PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 14, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

Wednesday on the News Hour, rising gas prices drive inflation higher, adding to Americans' concerns in the final inflation report before the midterms. Ukraine accuses Elon Musk of restricting his Starlink internet systems and undermining troops on the frontline against Russia. Plus, Judy Woodruff explores how immigration and the policies governing it have evolved throughout American history. 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. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, rising gas prices drive inflation higher, adding to Americans' cost of living concerns weeks before the midterm elections. Ukraine accuses Elon Musk of restricting his Starlink Internet systems and undermining troops on the front line against Russia. And Judy Woodruff explores how immigration to the U.S. and the policies governing it have evolved throughout U.S. history. Immigration has been tied into our history.

so long. So to see this rejection of immigrants, this victimization of immigrants is very, very concerning. Welcome to the News Hour. With the midterm elections just three weeks away, a new inflation report shows prices rising faster than expected, putting more pressure on Americans struggling with the cost of everyday essentials. Prices climbed 3.7 percent over the past year, and by more than half a percent in just the last month, the largest monthly increase in five months. The price increase was driven by gasoline, up 9% in September. For more on all of this, I'm joined by Heather Long. She's vice president and chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

Great to see you. Good to be here. Well, let's start with that headline number. Consumer price index rising 3.7% from a year ago, rising faster than a month ago. How much of that is due to those rising gas prices? Yeah, that's the key question. Half of it is coming from the high gas and diesel prices. But honestly, the reason most people get,

gasped today when they saw this data is because the other half is coming from everything else. It's sure it's spilling over into higher airfares and higher home heating oil, but the war in Iran is not causing medical care, dental care, toys, apparel. I hope nobody's shopping for a suit. Those really jumped up. Software prices. There were just so many items repairing a car that rose. And that's what really caused the alarm bells today, that this is. is way more broad-based than we thought, and that's going to take a long time to ease. We saw core inflation, which excludes those energy and food prices,

also edging higher. What does that say to you? Yeah, it says that this is more than a gas and oil problem, and that it's going to be harder to get it down than we expected. The Federal Reserve will have to raise those interest rates again. It's already a pain point with the mortgage rates, back above 7.5%.

And so that's the pain that a lot of Americans feel and probably the most important data point today and people are feeling it. Inflation up 3.7%. Wage growth, only 3%. And that combination of the higher inflation, weaker wage growth, we've talked about it before. I want to take a listen to what two people,

Andrew Larcher in South Dakota and Craig Underwood, who's a farmer in California, had to say about the pressure they're feeling. I'm on a VA disability as 100% disabled veteran and I you know getting what I did in mind I used to be able to afford things easily now it gets to the point to where I have to really watch my budget how much food can I afford a month or how much or if I buy this much food can I pay rent or can I afford the car I don't have a car right now because there's no way that I could afford the car it's pretty hard

us to budget for a dramatic increase in the cost of diesel. It grinds on you. You know, when I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking about it. When I go to bed at night, I'm thinking about it. Try to put it out of my brain in order to sleep. But you do think about it a lot. Heather, people are clearly feeling this pressure in lots of ways. Are we seeing consumers pull back or start to pull back on their spending in a significant way?

The pain is definitely real right now since President Trump took up. office again, there's been no wage growth once you adjust for inflation. And we already see the strain, and you could hear it in some of those clips. People in the bottom 30 percent don't have any extra money and are relying on credit cards and starting to miss payments. The real question is how long can the middle class hold on? They've been surprisingly resilient, but we see more and more stories at Navy Federal Credit Union, just like that first clip you played, of people who are pulling back on groceries

in order to try to have enough money to pay their other bills. You can see them stretching every dollar. You can see them making those hard choices. We think it's going to be a more tepid holiday season as the hard choices are here. We should also mention Social Security benefits will see a bump in January. The cost of living adjustment is gonna go up by 3.6%.

It's about $75 a month on average. It's the largest increase in three years and it is a few months away, but what kind of a difference can that make and for whom? Well, there's obviously a lot of people living on fixed incomes who are struggling right now, but as you mentioned, 3.6% is the highest in three years. There's a lot of hope that inflation won't go much higher from here, but the question is how much relief do we get in 2027, as we were talking about.

There's a lot of parts of the economy that are really hot inflation right now. You can't just coupon your way out of that. Heather Long, Vice President, Chief Economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Thanks for being here. And we start today's other headlines with the latest from the Middle East. Iran says a cargo ship sank after hitting a mine in the Strait of Hormuz. State TV aired footage today claiming to show the tanker on fire, though this video has not been independently verified.

It's the first time Iran has reported such an incident since the war started. Separately, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen say they struck the headquarters of Aramco, the Saudi state-owned oil company. no injuries were reported. And Saudi Arabia says it intercepted two ballistic missiles in Riyadh, just days after the Houthis repeatedly struck the city's international airport. The Houthis vowed to continue targeting such facilities in the coming days. The Vatican says Pope Leo is eating and walking again following surgery to remove a cancerous portion of his lung.

Officials say his recovery is proceeding as planned. The 71-year-old pontiff was diagnosed with a common form of lung cancer that is often, and highly treatable when detected early. Leo is scheduled to visit Latin America next month, including Peru, where he spent two decades as a missionary. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in a privacy case rooted in the era of VHS tapes, but with major implications for privacy in the digital age.

At issue is the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, which barred video rental stores like Blockbuster from disclosing their customers' rental histories. passed the law after a reporter obtained the video rental records of Robert Bork during his unsuccessful nomination to the Supreme Court. Today, the justices appeared open to allowing a Tennessee man's privacy lawsuit to move forward. The man argues that the sharing of his online viewing information with Facebook violated the decades-old law. Archaeologists say they've discovered what may be the world's oldest known shipwreck dating back some 4700 years. The ship itself has long

since disappeared, but roughly 30 clay jars remain intact on the sea floor. Their distinctive shape dates them to the Bronze Age. Around the time the pyramids of Giza were built, researchers believe the jars originated in the Jordan Valley and likely carried olive oil or wine when the vessel sank along an ancient trade route. The expedition's leader calls the discovery, quote, a time capsule at the bottom of the sea. In the business world, Netflix is cutting about 1,000 jobs or 6,000. of its global workforce. The streaming giant says most of the cuts will affect the company's tech, legal, and human resources teams, among others.

Netflix has struggled to boost user engagement amid a rise in streaming competition. Its stock ended a touch higher today. Elsewhere on Wall Street, stocks dropped after the latest rise in inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell less than 50 points. The NASDAQ dropped almost 2%. The S&P 500 posted its fifth loss in the last six sessions. And famed soprano Martina Arroyo has died. With her luminous voice and ease on stage,

the Harlem native broke barriers as one of the first major black opera stars in the 1960s and 70s. She was also familiar to the nation's TV viewers at the time as a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. In 2013, she was honored by the Kennedy Center, just one of her many awards. Speaking to PBS in 2015, she reflected on her book. breakout years at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The audience will not let you down if you do what you're supposed to do, especially in New York audience. I think the New York audience is one of the best in the world. I've been in many other opera houses for the first time, and well-greated, very well, greeted very, very well, but not like when the New York people say, you got it, run with it. Arroyo announced her retirement in 1989 and devoted herself to teaching. She died yesterday in her home in Manhattan. Martina Arroyo was 90 years old. Still to come on the News Hour,

the attorney representing news organizations barred from the White House weighs in on the latest legal showdown over press access. Cornell University suspends fraternity parties amid investigations into sexual assault allegations. And political strategists on the state of the races and what's at stake with the midterm elections just weeks away. This is the PBS Newsout. from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News.

A key component of Ukraine's communications network was partially disabled today, perhaps by its ally, the United States. The Starshield Satellite Network, funded by the Pentagon and operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX, was not operating at full capacity today, hampering communications within the Ukrainian military. Liz Landers has that story. Overnight in Kiev, homes engulfed in flames as rescue workers rushed to put out the blaze and save the victims of Russia's latest brutal onslaught. As it continues to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure, plunging the nation's capital into darkness.

This comes just three days after President Trump announced on truth social a quote, energy ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine. and that, quote, both parties have agreed. Since Trump's announcement Sunday, Russia has struck at least 26 energy facilities across Ukraine. And the war-weary nation feels it is being abandoned by its ally. President Zelenskyy told Pierce Morgan today. We are a losing strong partner. So this is my opinion.

You think you're losing America? Yeah. But not because of us. I mean, we can't be weak, otherwise we can't survive. It's painful. When President Trump chooses one side, not our side, but we are okay that he's in the middle, but if you're in the middle, you have to stay in the middle, not on the wrong side. I think his advisors are wrong. I don't know who is pushing him not to the right side.

This is not right side of history. As the two allies' relationship shows signs of fraying, Ukraine has accused the United States of not providing advanced warning of the Russian strikes, although the Ukrainian president told NPR it was a, quote, technical glitch. And of temporarily limiting their usage of the Starsheeled satellite system, a military version of the Starlink Network, which is integral to Ukraine's targeting of Russian military installations within Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. Starsheald's thousands of satellites provide Ukraine with the broadband connection needed to find. and target Russian military equipment and personnel across Ukrainian territory.

Along with data for interceptor drones that take down Russian attacks, that ability severely curtailed. As President Zelensky stressed today, it's a big mistake. A lot of losses. This decision will bring a lot of human losses. People are dying because of his decision. Of course, people will die. Of course, if attacks will continue and if Starling will not work, of course.

I mean, it's not helpful. So my message is absolutely, I hope that it's mistake, maybe a huge technical problem. I don't know, but we are asking to do it, to switch on. Late today, former defense minister Mikhailo Federov posted on X that Starshield link connectivity is being, quote, restored. To which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded on X that, quote, any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately, POTUS. As Ukraine grapples with a war and an ally, it fears it can no longer depend on. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Liz Landers. For more on all of this, we turn now to retired rear admiral Mark Montgomery,

who served on the National Security Council staff, later on the Republican staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He's now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Admiral, welcome back to the news hour. Let's just start with some context here. How crucial is this Star Shield satellite system to Ukraine's war effort? What does it allow them to do offensively and defensively? So the Star Shield system, particularly in this, you know, what we're talking about here, which is operating over Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, is critical to what you call

mid-range strike, the ability to hit, say, the logistics lines that flow Russian equipment and supplies into Crimea, and the logistics and command and control that support their frontline units. So that mid-range strike is really critical to the military resilience right along the front line where the two forces are engaged. But you can't understate the criticality of maintaining communications with the mid-range strike drones before they hit their targets. So if those communication systems are limited, if they are throttled, if they are slowed down, what is the practical impact of that on the ground? You heard President Zelensky there say people could die as a result.

Is that true or is that hyperbole? Absolutely. In the case of this, the people are Ukrainian military personnel because this mid-range strike is really about hitting assets to support the Russian military and conducting operations against Ukrainian corps and task force along that fortress belt. So they will lose, if they don't conduct these strikes, they will eventually lose personnel. So it does seem now as if that service, those communications are mostly back up. You heard President Zelensky also say he hoped the limitation there was a mistake or could have

been a technical glitch of some kind. Do we know for sure if there was an intentional decision behind that slowdown or if this could have been a technical issue? What's more likely here? So we don't know for sure yet, and we may not know until we hear on truth social. But I think the most likely thing is a strong signaling message from President Trump to President Zelensky. Don't complain about my actions with regard to Russian diesel fuel. And don't strike Russian refineries probably at least through the end of the elections, our midterm elections.

And based on what you know about how this company works, how those satellite systems, work? Would a decision like that have to come from the U.S. president? Could it have been made by Elon Musk himself? No, I think Star Shield is run. That Elon Musk's statement was true. The Star Shield's operations on a day-to-day basis are run by the U.S. military, the U.S. government. As you mentioned, those Star Shield communication systems, they provide data to the Ukrainian drones flying over Ukraine and also over Russian occupied Crimea. Do you believe those limitations should be lifted? Should those communication systems enable further use of Ukrainian drones? Absolutely. I mean, what we're talking about here is those mid-range drones. Their long-range drones operate over Russian sovereign

territory. It's very reasonable for them to have access to this communications to conduct purely defensive strikes. And by that I mean striking Eskander missile launchers, you know, ballistic missile launches before they launch, so you hit the archer instead of the arrow, or hit stowage sites for ballistic missiles and other offensive Russian weapons. So that's a reasonable ask of Star Shield and Starlink. And in fact, prior to this, there was some effort being made by the U.S. Congress to ask the President to engage Elon Musk on this. If these communication systems were throttled intentionally now, do you believe that could

happen again? Oh, absolutely. That's the signal. The signal is if Ukraine strikes energy, you know, Russian refineries, they can expect some throttling. If I were President Zelensky, I tell my operational planners, hey, do me up a great four-week plan where I strike every piece of infrastructure in Russia except refineries. You know, Vladimir Putin's critical infrastructure is vulnerable in many, many places, not just the refineries. That is retired. We're Admiral Mark Montgomery joining us tonight.

Admiral, always good to speak with you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The federal judge has once again ordered the White House to restore access for three news organizations President Trump banned last month over their coverage of his administration. In a ruling issued late last night, the judge ordered the White House to restore full access for CNN, MSNL now, and Politico while their legal challenge moves forward. The order remains in effect until the judge reaches a final decision or a higher court intervenes. Joining us now is Ted Boutros. He is the attorney representing CNN, MS.

now and Politico. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. So walk us through this ruling. What did the judge find most troubling about the White House's actions? And what does all of this mean in practical terms? The judge ruled on two fundamental questions. First, found that we were likely to succeed on our due process claim, which is that President Trump out of the blue without any notice, without any notice of the standards that might cause someone's hard pass to be taken away at the White House and to be banned from the White House grounds took away their hard passes and announced what he called this ban on the free press. And the due process clause requires fair notice and opportunity to be heard when the liberty interest like the First Amendment is being taken away

by the government. And their D.C. Circuit cases, the Court of Appeals, on this very issue. So the court said we were likely to win on that because none of my clients had any notice of anything and they didn't do anything wrong. The second fundamental question the court addressed were the First Amendment issues, and this is really important because the court ruled that the stripping of the hard passes and banishment from the White House was done first in retaliation for free speech and for First Amendment activity by MSN, CNN, and Politico, and their journalists. President Trump didn't like what they were reporting, and that he took away their credentials to lash out and retaliate. Our team reached out to the White House for a statement, and they responded by saying,

in part, quote, the fake news has no place demanding a spot in the president's oval office. Now, the White House argues that news organizations have no inherent right to access the president, which is true. So where do you draw the line? Where's the constitutional line, I should say, between a president's discretion to determine who gets access and unlawful retaliation against journalists for their coverage? It's a really great question, and the judge addressed that. The test is, has the government opened up a government building to First Amendment activities, what's called a non-public forum?

And if it does that, if it says, look, normally we keep this closed to the press and to others, but we do open it up and we allow people in, hear journalists, to ask questions, and engage in journalism. Once that happens, the Constitution, the Supreme Court cases, the D.C. Circuit cases, talking specifically in the D.C. Circuit's case about the White House press facilities require that the restrictions be reasonable on those who are allowed in, who have press credentials here, and also that they cannot be thrown out because of their viewpoint. It has to be, the restrictions have to be viewpoint neutral. So the White House, in their statement, they're just playing right into our hands. they're basically confirming what the judge said, that the reason that the press passes were vacated by President Trump is because he doesn't like these news organizations and what they publish and broadcast.

And that is a fundamental First Amendment violation, and the judge found we were likely to win on that as the case moves forward. A question about the precedent this could set because this White House, this Trump White House, has granted access to a number of pro-Trump, MAGA-friendly outlets. If a future Democratic administration excludes those same organizations because it objects to their legitimacy and objects to their coverage, would that raise the same

First Amendment concerns? It absolutely would, and that's why you see such solidarity among news organizations and journalists. The Reporters Committee filed an amicus brief with 77 news organizations joining from all across the political spectrum, if we want to call it that. the head of the White House Correspondents Association, the president this year is Jackie Heinrich from Fox News. She's been advocating against these restrictions and these banishments because it's a two-way street. If one president can do it, another president can do it. And that's not what the First Amendment is all about. It's really an equal playing field that doesn't take sides.

That's the whole notion of why you can't have viewpoint discrimination. So it's really counterproductive. President Trump can spar with these reporters. He should just go back to normal and spar with reporters, answer their questions, instead of lashing out like this in banishing news organizations and reporters because of what they publish and broadcast. Attorney Ted Boutros, thanks again for joining us this evening. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And to note that PBS News is among the more than 70 news organizations that signed a legal brief

supporting the effort to restore White House access for CNN, MS Now, and Politico. The fallout from the 24 sexual assault allegations at Cornell University continues. Tonight, faculty members plan to introduce a resolution of no confidence in how the university's leadership handled an alleged gang rape at the Kai Phi fraternity. The Jane Doe in that case is suing the university and has accused seven men of the assault, all of whom deny any wrongdoing. Cornell has since banned the Kai Phi fraternity, and University President Michael Kotlakov suspended all fraternity parties through the end of the academic year.

He also committed to a thorough review of fraternity life at Cornell to determine whether and how it can safely continue. For more now, we turn to Judd Horace. He's president and CEO of the North American Interfraternity Conference and to John Heckenger. He's a deputy managing editor at Bloomberg News and author of the book, True Gentleman, The Broken Pledge of America's Fraternities.

Welcome to you both and thank you for being here. John Heckenger, I'll begin to you. with you because the Cornell case is forcing a closer examination of fraternities in America. In your view, based on your work, is this case an outlier or is it indicative of a larger culture or a pattern of behavior within fraternities? Well, I think it's a particularly horrific example of a pattern of behavior that I've seen throughout my research. If we're talking about sexual assault, fraternity houses are a dangerous place for women.

My research shows that women who go to fraternity parties run one and a half times the risk of sexual assault. And sorority women who are most exposed to fraternity parties run three times the risk of rape. And, you know, in my book, I looked at one large fraternity. I looked at 230 chapters over five years and found 15 examples of sexual assault. As with the case in Cornell, most of them kind of did not receive any kind of reckoning. I only found one case where anyone was faced criminal charges. So this is definitely a broader problem in fraternity life that I think now is, you know, people are starting to address. Jed Horace, I'd love for you to respond to that.

Does this deserve more attention and scrutiny? Well, let's start with Cornell. Those men directly and indirectly, you know, they agreed to a higher standard by being a fraternity man, and they completely failed that. The closure of the chapter, the expulsion of members is the right decision. Let's let the courts play out on the rest, but we know that. We also know that there's a quarter of a million young men in a fraternity today in college, and the vast majority of them are having a wonderful experience.

But specific to fraternies, we have to take accountability for any problems that we create. But it's important to note even Cornell in their study, follow-up study, said, you were twice as likely to have sexual misconduct happen in a residence hall on campus than you were in a fraternity house. So we have to lead the change. So many of the undergraduates I talk to are angry about what happened at Cornell that it represents in some way as connected to them. And we are redirecting that anger into addressing cultures on their campus and in their chapters. John Hackinger, respond to what you just heard there, especially in terms of the idea that there are similar crime, similar misconduct being carried out across college campuses, not necessarily just at fraternities, which is an alarming issue we can talk about separately.

but why the focus on fraternities in your view? There's a sort of disproportionate amount of drinking and sort of out-of-control behavior of fraternities. Fraternity men and sorority women are among the heaviest drinkers on campus, and fraternity men are hosting parties where there's an enormous amount of underage drinking that's not well supervised. 75% of the people in fraternies are underage, and yet they're kind of the hosts and the unofficial bartenders on most campuses.

And what, you know, people in public health told me is that's kind of a recipe for a dangerous environment where sexual assaults are likely to happen. And, you know, again, I point out that Cornell found that half of the women affiliated with sorority life said they were subject to sexual assault, which was almost twice the level of those who weren't. So I think there is a disproportionate risk there. And I think that's why people are so concerned. John, go ahead. Well, again, you're citing what sorority women. It doesn't say who did it. And this is kind of, I think, confirmation by sometimes people have.

Let's look at the facts. We advocated for a federal law that was enacted two years ago, along with parents who've lost sons to Hasey. Part of that is you have to list all student organization discipline. So if you go to the Cornell website, As an example, which is consistent, five of the seven student organizations listed last year for hazing were not all-male fraternities. They were sports clubs and other business fraternities that are co-ed.

So we have to take responsibility for our actions, no doubt about it. That's why we're advocating for, on hazing specifically, we've had a dozen states where we've advocated and gotten stronger felony criminal laws. Part of our approach is we have to hold individuals visibly and publicly accountable for this behavior. Because we can do prevention work, which we do, and invest millions of dollars in it. But if students see other students get away with bad behavior and not be held accountable, all of the prevention work is useless.

We're focusing a lot on Cornell here, Judd, but there's been other headlines people have been focusing on. There was the University of Arizona that said this month it was suspending fraternity activity after misconduct reports. There was an 18-year-old who died during hazing at Northern Arizona University. There were 14 people arrested at Penn State for running. a cocaine trafficking ring out of two fraternities. Taken together, do these suggest to you a deeper problem

or a series of isolated incidents? Well, look, any student that does cocaine trafficking needs to be held criminally accountable. And so I see that and the Northern Arizona situation as confirmation that individual accountability, very publicly, and in cases of sexual misconduct, they're charged with a crime, very publicly, students have to see this as unacceptable behavior.

I want to be clear, we accept that we are a part of a culture and a system that we have to address. That's why we've done so much work on state laws, on federal laws, on prevention work. I tell everyone, when you work with 18 to 22-year-old men, you are constantly, every year inheriting a new group of freshmen. Prevention education is critical. Individual accountability, and group accountability is critical. So we accept that. But another statistic people have to keep in mind, Nearly 1,500 students died last year from alcohol-related injuries. Not all of those are in fraternies and sororities. The value that we're providing to young men, even today, in the middle of all of this,

we have record enrollment is enduring, and that's what fraternity's about, is doing the positives. It's a lifelong brotherhood and connection. It's helping them with career readiness. It's addressing a lot of the mental health challenges in young men today, and the desire to even go to higher ed. John Hakenger, have less than a minute here, but we saw the Cornell president says he's going to carry out a thorough review. Judd Horace has been talking about accountability. What kind of reforms, what kind of ability should come out of this review?

Well, I think there has to be a really hard look at whether fraternities can responsibly serve liquor at events on campus. And I think what Cornell has shown is that that's been a real problem. And I think, you know, the fraternities and the universities that have made, you know, made a real difference in terms of behavior have cut back on alcohol abuse and really alcohol at parties. So the question is whether fraternities can kind of disengage and disentangle the brotherhood that the Judd is talking about from some of these kind of darker impulses that they have that's often fueled with out-of-control drinking and drug abuse. And yes, people can be held individually.

accountable, but it's pretty hard to do that in a case-by-case. The police aren't usually equipped to police underage drinking. Sexual assault is often not investigated as we've seen. So, I mean, many people that I spoke to for the book saw this is a public health problem, and a public health problem often involves changing a campus culture, a drinking culture, and the heaviest drinkers on campus are at fraternities and sororities. So if you want to cut back on that, You have to cut back on the drinking in Greek life. There's no way around it. Certainly lots more to discuss here.

We'll have to leave it there for now, though. Thank you to you both. John Heckenger and Jud Horace for being here. Thank you. Well, the latest polling for the upcoming midterm shows a tilt in Democrats' favor. For an insider's view of the final weeks of the campaigns, we turn now to the insights of Democratic strategist, Moe Lathie, and Republican, Doug, hi.

It's always great to see you both. Thank you. So Doug Republicans are asking. voters to give them two more years of unified government. Beyond defending President Trump, what's the affirmative case they're making for what they would actually do with that power? I think the tough reality for them is there's not much more that they're able to do because of that. And in large part, that's because of Donald Trump. He so dominates the conversation all day, every day, usually with things that aren't on topic for what candidates want to be talking about.

If I'm Michael Watley in North Carolina or Ashley Hinson in Iowa, I want to be talking about here's what Republicans have done to lower costs, and here's what they're going to do over the next two years. But the reality is it's harder for them to have that conversation because of the self-created Trump outrageous du jour that may be happening right now while we're shooting this and we're unaware of it, but the reality with Donald Trump is these happen all the time.

And, Mo, there are echoes of 2006 here. You've got an unpopular war, a president with low approval ratings, a midterm election that has become a referendum in many ways on this White House. Democrats picked up 31 House seats. that year. What's different this time, if anything? Well, look, I think Donald Trump makes everything different, right? And he has for the past, for the past decade. But, you know, there are two issues that are dominating the minds of most

voters, I think, today. One is the high cost of living, primarily as it plays out at the gas pump. And number two, corruption in government. That does have echoes of 2006. But Democrats have a very easy way to point to that with Donald Trump. Costs of living is up primarily because of President Trump's tariffs and because of this war in Iran. And every day he's giving more fodder. He and his administration are giving more fodder for the belief that government is corrupt. Democrats can just step up and say, Congress has abdicated its responsibility under

Republican control, give us a chance, and we can finally hold his feet to the fire. And Jeff, I worked a Senate campaign, Republican Senate campaign in 2006. And it's a very hard needle to thread when your president is unpopular to try and be critical, but also appeal to voters. And the difference between 2006 and now are a whole lot of them. Congressional maps is a good example. But the reality is we weren't going to get called out publicly by the president or anybody else. We might get talked to privately and then be told by Danny Deerexie.

who was comms director at the RNC then, do what you got to do, we get it. The reality for all of these Republicans is if they say, this and this and this is this and this I do differently than Donald Trump, Trump could attack them at any moment. You mentioned Ashley Hinson in Iowa. Diesel prices in Iowa top $6 a gallon right now, and the candidates there had their final debate last night. You got the Republican Ashley Hinson, the Democrat Josh Turek. They both oppose President Trump's proposed diesel deal with Russia, but they disagree.

over the war in Iran. Take a look at this. We need to lower gas prices in this country. We need to lower diesel prices, but I don't think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it. We actually agree on this. But let's remember exactly why we're in this situation. We are in this situation because of this unnecessary war in Iran that Ashley Henson voted in favor of continuing seven times. Would you switch your vote today on the War Powers Act in order to end the conflict in Iran? I don't think we need another resolution on the House floor. I think that president and the U.S. military can bring it to the end.

Is that the dance that Republicans have to do? They're sticking by Trump on the big stuff, the war in Iran, but breaking with him on issues like his proposed diesel deal. It's what they're trying to figure out as they campaign day to day. Wouldn't surprise me to see any of these Republicans say, you know what, we need to go back in Washington, go into session now and have that vote. If that happened, it wouldn't be surprising. But again, it comes with a very real risk.

And, Mo, if we shift our focus to Michigan, you have President Trump. He's calling Michigan's Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul al-Sayed. He called him a, quote, radical extremist terrorist sympathizer. And we've seen similar rhetoric from other Republicans. How should Democrats respond when a candidate's Muslim identity becomes the target of attacks? Yeah, I mean, he's gone so far as to call him Mohammed, right? Like, that's not his name, but it is so obvious what they are trying to do and I think why they are trying to do it,

the president doesn't have a record that his party can run on. He is underwater, in terms of his approval rating, on every major issue, including some of the issues that got him elected, you know, the economy, immigration, he's underwater on those. So the only thing they can do is try to change the subject, try to deflect, and try to otherize an appeal to fear. Now, Democrats for the past 10 years have taken the bait every single time he's done that.

Don't take the bait this time because what the president really can't deflect on is the high cost of living, the high cost of gas, and the corruption in his administration. And I think Al-Saiad's doing actually a good job of not taking the bait and bringing it back to that every single time. Where is the line between challenging a candidate's political views and using his religion to cast suspicion on his loyalty to the country? So I think Mo will remember when I was communications director for the RNC, I put out pretty forceful statement saying that not only when we're not questioning President Obama's religion, I remember changing the line to say Christianity to make it clear that this was unacceptable for our candidates. I think that what we see in Michigan, Elsaid is an extreme candidate seems to really struggle with talking about. about whether or not he can even disagree or condemn the killings that we've seen by the Iranian government. So he's put himself in this position. And also, when he pivots, he always goes back to it's Apex's fault, it's Israel's fault.

So part of this conversation is self-created by an extremist candidate. I think one of the interesting things about this campaign is Republicans and Democrats in key states have made the same mistake, nominating people who any and in any other context would be unelectable. That's El-Sahid in Michigan. and that is certainly the case with Ken Paxton in Texas. But I'll say we've been hearing this kind of rhetoric from Republicans, even before Al-Sahed became the Democratic nominee and in other states. When you have mainstream, today's mainstream Republicans doing exactly what Doug asked them not to do back then

and making comments like there's no place in our society for Muslims, no place in our country for Muslims, that tells you it's a very different Republican Party than the one that you used to be a spokesperson. And the comment that the Vice President made about James Talariko, a stupid joke, not effective. If we want to beat James Talariko,

that's not how we do it. Doug High, Oylathi. Our thanks to you both. Thank you. Thank you. The Trump administration's crackdown on immigration may be novel in its tools, methods, and scope, but as Judy Woodruff reports for her series, crossroads, America at 250, it belongs to a long tradition in this nation's past.

Our current course recalls the voyages of approximately 12 million American immigrants. A massive tourists huddled together on a ferry, vying for a view of one of America's most iconic landmarks, the Statue of Liberty. This statue is now seen as welcoming those from outside the country to the United States, But it was not originally given for that reason. No, it was given by the French as a symbol of equality, having nothing to do with immigration. Yet, as millions of mostly European immigrants passed by it on their way to nearby Ellis Island in New York City Harbor, it became a symbol of their passage of hope for a better life and of freedom.

What was the place where immigrants came? Watch step here, folks. Be attention. Disembarking on Ellis Island, they were quickly processed. typically spending only hours here before heading into New York and beyond. We hear a lot of conversation today about how my forebears came to this country. They did it legally. They went through the process of becoming a citizen.

In fact, it was much simpler than that in those days. Well, there were no visas. You didn't have to have a passport. You could just come. You had to get on the boat. At Ellis Island, only 2 percent of the immigrants who went through and were denials. I was not only 2%. Only 2%.

And there were no numerical limits on immigration. My guide was Nancy Foner, a sociologist who has spent her career studying and writing about waves of immigrants, how they changed over time, and how in turn they changed this country. The history of the United States is in good part a history of immigration, of people coming here to make a better life for themselves and their families, in some cases. in some cases, to flee persecution. So that immigration is really in the lifeblood of America. But every time we've had massive waves of immigration in the United States,

there's also been a negative reaction among some parts of the population, a hostility to immigrants, a worry that they're not going to fit in, that they're changing America for the worst. In her new book, Immigration, How the Past, Shapes the Present, she explores the parallels and differences she sees between our history and today, including the many nativist movements, the no-nothing party of the 1840s and 50s, a Protestant response to waves of Irish Catholics and Germans that sought to impose a 21-year waiting period for naturalization, up from five years. The Chinese Exclusion Act later that century that prevented Chinese laborers from becoming citizens for 10 years. The door slamming shut in 1924, after millions of southern and eastern Europeans, including Jews and Italians, arrived at the turn of the century. And multiple efforts to deport Mexicans in the 20th century, including Operation Wetback in 1954.

On a more positive light, immigrants have built America, and they've rebuilt America throughout American history. So we are in the Beldez family apartment. After departing Ellis Island, some ended up here in the cramped apartments of Manhattan, where they lived and worked, now memorialized at the Tenement Museum. So Adelph will put up FDR, and Rosario said he couldn't be higher than the Saints. Annie Pollen is the museum's president. She showed me around a unit once occupied by an Italian family, the Baldisyses, with Russian Jews next door. Germans, Irish, and Chinese also called this building home. The stories of how people got by have always fascinated me.

What was it like to come from another country? These are people who chose to come here because they could embrace the ideals. of this country and what the founding fathers had envisioned. It's estimated that 40% of Americans today can trace their heritage back to Ellis Island. Yet in 1924, responding to that wave of immigration, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Johnson-Reed Act into law, slamming the door shut to millions more for decades to come.

The term MAGA, Make America Great Again, is seen as referring, we think to the 1950s, a time when a relative peace in the country, the economy seemed to be booming. We were growing as an industrial powerhouse. And that's pointed to as an ideal time. What was the state of immigration? Very, very low. Because in 1924, there was a very, very restrictive immigration bill that passed in Congress that created national origins quotas.

And these national origins quotas were set up to favor and did favor northern and western Europeans. Foner says over time many Americans came to adopt myths about those ancestors and how quickly they assimilated. People say, well, my relatives when they came, they learned English right away. Well, they didn't learn English right away. What we see is the three-generation model of linguistic assimilation still holds today as it did. the past. Another common myth that first-generation immigrants through hard work quickly moved up the economic ladder.

Well, it wasn't so quick. What studies show is that immigrants who came, this is the farm born. They were born abroad, came, and they made incremental small steps up the ladder. And so there are these many myths that are important because they set up these immigrant heroes and heroines who were somehow superior, did things the right way, moved ahead, became American right away. And against that, it's very hard to, you know, compete because that didn't happen. In 1965, amid the civil rights movement, a women's rights movement, and the expansion

of federal programs known as the Great Society, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Hart Seller Act at Liberty Island, a law that replaced. those strict quotas with a system favoring family-based reunification and skilled labor. Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American nation returns to the finest of its traditions today. Some lawmakers at the time thought that would preserve the overwhelmingly white and European migration pattern. But over time, it led to far more migration. from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and a diminishing white majority. The percentage of foreign-born in the U.S. today is nearly 15%, near the all-time high in 1890.

What's different today is the absolute numbers are much higher. So there are about 50 million immigrants in the United States today. And if you add on their children, they're 100 million, which is 29% of the population. So that's immigrants and their children, okay? What do you think is the relationship between that, those numbers, and what's happening right now? Well, I think the numbers are causing fear, I guess, among some Americans, and exacerbated by the fact of the economic situation in the United States. And it's especially riled up by politicians who make the most of them.

Instead of saying, well, the problem is that they're outsourcing jobs, or that we have tremendous economic inequality in the nation, and that Congress isn't doing enough to change this. People feel, well, immigrants are causing it. They come from Africa. They come from Asia. They come from South America. But not just South America.

They're all over the world. They dump them on the border and they pour into our country. Like many before him, President Trump built his political career on these myths and distortions about immigration. pledging to build a wall and to deport millions of undocumented people who represent about a quarter of the total immigrant population. They're ruining our country, and it's true. They're destroying the blood of our country. That's what they're doing.

He renewed his pledge in 2024, and while in office, his administration has vastly expanded immigration and customs enforcement, detained and deported hundreds of thousands of people, and faced backlashes over the killing of American citizens and those in custody. We are a nation of immigrants, and immigration has been, you know, tied into our history for so long. So to see this rejection of immigrants, this, you know, victimization of immigrants is very, very concerning. Heading into the midterms, our recent PBS News NPR Marist poll shows that voters' preference for Republicans on the issue of immigration has disliked. disappeared since 2024. But with a closely divided country and a potentially divided Congress and government, it's unclear what legislative fix might be on the table, whatever the reality's on the ground.

Population-wise, we're heading into a period where the birth rate is going down. The baby boomers are retiring. They're going to disappear. How do you see immigration fitting into the American story going forward? I think there's going to be a need for workers. Plus, with this aging of the population, many Americans are going to need care. And who is going to care for them? Because in the caregiving jobs in this country are overwhelmingly immigrants. And who is going to pay into Social Security to pay for retirees and medical needs of the elderly? The demographic and economic pressures should lead to at least continued large, high numbers of the elderly.

legal immigration. A prediction that this country will continue to rely on immigrants, but whether it welcomes them is another story. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Judy Woodruff in New York Harbor. And that is The NewsHour for tonight. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at The NewsHour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.