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

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Saturday on PBS News Weekend, millions turn out in what organizers call an historic flood of nationwide protests to push back against Trump’s policies. A little-known company that helped create China’s infamous internet firewall is quietly selling the system to other countries. Plus, a former CDC director’s new book offers an insider’s formula for defeating the world’s worst diseases. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Tonight on PBS News Weekend, millions turn out in what organizers call an historic flood of nationwide protests to push back against President Trump and his administration's policies. Then a little-known company that helped create China's infamous Internet firewall is quietly selling the system to other countries around the world. And a new book from a former CDC director offers an insider's formula for defeating the world's worst diseases and winning the battle for good health. Nobody's going to slap sunblock on you or move your legs to exercise. There are certain things that you need to do yourself. But we as a society can do things that will allow each of us to live longer, healthier lives and as a country to be healthy. Good evening. I'm Ali Rogan. John Yang is away. Millions turned out across the country today for a coordinated day of protest against President Donald Trump and his administration's policies.

Organizers expected more than 2,600 no-kings rallies in big cities and small towns across all 50 states and some European capitals, including Paris, London, Madrid, and Berlin. A similar event in June brought out more than 5 million demonstrators across the country, but this time, organizers said the mobilization was even bigger. Today's protests spanned the nation and other parts of the globe. Massive crowds turned out in major cities, including New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Chicago. Demonstrators also gathered in tiny towns like this one. in rural Virginia and across the country. They all shared a singular message.

Simple words, no kings. We want to show our support for democracy and for fighting what is right. Protesters named immigration raids and President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard to certain cities among the reasons they came out. He should not be able to conduct these over.

reaches of his power, invading cities. As an immigrant here in Germany, it's really important to me that America was founded on immigrants by immigrants, and the fact that they are trying to shut that out and rewrite history is a really big deal. President Trump's allies criticized the rallies as gatherings of extremists. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said they showed how fringe the political left had become. If you think about what's going to happen here tomorrow, you're going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists, and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party.

That is the modern Democratic Party. That's where they've gone. But on streets across America, the crowds were energized. What organizers said was a large-scale exercise in peaceful protest. For more now on those protests, we turn to Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group that is one of the protest organizers. Robert, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being here. You just got back from the D.C. rally downtown from your office. How was it?

It was awesome. We had hundreds of thousands of people on the street to protest Donald Trump's authoritarianism. It was passionate and it was joyful. There was a dance party on the steps of the Labor Department. There were people in inflatable costumes. There were hysterical signs. But there was a really clear message that we intend to defend our democracy by exercising our democratic rights, we're not capitulating to Donald Trump and his authoritarianism and his

effort to scare us into submission. And as we mentioned, the turnout today was anticipated to be bigger than the No King's protests that were held in June with more people attending and more rallies across the country. Why do you think that is? I think there's two things going on. I think that Trump's authoritarianism is getting worse and mobilizing more people. But I think his effort to intimidate is failing as well. And each time people turn out, each time people protest, each time people stand up, it makes it easier for the next set of people to do that. So we think that today, when all is said and done, it will have been the largest day of protest in American history, all to defend our democracy, oppose the ice raids, oppose the National Guard on our streets, oppose the illegal

firings of federal employees, opposing the illegal shutdown of agencies, and more. People want a government that works for us, not for Donald Trump and his oligarch friends. You mentioned some of the issues that drove people out today. I'm wondering what you've been hearing from folks participating in the rally in D.C. All over the rest of the country. Are people motivated by individual issues? Are they motivated by the overall approach of this administration? Or have you found it to be a combination of factors?

Yeah, I think it's both. I mean, I think people are really worried about the fate of our country and understand that in total what Trump is trying to do is take away our democracy and replace it with authoritarian regime. So some people may be more motivated by the pressure on universities or by the illegal abductions of immigrants

or by the deployment of the National Guard or by the shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that's protecting us from financial fraudsters or by the weaponization of the Department of Justice. But everybody understands whatever the thing that gets them going, it's all part of a bigger tapestry of this authoritarian agenda, and they're ready, willing, and passionate about standing up to it. As you well know, Republicans, other allies of President Trump have been criticizing these rallies.

Speaker Mike Johnson referred to it as a hate America day of protest and that it was really there to stand against everything that America stands for. And I wonder, what do you make of that criticism? Well, it was both ridiculous. We had millions of Americans on the street today from all walks of life in every state, in every congressional district, in Speaker Johnson's district with 12 different events, all kinds of people. They don't hate America. They love America. But it was shameful, too, because you may disagree with what the protesters are asking for, but you should be embracing and celebrating our right to protest.

Instead of telling us, stay home and be quiet. that we're seeking violence by exercising our First Amendment rights. Protest is what's driven every significant moment of progress in American history, including our independence, and it's protests now that's going to block this authoritarian agenda of Donald Trump. And what do you want Americans to take away from today's events? I think what Trump is trying to do is make people feel scared and isolated and that his agenda is inevitable. And when you see this outpouring of people on the streets, even if you weren't part of it, You should know that you're not alone, that people don't agree with this agenda.

And if you're going to join today, join the next one. Find a community organization. There's power in togetherness and in solidarity and love. And I think that's the way we're going to defeat authoritarianism. That's what the best of what America is, is when we come together unified. And I think that's what we display today and people who weren't part of it. Join us the next time. Robert Weissman with Public Citizen.

Thank you so much. Thank you. In tonight's other headlines, there is uncertainty whether Palestinians trying to get back to Gaza will have a way through the Rafa border crossing. The Palestinian embassy in Egypt said the crossing will reopen Monday. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued its own statement today, saying the crossing will remain closed until further notice. Before the war, the Rafa crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip to Egypt,

was the only way for Palestinians to leave the area along a route not controlled by Israel. Israel said all the bodies of the hostages must be returned before the crossing can be allowed to reopen. Late this evening, the IDF said it would soon receive the remains of several hostages. Hamas blames its slow progress in returning remains on a lack of heavy machinery to dig through the rubble and ash of what's left of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defense blamed the Israeli military military. for the deaths of nearly a dozen people overnight. It's been widely reported that 11 people from the same family

were killed after their bus was hit by a tank shell. The IDF said its soldiers fired at a suspicious vehicle that crossed into an area where Israeli forces continued to operate. This is the deadliest incident since the ceasefire took effect eight days ago. President Trump said tonight, two survivors who were detained after a U.S. strike on a vessel Thursday in the Caribbean will be returned. return to their home countries. In a social media post, the president said the military targeted

an alleged drug-carrying submarine because it was going to bring fentanyl and other narcotics to the U.S. Two people were on board were killed while two survivors were rescued. According to Mr. Trump, they will soon be sent to Ecuador and Colombia, where they will face detention and prosecution. Thursday's strike is at least the sixth that's attack since early September. Former Congressman George Santos is out of prison. and back home tonight after President Trump commuted his sentence. The president wrote on social media that he decided to sign the commutation to release Santos from prison on Friday,

in part because Santos would always vote Republican when he was in office. Santos, a Republican who represented New York's third congressional district, was set to serve seven years in federal prison after he pled guilty in August to fraud and identity theft charges. And baseball superstar Shohay Otani cemented the Los Angeles Dodgers spot in the World Series thanks to his hitting and pitching talents. Otani hit three home runs, had 10 strikeouts, and pitched six shutout innings to lead his team to a 5-to-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers late Friday. The Dodgers will soon try to earn their third World Series ring since 2020.

Still to come on PBS News weekend, a massive leak exposes how a small company, is exporting China's Great Firewall to the world and the formula for better health from a former director of the CDC. This is PBS News Weekend from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, home of the PBS News Hour, weeknights on PBS. It's known as the Great Firewall,

and it's what the Chinese government uses to censor the Internet inside its country and block access to select foreign websites. Now, a leak of tens of thousands of documents shows that a little-known Chinese company with ties to that firewall is exporting those tools to other countries in Africa and Asia,

including Myanmar, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Ethiopia. Recently, I spoke with Zheye Yang, a senior writer at Wired, who has been following the story. Zey Yang, thank you so much for joining us. First of all, what do we know? about the release of these documents itself. What does it tell us?

So this is a trope of over 100,000 documents that came from in Anonymous League. And collectively, we see that these documents coming from a Chinese company, Gigi Networks, shows that they have very advanced capability to monitor the internet traffic that goes into a whole country and that they're trying to sell

and they have succeeded in selling this technology to some foreign governments. And this technology, we believe, also undergirds the Great Firewall itself. So let's take a step back and talk about how that firewall itself works? Anyone of the 1.4 billion people in China right now, if they're trying to access Internet through their laptops,

through their mobile phone, they will have to go through this filtering system that decides what information they can get and they cannot. It means that blocking certain websites that you cannot see, it means filtering all the results that you get on search engines. So it's really a very big infrastructure that makes sure people can only see the content that the government themes acceptable to speak.

And this trove of documents reveals the extent to which this company, Gidge, is part of this infrastructure, but of course, there's also information about the way in which it's selling this technology to other countries. So what do we know specifically about that part of their endeavor? What we know so far is that Gigi is a company that mostly operates like any other commercial cybersecurity company. It has hardware and software products that it sells to foreign governments, and it helps them make a very user-friendly. software to monitor the traffic coming into their country. And what does this company say in response to criticism that it's engaging in this with other authoritarian countries? I don't think a company has responded to what we found this time. But over the years, this company has been mostly low profile. It hasn't really been the company that people talk about when they talk about Chinese

Great Firewall. But we are seeing that they actually have quite advanced capabilities. And I'm sure we'll see them in news headlines a lot more in the future. And can you tell us about the connections that we're going to be. one of Gij's shareholders has to the creation of the Great Firewall. One thing we found is that back in 2019, the second year that Gige was founded, Fang Binshin, which is like scientists in China, was actually one of the investors in the companies. And this is the guy who also created the very first prototype of Chinese Great Firewall

and was credited as the father of China's Great Firewall. And this might be one of these attempts to commercialize that kind of technology and sell you to foreign governments. Much of this is very opaque, but what do we know about the strategy here of reaching out to particular countries? Is China and or Gij specifically courting other countries with records of human rights abuses? Well, what we do know is that they are targeting companies who already have a will in censorship. For example, before Jijh comes in, the Pakistani government actually has worked with other companies from the Western Hemisphere to build their own Internet censorship system. But then those companies are sanctioned and they have to withdraw from those local business in Pakistan,

and that's when Gigi to find an opportunity to come in. They basically marketed their technology to repurpose the hardware that Pakistan government already have and use them to build more comprehensive, more updated censorship infrastructure. And what we see is that the Pakistani government has agreed to do that. And there is some data linking specific countries to using the technology already, but what do we know about other countries that might also be seeking it? One thing we found this time is that Gigi Networks has been recruiting more engineers to maintain its infrastructure overseas.

And in one specific recruiting post, they specifically named five countries that engineers might have to be troubled to, and those are Pakistan, Bahrain, India, Malaysia, and Algeria. But we also know that Gigi has been hiring a translator who can speak Spanish and French. So it's fair to say they're probably going to target a lot more. countries out there. The documents also show that Gij is providing services within China to certain provincial governments, including in Xinjiang, where the government is accused of committing human

rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority. What do we know about that part of the project? I think this is one of the more surprising findings from this league. We're seeing that the experience of building a commercialized product of censorship is also helpful within China, or it's also attractive to provincial government within China. For example, in Xinjiang, there will be counterterrorism. There will be how to deal with the ethnic minorities within this province. But also in some other provinces in China, it could be detecting and combating financial scams.

And what does this tell us about the way that Chinese corporations work on behalf of the Chinese government's aims? I think this really demystifies a lot of the ideas about the Great Firewall, because it seems it's so capable, it has to be built by the government. But in fact, a lot of the things in there can come back to commercialize operations. Is there anything we can deduce about China's end game here in terms of its geopolitical strategy? I think China very much like other countries to adopt a kind of Internet management system that's similar to China's. Because one thing we're seeing right now is that countries are taking sides when it comes to how well Internet look like in the next decade. And China, with its belt and role initiative and with its other like big foreign investment,

projects are trying to get more countries to be on the site. And what Jiji offers, I think, is one of the things the other governments actually are interested in because a lot of governments want to have more control over what their citizens are seeing. And so this is part of the offer that China can provide to other countries to join their side. So interesting. Se i. Young with Wired, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Ellie. It isn't hard to find advice for how to live a healthier life. It's working that guidance into your daily routine that can be the most difficult part. Turning those suggestions for better health into effective policy

is the challenge public health professionals grapple with every day. And right now, officials who work on these issues are under even more pressure than usual. Just this past weekend, the White House fired about 1,300 staffers at the Center's for disease control before rehiring half of them. Former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden's new book, The Formula for Better Health, takes on these challenges. In it, he shares lessons from his own public health career about how to close the gap between awareness of health

challenges and the actions needed to solve them. Dr. Frieden, thank you so much for joining us. This book spans your experiences over your entire career, which you spend as a disease detective, as New York City Health Commissioner during a massive tuberculosis outbreak. You were CDC director during the Ebola crisis, and then you also witnessed the COVID pandemic as a former CDC director. Why was it important to you to write this book at this time? I began writing this book a decade ago in the world's first Ebola epidemic when West Africa was struggling with health systems in free fall,

And it became really clear that people don't understand what public health is, why it is so important it might make the difference between their life and their death, and for people in public health, there's a lot to learn about how to do it successfully. You talk about the importance of public health, not just that, but also the ways in which it complements individual choices that people make to keep their health up. You write, quote, promoting changes in individual behavior is not the core of public health. It's a symptom of public health failure. When public health succeeds, societal changes make the individual's default choices healthy. I thought that really summed it up really well. So why is it that public health is a really important complement to those individual choices? Why is it such a key part of the formula?

It's not a question of, is it individual responsibility or societal responsibility? It's both. society has a responsibility to structure things so that if you just go with the flow and go about your business, you won't end up sick or disabled or dying young. At the same time, it doesn't take any of us off the hook. There are things that we can do as individuals. Nobody's going to slap sunblock on you or move your legs to exercise. There are certain things that you need to do yourself. But we as a society, we collectively as a community, can do things that I outline in this book that will allow you. each of us to live longer, healthier lives. They will help our businesses be more productive, our economy be better, and as a country to be healthier. You also write about how public health

falls victim to what you call the Cassandra Curse, named for the prophet of Greek mythology, who was able to see future tragedies, but cursed so that nobody would believe her. Give us an example of the Cassandra Curse and how do we break free from it. Fundamentally, the Cassandra Curse is about our inability to take actions in our own best interest. And what drives it, what became clear as I did the research for this book, what drives it is that our perceptions of ourselves, of our world, and of the future are not accurate. There are inaccuracies there that make us vulnerable

to getting harmed or killed. One of them is something called hyperbolic discounting, that we shortchange the future. If smokers knew that they had a 50-50 chance of dropping dead after their next cigarette, very few people would smoke, and yet the likelihood of dying from tobacco use is 50% unless people quit. One thing that we can do is we can imagine those distant consequences as happening tomorrow, or we can reward ourselves with things that are good in the short term and also good in the long term. There are ways to break the Cassandra curse, but if we don't do that, we may be condemned to try. of magic illnesses and deaths that could have been prevented. And the framework for breaking that curse that you lay out,

you call it the see, believe, create formula. How does that work? The formula for better health is a formula that has already saved millions of lives. It can save millions more, and it may save your own. It is see, believe, create. See the invisible. See things that are affecting your health

or driving things in society, walking you from acting, or whether or not you're succeeding, see that clearly to understand your health. Believe that you can make a difference because sometimes we think things are inevitable when they're not. And then the hardest part, create a healthier future through rigorous, simple, clear, systematic action that overcomes the barriers that will otherwise undermine our health, our children's health, our community's health. The HHS is in a period of tremendous upheaval. Many of the programs that you champion in this book that are critical to this formula, such as surveillance of communities over the long-term, global health efforts,

have been affected and many of them cut. What concerns you most about this moment we're in in terms of public health? What we're seeing is a very aggressive destruction of our public health protections. And you see sometimes some of the things put back, disease detectives put back, or people who are working on Ebola outbreaks put back or the National Center for Health Statistics, some of those individuals restored. What worries me is that think of public health as a house.

You know, if the window or the door, the roof falls off, you fix it. But if the basics, if the foundations are being undermined, we are less safe. And we as a country will be sicker, we will have higher health care costs, and we will have tragic illnesses that could have been prevented. The tone of this book is still very optimistic

despite some of the challenges. What gives you optimism right now? I am optimistic. Facts are stubborn things. And even if they're ignored and suppressed, they're still facts. And everyone wants to live a longer, healthier life. And there are many things that we can agree on.

We should have healthier food. Everyone should have a primary care clinician who supports their health. Our health care system should do much more for our health. and we should get conflicts of interest out of the decision-making process. The book is The Formula for Better Health. Dr. Tom Frieden, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

And that's our program for tonight. I'm Allie Rogan. For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. See you tomorrow.