PBS News Hour - Full Show - November 12, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Wednesday on the News Hour, the House of Representatives returns to Washington to take up a bill that could end the longest government shutdown in history. President Trump faces fresh questions about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein as newly released emails mention Trump multiple times. Plus, children from Gaza who suffered debilitating wounds of war receive treatment and a new life in the U.S. 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. I'm the Navaz as away. On the news hour tonight, the House of Representatives returns to Washington to take up a bill aimed at ending the longest-ever government shutdown. President Trump faces fresh questions about his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as newly released emails mentioned the president multiple times. And children from Gaza who suffered debilitating wounds of war, receive treatment and a new life in the U.S. We can't give them back everything that they've lost, but we can start to put those pieces back together.

Welcome to the News Hour. The House of Representatives has returned to Washington for the first time in nearly two months, set to vote to end the nation's longest effort, government shutdown. This is a live look at the House floor as they debate the shutdown deal ahead of votes expected later tonight. Our congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin is back from Capitol Hill and joins us now. It's always good to see us. So Lisa, the big question, does Speaker Johnson have the votes? Most Democrats will be no, but House Republicans say they

do have the votes. Here's how Speaker Johnson put it earlier today. I just want to say that we're very optimistic about the vote tally tonight. We think this is going to happen, and we're sorry that it took this long. So Republicans are going to deliver for the people. We're ready to get back to our legislative agenda. We have a very aggressive calendar for the remainder of this year. Helping him is Johnson has committed to allow a vote later on to take out an unpopular provision in this deal. That's that provision that allows senators who were not notified, but investigators access their phone data, allowing those senators to sue for up to $500,000. That is very unpopular in the House. And Speaker Johnson is going to allow a vote to take that out later.

But so that kind of quelled some dissent on that end. But otherwise, it does look like for now, this is on a glide pass to track, to be signed by the president tonight, and then government would open fully tomorrow. Democrats, as you well know, made this about health care, the spike in the Affordable Care Act subsidies. We know that many Americans are about to see their premiums increase. What are a Republican saying about that? Right. Our congressional producer, Kyle, Amadora's been talking to people with me today about this. I want to talk about the landscape in general. The House is really the heavy lift here when it comes to dealing with health care problems. Now, we spoke with some key members today. There are many who don't just want these

extended, but instead want broader reform in the system. One of those, for example, is South Dakota's Dusty Johnson. Well, the Democrats have been asking for the subsidies to be extended as they're in law today. That's not going to work. It doesn't make any sense when we're $38 trillion in debt to borrow more money from the Chinese so we can help out Americans who are making $500,000, $600,000 a year. I think they can afford their own insurance. Now, if this comes down to, all right, how do we target some relief to working class families, I think there's a far higher likelihood there of some bipartisan agreement. That was pretty clear by congressional language, but let me translate a little bit.

We're hearing about these word about income, wants to lower the income of people who get benefits, and also what he's saying there is he doesn't like these subsidies. He wants something else altogether. There are some moderate Republicans in the House who want to continue the subsidies in some form. One of those is California's Kevin Kiley. I don't have any clear lines in the sand. I mean, we chose two years in our extension, which I think, you know, makes a lot of sense. But there's going to need to be a compromise.

And I think that's going to need to include the length of the extension, as well as the reforms like preventing fraud, like placing some cost controls in place in terms of eligibility. He's someone who's an example of a Republican who sees urgency now, who wants to get talks going right now. Other Republicans in the House, I don't think, are as likely. There's a political issue in the House. This is one reason Johnson was happy to not have this vote because there are some House Republicans who just want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act altogether. So what's happening here is that while Senate Democrats may want to get something done by December, talking to these Republicans and another one, Stephanie Bice, who's in leadership,

it's hard to see that happening in the House by that timeline. So after this vote, so what's next for Congress? Is this it for the rest of the year? Well, you and I are waiting along with members to find out what happens in the House. You heard the Speaker say it's going to be some long weeks ahead. There is talk of maybe another budget bill. We're waiting for that schedule, but I think the next month supposedly is going to be busy. We'll hold them to it.

And maybe something on the Affordable Care Act. We'll see. Talk about the Affordable Care Act. We'll see what happens. Lisa Deja-Danner, thanks to you as always. You're welcome. And we start today's other headlines in the Middle East. President Trump is urging Israel to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial,

which began more than five years ago and has divided that nation. In a letter to Israeli president Isaac Herzog, Mr. Trump characterized the case as political unjustified prosecution. The president made a similar plea during a speech at the Knesset last month. Netanyahu faces unprecedented charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, which he denies. Separately, President Herzog issued a rare condemnation of violence in the West Bank today after masked Jewish settlers hurled stones at car windows and set trucks on fire. Some locals called for an end to such violence. What happened here shows terrorism in its true form.

It shows crime in its most horrible image. This can't happen. It just can't. As a person, I have the right to live in safety. It can't be that we keep living our whole lives in a state of fear and danger. The Israeli military says four Palestinians were injured in the attack,

part of a growing wave of settler violence in the occupied territory. Back in this country, a former aide to California's governor, Gavin Newsom, has been indicted on federal charges related to an alleged scheme to steal campaign money from former HHS Secretary Javier Becerra. Dana Williamson, seen here next to Newsom, faces 23 charges, including bank fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements. The U.S. Attorney's Office says that Williamson conspired with others to divert approximately $225,000 in funds from a dormant political campaign to an associate's personal use.

Williamson was Newsom's chief of staff until late 2024. For his part, Bacera is not implicated in the indictment. If convicted, Williamson could face up to 20 years in prison. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is retiring in February, opening up a seat on the committee that sets the nation's interest rates. Rafael Bostick's departure comes as President Trump is trying to exert more control over the central bank. Bostick has served since 2017. His replacement won't be selected by the Trump administration directly, but rather by the Atlanta Fed.

However, the Fed's board in Washington, D.C. can veto that pick. The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia pressed its last penny today. President Trump ordered the mint to stop producing the one-cent coin earlier this year. It costs about four cents to create a single penny, and the Treasury Department says it'll save about $56 million by ceasing production. And even though there are billions in circulation, they are rarely used in modern-day transactions. Still, some banks and retailers complain that the phase-out was abrupt, leaving them short on change. Large parts of the nation are starting to thaw out after a record cold spell hit states in the southeast. At one point, 18 million people were under some form of freeze warning.

In southern Kentucky, drivers scraped ice and snow from their cars, while the first major snowfall of the season swept through the Great Lakes and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Other parts of the country got treated to clearer skies and dazzling colors from the northern lights, like here in Iowa. The solar displays could be seen as far south as Kansas and Texas and may be visible again tonight in areas farther north. closer to Canada. On the Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed as tech shares dragged down the

broader markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average built on its recent gains, adding more than 300 points. The NASDAQ slipped about 60 points. The S&P 500 ended the day virtually flat. And in Australia, there was a record-setting bagpipe bonanza on the streets of Melbourne today. An ensemble of 374 bagpipers played ACDCs. It's a long way to the top in the city's Federation Square. The location is where the band filmed their original video for the song back in 1976. The Australian Book of Records certified the performance as a new record beating the previous record. Yes, there was a previous record, which involved about 330 bagpipers.

Today's event came hours ahead of ACDC's first Australian show in a decade. And pro football player Rob Grancowski is retiring again, he says, for good this time to fulfill a late friend's dying wish. I'm a patriot for life. My career started here at 100% needed to end here. There's no doubt about that. Gronk signed a one-day contract with the New England Patriots so he can retire with the franchise where he won three Super Bowls

and became one of the team's all-time. leading receivers, the star-tight end originally retired in 2019, only to return to win another Super Bowl with his longtime quarterback Tom Brady and a new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Granc, who is 36 years old, is eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 27. Still to come on the news hour, a former career immigration judge weighs in on being fired without warning by the Trump administration. Tensions rise in the Caribbean with the arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier. And author David Soloy discusses his Booker Prize winning novel about an immigrant's lost fortune.

This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington and in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives reached a critical threshold in the push to release information related to the federal investigation and to Jeffrey Epstein. At the same time, one committee has made public a set of emails and documents that raise new questions about President Trump's ties to the late sex offender. White House correspondent Liz Landers has been reviewing those materials and has the story. As the House returned to Washington today, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released more Epstein files that name President Trump. In one email from

Epstein to his former girlfriend and convicted sex trafficker Galane Maxwell sent in 2011, Epstein wrote, quote, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump, adding that an unnamed victim, quote, spent hours at my house with him. Maxwell responded the same day, quote, I have been thinking about that. The White House called the emails a hoax and distraction. Caroline Levitt said today, the redacted name is Virginia Goufrey, an Epstein survivor who died by suicide earlier this year, but had had. previously said Trump was not involved in her abuse.

These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong. And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Maralago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep. In another email exchange dated January 31st, 2019 with journalist and author Michael Wolfe, Epstein writes, quote, Trump said he asked me to resign. Never a member ever. Of course, he knew about the girls as he asked Galane to stop. President Trump has said that he and Epstein had a falling out after Epstein, quote, stole young women who worked for the spa at his private Mar-Lago club in Palm Beach. PBS has reached out to attorneys for both Maxwell and Wolf and has not received a response.

In another exchange dated December 15, 2015, the day of a Republican presidential presidential. primary debate on CNN, Wolf allegedly emailed Epstein that he'd heard the network plan to ask Trump about their relationship. Epstein asked, quote, if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? Wolf offered in part that, quote, if he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Trump was not asked about Epstein during the debate,

according to a PBS news review of transcripts and video. These emails clearly show that there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. These are pretty serious allegations and lead us all back to questions that should be answered by the White House. And most importantly, the big question that I have and that we have been are talking to and talking with every single date of many people as possible, is why won't the White House just release all the files? In response, Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused Democrats of cherry-picking documents to release and posted their own trove of 20,000 Epstein-related documents

later this morning. Many of them are not incriminating, but among them, an email from Epstein stating former President Bill Clinton never visited his private island. The email exchanges come as new information came to light earlier this week from a whistleblower alleging that Maxwell is receiving special treatment in the Texas prison she was moved to earlier this year. The whistleblower claims that Maxwell's meals have been customized by prison staff and personally delivered to her cell, an inmate who trained service dogs was instructed to provide one to Maxwell so she could play with a puppy, and that Maxwell is preparing a commutation application for the Trump administration to review. A possibility the president has left open in the past.

take a look at it. I will speak to the DAJ. I wouldn't consider it or not consider. I don't know anything about it. So, but I'll speak, I will speak to the DOJ. During his presidential campaign last year, Mr. Trump said he would release files related to Epstein if he won a second term in office, including an alleged list of Epstein's high profile clients. But has doubt played its importance since returning to the White House. It's all been a big hoax. It's perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. A few members of the Republican Party have broken with Trump to seek the public release of the Epstein documents. Four House Republicans have joined Democrats in signing a petition that

would force a vote on it. This is the most important fight we can wage here in Congress, is fighting for innocent people that never received justice. It's just still not enough. Eric Fudali represents several Epstein survivors. He's says the slow roll release of documents creates more questions than answers. It's been so, so debilitated and so revictimizing for these survivors that it's like, it's just, you know, it's three steps forward, 100 steps back, and it's just been, it's been like this for decades. Today, with the House back for the first time in more than 50 days, Democratic Congresswoman Adelita Grahalva was sworn in to fill a seat. She won in a special election back in September. I will sign the discharge petition

right now to release the Epstein files. Providing the critical 218 signature needed to force a vote to release the files. Trump and members of his administration are reportedly pressuring Republicans not to release the files. The president writing on social media, quote, there should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else. And members of the administration also reportedly meeting with some House Republicans directly to urge them to retract their signatures on the petition. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Liz Landers.

Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, a stark reminder of the war's horrific toll on the youngest victims. Before the State Department paused new medical visas for Palestinians, back in August, a group of children was able to leave Gaza for life-saving medical care here in the U.S. among them four young survivors, children and teens, whose stories reveal not just loss, but remarkable resilience and hope. Amna Nawaz and producer Zeba Varsi captured their stories. A warning, some images are disturbing. In here, seven-year-old comer can create her own world. Surrounded by Disney characters, drawing fishy fishy fish, as she calls

them, she forgets for the moment what was lost in the real world, where she's still learning to take small steps in her new body. And with three-year-old brother Omar, working to piece together a new life, far from the war she left back home. Two months into Israel's war in Gaza, an airstrike destroyed her family home in Jabalya. That was on December 4th of 2020. 23, Gummer's sixth birthday. Her mother, Huda, helps her to find the words. She's like, it was my worst birthday ever. Of course it is. We've got pumped seven times. The whole area was bombed. It was a crazy day. It was, as they call it, the blood day. Gummer's 14-year-old cousin, Muatissam, was killed that day. Sister Thuleen suffered a head injury and was blinded for days.

Huda today is haunted by the memory. After the five psalm, I heard Tulin. She was in the kitchen, she was scared, but she got injured in her head. So there's a blood everywhere she can't see. She's just calling me. So I had to put Kamar in a corner because Kammer, she had a leg injured. As Huda carried the smaller children out, Kamar faced her worst fears. Just me and my cousin.

her hand and we sit together and then I told her okay nobody can come so just me and do but there's just me and do so no but we're gonna look right now she survived but delayed care at the overwhelmed hospital meant Cumber's leg had to be amputated even as bombs fell around the facility I used to be afraid earlier that because there were a lot of of bombs and there's a lot of bombs. I got used to it. She's now getting used to a new life in New Jersey, where she arrived in March with her mother and brother. Her father and sister remain in Gaza. There's literally thousands and thousands of children in Gaza right now who need

medical care that cannot get inside Gaza because the health system has been decimated and destroyed. Steve Soseby and his wife, pediatric oncologist Dr. Zina Salman, are co-founders of the organization Heal Palestine that's evacuated Gummer and more than 60 children from Gaza to the U.S. for medical treatment in the last two years. A former journalist, Steve says he was moved to change paths. I was the encounter with an injured child back in 1990, who had had his legs amputated, lost a hand from a bomb, and he was only 10 years old. And I got to know him, and I felt kind of like an obligation as a human being, first and foremost, to try to help him get prosthetic limbs and become mobile.

This is a global responsibility to heal these kids. It's an individual responsibility for myself and for Zina. We call it a healing community where we have our families living amongst each other. Really just love them through this whole process so that they can start to feel whole again. As a mother, every night I put my own kids to bed and I get a little teary eye most nights because I think how blessed they are to have a full belly and a warm bed. over their heads. And that, to me, is reason enough. They've lost so much. We can't give them back everything that they've lost, but we can start to put those pieces back together with them.

In another part of New Jersey, we meet 19-year-old Sarah and her family, big sister Sehram and mother Lana. Family time is quieter now with just these three. Back home in Gaza, as one of nine children, then 17-year-old Sarah's home was always full. That video was minutes. before bombs fell outside their family home, just moments before she held her little brother Hamoud's hand at the window. So I rushed to him because I know Hamud, and I found him standing there looking shaken. So I said, Hamud, you are so brave, nothing is going to happen, this is just a sound. The moment I let go of his hand, something extremely hot had my back forward.

I was overcome with fear that I couldn't recognize where I was. It was enough to catch the sound of endless crying and screaming. The blast killed eight-year-old Khamud and 15-year-old Ahmed and left Sarah with third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body. How did you learn that your brothers had been killed? When I heard my sisters screaming, Baba, Bah-va, Ahmad is still outside, and I knew there was no way he's still alive. And Ahmed left without any goodbye,

and Hamud followed him without any goodbye. And when Hamud passed away, my sister, Farah, tried to say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Be happy for him. There is an ambulance outside. We got the permission to get him to the hospital. I was like, Farah, stop it.

I heard Hamud stop breathing. I know it. You heard your brother stop breathing. Yeah. You know, because smoking were roaring out my mouth, and Hamwood something, he wasn't able to breathe. He was like, oh, like that. So when he passed away, I hear him to stop breathing, like completely silent.

Blocked from leaving the neighborhood by Israeli troops, Sara's family fought for 14 days to keep her alive, using supplies at home to fight off infection. My skin were open, like I have wooden everywhere, and it was bleeding. So just imagine someone wiped with vinegar. Your father had to wipe your body with vinegar to keep infection away. And I was screaming, even though they gave me a pain medicine, but it was expired. And I was like, he stopped. And he said, I know.

I know I'm doing too much for you, but I have to do it. I can't lose you. When she was evacuated, Sarah couldn't move her legs, arms, or neck. Today, she's undergone over 20 surgeries with at least a dozen more ahead. When the cat happened, I just realized my life is done. My mom was like, Sarah, stop. Nothing is going to stop the life for you. You have to keep going.

You have to keep looking forward to a few. and this is what I'm going to do right now. In Chicago, meanwhile, the heel community is just trying to keep up with Adam. A four-year-old force of nature. What's this? With a relentless, insatiable curiosity. I can do it. And a sense of stubbornness like any ordinary kid his age.

But Adam has already survived the extraordinary. Four there! Superheroes. In July of 2024, an explosion ripped through his family tent in Khan Yunus in southern Gaza. His entire family, mother, father, brother, and sister, all killed in an instant. Adam lost most of his right leg. He was evacuated with his grandmother, Alia. At the beginning, he would cry all day, asking for his parents and saying he wanted to go to his dad in heaven.

Today, the two live with a host family. Alia now helps Adam to walk. as she once did with his father. I see my son Ahmed and Adam. It's as if he's the one in front of me. He looks just like him. I pray that I get to live long enough to see him grow up and become a man

and then God can take me. Just a few miles away, 15-year-old Khalil tries to keep Gaza close. Playing the music of his homeland and watching scenes from the streets he once roamed. I had great memories with my friends. We used to ride our bikes and do everything together. We'd always rent how to field and play soccer together.

I really missed them all. In April of 2024, Khalil walked down the street to a barbershop to retrieve a pair of forgotten glasses. When I went back to get my glasses, I was hit by a bomb. Khalil, do you remember anything about what it felt like or what happened after the bombing? No, I don't. I don't remember, after the injury, I was in a coma for a week and that's it.

He awoke to learn that he'd lost both his legs. He's now traded his bike for a wheelchair and soccer for basketball therapy. He's now also adjusting to a new life, with his mother Ream and sister Lulu by his side. He's a quick study too, eager to learn a new song. Go. That was it. He says he works hard in school. He wants to be an engineer.

We ask him why. Because I want to build Gaza back up again. So it'll be better than ever was, even better than America. Sara, too, is looking to the future. Do you think about going back? In this case, no. But of course, like two years, three years when Gaza are going to go back stronger, of course I'm going to go back.

For Kamar, the dream is to be a doctor. Because there's some people like me, so I want to do them a prosthetic, so they can be, like, too, like it. And to return to Gaza and to her sister. I love when my sister and I used to play. When we go back to Gaza and there's no more Israeli military, we're going to start everything over from scratch. Dozens of immigration judges across the country have been fired by the Trump administration in recent months with no explanation for their dismissals. From coast to coast, nearly four dozen judges have lost their positions as the immigration court system faces a record backlog of more than three million cases. Many of those dismissed had previously worked in immigrant defense, prompting questions about whether the firings are part of the administration's broader hardline approach to immigration.

We're joined now by one of those former judges, Emmett Soper. He served as a judge in Virginia. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. So let's start there. You are a longtime employee at the Justice Department, a career staff for almost 20 years. Do you believe your termination was connected in any way to your prior work defending immigrants? I don't know exactly why I was terminated. I was terminated without any warning. The letter I received telling me that I was terminated did not give any reasons for my termination.

So I'm a little bit in the dark as to why I was terminated. I had been a Department of Justice employee for a long time. And I had also been an immigration judge for a long time. They fired me without any warning nor any explanation. What does the wave of firings mean for the backlog of cases and for those immigrants who are waiting for their... day in court? Well, the wave of unlawful firings of immigration judges is already exacerbating

the backlog at the immigration courts. As judge after judge after judge gets fired unlawfully, their cases and each judge typically handles hundreds or thousands of cases have to be redistributed to the judges who remain on the courts. As each judge gets fired, those cases are redistributed. The backlog gets longer. People have to wait longer for their hearings, and after their hearings, they have to wait longer for their decisions. The Trump administration, in the meantime, is approving military judges to work as temporary immigration judges. What does that shift signal to you? It's hard to know because the military judges, to my understanding, are just getting started. We will have to see how it plays out. I have to assume that

the military judges who come into the immigration courts are going to be people of integrity who try their best to do the job of being an immigration judge, but it's a very difficult job. Immigration law is very difficult to pick up. It's complicated. You don't learn it overnight. When I started as an immigration judge, I was told it would take roughly two to three years to become really fully comfortable in being a judge in immigration court, and that proved accurate. This is not something that these military judges, regardless of how hard they try, are going to be able to pick up overnight. Do you believe the administration sees veteran judges like yourself as an obstacle to their mass deportation effort? They may.

What I can say is that I always tried very hard to treat everybody fairly and to resolve cases as I thought was appropriate under the law. I tried my bus to block out all of the noise and all of the really political interference that has been going on really since the start of this administration. I think as a veteran judge, you're probably in a better position to do that than, for example, a judge who has just started. So it's a little bit hard to know what this administration thinks of veteran judges and I was one, but they may see us as less controllable than some other judges, and this might be an issue for them. Overall, though, it's really hard to say because we really don't know. for the most part, why we were fired because we weren't told. What's fundamentally different about what's happening now

compared to previous administrations? I think that previous administrations, the immigration courts have always had their flaws. Nobody would argue that it's a perfect system. But the leadership of the immigration courts in previous administrations, I think were people

of integrity who saw the immigration courts as neutral arbiters as neutral decision makers and tried their best to insulate the immigration courts from politics and the policies of whichever administration was in charge. I think that that is out the window now. I think the current administration of the immigration courts does not fundamentally see the immigration courts as neutral decision makers. I think that they see the immigration courts as a tool for this administration. to advance its policy objectives.

You've said that as shocking as your firing was, you felt a bit of relief because of what you had witnessed toward the end of your tenure with ICE arrests happening right outside your courtroom. What did you see and what was it like? Well, it was unprecedented and it was disturbing, frankly. ICE, earlier this year at the court where I served, which is in the Washington, D.C. area,

began on a regular basis arresting people who were showing up for their preliminary hearings in their case. These are people who typically did not have criminal records. These are people who were not doing anything wrong. They were trying to follow the law by showing up for their immigration court hearings like they had been told they had to do. In many of these cases, ICE was waiting for the hearing to be over. Then when they left the courtroom, they were immediately arrested. arrested. And this wasn't just people showing up on their own. In some cases, these were people who came as part of a family. In some cases, following the hearing, ICE would arrest, let's say,

the father in a family in front of the mother and the family and their children who had all come to court together. So in other words, ICE in the lobbies of the immigration courts, on some cases, we're splitting up families. Regardless of how you feel about the law, and regardless of how you feel about immigration policy, I think that it is just impossible to defend that sort of policy on a moral or an ethical basis. This was happening on a regular basis during the last few weeks that I was at the immigration court,

and I found it extremely disturbing. Emmett Soper, thank you again for your time this evening. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. The U.S. military announced this week that the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has reached Caribbean waters off South America's northern coast. Part of the Trump administration's escalating pressure campaign on Venezuela and its broader effort to combat drug trafficking. In recent months, the U.S. has killed dozens of people it describes as narco-terrorism. terrorists off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia, prompting an outcry across the region from

governments and human rights groups. As Nick Schifrin reports, it's all part of the administration's increasingly aggressive approach to its relations with many countries across Latin America. The world's largest aircraft carrier has arrived in the Caribbean, with its strike group of more than 4,000 sailors, dozens of combat aircraft, warships, even submarines, joining an already large deployment of ships, far more firepower than could ever be needed to continue the administration's campaign that's destroyed 19 fishing boats, allegedly carrying drugs and killing at least 75. This new war on drugs also designed to pressure Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. On Venezuela in particular, are Maduro's days as president numbers?

I would say yeah. I think so, yeah. This week, Venezuela's military launched televised nationwide military exercises vowing a, quote, armed struggle against the U.S. We are lovers of peace. We deeply love peace, but if they come to touch Venezuela, while they will find us here, a people determined to defend this homeland to the death. The administration's stated goal is to prevent drugs from transiting through Central America to the United States. For that, the U.S. and Colombian militaries and intelligence services have long worked together.

But yesterday on ex-Colombian President Gustavo Petro wrote that Colombia would, quote, suspend the sending of communications and other dealings with U.S. security agencies as long as the missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean persist. And I'm now joined by Juanita Goberte Estrada, the America's Director of Human Rights Watch, who is also a former member of Congress and national security official in Colombia. Thanks very much. Welcome to the News Hour. As I just mentioned, Colombian President Gustavo Petro says he has cut off. military and intelligence sharing from the United States. So what's the significance of his saying this, assuming that he follows through? This will have a very important, significant impact on the capacity of Colombia to combat different organized crime groups that operate within the country, and that I have to say threaten civil society leaders, human rights defenders, environmental defenders, they recruit

children constantly. On the other hand, it is true that the different attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific are very clearly human rights violations. And it's understandable from that point of view that the Colombian government would cease to share intelligence. Well, let me ask you about that. The administration's defenders say interdiction, which has been historically the U.S. approach to these boats, has failed for decades. And the administration calls these traffickers, quote, narco-terrorists, members of foreign terrorist organizations who represent imminent threats to America. Americans because they're delivering drugs.

What's your response to that? These are very clearly extrajudicial executions. These are organized crime groups at best who need to be defeated in a court of law. That's what a rule of law is meant to be, is that you collect evidence, you prosecute people. You don't go executing people just on the assumption that they're criminals. Let's switch to the Trump administration's immigration policy. Earlier this year, in March and April, the U.S. very publicly deported about 250 Venezuelans to Salvador, accusing them of being members of Trenderaagua, Venezuelan organized crime group.

They arrived at night, shackled, and were deposited into the notorious center for terrorism confinement prison or Seacoat. Today, you released a new report about what happened next, titled, quote, you have arrived in hell. What happened when they arrived in Seacote? They were welcomed by the guards that told them that they had arrived in hell, and they were day in and day out beaten with baton. with kicks, with their fists, some of them were convulsing in the floor, some of them threw up blood, some of them even reported choking on their own blood. This was systematic torture during the almost four months that they spent there. And the U.S. government knew very clearly

where they were sending these people. We saw a visit earlier this year from the Department of Homeland Security, Christy Noem, into Seacote. Why do you say, or why are you so certain that the U.S. one, knew this torture was happening, and two, had an obligation to know that and therefore not send these people to this prison. There was significant reporting, including by human rights, but also other organizations showing that the penitentiary criminal justice system in El Salvador was constantly having these kinds of torture patterns, hundreds of people that have died in jail. And then most importantly, the U.S. paid the Salvadorian government 4.7 million.

million dollars to receive this people. So it was a very clear contract that implies, and it's our conclusion, as a result of this, the U.S. Trump administration was complicit in acts of torture and acts of enforced disappearance of these Venezuelans. I asked the White House today about your accusations, and this is the statement they sent me, quote, President Trump is committed to keeping his promises to the American people by removing dangerous criminal and terrorist illegal aliens who pose a threat to the American public. PBS should spend this. their time and energy, amplifying the stories of angel parents whose innocent American children have tragically been murdered by vicious illegal aliens that President Trump is removing from

the country. Were these people, quote, criminal and terrorist illegal aliens, the Venezuelans who were sent into this prison? They were not. We checked criminal records from the U.S. at a national level in each one of the states. We checked criminal records in Venezuela and the different states throughout Latin America that they crossed. And only three percent, had been convicted in the U.S. for violent crimes. It's a paradox that the response of the White House does not address the torture claims. I assume they don't have anything

to prove that they were not involved in torture. Juanita Guberta's Estrada, thank you very much. Thank you for having. for the Cleveland Guardians were charged this week with sharing inside information about their own play with sports betters, information that enabled them and others to profit off the very pitches they threw. As Stephanie Sye reports, it's just the latest in a series of gambling scandals surrounding the world of professional sports. Jeff, charges against the two baseball players come just weeks after similar indictments rocked the NBA, implicating current and former players.

Taken together, the scandals raise questions about how the legal sports betting industry is potentially impacting the integrity of the sports we love. To help break it down, we're joined now by Jonathan Cohen. He is the author of Losing Big America's reckless bet on sports gambling. Jonathan Cohen, thank you so much for joining us. Let's start with this most recent indictment. These two MLB players allegedly rigged their pitches. what exactly are they accused of doing? Right.

So the new version of sports betting unleashed these sort of new kinds of bets that you couldn't do before. And what Ortiz and Class A are specifically alleged to have done is to tip off gamblers and associates that they were going to throw specific pitches to be balls outside of the strike zone. And so you say, okay, if you can bet a lot of money

and you can do this, that the first pitch of the third inning will be a ball. And they would tell their associates, their associates would gamble, and their associates would win money because they had inside information as to how the pitchers would perform. And that is different from other types of betting, especially betting on sports. So fans of America's greatest pastime are concerned about the integrity of the game at this point. The MLB has responded by announcing some limitations on these bets on pitches.

What do you make of their response and what difference it could make? To me, the response of Major League Baseball to this scandal is the kind of thing that should have been happening seven years ago, which is the sports leagues, states, and sports betting companies just unleashed sports betting as quickly as possible, as aggressively as possible, and the most aggressive version that they could. And lo and behold, what they result is unnecessary scandals like this one. Maybe if the leagues had had a little bit more foresight, they wouldn't have ever offered the chance to bet on the speed of a baseball pitch, because who in their right mind is gambling on the speed of a baseball pitch?

So to me, I'm glad the MLB is doing it, but it's sort of an unnecessary crisis of own making because with a little bit more foresight, a little bit less greed, they wouldn't have had this problem in the first place. Well, it seems, Jonathan, like people are betting on all of these details. Legalized sports gambling, as you know, has grown tremendously since the Supreme Court ruling in 2018 giving states the discretion to legalize it. Here's some statistics. 39 states plus the District of Columbia now allow some form of sports betting. The industry posted a record $13.7 billion revenue last year. And Americans wagered more than $99 billion in the first eight months of this year, 19% more than the same

period in 2024. So those that are pro gambling have pointed out, Jonathan, that legalization makes it easier to hold players accountable. Can't it be argued that these indictments prove the system is working? Technically, yes, right? Because we were able to detect, or the sports leagues were able to detect these malfeasances so relatively quickly. And, easily because the players were gambling on a legal, regulated sports book and sports betting market. So on the one hand, that is proof that the system works. But on the other hand, the only reason that these players were able to bet on the speed of the next pitch is because of this technologically supercharged version of sports betting that we now have. So this feels

like sort of the sports leagues and their partners patting themselves on the back for solving a problem of their own making. And so on the one hand, we've had sports gambling related crises like these scandals, like these going back to the Chicago Black Sox of 1919 and many, many cases in between. And so there is some amount of sports betting that it seems baked in to behavior among athletes. But the question is, is this new version making it easier, making it more possible and making it more likely, regardless of whether it's easier now to catch the players who are betting when they're not supposed to. You have two scandals, one at the NBA, one at the MLB, just in the last couple of weeks.

Is this an inflection point? I think the leagues should hope that this is an inflection point, by which I mean, I think the leagues should hope that this is as bad as it gets and that there isn't a bigger, more prominent name, for example, a really like a household name type athlete who gets embroiled in a scandal of their own. And so I think this is an inflection point in that lots of people, lots of sports fans, especially had been having concerns over the integrity of the game related to gambling, but it wasn't, they didn't sort of have evidence, really, that there was actual illegal behavior

going on, and this week really provided that evidence and validated, I think, a lot of concerns that fans have that the games are not on the level and that there's a chance that they could be rigged. So I hope it's, again, I think the league should hope that it's an inflection point because that means that they'll have turned a corner after this, they'll do the work, the necessary work that should have happened seven years ago to a ensure that fans can bet on the games, but also can trust their integrity 100%. That is author Jonathan Cohen joining us. Thank you so much. Thanks. Good luck.

The Booker Prize is one of the world's most prestigious literary awards given annually to a single novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland. The winner of the 2025 Booker Prize is Flesh. Its winner receives 50,000 British pounds, about $65,000, and typically a big boost in book sales. This year's winner announced at a gala event in London Monday night is Hungarian British writer David Soloy for his novel, Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown spoke with him earlier today for our arts and culture series, Canvas. All right, well, David Soloy, congratulations. You were on the short list for this prize once before, and I saw it the other night at the ceremony that you said, this time was better. So you had fun?

This time was better for one very obvious reason, of course, but also because I did. I was determined to actually. enjoy the ceremony whatever happened because when I was last involved in this in about 2016 it was it was really a sort of horrendously stressful experience and I didn't want to repeat that so I made a great effort to stay calm this time round which did involve persuading myself that I absolutely wasn't going to win so when it when it did actually happen I got quite a shock so for those who haven't read it yet tell us a little bit about the story of Ishtvan that that you wanted to give us I mean it covers many

decades of the main character's life. It starts when he's 15 years old in a kind of housing estate in provincial Hungary. And it then covers the next 40 or 50 years of his life until he's in sort of late middle age. But it does that in a series of glimpses. It's made of 10 chapters, each of which provides a brief glimpse of a few weeks or months of his life and the chapters are then separated by many years. We see him at war in the arms, We see him kind of lost at home. We see him years later ending up in London as a security guard, all kinds of episodes. Exactly.

It covers a huge range of different environments, really, from kind of relative poverty in rural Hungary to great wealth in 21st century London. So it's a very broad canvas in some respects, but as I say, it's quite intimate as well because it's made of these brief glimpses of the character. It is a story about a person living between worlds in a sense. And also is some way a novel about contemporary Europe. The differences that you yourself have seen, right? Sure, sure.

No, absolutely. I mean, I grew up in England, but my dad is Hungarian. And as an adult, I moved to Hungary and lived there for some years. So, yes, I mean, this sort of, that sort of movement around contemporary Europe, I mean, movement in terms of making your life somewhere else is something that, yeah, I have very immediate experience of. But it's also a very major social phenomenon generally. I mean, the total number of people involved is many, many millions. So I wanted to write a book that had a great sort of realism in terms of his portrayal of the world as it is. And that realism is important for the emotional impact of the book. What has stood out for many and for me and my reading is the writing itself, the episodic nature of your storytelling, and then the spareness of the writing itself.

Roddy Doyle, the writer who served as the chair of the booker jury, he said, I don't think I've read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well. it's as if the author is inviting the reader to fill the space to almost create the character with him. I thought that was a very interesting way of putting it. Absolutely. Using us to help you create the character. Do you think of it that way?

I do. I do. And I mean, the fact is that all books work like that. Obviously, I mean, it's reading is always an imaginative collaboration between the writer and the reader. Reading is an imaginative act. So, absolutely. And this book does perhaps take that quite far, because, as Roddy said, it leaves a lot of white space, not only literally, but also sort of metaphorically, in that there is a lot about the character that we are not told, and that the reader themselves has to supply. And I hope, despite that by the end of the book, the reader has a very intense and quite full idea of who this person is.

Have you had a moment yet to absorb the meaning of the book? this or the impact on you as for book sales or you as your own writing life? It will take time for it to completely sink in. When I didn't win in 2016, when I was nominated by didn't win, I told myself, and I believed it, and I think it's probably still do, that one good thing about it was that it would sort of guard me from complacency and laziness, not winning the prize then. So now I guess I have to be on my guard against those things now that I have won it and I will do my best. All right, David Soloy, thank you again and congratulations. Thank you very much. The pleasure to be on.

And there is a lot more online, including a comprehensive timeline of the recent U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean. That's at pbs.org slash newshour. And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett for all of us here at the PBS News Hour. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.