Nixon cut money appropriated to cities for sewage treatment. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that Nixon couldn't withhold the funding. Largely in response to Nixon's actions, Congress, controlled by Democrats at the time, passed a law that laid out a process by which a president could withhold funds, the impoundment control act of 1974. The idea was that the impoundments were not just unlawful, but also highly disruptive, that no one could count on the federal government's commitments of funding.

And so both Democrats and Republicans wanted a more predictable procedure for doing that. The act set up two ways for presidents to legally impound funds. One is a deferral, which allows the White House to temporarily delay spending. The other is a rescission, which is permanent. That process starts with the White House sending a message to Congress, laying out the package of money it wants to claw back. Congress would then have 45 days to consider that package. Now, at the end of that 45 days, if Congress did not affirmatively approve that package or components of it on a simple majority basis, that funding would have to go into effect.

Now, importantly, during this 45-day window, the process allows the executive branch to temporarily withhold funding. After Nixon, every president from Ford to Clinton submitted rescission requests, nearly 1,200 of them in total, for things from energy programs to weapon systems. Altogether, they accounted for about $77 billion, and Congress approved roughly a third. Presidents George W. Bush, Obama, and Biden didn't use recisions at all. In 2018, President Trump asked to claw back more than $14 billion for foreign assistance, agriculture, energy, and health programs. But it failed in the Senate. Since then, Trump and his allies have made their thoughts on impoundment clear. I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and if necessary, get Congress to overturn it.

I will then use the president's long-recognized impoundment power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings. The issue came up in a confirmation hearing for the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Do you believe the Empowerment Control Act of 1974 is the law of the land that you must follow?

It is the law of the land. As you know, the president has run on that issue. He believes it's unconstitutional. For 200 years, presidents had the ability to spend less than an appropriation if they could do it for less. Often when Congress says spend money, It might say, give out grants for medical research and don't give away more than or give up to $100 billion.

The president has some argument that he could say, I'm only going to spend 50%. The law gives them the discretion to do that. Some have also argued presidents can impound funds when they think in appropriation is unconstitutional or jeopardizes national security. A tracker kept by Democrats has identified more than 420. $25 billion in Congressional appropriated funds that Trump has blocked in his second term. As of April, the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency in the legislative branch, had opened almost 40 investigations of those moves. In 2020, the office found Trump violated the law when he withheld aid to Ukraine, an incident

that became central to his first impeachment. And last month, the GAO announced Trump violated the law when he refused to spend funds appropriated for electric vehicle charging stations. In the past, when presidents didn't want this bridge and water project or this kind of weapon system, they would go back to Congress and fight it out in a kind of legislative trench warfare. And what the Impoundment Control Act tried to do is try to create a very pro-Congress system. Despite President Trump's feelings about the Impoundment Control Act, his rescission requests this month cited the law.

It includes over $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid, the State Department, and public media. The 45-day congressional approval window will be up in July. But if the request isn't approved, some experts say there will be even more questions about the legality of Trump's cut so far, questions that may only be resolved when one of the current challenges reaches the Supreme Court. If they were able to persuade the Supreme Court that they do have an unlimited ability to withhold money, then the president will have enormous ability to threaten members of Congress with the loss of funding for projects in their district. If they don't do what he says, this would concentrate an enormous amount of power in the president. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Laura Barone Lopez.

our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, taking a closer look at the Rubin Observatory's newly released images of the cosmos. You won't want to miss that. That's on our Instagram. And that is The News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the PBS News Hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.