AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

Geoff Bennett is away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Major airports across the country brace for a cut to air traffic because of the government shutdown, threatening widespread travel disruptions.

The president announces a deal that aims to reduce the cost of weight loss drugs.

And judges scold federal agents for their treatment of protesters and immigrants in Chicago, a city that's become a target of the Trump administration's crackdown.

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

The Federal Aviation Administration laid out a plan today to cut as much as 10 percent of flights operating out of 40 major airports, starting at a lower-level tomorrow and ramping up over the coming week.

Today, airlines already preemptively canceled hundreds of flights in response.

Many of the airports in the plan are among the nation's busiest, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and the New York and Washington, D.C., metro areas.

The Trump administration said the move was triggered by the government shutdown and is necessary for safety.

Airports have faced delays, as air traffic controllers working without pay have been calling in sick.

Staff shortages have also led to longer security lines in Houston and elsewhere.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained his reasoning yesterday.

SEAN DUFFY, U.S.

Transportation Secretary: I'm concerned about disrupting people's travel.

We're coming into a weekend.

That doesn't -- listen, I travel a lot.

We are concerned about that.

But we had to have a gut check of, what is our job?

Is it to make sure there's minimal delays or minimal cancellations or is our job to make sure we make the hard decisions to continue to keep the airspace safe?

AMNA NAWAZ: Joining me now to break all of this down is David Shepardson of Reuters News.

Good to see you.

DAVID SHEPARDSON, Reuters: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's just start with this.

Have we ever seen anything like this before in a government shutdown?

DAVID SHEPARDSON: It's unprecedented.

And certainly in the 2019 shutdown, if you remember, that went about this level 35 days, and that was credited, that shutdown was credited with the end by the big disruption in aviation caused by controllers calling in sick in New York and D.C.

But the government did not take this extraordinary step of ordering the airlines to cut flights during that shutdown.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we're seeing airlines already taking steps to cancel some of those.

What else are you hearing from them about how they're going to do this and their concerns?

DAVID SHEPARDSON: Well, it's been a pretty rough 24 hours for them, right, because this came out roughly 4:00 yesterday and they have been struggling to figure out, how do we cancel flights?

Now, initially, the government said it was going to be 10 percent Friday.

Instead, it's going to be ramped up, 4 percent Friday through Monday, rising to 6, 8.

And then it would hit that 10 percent figure a week from tomorrow.

Now, 4 percent is still challenging.

And, as you said, a bunch of airlines have already started pre-canceling flights.

But that's manageable versus 10 percent, which is going to be more difficult and one of the reasons the airlines argued for more time to get to that higher level.

AMNA NAWAZ: What are we talking about in terms of the scale of disruption, the number of flights potentially disrupted, even from 4 up to 10 percent?

DAVID SHEPARDSON: So that 4 percent figure, we're seeing roughly 700, 800 flights from the four major carriers.

American Said 220, Delta about 170, around the same number for United, Southwest at 120.

So it's a big number.

Now, luckily, this is not a huge travel weekend.

Yes, it's Veterans Day, but it's not Thanksgiving, it's not Christmas, it's not spring break.

So there is some slack in the system.

And so airlines feel confident they can handle it, they can reroute people.

You're going to get this automatic notification.

Hopefully, if your flight's canceled, you got another one.

But it's like having a mini-snowstorm, if you will, in 40 airports, and the airlines don't have the flexibility they would typically, say American,.

There's a snowstorm in Chicago, maybe you up flights in Dallas to address this.

This is 10 percent -- I'm sorry, 4 percent to start across the board, so a little more restrictive in terms of how you deal with that.

AMNA NAWAZ: And the argument here is safety, right?

So if they have that 4 percent reduction, does that actually alleviate enough pressure on air traffic controllers to make it safe?

Does 4 percent get you there, or does 10 percent?

DAVID SHEPARDSON: Great question.

So let's go back to Halloween, right?

We had a major disruption, right?

In the New York area, about 80 percent of the controllers did not show up.

At one point, there was only one controller in a center.

It was -- there were many, many delays, and luckily it was Halloween, where there's less traffic than normal.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been.

But that, I think, has set off concerns.

And, this week, the FAA administers said 20 to 40 percent of controllers are not showing up every day.

Now, what the FAA has been doing before now is slowing flights.

And sometimes it would result in cancellations primarily.

We're going to slow it down.

We're going to have fewer flights per hour per runway at busy airports to address it.

This is taking a more aggressive step at the top.

Now, there's a dispute.

People like the NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, say, this is great.

We need to do this.

Democrats like Rick Larsen, who's a top Democrat on the Transportation Committee, says, I want to see the data.

What exactly prompted this and why now?

And there are some suspicions that this came the day that President Trump said the shutdown might have been partially to blame for the losses in the election, and, therefore, is politics involved?

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, what do we know about that?

Because the fact that the administration changed the plan from the more aggressive 10 percent right away kind of dialed it back to 4 percent... DAVID SHEPARDSON: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: ... there is the allegation that this is about and adding pressure to Democrats to end the shutdown.

DAVID SHEPARDSON: At a minimum, it sure looks like this is on the fly.

And airlines have been really frustrated, I think, trying to deal with this, I mean, starting with 10, going down to 4.

Remember, yesterday it was going to be 4, then 5 and 6 percent.

So it's changed yet again.

And this is still a draft order.

We don't know for certain that 4 percent is going to stick.

I mean, it seems likely, but we got to see the final paper.

So I do think, at a minimum, airlines and some Democrats are saying, why now, why is it in such flux, and why wasn't this plan more firmly laid out before it got announced?

On the other hand, Secretary Duffy would say, look, this has happened before, before the near -- before the collision in DCA, when six people died, there were thousands of reports of near misses.

Let's get ahead of it.

And we do know the controllers are under severe stress.

They're already working six-day workweeks and 10-hour days before this, because of low staffing.

And they are under stress.

They haven't been paid for five weeks.

AMNA NAWAZ: Thirty seconds left.

What should consumers expect in the day and days ahead because of this?

DAVID SHEPARDSON: I think you're going to be OK.

You're going to get on your flights.

You might have a delay.

You might get a cancellation, but still, 4 percent, that's one out of 25 flights.

So hopefully you're one of the 24 of the 25.

International flights will be fine.

But check with the airlines and do all the things you're supposed to do.

Check the Web site.

Go to the -- go to the -- get there early and hopefully everything will be OK.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right.

DAVID SHEPARDSON: And be patient.

And be nice to people at the airport, especially those who are not getting paid.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is always good advice.

David Shepardson of Reuters, great to see you.

Thank you.

DAVID SHEPARDSON: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, and congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins joins us now with the latest on Capitol Hill efforts to end this record-long shutdown.

So, Lisa, what's the latest?

LISA DESJARDINS: OK, I have been trying to figure out how to convey this in a clear way, because it is very murky and complicated at this moment.

This week began, there had been no movement by any leadership on either side.

I would say the first two days of this week, it was sort of like a football that moved 60 yards down the field.

The last two days, it's fallen back again another 30 yards.

Why?

It has to do with the elections and President Trump.

There is a potential deal on the table.

Let's look at what's in that, for example.

One, Democrats in exchange for reopening government would do a few things.

One, they would agree that they would -- sorry.

I can't read my own graphic from over here.

They would pass longer-term funding and a couple of short-term -- or a couple of appropriations bills.

In addition to that, they would also commit to a vote from Republicans on health care subsidies.

And there would be something new.

Some key Democrats told me today that they want recent mass layoffs to be reversed and blocked going forward.

Now, that's the key right there, Amna.

That's a new demand from Democrats.

And the reason is, they have this momentum from the election.

AMNA NAWAZ: You know millions of people are affected by the shutdown.

They're trying to plan finances and figure out what happens next.

Is there any indication of when this is going to end?

LISA DESJARDINS: There is some news tonight.

A federal judge has ruled that SNAP benefits must be sent in full for the entire month tomorrow.

The Trump administration is appealing that.

So we will watch that carefully.

But I would say tomorrow is the key day.

Do Democrats feel pressure because of these FAA closures?

And right now they're telling me they don't.

They think Republicans will be blamed for that.

They see it as political.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

LISA DESJARDINS: So people are missing paychecks.

I know one worker who -- third paycheck missed tomorrow.

The pressure will ramp up, but the politics has gotten more difficult.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, Lisa Desjardins, thank you, as always.

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the day's other headlines: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today that she will not run for reelection next year.

The 85-year-old became the first woman to serve as House speaker in 2007.

She was elected to the role for a second time in January of 2019.

In a video message, Pelosi spoke directly to her constituents in San Francisco, the city she's represented for nearly four decades in Congress.

REP.

NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, speaker, leader, whip, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco.

AMNA NAWAZ: Pelosi gave up her leadership post three years ago, but remains a powerful force in her party as speaker emerita.

She's also been a frequent target of Republicans, including President Trump.

The Supreme Court is letting the Trump administration block transgender and nonbinary people from choosing their own gender identity on passports for now.

The decision pauses a lower court order that required the government to let people choose male, female, or X on their passports as a lawsuit on the matter plays out.

In an unsigned ruling, the court's majority wrote that -- quote -- "Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth."

The ACLU called the decision a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves.

In Texas, officials say a defensive player for the Dallas Cowboys, 24-year-old Marshawn Kneeland, was found dead today of an apparent suicide.

Police in the Dallas suburb of Frisco say Kneeland crashed his vehicle following a chase and then fled the scene on foot.

He was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Cowboys drafted Kneeland last year out of Western Michigan, and he played in Monday night's loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

In a statement, the Cowboys organization called Kneeland a beloved teammate.

A jury in Virginia has awarded $10 million to Abby Zwerner, the former teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student in 2023.

Zwerner's attorneys had argued that a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun.

Zwerner was shot in the hand and chest as she sat at a reading table in her first grade classroom.

She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and no longer has full use of her left hand.

The assistant principal, Ebony Parker, faces eight counts of felony child neglect.

Her trial is set for later this month.

In Mexico, a man was arrested overnight after groping President Claudia Sheinbaum as she made her way through a crowd in Mexico City earlier this week.

A widely circulated video of the incident shows the man leaning in to kiss Sheinbaum and then touching her inappropriately.

At a press conference today, Sheinbaum said she was filing charges in the interests of, as she put it, defending all Mexican women.

The incident has struck a chord for many in Mexico, where women say such instances happen all too often.

REGINA GONZALEZ, Student in Mexico City (through translator): It's something very common, and I think it should stop being normalized.

It's not OK for someone to touch us and just feel like because we're walking on the street they can touch our bodies.

AMNA NAWAZ: Sheinbaum has dismissed any push to increase her security or to change the way she interacts with the public.

Instead, she's urging states to review their laws to make it easier for women to report such assaults.

Typhoon Kalmaegi made landfall in Vietnam today after slamming the Philippines earlier this week.

The storm brought intense winds and heavy rain to the Vietnamese coast.

Three fishermen were reported missing after strong waves swept away their boat.

Officials say more than 500,000 people have been evacuated.

Even before the storm landed, record-breaking rains flooded parts of Vietnam.

Some areas expect to see more than 24 inches of rain.

Meantime, in the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

declared a state of emergency today after the storm killed at least 114 people, with more than 120 others still missing.

Back in this country, a former Justice Department employee who threw a sandwich at a federal agent in August was found not guilty of misdemeanor assault today.

Video of the incident went viral and became a focal point in the Trump administration's law enforcement surge in Washington, D.C.

A grand jury had initially declined to indict Sean Charles Dunn with a felony.

His lawyers argued it was not assault, but a harmless gesture during an act of protest.

Tesla shareholders voted today for a pay package that could make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.

To reach that mark, the Tesla boss would have to meet several ambitious financial goals over the next decade.

The vote follows weeks of debate over Musk's management of the electric carmaker and whether any corporate leader should get that kind of money, with small investors and even the pope weighing in.

Layoffs across the nation soared last month.

That's according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which reported 153,000 job cuts in October.

That makes it the worst October for layoffs in more than two decades.

That report added to the downbeat mood on Wall Street today.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly 400 points by the close.

The Nasdaq dropped almost 450 points.

The S&P 500 also ended sharply lower.

Still to come on the "News Hour": how young conservatives are trying to pick up the mantle after Charlie Kirk's assassination; we put President Trump's claims that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria into context; and producer and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim discusses his latest film, "A House of Dynamite."

Millions of Americans will soon have direct access to popular weight loss drugs at far lower prices than they pay now.

That's due to a deal announced today between President Trump and pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.

William Brangham has the details.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Amna.

The president said that people who pay directly for this class of weight loss drugs known as GLP-1s, that they would see considerable reductions in price.

The injectable versions would initially cost $350 a month and then drop to $250.

It would cost $150 a month for a soon-to-be-approved oral version.

This agreement also guarantees expanded Medicare and Medicaid coverage for many patients to use these medications.

The administration says the drugs will be available on the direct-to-consumer site known as TrumpRx when it's launched in January and via Medicare next summer.

Our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, spoke to Dr.

Mehmet Oz today.

He's the administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

She spoke to him after the announcement about what this could mean.

DR.

MEHMET OZ, Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: A hundred and fifty dollars for a pill or $250 for an injection, you'll start taking the medication, and then you'll drop 20 percent of your weight.

You'll have less hypertension, less diabetes.

Because of that, you'll have less heart attacks, less renal failure, less dementia, all the things that strip the vitality of the American people away.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Medicare patients who are covered will have a monthly co-pay of $50 and the government will pay less than $250 a month.

To qualify, Medicare beneficiaries must have certain medical requirements and conditions.

So, for more on this deal and its potential impact, We are joined by Stacie Dusetzina.

She's a professor in the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University.

Thank you so much for being here.

Before we get into the specifics of this deal, what is your overall impression?

Is this a good deal for consumers?

STACIE DUSETZINA, Vanderbilt University: I think this will be a good deal for some consumers.

And there are a lot of details that we need to know about who will benefit, how much they will benefit, and when will they benefit.

But the negotiated price that was achieved results in it being a better deal for many people than what we have had up to now.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So let's talk first about this, the direct-to-consumer option.

This will be drugs sold on the TrumpRx Web site.

People can get injectables for $350 by January.

It'll then drop by another $100 over the next two years.

How meaningful a price decrease is that?

STACIE DUSETZINA: I think one of the challenging parts with the price decrease we're hearing about today is that it's not that large of a difference than what was already available to cash-paying patients through some of these sites.

So let's take, for example, the injectable drugs.

They will have a lower price for the first dose and then a slightly higher price for the next doses.

So I think, on average, for the injectable weight loss medicines, we're talking about $350 a month.

Now, that is a difference.

So, right now, they're roughly $500 a month.

So that could improve access for people who don't have coverage through their health insurance plans and who are willing to pay cash.

I think one of the challenging parts, though, is that many people can't afford that amount of money.

And we know from research that once the price reaches about $100 a month, a lot of people stop taking their medicines because that's a real breaking point for many people when they're thinking about how much they can afford to spend each month on medicine.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

So, that could add up over the course of a year to quite a bit.

What about this $150-a-month oral pill, the one that's not yet approved?

STACIE DUSETZINA: My understanding is, the $150, again, is one of those initiation kind of prices, so almost like a teaser rate, where you start filling the medicine and then you get adjusted up to a higher price.

To the extent that you can see prices eventually get closer to $150, again, I think we will see more people taking these medicines, and especially in cases where your health insurance may never provide coverage.

For example, many people have health insurance plans today that don't cover weight loss as an indication, even though the drugs are available for weight loss specifically.

So, for that particular group of patients, they may find that the cash pay options are more affordable and the only way that they can access the drugs.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Let's pivot now to the Medicare and Medicaid coverage.

How much impact will those prices have for patients and for the system overall?

STACIE DUSETZINA: Yes, for the Medicare patients, what we're looking at is a stated price of about $245 a month, and that's the price paid by Medicare and patients together.

And they have also reported that Medicare beneficiaries who are filling drugs with that price point would be paying $50.

That would be a substantial change from today, and especially when you think about people who have indications that are not currently covered by Medicare.

So Medicare, when it set up the Part D prescription drug benefit, banned coverage of drugs for weight loss.

So the changes announced today provide a path for coverage of these medications for indications that have not previously been covered.

So if you were a Medicare beneficiary and you wanted to fill these medications, and you didn't have an indication that was covered, you would be paying the full price of the drug, literally thousands of dollars per month.

And so you can imagine that going from thousands of dollars to $50 is a huge change for Medicare beneficiaries.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What is in it for the pharmaceutical companies in this deal?

STACIE DUSETZINA: So the companies have made out quite well in this deal.

The first is that they avoid the threat of tariffs.

The Trump administration had threatened a 100 percent tariff on branded drugs.

So through these deals, they're able to escape that threat.

They also both receive priority review vouchers for getting their orally administered weight loss drugs approved through the FDA on an expedited timeline, which those were also awarded today.

And they get access to many, many more patients through expanding coverage through Medicare and Medicaid.

So it's, I think, a big win for the pharmaceutical companies today.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, that is Stacie Dusetzina of Vanderbilt University.

Thank you so much for helping us get through all this.

STACIE DUSETZINA: My pleasure.

AMNA NAWAZ: A federal judge in Chicago today issued a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics, saying federal officers used force against protesters and members of the media that -- quote -- "shock the conscience."

Judge Sara Ellis said she saw little reason for the force currently used and extended restrictions on federal agents that she issued last month.

Chicago has been at the epicenter of the administration's crackdown.

Just yesterday, multiple armed ICE agents arrested a day care worker in front of children, pulling her out of the building and forcibly detaining her.

Late last month, they disrupted a suburban Halloween parade, deploying tear gas and arresting several people as parents and children watched.

And agents have used aggressive tactics like pulling this man out of his car, wrestling him to the ground and punching him repeatedly during an arrest last week after he collided with the rear of a Border Patrol vehicle.

For more on all this, I'm joined now by Heather Cherone of WTTW, Chicago's PBS station.

Heather, good to see you.

Thanks for joining us.

HEATHER CHERONE, WTTW: Happy to be here.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Judge Ellis' decision followed an eight-hour hearing yesterday, when she heard testimony from multiple people.

What should we understand about what led to her decision and those really sharp words she had for the Trump administration?

HEATHER CHERONE: Well, Judge Ellis spent the bulk of the 90 minutes she spent speaking from the bench painstakingly detailed some of the testimony she heard during that marathon hearing yesterday.

She spoke about how regular Chicagoans had come out to exercise their First Amendment rights and found themselves in one particular case staring down the barrel of the gun.

She said that she could see no reason for the actions of the Trump administration and said that they were just simply not credible when they told her that they had been sort of targeted by a coordinated violent mob.

Instead, she said it was just regular Chicagoans, moms in some case, who had come out to protect the most vulnerable of their neighbors and friends.

AMNA NAWAZ: Judge Ellis even at one point accused one of the senior Border Patrol officials, a man named Gregory Bovino, of lying about their own tactics and the protesters' actions.

What was that about?

HEATHER CHERONE: She had very critical remarks about what Gregory Bovino told her.

And, remember, he's really become the face of President Trump's mass deportation efforts.

She said that he admitted that he lied when he said that he had been struck in the head with a rock before deploying tear gas against a crowd in Little Village, which is really the heart of Chicago's Mexican-American community.

She also said that he lied when he denied using force against a protester, when he was captured on video tackling that man.

Even after he was allowed to see that video during his deposition, he denied that he used force against that man, saying instead the man whom he tackled had used force against him.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, Heather, we know Chicago and the surrounding areas have really been a focal point for the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

Why is that?

What should we understand about that?

HEATHER CHERONE: Well, dating back for more than a decade, President Trump has held up Chicago as the epitome of all of America's urban ills.

He has long been at odds with Governor J.B.

Pritzker, who is, of course, weighing a bid for president in 2028.

He has repeatedly demeaned Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

And there was no doubt in anybody's mind in Chicago that, once Trump returned to the White House in January, it was just a matter of time before he targeted Chicago, even though Chicago wasn't first on his list.

That went to Los Angeles, where also Gregory Bovino was leading the charge in that immigration enforcement operation.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, related to this, we should note this week there was another federal judge who ordered authorities to improve conditions inside a Chicago area ICE detention facility after a group of detainees actually sued.

What were those detainees alleging and what did the judge order?

HEATHER CHERONE: Well, the detainees told the judge that they were kept in essentially deplorable conditions.

They were not fed a single hot meal.

They were not provided with soap.

The women were not provided with menstrual products.

And they said they were essentially kept in a giant room, forced to sleep one on top of the other.

Judge Robert Gettleman ruled in their favor, saying that the Trump administration must do more to improve the conditions in the facility, which is in a suburb about 13 miles west of downtown Chicago.

That facility has long been a transfer point for people with undocumented statuses between one hearing or next or on their way to being deported.

It was never intended to hold people for extended periods of time.

However, that is how the Trump administration has been using that facility.

And the judge said before he ruled that it essentially amounted to a prison.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, that is Heather Cherone of WTTW, that's Chicago's PBS station, joining us tonight.

Heather, thank you.

It's good to speak with you.

HEATHER CHERONE: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves across the nation and sparked questions about the future of his organization, Turning Point USA.

Now, nearly two months later, young people are looking for ways to further his goals for the conservative movement.

Our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, traveled to the University of Mississippi last week, where Kirk was supposed to speak as part of Turning Point's fall campus tour.

On an unseasonably cold and rainy day in Oxford, Mississippi, last week, hundreds of people waited for hours in a line that wrapped around the SJB Pavilion at Ole Miss.

RACHEL CHMIELEWSKI, Student, University of Mississippi: This is a big moment for us.

This is a one-in-a-lifetime experience.

STUDENT: Well, I mean, it's not every day that the vice president has come into Ole Miss, so I had to come out, had to come support.

LIZ LANDERS: Inside, a sea of students in red and white MAGA hats packed the arena to the rafters to see Vice President J.D.

Vance and Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika, take the stage.

J.D.

VANCE, Vice President of the United States: We know that you are the future of Charlie Kirk's legacy, so thank you for being here.

(CHEERING) LIZ LANDERS: Its massive attendance is a sign of a surge in interest in Turning Point USA since Charlie Kirk's assassination.

LESLEY LACHMAN, President, Turning Point USA Ole Miss Chapter: Are you guys coming tomorrow?

STUDENT: I am.

LIZ LANDERS: A day before, the president of Ole Miss' Turning Point chapter, Lesley Lachman, stood at a table outside of the student union to talk to students about the organization and drive up attendance for the event.

LESLEY LACHMAN: I'm introducing Erika tomorrow.

LIZ LANDERS: She is there most days, rain or shine, and holds chapter meetings twice a month at the mostly white state school in the ruby-red south.

LESLEY LACHMAN: I'd say, because our campus always has kind of leaned right, it was not uncommon for people to come to the meetings.

So the meetings were already large.

I mean, and then as soon as his passing, it overnight, became hundreds to thousands.

LIZ LANDERS: Kirk founded Turning Point USA at 18 years old and built it into a political powerhouse with an emphasis on faith, freedom and love of country.

President Trump credits the organization and Kirk for his support among young voters.

That support is particularly strong among young men, reaching 56 percent in last year's presidential election.

But at Ole Miss, Lachman says it's not just men joining her chapter.

LESLEY LACHMAN: Young ladies are very interested in Turning Point.

It's cool to be conservative.

It's hot to be the conservative chick.

It's the new trend.

LIZ LANDERS: One of those women, junior Mary Cate Doughty.

Charlie Kirk was obviously assassinated in a really horrific public way.

Has that made you think differently about TPUSA and just politics in general in this country?

MARY CATE DOUGHTY, Member, Turning Point USA at Ole Miss: Yes, definitely.

I mean, before Charlie Kirk's assassination, I wasn't in Turning Point USA.

Now, like, I have joined as a member.

And, I mean, I think it really puts things into perspective about how divisive things have become in our country.

CHARLIE KIRK, Founder, Turning Point USA: The Civil Rights Act, though, let's be clear, created a beast, and that beast has now turned into an anti-white weapon.

LIZ LANDERS: But Kirk also expressed very controversial views about race, gay rights and religion.

CHARLIE KIRK: Thou shall lay with another man shall be stoned to death.

Just saying.

Really something, guys.

LIZ LANDERS: He often brought those views to college campuses, where he would debate students directly.

CHARLIE KIRK: Brought in 5 percent of the population of Haiti.

MAN: I don't see the issue with that, though.

Like, as... CHARLIE KIRK: You don't see the issue with that?

CALVIN WOOD, Vice President, University of Mississippi College Democrats: Arguing over our issues, especially when it's this big figure, Charlie Kirk, and some random 18-year-old student who's shaking with their mic and all that, like, it never struck me as a fair landscape or environment for people to actually find common ground on issues.

LIZ LANDERS: On the University of Mississippi's campus, seniors Calvin Wood and Elizabeth Wildman lead the college Democrats.

As hundreds waited in line for the Turning Point event, they were hanging up fliers for their own that night.

What do you think of Turning Point USA?

ELIZABETH WILDMAN, President, University of Mississippi College Democrats: I definitely think that Turning Point USA is getting a lot of traction right now.

I think that they have a lot of wind underneath them, and I think that that's kind of carrying their narrative.

And at times it feels a little intimidating.

It feels very, very intimidating.

LIZ LANDERS: They pointed back to September, when the university fired an employee over a social media post that criticized Kirk in the wake of his murder, one of many incidents across the country.

That employee is now suing the university's chancellor, saying the move violates their First Amendment rights.

SHAUN GUSSOW, Member, Turning Point USA at Ole Miss: I think that there is freedom of speech, but there's no freedom of speech without consequence.

LIZ LANDERS: Sophomore Shaun Gussow says he comes from a staunchly Democratic household, though he identifies as a conservative.

He told us he was originally drawn to Kirk because of his openness to engage with people of different backgrounds, and he's found community here.

SHAUN GUSSOW: Despite everyone telling me that groups like these are full of hate and filled with people who just want to shoot you down and just racist and all the other words, ever since I have went to these meetings, it has been the complete opposite.

I have never met a more welcoming group of people.

LIZ LANDERS: As people from those meetings and thousands more filled the arena that night, Erika Kirk, now the Turning Point CEO, kept her remarks focused on her late husband's legacy and her Christian faith.

ERIKA KIRK, CEO, Turning Point USA: You are the courageous generation.

Hear me when I say that.

My husband believed that to his core.

That's why he went on campuses.

That's why he was trying to reach you.

ANDREW KOLVET, Host, "The Charlie Kirk Show": Every single different initiative program, whatever, has just seen explosive growth.

LIZ LANDERS: Andrew Kolvet is a spokesperson for Turning Point USA's national organization.

ANDREW KOLVET: Right, happy Monday.

This is "The Charlie Kirk Show."

I'm Andrew Kolvet.

LIZ LANDERS: And now hosts "The Charlie Kirk Show," a national radio program and podcast with nearly two million weekly listeners.

He told us Turning Point has now received some 140,000 inquiries to start new high school and college chapters, and about 200,000 people have signed up to get involved in the next elections.

What is Turning Point's impact going to be on the midterm elections next year?

ANDREW KOLVET: We're going to pick some strategic locations to deploy our resources.

Now we have all these hundreds of thousands more ballot chasers and door knockers and volunteers that we're going to be able to deploy.

LIZ LANDERS: But even amid this surge in excitement for Turning Point, there are signs of pushback at several schools.

That includes the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, where the student government recently opposed the formation of a new chapter, though the university ultimately approved it.

There was a student senator there who voted against that chapter opening on campus, and the student said Turning Point USA has a national track record of harassment, misinformation and intimidation.

Do you?

ANDREW KOLVET: No.

I mean, if you are somebody that consumes a lot of content from a liberal vantage point,you will see a lot of cherry-picked clips of Charlie.

You will see things out of context with zero explanation of why a phrase or a sentence was said.

But then when you peel back the layers and you see why he was referring to something the way he was, or why he was discussing something the way he was, all of a sudden, people are like, oh, that makes sense.

But, no, we believe in peaceful dialogue, peaceful debate.

STUDENT: Why are we making Christianity one of the major things that you have to have in common to be one of you guys?

LIZ LANDERS: Kirk had been slated to debate students at Ole Miss during the event, which Vice President Vance did instead.

The rally's religious overtones led to tough questions about Christianity's proper place in the country.

STUDENT: Requiring Christianity in public schools goes against the founding fathers' wish of freedom of religion.

What do you think about that?

J.D.

VANCE: I make no apologies for believing that Christianity is the pathway to God.

I make no apologies for thinking that Christian values are an important foundation of this country, but I'm not going to force you to believe in anything, because that's not what God wants and that's not what I want either.

LIZ LANDERS: And the vice president used the occasion to directly call the thousands of young supporters who filled the arena to action.

J.D.

VANCE: If you think that we could be doing more, then pick up the phone and get involved in the effort to change our minds and change the future of the United States of America in the process.

LIZ LANDERS: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Liz Landers in Oxford, Mississippi.

AMNA NAWAZ: This week, President Trump threatened to send the U.S.

military into Nigeria and to cut off American aid for not doing enough to protect Nigerian Christians.

Nigeria and its 236 million people comprise the most populous nation in Africa, roughly split between Christians and Muslims.

For years, it's struggled to curtail violence across the country, from international terrorist groups to disputes between farmers and herders.

But now, as Nick Schifrin reports, its leadership must face threats from both its internal adversaries and from the White House.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In Nigeria's northeast, the carcass of a truck is still smoking, an office building's facade is burned black, and an army pickup charred beyond recognition, all targets of Islamic State West Africa Province, which two weeks ago filmed as it torched a military barracks and launched simultaneous attacks across four districts.

For years, Islamist terrorists have plagued northern Nigeria.

Best known as Boko Haram, they haven't only targeted the military.

Boko Haram violently opposes female education, and, in 2014, kidnapped 276 schoolgirls; 82 remain in captivity.

Its bombed mosques, blowing up this place of prayer in 2014, killing 120.

Boko Haram has also targeted Christians, as I saw in 2015 in the Eastern city of Mubi.

Outside the nearby Church of the Brethren, the damage is everywhere.

Inside, high above the podium, the fire set by Boko Haram almost erased the cross from the wall; 16 parishioners died.

Elia Usman is the church's secretary.

ELIA USMAN, Church of the Brethren: When these people landed in Mubi, they will ask you, are you a Christian or a Muslim?

When you say you're a Christian, they will shoot you.

There's no one single church left in Mubi.

They're burned it.

NICK SCHIFRIN: They still do.

In 2022, the Nigerian government says members of Al-Shabaab, usually based in Somalia, attacked this church in Southwest Nigeria.

The floor was still stained from 50 parishioners slaughtered as they attended Sunday mass.

Nigeria says it's reduced terrorism, although it's identified a new group with international links in the northwest called Lakurawa.

Most Nigerian Muslims live in the north, most Christians live in the south, and in the middle, the two groups overlap, as do tribes, farmers and herders, who can clash violently.

For decades, nomadic herders, almost all of whom are Muslim, have fought farmers, most of whom are Christian, over land disputes and scarce resources.

The independent conflict monitor ACLED tells "PBS News Hour" last year's data show a rise in Christian fatalities, mostly in Central Nigeria, and, this year, there's been a 43 percent increase in attacks by Fulani herders over last year.

But the vast majority of the incidents were over land disputes, not targeting because of religion.

This June, at least 150 displaced people staying at a Catholic mission were killed.

The community blamed Muslim Fulani herders.

Attacks like this one have led to the White House.

QUESTION: Do you envisage U.S.

boots on the ground?

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Could be.

I mean, a lot of things -- I envisage a lot of things.

They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Last month, President Trump designated Nigeria a country of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act and last weekend wrote he may very well go into that now-disgraced country guns a blazing.

NINA SHEA, Center for Religious Freedom Director, Hudson Institute: The government doesn't help the Christians.

They're not protecting them.

They're not protecting their villages.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Nina Shea directs the Hudson Institute's Center of Religious Freedom.

She and 30 other advocates, Christian organizations and think tanks wrote a letter in October to President Trump saying the Nigerian government demonstrably tolerates relentless aggression uniquely against Christian farming families.

Why do you think that a lot of this violence is purely directed at Christians, when there's also Muslim-on-Muslim violence, Christian-on-Christian violence, and the government itself has failed to stop all the violence regardless of the victim?

NINA SHEA: Well, the government tries to stop the violence.

It is fighting military warfare against Boko Haram and Islamic State up in the north and other, many -- a number of other groups as well.

It is not trying to arrest or prosecute or in any way rein in these Fulani herders.

Local Christian leaders are telling us that they are trying to cleanse the land of Christians, that they are establishing the land for Islamic rule.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Nigeria's government insists it's taking steps to stop violence that targets all Nigerians.

DANIEL BWALA, Special Adviser to Nigerian President: As a responsible government, we refuse to approach the fight against terrorism from a profiling point of view.

That's why we discourage the idea that it is a target -- targeted Christian -- it's a hoax.

It's a hoax.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Daniel Bwala is a special adviser on the media to Bola Tinubu, who became Nigeria's president in 2023.

Bwala grew up in Borno state, the epicenter of Boko Haram violence.

DANIEL BWALA: We lived through these experiences where we have a lot of our loved ones having been killed by Boko Haram when it started.

The killings by the terrorists or the insurgents or the Boko Haram, it is not targeted at any particular religion.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But, in Central Nigeria, as you know, there are international organizations who are tracking more violence between herders, almost all of whom are Muslim, against farmers, most of whom are Christian.

Why hasn't the government been able to reduce that violence?

DANIEL BWALA: It is a case of cattle rustling and then the case of incursion on people's land and land grabbing by the Islamic militia, so to speak.

We have been dialoguing with the people, and we have been sifting out and isolating criminal elements who are taking advantage of that situation to cause mayhem to our people.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But do you acknowledge that there are many Nigerians, Christians and Muslims who feel that the government hasn't done enough to guarantee their security?

DANIEL BWALA: Yes, I will not deny the fact that there have been many.

And we have been saying that we have limitation of arms and ammunition.

Our relationship with America will help strengthen this fight.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Historically, the U.S.

and Nigerian militaries have trained together and shared intelligence to target terrorist groups.

But in a country that is generally pro-American, President Trump's threats caused widespread criticism.

The government offers collaboration.

DANIEL BWALA: When President Trump said what he said, we take it -- we took it in good faith.

We feel like it's a message that calls for a sitting down, so we can broaden this conversation around what we need.

Donald Trump, quite frankly, is one president that African people celebrate the most, because he's not political correct about any opinion he holds.

We don't need interpreter to tell us that Donald Trump thinks well about Nigeria.

That's why we don't take what he says hook-like and sinker.

He has done that to almost everybody.

He even threatened to turn Canada to a state.

He dragged the South African president to the White House.

DONALD TRUMP: Death, death, death.

DANIEL BWALA: He did that to Zelenskyy.

DONALD TRUMP: And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country.

DANIEL BWALA: We look at the psychology, and we work around that.

And what we're trying to do is to pass the message through the base, his consumer base, to understand that hoax is not a reflection of what the Nigerian people are.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But the violence is real, and they have led to real threats of American intervention against a historic African partner.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

AMNA NAWAZ: The top streaming film on Netflix this week tackles a long-running Hollywood theme, the threat of a nuclear attack.

And the discourse around this film has struck a nerve, not just with audiences, but with military defense experts and the Pentagon.

Geoff Bennett spoke with Noah Oppenheim, the writer of "A House of Dynamite," for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

ACTOR: In a little more than seven minutes, we will lose the city of Chicago.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's sometime in the near future and an intercontinental ballistic missile of unknown origin is headed toward the U.S.

REBECCA FERGUSON, Actor: Get in the car and just start driving, right?

ACTOR: What?

Where?

What are you talking about?

REBECCA FERGUSON: West.

Go west.

Go west as fast as you can.

GEOFF BENNETT: A ticking clock counting down the minutes until impact looms over several overlapping storylines, as officials in the Situation Room, troops on a military base and the president all scramble to respond to potential nuclear annihilation.

IDRIS ELBA, Actor: This is insanity.

OK?

ACTOR: No, sir, this is reality.

GEOFF BENNETT: This is the fictional world of "A House of Dynamite" directed by Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow.

But it's also a scenario that feels eerily timed to this moment, as matters of nuclear brinkmanship dominate the headlines.

Written by former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, the film's striking realism has sparked buzz and even a Pentagon memo disputing its depiction of the U.S.

military defense system.

ACTRESS: Three, two, one.

GEOFF BENNETT: But "A House of Dynamite" has clearly tapped into anxiety over nuclear confrontation, leading to the grim question, just how vulnerable are we?

ACTOR: If we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose our window to do so.

GEOFF BENNETT: And screenwriter Noah Oppenheim joins us now.

Thanks for being here.

NOAH OPPENHEIM, Screenwriter: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So this film, instant hit on Netflix, captures 18 minutes of panic as this nuclear weapon is headed toward Chicago.

What did you want audiences to take away about the real-world threat of nuclear catastrophe?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: I think both Kathryn and I wanted to invite a conversation that we thought had been absent for many years.

During the Cold War, there was a large body of films that were made tackling this subject matter.

The threat of nuclear war was actively debated and discussed.

The question of who you wanted to be in charge of our nuclear arsenal was a part, big part of presidential campaigns and elections.

And that has faded since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But the threat of these weapons has not at all subsided.

So we wanted to perhaps jolt people back into a conversation about the nuclear threat.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you approached writing this film as a journalist would, talking with top experts, defense officials to really ground this film in reality.

What was that process like?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: The process of writing the film was very similar to the process of reporting out a story.

When we first started talking about it, Kathryn was very clear she wanted this to be as authentic and as realistic a portrait of what would happen in a scenario like this.

It's one of the things that makes her such a great filmmaker.

And so we got on the phone with experts, people who had worked in the White House Situation Room, people who had worked in Strategic Command.

And we said to them, how do these processes work?

What would it look like inside these rooms if a threat were incoming?

And then when we got to the end of those conversations, we'd say, who else should we talk to, as you would if you were reporting out a story,.

GEOFF BENNETT: What surprised you the most about how a crisis like this would really unfold?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: A few big surprises.

One, it would unfold incredibly quickly.

The time it takes for a missile to travel from the Pacific theater is under 30 minutes.

If a Russian submarine were to launch at us off our coast, it could be 10 to 12 minutes before impact.

So the decision-making window is incredibly tight.

The second thing that was shocking is, we live in a nuclear monarchy.

The president of the United States has the sole authority to decide whether these weapons are used or not.

And then, third, that monarch, the president, has probably done very little to no preparation for this moment.

The professionals, the folks who work in Strategic Command, for instance, they rehearse a nuclear scenario, they told us, 400 times a year on average.

The president gets a single briefing when he's sworn in.

He's introduced to the military aid, the football that's carried around with him.

And that is likely the last time he thinks about the nuclear question until, God forbid, this is going to be thrust in front of him and he's going to have a clock ticking and he's going to have to make this call.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that dynamic certainly came across in the film.

Well, as we mentioned, after the release, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency circulated a memo pushing back on the film's depiction of the failed interceptors.

And they say, "Real-world data tells a vastly different story," to which you would say what?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: I would say this is not a debate between us as filmmakers and the Pentagon.

It's a debate between the Pentagon and the wider community of experts on this subject.

Those experts will say the stats that we use in the movie, this idea of it being roughly a coin toss, those stats are accurate.

They reflect the results of tests done over the course of many, many years.

And, again, this is not for lack of trying.

This is not to say we have no missile defense capacity.

It's just an incredibly hard problem to solve.

And we're not quite there yet.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, how do you navigate authenticity versus the creative freedom to tell a story to keep audiences engaged?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: Well, I think you have to make creative choices, of course, but you don't want to make creative choices that fly in the face of reality.

You want to choose -- you want to decisions that are, if not probable, then certainly possible.

You don't want to depict events that are impossible.

You don't want to malign people or institutions.

You want to show proper respect.

And I think we worked hard to do that.

We have an enormous amount of reverence for the people who work in places like the Situation Room, STRATCOM, Fort Greely, where our missile defense, some of our missile defense capacity is based.

These are hardworking professionals who come in every day doing their job to keep us all safe.

And we wanted to depict their worlds with as much realism as possible.

GEOFF BENNETT: Working with Kathryn Bigelow, how did your writing process adapt to her style of high-intensity realism?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: It was a perfect match from the moment we first began speaking.

I mean, one of the many things that make her such a legend and such a phenomenal filmmaker is her commitment to authenticity, is her desire to respect the reality of what goes on behind those closed doors.

She says, if we're going to take people into a place like the battle deck in STRATCOM, we better depict it realistically.

And, as you mentioned, I'm a former journalist, so our sensibilities were very much aligned from day one.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, I think the prevailing question watching that film is, how close to the truth is what we see on screen?

NOAH OPPENHEIM: Well, thank God we have never seen a scenario in which a missile has been launched AT us.

But that is probably the biggest creative leap that we take.

From the moment that missile is lobbed into the sky, the processes that you see the characters go through, the steps that the Situation Room takes to convene a national security conference call, the effort that FEMA makes to evacuate government officials as part of their continuity of government protocols, the wheels that get set in motion at STRATCOM, AT Fort Greely, again, these are all based on conversations that we had with folks who worked in those places and experts who've covered them for many, many years.

GEOFF BENNETT: "A House of Dynamite" streaming now on Netflix.

Noah Oppenheim, it's great to see you.

NOAH OPPENHEIM: Nice to see you too.

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

I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us.