GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "News Hour" tonight: President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agree to a limited cease-fire in Ukraine.

GEOFF BENNETT: After delays in negotiations, Israel renews attacks on Gaza, killing hundreds and shattering the cease-fire with Hamas.

MOHAMED AL KAHLOUT, Lost Brother to Israeli Airstrike (through translator): How is this an end to a war?

You have dead people all around.

This is injustice.

AMNA NAWAZ: And how the Trump administration's pushback on judges' orders, on deportations, and firing of federal workers challenges the U.S. system of checks and balances.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

Two major international stories top the news tonight.

Israel resumed hitting Gaza with airstrikes overnight, shattering the fragile cease-fire there.

AMNA NAWAZ: The Israeli bombardment killed more than 400 people, according to officials in Gaza.

In the meantime, President Trump spoke for more than two hours today with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

They agreed that Russia and Ukraine should stop attacks on each other's energy infrastructure for 30 days.

Nick Schifrin is here now with more.

So, Nick, what exactly did Putin and Trump agree to today?

NICK SCHIFRIN: President Trump called the call - - quote -- "very good and productive," and Putin ordered his military to pause all attacks on energy infrastructure for one month.

And, as you know, Amna, for years, that has been one of the hallmarks of Russia's campaign against Ukrainian civilians.

More recently, Ukraine has launched its own attacks against Russian energy facilities, and tonight Zelenskyy suggested that he was open to a mutual pause, but he admitted that he had no idea the details of what Trump and Putin discussed.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President (through translator): We support all steps aimed at the end of the war, but in order to support them, we need to understand what exactly we support.

When President Trump has time -- he's a busy man -- when he has time, he can call me any time.

He has my phone number.

We are ready to talk through further steps, with pleasure.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So perhaps a little frustration there from Zelenskyy, Amna.

And, tonight, Ukraine says that Russia launched a major drone and missile attack against Kyiv.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we understand Vladimir Putin actually went further on these demands to expand on the cease-fire?

What should we understand about that?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, remember the context for this call.

The U.S. pressured and got Ukraine to agree to a 30-day full cease-fire across the front line.

So President Trump entered this call wanting Putin to agree to a full cease-fire, and Trump did not get that.

And further, Putin, as you just said, went further.

Putin said, for this limited cease-fire to be expanded, Ukraine would have to stop arming or mobilizing its soldiers and the -- quote -- "complete cessation of foreign military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine."

Not only would that leave Ukraine extremely vulnerable.

It also goes against what President Trump has said, which is that Europe will provide Ukraine security guarantees.

Putin also said that the U.S. must address -- quote -- "the root causes of the crisis."

That translates to blocking further NATO expansion, including to Ukraine, and removing U.S. troops from Eastern Europe, says Angela Stent of the Brookings Institution.

ANGELA STENT, Brookings Institution: He is maintaining his maximalist goals.

He has made no concessions.

The only thing he agreed to was this cease-fire in terms of striking energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

And, of course, the Ukrainians have done some of that in Russia.

But that's it.

I don't see anything else coming out of the Kremlin statement that goes really towards meeting President Trump's goal of ending the war and having a 30-day cease -- complete cease-fire.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Putin and Trump looked also beyond Ukraine.

President Trump was bullish.

He said that an improved bilateral relationship would -- quote -- "have a huge upside, including enormous economic details -- deals."

And that is a sign that, for Trump, Ukraine is just the first step toward normalizing U.S.-Russia relationship, says Stent.

ANGELA STENT: That's been a major Putin go all along.

He wants to return to the global board of directors.

He wants the West's isolation of him to end.

President Trump is definitely in the process of doing that.

He has been talking about all the great economic opportunities in Russia and that the -- Russian and U.S. should have a great relationship.

NICK SCHIFRIN: One senior official today told me, Amna, that Putin is already winning because he has -- quote -- "dismantled Russian isolation."

AMNA NAWAZ: Nick Schifrin with the very latest for us.

Nick, thank you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Now to what is again war in Gaza.

Overnight, Israel began striking targets across Gaza, blaming Hamas for its refusal to release more Israeli hostages prior to negotiations on the second phase of the cease-fire.

But that Israeli hostage demand was not part of the overall cease-fire deal agreed to in mid-January brokered by the Biden administration.

So, tonight, Gaza is again on fire.

William Brangham starts our coverage.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In Gaza today, a desperate father races to save his child, another distraught to find his lying in a hospital morgue, and another forced to say his final goodbye lying on a crowded street.

The "News Hour" was at the Al Shifa Hospital, where inconsolable families struggled to make sense of what happened last night.

Mohamed Al Kahlout, whose brother was killed, raged at the Israeli attack.

MOHAMED AL KAHLOUT, Lost Brother to Israeli Airstrike (through translator): How is this an end to a war?

You have dead people all around.

This is injustice.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In Khan Yunis, Fedaa Hamdan on the left woke this morning to find her whole family had died.

FEDAA HAMDAN, Lost Family to Israeli Airstrike (through translator): I was asleep, sleeping with my children.

I woke up to find my husband and children dead.

Oh, Arabs, wake up.

Shame on you.

May God punish you, Benjamin Netanyahu.

DR. FEROZE SIDHWA, Trauma Surgeon and Volunteer, MedGlobal: I actually saw some injuries last night that I have never seen in my life.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The "News Hour" spoke to Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who's volunteering with MedGlobal at Nasser Hospital in West Gaza.

He said most of the trauma patients he treated last night were children.

DR. FEROZE SIDHWA: The first patient I saw was, like, maybe a 4-to-5-year-old girl.

She had a devastating brain injury, and I had to tell her father that she was - - because she was barely breathing.

She had multiple pieces of shrapnel to her face and scalp, and she was obviously not going to survive.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In 2013, Dr. Sidhwa was a resident surgeon at the Boston Medical Center who treated victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

DR. FEROZE SIDHWA: This one mass casualty event that we had here overnight would overwhelm literally every hospital in the United States, every single one.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night's attack ended weeks of relative calm, shattering the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, a truce that led to the release of 33 Israeli hostages, events which Hamas always staged in Gaza with a theatrical show of defiance.

In exchange, Israel released 2000 Palestinian prisoners and allowed a flood of aid into Gaza during its initial phase.

Hamas says Israel failed to return to the negotiating table, which it says would have led to the return of all remaining hostages.

But Israel says its barrage last night targeted Hamas fighters who were planning further attacks.

LT. COL. NADAV SHOSHANI, IDF International Spokesperson: This is coming after a few weeks where we were identifying indications of Hamas operating on the ground and preparing for some sort of terror attack against our troops, but more severely against our civilians.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said these attacks were just the beginning.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister (through translator): From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with increasing intensity.

And from now on, negotiations will only take place under fire.

And I want to assure you, this is just the beginning.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Earlier this month, Israel blocked all aid into Gaza and cut water and electricity into the enclave.

And, today, it issued evacuation orders for several areas across the Strip, urging residents to flee immediately.

MAHMOUD FARHAT, Displaced Gazan (through translator): What is the guilt of this child and all these children who spent the whole night in fear, horror and death?

Nothing in our hands to do.

We are powerless.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Powerless and displaced once again, residents of Gaza now fear another ground invasion.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm William Brangham.

GEOFF BENNETT: For perspective on the Israeli attack on Gaza, we get two views now.

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime State Department official in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

And Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

Thank you both for being with us.

So, Israel and Hamas were supposed to be holding talks on the truce's second phase, which would end the war, release more hostages.

How do you explain Israel's latest attack on Gaza?

HUSSEIN IBISH, Senior Resident Scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute: Well, I think the Israelis never were interested in phase two, because phase two means, practically speaking, the end of the war.

As phase one reached its conclusion, Israel decided to change the rules of the game.

They demanded the release of all hostages.

That was supposed to come at the end of phase two.

But because they realized that phase two means, practically speaking, ending the war, they don't want that.

They want the war to continue, especially Netanyahu does for personal political reasons, but also for ideological reasons.

So he took the opportunity of several disputes to start the war again in a big way.

And among the 400 people killed are 130 children, according to UNICEF, the U.N. agency that helps children.

That's a really horrendous toll.

GEOFF BENNETT: Aaron David Miller, how do you see it, this idea that Israel was never really interested in the second phase?

AARON DAVID MILLER, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: I mean, it's great to be here with you and with Hussein.

Look, from the beginning of this three-phase agreement, even from the conceptualization of it in the Biden administration, I think most of the negotiators believe that there would never be an implementation of phase two.

They thought they'd get through phase one, but phase two enjoins vote parties to do things they are simply not prepared to do without sufficient guarantees.

Hamas will not release all of the hostages, which is supposed to occur at the end of phase two or the beginning of phase three, unless they had ironclad assurances that Israel would end the war and withdraw from Gaza.

And no Israeli government -- let's be very clear.

Not the most extreme right-wing in Israel's history, the one you have now, or even a centrist government, is going to withdraw its forces from Gaza and give up the right of preventative and -- preemptive and preventative attacks without some sort of security structure.

And they would still insist, I suspect, in the wake of the shadow of October 7, overall responsibility for security.

So there was never going to be a phase two.

What's happening, however, and I think Hussein makes a very good point, the Netanyahu administration sold a revised phase two to the Trump administration.

HUSSEIN IBISH: Exactly.

AARON DAVID MILLER: And Donald Trump essentially acquiesced and is essentially enabling or is permitting the Israelis to determine the tactics and even the strategy about the next phase, whatever the next phase is going to be.

And it is return to military confrontation.

There's no doubt about it.

HUSSEIN IBISH: Exactly.

GEOFF BENNETT: I hear you.

Expand on that.

HUSSEIN IBISH: Well, I think that's exactly right.

I think Netanyahu wants to continue fighting.

And, in fact, there's every evidence that he wants to go back to the future, that what he's looking for is a modified -- return to a modified version of the status quo anti, where, whenever -- wherever Israel withdraws from Gaza, Hamas returns to a kind of quasi-power, pokes its head up, only to get slammed again.

Israel used to call this mowing the grass.

And I think they're going to -- they're returning to that in a way, except the grass is going to be cut as soon as it's visible.

You know, it's going to be cut very close to the ground.

I think there's -- the reason we're in this situation where there's no possibility of another endgame, other than a return to fighting, is Netanyahu's steadfast determination over almost a year-and-a-half to refuse to even begin discussing the possibility of an alternative to Hamas rule of Palestinian civil administration, because Palestinian politics are binary.

Either you strengthen Hamas or you strengthen the secular nationalists of Fatah.

He wants to keep Hamas in a kind of power in Gaza to continue splitting the Palestinians.

This has been his strategy to prevent Palestinian statehood for 20 years.

I don't think he wants to end that.

I think he wants to keep the Palestinians divided, keep Gaza chaotic, keep everything going as close to some version of the status quo ante as possible.

And there's no way he's going to risk allowing Palestinians to unite under the Palestinians who want to talk to Israel and make a deal, even if it means propping up and supporting the quasi-rule in Gaza of the Palestinians who want to kill and kidnap Israelis.

I think that's the gruesome truth.

GEOFF BENNETT: What do we know about the strength of Hamas at this moment, Aaron David Miller, and what does all this mean for the Palestinians in Gaza?

AARON DAVID MILLER: I mean, I think the reality is -- there are two realities here.

And Hussein knows well this is not one hand clapping.

These are two combatants who are pledged to one another's mutual destruction.

And the Israelis -- the Israelis suffered an enormous trauma on October 7, from which the public, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, are still reeling, the shame, the humiliation, the vulnerability, the sexual predation, the raping, the mutilation, the taking of hostages.

All of these things have injected a new urgency in Israel's conception of its own security.

And I think the problem is -- and Hussein again is correct in asserting that because of Mr. Netanyahu's political problems - - and let's be clear, on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in a Jerusalem district court four years and running.

He must maintain himself in power or face a possible conviction or prison time or a plea bargain that would essentially drive him out of politics.

And that means avoiding the kinds of alternatives that Hussein has laid out, an emboldened Palestinian Authority, a pathway to two states, which, frankly, right now is a thought experiment.

I think Hamas is resurgent to some degree, in answer to your question.

They're repurposing Israeli unexploded munitions.

They're retraining -- Secretary of State Blinken in December -- I think he regrets having said it -- essentially said that Hamas has now recruited nearly as many fighters as the Israelis have killed.

And they may be unpopular, but there is no alternative.

And while you can't defeat an idea, you can make this that idea less relevant.

And the Israelis certainly have not been forthcoming in trying to make that possible.

HUSSEIN IBISH: They have allowed no alternative, is the point.

And it's like taking water out of a bathtub.

The other water will come in.

They have got to allow the idea of a Palestinian alternative to Hamas or you're going to get Hamas.

They know that.

This is not accidental.

This is a strategic choice.

Well, I think we have to be honest about that.

Netanyahu's strategy here is not just to keep the war going, but to keep the war with Hamas going.

Everything Aaron said about Israeli trauma is right, but it -- Israelis are not traumatized enough not to realize that, in Palestinian politics, you have to choose between Fatah, which wants to talk and make a deal, or Hamas, which wants to kill and kidnap and mutilate and everything Aaron said.

And the sad part is that Netanyahu apparently would prefer to deal with Hamas in Gaza than in any way strengthen the hand of those who might one day succeed in creating a Palestinian state, because the ultimate goal is annexation in the West Bank, and that that is the paramount goal.

GEOFF BENNETT: Hussein Ibish, Aaron David Miller, thank you both for your insights.

AARON DAVID MILLER: You're very welcome.

Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: The day's other headlines begin with some highly anticipated good news.

Two American astronauts who've been stuck in space since last year are finally back on planet Earth.

The SpaceX capsule carrying Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, along with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, splashed down safely off the Florida coast moments ago.

MAN: And undocking confirmed.

AMNA NAWAZ: Williams and Wilmore's journey back to Earth, which they waited 286 days to make, began early today when they successfully undocked from the International Space Station.

Their mission was only supposed to last a week when they arrived last June, but their Boeing spacecraft was sent back without them when it suffered numerous malfunctions.

After more than nine months of space walks and zero gravity, the pair arrived home now that a relief crew had arrived.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer brushed off calls within his party to step aside, saying he remains the -- quote -- "best leader for the Senate."

He's faced a wave of backlash from Democrats for supporting the Republican spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.

A number of House Democrats and activists called for a more public confrontation with the Republican majority.

Today, in his first interview since he postponed book tour events over security concerns and calls for protests, the minority leader defended his decision.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I knew when I took this vote there'd be a lot of protest, but I felt I had to do it for the future, not only of the Democratic Party, but the country, because here's -- as bad that C.R.

bill was, and it was bad.

A shutdown is 10 times worse.

AMNA NAWAZ: Schumer also appeared today on "The View," and will join us on the "News Hour" tomorrow to discuss his new book and other topics.

The board of the U.S. Institute of Peace has shrunk to just three members after a dramatic standoff yesterday between the independent nonprofit and the Trump administration.

Employees at the institute say they called the police after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, physically entered the Washington headquarters after several unsuccessful attempts.

The agency's now-fired president called it an illegal takeover of an institution that's not part of the executive branch.

GEORGE MOOSE, Former President and CEO, U.S.

Indeed of Peace: This is not a government building.

This building is a private building owned by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

We have our own separate board.

We have our own bypass authority to go directly to Congress in order to get our money.

Somehow, all of those arguments have not prevailed.

AMNA NAWAZ: The group, which helps prevent violent conflicts abroad, was created by Congress more than 40 years ago.

It was one of several organizations named in an executive order last month directing them to reduce operations.

Turning overseas, Hungary has passed a law that bans pro-LGBTQ pride events and lets authorities use facial recognition technology to identify participants.

As the measure passed in Parliament by an overwhelming margin, opposition lawmakers lit rainbow-colored smoke bombs in protest.

The law says gatherings cannot violate the country's child protection laws, which prohibit showing homosexuality to minors under 18.

The Budapest pride celebration marks its 30th anniversary this summer.

In a statement, organizers said the new legislation was fascism, not child protection.

And on Wall Street, stocks fell ahead of the Federal Reserve's announcement on interest rates tomorrow.

The Dow Jones slipped by more than 250 points.

The Nasdaq fell sharply, losing almost 2 percentage points.

The S&P 500 also dropped by more than 1 percent.

Still to come on the "News Hour": Governor Kathy Hochul discusses New York's plan to recruit laid-off federal workers and other ways the state is pushing back against the Trump administration; reflections from those who lived and worked through the COVID-19 pandemic five years after the first lockdowns; and an award-winning book takes a deeper look at human smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border.

GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump escalated his fight with the federal courts today, as the president called for the impeachment of the federal judge who ordered a halt to the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants.

Mr. Trump's threat comes after Judge James Boasberg scolded the DOJ for failing to answer questions about the deportations of alleged gang members.

Rallying behind the president, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ would look into taking action against the judge.

PAM BONDI (R), U.S. Attorney General Nominee: He's attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs, and he can't do it.

What he's done is an intrusion the president's authority.

This one federal judge, again, thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot.

And, right now, we're evaluating our options.

QUESTION: OK, so you may -- the administration may continue doing these flights?

PAM BONDI: Absolutely.

These are foreign terrorists.

The president has identified them and designated them as such, and we will continue to follow the Alien Enemies Act.

GEOFF BENNETT: Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has been covering the latest and joins us now.

So let's pick up there, Laura.

What did the Justice Department say today in their response, their filing to the judge, Judge Boasberg?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So -- yes, so, at the heart of this, Geoff, Judge Boasberg is trying to figure out if the Trump administration violated his weekend order to turn planes around that deported migrants under Trump's use of this centuries-old Alien Enemies Act.

And so, in the filing today, the Trump administration essentially argued that only -- that they only had to follow a written order from the judge, not a verbal one that came at least an hour earlier.

And they said in their filing that the flights in question left U.S. airspace, and so the occupants were removed before the written order was ever issued.

Now, I talked to a number of trial lawyers who essentially said that a verbal order is just as binding as a written order and that they don't think that those arguments by the administration are going to succeed.

And the administration also called Judge Boasberg's verbal order not enforceable.

This did not satisfy Judge Boasberg.

He ordered the Justice Department to submit a seal declaration by noon tomorrow providing details about when the planes took off, how they took off, and he's essentially skeptical of the government's arguments to date.

GEOFF BENNETT: So the DOJ over the last 24 hours, as I understand it, has issued a number of sworn statements.

So what was revealed in that?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: In one filing last night, an ICE official said that the government -- quote -- "carefully vetted" the migrants to ensure that they were in fact members of the Tren de Aragua gang, the Venezuelan gang, but the ICE official also said that many of these Venezuelan nationals deported do not have criminal records and that the government lacks -- quote -- "specific information' about a number of these cases.

I spoke to the ACLU's Lee Gelernt, who is a lead attorney in this case.

And he said that, on the merits, they're making two arguments, which is that the president cannot use a wartime authority in peacetime against a gang and also that they have to give due process to these migrants, so they can dispute the allegations that they are gang members.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Republicans are increasingly calling for the impeachment of federal judges over their rulings that they disagree with.

President Trump has targeted judges in the past.

He's doing it again.

Bring us up to speed.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So, Elon Musk and President Trump ratcheted up the attack specifically on Judge Boasberg today, and President Trump called Boasberg a troublemaker and an agitator and he said that this judge, like many of the crooked judges he's forced to appear before, should be impeached.

And so, in a rare move in response to that, Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court responded with this short two-line statement reminding the president about the rule of law, saying - - quote -- "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.

The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

So that is not normal for the chief justice to weigh in like that, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: I know you have been speaking with legal experts all day.

I mean, what more could the courts do to compel the administration to comply?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I spoke to Alex Nowrasteh.

He's the vice president and an immigration policy expert at Cato Institute, and he said there are two main tools that the judiciary can use to hold the administration accountable.

ALEX NOWRASTEH, Cato Institute: Courts have the ability to sanction government employees who ignore their orders, both criminally and in civil procedures.

I have little doubt that the federal judiciary will stick up for itself and will wield all of its power necessary to defend its rightful, lawful, and legal constitutional authority to put checks, to oversee the actions of the president of the United States and make sure they comport with the law.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Like Alex of Cato Institute, multiple lawyers that I talked to said that the next step for a judge like Judge Boasberg would be to hold a government official within the Trump administration in contempt of court.

And the question is whether that's criminal contempt, which would have to likely be enforced by the Justice Department or a civil financial violation.

GEOFF BENNETT: On another front, Laura, the administration is moving to reinstate some 25,000 federal workers who were fired.

Is that right?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right.

So in response to a federal court order last week saying that the firings of federal workers across 18 agencies was illegal, the administration is working right now to reinstate workers across the board, those 25,000.

They're putting them right now on administrative leave and those workers are being told that they will have back pay.

So some of them have returned to full-time work.

Some of them are still waiting for more information.

GEOFF BENNETT: And there's some news involving USAID.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes, that's right.

So a federal judge today ruled that the -- Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency's actions to permanently shut down USAID were likely - - that they likely violated the Constitution -- quote -- "in multiple ways," including that Elon Musk potentially violated the Appointments Clause.

And so the judge ordered, this judge out of Maryland ordered DOGE to reinstate e-mail access, payment systems for current workers.

And they said that Musk and his team cannot take any further actions to dismantle USAID without an official current agency head saying that this is OK to do.

And so Musk and DOGE have to show the federal court that they are complying within seven days.

The big takeaway here, though, Geoff, is that the judge hinted in his ruling that Musk has no constitutional authority to do everything that he is currently doing, even beyond USAID.

So that could potentially mean similar rulings from other judges.

GEOFF BENNETT: We will see what comes of it.

Laura Barron-Lopez, our thanks to you, as always.

Busy day.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: As President Donald Trump's cost-cutting agenda continues through the government, Democratic governors are now looking to recruit fired federal workers to their states.

The state of New York has launched a campaign for those impacted by DOGE cuts, including billboards in New York City's Moynihan Train Hall and in train and metro stations throughout Washington, D.C.

Joining me now to discuss that effort and the other ways that New York is pushing back against the Trump administration is New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

Governor, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's start with that effort then to recruit some of those fired federal workers.

Have you had fired federal workers applying for those jobs, how many, and have you been able to hire any so far?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: Oh, no, we certainly have.

In fact, a couple weeks ago, I did a roundtable inviting a number of recently fired federal employees from the New York City area to come.

And one of them was a father of four.

He had done four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He worked at the VA.

He was one week from ending his probation, and he was dismissed.

And he was so upset and distraught about it, and I gathered others who were just really still reeling from the -- like, the unexpectedness of it.

They never thought this would happen to them.

So I told them we would take care of these individuals.

I literally have almost 7,000 open jobs in state government.

We are not back to our pre-pandemic levels.

And we certainly have openings in law enforcement and education and social work, a lot of issues we want to take care of our citizens.

So I think it's a great opportunity.

I was literally meeting with President Trump in the White House last week.

I went to Union Station afterward and I saw our billboard that said, DOGE may say you're fired, but, New York, we say you're hired.

And it's been really successful.

And I will give you the real numbers once we know for sure.

But every -- a lot more have applied than we expected.

And I find that exciting.

AMNA NAWAZ: So tell me a little bit more about that meeting with President Trump last week, because you and the president have disagreed and clashed before, right?

You have accused him of federal overreach.

You have disagreed on his immigration approach.

But you said it's important to keep that dialogue open.

So where can you work with this president?

What did you agree on in that meeting?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: One area where we should all be able to agree on his infrastructure, continuing important investments, many started under the Biden administration.

But I want to make sure that we look at an asset like Penn Station in New York City, which is really the welcome mat for millions of people who come through that station.

And it looks deplorable.

We're renovating certain parts of it, but I want to make it be a beautiful train hall, something that natural light comes in, that people come to there and feel that this is a really world-class experience.

So knowing that Donald Trump is a New Yorker, I appealed to his sense of understanding how important this asset is to our city and its identity.

And we agreed to work on this together.

AMNA NAWAZ: What about on tariffs?

Because we have seen publicly he has doubled down on the use of tariffs, particularly in Canada, which I know impacts your state quite a bit.

You said you have told him that the tariffs are devastating for upstate farm and factory workers.

Was he receptive to that?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: You know, he does believe that it's short-term pain for long-term gain.

Just that the people who were expecting prices to go down on Inauguration Day are really in for a rude awakening.

Not only did they not go down as promised, but they're going up.

And if you look at the possible impacts of $2,000 to $3,000 more a year for a family, I mean, especially in places like Upstate New York, on the border with Quebec, and Western New York, where I'm from, on the border of Ontario, these are not -- this is not a foreign country to us.

This is a natural trading partner.

It's part of a larger, broader community.

So this really sends shockwaves to our state.

And I wanted him to know that a lot of these people supported him in many areas of Upstate New York, did support for him, and now -- support him in the election.

And now they're just wondering what happened.

AMNA NAWAZ: Governor, on the immigration front, we know New York City has been in this administration's crosshairs for a while.

You have said you are not going to allow ICE to come in and take people off the streets.

But the reports show that they have sort of already been doing that, to some extent.

We saw local New York reports show that, during one week in February, there were 100 people arrested.

Do you know how many people ICE has arrested and potentially deported from New York?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: Well, I had a conversation with the president about this a couple of times.

And I said, I am aligned with your interest in removing dangerous criminals off the streets and sending them back to where they came from.

It's in my interest.

My number one priority is public safety.

And that particularly includes Venezuelan gang members who have been terrorizing parts of our city since their arrival.

So this is not a bad outcome to have them removed.

But there we -- we understand there's a difference.

And I explain this once again, saying, we're not separating families.

We're not going to allow that to happen.

AMNA NAWAZ: But, Governor, we know among the thousands of people already deported have been people who have no criminal record.

Do you know how many of those people have been from New York?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: No, I don't know how many, but I will say that we don't cooperate in those cases.

That's why I don't have information.

We will cooperate, my State Police will cooperate in a situation where you have a warrant or it's someone on a terrorism watch list, someone who's committed crimes in their own country or here.

That's a different category from where we will not cooperate when it comes to just saying, identify who these people are and we're going to take them.

We're not going to help with that.

AMNA NAWAZ: I need to ask you too about the Democratic Party, because it's been a rough few weeks.

You have seen the leader of your party in the Senate under fire from fellow Democrats, including your fellow New Yorkers, Hakeem Jeffries and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for choosing to avoid a government shutdown and back a Republican funding bill.

In your view, was that the right choice?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: I know that Senator Schumer has New York state's best interest at heart, because he's also not just the major leader for the Senate, but also our state.

He has delivered time and time again for New Yorkers.

There can be disputes within our party.

This is not unusual in a family to have disagreements on a strategy.

But also, at the end of the day, he and Hakeem Jeffries put out a statement together, working together to fight the Medicaid cuts.

We cannot afford these cuts.

So, already, there's like a unity that's restored.

And, again, going down the road, there will be more disagreements.

That's OK.

But the bottom line is, who brought us to this place?

Never forget it was the Republicans.

And every day that we're hitting each other is another day that Republicans are getting away with what they're doing.

I'm going to continue to remind everybody, let's stand together as often as we can, as loudly as we can against what the Republicans are trying to do to undermine not just our democracy, but our basic sense of security here, the chaos of the stock market, what you're doing with tariffs, what you're doing making lives more expensive here.

We have to stand up and call that out.

AMNA NAWAZ: Governor, there's clearly a divide within your party, though, on this one issue.

Was it the right choice for Senator Schumer to vote for that bill?

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: Listen, I'm focused on New York state here.

I spent time in Congress.

I would answer questions on federal issues when it came to that.

He made a decision that he thought was best, not to have the shutdown.

Others disagree with that.

I'm focused on making sure that New York can get through this tumultuous time, whatever happens, and agree that a shutdown would have been difficult for our state.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is New York Governor Kathy Hochul joining us tonight.

Governor Hochul, good to see you again.

Thank you again for making the time.

GOV.

KATHY HOCHUL: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Who owns history?

It's been a central question since President Trump reentered the White House.

His administration's efforts to strip diversity, equity and inclusion programs prompted the Defense Department to remove thousands of Web pages and images honoring the contributions of women and people of color, like the Navajo Code Talkers who served during the World Wars.

The Pentagon is now restoring at least some of those Web pages after much pushback, including one honoring Black Medal of Honor recipient army Major General Charles Calvin Rogers.

The Web site URL had labeled that a DEI Medal of Honor, which the DOD now says was a mistake.

For a deeper look at what stories are told and which are ignored and why, we're joined by Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.

Let's start with the Defense Department, which has been the most active on this front.

In the early days of the administration, the Pentagon temporarily removed training material about the Tuskegee Airmen.

There was more recently the deleted information about the Code Talkers, which we mentioned.

Add to that Arlington National Cemetery removing histories that highlighted Black, Hispanic and female veterans from its Web site.

How is the administration, in your view, seeking to shape the national identity and the historical memory with these actions?

DON MOYNIHAN, University of Michigan: Well, the Defense Department is a great place to start.

They tell the story of American history through the story of individuals, through the story of heroes who did amazing things for the U.S. military at different points in time.

And so, once you start to selectively erase the stories of those individuals, you're also erasing American military history.

And some of that is incredibly interesting history, if you look at something like the Navajo Code Talkers, where, in that case, you can't tell the story of how they were such an advantage during World War II without talking about their identity, because they used their tribal languages to share intelligence in a way that our military enemies could not break.

That is a very good demonstration of how diversity on the battlefield is actually a strength in a way that runs contrary to some of the messaging that's coming from the secretary of defense right now.

GEOFF BENNETT: There's also a question of how the administration is doing this, this process many see as being haphazard and that these removals have been abrupt and accompanied by no public justification.

And you could also argue that they have been performed in a way that is clumsy.

For instance, the Pentagon removed an image of the Enola Gay, the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb, because it had in its name the word gay.

I mean, what are the implications of the process?

DON MOYNIHAN: There are certain code words that are being used to detect images or stories, and then anything that's associated with those words is at least in the short term being pulled down.

And, as you point out, this can lead to sort of very clumsy or erroneous outcomes.

In some cases, it leads to outcomes that really don't make a lot of sense for the communities that are being affected.

So, for example, the National Park Service rewrote an account of the Stonewall uprising to honor LGB community members by removing the T and Q from LGBTQ.

And I think it's another example of where you have this sort of very rapid, clumsily applied set of preferences to the history of America.

GEOFF BENNETT: It strikes me that there might be people on the political right who will say that the left engaged in this type of erasure in the wake of the George Floyd protests, where we saw the removal of Confederate statues, the renaming of military bases that had been named for Confederate generals.

Do you see any merit in an argument like that?

DON MOYNIHAN: I think, in any society, we're always having an ongoing conversation about who is included and who's excluded in the stories of histories that we're telling and who is celebrated and who is placed in the back.

And so, for example, we are also seeing Confederate generals whose names have been attached to military bases and then removed from those bases, those names have now been reattached.

And so there's been a little bit of a legal work-around there where the secretary of defense is saying it's not those particular generals we are celebrating.

We happen to be celebrating other military officials who happen to share the same name as those generals.

I'm not sure that it's a very compelling or persuasive explanation, but it does suggest that the secretary of defense wants to celebrate some of these Confederate memories and heroes and bring them back to the forefront at precisely the time that he is removing the images and stories of some American citizens that those Confederate generals would not have viewed as full citizens and would not have regarded as being worthy of inclusion in the military.

GEOFF BENNETT: Don Moynihan, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, thanks for your time and for your insights.

DON MOYNIHAN: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: It's been over five years since COVID-19 began spreading across the U.S.

The virus killed more than a million Americans and reshaped our entire society.

Tonight, we begin a new series with reflections from people in their own words who lived and worked through the pandemic.

COLLEEN BRIDGER, Former Assistant City Manager, San Antonio, Texas: I am Dr. Colleen Bridger.

I'm the former assistant city manager for the city of San Antonio who oversaw public health during the pandemic.

None of us expected the pandemic to last as long as it did.

And so we didn't treat it like a marathon.

We treated it like a sprint.

And then we just kept doing sprint after sprint after sprint after sprint and never resting.

There was no way to balance work and life during the pandemic if you were a public health responder.

You were just a public health responder.

And so I have two adult children.

My first grandchild was born during the pandemic, a husband of now 35 years.

All of them got zero attention from me.

My marriage struggled as a result.

My relationship with my kids struggled as a result.

And I ended up retiring because, in a way, I said I was going to be a consultant because that was a good cover.

I wasn't -- I wasn't retiring.

I was moving on to something else, but really I just needed a break.

I just needed to not do this anymore.

But it took me longer to get over the pandemic than I thought it would.

And the thought of doing it all over again still puts a pit in my stomach.

Looking back five years later, I feel like public health did an amazing job, given everything that we were dealing with, both at the local, state, and national level.

It was extremely challenging, though, to be the person who was one of many public faces when it came to talking about the pandemic, talking about COVID-19.

And it was probably three years before I stopped waking up at 3:00 in the morning in this kind of cold sweat, wondering what I had forgotten or done wrong or not thought of.

I got death threats.

I got tons of voice-mail messages and a lot of just kind of hateful hidden messages.

When people are scared, their brain works differently.

Your need to survive becomes front and center.

At least in retrospect now, I understand that.

I will say, though, that now what I'm seeing is, it's becoming a default for some people.

And that scares me for the next pandemic, because, as this is escalating, I don't know.

If I got a death threat today about something, I might not be able to just say, oh, that's just somebody being scared and it's not really going to happen.

There is a disbanding of the trust in public health that really kind of got its critical mass during the pandemic, and I see it getting increasingly worse.

And I think we're seeing that play out around the measles outbreak that we have right now.

If there is another pandemic, local public health officers are going to have to band together to figure out what they know and how they're going to share information from a place of respecting people's autonomy and freedom.

But I think we need to start figuring out who the respected messengers are to communicate that scientifically accurate information that people need in order to do what they feel is best for their families to protect themselves.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tonight, a different lens on the tension at the U.S.-Mexico border, one that applies deep-dive anthropology and in-the-dirt archaeology to learn more about migration.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown talks to a National Book Award-winning author whose work explores the clandestine world of human smuggling.

The report is for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JASON DE LEON, Author, "Soldiers and Kings": We're pretty far north.

At this point, we're close enough that people are getting ready to get picked up.

And that's why you're starting to see lots of clothes and other items being left behind.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's a different approach to seeing and understanding migration at the U.S. border, through the stuff, the things they carried that offer clues to the people and the paths they have taken.

It's been an ongoing focus of anthropologist Jason De Leon, captured in the 2019 documentary "Border South."

JASON DE LEON: Every one of these things tells a story.

JEFFREY BROWN: This past December, De Leon, a professor at UCLA and director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, showed us some of his archaeological finds now collected in his lab, clothing, shoes, water bottles, part of his Undocumented Migration Project.

Why collect this stuff?

And why house, archive it?

JASON DE LEON: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why?

JASON DE LEON: This is archaeology.

People go, oh, well, this is garbage.

This is trash.

And I said, well, what do you think archaeologists study?

So I think these objects can tell a lot of different stories and really connect us, I think, to this thing that happens far away, that happens in the middle of nowhere.

And I really think archaeology can help us bring it closer to home.

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, De Leon, a 2017 MacArthur fellow, began his archaeological career in a more traditional way, studying the ancient Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica.

It was local workers in rural Mexico helping dig ditches for archaeologists who changed De Leon's course.

JASON DE LEON: And so these guys were just telling me stories about the Arizona desert, about their hopes and dreams for migrating.

And I ended up becoming increasingly more interested in those stories than the things that were coming out of the ground.

JEFFREY BROWN: That forensic work on the ground led to his first book, "The Land of Open Graves," which told the human drama and often deadly consequences of border migration.

His 2024 book, "Soldiers and Kings," which won last year's National Book Award for nonfiction, focuses on a key but little understood aspect of the migration story, the foot soldiers and mid-level smugglers, or guides, as they call themselves, who move migrants across Mexico and into the U.S. JASON DE LEON: You can't have undocumented migration without smuggling, without the smuggler.

And yet we know very little about them.

JEFFREY BROWN: Who they are.

JASON DE LEON: Who they are.

And it's often a caricature.

I want people to understand that smuggling is a - - it's a service.

It's a business.

And we only hear about it when it goes brutally wrong.

But if it only went wrong all the time, it wouldn't exist as a business.

And so I think that, most of the time, it functions as a service that migrants are looking for.

JEFFREY BROWN: A service De Leon sees as existing within a larger exploitative and often violent system, one in which we're all implicated and therefore should understand.

JASON DE LEON: I had someone ask me once, they said, well, does smuggling have to be so exploitative?

And I said, well, we can think about it as, like, does undocumented labor have to be so exploitative?

I mean, and it's like the crux of that industry is to exploit migrant labor.

So, unfortunately, these folks who are involved who are being smuggled, they're exploited at every and every possible turn.

JEFFREY BROWN: De Leon makes clear he's not trying to romanticize smugglers, but, rather, give insight into their day-to-day experience and through them to the larger migration system.

His subjects are from Honduras, the Central American country still reeling from pervasive gang violence and poverty.

And they found themselves on the migrant trail having escaped danger and lack of economic opportunity back home.

JASON DE LEON: Nobody wakes up in the morning one day and goes, you know what, I'm going to be a smuggler today.

This is like my dream.

JEFFREY BROWN: De Leon writes about a veteran smuggler of Afro-indigenous descent named Kingston, who fled a violent childhood in Honduras, eventually making it to the U.S., only to be deported after nearly a decade-long stint in prison.

JASON DE LEON: He told me at one point, he says, I have become this brutal, violent person, but what else did you think I was going to become with all the things that have happened to me?

And those guys would say, well, I can utilize this skill set now in this new context.

And for a lot of them, they sort of see the smuggling work as a kind of form of redemption in some way.

Like, I did bad stuff on the street before.

Now maybe I can use these kind of skills to help people, although, at the same time, they're still exploiting folks in all kinds of ways.

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JASON DE LEON: None of them really want to be doing it.

They all want to get out.

And what they find is that they don't have a lot of options.

JEFFREY BROWN: De Leon calls his anthropological method deep hanging out, his version of the age-old ethnographic commitment to spending years embedding oneself to gain a deeper insight and understanding of people and cultures.

But this method also comes at a cost.

Boundaries he's tried to set for himself work well, until they don't.

He writes in very personal terms of his relationship with Kingston: "It's like I have completely forgotten all my own rules.

I have become a pushover and practically open my wallet whenever he asks, which is often."

It was, he says, the most ethically difficult project he's ever worked on and one that made him question the role the anthropologist plays in his subjects' lives.

JASON DE LEON: At the end of the day, I mean, those people are still poor.

They're still in these incredibly violent contexts.

Some of them are dead.

And it's oftentimes something I really struggle with.

Like, I want to tell those stories.

Those folks have moved me so much.

They have given me so much.

I feel for them.

And so I want to take that and try to raise awareness about it.

But raising awareness about this thing and getting people to read this book, that's not going to bring back some of these folks from the grave.

That's not going to change the situation in Honduras.

And so I carry a lot of guilt about that.

JEFFREY BROWN: De Leon says he opposes building walls and other steps he calls Band-Aids that aren't effective and don't address root causes of migration.

You write that anthropologists don't have answers.

What do you tell people?

JASON DE LEON: What I try to do as an anthropologist is to give people food for thought, so that they can understand how these things are connected and then begin to start making, I would hope, both everyday small changes, but then thinking about the much bigger picture.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Los Angeles.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

JEFFREY BROWN: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the "PBS News Hour," thanks for spending part of your evening with us.