PBS News Hour - Full Show - November 11, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Tuesday on the News Hour, the deal to end the longest government shutdown in history now sits in the hands of the House. A prominent conservative judge resigns to protest what he calls President Trump's "assault on the rule of law." Plus, our Rethinking College series explores how universities are trying to navigate unprecedented demands from the Trump administration. 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 deal to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history now sits in the hands of the House of Representatives. A prominent conservative judge resigns to protest what he calls President Trump's assault on the rule of law. This president repeatedly, overtly, directs the Department of Justice to prosecute his perceived. political enemies. And our series, Rethinking College, explores how universities are trying to navigate unprecedented demands from the Trump administration. Welcome to the news hour. The longest ever U.S. government shutdown is on the verge of ending, but not for at least one more day.

And while a deal to reopen the government passed the Senate last night, there are still plenty of questions about what comes next. Let's turn now to congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin. All right, Lisa Dee, what is the latest? Okay, as we speak, members of the House of Representatives are making their way by plane, car, one by motorcycle, because they expect to vote on this deal tomorrow. And part of that, there will be one new member in the House of Representatives that is Adelita Grohalva. She is the elected representative from Arizona who has not been sworn in. Speaker Johnson has refused to swear her in the Democrat over the shutdown. That's a bigger story, but it will affect the voting tomorrow.

Now the House, let's look at exactly what the situation is. 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats is what will be in place. Republicans, therefore, can just spare two votes in order to get this shutdown bill through without help. Democratic leaders don't want to give them that help. They are telling Democrats to vote no. So this will be close. A reminder, the House tomorrow will be the first time it has met in 53 days. That is almost a modern record.

At the same time, the country is still feeling this shutdown. Today, for example, we know there are some 1,200 flights canceled, thousands more were delayed. Air traffic controllers today missing their second paycheck, full paycheck. Overall, Jeff, 3 million paychecks have gone missing during this shutdown. it has been unprecedented and not just in length, but also breadth. And we've just learned the Supreme Court has extended the judge's order allowing the Trump administration not to fully fund those SNAP benefits, those food stamp benefits. So you've read through this bill, the entirety of it.

What else does it say? Okay, a few things. One thing that stuck out is those mass layoffs that the administration put into place during the shutdown. They must be reversed within five days, the bill says. So very quickly. Now, other things, there's a tremendous amount of spending in this bill on security, especially for members of Congress and officials. Upwards of $400 million, members of Congress themselves,

each office will get a million dollars or more depending on the office for their personal security. The Supreme Court also getting security in this. One other thing I want to point out, the hemp industry, I mentioned this last night. There was an attempt to reverse this, but the final bill does contain a ban on unregulated hemp with THC in it. That industry says that will crush it. So we have to see what economic effect that has, but that's something that looks like it's going to go through. And what's all this mean for the health care debate, the Affordable Care Act subsidies? Yeah, there's a lot to say there. There are early talks underway already.

One person to watch is New Hampshire Senator Gene Sheehan. She's one of those Democrats who voted to end the shutdown. Now, she's having early talks. They're just looking at options. The question is, which Republicans are truly open to talking to them? I have spoken to some Republicans who say we really do want to get to something by December. They, of course, want to change the entire system. There is a chance for dialogue in the Senate, in the House. We don't know if anything can move. Speaker Johnson has refused to say he'll even hold a vote on health care. So we'll watch that closely.

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history. What emerging lessons are there for lawmakers both practically and politically? One thing we've had is a lot of time to think about this shutdown, right? I'm not sure our lawmakers are thinking about it in quite this same way. But it's significant, not just in its length, but also because of the troubling trend. I looked at all the recent past shutdowns. So look at this. Notice something about the shutdowns we've been seeing.

They have been happening in clusters one or two at a time, and they have been growing. That one on the end is the current one of 43 days. And I raise this because, of course, this shutdown solution means there will be another need in January, another time when Democrats, if they are not happy on health care, could threaten a shutdown again. And we've seen this trend. Why does that matter even more? There's a deeper problem here, a lack of leadership in some ways, and also a vacuum where Congress has been giving away its power. We see these men and women who've been elected to legislate, trying to legislate by blocking the one power they have to fund government.

It's really an issue of balance of power and favoring the executive. Lisa Deirdan, thanks to you as always. You're welcome. The day's other headlines start with a small-town newspaper and a big legal victory. The editor of the Marion County record in Kansas says the county government will pay $3 million and will formally apologize for a raid on the paper back in 2023. Police raided their offices as part of an investigation into whether the paper committed identity theft and illegally accessed information in reporting a story, which it denied. The incident

sparked an outcry over press freedom, and prosecutors later concluded no crime was committed by the paper's publisher or its staff. Democrats in Congress are celebrating news from Utah, where a judge adopted a new electoral map that will create a Democratic-leaning district. Judge Diana Gibson rejected a proposal from Republicans, who currently hold all four of the state's U.S. House seats, saying their map, quote, unduly favors Republicans. Instead, the new map will keep Salt Lake County almost entirely within one district rather than it being split into four. The result gives Democrats a chance to pick up a seat in next year's midterm elections as they try to counter Republican redistricting efforts in states like Texas, Missouri, and elsewhere.

The Justice Department says it will investigate security at UC Berkeley after protests outside a Turning Point USA event last night led to several arrests. Turningpoint posted this video from the scene, comparing it to a war zone and claiming that an Antifa member lit a flare in the crowd. Police made at least four arrests, though some of those were off campus. The head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division posted that her agency sees, quote, several issues of serious concern regarding campus and local security. Yesterday's Turning Point event was its last stop on a nationwide college tour following the group's co-founder Charlie Kirk being killed in September. In Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, a suicide bomber targeted a district court,

killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more. Hundreds of people attending court hearings fled from the site of the blast. A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban initially claimed responsibility, but soon after, its commander, denied the claims. Pakistan's interior minister, Mosin Nakhvi, says the police discovered remains belonging to the alleged attacker and that the suspect was captured on CCTV footage before the explosion. We are treating the injured in hospitals and our teams are there to give them the best available facilities. The suspect stood there for 15 minutes. He even tried to enter the court premises,

but failing to do so targeted a police vehicle. Nakhvi also alleged that the attack was carried out by, quote, Indian-backed elements and Afghan Taliban proxies but did not provide evidence. Tensions remain high between Pakistan and Afghanistan as recent peace talks are stalled. Meanwhile, in India, a deadly car explosion in New Delhi is being investigated under an anti-terrorism law, giving authorities broader powers to detain suspects. The attack occurred near the historic Red Fort in a densely populated area, killing at least eight people and injuring several others.

Police believe the blast originated from a car at a traffic stop. They're trying to trace its owner. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on a visit to Bhutan, called the blast a conspiracy, saying those responsible will not be spared. Back in this country, organic baby formula maker by heart is now recalling all of its products nationwide days after some of its batches were pulled over links to infant botulism. At least 15 babies in 12 states have been hospitalized since August after consuming the company's powdered formula.

According to the CDC, all infants were less. than six months old and no fatalities have been reported. Infant botulism is caused by a type of bacteria that produces a toxin in the large intestine. It can lead to serious illness and even paralysis. Parents are urged to seek medical help immediately. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed amid ongoing worries about an AI bubble. The Dow Jones Industrial average surged more than 500 points to a new all-time high. The NASDAQ lost ground, slipping about 60 points. The S&P 500 posted a modest game. And President Trump led tributes to the nation's veterans today at Arlington National Cemetery.

Present! The president laid a wreath alongside Vice President J.D. Vance and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins. Trump then delivered remarks that touched on political themes, and he restated his commitment to calling the occasion Victory Day. The holiday marks the end of World War I and is celebrated in some other countries as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. French President Emmanuel Macron marked the occasion at the Arc de Triumph in Paris, and Britain's Queen Camilla led a service at Paddington Station in London. Still to come, on the news hour, President Trump considers giving Americans tariff dividends,

but does the math add up? The BBC comes under legal scrutiny over an edit of Trump's speech on January 6th, and a look back on the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, in Lake Superior 50 years on. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubinstein studio at W.E.A. in Washington and in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

Mark Wolf, a Reagan-appointed federal judge, is resigning after four decades on the bench, and he's sounding the alarm. In an essay published by The Atlantic this week, He wrote, quote, the White House's assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence for me is now intolerable. Judge Wolfe shared additional context and more of his concerns when I spoke with him earlier today. Judge Wolf, welcome to the News Hour.

Thank you for joining us. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and with some of the American people. I should say you have spent 50 years with the Department of Justice and on the bench. you have seen a lot of presidents come and go. What is so worrying about this moment and this president that made you want to speak out? Well, I think this president is unique and uniquely dangerous. When a new president is elected, he or she is entitled to set priorities for the Department of Justice. But we have an ideal that's crucial to me and many others of equal justice under law. And this president repeatedly, overtly, directs the Department of Justice to prosecute

his perceived political enemies at the same time that the Department of Justice is not investigating possible corruption by people close to the president and people who are doing things to profit the president and his family. So that's utterly inconsistent. with, as I said, this fundamental principle of equal justice under law, to which I've dedicated my professional life for 50 years, and it's personal to me. It's deeply disturbing. So from your time in the Department of Justice during Watergate, you've seen presidents push the limits of power. You also seen the guardrails hold. Why are you worried that they won't hold now? Well, I'm worried in part because I think all of the abuse that's been showered on the courts and the judges

is causing people to lose confidence in the integrity and the impartiality of the judicial process. When the Supreme Court ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the tapes he made secretly in the Oval Office that had incriminating information about him and his close colleagues, he understood that he had to obey that order because the American people would not tolerate disobedience, and he would have been impeached and removed. I'm not sure. I'm not confident that that would occur today,

because when judges, like my colleagues, rule against the president, he says that they're corrupt and they should be impeached. And the judges are not in a position to respond except by continuing to do their work with integrity and impartially. But I'm afraid that that's not a message that's getting to the American people. From your conversations with your fellow judges, do others share these concerns? How widely held is this concern? We don't discuss particular cases, but I would say that,

this concern is widely held. The judges work hard. The criticism from the president, I believe, doesn't influence the way any cases are being decided by any judge that I know. We, or now they, do their work and hope it speaks for itself. But it is disturbing to be called crooked, not because it hurts your feelings, but because when that doesn't get answered, many people might think you really are crooked. And indeed, the president's vitriolic comments have coincided with threats of harm, death threats, among others, to many federal judges. And people are genuinely concerned, judges are genuinely concerned about that and concerned for their families and the anxiety this is causing their families. Oh, it's also true. As you know,

Judge, that the president's been known to publicly go after his critics. You are now giving national interviews criticizing him. Have you thought about what happens or are you worried that he might come after you? I recognize there's a risk of that. And I'm 79 years old. I've been threatened at times in my career. But I've had a very meaningful life, a fulfilling life. If I may get personal, I'll say my grandmother crossed a rusher in a covered wagon as a teenage orphan. My father, in the Great Depression, was admitted to Harvard, couldn't afford to go. I've had an excellent education. I've had very meaningful opportunities for fulfilling public service. I would like my grandchildren and everybody's grandchildren, to have similar opportunities for life,

liberty and the pursuit of happiness as they define it that I've had. And I certainly hope that neither I nor anybody close to me is harmed because of what I'm doing. But I do really think that we shouldn't be intimidated. And if there's the opportunity to contribute, because I don't expect I'm going to make a difference myself. But if I can contribute working with others, including others who urge me to leave the bench and join them in this effort to protect our rule of law and our democracy that's long made the United States, the world's best hope, I feel compelled to try to contribute to that, despite the foreseeable risks. Judge, you've said that you believe democracy is in peril here. And a lot of folks will

see that as hyperbole. They will say, look, we have a duly elected president. Any challenges to his policies are making their way through the courts. The administration says that they abide by the rule of law and that they abide by judges' orders. For people who are not necessarily worried about democracy day to day, what's at stake here? First of all, the president may say that all court orders are being faithfully obeyed. A responsible media report that, it appears that many of them are not being obeyed or properly obeyed. And basically, democracy is the rule of law. And if court orders are disobeyed, then the president has absolute power.

Judges don't have armies to enforce their orders. They rely on the support of the American people who want to live in a true democracy. If they want to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as they define it, then I think you need courts that will hold elected officials to the limits of the power delegated to them from the people. That's the promise of the Declaration of Independence, and particularly the Constitution. We the people have delegated some power to elected officials, including the presidents, and the responsibility of the courts, in part, is to hold those officials to the limits of that delegated power.

Otherwise, we're going to live in the kind of autocracy that I've seen around the world where people are oppressed because there's no restraint on the elected officials. That is, retired federal judge, Mark Wolfe, joining us tonight. Judge Wolf, thank you for your time. It's good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has moved to reshape higher education, cutting off funding, and issuing a series of executive orders targeting diversity programs, transgender rights, and how universities handle investigations into anti-Semitism. While some schools have reached settlements with the administration, others are navigating the academic year squarely in the federal government's crosshairs, including the University of California, Los Angeles, where Stephanie Sye reports for our series, Rethinking College.

Students can work in any department within the UCLA system. During the first days of the fall quarter, undergraduates, including many freshmen, get advice on applying to join one of the hundreds of research labs at the university. University of California, Los Angeles. When you reach out to faculty, CC their grad students and their lab managers. Amy Thann is a PhD student and mentor with the undergraduate research center at UCLA. You can see from the students that leave these talks, they're so enthusiastic. It's like everything's in flux, I think. That's the vibe.

In flux. The Trump administration's freezing of nearly $600 million in federal grants has cast a cloud of uncertainty over one of the nation's most prestigious public research universities. The penalty for what the administration says was a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students was announced over the summer. Some of these schools are getting billions and billions of dollars, and they misbehave. So that's it. So one way or the other, we're going to win that whole thing.

Now funding disruptions could trickle down at UCLA, including to many of the 4,000 undergrads involved in research labs here. UCLA is such a big campus and I believe it's really important to the state of California. Hopefully it's not too impacted. It's a little concerning about whether labs are going to take as many students as they were before. We're being punished for things that aren't related to science. Danny Nguyen is a fourth-year undergrad who works in a lab studying the way emotions influence

memory. Does it worry you that there may be fewer positions and fewer opportunities if these grant cuts are to go through? Yeah, the importance of having lucrative grants is that we're able to subsidize our PhD students, our graduate students, but also the train the next wave of graduate students at the undergraduate level. In September, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze most of the suspended grants, but with litigation ongoing and federal officials demanding more than one billion dollars. University leaders say they're facing one of the gravest threats ever to the UC system. We are being faced with what I can only think of as a kind of mafia-style shakedown of $1.2 billion.

David Myers is a professor of Jewish history at UCLA. In August, he co-authored an open letter on behalf of many Jews at the university, calling the administration's demands misguided and punitive. I think there's actually a very wide consensus in the Jewish community. The notion that stripping UCLA of research funding in the medical and health fields will in some way help with the struggle against anti-Semitism is delusional. In the wake of large and sometimes violent confrontations in the spring of 2024, the university created new guidelines on protests and established an initiative to combat anti-Semitism.

And in July, it settled a lawsuit with Jewish students and a professor who argued protesters violated their civil rights. If this, as you call it, mafia-style shakedown succeeds, what will it mean for this institution, for academia, for this country? I think it will mean the end of the golden age of higher education. in the United States. Universities and colleges have been gateways of opportunity for so many people. So I think it is an extremely ominous moment.

The moment is reverberating among students on campus. From my freshman year to when Trump was elected, I think a lot of us kind of walk around, like, hesitant. Like, we don't know where we stand in higher education. It's just very scary times. Malia Frazier is chairperson of the African students, Union at UCLA. She sees the attack on science funding as just one part of a broader shift in higher ed policy, including Trump's termination of diversity, equity, and inclusion

initiatives. I kind of worry that students that look like me kind of won't be, won't feel like they deserve or really know what higher education is or like know that they can also go to college or they belong on universities too. At UCLA, Malia says the school is scrutinizing long-running peer counseling programs for marginalized communities. I ended all of the lawless, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion bull-bush. More than 400 college campuses in 47 states have already made reforms, from closing DEI offices and student centers to ending or revising criteria for race-based scholarships. The Trump administration has also intensified investigations under Title VI

of the Civil Rights Act, alleging failure to combat anti-Semitism and claiming diversity initiatives are discriminatory. Linda McMahon is the Secretary of Education. Our goal is really not to be punitive necessarily, but to have universities. I think return to what we all believe that universities really started out to being. It is a place for truth seekers. It is a place for open debate, sharing of ideas of learning. My hours got cut, salary got cut in half. David Gonzalez studies the health effects of pollution and wildfire smoke in a lab at UCLA. In April, his National Institutes of Health Grant was canceled in a purge of diversity-focused

initiatives. That grant was restored in a court case, only to be frozen again in the broader cuts announced this summer and restored again by a judge. Got the, sorry to inform you, you don't have this anymore message twice. Gonzalez graduated from undergrad, completed his PhD and his postdoc at UCLA. He worries that those opportunities may be closing for those coming behind him. I didn't really come from a family where I knew what a PhD route was, right? And what was great about UCLA is there was a lot of faculty here that would encourage, hey, as an undergrad, these are things you can do, you can do research.

I think that the availability of more senior researchers, like graduate students and postdocs, take on undergrads and mentor them is what's going to suffer. And that is kind of a linchpin in that process. Second year student, Jaya Booz Jackson, worries about the university's future. You can look inward and you can see like this is any other college campus. You know, we have kids walking around, getting classes, getting their coffee. But I think internally there's a lot grappling with. What is the university going to look like a couple months from now?

Jaya signed a letter with other student leaders across the state. urging UC officials not to cut a deal with the administration. Trump's demands include not only $1 billion in fines, but assurances that UCLA will not admit foreign students who are likely to be, quote, anti-Western, allow an outside monitor and ban transgender students from women's sports. UCLA needs to have, retain their backbone and not settle at all. For history professor David Myers,

the notion that science is a public good is at stake. And he worries, maybe even more. How far off is the day when someone will be reviewing my syllabus and telling me this reading is permitted, that's not? When I thought of it over the last couple of weeks, it did not seem to be a distant fantasy. It seemed like that could be realized in the next two or three years, especially if a settlement is struck.

Others have already settled. And what the University of California does or does not agree to could have impacts far beyond UCLA's campus. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sci in Los Angeles. President Trump doubled down this week on an idea to send $2,000. rebate checks to tens of millions of Americans. He floated the notion this weekend and has offered no specifics. But the president suggested that the government could send that money to low and middle income Americans and still have enough tariff revenue left to make a dent in the national

debt. Most experts say that that math doesn't add up. To help us get some clarity on the numbers, we're joined now by Erica York. She's vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation. Erica, welcome to the NewsHour. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So let's begin with those tariffs.

The White House said back in September, the tariffs had raised $8 trillion in revenue. But yesterday, the president cited some different figures. Here's what he had to say in the Oval Office. This is trillions of dollars we're talking about in terms of the tariff income and all the investment income that's come into our country. You know, we have more than, I would say right now, more than $18 trillion. Erica, do those figures line up with any data you've been able to see? No, the Treasury Department has reported that through September, all tariffs have raised about

$195 billion for the federal government. That, of course, includes preexisting tariffs as well as the new tariffs that the president has imposed this year. If you break it down further using data from CBP, those new tariffs have generated about $117 billion of collections for the Treasury. Those numbers are way off from what we're hearing from the President and White House Do you know where their figures are coming from or what they're based on? I'm not entirely sure. They are very high compared to the actual revenues that we've seen come in. They're high even compared to projections of revenues over the next decade.

At Tax Foundation, we estimate that all the tariffs will raise about $2.4 trillion over the coming decade. So still a mismatch there. I think part of what explains the difference is that the price. president is pre-counting things that are very separate from tariff revenues, pre-counting promises of investments made by foreign countries. So we've heard of these investment pledges that, you know, a country might invest $100 billion or $300 billion into the U.S. economy. That, of course, would be private sector investment very different from tax collections that flow

to Treasury. And I know you and your colleagues have looked into the impact of those tariffs on Americans. What have you found? We have found that the tariffs are a net negative for the U.S. economy, so we estimate overall the economy will shrink by about 0.6% if the tariffs remain in place. There will be more than 600,000 fewer full-time jobs. And the tariffs add up to a tax burden on U.S. households of an average of between $1,200 and $1,600. So whether that is experienced through higher prices that we have to pay at the store or whether, it's experienced through higher costs at businesses dragging down hiring and dragging down wage growth, the real burden lies with American taxpayers. And we know some of that seems to be fueling this conversation around affordability and this proposal of these $2,000 checks that the president is talking about. Take a listen to how we framed that yesterday in the Oval.

We're going to issue a dividend to our middle income people and lower income people of about $2,000. And we're going to use the remaining tariffs to lower our debt. Erica, is a plan like that realistic, and do we have any idea how much something like that would cost? It doesn't seem like it adds up. So we don't know exactly who would qualify for these checks, but if it would be something similar to the COVID relief payments, the minimum cost would be about $300 billion. That would be if the cutoff was set at $100,000, and all adults making under that amount got a $2,000 check, it would cost about $300 billion. You could easily see the cost go up from there

if children qualify, if the income phase out is higher. And that $300 billion minimum price tag compares to about, like I mentioned earlier, $120 billion of tariff collections through September. So even a narrowly targeted rebate would use up all of the collections so far, would have to be deficit financed, and that leaves no money left over to reduce the deficit or begin to pay down the debt. Well, let me ask you about the other claim there the president made about the tariff revenue helping to significantly pay down the national debt. The national debt for the country currently stands at $38 trillion. By your math, that's about 200 times the revenue that's actually been brought in by the tariffs so far. Is there any path you see towards

tariff revenue going to pay down the national debt? There's not a path for that, particularly when you take a broader look at all of the policies of the Trump administration. So this summer, Trump signed into law, the one big beautiful bill act. That was major tax cut legislation. It did include some spending cuts, but that was a law that increases the deficit. We've heard the president's advisors say that tariff revenues will help pay down that price tag for the tax cut law, well, tariff revenues won't earn enough to fully pay for that tax cut

law, let alone pay for these $2,000 checks and pay for reducing the debt. So there's just not a viable path to use a tax like tariffs to reduce the debt or even to minimize the deficit that the government runs year after year. And Erica, the tariffs that are currently being challenged in a case before the Supreme Court, how much of that tariff revenue that you cited earlier is part of that challenge? And what is the impact if the Supreme Court rules against the administration in that case? The emergency tariffs being challenged at the Supreme Court account for about three-fourths of the tariff revenues that have been collected and would be collected over the coming decade under all of the new levies that Trump has imposed. So if the

Supreme Court ultimately decides that those emergency-related tariffs are illegal, it wipes out three-fourths of that revenue generation. Now, it's likely that the president would pursue other authorities to try to continue imposing some of those tariffs, but the remaining authorities that he has are not as broad as what has been done under this emergency law. So the threshold of revenue that could be raised would be much lower than what we've seen come in under these emergency tariffs. All right. That is Erica York of the Tax Foundation.

Thank you so much for offering some clarity on the numbers. We appreciate your time. Thank you. President Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion, claiming the broadcaster misrepresented his role in the January 6th Capitol attack. According to Mr. Trump's legal team of BBC documentary that aired ahead

of the 2024 presidential election cut together remarks made by Mr. Trump to make it appear as if he urged his supporters to, in his words, fight like hell immediately after directing them to march to the U.S. Capitol. In reality, the two lines came more than 50 minutes apart. The fallout has been swift. Following the controversy

and mounting backlash over perceived bias at the BBC, two of the broadcasters' most senior executives resigned. That's Director General Tim Davy and BBC News chief executive Deborah Terness. Treness defended the BBC's reputation while speaking to reporters this week. I stepped down over the weekend because the buck stopped with me. But I'd like to make one thing very clear.

BBC News is not institutionally biased. That's why it's the world's most trusted news provider. And we're joined now by Brian Stelisle. Chief Media Analyst for CNN. Brian, it's always good to see you. Thanks for being with us. Thanks. So this documentary program in question, Panorama,

it's the crown jewel of the BBC's reporting operation. Help us understand more about this editorial breach. The edit itself and why President Trump and his supporters are saying it misled viewers. That's right. This is an important program on the BBC schedule, and this documentary aired right before the U.S. presidential election. It was a documentary about Trump's re-election campaign

called Trump, A Second Chance. interviewed Trump voters. It really featured the voices of voters in America. I actually think if the Trump White House watched the documentary, they would find a lot to like in the documentary. But there was this moment where the January 6th video was shown. Trump's speech at the ellipse was shown. And it was edited in a way that was clearly a big screw-up.

I would call this a big screw-up, a big journalistic screw-up, but in a very small, narrow way, because it was one small part of a long documentary. And most importantly, because nobody seemed to notice, at the time. There was no outcry last year. There was no outrage. This only became a story about a week ago when a leaked memo, it was obtained by the telegraphed newspaper, exposing what went wrong in this documentary. Now, Trump is calling for a retraction of the entire documentary, but like I said, it's a really thoughtful, nuanced film with just one big mistake involved

in January 6th. And stepping back, we know the established timeline. We know all of the testimony about what Donald Trump did not do on January 6th, his inaction as the violence unfolded, his delay in calling in the National Guard. How does the factual record bear on his claim that the BBC edit distorted the meaning of his words? And Trump's behavior that day, his combative tone in the speech,

his repeated references to fight, all of that contributed to the producer's decision to stitch these words together. There's no indication that it was malicious, meaning it wasn't intended to interfere with the U.S. election, but it was something that happened during the production process, possibly by an outside production company. We don't exactly know how it was reviewed by the BBC ahead of time or who ultimately is responsible. But as you mentioned, those two top executives

have now both resigned as a result of the uproar. More broadly, for President Trump, this is a chance to challenge a big media company, and it's a chance for him to proclaim his innocence about January 6th. I think that's why this story has resonated with many Trump voters, and certainly with Trump aides. They're trying to argue that Trump did nothing wrong that day, and it's actually the media's fault. How seriously is the BBC taking this one billion dollar lawsuit threat? My sense is it's a very serious threat inside the BBC. There's a lot of concern. Staffers are worried about what the board is going to do, and we haven't heard much about the plan within the board of governors. There are 13 board members who oversee the BBC. Normally, one of those

members is the director general, the man who just resigned, who just stepped down. Now, the Trump lawyers have given this Friday deadline. There's not actually a literal deadline, meaning the BBC doesn't have to respond for any legal reason, but it does seem likely that Trump might move ahead with a lawsuit

if he doesn't get what he wants from the BBC. And so now, the BBC is in the same position that Paramount was in, that Disney was in, that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are in right now. Trump is suing both those publications. Every media company, when challenging, Trump has to ask, do we fight or do we fold? Do we fight in court or do we give into his demands?

And that's what the BBC board has to decide now. And conservative critics in the UK are alleging a systemic left-wing bias at the BBC. What does all of this mean for the BBC's international reporting and its reputation? Right. Three things are going on simultaneously. You have this actual journalistic scandal about a bad edit. A big mistake, but in a small part of a big documentary. Then you also have this concerted political campaign, mostly from conservatives in the UK, to undermine the BBC, to challenge its dominance in Britain. You also have some of the BBC's big media rivals who are feasting right now on the BBC, and sometimes maybe trying to even gain or steal some

market share. And then the third thing going on, of course, is the BBC's business model under tremendous pressure right now. The license fees that it receives from British taxpayers might be challenged in the coming years. You know, that's what makes the BBC unique in Britain. It's the licensee structure. It's the idea that everybody pays into the system. And that is under a real threat right now because of this political campaign. But look, when a newsroom at the BBC makes a self-inflicted wound, a screw-up like this, it does draw all the wrong kind of attention to the organization more broadly. And that's what we're seeing right now from Trump and everywhere else. Can I ask you, based on your reporting, how realistic is a successful defamation claim here

against a UK public broadcaster? Not very realistic at all. Whether this was filed in the UK or whether it's filed in Florida or some other U.S. state, Trump likely has a very weak case here, and the BBC would have a very strong argument in court. But that's, I think, not really the question. The question is whether the BBC is willing to risk it, whether it's willing to go to court or not. We've seen some media companies try to settle with Trump, try to make him go away, either by paying money toward his future presidential library or by changing editorial coverage. And that's the big concern I'm hearing from BBC staffers now. Will the corporation stand up to Trump, try to mount a defense, reject his demands for a retraction and for an apology, or will the BBC try to reach some sort of deal, try to appease him in some way?

I know, Jeff, we've covered several of these cases this year, and what we've learned, I think, is that when media companies do appease, when they appear to capitulate, there is severe consumer backlash. Just as Disney with Jimmy Kimmel. On the other hand, the BBC has to think about many factors here, including board members who might be more conservative. in thinking, and, of course, the future of the license fee system. Brian Stelter, Chief Media Analyst for CNN. Always good to see you. Thanks. This week marks 50 years since the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank while crossing Lake Superior.

The shipwreck, which killed all 29 men aboard, became the most well-known wreck to ever occur on the Great Lakes. William Brangham recently spoke with the author of a new book that explores both the tragedy and the enduring legend it inspired. When the Edmund Fitzgerald first launched in 1958, it quickly became the pride of the Great Lakes, a mammoth ship measuring almost 730 feet from bow to stern. It made hundreds of trips,

moving mostly tons of iron ore from mines in Minnesota to the steel mills of Detroit and Toledo. On November 9, 1975, the Fitz, as she was known, took off from a port near Duluth, Minnesota. It was supposed to be her last run of the season, but a storm was growing and headed for the Great Lakes. To avoid the worst of it, the Fitzgerald's captain decided to steer the ship off its normal course, moving north to get some shelter along the Canadian shore. On the afternoon of the 10th, it started to turn toward Whitefish Point at the far southeast corner of Lake Superior. Winds were gusting up to 100 miles an hour, pushing what could have been 60-foot waves.

The Fitzgerald lost its radar, sustained some structural damage, and began to list or lean to one side. Bernie Cooper was captain of the SS Arthur Anderson, which was trailing several miles behind the Fitzgerald that night. Those two seas were the biggest that we ever had. And I just wonder if those two seas didn't catch up with the Fitzgerald. The night of November 10th, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in the frigid waters of Lake Superior, just 17 miles from safety. Today, the ship still sits at the bottom of the lake, more than 500 feet down. No bodies were ever recovered. Less than a year after the sinking, Canadians were ever recovered.

singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot released his folk ballad, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The song became a surprise hit, popularizing the Fitzgerald's story with an international audience, and solidifying a legend that lives on half a century later. It's all recounted in a new book called The Gales of November, The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald, by journalist John U. Bacon. And John U. Bacon joins us now. John, thank you so much for being here. There has been a lot written and told about this story.

I mean, you've said that this is maybe the most well-known wreck outside of the Titanic. So given all of that, what was it that you wanted to delve into, what story you wanted to tell with this book? The untold part of my story, and it's a great question, William, thank you. I got to six crewmen who'd been on the ship before it went down because all 29 men went down with the ship that night, including two guys had been on the ship that season. And they could fill in what the captain was like, what the crew was like, how the ship function. And I got to 14 of the 29 families to find out more about their fathers, their cousins, their uncles, their uncles, their boyfriends in some cases.

And these guys have never talked to the press before. Can you give us a little bit more detail about some of the examples of those stories that you, what you learn from these men? Oh, you've got three quick ones. The captain, Ernest McSorily, 63 years old, the best in the Great Lakes. He'd been a captain since he's 31. That's more than half his life. He was going to retire after this trip at 63,

and he tacked on one more trip for his bonus for his wife's medical care, Nellie, who was in 24-hour care at that point. probably cancer. So this trip was a tack on, and that makes it all the more heartbreaking, of course. We've got Eddie Binden, 47 years old, who a 25-year marriage to his wife, Helen, and about to retire himself after this trip.

He had gone the day before on Saturday to Duluth, Minnesota, right next to Superior, Wisconsin, to buy his wife a two-carat diamond ring, and for reasons William will never know. He gave it not to his duffel bag to take with him to Toledo, where he's going to see her in. three days. He gave it to a friend of his and said, please mail this to my wife. And he did. And of course, three days after the wreck, she received her 25th anniversary ring. She never took

it off. She never remarried. So that's a pretty amazing story. Last one. Bruce Hudson found out two months earlier, he got his girlfriend pregnant. Cindy Reynolds in Toledo. He said, don't worry. We'll move in together and raise the child ourselves. Of course, the ship goes down. And Ruth Hudson thinks she's lost her only child. She has, of course. She has no idea that six months later, She's going to be a grandmother. So these stories are the kind of things that make them human. A lot of people might have come to know this story by the famous Gordon Lightfoot song. And you talk a little bit about how critical that song was to, in a way, popularizing this.

Can you tell us a bit about that? Let's be honest, William, without the song, there is no book. There are 6,000 Great Lakes Shipwrecks between 1875 and 1975 and everyone knows one, and it's this one. It's because of the song. So the song not only popularized this tragedy, naturally, but it also put a spotlight in the entire industry and woke up the industry. After this, you had better forecasting, better communications with the captains. You had, frankly, more common sense.

When it's rough out, don't go out, stay in. They never used to, and now they always do. So since 1975, since that song came out in 76, there has been not one, not one, great-laced shipwreck amongst commercial sailors since then, versus 6,000 the previous century. So that's, you attribute some of that to two lightfoot's song. Absolutely. The song gave it so much attention that they were writing reports two and three and four years

later, the Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board. And of course, books upon books, you can see behind me that I've been reading. They're not about the Lusitania. They're not about the Bradley that went down in 58 or the Cedarville in 65. It's about this one ship. So this kind of, it was 9-11, basically, for the shipping industry. forced them to wake up and do a better job, and now they have. Your book also sort of pulls the curtain back on the importance of Great Lakes shipping,

how critical it was to the country, and how risky it could be. Can you just give us a little sense of that? This is where your cement comes from, your car comes from, your food comes from. It's all from these ships, and I did not fully appreciate that. The reason being is that shipping is three times more efficient than trains and six times more efficient than trucking. It's not even close. So if they can put it on a ship, they will.

And it's also more dangerous, as you pointed out. Perhaps the biggest shock to me in all my research is the simple fact that the experienced sailors on both the Atlantic and the Great Lakes will tell you, the Atlantic is not as dangerous as the Great Lakes. Saltwater squashes down the waves and spreads them out. So you get these gentle roocoasters versus these mountain tops, basically, that are twice as close together. Instead of 10 to 16 seconds apart, they're four to eight. eight seconds apart. On top of that, the storm in the ocean is probably from 500 or 1,000 miles away. And the Great Lakes are called locally occurring storms, which William means the storm over your head right now. And that can change you very quickly. How do you hope

that the country remembers this tragedy? Obviously, solemnly, there are a lot of jokes out there you'll find on Twitter and so on. But second thing is to understand that these guys, in my opinion, were heroes before that night. Ever knows the fishermen, the farmer, the factory worker, the minor, no one knows these guys. But this is where your stuff comes from and at great risk. It also should be noted, by the way, the families. You didn't know each other at all when the ship went down had become incredibly close. And they said to me, they're not like family. They are family. And one of the daughters pulled up her sleeve and it says, we are holding our own in a tattoo on her left forearm. That was the last word from Emma Fitzgerald. We are holding our own. And these

families truly are. All right. The book is called The Gales of November. John Eubaken. Thank you so much for joining us. William, thank you. Later tonight here on PBS on this Veterans Day, a musical and visual production that brings America's story in World War I to life. American Heart in World War I, a Carnegie Hall tribute weaves together storytelling and music, along with rare archival film and images, to remember the history of America's involvement in the Great War. In 1921, Congress votes to create the tomb of the unknown soldier. The army randomly selects one unknown soldier from the nine cemeteries.

The soldiers carried from France across the Atlantic on the pride of the U.S. fleet, the USS Olympia. The body lies in state in the capital rotunda, an honor never given before to a common boy. November 11, 1921 is dedicated a national holiday. This day will be our Veterans Day. American Heart in World War I premieres at 8 p.m. Eastern on PBS stations and on the PBS. app. And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Navaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us.