PBS News Hour - Full Show - June 30, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Monday on the News Hour, the Senate pushes the president's massive budget bill toward passage, even as some Republicans voice concerns over cuts to Medicaid. More in Gaza are killed while desperately trying to get food as the U.S. makes a new push for a ceasefire. Plus, the Justice Department dedicates more FBI agents to investigating unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. Jeff Bennett is away. On the news hour tonight, the Senate pushes the president's massive budget bill toward final passage, even as some Republicans voice concerns overcuts to Medicaid. More people in Gaza are killed while desperately trying to get food as the U.S. makes a new push for a ceasefire. And the U.S. Justice Department dedicates more FBI agents to investigate unsolved cases of missing and murdered indigenous people. Everybody in Indian Country knows. If you want to kill somebody and get away with it, you go to Indian Country. Welcome to the News Hour. The President's Agenda and one of the largest bills in New York, U.S. history is in the hands of the U.S. Senate. Senators are in a day-long series of votes,

what may be their last chance to change the bill. At stake, trillions in tax cuts, reshaping the country's immigration system, energy future, and the future for Medicaid. At this hour, it is unclear whether Republicans will have the votes. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin is here now with more on the bill's latest test in Congress. So Lisa, we know the Senate released its version of the bill near midnight. on Friday, I know you've been going through it. What are some of the key changes they made we should know about? Right. The Senate bill has fewer pages. It's a little bit smaller than the House, but it is more aggressive on tax cuts and it is more expensive. So looking through it,

first of all, the Senate would make permanent some business tax cuts that are temporary in the House bill. In addition on Medicaid, the Senate would actually increase one of the tax, one of the Medicaid cuts in here, but delay it by a year. Green energy, it adds a new solar and wind tax that those industries say would be very harmful, but the senators behind it say would help. The CBO has come to the conclusion that this bill would add $3.2 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. That is a major concern by a lot of Republicans. They're talking about that number. But to be honest, this debate has centered around Medicaid. And particularly, Democrats have been proposing amendment after amendment to try and reverse those cuts.

My amendment simply says, if people's health care costs go up, the billionaire tax cuts vanish. It's the biggest Medicaid cut in history and represents the largest transfer of wealth in history. So, my colleagues, we have a choice. Do we stand for billionaires or do we stand up for moms and babies? The Congressional Budget Office concluded that this bill would mean 12 million people would live. lose their insurance, but the other argument comes from Republicans. They say that actually Medicaid is not sustainable as it stands right now, and then what they're doing is closing some loopholes and ending some abuse. Yes, there are some improvements and reforms to Medicaid to make it more efficient, to make

sure that the people who are supposed to benefit from Medicaid do, and that it doesn't go to people who shouldn't benefit from Medicaid. It's good for working families. And it's been a long debate. I know people are weary. But at the end of the day, we want to get this done. It has been a long debate. This is a marathon this week, but it is not over yet.

We're waiting for some of those major amendment votes still. And Lisa, as you and I speak here now and we know things can change, but where does this bill stand? Does it have the votes? This is very close omna. You know, by my count, they really are close to that three Republican votes. limit that they can afford to lose on this bill. So let's look specifically at what we know. First of all, there are two no votes, people who have said they are hard nose on this. That's Rand Paul of

Kentucky and Tom Tillis of North Carolina who just announced this weekend. He is retiring. Now, in addition to that, I count at least seven votes to watch in addition who seem squeamish about the bill or have major problems with it, some from the right and some from the center. One of those especially to watch is Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. There was a provision in this bill Omna that was going to save Alaska from some of those Medicaid cuts, but it was dropped over the weekend by the Senate parliamentarians ruling. So it's not clear what will happen. It's significant because outside groups are targeting Alaska running ads like this one against Senator Dan Sullivan right now, saying that this will be bad for the state. Now, he disagrees with

that, but the point is that they really don't have the votes to spare. And by my count right now, this is headed to a tie vote in the Senate, and the vice president would break that tie. The House, the future there, much harder to see until we know what happens in the Senate. Lisa, I know you and our tireless politics team, you've been breaking out pieces of the bill to look at in a more in-depth way. A major portion of this deals with the border. What should we know about that? There is a great deal of spending huge amounts of cash going to the border here. Let's break it down specifically this influx of cash. First of all, there'd be some 45. billion dollars that they would invest in detention and deportation of

migrants there would be 46.5 billion dollars for a border wall system and there would be some six billion look at this as is all proportional size-wise on this graphic for surveillance so much less for surveillance than for the wall system in here and then 10 billion to some very general funds for states and for the Department of Homeland Security I'm not I read that bill and these These $10 billion funds really don't have any specifics to them. They are wide-ranging. They can do whatever they want with them.

And for perspective, $10 billion, think of it this way. USAID, their annual budget for global health was $12 billion. So this is what Republicans are doing here. They're moving away from a global posture to an internal kind of blocking of protecting America that way. All right, Lisa, Deja, down with the very latest for us from Capitol Hill. Lisa, thank you. You're welcome.

In the day's other headlines, a community in northern Idaho is in shock after two firefighters were shot dead after responding to a mountain blaze. A third wounded firefighter is in the hospital, stable, but in the words of a local official, fighting for his life. The alleged gunman identified as 20-year-old Wes Raleigh is dead. Authorities believe he killed himself. But as Stephanie Sye reports, officials are still searching for a motive. Smoke and then gunfire in northern Idaho. This was a total ambush. These firefighters did not have a chance.

Just after 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, firefighters responded to a brushfire in the mountains. When they arrived on the scene, they came under heavy fire. a gunman hiding in rugged terrain shooting at them with a high-powered rifle. They hid behind fire engines. They're shot. Everybody shot up here. Law enforcement. Code three now up here. We do believe that the suspect started the fire, and we do believe that it was an ambush, and it was intentional. Two firefighters were dead on arrival at the hospital.

Idaho Governor Brad Little called it a heinous direct assault on brave firefighters. The crime unfolded on Canfield Mountain just outside of the popular vacation town, Cordillane, near the Idaho-Washington border. Some 300 law enforcement officers and first responders arrived at the scene. The shootout lasted several hours. By late Sunday, authorities lifted a shelter-in-place order. The body of the alleged gunman had been found using. his cell phone data. He was dead with a firearm beside him. They believe he acted alone.

Authorities today updated the public on the investigation. We've had interactions with him, but we don't find a criminal record with him. We will certainly find out, or if there's any evidence to believe that there was a motive, we will do that. And I think an inventory of the vehicle would be a good place to start. In Washington, D.C., both of Idaho's senators mourn the attack from the Senate floor. I ask my colleagues to join me in sending your prayers for that firefighter's full recovery, for the deceased victims, for their families, and for the entire North Idaho community grieving this heinous act. This evil attack on the people who dedicate their lives to protecting and serving our communities is despicable. Back in Idaho, firefighters

from agencies around the region staged a miles long highway procession of emergency vehicles to honor the fallen. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sy. Also today, the Trump administration says Harvard violated civil rights law by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from anti-Semitic harassment on campus. It's threatening to cut off all federal funding if the school doesn't take action. In a letter to school officials, a federal task force wrote the quote, Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent and in others a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment. The university fired back, saying it, quote,

has taken substantive, proactive steps to address anti-Semitism. The White House said today it's negotiating with Harvard behind closed doors to reach a deal after months of increasing legal pressure on the school. President Trump signed an executive order today that effectively dismantles decades of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The action comes after Trump told the country's interim leader, in May that he would do so. It's part of a broader Trump administration pushed towards normalizing relations, and it includes a commitment by the U.S. to help rebuild the nation

after more than a decade of civil war. But the U.S. will retain sanctions on Syria's ousted former president, Bashad al-Assad, among others. An 82-year-old woman who was injured in an anti-Semitic attack in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month, has now died. Karen Diamond was part of a peaceful group of demonstrators who gathered. weekly in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Mohamed Sabri Salomon, the accused attacker, yelled free Palestine as he threw Molotov cocktails at the group. He's been charged on 12 counts of a federal hate crime to which he's pleaded not guilty.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a challenge to longstanding limits on how much political parties can spend in federal elections when it reconvenes in the fall. The caps were put in place in 1974 following the Watergate scandal. They restrict the amount that party committees can spend in coordination with campaigns on things like advertising. The case stems from a challenge in 2022 from then-Senator J.D. Vance, who said the caps violate free speech protections. Supporters say the law prevents large donors from skirting limits on direct funding to individual candidates. Also today, the court agreed to hear a copyright dispute between Cox Communications and a group of record labels who say the company should be locked. libel for illegal music downloads by its customers. A jury had initially found Cox libel for more

than a billion dollars, though that judgment was later thrown out. Separately, the court declined to hear a First Amendment challenge from a teacher in Massachusetts who says she was improperly terminated for social media posts she made prior to her employment. Officials say Carrie McCrae was fired in 2021 for making and reposting anti-transgender TikTok content. Environmental Protection Agency staff published a declaration of dissent today, saying the Trump administration's policies undermine the EPA's mission. It follows a similar move by workers at the National Institutes of Health earlier this month. In particular, staff disagree with the, quote, focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise. More than 170 employees signed their names. Others did so anonymity.

as did outside experts, including 20 Nobel laureates. In response, EPA leadership released a statement defending its work, saying the decisions are made based on briefings by its own staff. A heat wave is pushing temperatures into the triple digits across large parts of southern Europe. I came out and put this brolly up, so it will allow me to stand in the sun, because otherwise I'll melt. Along the River Seine in Paris, people huddled around one. water misters and found shade wherever and however they could. In Rome, some tourists soaked washcloths and fountains to cool themselves off. While in Sevilla, Spain, the temperature

hit 45 degrees Celsius or about 113 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat even reached as far north as the U.K., bringing record temperatures to day one of Wimbledon. Still, spectators gathered in droves to watch the action get underway, including this visitor from Scotland. Yeah, well, I'm struggling because I'm from Inverness, so it never gets this warm up north. So it's about 20 degrees warmer than I'm used to, and I'm sunburnt all over. And to the east in Turkey, the hot, dry conditions have fueled wildfires that destroyed homes and forced more than 50,000 people to evacuate from five different regions. Back in this country, President Trump is dropping his legal case against Iowa pollster and seltzer.

In a filing today, Trump's team officially gave notice of the dismissal. quote, without prejudice. Trump sued Seltzer in December, along with the Des Moines Register and its parent company, Gannett, saying Seltzer's poll released shortly before last November's vote amounted to election interference.

The poll showed then-Vice President Kamala Harris with a three-point lead in Iowa. Trump ended up winning the state 56% to 43. The White House confirmed today that trade talks with Canada are back on. That's after Prime Minister Mark Carney called off his planned digital services tax on U.S. tech firms.

The tax was set to take effect today and would have hit companies like Amazon and Google with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. On Friday, President Trump said he was suspending talks over what he called, quote, a direct and blatant attack on our country. He'd also threatened Canada with higher tariffs. The restarting of talks between the U.S. and Canada helped fuel Wall Street to new record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added two. 275 points on the day. The NASDAQ rose nearly 100 points to close at a new all-time high.

The S&P 500 also ended the trading month in record territory. And the WNBA is expanding to three more cities over the next five years. Cleveland will join in 2008, Detroit the year after, and Philadelphia the year after that. That's assuming they all get board approval. All three teams paid a $250 million expansion fee or about five times as much. much as the last team to join the league. New teams in Toronto and Portland are already set to start playing next year, meaning there will be 18 teams by the year 2030. WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelbert said the expansion is a, quote, powerful reflection of

our league's extraordinary momentum. Still to come, on the news hour, how the Senate's version of the massive budget bill could affect Medicaid. Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down all the political shows. shifts on Capitol Hill, and an organization that's helping young people overcome their differences by sharing stories. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington, and in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes today killed more than 60 people, including at a cafe in northern Gaza and outside of food distribution site in southern Gaza. The violence comes as President Trump is making a push this week for a ceasefire. Here's Nick Schifrin with more, and a caution, some images in this report may disturb viewers. On this war's 633rd day, what used to be a wall of a school-turned shelter is now a window into a shattered, mangled life. Israel says it struck a Hamas command and control center next to a U.N. facility where children's toys and families are broken. Look at us. We are not just numbers. Every day martyrs here, martyrs there. No, we are not like that. We are human beings. Our Lord created us to live like you with dignity, not like this in humiliation. Over the last few days, Israel increased its bombardment in northern Gaza and demanded residents

flee to southern Gaza. And so in Gaza City, toddlers ride on rickety carts, donkeys compete with bicycles, and families are forced once again to find new homes. While in southern Gaza, Nasser Hospital is once again overwhelmed by the wounded. Palestinian officials say all these people were shot today while they waited for food. In a way, they were lucky. This boy, among two dozen killed, their final act, trying to feed their families. We see a lot of penetrating trauma to the chest, to the abdomen, causing internal bleeding,

life-threatening bleeding. Dr. Mohamed Fadlala is an American internal medicine specialist with doctors without borders, currently a manager at the Gaza Field Hospital, Al-Zawaita. The U.N. says hundreds of Palestinians have been killed outside sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created by the Israeli military with U.S. financial assistance to provide Ghazans food while avoiding Hamas theft. I arrived basically a couple weeks after the GHF sites started operating, and it seems like throughout central Gaza, our hospital and all the hospitals we collaborate with have seen

large influxes of patients during that time, people being made handicapped, people needing to be in wheelchairs, people needing to be on crutches, need walkers for the rest of their lives, people losing their vision, all in an instant, all because they were standing in the wrong place. Last week, the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haarets reported that Israeli army officers ordered soldiers to fire at Palestinians near GHF sites, quote, deliberately. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz called the report malicious falsehoods and blood libels. But today, the Israeli military acknowledged a review into its actions and said it would close one GHF site and create another one nearby to, quote, reduce friction with the population and enable the safe and efficient passage of Ghazan civilians.

The Israeli government blames the chaos on Hamas. Hamas starves its own people and shoot. its own people and systematically endangers them from getting the aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It's heartbreaking to see the images that have come out from both Israel and Gaza throughout this war and the President wants to see it end. In Washington today, the White House confirmed the Netanyahu will visit next week, after President Trump posted on Sunday, make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back.

U.S. officials say the two sides are still divided. over whether there will be a temporary pause or permanent end of the war, and the U.S. is still waiting for Israel to send a diplomatic delegation to Cairo. Until then, the war will inflict horror. Today, an airstrike obliterated a Gaza city beachfront cafe. It was well known to provide internet and power and distractions from the war. Palestinian officials say dozens were killed and wounded, including an elderly couple, Journalist Bayan Abu Sultan, and journalist Ismail Abou Haqqqqqq.

journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, carried and buried by his colleagues. It was a reminder that this war spares no one, not the documenters, not the doctors. They're not the doctors and they're not the patients. You know, they're all the same collection. They're all the same population. They're all living in the same circumstance. So for me, if they can do it, if they can push, then I can certainly push and deal and work hard to try to make things as,

as good as we can for the people that we're seeing every day. And it is every day the war is inescapable for its victims and survivors. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Schifrin. of murder, rape, and other violent crimes. An outcome experts say of generational trauma and systemic abuse. Tackling the issue has been a rare bipartisan effort. President Trump is now continuing a Justice Department program to surge FBI agents to help solve cases of missing and murdered indigenous people.

As Stephanie Sive reports from New Mexico, a lack of law enforcement resources is just one reason why so many of these cases are never solved. It's part of our ongoing series, Race Matters. Giggles and the breathless joy of childhood breathe life into the dusty Hamez Pueblo. The grandkids are all right, but it wasn't always so. So Shauna actually had four kids, three girls and one boy. Wilson was her only boy she had, and it was actually the hardest to comfort him when she passed. Geraldine and Benjamin Toya are potters by trade.

They work while they reminisce about their late daughter. She used to follow me around everywhere I go. In July of 2021, Shana was with Geraldine at a family party. About six hours later, Geraldine got a call in the dead of night. When I got that call that morning at 3.15 to say that they found my daughter deceased at a park in her ride. It didn't, you know, it was like a bad dream. I, you know, that's what I wanted to see it as because I just saw her. I just spoke with her.

It can't be her. The incident report says EMTs tried CPR on Shana, but she was beyond help. In the post-mortem examination, test showed she had methamphetamines, fentanyl, and alcohol in her system, indicating an accidental overdose. They told me that they found out that they didn't see that there was any foul, play and they immediately kind of labeled her as a person that that had I guess caused trouble on the streets homeless and did a lot of drugs and I said that's not her the Toyas say they have reason to believe Shauna may have been killed she

had actual bruises on her face and her lip was like fruit was swollen she had a bleeding from her neck she had gravel all over her back And I said, what in the world, what happened? Did they just throw her in the freezer? To Potters, details matter. The Toyas noticed Shauna's car contained empty grocery bags and an empty wallet, a sign she was robbed, they say. And they found another woman's ID in the car, something not mentioned in the police incident

report. Among other things, the Toyas claimed were overlooked, Shauna was wrongly labeled male in one of the medical examiner's reports. They just sent her home, like she was nobody. The Albuquerque Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. But the Toyas are convinced that Shauna's case fits in with thousands of other unsolved violent crimes against Native Americans. It's a crisis. Tribal communities experience disproportionate levels of violent crime,

and we have to work as hard as we can to address that. Elliot Neal is an assistant U.S. attorney based in New Mexico, specifically assigned to address missing and murdered indigenous people cases or MMI in the southwest. Under federal law, the FBI works with tribes to investigate major crimes in Indian country. Crimes like domestic violence, assaults, things like that, child abuse, child sexual abuse, things like that that are sort of MMI precursors that lead to those deaths. There are at least 4,300 cases of unsolved violent crimes against Native Americans across the country. Operation Not Forgotten will surge 60 Department of Justice personnel, including FBI agents in the next six months to help investigate those cases.

The agents will be deployed to 10 FBI field offices across the country, rotating in 90-day assignments. We owe it to Native Americans as the first people of this land. we should be trying to solve their cases with the utmost respect and the utmost due diligence. Darlene Gomez is an attorney and advocate for missing and murdered indigenous people based in Albuquerque. One of the cases she's advocated authorities pursue further is that of Calvin Martinez, who has been missing since 2019. He lost his wife and his son in a family fire in 2014. It was midnight, December 23rd, 2014. I woke up and I heard my brother yelling and I got up and I went outside and I just seen his whole trailer on fire.

And he got out and I think he went back in to grab the baby and her and she fell over. And we don't have the resources to figure out where they're at or who has them. Becky Martinez, Calvin's sister, says he struggled for the next five years, using drugs and alcohol. She says when he disappeared, he was living between places. And because he didn't have an address, the county referred the family to the Navajo Nation Police. And then the Navajo Police Department points us to Farmington. And then Farmington said that they couldn't help us. I think I just felt like the door just kept getting slammed in each direction I turned.

I didn't have no help. I didn't have no resources. I didn't know who to turn to. Jurisdictional confusion is a common feature in missing persons cases involving tribal members. But is only one challenge to solving these cases, says attorney Darlene Gomez. Everybody in Indian country knows. If you want to kill somebody and get away with it, you go to Indian country. The lack of officers to respond to calls, the remoteness, oftentimes. you have no cell service, you have no radio service. The 911 calls are being manned by outside of the reservation by county 911 resource centers. What I have seen is cases that should have been investigated further by calling either a criminal

investigator or the FBI don't even make it to that level because the officers like, oh, it's an unintended death or comes up with some other reason not to consider it a major crime. Right now, I am out in Farmington, New Mexico for Operation Not Forgotten. The FBI put out this video last year of a special agent working a four-year-old case. The agent searches for clues in an open field. Crucially, in this case, a body had been found. The U.S. Attorney's Office is not going to prosecute a case without a body. U.S. attorneys generally decide which major crimes to prosecute.

There are thousands of Indian country families that want answers, and what you're saying is you cannot necessarily promise more prosecutions. You know, we have a duty to the public to prosecute cases where, you know, we can prove that a crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt, right? If we don't feel like we can do that at a particular point, we can't bring that case. It's not fair of us to bring that case. In the latest statistics from the Department of Justice, U.S. attorneys most commonly cited reason for declining to prosecute cases in Indian country was insufficient evidence. These are tight-knit small communities. For almost every case I've looked at, we're pretty confident that people in the community know what happened. Georgiana Harrison believes it is why her sister, Rinell Rose Bennett, has been missing since 2021. That's the only thing that I wish people would do.

I don't know what kind of thrill they have from withholding information. You think that there's people in the community on the reservation that are withholding? Definitely, definitely. There is people out there that are withholding information and they need to see, if they see something, say something. Tell somebody. I mean, there's kids out here hurting. There's mothers out here hurting.

What if it was their children? The search for answers also looms over the Toyas back on the Hamez Pueblo. The kids have gone to counseling and Wilson no longer goes to bed hoping his mom will be there when he wakes. The youngest girl, Shaley, reminds them of Shana. She's just like her mom. Her mom is to sing everywhere she went and every time she was going to talk, it was in more singing than talking.

Yeah. Yeah. Geraldine Toya says it's the grandkids that motivate her continued quest to try and get the case reopened. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sci on the Hamez Pueblo in New Mexico. Recent changes made by Senate Republicans to President. Trump's budget bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in health care spending over the next decade. That's according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Our White House correspondent Laura Barone Lopez is here now with more on the bill's impact for millions of Americans.

Omna, that congressional budget office estimate also found the bill would result in 11.8 million people losing health insurance by 2034. The vast majority of those cuts hitting Medicaid. To discuss this, I'm joined by Larry Leavitt, Executive Vice President for Health Policy at the nonpartisan KFF. Mr. Levitt, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. So the Senate Republicans made a number of changes recently to this bill, and this bill would make the largest cuts to Medicaid in the history of the program. If Republicans end up passing it, what is the real world impact for people who could lose coverage?

That's right. This would be the biggest cut to Medicaid. in fact, the biggest cut to health care in history. And, you know, that number that the Congressional Budget Office has put out that 11.8 million more people would be uninsured really tells the story here. I mean, it's low-income kids. It's adults who are working but don't have health insurance through their jobs. It's people with disabilities. It's seniors who need help paying their Medicare premiums or who are in nursing homes.

Medicare does not cover nursing home or long-term care. So it's really Medicaid that ends up picking up the slack there. I mean, this would roll back many of the gains that the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare has succeeded in reducing the number of people with health insurance. And many more people would find themselves uninsured and without access to health care. President Trump and Republicans have repeatedly claimed that part of this is about kicking undocumented migrants off of Medicaid. Today, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt

claimed that that would total some 1.4 million undocumented people. What's the reality here and are undocumented immigrants eligible for Medicaid? No, the reality is undocumented immigrants are not eligible for any federally funded program, whether that's Medicaid, Medicare, or the Affordable Care Act.

Some states have used their own money to provide health care to undocumented immigrants, And there was a proposal in this bill to cut off federal funding to reduce the amount of federal funding for Medicaid to those states to effectively penalize them for using their own funds to cover undocumented immigrants. As Republicans are trying to message and sell these cuts to Medicaid, the Trump administration announced today that it filed criminal charges in health care fraud schemes involving more than $14.6 billion dollars. where does health care fraud typically occur? And can you put today's announcement in context for us? Yeah, I think this action by the Justice Department really illustrates what kind of fraud we see in programs like Medicaid. That fraud is generally perpetrated by rogue health care providers who are billing for services that they don't provide.

Fraud, Medicaid is not being perpetrated by individual enrollees trying to get access to health care providers. care. Republicans have tried to frame the cuts in this reconciliation bill as eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse. But, you know, there is just not a trillion dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid. And in fact, there is very little in this bill that would actually go after the kind of fraud that the Justice Department announced today. I want to drill down a little bit more on the changes that Senate Republicans have made to this bill. First, one change puts a new cap on taxes, for medical providers. This cap is something that GOP senators

like North Carolina's, Tom Tillis, strongly oppose. And that Republican Senator Tillis called the Medicaid cuts a betrayal. He said that President Trump was being advised by amateurs. What are provider taxes exactly? And how do they help states pay

for Medicaid coverage? Yeah, this gets super complicated, super fast. And I'll try to explain it simply. states put taxes on hospitals to help fund their share of Medicaid expenses. And states in turn use that revenue to then increase the rates they pay hospitals for care they provide to Medicaid enrollees to ensure those rates are adequate. And because the federal government shares in the cost of Medicaid, that brings additional

federal money into states. So really the bottom line is these taxes on hospitals. which sounds like something hospitals wouldn't like are actually a way of ensuring that hospitals get adequate rates to provide care for Medicaid enrollees. And that's especially true in rural areas. And many rural hospitals are operating right on the edge. And without these taxes, without adequate rates

for providing care under Medicaid, those hospitals could go under. This bill already created work requirements for Medicaid for the first time in the program's history, but the Senate added even stricter work requirements. What are those and what effect could they have? That's right. And work requirements are the biggest source of cuts in this bill. And, you know, it's an idea that I think resonates with a lot of people,

that people should have to work in order to qualify for public benefits like Medicaid. The reality is most Medicaid enrollees are already working, about two-thirds of them, are working. And if you look at the kind of exemptions that people would qualify for, in fact, 92% of adults on Medicaid are either working or would likely qualify for an exemption. But this work requirement would still save a lot of money and kick millions of people off of Medicaid, not because they're not working or not qualified for an exemption, but because they would fail to navigate the paperwork, the red tape they would have to go through to report

their work on potentially as often as a monthly, a monthly basis. Larry Leavitt of KFF, thank you for your time. Thank you. Well, for more now on President Trump's one big, beautiful bill, we turn to our politics stakes duo. That's Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. Great to see you both. Let's pick up with that budget bill and where it stands now.

Tam, it is central to the president's agenda. It is not done yet. The Senate has still voting on it. still got to go back to the House. Is there any reason you see it not getting across the finish line and not by this self-imposed July 4th deadline? So a key thing that you said there is that it is central to the president's agenda. This is essentially his entire domestic legislative agenda all wrapped up into one bill, which makes it very hard for Republicans to vote against it. And I think it's really important to remember that this is not the Republican

that came in with him eight years ago, this is his Republican Party. This is a very compliant Congress. There have been numerous other bills where we have all looked at each other and said, oh my gosh, there are so many problems. Is this really going to pass? And there are all these people speaking, all these Republicans with all these complaints. And then what happened? They folded. And so unless something dramatic happens, and it can, it absolutely can, at some point, this is going to pass. Now, President Trump had talked about really wanting it done by Independence Day. Speaker Mike Johnson actually said that the president wanted to have a celebration on Independence Day. He said it would be epic. He could still get that. But it's just the timing is where it could get a

little bit challenging. Amy, you see it the same way? Yeah. If you're a House member, first of all, Republican House member, 60% of them came, have come to. Congress since Trump was elected. So they know of nothing else to Tam's point. The second is your choice as a Republican right now is you vote against it and you get the wrath of Donald Trump, who, as we've pointed out, went after Tom Tillis, after he voted against it, has come after Thomas Massey, a Republican from Kentucky in the House who voted against the original version there. So you can get a primary from your right with the support of the president, which is incredibly powerful and likely lose your primary. Or you can vote for it. And now we have

Elon Musk most recently today, taking to X, his platform, to say that anybody who campaigned as a fiscal conservative who voted for this, I'm going to spend money to try to defeat you in a primary. If I were a Republican member with those two forces against me, I would still go with Trump. He is still the most powerful force in Republican politics, right? now, if you want to end your political career, crossing Trump is the easiest way to do that. So let's just talk about someone ending their political career. You mentioned North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis, who is one of two no votes against this bill, along with Rand Paul, as Lisa reported earlier. Tillis explained his decision a little bit in the floor speech last night.

Take a listen. I'm telling the president that you have been misinformed. You supporting the Senate mark will hurt. hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid. Tam, you saw the president attacked Tillis for this, threatened to primary him. Tillis announced he is not running for re-election. Also, we should note that Republican Don Bacon in the House announced he is not going to seek re-election either.

What did these retirements say to you? I think that there was a time where members of the president's party in Congress could have an independent streak. They could stand up to the president. They could say that they were fighting for their constituents in their states and their districts and that there would be sort of an understanding. But right now, one, the numbers are so narrow that there isn't really a lot of room for them to be able to do that and have the president still get what he wants.

And also, President Trump has run out of the Republican Party, made it very uncomfortable for anyone who has crossed him any time since he took office. There's a long list of former senators and former members of the House who either voted for impeachment or expressed concerns with the president or any number of things, and they either retire themselves or are retired by facing a primary. Yeah, and remember, Don Bacon represents one of only three districts in the country that voted for Kamala Harris and a Republican member of Congress, which goes to the bigger challenge for Congress. right now. Tam's point about their being these sort of iconoclasts is true. But part of the reason that they were in Congress then is that they also tended to represent these split-ticket districts. There are very few of those left. And so what it makes Congress that much more dysfunctional. When, if you are from a red state, you're only hearing from people in your conference who are

also from red states. Same with the blue state people. And so it makes it makes it very hard for them to get on the same page because they literally don't have anyone within the confines of their own party who are saying, no, I actually represent a place that looks different from yours. Let me give you my perspective on it. And so now we do, this is how the red America will say this is okay and blue America will say it's not. And there's no one bridging the two. Let me ask you about these are shifts we're seeing on the Republican side. We're seeing some shifts on the Democratic side as well, Amy. There's a whole debate on the left about whether the New York City mayoral primary race

that was won by Zoran Mamdani, whether it offers a roadmap for other Democrats and other places, does it? I think what he has shown is that we talk so much in politics about there being the spectrum of policy about being left to right. This is really what he's putting forward

for Democrats, I think, is that politics really now is about being somebody who's willing to break norms and go against institutions or somebody that's going to stand for it. for the status quo. In 2020, Democrats were desperate to talk about returning to normalcy, and they put, as their placeholder, Joe Biden,

that does not work in this current era. And I think what Democrats saw in the last election was they put a norm person up, somebody who was going to protect norms, that person lost to somebody who said he was going to break the status quo in institutions. I think Democrats taking from this mom-dani as well as other races, that idea similarly, that we need to put candidates forward who are going to break things and have a plan to fix them, but not ones who are saying we need to go back. Tam, give you the final word here, someone who covers the president.

If you take a step back here, the budget bill seems to be moving forward. He's off a big NATO trip. He had a couple of big Supreme Court decisions go his way. This has to be a White House that feels pretty good about where they are. They are feeling pretty good. But every time you have a problem solved, there's another problem to solve. And we still have the one big, beautiful bill that they are trying to heave over the finish line by July 4th. And then there are other deadlines, these trade deadlines, President Trump obviously created those deadlines.

He can move them. But this moment could come to define his presidency. Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, great to see you vote. Thank you so much. Welcome. And now to the power of story in a divided world. Recently, senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reported on writer Collin McCann and his latest novel Twist. Tonight, the focus is on an organization McCann co-founded to help young people around the world share their stories and perhaps bridge divides of politics and culture.

The piece is part of our series, Art in Action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy and part of our canvas coverage. Like, I was very shy, and I felt very, like, out of place and, like, isolated. Tell me your story, and I will say it back to you, becoming you, for a moment, seeing the world as you do. I'd never been to a funeral for a kid before, and it was very strange, and it affected everyone very deeply. It's called a story exchange, worked on by students in high schools around Santa Fe, New Mexico, over the course of several months in their individual schools and then brought together. My name's Jocelyn, and my story is about having, also having a bad day. It was just hurtful to see that my culture wasn't being respected and that these cultural objects were in display cases, just shops around Santa Fe for anyone to buy. Each

writes a story, something personal from his or her life, and then gives it to another student. Often someone they don't know and wouldn't have an opportunity to meet, who speaks it back in the first person. Santa Fe High Senior Isabella Irazo Lujan. It allows for the other person to really understand that, you know, this person is a person, and I don't know who they are, but I know that I am sympathetic for them and I can relate to them in some way. Tristan Risi, also a senior, wrote of periods of homelessness he experienced while in high school. In a way, I'm putting them in a bit of a difficult situation, telling them such a personal story. But I kind of see them as they're telling my story, you know, I guess kind of try to feel or understand what I was going through.

And just for me, that's meant a lot to me. The story exchanges are the work of an organization called Narrative 4, co-founded by Colin McCann, who himself a renowned novelist, whose books include the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World spin knows something about the power of stories. It's a form of what we call radical empathy. It's a leap into the story of someone else, a sort of new form of understanding. Working with Narrative 4 CEO and co-founder Lisa Consiglio, then with students and teachers, McCann takes the power of story beyond the page, and directly into both personal lives

and very public social problems. I see stories as the essence of a possible democracy in the sense that it goes across borders, boundaries, and then we begin to step out of self and we begin to acknowledge other people. What's interesting to me is that these stories are not didactic. They're not necessarily political. They're not trying to win an argument. They're personal stories. And this powerful engagement when you become me and I become you, just for a short amount of time, changes people's lives. Founded in 2013, Narrative 4 has worked in 35 countries

on four continents, including such hotspots as Israel and Palestine, South Africa, and Northern Ireland, and in 124 cities in 47 states in the U.S., sometimes aiming to bridge differences of socioeconomic divides geography and culture. For example, students from rural Kentucky shared stories with those from the South Bronx. Other times tackling a specific issue, such as climate change, as these 50 youth leaders from around the world did in New York at this gathering last year. A 10th anniversary celebration brought together participants from around the world. Other leading writers, including Marlon James. Empathy for the other may need sympathy to pave the way. An artists, including Sting, who've taken part in and supported the work over the years.

Santa Fe is known for its beauty, Indian market, and other features that make it a tourist mecca. But it's also rife with homelessness, disparities of wealth, and tensions around immigration. All reflected in the experiences and stories of students from different high schools in different parts of the city. part of a community where there's some really deep rifts and people don't hear each other. They don't see each other. Nina Bunker, a teacher at Santa Fe High, brought a group of her students to the Central Library to meet and share stories with young people from other schools. They would not talk to each other if it wasn't for this event. Really? Yeah. I mean it's not that they wouldn't want to. It's just the

opportunity doesn't arise and and then they may even want to. I think they come to this event because they want to. I can't think of a better way. to get to really understand someone else's perspective than to tell their story. Sarah Weisberg teaches at a charter high school called the master's program to students for whom English is not their first language. Tensions around immigration are strong, she says, but sometimes hard to discuss. It's kind of like this, like a pit of tar underneath our world or underneath our town that's there and we all know it's there and it's dangerous, but it's,

not, it's just kind of like nipping at our toes. So do you have a sense that a narrative four type exchange allows for a forum for some of that? I think it does because once you might have your own opinions about who should be here and who shouldn't, but once you have to step into the body and tell the story of a person who has gone through that, it suddenly makes you feel like it's your story too. and it's not just an experience, a terrible experience of somebody who's living in another place and you have no knowledge of. Students also told us of an unexpected benefit.

When someone else speaks your story, you learn something about yourself. It felt a bit empowering and it's very eye-opening and it makes me feel like, oh, like this interconnection between this person that I don't necessarily know that well. and it makes me feel like, and I'm able to be somebody I'm not, but also am. Somebody you're not, but really who you are. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely think the story exchange has kind of put myself in perspective in a weird way.

Put yourself to yourself? To myself in a way. Hearing other people tell my story, I feel like I can understand myself and see myself more as kind of part of a bigger picture as opposed to in my own world, which I think especially with the digital era, it's really hard to do that. And that last idea, part of what he sees as an epidemic of loneliness in a world of screens, is also hugely important to Column McCann. These are the most connected times and the most disconnected times, and they are experiencing

that. But they get a chance to look somebody else in the eye and become part of their story. something flourishes in the brain. The brain is a carnival. But also, I really believe that things change in their hearts as well. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Omna Navaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us.