PBS News Hour - Full Show - November 22, 2025 – PBS News Weekend full episode

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Saturday on PBS News Weekend, one of Trump’s staunchest defenders and MAGA allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, plans to quit Congress in the wake of a bitter public feud. Deadly strikes continue along the Israel-Lebanon border despite a ceasefire that’s been in effect for nearly a year. Plus, how patients are using AI to fight back against denied health insurance claims. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Tonight on PBS News weekend, one of President Trump's staunchest defenders and MAGA ally, Marjorie Taylor-Green, plans to quit Congress in the wake of a bitter public feud. Then deadly strikes continue along the Israel-Lebanon border, despite a ceasefire that's been in effect for nearly a year. And how patients are using artificial intelligence to fight back when their insurance claim is denied. The system asks you for all the documentation that you have that would be helpful and you pay like a $40 or $50 fee. The AI creates a claims appeal for you that you can submit to your insurer. Good evening. I'm Allie Rogan. is away. Tonight, shock waves in Washington after Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Green, once one of President Trump's staunches defenders, said she's resigning from Congress in January

before her term is up. Green made the surprise announcement in a video she posted on X Friday night, marking a dramatic break with President Donald Trump. It came after a public falling out with him in recent months as Green criticized the president on foreign policy, health care, and his stance on releasing files relating to the Jeffrey Epis. standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked in use by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States whom I fought for. Trump fired back on Truth Social today, once again calling Green a traitor who went bad. Tia Mitchell is the Washington Bureau Chief for the Atlanta

Journal Constitution. She's covered Green since her first campaign. Thank you, so much for joining me. Marjorie Taylor Green, up until this falling out, was one of President Trump's staunches defenders. To what do you attribute her abrupt resignation? Well, I think it's been building. There has been a split in the Republican Party, particularly among Madda Far Right Republican-Hent White House bid, his second administration, because they felt that he wasn't necessarily living up to some of his campaign promises, Of course, Marjorie Taylor Green started speaking out about it earlier this summer on things like Israel and the war with Gaza and other foreign policy, some legislation that the White House wanted Congress to pass that she felt didn't adhere to the America First MAGA brand. But things really came to a head when it came to releasing the Epstein files.

Marjorie Taylor Green was one of the four Republicans who, along with Democrats, forced a vote on the Epstein files over Trump's objections initially. And that was really what sent Trump over the edge. He split with her. He unendorsed her was very critical of her in personal terms. And this happened about a week ago. And Marjorie Tellegrine started doing some soul searching because she really came to Congress to work alongside Trump. She said that was part of her agenda was to help him carry out his. And I think once she came to the conclusion that, you know, she couldn't work with Trump.

They're not on the same side. She kind of lost interest in remaining a member of Congress. President Trump today told reporters that she resigned because he withdrew his support. And he said that if she had run for reelection, she would have lost. Is that an accurate interpretation of President Trump's influence over Republican candidates in this case, do you think? Well, yes and no. I feel that Marjorie Taylor Green would have likely faced what Thomas Massey has faced, which means that Trump would recruit people to challenge her in a primary. There would be a lot of money spent and it would be a bitter primary campaign. But like Thomas Massey, I still think Marjorie Taylor Green would be considered the frontrunner and was likely to win re-election. So the calculations from Marjorie Taylor Green was, do I want to, have this tough reelection bid and be drug into a nasty primary battle, have Donald Trump really trying to turn my constituents against me. And I could come out victorious, enter Congress for

another term, and then Trump is going to expect me to defend him and defend his policies. I don't want to stand up for that. She's also cited the fact that she's been getting calls from security firms, given the amount of vitriol that she has been on the receiving end of. She's a public figure. Certainly, she's no stranger to criticism, but do you think also the rhetoric against her and the threats she may have faced could have also played a role here in this decision? I do. I think, again, if you listen to the video she posted, she basically said she didn't feel like the recent vitriol in threats, which came because Trump's criticism, that to her hurt even more because it was from, again, someone that wasn't just

someone she considered a friend and an ally. So if he's turned on me and he's, you know, leading to all this criticism and vitriol and threats, it's not worth it to me in my family. You know, that part of her core values is being a mom, putting family first. And so I think for her, she began to wonder, why am I enduring? all of this. What do you think is going to be next for her? So, you know, there's a lot of speculation. She previously ruled out running for Senate or governor in Georgia in 2026. There's speculation that she might run for president in 2028. But as I talk to people close to her, I get the sense that at least in the short term, her thinking is she really wants to fade

back into being kind of a regular citizen. Now, could that change with time? I think that's a possibility that maybe if she gives herself a few months to go, you know, into private life, regroup, see what types of offers come her way. You know, there's a lot of speculation. Could she, you know, she has a massive platform on social media. She has a massive platform. You know, she's recognized now with her speaking out in favor of the health care issues and lowering health care costs during the government shutdown, even more of a platform. So I think there, there are opportunities that could be awaiting her. Tia Mitchell with the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Thank you so much.

Thank you. In tonight's other headlines, police arrested Brazil's former president today after he allegedly tried to escape house arrest days before beginning a 27-year prison sentence. The Supreme Court Justice, who oversaw the case against Jair Bolsonaro, said the far-right leader hatched a plan with his son to flee his home for the U.S. Embassy and Brazil to seek a political asylum. Bolsonaro is a political ally of President Trump. He's now expected to remain in custody until Brazil's Supreme Court panel hears the case Monday. Deemed a flight risk, Bolsonaro had been placed on house arrest ahead of his prison term after he was found

guilty of charges for leading a coup attempt. Israel launched several air strikes into Gaza overnight despite the ongoing yet fragile ceasefire in the region. The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to an attack from an armed militant who crossed into an area the IDF controls and opened fire. No Israeli soldiers were injured, but Israel said it responded with strikes across the Gaza Strip meant to target Hamas militants. Health officials in Gaza said at least 24 people were killed and nearly 60 wounded, including children. Classrooms across part of Nigeria are now closed over security concerns following mass kidnappings at schools in the country this week.

New numbers out today reveal gunman took more than 300 students and 12 teachers from a Catholic school on Friday. That incident happened just days after 25 students were kidnapped from a predominantly Muslim school in the country's northwest. Experts say schools in the region have become easy targets due to the lack of security. No group has claimed responsibility for the abductions. The United Nations Climate Summit meant to open dialogue

between countries about how to address climate change came to a quiet end in Brazil today. The president of COP 30 announced a compromise with little fanfare. Wealthy country signed onto an agreement to triple funds for nations hardest hit by extreme weather related to climate change, but the agreement removes any mention of fossil fuels

as a driving factor. Critics called the agreement inadequate and questioned whether it would help lower the planet's rising temperature. Still to come on PBS News Weekend, Strikes continue to claim lives as the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah reaches the one-year mark, and how insurance companies and patients are using AI for disputed claims. This is PBS News Weekend from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, home of the PBS News Hour.

Weeknights on PBS. Next week marks one year. since a ceasefire was agreed to end the Israel-Hesbullah war in Lebanon. But ever since, tensions on the ground have been escalating. Just this week, Israel launched a series of strikes in Lebanon that killed at least a dozen people. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas members. Special correspondent Lelah Malana Allen,

who covered the war for PBS News, traveled back to Lebanon to bring us this report. Dust, fire, death. This has become Lebanon's near daily stories. in a war that the world says has ended. On Tuesday evening, a sports centre in southern Lebanon's Aynel Helwa Palestinian refugee camp was struck by three Israeli missiles. Thirteen people died in the strike.

The IDF says it was a Hamas training compound. Residents say the only people here were kids playing. More than 4,000 Lebanese have been killed by Israel's air and ground invasion. Many thousands more still bear its scars. She should have been safe in her home. Instead, it nearly killed her. Late last year, as Israeli bombs ravaged Lebanon's south, Ivana's family was packing up and preparing to flee their home village.

They left it just moments too late. A missile hit, tearing their world apart. Mohamed clung to his baby daughter, just one year old, trying to shelter her body from the blast. It wasn't enough. Everything was exploding around. me. There were shrapnel everywhere and the roof was falling apart, but I kept holding her. Her mother, Fatima, saved her seven-year-old sister, Rahaf, by throwing her from the

balcony as their home was engulfed by flames, then jumped herself. It's incredibly hard to see your daughter burnt in your arms. She had no eyelashes. When I reached the middle of the road, I fainted. Ivana was rushed to hospital, but seeing her tiny, blackened body, Fatima couldn't believe she would survive. I ran into the hospital asking about my daughter. They told me there's a little girl inside and I can check if she's mine or not.

She didn't look like her at all. But as I was leaving, she cried. I'd heard her voice in my ears and said, yes, it is Ivana. I had goosebumps all over my body. Ivana lived, but nearly half her body was covered in third degree burns. She spent

months in and out of hospital, enduring multiple painful surgeries. They suffered so much, and so did we. They were moaning in pain constantly. Today, Ivana is a shy but lively two-year-old full of giggles and curiosity. She doesn't know she looks different. Her favorite games are playing makeover and painting nails. But she has a long road ahead and needs many more surgeries. Rahaf hasn't been to school in a year. Displaced with no income, the family gets by, barely, on donations. They desperately miss their home in the South, but the fear of returning is too great. Even in relative safety here north of Beirut, the trauma follows them.

When we hear planes, they scream and come running to me. They haven't forgotten what they've been through. The war is not over for those who lived through it. And for many, the danger is still all too real. A ceasefire deal was signed late last year. More than a hundred-leather Japanese civilians have been killed since the official end of the war. And many here say the idea they're now safe is simply an illusion. The war displaced at least 1.2 million people, a quarter of Lebanon's population. In the capital, the hardest hit area was Beirut's Hezbollah governed southern suburbs. We're here on the edge of Dachia, the southern suburbs of Beirut, that are now being hit

by waves of airstrikes, all hours of the day and night, just behind me. You can see a black pool smoke rising from a high-rise building that's just been hit. Another strike just hit directly behind me and it's starting to catch fire now. There are these plumes of smoke all over these neighborhoods of Beirut where tens of thousands of people live. Disclaced families were packed into schools like these, a stone's throw from the falling bombs. We can hear the sound of the Israeli drones circling above us constantly. Up to two dozen piled into a room and hundreds sharing a single bathroom. And they were the lucky ones.

Others, including families with small children, resorted to living on the streets. Mirona's home in Dachia was flattened shortly after they fled. After the ceasefire, they came back and found this damaged but still standing apartment to rent. With houses in short supply in this destroyed neighborhood, rent prices have more than doubled. They don't have any running water after an airstrike destroyed the building's water tank and rarely have electricity. Worst of all, Mirna is living just yards from the ruins of her former home. The view from her balcony haunts her daily. The war has taken so many memories from us.

I cry a lot when I remember my house. It's my home, my past. It's agony for me to lose everything. Surrounded by the echoes of war, healing is a distant dream. And with the bombing ongoing, Mirina says the so-called ceasefire is little more than empty words. I'm always prepared. I have an emergency bag just in case I have to flee at any time.

Even after the ceasefire, they targeted a family nearby. And when we heard the sound, we thought it was our house. You're always in constant fear, knowing you may die any minute. UN Peacekeepers report, Israel has committed 7,500 airspace violations and nearly 2,500 ground. violations since the ceasefire deal was agreed. That's an average of 27 violations per day. And as you move south, the danger grows.

During the war, this road was completely deserted after the Israeli military said it might strike any car moving south. We met Ashraf last year, distraught and still in shock after losing his younger sister Julia in an Israeli airstrike. You still send her text messages when you're thinking about her. Israeli forces sometimes send out warnings about areas there about hit. Not this time. The strike on their home in Aynaldalb came out of the blue, bringing the entire residential building crashing to the ground. Ashraf and Julia lived on the top floor. There's

nothing here left to remember her by, except the rubble of their home, under which Ashraf lay trapped for hours awaiting rescue, and Julia and her mother died. Every joy feels lacking without them. My mom and I used to argue a lot, but now I wish I could just have one argument with her. I just want her back. The bombing killed 73 people, including 23 children. Many had fled here from the south, believing the area was safe. The vast majority was civilians, more than half of them women and children. It was the biggest single mass casualty event of the war and the highest death toll of any Israeli strike on Lebanese territory for nearly two decades. The Israeli army says the building was a Hezbollah command center. In the rubble,

We found women's pyjamas and hairbrushes, children's toys and coloring books. The bitterest pill to swallow is the lack of accountability. There's no excuse to justify what they did to a civilian building that wasn't involved in any military action. Ashraf has begun to rebuild the broken parts of his soul by investing all his energy in a charity named for his sister that helps families left homeless by the war. But their grandmother Jamila can find nothing. to console her emptiness. My life is no good without them. I haven't stopped crying in a year.

It leaves a scar in your heart. It leaves your life meaningless. You can't act normally anymore. They stay in your mind. They never leave you. They never leave you. For her, home is now little more than a tomb, a constant reminder of all she's lost.

I miss having everyone together. My sons, daughters and grandchildren. We were so happy back then. I keep thinking about Julia. I wanted to see her get married and be proud of her. So did her mom. But none of that happened, and she never got the chance to see it. A grandmother in endless morning, still living, but barely alive.

This silent conflict continues to claim its victims. For PBS News Weekend, I'm Leila Malana Allen in Aynald-Delib, South Lebanon. As health insurers increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to process claims, denials have been on the rise. In recent years, nearly 20 percent of claims filed by Americans on Affordable Care Act plans were denied. In 2023 alone, that number added up to about 70, million people who had filed claims for in-network services. Less than 1% of them tried to appeal their claim, either because the process was too lengthy or too confusing. Now artificial intelligence is being used to help patients fight back.

Software companies are harnessing the power of AI to create detailed appeal letters for patients in a fraction of the time it would take a human to do. Joining us to talk about the AI battle in health insurance is Jennifer Oliva, professor at Indiana University's Mower School of Law. Thank you so much for joining us. So before we talk about some of these new ways companies are using AI to fight back against claim denials, I want to talk about how health insurance companies have up until this point been using AI and other automated predictive algorithms to work into their claim approval or

denial systems. Yeah, it's somewhat of a mystery, to be fair, because there's no way to know for sure, but the National Association of Insurance Commissioners sent out a survey to health insurers in 2025, and they answered 71 percent of them said we're using AI for utilization management, which means that they're admitting in a survey where they can say whatever they want, that they are using it for prior and concurrent authorization processes. In addition, I'll add that there's several lawsuits that allege that this is going on. And as part of what we've learned from these lawsuits. Indeed, some of the insurers have sent patients denial letters stating that the

claim was reviewed by an AI program. And we also know that a very small number of people ever try to appeal these claims. Why is that the case? Why don't more people take advantage of this system that exists? I think that it's very complicated. First of all, you have to remember that when people are in these situations, they're often in a complicated or an emergent, acute care, health care situation. So it all depends on what their prior knowledge is of a very complex system. If they have the resources and ability at the time when they're in emergency care, the ICU, to deal with the situation that's this complex. It's true. Very few people appeal, but a majority of the people who appeal are very successful. We now have software companies

who are employing AI to help people appeal these rejections. How does that work? What do we know about it. The system asks you for all the documentation that you have that would be helpful in filing the appeal based on what the insurers expecting. And you pay like a $40 or $50 fee as a general rule. And the AI creates a claims appeal for you that you can submit to your insurer. It seems to have gone well for the people that are in the sort of reported conversations about this and I would encourage people to reach out to these companies. I think the problem here is that we're in an AI arms race where as consumers become more savvy and are more empowered by these tools to fight back, the insurers will just, you know, up the Annie on their side with the

AI. So what I would like to see is a system in place where there's fewer denials on the front end that are illegal. What are your concerns with this so-called AI arms race that the industry seems to be engaged in? What's the worst case scenario that you think we might be escalating towards? I think the worst case scenario is that insurers profit from claims denials. That's just part of the business model of how private insurance works in the United States. Therefore, we should be very suspicious when they adopt technologies and tools that make an easier for them and deny claims. We know they deny claims at a high rate. We know very few people appeal. We also know that AI makes it really easy for them to detect people who won't appeal based on a long

standing past history in claims data and on people who won't live through an appeal based on the time that the appeals take. So I'm very, very concerned about, you know, robust AI being used on the insurer's side to sort of pick through the data quite carefully to choose victims who are expensive and will not or perhaps will not live through their appeal. So that's my concern on that side. On the opposite side, on the provider and patient side, I am glad that they have these tools to fight back, but I just feel like it's all going to keep escalating and the insurers will become more savvy and providers and patients don't have the same resources. What about the regulatory landscape here? What exists in terms of preventing some of that

escalation that we just talked about and what should be in place? So almost nothing exists. That's my whole interest in this field is it's very lightly regulated. To the extent that it's regulated, it's generally something like a human has to be in the loop, right? A human has to like oversee the final determination. But as we know from investigative reporting and the lawsuits that are pending, it seems like that's not the case that humans are just sort of approving what the AI is deciding on the insurer's side. And so what I've been arguing for is we need robust regulation on the front end to make sure that the AI tools that the insurers are using are making good, accurate, transparent, and valid decisions

based on the patient's medical necessity, which they're required to by law based on their plan contracts. Jennifer Oliva, Professor Law at Indiana University. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And that's our program for tonight. I'm Allie Rogan for all of my colleagues. Thanks for joining us. See you tomorrow.