PBS News Hour - Full Show - September 10, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Wednesday on the News Hour, influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk is killed at an event in Utah. Poland and NATO down Russian drones that violated Polish airspace, raising tensions across Europe and questions over U.S. efforts to end the Ukraine war. Plus, Judy Woodruff speaks with NBA star Steph Curry and Martin Luther King III about efforts to bring communities together through service. 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 on assignment. On the news hour tonight, the influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk is shot and killed at an event in Utah. Poland and NATO take down Russian drones that violated Polish airspace, raising tensions across Europe and questions over the U.S. effort to end the war in Ukraine. I think it's high time that President Trump should see that. that Putin is mocking him. And Judy Woodruff speaks with NBA star Steph Curry and Martin Luther King III about their effort

to bring communities together through service. Underneath the surface, we're doing the work that is hopefully meaningful and sustainable no matter what voice out of Washington's coming out. Welcome to the News Hour. One of the nation's most prominent conservative activists is dead after being shot during a political rally at a Utah college campus this afternoon. In a social media post, President Donald Trump announced Charlie Kirk, the head of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, died after being rushed to the hospital from an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. In the post, the president praised Kurt.

saying, quote, no one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. In the last decade, Kirk has grown as an influential political figure online and in organizing events on college campuses for conservative causes. Alisa Dizart Desartan has more on the shooting. Okay, everybody, welcome back. Email us as always free. Charlie Kirk was a MAGA superstar, a millennial hosting a daily and highly influential radio show on more than 200 stations that reached across generations. That's a lot of people, Utah. Video today showed Kirk speaking at his Utah event,

the first in what he called the American Comeback Tour. As Kirk hosted a segment where he took audience pushback, a shot echoed. Oh my God. Go, run, run. Crowd events were a staple for Kirk. He regularly toured college campuses and was the founder of Turning Point USA,

one of the largest conservative student and youth groups in recent years. The side that believes in freedom of speech is the side that I believe is on the right side of history. Yeah. Has there been an instance, guys, where a liberal has had an open mic on campus, where conservative kids can ask questions and you guys feel respected? Build as the next Rush Limbaugh, this spring the Salem Radio Network proclaimed Kirk had the number one conservative podcast in the country and number two in all of news. He drew listeners for his unapologetic style, proclaiming people should say outrageous things. And indeed, his words like these on guns could be controversial.

I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. Kirk was married with two small children. He was 31 years old. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Lisa Desjardin. A university spokesperson said a suspect in the shooting was initially taken into custody, but police soon determined that person was not actually the shooter. Political leaders on the left and right have expressed their shock over Kirk's murder and condolences for his family.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffrey said political violence is completely incompatible with American values. Republican Senator Ted Cruz called it an act of unspeakable evil. For more on Kirk and his influence on the political right, We're joined now by Dave Weigel, who covers politics for Semaphore. Thank you for being here. Thank you. The kind of event that Charlie Kirk hosted in Utah with hundreds, potentially thousands of college students coming to listen to him, that was not at all uncommon. Not at all. The format is important. That format is going to be remembered because Kirk did not pioneer, but he sort of perfected this idea of a conservative speaker going on campus and not just being in an auditorium with a guest list, going to the widest possible space, having his people film it, having everyone else film.

moment and debating students. Ideally, having somebody in the crowd say something silly that goes viral. But he took it very seriously. This is a man who he left college to start this organization was a very self-taught and a lot of philosophy, a lot of religion, a lot of history, very confident in his beliefs, his Christian beliefs, and thought he was making converts. He was making converts. The organization grew massively every single year he ran it. And he was no outside influencer. I mean, he was personally close to President Trump. They would go back and forth. on issues, I'm told. When Charlie thought that things were important to the base, he would tell President Trump there was this idea that he had his finger on the pulse of the MAGA movement more so

than did some Trump advisors. He did. They influenced each other. Kirk started this organization when he was a teenager, and it was much more Tea Party focused, focused on the debt, the debt is a threat to two generations. He did not love Trump at first in 2016. But Don Jr. loved his attitude. The Trump family and the Trump organization elevated Kirk. Kirk elevated. Trump. And the image that Donald Trump has with young people has improved over the years. Lots of people are going to take credit for that. But part of that was Kirk aggressively organizing on campuses in the media, and not just the media that we're on, but on phones. He was one of the most popular figures with people were looking at debate on their phones. Scrolling through,

I want to see a video of something interesting. I want to see interesting debate. He was open with what kind of guests he'd have. That was his theory, which Trump really adopted in 2024. That comes from what a lot of Kirk was doing. Go anywhere, talk to anybody. make a convert from somebody who might think they hate conservatives. And how did he influence the GOP's posture toward culture war issues, especially on college campuses? Yeah, he said a few of those clips, but think of the time he was coming up in. On college campuses, this is one of the most debate issues of our time, there have been restrictions on what you can say about various identity groups, sexual groups, sexual identity groups, minorities, etc. The conservative position has been no, complete free speech, you're not allowed to do that.

So he had these traditional conservative views, and he framed them as somebody coming in from outside to say, you are being misled, your minds are being, are being shrunk by what is happening on your campus, you should have an open mind. And he would think, if you talk to me long enough, you're going to agree with me. But in terms of the culture wars, very aggressive on transgender rights, but on the entire kind of left-wing critical theory that had grown up over the last 40 years, he was very comfortable debating that. And in the last nine months, obviously with Trump in power winning on that.

A lot of these ideas are informing how the Trump administration, and there are people in it who worked for Turning Point USA at some point in their careers, how they view the left, which is don't apologize, endless combat. There's some of Trump in there, but Trump is never as comfortable in conservatism as Kirk was. And how does his work compare with earlier conservative youth movements like Young Americans for Freedom or anything that we saw during the Reagan era? Right. Well, it was modeled on some of that, but the times had changed. And William F. Buckley and the, in 1950s, for example, did not have to say so much about how it was good to get married. It was good to go to church. It was good to have children. Kirk saw part of his role as combating change in the culture.

A lot of this is feminism as things that have been very mainstreamed American politics for quite a while in saying, no, they're actually making your life worse. And he had different ways of coming at that. Some were more combative. Some were more welcoming. But that was what changed. And he came into the conservative movement at a time where marriages were falling. people were having children later. Pop culture had changed the way it covers these life facts.

And that was part of it. There's a lot of influencers in this space. You'll call the Mano's Fear, you can even call him. He took some of that and moved it into politics, saying, look, I shouldn't just vote Republican because you want a tax cut. You should vote Republican because look how happy your life is going to be with this family compared to how you'll be angry and left wing and finding enemies online. And his brand of activism in many ways fit within the broader trend toward politics. as performance? Oh, it completely did. Just the popular, we talked about other concerns at the past.

William F. Buckley was a big cultural figure and had his weekly show. But Kirk, like I was saying, was in people's phones all the time. He was a, he wrote his way, talked his way into the halls of power, had the influence of the president of the United States, first time and more so this time. Trump has, who had mastered the media in his own way, has elevated these figures and had an understanding that a lot of people are, people who didn't, didn't used to vote, didn't take politics very seriously can come into politics through culture, through commentary. So Turning Point USA, again, was growing and Turnpoint Action, the political arm growing every year. But a lot of what was doing was saying, all right, you're interested in our content because of the debate we had

in campus, this viral video we had, this documentary we had, this reporter who was at a protest, here's how you can get involved in help Donald Trump get elected. Very successful in 2024. And I saw some of this up close, finding people who never would have cared about politics 10, 20 years ago. But they did care. They had some issue that got them interested. and turning point action was getting them information on their ballots to turn out. So this is an operation. You've seen this from people in the White House already saying people will carry on his legacy. That's some of the legacy that's going to be carried on,

is this combination of constant contact and attention and political action. Well, our thoughts are certainly with his family. Dave Weigel, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you. It was an ominous series of milestones today for the world's largest military alliance. For the first time in NATO history, alliance airplanes engaged enemy targets in allied airspace. And for the first time since Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine, NATO opened fire on Russian drones. Nick Schifrin speaks to the foreign minister of NATO member Poland, where the attack took place and reports on a day that rattled the alliance.

In eastern Poland today, the aftermath of a Russian attack, a house destroyed by a shot down Russian drone. Its remnants a reminder of how the war in Ukraine can escalate. Polish officials say 19 drones crossed into Poland on the alliance's eastern flank, fired not only from Russia, but also from Belarus. European officials tell PBS NewsHour the drones flew as far as 300 miles into Poland, and the attack lasted seven hours. It comes at a precarious moment for Ukraine.

Russia continues to achieve small territorial gains, but at enormous cost to its soldiers. President Trump is vowing to impose economic pressure on Russia, but wants it coordinated with Europe. Today, President Trump posted, what's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go. And today, Europe says it needs better defenses from those Russian drones, including its own wall of drones, on its eastern flank. Earlier today, I spoke to Poland's foreign minister, Radik-Sikorski. Roderzkorsi, thank you very much. Welcome back to the news hour. We have seen incursions in the past since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but this seems to be a larger scale and

deeper into Poland. So how significant is this? As you say, we've had incursions before, both by drones and by cruise missiles. One of them actually landed 10 kilometers from my house in Western Poland. But this is different, A, because there were 19 breaches of our airspace, and B, the operation lasted for seven hours. It started before midnight, and we shot down the last drone at 6.30 a.m. So it's hard to believe that it was accidental. A senior European official tells me that one of these drones flew as deep as 300 miles, and also that they came not only from Russia but from Belarus. Does that indicate to you that this was purposeful?

This was intentional. Indeed. If it was just an accident resulting from the indiscriminate bombing of Ukraine, you would expect them to come from Ukraine. Talk about what you believe Moscow intended by this attack. Were they testing Polish NATO defenses? Were they perhaps watching how cohesive a NATO response would be? The Russians are about to conduct a major cyclical exercise at our borders called Zapat.

So yes, they could have been testing us, but if so, the test, as far as we're concerned, was positive for us. We shot down the threats. So what do you think they intended by doing this? Perhaps intimidation, perhaps trying to affect our information space. It is, the kinetic operation is being accompanied with a huge disinformation campaign. The fact that one of these drones flew more than 300 miles, the fact that, as you say, this lasted for seven hours, do you think the Polish and NATO response was sufficient?

How short is NATO? How short is Poland of air defense and that drone wall you're calling for? It was effective, but F-16s and F-35s are not the most cost-effective ways of. dealing with these swarms of drills. We need to have a layered defense against this new Russian technique. And that doesn't exist today. It needs to be created as a result of lessons learned from the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Let's zoom out a little bit and talk about the West's willingness and ability to punish Moscow not only for today, but overall. The European Commission is drafting a new sanctions package that would hit Russian energy revenues and the military

industrial complex. But a senior European official tells me that this week, President Trump called into a meeting between European and American officials trying to coordinate some of these sanctions on Russia and demanded that Europe imposed 100 percent secondary sanctions on China and India for buying Russian energy products. Is that a step that Europe is willing to take? Well, President Trump also called on all of Europe to stop importing Russian oil. The two countries that are doing that are Slovakia and in particular Hungary, which is run by a populist government. So we hope that President Trump makes the call to Budapest and asks Victor Orban to stop importing Russian oil and import it from other directions. I think it's high time that President Trump should see that Putin is mocking him.

him. Instead of a ceasefire that was supposed to happen before the Alaska summit and serious peace talks, Putin is sending more and more drills, first at Ukraine and now at NATO. So I hope that at the end of this process, we have a series of coordinated moves to make President Putin realize that this exotic project of rebuilding the Russian Empire will not stop. President Trump has threatened sanctions on Russia before. He has not followed through, although he has imposed secondary sanctions on India. Bottom line, do you have faith that the United States is ready to impose economic punishment on Russia?

We respect peace efforts. We all want, as neighbors of Ukraine and Russia, to see a peace restored. but we believe that Putin only answers to the most forceful actions, and that Putin has been taking advantage of President Trump's goodwill for too long. So given the military pressure that you are trying to help Ukraine impose on Russia, given this economic pressure that we're talking about, do you believe that that combined really could convince Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine? Yes, I do, because this war will not.

end the way Second World War ended with one party walking into the capital of the other. It's much more likely to end by one side losing the resources to continue it. And Russian economy is already suffering, and Russia is still receiving too much income from oil and gas being exported either by means of the shadow fleet or by means of pipelines to Hungary and Slovakia, for example. And on the military pressure, Europe, of course, is purchasing American weapons to send to Ukraine after President Trump authorized that. But the Trump administration has restricted the use of some Western weapons to be fired into Russia. How important is that that restriction get removed? Well, I agree with President Trump when he said that you cannot win a war

by not attacking enemy territory. And the Ukrainians have been very successful, both at sea and attacking Russian oil refineries. There are now gas shortages in Russia, and success should be reinforced. These are legitimate military targets. The gas is used to power the Russian war machine, and I'm sure American help in taking out such targets would be appreciated. Roda Ksokorski, thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you.

In the day's other headlines, the Trump administration is appealing a judge's decision to let federal reserve governor Lisa Cook stay on the job as she challenges her dismissal. Judge Gia Cobb found that President Trump's attempt to fire Cook over mortgage fraud allegations did not meet the threshold for sufficient cause. Cook denies any wrongdoing. meantime, a Senate committee advanced the nomination of White House Economic Advisor Stephen Myron to join the Fed's board. If approved by the full Senate, he'd be the third Trump appointee to join the seven-member board as the president continues to pressure the Fed to cut interest rates. Three former FBI officials are suing the Bureau over their termination, saying they were part of a campaign of retribution. Brian Driscoll, Steve Jensen, and Spencer Evans allege the FBI director, Cash Patel, indicated

directly to one of them that he knew firing them was, quote, likely illegal, but he did so anyway to fulfill President Trump's desire to remove all agents who helped investigate him. The lawsuit also names Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department, and the Office of the President itself. Both the FBI and the DOJ have so far declined to comment. In Colorado, a shooting at a high school outside Denver has left three teenagers in critical condition, including the suspected shooter. Authorities say more than 100 police officers rushed to Evergreen High School as students were evacuated from the school grounds. The alleged shooter is believed to be a student

at the school. No deaths have been reported so far. A South Korean plane touchdown in Georgia today to bring home more than 300 workers who were arrested in a massive immigrant. immigration raid last week. It's unclear when the plane will leave and whether the workers will qualify for voluntary departures or be deported. Earlier today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted South Korea's foreign minister, saying that President Trump has ordered that the matter be resolved swiftly. Last week, ICE agents rounded up the workers at a Hyundai plant in Savannah. It was the largest workplace raid of the Trump administration so far. Meantime, an immigration enforcement effort in upstate New York boiled over into a dramatic

confrontation with protesters. ICE out of Rochester! ICE out of Rochester! Video from the scene shows demonstrators surrounding immigration officers and their vehicles on Tuesday after agents took a roofer into custody at a job site.

The remaining workers refused to come down as the crowd rallied to their support. The episode ended with agents retreating from the site, an a customs and border protection vehicle being taken away with four flat tires which had reportedly been slashed. In France, protesters clashed with police today in the latest challenge to President Emmanuel

Macron's government. In one instance, police used tear gas on crowds near a Paris high school. Across that nation, authorities arrested more than 400 people at hundreds of protests related to the so-called Block Everything movement. It started online this summer and called for a day of action against government budget cuts, among other grievances. Protesters outside of an Amazon warehouse said they were rallying in supportive workers there, and called on President Macron to resign. A dynamic has been created and self-organized. It's truly a citizen's movement that has organized itself.

Personally, at least, I'll be there until the end to be able to fight and to really get the message across, that we can't take it anymore, and that Macron has to go. He's the cause of all this. The latest unrest comes just a day after President Macron selected a new prime minister, his fourth in just a year.

In Nepal, troops are patrolling the streets of the streets of the capital, Kathmandu, as the military there tries to restore order after two days of violent protests. At least 25 people were killed as public anger over a short-lived social media ban boiled over, forcing the country's prime minister to resign. Talks began today to select an interim government, though no decision has been made. Maintime, a cleanup effort has started following chaotic scenes that saw damage to the country's main parliament building, presidential house, and government offices. Cuba suffered a total blackout today amid ongoing problems with its aging infrastructure and fuel shortages.

Energy ministry officials attributed the most recent outage to a malfunctioning thermoelectric plant, but an investigation is still ongoing. This is Cuba's second major outage this year after a similar blackout back in March. Officials say work is underway to restore power to Cuba's roughly 10 million people. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed ahead of tomorrow's highly anticipated inflation data. The Dow Jones Industrial average fell more than 200 points on the day. The NASDAQ added just six points, so about flat. The S&P 500 closed once again at a new all-time high.

And we have some news from Mars. Scientists say that NASA's Perseverance Rover has discovered rocks that are being called the clearest sign of ancient life on that planet. The stones are composed of finely packed sediment. Close analysis reveals that they contain green, black, and white dots resembling minerals that on Earth are associated with microbial activity. Researchers say the rocks will need more analysis, ideally in labs back here on Earth, before they can reach any firm conclusions.

Still to come on the news hour, the global fallout from Israel's strike on Hamas, leadership in Qatar, how the National Guard is being used to combat crime in New Mexico at the behest of its Democratic governor. And a new book examines how artificial intelligence may be exacerbating, sexism. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubinstein studio at W.E.T.A. in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. Today, the leader of the United Arab Emirates visited Doha to express solidarity with Qatar. One day after an unprecedented Israeli attack on the Gulf Nation, which is a major

non-NATO ally of the U.S. Israel's airstrikes that targeted Hamas' political leaders reportedly failed to kill them but rattled the region. To discuss the attack and the regional ramifications, we turn to Marwan Muasher. He's the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and he's also the former foreign minister of Jordan. He joins us now from Amman. Marwan Muasher, welcome back to the News Hour. Thank you. Israel's strike in Doha aimed at Hamas leadership was the first acknowledged strike on a Gulf state. In your view, what message does it send to the broader region? I think the primary question that the region is asking today is,

is regional peace a priority of Israel? Because judging from Israeli actions, coupled with Israeli statements that they intend to annex the West Bank, it does not seem that regional peace is of any priority to Israel. I think what is it is also doing is killing the prospects of any expansion of the Abrahamic Accords. The Abrahamic Accords were a cornerstone of U.S. policy, both for the Biden administration and the Trump administration. Today, there is not just no chance for Saudi Arabia to join the Abrahamic Accords because of this action, but even Gulf countries who have joined, like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates,

today, I think, revisiting their stand. The UAE president was in Qatar today. And as I said, the whole issue of whether Israel regards peace as a priority is being seriously questioned in the region. The Qatari Prime Minister in an interview with CNN today, he called the Israeli attack an act of state terror and said that Qatar is reassessing everything about its mediating role. ahead, what are the long-term consequences if that country, which is one of the few players willing to mediate between Hamas and Israel, if they back away from their role? What's the impact in any sort of future regional peace effort? I think it's very difficult to think today of Qatar resuming its mediation efforts when it feels at risk that Israel is going to strike at the

very negotiators that it is dealing with. But beyond that, it is going to be very difficult for any country to step in and mediate the release of Israeli hostages. And so it has stark consequences on the region. Unfortunately, it has stark consequences on the Israeli hostages themselves. I think talking about peace in general today in the region is becoming very, very difficult with Israeli actions, that are being taken without accountability. Since October 7, Jeff, at least five Arab countries were, you know, bombarded by Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar, not to mention Iran, of course, which is not an Arab country, and Tunisia.

And without accountability, Israel is clearly violating the UN Charter, without. any country in the world, basically taking any action against it. What does this episode reveal about the Trump administration's influence and leverage in the region? Look, if the Trump administration has not been able to stop Israel from hitting a U.S. ally, which has played a central role in releasing the vast majority of Israeli hostages, if the Trump administration is not able to implement its own priority in the region, which is expansion of the Abrahamic Accords, as I said, that says a lot about the Trump administration's ability

to rein in its principal ally, Israel. Of course, there's the other view that Hamas could release the hostages, and that would bring about an end to this, to which you would say what? the deal on the table is that Hamas has said it repeatedly it is ready to release all the hostages in return for an end of the war on Gaza but what it is what it is being presented with is release all the hostages then we'll come back and kill you and hit back at you and you know without agreeing with what Hamas did in October 7th it is not something that Hamas obviously is ready to accept. I think Hamas has indicated repeatedly its willingness to release

all the hostages, but in return, the war on Gaza needs to stop 65,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed so far with no end in sight. Marwan Muasher, thank you for your perspective this evening. We appreciate it. Thank you. President Trump's emergency declaration in Washington, D.C. that gave his administration control of local police is set to expire tonight. That, along with his deployment of National Guard troops to the city, has drawn sharp criticism for many Democrats who have called it government overreach. But in New Mexico, a Democratic governor who deployed the National Guard has seen violent crime fall in her state's largest city. In April, Governor Michelle Luan Grisham ordered about 70 Guard members to assist Albuquerque police with duties like securing crime scenes, patrolling transit, and traffic control. And the governor joins us now. Welcome to the News Hour.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate being on the show. So why did you decide to deploy the New Mexico National Guard to Albuquerque to support the police department there? Well, a multitude of reasons, but the biggest one is, Public safety is a concern of every governor in the country. I want all of my residents and constituents to feel safe wherever they are. On the road, at work, at home, at school, at church, all of it. And I've got a thousand fewer police officers in the city jurisdiction of Albuquerque than New Mexico had a decade ago. There's a big difference between what I'm doing and what the Trump administration is doing.

I'm about cooperation and supporting community policing, not occupation. I don't control the police. I'm not taking over a jurisdiction or a city or a county. I'm trying to give them the resources that they need to do the jobs that they were trained to do and then keep our communities safer. And on the ground, how is the guards role in Albuquerque different from what we've seen resulting from the president's decision to deploy the next? National Guard to Washington, D.C., and then prior to that, Los Angeles.

Well, first of all, there's no militarization of any of the policing. So you don't see tanks, you don't see men and women in riot gear, you don't see a giant troop sort of just deployed in the middle of a city. This is strategic, smart, and by and large, the National Guard is behind the direct community policing. And what I mean by that is, is that they're doing this survey. violence work. They're doing the arrest transportation and bookings. They're doing the medical transports when that's required of an arrestee. They're making sure that they're doing all the

dispatch calls. They are helping us with bus safety and transportation. They're doing the kind of background work that allows for more police time on the streets and communities. And to put that in perspective, since the start of this mission, the Guard has added 4,000. hours of direct policing time, which has led to more arrests, more deterrent. And I can give you two really good examples of that. And the kind of synergistic support that, frankly, our police departments do need, and I believe ultimately want. But the police department in Albuquerque is in charge of the operation. The state police are doing what they do best. They're integrating their support to the local jurisdiction, and the Guard has been trained on this strategic mission.

It sounds like that approach, as you describe it, is working, but is it sustainable? It's tough to sustain. It is sustainable for the near future. I'm getting into a season where it's easier to do this work because I have fewer fires, weather is changing, fewer floods, fewer of those kinds of emergencies, that the Guard has to be available to do first and foremost. But it speaks to another issue where I think the feds could be more helpful here. We've seen huge increases in their budgets, but I'm not seeing that presence in New Mexico in this way. I'd like to have more federal prosecutions. I need more lawyers. I'd like to see more U.S. Marshals. I'd like to see more FBI personnel. I'd like to see more DEA and AFT personnel. Now we're talking

about being strategic and smart and elevating the amount of trained, qualified police officers or policing entities helping with our public safety issues. When you have a thousand fewer police officers than you did a decade ago, you're going to have to shift the way in which you do things. And so I asked several administrations for that assistance, and I have certainly alerted the White House informally to date, that could change, that they ought to be putting more into their federal offices in states like New Mexico and along the border. We could do a lot more in our drug interdiction work as a result. I mean, my guard already does that with the feds. We ought to do more of that. That makes people in Albuquerque and the rest of the state

much safer. Speaking of the federal government, the Justice Department recently labeled Albuquerque, one of 17 sanctuary cities nationwide, and it says it plans to bring litigation as a result. What's your response to that designation? And more broadly, how are New Mexico cities engaging with federal immigration enforcement? Interestingly enough, if you were to just put a political lens on New Mexico, like any state, we have very democratic or blue cities, we have very read cities and counties. And as the Trump administration was trying to get a sense about how many law enforcement jurisdictions, remember, they don't work directly for me as the governor, how they would help them with indiscriminate and, I believe, unconstitutional immigration enforcement

and detentions and deportations. I'm not aware of any law enforcement jurisdiction anywhere in the state agreeing to that cooperation, because I think ultimately, It takes them away from the core public safety work that they must engage in. And I think they believe and understand that it's unconstitutional. And if you don't believe that, it's certainly indiscriminate and unfair. The sanctuary city has been an easy way for far too many jurisdictions, at least in my opinion, to try to declare that they're going to do right by all of their laws and efforts at public safety. but immigration enforcement is, in fact, a federal issue.

What we all want is for Congress to pass a bipartisan, smart and fair immigration bill so that you can get visas and come to the United States legally that we use smart security and safety measures at the border, more technology. And I don't think most folks in Congress are complaining or governors that we don't need more border personnel, strategic, smart deal with the problem, depoliticize it. New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham. Thanks again for joining us this evening.

Thank you, Jeff. It's a delight. author and feminist activist, Laura Bates, explores how bias now being noted everywhere, from ChatGPT to the Metaverse, that's the immersive virtual world launched by Meta back in 2021. She recently spoke with Omna Nawaz about her new book. Laura Bates, welcome to The News Hour. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. So this is your eighth book, correct? You have spent years documenting, studying, and writing about sexism and misogyny in all parts of our world.

But there is an urgency to this book. Because to be clear, you're not talking about what could happen. You're talking about what's already happening. And you say that we're on an edge of a precipice. What does that mean? Absolutely. I mean, our world is about to be transformed by AI and other emerging technologies in ways that I think it's hard for people to fully grasp,

socially, culturally, economically, in terms of education, in terms of news media, in terms of the financial services industry, the criminal justice sector, you name it. It is about to be changed. And right now, the foundations of those new forms, those new worlds are being built. What's happening is that we are seeing that emerging technologies and AI in particular are reembedding existing problems, particularly structural inequalities like sexism and racism, into the foundations of that new world that we will all be living in.

So if we don't act now, if we don't talk about this now, it's going to be very difficult to unpick later on. Just to kind of set the groundwork here, when you talk about the intersection, of misogyny, sexism, and these new technologies, how different are the experiences for men and women online and dealing with these tech? I mean, they are so dramatic that it is almost like a different world. For example, we know that women are 17 times more likely to experience online abuse than men are.

If we look at some of the forms of tech that are used to facilitate abuse, this is an overwhelmingly gendered problem. For example, deep fake technology. We know that 96% of all deep-fake technology, of all deepfakes created, our non-consensual pornography, and we know that 99% of those are of women. In fact, most of these tools don't even work

if you put in a picture of a man's body. And it has a huge impact on uptake, so we're about to have a world transformed by AI, but already, if you look at the 16 to 24 age bracket, 71% of men in that age bracket say that they're already using AI weekly, and only 59% of women. So there is a huge gap in terms of access to tools that's caused by that difference in experience.

The section on deep fake images and video really startled me because you wrote about this division between men and women on there. You said that you discovered as you research, quote, I found thousands of deep fake videos depicting every female celebrity you can think of. I didn't see a single deep fake porn video of a male celebrity, not one. Why not? Well, partly because the tools literally have not been built to create them And partly because we know that this is a very old problem, you know, misogyny and violence against women and girls is so widespread.

This is a new iteration of it. It impacts women to such a vast degree. For example, one in six congresswomen here in the US have experienced this particular form of abuse. It is a huge problem for women and it is very different for men. And I want to point out, too, this isn't something you're writing about hypothetically or something you're just studying. You have lived through this yourself. Tell us about that and the impact it had on you. Some of the men who were angry about my previous book, Men Who Hate Women,

chose to take out that anger by sending me deep fake pornographic videos that they had created of me. These videos are highly realistic. It is somebody who has taken your likeness, your face exactly as it is, and a video that looks seamlessly as if it is your body, and then chosen to create hugely abusive pornographic material, which you then, not only watching it is like a, gut punch, a huge shock, but you also know that that person may have shared it, may have

spread it across the internet, may have posted it on different websites, that other men, hundreds of other men may have downloaded it, may have kept it. It is something that is utterly violating and utterly beyond your control. And if it is so impactful for me, as somebody who is, you know, pretty seasoned in this space, sometimes I'll get 200 death threats on a bad day. I am used to this stuff. 200 death threats. On a bad day, you can get maybe 200 rape threats and death threats. So I already know about this stuff. So imagine the impact on a school girl who's 11 years old and this content is being created of her and being spread. Some of the girls that I write about in the book, they're 11 when this is happening. They're developing PTSD. They're dropping out of education.

Or you're a politician being driven out of an important job, a public service role that you love by this visceral form of abuse? Well, let me put to you what some of the folks in the tech industry would say in response to this, because you do quote, he's now the former president of global affairs at Meta, Nick Clegg, who said it's kind of unfair to hold tech companies responsible for the behavior that people engage in on those platforms. And he wrote, you quote him in the book as saying, in the U.S., we wouldn't hold a bar manager responsible for real time, speech moderation in their bar, as if they should stand over

your table, listen intently to your conversation, and silence you for things that they don't like. you say to that? Well, the first thing I thought when I read that quote was that many bars are not safe spaces for women. You know, these are places where women experience abuse and harassment on a regular basis. But I also think we need to think about what it is that the metaverse and other spaces like it want to become, because they don't just want to be social and recreational spaces like bars. They are pouring billions of dollars a year into creating a world where they hope that we will be attending virtual university lectures in lecture theaters in the metaverse. They hope people will be doing business there, meeting in virtual boardrooms. And those spaces, I think we would

hold to a higher standard in terms of safety. There is also a part of me that thinks, if you want to create an entire new world, don't you want to start out by setting the bar a little higher? Are there policy prescriptions we should be looking at? Do you see the work being done to regulate this or to stop it from getting worse than it already is? So it is regulation and policy that we need, and nobody is saying we shouldn't develop. This isn't about being anti- tech. But with any other industry, we would expect those common sense guardrails at the point of rolled out products to the public, right? We wouldn't expect big food conglomerates to say, well, some people will die of salmonella. There's not much we can do about that. We would

accept that there should be safety regulations in place. With tech, we just don't tend to have that same approach. And so what we are seeing is that places like the European Commission are putting together frameworks of what common sense safety protocols could look like for AI. But we're also seeing enormous amounts of government pushback, not least here in the US, where President Trump recently signed an executive order, really with the opposite aim in mind of preventing DE&I initiatives or policies from being enacted in tech firms and in AI products specifically. The book is The New Age of Sexism. The author is Laura Bates.

Laura, thank you so much. Thank you. Judy Woodruff has more now on a new partnership in Oakland, California, seeking to bring communities across the country together through service. It's part of her series, America at a crossroads. This ear-splitting welcome during assembly time at the Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School in West Oakland was for some very special guests. What's up, everybody?

Hello, hello, hello. That's the energy I'm talking about. That is why we are so excited to be here. Standing next to the son of the civil rights icon, Steph Curry, the four-time NBA champion for the Golden State Warriors, is about as big a celebrity as you could ask for in this city. Y'all have fun at school? Y'all have fun of school?

Six years ago, around the time the Warriors left here to move to San Francisco, Curry and his wife, Aisha, decided they'd have fun at school. decided they couldn't walk away from this community with so many in need. They started their Eat, Learn, Play Foundation, supporting children's well-being through access to healthy food, literacy, and play. These are the pillars and the foundation of what makes a child have a happy, thriving, healthy life. The Curries were here to announce a new partnership with Martin Luther King III and his wife, Andrea Waters Kings realized the dream initiative, a nationwide call to action to mobilize 100 million hours of service by 2029, the 100th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's birth.

That's 100,000 hours right there. The partnership pledges 100,000 volunteer hours here, a city where one in four African Americans and one in five Latinos live at or below the federal poverty line. It is very surreal to kind of be here in this moment, planning our flag in Oakland to have a moment here at Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School and just the idea that we're a part of not only a local movement, but a national, hopefully global movement

of what service and volunteerism really means and following the legacy of Dr. King. Coretta Scott King visited here way back in 1972, so this school is particularly important for the King family. One of the things Dad used to say is everyone can be great because anybody can serve. The school is the 21st that eat, learn, play has transformed here in Oakland. When we visited last week, there was a book giveaway, a new playground and basketball court were being built. new murals painted and new gardens planted. Roma Grove's waters has been principal here for nearly 17 years.

Do you see a tangible difference that the curries are making in Oakland? Oh, yes. The way they transform playgrounds, they make kids want to come to school. So it helps with the chronic absenteeism. It helps with uplifting the kids' spirits. As they're walking around, they can walk around with something nice for a change. Known as the West Coast Center of Blues Music, West Oakland hosted singers like Billy Holliday and Aretha Franklin. It's also where the Black Panther Party got its start. But today, the seaport, highways, a subway system, and Oakland's main post office have displaced many in this historically black neighborhood.

And contributed to high rates of childhood asthma in a place that offers few opportunities. options for healthy food. In 2025, we're still living in the area of the have and have-nots. Like some people have things and, you know, a lot of the kids here don't. But we bring the joy to the kids when they come to the school. That joy could be seen on the students' faces as they soaked in the celebrity guests, who told us they love the smiles, but are here to make a difference in the long run. You know, it doesn't happen overnight, but yeah, it doesn't.

that you can change, you know, the experience, school experience for a generation of kids. Like it's a very lofty goal, but it's something that we're committed to, not just financially, but with a clarity of thought about what impact really looks like and how to measure it. At the nearby Bethlehem Lutheran Church, people gathered for a fireside chat with the Kings and the Curries. Andrea Waters King said her 17-year-old daughter inspired their most recent call to action, concern for the world she would inherit. At a time when we seem more divided than ever, at a time when services that are so needed in our communities were being cut away,

we wanted young people to find themselves. Her husband reflected on how his parents persevered in their own turbulent times. I think my father and mother throughout their lives, if there was a person was 90% unfortunately bad, dad and mom would focus on that 10% good and work to extract that out of the human being. And so this process, this project helps to extract good out of everyone. But he suggests even for him it's not an easy task in this particular moment. This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

Since taking office in January, President Trump has pledged to end what he calls the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion, saying that our country will be woke no more. In a backlash against a 2020 protest over the murder of George Floyd, DEI programs have been dismantled across corporations, higher education, and the federal government. And Trump has sought to roll back protections offered by. the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a landmark law and monumental achievement by Martin Luther King, Jr. If Dad had lived, we as a nation and world would be on a different trajectory. Our challenge today is still working to get to that different place. As a person who had a front row seat for the modern civil rights movement, it is really terrible to be at this juncture.

But my mom used to say something that was so interesting. She said, freedom is never fully won. Each generation must engage to actually extend and sustain freedom. So I was hoping she'd be wrong. And mom, well, wow. But what you said is just so true. I see it. And it's reinforced.

I don't know anyone that has lived through the past few years that has not felt that they were touched by chaos. This is a way for us all to come together and build community. I think that there is a thirst, there is a desire, there is a yearning for us all to find something that we can agree on. While all the noise and the politics might be loudest voices in the room, might be pointing us in the wrong direction. Like underneath the surface, we're doing the work that is hopefully meaningful and sustainable. No matter what voice out of, you know, Washington's coming out, like we're going to continue to show up. Do you hear that, people saying, can it make a difference at a local level? Can it affect the whole country, ultimately?

I mean, I think what we're trying to do in Oakland is create a model for what real impact looks like. Through their Eat, Learn Play Foundation, the Curries have reached 35,000 Oakland students and raised and invested $90 million in the community. I don't care which your background is, what side of the line or the aisle you sit on. you know what experiences you've had in your life or what's informed those like the end of the day we understand for a kid to have you know a proper childhood those three pillars need to be there it's gonna take the community it's gonna take people locking arms and doing it together and so I just want to remind you

know everyone that when we go out to do this community service and these acts of service you know it shouldn't be what we're doing it just needs to become who we are And I think we'll start to see the change once it just becomes a part of our nature. A call to service at this divided moment. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Judy Woodruff in Oakland, California. And that's the PBS News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the News Hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.

Thank you.