PBS News Hour - Full Show - June 29, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Monday on the News Hour, the Supreme Court issues a series of major rulings with far-reaching implications for presidential power and the future of elections. Rescue efforts in Venezuela grow increasingly desperate as the death toll rises and another aftershock rattles the country. Plus, a new report finds the American dream slipping out of reach for many DACA recipients. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, the U.S. Supreme Court issues a series of major rulings with far-reaching implications for presidential power and the future of elections. Rescue efforts in Venezuela grow increasingly desperate as the death toll rises and another aftershock rattles the country. And a new report finds the American dream slipping out of reach for many DACA recipients. They have been, in a sense, dismantling the program. ensuring that certain DACA recipients from certain countries cannot get status or get their DACA renewed. Welcome to the News Hour. The U.S. Supreme Court today issued two major rulings that significantly expand presidential power and President Donald Trump's attempt to further reshape the federal government. In a 5-4 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court's justices said the president does not have the power to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

In the decision, the Chief Justice wrote, quote, To accept any one of the administration's arguments, would in effect transform the Federal Reserve's for-cause protection into at-will employment, an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference. But in a separate ruling issue today, Justice Roberts handed the president broader power

to fire the heads of independent agencies, overturning a nearly century-old. legal precedent. In that case, which involved the removal of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, the Chief Justice said, quote, subordinates who exercise the president's power are subject to removal by him. The president celebrated the Slaughter decision in a post on his social media platform, saying the justices increased presidential power, quote, at a time when it's most needed. For more on today's rulings, I'm joined now by NewsHour's Supreme Court analyst and Scotus blog co-founder Amy Howe. Amy, good to see you. Good to see you, too.

So two rulings on presidential power, different directions for each one. Let's start with the ruling for Lisa Cook. Why did the justices block her firing for now? So the justices, the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts, really stressed the importance of the Fed's independence. They pointed to the first and second national banks and said that Congress had really wanted those to be independent and that the Fed followed in those footsteps.

They talked about the importance of having monetary policy be independent of outside influence, and that if the president could fire a Fed governor for any reason, that it would potentially impede on that independence. And so they said that Lisa Cook was entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard before she could be fired, and that she hadn't gotten that when President Trump attempted to fire her in a truth social post. And in a statement, we should note Lisa Cook hailed the decision as one affirming a key principle, as she put it, that the Federal Reserve must make all its policy decisions guided by evidence and independent judgment and free from political interference. But, Amy, is this ruling a good sign for the Fed where the President has tried to exert more control, or is it just a temporary pause in that fight?

I think it's a good sign for the Fed. You know, we've got five justices who feel very strongly, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, about the Fed's independence. and it seems, you know, perhaps the president could try to find cause to fire a member of the Fed. Certainly this doesn't rule that out, but the majority's ruling certainly makes it much harder for him to do that. All right. Let's turn now to the slaughter decision that involves the firing of the FTC Commissioner, as we noted. And Justice Roberts also wrote the majority opinion here, ruling the president can fire members of independent agencies. How did Roberts justify that presidential power? So it's kind of a corollary to the idea, I think, was Harry,

and the buck stops here. He talked about the idea that the president is the head of the executive branch and really has to carry out all of the laws. And he said to do that, the president needs to make sure that everyone who's working for him is working effectively and he needs to be able to fire the people who aren't. And so there was this, you know, 1930s decision called Humphrey's executor in which the Supreme Court had upheld the very law that Rebecca Slaughter was relying on in this case. And the Supreme Court basically said that that was a very narrow view of what the FTC was doing then.

But certainly now the FTC is exercising what the Supreme Court called executive power. You know, it enforces laws. It can bring lawsuits. It carries out investigations. It can impose fines. And that's the kind of power that really belongs to the president. Rebecca Slaughter reacted to the ruling today. Here's part of what she had to say.

What we have seen is a massive expansion of executive power. at the expense of Congress who designed these agencies to work on behalf of the people and not the powerful. And it's at the expense of those people who deserve a government that fights for them without fear or favor and doesn't just reward the president's allies and punish his perceived enemies. Amy, how in your view does this shape or reshape

presidential power? It's really an enormous expansion of presidential power. Just as Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent noted that obviously this doesn't apply just to the FTC, but to, you know, she said potentially dozens of what had until now been independent agencies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and many others that, you know, Congress had intended to be independent from the president, but now the president can control who's part of those agencies.

There's another big decision I need to ask you about. That was the Supreme Court rejecting President Trump's push to review the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. That involved a $5 million civil judgment against him. That was after a jury found that he had sexually abuse and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll. The president says that he plans to fight the ruling. Does he have a path for further appeal here? There's really not much of a path. Certainly he could ask the Supreme Court to consider this again. They almost never do. This was a really unusual case in the sense that he'd appealed asking the Supreme Court to take up this case. The Supreme Court had put off even

considering it over and over again for a couple of months. And then today, without any comment, they turned it down. You know, there was no one, none of the justices, as they sometimes do, wrote any separate writings to say that they would have taken up this case. There was no sign that any of the justices necessarily were interested in doing anything with it. Another big day at the court. More to come. NewsHour's Supreme Court analyst, Kodosblog, co-founder Amy Howe. Thank you so much. Thank you. For more on today's ruling that blocked President Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, we are joined now by Cook's lead counsel, Abby Lowe. Welcome to the News Hour.

That's good to be here. So what was your reaction when you read the Supreme Court's decision today? What stood out to you most? Well, I mean, the first reaction was one of joy and relief and a little bit of optimism that in the midst of what is a power grab by this administration and this president, there are some walls left that he cannot get over. The court decided this on narrow procedural grounds rather than ruling directly on whether a president can never remove a federal reserve governor. So why is that a victory rather than a deferral of the core question? There are two reasons why it is a victory.

To begin with, they just didn't simply say this is a procedural, go back and do it. It gave some parameters as to what happens. Remember that this went to the Supreme Court on an emergency docket basis to stop an injunction that we got. in the district court. And because there have been so many of those that the Supreme Court has been willing to overturn, the fact that ours stands strong has to be seen by anybody as a victory. That's one. And as I said, the second reason is it's not just, okay, we saw it, you did it wrong, go do it better. There are words in this statute that should make it very much more difficult for the president to do what he's trying to do and to infuse politics into the Federal Reserve.

Well, it speaks to the constitutional status of the Federal Reserve going forward. It does. So again, I realize that today was also the decision about other independent agencies, and this is a super independent agency. The court made very clear something that we've put forward from the beginning, which is in American history and in the law, the Federal Reserve Board stands unique. Having said that, this decision also points out things that others can use. It does define what due process means about notice and an opportunity to be heard. And at least in terms of this next chapter, it points out some parameters of what cause can be and what it cannot be. The same court that protected Lisa Cook upheld President Trump's firing of the FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter

and expanded his authority over other independent government agencies. How should we understand that ruling? In terms of both, you have to understand them together, I think. So, look, we now can predict, unfortunately, many of the votes that take place on this nine member Supreme Court. court before a word is uttered or any opinion is written. And that remained to be the case, unfortunately, in my opinion, in the FTC Slaughter case. What it means is that this court is not about to be all it can be to put a check and balance on another branch of government, which I and others believe is what the founders wanted. And remember, this was not just the court and the president.

It was Congress that created these independent agencies, and Congress should have a say as well. So when they established it, we think the precedent, I think the precedent that applied to the slaughter case was one that should have been prevailed and not overruled. That said, remember, again, in the midst of all federal agencies, the Federal Reserve stands alone. It is an agency, but it also is the U.S. Bank. And it also has a history unlike any other agency going back to the founding of our country. And what today was was the court made very clear to this president and to every president that comes after, that this is a unique agency for which if you're going to try to do something wrong, you're going to be hiled to a much higher standard.

And yet the president says he's pushing forward. After the ruling, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the case was decided on a strictly procedural basis and he vowed to take appropriate action immediately to remove Dr. Cook from the board. So what's your response to that? And what options, if any, does the government have left? My response is to thank President Trump again for whenever there could be any doubt that his motives are wrong, that the action he's going to take is improper, or that he is not going to conform to the basis of the Supreme Court's decision, it took minutes like a child who's been disappointed

by losing a game to go and say something about, oh, I'm still tougher than the next person. That said, what he has done in his immediacy is point out that if he thinks that whatever he's going to give now is process, he has undermined that by what he said. And if he's going to try to come up with some other pretext for what happened to be true cause to remove this governor, he has undermined that as well. So the court, in leaving Dr. Cook in her position while the underlying litigation continues, what happens next procedurally? So what happens next is that the court has made its ruling. The case still exists in the district court that gave us our injunction. Remember, the other side of the coin of the emergency docket is when the court of appeals or the

Supreme Court doesn't stop something from happening. It continued on. So remember, for all those who are paying attention, President Trump purported to fire Dr. Cook now nine months ago, maybe longer, and she has been a very active and appropriate member of the board ever since. So what happens now? We go back to the district court and continue to prove that the president was wrong and the Federal Reserve Board governor was right. And the Federal Reserve Board is a unique agency for which politics. should not invade. Abby Lowell, thanks again for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.

It's my pleasure to be here. Venezuelans continued to search for loved ones trapped under debris and rubble caused by the devastating back-to-back earthquakes five days ago. And today, the region experienced a 4.6 magnitude aftershock that rattled rescuers and residents in the disaster zone.

The Venezuelan government estimates up to 1,700 people have died, but that number is expected to climb even higher. Stephanie Sy has our report. The gruff hands of rescuers cradle a newborn, seemingly oblivious to the ruins that surround him. Baby Juan was trapped beneath concrete for 32 hours. Mom is pulled out moments later and carried to an ambulance. The baby's robust cries, a relief. Five days after the earthquake struck, the search is on for miracles.

The window for survivability without food or water is closing. But today, rescuers pulled this 21-year-old man from the rubble. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans are still missing. Ana Rada is searching for her sister. Difficult. Difficult but looking forward. We must have faith. Never losing hope, I'm here.

They said there were signs of life and I ran up here. I have faith. Until I see the body, I have faith. Vladimir Moreno said the family was able to reach his sister who is believed trapped. This rescue crew from Turkey is using thermal imaging equipment to detect signs of life. Another team from the UK brought dogs to La Guaira, the hardest hit state. They're specially trained search canines who can sniff out survivors. Last week's back-to-back earthquakes leveled entire blocks in Liguayra and damaged the country's

international airport. Venezuelans have organized volunteers to help distribute food and other essentials, growing from a few hundred volunteers to now 2000. Life loses its meaning if we cannot help others. We should help those in need because no one knows if one day it might be us who need help. The national hospitals, we've seen numbers of being at over an 800% capital. capacity. Rafael Garcia oversees the IRC's operations in Venezuela and Colombia.

From our side, we're already working with partners on the ground, providing, for example, access to medical support through mobile teams. They are reporting, and as you would expect in this kind of context, continue mass movement of people throughout the country out of the affected zones. Tens of thousands are now homeless, sleeping in shelters. The first thing I hope is they'll help me and give me a place to live. because it's very uncomfortable to be like this, sleeping bad, wanting to cook my meals, prepare my things and have my own room. That's what I'm hoping for, that they'll help us and

give us a place to live. For now, the focus is still on search and rescue. While the number of missing people is still on those levels of 40, 50,000, you just need to keep bringing the resources as much as possible. Like I mentioned before, we're still on the clock. They have been called off search and rescue operations. More than two dozen international rescue teams have arrived or are heading to Venezuela. The U.S. has pledged $150 million worth of humanitarian assistance, overseen by a two-star Marine general. An American search and rescue teams, including this group from Fairfax, Virginia, have been on the ground since last week.

Two days ago, their expert, paid off. Out of the remains of a building, they pulled this baby out, and thankfully, it wouldn't stop crying. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Syne. Late today, the U.S. announced it sending a military unit to Venezuela to assist key airports in facilitating humanitarian assistance. And we also learned that more than 100 Venezuelans deported from the United States hours before the earthquake are reportedly missing after their hotel. collapsed. According to Human Rights First, which monitors ICE deportation flights, 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, were transported to a hotel in La Croida last Wednesday, just before the earthquake struck. We return to the Supreme Court for the day's other headlines.

The justices also ruled today that constitutional privacy protections apply to cell phone location data. At issue was the police use of what's known as geoffence warrants to locate all devices near the scene of a crime back in 2019. The court ruled that even when location information is shared with companies like Google and Apple, people don't forfeit their expectations of privacy. The case was widely viewed as a test for how privacy would be protected in this digital age. The San Francisco Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million to sexual abuse survivors, according to the victim's lawyers. It settles the claims of more than 500 survivors, the vast majority from decades ago, who said they were sexually abused by members of the clergy.

In a statement, San Francisco's archbishop said, quote, while no financial settlement can erase the painful legacy of past actions, let us pray that God's grace may help to heal all those affected. The San Francisco Archdiocese and several other, dozen other diocese nationwide have declared bankruptcy as a direct result of child sexual abuse lawsuits. Global health officials say more than 1,300 deaths have been linked to the record heat wave blanketing Europe. That toll is likely to rise, as France alone reported at least a thousand deaths above normal last week during some of the country's hottest ever days for the month of June. In Berlin over the weekend, police shot water cannons to cool down sweltering crowds,

and in Budapest Hungary, temperatures today soared to more than 100. 100 degrees Fahrenheit, far above normal even for summer. I hardly left home and I'm sweating all over. This is simply unbearable. 28 degrees Celsius, that used to be summer. I don't know what this is now. What is coming to us after this? Meantime, tens of millions of Americans are also under extreme heat warnings this week.

Triple-digit temperatures will bake the Midwest and East Coast as the country prepares for July 4th celebrations. While dangerous heat settles in over the eastern U.S., wildfire conditions remain critical out west. Fast moving blazes along the Colorado-Utah border are responsible for the deaths of three firefighters over the weekend. Seven fires have prompted evacuations, including in Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington State. Meantime, in Kentucky and Tennessee, at least four people were killed following severe storms this weekend that triggered flash floods. Kentucky remains under a state of emergency. as cleanup there continues.

In Afghanistan, U.N. officials there say Pakistani forces conducted overnight strikes that killed at least 28 people, including women and children. An Afghan official promised that the country would retaliate. Villagers sifted through buildings that were reduced to rubble. The top Pakistani official said dozens of militants were targeted and killed in the strikes. This latest escalation follows months of cross-border fighting that's killed hundreds, multiple rounds of talks, Multiple rounds of talks have so far failed to produce a ceasefire.

In Ukraine, a wave of Russian strikes killed at least 11 people and injured dozens more today. One of the strikes happened in Nipro, killing five. Another hit this minibus in Zaporizha, killing three, including a child. The attacks follow Ukraine's own heavy drone assault against a major Russian oil refinery this past weekend. The latest in the number of long-range strikes against Russian energy facilities in recent months. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged for the first time that his country was facing a fuel shortage as a result. Problems persist for both drivers and businesses. Cues at petrol stations, unfortunately, also remain.

It is not always possible to find the required grade of fuel at present, and, of course, we understand the difficulties faced by agricultural producers and farming enterprises during this period. Putin later insisted to Russian State TV that the strikes, will not bring Moscow back to the negotiating table. Comcast is planning to split itself into two separate companies again. The corporate giant announced plans to spin off its remaining media enterprises, NBC Universal and Sky, into one entity. The other would focus on its broadband internet and wireless services. The planned move comes just months after Comcast separated most of its cable TV network such as CNBC and MS Now. Comcast shares rose sharply on the news.

Meantime, it was a positive day overall for Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added more than a half percent. The NASDAQ shot up by more than 2 percent, and the S&P 500 ended a five-day losing streak. And some World Cup spoilers ahead. Five-time tournament champ Brazil beat Japan two to one today in a match that was a nail-biter until the very end. After Japan led at the half, Brazil clawed back and scored the game-winning goal with less than one minute left in stopping. time. They'll advance to the round of 16, as will Canada after another dramatic late-scoring win against South Africa yesterday. It's Canada's first ever knockout round victory in World Cup

history. Still to come on the News Hour, new education guidelines in Texas challenged the separation of church and state. And Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest political headlines. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington. Headquarters of BBS News. Passages from the Bible will now become required reading for the roughly 5.5 million public school students in Texas. That follows the State Board of Education approving a new mandatory reading list on Friday, the first of its kind in the country. The Republican-controlled board also approved a controversial overhaul of the state's social studies curriculum for elementary and middle school students. William Brigham has the details.

Starting in the first grade, students will now be assigned at least one mandatory Bible passage per year, along with classics by Shakespeare, Dickens, and Langston Hughes. The new social studies guidelines emphasize Christian concepts and figures, while downplaying the significance of other events tied to race in American history and reducing focus on world events. The State Board of Education said the updated curriculum would, quote, give students a comprehensive understanding of the arc of history. But critics say the changes elevate historical disinformation and violate the separation of church and state. To help us understand these new guidelines and how they came about, we are joined by Jaden Edison. He's the public education reporter at the Texas Tribune. Jaden, thank you so much for being here. Let's start talking about the new requirement, the reading list.

The State Board of Education said that this is a classical correction and that the previous curriculum, quote, resulted in generations of students who do not know the greatness of America or its greatest state, Texas. Now, opponents, as you've been reporting, argue that this is mostly straight white men coming at the expense of people of color and women. And then there are also these Bible passages. What should we know about this new reading list? And specifically what it requires of students with regards to the Bible passages.

This is significant for a number of reasons. I think the biggest being that, you know, for the first time, you know, here in Texas, right, you know, typically when we've seen the introduction, say, of lesson plans on materials here, as recent as the last couple of years, those have been optional, right? and districts have had the opportunity to be able to adopt them or not adopt them and to adapt them to children as they see fit. But the final version that was just authorized effectively, again, is the state saying that children, you know, as young as six years old, all the way up to preparing to, you know, receive your high school diploma will be required to engage with or read Bible passages. And again, that's significant. You look at Texas, right, one of the most diverse states in the next.

not along the lines of just race and ethnicity, but also along the lines of religion, right? You know, Muslims, you know, Buddhists, folks who are, you know, not religious at all, right, will be mandated to engage with these materials that have now been required by the state. And so certainly this is extremely significant and something that will impact nearly five and a half million children here in public schools in Texas. We should also remind people that Texas also mandated the displaying of the Ten Commandments in all public schools. I mean, opponents argue that this kind of biblical education does violate the separation between church and state. How do supporters justify this? What do they argue is the reason for mandating this for all those students?

A lot of what you hear is what we've seen, you know, really, you know, religious scholars and historians, you know, dispute, you know, especially in recent years. Is this belief that, you know, America was founded as a Christian nation. And so therefore, all of its laws and policies and practices, specifically as you think about education and the role that plays in developing, you know, young citizens, all those institutions should reflect, you know, Christian values and beliefs. And that's, you know, what they have said and what they have argued. And it's also this belief that children cannot learn about, say, for example, Western civilization and European tradition without knowing stories, you know, laid out in the Bible. And so you talk to historians, you know, you talk to educators, you know, you talk to people of various faith traditions, races, ethnicities. Certainly those things are contested. But obviously, you know, that has been a lot of the rationale for a lot of these policy changes. You know, you look at the last few years and, you know, this feeling that from conservative advocates and, you know, Republican leaders here in the state that, you know, schools are training, you know, kids to hate the country because of how they depict America.

America's history of racism and slavery. Let's talk about those changes in social studies. That was a very contentious process. Explain those changes in how they will impact students. I think about these things in tandem, right? And what we're talking about is a complete rewrite and overhaul of the way Texas has historically taught social studies, right? And what we're seeing now is a very Texas-centric American-centric,

American exceptionalism-centric, you know, lesson approach. This new approach, right, is a very Texas-centric, is in chronological order, but also currently students who are in sixth grade, you know, they attend a world cultures class, right, which teaches them about the various governments and traditions of, again, of different cultures, you know, throughout the world. It's in the name. Well, that course has been eliminated. Certainly, again, a dramatic overhaul of the way things have been taught in Texas, and obviously the way things will be taught for years to come. All right, that is Jaden Edison of the Texas Tribune. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. The American Dream is slipping further out of reach for young adults who were brought to this country without authorization as children, known as DACA recipients. That is the conclusion of a new report which argues the barriers they face are driven not by a lack of ambition or talent, but by policy. Liz Landers speaks with one of the report's authors. This month marks 14 years since the creation of deferred action for childhood arrivals, or DACA. For more than 500,000 dreamers, many of them now in their 30s, their future in this country is uncertain. The policy established under the Obama administration offered undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors a renewable two-year period of protection from deportation. To qualify, recipients must have been living in the U.S. before June 15, 2007, be in school or have a diploma, and have no criminal record.

The Trump administration is chipping away at the policy, leaving the fate of many of its rules and regulations to ongoing court challenges. The report, in their own words, examines the postgraduate trajectories of more than 2,500 dreamers with college degrees. It finds White House policy changes stripping many of some form of legal status or work authorization, leading one in five of these graduates fully undocumented. Gabby Pacheco is president and CEO of the Dream.us, the organization that conducted this survey and compiled the report. Gabby, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Where does DACA stand now? There are long wait times for the renewal of DACA recipients.

Some of these recipients have been deported and detained. Does DACA still offer the protections that it once did? I wish I can say yes with certainty. Unfortunately, right now, where we stand on DACA is we have the Fifth Circuit that said, yes, we believe that people should have protections. Unfortunately, that's been over a year, so we don't really know. And what we have been seeing from the Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration is that they have been, in essence, dismantling the program little by little

by either making the renewals delayed by ensuring that certain DACA recipients from certain countries cannot get status or get their DACA renewed, and that over 100,000 people that apply for DACA still have their DACA, the initial DACA, post. DACA protections include work authorization. Can you lay out some of the differences career-wise between the alumni and your report who are fully undocumented versus those who do have those work permits? Yeah, what we see is that individuals that have work authorization, six months after they're graduating, they're finding jobs. And they're finding full-time jobs.

They're finding jobs in their field. They are fulfilled, and they've been able to actually make more money than their parents combined. And that to us is just exactly what this program is about, creating that generational change and ensuring that young people who are talented and who want to give back can contribute. On the other hand, the people that do not have work authorization

have a lot harder time finding work. and they have lower paying jobs, they struggle. The average age of a DACA recipient now is about 32 years old. They have dependents, families of their own. Has the policy kept up with the aging of this demographic? I don't think so, specifically because the way that we talk about dreamers and DACA recipients tends to be very paternalistic. We talk about it as if they're young kids, realistically.

realistically, there are some DACA recipients that are into their 40s. We know that over 300,000 U.S. citizen children or more have a parent that has DACA. We know that DACA recipients own homes. We know that DACA recipients have been, some of them working in the same job for the last 14 years since they got DACA. And what we see, right, is that the policy and also our country has not realized, and our leaders in our country, the potential of integrating this community fully into our country. What we know is that they're paying billions of dollars in taxes, and unfortunately, they have to live in two-year increments at a time.

You were an undocumented student yourself and one of the architects of DACA. 14 years in, is the program still serving the purpose it was designed for? I would dare to say that the DACA program is likely one of the most successful immigration programs we've had in our 250 years of our country. I own my own home. I have been able to fulfill myself, right? I pay a lot in taxes and contribute. And this is the story of integration. I used to hear this a lot.

Why don't you just make the line? And I'm like, there's no line. I will make the line if there were. The Trump administration has admitted to deporting dreamers and is openly pushing and advocating for dreamers to self-deport. How do these slow-walking renewals, the stripping of protections from HHS and other agencies, and barring this professional licensure, increase the pressure to do that? Do you see rising pressure on dreamers to self-deport? I think that is the point of what they're trying to do.

And it's a bit confusing because what you hear from the mouth of the president about Dreamers is very positive. Republicans are very open to the Dreamers. You want them to be able to stay. That's what you're saying. I do. I want to be able to work something out. He understands the issue. He says he wants to do something.

Yet the policy and what we're seeing coming out from the administration and the Department of Homeland Security is completely contrary to that. And the solution is right in the hands of everybody. but yet nobody wants to do something about it. You've been advocating for these legislative changes. Do you think that Congress is going to do anything? They have to. And it is up to us to use our voice to push members of Congress to take action and to take action sooner rather than later

because as we see, people are suffering, people are getting deported, people are losing their jobs, and this is not good for our country. Gabby Pacheco, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. further expands the president's authority while rejecting President Trump's effort to restrict mail-in voting, leaving that fight to Congress. For more, we turn now to our Politics Monday duo. That's Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. It's good to see you both on this very busy Monday. Yes. So lots of action from the Supreme Court. Among the flurry of decisions,

the court rejected an RNC Republican National Committee challenge and ruled that election officials may count mail-in ballots that arrive after. election day if they're postmarked beforehand. So, Tam, this leaves existing rules in place for now, while basically setting up Congress to legislate on this very issue. President Trump is talking about his save act. Does this ruling from the court give his save act more momentum, or does it actually lessen the urgency in some ways? I don't know if it lessens the urgency. The president's urgency is off the charts. It's just not clear that his Republicans in Congress feel the same level of Obviously, some absolutely support his Save America Act, but he's running into a wall in the U.S. Senate where there are Republican senators who have concerns about some of the provisions in his so-called Save America Act, which would strictly reduce the availability of mail-in voting for absent, or not just absentee, but mail-in voting for people in rural areas, for instance, in Alaska, for instance, where Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Save America Act. So there are real issues and challenges. Bigger picture, he is both running

into a wall in Congress and also in the courts. Last week, there were a number of rulings on his various executive orders to try to change the way people vote, and then you get the Supreme Court ruling this week. So a pretty significant pushback on the president's effort to impose his ideas on the administration of elections, which the Constitution says should be in the hands of states. And Democrats, meantime, are dead set against this elections bill. They say it will disenfranchise millions of voters. The president, to Tam's point, was in the Oval Office today,

speaking in support of it. Here's some of what he said. We're the only country in the world that does this type of mail-in ballot. There's no other country in the world. You know why? They tried it. And it was totally dishonest. And it's really dishonest.

we shouldn't do mail-in ballots. So the president there again speaking out against mail-in voting, he says, we're the only country in the world that allows this? That's not true. What about his other point, that it's dishonest, that it's open to fraud? That's right. Some states like Oregon, Colorado, have been doing Washington State just vote by mail. They conduct it entirely through the mail. There's been no evidence that any of those elections have been tampered with in any way, that the votes are illegitimate.

I think what the president really dislikes about the way that we vote in this country or certain states vote is because he has been, for so long, making this claim, that is not true, that if you vote by mail is not safe and it can be tampered with, that Republicans now are going to the polls rather than sending in ballots,

and Democrats are more likely to be sending in ballots. So what you see on election night, and this will probably have, when we're together on election night this year is the early vote, depending on what a state counts first, but if they count the votes that came in that day first, it looks very red. And then the other votes come in, the mail ballots, which now have become more Democratic. And so the president goes to bed seeing, oh, 35% of the votes in, the Republicans ahead, we're going to win this seat, wakes up in the morning, and now the Democrat won.

This is not nefarious. It's just the map. So he seems to have stuck in his head that mail-in voting benefits Democrats, and this is your explanation as to why. As to why. And it's sort of a catch-22, because the more that he says you can't trust mail-in voting, the more likely it is that Democrats will do it, or more likely that Republicans won't. This is what makes Republican strategists crazy because they want to bank as many votes as they can. they can get somebody to put a vote in the mail, they don't need to worry about turning them out to vote

on election day when maybe it's raining or the dog sick and they just forget. And Tam, this fight over the Save America Act has held up this landmark bipartisan housing bill, which the president today, he dismissed as a yawn. Do we have that sound? I think we do. We can listen to that as well. Here's what I would like to sign.

Much more than a bill, a big deal. It's a yawn. Some people say, it's wonderful. To me, compared to the Save America Act, just about everything is a big yawn. So in this moment where every election in this primary leading up to the midterm, the primary is leading up to the midterm, has been about affordability.

This would be a layup for the president to say, let's just go ahead and sign this bill. And yet... And yet he is stepping on his own feet and stepping on the feet of his members of Congress, the Republicans in the House and the Senate, who worked in a bipartisan. bipartisan fashion to get this through. President Trump literally called for one of the major provisions

of this bill in his state of the union address, said Congress, go out and do this. Congress went out and did it, and he says it's a yawn. You add this to other things that he has said where, you know, he's not concerned about inflation or I'm not really focused on affordability or what things cost. There's a larger context to all of those statements, but in campaign ads, the larger context, will be gone. And he will just be sounding dismissive of the concerns of Americans who, like, affordability is the top issue, whether it's about housing or the price of gas or the price of groceries or all of these things. And a lot of Republicans were very and are very eager to be able to run on something like this housing bill. Well, as we talk about the primaries, we've got

another one coming up in Colorado. And we've seen these progressive victories in New York and Washington State. Tomorrow, tomorrow, rather Washington, D.C., not Washington State. Can't even read my notes here, but tomorrow's Colorado primary will be a test because you've got Senator Michael Bennett and you've got the Congresswoman Diana DeGette. They're facing serious challenges from the left. What are you watching for? Yeah, so I think there is, it's very important to put these challenges into different buckets. I think in some of the darkest blue state, darkest blue districts. Now, we saw it. in New York City, but we've also seen this in Philadelphia, in New Jersey, and now maybe in Denver,

where candidates running as a Justice Democrat or those basically on the furthest left of the party, many motivated by the issue of Israel, not all, but definitely is a big piece of that, or have been successful. We're going to see tomorrow night in Denver whether that candidate to the left of longtime incumbent Dinah to get will be successful. But when we look at the governor's race, Michael Bennett and the state attorney general, the Democrat there, that's really about who's the better fighter. And this is really at its core what the Democratic, if you want to sort of say, what are these Democratic primaries really about, what does it mean to be a fighter in this age? And who are you fighting for and what are you fighting against? In the case of, in these dark blue districts, what I'm fighting against the left, the further left,

the Bernie-backed candidates would say is I'm fighting against, corporate oligarchy, the system, the establishment, which can include Democrats. If you're talking about, in this case, the governor's race, it's who's fighting Trump the hardest, the state attorney general who's filing court cases and winning court cases, or the guy who's been in Washington as one of a hundred. And by the way, Democrats aren't doing anything in Washington. I'm the one, says the state attorney general, who's really doing the hard work. And that same debate is going on in a competitive district in Colorado between two Democrats. So this to me is going to be a fascinating question as we get to 2027.

What does it mean to be a fighter, not just with Trump still in office, but looking forward to when Trump isn't in office? And Tam, are you following this race out of Alaska, the two Sullivan's? This is my favorite political story. And I'll set it up. I'll set it up so folks know what we're talking about. So this judge in Alaska has ruled that Democrat Dan J. Sullivan can appear on the ballot alongside incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan. So we've seen ballot confusion before. I would posit,

though, that this is probably less of an issue in Alaska where Murkowski voters had to know not just who she was, they had to know how to spell her name and write it in on a ballot. So I would think that Alaska voters would be able to discern between a Dan S. Sullivan and a Dan J. Sullivan. How do you see this? However, middle names are very different than Murkowski as a full name. And so, you know, like, it's a top four primary, so it's possible that both Dan's Sullivan, I think that might be the plural, make it out of this primary. Certainly, I think you can get confusion when you're trying to figure out, well, what is the middle name of the guy who I voted for before? Also, their logos are oddly similar as well.

So it, you know, it's not clear exactly what's happening here, but the word shenanigans does come to mind. Well, and the fact that the R&C filed a lawsuit tells you that, yes, they are concerned about voter confusion. More to come on that front for sure. Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, thanks so much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Novelist Willie Vlaughton has built his career writing about people on the edges of the American dream. Working class families, lonely alcoholics, and those students.

struggling to make ends meet in the fast-changing American West. While his books have earned comparisons to John Steinbeck, Vlatton's also a musician, telling his stories through song. Senior Arts Correspondent Jeffrey Brown traveled to Portland, Oregon for our arts and culture series, Canvas. It's not often that a novel comes with its own soundtrack. But Arthur Rilly Vlatan is also a songwriter and guitarist with the band The Deline. And characters like Eddie, a good-hearted 40-something house painter struggling to get by in Portland, Oregon, appear in songs. Oh, Eddie, it's me and you.

And at the heart of Blotten's new novel, The Left and the Lucky. I've always been obsessed with that idea of kind of broken people or people at the fringes. And so there's those who get lucky and stay on the road and they get left behind. He's written eight novels to date, mostly stories of the dispossessed, the barely making it, the unsung heroes at the margins of contemporary American life. He works in a small office looking out at Portland St. John's neighborhood, surrounded by images, old movie stars, his own heroes, his hometown of Reno, Nevada, a man lying in the street under a sign that reads, Play the Races. I loved it so much because half the time I feel like that, Half the time I'm grateful that I'm not that guy, but I understand that guy. When we spoke recently in the back patio of Maurice, a bar down the street from his office that makes an appearance in the left and the lucky, Vlatton told me how books and music saved him growing up.

My relationship with books and records started just because I'd find one that made me feel less alone. And I loved him so much. You're like, you want to hug the book, you want to eat the records, and you realize you can't. So you have to join up. An early influence was John Steinbeck. Passionate teachers and Reno and him had taught me Steinbeck, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I mean, he wrote about misfits.

He wrote about people that no one else cared about. He was funny. When my life was going sideways, I was with Mack and the boys living in the pipes off Canary Row. And the other thing was, you know, my mom was a single mom. She struggled mentally. She hadn't had a job before, and she had to get a job. And, you know, she got paid.

less than the men. She was sexually harassed a lot at work and she was an overshare. She told you about all this. She told me about it all. So I understood how heroic it can be just to show up for work every day. Well, there is one who was six to. He always show up to her house. Music was his other way forward, including his lead singer and songwriter for the band Richmond Fontaine. But describing himself as painfully shy growing up, performing a brought another problem to overcome.

I forgot that you have to get in front of people. So I, you know, from 16 to 33, I just was drunk every time I got in front of people. Drinking was to overcome that? Oh, yeah. That's only why I could get up there. And so I was not cut out for it, but it did cure me of being that way, you know. If it wasn't for being in a band, I probably would be working in a warehouse somewhere being too shy to barely go to the grocery store. In fact, he did work in warehouses and other odd jobs, including as a house painter in Portland,

and got his drinking under control. I always knew what I wanted to write about, and I always wanted to write about the people around me. And his writing now often features characters here in St. John's, one of Portland's historic working-class neighborhoods, who are struggling in a rapidly gentrifying and far more expensive city. One recent novel, The Night Always Comes, We're in It Together. We're going to do it for the family. Okay? Made into a film last year comes with a dedication for the Portland that led a hard-living

house painter by his own house. So many cities in the West, the working-class people of the city get pushed out. Whole neighborhoods were changing and housing prices, I think, went up almost five times, and so it was shocking to me. The massive growth or influx of money and the way Portland changed, yeah, I had to write about it. And it became the background for the left. and the lucky and an unlikely friendship between house painter Eddie Wilkins and an eight-year-old named Russell from a broken home, a friendship that just might save them both.

That is a cool friendship, I think. You enjoyed writing it or finding it. Oh, yeah. I love, you can't save people in real life. You can barely save yourself, but in books, you can take one broken kid and kind of give them a break. I mean, there's nothing worse than seeing like I can see it, just going in a grocery store. you see some broken kid or some family.

I can just feel that stuff. And so writing about it both eases it out of my mind, and then I can change directions. I don't know if I ever heard a writer say this. So as a novelist, I mean, you feel like you can save people. I always felt foolishly that if everything I was scared of, loved, was destroyed by, anxiety ridden by it, and put it in a box. I always thought if I took one of those things out and studied it, wrote stories around it from every angle that it would take the power away of it.

But what I learned is like you can hold somebody's hand through a hard time and it just eases my mind. So you're putting them in a bad situation. Yeah, sure. But then you're their friend going through it. At 58, Vlaughton says his DeLines bandmates, Amy Boone, Corey Gray, Sean Oldham, and Freddie Trujillo are the musical friends he and he and tends to age and play with. The long hours of writing are what he's best suited for, he insists, like digging a ditch all day without knowing where you're going.

But being in a band, well, he still loves the music and the people. The lines are like the coolest people ever. So I hope to keep doing that band until I'm really old and playing some lounge somewhere and writing. You know, I feel with books like I got invited to a party that I wasn't supposed to get invited to. When they published me, I was like, really?

You're letting me in to this party. You're in? And then I'm like, okay, then I'm going to work as hard as I can in the corner. And don't kick me out of the party. I'll be the janitor. I'll be the bar back. It doesn't matter to me. In addition to the left and the lucky soundtrack,

the Deline's latest album is titled The Setup. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in Portland, Oregon. And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Omnan-Avaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the PBS News Hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.