PBS News Hour - Full Show - November 2, 2025 – PBS News Weekend full episode

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Sunday on PBS News Weekend, Trump again pushes to change Senate rules to end the 33-day government shutdown, as hundreds of thousands of furloughed workers struggle to make ends meet. Mexican journalists honor their slain colleagues on Day of the Dead. A new documentary follows the journey of decorated Navy SEALs treated with psychedelics for wartime trauma. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Tonight on PBS News Weekend, President Trump again pushes to change Senate rules in order to end the 33-day government shutdown as hundreds of thousands of furloughed workers struggle to make ends meet. Then a new documentary follows the journey of decorated Navy seals treated with psychedelics to combat wartime trauma. And an unseen masterpiece by French Impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir is rediscovered and will go on the auction block. We were particularly surprised by how fresh the painting was, which has not been recanvassed, retouched, retouched, or revarnished. So it is really an exceptional condition. The last person to have touched it was probably Renoir himself. Good evening. I'm John Yang. Tonight, day 33 of the government shutdown is drawing to a close with no end in sight.

And Americans are beginning to feel the effects. Payments for federal food programs are in doubt despite court orders. Delays are likely for federal payments to help low-income Americans heat and cool their homes. And the air traffic control system is beginning to show signs of strain as the holiday travel season approaches. Meanwhile, this weekend, the approximately 650,000 furloughed federal workers are getting fresh notices telling them to stay home without working and without pay. Many are beginning to feel the pinch. This is my first time visiting a food bank in my entire life. I've never had the need to do so in the past, but times change.

Anthony's fate is just one of the hundreds of thousands of federal employees nationwide who've been furloughed for more than four weeks. In Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, federal workers both furloughed and fired, are lining up at food banks for assistance. I have a master's degree. I have 25 years of experience in my own job. I didn't see this ever coming. It never should have. Amy Uccello was one of tens of thousands of USAID workers fired earlier this year when the administration eliminated the agency. It's finding ways to make ends meet. Grateful for any sort of assistance programs.

I'm showing up to food banks when I can. We're applying to jobs constantly. Our unemployment just ran out, so now we have no income coming in. Furloughed IRS lawyer, Isaac Stein, turned a side hustle selling hot dogs into a temporary full-time gig. It was a happy coincidence in the sense that I have something to do while I'm furrowing. load, but I really do want to emphasize that I and every co-worker I know, we just want to go back to work. So I'm very much looking forward to when the shutdown is over, just resuming my job and having

this be a fun weekend thing like it was intended to be. World Central Kitchen is known for providing food aid in the aftermath of disasters around the world. You're welcome. One of their latest distribution sites? downtown Washington, D.C. I just don't like to know that SNAP benefits are being cut off, other programs are being cut off, the work is being delayed, our country can't kind of run the way that it should effectively and efficiently because we have a lapse in appropriation and Congress is not coming to the table like they should. And as the government shutdown closes in on becoming the longest ever, federal workers want Congress to hear their pleas.

I still have bills that are due. I have a family that I have to take care of, so it's a lot of uncertainty that comes along with this. I'm grateful for these opportunities to receive assistance, but there is a lot of uncertainty that comes along with it, and it causes a lot of stress as well. All I can do is just continue to pray and hope that something is done to resolve the issue with the federal government shutdown. Barring some dramatic, unforeseen development, it appears likely that this week the shutdown will become the longest on record. Jeremy Mayer is the director of the political science master's program at George Mason University's Sharr School of Policy and Government. Jeremy, this shutdown is about to have a distinction of being the longest on record. Are there other things distinctive about this shutdown compared with others from the recent past?

Yes, the biggest difference is the lack of negotiations. Every other shutdown, the focus has been on what is the president's negotiating position? What is his opposition in Congress? What is their position? and there were shifting sands, and here has just been nothing. The Democrats set their line in the sand, and the Republicans have their position, no negotiation until the government opens, and we're still where we were at the start.

Why do you think that is? Well, it's a symbol of how polarized we are. The Republicans are answerable to a MAGA base and Donald Trump, and they are not interested in compromising because they increasingly see the Democrats as evil, and the Democrats are moving towards that polarization as well. There's not a lot of moderates in the Democratic Party pressuring Schumer to make a deal. The base of the Democratic Party doesn't want a deal.

We're also seeing this administration picking and choosing, making winners and losers over what programs they're going to favor and what programs they're going to pay people to work. Is that unusual? It is very unusual, and it's of questionable legality. But, you know, this administration has been doing that since they were inaugurated. They shut down, as your package had, USAID. They've effectively shut down the Department of Education. No prior president in the history of the Republic has ever asserted the ability to shut down entire agencies.

The president is continuing to his push to get rid of the Senate legislative filibuster. He says that's the way to reopen the government. On Truth Social this weekend, he urged Republicans, don't be weak and stupid. Fight, fight, fight, fight, win, win. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says that he wants to keep the filibuster. He says that it's a bulwark against a lot of really bad things happening with the country. Explain what he means by that or why he would say that. So there has been this debate.

Traditionalists in the Senate of both parties have been against ending the filibuster. They treasure the filibuster. It's one of the things that makes the Senate different from the House. And it's old. It's not in the Constitution, but it's since 1802. But on both sides, the more radical members of the Democratic and Republican caucus have wanted to get rid of the filibuster because it's the only thing that allows you to get big change through the Congress. The Democrats say they won't vote to reopen the government until the Republicans agree to restore some cuts to Medicaid and also agree to extend the subsidies for ACA insurance premiums.

In the recent past of these shutdowns, has anyone ever won a policy change by using the government shutdown as leverage? Well, somewhat. You know, Clinton's big victory was in the politics of the 95 shutdown. He just showed himself to be the adult and made Gingrich look small. But the Republicans did win action on work fare and on a balanced budget. So the 95 is kind of the shutdown that everybody looks to. But the more common outcome is the 2018 shutdown with Trump. He said, I won't open the government until you build me a border wall. And after 35 days, he crumbled like a cheap suit in the rain. And then there was no border wall.

Are shutdowns becoming a common tactic or tool in these negotiations or disagreements? between the two parties? Unfortunately, they are, and they are terrible for government. It's the suffering of the workers, but think about the morale of the agencies, even when we do reopen. I tell my students that a government shutdown is like an induced coma for a medical patient. It's the only thing worse is actual death, and it'll still be hurting our government's efficiency six months and nine months from now, because all the things that they wanted to do, their budgets

are truncated, their planning is truncated, and their workers are going to be dispirited, And even if they do get their back pay, they're going to have had this awful experience of being told your work isn't essential. Given all that, given all you said, what do you think it's going to take to sort of break this stalemate? Well, I think President Trump is going to win this stalemate. I think he can easily get the end of the shutdown simply by saying, my Justice Department has reinterpreted the 100-year-old law, and now I can declare an end of the shutdown. This is what happened when the Congress failed to pass bills on time from 1884 to 1980. We just had a continuing resolution automatically in effect. But in 1980, Carter's Attorney General reinterpreted a law, and that's where modern shutdowns come from.

And they have been terrible. Trump will look like a hero. He's the one that reopened the government all by himself. He didn't have to negotiate with the weak Democrats. And so he's likely to achieve at least a short-term political victory very soon. Jeremy Mayer of George Mason University. Thank you very much. My pleasure.

In tonight's other headlines, police are questioning a British man in connection with a mass stabbing attack on a train headed toward London. Nearly a dozen people were injured. Six remain hospitalized, including a member of the railway staff, who tried to stop the attack. Police say he's in a life-threatening condition. The incident took place Saturday evening, about halfway through the train's two-hour trip from Doncaster in the north. passengers described a bloody and chaotic scene. And at this point, I was kind of asking questions, like, what's going on, what's happening, like, who is it? And they're like, a guy's just stabbing everyone back there.

And then I put my hand on this chair, like, just trying to push myself forward. And then I look at my hand and it's covered in blood. And then I look at the chair and there's blood all over the chair. Another man taken into custody was released after police determined he wasn't involved. Police said it doesn't appear to be a terrorist attack. but don't know what the motive was. The U.S. military has carried out another lethal strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea,

the 15th such strike since September in the Caribbean or Eastern Pacific. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said three people were killed, no U.S. forces were harmed. The strikes in international waters have killed at least 64 people. President Trump says the attacks are necessary to stop drugs from coming into the country, though he hasn't provided any evidence that the boats were carrying drugs.

Administration officials reportedly told Congress that the War Powers Act doesn't apply. Nearly a week after powerful Hurricane Melissa's landfall, the full picture of the effect the Category 5 storm had on Jamaica is still emerging. The official death toll has risen to 28, but because workers have yet to reach some of the hardest-hit communities,

officials expect that number to go up. Search and rescue teams from Virginia and California have spread out across the island to hunt for victims and deliver supplies. And the Los Angeles Dodgers won a roller coaster game seven of a roller coaster World Series, beating the Toronto Blue Jays five to four in extra innings. The Dodgers trailed for eight innings before an unlikely hero, Miguel Rojas, hit a home run at the top of the ninth to tie the game.

It was his first homer since September and only his second in 20 postseason games. Then in the 11th inning, Will Smith had the go-ahead home run. the first extra inning homer in a World Series game seven. The Dodgers are the first repeat champion since the New York Yankees won three straight 25 years ago. Still to come on PBS News Weekend. How psychedelics are used to treat combat veterans with PTSD. And a hidden Renoir masterpiece heads to auction. This is PBS News Weekend from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA and Yenwine.

Washington, home of the PBS NewsHour, weeknights on PBS. For many veterans, the battle doesn't end when they come home. The invisible wounds of combat, like post-traumatic stress disorder, can leave some feeling withdrawn or isolated. Tomorrow, a new documentary premieres on Netflix, entitled In Waves and War. It follows a group of former Navy SEALs as they confront their trauma and find healing through an unconventional tool. guided psychedelic therapy. This is just one of those points in medicine where I've got to have the courage to jump.

That medicine takes you right to get the crest and you fall off. Ali Rogan spoke to the film's director, John Shank, and one of the Navy SEALs featured in the film, Marcus Capone. Thank you both so much for being here. Marcus, the beginning of the film is you and some of your fellow team members talking about the trauma that you experienced, not only on the battlefield, but interestingly, well before you all joined the military. Tell me about that.

You know, I think from the film and the themes that come out of the film, that I think a lot of this started potentially when we were, you know, at young ages, child, you know, four or five years old, ten years old. It's something I think we've never talked about. And I think having traumatic experiences at a young age is potentially what forces us to go into certain careers as a special operator or other high risk or, I would say, protector-type fields. And for us, it was special operations. And it's something that if you ask any one of us, we would never look back. We would never do something different. We would do the exact same way. But you take childhood trauma, you mix it with some wartime trauma.

transition trauma, maybe some traumatic brain injuries, and you have a very difficult mental health issue that's very difficult to treat through traditional approaches to care. And John, we hear in the film a team member saying that he wished he had just lost his arm completely when he was injured rather than have to deal with the more difficult feelings of kind of worthlessness

when he was unable to join his brothers in the field. What have you learned in making this film about the difficulty of dealing with those psychological scars of war? Well, in the film, you meet these three amazing guys, right? Marcus Capone, Maddie Roberts, who I think you're quoting, and DJ Shipley, they find purpose in their life in the SEAL teams. They find brotherhood. They find love. They find acceptance. They find a reason, as DJ says, to get out of bed each morning. Swing feet out of bed. When they get injured, whether it's physical, you know, like literally losing a limb or mental, a brain injury or something like that, and they can't go back out there anymore,

that's a huge change in their lives, something that is almost impossible to adjust to without the help of your friends and community and family. And let's talk about how you started down that journey, Marcus. You had hit some dead ends with traditional treatment. And as a bit of a last ditch effort, you try this compound called Ibegene. It's an experimental, psychedelic. What is Ibegene? And tell us about your experience with it. Yeah, Ibegene is considered a psychedelic drug. It's a Schedule 1 in the U.S. so individuals have to travel outside in places where they're legal. Schedule 1 by nature in the U.S. is supposed to have no medical benefit. It's supposed to have a high risk to abuse. Ibegene is the complete opposite. We're seeing now, we're seeing now, we're supposed to be able to.

with, just through our program, over 1,200 individuals that we've treated and have gotten better, they come to us with substance abuse issues and they stop drinking or they stop their narcotics if they're addicted to opioids, for instance. This is a clinician-guided treatment that is monitored by nurses and, you know, doctors and individuals go in there with really the intent to heal, heal from, you know, You know, wounds of war, heal from traumatic brain injury, heal from childhood trauma, really whatever it is. Marcus, we see in this film some really interesting, great animation of these trips that you and your fellow team members go on. But how does this work?

How does Ibogaine contribute to the healing process? It gets to the root cause of the issues that are affecting your everyday life. Too many treatments put a Band-Aid fix on it. Many of these antidepressants are really just covering up the symptoms. Psychedelics get into your unconscious. So it takes, potentially, five to ten years of psychotherapy what a therapist or a psychologist is trying to get to in a few hours. And that's just incredible.

The interesting thing about Ibegay and Alley is that everybody that we talk to, and we talk to dozens and dozens of retired Navy SEALs who've done this treatment, describe a very visual experience, a life review that they describe kind of like a movie or a slideshow. And just as a filmmaker, it was like we were kids in a candy store because we could go and we could animate those details of those experiences and put them on the screen for the audience to try to begin to understand this highly complex thing that scientists are only beginning to understand. You mentioned the work that you've been doing in this field, so I definitely want to talk about vets, the organization that you and your wife founded to help connect veterans with this treatment. Tell us about why you decided to really make this your life's work in such a big way. I was on the standard, I guess, standard treatment protocols that many of us coming back from overseas are on. So for me, seven years of failed antidepressants, talk therapy, too many brain clinics, get frustrated.

And for this, this was a lifeline for me. And all we wanted to do is pay it forward. We have funded in six years over 1,200 individuals to receive the exact same treatment. We can't meet the demand. we're overwhelmed with applications. I'd say we could accept one out of every 10. Well, and to that point, John, I wonder what do you think needs to change on the policy front on this issue? Who would have thought that right now the zeitgeist would be basically a pro-psychedelic zeitgeist?

I think that the American public is ready for this. We showed in waves and war to the Texas State Legislature a few months ago. They were poised to pass a bill that would funnel tens of millions of dollars in time. Ibegain research, which was successfully passed. California has now followed suit. North Carolina is on the cusp of doing the same. Hopefully we'll have action at the federal level. I think the film is part of a movement that involves people from many, many walks of life

that are part of this new look at psychedelic medicine. The film is in Waves and War. Marcus Capone. John Shank. Thank you so much. Thank you. This weekend is Dia de los Mueros, or Day of the Dead, a holiday celebrated in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. It's a mix of grief and joy honoring the dead. In Tijuana, Mexico this year, they took the opportunity to remember journalists who've been killed while reporting.

From member station K PBS in San Diego, Matthew Bowler has the story. The Alfreda or Alter holds special, spiritual. significance for Mexicans. And this one is significant for the group of people it's remembering, built by journalists, four journalists. It's been a difficult year in Mexico to be in the business of reporting. We are bringing back the reporters killed for this occasion to tell them that we respected their efforts and we believe that journalism is alive. Fecente Calderon has been a journalist in Tijuana since 1985. He's seen dozens of Mexican reporters killed during his career.

For many, it's a dangerous job. In 2016, a UN campaign to end impunity for crimes against journalists inspired him to build an altar to honor his falling colleagues. It is decorated with traditional objects of devotion, like sugar skulls, and brightly colored sympasuchil or marigold flowers. But look closer. You also see broken cell phones. old cameras, press passes, yellowed newspapers, and used notebooks.

Margarito was gunned down coming out of his home, and less than a week later, Lord de Maldonado was killed when she was arriving to her house. Sempasuchel Pettles spell out the words no impunidad or no impunity. Impunity is not compliance with the rule of law and the lack of punishment to whoever who committed a crime. And last weekend, another Mexican journalist was found dead on the side of the highway. Miguel Angel Bertrand covered drug cartels and crime in Durango State. His body was wrapped in a blanket with a note beside his body that reportedly read for spreading lies about the people of Durango.

We are averaging one reporter killed Amund. Let's knock on wood and hope that there's no more killings this year. The Offrenda also included a special section. to honor journalists killed while reporting on the war in Gaza. Both Palestinian and Israeli journalists are celebrated. The altar will remain in place for a few more days, but for Calderon, its meaning is lasting. I try to look at the bright side of things, even when they are this dark.

It's very easy to forget about all these cases of journalists being healed. They need to be protected, and we need to talk about their safety of journalists doing their work. For PBS News Weekend, I'm Matthew Buller. in Tijuana, Mexico. Finally tonight, a previously unknown work by one of the great French impressionists has come to light and will soon go on the auction block. Delicate brushstrokes in vibrant colors.

A child on his nanny's knee playing with toys. It's the work of Pierre August Renoir, apparently one of a series done in the 1890s. The boy is one of his sons, Jean, who had become a great filmmaker. His nanny, Gabriel Renard, was a favorite model of Renoir's. We were particularly surprised by how fresh the painting was. In other words, it is a painting that has retained all of its colors perfectly, which has not been recanvassed, retouched, retouched, or re-varnished. So it is really an exceptional condition.

And if you look closely at the canvas, you can see that there is still some loose canvas around the edges. No one has touched it. So the last person to have touched it was probably Renoir himself. Renoir gave it to his only student. It's been in her family ever since. Never exhibited, though versions are in museums in Washington, D.C. and Paris. In the late 19th century, Renoir had returned to Impressionism

after trying other styles. He's known for intimate and camping. portraits that use vibrant light and saturated colors. It is exceptional because, first of all, it is a masterclass of intimacy. We see this very tender relationship between John and Gabrielle, who knows how to control the child so that Rinneur can paint him. So Gabrielle is not just anyone. Gabrielle is not only Auguste Renoir's nanny,

but also one of his great models. She posed for Renoir almost 200 times. The painting heads to auction in Paris. to auction in Paris at the end of the month. Now online, the legal battle between the Trump administration and state and local governments means millions of Americans remain unsure when their next benefit payments will arrive. All that and more is on our website, pbs.s.org slash news. News Hour. And that is PBS News Weekend for this Sunday. I'm John Yang for all of my colleagues. Thanks for joining us. Have a good week.