PBS News Hour - Full Show - September 2, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Tuesday on the News Hour, Congress returns to Washington to face a looming budget battle and tension over the Epstein files. The Pentagon authorizes military lawyers to serve as immigration judges in the Trump administration's push to deal with a massive backlog in cases. Plus, we speak to the wife of a woman who came to the U.S. as a child and is now being detained by immigration authorities. 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. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, Congress returns to Washington to face a looming budget battle to avoid a government shutdown and tension over the Epstein files. The Pentagon authorizes hundreds of military lawyers to serve as immigration judges and the Trump administration's push to deal with a massive backlog in cases. And we speak to the wife of a woman who came to the U.S. as a judge. child and is now being detained by immigration authorities. It should be very concerning to everyone that ISIS is knowingly holding someone who has protection from deportation under DACA and is claiming that their DACA status doesn't matter. Welcome to the News Hour. Congress is back in watching.

tonight, and the clock is already ticking. Lawmakers have less than one month to avoid a government shutdown. On the table, a fierce fight over billions in spending cuts, a push to release the Jeffrey Epstein case files, and Senate Republicans moving to fast-track President Trump's nominees. Our congressional correspondent Lisa Desiardin joins us now, Lisa, it's always great to see you, so let's start with this possible government shutdown at the end of the month. First of all, is possible the right word still? I mean, how likely is this? Yeah, I think possible is the right word, and I would say it's very possible, whatever that means, but it is something that is clearly in the air over Congress.

Now, let's take you through exactly how this would work, where we are right now. Now, Congress has until September 30th to fund most of government. Any deal needs 60 Senate votes. That means at least some Democrats, probably at least seven Democrats. So what's happening now is Democrats in the House and Senate are working together to see what they might be able to extract in order to get on board some kind of funding deal. Hakeem Jeffries, is the Democratic leader in the House today, spoke to reporters. He said he wants a bipartisan bill, but what he really means is Democrats want concessions.

That spending bill has to be both bipartisan, a product of negotiation, and it's got to serve the interests of the American people in terms of their health, safety, national security, and economic well-being. Those are a lot of criteria, but it really comes down to what this man, Chuck Schumer, the leader in the Senate for Democrats, wants. The pressure is on him and Jeffries to stand up to Trump. Democrats have almost no leverage anymore in Washington. This is one instance where they do.

So that's why they are moving toward maybe a potential shutdown. On the other hand, some Democrats say, no, a shutdown actually would help Trump. So they have some real decisions to make. And they have until the end of the month. So why are lawmakers feeling the pressure this week? You know, time, place, space, all of that doesn't make sense in Congress. They live in a different world than we do in terms of physics. But the time is actually much more constrained, much tighter than we think.

Let me take folks through that. So if you look at today, the beginning of the month, then the deadline being September 30th at the end of the month, oh, but wait, in the middle of the month, there's a congressional recess in that third week, entire week, Congress will be on recess. So that means that really the middle of the month is a key date. wants to get out on time. Really, they just have a couple of weeks if they want to make that deadline. And the other issue that Congress is juggling right now, including one that brought protesters to the Capitol today, is the demand for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files.

Tell us about that. We're in a day-to-day watch on this issue right now. So Jeffrey Epstein, of course, we're talking about the financier who was charged with sex crimes and was connected with many high-profile individuals at one point, friends with President Trump. And in the past month, there's been more questions about exactly what the president knew when. There's no evidence of wrongdoing, but there are more questions about what he knew and what the Justice Department is willing to release. So one thing going on right now is we faced protesters today that Congress, Republicans, themselves, saw.

This is video I took today outside a Republican news conference, all of these folks asking for the Jeffrey Epstein files to be released. Now, at the same time, there is a bipartisan movement in Congress from two members, Thomas Massey and Rokane, these are one Republican, one Democrat. They've today filed what's called a discharge petition to try and force a vote that would require all of the Epstein files to be released. Now, the pressure is on. Speaker Johnson spoke to reporters a few minutes ago. I was there about this discharge petition, and he says he's not on board this particular idea.

The reason that I was not comfortable with that and still am not comfortable with the discharge petition is because it was inartfully drafted. It does not adequately protect the innocent victims, and that is a critical component of this. Johnson says they will release the documents. I asked the man who's overseeing that, House Oversight Chairman James Comer, he said they have 34,000 pages. I said, well, you release these in weeks or when, and he said to me he hopes sooner. He said 34,000 pages? 34,000 pages they've gotten from the Justice Department. Well, let's shift our focus over to the Senate because there's a battle brewing right now for President Trump's nominations.

Is that right? Right. I'll summarize this quickly, but essentially, There is a backlog there in the Senate of Trump's nominations because Senate Democrats are not going along with just confirming a big loads of them by voice vote. Uncontroversial nominees, they're not allowing them to go through, again, because they're trying to get leverage. So Senate Republicans, sources tell me, including John Thune, the leader, are willing to change the rules. That's called going nuclear, and it really sets up some existential questions for the Senate. So we're going to be following that very, very closely. I think they are going to change the rules.

We just don't know how. Lots to track. Alisa Desjardin, thanks as always. You're welcome. President Trump announced late today that the United States has sunk a boat after it left Venezuela carrying drugs. It is the first known military strike in the region

since President Trump ordered an increased military presence in the Caribbean. Nick Schiffen's following all this, and he joins me now. So, Nick, tell us what do we know about this strike? President Trump said that the U.S. Navy operated against that boat that you said that was operated by Trenaragua that has been designated by the administration as a foreign terrorist organization. And the president posted this video on truth social this afternoon, saying 11 members of the group were sailing toward the United States, carrying illegal drugs, and attached to the video,

He wrote, quote, please let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. Beware. Thank you for your attention to this matter, multiple exclamation points. Now, as you said, I'ma, President Trump this summer, ordered a large Navy and Marine deployment to the area. You see some of the ships there. A Navy official says it includes destroyers, cruisers, as well as smaller ships capable

of launching Marines onto shore. In total, it's thousands of service members, including sublimbers. Marines. The administration describes it as a drug mission and uses the language of war as Secretary of State Marco Rubio did today. We destroyed a drug boat that left Venezuela, operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization, which is what these are. And he's been clear that the days of acting with impunity and having an engine shot down or a couple drugs grabbed off a boat, those days are over. Now we are going to wage combat against drug cartels.

that are flooding American streets and killing Americans. Now, that said, Omit, regional experts tell me the drug trade is highly decentralized, and fighting it is not usually a military effort. It is traditionally seen as law enforcement. So there are economic tools, there are diplomatic, political tools, and tools used by the drug enforcement agency. So that is what fundamentally has changed. It is the U.S. Navy, not the Coast Guard and the DAA, taking these steps.

The nature of the military deployment, though, means that some experts believe this is a message or threat to Nicolas Maduro, the head of Venezuela, whom Trump accused of controlling multiple gangs, including Tren Daraagua, and whom Trump tried to depose during the first term by backing an opposition figure. Reporters asked Rubio that specific question today, whether the U.S. would operate against Maduro. He said, look, this is a counter-drug operation, but he wouldn't discuss any future operations. And has there been any response from the Maduro government? in Venezuela. There has not been today to this strike, at least not in a couple hours, but just

yesterday, Nicolas Maduro gave a rare press conference. He described the military deployment by the Trump administration as proof the administration was seeking regime change, and he tried to paint Rubio, not Trump, as the aggressor. Mr. Persian. Mr. President Donald Trump, you must be careful because Marco Rubio wants to stain your hands with blood, South American, Caribbean, Venezuelan blood. They want to drag you into a bloodbath to tarnish the Trump name forever with a massacre against the Venezuelan people,

with a terrible war across South America and the Caribbean. This would be a full-scale continental war. Maduro trying to paint this clearly, Omna, as an inevitable U.S. military effort against Venezuela, which the Trump administration says is not on the cards right now. Nick Schiffran. Thank you as always.

Thank you. We start the day's other headlines in California. A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration's deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June was illegal. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that the administration, quote, willfully violated the law, adding that the government knew, quote, they were ordered. ordering troops to execute domestic law beyond their usual authority. The White House has signaled that it will appeal. The ruling comes as President Trump told reporters that he plans to send forces to Chicago,

saying, quote, we're going in but provided no timeline. Trump said Illinois's governor should call him to ask for help. If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it. Now, we're going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect. this country. Governor Pritzker immediately fired back saying Chicago does not need federal troops and bristling at the idea of calling the president for help. When did we become a country where it's okay for the U.S. president to insist on national television that a state should call him

to beg for anything, especially something we don't want? Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation, that we treat this as normal? President Trump has pointed to gun violence over the weekend in Chicago as a rationale for why the city needs federal assistance. Governor Prisker said today that the president would look for, quote, any excuse to put active duty military on Chicago's streets. The president's comments about sending troops to Chicago came during an event where he announced the relocation of U.S. Space Command.

It's moving its temporary home in Colorado Springs to a new one in. in Huntsville, Alabama. The announcement reverses the decision by former President Joe Biden to keep it in Colorado and ends a four-year battle between the two states over its location. Huntsville is already home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command.

In Afghanistan, the death toll from Sunday night's earthquake has risen to more than 1,400 people. At least 3,000 more were injured in the 6.0 magnitude quake. The UN officials warned that those numbers could rise. Authorities are using helicopters to evacuate the wounded, but rough terrain makes many victims hard to reach. In rural villages, many were crushed where they slept, as homes made of mud, brick, and wood collapsed.

Survivors say they've now been forced to sleep outside. Suddenly there was an earthquake, and people were screaming. When we came out, we saw that my brother's house had collapsed. My brother's three children were buried under the rubble. Now we are very scared. This is the third major earthquake since the Taliban took power in 2021. Authorities have asked the international community for assistance. In Sudan, an entire village in Darfur is gone after a landslide devastated the region,

killing as many as 1,000 people. It happened after days of heavy rainfall in central Darfur's remote Mara Mountains. Photos of the rocky aftermath showed where the village once stood. The Sudan Liberation Movement Army that controls the area says only a single villager survived. Sudan is already suffering from a humanitarian crisis following two years of civil war with famine conditions and parts of the Darfur region. UN officials say they're mobilizing to provide support to those affected by the landslide. In the Middle East, Israel is mobilizing tens of thousands of reservists as part of its expanded military offensive in Gaza City. Newly released footage by the Israel Defense Forces shows army tanks being prepared.

Some 40,000 reservists were due to report for duty today. That's according to Israeli Army radio. In the meantime, Gaza health officials say Israeli strikes today killed at least 47 people across the territory. Israel also repeated evacuation warnings to Palestinians in Gaza City, but residents say there's nowhere to go. We ask for the war to stop. We reached a point where death is better than displacement.

We will die in turn. I think we are moving dead bodies. We are dead already, just waiting for our turns. Also today, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said that 185 people died of malnutrition in August. That's the highest total in months. Back here at home, a federal judge, ordered Google to share its search results and some data with its rivals. The ruling is part of a landmark antitrust case aimed at addressing accusations that Google acts as a monopoly.

Judge Ahmed Mehta also put restrictions on payments that Google uses to ensure its search engine is the default option on smartphones and other devices, but he stops short of banning those payments outright. And Google won't have to sell off its popular Chrome browser. The move to cut into Google's operation is expected to ripple across the tech industry, and the company plans to appeal. American Vogue has a new editor for the first time in 37 years, though fashion legend Anna Wintour will still be calling many of the shots. Chloe Mow will be head of editorial content overseeing day-to-day operations at the famed magazine. She's worked at Vogue since 2011, most recently as the editor of Vogue.com. Mowell will report directly to Wintor, who no longer

hold the editor-in-chief title. But as chief content officer at Condonast, Wintour will still oversee more than two dozen brands, as well as the annual Met Gala. And on Wall Street today, stocks ended lower following the long holiday weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial average dropped nearly 250 points. The NASDAQ also fell around 250 points as tech stocks cooled after recent gains. The S&P 500 posted its worst loss in a month. And actor, Graham Green has died. We come far, you and me. I will not forget you.

Green is perhaps best known for his role as Kicking Bird opposite Kevin Costner in the 1990 epic Dances with Wolves, which earned him an Oscar nomination. As a member of the Oneida First Nation himself, Green played many other indigenous roles in films like Maverick and the Green mile. Over his nearly five-decade career, Green racked up nearly 200 film and TV credits. Along the way, he broke barriers for other native actors and often advocated for their greater

representation in the arts. Graham Green was 73 years old. Still to come, on the news hour, advice on accessing COVID vaccines after the CDC changed its recommendations. A look at the career of former Fox host turned U.S. attorney Janine Piero. And Lebanon works to disarm Hezbollah. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubinstein studio at WETA in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. The Trump administration will temporarily assign military lawyers to act as judges in immigration cases. A statement released by the Pentagon spokesperson,

says at the request of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense is identifying qualified judge advocates and civilian attorneys for details to serve as temporary immigration judges. These DOD attorneys will augment existing resources to help further combat a backlog of cases by presiding over immigration hearings. There are a number of questions about the implications of this novel move, and for that we turn to James McPherson. He was the Undersecretary of the Army during the first Trump administration, and also had a 25-year career in the Navy where he served as that service's top lawyer in uniform. Thank you for being with us. And before we get to the implications, I have to ask, in your view, is this legal, the expansion of the U.S. military into a

civilian judicial process? Well, there's certainly a lot of legal issues that is raised by this decision, not the least of which is whether or not it's appropriate to appoint a commissioned officer in the military to these positions, whether or not it violates the Posse Comitatis Act. There are some old Office of Legal Counsel opinions out of Department of Justice that indicate it is legal, but in a very narrow sense. And whether that narrow sense is met by appointing them as temporary immigration judges is yet to be seen. Well, how do the courtroom and administrative law skills that JAG lawyers develop in the military? How does that translate into serving as temporary immigration judges when immigration law is so specialized and complex?

As you said, it is very specialized and complex. What's very interesting is Thursday of last week, the Department of Justice changed the rules with regard who's qualified to be a temporary immigration judge. Prior to Thursday of last week, it required that they be a retired immigration judge or retired administrative law judge or have 10 years experience in practicing immigration law. As of Thursday of last week, the new rule is, any licensed attorney can be appointed as an immigration, temporary immigration judge. I think if a JAG is assigned to that, they will come to it with the skill set that they have as an attorney.

But they're certainly going to need to have some training, have some time to learn the various intricacies of immigration law, because as you said, it's a very specialized practice area. And NPR is reporting that these military lawyers will receive some two weeks of training. There is this question, though, could their dual role as members, of the armed forces and now as adjudicators of civilian immigration cases, will that raise questions about their independence and partiality? It certainly could raise questions along those lines. Again, I would hope that any officer, any commissioned officer would go into that job, understanding that their job is to administer justice and would do just that. And if they felt

that they were being pressured to do anything other than that, they would step away from that job and say, I can't do this. judges, as you know, they have the power to revoke green cards, to order deportations. What concerns you about assigning that authority to people without significant, as we said, immigration law experience? Well, what concerns me is that they could inadvertently make mistakes. And those mistakes would affect people's lives and would also create issues on appeal to the appellate courts, immigration courts. I just don't think it's a very good idea. I find it ironic. that they would utilize Jags when our Secretary of Defense holds them such low esteem.

Indeed, during his Senate confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he referred to uniformed military attorneys in very derogatory and quite obscene terms. I'm surprised now that they view them as having this skill set so that within two weeks they can learn this intricate area of law. The backlog that we mentioned is nearly four million cases long. Do you see this as a sustainable fix, even if it's a temporary one, or is this a politically expedient move? I don't think that it's attainable to get through that backlog.

As you said, in January, when this administration came in office, there were over 4 million cases pending. There are authorization for 600 immigration judges. Many of them have either quit or took advantage of the early retirement plan under this administration, and now there are great holes in that court system that they hope to fit to fill by a temporary basis. I'm not sure they'll be able to get through that backlog. James McPherson, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives on this late-breaking news.

We appreciate it. Thank you. Many Americans who want to get the newest COVID vaccines may now have a harder time doing so after the Food and Drug Administration limited approval for the shots to adults, 65 and older, or those who were at high risk for severe disease. The vaccine was previously available to anyone six months and older. People have questions, and we're going to try to answer some of them now with Caitlin Jedalina, she's adjunct professor at the Yale School of Public Health and the author of the substack column, your local epidemiologist.

Welcome back to the NewsHour. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Let's just start with the basics here. Right now, according to the FDA, who is eligible to get the COVID-19? vaccine. That's right. So FDA narrowed its label last week for COVID-19 vaccine to only people that are 65 and older and those six months through 64 years with at least one high-risk condition.

This is a big departure from past years, and it is quite unusual for the FDA to restrict a vaccine this way. Meanwhile, medical groups don't necessarily agree with the FDA lay. label. Pediatricians, for example, recommend all kids under two get vaccinated, whether they have a high-risk condition or not. Plus, you know, high-risk kids and those living with vulnerable family members. And so, as you can imagine, this is starting to get confusing pretty quickly because you can end up with scenarios where on one hand, pediatricians say a healthy one-year-old should get a COVID vaccine this fall because of their little vulnerable

immune systems. But on the other hand, FDA label says no. And so that means for some families, they could be pushed onto getting off-label COVID-19 vaccines this fall. Just one more definitional question here. When you're talking about high risk, what are we talking about? What does that include? Yeah, so FDA didn't spell this out last week, but they did defer to CDC's list. And this is good news because it's very broad. High risk includes everything from pregnancy to those with diabetes or obesity and cancer, disabilities, or even mental health conditions. And so by some estimates, that covers nearly three quarters of U.S. adults. And as folks are trying to understand this change, I mean, you mentioned it's not typical

for these kinds of policy changes to happen. There's this agreement in the medical community. What is your understanding of what led to the change? Did something change with the vaccines or COVID itself? Yeah, so science hasn't changed, right? The vaccine is still effective at providing additional protection, and it's also safer than the virus itself. What has changed is, one, the environment, right? Most of us now have some level of immunity, and our ICUs aren't overflowing. We're not in the middle of an emergency, which is great. And so on one hand, it does make sense to prioritize pregnancy and kids under two and older adults, for example. But the way this policy is being rolled out, it's out of order, it's inconsistent, it's very unclear, it's not transparent, has left a lot of pharmacies and physicians and families scrambling, mainly because RFK, our Health and Human Services Secretary, doesn't believe that this process was evidence-based, although it's been the process we've used for the past 90 years. So you mentioned the pharmacy piece of it there. People have probably seen both CVS and Walgreens are now limiting access to the COVID vaccine in some states, requiring prescriptions in others. If people want to get the shot, are they going to be able to get it through their local pharmacy and is insurance going to cover it? Yeah, this is like the billion dollar question, right? And this is critical because 90% of COVID vaccines are given at pharmacies. So right now, two, things are happening. One is in about 16 states, pharmacies like CVS or Walgreens, have paused COVID-19 vaccines

all together because their state's authority depends on very clear guidance, which we haven't really gotten from CDC. We are supposed to get it in June. They still hasn't come out yet. So those states are in limbo. The second thing that's happening is that in other states, pharmacies may still offer the vaccine. They may still have them in stock, but for people who only fit the FDA label, pharmacists generally cannot give vaccines off label. So if you're a healthy 40-year-old who wants to get the shot, you'll probably be turned away from your pharmacy. Insurance coverage is also in limbo. It's not entirely clear whether health insurance is going to cover the cost of your vaccine. And this uncertainty makes it very difficult for families who want to protect.

themselves. So a lot of questions. We don't yet have the answers to, it seems like. But, you know, as you mentioned, pretty much anyone six months and over could get the shot before this policy change. But we also point out, uptick of the vaccine has been very low among adults. CDC data showed that less than a quarter of adults received the shot last year. So for most people, if you have the original shots, if you've got some boosters, if you've had COVID, should they still be getting the COVID vaccine? What we're seeing is that the data is consistent, that if you get a COVID-19 vaccine,

you have additional protection against COVID infection, albeit not perfect, but also severe disease. For at least four to six months after the vaccine, it is getting really confusing. For my family, I'm going to still follow the evidence-based guidance for medical societies. I am young, but I also have a chronic condition, so I will still be getting this vaccine this fall. Also, the vaccines aren't the only tool we have in our tool belt.

I'm sure people are really sick of the Swiss cheese model, but there's also other steps to take not to get sick, wearing a mask and crowded indoor spaces, testing before you visit grandparents in the nursing home. There's many ways to balance risk at this moment. If I ask you to take kind of step back and look at the bigger picture, right now. We saw last week, Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., fired the CDC director, Dr. Susan Menares, that also then led to the resignation of multiple other senior CDC officials who all said they were concerned about his leadership, concerned about his stance on vaccines. I just want to get your response to that as someone who tracks this very closely.

What are your concerns? And are you worried about the CDC losing its credibility in this moment? last week was a huge week in public health because essentially CDC imploded, right? Like you said, the director and four senior leaders were pushed out. And these aren't not just bureaucrats. There were very steady hands who guided us through crises after crises with clarity, compassion, and were evidence-informed. And when leaders like this are forced out, it is not just the agency that suffers. It is all of us, right? A weaker CDC means communities are more vulnerable, from outbreaks to chronic diseases to even basic health data. The foundation of public health is eroding faster than I ever thought possible. And I don't say this lightly, but if we do not change the ship's direction, I truly think our nation's health security is at risk.

Caitlin Jettelina, author of the Substack column, Your Local Epidemiologist. Always good to speak with you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And President Trump's continued push for greater control over Washington, D.C. He's relying more on his friend and former Fox News host, Janine Piro. She's the new U.S.

attorney for the District of Columbia, and as William Brigham reports, she brings her outspoken controversial style to one of the top law enforcement jobs in the nation's capital. No more tolerance of hatred, no more mercy for criminals. She's often one of the loudest voices in the room. I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or a. anyone else. Janine Piro, the former Fox News commentator, has emerged as one of the central figures in the federal takeover of Washington, D.C.,'s law enforcement. Today, we're honored to swear in

Janine Piro, somebody I've known for a long time, and she's an incredible person. A close friend to the president, Piro was appointed the city's interim U.S. attorney in May after Trump was forced to withdraw Ed Martin, his first choice for the job after pressure from Senate Republicans. Piro was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in August. She is unique. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times has covered Piro for years. Piro, unlike a lot of these other folks, has had a 30, 35-year history with Trump. She comes from a time and a place where he is from, New York in the 80s and 90s.

I was there, too. And there's not much of a learning curve. The Honorable Judge, Janine Piero, presiding. Piro first rose to national fame as a TV judge. And then on Fox News, as a political commentator known for her blunt talk. Because we need to kill them. We need to kill them. She vigorously attacked Democrats like Hillary Clinton. The woman's either had a lobotomy or she's been out in the woods too long.

President Joe Biden. You might as well put the president on a milk cart because Joe Biden is nowhere to be found. and President Obama's Justice Department. The stench coming out of the Justice Department and the FBI is like that of a third world country where money and bullies and clubs decide elections. Her in-your-face demeanor earned her a legion of adoring conservative fans and a skewering on Saturday Night Live. Judge Janine, I have not seen you in a while. Oh, I'm still here.

My sole odd facts is on every Saturday at 9, a full hour before the nursing hospital. But Piro's rhetoric has also gotten her in trouble. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law? In 2019, Piro was suspended by Fox after she suggested that Democratic representative Elon Omar's wearing of a hijab was un-American. And her repeated promotion of groundless conspiracy theories about the 2020 campaign. The president's lawyers alleging a company called Dominion, which they say started in Venezuela with Cuban money and with the assistance of smartmatic software, a backdoor is capable of flipping votes. Comments like that are why she was one of the defendants in the successful defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion voting systems against Fox News, which the network settled for $787 million in 2023.

Jeanine Piro was informed multiple times, according to the Dominion affidavit, that things she was saying on the air were not supported by fact. Fox had an in-house fact-checking organization that was in contact with Piro's producer, and the producer was in touch with Piro. She was armed with the information, which we should call the truth, and she chose to go on the air and spout falsehoods in support of Trump. Piro's deposition in another lawsuit, one brought by a different voting machine company, show Piro acknowledging that, contrary to what she said on air, she knew the 2020 election was free and fair. But long before television, Piro had a legal career, first as a prosecutor and then New York County judge. In 1983, she was elected district attorney for Westchester County after running as a moderate Republican. She was beloved by the tabloids and cable TV for her quotability.

In 2006, she lost a bid to be New York State Attorney General. She was a serious prosecutor viewed as an effective and serious prosecutor who began her career at a time when prosecutions for domestic violence and sexual abuse against women and children were not prioritized. She was a real pioneer in that. And on May 22nd, I saw it. As the new U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Piro has moved quickly to beef up her office. If you want a job in the nation's capital, in the premier office, the largest U.S. attorney's office, contact me. And immediately implement Trump's Law and Order campaign.

She ordered her prosecutors to seek the maximum possible criminal charges for anyone arrested in D.C. And is repeatedly called for changes to local laws, she says, are too lenient on juvenile offenders. And I want to send a message that we are going to catch you, that we are going to change the laws, that if you're 14, 15, 16, 17, we're going to bring you into the justice system. She's also embraced social media in her new job. So it is a coordinated effort. We are in full throttle right now trying to make the district safe. But it hasn't all been successful for Piro. D.C. grand juries seemingly angry at the federal takeover of their city,

have refused to approve charges against some defendants, including Sean Dunn, the man who became a symbol of the anti-Trump resistance when he threw a sandwich at a federal agent in the nation's capital. And we're going to back the police to the hilt. So there, stick your subway sandwich somewhere else. So why did she leave a multi-million dollar TV job to come back to government? I think there are two reasons why she's back. in the game. First, Trump needed her, but I think on another level, I think she wants to have

circularity in her career. She began as a serious prosecutor, and I think kind of confounding the caricature of her, she perhaps wants to conclude her career doing the same thing. For the PBS News Hour, I'm William Brangham. As the Trump administration continues to pledge to target the worst of the worst criminals in its immigration crackdown, many others are getting caught up in that crackdown. Last month, 28-year-old community organizer Catalina Sochi Santiago was detained by customs and border protection. Despite living legally in the U.S. four years under the deferred action for childhood arrivals program or DACA, she remains in ICE detention in Texas today. I spoke with her wife, Desiree Miller, a few days ago. Desiree Miller, welcome to the NewsHour.

Thank you for joining us. Hi, thank you for having me. So your wife, So Chil, is currently in iced detention. She's been there since she was detained back on August 3rd. What can you tell us about where she is, about what you know, about the conditions inside, and also how she's doing? Yeah, thank you for that question. I'm able to speak to her every day. so we usually talk every morning

and obviously there's some really concerning things that she's told me about the conditions inside of the detention I think some of the main ones are that people don't receive the medical attention that they need in particular there are some pregnant women who don't get medical attention and a lot of the times when people ask for medical attention

they're just given water the water smells weird in there they've been given food multiple times that is either expire or makes people sick there's a lot of talk about whether or not the conditions are humane or not, but I think that there's no way to make that situation humane when you have ripped someone away from their family, all of these things that they do

to make it seem as if it's humane, letting people talk to their families, having video calls and having these quote-unquote mental health checkups. I think that no mental health checkup is going to make up for the amount of trauma that has been inflicted by being ripped away from their families and trying and having my wife and other people trying to deport them without cause. I mean, you two have been separated for weeks now. What has that been like? It's a really difficult experience.

I think that knowing also that a lot of times the conditions that she's in, that she's not able to sleep well because they have the lights on all night and the guards are very loud and walk very loudly throughout all night so that they're not able to sleep, it's really hard for me to be out here trying to go about my day because I still have to, you know, take care of her stuff and I still have to work while I'm also trying to just live with this fact that she's in there suffering. Take us back, if you can, Desiree. She was detained before boarding a domestic flight. She was approached by someone wearing a Border Patrol uniform in the airport.

There is this video of that moment when the officer seems to be checking her identification. Hey, I'm asking you some immigration documents here. Where did the video come from and just tell us about? about that moment. What happened? On that day, August 3rd, she sent me a video of that officer questioning her, the one that is now all over social media, and told me that they had taken her DACA card and were refusing to give it back. So after that, I was obviously very concerned. I was texting her and calling her, and I didn't get any response after that. So for several hours, I didn't know where she was, if something had happened to her, if everything was fine,

and she was just on the plane. Until around 8.30, one of our friends here received a call from her, And she let our friend know where she was being detained, and that's how we found out where she was at. We should underscore here. She's 28 years old. She has valid DACA status, right? She's renewed that several times over the years, which does require verification and background checks and the like. We did ask DHS about her case. They gave us a statement in which they called her a criminal illegal alien.

And they also said this in part, quote, her criminal history includes charges for trespassing, possession of narcotics and drug paraphernalia. She'll remain a nice custody pending her removal proceedings. So, Desire, I just want to get your response to that. And also, is it your understanding that these charges that they reference in the statement, that is the basis for her arrest and potential deportation? So DHS, in that statement, and since then, has blatantly lied to try and justify the fact that they are detaining her unlawful. her legal team has confirmed multiple times that she has not been convicted of any crime that would cause her to lose her DACA status,

nor are there any pending criminal charges against her. She, to this day, holds a valid work permit that allows her to work and travel within the United States legally. So DHS and I don't have any legal basis for why they detained her, why they are holding her, or why they are trying to initiate deportation proceedings. And I think it should be very concerning to everyone that. ICE is knowingly holding someone who has protection from deportation under DACA and is claiming that their DACA status doesn't matter. You know, the administration, as you've probably seen, regularly puts out information about who they're taking into immigration custody, who they're working to deport.

Violent criminals are usually who they highlight in those messages, and there are absolutely violent convicted criminals among those they're working to deport, but they continuously say that they are working and targeting the worst of the worst. what does that mean to you? What's your reaction to that? There's a lot. There's a lot going on inside me to hear that, which is really an example of how they're using this language

of calling people criminals, illegal aliens, as a way to distract from what the reality is of what they're doing, which is these are people who they are taking and detaining and trying to deport their people's wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, grandparents. I think such is really an example of that and that she has dedicated her entire life to improving her community in so many different ways to protect people who have immigrated to this country, and now she works in our community.

It's also worth noting, Desiree, there's over 500,000 people with DACA status in the United States. That was obviously set up as a program that was meant to shield from deportation, people who were brought to this country without documentation as children. But the government's also said that DACA, they say, does not confer. any form of legal status in this country. What do you think happens next for Sochi? I'm definitely not an illegal expert. I'm just a Sochi's spouse who's obviously trying to understand all of this that is

national policy unfolding within our daily lives. I think that we are fully anticipating her to come home to her family, to her community, where she belongs. I think it's horrible that my wife has been used as an example, but I hope that it helps bring light to the reality. of what is happening and the dangers that we are facing in this administration. Desiree Miller, thank you so much for joining us tonight. I really appreciate you making the time.

Thank you. The Lebanese government is close to approving an American plan to disarm the U.S. designated terrorist group Hezbollah. decision marks an historic first to dismantle the Iran-backed group. The agreement proposes an aggressive timeline to complete Hezbollah's disarmament by the end of the year in return for Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon's south, plus an end to hostilities. Special correspondent Simone Fultin has more from Beirut. A new order is taking shape in the ruins of Lebanon's latest war. Last year, Israel killed almost the entire leadership of Hezbollah and thousands of its fighters. Now, there is a plan to take what remains of its weapons. Not far from where

Hassan Nasrallah's leader for 30 years was killed with U.S.-made bunker-busting bombs last fall, I sat down with one of the group's parliament members. This was an American paper that was discussed within the Lebanese government. The paper is a complete submission from the Lebanese to the American government. The so-called American paper was presented by President Trump's special envoy, Tom Barrack. The backlash was further fueled last week when he called the Lebanese press corps animalistic during a chaotic news conference. And I want to tell you something. The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we're gone. So you want to know what's happening, act civilized, act kind, act tolerant, because this is the problem with what's happening.

in the region. Barrack later apologized for those comments. The plan he is pushing once the Lebanese government to first disarm Hezbollah and only then would Israel consider withdrawing from the areas it still occupies in Lebanon south. They will meet tick for tat in exact cadence what we will do in an effort to make sure that Hezbollah is not armed as an adversary against If you reject this agreement, what is the alternative that you are proposing? The alternative is for Israel and America to comply with the ceasefire agreement that was signed on November 27, 2024. Why is the United States not insisting on Israel's obligations under that agreement? Why is the United States imposing things on Lebanon, but not imposing anything on Israel?

That November ceasefire was also guaranteed by the United States as well as France. But according to the UN peacekeeping mission called UNIFIL, Israel has committed around 8,000 violations since it went into effect, including drone surveillance, airstrikes and ground operations. I'm headed towards the border with UN peacekeepers who are monitoring the situation on the ground. So on the other side of that wall, that's Israel. Yeah, on the other side we have Israel. And what's the closest IDF checkpoint? On the right, you can see the tower, the red and white tower, is one of the one of the other side. is one of the advanced checkpoint of the IDF.

Have you seen any Hezbollah activity in recent months? Personally, no, we don't have any kind of this activity. Some violation there is from IDF side, more or less, not from Lebanese side. The IDF carries out near daily bombardments, like these airstrikes captured on video on Sunday. Israel has also built at least five new outposts on Lebanese soil. My understanding right now is that you cannot drive on some parts of the road that is on the Lebanese side. What is the reason for that? Because at the moment there is an IDF position, close this position, but we are working to regain freedom of movement

and to remove any kind of roadblock that are in this position. Meanwhile, Lebanon has largely complied with the ceasefire with only 21 projectiles fired from Lebanese territory since November. Hezbollah has surrendered more than 500 weapons stores and military installations in southern Lebanon, taking steps for the first time to fulfill its obligations under a UN resolution that ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah and Israel. The new agreement has moved the goalpost, requiring Hezbollah to also give up weapons elsewhere in the country.

For decades, Hezbollah's military capabilities have far exceeded those of the Lebanese armed forces, earning it a reputation of a state within a state. While Hezbollah's Shia constituency, Washington's plan as an affront to Lebanon's sovereignty, Hezbollah's detractors seeed as an historic opportunity to weaken the group's influence. can the group's influence over the state. Within the Lebanese government, the effort is championed by U.S.-backed President Josef Aoun, a Christian and former Lebanese army commander. We urge without hesitation to affirm that weapons are exclusively in the hands of the army and security forces

in order to restore the world's confidence in us and in the ability of the state to maintain its security in the face of Israeli aggressions. But the push for Hezbollah's disarmament by the end of year risks leaving Lebanon with few means to defend itself. Dr. Mohamed Haidar is one of four Shia cabinet members who oppose the plan. We know that when the Lebanese army is spread out across the country, it will not be able to carry out the tasks required. At the moment, when Israel decides to strike any area in Lebanon, it has no ability. to prevent any plane from reaching its target, let alone shoot it down. Why is it that until now, the Lebanese army is so weak? This is a political and diplomatic decision.

Until now, there has been an international decision not to supply the Lebanese army with weapons. Whenever we try to find a country that is willing to provide weapons to Lebanon, the Americans decide that it's forbidden to armed. Lebanon except through American channels. Washington provides around $150 million annually to the Lebanese Army, most of which goes towards non-lethal equipment. That's around 1% of the $12.5 billion in military aid given to Israel last year. The U.S. has promised Lebanon to increase military aid to $1 billion per year for the next 10 years.

Do you believe that this is a firm commitment? There are no guarantees. Who can guarantee its continuity for 10 years? And will this money give the army the ability to defend? Or will it just be used for symbolic things like vehicles and other devices? On the ground, the Lebanese army is spread thin, a lone vehicle here and there. 4,500 additional troops should be recruited and trained by December. Many Christians support the idea. Shadi Sayyah is the mayor of Al-Mashab, a Christian village less than a mile from the border with Israel.

The Lebanese government includes different sects, religions, and components of Lebanese society. So we will submit to whatever the government decides. We believe in Lebanese institutions. We believe in the Lebanese army. Some fear that Washington's plan could pit the Lebanese army against. against Hezbollah while fueling tensions between Lebanon's different sects. Israel's goal is to turn the battle into an internal battle because then it will be easier for it to keep the southern lands or invade other lands under the pretext that the Lebanese people are distracted with each other and unable to provide security. It's all part of a broader reshuffle taking place in the Middle East, but in Lebanon it risks upsetting the delicate balance of power that has kept internal conflict at bay.

Bay. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Simone Fulte in Lebanon. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire News Hour team, thank you for joining us.