PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 29, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Wednesday on the News House, much of Jamaica is left with severe damage and no power in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. Vice President Vance and Charlie Kirk's widow host a college event in Mississippi, aiming to chart a path forward for the young conservative movement. Plus, federal funding cuts force many top researchers to think about leaving the U.S. 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, much of Jamaica is left with severe damage and no power in the wake of Hurricane Melissa as the storm batters Cuba and the Bahamas. Vice President Vance and Charlie Kirk's widow host a college event in Mississippi, aiming to chart a path forward for the young conservative movement. And federal funding cuts force many top researchers, including the man known as a man known as the Mozart of Matt to consider leaving the U.S. The worst case scenario, which I didn't even think was on the radar, you know, I mean,

maybe if the institute closes down, I can no longer find my students, I have to find another option. Welcome to the News Hour. Caribbean Islands have suffered terrible devastation in the wake of hurricane. Melissa. The death toll is in flux, but initial estimates show the storm has killed dozens across Haiti and Jamaica. Melissa is one of the strongest storms the region has ever seen, leaving widespread destruction in multiple Caribbean nations. The hurricane landed first on Jamaica yesterday as a Category 5 storm. It was the strongest storm to ever hit Jamaica,

leaving streets submerged, homes destroyed, and 77 percent of the of the island without power. A lot of my friends' house is gone. Nice, nice home. In the fishing village of Alligator Pond, residents like Dennis Elliott began to piece back together their lives. You've got to pick up your tools in your hand. The claw bar and the hammer,

the machete, the speed, and move on to the future same way. Hoping for never to see a stand like this again. It was terrible. I witness our board. About, I'm 54 and I witness, about three dangerous storm. This one was worse. It was terrible. The wind, it was violent.

It was terrible. Despite the devastation, Alvin English says this agricultural area, Jamaica's so-called breadbasket will survive. And we go down, we come back up. We go down and come back up. But Dennis Zulu, United Nations coordinator for the region, warned of long-term consequences. Not only will food crops and fields destroyed, but we'll also see a possibility, a very likely possibility that Jamaica will have some issues in terms of food security for the coming months.

What we are seeing in preliminary assessments is a country that's been devastated to levels never seen before. Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on the southern coast of Jamaica Tuesday morning. Early Wednesday, the storm hit Cuba as a category 3, weakening to Category 2 as a 2. churned across the island, headed to Haiti and Turks and Caicos. Melissa is expected to reach the Bahamas later today before moving towards Bermuda and into the Atlantic. Before the storm hit Cuba, over 700,000 people took shelter. And just a brave few ventured out today to witness the storm for themselves.

It was hell all night. The winds have been terrible. Even as a category three storm, Melissa has wreaked havoc, ripping the roof from Antonia Mario Corioso's home in Santiago to Cuba. The impact was brutal. First, there was a strange calm, then suddenly it roared like a wild beast. I had to run for cover. There was nothing I could do.

Haiti was spared a direct hit. But one coastal mayor said people were killed in floods after a river burst its banks. Residents in the already impoverished nation now do their best to stay dry, like the local. Francine Lujon. I am living with the kids. I have nothing to give them. We wake up in the water. We sleep in the water.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted online that the U.S. sent supplies, rescue, and response teams to the affected areas. But for many in the region, help may come too little and too late. And to get the latest on the ongoing rescue and relief efforts, we turn now to Brian Bogart. He's the World Food Program, Country Director for Caribbean Operations, and he joins us now from Jamaica's capital of Kingston. Brian, welcome and thank you for being with us. What can you tell us about what you're seeing on the ground where you are in Kingston

and also what you're hearing about the extent of the damage on the rest of the island? Sure. I've just seen some of the first images coming through from an aerial survey that has flown over the Paris of St. Elizabeth in southwest Jamaica where Hurricane Melissa made landfall. as a category five with winds that we're exceeding in 175 miles per hour. It looks absolutely devastating. And this is the first imagery that has allowed me to really grasp the extent of the damage.

Destruction is what I shouldn't say. And we have teams on the ground right now who are trying to make contact with these communities, trying to understand what the logistics network looks like and how we can access those communities through roads that are viable, what's being cleared, where bridges may be washed out. And that's really the ultimate priority

in addition to search and rescue, which is also taking place simultaneously. Brian, Jamaica's and the area have seen hurricanes before, for sure. Is there any way to compare this storm to storms of the past? Sadly, this area of St. Elizabeth, I was there almost a year ago

because Hurricane Barrel, which is a category four storm, hit that same part of the country and devastated it. And this is an area that is a coastal community with lots of people who are fishermen, fisherfolk, and it's also the agricultural heartbed of the country. So it's sad to say it's much worse than last year.

But last year was extremely damaging to those communities as well. So people will have invested in, reconstructing their homes and trying to get back on their feet. And a year later, an even more devastating system has passed through their communities. It's heartbreaking, and there's no other way to describe it. You just heard a UN official in our report there mentioned there could be long-term consequences when it comes to food instability, and particularly because of the agricultural areas that were hit. I know WFP had been warning about funding being tight going into these storms.

Do you have the resources that you need to see through long-term support for Jamaica? and the region? And I think your point is absolutely valid. We are very much in need of resources to be able to stand up the immediate response. But in a situation like this where communities are completely devastated and the agricultural potential of the country

is being undermined, we need to have a longer-term perspective on food security, both to meet people's immediate needs for food today, but also to invest in those communities to get them back on their feet and able to produce for the rest of the country, really. Meanwhile, in terms of immediate needs, we heard Secretary Rubio say that the U.S. is sending relief teams.

What can you tell us about the coordination between your organization and the American official efforts? And what else is desperately needed right now on the ground? I mean, we've always coordinated extremely well with our partners in the government in the United States. And we continue to count on their support and leadership to help us respond to crises like this. And we're in constant communication.

We are enjoying an incredibly close collaboration and very much look forward to responding to this crisis together. And what's really critical for us now is to be able to move supplies, not only food, but also shelter, water and sanitation equipment, and logistics assets, really. mobile warehousing, forklifts, generators, the kinds of equipment that we need to substitute

for existing infrastructure that's been destroyed so we can actually surge support into these communities. And really, we're talking about saving lives and it's absolutely urgent that we're able to do so. So we need transport capability. We are working with aviation sector partners. We're working with private sector partners from the shipping industry.

and anyone who was able to offer support at this time to deliver life-saving support to the people of Jamaica. All right, that is Brian Bogart, the World Food Program, joining us from Kingston, Jamaica tonight. Brian, thank you so much. We're sending all our best wishes to you and your team. Thank you. Thank you very much. start at the Federal Reserve. The central bank today cut its top-line interest rate by a quarter

point for the second time this year. Speaking to reporters, Chair Jerome Powell said the long-running risk of higher inflation had to be balanced with signs of weakness in the job market. He said another cut this winter is not a guarantee. With downside risks to employment having increased in recent months, the balance of risks has shifted. A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion. Far from it. Adding to the uncertainty over the Fed's next meeting is a lack of economic data with many reports affected by the ongoing government shutdown. President Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea in the coming hours on the last leg of his tour through the region. Before that, though, Mr. Trump attended the APEC summit today, where he touted progress on a framework trade deal with South Korea.

South Korean companies are set to invest $350 billion in the American economy in exchange for U.S. U.S. tariff relief. The deal hasn't been signed yet, but Mr. Trump told leaders it's all but done. A lot was determined, very much determined, and we made our deal, pretty much finalized a trade deal. South Korean officials said the potential deal involves both cash, investments, and cooperation on shipbuilding. There was also pageantry amid the trade politics, including the president being presented with this replica crown from one of Korea's ancient dynasties. Eastern Europe, the U.S. military has confirmed it's reducing its presence along NATO's border with Ukraine.

The news was first announced by NATO member Romania, which signaled that about 700 U.S. troops would be pulled from Romania as part of Washington's broader shift toward the Indo-Pacific region. The U.S. Army Command in Europe insisted this is a positive sign of increased European capability and responsibility. But the Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees say they strongly oppose the decision, which, as they put it, sends the wrong signal to Russia. In the Middle East, the Israeli military carried out a targeted strike on northern Gaza today, even as Israel says its ceasefire with Hamas is still in place. The attack near Bait Lahia targeted areas where Israel says Hamas was storing weapons.

Palestinian officials say at least two people were killed. It comes after Israel carried out heavy airstrikes, overnight across Gaza, killing more than 100 people, including 46 children. Some were struck at a central hospital, as seen in this footage from our producer in Gaza, Shams O'Day. One man described how he lost loved ones in the strike. The women were killed while sleeping. They couldn't wait to go from sleeping on the dirt in tents to sleeping in some form of shelter.

To the negotiating parties, I wish you could see our tragedy here. and how dire our situation is. Israel says the strikes were in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli soldier in southern Gaza, as well as a violation by Hamas related to the return of hostage remains. They were the deadliest attacks since the ceasefire started earlier this month. In Brazil, officials say the death toll from a massive raid on a drug gang in Rio de Janeiro has jumped to at least 119. That includes four policemen. Dozens of bodies were laid side by side on a city street as residents looked for missing relatives.

Yesterday, some 2,500 officers carried out what officials are calling the largest such anti-drug raid in the city's history. The UN today called for an end to the so-called cycle of extreme brutality in Brazil's policing methods. Rio's state government says those who were killed had resisted police. A jury in Illinois convicted a former sheriff's deputy today of second-degree murder for killing Sonia Massey, who had called 911 for help. The jury did not convict Sean Grayson of first-degree murder, which could have meant life in prison.

Instead, the 31-year-old faces up to 20 years or possibly probation. Grayson and another deputy responded to Massey's home last year after she reported a possible intruder. Grayson shot Massey as she held a pot of boiling water. His lawyers argued he feared that she would throw it at him. This second-degree murder charge make no mistake. Sean Grayson is convicted of murder. He is a murderer now. Outside the court, lawyers from Massey's family said the lesser charge still amounts to justice.

AI giant NVIDIA became the world's first $5 trillion company today. The chipmaker's market value has surged amid an AI boom that is reshaping the world's economy. But it's also raised concerns about a potential AI bubble. NVIDIA's shares jumped nearly 3% today. Elsewhere, on Wall Street, stocks closed mixed after that Fed rate cut. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped about 75 points on the day. The NASDAQ rose 130 points, the S&P 500 ended virtually flat. And letters from a pair of World War I soldiers have been found in a bottle on a beach in Western Australia.

The men wrote them just days after departing for Europe back in 1916. Their words are still legible more than a century later. In one, Private Malcolm Nelville tells his mother that the food is real good so far with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea. Another from Private William Harley wishes that the finder of his message, quote, be as well as we are at present. A local family came across the bottle as they were cleaning up the beach earlier this month. One of the soldiers' granddaughters called the discovery a miracle. Still to come on the news hour, how the massive data centers being built for artificial intelligence could affect electricity. bills. Israel returns Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire deal, but their condition

sparks new accusations of abuse. And journalist Jonathan Carl discusses his new book, looking at the Trump administration's focus on retribution. 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. Following Charlie Kirk's killing, conservative activists have stepped in to fill the void at his organization, Turning Point USA, and complete his tour of college campuses while building on the movement he led. His widow, Erica Kirk, and Vice President J.D. Vance, are scheduled to speak tonight at the University of Mississippi, where our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, is now. So, Liz, what are we expecting from the vice president tonight at Ole Miss? Vance is joining here at Ole Missis campus in Oxford, Mississippi today for this event.

And Erica Kirk, after Charlie Kirk was killed in September, said that she wanted to continue her husband's work of these kinds of high school and college campus events. This is the lifeblood of Turning Point USA, reaching young people, teaching them, according to TPSA, about faith, freedom, family. She will be here tonight joining the vice president. We are actually expecting him to take questions from the audience, like Charlie Kirk was doing the day that he was assassinated at Utah Valley University in September. And Liz, as you say, I know you've been speaking with students there all day. What have they been telling you?

Well, one young woman that we spoke with yesterday, we came in to attend the Turning Point USA meeting, their prep meeting that they did last night and talked with some of the attendees afterwards. one young woman telling me that Kirk's assassination changed how she thought about politics. Before Charlie Kirk's assassination, I wasn't in Turning Point, USA. Now, like, I've joined as a member. And, I mean, I think it really puts things into perspective about how divisive things have become in our country and how important it is for people to, like, get involved and just be proud of what they believe in.

Mary Kate was one of several young women that we spoke with on campus here. We're not seeing the gender divide that is playing out some in national polling. There are just as many conservative women, if not more, women in some of these meetings that we've seen that TPUSA is doing and the organizing that we're seeing here on campus as there are young men. We spoke with one of the young men who's involved in TPUSA here on campus, Sean. He's from this area. He said he grew up with liberal. parents, but since he's come to Ole Miss, that he has joined a number of conservative

groups. Despite everyone telling me that groups like these are full of hate and filled with people who just want to shoot you down and, you know, just a racist and all the other words, ever since I've went to these meetings, it has been the complete opposite. I have never met a more welcoming group of people who want nothing more than to share ideas and, you know, have a good time and focus on change, not just, you know, talking. We need to go out and do things. And, Sean, like everybody else, though, we have spoken with while we have been here on campus in the last two days. Also talked about his strong faith, Christianity, and how Charlie Kirk's message talking about

faith, God. That is also a big part of why he was drawn to TUSA. Jeff. What about the college Democrats? Have they had any semblance of a presence on campus? today, understanding this is Mississippi? Yeah, of course. There's a coalition of liberal and progressive groups that is organizing around the same time that this event is scheduled to happen this evening. They're doing a Mississippi rise up town hall. They're going to have local elected officials as well as some national

federal officials like Congressman Roe Kana. And their goal tonight is to show dissent against the Trump administration and Vance's participation in this. We spoke earlier today with some of the leaders of the College Democrats here at the University of Mississippi. My belief is that this event hosted by TPPUSA is not going to be a constructive place for dialogue and like a safe place for any of us to speak out about our beliefs and our dissent against the Trump administration. So I think this is a really fantastic opportunity for our folks to come together and speak

out in a safe space. And free speech is a big part of the term. the Turning Point USA ethos. But there was a University of Mississippi employee who was fired in the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing for social media posts that she had reposted online. She is now suing the chancellor of the school saying that her firing violated her First Amendment. Jeff?

Liz Landers in Oxford, Mississippi for us tonight on the campus of the University of Mississippi. Liz, our thanks to you. A poll from the journal Nature earlier this year found that 75% of researchers in the U.S. are considering leaving the country. That includes a man who's been dubbed the Mozart of Math. Stephanie Sy examines what's behind a potential scientific brain drain. And you're only allowed to use it three times. UCLA professor Terence Tao has spent his entire life solving problems, not just theoretical ones.

And every scan is like taking one measurement. Tao is explaining how his research led to an algorithm, which dramatically cut the time of MRI scans. MRI scans that used to take, say, three minutes. They cannot take 30, 40 seconds. Math research has led to countless technological breakthroughs. These are things that mathematicians played with in like the early 20th century. Hailed as the Mozart of Math, Tau enrolled in college by the time he was nine. As a teenager, he immigrated from Australia to the U.S. and began a Ph.D. program at Princeton.

In 2006, he won Math's highest honor, the Fields Medal. And today, he's widely considered to be the finest mathematician of his generation. What was appealing about being a researcher, and a PhD student here in the US. Because there's just this long tradition of excellence, and people know that they can come here, they can be welcomed. You know, I was very influenced by American science shows.

Cosmos in particular had a big impact on me. Let's count the bets and find out! I've learned to count from Sesame Street, for instance. Also, that's just because of scale, you've got to have 100 good universities, 100 good math departments. There's just so many conferences and workshops, and there was a really life.

lively ecosystem. I don't consider myself super political. But the lively ecosystem that helped develop his genius is under threat. For the first time, I'm actually concerned about existential issues. You know, like, you know, departments could conceivably either close down or drastically reduce their research component. As part of the Trump administration's push to slash federal spending, the National Science Foundation was forced to suspend $1 billion in grants.

The cuts directly hit Tao and UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, where he directs special projects. Suddenly my life is fundraising and finding alternative sources of funding and making so triage plans. If we can't restore funding, what do you cut first? The White House has cited multiple reasons for federal research cuts. cuts, often without clear explanation or connections to its rationale. That includes opposition to DEI policies and an ongoing battle with many universities

over anti-Semitism and what it calls wokeness. The uncertainty and instability in funding is causing many researchers and scientists, including Tao, to weigh whether to leave the U.S. I myself have been contacted by departments from Europe and Australia and Would you consider? I mean, until six months ago, I'd say I'm very happy here. I mean, things have worked here for, you know, 30 years. But, yeah, in the worst case scenario, which I didn't even think was on the radar, you know, I mean, maybe the Institute closes down.

I can no longer fund my students. I have to find another option. And there's evidence that our brain drain may already be underway. So I've definitely kind of shifted my focus towards finding a research. research position abroad, particularly in Europe. Danielle Fadera is a biomedical engineer who is set to complete her Ph.D. from Columbia University this fall. Back in March, the NIH grant that helped fund her research on uterine fibroids, which affect roughly 80 percent of women, was canceled.

For a condition that affects so many women, the fact that we don't understand why it happens and how we can possibly treat it, is a disservice. Fodera's funding was later restored after Columbia agreed to pay more than $200 million to settle several investigations with the Trump administration. Even so, she's now looking abroad and in the private sector for research opportunities. Definitely a path that I would never have envisioned, but in this moment, it is making me consider other options. I thought the only thing that could stop me from getting a Ph.D. is for the world to end. And the science world is kind of ending, at least at the collegiate level. Last month, Anna Darling started a Ph.D. program in neuroscience at Ohio State University, where she's researching how early life stress and trauma can impact adolescent behaviors.

I wanted to be a professor, just like my mom, who was a science teacher growing up. I wanted to teach science. But Darling says she recently found out that the funding for her Ph.D. program is no longer guaranteed. My outlook on being a scientist in this country has definitely changed because not only is the path a little bit more challenging, but also the freedom to do the research you want to do and to speak on the topics that you truly believe and hold value in is just not. as free as it used to be. One of the things that's always made America great is our research excellence.

And that's something that takes a long time to build. And when you lose that, it's really hard to regain it. Biochemist Stephen Jones has already left the U.S. for Lithuania. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, he says he began applying for jobs overseas after noticing a rise in anti-science sentiment. I would really love to be in a place

where the type of work that I'm doing is being valued. And that's something that's, you know, once I started interviewing outside of the U.S., I was seeing more of that, sort of this respect, not just by people within the scientific community, but people outside of the scientific community.

Today, Jones is running a research lab at a Lithuanian university. And while many of his American colleagues initially questioned his move, He says some are now asking for advice on how to do the same. You can tell that people's brains are shorter shifting now, and it's not just like, oh, isn't that cute, to, what if I did that? Meanwhile, other nations see an opening to bolster their own scientific ranks.

The European Union and France recently pledged a half billion euros in grants to entice scientists to the continent's universities. Since last year, the number of U.S.-based scientists seeking employment outside of the country has risen by 30 percent, with many applying to jobs in Canada, Europe, and China. I myself came here from India on an immigrant visa, a H-20B visa here, and I have been given so many amazing opportunities for which I'm really grateful for. Vidya Saravana Pandyan is a neuroscientist at UCLA who studies brain activity in children with development. disorders. We have 128 little electrodes here and you can see them numbered. She says the consequences of an exodus of research talent will be felt far beyond universities. Shutting down labs, they'll have huge consequences. Your students will leave. Ideas are lost. Your experiments are ruined.

And, you know, this will have a huge impact on your economy. All of this is making me really sad and scared for where this is going and what the future of science is for us as scientists, as well as for the younger generation. Professor Tao has been critical of how the Trump administration has made funding cuts without minimizing harm to research and the people behind it. To be honest, the mindset of the administration is rather alien to me. I mean, like, it's, whatever it is, it's not coming from the public interest being the primary objective for any complex problem, including how to,

for a scientific ecosystem. You know, you need a process where many, many voices can be heard and one person who doesn't understand all the subtleties kind of sort of come in and wreck everything.

How to protect America's scientific infrastructure is the latest problem Tao is trying to solve. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sci in Los Angeles. We're taking another look now at increasing electricity prices. A few weeks ago, we examined the impact of artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to power it.

Now, John Yang explores new findings that break down the issue and point to other factors behind the rising costs. Jeff, the latest consumer price index showed that the average electric bill went up a little more than 5% from September 2024 to September 2025. That's more than the overall. rate of inflation for the same period. The conventional wisdom is that greater demand for power from the explosive growth of data centers is the reason. But a new analysis by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the consulting group, Brattle, concludes that it's not that simple.

Ryan Lettick is a principal at Brattle. He was a member of the research team. Ryan, it's not only not that simple, but it's a little counterintuitive because you say the research suggests that greater demand for electricity can actually do. bring rates down. How does that work? Yeah, it can. And I think, you know, the important thing to understand about the power sector is a big portion of the cost that you're paying in your electricity bill is a fixed cost. It's the poles and wires and power plants and substations that power companies have already gone out and invested in. And they're recovering those costs

from you based on how much you and your neighbors and other customers are consuming, how much electricity you're consuming. And so if utilities can bring in a new large customer, like a data center, that's going to consume a lot of energy, if they can do that without needing to make big additional investments in infrastructure, because they already have capacity on their system to accommodate that new customer, it actually can bring more energy into the system that you can spread those fixed costs out across, and that can actually have downward pressure on rates. So is there any other way that data centers have at a

effect on electricity rates? There is. What we're starting to see is that a lot of utilities that did have spare capacity are starting to run into capacity constraints because of all of this increase in demand for electricity. And so when you run into that situation, then there is the potential that utilities are going to need to go out and make new investments to accommodate a new data center or another new large customer. And those investments could increase costs and would have the potential to increase rates for other customers. But even in that situation, you know, it's not as simple as to say a new data center means rates are going up because a lot of utilities

around the country are starting to introduce new rate structures specifically for large customers like data centers that are intended to recover those incremental costs that are being introduced by the data centers from those customers and to avoid having those costs shifted to other customers. So what are the forces or the effects that are pushing rates up? You know, there are portions of the electricity distribution system that are 80 years old at this point. And so we've really reached a point at a lot of locations, a lot of regions across the country, where utilities are needing to go out and invest to simply replace aging, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. And we're needing to do that at a time when the cost of that equipment has been increasing pretty

rapidly pretty much ever since the pandemic. Is the work on that infrastructure also being affected by severe weather, by hurricane, storms, and the like? Absolutely. And there are really two effects to consider there. One is, you know, what happens after a hurricane blows through or a winter storm happens and knocks out, you know, a significant portion of your power infrastructure. There can be a pretty significant price tag associated with needing to go in and

and repair or replace those damaged portions of the grid. The other piece of this is preparing to mitigate some of those risks. And this is a big issue for the Western states right now, particularly California, where there are a lot of preparations that are being made to mitigate the risk of wildfires. And so when we've looked at the rate changes

in California recently, we've found that the single biggest driver of rate increases in California over the last five years has been risk mitigation as it relates to wildfires. What about there's some places that you have policies to encourage renewable energy? Are they having an effect? They are, and that effect, we found that effect can go both ways.

You know, in regions that have access to low-cost wind and solar, which are some of the cheapest sources of energy available, what we found is that in those regions, we haven't seen a price increase associated with increased deployment of wind and solar resources. And if anything, there's a, the relationship is that we've seen some prices decreasing as a result of increased market-based procurement of renewables. When we see there being the potential for renewables to apply upward pressure on rates is when there's a policy in place called a renewable portfolio standard that would require utilities to go out and procure renewable energy above and beyond what the market would select on its own. In that case, because you're essentially paying a premium for energy, there can be upward pressure on rates. But that's not really a surprise because the policymakers that are in those states that are making the decision to introduce those policies are doing the math and saying, look, climate change itself can have a very significant cost to society.

And so we're willing to go out and spend a little bit more on energy to try and mitigate that risk and avoid that broader cost to society. Ryan Lettick of the Consulting Group Rattle. Thank you very much. Thank you. As part of the latest ceasefire deal, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and the bodies of nearly 200. Many of the dead show what Palestinian officials and family members say are signs of torture and abuse. Special correspondent Laila Mollon.

Lana Allen, and our NewsHour teams in Gaza and the West Bank spoke with relatives of the deceased and of those still held. And a warning, viewers may find some of these images disturbing. The cruelest of reunions. These families are searching for signs of their loved ones in the decaying remains returned to Gaza by Israel. Desperate for news of family members they haven't heard from since they were detained during the war. So many are missing that few. even know how or why they disappeared. They hope against hope that they won't find their answers here. I've been coming for four days since the first group of corpses arrived. I came

to look for my missing brother. His wife was killed as well as his four children. His whole family has been wiped off the civil registry, so I can't even ask them what clothes he was wearing to identify him. Israel has now returned 195 bodies as part of the ceasefire deal. They are so badly decomposed that just a quarter have been identified. A grisly and heart-rending job for the local forensics team. With all Gaza's specialist labs destroyed by war, they must do the job by hand. Doctors say many of the bodies bear signs of torture, abuse and execution. This man died blindfolded, another with his hands bound behind his back.

There was decomposition in the bodies. There were also gunshots. gunshots on the chest and head in addition to fractures in the skull and legs. Nida has found her father's body. She can't believe what she's seeing. The bodies were mutilated and showed clear signs of torture, including my father, whose arms were amputated with torture marks on his legs. He was in terrible condition.

So I had to identify him from his clothes, his teeth, and an old scar on his forehead. While Israel has long-faced accusations of mistreatment inside its jails, recently released prisoners report an unprecedented surge in widespread abuse since October 7th, including starvation, beatings, withholding of medical treatment and physical and psychological torture. Human rights advocates say the attacks have been used as an opportunity to exert collective punishment against Palestinians, which is illegal under international law. Jihad al-Rom was convicted of killing in Israeli during the second Intifada in the early 2000s and sentenced to life plus 20 years. As part of the ceasefire deal, he was released after 24 years in jail. His family was ecstatic. But Jihad didn't get to go home.

Instead, he was exiled to Egypt without warning. Personally, I faced beating and abuse multiple times. including deprivation, and having my hands and feet tied. They'd leave me under the hot sun for hours and prevented me from going to the bathroom or being allowed hygiene essentials. The food portions they provided were just enough to keep you alive. Whenever we'd tell them there was a sick prisoner

who needed immediate medical care, they'd simply respond, when he dies, let us know. Many released prisoners were too afraid to speak to us, fearing reprisals from Israeli authorities, even in exile. They threatened us that even if we can't arrest you there, we'll assassinate. Jihad says even as they heard their release had been confirmed, they were led to an open yard where they were severely beaten for hours before being loaded onto buses.

We got handcuffed and left on the ground for hours. Then we were beaten cruelly as if this was the last time they could assault us. He told us that beating was so bad he couldn't sleep for the next two days. Israel is still holding more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners in prisons like the one behind me. Over a third of them are held under a system called administrative detention, whereby Israel can detain Palestinians for a period of up to six months with neither charge nor trial. But those orders can be renewed indefinitely under a secret file that neither the prisoner nor their lawyer is allowed to see. That system is illegal under international law, and so is the detention of children.

except under very strict parameters, which rights organisations say Israel is failing to meet. Under Israeli law, an Israeli citizen becomes an adult at 18, but a Palestinian is deemed an adult at 16. Even so, children as young as 12 are regularly detained, most often for throwing rocks or incendiary materials at Israeli tanks and soldiers. Adel, whose name we've changed to protect his identity, is just 15. He's been arrested three times since he was 13, and the last year was shot in the legs by an Israeli soldier, needing multiple surgeries. He says after October 7th, the child managers meant to monitor their treatment in jail were dismissed, and new guards raided their cells nightly.

They took us out to the yard and went into the cells, where they took all our clothes and left nothing. Later, they started invading the adult department, where they beat and tortured them. One prisoner was sick, and the other prisoners started calling for a doctor to help him. But the guards came inside and started hitting him to wake him up. Instead of getting a doctor, they beat him up. He died. Adel told us they were regularly starved in those months. But as soon as the release deal was confirmed, they were suddenly given plenty of food.

They treated us well, so we would look healthier when we leave, and say the prison situation is good. This only happens when there's a prisoner exchange and once it's done, they return to their old bad behavior. I ask him why he's taking such a risk speaking to us. You lose your dignity inside. I'm saying this today because the world should know the harsh conditions these prisoners are living in. Israel's military press office said no bodies were tied prior to release in Gaza but did not respond to specific allegations of signs of torture and execution

on the returned bodies. It accused news outlets covering these allegations of effectively supporting Hamas's false propaganda. An Israeli government official did not respond to specific allegations on the treatment of detained Palestinians and minors, but told the news hour, individuals are held in detention based on security considerations only and in full compliance with the law. In a village perched on a hilltop in the occupied West Bank, Zahar Ibrahim waits for news, for justice, for a child. Zahad recalls the cold and fearful night in February when Israeli forces stormed their home and detained his son for allegedly throwing rocks at Israeli military vehicles.

Muhammad was just 15. They blindfolded him, they tied them up, they tied them up, and there was like 10 soldiers out here. You know, then there was three big military army jeeps, and they took them, put them in the, throw them in the back of the the jeep and that's the last time we heard him or spoke to him. Mohamed and his family are American from a small community in Florida. But they say their U.S. passports, which once symbolized protection, have brought them little comfort. When you say American, Palestinian, American, it's not the same as Israeli, Israeli-American.

So even as a U.S. citizen, you know, I don't think they really care. I think if it was an Israeli-American, he wouldn't be there for one week. They haven't been allowed to see or speak to him since his arrest in contravention of international guidelines on detained minors. All they know is what the U.S. Embassy tells them, and that isn't much. The U.S. Embassy visited Mohammed, and they confirmed the escabies all over his body, and his weight lost. He lost a good 30 to 40 percent of his body fat.

And he's not getting sunlight, you know. He's only getting, they're only allowing him out 10 minutes a day. A State Department spokesperson told the news hour it is providing consular assistance to Muhammad's family and that US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and embassy staff are deeply involved in working on this case. Muhammad wasn't released in the ceasefire deal. His family has no idea why. Today, after nearly nine months in detention, Muhammad had a hearing at OFA prison.

His lawyer and a U.S. Embassy representative attended. but failed to negotiate his release. His father still wasn't allowed to see him in person. It's real tough on us, you know, especially when we see these images of people that come out of jail, you know, they come out like skeletons, you know, like bones. You got to eat, you know, then you think, what is he in? You know, we try and everything to help Muhammad out, but it's dead end everywhere we go. Thousands more Palestinian families still wait helplessly for,

news, praying to see their detained loved ones again, but dreading the very worst. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Laila Malana Allen in the Occupied West Bank. In his new book, ABC News Chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Carl offers a behind-the-scenes look at key moments at the White House and on the 2024 campaign trail that ended One party's hold on the White House and brought another back to power. The book is Retribution, Donald Trump, and the Campaign that Changed America. And John Carl joins us now. It's great to have you here. Great. Thank you for having me.

So you opened this book by recounting a phone call with President Trump right after the election. And you say the president wanted to hear you acknowledge his election victory and you compare this interaction to a scene from Breaking Bad. Tell us about that and what it suggested to you about how he was approaching the second term. Look, this was such an incredible election, so many twists and turns, and you know what it's like on election night. You are up all night, and then you have to be on the morning shows if you're in television doing this. So I had been up all night, and I just figured I would call Trump to congratulate him, which is strange, by the way. I had been talking to him throughout the campaign, like every, in some weeks, every couple of days. And you'd known him for some 30-plus years.

I've known him for a long time, and, you know, so I didn't think he was going to answer, by the way. I mean, he's the president-elect now. Right. But he answered, and I said, President-elect Trump, I'm just calling to say, congratulations. And he paused. He said, on what? On what, Jonathan? You tell me. Congratulations on what? And I said, you know, on the greatest comeback victory in the history of American politics, which is what it was. But it reminded me in Breaking Bad, the Walter White character played by Brian Cranston, who is out there at one point with some other drug dealers. he's clearly bested, and he says, say my name, say my name. Trump wanted to hear me say what had happened.

Wanted to hear me say, after all that I had written about him, to hear me say that he had won this great victory. Another revelation in this book of cite, Mike Pence's handwritten notes from the morning of January 6th, documenting this call he had with President Trump, where Trump called him a wimp if he certified Biden's victory. What new insights do those notes provide about the pressure Pence was under or the way that President Trump viewed that moment? First of all, it's a fascinating historic document.

You think about all that we have studied on January 6th, hours and hours of primetime hearings, criminal investigations. I wrote a book about January 6th, other great journalism about January 6th. These notes had never been seen before. Pence referred to them in his memoir, but even in who, Pence didn't reveal the actual content of these notes. And he scribbles on his daytimeer. So you get the sense that Pence, it's 10 o'clock in the morning on January 6th. He's about to go up and preside.

Trump wants him to use that power that he has, which is really nothing, to overturn the presidential election. He has refused up till now. And in the furiousness of his notes, he's trying to document that conversation for history. There's one little piece on those notes. It just blew me away when I finally got to see them. which is what looks like an emoji that he writes, he kind of scribbles, of an angry face. And it says, it quotes Trump saying, you listen to the wrong people.

And Pence's answer is, I listen to my heart and my mind. And he's clearly, like, anguished by it. And is he angry? Is it Trump's anger or is it his anger? Unclear, but that's the document. There are people who will wonder, why hold a detail like that for this book? If this exists, if that reporting exists in the public interest, why not report it in real time? Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I hear this a lot, other reporters who write books, hear this a lot.

Why are you saving stuff? Isn't it your responsibility to get it out? Well, here's the reality here, and I really hope people listen to this. I break news in this book because I am writing a book. It is a different kind of journalism. I am burrowing far deeper than I would ever be able to do in daily reporting. and I talked to people who wouldn't be willing to talk to me about a story that's going to air that night or the next morning

and get in-depth stuff. You know, this took a lot of work to unearth. I didn't sit on it to put it in a book. I got it because I was in the process of writing a book. Another detail you got in your conversations was the sense that Christy Knoem, when she was nominated to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security, that this was a personal favor that the president did

to Cory Lewandowski. This is despite concerns about her qualifications. There were similar doubts raised about Sean Duffy, his lack of relevant experience, now Transportation Secretary. What does that tell you about how power and loyalty and competence have been redefined in this second Trump term? It really points to the contrast with the first, because Trump in part in his first term, was looking for credentials. He wanted to be affirmed. So he had people like four-star general John Kelly as the Secretary of Homeland Security, four-star General Mattis as the Secretary of Defense. You had Senator Sessions as Attorney General, later, Bill Barr as Attorney General. These were people with long distinguished careers. But a lot of them in Trump's

minds, especially the people I just mentioned, Trump felt were not actually loyal to him. So now it's not about what your credentials were. It's about how deeply loyal you are to him. And this is a cabinet of people that have professed near total loyalty, if not total loyalty, to Donald Trump. He's surrounded by loyalists, as you say. I think another hallmark on the second Trump term is the degree to which institutions have folded to him. So when the president these days sort of muses aloud and wonders aloud about running for another term, a third term, although most recently he said that it's pretty clear he's not allowed to do it. But the idea has been implanted. Do you think he's serious? I don't think he is serious. I'll say. I'll

say that first. I think he's doing it to troll people and to make people freak out about it. But I think that that idea is gaining some traction and it needs to be watched because I'm not so sure that Trump is ready to hand over the baton. He may understand that the 22nd Amendment would make it impossible to run again. But, you know, if he can be convinced that he's the only one and he's got to stay, I don't know, but I will tell you this. In my reporting more recently, Trump has told people privately, people close to him when the cameras aren't on and when he's not on social media, that he does not intend to stay for another term. That could change, so stay tuned, but that's what he's saying now.

Retribution, how far do you think this will go, given that it has really been operationalized in recent months? I don't, you know, I honestly don't know. He seems like almost every that he is doing now is either punishing the people that he feels betrayed him or went after him, rewarding friends, and also kind of like a legacy pitch, you know, whether it's building the big ballroom. He's very serious about wanting the Nobel Peace Prize. These are different than the first term. He is thinking about lasting changes to this country, and he's dead serious about getting back at his enemies. The book is Retribution, Donald Trump,

and the Campaign that Changed America. John Carle, always good to speak with you. Yeah, thanks a lot. Appreciate it. And that is The News Hour for tonight. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the PBS News Hour,

thanks for spending part of your evening with us.