GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

Amna Nawaz is away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: tech and Trump.

Billionaire Elon Musk tries to drum up support on Capitol Hill for slashing government programs, while Bitcoin spikes on news of a crypto-friendly presidential appointment.

How Mr. Trump's picks to head the nation's intelligence agencies appear poised to radically shift the way those departments operate.

JOHN SIPHER, Former CIA Officer: It's not really clear with these people yet whether their goal is just to get real loyalty for Donald Trump or whether it's to destroy these organizations.

GEOFF BENNETT: And a Palestinian chef who ran a soup kitchen in war-torn Gaza is killed delivering aid to a hospital in what his family says was a targeted Israeli drone strike.

GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

It has been a busy day on Capitol Hill, where the people president-elect Donald Trump has tapped to slash government spending, that's Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, met with House and Senate Republicans.

The two were recently selected by Mr. Trump to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Meantime, Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, continues to face an uphill climb on his path to confirmation.

Our Lisa Desjardins joins us now for the latest.

So, Lisa, let's start with Ramaswamy and Musk.

What were they telling Congress they want to do exactly with this department, the so-called department?

LISA DESJARDINS: This was an unusual day on Capitol Hill.

These two men who don't have any official government function at this point were actually the center of political gravity.

Now, what we saw from Ramaswamy and Musk was them crisscrossing the Capitol, Musk with his child X on his shoulders, and sometimes you see him there in the photo.

As far as we know, they met only with Republicans, but, by my count, scores of them, including Speaker Johnson and incoming Senate Leader John Thune.

These sessions, sources told us, were largely brainstorming sessions.

Republicans who walked out said they felt heard.

Most of them, but not all, were enthusiastic about the idea of cutting government in general.

Now, I'm told that Musk indicated to House and Senate Republicans late in the afternoon that his goal is getting honor trajectory toward, get this, a balanced budget.

That has significant consequences if the U.S. is to get there.

Now, their stated goal of cutting $2 trillion overall, that is tough.

That is ambitious, but that is what they're pitching right now.

They say they want to cut the federal work force.

They also want to force workers to work more from the office.

Ramaswamy and Musk didn't speak in public today, but Ramaswamy did sit down yesterday at a forum, and he spoke more about what he thinks about federal workers, as well as that it's not just about cutting costs, but changing government.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, Co-Head, Department of Government Efficiency: I think part of the project of thinning out the federal bureaucracy, that's less about the head count expenses, and it's more about actually respecting the rules of the road in the constitutional republic.

I'm hopeful it's going to be even good for many of the individuals who may make a transition from government service back to the private sector.

LISA DESJARDINS: Now, government worker unions do not think it will be good for their workers if they are laid off.

And they are taking action now to protect them.

And, also, they signed a deal with the Biden administration to protect telework.

That sets up a real potential clash in the Trump administration over this.

GEOFF BENNETT: What more have you learned about how these two men will operate and how they intend to run we keep saying so-called, because only Congress, as you well know, has the authority to create a new agency.

And this Department of Government Efficiency does not exist.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

This is the right question.

And this is the question I had the hardest time getting an answer to from Republicans today.

What is DOGE?

What is the Department of Government Efficiency?

It's not a commission.

But let's go over what we do know about it right now.

This was established by president-elect Trump.

He announced it November 12 just using this title.

It is not an official commission.

It is not a government division.

Now, they have announced, Musk and Ramaswamy, an end date for it for July 4, 2026.

Republicans leaving the meeting today, I asked them, Geoff, what is this exactly?

What is the structure here?

They said they weren't exactly clear.

I asked Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, is this subject to Freedom of Information requests, for example, what they're doing?

He said: "I don't know."

I asked, is this going to need government funding?

Not clear.

So, right now it is two men, two billionaires who are advising, who will come up with a set of recommendations.

This is important because the only structure for this group right now officially is the congressional caucuses that have just launched.

And they did that purposely, Geoff.

That structure is coming from Congress, congressional Republicans, to bolster this idea.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, lastly, Lisa, bring us up to speed on the nomination of Pete Hegseth to serve as defense secretary.

He faces a number of serious allegations, all of which he denies, but it has really imperiled his standing among not just Democrats, but with Republican senators.

LISA DESJARDINS: Correct.

Hegseth was on the Hill again today starting at 9:00 a.m. meeting with senators all day long.

Now, Hegseth told -- spoke to cameras briefly today, and he explained his argument for keeping his nomination.

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. Defense Secretary Nominee: I'm a different man than I was years ago.

That's a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate.

And I know from fellow vets that I have spent time with, they resonate with that as well.

You fight, you go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country, and sometimes that changes you a little bit.

LISA DESJARDINS: Now, among those that he met with was Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Republican.

He's someone who has been seen as an important person to watch, sometimes moderate in how he expresses his opinion.

He told reporters today after the meeting that Hegseth went a long way in toward getting his support, but that he has more work to do.

I can report he certainly does, because, again, Hegseth can only afford to use to lose three Republican senators.

And, right now, more than that, have problems with this nomination.

As Hegseth works, however, he is taking the spotlight off of other potential controversial nominees, like Kash Patel for FBI, who I have to say behind the scenes is starting to gather support, even as we focus more on Hegseth more publicly.

Pam Bondi, the attorney general nominee now, she also is gathering support and has been on the Hill.

GEOFF BENNETT: More to come.

Lisa Desjardins, thanks, as always.

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, the world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, hit a record high, rising above the $100,000 mark for the first time yesterday.

And it came just hours after president-elect Donald Trump announced cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins as his pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Trump, who saw crypto as a scam just a few years back, is now a full supporter, and he took credit for the surge on his TRUTH Social platform, saying: "Congratulations, Bitcoiners.

You're welcome."

Atkins was an SEC commissioner under former President George W. Bush, and he favors lighter regulation of financial firms.

For more on crypto's soaring values and the Trump-Atkins connection to all of this, I spoke earlier today with David Yaffe-Bellany.

He's a technology reporter who covers the crypto industry for The New York Times.

Thanks for being with us.

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY, The New York Times: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, first, for the unfamiliar, explain what it means that Bitcoin surpassed the $100,000 mark.

Why is that significant?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: It's really an important symbolic threshold for Bitcoin.

This is an investment product that started at zero in value, and over the last 15, 20 years has risen to become one of the most successful assets in the entire financial system.

And so it's really the culmination of an extraordinary roller coaster ride that's been going on for a while.

And it's a sign that this is part of the financial system now.

It's not a passing fad.

It's something that is here to stay and that really holds tremendous real-world value.

GEOFF BENNETT: Since Donald Trump's win a month ago, the price has surged by some 45 percent.

How much of this run-up has to do with him and his team?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: It has a ton to do with Donald Trump.

I mean, it's not entirely a Trump phenomenon.

This run-up started before the election, after financial firms began offering investment products tied to Bitcoin that sort of made crypto a little bit more accessible to the public.

But Trump has really given it the most significant boost of the year.

On the campaign trail, he said he was a Bitcoin believer.

He said he would start a national Bitcoin stockpile, that the government would kind of buy Bitcoin.

And that just created a tremendous amount of investor enthusiasm in the industry.

And it's what has propelled us to the last couple of days with Bitcoin surging past 100K.

GEOFF BENNETT: And yet it wasn't that long ago that we were covering the collapse of FTX and the industry seemed to be in a slump.

What happened?

What changed so quickly?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Yes, absolutely.

I mean, it's worth remembering that in the relatively short history of crypto, there have already been several boom-and-bust cycles.

And so this kind of fits that pattern.

And we could well head for another bust at some point.

So I don't think people should assume that Bitcoin will stay at this high level forever, necessarily.

But what's changed is that traditional financial firms BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, have started offering exchange traded funds tied to Bitcoin.

They have basically allowed traditional investors who might not want to experiment with cryptocurrency, they have given them kind of a way to gain exposure to the Bitcoin market.

And that's driven a whole lot of new investment into the crypto world.

And that kind of tied to Donald Trump's enthusiasm for crypto, his promise to end some of the regulatory crackdowns on the industry has kind of driven the price way up.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk more about Paul Atkins and his connection to crypto and how his leadership of the SEC might be different than the current chair, Gary Gensler.

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Gary Gensler has been the number one villain of the crypto industry for the last few years.

It's really kind of hard to overstate the amount of animosity that the industry feels toward him.

And that's because he's sued crypto companies, argued that they're violating securities rules, and essentially put the industry in a position where it could be driven offshore.

The expectation is that Paul Atkins will significantly deviate from that approach.

He is somebody who has worked closely with the industry and the private sector, who served on the advisory board of a crypto industry alliance.

And so crypto companies and founders are very enthusiastic right now.

They're expecting him to kind of abandon the Gensler approach and really take a much kind of lighter touch approach to the crypto industry.

GEOFF BENNETT: And what more do we know about Donald Trump's change of heart on crypto over the last year or two?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Yes, I mean, this is something that I think people sometimes look past, but when he was president during his first term, Trump said things like Bitcoin's a scam, it's designed to undermine the U.S. dollar.

And he really pivoted on the campaign trail this year.

The obvious explanation, I think, is that the crypto industry has been spending a huge amount of money on campaign contributions and has really become kind of a financial heavyweight in politics.

And so there was sort of a kind of opportunistic element to Trump's pivot on the issue.

But he's also said that he genuinely changed his mind about crypto, that his sons, including Barron, are super enthusiastic about the technology and that they kind of talked him into kind of being more enthusiastic about it.

GEOFF BENNETT: David Yaffe-Bellany of The New York Times, thanks for your insights this evening.

We appreciate it.

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Rebels dealt another serious blow to the Syrian government today by capturing a key city in the center of the country.

Opposition forces took control of Hama, north of Damascus, and one of the few cities that's remained largely under government control since the civil war started back in 2011.

The northern city of Aleppo fell earlier this week as the opposition launched a major operation against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

John Yang has our report.

JOHN YANG: After two days of fierce fighting as the opposition dealt with both the regime and Russian airstrikes, today, the city of Hama in Central Syria fell to opposition forces.

Locals and others across the nation rejoiced.

Hama is a key strategic hub in the fight for Syria.

It lies at the crossroads of Aleppo and Damascus, Assad's base of power, on the M5 highway, a vital route connecting Syria's northern and southern regions.

It's also home to the Hama military base, and now both the base and its stockpile are in the hands of the opposition coalition, led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and Syrian National Army opposition groups.

The city had been in the regime's hands for the past 13 years of civil war until today.

How big a deal is it now that the rebels have Hama?

ANDREW TABLER, Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: It's a huge deal.

Pushing further south, the rebel forces are now into what's called the spine of the country.

It really is where the two parts of Syria, the neck and the base of Syria connect, and that's why it's strategically important.

JOHN YANG: Andrew Tabler is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and the former director for Syria at the National Security Council's Middle East Affairs Directorate during the first Trump administration.

ANDREW TABLER: What this, at a minimum, will do is, it's causing a major contraction, probably the biggest contraction since Russia entered the conflict in 2015.

Most likely, it will lead to a different configuration of the de facto partition of Syria, which has been in place for well over a decade.

And whatever American administration decides to do, the incoming Trump administration, will have to deal with that.

JOHN YANG: Russia and Iran have long had a stake in the Syrian civil war and have steadfastly supported Assad's regime.

But now their support is waning at a crucial time.

ANDREW TABLER: The most important thing that turned the tide here was Iran's weakening over the last year following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.

That has distracted Iran, has depleted it.

There are different questions about why Russia is not intervening more forcefully.

So either they don't want to or they can't because they're busy elsewhere in Ukraine and overstretched, as the Iranians are.

JOHN YANG: The capture of Hama comes as part of the opposition's lightning-fast offensive down Northwestern Syria.

They're now just 25 miles from Homs, Syria's third largest city and the opposition's next target.

ANDREW TABLER: Homs would be a game changer.

It is the literal heart and the center of Syria.

And so the capture of Homs would be a major -- would actually put Damascus in jeopardy.

And I think it would cause a real panic among the regime.

JOHN YANG: And so the battle for Syria and its future continues.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm John Yang.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines, after his prime minister was ousted by his Parliament, French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to stay in office until the end of his term.

The no-confidence vote in the National Assembly yesterday forced Prime Minister Michel Barnier to step down after just three months.

That's the shortest tenure of any prime minister in modern French history.

It also left the country without a functioning government.

In a fiery, defiant televised address, Macron blamed the chaos on opposition lawmakers for putting their own interests above the country.

EMMANUEL MACRON, French President (through translator): Yesterday, the government lost a no-confidence vote, despite the concessions made by Prime Minister Barnier, because the far right and far left joined together in an anti-Republican front.

I will never take the blame for the lack of responsibility of others, notably, lawmakers who choose knowingly to bring down the government of France.

GEOFF BENNETT: Macron has said he will name a new prime minister within days.

The replacement will have to lead a deeply divided Parliament where no party holds a majority.

In New York City, the manhunt continues for the suspect who stalked and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson yesterday.

Today, the NYPD released this photo taken in the lobby of a nearby hostel of a man wanted for questioning and connection to the killing.

Law enforcement officials also said shell casings found at the scene were inscribed with the words "Deny, defend and depose."

Some of those are terms associated with ways insurance avoids paying claims, though police say they're still working to establish a motive for the killing.

The Department of Justice has found that Memphis police routinely used excessive force and discriminated against the city's Black residents.

That's after a 17-month investigation prompted by the fatal beating of a Black man, Tyre Nichols, during a traffic stop last year.

The report said Memphis officers cite or arrest Black people for things like disorderly conduct at nearly four times the rate of whites.

It also found officers would punch or kick people who were already handcuffed or restrained.

Today, DOJ's top civil rights attorney said that was a breach of public trust.

KRISTEN CLARKE, Assistant U.S. Attorney General: The practices I described, however, violate the Constitution and federal law.

They harm and demean people, and they promote distrust, undermining the fundamental safety mission of a police department.

GEOFF BENNETT: The DOJ said it could sue if the city doesn't agree to what's called a consent decree, requiring Memphis police to pursue reforms under federal oversight.

Memphis' mayor says the city has already made positive changes to its policing and pushed back on the need for a binding deal.

The Secret Service is promising to reorganize and reimagine how it operates months after a gunman attempted to assassinate president-elect Donald Trump at one of his campaign rallies in Butler, Pennsylvania, this past summer.

One attendee was killed.

On Capitol Hill today, acting Director Ronald Rowe faced a grilling from a bipartisan House task force investigating the shooting.

Lawmakers pushed for answers about communication failures between Secret Service and local police and how agents missed or didn't speak up about glaring security vulnerabilities at the rally.

Congressman Jason Crow pressed the acting director.

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Can you speak to that culture and how you change that culture so that folks speak up and everybody's empowered to make necessary changes, on the spot if they need to?

RONALD ROWE, Acting U.S. Secret Service Director: We have to get back to that.

And I think training, which touches everything from the cradle of your career all the way to the end of your career, training is where we need to make that investment.

GEOFF BENNETT: The task force will release a report on its findings along with recommendations later this month.

And stocks fell on Wall Street ahead of tomorrow's big jobs report.

Concerns about the French economy have also sent waves through the global markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than a half-a-percentage point.

The Nasdaq fell slightly lower and the S&P 500 also fell, but all stocks stayed close to their record highs.

Still to come on the "News Hour": president-elect Trump's transition team finally agrees to background checks, but concerns remain about U.S. security interests; and a new documentary examines the first Trump administration's migrant family separation policy.

Amnesty International is accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and is calling on the U.S. to block weapons transfers.

In response, Israel's Foreign Ministry called the nonprofit deplorable and fanatical and said its report was entirely false and based on lies.

For the last two months, Israel has been waging a new operation in North Gaza.

Nick Schifrin has the story of one Palestinian man whose family says he was caught in the crossfire.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In North Gaza, Mahmoud Almadhoun fed the famished.

They called him Chef Mahmoud for running a soup kitchen for the most vulnerable.

His team filmed these scenes for us back in March, providing sustenance to stop starvation.

He told us he had to help.

MAHMOUD ALMADHOUN, Soup Kitchen Organizer (through translator): When you think you're going to die, you want to start serving and helping others.

It's like a new lease on life.

NICK SCHIFRIN: More recently, he opened a school with a sign on the roof in Hebrew and English, "Please don't bomb."

And that's him in red wheeling in water and providing much-needed produce to the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital.

MAHMOUD ALMADHOUN (through translator): We hope for more vegetables for the sick and the injured and the children and medical staff.

NICK SCHIFRIN: That was his last public statement.

Four days later, on the morning of November 30, Almadhoun's family says he was killed by an Israeli drone, his 15-year-old son, Omar, seriously injured beside him.

A few weeks before, his family says the school he'd opened was also attacked.

For two months, the Israeli military has waged a new operation in Northern Gaza, targeting what it describes as members of Hamas, some of whom participated in the October 7 attacks.

Israel has uncovered weapons stockpiles, including bombs, as seen in this captured Hamas video, in what Israel calls a Hamas rocket launch site.

LT. COL. YOEL, Israeli Defense Forces (through translator): We will reach any location where the enemy places launch facilities or anything that fires towards the citizens of the state of Israel.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Israel also says, at Kamal Adwan Hospital, it's facilitated the evacuation of patients and the delivery of fuel, medical supplies and food and water.

It accuses Hamas of stealing aid.

But U.S. officials say, as Israel has tried to evacuate the entire area, it's not allowed in nearly enough aid.

So, Almadhoun was trying to provide what he could.

He leaves behind his wife, Alaa, and seven children, the youngest, Aline, barely 2 weeks old.

FATIMA ALMADHOUN, Mother of Mahmoud Almadhoun (through translator): At Kamal Adwan Hospital, day after day, he brought food, gave money to those in need, the young, the old.

This is a great honor that Mahmoud was martyred as he fed the people.

I hold my head high for him.

NICK SCHIFRIN: When I spoke with Mahmoud Almadhoun earlier this year, I also spoke to his brother, Hani Almadhoun, who joins me now.

He is also the director of philanthropy at UNRWA's independent American arm.

Hani Almadhoun, thank you very much.

Thanks for being here.

Let's talk about your brother.

Tell me about him.

Tell me about the work he was trying to do.

HANI ALMADHOUN, Director of Philanthropy, UNRWA USA: My brother Mahmoud is a great guy.

He's my baby brother.

He started a soup kitchen.

When we couldn't figure out how to feed our family, our neighbors, he started cooking, like, for -- a dinner or lunch for people that we knew all our lives.

And he cooked.

First day, 120 families ate, and then he thought, this is it.

But then kids showed up to the house asking for food.

And he said, hey, let me figure this one out.

So he's a business guy.

He would go.

And, like, if he finds potatoes, he would buy whatever the dealer had.

And at the time, there was no pasta or rice or any starchy things, so potatoes was a big deal.

He bought it and cooked for the family, for the neighborhood, started serving up to 600 families every day.

And it's just beautiful, because I worked for UNRWA USA, and we couldn't because Israel banned UNRWA from working in North Gaza early on.

We pivoted to do small shop, soup kitchen, like the Gaza soup kitchen.

And, unfortunately, things did not turn the way that should turn.

NICK SCHIFRIN: We heard from him a little bit in the story we just played about why, what motivated him.

What do you think motivated him to do what he did?

HANI ALMADHOUN: He just saw a problem, and he wanted to solve, because we knew we have the means.

I live in the U.S. And people were sending money in my private bank account Zelle, hey, go figure out how to get food to people.

And it was hard.

There's no banks.

There is no phones that were working at the time.

But then he figured out a way to do it, leaning on the local farmers, leaning on the nature.

When it rained, he had a lot of leafy greens that he could find and just chop and cook up.

Literally, he would go, and 7:00 a.m., my mom would wash the veggies and cook.

But then eventually he hired a lot of people that -- because we wanted to scale.

And we expanded beyond Beit Lahia, where we started.

And, unfortunately, things -- instead of celebrating my brother's achievement and enjoying a possible cease-fire, now we have to mourn his life.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Tell me about how he died.

HANI ALMADHOUN: On Saturday around 9:00 a.m. local time, he left the third or fourth shelter he's based at.

He walked about 30 yards or less outside the house and a drone was waiting in the neighborhood and just shot at his feet, and an explosion was -- led to his death.

Basically, he died on the spot.

Our friends who saw him tried to rescue him.

They thought they could save his life, tried to take him to Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he was headed.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The very place that he was trying to help.

HANI ALMADHOUN: He was -- wanted to make sure they got the produce, because the day or two days before, he ordered the large shipment to produce.

That's largely restricted in North Gaza.

And they couldn't because there was sniper fire.

And you don't really believe it, because this is -- this has turned into a legend.

This guy is always there with videos and solving problems.

And people really lean on him to provide those meals.

And, sadly, we buried him.

And he leaves behind the legacy that's respected across the globe, people who mourn him who live in the U.S. and people who live in Palestine, but also seven kids.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I reached out to the Israel Defense Forces, and they said they were formulating a response on your brother's death, but have not, as at this moment, provided me any response.

And as I mentioned in my story, what the context is, there's been an operation in Northern Gaza that the Israelis have launched for the last couple months, Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, around the Kamal Adwan Hospital, where your brother was helping.

The fighting's been fierce.

Israel says that it is targeting Hamas fighters, targeting Hamas ammunition, infrastructure.

But as I also pointed out, U.S. officials say that Israel has not allowed enough aid into Northern Gaza.

How short of basic necessities, as far as you can tell, are the people living in North Gaza?

HANI ALMADHOUN: It is real.

We feel it, because the famine, it brings people to our soup kitchens.

More families have to be fed, and we work together to provide those meals.

Now, eventually, what's in Gaza is, there's really not much food left.

There is probably canned meat.

There is some lentils.

That's what's feeding the north right now, some flour.

However, in the south, they're running into crisis with flour, where one bag of flour, that's about a 50-pound bag of flour, will bring about $1,000.

That's a lot.

And you could buy the same bag here for $15.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And the problem with the black market, Israeli and U.S. officials admit, is that criminality has skyrocketed, especially where you just mentioned, Southern Gaza, Central Gaza.

There's not a lot of security at all, and that has led some other organizations to stop even delivering aid at all.

HANI ALMADHOUN: Right.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In terms of your family, will you guys try and continue your brother's legacy?

HANI ALMADHOUN: My brother always finished his videos with saying two things: "I send my love to all my friends in the United States," and he would say in Arabic (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) "We will continue."

And we are trying to do this.

We expanded our operation in different parts of North Gaza.

That means we have now three active full soup kitchens in North Gaza and two in the south.

I look forward to the day we're not expanding because the need is gone.

And you have mentioned the criminality.

I do want to -- people think it's complex.

Wrong.

This is -- these are organized criminals that somehow the Israeli army is turning a blind eye to.

This is not somebody who's -- it's not rocket science.

These people carry guns within 10 meters away or 20 meters away from the Israeli army.

If they wanted to stop these criminals, they can.

But they choose to look the other way, creating that massive need we see in both North and South Gaza.

I pray we're close to a cease-fire, but it's sad because I'm not going to celebrate the cease-fire with my brother Mahmoud, who was my partner during these difficult times.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Hani Almadhoun, thank you very much.

HANI ALMADHOUN: Thank you very much.

GEOFF BENNETT: Many of the people president-elect Trump has selected to head up his next administration have promised to shake up long-held norms that -- and that could have wide-ranging implications for U.S. security interests.

Our Laura Barron-Lopez delves more into those selections.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Donald Trump's picks to lead agencies that will oversee the nation's national security, intelligence and law enforcement communities have repeatedly expressed contempt towards the agencies they are nominated to run.

For more, I'm joined by John Sipher, a retired CIA operative who worked for nearly three decades at the agency and now is a fellow at The Atlantic Council.

John, thank you so much for joining us.

JOHN SIPHER, Former CIA Officer: Nice to be here.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: First, let's talk about Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel.

Tulsi Gabbard is nominated to be the director of national intelligence, Kash Patel to be the director of the FBI.

Both have talked about the CIA and other agencies, including the ones they would lead, being a part of the deep state.

Gabbard in particular has labeled the CIA and Defense Department as rogue, filled with rogue agents.

So what impact would both of these people have on the agencies and the intel community writ large?

JOHN SIPHER: Well, it's not really clear with these people yet whether their goal is just to get real loyalty for Donald Trump or whether it's to destroy these organizations, because there's been different views with this.

Steve Bannon and others said they want to destroy the administrative state.

Some of the comments that Patel and others have made suggest that, that they want to fire lots of people.

But that term rogue is really interesting to a former intelligence officer, because Gabbard and Trump both called the CIA a rogue organization.

In the 1970s, famously, Senator Frank Church, who headed a commission to investigate the CIA and FBI, called the CIA a rogue elephant.

And his point was, the CIA was involved in both illegal and unethical activities through the 1950s and 1960s.

And so they investigated that at the time.

Later on, he came back and said, hey, I changed my opinion this.

It's not that the CIA was necessarily a rogue element.

It was that presidents had unfiltered power.

Presidents could just ask the CIA to take action that they didn't want to go to Congress with it, they didn't want to go to the public with.

And so this was more about untethered presidential power.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: How could an Intelligence Director Gabbard or an FBI Director Patel end up impacting information gathering and relationships with sources and spies?

JOHN SIPHER: Well, that's an interesting point.

So, yes, the CIA runs large technical operations.

It has spies around the world, large analytic cadre.

Foreign organizations and foreign partners that we work with provide, frankly, the bulk of the information that this government gets.

You know, our friends in Britain, our friends around the world, partners we work with share information that's very sensitive for them.

So they are going to have to ask themselves, are we now working with a professional, serious organization?

Or are we working with an organization that's about partisan politics and cronyism and corruption?

And so I worry that some of the people who give us really important information are going to hesitate to do that if it is seen that these organizations are no longer professional, but they're more just partisan weapons for President Trump.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: President-elect Trump's transition team signed a document with the Justice Department, a memorandum of understanding.

And essentially what that does is that people who need security clearances will now be able to get security clearances and be investigated for those clearances.

But that doesn't mean that all of Donald Trump's nominees are going to necessarily undergo a thorough, broad FBI background check.

And I spoke to Frank Montoya earlier today, former FBI special agent, and he said that there is a big difference between FBI background checks and those conducted by outside sources.

FRANK MONTOYA JR., Former FBI Official: It's really, really important.

And farming it out to another agency or doing it through a private entity, you're not going to get the objective perspective that you're going to get from the FBI.

The reality is that the folks that are conducting these background investigations, a lot of them may even be Trump supporters.

But the fact is, they do their job in a neutral and objective way.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: A source close to Donald Trump's transition told me that, if the president-elect doesn't want his nominees and the others that go through Senate confirmation to undergo FBI background checks, then they won't undergo FBI background checks.

So what does that mean if these nominees and others don't ultimately go through that kind of check?

JOHN SIPHER: Well, there's two things here.

My understanding is, this memorandum is to provide FBI background checks for nominees so that the Senate can do its constitutional duty when they decide whether to approve or not approve these nominees.

There's still another step yet.

For intelligence professionals that work in the intelligence community, background checks are even a step further.

The intelligence community often do their own background checks, not just they have the FBI go through things.

So it's a full background check.

It's polygraphs.

It's going through your bank accounts.

It's you having to report all foreigners, all places you have lived.

All of your professional correspondence is -- has to be looked at.

So it's really intrusive.

And, frankly, it's failing leadership 101.

So if you're going to come in and lead an organization that has every person from the lowest to the highest has to go through this every day for their entire career, and you say that you don't need a background check, that's just failing leadership 101.

It's also these organizations in the intelligence community are like the military.

They're hierarchical.

People get more senior positions by experience and expertise.

And when you just parachute people in over the top to lead these organizations that don't have any of that experience or expertise and don't -- aren't willing to do these background checks, you really are in a tough position in terms of just leading these organizations.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: John Sipher, thank you for your time.

JOHN SIPHER: My pleasure.

Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: On a recent evening in Washington, moviegoers filled the lobby of a local theater to watch the D.C. premiere of a new film from a renowned documentarian that explores the first Trump administration's family separation policy on the U.S. southern border.

I recently sat down with one of the executive producers of the film, "Separated."

JONATHAN WHITE, Former Office of Refugee Resettlement Official: Systematic separation of children from parents, officially, it wasn't happening.

But it was happening.

GEOFF BENNETT: The new documentary "Separated," is a searing exploration of the first Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, which forcibly separated over 5,000 migrant children from their families who illegally entered the country.

Directed by the legendary documentarian Errol Morris the film is based on a book of the same name NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff, who's also one of the film's executive producers.

One of the things that so often gets lost in conversations about Trump's family separation policy is that harm to children was the point.

JACOB SOBOROFF, NBC News Correspondent: It was the point.

GEOFF BENNETT: In fact, one of the civil servants who you speak with in the film says that.

It was meant to terrify parents from making that trek from those Northern Triangle countries to the U.S. JACOB SOBOROFF: Based on the facts that we know, which in this film are firsthand interviews with civil servants who tried to stand up and stop the policy and in fact help the policy reversal, we know what they wanted to do.

They wanted to hurt kids in order to scare other families from coming to this country and scare Congress into enacting more restrictive immigration laws.

It's exactly the way that they drew it up and exactly what they wanted to do.

GEOFF BENNETT: One of the civil servants who offers a firsthand account is Jonathan White, who worked for the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

JONATHAN WHITE, Former Office of Refugee Resettlement Employee: And the unaccompanied children program, which I worked in, was essentially hijacked for a purpose for which it was never intended, nor authorized in law.

It was a program designed to be a child protection program for children who entered the United States without parents.

And it was instead used as a tool to take children from their parents.

GEOFF BENNETT: Since there's no footage of the actual family separations, the film includes narrative vignettes depicting the forced separation of a mother and son who illegally crossed the border.

One of the questions I had during this entire process, the family separation process, was like, what about the guards?

What about the people who worked at these facilities?

What about the civil servants who were really tasked with overseeing this process, separating infants from their parents?

How did they grapple with this?

JACOB SOBOROFF: You know, many of them carried out the orders and many of them didn't stand up in protest, but some of them did and they spoke out, and especially within the Department of Health and Human Services.

GEOFF BENNETT: Soboroff says it was career staffers like White and his co-worker Jallyn Sualog who pushed to reverse the policy and later faced the difficult task of reuniting children with their parents, since there was no formal process of tracking family separations.

JALLYN SUALOG, Spoke Out Against Family Separations: When you have a 2-year-old, their assessment form in the system doesn't have that much information.

"What's your mom's name?"

"Mom."

Like, every mom, their name is Mom.

GEOFF BENNETT: And he connects Trump's policy to decades of punitive immigration laws enacted under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

JACOB SOBOROFF: Bill Clinton built the first wave of border walls.

George W. Bush exponentially increased the size of the Border Patrol, created DHS in the wake of 9/11.

Barack Obama deported more people than any president in the history of the United States of America.

They called him the deporter in chief.

And that's why, like that, Donald Trump was able to take away 5,500 children from their parents in an act that a Republican-appointed judge called one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country.

GEOFF BENNETT: So it was the systematic separation of children that was new, the fact that there were these state-created orphans; that was new under Trump?

JACOB SOBOROFF: A hundred percent.

And I hear often from people back then and even today saying, well, Obama did this or this happened under Biden, point a finger in every direction.

There never was until 2017, when the pilot program was implemented in El Paso, a deliberate and systematic attempt to rip parents and children apart from one another as United States immigration policy.

And there hasn't been since.

GEOFF BENNETT: He says the Biden administration failed to take action that might prevent it from happening again.

President Biden, he had called the practice of family separations criminal, promised a thorough investigation.

To this day, no one has been held accountable.

Why?

JACOB SOBOROFF: I remember you in some of those press conferences pressing on this exact topic.

GEOFF BENNETT: During the campaign, you said that practice was criminal.

Can you commit, will you commit to making sure that the Trump administration officials responsible for that policy will be held to account?

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: I will commit that our Justice Department and our investigative arms will make judgments about who is responsible, how they're responsible, and whether or not the conduct is criminal.

But there will be a thorough, thorough investigation of who's responsible.

JACOB SOBOROFF: What's been done to this day is absolutely nothing.

Nobody's been held accountable for the policy.

Some of the people responsible for it are going to be in some of the most senior positions in the incoming Trump administration.

Immigration in the eyes of the Biden administration became a political liability.

And so they backed away.

They backed away from financially compensating these families.

They backed away from any idea of a criminal prosecution of people responsible for it.

And I think history will remember that.

GEOFF BENNETT: President-elect Donald Trump signaled he would declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants when he takes office.

There's been so much outrage fatigue since then.

Trump has already promised mass deportations.

But if we see a policy that is very similar to the family separation policy, I mean, how do you think the American public will respond?

JACOB SOBOROFF: Mass deportation is family separation by another name.

It's not ripping away children from their parents at the border, but it is taking parents away from children in their homes and at their schools and in the interior of the country.

I think when, they're reminded of what that really means, the American people will respond in the same way that they did to family separation, because it's not about politics.

It's about people.

GEOFF BENNETT: What do you want people to take away from this film as they watch it?

JACOB SOBOROFF: That people remember their power and how people stood up in that moment in the summer of 2018 and forced the Trump administration to stop something that was universally condemned.

And as we go into yet another Trump administration, where they're talking about doing a policy that would be orders of magnitude greater when it comes to disrupting the lives of immigrants in this country, if indeed it turns out to be family separation by another name again, people still have that power.

MAN: It troubles me profoundly that it could happen again,.

GEOFF BENNETT: "Separated" has been screened in select theaters across the country and airs on MSNBC on December 7.

We will be back shortly with a look at some of our student reporting about gun violence.

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: Nearly one-third of large U.S. firms are exploring new work schedules for their employees.

Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a look at some companies that are trying out a new four-day, 32-hour week with the same pay.

PAUL SOLMAN: At Metro Caring in Denver, the food pantry is crazy busy.

There were 45,000 visits last year, not far off the 47,000 at the start of the pandemic.

TEVA SIENICKI, CEO-Visionary, Metro Caring: I came out of the pandemic just exhausted, frankly.

PAUL SOLMAN: CEO Teva Sienicki felt overworked and overwhelmed.

TEVA SIENICKI: I worked far too many hours.

Hunger has been steadily growing.

I was really feeling discouraged.

I just don't see us making progress.

And so that landed really heavily on me.

PAUL SOLMAN: And on many of her co-workers.

TEVA SIENICKI: We were experiencing a lot of burnout on staff, and feeling like we were treading water around our mission.

PAUL SOLMAN: Cory Scrivner oversees food procurement and distribution.

CORY SCRIVNER, Food Access Manager, Metro Caring: We have had four different food access managers in the last four years.

It has 1000 percent been a burnout factor with every single one of the last three previous ones.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, Sienicki almost quit.

TEVA SIENICKI: Burnout among nonprofit CEOs and nonprofit employees was higher than any other industry.

Probably like four out of 10 left the field.

I was nearly there.

PAUL SOLMAN: Instead, though, she took a sabbatical and came back with a proposal, a four-day workweek.

TEVA SIENICKI: If you can have a more balanced life and work fewer hours, you actually bring more creativity to your job and you bring more efficiency.

And those hours that you do work mean more.

PAUL SOLMAN: Alex Pang has written about working less, runs research and innovation at nonprofit four day week global.

ALEX SOOJUNG-KIM PANG, 4 Day Week Global: If you're in an industry in which there are serious challenges with recruitment and retention, with work-life balance, or if you have concerns about the sustainability of your organization, a four-day week is a great way to address all of those challenges simultaneously.

PAUL SOLMAN: Hey, Bernie Sanders thinks so.

He recently introduced a Senate bill to reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): The sad reality is Americans now work more hours than the people of any other wealthy nation.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, look, a shorter workweek is hardly a new idea.

In 1930, given ever-increasing output per person, increasing productivity that is, economist John Maynard Keynes foresaw a 15-hour workweek in 100 years.

In 1956, vice President Richard Nixon predicted a four-day workweek in the -- quote -- "not-too-distant future."

That future is yet to arrive, but thanks perhaps to COVID, companies have begun to shift.

ALEX SOOJUNG-KIM PANG: The pandemic had forced a lot of companies to change how they had worked, and so they were more open to the idea of playing around with work time.

PAUL SOLMAN: As were workers.

NICHOLAS BLOOM, Stanford University: We all realize our own mortality.

PAUL SOLMAN: Stanford's Nicholas Bloom.

NICHOLAS BLOOM: More than a million Americans have died.

You should enjoy life while you're here.

Work from home has been such a bonanza.

So, I have taught hundreds, thousands of managers, employees.

And they're kind of like, why didn't we do this earlier?

And so as soon as you start thinking like that, you think, well, what else is there?

And other things like the four-day week, the whole bunch of changes come into play.

PAUL SOLMAN: Metro Caring's pilot began in late summer.

The staff worked Monday through Thursday, took Fridays off, 32 hours of work, same pay.

TEVA SIENICKI: There's definitely a learning curve, right?

Like, it doesn't just like happen, like you're just like, oh, I'm going to be efficient.

PAUL SOLMAN: To get their work done in eight fewer hours, employees turned off computer alerts, reorganized their time.

TEVA SIENICKI: A lot of those have been around meetings and e-mails, not responding right away, but like setting aside concentrated blocks, and how to make meetings that are normally an hour into 15 minutes.

PAUL SOLMAN: A shortened week increases focus, says Graye Miller.

GRAYE MILLER (Food Access Assistant, Metro Caring): If I have to be here Monday through Friday, I am much more likely to take that half-an-hour sitting and drinking coffee or that 15 minutes stepping outside for a cigarette.

PAUL SOLMAN: Integrity Pro Roofing also tried a four-day week.

RAE BOYCE, CEO, Integrity Pro Roofing: There are so many tangible, tactical ways that you can give your team back that additional eight hours of time.

PAUL SOLMAN: CEO Rae Boyce says her staff focused on tasks and projects in the morning, when they were more energized, pushing meetings to the afternoon.

ALEX SOOJUNG-KIM PANG: The average knowledge worker loses about two hours of productive time per day to overly long meetings, to poorly used technology or outmoded processes.

So, in a sense, for a lot of us, the four-day week is already here.

We're just spending a full day in the office sitting around in meetings wondering who's going to change the toner cartridge or talking about whatever football game.

PAUL SOLMAN: In surveys completed in February at the end of Metro Caring's trial, employees reported well-being had improved.

Pretrial, just 8 percent were highly or very highly satisfied with their work-life balance.

At the end, that figure rose to 46 percent.

At the start of the pilot, 50 percent felt burned out, by the end, half that number.

GRAYE MILLER: Having four days and then a three-day weekend, oh, my lord.

It is rejuvenating on all levels.

The results didn't surprise Pang.

His firm helped run a 2022 trial of 61 British firms that showed benefits to workers' health and productivity when their hours were reduced.

ALEX SOOJUNG-KIM PANG: Mangers and companies also reported that people were collaborating better, that they were happier in the office.

All of the important metrics trended in positive directions.

PAUL SOLMAN: Bloom has his doubts, though.

NICHOLAS BLOOM: Very productive, well-managed American companies that are already pretty kick ass in terms of how well-managed they are, these places are very efficient.

It's not that easy to take a day out and produce the same amount.

PAUL SOLMAN: At Integrity Pro Roofing, a strictly four-day workweek did not work year-round.

RAE BOYCE: Roofing and construction tends to be very seasonal.

PAUL SOLMAN: So employees now work fewer hours during the off-season, but: RAE BOYCE: The summer and the fall is our busiest season.

And so we have found that there are times where we do need to ask our team to be flexible and to come back to a five-day workweek when we're experiencing that type of a high volume.

PAUL SOLMAN: Still, Boyce remains committed to a shorter week for her employees the rest of the year.

RAE BOYCE: Time is our most precious resource.

We have a really short life.

So if there's any ways that we could give them some additional time, that's really what we wanted to focus on.

PAUL SOLMAN: At Metro Caring, the four-day workweek created some problems of its own.

CORY SCRIVNER: We rely on donations and foundations and grant funding to be able to exist in the way that we do.

And they don't have a four-day workweek.

They don't have a three-day weekend.

There are deadlines that are due on Friday.

I often miss e-mails that are important that come on Fridays.

We really do need to be available for some of these bigger deadlines.

PAUL SOLMAN: As a result, CEO Sienicki still has to put in hours on Fridays.

TEVA SIENICKI: I don't know that all of us are two 32 hours yet.

I think some of us, at least on some weeks, are at 35 hours.

But, frankly, 35 hours is way better than the 50 hours I was working prior to this trial.

PAUL SOLMAN: Metro Caring plans to make the shorter workweek permanent, even as they work out the details.

TEVA SIENICKI: It may not be exactly like we have done the trial, right?

Maybe we go to a 35-hour workweek, or maybe we look at a little bit more flexibility.

PAUL SOLMAN: Different schedules, perhaps.

CORY SCRIVNER: Maybe it looks like one team works a different set of days than another team.

PAUL SOLMAN: And that flexibility may help with retention.

Cory Scrivner thinks she will last longer than her three predecessors.

CORY SCRIVNER: I'm feeling really good.

I'm not leaving.

CORY SCRIVNER: I broke the curse.

PAUL SOLMAN: Scrivner bucked the burnout trend, she says, thanks in part to the four-day workweek.

For the "PBS NewsHour," Paul Solman.

GEOFF BENNETT: Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., but much of the news coverage about it is made by and for adults.

That's why our journalism training team, Student Reporting Labs, handed cameras to 14 student journalists from across the nation to make stories about what it's like to grow up in this generation.

Their work is part of a new documentary called "Run, Hide, Fight: Growing Up Under the Gun."

In this excerpt, student journalists Alexis and Brianna Schmidt talk to their classmates at Michigan State University about what it's like to live through a mass shooting.

MAYA MANUEL, Student Activist: Keep your hands up if you have experienced a lockdown drill before the age of 18, the age of 12, and the age of 6.

Before you learn ABC, you learn how to run, hide, and fight, and that's where we have failed.

NARRATOR: Gun violence has become tragically familiar to people like Maya Manuel, a student at Michigan State University.

On February 13, 2023, three students lost their lives to a gunman.

During the shooting, students received text messages from the university, instructing them to run, hide, and fight.

GEOFF BENNETT: Inside an academic building and then later at a student union.

ALEXIS SCHMIDT, Student Reporting Labs Correspondent: I'm Alexis Schmidt.

BRIANNA SCHMIDT, Student Reporting Labs Correspondent: And I'm Brianna Schmidt.

NARRATOR: We're twins and student journalists who started attending Michigan State a few months after the shooting.

We wanted to talk to other students about with gun violence.

BRIANNA SCHMIDT: How do you think that MSU students' perception of safety on campus changed?

MAYA MANUEL: You're trying so hard to get your degree.

Trying to go back into classes was so difficult.

Every student, every janitor, I had to figure out a new way of thinking, because it was no longer, I'm listening to your experience.

It's, I am understanding your experience.

NARRATOR: For other students like Kylie Ossege, this was not their first experience with the trauma of a mass shooting.

She was a senior at Oxford High School in 2021 when a gunman opened fire inside the school.

Four students died that day and seven others were injured, including Kylie.

She spent two months in the hospital and physical therapy recovering from her injuries.

She had to learn how to do a lot of basic things again, such as walking and brushing her hair.

KYLIE OSSEGE, School Shooting Survivor: I came to Michigan State and I was so scared.

Living with PTSD like that is hard.

I would always tell myself, like, this is never going to happen to you again.

The fact that it happened to you once is crazy.

It's never going to happen to you again.

Just relax.

And then it happens to me again.

People have to wake up and realize that this has happened to everyone if there's no change.

I live in an all-boys hallway.

Boys are very loud and they love to slam their doors.

Any time that happens, it definitely like alarms me, and I have to calm myself down again and tell myself it's just boys.

NARRATOR: For Maya, the shooting has pushed her to become an activist.

MAYA MANUEL: I hate that we have to beg for safety, but I love that we can come together.

We can treat each other with empathy.

I want us to take that pain and I want us to push that into other change.

NARRATOR: Despite her own pain, Kylie hasn't given up hope for a safer future.

KYLIE OSSEGE: There's positive things that can come from every story, because there's so many negatives of the situation that I think if you're able to show some strength, I think a lot of people can bounce off you.

It's important to kind of radiate that positivity around you.

ALEXIS SCHMIDT: For the PBS News Student Reporting Labs, I'm Alexis Schmidt.

BRIANNA SCHMIDT: And I'm Brianna Schmidt in East Lansing, Michigan.

GEOFF BENNETT: The Student Reporting Labs documentary "Run, Hide, Fight" is available to watch now on our YouTube page and on the PBS app.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

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