PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 8, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Wednesday on the News Hour, former FBI Director James Comey is arraigned in federal court for allegedly lying to Congress, a case many see as President Trump's attempt to seek political retribution. Staffing shortages caused by the government shutdown disrupt air travel across the country. Plus, Palestinians in Gaza mark two years of war. 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. Jeff Bennett is away. On the news hour tonight, former FBI director James Comey is arraigned in federal court for allegedly lying to Congress, a case many see as President Trump's attempt to seek political retribution. Staffing shortages caused by the government shutdown disrupt air travel across the country. And Palestinians in Gaza marked two years of war. The war destroyed us all. It destroyed our family. Destroyed our homes.

It left pain and loss in our hearts. We cannot forget anything. Welcome to the News Hour. Former, former FBI director James Comey, pled not guilty after federal prosecutors charged him with lying to Congress five years ago. The charges were brought against Comey by President Trump's handpicked U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsay Halligan, his former personal attorney. Halligan's predecessor was ousted for refusing to charge Comey.

NPR's Carrie Johnson was at the courthouse for Comey's arraignment, and she joins us now. Carrie, it's good to see you. You too. So just tell us about what happened in the courtroom today and also what it felt like in room. This was a really solemn moment. Jim Comey, the former FBI director, former deputy attorney general, was actually in the courtroom in a courthouse where he once used to work as a criminal defendant.

His family was there, his wife, his daughter, Maureen, who was fired this year by the Justice Department and who was suing to get her job back, his son-in-law who quit his job in the same prosecutor's office after Comey was indicted. And Comey basically pleaded not guilty in court. court and signaled that he wants to go to trial. And just as a reminder here, I mean, he's facing two criminal charges. What are they and what's he facing if convicted? Two charges.

The first is false statements to Congress in connection with testimony he gave to the Senate five years ago. The second is obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The max for both of those charges is five years in prison. Very serious. Although Comey, of course, has no criminal record, so wouldn't face quite that much time. And I know, as you've been reporting, as we have, the actual indictment against Jim Comey, was signed only by Lindsay Halligan, which is highly unusual.

We also know that several career prosecutors declined to sign on to it. They're now refusing to join the team that's prosecuting this case. What can you tell us about how the prosecution is going to move forward here? This is a highly unusual situation. Lindsay Halligan has no prosecutorial experience. She appeared in court today, but she seems to have recruited two federal prosecutors from North Carolina, to try this case. One has some national security experience, used to be a military lawyer. The other is a bit younger and seems to have prosecuted only drug cases in the past. So it's

going to be a very interesting ride to see how they handle a case of this magnitude. We've also seen from Jim Comey's defense attorney here this claim that the prosecution was brought by President Trump. They've also said they plan to file an outrageous government conduct motion, among others, to try to get the case dismissed. Tell us a little bit about it. their defense strategy here? Sure. The defense lawyer himself is remarkable. It's Patrick Fitzgerald.

He used to be the U.S. attorney in Chicago. He's also a longtime friend of Jim Comey who came out of retirement to defend Comey in this case. He said in court today it's the honor of his life to do this case for his friend. Fitzgerald signaled that he's going to basically make Donald Trump a main character in this defense to argue that Comey was selectively and vindictively prosecuted. prosecuted at Trump's direction using some of the president's social media comments as part of the defense. He also seems to signal that he's going to challenge whether Lindsey Halligan, this U.S. attorney, was actually lawfully appointed. If a court agrees that she was not lawfully appointed,

this indictment would go away before any trial would happen. You mentioned the president's public social media posts there. We know he's publicly called for Comey to be prosecuted. He's also called for charges among a host of other people, among them, Senator Adam Schiff, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James. Just this morning, he called for the arrests of the Chicago mayor and the Illinois governor for, quote, failing to protect ICE officers. Could all of these public calls for political retribution factor into this case? Normally, it's really hard to win a motion to dismiss based on selective or vindictive prosecution, but Donald Trump keeps stirring the pot, and that may help many of these defendants

eventually if they are charged, as Comey has been. The other issue that longtime prosecutors have said to me is that they're concerned that this will result in a loss of credibility among jurors and judges because the Justice Department will be seen to be political in doing the president's bidding, and that's a long-term consequence. So, Kerry, what happens next? What's the timeline ahead? The judge has set a trial date for January 5th in the months to come.

We're going to see a lot of motions back and forth. more court appearances by Jim Comey himself and potentially charges against other people who are on Trump's so-called enemies list. All right. And PR is Carrie Johnson joining us again tonight. Carrie, always great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. that burned the Pacific Palisades neighborhood earlier this year. It was the most destructive inferno in Los Angeles history. Authorities say 29-year-old Jonathan Rindernecht lit a fire near a hiking trail on New Year's Day. Fire crews contained it at first, but it smoldered for days, and high winds eventually caused it to reignite.

Investigators say evidence, including an AI image the suspect had generated, depicting a burning city, suggests he lit that initial fire on purpose. We went through exhaustive efforts to look at potential ignition sources, whether there were fireworks, where they're down power lines with clarity. We know this is incendiary fire and that the subject that we arrested started it. The Palisades Fire claimed 12 lives and scorched more than 6,000 homes and buildings. An investigation into what caused the nearby Eaton fire, which broke out on the same day, is still ongoing. Troops look poised to enter the city of Chicago, even as the rhetoric between President Trump and local officials heats up further.

After the president said the Illinois governor and Chicago mayor should, quote, be in jail, Governor J.B. Pritzker fired back. He said immigration agents have, quote, run over people's rights in his state, accusing officers of using excessive force and racial profiling. And he had tough words for the president himself. Look, he's a coward. He says a lot of things to the camera. likes to pretend to be a tough guy. Come and get me. Come and get me.

Meantime at the White House this afternoon, President Trump hosted a roundtable event on Antifa. He blamed far-left extremists for carrying out what he called a campaign of violence against eight ice agents and other officials in cities like Chicago and Portland. The government shutdown is now in its second week. And again today, the Senate tried and failed to pass bills to fund the government. At least publicly, there are still no signs of negotiations to end the stalemate. And then there's the issue of back pay for furloughed workers. President Trump and his budget director, Russ Vote, have suggested that back pay is not

a guarantee, despite a law from Trump's first term ensuring that it is. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters today that he thinks workers should be paid. It's always been the case. That is tradition, and I think it is statutory law that federal and employees be paid, and that's my position. I think they should be. The debate over back pay comes as the IRS says it will furlough nearly half its workforce as a result of the shutdown. The agency also said today that most of its operations are currently

closed. At the Supreme Court today, the justices seemed open to reviving a Republican challenge that would allow political candidates to sue over their state's election laws. At issue today was whether a Republican congressman from Illinois has the legal right to challenge a law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within two weeks. Illinois state officials warned that allowing his case to proceed would, quote, cause chaos for the courts. The case is one of several brought by allies of President Trump, who has falsely blamed mail-in voting as a reason for his 2020 election loss. The court is expected to rule on the case by next June. Turning overseas now, international negotiators arrived in Charmel Sheikh Egypt today for a third day of talks aimed

at ending the war in Gaza. President Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner joined Qatar's Prime Minister and a top Israeli official to discuss Trump's 20-point peace plan. Hamas says it wants guarantees that Israel won't resume its military campaign in Gaza once the remaining hostages are released. The meantime, Israeli troops intercepted another aid flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea. The fleet of nine boats was aiming to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Some 150 activists on board were detained. Police in the United Kingdom say the suspect in last week's synagogue attack in Manchester

had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State Group. Officials say Jihad al-Shameh called emergency dispatchers to claim responsibility and to express his commitment to the terror group. Two worshippers died when the 35-year-old. rammed his car into pedestrians outside the Heaton Park congregation synagogue on the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur. He then attacked them with a knife. One of the victims was accidentally shot by police.

Al-Shammi was also killed by officers. Three scientists won this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on metal-organic frameworks that could help address pollution and climate change. Susumu Kittigawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yajan. are based in different countries, but added to each other's work on the new form of molecular architecture. The prize committee compared their discoveries to Hermione's magical handbag in the Harry Potter series, constructions that may be small on the outside, but with enormous capacity inside.

The three will share nearly $1.2 million in prize money. Tomorrow, the prize for literature will be announced. On Wall Street today, traders tried to shake off concerns about the ongoing gun. government shutdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended a single point lower, so virtually flat. The NASDAQ jumped more than 250 points on the day. The S&P 500 also ended with solid gains. And Joan Kennedy, the first wife of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, has died. Born Virginia Joan Bennett, she was a classically trained pianist and a model when she married Ted Kennedy in 1958. Their marriage was marred by family tragedy and personal turmoil.

She saw two of her brothers-in-law assassinated and stood by her husband through scandal and allegations of infidelity. Kennedy herself struggled with alcoholism for years and later became an advocate for mental health. She and Ted Kennedy divorced in 1982, and she never remarried. Joan Kennedy was 89 years old. Still to come. On the news hour, a U.S. citizen married to a man detained by ICE makes the case for his release. a group in rural Wisconsin is engaging conservatives to help bridge political divisions.

And author Ian McEwen's new book imagines life in a world ravaged by climate change. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at W.E.T.A. in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. Thousands of flights have been delayed across the country this week as the government shutdown enters its eighth day. In fact, more than 2,500 flights were delayed just today. In an interview with Fox News, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said controllers calling out sick were a significant reason for the huge spike in delays. Historically, there's about a 5% of delays that is attributed to staffing issues in our towers. In the last couple of days, it's been 53%.

And so my message to the air traffic controllers who work for DOT is show up for work. The bottom line is these controllers are stressed out and they're rebelling on this shutdown because they may not get paid. They're working six days a week. They're keeping America operational and they're not guaranteed a paycheck and they're frustrated by it. Air traffic controllers have reportedly called out sick in large numbers in Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago, and Newark.

Earlier this week, Burbank Airport didn't have. any controllers in its primary tower. Air traffic controllers as essential workers are required to work during a shutdown, but are now doing so without pay. Joining me now to break this all down is our aviation correspondent, Miles O'Brien. So Miles, help us understand this ripple effect we're seeing now from government shutdown through to the thousands of flight delays we're seeing. Omna, I think we're seeing so many ripples because the pond is a little bit shallow. The The FAA is short, 3,000 certified controllers, and so it doesn't take a lot of sick individuals to have a consequence on the scheduling.

The union, which represents the air traffic controllers, says there's no purposeful campaign here to... These are individuals that have been working under great stress as the system has been short-staffed for so long. We've been documenting all kinds of issues associated with this, that the FAA has not addressed. And I'm certain that the stress levels on these controllers is increased. So there might be just some natural need for them to take a little bit of time off. And I doubt that anybody who flies at the airlines would begrudge a controller time off if he felt too stressed out

to work. Miles, that report from Burbank Airport really got a lot of attention. They went without air traffic controllers for hours late on Monday night. How did that not end up in disaster? And what happens in the system when there's a situation like that? Well, there's a couple of layers of safety involved here. First of all, the radar rooms, which control the access as you get closer to the airports, those radar rooms can be switched out remotely, assuming there's appropriate amount of bandwidth. In other words, you don't have to be sitting at that Burbank Airport. Now, when you get to the field, though, you need an individual in the control tower

to decide who's going to land, who's going to take off, and so forth. But pilots have a routine and a set of rules for approaching uncontrolled airports. It happens frequently all day long at thousands of uncontrolled fields all across the country. We all get on a specific frequency, the common traffic advisory frequency, and we tell each other where we are, and the system works relatively safely. But as you can see, at a larger airport, it wouldn't be so efficient, and it obviously would slow things down. So, Miles, is this something we should anticipate

seeing more of airports relying on other facilities, air traffic controllers working remotely? And what are the concerns or potential risks of that? Yeah, there'll be more of that. You know, we want to keep individuals in the towers. There's no remote control tower capability. You can move work from one radar room to another to try to compensate for staffing issues.

etc. But, you know, eventually this slows down the system dramatically. Things become less efficient. The number of radio calls slow down. What you end up with the system that starts slowing to a crawl. Let me ask you a funding question here now because funding is at the heart of this. The body that provides federal funding for air travel in rural areas, the EAS or the essential air service, that runs out of money on Sunday if the government shutdown continues. And that funds regional air carriers and some 177 communities across all 50 states. Miles, if the shutdown continues through Sunday, what's going to be the impact of that funding running out? Well, 177 small communities, these are places that are about 90 minutes away from another airport.

And so there's a subsidy which encourages, which allows the airlines to fly to them and provide service. there are 60 of these communities in Alaska alone, 177 total. And what that means is, unless the airlines want to pull some money out of their pockets and fund it, which is unlikely, that service will end. And that means obviously a threat to business and tourism. But most importantly, think about those 60 communities in Alaska where perhaps the only way to get medicine and people to medical care and hospitals is by air. So this has really important and potentially grave.

consequences. Miles, in the minute or so we have left, speak directly to the air travelers out there, myself among them. What should we be anticipating and preparing for in the days ahead? All right. The big takeaway here I want people to understand is that the system is dialing back its capacity, but that does not mean it is dialing back safety. So from an airline traveler's perspective, you don't need to worry about safety, but you do have to show up a lot earlier. And a word to the wise. If all things are equal, book an early morning flight. They tend to be the flights which don't delay as much. And it is a more likely chance that you're going to fly on time. I don't want people to be worried necessarily. These controllers, as the workforce is stressed

and shrink, so will the air traffic. And as a result, the safety should not be impacted. It's our aviation correspondent, Miles O'Brien, with some great tips and great information tonight, as always. Miles, thank you. Good to speak with you. You're welcome on now. All this week, we're marking the anniversary of the October 7th Hamas terror attack on Israel and the subsequent two years of war in Gaza. Today, we examine the toll on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian health authorities say more than 67,000 people have been killed. More than 40,000 children have lost one or both parents. Nick Schifrin reports, with the help of our producer in Gaza, Shams O'Day, on the stories beyond the numbers of sacrifice and suffering. The grief of a six-year-old is like endless waves. Ahmed Abu Mamar plays like other boys, even inside the displacement camp that's now home. And the cat tolerates his clutch, for she makes him smile. But in the makeshift tent where he lives with his cousin, aunt, and grandmother, most times his face is stamped by Sara. He's lost his father, Rames, his sister, Sally, his mother, his grandfather, his aunt, and his uncle.

The day Sally died, their aunt Inas, held Sally's husband. five-year-old body and cried. That was October the 17th, 2023. Amid's father, Enos's brother, died this past June. Where did he go? To heaven. To whom in heaven did he go? Salih. Inos says Ahmed has only memories like this one. Two years ago, a sleeping Ahmed in the arms of his father still alive to hold him. Remembering his big sister, remembering his big sister, who, in death, still managed to send her brother her love. And when he looks at her now, he is older than she will ever be. The war destroyed us all.

It destroyed our family, destroyed our homes. It left pain and loss in our hearts. We cannot forget anything. The U.N. says in the last two years, Israeli strikes have damaged or destroyed 80 percent of Gaza's homes, including the one that Enos picked through, where much of their family died. And where last year, Inos took her nephew and his prized possession as he pointed at the site where his sister and grandfather are buried. Even my father, our backbone, is gone. Ahmed has his grandmother, even if she is now a widow.

And for now, there's a canvas roof over their heads. But any hope for a ceasefire is muted by memories. My fear is that the negotiations will fail, and the war continues, because we are afraid of losing more than what we have already lost. We cannot bear that. What we lost is enough. A lot of our loved ones are gone. We left our homes with them, and we will return without them.

But before the return is relocation. Of all of Gaza's shocking statistics, the highest, is nine out of every ten Gazans have been displaced. Many multiple times, they carry what they can. on any available means, no matter the distant airstrikes. And that has made Palestinian displacement multi-generational. 20-year-old Mohammed Saleha supports his grandfather, 81-year-old Dib Saleha. The family shares this tent, their fourth home since the war began. They're grateful for it and for the patriarch who inspires his granddaughter's smiles.

But he is so worried because he has been here before. In 1948, he and his family fled their homes from what is now the state of Israel. Palestinians call it the Nakhba, or catastrophe. The exile and displacement was harsh. Life was disastrous. People left their property, possessions, and sources of income and took refuge. Today's exodus has pushed him toward what was once the unthinkable, leaving the land of his ancestors.

Gaza today, what is our fate now? in the Gaza Strip, there is no life. There is no salvation. Where do we go? We will knock on the doors of exile. Today, we the grandchildren are living through what our grandfather lived and suffered in 1948 when they were displaced from their homes. And today is worse and more difficult, according to our grandfather. So today we are at point zero. Ten-year-old Hala holds on to her childhood as best she can, even if her backpacks are now family suitcases. But she saved her schoolwork and is trying to save her dreams. I want the war to end, and I want to go back to my home. I want to go back to my school,

and I want to play with my toys. I wanted to be teaching girls when I got older. But it is hard to think about the future when she must survive the present. I'm afraid of the sound of the airstrikes and bombs. I don't know what to do. I'm a woman, a mother, and a daughter. I've lived and experienced and also survived two years of war. Diana Shams Ode's story is of motherhood in war, of being brave in the face of bombs for her children, Rose and Karam. She sent us this message on the war's fourth day. As you can hear now, this is the bombing.

They are going to bomb a tower beside us. We are very scared. This is the sound of my daughter. Her daughter rose only a baby then, now a playful toddler, standing up and walking, feeling safe in her mother's hands in a world with no safety. Safety is never guaranteed during a war, so how can you raise a child during a world where safety is never an option. It's never easy for a mom to protect, to love, and to raise her kids during war.

how to protect them, how to keep them away from fire and continuous bombardment. The family has escaped bombs and has been displaced from home to home until there was no home left. I used to have a home where it's never easy in Gaza Strip to own a home. So talking about a home and losing it, I took my children and been homeless for almost a year. Raising her children under impossible circumstances, Diana felt compelled, share their story and write a book on what it means to be a mother in Gaza. I do not put my children to sleep with a lullaby. I put them to sleep with whispered prayers, hoping that the next bomb doesn't fall to close.

I do not worry about screen time or healthy snacks. I worry about clean water, medicine, and whether today will be the day we have to run again. When your child asks, why are they bombing us and there's no answer that makes sense? My father has always been my inspiration to create this. book and talk about the sufferings and the struggles I faced as a mom. Her father is NewsHours Gaza producer Shams Odeh, who over the past two years has documented death. There's a lot of people killed here in this place in Rafa.

Destruction. This is the last home that my family own in all Gaza Strip. But also hope. My dream was that everyone. Israel's Palestinians live near each other with peace, with love. And this bloody war must end, must end because of our kids and their kids, for a good future for them. Now it's his kid's turn.

This is not a story of politics, it's a story of people, of women, of mothers, of survival through love. To mother in Gaza is to carry both hope and heartbreak in your arms at once. And somehow we still do it. Because here's the thing, no matter the environment, kids grow up, even if sometimes they're forced to grow up too fast. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Scherfrey. Even as the Trump administration continues to insist that its immigration policies are only targeting the worst of the worst, many other immigrants in America are being detained as well. William Brangham speaks with the wife of one. Several weeks ago, Hernan Escobar was on his way to his construction job outside of Boston when he was stopped by masked immigration agents.

His car window was shattered and he was arrested. Escobar came to the U.S. seven years ago from El Salvador and met his wife, who's a U.S. citizen. They settled in Massachusetts and began building a life there. Their marriage paperwork, which would grant him legal rights to stay in the U.S., was just being finalized when he was arrested. Escobar's wife, Leslie Gonzalez, who's a legal aid attorney, joins us now. Leslie, thank you so much for talking with us. I know this has got to be a very fraught period for his. you. Can you just tell us a little bit about the day that Hernan was arrested? What happened as far as you

know? First of all, thank you so much for having me. That day changed everything. Ernan was on his way to work. He's a roofer. He's typically up before the sun. He was two minutes from our apartment complex when he was stopped by ICE agents in masks and an unmarked vehicle. He called me in a panic. It was 5.27 a.m. I heard shouting, glass shattering, and then I heard him say, out, you're hurting me. When I arrived on the scene, there were multiple officers there. The ICE agents had smashed his window and had attempted to forcibly remove. him from his car. The first thing I was asked when I got there was my cooperation in de-escalating the situation. I pointed out that there was a taser in his face. They lowered the taser,

and I went immediately to him to try to reassure him and let him know everything was going to be okay. But of course it was not. I remember standing there, holding my phone, just not understanding how this could have happened. My husband, he's a man with no criminal record. He's married to a U.S. citizen. He's doing everything right. I was completely at a loss. So you have no idea why he was targeted that morning.

I do not. All I know is that he's not the only person in the situation. that has no criminal record that is being detained. We asked DHS for a statement about his arrest, and they said that your husband, quote, refused to comply with officer commands to roll down his window. The officers took appropriate action and followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation.

Can you give me a response to that? They're saying basically that he didn't comply with their instructions. I can only speak from my perspective. I was on the scene almost immediately, and I heard what was happening as I was on my way there. I was on the phone with Erdnand as he was being detained. He called me immediately, and I remember hearing him plead with the officers. Please, just wait for my wife.

Please, just wait for my wife. He had rolled down his window enough to be able to give them his identification, his driver's license. He told me that they didn't even look at his license. He was asking them to identify themselves because they were masked. They did not have typical police gear on. They were in a gray vehicle with New York license plates. and my husband did not know what was going on. He did not know why he was being stopped

and especially why he had been hit by the other vehicle. When I arrived, I immediately went to his side. He opened the door. He complied with every request that the ICE officer is made of him and he was taken away. on a stretcher. What do you know about the conditions that he's in? My husband is being held in Plymouth County. I know that initially he was in a different patio. He said the conditions were terrible. He has since been transferred to another patio where he

sleeps in a cell with four other people. It is extremely noisy. He's not able to sleep much at night. He is limited in terms of when he can use the bathroom. And that is not one to complain in general, but he is also extremely protective of me. I know he is being strong for me. Whenever I speak with him, he tries to keep it light. When I saw him, he was cracking jokes left and right, telling me he had been working out every day, showing me his muscles. He is an extremely positive person and he is the light in my life. I know that you're in the middle of this big legal fight, but there are still many people, supporters of the administration, who argue that if you

came to the country illegally, that you don't have a right to be here. And I wonder, even in the midst of this fraught period that you're in, how you would respond to people like that? I would just ask that they look beyond the paperwork to the person to consider the family My husband is not a threat. He is a hard worker. He is a son. He is a future father, I hope.

And I'm an attorney myself. I know what accountability looks like. I just don't think that this is what justice looks like. My husband deserves compassion, not cruelty. All right, Leslie Gonzalez, wife of Hernan Escobar. Thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you. I very much appreciate you giving Arna a voice. A number of non-partisan efforts to bridge political divides have sprung up across America,

though they often attract more liberal-leaning participants. Judy Woodruff recently visited Walworth County in Wisconsin to learn how one group has successfully engaged more conservatives. It's the latest report in her series, America at a crossroads. On a recent Saturday in Milwaukee, more than three dozen people from across southeast Wisconsin gathered to highlight their projects aimed at preventing violence in their communities. I look around all of you as community volunteers, as partners and co-conspirators and the really difficult work that is improving your community.

It's part of urban rural action, a non-profit that brings people together across political and geographic divides. We talked about some pretty hard-hitting topics. These so-called Uniters launched projects ranging from preventing election-related conflicts to helping rural residents access mental health resources. Having a different outlook on how we respond to things was extremely helpful to our impact. Five years ago, this area made national headlines after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake in front of his three children in Kenosha, an incident that exposed deep political and racial divides.

We were looking at purple states where the disagreements, the stakes of the disagreements were so high that temperatures were really running high. Lisa Inks is a senior director at Urban Rural Action, as this group attempted to heal community divisions by bringing people together, they faced a common challenge, a lack of conservative voices in these spaces. I think that people feel that there's been a long history of being silenced or being dismissed or canceled, as some might say, for having a belief that is conservative. And they might be nervous for good historical reason that they're going to enter a space

and be shouted down or dismissed. And we work really hard to facilitate a process where that won't happen. One of the nation's largest bridging groups, Braver Angels, found in its most recent study that more than half of its participants identified as Democrats, while only 15% identified as Republicans. There's a fear that they don't actually want my perspective as a conservative. Pierce Godwin founded the nonpartisan Listen First project that connects some 500 bridging groups across the country, like urban rural action. We can't find a way forward together if we're not together.

And that's why it's critical that we have a representative mix of conservatives and liberals and also across religious and racial and age and every other part of our society. The coalition recently held its first in-person. summit at the George Washington Presidential Library in Mount Vernon, Virginia. More than 100 leaders from across the nation gathered here to tackle challenges, including how to engage more conservatives. Why do you think it is that more people from the left, from the center of the spectrum, have been attracted than on the right? It does just kind of resonate more with a typical, stereotypical liberal mindset.

A conservative might say, ah, this is nice. That's kind of kumbaya, you know, let's pass the peace pipe. Let's have conversation. And I think that sense has driven some of the unrepresentativeness of the bridging divides movement. Rural Wisconsin's unidors bucked that trend by engaging more conservative leaders like Marianne Zimmerman, A mom of three and a school board member, she admit she was skeptical. I thought a lot of them were echo chambers. I thought they were echo chambers for liberals.

And my worry was that they had great ideas and very little follow through because they did not have buy-in from the outer half of the population. What did you say to them to persuade them? I said, we cannot stay on Facebook and complain any longer. If we want to see a favorite community, we talk about we want to have a great community, you want strong communities, then we have to actually do something about it. Zimmerman said her participation drew in other like-minded people. Having concrete goals to work toward instead of just talking also attracted her. Their game plan and how it was very clearly laid out.

And they had actual action plans in place for how to affect change. That's what I said, okay, well, this is something I want to be a part of. Those goals resonated with more liberal thinking members, too. We came to the idea that mental health is what we all wanted to focus on because it had impacted us all greatly in some way with friends, family members, or loved ones. Tyler's surface joined the group, which he saw as extending his work with crime victims. He said brainstorming across political lines widened his way of thinking about issues he works on every day. When it came to specific resources of who should be involved, we were talking a little bit more about law enforcement, talking a little bit more about food pantries, or talking about schools being involved, the libraries,

and these are things that might have not come up to my mind immediately. For Lisa Inks and others, the key to not turning conservatives off is also the way. the language being used that can signal a bridging group's political leanings, even if they're nonpartisan. There are words that will immediately close off conservatives to what we're doing and signal, I think, incorrectly, that this is sort of a left-leaning organization. Like what? When we talk about words like equity and racism, those are unproductive words when we're trying

to get people across the political spectrum. Are there alternative words that mean the same thing, do you think? Well, we try and speak in an authentic way and say, we bring folks together from all different walks of life, or we try to explain in sort of long form what it is we're doing that's not going to, you know, trigger certain snap reactions. Mary Ann Zimmerman says the collaboration produced better outcomes and helped her appreciate perspective she hadn't considered before. For me, my local community is very important to me. At all costs, I have a little

love to see like our local community and our local schools funded and to not see that money go overseas. I was talking with a member of our cohort and they had explained that their spouse actually worked in the agency that was defunded and it caused it caused a lot of stress for their family to lose that income very suddenly. I didn't actually realize that there's a separate side of that issue where when someone's very suddenly loses defunding, that affects a family. Tyler's surface said it helped him to better communicate across differences. It helped me be able to open up my heart different ideas compared to ultimately having my own biases about how we communicate with others. Before, you know, I might have not given someone the

chance, but now I give someone the chance to communicate with me. So it had kind of a profound to fact. I would say so. When we aren't communicating, misunderstandings happen. By having these conversations, it helped our program, and I think it could help many others with being able to actually promote less violence and ultimately promote more security with one another. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Judy Woodruff in Walworth County, Wisconsin. Imagine that by the mid-21st century, the impact of climate change is irreversible. And decades of flooding, famine, pandemics, and war have upended life on Earth. But rather than dwell on the catastrophe itself, the novel, What We Can Know, brings to life characters on either side of it, their loves, their betrayals, even crimes, with the future looking at.

back at us. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown met out with Booker Prize-winning novelist Ian McEwen for our arts and culture series, Canvas. I'm trying to get, in the reader's mind, the past and the future and the present into some kind of mix, kind of timeless sense that you could get your mind around all three together. To do that, British novelist Ian McEwan has imagined a future Britain. Now a chain of islands after mass flooding, its population halved. But life, though diminished, goes on. In a literature professor, is obsessed with a mystery, what happened to a famous poem written and then lost in our time.

I've read quite a lot of science fiction over the years, and I want to write a science fiction with no science. Science fiction without the science. Without the science. Meaning what? Meaning what's the history, what's the future of history, or the humanities, or the future of love? for example, or the daily life that I, you know, I don't want people getting in and out of spaceships. This is the 19th novel by McEwen, one of his generation's most acclaimed writers. Amsterdam won the 1998 Booker Prize.

Atonement, perhaps is best known, as well as Chesell Beach and the Children Act, have been made into films. Let me help with them. I'm all right, thanks. Take the flowers. I'm all right. Take the flowers. When we met in New York recently, he told me he'd wondered how a rights

like himself, working in the realist tradition, could tackle a subject as big as climate change. That tradition we work in is about interpersonal relationships, it's very good on that, the beginnings of love, the end of love, the daily thinginess, the banality of daily life. Climate change is a sort of colossal subject. Existential, statistical, oceanography, glaciology, is the real thing. realist novel up to it. Can it do it? That was a question for you?

That's a question for me. And my answer is yes, because you can't write about this subject without writing about people. What can we know about the future? Yeah. And what can we know about ourselves? About ourselves, about those are nearest to us, and what we know about our society and trying to tell us the right story. This is not a climate change novel, McEwan insists, but it's there as background, the impact

and our denial. What's called by later generations the derangement. Another inspiration for McEwen, an actual poem by John Fuller, a contemporary English poet, a type of long sonnet sequence called a corona. McEwen's fictional poet, Francis Blundie, writes and recites a corona for his wife, Vivian, at a gathering of friends, each of whom recalls it and the evening differently. The poem itself is never seen or read again, but gains a kind of mythical renown through the decades to come. Now that's where you had me kind of laughing. Oh, really? Yeah.

Well, after all these disasters, your main character is a literary scholar who's interested in a poem of all things. Well, I think poetry is our highest form of literary expressions. It precedes the novel by two or three thousand years, at least. So anyway, I couldn't have a guy read a novel dinner. But more than that, yes, things will survive. What survives and why? Why did that interest you?

Well, you often hear people say history will be the judge. And my point here is history will be as fallible as the present in what it judges because it's got its own worries and fantasies of the future and aspirations. In the novel, people a hundred years from now look back at our lives with a mix of envy. at the sheer vibrancy of global life compared to their own shrunken world and bewilderment and anger at how it was allowed to be lost. The novel's author worries that as the impacts of climate change hit more and more, we are falling into what he calls a metaphysical gloom so profound

we won't act before it's too late. This one thought that my children or grandchildren won't have as good a life as me. and I hear it a lot in connection to climate change. And I think we stand on the edge of a portal, a gateway. If we pass through it, we will start to lose hope in any idea of human progress. And the future looks back to that moment before we pass through that gateway.

Another advantage of looking back on us from a long angle. But you know, it occurred to me with your title of what we can know. Isn't that the question for a novelist always? Always, yeah. In real life, we don't have access to minds. We'd love it, of course. The realist novel does this completely unreal thing

of stepping into nine minds around this table, listening to the 10th person read. And there's a limit of what we can know. There's a trick that the novelist can perform, allow you this access. And my sense of that is, is that's why the novel, such a frail form, really, has not died. So the novel still has value?

It has. I think it's essential. But then, of course, you know, I'm bound to say that. Okay, the book is What We Can Know, Ian McEwen. Thank you very much. My pleasure, Jeff. by her cousin's experiences, Michaela Connery co-founded a movement

led by people with and without disabilities to reimagine housing for all. Here now is her brief but spectacular take on creating inclusive disability forward communities. Kelsey was my first cousin, and she lived with multiple significant disabilities. She used 24-hour care and used modified sign language to communicate

and used a wheelchair to get around. So much of my life is through a frame of going through life milestones together. Most of the time when she faced barriers and lack of opportunity, it wasn't anything to do with her. It was to do with the way places and spaces and experiences were designed without a consideration of her. Throughout my life, it was interesting to see how kind of every system at some level wasn't designed to include people like Kelsey and where it became the most apparent to me

and frankly the stickiest and hardest to change happened when we were in adulthood around the system of housing and community living. When Kelsey was in her 20s, both her sisters had moved out and she made it very clear that she too was interested in moving out on her own and there were really no options available to her. I at first thought that Kelsey's needs were unique to her and learned very quickly that actually know what Kelsey experienced was an example of a much larger issue where disabled people had little to know options when it came to housing and the solutions weren't available in any community, not just in the community where she was. The Kelsey builds and advocates for

housing that is disability forward, housing that's affordable, accessible, and inclusive. We also then go upstream and say how do we change the systems, field resources, and policies so that the kinds of communities we build are not just made by the Kelsey, but are possible to be created everywhere. Historically, the housing that has been provided to people with disabilities has been in institutional and facility-based settings,

often where services and daily life are prescribed to all individuals with not a lot of choice and control. We really ask people, if you could create any kind of housing intervention, what would that be? And people really talked about the need for affordability, accessibility, and accessibility,

inclusivity. People talked about the idea for community and connection, for choice and control. And so let's redesign something from the ground up with those in mind and not continue to iterate on decades of institutionalization. Kelsey passed away about a month after we got our first round of funding to launch the organization named after her. And it's incredibly hard to not have her here as part of this work. But it's incredibly powerful to know that So much of her identity, her legacy, and her approach to life has been embedded in the work that we do. My name is Michaela Connery, and this is my brief but spectacular take on building inclusive communities. And you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org slash news hour slash brief.

And that is the news hour for tonight. I'm Amna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you for joining us. Thank you.