PBS News Hour - Full Show - November 18, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Tuesday on the News Hour, Congress votes to release Justice Department files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The White House welcomes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, prompting renewed scrutiny of Trump family business dealings in the kingdom. Plus, former Secretary of State John Kerry discusses the latest United Nations climate summit that the United States decided to skip. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. Jeff Bennett is on assignment on the news hour tonight. Congress votes to release Justice Department files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with bipartisan support and the president's approval. The White House welcomes Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, prompting renewed scrutiny of Trump family business in the kingdom. And former Secretary of State John Kerry discusses. the latest United Nations climate summit that the United States decided to skip. When the United States pulls back as we have, it really releases other countries from the pressure of doing the things that they promised they would do.

Welcome to the News Hour. two major stories tonight from the nation's capital. At the White House, President Trump welcomed the leader of Saudi Arabia. That's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And on Capitol Hill, Congress approved a measure requiring the release of the Epstein files. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin begins our coverage. A rare, nearly unanimous House vote to release the Epstein files, significant especially for one group. This was me at 14 years.

I was a child. This is me at 16. This was me at 17 years old. I was 16 and she was 25. That's how old we were when we were abused by Epstein and Maxwell. Survivors of Epstein's abuse came in person to urge passage of the measure. We are here as American survivors of a man who used his wealth and power to hurt young girls and women. The world should see the files to know who Jeffrey Epstein.

who Jeffrey Epstein was and how the system catered to him and failed us. The bill forces the Justice Department to release Epstein filed documents within 30 days. It includes protections for the personal information of survivors and allows the attorney general to block information that could harm current specific investigations. We have to do it in the right way. House Speaker Mike Johnson voted yes despite saying he didn't like the measure and charging that Democrats had political motives. They're using that as a political weapon to try to distract from their failures as a party

and to try their best to try to tie President Trump somehow into this wretched scandal. But as he and President Trump realized large numbers of Democrats and Republicans backed this, Trump dramatically reversed himself on the bill, saying yesterday he would sign it. Sure I would. Let the Senate look at it. Let anybody look at it. Survivors criticize Mr. Trump directly today for his long opposition. position to the bill and for calling their case a hoax. I am traumatized. I am not stupid. You have put us through so much stress, the lockdowns, the halt of these, of these procedures

that were supposed to have happened 50 days ago and then get upset when your own party goes against you because what is being done is wrong. It's not right. Today as he sat with the visiting Saudi crown prince, ABC News asked President Trump. Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now? You know, as far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert. ABC asked a series of questions on the Trump family businesses and the Crown Prince, and Trump ultimately issued a vague threat.

I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it's so wrong. This is the latest in a week of defiant and sharp comments from the president. I know nothing about that. Including Friday on Air Force One when a different reporter asked about Epstein. Trump has asked the attorney general to launch an investigation into Epstein's relationships with other people who knew him, naming high-ranking Democrats like former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Emails have shown Summers flew with Epstein and kept quite. close with him for years. And last night, Summers told the Harvard Crimson, quote, I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognized the pain they have caused. And he added, quote,

I will be stepping back from public commitments. Today, another Democrat was also forced to answer questions. And I got a text from Jeffrey Epstein. Virgin Islands delegate, Stacey Plaskett. Last week, the Washington Post found that Jeffrey Epstein, a donor to her campaigns, texted her a question to ask in a Trump-related hearing, and she did. Today, House Republicans pushed to censure Plaskett and remove her from the Intelligence Committee. She made a mistake here, a bad mistake. She took advice from a convicted pedophile.

Democrats decried a lack of due process, and Plaskett defended her actions. As the Epstein fallout continues, the bill to release the Epstein files now is in Senate hands. And this evening, the Senate has already taken action using a rare procedure, Senators unanimously decided that once they get this bill, it will be considered as if they have already passed it.

So essentially right now, senators are waiting technically for the bill to move over across the Capitol. But basically, all of Congress has now gotten on board this, and this bill will make it to the president by tomorrow. Omna. For more on today's vote, I'm joined now by an attorney representing multiple survivors of Epstein's abuse. That's Spencer Coven. Spencer, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me today.

So you've been representing Epstein survivors for nearly two decades. I think it's fair to say this moment has been a long time coming for you and for them. Just give us a sense of what you're hearing from your clients about this moment and how they're feeling right now. Well, first of all, you know, I represented the first young girl that went to police here in Palm Beach. And when the state attorneys failed to prosecute the claim and it went to the federal investigators back then, they were promised justice back then in 2008, only to be denied that over and over and over again. So to be able to have the world see the full breadth and scope of this sexual pyramid that Jeffrey Epstein had built over the years, it is a breath of fresh air. hopefully, that finally the world will get to see exactly who was involved. And not just Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell, but everyone that was involved in this or complicit in this.

We saw after the release of these latest emails, some action, triggering of new questions, the president calling for a probe into many, including Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers apologizing and stepping back from the public eye. Do your clients see this as some kind of a reckoning? Do they believe that there will be full transparency here? Well, trust but verify, right? I think a wise man once said that. At the end of the day, my clients are hopeful, as they always have been, that ultimately truth will set free, and they will allow the world to see the full breadth and scope of this information. But at the end of the day, they're very skeptical of anything that the government tells them because they've been

denied justice for so long. But what's important is, I think, for the general public to see the full nature of this and the people that were complicit in what was happening. I hear you saying the full nature again and again, and I want to note that we have seen files from the investigation release before, and they have been heavily redacted page after page of blacked out information. Do you think the same thing could happen again, or the Department of Justice could just withhold several documents?

Oh, I have no doubt. I don't put it past the government to withhold whatever they think is damaging to them. But at the end of the day, we have to keep pushing. And my clients want the government and the people behind this to keep pushing to release everything. And the most important thing that needs to be released are the photographs and the videotapes' surveillance that was taken inside the mansion at Epstein's home. The FBI and the Department of Justice are currently sitting on hundreds of hours of videotapes, hundreds of hours of videotapes that show people that were going in and out of Jeffrey Epstein's home, that's what's going to be significant for the world to see.

Spencer, what do you make of the president's U-turn on this issue, first asking Republicans not to vote to release these files and then coming around and saying they should vote to release them? How do you and your clients look at that? Well, we actually see it as a double U-turn. Remember that President Trump said that he would stand with the victims and was demanding the release of the Epstein files during the election campaign. He then saw, apparently, what was in those files or was briefed on it, and then he changed his tune and told them not to release the information. When it looked like that the vote was going to go overwhelmingly in the favor of turning over

this information and the Republicans were going to vote for the turnover of information, he then switched again and now said, release the information. What I think is so significant, though, is President Trump has set in the past when it came to the documents that were found in his home here in Palm Beach and Marlago that he could declassify records and documents at the stroke of a pen. I think his own quote was, even if he was thinking about it, he could declassify it. So we didn't need this law. If President Trump had just abided by his campaign promise to release this information, he could have released this information at the stroke of a pen. So let's get it done. Let's see the documents. I'm sure you've seen the reports, of course, of Epstein's convicted co-conspirator Gailene Maxwell reportedly getting special treatment in prison, seeking to have her sentence commuted by President Trump. How do your clients feel about that?

Disgusted. I mean, in a word, absolutely disgusted. This is a convicted sex trafficker multiple times over and a convicted perjurer, liar under oath. there is absolutely no person in the jail system that gets this type of treatment with this type of conviction unless there is some favor to be curried to the government. She gave them something they wanted. And in return, they gave her a favor by transferring her to this facility and giving her these privileges. Fair to say, a lot of questions still unanswered. That is attorney Spencer Coogan joining us tonight. Spencer, thank you. It's good to speak with you.

Thank you for having me. Now, to our other lead story, President Trump welcomed the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia to the White House today and dismissed the U.S. intelligence communities finding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the plan to kill Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi back in 2018. The Saudi leader and President Trump also discussed a range of agreements they plan to unveil from Saudi plans to invest billions of dollars in the United States to a joint security agreement. White House correspondent Liz Landers reports.

Today the White House pulled out all the stops for the Saudi Crown Prince, a cavalcade on horseback, aircraft flying in formation over President Trump, who literally rolled out the red carpet to welcome Muhammad bin Salman. We have an extremely respected man in the Oval Office today, and a friend of mine for a long time, a very good friend of mine. Trump heaping praise on the young de facto leader from Saudi Arabia. We've always been on the same side of every issue. Highlining the close personal relationship the two men have cultivated during Trump's second term.

The agreement that we are signing today in many areas and technology, in AI, in air materials, magnet, et cetera, that will create a lot of investment opportunities. So you are doing that now, you're saying to me now that the $600 billion will be $1 trillion. Definitely, because what we are signing, it will facilitate that. I like that very much. It's the first time the Crown Prince has been invited to the White House in more than seven years, and the first visit since the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Both leaders were asked about his murder in the Oval Office.

You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happened. But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. But the U.S. intelligence community later concluded that Muhammad bin Salman approved the operation that resulted in Khashoggi's murder in a Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The crown prince saying today about the journalist. It's really painful to hear, you know, anyone that's been losing his life for, you know,

no real purpose or not in a legal way. And it's been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. We've did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia, and we've improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that, and it's painful, and it's a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn't happen again. The two men making several policy announcements, including a long-sought military advantage for the Saudis, the advanced F-35 fighter jets that the president agreed to sell to the kingdom and showed off the planes during the arrival ceremony. In addition, the Saudi crown prince described a short-term investment of $50 billion in U.S. manufactured semiconductor chips

to keep up with the country's, quote, huge demand for computing power, and billions more promised long-term. And President Trump indicating that a civil nuclear deal could happen in the future, saying it wasn't urgent and remarking that Saudi Arabia has large oil and gas reserves for energy. But Muhammad bin Salman made it clear he would not yet sign on to the Abraham Accords, the regional peace deal Trump brokered during his first administration, normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab states. We want to be part of the Abraham Accord, but we want also to be sure that we secure. you are a clear path of two-state solution. We want peace for the Israelis, we want peace for the Palestinians, we want them to coexist peacefully in the region, and we will do our best to reach that day.

The Saudi Crown Prince also indicating that Saudi Arabia will financially contribute to the rebuilding process in Gaza, though declining to put an exact number figure on what that will be. And Liz Landers joins us now from the White House, where President Trump and Muhammad bin Salman are having a former black-tie dinner tonight, and it sounds like the rain is beginning to fall. But, Liz, we should note this was the first time that MBS, as he's known, was on U.S. soil since that murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. We heard the president there defend the crown prince, say things happen, say he doesn't hold

him responsible for the killing. What does all of this say about the president's priorities here? Anna, this was certainly the most surprising moment in that Oval Office meeting earlier today. And the president, even admonishing the reporter who asked the question. of both him and the crown prince. The president's comments directly contradict what the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Ben Salman did approve the killing of Khashoggi back in 2018, and that the prince also viewed Khashoggi as a threat to the kingdom and supported using violent measures, if necessary, to silence him.

Now, this comes as the kingdom is trying to position itself towards the future, towards modernization. Ben Salman has been a big part of that policy shift, but this moment, I think, underlines some of the human rights problems that still dog the nation. And the president coming to the defense of the crown prince there in the Oval Office earlier today, I think underlines how he views their relationship, how he values their relationship. This whole meeting today, the whole visit has shown that, the pomp and circumstance that is usually reserved for America's closest. And as you mentioned, Omna, we have this black tie dinner that's going to be happening shortly here at the White House. And the events even continue even tomorrow with a large event that is expected at the Kennedy Center as well. Liz, let me ask you about your reporting on the U.S. intention to sell those F-35 fighter jets to the Saudis.

We're talking about the U.S.'s most advanced and sophisticated jets. We've heard some security concerns from analysts about giving these to the Saudis. What more can you tell us about that? Well, this has been the big question in the lead-up to this meeting today is whether or not the United States was going to sell those F-35s. And the president saying yesterday making the news that he would sell these very sophisticated stealth fighter jets that are used in the most secretive missions that the United States military carries out.

And that is what worries experts like Fred Wary of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Listen. system has so many incredible, you know, capabilities in terms of its avionics, its targeting, its stealth, its countermeasures. And those are quite frankly, closely guarded secrets for the United States. And the concern is whether or not the Saudis will be able to safeguard that technology and prevent it from falling into Chinese hands. Weir is saying that he's concerned that China could borrow this technology, steal it, and

reverse engineer it, and then potentially use it against the United States in future military conflicts. And one more thing, too, Omna, to add to the overall picture of the region, of the Middle East region, too. There is also concern that Saudi Arabia having these F-35s will erode Israel's military advantage that it has in the region. Liz, we also heard the president was asked about his family's business dealings in Saudi. There are at least four Trump-branded real estate developments planned in the kingdom. Tell us about his response to that. Yeah, the president said that he has nothing to do with the family business.

He said he has left, and he has handed over the daily management of the Trump organization to his sons, Eric, and Don Jr. But the Trump organization has expanded greatly in the Middle East, and especially in Saudi Arabia in just the last few years. So president distancing himself from this, but ethics experts still have concerns about the Trump family's business ceilings in the Middle East. Amna. Liz Landers reporting live for us from the one. White House tonight. Liz, thank you. In the day's other headlines, a federal judge ruled that Facebook's parent company, META, does not have an illegal monopoly over social networking. It's a huge win for the social media

giant and means that META won't have to spin off its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. In his ruling, Judge James Bosberg said times have changed since the government first brought its case five years ago, with competitors like TikTok mixing things up in the market. Today's decision is a sharp contrast to recent rulings that found Google engaged in an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising. The Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare says it's resolved an outage that disrupted thousands of Internet users earlier today. Chat GPT, New Jersey Transit, Spotify, and even the online game League of Legends were affected. The company says the outage was caused by a file that triggered a, quote, crash in the software system that handles traffic for a number of its services. Cloudflare helps websites secure and manage their internet traffic.

The company says it's monitoring for any further problems, adding there is no evidence of a cyber attack. A federal court is blocking Texas from using its new congressional. map in next year's midterm elections. A three-judge panel sided with civil rights groups today, finding that, quote, substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map. Governor Greg Abbott called that claim absurd and said Texas would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. It's the latest blow to President Trump's efforts to push states to redraw their maps ahead of next year's vote. Last week, Republicans in Indiana said they would

not be taking up a similar effort there. investigators say two electrical blackouts disabled controls on the ship that crashed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge last year killing six people. At a hearing today, the NTSB revealed one blackout was caused by a loose wire, the other by problems with a fuel pump. Investigator said the crew did periodically inspect the wiring system, but there were no instructions on how to check individual wire connections. The NTSB chair said today that would be a tough task. Investigators routinely accomplish the impossible, and this investigation is no different. Locating a single wire that is loose among thousands of wires is like looking for a loose bolt in the Eiffel Tower.

Today's findings come after Maryland officials more than double the estimated cost to replace the bridge to at least $4.3 billion. And they say it won't be completed until 2030, which is two years later than expected. The Trump administration is accelerating its plans to dismantle the Department of Education. Six new agreements announced today will move billions of dollars in grants to other federal agencies. Among these is a plan for the Labor Department to oversee some of the largest grant programs for K-12 schools. That includes money for schools serving low-income communities. Critics say such actions put vulnerable students at risk. President Trump called for the elimination of the department in March,

but that requires approval from Congress. Turning overseas, Palestinian attackers stabbed and killed an Israeli man in the occupied West Bank today. They also wounded three others, one seriously, before Israeli soldiers shot and killed them. Today's violence follows a rash of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. The draft resolution has been adopted. And it comes a day after the UN Security Council voted in support of the U.S.-backed plan for Gaza's post-war future. That includes an international security force for Gaza.

Palestinians in Khan Yunus today said they are hopeful but also skeptical of the plan. From our previous experiences, Israel doesn't commit to international resolutions. We pray to God that this time there will be real pressure from the West and the U.S. to pressure Israel. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority welcomed the UN vote, but Hamas rejected it, saying the proposed security force would allow Israel to maintain a firm hold on the territory. On Wall Street, stocks struggled again today amid lingering worries about excessive AI optimism. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 500 points.

The NASDAQ dropped 275 points on the day. The S&P 500 also closed firmly in negative territory. And Britain's Royal Mint is honoring Freddie Mercury with a new coin four decades after his iconic live-aid performance. It captures the Queen Frontman mid-performance, head-back, microphone in hand with a musical staff to represent his remarkable four-octive vocal range. That voice was on full display during what many consider one of the greatest rock sets of all time. Mercury's coin follows similar tributes by the Royal Men to legends like David Bowie and Paul McCartney.

It goes on sale today with prices starting at about $25 each. Still to come, on the news hour, how the Trump administration's priorities are creating challenges for community colleges. A Catholic bishop on why he and his counterparts are pushing for less. progressive immigration enforcement. And a brief but spectacular take on cooking and finding community. 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. The United Nations Climate Summit in Brazil, known as COP 30, will wrap up later this week, and its achievements will likely be more muted this year.

Tens of thousands of delegates from nearly 200 countries are meeting near the Amazon rainforest. But among those not there, any official delegation from the United States, the country that's emitted more carbon dioxide than any nation on Earth. William Brangham has more for our ongoing climate coverage, tipping point. The Trump administration's decision to give COP 30 the cold shoulder fathers other similar dismissals of any efforts to combat climate change. The president again pulled the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement,

which sought to keep global temperatures from rising to increasingly dangerous levels. So to help us understand where things sit today, we turn to someone with decades of high-level experience in this realm. John Kerry was Secretary of State under President Obama and was President Biden's special presidential envoy for climate. John Kerry, thank you so much for being here. You used to lead large delegations to these cop meetings. This year, the U.S. administration sent no one.

President Trump says, as you know, that climate change is the greatest con job in history. What does it mean when the American government is absent? Well, I think it means, first of all, that the United States is hurting itself, that the absence of U.S. leadership and even presence just put it at presence, really defeats the fundamental purpose of these meetings to some degree because no one country can solve this problem by itself. No country has enough money to

solve this problem by itself. That's why it's so critical, and we did in Dubai, in Glasgow, in Paris, we brought private sectors at the table to be part of the solution. We can only solve this if we galvanize our economies on a global basis to be curbing carbon dioxide, to be curbing greenhouse gas pollution, and to be building out the new energy systems of the future. What's interesting is other countries are making me, what is it about this issue, that one person in one country, in one government, says it's a hoax. And thousands of scientists around the world, presidents of countries, monarchs, finance ministers, defense ministers, environment ministers are all agreeing we must move urgently and rapidly to cope with this issue.

One of your key victories was the Paris Agreement, which set this goal of keeping additional warming below two degrees Celsius. It looks like we are going to blow through that target. By most measures, other countries have failed to meet their promises. made at previous cops to cut their emissions. So does it really matter, though, if America is not in this arena, given that we are still so struggling to get our hands around this problem? Yes, it does matter, and let me share with you why. When President Obama started his second term and made me a Secretary of State,

one of his priorities was trying to deal with the climate crisis. Well, guess what? You just said it a moment ago, countries aren't doing what they promised to do. And when the United States pulls back, as we have, it really releases other countries from the pressure of doing the things that they promised they would do. So emissions are going up, not down. And what we've done is we've seen an unconscious and in some cases purposeful, turning away from the promises made for what reason? Greed, for money. because there's a reality that the existing system has revenue streams to oil and gas companies

to other folks who are, you know, arguing against doing things. And that really just stops things in their track. So what we need to do is renew our commitments. Bel-M is an opportunity to raise the national efforts, which we did almost in every year from Paris. If we go backwards now, it is going to cost every nation in the world far more than it would cost to be moving forward in keeping the promises. Help me understand a disconnect that I'm seeing here. There is remarkable progress being made on solar and wind. One recent report indicated that China's emissions, the biggest current polluter in the world, might be tapering off or even reducing largely because of solar and wind. Given the evidence of how powerful these technologies are, that they are

cheap and clean. Why is it that we are still seeing a seeming reluctance to embrace them fully? Because there's a distinct group that want to continue the status quo. I mentioned a moment ago the revenue stream. They're making money. And now with energy demand up, they think they're going to be there to be the major provider of that new energy. I don't think that's the way the world sees it, frankly, the economies of the world. The fact is that last year, $2.2 trillion went into the venture capital and the investments of the new energy economy of solar, wind, and other renewables, versus one trillion that went into fossil fuel. That's the first time in human history there's been that turnaround, that imbalance. And I think that what you see now

is many, many new technologies poised to come online. Solar is obviously gaining every single year. Solar is absolutely, and wind, absolutely, cheaper than fossil fuel production. So we're really witnessing this is a major moment for the world. The fact is, we made promises that could keep the Earth's temperature increase near the 1.5 degrees, 1.6, 1.7. The International Energy Agency says, if we followed through on the promises that were made in Glasgow

and in Tramolshake and Dubai, if we did the things we promised to do, we can win the battle, we can hold the Earth's temperature increased. We're just not choosing to do that. Just look at what's happening in the economy. Two days ago, Bloomberg carried a headline saying, you know who believes in climate change, the stock market. And if you look at the stock market, you'll see incredible profits being made by the deployment

of the new technologies that are not oil and gas. So if you look across the board at where we're heading, I think those technologies are going to win. I think they win because new technologies beat old commodities, and that is exactly what the marketplace is beginning to see and experience. Bill Gates, who you know has long been a champion of action on climate change, recently made a little bit of a pivot, arguing that we could innovate our way out of the climate crisis and that we should focus more on human health and protecting children and deal with diseases.

He also argued, seemingly, that some of the rhetoric around climate change, what he argued was to apocalyptic language, had harmed the movement overall. And I wonder what you think about that. Well, I understand exactly what he's saying, and I don't disagree with the fact that the terminology that has been used for years has run its course, I think. To some degree, the efforts to coalesce action to deal with the climate crisis has been tarnished by branding that has purposely taken place to sort of, you know, make it seem like all people can. about is ESG, or it's just a matter of wokeism. And that's because not enough argument has been made, which I was just making, about the benefits to the economy and the strategic directions that people are taking on the planet. Let me be specific. China. President

Trump and others say, well, we want to compete with China. We want to win that competition. We're going to be number one. Terrific. But you can't do that by just turning your back and walking away from the battlefield. And the battlefield is in the the production of those innovations and technologies that Bill referred to that are going to win the battle. Today, China is the largest deployer and manufacturer of renewables in the world. China has deployed more renewable energy than all of the rest of the world put together. They know this is the new market, and China's killing it in that market right now, because

they don't have the competition. After all these years of the predictions of the bad things that it happened that are, in fact, happening now, storms more intense, floods, fires, you name it. All predicted and directly relatable to the climate impact, but we could be addressing all of those things if we were moving faster to create the jobs and pursue the technologies that will provide clean energy. And if we do that, we're going to win. All right, that is former Secretary of State and former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. John Kerry, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, sir. are also creating challenges for some community colleges, and they could undermine those

school's plans to create more economic opportunities and jobs. Paul Solomon has a report for our series, Rethinking College. We've been following this story for years. Where will more skilled workers in the trades come from? The plumbers, electricians, construction workers. More than ever, it seems, from community colleges. Like North Carolina, is Durham Tech. That's right. So the students built this. Yeah.

Our instructors probably built the frame, and then our students are learning how to frame out the doors. College President J.B. Buxton says, like all community colleges, his goes all out to get anyone and everyone through the door. What we're working to do is expand the population of people who are coming in to the construction trades. And the classes here are full, teaching economic essentials for the region. When you start talking about what growing a successful economy looks like, the supply and demand equation that exists between workforce development and job recruitment and expansion is a critical one.

Chamber of Commerce President Jeff Durham, no relation to the 19th century physician for whom the city was named, says the companies here are desperate for skilled workers. Question one from any company looking to expand or relocate or start up here is where, where you're going to expand or relocate or start up here is where is the talent coming from? What does that pipeline look like? Durham Tech is a key entity to help prepare our broader community for those opportunities. By training construction workers, for example. Now happily, this jibes with the administration's populist agenda. Here's the problem, though. The push against the Harvard's and Columbia's is to target DEI programs, defunding, diversity, equity, and inclusion to punish the hoity-toity elitists. But that directly threatens the blue-collar community colleges and their mission of expanding the workforce.

For instance, Durham Tech needed permission from the National Science Foundation to extend unspent funds for a program to get more women into the trades. What we got back was, that's fine, submit the paperwork, just don't put women or diversity in the request to extend the funds. The program is for women, expanding the pool of all of them. potential workers and the talent. They had to comply. And one of the school's nonprofit partners focused on getting more women and non-binary individuals

into the trades had its federal funding completely killed. Despite the fact that says President Buxton, women make up about 4% of the construction trades and about that of the skilled trades. So you've got half of the population not really participating in this sector of the economy. trigger phrase I heard was women and non-binary or gender expansive. It could be. I mean, I don't want to speak for the administration on that. It's still the same issue. You're trying to expand the pool of eligible workers. If we have a not-for-profit organization that is trying to figure out how to get more people into the skilled trades, we want to work with it. If the Baptist men

came to me who do great disaster recovery and construction work and said, we need you to train men in the skilled trades so we can be better responsive in disaster. We'd work with them. The administration didn't respond to a request for comment. However, the Department of Education has previously said that it's, quote, taken action to eliminate harmful diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in our schools. To which Gretchen Bellamy responds.

I am eternally grateful for this program. Bellamy was a lawyer before she became one of the women who walked through the doors at Durham Tech and transformed her career. Not only have I learned how to fix things and think creatively and be a risk taker. Lawyers aren't risk takers. Me actually cutting a hole into my own bathroom wall, you know, I was a little nerve-wracking. So it gave me like the audacity to try. Try and complete. My whole bathroom, my son's bathroom, put in a new floor, removed vanity, removed the toilet.

That's just in my own house. Bellamy is one of 10.5 million community college students in the U.S., some 40% of all higher-ed students. Of Durham Tech's 18,000 students, the majority are non-white and working class. And the problem isn't just funding cuts for targeted programs. For the community college student body, it's cuts in general. like for food stamps and Medicaid. Three-quarters of our students are working. Health care, food assistance,

maybe the things that prevent them from enrolling or from staying. Works just like a normal grocery store. Jake Duterman runs the food pantry at Durham Tech, which serves 700 unique students every month. The number is shooting up. In recent months, we've been seeing at least a few hundred more people per month than we normally do. Is that because of cuts and benefits?

It's like SNAP, do you think? Yes, I believe so. Students like Edith Agola, who's working on her third associate's degree. Here from Kenya, she and her husband have two boys, one a seven-year-old with special needs. Being a student, a mother, and I don't have a full-time job, I can only work here like five hours. The reason being I have an autistic child, working for five hours, that money is not enough for me to pay my bills and also. So, you know, go grocery shopping. Does she use the pantry?

Every time we get food in here, I have to carry something home that I think I need. Not I think I need, I need. Need, she says, in order to attend school. You can tell me I'll come here in the morning without breakfast, and I don't have lunch, and I don't know where my next meal is coming from, and you think I can function in class. I don't think so. pantry has saved me of plenty of days, especially in between tests and finals and such, starving.

Same for Katisha Burns. And, of course, you feed your children breakfast, but then they want to eat your breakfast just because you're mom. Burns intends to become a midwife. You need schooling to further any career that you're serious about. The administration said of its cuts to food assistance that Snap had, quote, become so bloated that it's leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help. We are committed to preserving SNAP for the truly needy. And of cutting Medicaid that it, quote, removes illegal aliens,

enforces work requirements, and protects Medicaid for the truly vulnerable. But the effect, says Durham Tech President Buxton, fewer students for trade jobs, which with immigrants leaving the country are ever more in demand. from consumers and employers alike. We're trying to be demand responsive to them. We need a level of certainty about how we can plan to be demand responsive and what the nature of that labor market looks like and the resources we're going to use.

We don't just dream up some courses we can offer and see who comes and teach them. We're purpose-built to serve this part of the economy in Durham and Orange counties in the Greater Triangle region. So the less certainty we have about what the nature of our labor market looks like, the less effective we are in providing that support, and the less effective a pathway we are

for people trying to improve their lives. Support now being withdrawn from community colleges, and there would be students. For the PBS NewsHour, Paul Salman. Pope Leo spoke out today about the Trump administration's approach to mass deportation and the treatment of some immigrants. The Pope was asked about Catholic bishops

who've been critical of those policies. In a so-called special pastoral message, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops decried the, quote, indiscriminate deportation campaign and said they are, quote, praying for an end to the dehumanizing rhetoric and violence. The Pope offered his support for that message this evening. I appreciate very much what the bishops have said.

I think it's a very important statement. I would invite, especially all Catholics, but people of goodwill to listen carefully to what they said. I think we have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have. If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There's a system of justice. Before the Pope's remarks, I spoke with one of the bishops behind that immigration message. That's Bishop Mark's Sites of El Paso, Texas, who met with the Pope this fall. Bishop Sites, welcome to the News Hour.

Thanks for joining us. It's great to be with you, I'm not. So as we noted there, this kind of message is very rare. What did you and other bishops see that said to you it's necessary to deliver this message and right now? Well, I think probably there were a lot of people that would have liked to have heard from us as a body even sooner. But it's a complicated matter with 300 plus bishops in the United States. to come together around a statement, even though there is a high deal of unanimity in terms of the issue itself to come together on the words is challenging, and we undertook that process at our

last meeting. Now, I should note that President Trump is not mentioned by name anywhere in the statement, but this is in response to his policies and his approach, and his borders are Tom Homan responded to your message by saying the Catholic Church is wrong. What's your response to that? Well, he has a right to his opinion, but he needs to realize he's disagreeing with the Catholic Church. Our role in the church is that we are to speak according to the gospel and the teachings

of the church, and certainly when you find this degree of unanimity between the Holy father and the entire body of bishops of the United States, there ought to be something that causes people to look up and say, wow, this must have something to do with church teaching. You also say in the statement you're grateful for the chance to dialogue with public and elected officials. Have you had that chance? Are you or any of your colleagues speaking to the White House or to DHS? And what is it specifically you'd like to see change? well we're constantly seeking to be in communication with with the government and we see ourselves as having a role of conscience formation you might say of just speaking the basic principles that we believe that we've gotten from the gospel and through the history of the church's reflection on these issues we believe we have something to offer to the polity to the to the state and we do that wherever we are. So we have been in contact, but we haven't had the level of contact to this point

that we would like that we have seen in the past with the leadership of our country. If you had a chance to speak directly with someone in the White House, what would you say? Well, I'd certainly want to have a conversation with them, but we would express our great concern about some of the rhetoric that's been using, characterizing whole large groups of people and giving the impression that they're criminals, that they're rapists and all of these kinds of things that have come along. We would also want to remind them that this country has signed on to a law that is our own in this country, but also according to international law, that says that we will accept people into this country who are fleeing for their lives. And the law

establishes a way to do that that recognizes the urgency of that acceptance in some cases. So we would remind them about that. We would ask that they be very careful when they consider actions that could result in the division of families and the separation of families. or sending people, individuals or families, into situations that are really threatening to their very life in some of the countries that we're considering sending people to. Bishop, I have to ask you, at the same Baltimore conference where you approve this immigration message, I know bishops also agreed on a statement and a decision around the treatment of transgender people by the church made the decision to officially bar Catholic hospitals from providing gender affirmation. care for transgender people. Can you explain why what's behind that decision? Well, first of all, let me say that we believe that we should love and care for every human being, and that is the goal of the church. But sometimes actions that a person might request

might not be in their best interest from our understanding of the human person, according to what we've received from scripture, from the teaching of the church. And so we couldn't go along with doing something that we believe would be harmful to a person and, in fact, would harm them for life in many cases. I should note that the gender affirming care is backed by medical professionals and by years of study, but I'll also note we heard from other faith leaders this week saying, from Episcopalian faith, from Presbyterians, reformed Jews, saying they feel their faiths compel them to treat transgender, intersex, and non-binary people with respect, love, and equal

rights. They're reading from the same holy text here, right? So why the divide? Well, there's always been differences based on the interpretation of the scriptures. And I don't think that's going to end right away, although we would love to see it happen. But we read it differently than they do. And again, we have tremendous respect and care for people who are going through this struggle. We want to support them, walk with them, but we wouldn't want to do anything that we would believe would hurt them. Bishop Mark Sites of El Paso, Texas. We thank you so much for your time for making the time to speak with us. Appreciate it.

You're welcome. God bless you and your listeners. Sometimes the right learning environment can change everything. For Courtney Irwin, that place was a youth development center in Salinas, California. Tonight, she shares her brief but spectacular take on how cooking and community helped her to find her way. My earliest memory of cooking, I believe I was probably about 12 years old. I had told my dad, I was like, oh, I want to go to Olive Garden. They have chicken Alfredo.

And he was like, we have so many kids in the house. We're going to make it at home. And we made it for the whole house. We probably made like five pounds of pasta. And I was like, oh, I like to do this. My childhood growing up in Salinas, it was rough. I ran into a lot of problems in school. I was constantly ditching.

I was bullying. And when I did make friends, they were not. not the best of friends. It leaded me to getting into trouble. First, I ended up expelled, and then I ended up on probation. So the person who brought me to the ranch of Sielo, his name was David. He was my truancy probation officer at the time. I would always bring banana bread and cookies. He was like, you know what, I think I found a good, the perfect place for you to be where you could bake and get away from all the people that you're interacting with now. I definitely think by coming to the ranch, it stopped me from continuing to get myself in trouble, where I would have

ended up in jail. It gave me a safe place and a sense of myself. One week you're in the kitchen getting hands-on training and the next week you're in the classroom working on your credits and catching up. Not having to be in the classroom all week, every week is such a drastic change. They send you all to do big events, meals on wheels. You work in different hotels. I remember one time I made these lemon pound cake cupcakes and I filled them with a lemon curd with a cream cheese frosting and like still to this day, I dream about those. If I had the opportunity to talk to 16-year-old Courtney, I would tell her to stop and listen.

You used to have a lot of growing to do. My name is Courtney Irwin, and this is my brief but spectacular take on finding my place where I belong. And you can watch more brief but spectacular videos on our website. And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Omna Navaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.