PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 5, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Monday on the News Hour, the Supreme Court kicks off a new term with arguments on whether energy companies can be held liable for climate change. A technician at a Russian lab dies of what is suspected to be a pneumonic plague, putting health officials around the world on alert. Plus, we launch a deep-dive into GLP-1s, the weight-loss drugs that have exploded in popularity. 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, the U.S. Supreme Court kicks off another term with arguments on whether energy companies can be held liable for climate change. A technician at a Russian lab dies of what is suspected to be pneumonic plague, putting health officials around the world on alert. I think what's kind of alarming is not just what happened, but the fact that now you have a situation where you have the Russian Federation working very hard to close. close down all information about this. And we launch a deep dive into GLP-1s, the weight-lost drugs that have exploded in popularity. We're just at the beginning of the great GLP-1 experiment. Welcome to the NewsHour. A new term at the U.S. Supreme Court kicked off today. As justices heard arguments in a major climate change case, the outcome could shape how other communities hold industries accountable. Our justice correspondent, Ali Rogan, starts us off.

Local officials in Boulder, Colorado are seeking compensation from energy companies, Suncor and ExxonMobil for the costs of natural disasters they say are caused by climate change. But energy companies argue they are not liable, and dozens of similar legal cases across the country could bankrupt the industry and hurt consumers. Only eight justices heard the case after Justice Samuel Alito recused himself because of his oil and gas stock holdings. For more on today's arguments and what lies ahead this term, I'm now joined. by NewsHour Supreme Court analyst and SCOTUS blog co-founder. Amy Howe, welcome back, Amy. Thanks for having me. Amy, prior to today's arguments, there was an expectation that the conservative judges on the court

were going to rule against Boulder. What's your take on everything after hearing the arguments today? It was hard to read exactly how the court was going to decide this. There didn't seem to be necessarily a majority coalescing around one legal theory in favor of the energy companies in this case. A couple of the conservative justices expressed concern about the possibility that ruling for Boulder, the city and county that brought this particular lawsuit, would open the floodgates to similar lawsuits involving climate change, but maybe even involving other causes of action around the country. So we may just have to wait until sometime

early next year to see how the justices rule. And as we mentioned, Justice Alito recused himself, which means it could be a split-four-four decision, but what does the absence of an important conservative justice here mean for the potential outcome? It really does change the dynamic, because, as you said, it leaves them with eight justices. If they split-four-four-that leaves the lower court's ruling in place. And in this case, the Colorado Supreme Court said that Boulder's lawsuit

against these two energy companies could go forward. And so a couple of terms ago, we saw on a case involving, in Oklahoma Religious Charter School, Justice Amy Coney-Barritt was recused, the justices split 4-4, leaving the decision against the religious charter school in place. Wow. And if the court ends up citing against Boulder, what does that mean for other lawsuits against industries that, you know, create pollution? Does it mean they're all kind of not going any further?

It depends on exactly what the court says, obviously, but there are, as Canon Chan-Mogam, who represented the energy companies today at the Supreme Court. said there are more than two dozen cases around the country right now relying on similar theories to what Boulder has brought in this case, the idea that the energy companies were deceptive in their marketing and in their sales of fossil fuels. And to the extent that the Supreme Court says that Boulder's claims can't go forward, it would mean that those can't as well. And that was part of the argument that Chan Mugam made at the Supreme Court today was that we're not really just talking about this case. We're talking about a lot of

of others and potentially billions of dollars of damages around the country. Today's arguments were the first of the term, but there's going to be many others. What else are you watching closely? So the court will hear arguments in December in a case involving challenges to bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois on AR-15's semi-automatic rifles. That's certainly going to be one of the big cases of the term. There are 16 million semi-automatic rifles in people's ownership in the United States.

And so the question is whether or not state and local governments can ban them. There is going to be a couple of cases involving immigration, which we used to think of as a rather technical area of the law, but the Trump administration has made it really part of its policy agenda in this second term. So there's a case involving the propriety of what we call third country removals,

rapidly deporting non-citizens to countries to which they don't necessarily have any connection and where they say they may face human rights abuses. And then there's another immigration case that the court agreed to take up just last week involving whether or not the Trump administration can hold non-citizens who entered the country illegally and then are apprehended in detention

without the possibility for a hearing to evaluate whether they could be released on bond while they await deportation proceedings. And that is a turnabout from earlier administration's policies and could affect potentially millions of non-citizens who are in this country without documentation. Amy, it's a new term, but these justices didn't really have much of a recess. They were ruling over the summer on these emergency docket cases,

which are a little more rapid fire. They're not fully briefed or argued. And they included some judgments on things important to the president, like the construction of a White House ballroom, mail-in voting, immigration policy. And some of these decisions went against President Trump, and he really lashed out against the justices on the court that he appointed. Samuel Alito was asked about this in a recent interview, and we want to play what he said. Criticism of the court by President Biden and justices by President Biden and his administration was very harsh.

And President Trump has been very harsh. We are not part of any political movement, and we are not attempting to. to further any political agenda. We are trying to interpret the Constitution as best we can and apply it in the cases that come before us. So we know some of what's on the docket now. Are there other issues that could come before this court that really matter to this president?

And Justice Alito kind of dismissed some of that criticism, said he takes it in stride, but I do wonder, what's your sense of how these justices are thinking about this president's antagonism against them? Well, I think that as far, they would all tell you that they take it in stride, that that's part of the job. I mean, I think it's certainly unusual for the president to be so critical of the justices whom he appointed. On the other hand, I would say that he has been highly successful.

Certainly these were losses on the emergency docket over the summer, but there was a stretch last year on the emergency docket in which the Trump administration won something like two dozen times in a row. And as far as things that I'm looking for, potential issues, is important to the Trump administration that could come before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has only filled about half of its docket for the 2026, 27 term. They'll continue to add cases at least through January. And the Supreme Court could take up cases involving the Trump administration's ban on transgender members of the military. There's a very technical but important set of disputes involving the Trump administration's efforts to appoint acting, U.S. attorneys in different

jurisdictions around the country, and not involving the Trump administration, but certainly something that we're all keeping our eye on is a pair of challenges to the laws in Texas and Louisiana requiring public school classrooms to post copies of the Ten Commandments. Very busy term. Amy Howe with Skodas blog. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. In the day's other headlines, students at Cornell are protesting the university's handling of an alleged sexual assault at a fraternity house in 2024 and to show support for the unnamed accuser. Jane Doe deserved the campus that supported her. Jane Doe deserved an administration that delivered a fair and proper judicial process. Hundreds gathered to hear speeches by their

fellow students in what's expected to be the first of multiple protests this week. Also today, the university had to scrub graffiti blasting the school's response off its main administration building. A Cornell spokesperson says the vandalism is under investigation. The case has drawn intense national scrutiny since the accuser's lawsuit came to light last month. The seven men she's accused have denied any wrongdoing. President Trump said today that a threat linked to Iran was the reason the U.S. withdrew its bombers from the Fairford Air Base in the UK. On Sunday, the Pentagon rushed to move a dozen B-1 bombers back to the U.S., the long-range warplanes, have been used to strike Iran. Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said,

it's, quote, not unusual to see such rotations of aircraft, while Vice President J.D. Vance said the U.S. is being extremely cautious. What you saw there is the Secretary of War out of an abundance of caution trying to protect our guys. We do feel with some confidence that the Iranians are, you know, they're trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engaged in acts of terrorism against the United States and against a lot of other people as well. Last week, the British Prime Minister also said the UK believes that Iran played a part in a security incident at the airbase last month. Tehran has denied any involvement.

Government forces in Yemen say they've started a major offensive against Iran-backed Houthi militants. They claim to have recaptured several key areas along the country's Red Sea coast, including the vital port of Moka. The Houthis had captured the city last month as part of an effort to control the Babel-Mandeb Strait. an alternative shipping route to the Strait of Hormuz that has been slowed by the war with Iran. The Houthis themselves claim their own advances near the city of Thais, with strikes like this one as fighting rages on along several fronts. In Brazil, the presidential election is heading to a runoff after neither major candidate won the majority needed for an outright victory.

Flavio Bolsonaro outperformed most polls by winning around 47% of the vote, compared to the 45% that went for current president Luis Inacio Lula de Silva. Analysts say that 80-year-old Lula is facing an uphill battle against the 45-year-old Bolsonaro, who's an ally of President Trump and the son of Brazil's former right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro. Both candidates spoke to their supporters last night and vowed to keep fighting. I'm very happy with the result we just saw almost 56 million Brazil. voting for me. I could not be more pleased to see that Brazil wants change. That's what I take from today. The result is often unexpected. I confess to you that I was convinced I was going to win the election in the first round.

But we have the second round, and the runoff is the moment of truth. The winner of Brazil's first round of voting has never lost an election, though this result was closer than others. the runoff will take place on October 25th. Dennis Hastert, the disgraced former House Speaker who later went to prison, has died. Hastert represented Illinois in Congress for two decades. As the longest serving Republican House Speaker, he was essential in advancing then-President George W. Bush's legislative agenda. After leaving office, he pleaded guilty to evading banking regulations related to hush money payments. Prosecutors say he sexually abused teen athletes while coaching high school wrestling,

earlier, and in 2016, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison. In Illinois coroner's office had Hastert died of natural causes over the weekend. He was 84 years old. On Wall Street today, stocks edged higher to start the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added nearly 100 points. The NASDAQ jumped more than 1 percent to a new record. The S&P 500 also posted a solid game. And the 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to three scientists who used light to reveal the mysteries of the brain. Carl Diceroth, Peter Heigman, and Georg Nagel pioneered the field of optogenetics, a technique that uses tiny lights to activate neurons in the brain. The Nobel Committee said the tool is ushering in a new era in neuroscience.

The practice is already being used to develop possible treatments for conditions like blindness, addiction and dementia. Diceroth said his work could lead to both scientific and clinical breakthroughs. I care about the hope that this brings, but I'm also basic scientists, and I care about understanding this amazing organ, the brain, and how it works and how it integrates and computes and delivers all the things that make us human. Today's award kicks off a week of Nobel Prize announcements. The prize in physics will be given out tomorrow.

Still to come on the News Hour, a Marines arrest for murder in Japan fuels an ongoing debate over the U.S. military presence there. Tamara Keith and Amy Walter weigh in on the latest political headlines. And a new biography traces the First American Pope's journey from Chicago to the Vatican. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. The U.S. says it's closely monitoring a potential. case of pneumonic plague in Russia after a laboratory worker who studied the disease fell ill and died. Russian authorities say the worker died from pneumonia of an unknown cause and insist there is no cause for alarm. But Russian officials have also imposed quarantines and other anti-epidemic measures

at several medical facilities in Siberia, with at least 200 people now under medical observation. There is no confirmation the worker contracted plague, but she worked at a research facility, that studies the disease, raising questions about what she may have been exposed to and whether there is any risk of a wider outbreak. President Trump was asked about those concerns as he left the White House this afternoon. What is the U.S. going to do about the risk of pneumonic plague coming from Russia? Well, we're looking at her very strongly. We just heard about it. And they call it pneumonia. And pneumonia, you know, years ago you could treat pneumonia easier. the microbes and the germs have gotten stronger,

disproportionately, but we'll help them. For more, we're joined now by investigative journalist Annie Jacobson, author of Biological War, A Scenario. Annie, thank you for being with us. You wrote an entire book about a biological crisis involving pneumonic plague. When this story first broke, what did you make of it? I mean, you know, I was sort of shocked, not shocked.

Look, the idea about a lab act causing an epidemic or a pandemic is based on real facts. It's also based on experience. So I think what's kind of alarming is not just what happened, but the fact that now you have a situation where you have the Russian Federation working very hard to close down all information about this. So separate what we know from what we don't. What has actually been established about this worker's illness and death,

and what remains speculative? Well, she's dead. Well, she's dead, that's for sure. What we don't know is what's going on with the 200 other people who are allegedly quarantined or any of the other people in the five facilities that are also under quarantine. I think once we have some information about that, it'll be much clearer about if this is a transmissible variant, if other people are dying. But again, because we're getting nothing from the Russian Federation, after, by the way,

a very strong initial clampdown. FSB was involved. That's no small thing. Is there anything about the response itself, the quarantines, the medical observation, the involvement of Russia's top public health officials that tell you something about what Russian authorities might be worried about?

Well, what they're worried about is that this is an anti-plague institute, so they're supposed to be studying medical countermeasures to plague, like vaccines, antibiotics. But this particular institute, we know from Soviet defector scientists, was used for biological weapons engineering during their illegal program. We also know the State Department believes that that illegal biological weapons program has continued. And so what they're really worried about is eyes on this facility, both from the intelligence community here in the United States and the military community, looking at that facility and being like, what is

going on. I mean, look, the facility has six foot high fences around it. It's got concertina wire on top of that. It's controlled in and out. The idea that this worker broke a test tube and suddenly contracted pneumonic plague, which is inhalation plague, that does not entirely add up for somebody like me. What I would be most concerned about is that they're kind of one idea is that they could be milling the pathogen, making it aerosolized. That gets you right into the world of biological weapons engineering. What power, if any, does the WHO, the World Health Organization have here, or does it depend entirely on Russia's willingness to cooperate? The latter. It depends entirely on Russia's ability or, you know, willingness to cooperate. Moscow shut down its WHO office during the Ukraine,

the beginning of it. So it is my understanding that the WHO has reached out to Russian health officials and asked for information and that they have not gotten any. Is the pneumonic plague as transmissible as, say, COVID? Well, that's the question. I mean, Mother Nature's pneumonic plague? No. COVID was airborne. It was aerosolized. You could catch it in the air if you were in the room with someone that had COVID. Pneumonic Plague, again, Mother Nature's variant, that is, pneumonic plague in the wild, is what's called droplet transmissible. So, excuse the graphics here, but you have to actually like kind of spit on someone or, you know,

cough loudly at them. And you would also have to be very sick to be doing that, which would make the likelihood of your close proximity without some kind of PPE unusual. But if genetic modifications are going to be very sick, you know, going on. All bets are off as to how transmissible it could potentially be. And of course, COVID exposed just how costly a lack of transparency and cooperation among governments can be in the early stages of an outbreak. Do we have any better mechanisms today of, I guess in this case, it would be forcing countries to be transparent and cooperate to

stem an outbreak before it starts? And that is, of course, the most important, question and the most important point, by all means. I mean, transparency is going to be the way forward or should be the way forward, because the more we know about an outbreak, the more countries can prepare to mitigate the threat, in essence. But again, Russia is absolutely, not only are they not saying anything, they're actually backtracking, and they also have really clamped down, apparently, on the journalists who were originally doing great reporting. on the ground about quarantines. Those people have gone completely silent. Journalist and author Annie Jacobson, the latest book is Biological War a Scenario.

Thank you for sharing your insights and reporting with us. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. A U.S. Marine has been arrested in Japan on suspicion of robbing and murdering a woman, putting renewed pressure on an already sensitive U.S.-Japan military relationship. Authorities are holding 20-year-old Lance Corporal Devin Ballard in the the capital of Japan's southern Okinawa Islands, where he was stationed. Police found the body of a 39-year-old Okinawan woman at a hotel. Japanese media reports say surveillance footage showed Ballard entering the hotel with the victim

on Saturday and coming out alone. The Japanese government has lodged a complaint with the U.S. government and is demanding full cooperation with the investigation. From Okinawa, special correspondent Patrick Falk, explains how the case threatens to revive long-standing tensions over America's military presence in Okinawa, seen as one of America's most critical strategic outposts in Asia. Gone, but not forgotten. Okinawa native Takamata Kinjo was in his final year of high school, and his mother was murdered by a U.S. Marine in their home more than 50 years ago. Teachers had told us that something like this could happen to anyone, but when my mother became a victim,

I'd never imagined it would happen to my own family. Now, with the arrest of servicemen Devin Ballard over the alleged killing of a local woman, Kinjo says it shows the problems with the U.S. military presence in Okinawa never went away. The anger has really taken hold. Now it's happening again. I just can't forgive it. Will it ever stop? U.S. forces have been on this island for more than 80 years since the bloody battle of Okinawa in 1945.

For the nearly 30 years that followed, the island was under direct. US military rule. During that time, it became a major hub for American forces in the region. When the island was handed back to Japan in 1972, much of the US military presence stayed. Today, Okinawa remains home to the vast majority of America's military bases in Japan. But for years, that heavy presence here has fueled local outrage, tied to a long history of military accidents and high-profile crimes. case is testing Tokyo's ability to manage tensions with its most important security ally. Such incidents are utterly unacceptable, and I am deeply outraged. In response to this incident,

we have lodged a strong protest with the U.S. side. Okinawans have been locked in a tug of war with the Japanese government, have planned to move the Futanma Air Base, where Ballard was stationed, to a base called Camp Schwab on the island's east coast. Kinjo is among a group of islanders who fiercely opposed the relocation, demanding instead the U.S. bases leave the island altogether. They stage daily demonstrations outside Camp Schwab to try to stop its ongoing expansion. They're pushing ahead with the work and we're doing our utmost to delay it.

Fetema Air Base has long been a symbol of local resentment towards the massive U.S. footprint on Okinawa. It's been called the most dangerous base in the world. world because of its close proximity to so many homes, schools and businesses. Not only does its location heighten the risk of accidents, residents have also had to endure the relentless noise of military aircraft flying directly over their neighborhoods. But the boiling point came in 1995 when mass protests erupted after three U.S. servicemen abducted and raped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl.

It resulted in the U.S. agreeing to relocate its forces of away from that base, but only once a fully operational replacement was completed. So we've come onto this observation deck to get a better view of the Futanmer Air Base. That is the air base there in the distance. Here there is a sign detailing how Okinawa plans to use that land when it's given back to the island. It includes green space, housing, businesses and community facilities. Except 30 years on, there's still no date for its closing, despite two more homicides linked to the U.S. military in the past decade. That's frustrating to locals like Aye Ayefuso, another prominent anti-base activist here.

My personal opinion is that none of these U.S. bases belong here. I see a huge problem with the way so much of our island is occupied and fenced up by the bases. I can tell you from firsthand experience how these bases make our lives so difficult. She's the daughter of a U.S. serviceman father and Okinawa and mother and believes the island has been negatively defined by its link to the military bases. For generations, she told us, Okinawa has struggled to break free from that legacy and it's been caught in the political crossfight between Tokyo and Washington. People outside Okinawa may think we're simply opposed to having military bases here,

but for us, the chain of problems caused by the bases is so deeply woven into our everyday life. It's about the people living next door. Our everyday lives have become political, and I think that's really important. But these bases are critical to U.S. security in the Indo-Pacific, which is why Okinawa has become America's most important frontline military staging brand in Asia. Even more right now as concerns grow over China's increasing military assertiveness and activity around nearby Taiwan less than 500 miles away. Okinawa's bases could provide a key staging point for U.S. forces in the event of a Chinese attack on the island.

The U.S. military's plans to keep its bases on Okinawa got a boost last month when voters elected a new governor. Genta Koji campaigned on reviving the local economy, and then a sharp departure from his predecessors supports the move of the U.S. air base from Futenma to Camp Schwab on Hanoko Bay. Earlier today, he met with the senior U.S. Marine commander on Okinawa, Benjamin Watson, who struck a conciliatory turn. And I recognize that serious incidents cause significant concern and anxiety among the residents of Okinawa or our neighbors. The Okinawa governor conveyed the outrage of many on the island. Given that incidents of women being murdered took place in 2016 and 2019, The loss of an Okinawan life is deeply regrettable and fills me with immense anger. The new alleged murder brings the heavy burden of the U.S. military presence back into sharp focus.

The bases may remain vital to America's strategy in Asia, but the scars they leave behind are proving harder to a raise. For the PBS Newsout, I'm Patrick Fock reporting from Okinawa, Japan. Tonight we're kicking off a new series all about GLP1, Mediore. Haled by some as miracle drugs, GLP-1s have surged in popularity in the past few years. An estimated one out of every eight Americans is now on some version of them, and scientists continue to research new potential uses. But with that rapid expansion, there's a growing list of questions and skeptics. Our William Brigham starts our coverage of GLP-1's reshaping America.

The drugs are called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. chances are you've heard a lot about them, or at least some of their brand names. With Wigobi, you can live lighter who've taken, OZemPEC. Ask your doctor about ZepFound. Today, these drugs are best known for their ability to help people manage their diabetes

and to lose weight, sometimes at eye-popping rates. GOP-1s helped me lose 31 pounds. They've been promoted by celebrities. GOP-1s to quiet the noise. Wagoe now comes in a pill. And now, taken by millions of people across, across America. The drugs really do what they say they're going to do and they do it very well. I started losing weight almost immediately.

So, so helpful, the weight just melts off. Researchers first discovered the GLP-1 hormone decades ago. It helps regulate blood sugar by stimulating the body's release of insulin. In the 1990s, scientists realized that the venomous lizard, the Hilo monster, produced a molecule very similar to GLP1. That led to the development. development of the first GLP-1 drug to treat diabetes in humans. It was approved by the FDA in 2005.

When we give people very high doses of synthetic GLP-1 in the form of these drugs, we get this array of astounding effects, from better managed blood sugar to weight loss that we basically haven't seen outside of bariatric surgery. The first GLP-1 specifically for weight loss. was okayed in 2014. For a while, researchers thought the weight loss benefits of GLP-1s started in a person's gut. But it turns out how they work for weight loss is quite different. The drugs actually work through the brain to reduce appetite

and reduce this thing that a lot of people refer to now as food noise or cravings or preoccupation with food that so many people feel. And people eat less and end up losing weight as a result. In some cases, patients can drop up to a quarter of their body weight. And doctors are seeing other benefits, too, like reduced inflammation and improved cardiovascular health. But that's not all. Could they be a magic vote for cancer, too? Sleep apnea.

Addiction. Liver disease. What? We now have tens of millions of people on these drugs, and they're reporting back to the researchers all these other benefits that they're discovering. reversals of long COVID, arthritis, post-concussion syndrome, lupus symptoms controlled, you know, irritable bowel syndrome that kind of plagued some of the people I've talked to for decades, and they go on a GLP1 drug and suddenly their symptoms disappear.

But there are drawbacks, and we're not just talking about their high price, which we will get to in a minute. According to one study, up to three-quarters of people who start taking these drugs stop within a year. And when they do, they often quickly regain whatever weight they've lost. And the side effects of these drugs can be hard to ignore, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. While patients drop fat, some lose critical muscle mass as well. There are even rare reports of eye damage leading to blindness. Thousands of patients have already filed lawsuits again. against the drug makers, alleging they failed to adequately warn about these risks.

But just how widespread these effects are still remains to be seen. Science really needs to catch up and we'll, I think, make discoveries of great benefits that we don't yet know about, but we're also going to discover disappointments and we'll discover harms, especially as the numbers grow. And I think it could very well be that billions of people take these drugs. I think we're just at the beginning of the great GLP-1 experiment. So back to this other major issue with GLP-1s, their price. As more and more people get on the drugs, many employers and insurers have moved to drop insurance coverage.

And without insurance, patients are sometimes forced to spend over $1,000 a month. Reducing the costs, for example, of what the president calls the fat shot, the OZempic GL-1's category of medications. We dropped them dramatically. The government has launched programs and struck deals with pharmaceutical companies to bring the cost as low as $50 a month for some people, but access is uneven. I was literally having to make a decision between taking care of my family or getting the medication. For the quality of life change that I've had by being on this drug, to me, it's really worth going through any financial challenges. But there are some other key underlying questions here. Will spending on GLP-1s today prevent all sorts of chronic diseases and thus reduce the cost of treating those diseases down the road?

And what kind of economic and societal impacts will come from a global GLP-1 industry that, by one estimate, could reach $200 billion by 2030? It's a drug that seems to work across so many conditions. It's a drug that helps people lose weight in a way that humans have desired for social. long. It's also a drug that is very visual in our kind of social media age where you can post your before and after picture. And it's a drug in our telemedicine moment where the barriers to entry for getting pharmaceuticals now is quite low. And so I don't think we've ever seen anything like this in the history of medicine. In the coming days, we're going to explore some of these big outstanding questions. The challenge of providing equal

access to GLP-1s, how they can be used to treat addiction, and what happens when such potent weight-lossed drugs are deployed in our looks-obsessed culture? For the PBS News Hour, I'm William Brangham, and this is GLP-1s, Reshaping America. And tomorrow night, Stephanie Sy will explore which Americans have access to GLP-1s and who continues to be priced out. President Trump is rallying Republicans in Nebraska tonight, while the White House has once again barred a media outlet from the press pool covering the president's travels. Our Politics Monday duo is here to break down that and more. Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

So Tam, in the closing stretch, the president is promising $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold Congress, $90 checks to Medicare enrollees, $500 rebates to some Obamacare customers. We should say the president has made promises of payouts in the past that haven't materialized. But is this an acknowledgement that Republicans still haven't found a stronger answer on this affordability question? You know, the fascinating thing is I'm not hearing a lot of Republican candidates talking about these checks for everyone that President Trump is talking about. They are more focused on the affordability issues that are much closer to home. Republican candidates, Democratic candidates, everyone is hearing from people who are really upset about the price of gas, the price of gas, of groceries, the price of all the things. And a lot of the candidates, Republican candidates,

are at this point acknowledging, yes, things are too expensive. You know, you've had Republican candidates standing in grocery stores talking about things being too expensive. They aren't really picking up the president's messaging on this. They are more in the mode of acknowledging acknowledging pain. Over to you, Amy, in Nevada tonight. The president is planning campaign stops in 10 states this month, not just traditional battlegrounds, but in some surprisingly competitive red states, what can you take away from his travel schedule in terms of where Republicans are most concerned?

Yeah, his travel schedule matches the spending that Republican candidates and the, especially the Republican committees, campaign committees, and the, especially the Republican committees, and the their super PACs are spending. Just this last week, we have seen that the Republican that's main super PAC has basically triaged two states that earlier this year, earlier this cycle, Jeff, I would have said, would have been just close right to the very end, Georgia and North Carolina. They're taking money out of those purple states and putting them into dark red states like Kansas and continuing to spend very heavily to save a seat in. Texas. We're also hearing when I talk to my House sources, they're also seeing Republicans now

having to spend money in states that the president was carrying by 10 points or more. So what we've seen really since the end of the summer is a real deterioration in the political environment. And what that means now is Democrats are competing in the kinds of districts and states that not so long ago looked basically impenetrable for Democrats. Now, look, Democrats aren't going to win all of those, but if you're Republicans right now, your main priority is to try to defend as many of those Trump seats as you can. And they're still playing offense. Republicans still playing offense particularly in one blue state, and that's Michigan. But others in that, most of their spending is defense.

And, Tam, as the president hits the road, a question about presidential press coverage. A federal judge restored the White House access of CNN, Politico, and MS now after the president banned them. But the White House is still keeping CNN and Politico off of Air Force One. And the major news organizations have responded with a blackout when one of the affected outlets would otherwise be in the pool, but they haven't issued a blanket blackout of Trump coverage. Why take that limited approach and does it let the White House off the hook?

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a really challenging balance that all serious independent news organizations are facing right now, which is do you provide coverage of the president, which serves the public, which, you know, puts scrutiny on the president as all presidents should have scrutiny, or do you boycott or step back? And I think that ultimately, news organizations are not filling the slots of Politico and CNN, but they aren't doing a blanket boycott because they do feel that obligation to provide coverage. Now, that does, in a way, allow the White House to continue doing this, to continue punishing news organizations. But the scales are tipped in favor of the public's right to know and the ability of organizations, who are there on the plane or in the Oval Office to ask difficult questions, to ask the important news of the day questions. But it's really tough. And it is, the White House is leaning on a not final judicial ruling that said that there's a distinction between the White House grounds

and then these more private spaces like Air Force One or the Oval Office. It's not clear, ultimately, that the law will be on their side when this is all done being appealed. But legal processes take a really long time, and the White House is exerting its power in the meantime. And, Amy, as we inch closer toward the midterms, the polls underestimated President Trump in three presidential elections. They were more accurate in the midterms. As we head into the midterms,

and poll after poll shows Democrats with a better-than-average shot of taking potentially both houses, how do we know those polls are accurate? All right. Well, the short answer is you should take every single poll and understand that they do have a margin of error. So the accuracy is just within a certain band. But I do think that for Republicans,

their one hope here is that it's not that the polls are rigged or that there's something wrong with the polls, but that it is simply difficult to capture the kinds of voters right now that Republicans really need to turn out in order to be able to hold their own in this midterm election. And that is disappointed, disaffected Republican voters. Those people are less likely to answer questions from pollsters. They're probably difficult to reach.

But what Republicans have to hope is that even though they're not getting picked up in the polls, because quite frankly they're not feeling great about things right now, they do ultimately show up to vote. The other thing that we know is that the campaigns themselves, the Republican campaigns, they're spending millions of dollars on TV ads, but they're also spending millions of dollars to target and turn out those same voters. So if we wake up on election day and the day after the election, I'm sorry, and we find out that Republicans, they ended up holding the Senate and not losing as many seats as predicted

in the House, it will be because, remember, as I said earlier, All of the fighting is happening on Republican turf. And so those Republicans, even though they aren't feeling great about the economy, they're not feeling great necessarily about the way that the president's handling his job, they did feel an obligation to show up and vote, mostly because they didn't want Democrats to get in charge, not because they were sending a vote of approval necessarily to Republicans. Amy Walter and Tamara Keith, thanks as always.

You're welcome. When Robert Prevost stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica last year as Pope Leo the 14th, he made history as the first American to lead the Catholic Church. But the path that brought him there stretched from Chicago's south side to decades of missionary work in Peru, and ultimately to the highest ranks of the Vatican. The new book, American Pope, traces that unlikely journey and offers a fuller portrait of the man behind the papacy. Its authors are Scott Detrow, host of NPRs, All Things Considered, and Daniel Burke, NPR's senior editor of Religion and Spirituality.

I recently spoke with them. Scott Detrow, Daniel Burke, welcome to the News Hour. Thanks for having us. And Scott, you were in Rome during the conclave when Robert Prevost's name first came up, and you'd actually circled his name in your notebook at the time. What did you know about him then, and what did you realize you didn't know about him

when he became the Pope? Not that much at first, and I think I wasn't alone. Several people in Rome were saying, like, you know, you got to think about Robert Prevost. And then you'd say, the American? That's a non-starter. And everyone said, yeah, yeah, yeah. But for somebody from the United States,

there was this assumption that the church wouldn't want to give that much power to an American, especially going back, this is the first two months of the Trump administration, where President Trump is putting all these policies in place that are kind of shaking up the world order. And that seemed to just double down on this given in Catholic Church history

that the United States, for the last couple hundred years, is the most powerful country in the world. You wouldn't want to make a pope in American. But the fact was this guy who grows up in Chicago, this midwesterner, becomes, over the last few years, one of Pope Francis's closest allies. They're meeting for hours at a time on Saturday mornings. In retrospect, Pope Francis was kind of taking Robert Prevost

to Pope's school. And he's subtly, because I think if he had done it too bluntly, it would have backfired, he's kind of subtly pointing to his allies who he knows are going to choose the next pope and saying, this is the guy that I'm entrusting, This is the guy who you should really consider. And despite the fact that he is an American, he goes into the conclave, and all of the other cardinals start talking to each other,

and they realize this is the path forward for our church. And in Prevost, Pope Leo grew up, obviously, in Chicago, attended Villanova, in many ways, purely American story, but so much of his adult life was informed by living in Peru. That's right. He goes to Peru in his early 30s. It was kind of a surprise to him. He had thought about missionary life a little bit, as a teenager in high school.

But he was on the path to elevate in Rome. He was studying in one of the most prestigious universities. He was studying canon law. But there was a car accident. And they needed a canon lawyer very quickly. And so his order, the order of St. Augustine, sent him down there. He didn't quite take to it first. He gets to Chulacanis, which is in northwest Peru, where El Nino had just swept through.

Houses were, you know, dissolved in mud. Farm fields were, you know, lying in water. And so he really gets there and he says, Lord, where have you taken me? And it just looks like complete devastation. He winds up not only loving Peru, but going back twice. So it was a really, really important part of his ministry. He says it's where he learned to be a priest.

You mentioned Pope Francis, and he, of course, was a much more public, disruptive figure. And there's a cardinal who gives you this great comparison. He says, Francis was a bulldozer clearing the road. Leo is a leveler, quietly smoothing it. What does that tell us about the difference between those two men and where Leo might ultimately take the church? That was Cardinal. Pedro Barreto who told us that. He's a Peruvian Cardinal. And he told us that. That interview was toward the end of our reporting process. And he said that and it just crystallized to us. Like, yes, that is the difference in their style. This is the perfect way to think about these two men.

because Francis and Leo have a lot of the same goals. They both care deeply about the issue of immigrants and what's going on right now with global politics and the way that leaders talk about immigrants. That's a deep concern to both of them. They both want to create a church that is a lot more open-minded and group consensus is an important part of the process.

They don't like the idea of the Pope dictating from on high, which is the way it's run for a couple thousand years. But they go about it much more differently. And I think that's also a reason why Leo was, elected because he's a lot more of a methodical leader. He's a lot more of a calculating person. He is thinking eight to ten to twenty steps ahead. He is thinking years down the line. And a lot of conservative cardinals who were in the conclave who kind of wanted a stylistic break from Francis, they looked at Robert Prevost and even though he was a close ally of Francis, they realized

he would run the church a lot differently. And that's something that we can get behind as well. And there has been this effort to fit the pope into familiar political categories. Is he a moderate? Is he a progressive? Based on your reporting, how useful are those labels, if at all, in understanding who he really is? Yeah, not very. We talked to a number of priests in Peru who knew him really well. He was very careful about getting involved in Peruvian politics, which can be even more chaotic that American politics, if you can believe that. But this priest told us that everyone wants to know, is Roberto Prevost? Is he a liberal or is he a conservative? And he says he's neither.

He follows the signs of the time. He follows Jesus. And so we kept seeing this time and time again where he would address issues like making sure that people had basic infrastructure, running water, roofs over their heads. But he would not align with any particular political party.

He was very, very careful. He wouldn't attend that many political marches or rallies and things like that. We see that now. He will talk about an issue, the Iran war or artificial intelligence. He won't go after particular people, which is another difference from Francis.

Francis was very pointed in his critiques, if you remember. Robert Prevost, Pope Leo the 14th, is much more, I would say, kind of peaceful, serene about the way he attacks these kind of global issues. He doesn't go after people personally in that way. The book frames the clergy, sexual abuse crisis as one of the defining upheavals that he faced on his path to becoming Pope.

What did you find out about how he handled allegations that fell to him during that period? So in 2001, in 2002, he is the leader of the Augustinian order. And so cases of priests who were accused of abuse came to his desk. To that point, he hadn't had a lot of experience dealing with abuse cases. He had been in Peru and in Rome, where it wasn't seen as as big an issue as it truly was. And so priests told me he was a little slow on the uptake, to be honest. There were priests that needed to be removed from office rather immediately, and he took his time to think about it.

That's also kind of characteristic of his leadership. But once he understood the issue, he came back, the priest was defrocked, and he really kind of understood what he needed to do. You've interviewed more than 100 people. You've dug through archives, you've read through letters and emails that hadn't been seen publicly. Was there something that really changed your understanding of Pope Leo and who he is and where he came from? Daniel was the one who dug it up and we were talking about it. There's this moment that it doesn't really seem like a big deal in terms of the issues on his plate,

now, but he was, he had just taken charge of the Midwest Augustinians. He's back in Chicago for the first time in decades. And he had spent the last decade in Peru dealing with, you know, life or death issues. And he's dealing with this challenge where one of the priests in the community has broken one of their vows by purchasing a house. And all the other friars are really mad about this, understandably. And we found the letters that he was sending. And the way that he's sorting through all these complicated things and personal dynamics.

And he sends this letter saying, look, here's unlawful. I'm going to deal with this. A lot of you aren't going to be happy, but here's why I'm making the solution. He's going to keep the house, but the deed is going to come back to our order. And again, just like day-to-day stuff, but I think, like, you see in really large-scale issues and small-bore issues, the way that he approaches things, his leadership style, is that he listens. He is a big listener. He is often the last person to talk in a meeting if he talks at all. And he really deeply wants to know what everybody's take is, what everybody's view is. And he takes it into consideration. A lot of the times, the answer. just like in that case, the answer that he gives is not what everybody wants to hear,

but he keeps people on board with his vision and his approach because of the way that he's intently listening at all times. And we're seeing that now on a global stage with him as Pope. And I think it's a leadership style a lot of people get behind. Scott Detrow and Daniel Burke, the book, American Pope Leo the 14th Road from the south side of Chicago to Vatican City. Great to speak with you both. Thank you. Thanks so much. A free press is protected by the Constitution. But what has happens when those protections are put under pressure and news organizations themselves have to decide how hard to push back. That question is among the many explored in a new PBS documentary,

the first co-hosted by journalists Tom Costello and Basi Kanani. Here's a preview with former New York Times executive editor Dean Bakke on the challenge facing the press as many faced government lawsuits. The lawsuit deadens your journalism. A lawsuit makes you afraid. A lawsuit eats up your time. A lawsuit eats up your energy. And a lawsuit can even put you out of business. And that is exactly the point. That's exactly the point.

And that is a threat to the First Amendment. That's exactly right. If you are sitting there, if a journalist sits at the typewriter, afraid of the lawsuit, that's a very different emotion than sitting at the typewriter and making sure you got it right. You can watch the first on the PBS app and on your local PBS. station. Check your local listings. And that's the news hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. Thank you for spending part of your evening with us.