WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening.

I'm William Brangham.

Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett are away.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Comedian Jimmy Kimmel is taken off the air indefinitely after his comments about Charlie Kirk's murder.

What the move says about free speech under the Trump administration.

An overhauled vaccine committee at the CDC, one that now includes vaccine skeptics, changes the guidance for what shots children should get.

And why paying interest on the debt is becoming a bigger problem for the U.S.

government.

PHILLIP SWAGEL, Director, Congressional Budget Office: When I look at our fiscal situation, the words that come to my mind are daunting and challenging, difficult.

(BREAK) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Welcome to the "News Hour."

The political fallout from the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk continues.

Last night, Disney suddenly suspended ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" following comments Kimmel made about how President Trump's supporters were responding to Kirk's murder.

That suspension was cheered by the president and his allies, but has also raised concern of censorship and the future of the First Amendment.

Today, Democrats on Capitol Hill introduced a bill to protect free speech.

SEN.

CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): That's censorship.

That's state speech control.

That's not America.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In a fierce rebuke to Kimmel's suspension, Senate Democrats today accused the Trump administration of using Charlie Kirk's murder to silence critics.

It began four days ago.

ABC's late-night host took jabs at Trump and the right over their weekend messaging about the suspect in Kirk's assassination.

JIMMY KIMMEL, Host, "Jimmy Kimmel Live": We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That monologue aired after a weekend when Utah's Republican governor had suggested the suspect had leftist ideology, but the day before prosecutors and the suspect's mother echoed that same belief.

MAN: Intent to seek the death penalty.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Then yesterday, some sharp criticism from the chairman of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission.

BRENDAN CARR, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission: I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Trump-appointed Brendan Carr threatened federal action if local ABC affiliates didn't do something about Kimmel.

BRENDAN CARR: These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Then a company called Nexstar, which operates multiple ABC stations, said it would start pulling Kimmel off the air.

Nexstar needs the FCC's approval for a proposed $6.2 billion merger.

Then more dominoes.

Conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest owner of ABC affiliates, said they'd do the same.

Sinclair said Kimmel must apologize to Kirk's family and -- quote - - "make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk family and Turning Point USA," which is Kirk's political group.

While meeting with the British prime minister in the U.K.

today, President Trump rejected the idea that free speech was under attack.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk.

And Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person.

And they should have fired him a long time ago.

So you can call that free speech or not.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This summer, the president celebrated when CBS canceled the show of another of his critics, Stephen Colbert.

CBS cited financial reasons for the cancellation, even as its parent company, Paramount, was finishing a deal of its own which also required FCC approval.

But critics say Colbert's and Kimmel's political positions were why they were targeted.

MARC MARON, Talk Show Host: This is what authoritarianism looks like right now in this country.

It's happening.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night, multiple comedians denounced Kimmel's suspension as censorship, including Wanda Sykes, who was set to be a guest on "Kimmel" last night.

WANDA SYKES, Comedian: He didn't end the Ukraine war or solve Gaza within his first week.

But he did end freedom of speech within his first year.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, today, former late-night host David Letterman weighed in, talking with our colleague "The Atlantic"'s Jeffrey Goldberg.

DAVID LETTERMAN, Comedian: And you can't go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office.

That's just not how this works.

(CHEERING) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Others celebrated the move to take Kimmel off the air.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX News Anchor: Kimmel's recent vile remarks about Charlie Kirk's assassination should come as no surprise, given his lengthy history of mocking conservatives, never-ending Trump bashing, which is why his ratings sucked.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, earlier today, FCC Chair Carr warned more federal action could be coming.

BRENDAN CARR: But, yes, I don't think this is the last shoe to drop.

This is a massive shift that's taking place in the media ecosystem.

I think the consequences are going to continue to flow.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Sinclair Broadcasting says, this Friday, it will replace Kimmel's show with a tribute to Charlie Kirk.

For the record, we asked FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for an interview, and his office did not respond.

For more, we turn now to Dylan Byers.

He is senior media correspondent at Puck.

Dylan Byers, thank you so much.

Help us understand, what has been the reaction in the media world to Kimmel getting pulled off the air?

DYLAN BYERS, Puck: Well, it's been rather overwhelming.

I mean, I think there's a pretty broad consensus here, and certainly my own reporting and the reporting of others bears this out, that this was a decision that Disney CEO Bob Iger made due to the pressure from the FCC.

The remarks that you referenced that Kimmel made came on a Monday night, there was no move to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air by Disney for his show the following night.

But after the chairman, Carr, went out and gave an interview and suggested that he would put pressure on ABC, after Nexstar decided that it would preempt Kimmel's show on its owned-and-operated stations, then Disney made the move to preempt Jimmy Kimmel's show.

And, look, you mentioned it there in your package.

There was some precedent for this with Paramount's decision to cancel Colbert, which was justified by the fact that Colbert was losing a significant amount of money for the network.

And so there's some ambiguity around this decision.

But there doesn't seem to be any of that ambiguity here.

This is pretty clearly a decision that Disney came to in light of that FCC pressure, in light of that Nexstar pressure, perhaps also because they need regulatory approval for another deal that they're -- that Disney is seeking to acquire Fubo.

So, this -- look, the FCC certainly has the power to renew licenses, to revoke licenses.

It does not have the power to censor content.

And what we are seeing here is a sort of indirect, albeit pretty brazen attempt to influence the programming on ABC Television.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Earlier today we spoke with a constitutional scholar, Ilya Somin.

He's a professor of law at George Mason University and also at the Libertarian think tank the Cato institute.

Here's what he had to say about Trump and the FCC's actions here.

ILYA SOMIN, George Mason University: Trump is definitely abusing the power of the FCC.

Whatever other authority it might legitimately have, it does not have the power to force stations to take people off the air merely because they have used the president objects too.

And it definitely is a violation of the First Amendment.

If there's anything that violates the First Amendment, it's government pressure and coercion to censor political speech.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Now, that is something that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr used to believe.

There are multiple statements where he is echoing that same idea, that it is not the FCC's job to police speech.

How has he responded today as to as to how he has had this reversal of opinion?

DYLAN BYERS: Well, look, I don't want to editorialize here, but I would say, if you're looking for intellectual consistency here among many officials in this administration, you would be hard-pressed to find it.

Look, by going out and giving an interview and just suggesting that you can do this the easy way or the hard way, at the end of the day, I suppose you can technically say it was Disney's decision, I didn't do it.

But that sort of reeks of sort of mafia-level tactics of sort of veiled threats and coercion that Disney, by virtue of the position it's in and by virtue of the FCC's leverage here, that it was willing to, frankly, capitulate to.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The MAGA world, the president himself and all of his supporters have celebrated this move, saying that this was a consequence of his actions, of Kimmel's actions.

What else have they been arguing as to why they think this is a great thing that has happened?

DYLAN BYERS: Well, look, I think there's been a longstanding feeling among the right, certainly among Trump supporters, that media generally speaking, what we usually refer to as mainstream media, has been biased, and that if you believe that the -- that broadcast networks should be sort of servicing the American people, then that sort of bias is a bad thing.

And I think they would view the actions against Colbert or against Kimmel as progress in that regard.

I think what I would say and I think what many folks across the political spectrum have pointed out over the course of the last 24 hours is that what is happening now to, say, ABC, to Jimmy Kimmel is something -- is the kind of power and coercion that a future Democratic president could try to wield against conservative critics.

So this does not set a good precedent.

At the end of the day, one thing that I think we can all agree we all value here is living in a society where people are able to go out and make jokes and state political opinions without fear of retribution from their employer because their employer has a deal pending approval by the federal government.

And I would just say that anyone celebrating this move now would -- probably going to rethink that in future administrations, if future administrations try to wield that power too.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, that is Dylan Byers at Puck.

Dylan, thank you so much for your time.

DYLAN BYERS: Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We start today's other headlines in the U.K., where President Trump closed out his state visit with a series of deals aimed at further cementing ties between Britain and the U.S.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I think it's an unbreakable bond we have, regardless of what we're doing today.

I think it's unbreakable.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: He and Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a major technology partnership, as well as an agreement on nuclear energy.

Afterwards, they spoke with reporters, where President Trump acknowledged that he disagrees with the U.K.

's plan to recognize a Palestinian state.

On efforts to end the war in Ukraine, President Trump said he's disappointed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is continuing his attacks.

DONALD TRUMP: The one that I thought would be easiest would be because of my relationship with President Putin, but he's let me down.

He's really let me down.

It was going to be Russia and Ukraine.

But we will see how that turns out.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: President Trump also suggested that the U.S.

may reestablish a presence at the Bagram airfield in Afghanistan.

That facility played a central role in America's chaotic withdrawal from the country in 2021.

The president has floated this idea in the past, but has provided few details.

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

In its filing, the Justice Department claims a lower court's refusal to OK her dismissal was -- quote -- "yet another case of improper judicial interference with the president's removal authority."

President Trump has accused Cook of mortgage fraud, which she denies.

The request comes a day after Cook joined a majority of other Fed board members in voting to cut interest rates.

Charlie Kirk's political organization, Turning Point USA, announced today that his widow, Erika Kirk, will be its next CEO.

The entrepreneur and podcaster often appeared with her husband at Turning Point events.

In emotional remarks following her husband's assassination last week, she vowed to continue his work.

Erika Kirk takes over amid a surge in interest and support for the organization.

Charlie Kirk helped build Turning Point into a multimillion-dollar operation that was widely credited with helping Republicans win over young voters in last year's election.

In Pennsylvania, prosecutors say that a suspected stalker was hiding at his ex-girlfriend's house when he opened fire on police who had come to arrest him.

Three officers were killed immediately and two others were hospitalized.

The suspected gunman was identified as 24-year-old Matthew James Ruth, who was killed by police in the shoot-out that followed.

The fallen officers were identified today as Detective Sergeant Cody Becker, Detective Mark Baker, and Detective Isaiah Emenheiser.

At a press conference today, law enforcement officials paid tribute to their service.

TIMOTHY BARKER, York County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney: Well, their mission is now complete.

You kept the faith.

You ran the race.

You fought more than a good fight.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night, members of the small Southern Pennsylvania community joined police and first responders as they formed a procession to the coroner's office to show their support.

It was one of the deadliest days for Pennsylvania's police so far this century.

Turning to the Middle East, the Israeli military says four of its soldiers were killed today in Southern Gaza.

They're the first troop losses since Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza City this week in the territories north.

As explosions dotted the horizon, residents reported that Internet and phone lines have been cut off across the Strip.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have already fled Gaza City in a desperate search for safety in the south, but some refuse to leave.

BASSAM AL-QANOU, Displaced Palestinian (through translator): I'm not getting out of here.

God is one and death is one.

Life is one.

It's like 1,000 deaths.

And we're not leaving.

We're not getting out.

I wish I could leave to save my children, but where do we go?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Separately, officials say a Jordanian truck driver shot and killed two people at an Israeli-run border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military says it neutralized the gunmen, but provided no other details.

They are referring to the shooting as a militant attack.

Back in this country, chipmaker Nvidia is investing $5 billion in its struggling rival Intel.

The two companies also announced today that they will work together on custom data centers and chips for personal computers.

The investment is a lifeline for Intel, which has struggled to adapt as consumers shift to mobile devices.

And it comes after the U.S.

government took a 10 percent stake in intel last month.

Nvidia's investment still needs regulatory approval.

Intel shares surged 22 percent on the news.

And on Wall Street, Nvidia's investment helped drive the three major indices to new all-time highs.

The Dow Jones industrial average added more than 120 points on the day.

The Nasdaq jumped more than 200 points.

The S&P 500 also ended in positive territory.

Still to come on the "News Hour": Senate Republicans push through multiple judicial nominees after changing the rules; Israel's ambassador to the U.S.

discusses the ongoing war in Gaza; and we examine a new originalist analysis of the Constitution and its potential impact.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began a two-day meeting today to discuss and vote on various recommendations.

It's being watched closely because the committee was completely overhauled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

when he fired the previous members and replaced them.

On the agenda, big questions about vaccines for hepatitis B and the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.

Ali Rogin has more.

ALI ROGIN: That's right, William.

Today, the committee met and took its first votes towards changing the schedule for childhood vaccines.

Just a short time ago, the committee voted to recommend against children under the age of 4 getting the combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine.

While many kids don't get the shot that way, it was part of a larger conversation today about limiting access to some vaccines for some children.

Joining me now to discuss the meeting is Dr.

Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and former CDC director under President Obama.

He's also the author of the forthcoming book "The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives, Including Your Own."

Dr.

Frieden, thank you so much for joining us.

What is your reaction to the changes that ACIP was discussing and voted on today?

DR.

THOMAS FRIEDEN, Former Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: There are a few things that were clear from today's meetings.

The first, which was reassuring, was that the CDC staff presentations were extremely high-quality.

They were what we have seen for year after year, where we have some of the best vaccine scientists who dedicate their lives to protecting kids presenting really good information about what works and what doesn't.

That was encouraging.

Less encouraging was the kind of questions and discussions from the current members of the committee, some of whom were very clear and very focused and scientific, some of whom seemed to dismiss data and say, it's not about the data, it's about trust, it's about safety, it's about concerns.

So the process was concerning.

The voting was actually quite confusing, so much so that one of the members abstained because he didn't -- he -- it wasn't clear what was being voted for.

It's very technical, but what got decided today was basically that there are two ways for young kids to get their first dose of one of the vaccines.

You can either get them as one shot or two.

Currently, about 85 percent of kids get them as two shots because the one shot has the advantage that you have one less shot, and the disadvantage that it carries a small risk of febrile seizures, which are scary, but generally benign.

The committee voted not to recommend that option be given to parents.

So it wasn't about recommending a change.

It was recommending that this option, which parents had before, not be an option.

But it was then voted that, even though the ACIP had recommended that, it should be covered by one of the ways that half of American kids get their vaccines, what's called the Vaccines for Children Program, which covers about 36 million kids in this country.

So it was a confusing day.

I think the bigger decision will come tomorrow on hepatitis B. That's a much bigger deal.

ALI ROGIN: And speaking of hepatitis B, this is very much in the air.

There have been conversations today.

The vote will be held tomorrow, but, as you mentioned, ACIP is looking at changing the guidelines against all newborns receiving the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, which is currently the recommendations.

Members of this committee argued that not all newborns need it and that the focus can be more on screening pregnant mothers for the hepatitis B virus prior to giving birth.

What's your take on all of this?

DR.

THOMAS FRIEDEN: Yes it is said that Yogi Berra said, in theory, theory and practice are the same.

In practice, they're different.

We tried this.

It doesn't work.

Without a universal recommendation, you miss too many kids.

It's a safety net.

People say, well, what about a woman who tests negative?

Well, hepatitis B, unlike HIV, is quite transmissible.

You can get it from a cut.

You can get it from a toothbrush.

And so even if a woman who's pregnant tests negative, she may later test positive, or the infant may be infected.

Now, if everyone in the family is negative and they want to not get a vaccine for some time, there's no negative to getting the vaccine.

And it's very effective at protecting.

To give you a sense of this, before this policy, about 20,000 kids a year in this country got infected during or after birth.

And that's really bad, because a quarter of them will be killed by this infection with liver cancer or liver cirrhosis.

With this policy, that number has come down about 90 percent to 1,000 or 2000 kids get the infection.

So we're talking about a change that could result in hundreds of American kids dying.

This would be a mistake.

ALI ROGIN: Speaking about the confusion you mentioned before when it comes to this combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine, it actually seemed at the end of the meeting like they might revisit one of the two votes they took on this, the result of which seemed to set up a two-tier system where some children on some insurance plans might have access to this combined vaccine and others who benefit from a fund called Vaccines for Children, which provides many vaccines, may in fact have access to it.

What does this all mean for members of the public who right now are looking to the CDC and ACIP for guidance?

DR.

THOMAS FRIEDEN: Well, it's interesting that the insurer association put out an announcement a couple days ago that they weren't going to follow what this ACIP does, this advisory committee does, because they really have lost the trust.

It's a huge vote of no confidence in this process, and that's unfortunate.

I think, stepping back, you have to look at what this administration, and particularly Secretary Kennedy, is doing, rather than what he is saying.

He's saying he wants to restore trust.

He just destroyed trust of the insurers.

All of the major medical societies have diverged for the first time really from HHS recommendations.

But for the general public, this isn't a big change as of today, but you have to watch what happens next.

What happened a few weeks ago was completely without any process.

There was a change in the recommendations for the COVID vaccination, which has made it much harder for healthy young adults to get vaccinated.

And this is really unfortunate.

So, again, look at what they're doing, not what they're saying.

Secretary Kennedy said he's not going to take away anyone's vaccines, but he made it way harder for millions of Americans who want to get vaccinated against COVID to get vaccinated.

ALI ROGIN: That's former CDC Director Dr.

Tom Frieden.

Thank you so much.

DR.

THOMAS FRIEDEN: Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the largest groups of President Trump's nominees was confirmed in the U.S.

Senate today, 48 individuals who will hold significant jobs in the military, national security and overseas.

That is possible only because Republicans changed the rules of the Senate last week.

Some on Capitol Hill call it going nuclear to get more nominees through more quickly.

Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, is here to explain what this all means.

Lisa, as you have taught us, the Senate lives and dies by process.

So what exactly changed here and what does this mean for the Trump administration?

LISA DESJARDINS: What Senate Republicans did is they changed the rules so that they could pass nominees in large groups.

Until now, they needed the approval of everyone in the chamber to be able to do that.

Now, that may not sound like a big deal, but it is a very big deal when you have 1,300 filled -- positions that need to be filled by the Trump administration.

And Senate Democrats have done something unique this time around.

They have slow-rolled every single one of those nominations.

So it has really bogged down the Senate.

President Trump has made threats about other ways he would try to get his nominations through.

Senator Thune, the lead Republican, didn't want to go that way.

So they decided to change the rules here, which also has its partisan risks with it.

Now, this has led to them passing that through last night.

And I want to talk about exactly who these first -- or -- sorry - - today, they passed the nominations.

Who was in that group of 48?

Let's take a look at what kind of positions we're talking about.

There, you see Kimberly Guilfoyle and Newt Gingrich's, Callista.

They are ambassadors.

They have been approved today.

They were waiting for several weeks for that approval.

You see a couple of positions for national security, including the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.

Then you see an assistant secretary for the Air Force and the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

So these are important positions.

And what's important about the way Republicans did this is, they can apply this group mentality to almost any group nominee, outside of judges, except for Cabinet secretary.

So take all those 1,300 positions.

Technically, they could pass almost all of them except for 20 using this method.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I think you have sort of answered this already, but in terms of how our government operates, how big a sea change is this?

LISA DESJARDINS: It depends on whom you ask.

I think it is significant.

But, of course, I'm a creature of the Senate.

Some people would say that the Senate is broken.

And I think almost everyone would agree that it's broken.

The Senate now, outside of the Trump era, has now gotten in a situation where it finds itself spending maybe half of its time on nominations, not doing other business and legislating.

But there are others who would say that this change is not what's needed to fix it, that this goes way too far.

And, indeed, everyone would also agree that this is giving tremendous power to the executive and to the governing party if the president shares the same party as the Senate.

We talked to Max Stier, who studies this with the Partnership for Public Service.

MAX STIER, President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service: I think it's unquestionable that the Senate confirmation process is broken and it creates a lot of dysfunction across the entire federal government.

But it's the equivalent of having some dandelions in your lawn and tearing up the whole thing.

Better to pluck out the dandelions than to lose the lawn entirely.

And that's what we're watching right now with the Senate confirmation process.

LISA DESJARDINS: The question is how large of groups of nominees do they have?

Because it's harder for us to actually hold accountable and look into these groups of nominees if they're coming in large groups.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what does this mean for the filibuster?

Can we draw any conclusions about that?

LISA DESJARDINS: I don't think not yet.

It's still a third rail, and Republicans know that, once they're out of office, then the Democrats could use it as well, much as you were talking to Dylan Byers about.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lisa Desjardins, thank you so much.

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This week, Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza's largest city, destroying high-rises and telling people there to evacuate to the south.

For more, Nick Schifrin speaks with Israel's top diplomat in Washington.

NICK SCHIFRIN: To discuss Israel's operation in Gaza City, as well as Israel's long-term plans for Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the recent strike in Doha, Qatar, I'm joined by Israel's Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter.

Ambassador Leiter, thanks very much.

Welcome back to the "News Hour."

Let's start in Gaza City.

The IDF announced this week the beginning of the second phase of an operation it described as designed to take over the city and defeat Hamas.

What do you define as victory in this operation?

YECHIEL LEITER, Israeli Ambassador to the United States: The long-term final day or day after Hamas and Gaza is exactly that, a Gaza that's free of Hamas.

We don't have a war with the people of Gaza.

We have a war with Hamas.

And we believe that we need to defeat Hamas permanently.

And we're actually standing on five points, ultimately, number one, that Hamas is defeated and disarmed, that Gaza is demilitarized, that our hostages, our hostages, all of them, the dead and the alive, are home, and, number four, that Israel's security ultimately remains in Israel's hands and nobody else's, and, number five, that Gaza be rebuilt by an international consortium of countries that are interested in seeing Gaza be reconstituted as a civil society and not as a terrorist infrastructure.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In February 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said about a pending assault on Rafah -- quote - - "Total victory is within reach, not months away, weeks away, once we begin the operation."

Yet here we are, 19 months later, and the prime minister is once again promising that the Gaza City operation will lead to victory.

Don't senior members of the Israeli military who have resisted this operation have a point, that the prime minister is chasing a victory here that could be impossible to achieve?

YECHIEL LEITER: No, I don't think so.

War is difficult.

Nobody wants this war to be over more than the prime minister and the people of Israel.

We're the people who have suffered here.

We don't want to prosecute a war that's unnecessary.

But we do need to achieve a situation where Gaza will no longer pose a threat to our civilians.

If we fought this war over two years, we have lost 900 soldiers, and if Gaza's to be reconstituted as a Hamastan, as a terrorist infrastructure state, what have we achieved?

There's no country in the world that would allow jihadi terrorists to man their borders, and we're not any different.

NICK SCHIFRIN: U.S.

officials have told me that Israeli officials have told them that this war, this fight in Gaza City could be over by the end of the year.

But Israeli military officials are telling me that it could take months, perhaps longer than that, and extend well into next year.

Are those military officials wrong?

YECHIEL LEITER: We have been right about assessments, and sometimes we're wrong about assessments.

I mean, we didn't know that there were 450 miles of terror tunnels underneath an area 24 miles long and eight miles wide.

There could be some surprises, but we have pretty good intel.

We have degraded them dramatically.

We started this war when they had some 30 battalions.

They're now down to four or five battalions.

We -- at the time the prime minister made those remarks, we were on about 30 percent of Gaza.

We now are in 75 percent of the Gaza Strip.

So what's left is Gaza City and some camps south of Gaza City, that's where our hostages are being held.

They refuse to release our hostages.

They refuse to step down and surrender.

Look, Nick, it could be over tomorrow.

If they release our hostages and lay down their weapons, the war's over.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But, as you know, senior members of the military have also expressed some concern that this operation will kill the 20 or so hostages who are living.

Just today, the mother of Matan Zangauker, who was kidnapped during the October 7 terrorist attack, said -- quote -- "How long will they sacrifice our children on the altar of this eternal war?

Cry out with us, enough.

End the war."

Does this operation not risk Matan and the other living hostages' lives?

YECHIEL LEITER: War unfortunately poses existential dilemmas that leaders have to face.

This is not the first time leaders have to face existential dilemmas.

What we know is that, of the 255 hostages that were being held, we have achieved the release of 207, 158 alive.

And it has not been done without applying military pressure.

So, we're applying military pressure.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But most of them were released through cease-fire and negotiations.

YECHIEL LEITER: No, it was because of the military pressure that the cease-fire worked.

Would there not be military pressure, there never would have been negotiations or a cease-fire.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Let's zoom out and talk about Israel's relationship with the world, especially Europe.

The European Commission, which, of course, is led by former Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, a traditional ally of Israel, has this week proposed downgrading trade ties with Israel.

And, this week, Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted this.

He said -- quote -- "In the coming years at least, we will have to deal with these attempts to isolate us."

And he described in Israeli economy that has to become self-sufficient.

Is that an admission that the long-term impact of how Israel is fighting in Gaza is going to be negative on Israel?

YECHIEL LEITER: Look, in the meantime, our economic indicators are quite encouraging.

We have got economic growth at a considerable rate, and we have investment pouring into the country.

So will there be a period of time where we may have to deal with international isolation?

We have been there before, and if we have to, we will do it again.

The important thing is to win this war.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Finally, Ambassador, let me turn to plans that France and Saudi Arabia have to chair a conference on Monday at the U.N.

General Assembly declaring Palestine an independent state.

The prime minister and Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week in Jerusalem suggested that Israel would annex parts of the West Bank in response to that declaration that's going to happen next week at the U.N.

Is that the step that you are about to take?

YECHIEL LEITER: I think everybody should expect, certainly the president of France, with their long history of committing acts of genocide in Africa, if he's going to act unilaterally, Israel's going to act unilaterally, and shouldn't be surprised if that's the case.

Look, we want to reach a situation.

We have changed the face of the Middle East.

Under Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership, the Middle East is changing.

We have degraded the Iranian proxies.

We have degraded Iran.

What we want to do now is move into Abraham Accords 2.0.

That's not going to be accomplished by letting Hamas survive or by reducing Israel to a country that's nine miles wide, like it was before 1967.

So, if you're going to unilaterally declare Palestinian state, then we're going to have to act unilaterally in the opposite direction.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, has been quoted to me as saying by multiple officials lately that the threat is to annex the Jordan Valley in Northern West Bank.

Is that the plan?

YECHIEL LEITER: Look, I think that it's high time that Israel establish, once and for all, its eastern border.

And it's necessary for political reasons.

It's necessary for military reasons, and I think that's been proven.

We can't have any kind of threat to our borders.

And I think there's a consensus in Israel that our eastern border, a wide consensus - - 85 to 90 percent of the population believes that our eastern border with Jordan should be the Jordan River.

And if we now have that opportunity in the context of greater accommodation, in the context of normalization with Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East, there's no reason why the Jordan River should not be established as our eastern border.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, thank you very much.

YECHIEL LEITER: Thank you, Nick.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Since you started watching the "News Hour" tonight, our nation's debt has grown by more than $140 million.

Its total sum is $37 trillion.

There's mounting concern in some quarters over how soon that ballooning debt will impact the lives of everyday Americans.

As economics correspondent Paul Solman explains, simply paying the interest on that debt is already swallowing a larger portion of the federal budget.

PAUL SOLMAN: Interest on the national debt paid to investors for lending the U.S.

money.

In return, they get U.S.

government IOUs, treasuries, the interest rate on which tends to rise as we borrow ever more to cover the growing gap between expenses and revenues.

PHILLIP SWAGEL, Director, Congressional Budget Office: When I look at our fiscal situation, the words that come to my mind are daunting, challenging, difficult.

PAUL SOLMAN: Why daunting?

Well, one tasty way to depict the interest problem, a budget pie.

OK, here's the pie back in 2015.

Interest on the debt, a low-cal 6 percent slice, but, today, 13 percent more than double the share just a decade ago.

Why?

CLAUDIA SAHM, Chief Economist, New Century Advisors: As we issue more and more debt, more and more U.S.

treasuries, then investors are going to demand more for that.

PAUL SOLMAN: For that, and another reason too, inflation.

KENNETH ROGOFF, Economist, Harvard University: Which makes the debt worth less.

You get paid back in dollars that don't buy as much as when you lend them.

PHILLIP SWAGEL: The burden of the debt every year is rising and putting a strain on our finances.

PAUL SOLMAN: Head of the devoutly nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Phil Swagel.

PHILLIP SWAGEL: And that means those are funds that don't go to anything else.

Someone wants more money for national security, someone wants more money for tax relief or for social benefit, the resources paying the debt are excluded from that.

They're not available for those other purposes.

PAUL SOLMAN: But wait a minute.

U.S.

interest rates are down over the last three months, even as our debt has climbed.

PHILLIP SWAGEL: Our demographics are putting downward pressure on interest rates.

The aging of the U.S.

population and the reversal in immigration that we have seen this year puts downward pressure on interest rates.

PAUL SOLMAN: In other words, says Swagel, who doesn't have to worry about the presidential axe, by the way, since he works for Congress, there are conflicting pressures.

Interest rates rise with debt, but only according to the age-old hedge of economics, all else equal, which it never is.

For instance, say the economy stalls.

PHILLIP SWAGEL: We have slower income growth, so we have fewer resources with which to pay our debt.

PAUL SOLMAN: That is fewer tax revenues, which would mean borrowing even more.

Plus, lower growth means less demand from businesses to borrow money for investment, which also tends to lower rates.

So maybe that's why rates have subsided recently, a possible recession.

And that brings us to an unusual counter to debt threats.

STEPHANIE KELTON, Stony Brook University: I think the word debt is the thing that gets people really concerned, and I think unnecessarily so.

PAUL SOLMAN: Unorthodox economist Stephanie Kelton thinks government debt's actually no problem at all.

STEPHANIE KELTON: They hear $29 trillion or $36 trillion, and they say, oh, my God we're drowning in debt.

This is some impossibly large sum that we're going to have to pay back somehow.

PAUL SOLMAN: But she has another way to look at it, known as modern monetary theory, which argues that a government like ours that prints its own currency can't run out of money.

STEPHANIE KELTON: There is no finite sum of money that is available for the federal government to work with.

The United States has a sovereign currency, has a fiat currency, and there is no hard financial constraint on governments that operate with the kind of currency that we have.

PAUL SOLMAN: Moreover, says Kelton, there's a benefit to U.S.

government debt.

STEPHANIE KELTON: These are all of the dollars the government has spent over the entire history of time and not taxed away from us.

Those dollars are sitting in what are effectively savings accounts with the U.S.

government.

PAUL SOLMAN: The potential problem would be too many dollars and thus inflation, often defined as more and more dollars trying to buy a fixed amount of what our economy can produce.

STEPHANIE KELTON: The question I would ask is, is it becoming excessive?

Is the government spending so much, not just on health care and education and infrastructure and defense, but also on interest, that it is feeding inflationary pressures?

PAUL SOLMAN: At the current inflation rate of less than 3 percent, Kelton says no.

Look, she says, it's we U.S.

citizens who hold almost all of the Treasury's debt.

STEPHANIE KELTON: Most of the treasuries that are being held are just being rolled over and people are reinvesting.

PAUL SOLMAN: People like me.

I asked CBO head Phil Swagel.

At my age I better have retirement funds.

And a lot of them are in money market funds.

And the money market funds pay, I don't know, something like 4 percent a year.

And that's mainly government short-term IOUs, right?

So the government owes the money, but it's paying it to me, and thank goodness.

PHILLIP SWAGEL: What you're pointing to is both a positive and a negative.

The positive is that the money, as you said, that we owe on debt, a lot of that goes to Americans.

And so higher interest rates might be bad for the government, but they're good for savers.

PAUL SOLMAN: Like me and my wife.

PHILLIP SWAGEL: Exactly.

On the other hand, we also owe a lot of money on debt held by foreigners.

And so the interest that we pay on bonds on by people in other countries represents resources that are going from the United States out of the country to other people.

And that amount is rising as well.

And so that's part of the fiscal challenge.

PAUL SOLMAN: Harvard and former IMF economist Ken Rogoff is similarly skeptical of Kelton's argument, as are many economists, worrying about more debt spurring higher interest rates.

KENNETH ROGOFF: I suspect we're going to see longer-term interest rates.

And those are the ones that affect car loans, mortgages, student loans, et cetera.

I think they're going to on balance continue to drift up.

PAUL SOLMAN: Economist Claudia Sahm is more sympathetic to Kelton.

She does worry a lot about one thing though, the uneven burden of higher interest rates.

CLAUDIA SAHM: The higher interest rates are a bigger problem, a bigger constraint on individuals who need to or choose to borrow, individuals who are lower-income that can't afford to go buy the car all in cash.

PAUL SOLMAN: But back to the big picture.

What's the worst-case scenario?

KENNETH ROGOFF: If we have problems, we could have another pandemic, we could have a financial crisis, God forbid we could have a war of some type, and we will want to borrow a lot.

And the fact our debt is starting so high, it's a risk.

It gives us less flexibility for dealing with these things.

PAUL SOLMAN: Not counting such catastrophes though, what's the CBO's projected budget pie a decade from now?

Interest?

Seventeen percent of the national budget and rising.

Make of it what you choose.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This week marks 238 years since the signing of the U.S.

Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The language of that document has been debated ever since by lawyers, judges, and scholars.

Tonight, we bring you the first of two conversations about that debate.

Amna Nawaz recently sat down with John Malcolm.

He's the executive editor of "The Guide to the Constitution," which is put out by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

It's part of our On Democracy series about the range of perspectives about how our government should function, what led to this moment in history, and where the country goes next.

AMNA NAWAZ: John Malcolm, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for being here.

JOHN MALCOLM, The Heritage Foundation: It's a pleasure to be with you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, there were two earlier editions of this book, 2005 and 2014.

You have called this edition dramatically different from those first two.

How so and why this book now?

JOHN MALCOLM: This volume, 900 pages, covers every clause of the Constitution, 213 essays.

There's a preface by Justice Alito and a forward by former Attorney General Ed Meese.

It covers each clause, all the way from the experience of what the columnists were experiencing with respect to that issue at the hands of the British, and then how that issue was treated in the Articles of Confederation, how it was discussed at the Constitutional Convention, how it was discussed at the ratifying conventions, and then how early administrations, the Washington, Adams, Jefferson, administration, treated that issue, and then finally how the courts have treated that issue.

And it's designed to help originalist scholars and originalist judges do the research that they need to answer important constitutional questions that they face and also for the general public to learn a little bit about why these clauses were meaningful and what their meaning still is today.

AMNA NAWAZ: And it makes the case, as you mentioned, for lawyers and judges that they should view the Constitution through that lens of originalism, which has really come to dominate conservative legal thought over the last generation.

For the layman, anyone tuning in now, what does that mean to view it through an originalist lens?

JOHN MALCOLM: Sure.

Originalism just means that we are -- when you are interpreting the words and phrases of the Constitution, you try to discern what those words and phrases meant at the time that particular provision was ratified.

And it's not just a conservative approach to analysis.

I mean, of course, the Supreme Court now, they almost all profess to be originalists, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said that she is guided by originalism, which is a constraint on her authority, during her confirmation hearing.

Elena Kagan famously said during her confirmation hearing, we're all originalists now.

And any lawyer who is arguing a constitutional case who does not begin with the text and try to discern its original meaning is highly likely to lose.

AMNA NAWAZ: Any of those progressive originalist ideas, are they represented in this book too, or are they all conservative viewpoints?

JOHN MALCOLM: Well, it's not conservative viewpoints.

They're originalist viewpoints.

So originalism might be contrasted with what progressives refer to as living constitutionalism, which is basically saying, well, these words and phrases are malleable, so we will adapt them to current times.

And originalists will say, no, this is part of our original compact that we made.

There is an article, Article 5 in the Constitution, that talks about ways to amend the Constitution.

It has been amended 27 times throughout our nation's history.

And if we're going to go back and change the fundamental charter, it should be done that way, and not by an edict from five justices sitting on the Supreme Court.

AMNA NAWAZ: So this idea that the Constitution is a living, breathing document that you have heard from some folks, that it's intentionally written broadly, so it can be interpreted with the times, you disagree with that?

JOHN MALCOLM: I do.

I think it's very much an enduring document, but it's not a living and breathing document.

The framers realized that there would be changing circumstances.

So, for instance, the First Amendment applies.

It applies whether you were talking about writing on parchment or whether you were writing on the Internet.

Obviously, the framers of the Constitution could not have envisioned the Internet.

So those enduring principles can be applied to modern circumstances.

But you can't just change the meaning of the words because times have marched on.

For example, there is a phrase in the Constitution, domestic violence.

Domestic violence meant at the time that provision was ratified an internal rebellion.

It did not mean fighting between spouses.

AMNA NAWAZ: At the same time, I know you have heard this criticism as well.

This is a document that was written in the 1780s, right?

So critics of this approach shall also point out it was written when women couldn't vote, when Black people were viewed as property under the law.

So why revert to the intentions from a time when that was acceptable, rather than a time when there was an expansion of rights?

What would you say?

JOHN MALCOLM: Well, obviously, there has been an evolution in terms of people's thoughts.

And we now have an amendment that gives women the right to vote.

And we have an Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment that gives rights to minorities.

They're entitled to equal protection of law.

We obviously had to fight a Civil War in order to give African Americans their freedom and the right to vote.

So the Constitution was not a perfect document.

It was a compromise among 13 states that were trying to form a unified nation to fight against all of the enemies they had, both foreign and domestic.

You had the French, the British, the Spanish, Native American tribes.

I mean, at the time the Constitution was being drafted, there had never been a document like it before.

We didn't have a hereditary king.

And it was an experiment.

There was no way of knowing for sure whether our nation would survive.

So, to some degree, a compromise was cobbled together.

But it's really brilliant in terms of its structure, separation of powers, checks and balances in the system.

And the framers had the foresight to come up with a way to actually amend the Constitution if the people chose to do so.

AMNA NAWAZ: At the same time, some of those amendments you referenced there, women getting the right to vote, the abolishing of slavery, those were amendments.

In some of these essays, you argue that the amendments were wrongly interpreted, right?

What are some examples of those in the book?

JOHN MALCOLM: We don't argue -- well, we lay out what we think the history was behind that amendment and what the framers said.

And then we talk about how courts have interpreted it.

We don't put a label in terms of saying, this is right, this is wrong.

AMNA NAWAZ: Is it fair to call it sort of a judicial guide, though, similar to the way Project 2025 was sort of an executive guide for this administration?

Is that what you're laying out in the book?

JOHN MALCOLM: No, I don't think so.

So Project 2025 was a bunch of policy prescriptions in a whole host of areas.

It was saying how they thought -- what Congress ought to do, what they thought executive branch officials ought to do.

This is providing information to judges about how to do originalism and where they need to look when trying to divine what the original public meaning was of those words and phrases.

It's not telling them how they should rule on any particular issue or in any particular case.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should point out there have been no significant amendments to the Constitution in over 50 years.

Why do you think that is?

Are we just a country that can no longer agree on those fundamental kind of changes to those founding documents?

JOHN MALCOLM: No.

Well, actually I would argue that in a number of cases the Supreme Court, under the guise of constitutional interpretation, has de facto amended the Constitution some in ways I might like, others in ways in which I wouldn't like.

AMNA NAWAZ: Give me an example of that.

Where have they done that?

JOHN MALCOLM: Well, you can see that in all manner of things, same-sex marriage, abortion.

They created a right to an abortion, and then they said that was erroneously decided.

So, different cases have effectively amended the Constitution without going through the formal Article 5 process.

There is a convention of the states movement that's out there now that's thinking that there ought to be this alternative path to amend the Constitution, that perhaps it's time to consider that.

It's not easy to amend the Constitution.

It wasn't meant to be easy to amend the Constitution.

It was meant to be something that happened when there was a broad consensus across the political aisle, across a wide swathe of people.

That is a virtue and not a bug.

It's difficult, but it's not impossible.

AMNA NAWAZ: John Malcolm of The Heritage Foundation and executive editor of the new book "The Heritage Guide to the Constitution," thank you for being here.

We appreciate your time.

JOHN MALCOLM: It's a pleasure.

Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm William Brangham.

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