PBS News Hour - Full Show - March 5, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Thursday on the News Hour, the U.S. war with Iran widens, threatening energy infrastructure and risking more countries being pulled into the conflict. We speak with Iranian Americans who express hope and fear about what comes next for their country. Plus, President Trump replaced Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after months of controversy over the immigration crackdown. 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, the war with Iran widens, threatening energy infrastructure and risking more countries being pulled into the conflict. We speak with Iranian Americans who express hope and fear about what comes next. I'm really concerned for the future of Iran politically, also on a personal level. I'm very concerned for my family and friends. And President Trump replaces Homeland Security Secretary Christy No. after months of controversy over the immigration crackdown. Welcome to the News Hour. We have two major stories tonight.

The president today fired Christy Noem as the Secretary of Homeland Security, the first member of his cabinet to be ousted in his second term. But first to the war. Just days after the U.S. and Israel launched the war with Iran by targeting and killing its supreme leader, President Trump today said he should be involved in selecting the country's next leader. As the war spreads across the region, the U.S. State Department says the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait will be closed until further notice. And there's little sign of a letup as the U.S. and Israel pressed the attack inside Iran

where more than 1,200 people have been killed. In Tehran today, residents watched in shock as dark plumes of smoke engulfed a beloved landmark. The Azadi, or Freedom Stadium, destroyed. Once a sprawling sports complex that ceded 12,000, people, today reduced to a charred shell. Not much remains, but smoking ruins of the building that once hosted international games to packed crowds. The U.S. says it is targeting Iran's ballistic missile infrastructure, military equipment and

drones. And Israel today said it shot down an Iranian fighter jet. But across Iran today, multiple cities were rocked by explosions. In Iran's northwestern city of Irmia, the Iranian Red Crescent posted. this video of what it says is widespread damage to residential areas. The Iranian health ministry said more than a dozen hospitals and other key parts of Iran's health infrastructure have been damaged so far and four health workers were killed. The World Health Organization said it has verified 13 of those attacks.

Today Iran's foreign minister denounced the U.S. for sinking an Iranian warship, calling it an atrocity at sea. He said Iran is no longer looking to negotiate. Well, I think, you know, now six days after the war, it is clear that the U.S. has failed to achieve its main goal, which was a clean, rapid victory. We are not asking for a ceasefire. And we don't see any reason why we should negotiate with the U.S. When we negotiated with them twice, and every time they attacked us at the middle of negotiation, And as Iranian media showed videos of crowds gathered in support of the regime for a fifth consecutive night, the conflict keeps growing wider. Even Azerbaijan to Iran's north has now been drawn into the fight.

Officials there say several Iranian drones hit an airport and a school which Tehran has denied. Several were injured. The country's president vowed to respond. Those dishonorable perpetrators who committed this terrorist act against us will regret it. They should not test our strength. All necessary instructions have been issued, and additional diplomatic measures will follow. Tehran's onslaught also continues on Gulf state energy. Bahrain said an Iranian missile slipped through its air defenses and set a state-run oil refinery ablaze.

And as the critical strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to tanker traffic, Energy concerns have rippled all the way to China, the world's largest importer of oil and natural gas, and the biggest buyer of Iranian oil. Beijing said today its government dispatched a Middle East envoy with the hope of starting talks. China believes that war and force cannot fundamentally solve problems. Dialogue and negotiation are the right path. But dialogue remains elusive. On the streets of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, more buildings toppled from Israeli airstrikes.

At least 100 people have been killed. Israel says it's targeting Hezbollah command centers. Traffic snarled today as residents rushed to flee after Israel told people to evacuate the city's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. Israeli officials say it's too soon for diplomacy. Among them, the country's far-right finance minister who said Beirut would soon look like a war-ravaged Gaza. You wanted to bring hell on us.

You brought hell on yourselves. Dachia will look like Khan Yunus. For his part, President Donald Trump today looked beyond the war, telling Axios that he needs to be personally involved in the selection of Iran's next leader. He said the current likely successor, the late Supreme Leader's son, Mosh Tabah Khomeini, would be unacceptable.

In a separate interview with Reuters, Mr. Trump encouraged the Iranian Kurds, trained by the CIA to fill the vacuum. I'd be all for it. If they're going to do that, that's good. That says the Pentagon also released the names of the two remaining U.S. soldiers killed this past weekend when Iran struck a tactical operation center in Kuwait,

45-year-old Major Jeffrey O'Brien of Iowa, and 54-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan of California. Their remains and the remains of four other American service members killed in action will soon be returned to U.S. soil. The largest U.S. military base in the Middle East is in the small Gulf nation of Qatar. And joining us from its capital, Doha, is special correspondent, Lela-Malana-Ale-Malana-A. And Laila, it's good to see you. So you're in the Gulf right now. Based on your reporting, how are these attacks affecting countries across the region?

We have. We've come here, just as many people are thinking about leaving as this conflict escalates. This has been unprecedented for the Gulf nations. Hundreds of cruise and ballistic missiles of drones have been launched at these countries by Iran. On the first day of the conflict, nearly as many were fired at the UAE as were fired at Israel, the country that was attacking Iran. The calculation seems to have been that maybe the UAE is the most able to ask the United States to stop. Now, at the moment, the missile defense systems here are doing a pretty good job of taking down.

Those missiles, the drones are trickier. But the issue here is that what the Gulf Nations have built is stability. That is their key. And Iran doesn't have to destroy these countries. It just has to pierce that stability to stop their success. The second issue, of course, is they built it on wealth. Now, already with those missile defense systems, spending huge amounts of money, but also attacks on tourism, on hotels, on airports, and the stopping of three of the largest traffic airports in the world for almost a week now in the Gulf at a cost of over a billion dollars. Now, the initial reaction, of course, is angered Iran. Yesterday, Iran's foreign minister called the Qatari Foreign Minister saying that we are not attacking the Gulf. We're just

attacking the American President's Sair. The Qatari Foreign Minister responded, that was completely untrue. They're dragging the Gulf into a war that is not their own. And even though the Gulf has always been neutral thus far, he said these attacks cannot go unanswered. Now, that would be a huge change in the starts of the Gulf nations if they decide not to be neutral anymore. But the longer term issue here is these US bases. Now, thus far, Gulf nations have hosted US bases because they seem to believe they will get defensive capability from the US in return. The issue, of course, is that in the past few years, with the reduction of the military presence in the Gulf, already they were starting to feel maybe that wouldn't happen.

And last year in 2025, with the attack on Hamas operatives inside Doha, that was, seen as an absolute crossing of the line. So that would be another huge strategic shift in the region if they stop hosting those bases. And Layla, we know communication with Iran is extremely difficult right now, but I understand you've managed to reach some people there. What are they telling you about how this war is affecting daily life? It is incredibly hard to reach anyone's inside Iran. What they are saying when you manage to get through to them in moments of connectivity is that the streets are completely empty. People are just staying inside, absolutely terrified. They say the bombing is terrifying. It's constant. It's everywhere. Some people have thought about trying to move in Tehran

to the north of this great Tehran region of over 16 million people, but they haven't got any petrol and the roads are completely packed. So many are just staying put inside their houses. Now, while Israel, the United States say that they are only attacking military and government infrastructure, that simply isn't reflected in the number of civilian deaths we're seeing. In these densely populated areas like the capital, many people live right next to these government buildings and their homes are taken out when those strikes hit. And it's so important to remember that in Iran, no one has access to any air raid sirens, to any shelters, and they don't have any missile defense capabilities, which were all knocked out last year. So Iranian civilians are completely defenseless. And the other

issue they're facing, of course, is that they don't have any communications. The Internet's completely down. Phone lines are completely down. Layla Malana Allen in Doha for us tonight. Layla, thank you. For additional perspective now, we turn to retired Rural Admiral. John Kirby. He's the former White House National Security Communications Advisor in the Biden administration. Admiral Kirby, welcome back to the show. Can I begin by just asking for your reaction to a little bit of news we heard from the Iranian foreign minister saying earlier his country is ready for a U.S. ground invasion, that they're prepared to fight U.S. troops on Iranian soil. We know President Trump

hasn't ruled out ground troops. What do you make of that? Could that actually happen? I don't think that that's what the administration wants to do, and I think they've been kind of clear, although they're keeping their options open, and obviously you don't want to foreclose any decision space by the commander-in-chief. It doesn't appear that they're very enthusiastic about moving in on the ground and that kind of an option. And as for what the Iranian foreign minister said, I mean, that's the kind of bluster you would expect to hear out of these guys to intimidate or to bolster their own sense of morale and perhaps point to their readiness to fight a ground invasion.

But I really don't see that right now as a strong option, and it certainly doesn't seem to be something that the Trump administration is really leaning towards with any great energy. What about what we've heard from President Trump in that he would back Kurdish militias if they launched an offensive inside Iran? In your view, is that good policy? And what kind of impact could it have on the war? You know, I think I need to know more about what their plans are. I do worry a little bit about trying to foment an uprising when you clearly aren't going to be on the ground yourself to help direct how that goes.

I mean, you're counting on another party here who may be well-trained or not to sort of take it in a direction that you're expecting it to go. And I think it could be very, very unpredictable. I also think it's important to remember that, as your reporter just indicated, you know, the Iranian people are staying indoors. They have, for 50 years, they really not had the opportunity to develop a strong, organized opposition or resistance effort. They don't have arms and ammunition. The regime still does. So it's very unclear to me that this would be able to, at scale, literally foment an uprising that could topple the regime. But again, I think, you know, it's only been an idea floated here today.

We don't have a whole lot of more information about it to really judge it. But it does worry me in terms of the additional violence it could visit upon. the Iranian people who are defenseless right now. If you take a step back and look sort of a broader picture at this war, the way it's been carried out so far, we have seen an evolving explanation from the administration about why it's being carried out, about why now it was begun as well. And part of it centers around the idea that Iran is weaker now than it has ever been and that this prevents a nuclear-armed hostile regime in Iran.

In your view, is that worth it? I think, first of all, I'm not shedding any tears about the loss of the Supreme Leader or the pressure that the regime is under. I get behind nobody in my hatred of what the regime has done in the region and to the Iranian people. It is unclear because the messaging on this has been sort of all over the place, it's really unclear to know and to be able to take confidence in the fact that this was something that really did present the kind of imminent nature of a threat. that needed to be responded to as quickly and as swiftly as it was. And I think we need to have more information before the American people can really make a judgment about that. And while it's good to see the Pentagon out there doing briefings, and Secretary Ruby on Capitol Hill talking to the press,

I think there's an awful lot more transparency that the administration really should come forward with here to the American people to kind of answer exactly those questions. If it does result in regime change, though, to a regime that has been hostile to the U.S., hostile to U.S. allies, is that work? I mean, if President Biden had a chance to assassinate the Ayatollah, would he have taken it when in office? Let me put it this way. If, as a result of all this, a government can be formed in Tehran that is responsive to the

needs of the Iranian people, a government that they have a vote, that they have a voice, that they get to install, and can bring them into the community of nations where so many young Iranians really want to do, then obviously, That is a good outcome of all this. But the history doesn't point us in that direction. The history says that when authoritarian regimes are toppled or fall or collapse, most likely they are replaced by other authoritarian regimes. I hope that's wrong.

I hope that's not what happens. But I'm concerned right now about the what next and certainly what's going to be a government in place in Iran that can be responsible in the region. And right now I just don't see any signs that there's been enough. of a strategic thinking and long-term thinking about exactly what comes next. Well, there's lots of talk today about what's bombed and what's destroyed and what the Iranians can't do anymore militarily. But I don't think we're hearing enough about what is in their future and what can be done

to make Iran a more peaceful nation and, again, one that's responsive to the Iranian people. As part of that administration talk about this war, as you mentioned it there, we've heard from the Secretary of Defense talking about the U.S. sending death. and destruction from the sky. We've seen him accuse the media of wanting to make the president look bad when we report on U.S. soldiers who are being killed. As someone who was responsible during your time there in the Biden administration for managing the message and communicating with the public, what do you make of how this administration

is talking about this war? Well, you know, when you hear the Joint Chiefs Chairman General Kane do his briefings, they're very thoughtful, they're very contextual, he's keeping it to the facts and the figures, and he's being very realistic and pragmatic about what we're doing and the resistance we're facing the retaliation by the Iranian military, and he lays it out pretty clearly. I think it's really important when you're talking about issues of war and peace that you're direct and simple and concise with the American people. They need to know, they deserve to know, how their military is being used in their defense. And again, I take no backseat to anybody in terms of my hatred of the regime. And so hitting them while they are weaker or getting weaker, certainly from a military perspective, makes a lot of sense.

But I do think it's important when we're talking about war, when we're talking about military operations, that we do it in a way that is respectful of the unpredictability and the uncertainty of what's going to happen in the coming days and weeks. The truth is, we don't really know. And I think humility when you're talking about war in peace is always a good thing. That is retired rear admiral John Kirby joining us tonight. Thank you so much for your time. Good to speak with you. You too. Thank you. There are more than a half million people of Iranian ancestry living in the U.S. We spoke with some of them to learn how they're feeling about the war and what might come next.

My name is R.S. Arasar Nassoni. I'm an American-Iranian. I moved to U.S. 14 years ago to pursue my PhD. I grew up in Iran my entire life, but I did not see any future to stay and work there because of the government. My name is Hamid Kashani. I came from Iran in 1973 following graduating from high school to attend higher educations in the United States.

I am Reza Abrahimi. I'm 37 years old. I came to United States on the age of 27 in 2015. I'm a volunteer firefighter. I'm a member of the Shindler Union. I'm a U.S. citizen. My name is Kossargo Hedy. I was born in 1979 at the height of revolution.

Parents were students here in the U.S. I was eight months when they decided to go back to Iran. I grew up in Iran. And in 2003 after graduating from undergrad, I moved to the U.S. and ever since I've been living in the state of Maryland. My name is Ali Tarok and I arrived here 13 years ago as a refugee to the U.S. Refugee Mission Program from Iran. My name is Betty Amami and I came to United States in 1982.

I left Iran in 1978. It is very difficult to watch, especially for us in the diaspora because, you know, we're not there. We're not there. We're not in the forefront. You know, we're praying that the men and women of Iran who are opposing this regime get their country back. And at the same time, we just take it day by day and glue to the news channels and social media outlets. I woke up Saturday morning.

I woke up to the news. Definitely at first, it was shocking. It was scary. But then we heard the news that the Supreme Leader was targeted and was killed. That was the start to feel for us. It was like, yeah, basically exhale of like, okay, there's finally some justice. Although I know again that the grievances were very, very valid, very legitimate. I don't see any foreign intervention bringing any better amount of love to Iranian people.

So with worry and sadness and anxiety, I watched the news. And I'm really concerned for the future of Iran politically. But also on a personal level, I'm very concerned. consent for my family and friends. I'm hoping for the ceasefire soon because this war won't benefit anybody, any parties involved. When they started driving a bomb, like we were like so excited. I was happy. I was like my heart was coming out of my chest while I was crying at the same time. I couldn't believe it. You never want your country to be invaded by an outside force. You don't want the innocent lives lost. But in the current situations and what occurred just a few weeks ago with the massacres in the streets,

we realized that the people, our hands are empty against a vicious regime that has no qualms about mass killing of its own people. We can build it again. The damage regime done to Iran is more than whatever the bomb going to do it. On Sunday we had to go to the rally, I was excited to talk to people. It is very important for every single Iranians. We always talk about it. Show Americans who we are. We go to protest.

We want to be seen. We want to be heard. I mean, it's chaos. Just seeing those pictures of these school girls killed in Minab Elementary School. They became very impactful in terms of making diaspora understand what the impact of military intervention would be. I used to be a political activist, and in 2009, after the election, I was arrested. I was in solitary confinement for four months, and later they put me in prison for two years. I don't like the regime. I want them to go, but I learn it's very important how to make changes.

I am against any foreign intervention. It's very hard to see this what happened inside Iran, and my most frustration is on Iranian. diaspora pushing for that war and they sold the war as a good thing. War is top, but everything has a cost, yes. But also, we always look at the daylight after it. We believe on Reza Pallavi. He's father built it on very strong. Since the war started, I pre-prim instead of any scenario's bad news. And today my mom called me and...

They are ready to be killed. And this is the reality. We did witness the result of the invasion of Iraq, for example. And we saw the aftermath for years and years and years. And then we saw what's happened in Afghanistan. So we are definitely worried about the outcome in Iran. Living in these moments, it's really scary. Because, again, I was born in Iran.

I grew up in Iran. I know these people. But you're all hopeful and positive and hoping there will be a light at the end of this tunnel. Well, since its joint attack with the U.S. on Saturday, Israel has faced a wave of drone and missile attacks from Iran and has also come under fire from Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Producer Carl Bostick spoke with Israelis in Tel Aviv today.

And Nick Schiffran brings us their stories. Today in Tel Aviv, Shaked Zayvi and her daughter's neighborhood park is no longer a safe haven. Just behind them, their apartment, windows blackened and gutted by an Iranian missile. Our house got hit, the windows in the kids' room fell. Today is the first day that she and one-and-a-half-year-old Gaia had returned since last weekend's attack. So she hugged her daughter just a little tighter. It's real sad. I'm really sad.

I don't know what we're going to do. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. The deadly fireworks and the sirens are constant. Toddlers understand and inherit their parents' fear, so Zevi tried to turn her daughter's frown upside down. So every time there is a siren going on, she would start repeating it. Wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee. We're trying to do it at home with smiles and musical kind of way.

So she won't be scared. So we would run to the shelter, and she'll laughing and singing, trying to make it more, not as scary. Gaia, at one and a half years old, knows when it's time to go to the shelter. The city is filled with broken windows. Some cleaned up by 18-year-old Israeli-American Ron Schafroni.

He's a volunteer who delayed college in the States after growing up here in Israel. We kind of grew up on this mentality in Israel. where we always got to help each other no matter what happens. And like we're ready for every scenario. Whether it's a rocket or October 7th, we're just all we grow up is the values of going and helping out each other. He cleans up inside people's damaged departments.

He wants to serve in the military, but didn't think he'd end up in the middle of war in the country of his birth. It's really devastating that, I mean, it's my home country. It's my home after all. So I really, I want to leave in peace. But Israel is not. at peace, and for every damaged house is a displaced family. Salam.

Trying to turn a hotel into a makeshift home. Shane Roth greets her grandmother Dorika Israeli. 84-year-old Israeli is older than the State of Israel, but she knows this is a different type of war. Here the wars don't end, and this war is a bit harder than the previous ones. Roth has translated for PBS News Hour and was translating for her grandmother when interrupted by by this city's shattering soundtrack. Yes, it's a lot. Yeah, we need to go.

This is their routine, made normal since October 7th. They walk away to a nearby shelter and to an uncertain future. The sirens are all too routine outside Shiba Hospital, as is outgoing missile defense, hunting incoming Iranian missiles. And in these times of war, this passageway doesn't only lead to a shelter. Because three stories down through reinforced doors is a fully functioning hospital that has 2,000 beds and three operating rooms and has operated almost constantly since last summer's war with Iran. Almost all the activity of Shiba and other hospitals went now underground due to the

different ammunition that we are getting from Iran. Dr. Yuel Har Evin is a vice president at this hospital with thousands of visitors every day and staff that must cope with their own displacements and find their own moments of peace. We don't have time to play. We need to be ready within a few hours and start moving our patients from the upper floors to the basements. That shift also apparent in Dizengov, the city's largest mall, where behind the reinforced door four floors down is now the city's largest shelter.

Four thousand people rushed here just last night, including 12-year-old Eden, 10-year-old Leve and their father, Jeffrey Lubota. We do actually live not far from a bomb shelter, but it means no sleep through the night, up all the time running outside to the bomb shelter and it's crowded, cramped, lots of dogs. So here we can just remain, sleep through the night, have space, and during the day there's a mall above us,

little shopping, little food collecting. A little humor helps and the kids are happy, they don't have to go to school. But for many here, beneath that facade, is pain. I think as a nation, we've got collective trauma. I think it's like something that's kind of on the whole we all have. Sienna, who declined to give her last name, admits she doesn't know when she will feel safe again living above ground. Yeah, I'm processing the possibility.

I might be a four week or two. I might be here for a few months. Who knows, like how time goes on. She and everyone here try to bring some color to the concrete. We learn how to get on with it, but this is not how every day should be. look, we're just trying to find the best in an absolutely horrendous situation. At the end of the day, people are dying, people's homes are getting destroyed. And that means it is not easy as the country wages war, some of its residents, are driven

underground. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Schiffen. Now to our other major story of the day, the first cabinet shakeup of President Trump's second term. This afternoon, the president fired Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Nose, Despite the decision, Nome went ahead with a previously scheduled speech in Nashville, making no mention of her dismissal. She had faced bipartisan criticism in recent months over the agency's handling of the immigration crackdown, delays in emergency response, and a $220 million ad campaign in which she was prominently featured.

President Trump says he has created a new role for her called Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. He also announced his choice to replace Nome. That's Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma. Lisa Desjardin is here with more. So Lisa, what was the breaking point? As you say, Nome had been under increased scrutiny because of the ice crackdown in American cities and the documented deaths of Americans

and violent detentions that were on videotape. Now, it does seem, however, that really the breaking point was testimony this week and that $220 million ad campaign that you mentioned, which prominently featured her. Some of our viewers have seen that footage before. And that ouster really came, especially during a key moment that I saw and our viewers saw when we reported on this, when Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana questioned her about this.

The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently. Yes, sir, we went through the legal processes. Did it correct? No, you're going to do this? Yes. He did. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Senator Ketty told me he spoke with President Trump that night and that Trump not only denied what Christy Noem had said, but he was sharply angry about it. So how did Senator Mullen get to become the nominee? As I understand it, the president likes watching him on television. Right. Mullen is well-liked by the president, and he has friends in the cabinet, Secretary's Rubio and Hague Seth, for example, as well. He's known as loyal. He's good on television. seeming to the president seems to think that.

But what's interesting here, Jeff, is that Senator Mullen told us today that he found out about this nomination barely a moment before we did, before the president announced it himself. He said, quote to us, that it was a little bit of a surprise for us. He said he hadn't even had the chance to call Secretary Nome or his wife yet. He was already talking to the press, hadn't called either of them. He did praise Nome, but he said he's going to look for ways to improve. are always lessons that we learned. You know, listen, my wife and I, we have, over the years,

we have been fortunate enough to purchase companies and grow our companies, and every day, there's something you can do better. And so I think there's an opportunity to build off successes, and there's also opportunities to build off things that maybe didn't go quite as planned. If confirmed, Mullen Wood had one of the largest agencies in terms of personnel. Of course, it is also in a shutdown. There's also political stakes here. As you know, Republicans have been on a rock slide on what used to be one of the... their best issues, immigration. So tell us more about him and what his leadership, if confirmed, would mean for DHS.

It's an interesting man. Let's take a look at his biography, first of all. Mullen is a lifelong Oklahoma, and he's a businessman, I own a family plumbing business, as well as real estate and a farm or ranch. He was elected to the House in 2012 and the Senate 10 years later. He searched on several committees. The most prominent ones are Senate Armed Armed Services and Appropriations. Mullen is also a member of the Cherokee Nation. He has a big personality. He walks the halls, bouncing a rubber ball, almost like Steve McQueen style. He also is, people are wondering what he would mean as a secretary. It's not clear yet. We don't know what his Homeland Security experience is exactly. He indicated that it's Trump's

policy that he won't force that. But I want to raise just last month, he was in on a conservative radio talk show. And he said he's open to some kind of legal status for DACA recipients or folks who are undocumented and came here more than 10 years ago. We used the caveat earlier, if confirmed. I guess I'll ask the question. Is he someone who can get confirmed? The assumption right now is yes. Senators always have a leg up when they go up for confirmation, even more when you're a Republican. You need just 50 votes right now for confirmation as a cabinet secretary. There are 53 Republicans. Democrat John Federman of Pennsylvania already says he is a yes. Now, other Democrats say they're hoping that perhaps this could help them

in DHS negotiations about the shutdown, but they don't think that he will change policy. This is Trump's policy. When ace he has in his pocket, Jeff, he can't vote for himself. Senators have that ability on the Senate floor. It's unusual, but it is allowed. Lisa Dezraudan, our thanks to you as always. You're welcome. In the day's other headlines, a group of more than 20 states is suing the Trump administration

over its planned 15% global tariff saying the president is overstepping his power. The lawsuit is led by the Democratic Attorneys General from Oregon, New York, California, and Arizona. They argue that the president cannot, quote, sidestep the Supreme Court after the justices struck down the president's original slate of tariffs. It comes a day after a federal judge ruled that companies who paid tariffs before the Supreme Court's decision should be refunded. The Trump administration is likely to appeal that ruling. Defense Secretary Pete Higgs-eth told Latin American countries today to step up their fight a decision. against drug cartels or the U.S. would, in his words, go on the offense alone. Hegset was speaking to military officials from more than a dozen governments at what the Pentagon

called the first America's counter-cartel conference. He also said a failure to act could threaten their shared Christian heritage. His comments were echoed by Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who compared the fight against cartels to past battles against Islamic extremist groups. The cartels that operate in this hemisphere are the ISIS and the Al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere and should be treated just as brutally and just as ruthlessly as we treat those organizations. Today's meeting comes after months of U.S. military strikes on suspected drug boats in the region that have killed at least 150 people. President Trump is due to host a group of Latin American leaders for a security summit at his Florida golf club this weekend. Meanwhile,

While in Cuba, officials say Washington's oil blockade of the island is at least partly to blame for a widespread blackout that left millions in the dark. Musicians played on darkened streets by Havana's famous seawall as locals were forced to play dominoes by the glow of a rechargeable light bulb. Crews have been working day and night to restore power, and state media reported today just over half of Havana is back online. But for those enduring yet another outage, the frustration and anger are growing. Bad. I'm bad. I'm bad. I don't have words to describe what I'm going through. Heat, mosquitoes, and no electricity. The food could go bad. I know all the problems there are, but it's been more than 24 hours now. Cuba has long struggled with an aging electric grid, and the Trump administration's blockade of the island

has only made matters worse for locals. Officials warn it could take up to four days to fully restore power. Turning now to the war in Ukraine, 200 Ukrainians returned home today, as did 200 Russians in the latest prisoner swap between the two countries. In Ukraine, there were tearful reunions. Some of the freed prisoners were captured as early as 2022 during the siege of Mariupil. That's according to President. President Lothemir Zelensky, who also thanked the U.S. for, quote, making the exchange possible.

Negotiations to end the war remain at a standstill, but Kiev and Moscow have regularly agreed to swaps like this. Officials say another one could come tomorrow. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says more than 50 medical schools have agreed to teach more about nutrition after pressuring universities to embrace his recommendations for months. He made the announcement today, alongside Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Kennedy said the schools will now require 40 hours of what he called comprehensive nutrition education. More than 30,000 physicians each year will now graduate equipped with nutrition education to help prevent, treat, and reverse chronic disease. This is how we implement the MAA agenda.

Kennedy and McMahon insisted the initiative was not a mandate, but some universities have, have expressed concern about federal interference. And it comes, as Kennedy has been pivoting away from talking about his controversial push to overhaul vaccine policy and focusing more on food and nutrition. On Wall Street today, stocks sank after the price of oil spiked to levels not seen since 2024.

By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 800 points. The NASDAQ fell around 60 points. The S&P 500 also ended the session lower. This is the Pee. BBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. And we'll be back shortly for a conversation with the former CEO of Goldman Sachs about today's economic concerns and his new book. But first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.

It's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like the News Hour on the air. For those of you staying with us, the private space industry is booming, and smaller startups are beginning to make a name for themselves as well. Well, our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, has this encore story of one company in New Zealand that's catching some attention of its own. All right, Michael, what's this room called? So this is the Mission Control Center. Another day, another pair of launches on tap for the world's second most frequent flyer to space after SpaceX, Rocket Lab. Launch director Michael Pearson showed me their mission control room for the rocket they call Electrolet. It's ramping up and up. So last year we did 16 launches. This year we're doing 20 or so.

We will continue to accelerate that and, you know, before long we'll be doing one a week, maybe more. Brisk, but still well short of the record-setting pace set by SpaceX. Elon Musk's company has logged more than 160 Falcon 9 launches this year. Starlink deploy confirmed. Most of them to deploy its Starlink Internet Constellation. internet constellation. With SpaceX, they have unlimited money and limited people, right? We've had to be a bit more scrappy.

Scrappy. It reflects the culture of its country of origin, New Zealand, and its CEO, Peter Beck, a rocket company founder who didn't begin with billion-dollar deep pockets. Beck grew up in a small town in southern New Zealand, telling anyone who would listen that he wanted to build rockets. Imagine there was some skepticism. That's an understatement. There was no trotten or obvious pathway.

Had to start from zero and build it up, growing this company in adversity. He founded the company in 2006. His second hire was Sean O'Donnell, now the chief engineer special projects. So this facility is called APC, our Auckland Production Complex. Oh, that crunch flow through here, right? That's right, yeah. The final assembly and testing, or... happens here.

He gave me a tour of their bustling rocket factory. We designed this facility to be able to build one electron launch vehicle a week. He took me to the Power Pack, which houses nine Rutherford engines. They are 3D printed so they can be manufactured faster at scale, the first of their kind to reach orbit. The rocket itself is the first orbital vehicle made entirely from carbon composite materials. So very lightweight construction, which differs from a lot of rockets which are made out of aluminum. Electron has enjoyed a long run of smooth sailing off the launch pad.

74 successful missions out of 78 attempts, a 95 percent reliability rate in an inherently risky business. The main purpose of the fairing is to protect the payload. O'Donnell took me to the faring, the pointy end of the rocket. Electron is built to deliver small payloads, weighing no more than about 660 pounds to low Earth orbit. It may not look like much, but the miniaturization of electronics and sensors has dramatically shrunk satellites. Rocket Lab has carved out a near monopoly in launching small communications, earth imaging, and sensing platforms for private customers, NASA, and national security agencies. Rocket Lab is getting bigger with a holistic approach to space.

It launched NASA's Capstone mission to the moon, built the satellites for the Escapade mission to Mars, and is planning a privately funded mission to Venus. Beck's goal? To be an end-to-end player in space. You're able to build a satellite using your own components, launch the satellite on your own rocket, and operate the satellite in orbit.

So for us, this is where we've been driving methodically. to go. But to get there, they need a bigger rocket. And that is what they're building right now. It's called Neutron. So at this point, you have a basic design, but the design work doesn't end. Is that the idea? The design really never ends.

Sean DeMello is the vice president in charge of the Neutron program. The rocket is designed to deliver nearly 29,000 pounds of payload to low Earth orbit, 40 times more than electron. This right now is a missing piece for Rocket Lab, isn't it? Yeah, it's quite literally the big piece, one of the big pieces of the puzzle here. It closes that loop on being end-to-end. It's not as large as SpaceX's Falcon 9, which can carry about 50,000 pounds to orbit. But Neutron would put Rocket Lab in the same league. There is a pretty significant demand for launch right now.

There's only a handful of launch vehicles available. Basically have Falcon 9 launching at a high rate and the market's looking for more alternatives. Launch historically is a hard place to make money. I think this is going to be a challenging trip. Carissa Christensen is founder and CEO of Bryce Tech, a space and defense consulting firm. Rocket Labs' timing is opportune. What we're seeing now is the result of about a decade of investment by venture, capital firms and super angel billionaires that's led to an unprecedented growth in the number of companies,

growth in the number of launches, growth in the number of satellites. We're at a moment where we're waiting to see if the revenues catch up with the investment. The global space economy is now more than $600 billion annually, with nearly 80 percent driven by commercial providers. That momentum was underscored recently by Blue Origin's success. a successful debut of its long-awaited new Glenn rocket, signaling growing competition beyond SpaceX. You want to beat SpaceX? No, I don't see it about beating SpaceX.

The definition of success here for me is building like this long-living, multi-generational space company that just keeps having impact year after year after year after year. The company hopes Neutron will arrive on its launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, quarter of 2026. It aims to launch soon after that. The space economy is looking up. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Miles O'Brien in Auckland, New Zealand. The markets had their worst day today

since the war in Iran began, and oil prices saw another big jump. I spoke about the broader concerns around these latest events yesterday with Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. He's also the author of a new book called Streetwise, Getting To and Through Goldman Sachs. And I began by asking him about the potential economic impact of the war in Iran. Generally, these kind of geopolitical events, as long as they're not long in duration and no big surprises, they generally don't affect markets other than in the short term. What would be a problem that would affect the longer term, I suppose, if the closing Straits of Hermuz, oil prices stayed up that would feed into inflation and that would, you know, create other kinds

of dislocation. I personally don't expect that, but as somebody in the risk management business, I would be prepared for those eventualities. It's certainly possible and certainly a concern. So there's a lot of worries, but everything could actually work out. If it's a shorter conflict, you're saying. If it's a shorter conflict, well, if it's a long conflict, but it doesn't, but there's no great effect. We're not dealing in a part of the world that's a really big part of the global economy other than the fact that it sources a lot of energy. There are so many wonderful insights in your book

about you navigating both good times and really tough times running Goldman Sachs, and you've talked to about how everything has cycles. And you said something about how we're getting close to the end of the late stages of this, meaning the good market cycles were due for a kind of reckoning. That caught my attention. Are you worried about a recession?

One has to, but I would say my base case is that things are going pretty well. For example, you know, GDP is pretty good. We have inflation is getting under control. It's not where exactly the Fed would like it, but kind of almost where we'd like it. Into a world where employment's very good, growth is pretty good, always concerns.

Inflation, a concern, but pretty tame. Into this pretty good market, pretty good economy, we are probably going to lower rates. For sure, we're going to lower rates. it's a question of how much and when. And we have a lot of fiscal stimulus coming in. The big, beautiful bill, or whatever you like to call it, has to come. And by the way, there's stimulus owing to big expenditures by the hyper-scalers who are investing in AI.

And AI itself is kind of stimulative if it creates more productivity. So I'd say all the signs are good. And usually when all the signs are this good, I really worry. You write in the book about growing up in East New York, in Brooklyn, about growing up in the projects there, about your very humble beginnings. And you talk about how that kid from Brooklyn is always kind of in you, whichever room that you're in. And I wanted to ask you about another tough time that I know you helped to navigate at Goldman Sachs, which was the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

And there was a sense that the crisis ended with financial institutions being bailed out. And homeowners, who ended up in foreclosure, not being helped. And there was a sense of sort of unfairness to it all, right? People who were still very much reckoning. with that. I think that's a major contribution to the polarization we feel to this day. Well, I want to ask you more about that too, but in terms of that kid from Brooklyn, when you're in that room, does that sense of unfairness speak to you? Do you get why people saw that as unfair? Sure. And I understand why it happened. And again, not to challenge the predicate about bailouts and who got helped and who got that and, you know, all these institutions were all different from each other. Yeah.

But certainly, we had a financial bubble. Individuals were buying houses they couldn't afford and multiple houses making investment. There was a relaxation of discipline. It felt like to people that trees were growing to the skies. Certainly, it's between consumers and retail and the financial institutions themselves, the government should want to help out the individuals

and the people and let the big institutions fend for themselves. But we were into a research. and a banking crisis. The government never wanted to bail out or even help the banks. The problem with a banking crisis is that the banks themselves, when they get money, they have to husband it. They have to restore their reserves. And unless you put the banking system in better shape,

you weren't going to be able to do anything for the real economy. And that's really what happens. And unfortunately, one of the consequences of that was to disproportionately help what people would have regarded as less deserving financial institutions, institutions at the expense of the general public. And that's a situation that pertain, you know, that we're still wrestling with this today more than 15 years later.

Yeah, and that people are very much still grappling with, right, in terms of digging out of financial goals. And it bears out. We just talked about the tailwind that we have in the economy. That has been very good for people with assets because assets have been going up in value. Assets including stock, one form of assets, but all assets has been going up in value. But if you're part of the economy that doesn't have assets, assets, you haven't been participating.

And so the gap between the people with assets and the people without assets have widened out. And again, there's the polarization. So you can ask two people to comment about the economy. One will say it's fantastic. And another one to say, what are you talking about? Fantastic. I'm barely scraping by. Both are right.

Because we really do have a bifurcated economy at this point. And you do posit this question in the book that we not lived through that crisis. we may not have had as polarized society and maybe would not have elected Donald Trump. You really believe that? Well, I don't know. There's other thing. You know, you take one path,

you never know what would have been the other. I would say it is a contributor to the overall malaise that we seem to have. There is this expectation of additional rate cuts coming from the Fed. And we've also seen this president really assail the Federal Reserve and go after Chairman Jay Powell in a very personal way.

He's made clear he really wants to exert more political pressure on the institution to see the policy he wants to see in place. I believe you know Kevin Warsh, right, his nominee to replace Powell in May. What is Warsh up against in this role? How would you guide him in this moment? Did he could give him advice? He's a big, he can guide him. He's very capable, very capable.

Are you worried about the political pressure he'll face? Oh, yes. Those are two different things. So let me just say, I think it's absolutely crazy to be assaulting the Fed. It does no good. Look, we are a debtor country. We need creditors to finance our deficits by our treasury. If people think you're going to default, they're either not going to lend to you or they're going to charge a higher interest rate.

Now, you may think, how could the U.S. default? We borrow in dollars and we print dollars. How could we default? The way the U.S. can default is by inflating our... currency, inflating the dollar, ruining the purchasing power of our currency. That's how the United States default. Who protects our creditors against the default, against the U.S. inflating its currency to the point where it loses its purchasing power?

That's the Fed. By attacking the independence of the Fed, by going at the Fed, you're telegraphing to your creditors that, you know, they may not be protected, that the dollars that they lend to you, that they hope to get back in 10 years won't be worth what they thought it was worth. So maybe they won't lend to us at the current rate. So I just think it's very, very bad practice to undermine the independence of the Fed because it's not just the Federal Reserve who hears that you're doing that. It's the people who lend to us that are hearing that you're doing that.

Lloyd Blank Fine. Former CEO of Goldman Sachs and now author of Streetwise, getting to and through Goldman Sachs. Thank you so much for being here. much Omna. Join us again tomorrow night for the analysis of the week's headlines with David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Navazz. On behalf of the entire News Hour team, thank you for joining us.