PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 27, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Monday on the News Hour, President Trump visits Japan to meet its newly elected conservative prime minister, one stop on a multi-country trip to Asia with a focus on trade. Hurricane Melissa nears landfall in Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm. Plus, Vermont’s recent floods reveal, with devastating clarity, how climate change can magnify the already critical shortage of affordable housing. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Navaz is away. On the news hour tonight, President Trump visits Japan to meet its newly elected conservative prime minister, one stop on a multi-country trip to Asia with a focus on trade. Hurricane Melissa is set to make landfall in Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm, barreling through the Caribbean. And Vermont's recent floods reveal with devastating clarity how climate change. can magnify the already critical shortage of affordable housing. We live in a whole new world, kind of all bets are off. Nobody should be living in the floodplain. Welcome to the News Hour. The U.S. and China said today they've agreed on a framework for a potential trade deal.

again trying to pull back from a trade war between the world's two largest economies. The announcement comes before a high-stakes meeting between President Trump and China's Xi Jinping later this week in South Korea. But tonight, President Trump's tour through Asia takes him to Japan. Nick Schifrin has more. Today, President Trump received a royal welcome in Tokyo's Imperial Palace. The American president, who's floated pursuing a third term, praised the inheritor of the world's oldest hereditary monarchy.

A great man. Great man. President Trump will soon meet the man he's called a great leader for perhaps the single most important meeting of his new term. President Trump predicts he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will strike a trade deal that will focus in part on a rare critical resource whose production Beijing dominates. China recently tightened restrictions on the export of heavy rare earth elements and powerful magnets. Beijing controls nearly all the world's processing of rare earth magnets, essential

for everything from the United States' most advanced fighter jets to the world's leading electric vehicles. A senior U.S. official tells PBS NewsHour under a deal China would pause those export restrictions for one year. Beijing would also resume purchases of American soybeans. We had a very good meaning. From behind President Trump on Air Force One, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson laid out the deals framework. We discussed the wide, wide range of things from a tariffs, trade, federal, substantial purchase of U.S. agricultural products, and rare earths. It's no stuff. What's nothing has been agreed to yet. Washington fuel. We feel good. They will also discuss Taiwan amid regional fears

that President Trump would abandon the island for a good China trade deal. In a statement following a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said earlier China-U.S. economic and trade ties had encountered new frictions. But in recent talks, the two sides clarified their positions, enhanced mutual understanding, and reached a framework consensus. On North Korea, U.S. officials say they have no plans to repeat one of the president's most iconic first-term moments. For President Trump today, said repeatedly he'd be open to it. If he'd like to meet him around, you know, I'll be in South Korea so I could be right over there.

But what could the U.S. offer him at this point? Well, we have sanctions. What? That's pretty big to start off with. I would say that's about as big as you get. But before Korea, President Trump meets with Japan's Prime Minister, Sanehakiichi. Just one week after she was sworn into office. It's a diplomatic test for Japan's first female leader and its most conservative.

since World War II. And to talk about President Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Takeichi and what's at stake for U.S.-Japan relations, we turn to Kenji Kushita, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thanks very much. Welcome back to the news hour. Prime Minister Takeichi and Japanese officials have talked about sweeteners to make sure that the prime minister's meeting with the president goes well, even talking about buying Ford F-150 trucks. important to the Prime Minister and to Japan that they create a positive personal relationship? Yeah, well, Japan's security depends in large part on the U.S. security umbrella, especially

the nuclear umbrella that the U.S. provides for Japan. And at the same time, the U.S. has been Japan's biggest trading partner. But, of course, the tariffs hit, and they hit at 25 percent, and they hit a lot of Japan's major industries, especially automobile. and precision machinery and these things. So economically, Japan is in a tight spot. Former Prime Minister Abe's personal relationship with Trump, where they got along really well. Well, Prime Minister Takaiichi has positioned herself as Abe's successor in economic

policy, foreign policy, her sort of conservative stance, her rhetoric about becoming a strong Japan again. And so her positioning herself as a successor in Abe, she hopes that she can translate. that into a good personal relationship with President Trump. She has accelerated Japan's promise to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. But does that actually mean that she has advanced Japanese defense spending? And can she meet even higher calls from the U.S. to spend even more? Yeah, the acceleration of expenditures for defense, part of that is actually just the

weakening of the yen and the rising cost of everything else. So she actually hasn't actually spent a whole lot more very quickly compared to the initial plan. That being said, she wants to aggressively spend government funds. So defense is a good place to do this. So in a way, if the U.S. demands for greater defense expenditures, she's very willing and prepared to spend more because that's been her stance to begin with. On the trade side, the U.S.-Japan trade agreement from earlier this year has Japan pledging to spend 550, billion in the United States with the provision that the Trump administration selects the

actual projects. Is that a commitment that she can actually meet? Yeah, the $550 billion expenditure commitment is, in terms of amount, it's approximately Japan's entire tax revenue for a whole year. So it's an enormous amount. But I think she is prepared to move forward on a lot of the commitments and demonstrate with the next step beyond just a pledge, actual some funding flowing to placate the U.S. But is there even that level of interest required among Japanese investors in investing in the United States? Yeah, it's a mixed picture,

but much of Japan doesn't feel like they have an option because the U.S. could then come back and say, if you're not actually investing the $550 billion, we're going to raise tariff rates, and that's going to hurt a lot more than a lot of the investment commitments. And finally, zooming out, some officials from East Asia have quietly been talking to me about their concern about the long-term reliability of the United States security umbrella, the United States nuclear umbrella, especially if President Trump looks for a large trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Are those concerns shared by Japanese officials?

Yeah, certain parts of people in Japan do see U.S. potential unreliability as one of the big existential threats to Japan. If Trump can claim that he solved East Asian security, he solved the Chinese security threat by, for example, saying, well, go ahead and you can have Taiwan, this would be a big issue for Japan. And Japan has solidly pledged their commitment to the U.S., and it's been described by some experts as there's no plan B. So this actually helps Prime Minister Takaiichi's arguments that big fiscal expenditures need to happen, a strengthening of defense, and possibly even revising the Constitution to allow for a normal military, does get some support. Gensi Kushida of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hurricane Melissa is making its way to Jamaica tonight after strengthening to a Category 5 storm

with sustained winds of 175 miles per hour. Authorities have already started mandatory evacuations across the island as they move to close the nation's airports. Officials have also opened more than 800 emergency shelters. The storm has already caused extensive damage, as its outer bands have already dropped heavy rain in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and now it's heading west towards Jamaica overnight and Cuba on Wednesday. So far, it's claimed three lives in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic. For more on what the island nation can expect in the hours ahead, we're joined by Matthew Capucci, senior meteorologist at My Radar. Thanks for being back with us. Good to be here. So as I understand it, you flew into the eye.

of this hurricane last night in a hurricane hunter plane. What did you observe about this storm that people should know? Yes, about a week ago, I was trying to figure out my coverage plans in terms of would I be going to Jamaica, would I be chasing it elsewhere, and we decided the safest option would be to basically attack it from the air. I reached out to a NOAA PR, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and arranged to get myself a seat on this flight into the eye of Melissa. And for folks to understand, hurricanes are sort of like atmospheric sink drains, all the air rushes into the eyewall, that buzzsaw ring of winds around the center, and all the air spirals inwards and upwards, but then it basically punches into the ceiling of the

lower atmosphere and kind of curves back down and hollows out the eye with hot, dry, sinking air. And so as we are flying into the hurricane, the turbulence obviously very extreme, it was like being on a space mountain at Disney World or a roller coaster in the dark, jostling to and fro up and down, you name it. And that lasted about 10 minutes. And then suddenly we are in the oasis of calm, this incredibly calm, picturesque eye. I could see something called the stadium effect. Basically, I'm in this zone of calm,

but all around me I can see 50,000-foot thunder clouds swirling around in the eye wall with 150 plus mile per hour winds. And yet, even just for about 90 seconds where I was, it was perfectly still. It was super warm too, because the eye was 16 degrees warmer inside, warmer inside than outside. So I actually began sweating a little bit.

It was breathtakingly beautiful and calm and peaceful and yet also horrifying, knowing that all around me that halacious buzzsawb wind was heading for Jamaica. Well, what does this mean for Jamaica when Melissa hits? This will be an unprecedented event in Jamaica. The last even comparable event was back on September 12th, 1988, when Gilbert hit as a high-end category three. But it's important people understand that a Category 5 is exponentially stronger, probably an order of magnitude stronger than a Category 3.

Category 3 might cause some structural damage. Category 5 leads to destruction of entire neighborhoods and isolation of entire communities. It's a multifaceted threat too. Far inland, you're talking three, maybe three and a half feet of rain that will cause widespread flooding and mudslides that will wipe out roads and leave communities unreachable perhaps for weeks until roads and bridges can be rebuilt. At the coastline, where that bussob wind comes ashore, a 40-mile-wide swath of winds gusting upwards of 140, 150 miles per hour will cause tornado-like damage. Even if any structures survive, the landscape will be altered. Trees, native trees, will be decimated. Forests will be

wiped bare. Only shredded vegetation will be left standing. It'll take years for the landscape to heal. That wind will also push water against the coastline, leading to a potentially devastating storm surge of 2 to 4 meters, up to about 13 feet. Imagine the ocean just rising to the height of a two-floor building. All this together will tax Jamaica to its limit and potentially lead to a humanitarian crisis that could last for a very long time. Is Melissa's trajectory or strength expected to change as it heads toward Jamaica?

Really you would take a miracle for Jamaica to avert crisis at this point. We're pretty confident in where Melissa is going. It's been trending a little farther west than initially anticipated, which might, emphasis on might, be good news for Kingston, but bad news for areas on the southwestern side of the island. At this point, though, we're very confident this eyewall, the bussov winds, will lift directly across Jamaica. And it might be a high in category four or low on category five at landfall. It really doesn't matter which. It's going to cause extreme destruction.

To the point the National Hurricane Center is using phrasing like total structural failure, that's the severity of this. They tend to be a taciturn, pretty reserved in how they use their language. When they break out phrasing like that, you know it's a real deal. Lots of folks hoping for a miracle tonight in Jamaica. Matthew Capucci, senior meteorologist at My Rui. radar. Thanks again for being with us. Thank you. Our other headlines start with day 27 of the U.S. government shut down.

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are still off the job to start the week. The head of the country's largest federal workers union weighed in, saying, quote, it's time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this. shutdown today, no half measures and no gamesmanship. The group said reopening the government would allow for continued debate on larger issues like expiring Obamacare tax credits. Today on Capitol Hill, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed that health care must be addressed, but criticized how Democrats are approaching the issue. We have a lot of work to do, but it is not a simple thing. And I am not going to go in a

backroom with Chuck Schumer like he keeps demanding with four people and make this decision. I will not do it. It's not appropriate. It's not right. It's too complicated for that. Democrats warn that the time to negotiate is now because open enrollment begins in most states next week. Meantime, the Department of Agriculture says federal food aid, known as SNAP, will not start going out in November. And more than 11,000 flights have been delayed nationwide in the last two days as the FAA reports a growing number of air traffic controller absences. Indiana is joining the growing fight over redistricting as each party tries to gain an advantage ahead of national. year's midterm elections. The state's Republican governor, Mike Braun, called for a special

legislative session to start next week for lawmakers to redraw the state's congressional districts. The move follows similar efforts by Republicans in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina, and it comes after weeks of pressure from the Trump administration. Meantime Democrats in Virginia are expected to push their own redistricting effort, as lawmakers there gather this week for a special session. Former President Joe Biden says he can't sugarcoat the state of the nation. and that these are, in his words, dark days. Biden made the comments while accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston.

He described the current moment as the worst he has seen in his many decades of elected public life, adding that our very democracy is at stake. He said the country depends on a president with limited power, a functioning Congress, and an independent judiciary. We remain in the battle for the soul of our nation, in my view. And that means we, all of us, and I mean all of us have an enormous responsibility

to protect the institutions upon which the fate of our nation rests. Striking a note of optimism, Mr. Biden said he believes the U.S. will emerge stronger, wiser, and more resilient so long as we keep the faith. He's maintained a low profile since leaving office in January, followed by his cancer diagnosis in May. The U.S. Navy is investigating two separate crashes involving aircraft from the USS Nimitz this past weekend. The incidents involving a fighter jet like the one seen here and a helicopter occurred within 30 minutes of each other in the South China Sea.

The carrier was returning to the U.S. from its final deployment in the Middle East before being decommissioned. Officials say all five crew members from the two aircraft were rescued and are in stable condition. They were conducting routine operations when the crashes occurred. A UN Human Rights Commission has found that Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. In a report out today, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine reported hundreds of strikes on the southern city of Hirsome. These include dropping hand grenades on civilians in their backyards and attacking first responders. The commission found that the strikes are intended to create what it called a permanent climate of terror. Russia has

denied targeting civilians and has refused to cooperate with U.N. investigators. President Trump Trump says Argentina's leader had a lot of help from the U.S. in his party's midterm election victories. President Javier Milley saw decisive wins in this weekend's vote, giving him a stronger hand in pushing through his aggressive economic reforms. The Trump administration had offered Argentina $20 billion through a currency swap deal, plus another $20 billion from private banks. Mr. Trump had signal that American support was contingent on Malay's success in the election. In a victory speech, Malay described the weekend vote as a turning point for Argentina. On Wall Street today, stocks pushed higher amid hopes of easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added more than 330 points. The NASDAQ jumped more than 400 points. The S&P 500 closed above 6,800 for the first time ever. Still to come on the news hour, our Politics Monday team weighs in on. President Trump saying he'd love to run again in 2028. Sudan's cultural landmarks and artifacts become casualties in the country's civil war. And a new book explores the political legacy of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington and in the west

from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. From Texas to North Carolina, from New England to the Midwest, communities are facing a growing threat from flash flooding. At the same time, many of those regions already lack enough affordable housing, a problem made worse by these storms. For our climate series, Tipping Point, William Brangham reports on how one community in central Vermont is trying to find a new way to move to higher ground. Somewhere around right here would be the front porch. This now empty space is where Jake McBride. home used to be. A small apartment building in the village of Plainfield, Vermont that sat next to the Great Brook River. It was affectionately known as the Heartbreak Hotel, a building

where he says a community flourished, one woven into the town's past and future. So many people I know lived here and then were able to save and buy their own home in Plainfield. It was a gateway to this area that we just don't have anymore. Just upstream, Christiana Athena Blackwell and her husband Walker bought their dream home in 2023 next to the Great Brook. But they're now waiting on a buyout from FEMA and fondly remembering the times before the flood. Two days before, we were having a dance party on this block. Yeah, we had like a little block party.

Fourth of July with a live band and everybody in the neighborhood out having food and was just like, this is the most ideal thing. This is the most ideal area, and so that's gone. Tonight, areas of the northeast are reeling from stormbridge. On July 10, 2024, the remnants of tropical storm barrel dumped six inches of rain over this area in just a few hours. Huge volumes of water, uprooted trees, and mountains of dirt barreled down the Great Brook before crashing into the concrete bridge just above the heartbreak, creating a log jam for the floodwaters. Probably in less than two minutes we got out of here. I backed up, but the water was rushing.

It was up to here by the time, like I had gathered. Above your knees. Yeah, and that broke and that took out the heartbreak. Miraculously, everyone in the building made it out that night. McBride and his partner were on a road trip the night of the storm. His housemate called him with the shocking news. He said, the house is gone. What do you mean the house is gone?

And he said, it's just gone. the whole thing's gone. That devastating flood hit Plainfield exactly one year after another deluge. And the news this morning is not good in Vermont, a disaster there. Some of the worst flooding in nearly a hundred years. And caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. Two so-called hundred-year events in consecutive years. In all, 39 homes in the village were lost, making dozens of families homeless in an already

tight housing market. 11% of the village's tax base was washed away. It's sort of like frozen in time a little bit here, frozen in disaster. Arian Tibumery bought the heartbreak in 2021. After the first flood two years ago, he thought it was still a smart investment. And my thinking at that time is like, okay, climate change is real, this is happening. The 100-year flood is now going to be the 10-year flood. And then the 20-24 flood came.

And to me, it was like we live in a whole new world, kind of all bets are off, nobody should be living in the floodplain. Grappling with this whole new world led to Boomerie and a handful of other volunteers to try and chart a new path forward on higher ground. It's like kind of a nice view over the whole thing. The village would purchase about 24 acres of private land on this hillside and use federal disaster assistance to develop and sell the lots for most. and mostly affordable housing.

And this spot is in the village on higher ground. We have municipal water and sewer, power lines, data, everything runs right there. We bring it right up to this property. We essentially are putting a new neighborhood on a hill that's already in town on 40 feet higher elevation, clearly out of the floodplain.

And there's one time federal money that's been sent to the state of Vermont, targeting our county. We are really ready to go and move this forward. As straightforward as that sounds, the devil has been in the details. favor housing development in playing field, but not on this land, not at this density, and not at this cost.

On a recent rainy evening, locals filled the village's old opera house for what was at times a tense meeting about the plan. All of you be respectful and kind to us. Just because we disagree with this doesn't mean we're bad people. At issue, should the local board apply for that federal disaster money? If they got it, it would pay for almost all the estimated $9.3 million it would cost to lay out the site and ready the lots for sale. I grew up with the understanding that if I worked, I would be able to afford housing.

And probably for the better part of 20 years, I've been seeking long-term housing in this area. While most seem to agree with that broader goal, critics are concerned about the number of lots being proposed, the overall cost of the plan, and the potential financial risk, the is taking on. I have concerns about the long-term costs. I really think we're cramming too many lots on this land. Don't take all of this money as if it's free to spend. Run your books like we have to run ours because we can't afford to be taxed anymore in this town.

Sure, it's a good idea to replenish our housing stock. We want that, but why would the town want to risk its credit rating? its taxpayers being able to pay their taxes and stay in their homes. Michael Bernbaum is one of those critics. I studied forestry, anthropology. We talked on the grounds of the now-defunct Goddard College in Plainfield. A developer bought the property and wants to turn it into rental housing. Burnbaum agrees that's a simpler fix than the town's idea.

There are lots of possibilities for more housing. Why are all of our eggs in this basket and why is the town taking that risk instead of somebody whose business is to take that risk? Supporters of the plan worry that a private developer in search of profit will price too many locals out. And while new housing at the college is welcome, they say their community needs an all-of-the-above approach. We have diminishing enrollment in our schools.

We have an aging population. We're actually fortunate to be a town that young people. people want to move to but are having trouble finding housing. So having here, we're talking about homeownership, which is different than rental housing, but we need all of it. Vermont has one of the highest homeless rates in the country, and its Republican governor says the state needs 40,000 additional housing units by 2030 in a state of just 648,000 people. He and the Democratic state legislature have recently taken steps to ease some building restrictions. If we do nothing, our taxes are going up.

But ultimately, what gets built and how has to be hammered out at the local level between neighbors and communities like this one. I think there were some people who were openly derisive of our points of view. They either accused us of nimbism or fear. That you're afraid of change. You're afraid of the new. Yeah, that's not at all what it is. We're afraid of the risk to the town and inappropriate use of a particular piece of land.

And that's really different from saying, no, we don't want growth. There's no perfect solution. I just want a solution. And I want to be able to work with my neighbors towards that. And I think that we're so polarized right now that we're not being terribly productive. We're just in complete limbo right now. Yeah. And we just have to live like that.

At their former dream home on the Great Brook, the Blackwells aren't sure what they'll do, but they support the new housing plan. Our community was changed fundamentally and permanently in 30 minutes during the flood. And what we're doing is simply restoring a little bit of what Plainfield was 30 minutes before all of that happened. I think it's harder for people to accept a change that's a choice than it is for people to accept a change that's mother nature. that evening at the town meeting, the board voted unanimously to move ahead with the grant

application. Even if they get the money, it is just one of many hurdles they'll need to clear. For the PBS News Hour, I'm William Brangham in Plainfield, Vermont. Trump is once again testing political boundaries, this time by hinting at the possibility of a third term. For more on that and the other political story shaping the week, we're joined now by our Politics Monday duo. That is Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. Happy Monday. Hello. Hello. So Steve Bannon, former presidential aide, Ever the provocateur, seems to be deliberately stirring the pot by floating the idea of a third Trump term. The president on Air Force One early this morning said that he'd be open.

Open to it. Take a listen. I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers. If you read it, am I not ruling it up? You'll have to tell me.

All I can tell you is that we have a great group of people which they don't. Amy, why does the president keep flirting with this idea of a third term despite the Constitution's clear limit against it? Yeah. Well, remember this is a candidate who in 2016 said, I alone can fix this, and this has been the ongoing mantra of his first term, but even more so his second term. And quite frankly, all of the institutions and guardrails that theoretically would have prevented many of the things that Donald Trump is actually going ahead and doing right now have failed to do their job. And so there's every reason for him to believe that, indeed, even though the Constitution explicitly lays out the fact that a president cannot have more than two terms, that there

is a workaround to this. And it seems to be another sign, Tam, that he does not view the law as a meaningful constraint on his power or authority. What is he trying to do, project permanence here? Let's just talk about a purely political reason he might be doing this, because the second he admits that he's not going to be in office in 2028, then he becomes a lame duck. And so much of his power right now exists

because people believe he's powerful. And if he loses some of that shine because, oh, he's a lame duck, then that becomes a problem for him more broadly. But as Amy says, this isn't just one time. This is repeatedly. Earlier this year, I was on Air Force One. He had just again flirted with the idea

about running in 2028 and staying. And I asked him, so will you leave, can you guarantee that you will leave office on January 20th, 2029? And he said, next question. So he is leaving this out there. He isn't ruling it out. And people are left to wonder,

is he joking like he sometimes is, or is he serious? And it's one of those things where you may not know until it's, too late. It's also a reminder that the party is Donald Trump and Donald Trump is the party. And so whether I will be here or whether it will be somebody else, there is no Republican who will be in office at a point in the near future that won't be coming from this part of the party, the Trump party. Well, right, I was going to ask you, does this talk of Forever Trump underscore

how little space there might be for the next generation of leaders? The part of this clip that we was where he was talking about, well, J.D. Vance might run against Marco Rubio and we'll see what happens. Right, that there's no room for anybody that's outside of this. And it's understandable. I mean, the party itself has very few of those voices left, at least from the before times. The question is, which candidate's going to come out of future times that is not going to look like, say, a George W. Bush-era Republican, but that's going to be some amalgamation of a person who was sort of raised in the MAGA era, but is taking it into a further into the 21st century. Well, this is another Monday where we're talking about the government shutdown and nothing

seems to have significantly changed except for the fact that SNAP benefits are going to expire on November 1st, and the federal government, the White House says there's not going to be a specific bailout for folks. Is that a pressure point that could fundamentally change the dynamics here? It is a pressure point, and there are many pressure points. That is a big one. Democrats are very loudly pointing out that the initial contingency plan that the Trump administration put out called for a reserve fund to be used to keep paying those SNAP benefits.

Now the administration is saying they can't do that. And so that is, if people can't get food, there are already, stronger, greater demands on food banks and other sources of support because the government shutdown is dragging on and people don't have pay. There are a number of pressure points that are coming. Another thing that happens on November 1st is open enrollment, where people will go out and buy health plans or shop for health plans and they're likely to get some sticker shock. That's another pressure point. The Democrats, I mean, that's the whole issue Democrats have have been talking about during this shutdown, that will be another thing.

But, like, you know, the chaplain, the Senate chaplain was basically praying to end the shutdown today at the start of the session. And that might be as effective as any of these other things, because there just really is no movement, and President Trump is out of the country all this week. That's what I was going to say. What seems to be very clear, and it's been clear from the very beginning, is this is not going to happen unless Donald Trump is in the room, unless the president is sitting down with the leaders of the House and the Senate to make something happen. The fact that he is gone this

week does speak volumes about whether or not this ends. But we've been saying now for the last, it feels like 300 days, but the last three weeks of this shutdown, that what is going to end it is when real pain starts to hit a broad swath of the population. People who are federal employees have been feeling this pain for quite some time, those who've been furloughed or laid off, now it's going to be some of the most vulnerable among us who could feel that pain. And we're starting to see it in local press. The front page of the Denver Post, for example, the other day had the governor of Colorado asking people to donate to food banks with the expectation that SNAP benefits will be delayed.

Well, it's one week before Election Day in statewide races in New Jersey and Virginia. Both states there are set to elect new governors. We've got the mayoral race in New York. watching for? I am watching energy prices. It has become an issue in Virginia and New Jersey and in Georgia in some public utility commissioner races. This is something that both parties are trying to make something of and some Democrats I've spoken to see focusing on energy prices as a potential path forward depending on how these races turn out. We've also got the California vote on the redistricting referendum. We do. And that one right now polling suggests it's pretty far ahead and

is likely to pass, which means Democrats are going to get an opportunity now to basically negate the gains that Republicans getting from a Texas map. The other thing that I'm going to look really closely at is the coalition that turns out to vote. Donald Trump, especially in a state like New Jersey, was able to make significant inroads thanks to support he was getting from traditionally Democratic groups like voters of color. Are those voters going to show up this time? And are they going to vote for Republicans?

I'm going to look for that. Election cliche. It all comes down to turn out. Always. On election day. Amy Walter, Tamara Keith. Appreciate you both. You're welcome. You're welcome. sexual violence. An estimated 150,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million have been forced from their homes. But one part of this story has drawn far less attention, the destruction of Sudan's cultural heritage, and what that loss means for its people and for the very idea of Sudanese identity. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports for our arts and culture

series, Canvas. The scene at Sudan's National Museum earlier this year, after government forces had retaken the capital city of Khartoum from the paramilitary rapid support forces or RSF. Precious artifacts destroyed or looted, treasures that speak to the overwhelming loss and high stakes of Sudan civil war. University of Washington historian Christopher Townsill studies the region. One of the reasons why the rapid support forces targeted these museums is because of what they represent, right?

cultural heritage is a foundational part of how nation states kind of provide legitimacy. This humanitarian crisis began in the aftermath of the 2019 downfall of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, when two former allies split and civil war ensued. More than two years later... It has been a hellscape, right? Millions have been driven away from their homes. The war has devastated critical infrastructure from clinics to hospitals, even to water supplies, right?

We still don't really know how many people have been killed because the destruction has been so heavy and so many regions are not accessible to, you know, NGOs like the Red Cross. Also hard to assess the damage to Sudan's cultural heritage sites. To observers and experts, there's little question they've been caught in the crossfire and targeted. I'm archaeologist, I can say it loudly. It seemed to be like targeted to disappear or to vanish the Sudanist culture. Habab Idris Ahmed is a senior inspector at the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums,

the government agency overseeing Sudan's cultural sites. He's now living in Scotland after fleeing the fighting in 2023. It seemed to be like something organized. It's not like something randomly happened. Sudan's landscape is filled with pyramids, tombs, and temples. It's home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites, libraries with historic manuscripts, and numerous museums, including the Sudan National Museum, which prior to the war, it housed some 100,000 artifacts, with one of the largest Nubian collections in the world.

A UNESCO statement earlier this year said, the securing of certain institutions by the authorities has shown evidence of large-scale looting and significant damage. UNESCO strongly condemns these attacks on cultural heritage. We lost a lot, a lot more you can imagine. And we lost museums. We lost sites. We lost objects, thousands of objects. So we are being working more than 100 years in archaeology. So you can imagine the museum are full of objects, the stores are full of objects, we have history,

we have memory, so all this kind of shaped the identity of Sudanese people. Most of the blame has been placed on the paramilitary RSF, which has its roots in western Sudan. It really goes back to the rapid support forces being located on really the fringes of national power historically in Darfur. In the early 20th century, Darfur was really known as a kind of restive location within Sudan that was resisting colonial power. And that kind of restiveness really continued through political marginalization through the 20th and into the early 21st century. But government Sudanese armed forces or SAF have also been cited by the UN for civilian and other abuses in the war, including attacks on mosques and churches.

Habab Idris Ahmed is now working with international partners to document some of the losses and give them life online. It's like making a virtual museum of the Sudan National Museum collection itself. So we tried our best to rescue, to assess what we've been lost. Also threatened a contemporary generation of artists who've been displaced and forced to leave much of their lives and work behind. One of them, Riem Al Jielli, now living in Cairo, is a curator and visual artist. Much of her work focuses on the world of women in Sudan.

I think the art in Sudan is very powerful. It is very personal. Each artist has its own or her own kind of print and the kind of stories that they're telling. I think it is very truthful, it is very powerful. And I think through this art, you can learn more about Sudan and the people of Sudan and these qualities that these people...