AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

Geoff Bennett is away.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Universities face uncertain futures as they become targets of the Trump administration.

Ethics watchdogs raise alarm about the president and others profiting from their positions and using that power to market products.

And we examine the impact of the Trump administration's dramatic slashing of the federal work force.

DAVID LEWIS, Vanderbilt University: The magnitude of this administratively is unparalleled.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

We begin tonight with the Trump administration's crackdown on college campuses.

This afternoon, lawyers released cell phone footage showing the arrest of former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil.

The government is trying to deport Khalil over his role in pro-Palestinian protests at the school last year.

The video shows plainclothes officers handcuffing Khalil as his wife, who's eight months pregnant, pleads for information while talking to their lawyer.

WOMAN: Can you please specify what agency is taking him please?

Excuse me.

There -- nobody is -- they're not talking to me.

I don't know.

AMNA NAWAZ: Federal officials today also announced more moves tied to the Columbia protests, arresting a Palestinian woman who allegedly overstayed her student visa and revoking the visa of an Indian doctoral student who they say advocated for violence and terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education today announced new investigations into more than 50 colleges for alleged racial discrimination, part of President Trump's campaign to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts nationwide.

They include public universities like Ohio State, Rutgers and Arizona State, as well as private institutions like Yale, Duke and MIT.

And the announcement comes just one month after an administration memo warning schools they could lose federal funding for considering race in admissions, scholarships or any aspect of student life.

For a closer look now, I'm joined by Sarah Brown, senior editor at "The Chronicle of Higher Education."

Welcome back.

Thanks for being here.

SARAH BROWN, Senior Editor, "The Chronicle of Higher Education": Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, most of the investigations focus on colleges' partnerships with a nonprofit called The PhD Program.

What is that?

And what exactly is administration all at alleging here?

SARAH BROWN: So The PhD Project is this effort that is designed to get more professors from underrepresented backgrounds into business schools.

So, colleges, student bodies are much more diverse than they used to be.

So about half of undergraduates are students of color.

Most faculty members are white.

And so colleges have been trying to get more underrepresented groups represented among the faculty.

Now, the Trump administration believes that these diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, these DEI efforts, are illegal because they consider race.

They treat people differently based on race.

That's their argument.

And so the Trump administration sees The PhD Project, which is working with these 45 universities, as part of the illegal DEI that it's trying to crack down on.

That's its argument.

Obviously, a lot of people would say these DEI programs are not illegal, they're just an important part of creating more welcoming environments on campuses.

AMNA NAWAZ: And so most of the schools are being targeted because of that.

There are seven other colleges that are listed here that are being investigated for awarding what the administration calls impermissible race-based scholarships.

Sarah, have the universities responded to any of these allegations?

SARAH BROWN: At this point, the universities have said, we are reviewing the allegations.

We will cooperate with any federal investigations.

They haven't said a lot specifically so far.

We have seen a range of these scholarship programs targeted in the past, so this has been something going on for some time.

And some universities have actually stopped offering certain kinds of scholarships or have changed the way that they are awarded.

But these scholarships typically are designed to help low-income students from particular backgrounds pay for their college tuition.

So that's what they have traditionally been designed for, and that is now -- that's now being targeted by the Trump administration, who believes those efforts are illegal.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have also seen the administration more specifically target Columbia University.

That was the site of a lot of pro-Palestinian protests that began after the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel's war in Gaza.

This week, the administration canceled some $400 million in federal funding to Columbia.

What does a cut of that size mean to a school like Columbia?

SARAH BROWN: Yes, so Columbia does receive a lot more in federal funding than just that $400 million.

But, just to be clear, it's really impactful.

So we have already seen that these cuts are affecting National Institutes of Health research on, for example, opioids, on malaria vaccine.

So these are really impactful research projects, as the university sees it.

And so it's already having an impact.

And so you might think, oh, Columbia is a university with a billion-dollar endowment.

Can't they just pull from that endowment and backfill this funding?

That's not how it works.

So, for a university like Columbia, even this is a big deal.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have also seen, at Columbia, this is, of course, the headlines about Mahmoud Khalil, because he was a former student there.

Federal immigration agents arrested him on campus housing there.

He helped to lead some of those protests.

And he's a legal permanent resident they're now trying to deport.

We have seen another arrest of a foreign student at Columbia as well.

How are our universities now kind of navigating this moment, when federal immigration authorities could potentially come onto campus or campus housing and arrest members of their community?

SARAH BROWN: Yes, so this is a new concern for colleges.

At least, in the past decade, ICE has not regularly carried out deportation activities in these sensitive locations, such as schools and college campuses.

So universities have been, for the past few months -- their communities are concerned about potential immigration enforcement.

Universities have been sending out messages to their communities, here are the protocols for dealing with ICE.

But what we're seeing at Columbia is really the first example of ICE agents actually coming to a campus, in some cases, like we have seen recently this week, with a warrant, with warrants, and what happens to -- when universities have to respond to those situations.

And so I think a lot of campus communities, especially at Columbia, international students, undocumented students, they're very concerned right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: The investigations they announced just today, the threat of pulling federal funds is the through line here.

And we have already seen the impact that can have at Johns Hopkins, for example.

That's a leader, of course, in scientific research.

They just announced that they're slashing 2,000 jobs after the university lost more than $800 million in federal grants.

Those are unrelated to the efforts to go after DEI programs, though, right?

SARAH BROWN: This is all, I would say, part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to try to change the policies and practices on college campuses.

The Johns Hopkins cuts are more related to the USAID situation.

And so that is a little bit different.

But it's all part of this larger effort by the Trump administration to try to have universities in alignment with his agenda.

That's really what is underlying everything that we're seeing here with DEI programs, with these protesters and potential deportations of protesters.

That's what we're seeing here.

AMNA NAWAZ: Sarah Brown, senior editor at "The Chronicle of Higher Education," thank you for being here.

SARAH BROWN: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: We start the day's other headlines on Capitol Hill and the down-to-the-wire battle to avert a partial government shutdown.

This afternoon, the Senate advanced a bill by the Republican-led House that would fund the government through the end of September.

It would give President Trump and his allies wide leverage to carry out their budget priorities.

Democrats were deeply divided on how to proceed, after Senate Leader Chuck Schumer announced last night that he would support the measure.

That led to anger within the party ranks, with some floating the idea for new leadership.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced today it will impose permanent restrictions on nonessential helicopter flights around Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport.

The new rules align with recommendations made earlier this week by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The agency is investigating the January collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people.

The board cited the -- quote -- "intolerable risk of collisions" after finding records of 85 so-called near misses since 2011.

Federal aviation officials say they will investigate the cause of a fire that broke out on an American Airlines jet as it was taxiing at Denver's international airport.

Social media video captured the Boeing 737-800 covered in smoke late yesterday as passengers evacuated.

The FAA says the plane was headed from Colorado Springs to Dallas, but diverted to Denver after reports of engine vibrations.

The fire then broke out as the plane headed to the gate.

Airport officials say 12 people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Turning now to the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration is expressing cautious optimism after a U.S. envoy met with Russian President Vladimir Putin about a 30-day cease-fire.

The U.S. put the deal on the table earlier this week and Ukraine has already endorsed it.

Online, President Trump called the talks "good and productive," adding the -- quote -- "There's a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end."

Later, Putin said he would spare the lives of Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk region, seen here on Russian release video, but only if Ukraine's government tells them to stand down.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President (through translator): If they lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and decent treatment in accordance with the norms of international law and the laws of the Russian Federation.

AMNA NAWAZ: Ukraine's army has denied Moscow's claims that Russia has their forces surrounded in Kursk, though President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admits the situation is -- quote -- "very difficult."

In Canada, former central banker Mark Carney has been sworn in as the country's new prime minister.

MARK CARNEY, Canadian Prime Minister: I, Mark Carney, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear... AMNA NAWAZ: He takes over from longtime leader Justin Trudeau and enters office at a time when many Canadians are angry at the comments and the conduct of President Trump.

In a speech, the 59-year-old repeated his criticisms of Mr. Trump's trade war and his threats to annex Canada as the 51st state.

Carney said he's ready to meet with Trump, but only if the American leader shows respect for Canadian sovereignty.

He's expected to call a general election in the coming days or weeks.

In The Hague, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared before the International Criminal Court today as he faces charges for crimes against humanity.

The 79-year-old appeared briefly via videoconference from a nearby detention center where he's being held.

Duterte was arrested this week in Manila on murder charges linked to his deadly war on drugs.

Human rights groups say as many as 30,000 people were killed.

His defense team slammed his arrest, calling the case political score-settling, and a pretrial hearing has been set for September 23.

In the Middle East, Hamas says it has agreed to a proposal to release one living hostage and the bodies of four others who died in captivity in Gaza.

The group did not specify when it would release 21-year-old Edan Alexander, a soldier and an American-Israeli dual national.

Special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff said today that Hamas is publicly offering the release, but in private is making entirely impractical demands.

In a statement, he writes -- quote - - "Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side.

It's not.

Hamas is well aware of the deadline and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes."

The U.S. has not made public when that deadline is.

On Wall Street today, stocks rallied to close out an otherwise brutal week for the markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 670 points.

The Nasdaq added roughly 450 points on the day.

The S&P 500 jumped more than 100 points after falling into correction territory a day earlier.

And a passing of note.

Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson has died.

At 6'7'', Simpson was quite literally a towering figure in American politics.

Senate colleagues, friends and relatives remember the moderate Republican as a man gifted in bridging the partisan divide.

He did so both through his views -- he was a rare Republican who supported abortion rights, for example -- but also with his famous sense of humor.

He used it to melt barriers, even when taking shots at himself.

FMR.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON (R-WY): I really am tired of the hair stories.

FMR.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON: The hair stories are not really funny at all.

FMR.

SEN. ALAN SIMPSON: I have said many times that everyone is given a certain number of hormones.

If you want to waste your growing hair, that's your business.

AMNA NAWAZ: For his lifetime of service, Simpson was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2022 by his friend and one-time colleague former President Joe Biden.

Senator Alan Simpson was 93 years old.

Still to come on the "News Hour": David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines; and after decades with the bands The Pixies and The Breeders, musician Kim Deal embarks on a new solo career.

It's been less than two months since President Trump took office, and, in that time, Trump, his family, and members of his administration have also seen personal and financial gain in a number of ways that are aided by their power and their influence.

Our Laura Barron-Lopez has more.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Earlier this week, President Trump lined up Teslas on the South Lawn of the White House, all to help out his friend and special government employee billionaire Elon Musk.

As Tesla's stock plummeted, the president, holding a price list for different models, said he would buy one of the cars.

ELON MUSK, Department of Government Efficiency: That's the bottom line.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: That's the bottom line.

So I have a lot of information, including the price.

(LAUGHTER) ELON MUSK: Yes.

DONALD TRUMP: I want to make a good deal here.

You know, I do notice this.

They have one which is $35,000, which is pretty low.

ELON MUSK: Yes.

DONALD TRUMP: What is that all about?

ELON MUSK: Yes, I guess we wanted to make the point that Teslas aren't all expensive.

You can get at Tesla for as little as $35,000.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The event is part of a pattern of conflicts of interest, as the president and those close to him stand to benefit from his time in office.

Here to discuss is Don Fox, former acting director of the U.S. office of government ethics.

Mr. Fox, thanks so much for joining us.

So I want to separate out Elon Musk and President Trump.

First, did the president violate any laws or ethics rules with that White House sales event promoting Teslas?

DON FOX, Former Acting Director, U.S. Office of Government Ethics: Well, he certainly violated any sense of normalcy or decency in terms of what we expect from the president.

But, as it turns out, the president is actually exempt from federal conflicts of interest laws and standards.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And so what about Musk?

Did he violate any laws or rules by promoting his own company?

DON FOX: Well, with Elon Musk, it's a completely different story.

Because Elon Musk is a special government employee, he is subject to conflicts of interest laws and to the regulations that govern all executive branch employees.

And one of those regulations says that executive branch employees cannot use their public office to promote any product or for private gain.

And that could be anyone's private gain, except, in this case, it's Elon Musk's private gains to promote Teslas.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Also this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did an interview with FOX inside a Florida, Steak 'n Shake and endorsed the fast-food chain.

Does this violate any rules and what kind of actions are typically taken?

DON FOX: I'm familiar with what Secretary Kennedy had to say.

And it's important to understand the distinction between what he did, which was to endorse a commercial restaurant chain, vs. -- I think the context was whether to use tallow for fries or whether to use oil.

So, as a health claim, I suppose that's the kind of thing he can do, whatever the merits, but not to endorse a commercial product.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: In the case of Elon Musk, he is the head of multiple companies that have billions of dollars worth of government contracts.

And he may gain more in the second Trump administration.

He simultaneously, per The New York Times, wants to give $100 million directly to Trump's political operations.

And he and his team have access to agencies like the Defense Department, where he has government contracts.

Is any of this a violation of the criminal conflicts of interest statute?

DON FOX: Well, in terms of promoting his own business lines, whether it's Teslas or whether it's Starlink Internet, yes, it is a potential violation of conflicts of interest laws.

In terms of what he does with political contributions, interestingly enough, there really is not anything that I'm aware of that would prevent him from doing that.

What is really not normal is the idea that -- to make a public announcement in terms of what he intends to do, because, indeed, federal employees can contribute to political campaigns if they choose to, but federal employees don't go around bragging about what campaigns they contributed to or didn't.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: When it comes to the president and his family, Amazon paid $40 million for the license of a documentary on first lady Melania Trump, and she is set to get 70 percent of that $40 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And that outlet also reported this week that the Trump family is in talks to gain a stake in crypto exchange Binance, whose founder pleaded guilty to money laundering charges, and that founder is currently lobbying the president for a pardon.

Is any of this illegal, and I, not, how does it compare to past presidents?

DON FOX: Well, it's interesting because actually none of it would be, per se, illegal, and that's because the president's children and indeed the first lady of the United States are considered private citizens.

So they certainly would not run afoul of any federal ethics laws or regulations.

However, it does wreak of hypocrisy, doesn't it?

If we think about throughout the last campaign, how often did we hear about the Biden family, and particularly Hunter Biden, profiting off of the fact that his father was president of the United States?

We don't hear any of that now.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The Trump administration is also set to slash the Justice Department's Office of Public Integrity in half, and they handle prosecutions of public officials accused of corruption.

What's the potential impact of this, and why should the public care about it?

DON FOX: Potential impact is huge.

And I think gutting the Office of Public Integrity is yet one more step in the systematic decapitation of every watchdog agency and function to keep the executive branch, and particularly the presidency, in check.

The Office of Public Integrity is that small office within the Department of Justice that goes after and prosecutes federal employees who do break the law, and particularly in terms of enriching themselves.

That could be someone at the very highest levels of government.

It could be an assistant contracting officer at some field office of an obscure agency that took a kickback.

But Public Integrity is the last line of defense, and so that's why the public should be concerned about this.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: OK. Don Fox, thank you for your time.

DON FOX: You're welcome.

AMNA NAWAZ: This week marked President Trump's deadline for federal agencies to launch mass firings.

So far, tens of thousands of staff have been forced out.

Courts have reversed some of Trump's moves and upheld others.

This has been a source of pride for the president and a nightmare for many workers.

But, as Lisa Desjardins reports, it's part of a much older debate over the federal civil service.

LISA DESJARDINS: The U.S. government is the largest employer in the country, with three million civilian workers.

They do everything from delivering your mail to keeping our food supply safe to producing legions of studies.

To some, that's an American strength, to others, including President Trump, a bloated system to dismantle.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We are draining the swamp.

It's very simple.

And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.

LISA DESJARDINS: President Trump's actions are unique in some ways, firing tens of thousands of federal workers in the first six weeks.

But this debate over the role and size of federal government is nearly as old as this country.

And it is core to how U.S. democracy operates.

BEVERLY GAGE, Yale University: There's been an ongoing contest about what the proper size of the federal government is, what the federal work force should look like, how big it should be, and, in particular, what it should be doing.

LISA DESJARDINS: Going back to President Andrew Jackson in 1829, who quickly cut 20 percent of the federal work force and hired party loyalists.

SCOTT GREENBERGER, Historian: Being hired as a federal worker had everything to do with your political orientation and your loyalty to the party and not much to do with your qualifications or your expertise or your ability to do the job.

LISA DESJARDINS: The so-called spoils system got its name during Jackson's administration.

Political parties controlled government jobs and workers had to pay the party to keep those jobs.

Many believed the system was bent toward corruption.

SCOTT GREENBERGER: Many people felt like there was no way that American democracy could flourish and there was no way that this fast-growing country could flourish without a professional civil service.

We really need people in the federal government who are not just political hacks.

LISA DESJARDINS: And then dramatic events in the 1880s.

A reformer, James Garfield, won the presidency, but he was soon shot by an assassin who opposed reform and supported Vice President Chester Arthur, who was part of the spoils system.

But, as president, Arthur broke with the political machine.

SCOTT GREENBERGER: He surprised everybody, Arthur did, by proclaiming that he had had this change of heart.

He was now in favor of reform.

LISA DESJARDINS: In 1883, Arthur signed a key law, the Pendleton Act, setting up exams for federal workers and limiting much of the role of political parties in hirings and firings.

A meritocracy was born.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Former President of the United States: In the working out of a great national program... LISA DESJARDINS: Fifty years later, another significant change, this time to the size of the federal work force.

DAVID LEWIS, Vanderbilt University: When Roosevelt takes office, the national government's probably about 500,000 employees.

By the time he leaves office, it's well over three million.

LISA DESJARDINS: In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt introduced his New Deal to provide jobs and help for the millions of Americans who were unemployed.

DAVID LEWIS: In response to the Great Depression, he dramatically expands the role of the national government.

These government employees are doing lots of new things.

So the federal government's taking new responsibilities in regulating markets and providing social welfare, so we get Social Security and these kinds of things.

And it created a conservative backlash.

LISA DESJARDINS: FDR fundamentally changed what government could do and how it could do it.

MAN: There's the president waving goodbye.

LISA DESJARDINS: In the 1970s, the fallout from the Nixon Watergate scandal sparked another shift, when, in 1978, Jimmy Carter led an attempt to bring more accountability.

JIMMY CARTER, Former President of the United States: This reorganization plan will restore the merit principle to a system which has grown into a bureaucratic maze.

LISA DESJARDINS: Carter's Civil Service Reform Act created the Office of Personnel Management and recognized the right of most federal workers to unionize.

Then, in 1981, Ronald Reagan brought a seismic political shift.

RONALD REAGAN, Former President of the United States: Government is not the solution to our problem.

Government is the problem.

BEVERLY GAGE: The federal work force in particular, he really articulated as being unaccountable, as being inefficient, as being a sort of metastasizing force on the American political body.

LISA DESJARDINS: Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike demanding better hours and wages.

But, ultimately, by the end of his term, Reagan would add to the federal work force, in net.

It really wasn't until Bill Clinton took office in 1993 that we saw a modern-day large-scale downsizing of the federal work force.

AL GORE, Former Vice President of the United States: Those forklifts hold copies of budget rules, procurement rules, and the personnel code.

And the regulations stacked up there no longer help government work.

They hurt it.

They hurt it badly.

LISA DESJARDINS: He put Vice President Al Gore in charge of a National Partnership for Reinventing Government, an attempt to make government more efficient.

The Clinton-Gore effort took place over seven years, ultimately slimming a federal work force of about two million down by more than 400,000 people.

ERIC YELLIN, University of Richmond: That's the beginning of not only removing federal agencies and federal employees out of Washington, D.C., right, there's significant exodus of agencies out of the district, but also services to private contracts.

LISA DESJARDINS: Over the past two decades, the share of Americans employed by the federal government has remained nearly flat.

DONALD TRUMP: I got elected on making government better, more efficient, and smaller.

LISA DESJARDINS: And though historians hear some echoes of the Clinton-Gore approach today: DAVID LEWIS: The difference between their approach and the current administration's approach is that they always talked about government workers being good people trapped in a bad system.

And so their emphasis was always on process, not on people.

The magnitude of this administratively is unparalleled.

So, normally we would do this through the budget process with congressional cooperation.

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump and Elon Musk say they are focused on fraud, waste, and abuse and want the U.S. government to shrink.

But their haphazard methods have created confusion and for some agencies dysfunction.

Americans are divided in this area, with a majority saying government is doing too much and a majority also feeling that federal workers are essential.

There is no way yet to gauge the lasting effects of these changes, but they could be wide.

DAVID LEWIS: People not getting their Social Security checks, patents taking longer to approve.

Mistakes are going to increase.

I think the customer service of government is going to decrease as well.

BEVERLY GAGE: We're heading into, I think, a pretty interesting and a pretty daunting experiment in what it's going to be like when some of those things that we have taken for granted are really gone.

LISA DESJARDINS: The Trump White House argues the trade-off, a more efficient government, is worth it.

Others say it destroys what took 200 years to build.

We know this.

In those 200 years of debate over federal workers, no one has seen this until now.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, it came down to the wire, but the U.S. Senate has officially passed a bill to avert a government shutdown.

There was a heated debate among Democrats about how to proceed, and in the end just a handful joined most Republicans to pass the stopgap bill.

On that and on other headlines, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart.

That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Great to see you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hey, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Jonathan, let's talk about the Democrats right now.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Gee, let's talk about them.

AMNA NAWAZ: Listen, there was a real chasm revealed in this fight over how to proceed on this funding bill.

You had Nancy Pelosi openly calling for Senate Democrats to defy Chuck Schumer and vote against this bill, people accusing Chuck Schumer of selling out his own party for backing it.

Democrats who previously said shutdowns are dangerous and they are harmful now saying they'd rather have a shutdown than vote for this bill.

What's going on in the party?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Here's what's going on, and it's not so much what's happening in the Democratic Party.It's what's happening in the Republican Party.

The Republicans took control of -- maintained the control of the House.

Republicans took control and gained seats in the Senate.

The Republicans took control of the White House.

They crowed for months after the election that the American people gave them a mandate to govern.

They then kicked Democrats out of the negotiations away from the table over this continuing resolution.

And then, when they discover that they don't have the votes to get this through, suddenly, the narrative, it's the Democrats want to shut down the government?

If you have a mandate, then use the mandate and pass your Republican-only negotiated bill.

And I think one of the things I learned in 2016, the reason why people liked Donald Trump, the people who support him and voted for him, they loved him because he fights.

I kept hearing that.

He fights for them for what they believe in, and they know he won't win every fight.

This was an opportunity for Democrats, elected Democrats, to show the base and people who voted for them and people who are upset with Donald Trump that they are willing to fight.

If you're not going to fight over this, then what are you going to do when the fight becomes even more terrible, the Trump tax cuts, or even the full faith and credit of the United States by raising the debt ceiling?

I think that's why people are so upset.

AMNA NAWAZ: So should Senate Democrats not have voted for this?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: They -- I think that voting no on the continuing resolution was the right thing to do because it's two terrible choices, but at some point Democrats are going to have to show that they have a spine, they have a backbone to push back against what's happening.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, what do you take away from how this all unfolds?

DAVID BROOKS: I'm on team Schumer.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: So, never thought I'd say those words.

AMNA NAWAZ: Spoken by David Brooks.

DAVID BROOKS: So you got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who sort of made a similar point that we need to fight, we need to say no, we can't pass this thing, we can't assent to the Republican bill.

And Chuck Schumer -- but the problem with the AOC side is they never answered Chuck Schumer's core argument, is that if we shut down the government, Donald Trump will have expanded power to furlough all these nonessential workers, and he will never bring them back.

And so, by shutting the government, you're expanding Trump's power to decimate the government.

And so that was Chuck Schumer's argument, and he was like, this is a terrible choice, and it is a terrible choice.

Everybody wants to stand up against Donald Trump, the Democratic Party.

You're offended by the way you're being steamrolled.

The country's being decimated on every front.

Of course you want to fight back.

But what AOC is offering is a really nice TikTok video.

And what Chuck is offering, Chuck Schumer is offering, is, like, saving some jobs.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Donald Trump is -- President Trump is going to do what President Trump and Elon Musk are going to do, one.

Two, this isn't just AOC wanting to do something for TikTok.

You know this is a very serious situation when an institutionalist like Senator Chris Coons of Delaware adamantly said, no, I am not voting for the continuing resolution, or Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon who said, hell no, I'm not voting for this continuing resolution.

That tells you how serious this is.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I guess I would say a couple things.

First, one of the crucial things holding down from back is that he -- the president does not have the power to get rid of an agency that Congress has passed into law.

And I think that's going to be upheld in the courts.

But if the government is closed, suddenly, you're giving him a way out.

He could say, I'm not shutting it down, I'm just furloughing, and I'm furloughing forever.

And so it's a loophole around that.

And that's the best defense against what Donald Trump is doing.

On the Democratic Party, they're going to have a chance to fight.

Donald Trump will -- is in the process now of making himself majorly unpopular.

And when the public turns, the momentum will shift, and the Democrats will have plenty of opportunities to do a lot of fighting.

But at this moment, I think saving those jobs is more important.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to come teach, Jonathan, on that in just a moment.

But, David, just to follow up on that, even in this continuing resolution, there's a lot of power being handed back over to President Trump and to Elon Musk to continue with this campaign of mass firings and slashing the federal budget.

Republican lawmakers seem to want that.

Why are they so willing to hand that power up the purse over to the executive?

DAVID BROOKS: One of the things my college professors lied to me about was the idea that people run for government to have power to do things.

Since I have been in this job, I have seen members of Congress hand over power constantly.

They hand over power to the leadership, so only the speaker or the minority leader really matters.

They hand over power to the agencies.

And right now we're seeing the biggest handover of power I have ever seen, which is the handover of power of the Republican Party in Congress to Donald Trump.

Lisa mentioned in the earlier segment Andrew Jackson.

The same thing happened.

Andrew Jackson was basically one-man rule because his own party, then the Democratic Party, was -- they handed power to one man.

And it's the power of a demagogue to really take control.

But congresspeople, they want to keep their jobs more than they want to amass power.

And they will hand over power if it will keep them out of trouble.

And we're seeing the pinnacle of that right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned where Democrats might be able to come after President Trump.

And obviously the economy could be a vulnerability here.

We saw a brutal week on the markets.

There was a slight bounce-back today.

But, Jonathan, we have seen really worrying economic indicators, consumer sentiment at a two-year low.

The Consumer Price Index is up.

People's 401(k)s are taking a hit.

And this morning, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, I'm paraphrasing here, but in an interview was asked about all of this thing -- and sort of said, it's not that bad.

Now, we saw President Biden and his team get a lot of criticism for being accused of being out of touch, playing down what people were living through.

Is the Trump team vulnerable to doing the same thing here?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes, because they are doing it.

Look, I looked at the Dow Jones just before we went on.

The gains of the last six months have been completely wiped out this week, the gains, the year-to-date gains completely wiped out this week.

If you are a retiree who was looking to retire within the next three months, six months, you have seen a lot of your 401(k) disappear.

And yet you have officials from the Trump administration saying, oh, don't worry about it.

It's not a big deal.

There will be a little discomfort.

No, you're talking about real people's lives.

And if it's OK to knock around President Biden when he seemingly was out of touch with what was happening, then why on earth isn't the same thing happening to Donald Trump?

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, David, when you look at the polling, people are already feeling some of this.

CNN's latest poll was asked about Mr. Trump's handling on the economy.

Some 44 percent of people approve; 56 percent now disapprove.

How vulnerable is he?

DAVID BROOKS: Only 26 percent say he's doing enough on inflation.

And inflation's about to get worse.

If you take the median estimate of what the tariffs cost so far, and we're only in the beginning of this trade war, it's about $2,000 per family per year.

So that's serious.

And that's going to hit people.

They're going to see rising avocado prices when Mexico can't send us their avocados.

They're going to see rising prices on all sorts of things, and that's going to come home to roost.

There's just so many layers of insanity to the tariff thing that you just can't get your head around all of them.

One of them is that the North American supply chains for autos, our parts cross the border back and forth all the time.

DAVID BROOKS: And every time they cross the border, more tariff, more -- basically, a tariff is an import tax.

So raising taxes on American firms, while not raising taxes on Chinese and German and other firms, we're disadvantaging our own auto industry.

And that's just like one little microscope of how this -- is that a word?

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: That doesn't make sense.

I mean, it's just how this is going to go sideways.

They just have not thought it through.

But Donald Trump throughout his whole career, since the 1980s, has loved tariffs.

And, partly, he thinks foreigners will pay it, which is wrong, but mostly it's an excuse for him to exercise power and gin up opportunities for corruption, because it's -- tariffs are hyperpoliticized, and it gives him all the power, and lots of people have to do lots of favors so we don't tariff them.

AMNA NAWAZ: The economy, the economy, the economy, we will keep coming back to it.

I'm sure we will talk about it again.

Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, thank you so much.

Great to see you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Amna.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Legendary bassist Kim Deal has already had a storied career.

She was a founding member of the band The Pixies, the front woman for The Breeders.

But she's now moving into a new chapter as a solo artist at the age of 63.

Special correspondent Christopher Booker caught up with Deal before she kicked off a 25-city tour this month.

It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: The wooden steps that lead to Kim Deal's basement studio show all the hard-earned markings that come with 35 years of foot traffic.

KIM DEAL, Musician: I got the house in '90, and I started -- The Breeders came down in 92.

The Pixies had gotten some do-little money, like an advance or something.

I don't even know how much it was now, but it was enough for me to pay for a down payment on a house.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: After two albums as a founding member of The Pixies, Deal purchased this house and returned to where she was raised.

And since then, this tiny, subterranean space in Dayton, Ohio, has served as the launchpad for everything that came after.

First it was The Breeders, the band that includes her twin sister, Kelley, fellow Dayton, Ohioan Jim MacPherson, and bass player Josephine Wiggs.

Their breakout album, "Last Splash," stands as one of the most important records of the '90s.

Later came a brief side project with MacPherson called The Amps, and, most recently, at 63 years old, her very first solo record.

Do you remember how old you were when you wrote your first song, and more importantly, kind of what that felt like?

KIM DEAL: I remember the exact song that I wrote.

I was 15, and it was in my dad's room, bedroom, and he was finishing getting ready, and I was -- brought my piece of paper, and I sang my song that I wrote to him, yes.

And I know how it goes right now.

I didn't know to play along with it or anything.

There was no guitar with it.

I just sang the parts, and there was all sorts of different parts.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Would you ever bring it out?

Have you played it out?

KIM DEAL: I don't want to ask you to leave my house.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Despite her undeniable status as one of alternative rock's most accomplished, to some, Deal's output has been rather sporadic, and this solo record, "Nobody Loves You More," is long overdue.

KIM DEAL: It's interesting when people automatically assume, oh, she's not doing anything, but it's probably because the album's not popular enough for them to know that I did something.

Like an actor, so you haven't been in anything since "Star Wars."

It's like, I actually did 15 independent films.

So what -- you guys have a put on an album a long time.

One last year.

You just haven't heard it.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: In the 32 years since "Last Splash," The Breeders have remained active.

There have been more albums and tours and for a brief time Deal returned to The Pixies.

But she leaves out a sizable detail in her explanation.

In 2002, shortly after getting sober, her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and Deal moved in with her parents to help her father as her mom started what many call the long goodbye.

And it was this experience that provided the underpinning of this new solo offering, perhaps no more explicit than with her song "Are You Mine?"

KIM DEAL: My mother had Alzheimer's for 20 years.

In the middle of it, she's still walking.

She doesn't know what's going on.

She doesn't know my name.

She doesn't know who I am.

And I'm living with them.

And she passed me in the hallway and said, "Are you mine?"

And I knew that she thought that I was her baby, her -- like her -- like, are you mine, my little baby.

And I knew that that's what she was saying.

And I said: "Yes, mama, I'm yours, yes."

And then instantly probably gone in like 30 seconds or five seconds, but for that moment it was like she did see something that she recognized in me.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: That song is so beautiful, but, within that context, it's heavy.

KIM DEAL: Yes, yes.

It was really sad when I -- at the time, when I was making it, because anybody who's been living with Alzheimer's and taking care of people who have dementia, it's all-consuming.

It -- everything is -- everything is about that.

And seeing somebody slowly have their brain getting more and more destroyed and how much there is to lose, when you think it's all gone and there's still so much more to lose.

So -- but now, when I sing it, it feels good.

It's a good song to sing.

I like it.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: How come?

KIM DEAL: I think it goes.

It's a song -- the remnant is about love, where, before, it was about loss, losing my mother.

Now it's about I had my mother sort of thing.

This is a song about her love.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Deal's mother passed away in March of 2020, just months after her father.

While this album offers a distinct window into a difficult chapter of her life, the delivery is still unmistakably Deal, a mixture of heart, humor, silly, and serious.

Thinking of all of this, how would you describe the stops on your musical journey or career, Pixies, Breeders, solo artist?

Is there a way... KIM DEAL: Right, like the different stations that I... CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Yes.

Is there a way to describe that?

KIM DEAL: It's all sort of similar in a way that it's all just trying to find a group of people to play with.

And if that group of people isn't around, then just learn drums, do it myself.

The station isn't, here's The Pixies.

The station is, I'm on the road.

What has come in front of my car that I'm running over?

KIM DEAL: Did I crash into it?

And see what's left and then keep driving in the car.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Deal's car will be on tour through much of the spring, bringing the songs of "Nobody Loves You More" on the road for the first time.

For the "PBS News Hour," in Dayton, Ohio, I'm Christopher Booker.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we will be back shortly.

But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.

It's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like this one on the air.

For those of you staying with us, we take a look at an online phenomenon that claims to have further opened the door to human-canine communication, prerecorded buttons that allow dogs to seemingly talk with their humans.

In this encore report, William Brangham, along with his pup Macy, investigate whether these button enthusiasts are barking up the wrong tree.

ACTOR: You didn't know dogs could talk?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It's been a fascination of ours for generations.

ACTOR: Speak.

ACTOR: Hi there.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Getting man's best friend to talk.

ACTOR: I like to play ball.

I like purple bird in the window.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And for good reason.

Tens of millions of us live with and love the dogs in our lives, including me.

And we want to know what they're thinking.

FEDERICO ROSSANO, University of California, San Diego: We love dogs and we love bonding with them.

But I think while we know that they understand us pretty well, many of us still struggle making sense of what they want.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Federico Rossano studies animal communication.

He's a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

FEDERICO ROSSANO: When you see your dog scratching at the door, you might know they want to get out.

But you don't know why they want to get out.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But our furry friends have remained frustratingly mum, that is, until this Australian cattle dog named Stella stepped onto a button and into online fame.

Stella's dog mom is Christina Hunger.

She's a speech pathologist who got the idea for these dog buttons after working with nonverbal children, where she'd often use a tablet to assist them in communicating.

CHRISTINA HUNGER, Speech-Language Pathologist: At the same time, I brought a puppy home who was just bursting with communication, which led me to the question, if dogs can understand words we say to them, why can't they say words back?

What if they had a different way to talk, similar to kids who use devices?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The idea behind these buttons is that you record onto the button a word or a phrase that you use all the time with your dog.

For my dog Macy, that could be: "Go for a walk" or "Want a treat."

And then, every time I do that action in the course of a day, I press the button.

And with enough repetition, the hope is that someday Macy would push that button to communicate back with me.

Hunger spent weeks demonstrating her buttons for Stella with no results.

She was about to call it quits when Stella seemed to get it.

CHRISTINA HUNGER: She just started looking at the button and looking up at me, or she would actually swat and miss it.

You're so close, Stella.

That's when I knew that there was some potential here and I kept going with teaching.

And then a week later, she said her first word outside.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Outside.

CHRISTINA HUNGER: Let's go outside.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Hunger's blog and her social media videos have drawn millions of viewers, including cognitive scientist Rossano, who was skeptical.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Outside.

FEDERICO ROSSANO: I was like, well, there's one dog doing it and that's great.

But we know that there's a history of trying to communicate with animals, and that history was a little, let's say, complicated.

But the buttons and the people and dogs who used them kept growing in popularity.

AUTOMATED VOICE: "I dog, we friend."

ALEXIS DEVINE, Dog Owner: I dog, we friend, yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Alexis Devine and her sheepadoodle, Bunny, were inspired by Christina Hunger.

She started posting Bunny's progress online.

ALEXIS DEVINE: No.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: She says, after six years of steady work, Bunny now knows over 100 words and, she claims, uses them in novel ways.

ALEXIS DEVINE: I think one of the most powerful moments was when she had a foxtail embedded in the webbing between her paws.

So she went over to her board and she pressed "mad ouch."

And I said, where is your ouch?

And she pressed "Stranger paw."

So she had used stranger in a way that I had never modeled it, stranger being something foreign, foreign object.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Videos like this went crazy online.

Over eight million people follow Bunny and Devine on TikTok.

She's now written a book, sells her own brand of button boards, and has inspired millions more to try them.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Treats.

MAN: You want treats?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Cats, otters and even pot-bellied pigs are now experimenting with the buttons.

WOMAN: You have to say thank you.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Why?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This sudden growth in button users gave Rossano an opportunity, a large-scale study of button communication focusing on dogs.

FEDERICO ROSSANO: Our plan of having maybe 100, 200 participants turned into more than 10,000 participants from 47 countries and is the largest animal communication study ever attempted.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Over several months, Rossano and his team collected and analyzed millions of button pushes and hundreds of hours of video of dogs using them.

They also conducted controlled behavioral studies.

A first finding from their research published in August concludes that dogs can comprehend specific words and can offer contextually appropriate responses.

But, Rossano says, that's still a far cry from proving they can use actual humanlike language.

FEDERICO ROSSANO: I don't see the evidence that the dogs are really understanding language in anything close to the way that you and I are as we talk together here.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Clive Wynne studies dog psychology.

He directs the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University.

He says dogs using those buttons is fine, but don't get carried away with what is really going on.

CLIVE WYNNE, Arizona State University: I don't think that inside the mind of a dog there is a human mind desperate to get out.

I think inside a dog's head there's a dog's mind, and a dog's mind has its own ways of communicating.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yes, when my dog wants to communicate that she's hungry, she does two things.

She nudges my elbow with her snout or she stands by her food bowl.

And it's crystal clear what she wants, that she's hungry.

CLIVE WYNNE: So that's a beautiful example, William, of how you have learned your dog's language.

Your dog has a way of communicating with you about their desire for food.

And you would not gain anything by training your dog to press buttons that would say the exact same thing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For Christina Hunger, who now sells her own line of button boards, there's simply a way of enriching and deepening our relationship to these animals that have lived alongside us for tens of thousands of years.

CHRISTINA HUNGER: Buttons will never replace body language.

There's another tool that adds on top of and gives a lot more clarification for both the dog and the human.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Macy, want a treat?

AUTOMATED VOICE: Want a treat?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For the "PBS News Hour," from the new frontier in human-canine communication...

I'm going to push a button.

...

I'm William Brangham.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, remember, there's always a lot more online, including the latest "PBS News Weekly," which takes a deeper look at Trump's tariff wars, education cuts and more.

That is on our YouTube page.

Be sure to watch "Washington Week With The Atlantic" tonight on PBS.

Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel will discuss President Trump's unpredictable foreign and economic policies and the growing divide among Democrats over how to push back.

On "PBS News Weekend": how the children of Sudan are bearing the brunt of the violence in that country's brutal civil war.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us and have a great weekend.