WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening. I'm WilliamBrangham. Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz are away. On the “NewsHour” tonight: TheDepartment of Justice and Google make closing arguments in a landmark trialthat could change how we use the Internet. Then: Trump White House Communications Director Hope Hicks takes the stand in theformer president's hush money trial. And on World Press Freedom Day, aPalestinian's journalist firsthand account of his family's fightto survive the war in Gaza. DIANA ODEH, Daughter of Shams Odeh: We herein Gaza suffer that we need our children to have a better future. We don't know if weare going to make it until the morning.
(BREAK) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Welcome to the “NewsHour.” There are signs tonight that high interestrates could finally be slowing U.S. job growth. The Labor Department reports thatemployers added a net of 175,000 jobs in April. That was well belowexpectations. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate inched up 1/10thto 3.9 percent. The Federal Reserve has said it needs to see a cooling of growth andinflation before it can cut interest rates. A sitting member of Congress, Texas DemocratHenry Cuellar, and his wife were arrested today on federal charges of bribery andconspiracy. They're accused of taking.
Nearly $600,000 in bribes from a Mexican bankand an oil company controlled by Azerbaijan. In return, Cuellar allegedlypushed legislation favorable to Azerbaijan. The couple denies the charges. In Canada, police have arrested three peoplein the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia last June. The threeare Indian nationals. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had suggested that the Indiangovernment was involved in the killing. Today, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police saidthey're looking at that possibility. MANDEEP MOOKER, Superintendent, Royal CanadianMounted Police: This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others mayhave played a role in this homicide,.
And we remain dedicated to finding andarresting each one of these individuals. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The Indian governmenthas denied any involvement in the murder. College campuses across the country were somewhatquieter today after days of protests against the war in Gaza. All told, more than 2,300demonstrators have been arrested so far. That includes at least a dozen early today at New YorkUniversity. After the raid, police stood guard as workers cleaned out the protesters' encampment.A larger campsite had been cleared last month. The protest movement has also spreadto universities in the Middle East, Europe and beyond. In Australia, pro-Palestinianprotesters are camped at the University of Sydney. Today, counterprotesters ralliedwith Israeli and Australian flags.
In Paris, French police moved in and cleared out students who had been occupying theprestigious Sciences Po university. JACK (Student, Sciences Po): I'm herebecause the riot police removed me. But I'm here because I want to show mysolidarity with the Palestinian people and because I want this movementto spread to all the campuses. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Both the Australian and French protests were largely peacefulwith no reports of arrests. In Gaza, a Palestinian hospital reportedat least seven people were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike on Rafah. Daylightrevealed what was left of the home that bore the.
Brunt of the attack near the Egyptian border.Most of the dead were reported to be children. Meantime, a group representing Israeli hostagesconfirmed that a 49-year-old man died during the Hamas attack on Israel in October, butthat his body had not yet been returned. Two rocket launches today highlightedtrailblazing ventures into space. China sent up a robotic craft to bringback samples from the far side of the moon. The first-of-its-kindmission could take two months. And, in Australia, a German companytested a rocket powered by paraffin, an ingredient in candle wax. The firm says thisfuel could cut satellite launch costs in half. Back in this country, parts of SoutheasternTexas have been inundated after nine inches.
Of rain fell in just 24 hours.Some highways and schools around Houston were closed. A flood warning is ineffect for a large area around the city. The rain came on fast and strong, forcing someto abandon their cars. Emergency crews had to carry out water rescues and officials warnedof worse to come along the San Jacinto River. JUDGE LINA HIDALGO, Harris County, Texas:It is not your typical river flood. I know that folks who live along theriver, they're river people, as we discussed when I was out there theother day. They see this happen all the time. This is not that. This is not whathappened in January. This is much worse. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Forecasters predict theflooding will continue through the weekend.
The Biden administration will make federallysubsidized health care available to migrants brought to the U.S. as children, the so-calleddreamers. Under a directive announced today, some 100,000 are expected to enroll for coverage under the Affordable Care Act nextyear. Enrollment opens November 1. And on Wall Street, stocks rose on hopesthat slower job growth will prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.The Dow Jones industrial average gained 450 points to close at 38675. The Nasdaq rose315 points, 2 percent. The S&P 500 added 63. Still to come on the “NewsHour”: a look atthe terrorist threat posed by a resurgent ISIS in Syria; David Brooks and JonathanCapehart weigh in on the week's headlines;.
And Vietnamese-Americans along the GulfCoast share tributes to home and community. One of former President Trump's most senioraides took the stand today during his hush money trial in New York. Hope Hicksserved as Mr. Trump's press secretary during the 2016 campaign and was hisWhite House communications director. On the stand, she detailed how Trump andhis inner circle handled the revelations about alleged extramarital affairs andthe payments made to bury those stories. Andrea Bernstein is covering the formerpresident's legal battles for NPR and was in the courthouse today, and she joins us now. Andrea, so nice to see you again.
During the prosecution's questioning today, they delved into what happened inthe campaign when that infamous “Access Hollywood” tape dropped. What didwe learn from Hope Hicks about that today? ANDREA BERNSTEIN, NPR Contributor: Right. So she was the person to first hearabout that from The Washington Post, which asked her for a comment on the story theywere about to run. And she — there was an e-mail shown that she had sent to campaign leadershipwhere she had suggested, deny, deny, deny. And as she read that on the stand, shesort of laughed, because she realized that they weren't going to be able to dothat. And she talked about how she went upstairs and there was a sort of a campaignbrain trust preparing Trump for the debate.
She saw all of them, asked them what they weretalking about, and when he learned about the tape, he said, “Well, that doesn't soundlike something that I would say.” But, obviously, it was. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And that storyis being told to jurors because it helps set the template for how thecampaign then had to go into panic mode, and then Stormy Daniels' storybecomes even more fraught for them. What did we learn from her about that revelation? ANDREA BERNSTEIN: Right. So the campaign settles on sayingthat it was locker room talk. And Trump actually apologized. Andthere was a video played in the.
Courtroom of him apologizing. Itwas actually played twice today. But over the next two weeks, the end of thecampaign, all of these allegations come up, and then it's the Friday before the election.And The Wall Street Journal sends Hope Hicks an e-mail about a story it's planning to run aboutthis agreement we have been hearing so much with Karen McDougal and “The National Enquirer,” theformer Playboy model, to keep her story quiet. And they also talk about Stormy Daniels. And what is so interesting is that Hicksgoes to three people involved, David Pecker, the former publisher of “TheNational Enquirer.” Trump, the candidate, and Michael Cohen, and they all essentiallytell her there is nothing to the story.
And so she goes to The Wall Street Journaland she says to them, it is absolutely untrue, which, of course, is not the case, as jurorsheard last week from David Pecker himself. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And whatdid she detail about Cohen's then subsequent negotiations with Stormy Daniels? ANDREA BERNSTEIN: Well, she didn't know alot about it, but there was very interesting testimony about how, when this storyactually breaks, Trump is in the White House, and Michael Cohen — The Wall StreetJournal, the same reporters do another story. It's now over a year later. They detaileverything regarding Stormy Daniels. And Trump tells her that Michael Cohen didthis on his own out of the goodness of his.
Heart. The prosecution asked, doesthat sound like the Michael Cohen you know? And she basically said no. She didnot know him to be a charitable person. And she sort of sniffed out the story, butshe left the White House not long after, went to FOX News, before actually coming backto work in the White House for Trump in 2020. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what didthe — what do Trump's legal team do? How do they handle a witness like her? Because this is someone who's very,very close to the former president. ANDREA BERNSTEIN: Right. Her testimony was clear. She seemed tohave very good recall about all kinds of.
Events. It was at the very beginning ofher cross-examination, which was brief, in which the defense was trying to suggest that,well, it was her job to try to influence the media coverage. That's what campaigns do, thatTrump at the time was concerned about Melania. She talked about Trump telling her to blocknewspaper delivery at the residence. But at the very beginning of her testimony, when shewas talking about her early work for the Trump Organization, she became overwhelmed. Shestarted to cry. She had to take a break. It just seemed a lot for this former aide, extremely loyal, to be testifying atthe criminal trial of her former boss. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Andrea Bernsteinof NPR, thank you so much, as always.
ANDREA BERNSTEIN: Thank you. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: A landmark antitrust trial between the Departmentof Justice and Google is coming to an end, with both parties delivering closing arguments. As Stephanie Sy explains, Google is accusedof monopolizing the Internet search market, sidelining competitors, and harming consumers. STEPHANIE SY: William, the JusticeDepartment claims that Google struck illegal deals with companies like Apple,paying them billions of dollars to be the default search engine on phones and otherdevices and crowding out competition.
Google argues it has the best search engine, and that's why consumers choose it.The decision on this case may not only change the way Google does business. Itcould lead to a breakup of the company. For more, I'm joined by Rebecca Allensworth, who teaches contract and antitrustlaw at Vanderbilt Law School. Rebecca, it's great to haveyou with us on the “NewsHour.” So, first, set the stage for us, becausethe Justice Department's under both former President Trump and now President Biden havebeen trying to rein in tech monopolies in various cases brought against these powerfulcompanies. But this was the first to go to.
Trial last fall. What was the most compellingtestimony you heard on both sides of this? REBECCA ALLENSWORTH, Vanderbilt Law School:Well, I think, on the side of the government, they really made a good case by pointing outMicrosoft's difficulty in entering this market. Microsoft wanted to make Bing somethingthat was a real rival for Google, and they just could not get pastthese de facto exclusive deals that Google had with Apple and withAndroid. I think that's really strong. I think the best testimony on Google's side isthe idea that Google's a great product. We all sort of prefer it. If we were given a choice, wewould probably pick it. And so what exactly does the government want here, a choice screen wherewe're all just going to click Google anyway?.
Those, I think, are the strongestarguments that I heard on both sides. STEPHANIE SY: And, of course, youhad a big tech giant, Satya Nadella, testifying, as well as smaller search enginecompanies that say they're being crowded out. So now you have closing arguments. Whathas stood out to you about these last arguments and what the district judgein the case, Amit Mehta, has said? REBECCA ALLENSWORTH: He seems skeptical ofthe idea that Google is not a monopolist. They have to — the government has to provetwo things to prevail in this case. First, they have to show that Google has monopolypower, and they have to show that they used bad acts or exclusionaryconduct to maintain that power.
And I think that, as I — my belief aboutthe merits of this case is that Google is definitely a monopolist, and Mehta seemedto think that too. He was very skeptical of arguments that Google was making that theycompete with vertical search places like when you go to Amazon to search for a product or yougo to Expedia to search for a travel opportunity. He said those are not the same thing asgeneral search. So he's tipped his hand a little bit in that department. He seemeda little bit more even in the way he was talking about the bad acts or the exclusionarybehavior. But he did say the big question, which is if defaults don't matter andif competition is just to click away, why are you, Google, paying Apple $23billion a year to be that default?.
STEPHANIE SY: And from what I understand, Google has like 90 percent ofthe search market as a result. This case is considered a test case of whetherU.S. antitrust law can adequately address the novel problems presented by new technologies. Howhard is it to win these types of antitrust cases and has the law evolved enough to deal withthe rapid developments we have seen in tech? REBECCA ALLENSWORTH: So these casesare very hard to win. Antitrust law has itself evolved to be very unfriendly forplaintiffs, like — including the government. But I do think that antitrust law is upto this. This is very analogous in some ways to the Microsoft case, which wasthe biggest tech monopolization case.
Before this one from the late'90s. And, actually, all along, since the passage of the Sherman Act,there have been networked industries, industries like the railroads, where you haveto kind of treat the whole thing as a thing of value to consumers, that you want something bigand networked, you don't want to break it up. And so we have some good precedentsand some good case law that would be applicable to this dispute. But, like allantitrust cases, this one is hard to win. STEPHANIE SY: This has been called the biggestantitrust case in the U.S. in a quarter-century. But depending on how this judge rules, and thatmay take months, it may have no effect, right? Or it could lead to major changesif he rules against Google,.
Or it could just lead to the status quo. REBECCA ALLENSWORTH: Well, I think it's unlikelyto lead to a breakup. I think that it's possible the government will ask for that, butI don't think they're likely to get it. I think what they are likely to get if theywin is a pronouncement that Google's no longer allowed to enjoy this default status onour devices. The question then becomes, OK, so if there is a choice screen,will consumers really switch away? Will competition be possible? And while thatseems hard to believe that even I personally would choose something other than Google, itdoes seem that Google is worried about that, to the tune of $23 billiona year in the case of Apple.
So it could really lead to some opening upof competition. We will just have to see. STEPHANIE SY: Rebecca Allensworthworth of Vanderbilt Law School, thanks so much for your expertise. Thank you. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Today is World Press Freedom Day. The Committee to Protect Journalists says sometwo dozen journalists have been killed so far this year, the vast majority of them dyingin Gaza. All told, at least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza,Israel, and Lebanon since the start of the war, making this by far the deadliestconflict for reporters in recent memory.
So we wanted to give you a look at the lifeof our own journalist in Gaza, cameraman and producer Shams Odeh. He's been filming inGaza since the October 7 terrorist attacks. Here's Nick Schifrin. NICK SCHIFRIN: Gaza today is defined bydestruction, death and displacement. And Gaza producer and cameraman Shams Odehhas documented and experienced all three. SHAMS ODEH, Photographer and Producer:There is a lot of people killed here in this place in Rafah. This ismy tent, my bed, and my kitchen. NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, this is his canvas home,where the war forced him and his family to flee in December. They live underneath the constant soundof Israeli drones in Emirati tents, part of a tent.
City in Deir al Balah, one of tens of thousandsof displaced families finding a way to live. Four-year-old Kareem leads a gaggle ofgrandchildren. The youngest, 1-year-old Rose, sleeps with a prized possession. Theirmother, Diana, is Shams' eldest child. DIANA ODEH, Daughter of ShamsOdeh: My message to the world is, we are humans. We are not numbers.We deserve to live a better life, such as any person in the world.So we all here evacuated our homes. NICK SCHIFRIN: In November, even after aninitial displacement, they had a real roof over their heads near Nuseirat. A madhouse ofextended cousins lived in a house Shams built himself, with Benjamin Netanyahu's televisedspeeches and Diana Odeh's deferred dreams.
DIANA ODEH: We here in Gaza suffer, thatwe need our children to have a better future. I want my kid Kareemto be a doctor in the future, but we don't know if we aregoing to make until the morning. NICK SCHIFRIN: But the children now knowthings they should never have to know. DIANA ODEH: My son Kareem even knows if this bomb– if this bomb is dangerous or not. He tells me: “Mom, it's far away. It's faraway. It's not beside us.” NICK SCHIFRIN: But, one day, it was beside them, and Shams' house is now reduced to rubble, wheregrandkids once played, debris and devastation. SHAMS ODEH: I choose to livehere far away from troubles,.
Far away from militant places. I choosethis place to live in peace, me and my kids. NICK SCHIFRIN: This house was hislife's work, his family's safe haven. SHAMS ODEH: My dream was that everyone, Israelis,Palestinians live near each other with peace, with love. And this bloody war must end,must end because of our kids and their kids, for a good future for them. We mustteach them how to love each other. NICK SCHIFRIN: Love might feel lost in KhanYunis, once home to half-a-million people, where today houses are flattened like pancakesand apartment blocks are cut into carcasses, including one more Odeh family home. SHAMS ODEH: This is the last home that our– my family owned in all of the Gaza Strip,.
After destroying my apartment in NorthGaza, then my house in Nuseirat camp. NICK SCHIFRIN: The Israeli militarysays it does not target journalists, and blames Hamas for the death of Gaza civilians. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli PrimeMinister: Hamas places its weapons, it's terrorists in hospitals, schools,mosques and throughout civilian areas. They do this in order to win immunityand to maximize civilian casualties. NICK SCHIFRIN: As for Shams, he will keepworking and trying to protect his family… SHAMS ODEH: They are refugee like me. NICK SCHIFRIN: … including the newestmembers. But he couldn't protect everyone.
SHAMS ODEH: They were playinghere, spend their life here. NICK SCHIFRIN: Thirty-one of hisextended family have been killed. SHAMS ODEH: This is Shams Odeh.Journalist Shams Odeh spend his life as a peaceful person. Butthis is what happened to me. Hardly, we can find food. Hardly,we can have money. But this will not stop our hope. We love youall, and I will keep love you all. NICK SCHIFRIN: For the “PBSNewsHour,” I'm Nick Schifrin. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It's been five years sincethe Islamic State, or ISIS,.
Was defeated the U.S.-ledmilitary campaign in Syria. But today, nearly 10,000 ISIS fighters remainjailed inside Syrian detention centers. Human rights groups call conditions in the prisonsabusive, and local authorities warn they are a breeding ground for radicalizationand could help spark an ISIS revival. Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allentraveled to Northeast Syria to meet high-security prisoners and the regionalforces that are still battling ISIS. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The horrors of ISIS, athreat long past, the world believed. So, ISIS-K's devastating attack onMoscow came out of the blue. But for the Middle Eastern governmentsand civilians who have been warning of.
The group's resurgence for many months now, itwas all but inevitable. Here in Northeast Syria, where thousands of ISIS fighters arelocked up, unsentenced in crumbling jails, and tens of thousands more ISIS-linked familieslanguish in displacement camps, the Syrian Democratic Forces have been begging theirWestern allies to address the growing threat. SIAMAND ALI, Military Spokesperson, SyrianDemocratic Forces (through translator): The international community thinks ISIShas been defeated and there is no risk for them. This kind of thinking hasgiven the chance for ISIS to reorganize themselves. They rebuilt new groups andthey began a new strategy to start again. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The vast desertbetween Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor, the Badiya, is one of Syria's most deadly areas.ISIS controlled this territory for several years.
The rugged, open terrain here makes it easyfor militants to conceal weapons and fighters, harass local farmers formoney and plan operations. We're on a patrol with the SDF through the lawlessdesert area leading up to the Iraqi border. There are many villages here where people stillsupport ISIS and some of them hide sleep cells. Whenever there's an alert, the commandos getout to investigate and speak to villagers. Some support ISIS. Many others are terrorized bythem. They're trying to catch security threats and eliminate them before they can carry out an attackand to remind everyone who's in charge here. Commander Zinar knows the danger. He waspermanently maimed in a 2016 ISIS explosion. COMMANDER ZINAR, Special Forces, Syrian DemocraticForces (through translator): Our goal is to track.
Down ISIS sleeper cells who are attacking andcarrying out suicide bombings. We have done a lot of military operations in this area,but, still, they're reorganizing themselves. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: With so much groundto cover and such a high threat level, more and more militants are slippingthrough the net. The huge ISIS prison break two years ago was stagedfrom these sprawling sands. Dozens of sleeper cells attacked using suicidebombs and armed trucks; 1,000 prisoners escaped. Over 100 were never recaptured, and 120 SDFofficers and local civilians were killed. The attack ended after 10 days only thanksto coalition airstrikes. Local authorities warned they couldn't defeat another escapeattempt alone if U.S. forces leave Syria.
Nureddine Berham is a high securityprisoner at Al Sina'a. We were given rare access to speak with him before the Moscowattack. A militant jihadist to his core, he's been joining up with Islamistmilitias to fight Western ideology since he traveled to Pakistan tosupport Osama bin Laden in the '90s. Originally Jordanian, the rest ofhis family are American citizens, and he claims he traveled to the U.S.regularly on visas until the mid-2000s. In Syria, he signed up with ISIS asa suicide bomber, but was captured. NUREDDINE BERHAM, Imprisoned ISIS Fighter(through translator): I was waiting for my turn, and eagerly. So it didn't happen. Most of thebrothers, if you were outside of this prison,.
I'm not going to tell that I'm — ifI'm able to make every — every minute, a martyrdom operation, I will do it every second. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Berham was atthe forefront of the prison break, handing weapons to other inmates. Hesays the prisoners managed to smuggle in weapons and mobile phones to receiveinstructions from the attackers outside. NUREDDINE BERHAM: The plan was, when wehear the bomb, when we hear the explosion, we have to break the walls and justbreak out. In like 15 or 20 minutes, we were taking control of the whole prison. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Authorities herewouldn't let us see inside the cells..
Berham says the prisoners live in horrendousconditions, often more than 20 to a cell, and with many suffering fromfungal infections and tuberculosis. But that lack of oversight also allowsthem to continue their radicalization, operating a mini-Dawlat, Islamic State, unimpeded. NUREDDINE BERHAM: And inside the prison, wewere still Dawlat. We were still implementing Sharia. We would rather die than tolive this kind of life. We're fighters. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Berham says they willkeep trying to break out until they succeed. You have just told me you want to blow yourselfup at any opportunity. You want any opportunity to fight America, to fight this government.How and why could you possibly be released?.
NUREDDINE BERHAM: It doesn't matter how long westay in prison. We're not going to change it. This is the 11th time I be in prison. And every time,I go back, and, every time, I go back to fighting. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The pr ison wasdestroyed and the prisoners are now housed in a new facility. But theattack showed that keeping so many dangerous militants in these conditions withlimited security forces is unsustainable. There are thousands of ISIS-linked prisonersbeing held here in a city of fewer than 450,000 people. Many of those jails are inresidential areas. The one just behind me, which holds some of the mostdangerous captured ISIS fighters, is just meters from a busy shopping streetand children playing in front of their homes.
Mohammad lives on this street. He knowsjust how real that threat is. His young family was at home when the shootingbegan, then banging on the front door. MOHAMMAD, Hasakah, Syria, Resident (throughtranslator): One of them was pointing a gun. The others walked in. They were all dressedin prison uniforms. Then the clashes, shelling and shooting started. They killedmy cousin. They shot him in his head here, and it came out from the other side. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Escaped fightersoccupied homes, taking residents hostage, as grenades rained down over the narrow streets,beheading several residents who didn't obey them. Mohammad's 5-year-old son, Adam,hasn't slept through the night since.
MOHAMMAD (through translator): My son calls, “Dad, it's ISIS” in his sleep. “Daddy, willISIS escape? Will they come again?” What have these children done to live this horror? God forbid if they flee the prisonagain. What will happen to people? LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The Syrian DemocraticForces estimate there are at least 10,000 ISIS fighters still active in thearea, and that number is growing. Now, in a speech posted online, ISIS leadershave called on their supporters to plan fresh attacks on cities around the globe. FormerU.S. Army Colonel Myles Caggins was the coalition spokesman in Iraq and Syria at theheight of the battle to defeat ISIS. For him,.
Northeast Syria's overflowingjails are a ticking time bomb. COL. MYLES CAGGINS (RET.), U.S. Army: Theworld doesn't really want to deal with these 10,000 detainees. President Bidenand his administration have followed the policy of the previous administration, wherenobody really wants to talk much about Syria. The American public, in particular,does not hear much about ISIS until there's something like a massive attackthat happened in Russia. It is important, though, for the world to pay attention to ISIS. There are wealthy individualswho support ISIS' ideology. The scale and type of attacks that theyconduct do not require a lot of money,.
But they're able to get a large effect outof them by having these attacks in highly visible places and recording the attacks andsharing it as propaganda, propaganda that is desired — designed to inspire other members ofISIS. It's designed to inspire potential recruits. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Officials hereare threatening to carry out their own trials if an internationaltribunal isn't established, but, in, reality courts here don't have thejurisdiction to try many of these prisoners. With foreign nations refusingto take back their citizens, fighters sit in wait, plotting theirescape and the group's return to power. NUREDDINE BERHAM: We have to fight to thelast drop of our blood. We are more insisting.
Now to fight you, America,and all that is fighting with you (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)until it's either us or you guys. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: For the”PBS NewsHour,” I'm Leila Molana-Allen in Al Sina'a prison, Northeast Syria. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As protests against the war inGaza grew on college campuses this week, we also got the clearest vision yet for what formerPresident Trump might do with a second term. That brings us to the analysis of Brooks andCapehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart,associate editor for The Washington Post. Gentlemen, so good to have you bothhere, David joining us from Chicago.
Sorry to see you stuck in atelevision set over there. (LAUGHTER) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jonathan, to you first. On these protests that we saw growingacross college campuses around the country, calls for divestment, some clashes, police being sent in some cases. What doyou make of this growing protest movement? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, one, what we're seeingis the passion of the students and the passion of the community around these universitiesover the issue of what's happening in Gaza. Remember, these protests started happeningbecause of the humanitarian crisis there.
In Gaza. My big question is, will thesedemonstrations and these protests continue after graduation and after schoolis out? What I'm looking at is, colleges are convening spaces. Butwhat happens when you lose your convening space? Will these demonstrationshappen once all the students go back home? That's the one thing that I'm wondering.Also, we have seen a proliferation of these demonstrations in the last week. And Iwonder if it's because a lot of the students, a lot of the demonstrators in campuses whohaven't been — haven't gone on record, they're going on record to show, no, we havesomething to say about this, we're taking a stand. And so maybe by this time nextweek or in a couple of weeks,.
I wonder if we're going to see the same levelof intensity among young people on this issue. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David, we saw that PresidentBiden was asked about whether these protests and the message of those protests was going to changehis views on policy vis-a-vis Israel and Gaza. He said that it wasn't. We havealso seen this bipartisan passage of a law — of a bill clarifying whatis antisemitism formally, I guess, so that schools that don't punish itovertly could be punished themselves. Do you think that there will be continuedpolitical reverberations from these protests? DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I think big time. In the 1960s, Ronald Reagan ran forgovernor running against the Berkeley.
Protests. Richard Nixon ran for presidentrunning against the protests. It's not so much the message of the protests.It's the violence that surrounds them. I'm teaching at the University of Chicago thisterm. And a couple hundred yards from here, the encampment at our school is there. And theuniversity had a very clear policy. We celebrate your right to express your point of view, but wedon't allow you to make the campus violent. We're not going to let you disrupt campus. We'renot going to allow you to disrupt learning. And, today the president, Paul Alivisatos,sent out an e-mail to everybody in the community saying, we celebrate the rightto make your statements. Unfortunately, the students have been disruptive. They havetorn down Israeli signs. They have silenced.
Speakers. They have made the campus — theyhave interfered with learning in the campus. And so he sent out a somewhatominous e-mail. And I have to say, things are pretty tame here comparedto a lot of the other places. So what Americans support is free speech. What theydon't support is what looks like anarchy. And so I think if the protests continueto veer in the direction they're veering, you could see some pretty serious repercussions,which is why Biden is speaking, which is why Chuck Schumer is speaking, trying to distancethemselves from what the protesters are doing. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, Jonathan, alot of the critics of these protests like to say that it's all antisemitism,just a hot stew of anti-Israeli bias.
I was at one of the NYU protests earlierthis week, and there is some of that, for sure. But it's mostly youngpeople, as you were describing, who are despairing over what is happening inGaza. How is it that people who care deeply about this issue can't — can somehow protestand not be risked being branded as antisemites? JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK, what — excuse me. So, there's antisemitism, but thenyou anti — you said anti-Israeli. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I'm evenconflating it myself here. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Exactly. And that is the issue. It is possible to criticize the governmentof Israel, the state of Israel, the prime.
Minister of Israel, the policies, whathe says, his actions, without veering into ugly antisemitism. If you don't like whatPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in Gaza, not allowing enough humanitarian aid togo through, that is a legitimate criticism. But to then go into all the ugliness, some ofthe ugliness that we have heard, that's not OK. I don't understand how — why it's so hard to stateyour objections without being bigoted about it. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I'd like to pivot a little bit. David, this week “TIME” magazinepublished this really remarkable story about Donald Trump. It was called”If He Wins.” And it was based on two interviews with Trump and a seriesof interviews with his associates.
And it lays out a series of ideas thatTrump wants to enact or would consider enacting in his second term. I'm just goingto put up a list of some of the things here. It involves monitoring women's pregnancies,perhaps deploying the U.S. military inside the United States to round up migrants,building large migrant detention camps, firing U.S. attorneys who don'tprosecute cases at Trump's direction. Now, I know some of these things wehave heard from Donald Trump before, but I wonder what — when yousee them all together like that, what do you make of this, this portraitof a possible second Trump administration? DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I'm reminded the first Trumpadministration when you couldn't believe your.
Mind could get more mind-boggled thanit already was by what he was doing. This was a truly mind-boggling interview.The Republican Party used to be a party that was — wanted to restrict the power of thestate, and this is a radical desire to expand the power of the presidency. And the idea that we'regoing to have National Guard rounding up immigrant families that have been here for years and yearsand deporting them, those images will get ugly. The idea of President Trump sort ofsaying, you're going to prosecute this, it's unprecedented. So it was justone mind-boggling thing after another, gutting the Treasury Department, guttingthe Justice Department. And, really, it was Trump sort of giving himselfpermission to be completely unleashed.
And we forget that he was a little surroundedby mature Republicans in the first term, and now he's saying, no more of that. I'mgoing to be — I'm going to do what I want. And, this time, if reelected, he will havea cadre of Trumpians, which he did not have in 2017. And so it was really a display ofradical authoritarianism, which he's proud of. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: How did you see it? JONATHAN CAPEHART: In the run-upto this “TIME” magazine interview, we had been hearing from him on someof these things on the campaign trail. But, before, we have been hearing fromsenior advisers and supporters of his, say, at Project 2025, goingon the record, talking…
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This isthe Heritage Foundation… JONATHAN CAPEHART: The Heritage Foundation. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: … document forhow a second Trump admin might unfold. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Right. And they're pulling in all these resumesand the types of people who they would have at the ready as a turnkey operationfor the next Republican president, who they think will be Donald Trump. Thosewere the people who were talking about this. What was interesting about the “TIME” magazineinterview and also his interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is, Trump is the onewho was going on the record in an interview with a reporter saying, yes, I'm going to use theNational Guard. I'm going to deploy them to.
American cities. Yes, we're going to round upmillions of undocumented immigrants — migrants and put them in prisons on the border.Yes, we're going to do all of these things. And what was most chilling to me, well, among manythings in the “TIME” magazine interview, was that I had always known about Project 2025. I havetalked about it many times on my show on MSNBC. What I did not know was that Project 2025is one of four groups out there right now that are who are planning for a Trump 2.0administration, taking on various aspects, so that, if he does indeed win election inNovember at, maybe by 1:00 p.m. on January 20, 2025, he will be able to geta whole lot of things done, because they will have figured out wherethe guardrails are, how to remove them,.
How to remove the people who be — who wouldstand in the way of things that they want to do. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David, in that “TIME” magazinepiece, specifically talking about this upending of the Department of Justice that you weretalking about, the reporter quoted one judge, saying, look, those guardrails that we'retalking about, those are still there. If he tried to fire U.S. attorneys that didn'theed his calls to prosecute his political enemies, there would be a public uproar, there would bequitting, there would be a revolt, basically. Do you believe that that's true? Do you believethose guardrails are there and are strong enough? DAVID BROOKS: I have some doubt.I think there would be a lot of quitting. I think there are a lot of peopleof integrity who would not tolerate this.
But the sad fact is, and if you look at thepolling — and this goes back a long way in American history — there's a lot more desirefor — authoritarianism may be a strong word, but somebody is willing to breakthe rules to get things done. And so you go back to the 1930s,there were strong calls for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to make himself a dictator.Fortunately, Roosevelt was a solid Democrat, so he wasn't going to do that.But if you look at public opinion, there has always been a constituency: Thisis an extremely messed up country. We need some guy to take control. And if he has tobreak a few eggs along the way, let him do it. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart,always good to see you both. Thank you so much.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, William. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The two millionVietnamese-Americans in this country often find their stories are still told through the lens ofthe Vietnam War, which ended almost 50 years ago. But as I learned on a recent trip to the GulfCoast, a new generation is trying to tell a different story about their lives today. It'spart of our arts and culture series, Canvas. For artist Christian Dinh, almost everything hemakes contains a tribute to home and community. At the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art of artin Biloxi, Mississippi, Dinh's memories of growing up in a large Vietnamese-Americanfamily are embedded in his ceramic work, like this porcelain vase, where he inscribedhis grandmother's recipe for steamed fish.
CHRISTIAN DINH, Ceramic Artist: My favoriteout of the directions is towards the end, when she explains: “You will know when thefish is ready when the eyeballs turn white.” And I remember her tellingme that, and I was just like, what does that mean? Can't she giveme a temperature or something else? WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Or this enormousrice bowl, a giant replica of the small plastic longevity bowls thatare ubiquitous on family tables. CHRISTIAN DINH: These — in a way, these plasticwares are the fine china of Asian American culture. So I wanted to emphasize that, one, byits size, right, just making it a more monumental piece, scaling it up, two, by changing it backinto its original material, which is ceramics.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In another series, Dinhreimagines the white display hands that are typically seen in Vietnamese-Americannail salons. He casts them in porcelain, an homage to his people'ssuccess in that industry. CHRISTIAN DINH: The nail salon serieswas a project that I started in 2020, really around the height of the Asian hate crimes. I knew that I wanted to make this body of workto counteract a lot of the negative energy and the stereotypes and stigmatization that wasgoing on. Over the past five decades now, they have really turned that industry into amultibillion-dollar industry. Besides kind of like the monetary figures, I kind of see itas this beacon of success that trickles down.
To the entire Vietnamese-Americancommunity that can be celebrated. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And the writings and thesymbols that we see on there, what are those? CHRISTIAN DINH: On each set of hands are mydifferent ideas of success within the community. It can be as simple as having a mealwith your family, so sharing food, cooking, setting the table. Ultimately,that's what I'm getting at with the work, is that, though I'm coming from my own background, my own experience of Vietnamese culture, it'snot too different from any other cultures. And I always look at the work as notnecessarily being Vietnamese or Asian, but it's American work just as much.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As the childof immigrants raised in the U.S., Dinh want it to expand what it meansto be Vietnamese-American today. CHRISTIAN DINH: When you hear stories aboutthe Vietnamese community, it usually revolved around the war. And that's kind of where itends. The war doesn't define these people. It is very important for them in their lives andwhat they have experienced, but they have also experienced a whole new life and established awhole new community here in the United States. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: About an hour-and-a-halfwest from Biloxi, many forged that community here in New Orleans. The city's Village de L'Estneighborhood has been home to several thousand Vietnamese-Americans, including Cyndi Nguyen.
CYNDI NGUYEN, New Orleans Resident: People camedown to New Orleans because of the weather, because of the possibility of working immediately because of the Gulf. Many Vietnameseimmigrants were fishermen by trade. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Nguyen and her family cameto New Orleans as part of that wave of refugees fleeing the chaos after the fall of Saigonin 1975. She too planted roots in America, becoming the first Asian American toserve on the New Orleans City Council. CYNDI NGUYEN: My father say would:”Well, we're going to New Orleans.” I would say: “How — where is New Orleans?” “Well, that's where all theVietnamese people are going to.”.
“Well, how did you know this?” “Well, we just got word.” So we moved to New Orleans, wherewe saw people that looks like us. It was definitely comforting,especially in a new country, right? WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But just 30 years later, many of those immigrants had to flee their homesagain when Hurricane Katrina drove them away. CYNDI NGUYEN: We had a lot of conversation withmany of our residents. And they said, well — when Katrina here, it was just kind of like, wheream I going to go? This is only home I know. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But in a show of resilience,.
Nguyen says her community was one of the firstto return and among the fastest to rebuild. Five years later, though, another blow.The BP oil spill devastated the Gulf's fishing industry and the livelihoods of manyVietnamese-American shrimpers. But again, Nguyen says, there was rebirth, a shift tofarming in community-owned cooperatives like this. DYLAN TRAN, Composer: It's something todo with resilience and community. It's something to do with family. It's somethingto do with love. Those are the big things. I happen to tell them througha Vietnamese-American lens, but they're themes that we allrelate to in some kind of way. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Vietnamese-American composerDylan Tran's first instrument was an old.
Hand-me-down guitar passed from older brothers.But it was working in his father's laundromat where he was first inspired to weavehis family's heritage into his own work. DYLAN TRAN: It was a couple years after mydad had passed. And I was working at the laundromat that he owned, sitting in his office,smelling his smell. And while I was in there, I would be listening to classical traditional courtVietnamese music. And I had my manuscript paper. And in between mopping the floor andcleaning out the dryers and everything, I would go to the office and justtranscribe. And I would write down everything I was hearing and try to getit as close as I — as I possibly could. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Those ideas were central to.
His string quartet compositioncalled “No. 1 on Viet Themes.” It became the score for the documentary “Uncle at Sea” about the struggles of a GulfCoast Vietnamese-American fisherman. And it was later performed at the OgdenMuseum of Southern Art in New Orleans. DYLAN TRAN: I cried countlesstimes throughout it and afterwards thinking about it, because the response from theVietnamese community was — it just felt so huge, people who just heard about it on thestreet or saw a poster in a cafe and were just excited to see a part of theirculture presented and elevated in this way. When I write music that is influenced bymy Vietnameseness, it's to express myself.
And it's to connect with other people whoshare that. And anyone is welcome to come and enjoy that. But it's something that I dofor us. It's something I do for us, you know? WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And while thisyounger generation innovates, the timeless theme of resilienceis threaded through their work. This afternoon, President Biden bestowedthe nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Today's 19 different recipients hailfrom nearly all corners of American life, from actors to astronauts to activists, likeOpal Lee, known as the grandmother of Juneteenth, and to athletes like Katie Ledecky, themost decorated female swimmer of all time.
At the White House, Mr. Biden called them allthe pinnacle of leadership in their fields. JOE BIDEN, President of the United States:Sixty-one years ago, President Kennedy established the Presidential Medal of Freedom torecognize — quote — “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to thesecurity of national interest — and national interest of United States or world peace, culturalor other significant public or private endeavors.” Today, we have another extraordinary honorto bestow on the nation's highest civilian honors of 19 incredible people whoserelentless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope have keptfaith in a better tomorrow. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Honorees also included a largenumber of high-profile politicians, South Carolina.
Congressman Jim Clyburn, former Senator ElizabethDole, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others. Biden also honored former Vice President Al Gore, applauding his work on climate change and hishandling of a controversial presidential election. JOE BIDEN: After winning the popular vote,he accepted the outcome of a disputed presidential election for the sake ofunity and trust in our institutions. That, to me, was amazing, what you did,Al. I mean, I won't go into that, but… JOE BIDEN: History is going to remember you formany reasons. Among them will be your honesty, your integrity, and the legacy of your service. So, thank you, Al. You're first-rate. Thank you.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Three medals weregiven posthumously to civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who fought segregationin Mississippi in the 1960s, to Frank Lautenberg, who was New Jersey'slongest-serving senator, and to Jim Thorpe, a multisport phenom and the first NativeAmerican to win an Olympic gold medal. This week, our digital show dives into the war in Gaza and how the ongoingconflict is playing out in the U.S., as protests have grown across college campuses.You can find that on our YouTube channel. And be sure to tune into “Washington Week WithThe Atlantic” tonight, where Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel examine President Biden's effortsto navigate the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war.
And on “PBS News Weekend”: whatthe pullout of American troops from Chad and Niger could mean forsecurity in the African region. And before we go, we want to say goodbye toa dear colleague who is leaving us today. Alexis Cox has been with the “NewsHour” for 24years. She started as production assistant and, with her sharp writing and gentle, unflappablespirit, soon became an essential part of our newsroom. She has helped shape our coverageof a quarter-century of breaking news. She has been a mentor to many, a friend toall, and always a first-rate journalist. Alexis, on behalf of all of us at the “NewsHour,”thank you. We will miss you enormously. And that is the “NewsHour” fortonight. I'm William Brangham.
Thank you so much for joining us.
