PBS News Hour - Full Show - March 18, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Wednesday on the News Hour, Israel kills another top Iranian official as lawmakers on Capitol Hill question intelligence officials about the reasons for starting the war. The nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, testifies in his confirmation hearing. Plus, migrants in Lebanon are once again caught in limbo as the regional war escalates. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, Israel kills another top Iranian leader as lawmakers on Capitol Hill question intelligence officials about the reasons for starting the war. It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. Okay. That is up to the president based on a volume of information. No, it is precisely your responsibility. The nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Mark Wayne. Mullen testifies in his confirmation hearing. And migrants in Lebanon are once again caught in limbo as the regional war escalates.

The legal structure here is designed to exploit and to make migrants invisible. Welcome to the news hour. Tonight, a series of strikes across the Middle East, jolted energy markets and fueled concerns that the war won't end anytime soon. Rent crude oil prices, a key benchmark, are nearing a 52-week high after Israel hit a large gas field in Iran. And Iranian strikes caused extensive damage to a major Qatari fuel hub. Our Nick Schifrin starts our coverage. Today in southern Iran, Israel expanded its effort to collapse the Iranian state. An Israeli strike targeted South Pars, the world's largest natural gas field. And Israel continued

its decapitation campaign, killing Iranian intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, sanctioned by the U.S. for human rights abuses and cyber attacks. In response, a response, a Iran issued unprecedented evacuation warnings for energy facilities across the Gulf. And tonight there are multiple explosions reported in Saudi Arabia, and Qatar admitted to quote, extensive damage to a major energy hub. Tonight, Qatar expelled Iranian diplomats. The attack stoked fears of a global oil crunch and rising prices. Every problem we're seeing now was not only foreseeable, but was actually produced.

by the intelligence agencies. It also became the focus of today's Senate Intelligence Committee threat assessment hearing with the leaders of the intelligence community. There seemed to be a discrepancy between what the Intelligence Committee has a community has reported over the years and what the president has said. Like these comments on Monday. So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that.

We were shot. In fact, four weeks before the war, then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted on X in English, the Americans should know if they start a war this time. It will be a regional war. The president says nobody knew, and my question is, did you tell him? The comments that you talked about, I had not heard. What I can tell you is that Iran had specific plans to hit U.S. interests in energy sites across the region. This has long been an assessment of the I.C.

That Iran would likely hold the Strait of Hormuz as leverage. And my question is, was that communicated to the president in the lead-up to this action? And it's because of that long-standing assessment that the IC has continued to report that the Department of War took the preemptive planning measures that it did. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, also made this assessment of Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran was trying to recover from the severe damage to its nuclear infrastructure. structure sustained during the 12-day war and continued to refuse to comply with its nuclear obligations with the IAEA, refusing them access to key facilities.

But in her prepared testimony confirmed by her staff to PBS News Hour, Gabbard wrote, instead, quote, as a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no effort since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. That directly refutes President Trump's State of the Union. They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program in a particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue starting it all over. We wiped it out and they want to start all over again. Pre-war presidential statements helped lead to yesterday's resignation by National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, who wrote, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.

It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not a, imminent threat. Okay. That is up to the president based on a volume of information and information that he receives. It is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States. Republicans emphasized Iran's overall decades-long threats, its nuclear program, and the Middle East's largest missile arsenal. Is there anything to indicate that Iran had ceased in its nuclear ambitions or in its desire to continue to build ballistic missiles capable of threat?

American troops and allies in the Middle East? Senator, no. In fact, intelligence reflects the contrary. So you disagree with Mr. Kent? I do. Today the war also intensified in Beirut. Multiple videos recorded the moment in Israeli air strike reduced this residential building to rubble and smoke. The Israeli army said the building hid millions of dollars for Hezbollah,

and warned residents before the strike. The war has become a nightly, deadly drumbeat. Overnight, Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel, carrying cluster bombs. One strike hit this apartment outside Tel Aviv, killing a couple inside. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Schiffran. And for perspective on how many elected Democrats are weighing these developments, I spoke earlier with Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator Chris Murphy, welcome to the News Hour.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I want to start with today's global threats hearing because we heard the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, say that the intelligence community has identified no foreign threat to the upcoming congressional elections, which would be a first since 2016. And she also described Iran's regime as intact but largely degraded. How should Americans interpret all of that? Are key threats actually diminishing in your view? Or is the intelligence community changing how they're presenting them?

I wasn't in that hearing today, so I didn't, you know, get to listen to her full testimony. But of course, there are foreign actors that are still trying to meddle in and manipulate American politics. The Russians have never stood down their efforts to try to pit us against each other, to try to undermine our democracy. The Chinese continue as well. So it is patently ridiculous and really dangerous, heartbreaking even, to hear the person who's in charge of interpreting our intelligence say that there are no countries that are trying to manipulate or interfere in our elections. The Iranian regime is intact.

They are still able to launch attacks in the region. They are likely planning attacks against the United States. And we are, frankly, more at risk of harm from Iran today than we were before the war began. Let me ask you about that, because you and other Democrats have pushed for a war powers vote since Congress hasn't authorized this conflict. At the same time, the U.S. is expanding its presence, the scope of the war appears to be widening. There is this fundamental mismatch where Congress is trying to assert its authority, some members of Congress at least, and the events on the ground have already moved ahead.

Well, Congress is not asserting its authority because Congress is run by Republicans, and right now Republicans view themselves as employees of Donald Trump. Not a single, open hearing on a war that is lighting the world on fire. We have a new war breaking out right now between Israel and Lebanon that is a consequence of Trump's invasion of Iran, where a thousand have already died. And we have prices going up for everybody here at home, gas prices that are already becoming unaffordable food prices to follow. We want Republicans to go on record over and over and over again. I think at some point they will have to start voting against this war, because it is becoming more and more unpopular as it's becoming more and more illegal.

After the classified briefings that you and your Senate colleagues received, you emerged from that briefing and said the administration's approach is incoherent. What specifically was missing? So I had another two-hour briefing this morning. Again, another one behind closed doors. The intent here is to give the public no information. But what we know for certain is that the administration has no plan on how to end this war. They have basically said that they are not going to try to change the regime. So you are going to be stuck with an Iranian leadership that is worse, more anti-American than the prior leadership was. They have also said this war will have an end, which means though we will, you know, do some damage to their missile capacity and their drone capacity, the minute that we stop bombing, they will rebuild all of that capacity.

And that won't take them years. It'll take them months. Have they presented any evidence that you can tell us about that would suggest that Iran posed an imminent threat before the war started? The closest they come is this idea that if Israel had attacked Iran, maybe Iran would have attacked the United States. And so we're better off attacking first, but they still attack the United States. So we didn't limit the exposure to us. We just participated with the Israelis in the initial attack that created the risk for America and our allies. But no, they don't even try to present evidence that there was some independent, imminent threat against the United States. There wasn't, and they can't even pretend there is.

In the time that remains, I want to ask you about a potential way out of this partial government shutdown. We're now five weeks into it. The most divisible strain is at the nation's airports, longer security. lines, callouts from TSA workers who've not been paid in longer than a month now. Yesterday, the White House offered this. They said that they would expand the use of body cameras for federal immigration agents, limit enforcement and sensitive locations like hospitals and schools, additional oversight of DHS detention facilities, visible officer identification,

and that they would follow existing law prohibiting the deportation or detention of U.S. citizens. From your vantage point as a ranking member on Homeland Security Appropriations, is any of this? a meaningful starting point, or is this largely cosmetic? I mean, it's not even really cosmetic. If you actually sort of read the proposal that they sent us, they basically said, we will just observe existing law. And you can't trust what they've said because they are violating laws every single day. A federal judge named 94 different court orders that they are currently in violation of.

Here's the quickest way to solve the problem. Let's just open TSA backup. Let's just open FEMA backup. Let's just open the Coast Guard backup. Almost every day during the last week, Democrats have gone to the Senate floor and offered a motion to open up TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA, and isolate our difference. We have a major difference on how the administration is breaking the law in the way that they implement and enforce our immigration laws.

Let's not hold TSA hostage. Let's not hold the Coast Guard hostage. refuse to open up TSA and the Coast Guard because they want to use the closure of those agencies as leverage to try to get us to condone Trump's lawlessness. On that point, what specifically is still missing for you to support a deal? Well, we've put onto the table some pretty reasonable priorities that, you know, are frankly what the American public wants. We want to end the masks and require identification. We want to end these roving patrols where officers are just going around asking people to show their papers.

And then we need accountability for these murders and these beatings. They can't be just swept under the rug with an internal DHS investigation. Like always happens, states and independent law enforcement of prosecutors have to be able to investigate. We have seen no offer from the administration that they're going to stop the roving patrols, that they're going to get rid of these masks and that they're going to allow for independent investigations. If they just do those three things, I think that there will likely be the Democratic votes to open up ice. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Thanks for your time this evening. Thank you.

In the day's other headlines, the U.S. Federal Reserve expects to cut rates once this year after leaving rates unchanged for a second straight time today. In its statement, the Fed cited uncertainty brought on by the war. with Iran. The U.S. economy is doing, you know, pretty well. It's just we don't know what the effects of this will be, and really no one does. Speaking to reporters, Fed Chair Jerome Powell stressed that it's hard to know the long-term impact of the conflict on the economy, though in the near term, inflation is likely to remain elevated.

Today's meeting is expected to be his second to last as Fed Chair. Powell also said he has, quote, no intention of leaving until a Justice Department probe related to the renovation of the Fed's headquarters is over. The Treasury Department is easing sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company trying to tame the rise in oil prices brought on by the Iran War. The move authorizes the entity known as PDVSA to sell Venezuelan oil to U.S. companies and on global markets. But there are limitations.

For one, Venezuela can't sell oil to Russia, Iran, North Korea, and some Chinese entities. And according to the Associated Press, the U.S. will control the cash flow from the transactions by a special accounts. This comes as Americans are now paying, on average, $3.84 for a gallon of regular. That's the highest since 2023. Pakistan and Afghanistan announced a temporary pause and cross-border fighting today ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. A Pakistani official says the halt is set to last through Monday. It comes as Afghan authorities held a mass funeral for victims of a Pakistani airstrike that reportedly hit a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul earlier this week.

At the facilities gates today, family and friends were still searching for their missing relatives. Afghan officials say at least 408 people were killed in the strike with more than 260 wounded. Pakistan has disputed those numbers and says it had targeted military facilities in the area. Back in this country, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton looks to have a clear path to the U.S. Senate in the deep blue state after winning last night's Democratic primary. Speaking to supporters, Stratton pledged to push for higher wages and abolish ICE, adding that she plans to, quote, bring this fight straight to Donald Trump's door. She beat out a crowded field with the support of Governor J.B. Pritzker, who's considered

a possible 2028 presidential contender. If elected in November, Stratton will be able to be able to be. become only the sixth black woman to ever serve in the U.S. Senate. Much of the Southwest is baking from record-breaking heat, even though winter officially ends in a few days. In all, nearly 40 million Americans from the Bay Area to Phoenix were under heat alerts and potentially dangerous extreme heat warnings today. The summer-like heat will build through the end of the week, pushing temperatures up to

and above 100 degrees in places like Palm Springs, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. nearly 30 degrees above normal for this time of year. The warmer weather is allowing beachgoers in the Bay Area to enjoy some time in the sun a bit earlier than usual. It is a surprise. It's not the norm, but it's a pleasant surprise. It feels like summer already in March. Like, that's crazy. But I love it. Like, we go to the beach every day, and this is perfect weather. This is all in stark contrast to the Midwest and the eastern half of the country,

which are still digging out after powerful storms that led to thousands of flight cancellations this week. The WNBA says it's reached a preliminary deal with its players union that could see top stars earning more than a million dollars a year. The exact terms are still being finalized, but the head of the Players Association says the agreement would tie salaries to league revenues

for the first time. It would also quadruple the average player's salary to around half a million dollars, and it would improve on family planning and parental leave benefits. The deal is expected to, reflect the WNBA's surge in popularity and revenue in recent years, though it still needs to be ratified by both the players and the league.

And Venezuela is now the reigning champion of the World Baseball Classic after a nail-biter of a game in Miami. They beat the U.S. team 3 to 2, thanks to an RBI double from Eugenio Suarez in the ninth inning with pitcher Daniel Palencia closing out the win with a strikeout. That kicked off mass celebrations on the field and back home. Thousands of Venezuelans danced in the streets with the revelry lasting for hours. Baseball is a passion there, and the nation's first ever victory in the tournament is a particular source of pride,

with acting president Delci Rodriguez declaring the occasion a national day of joy. And on Wall Street today, stocks tumbled on worries about rising oil prices and fewer rate cuts by the Fed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 750 points on the day. The NASDAQ fell more than 300 points, or on the Fed. almost one and a half percent, the S&P 500 posted its first loss of the week. Still to come, on the news hour, Cuba faces threats from widespread power outages and from President Trump. An investigation uncovers abuse allegations against the late labor rights icon, Cesar Chavez. And Judy Woodruff reports from Gettysburg on deep divisions as the country gets ready to

note a major anniversary. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen today faced his fellow lawmakers for a confirmation hearing to run the Department of Homeland Security. The hearing became heated and emotional at times as senators grilled Mullen on past comments and how he might differ from former DHA's head, Christy Nome. Lisa Desjardin was in the room covering it all and has this report. So help you God. For Mark Wayne Mullen, a lesson. the difference between being a senator and being a nominee.

Explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues. Committee chairman and fellow Republican Rand Paul blasted the Homeland Security nominee on rare and personal grounds. In February, Mullen called Paul a freaking snake for not always voting with Republicans and said he understood why someone attacked Paul in 2017. Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from. behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung. Well, staying your butt up then. Paul also raised Mullen's near fist fight in a different committee in 2023.

Sit down. Sit down. You're a United States senator. And as far as me saying that I invoke violence, I don't. I don't think anybody should be hit by surprise. I don't like that. But if I do have something to say, everybody in this room knows I'll come straight to you. I make mistakes just like anybody else.

But mistakes, if you own them, you can learn from them. And you can move ahead. That's the kind of person, passionate, fierce, a fighter, loyal. That's who I want now protecting this country. Other Republicans pushed back against the criticism. And maybe you're not going to replace Shakespeare as the next greatest orator on earth. You talk from the heart. And that's okay.

You are who you are. For Democrats, the question was, who will he be if in charge? They raised the nationwide DHS immigration crackdown and its aggressive tactics, as well as the killings by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Prattie. You called Alex Prattie, quote, a deranged individual that came into cause max damage. Could we expect those kinds of quick responses if you are confirmed? I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts. That's my fault.

That won't happen as Secretary. Still, he did not apologize to the families of either, saying he'll wait for investigations to complete. But Mullen did signal a possible and notable shift for DHS agents, suggesting a higher bar for entering private homes or businesses. They were going in to get interviewed for a green card and were arrested upon their arrival. And when asked, he indicated a reluctance to detain people at legal immigration appointments. People are going through the process and trying to, uh, obtain it legally because we do have naturalizations ceremonies Monday through Friday in this country everywhere.

We're going to continue to work with those individuals. But he tripled down on his history of election denialism. Who won the 2020 election? Ma'am, we know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office. He was a president for the last four years. Refusing to say that President Trump lost the 2020 election, Mullen did not rule out sending federal officers to polling places, an idea the president's allies have floated, but DHS has until now dismissed.

Do you feel you have the authority to put uniformed officers at polling locations in 2026? Ma'am, we said this in your office. The only reason why my officers would be there if there was a specific threat. It was Republican Paul, who was Mullen's greatest hazard, announcing he will vote no on him. That would usually be a problem, but Democrat John Federman of Pennsylvania is a yes. My experience with you has been consistent kindness and professionalism. A hearing that was personal, high stakes, and included a surprise. And it was in a conflict zone.

Sir, once again, I'm not talking about specific details. Mullen said he traveled overseas on a classified trip as a member of the House. I can't give you all the details to it because it's not for me to release it. Mullen pledged to tell senators more in a secure setting. And with that promise, the committee is on track to vote on Mullen. incredibly quickly tomorrow. This hearing is adjourned. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Lisa Desjardin.

We return now to the wider impacts of the war with Iran, which has reignited fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed extremist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Beyond the more than 900 reported dead in Lebanon, nearly one million there are now displaced. Among them are some of the roughly 170,000 migrant workers not counted by the government. For many, Lebanon, was supposed to be a place of refuge, a chance to escape the war, or build a better life. Now violence has found them again. Special correspondent, Simone Fultin, reports from Beirut. This Jesuit church has been a parish for migrant workers for about 40 years. Now, as Israeli bombs rain down on Beirut, it has become their sanctuary.

We welcome migrants in these spaces. They usually don't stay here, but that's where we give what people need. And right now, people need housing and food and a safe place. Around 200 migrant workers are sheltering here. They came to Lebanon looking for stability and work from countries around the world plagued by conflict and poverty. Almas is from Ethiopia and works as a cleaner in Beirut. She lives in Jnah, a seaside neighborhood that came under Israeli bombardment in the first

days of the war. I was very scared. I was sleeping in my undergarments. I ran out, grabbed my clothes. my clothes, got dressed outside, then ran to the seaside. There were so many people. Then I came here at around three in the morning. Brother Michael Petro runs the shelter as part of the Jesuit Refugee Service.

Al-Maz called me, and I saw her number, and I knew, okay, when I wake up, people are going to be here. That is exactly what happened. On Monday morning, by the time I woke up, there were already several dozen people in the church. And so we, you know, we knew by the end of the day we were going to be completely full. Schools turned government shelters are off limits to the migrant community. They don't accept me because I'm a foreigner. The school shelters are only open to Lebanese and Syrians.

Many here have nowhere else to go, not in Lebanon, not in their home countries. Almas's husband is Sudanese and was killed when he went back to his home region of Darfur. Returning to Ethiopia isn't an option either. I married a Muslim and I'm a Christian. brother and my family didn't accept that. That's why I have to stay here. Migrant workers in Lebanon are governed under the Kfala or sponsorship system, a restrictive and exploitative legal framework binding their legal status directly to their employer. The migrant community ranks among the most vulnerable people in Lebanon during the best of times. On any given day, they grapple with abuse,

racism and discrimination, all enabled by the so-called Khafala system, which grants their employer or sponsor significant control over their lives. Now these vulnerabilities are felt much more acutely during times of war. When this latest war broke out, the church was the only shelter in Beirut that would accept migrants. Migrants always fall through the cracks in the humanitarian system here in Lebanon. Part of that is that the exactly what you're talking about is the way in which the legal structure here is designed to exploit and to make migrants invisible.

Invisibility makes it such that people don't see them as anything more than people who serve. They're not people to be served. They're people who serve. The church is located in Beirut's Christian area of Ashrafia. The closest Israeli strike hit a building merely 300 yards away in an adjacent Muslim neighborhood. We felt it here in the church. Windows rattled, set off car alarms.

You can feel it in your body when it's that close. Authorities in Ashrafia have largely refused to take in Shia Muslims fleeing a war. amid fears that Israel might start targeting Christian areas too. Though marginalized, the migrants are excluded from the sectarian equation. And the political tensions that are existing right now around displaced persons and the conflict in Lebanon, their invisibility allows us to welcome them. So the tensions that are coming with other displacements are not affecting migrants as much. In a world where religious and sectarian rifts appear to be widening, the church is a

microcosm of peaceful coexistence. In the evening, the Muslim community gathers for Iftar to break their fast during the month of Ramadan. This woman fled the Sudanese war in 2023 with her husband and three kids. Her home in the capital Khartoum was destroyed. Her uncle killed. Lebanon seemed like a safe option back then. Her husband found work as a building attendant in the south. Now their town is one of dozens under Israeli evacuation orders.

She wanted to remain anonymous. There were calls instructing us to leave the area. We left on foot because we don't have a car. We walked for 12 hours until we met some Syrians who gave us a ride. After a long journey and the cold nights spent sleeping outdoors, they too were turned away at a government shelter. They said no, the priorities for the Lebanese, the foreigners later. It's unlikely the family will be able to go back anytime soon.

The fighting is most intense in the south, where Israel has launched a fresh ground offensive. Meanwhile, the clock on their six-month visa is ticking. But when migrants are displaced, they lose their job, which means they lose their residency, they lose their legal status, they lose their home. The minute your contract breaks, you lose your residency, which makes it very difficult to flee war if your employer would like you to stay put. The Khafala system has forced some migrants into impasseh. possible choices to keep their jobs or to save their lives.

For the PBS News Hour, I'm Simone Fultin in Beirut, Lebanon. All eyes are on Cuba as the world waits to see what will happen to the leaders and the people of the Caribbean island nation. President Trump says he wants to take action, while the leaders of the country remain defiant. At first glance, life in Cuba's capital of Havana feels familiar. The famous Malekon Avenue by the sea, the colorful buildings and antique cars. But these streets seems, quieter than just a few months ago, disguise a city and a nation now in crisis.

The power hasn't come back on at my house, and we've been about 12 hours without lights. And, well, I plan to face the day as usual, just as Cubans do. This week, the country faced the third wide-scale failure of its power grid since December. Without enough gas, less than half of Havana's trash trucks are allowed to run. RUN. Piles of garbage spill over into the historic streets. And as the sun sets, a now routine darkness takes over, with 10 million people left without light. Pitch black streets and no electricity to cook the little food people are able to find.

We are two older people, both in our 70s, and she's also sick. Our food has spoiled. I'm boiling three pieces of chicken to try and save something to eat because the situation is really bad. Really bad, really bad. We have nothing left. We're doing really bad. And I just want to die so I can get some rest from this country.

May God forgive me for speaking like this. Cuba has long dealt with blackouts. A system hampered by an aging power grid, U.S. sanctions, and fuel shortages, was further crippled after an American raid in Venezuela, Cuba's ally, led to a total energy blockade and to ramped up threats from President Trump. Taking Cuba, I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth? They're a very weakened nation right now.

A message echoed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge are, they don't know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge. Back on the island, anxiety about what comes next. What will happen to Cuba, the world asks. And we're also here at this moment saying to ourselves, what will happen to us.

But I believe, I truly believe, there will be dialogue and understanding. And defying President Trump sanctions, two tankers carrying crude oil are on their way to Cuba after Russia declared its unwavering solidarity. To share more about the evolving situation in Cuba, including the political stakes, I'm joined by Lillian Guerra, a professor of Cuban and Caribbean history at the University of Florida. Professor Gera, welcome to the News Hour. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

So at the end of that report, you heard a little bit of hope from that gentleman there about dialogue between the U.S. and the Cuban government. What do we know about those talks and what could come of them? Well, first, we know very little about the talks. We know that there are two major members of the Castro family who have been the spokespeople allegedly. At least one of them is the grandson of Raul Castro and the other has a son. a similar relationship. He's the grand nephew of both Vidal and Raul. Now, both of these men have

very, very high ranks in what is Gaessa, the Cuban military's corporate conglomerate that really controls 80% of the economy. And they have no legitimacy in the eyes of the Cuban people. It is important to note, though, that because they control the economy and they also control the armed forces, they are apparently the ones that Trump's administration is to, turning to in order to negotiate some form of transition. And I find that very problematic, along with probably a majority of Cubans in this country and those on the island. So put that together with the U.S. calls for a change in leadership in Cuba. Could one of these people involved in the talks now be in charge? And what would that look like?

In fact, one of them, Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga is often called the Economies-Zar. And he was put forward as early as November of 2025 by the Cuban Communist Party itself as a replacement for President Miguel Diascanel when he completes his term in office. So if he were to take power, it would actually be exactly

what the Cuban Communist Party would like. I think that right now we don't know exactly what is next. And the Cuban people don't know either because they often don't have electricity and can't charge their phones. They don't have access to television. Their government censors the news.

So they're really reliant in many ways on social media and word of mouth to find out what's happening. I think that the best case scenario would be one in which the Cuban government would finally do something to alleviate the economic and political repression on the island by simply saying that they will agree to legalize opposition political parties and that in some way or another they will reduce the management of the economy by the armed forces, which really should have no way. role in managing the economy. We should point out to a lot of people in Cuba rely on family members outside of the country to send in supplies, to send in money to help sustain them. How does all of that impact the Cuban economy? And what does that look like now? Yes, actually, if Marco Rubio is right about one thing, it is that there is still a subsidy in Cuba and that subsidies are what the Cuban government has been dependent on. So that subsidy is the billions of dollars a year, and that subsidy is the billions of a year in goods and in cash that Cubans like myself send their relatives, and we will find

any way to do so. A lot of money comes in simply with mules, which are people who travel to Cuba, from Colombia, from Mexico, from New York, wherever they can travel, and they charge a commission, and they bring in things for our family. We are allegedly, according to many economists' measures, supporting about 40% of the population. I think that part of the problem with that scenario in general is that not everybody has family abroad. And the vast majority of Black Cubans who comprise at least 40 to 50 percent of the population do not have family abroad. It's more than poverty.

It's immiseration. And all we have are different degrees of emiseration among the Cuban people. Professor, I've got about 30 seconds left, but I have to ask Cuba's faced crises before. Do you see this one leading to real change in the country? I think that something will happen because expectations are extremely high, both on the island and in South Florida. And frankly, the longer it takes to come to some decision, the more likely it is that Cubans will take to the streets and start attacking the Cuban Communist Party headquarters in different places and perhaps simply confront the state themselves. And that would be devastating, I think, because nobody has weapons in Cuba. All they have are their ideals.

That is Professor Lillian Gera, the University of Florida, joined. us tonight. Professor, thank you so much. Thank you. There are new revelations and allegations of sexual abuse and rape of women and minors by one of America's iconic civil rights and labor leaders, the late Caesar Chavez. A new investigation by the New York Times included the accounts of two women who are now 66 years old, who allege that Chavez abused them during his time leading the union he co-founded in the late 1970s, the United Farmer. Farm workers. Civil rights leader and the co-founder of that union, Dolores Huerta, also said today that Chavez raped her back in the 60s. Our William Brangham has more.

Jeff, in a public statement today, Dolores Huerta alleged that Chavez assaulted her in a vehicle. She said she stayed silent then and for decades after because, quote, I believe that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for. I have kept this secret long enough. She says she was impregnated by Chavez and that those children were then raised by other families. The two other women who spoke to the times were daughters of longtime organizers for the union. Both said Chavez's abuse went on for several years, starting at the ages of 12 and 13. Both suffered depression, panic attacks, and one attempted to end her life multiple times. At least a dozen other women told the times that they had also.

also been harassed by Chavez over many years. The reactions to all of this has been swift. A number of cities and organizations are now canceling upcoming celebrations or events that are tied to Cesar Chavez Day. And so for more on the impact of this stunning story, I am joined by historian Miriam Powell. She is author of The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, a biography. Miriam, thank you so much for talking with us. as someone who has written extensively about this man,

what is your reaction to these allegations? I mean, the Times did indicate that there had been whispers about this going on. Had you heard about any of this? I mean, what do you make of this reporting? Oh, and the reporting is obviously quite stunning in its level of detail, very shocking and disturbing. There were... The issue of Travis's adultery was well-known.

that. Others have written about that as well. There was a well-known incident when his wife left him after intercepting a love letter from an 18-year-old. So 18 is not underage, but certainly questionable judgment at the time. So there had been suggestions that sex played a role in his efforts to control the movement at a period of time in particular when it became what some people have compared to a cult. And so these new revelations are disturbing and add a whole other dimension to what we've known about Caesar Chavez and to what in some sense has been an ongoing reassessment of his legacy over the last 20 years. I mean, for people who are not that familiar with his legacy, it's hard to overstate the impact he has had

on the labor movement in this country. What is your sense about what these allegations do to that movement? I mean, are you concerned that this could diminish what he did and what others have been building on in the decades since? So I would say that, you know, his importance as a historic figure

is not so much as a labor leader, but in some ways as a civil rights leader, what he was able to do in terms of organizing the first union for farm workers who were predominantly Latino at the time, Mexican-American and Mexicans, as well as Filipinos, that accomplishment, that success that he had in convincing poor people and in teaching people that they had the ability through organizing to overcome the agricultural

industry in all of its power in California, that is part of the most significant part of his legacy. That is all in the past. That has not been the case right now for many, many years. and one of the things that I write about and others have is the ways in which he in some ways destroyed his own movement or the power of it in terms of its ability to help farm workers. So I think we have to separate his legacy

and his reputation as a leader, as a Latino icon, as perhaps the most famous Latino in this country, what these new revelations do to people's understanding of Caesar Chavez the man and how you reconcile the good and the bad that he did. He was a very complex, charismatic figure. But in terms of his impact on the movement, that movement isn't there anymore.

I mean, whatever movement there is in terms of the civil rights legacy, in terms of farm workers, there's very little being done for farm workers in the fields today. And that's going to take new leadership, and that's been true for quite a while. In her statement today, Dolores Huerta said that these actions in the past should not diminish the work of that movement. She said, quote, I carried the secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farm worker rights was my life's work. Does that, does that surprise you? No, not at all. I think that is very consistent with what has been the ethos in the movement for many, many years. When I began to talk to people about what had happened in the

60s and 70s and 80s, this was in the 2000s, there were things that people had not talked about for decades. They had stayed silent not only about issues like this, which obviously there were people who knew about, but a whole sort of range of other kinds of verbal abuse, purges, violence, anti-immigration things, all sorts of things that went on, ways in which people were drummed out of the union for a period of time. People didn't talk about that because they believed so strongly in the power of the farm worker movement at that point in time to change life for farm workers. And they did not want to say anything that might jeopardize the success of that movement or might complicate it. The people overlooked a lot of red flags. And they now, the people

who were closest to the movement at that time, look back now and say, I sat there when this happened or that happened, and I didn't say anything. And the reason they didn't say anything was because they again, sort of, you know, Chavez brought so much hope to people and accomplished so much at the height of the movement and at the height of his power that people overlook things that were clear red flags because they did not want to jeopardize that success. Indeed. That is Miriam Powell, author of The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, a biography. Miriam, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. Thanks for having me. And late today, the Chavez family issued a statement saying they were devastated, adding, quote, we wish peace and healing to the survivors and commend their courage

to come forward. Well, deep divisions over how Americans remember their past are coming into sharper focus as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. Judy Woodruff reports for her series, America at a crossroads. So this is kind of like the heart of the Gettysburg battlefield here on Cemetery Ridge. On the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where in early, July 1863, there were as many as 51,000 American casualties, the worst of the Civil War. Alan Spears discovered a story he hadn't known.

I had to come here, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 times before I actually walked past the interpretive marker that told me about Abraham, Brian, and his family. Growing up in nearby Washington, D.C., Spears early on discovered a love of bullets and bayonets. But in his 20s, he spotted a sign that led him to a different story. This parcel had once been home to Abraham Bryant, a free African-American who fled as Confederate forces approached ahead of the battle. You've got the House and Barn of a Free African-American. You've got the 11th Mississippi Infantry Regiment fighting for the cause that they believed in, using that house and barn as a guide-on point. Abraham Bryan and his family left here because they were afraid that they might be captured by Confederate forces and sent south into slavery.

It's almost the entire history of America and the American Civil War just captured in a few acres. Those were the Confederate positions on Friday, July 3rd. Spears works in cultural affairs at the National Park Conservation Association, a nonprofit that advocates for the parks. And he worries that this is exactly the kind of history now at risk under the Trump administration. There are some folks who feel like in the name of combating diversity, equity, and inclusion, the name of fighting or combating or pushing back against

Wilkness, that we have to restore our history to a point where it simply celebrates everything that's happened in this country. And if you have challenging elements of our history, the forced removal of indigenous people and tribes, the issue of slavery, emancipation, the civil rights movement, those sorts of things, those elements complicate our national narrative. Last year, President Trump signed a flurry of executive orders related to DEI. including this one, restoring truth and sanity to American history. Over the past decade, it says, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort

to rewrite our nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. The order directed Interior Secretary Doug Bergam to, quote, ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, and markers, focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people, and the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape. Bergam ordered a review of sites across the country and asked visitors to report any information that may violate Trump's order. Late last year, reports of removals began to pop up.

We will not be a race. We will not go back in the closet. from LGBTQ history to climate change to women. Perhaps most visibly at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, once home to George Washington and his wife Martha. There the NPS staff in January removed an exhibit about nine of the slaves Washington kept at the property. We're a group that's being asked to forget our history, to forget our past, and that's

kind of been a hallmark of our ancestry in this country is to just forget. Every country, every nation, every part of the world has parts in their history that they don't like and that are wrong. But you can't just take that out and pretend it didn't happen. The city of Philadelphia sued the Department of the Interior and the Park Service over the removal and a judge, quoting George Orwell's 1984 in her opinion, ordered the panels returned last month while the lawsuit makes its way through the courts. The Department of the Interior didn't respond to our request for an interview or for comment.

There's more awareness that we've swung too far, particularly with DEI initiatives, and that's part of why this administration was elected. Brenda Haferra is a scholar with the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank in Washington, where she's heading up the organization. own review of historical sites across the country. She says the Trump administration's actions are a necessary correction to what had become systematic bias in favor of DEI and away from accuracy and proportionality. You can distort things in two ways by over emphasizing and disproportionately focusing on the negative,

or you distort things by whitewashing history. And neither of those are acceptable. She points to Mount Vernon as an example of a place doing it right. She gave it an A for its inclusion of George Washington's life, his time as a general, and as the first president, as well as for exhibits about the people he enslaved. She says the Philadelphia exhibit, however, placed too much emphasis on slavery to the exclusion of other important stories occurring at that place. The nation is just beginning.

the things that Washington had to face, the decisions he had to make, how he's laying out what the executive branch will look like, because everything he does sets a precedent. So you could talk about these things. But according to the City Journal, there were 30 exhibit panels and 25 of the 30 discussed race and slavery. I think it's good that we're having these public deliberations in the public square to ask these questions of what should we be commemorating? What should these look like?

What is the proper balance? I think that there are people who are overly concerned about balance because they're not seeing that we have had to come from almost nothing to get to a point where we have a minimum amount of information available to the public at these places about race, about labor, about women's rights, about the LGBTQ experience of these things that are important, equally important in American history. Fighting has gone from being long range.

being hit by artillery as soon as they came out from those trees. Back at Gettysburg, Alan Spears says the National Park Service spends years working on exhibits and public information at these sites, enlisting experts from across disciplines to make careful decisions. What we've seen in the last 13 months is an administration that is willing to come in and say, well, we don't really study history necessarily. We just think that sounds wrong. We think it complicates the story, we think it denigrates Americans, and so we're going to take it out.

And so it's that arbitrary and capricious nature of the way these decisions are being made and the total lack of transparency that really bothers us. His organization has joined other scientific and preservation groups in a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, arguing that the removals violate federal law. I think any truthful commemoration of the American story will be celebratory, because that's accurate, because this is a good country that has contributed a lot and has moved towards human freedom. It's all a reminder that as we approach 250, this debate over our past will continue into our future. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Judy Woodruff in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

And that's the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. Thank you for joining us.