GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Russian forces bombard Kyiv with deadly strikes, complicating the ongoing efforts for peace.

GEOFF BENNETT: Pressure builds on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid turmoil among the Pentagon's top ranks and as new details emerge about his use of a commercial messaging app.

AMNA NAWAZ: And why reproductive health care is tough to access in certain parts of the country, even in states where abortion is legal.

ANNA NUSSLOCK, California Resident: I want to be a mom.

I'm scared because I'm here.

This is where I live.

So I'm trying to make plans to, like, figure something else out, but it's hard.

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

Russia pounded Kyiv overnight in one of its largest attacks on the Ukrainian capital since last summer.

Officials there say at least 12 people were killed and around 90 others were injured.

GEOFF BENNETT: And it comes at a pivotal moment in the war.

The U.S. proposed a peace deal yesterday and has threatened to pull the plug on talks if both sides don't reach an agreement soon.

Laura Barron-Lopez has our report.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Blinding flashes and earth-trembling booms across Kyiv overnight, as Russian missiles and drones rained down for hours.

For some, it meant another night taking shelter on the cold, hard floor of a metro station.

But many Ukrainians say the attack came on too quickly to make it underground.

VIKTORIA BAKAL, Kyiv Resident (through translator): There was the air raid siren.

We did not even have time to dress to go out of the apartment.

One blast came after the other.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That became more clear today with each body pulled from the rubble.

The attack prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cut short a trip to South Africa and President Trump to deliver a rare rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin on TRUTH Social, Writing: "I am not happy with the Russian strikes on Kyiv.

Vladimir, stop, and let's get the peace deal done."

The president was referring to a deal the U.S. offered to Ukraine at a meeting in London yesterday.

Ukrainian and European officials reportedly responded with a counterproposal.

Under the U.S. proposal, Ukraine would give up the right to re-seize all occupied territory with its military.

Ukraine would not join NATO.

The U.S. would legally recognize Russian control of Crimea, but Ukraine wouldn't have to.

The U.S. would also lift sanctions on Russia, and Europe would provide Ukraine's security guarantees.

There are also territorial concessions.

Under the plan, Russia would be able to keep the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies.

But it would have to give up some territory in the Kharkiv region and give back the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Before leaving South Africa, President Zelenskyy said the U.S. proposal is too easy on Russia.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President (through translator): I don't see strong pressure on Russia, nor new sanctions packages against the aggression of the Russian Federation.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I believe they will accept, and I think we're going to get this over with, I hope so, soon.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But in the Oval Office today, President Trump said he was optimistic about reaching a deal.

He was also asked what concessions Russia has offered in negotiations.

DONALD TRUMP: Stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country, pretty big concession.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that recognizing occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line for his country.

He also reiterated today that there should be a complete cease-fire ahead of further talks.

But those days seem ever further away, as the smoke still clears after last night's Russian attacks.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez.

AMNA NAWAZ: We start the day's other headlines with a slew of legal actions by and against the Trump administration.

In an emergency request today, the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow the Pentagon to ban transgender service members while legal challenges play out.

The ban was blocked in a lower court in March.

An appeals court refused to block that ruling while a challenge is pending.

As a result, Politico reports tonight that the Pentagon is poised to resume gender-affirming care for transgender service members.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring back another man who was deported to El Salvador.

The Trump-appointed judge said the administration must facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan man identified only by the name Cristian, who was deported in violation of a court settlement last year.

Cristian arrived in the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor and has appending asylum claim.

In the meantime, the Trump administration has told a federal judge in Texas that it's giving just 12 hours for migrants to contest their deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

That revelation came after a judge today unsealed a document filed by Homeland Security about the notice process.

Three more federal judges tonight also blocked a number of President Trump's initiatives on everything from immigration to voting to education.

One judge blocked parts of the White House's sweeping overhaul of U.S. elections, including its proof of citizenship requirement to register to vote.

Another judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot deny federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities that didn't cooperate with immigration enforcement.

And in a third ruling, a judge paused the Department of Education's push to cut K-12 public school funding over diversity initiatives.

All three rulings, which occurred in district court, can be appealed.

Turning overseas, the world's two largest economies made contradicting claims today on whether or not they're engaged in tariff talks.

President Trump again insisted that his administration is in active trade negotiations with China.

Hours earlier, Beijing denied any such meetings and called on the U.S. to cancel its -- quote -- "unilateral tariffs."

GUO JIAKUN, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (through translator): This is all false information.

As far as I know, China and the U.S. have not conducted consultations or negotiations on tariff issues, let alone reached an agreement.

This tariff war was initiated by the U.S.. And China's stance is consistent and clear.

We will fight if we must, and our doors are open if the U.S. wants to talk.

AMNA NAWAZ: The back-and-forth comes as the head of the International Monetary Fund warned that such trade disputes and the uncertainty they bring threatened the global economic outlook.

The IMF urged countries to resolve them swiftly.

Tensions are rising between India and Pakistan following an attack two days ago in the disputed territory of Kashmir that left 26 people dead.

India blames Pakistan for that massacre and today revoked visas for Pakistani nationals.

It also closed a main border crossing between the countries.

Pakistan retaliated by revoking Indian visas, closing its airspace to Indian planes, and suspending all trade with its neighbor.

Tuesday's shooting was one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the region in years.

Former President of South Korea Moon Jae-in has been indicted for bribery.

Prosecutors alleged that Moon took bribes totaling more than $150,000 from an airline executive who gave Moon's former son-in-law a high-paying job, even though he had no industry experience.

Moon is the fifth South Korean leader in the last 20 years to be indicted, tried, jailed, or accused of crimes while serving or after leaving office.

The most recent president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is charged with rebellion after imposing martial law in December, ultimately leading to his impeachment.

Back in this country, as a wildfire rages in New Jersey, police there have arrested a 19-year-old man and charged him with arson.

They say he failed to extinguish a bonfire, sparking what's believed to be the largest wildfire the state has seen in two decades.

No injuries or deaths have been reported, but the massive blaze is still burning through parts of New Jersey's rural Pine Barrens.

Thick smoke put nearby Philadelphia and the greater New York City area under air quality alerts.

And there was more good news on Wall Street, as this week's stock market rally kept on rolling.

The Dow Jones industrial average shot up by nearly 500 points, and that was the smallest gain on the day.

The Nasdaq approached a 3 percent gain, while the S&P 500 rose by 2 percent.

Still to come on the "News Hour": we speak with a Russian-born Harvard scientist from the detention center where she's being held; how lawmakers are responding to increasingly frustrated constituents at town halls; and the financial toll of President Trump's steep tariffs on aluminum.

GEOFF BENNETT: Now to new revelations involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Washington Post first reported and the "News Hour" can confirm that Hegseth had the unclassified messaging app Signal installed on a computer in his Pentagon office.

That's after reporting that Hegseth shared highly sensitive and detailed attack plans in a Signal group chat last month that included his wife, brother and lawyer, in addition to top national security officials, hours before a mission was launched against Houthi forces in Yemen.

All of this is unfolding as chaos is mounting at the Pentagon with the firings of top Hegseth aides.

We're joined now by Dan Lamothe, who covers the U.S. military and Pentagon for The Washington Post.

Dan, it's great to have you here.

So why the special computer setup?

Why is Secretary Hegseth finding new ways to use this commercial messaging app Signal on his Pentagon computer?

DAN LAMOTHE, The Washington Post: This speaks to the need and desire that he and other Pentagon officials saw for this platform in an environment where you simply are not allowed to have your cell phone.

All of these are known as SCIFs.

It's basically a compartmented part of the building where you're not allowed to have personal electronics.

So to get around that, they installed a special line, a separate computer and basically had a way for him to message from the computer while still in a classified environment with classified systems right nearby.

GEOFF BENNETT: So the fact that this app is not part of the secure information-sharing architecture within the Pentagon, I mean, is that an operational breach?

DAN LAMOTHE: Wouldn't be an operational breach necessarily to just have it, but how you use it matters a great deal here.

He's obviously under scrutiny for posting details about a operation before it occurred in at least two different Signal chats.

Those details, what kind of aircraft, what time strikes might occur, what kind of weapons, those are always classified prior to some sort of attack or strike or operation occurring.

So you end up in a situation where there's a lot of people, including retired four-star generals and admirals, who are increasingly vocal about basically the video and the audio not matching there.

The idea that he can say none of this was classified doesn't ring true to that.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, there are also reports of a crisis of leadership, a leadership vacuum at the Pentagon, apparent infighting that led to surprise firings.

Pete Hegseth has the least experience of any defense chief.

And, at the moment, as we sit here and speak, he has no chief of staff, no deputy chief of staff or senior adviser.

How is that affecting the day-to-day operations and morale at the Pentagon?

DAN LAMOTHE: Morale is low at this point.

There's frustration and exhaustion with a lot of employees.

And there's a sense of confusion and concern that we haven't hit rock bottom.

We had three individuals fired last week, Darin Selnick, Dan Caldwell, and Colin Carroll.

They were all senior officials.

All had senior advisory roles.

Caldwell and Selnick actually knew Hegseth and went back with him years.

These are not people you would have expected to be in such conflict with him and his staff.

And then the chief of staff, Joe Kasper, his last day is actually basically today.

And there's no clarity on who that chief of staff is going to be going forward.

GEOFF BENNETT: NPR reported this week that the White House is actively looking for Hegseth's replacement.

White House officials, President Trump, have pushed back on that.

Based on your reporting, is Secretary Hegseth on solid ground right now?

DAN LAMOTHE: I think he is at the moment.

We have been hearing the president is increasingly concerned.

The president is increasingly paying attention.

I had one official who's familiar with the president's thinking who said: "Well, sure, he's got his support now.

That's usually what he says.

And then one day you randomly wake up and see the post on social media saying that basically thank you for your service."

We're wondering.

There is increasingly concern in the building whether or not we're heading in that direction now.

But there's no clarity on who might replace him or on what timeline or whether or not he can just kind of ride this out.

GEOFF BENNETT: Dan Lamothe of The Washington Post, thank you for joining us with your insights this evening.

We appreciate it.

DAN LAMOTHE: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: This week ends Congress' longest break from Washington since Donald Trump reentered the White House.

For most lawmakers, that's meant more time with constituents and for some aggressive questioning at town halls.

Our team has looked over the past week's interactions.

And Lisa Desjardins is here with more.

Lisa, good to see you.

LISA DESJARDINS: Hi.

AMNA NAWAZ: So you have seen a lot of the anger bubbling up at town halls.

Folks are watching that.

When you take a closer look at the questions and the responses here from Republicans in particular, the governing party, what do you take away?

LISA DESJARDINS: A few things.

First of all, we're seeing that, even in deep red districts, opponents of President Trump are showing up in significant numbers and increasingly they are more vocal and in a few instances more aggressive in how they're being vocal.

At one point, one example, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, she had a town hall last week.

Now, it's important to note, her staff checked constituents at the door to make sure that they lived in that district.

But even so, we saw really fiery dissent in that town hall.

You see it right here.

Even before it started, shouting protesters were removed by force and two of them Tased by police officers, again, before this began.

All in all, three people were arrested, some six escorted out.

Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene actually used that as something of a springboard in the town hall.

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): The Democrats have been rioting.

They are the party of violence.

They are the party that... (SHOUTING) REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Go.

Go.

LISA DESJARDINS: Of course, Democrats say, no, that's not true.

We're none of that.

But Marjorie Taylor Greene said she's been receiving death threats.

She thanked police for their interaction.

But this was one way of using it by force.

She's someone who likes to have confrontation and provoking, and she has used that town hall as a fund-raising mechanism.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that approach we saw there from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, how typical is that for Republicans?

LISA DESJARDINS: Not typical at all.

In fact, most Republicans aren't having town halls of any form.

But there was one in Florida, Byron Donalds, who was engaging with the audience, rather than dismissing any dissent.

One example, he was asked in particular about Elon Musk and DOGE.

MAN: What oversights are you imposing on Elon Musk and DOGE?

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL), Gubernatorial Candidate: Great question.

(CHEERING) REP. BYRON DONALDS: What they are examining right now is inefficiency in the federal system.

This is something that President Obama wanted to do when President Obama was elected president of the United States.

LISA DESJARDINS: Now, President Obama wanted efficiency, but he didn't cut government in the ways we're seeing DOGE doing.

But the key here is that there's a battle among Republicans, do we call Democrats evil, which I hear from someone on Capitol Hill, or do we engage with our conservative ideas?

Another issue he brought up, DEI.

He was asked about diversity, equity and inclusion.

REP. BYRON DONALDS: You can disagree with me if you want to.

You can disagree with me, and we -- and I will respect your disagreement.

But I will tell you this.

If your whole belief is not possible without a three-letter word in every training manual, then, I'm sorry, we don't agree.

We don't agree.

LISA DESJARDINS: He was saying, I just don't agree as a conservative.

I think maybe life isn't fair, and everyone needs to move on their own.

Now, there was a range of questions, issues from Gaza to the FSU shooting, and also a range of reactions at that town hall.

AMNA NAWAZ: So those are a couple examples of House members in their home districts there.

What are you saying from senators?

LISA DESJARDINS: Senators, it is interesting, because they have full states, not just a polarized district, to deal with.

We really only saw one major Republican senatorial town hall from the most senior senator, Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Now, he had a crowd that was, in fact, earlier this week really worked up.

He got an earful, especially he was asked about the deportation of Abrego Garcia.

WOMAN: We have a due process, and it was not followed.

And the Supreme Court ruled that he needed to come back.

So Trump said, no, I'm not going to do that.

So why do we even have a Supreme Court if they're not going to follow the ruling of the Supreme Court?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA): Well, I think it's pretty clear that's what's been brought up about Garcia and she brought up about just many, many other people that this wouldn't even be an issue if Biden had enforced the law.

LISA DESJARDINS: You saw the reaction there.

That town hall also saw tension between people who were there in the seats.

AMNA NAWAZ: So that's with Republicans, right, the governing party, obviously a Republican president and the White House right now too.

What about for Democrats?

Are they seeing some of this too?

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, their constituents are saying, we want more action and we want to hold you accountable.

One example is in Washington state, a Blue Dog Democrat, Representative Gluesenkamp Perez.

She was asked about the SAVE Act.

That is the House-passed bill that she supported which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Here's what happened with that exchange.

MAN: So we're all going to vote to get sit here and we're not going to engage with her?

MAN: That's correct.

We're going to sit here and have -- listen to the answer, sir.

MAN: Can you tell us why you voted for it, please?

MAN: Who bought you?

REP. MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ (D-WA): There's a question here about the SAVE Act.

It is really important that Americans have confidence in their election systems.

LISA DESJARDINS: And that protester said: "Who bought you?"

This is something that Democrats obviously are wrestling with.

There is a surge of calls for action, but they're also defending the actions they have taken so far.

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

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

GEOFF BENNETT: Kseniia Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since February.

Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France.

She brought back frog embryo samples for her lab, and the government says she knowingly broke the law in failing to properly declare them.

Petrova's attorney says it was a misunderstanding.

A typical customs violation results in a fine, but Petrova had her visa revoked, was detained and flagged for deportation.

She's been a vocal critic of the Russian government and its actions in Ukraine and fears persecution if deported there.

Her case has raised concerns among academics and international scientists about the treatment of foreign researchers in the U.S. under the Trump administration.

We spoke exclusively with Petrova earlier today via a videoconference call from the Louisiana facility where she's being detained.

So let's start at the beginning.

You were detained in February at Boston's Logan Airport as you were coming back from France for failing to declare frog embryo samples you had brought back as part of your scientific research.

Walk us through what happened.

KSENIIA PETROVA, Harvard Scientist: I was stopped in the language area and was questioned about the CBP officers about my samples which were in my baggage.

After this, there were many, many questions about my samples and about my work and about what I was going to do with the samples in Harvard and what - - how the samples were prepared and what for.

After this, the CBP officer came, and she asked me the same questions once again.

And after she finished her questionnaires, she told me that she is canceling my visa.

And after she said me that she's canceling my visa, she asked me if I'm afraid to be deported to my home country.

I said that, yes, I'm afraid.

They sent me to ICE.

I spent the night in the cell in the airport.

And after the next day, they transferred me to jail in Vermont, where I spent another week.

And from there, the ICE was collecting several people from the Boston area.

They transferred us by plane to Louisiana detention.

And here I'm staying for the last two months.

GEOFF BENNETT: When you said that you were afraid of being deported back to Russia, why?

What dangers do you think you might face there?

KSENIIA PETROVA: The current situation in Russia is absolutely terrible.

It's really hard to explain to somebody who has never been to Russia, but Putin is an absolute autocrat.

And there is not any freedom of speech in Russia.

You can't say anything against the government.

You can't say anything against the war.

And I wasn't hiding before I fled Russia and was arrested once.

And especially now, after my case became so well-known, and my position is very well-known, I am afraid that, if I come to Russia, I will be arrested, because we have in Russia special law.

If you say something against current war, you will be imprisoned, and you can be imprisoned for 15 years.

GEOFF BENNETT: DHS officials accused you of lying to them when you were returning from France.

The statement reads this way: "The individual was lawfully detained after lying to federal officials about carrying substances into the country.

A subsequent canine inspection uncovered undeclared petri dishes, containers of unknown substances and loose vials of embryonic frog cells all without proper permits.

Messages found on her cell phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.

She knowingly broke the law and took deliberate steps to evade it."

Is any of that consistent with what to be true?

KSENIIA PETROVA: Yes, I don't agree with this statement at all.

It's all curved in some very, very strange way.

I saw this situation from a different point of view.

I wasn't lying to anybody.

I didn't want to smuggle any samples.

I was answering all the questions of officers honestly.

They were asking me what the samples, how they were made and what they were dedicated to.

GEOFF BENNETT: The immigration detention facility where you're being held right now in Louisiana, what are the conditions like?

KSENIIA PETROVA: It's 90 women in one room.

And the room is, of course, not supposed to keep 90 women.

We have -- almost all the space of the room is occupied by beds, which are staying really very close to each other.

There is not any privacy here.

Our bathroom space with shower and toilets is also in our room.

It is always very cold inside.

They're keeping temperature low.

GEOFF BENNETT: Your team, as I understand it, developed a one-of-a-kind cancer-detecting microscope.

What does your detention mean for that potentially groundbreaking research?

KSENIIA PETROVA: A lot of things in the lab were dependent on me.

And I was taught to use specific techniques we were using constantly in our experiments.

And nobody else was taught to use them.

And this is currently a big problem for my lab, because they can't really proceed with further experiments.

Obviously, there is an immigration crisis happening in America.

And, of course, during the crisis, sometimes, it's hard to find the right solution right away.

That's why I think I'm here and that's why a lot of other people who, of course, shouldn't be here at all, shouldn't be deported from America are deported.

But I'm hoping that the more attention this problem is given from the public and from society, I think the quicker it will be -- find some solution to this.

GEOFF BENNETT: Kseniia Petrova, thanks again for speaking with me this evening.

I appreciate it.

KSENIIA PETROVA: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now to the new Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Marty Makary, and a wide-ranging conversation I had with them earlier today as part of Semafor's World Economy Summit.

Among the many topics we discussed, mifepristone and what plans the FDA may have in store for medication abortion, which accounted for 63 percent of U.S. abortions in 2023.

Many conservatives want the FDA to impose tighter restrictions on mifepristone and misoprostol, which can be delivered by mail.

Here is some of what Dr. Makary said.

On mifepristone, do you expect to take action further restricting the pill?

DR. MARTY MAKARY, FDA Commissioner: I have no plans to take action on mifepristone.

AMNA NAWAZ: Could that be changed over the course of your tenure, given the pressure that I know has come from a lot of the political forces at play on this?

DR. MARTY MAKARY: So, look, I believe as a scientist, you got to evolve as the data comes in.

And, as you may know, there is an ongoing set of data that is coming into FDA on mifepristone.

So if the data suggests something or tells us that there's a real signal, then I -- we can't promise we're not going to act on that data that we have not yet seen.

AMNA NAWAZ: But if that new data contradicts the decades of data that said that it's overwhelmingly safe and effective, you would go with the new data, rather than the precedent of decades of data?

DR. MARTY MAKARY: Well, it's very hypothetical, right, because you're talking about the strength of the data, the safety of the data, the reliability of the data.

So it's very hypothetical what you're asking, but in general I'm a data guy.

AMNA NAWAZ: Commissioner Makary also seemed to agree today that the federal government should reverse itself and no longer recommend the COVID booster for children.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly considering that.

Previous scientific panels have found it safe and beneficial to prevent kids from getting seriously ill, but Makary told me today he believes that evidence is insufficient.

GEOFF BENNETT: The central economic focus of President Trump's second term so far has been tariffs.

Over the past few months, the president has levied and also paused taxes on imports from all over the world.

Some have taken effect, including his tariffs on aluminum.

Economics correspondent Paul Solman looks at those and what kind of impact they might have on manufacturers, workers and consumers.

CHARLES JOHNSON, The Aluminum Association: Aluminum is a magic metal, and it's all around you.

Your telephone is made of aluminum.

Your refrigerator is made of aluminum.

Life as we know it wouldn't exist without it.

PAUL SOLMAN: That's Charles Johnson of the Aluminum Association.

Problem is, we import much of the aluminum we use and that's the rationale for bringing it all back home.

CHARLES JOHNSON: We absolutely support the president's stated objectives of building and growing American manufacturing and reshoring segments of manufacturing that has left our country previously.

And that would include smelters.

PAUL SOLMAN: Aluminum smelters, says Charles Johnson, speaking for the industry.

We had nearly 30 of them a few decades ago.

America's now down to just four.

One way to try to boost those numbers, tariffs.

In March, President Trump slapped a 25 percent tariff on all aluminum imports to the U.S., no exceptions, not even for cans.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We're going to take back our wealth and we're going to take back -- a lot of the companies that left are coming back.

PAUL SOLMAN: Companies like those in the aluminum industry trying to preserve and even hopefully expand their profits and jobs,and supposedly to protect our national security, because aluminum isn't only used in ladders and siding.

CHARLES JOHNSON: It's also used in the planes and tanks and other defense products that keep our country safe.

And the defense of our country certainly wouldn't exist in its current form without aluminum.

PAUL SOLMAN: Yes, echoes Scott Paul.

SCOTT PAUL, President, Alliance for American Manufacturing: This is a medal that's important to our national security.

PAUL SOLMAN: Scott Paul runs the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which includes aluminum.

SCOTT PAUL: There are only a handful of makers of weapons-grade or military-grade aluminum in the United States.

And to be that dependent on foreign sources puts us in a risky position.

PAUL SOLMAN: Foreign sources selling at prices driven down by China, he says, which illegally undercut the world market, making aluminum so cheap that U.S. firms can't compete.

SCOTT PAUL: When these Chinese firms, many of which are either owned or heavily subsidized by the Chinese government, came onto the world stage, it dropped the price to impossibly low levels.

It's not because our producers here aren't innovative or our workers aren't efficient.

It's because there is not a level playing field and we have been besieged by the unfair trade practices of China in particular.

PAUL SOLMAN: Unfair trade practices like government subsidies, plus exploiting cheap labor and ignoring the environment.

OK, my job is not just to lay out these arguments, but also hear the objections to them.

So, first, manufacturing jobs.

WENDY EDELBERG, Brookings Institution: It stands for reason that tariffs on aluminum will expand the aluminum sector.

And that might indeed lead to some degree of more employment in the aluminum sector, although that sector is not particularly labor-intensive.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wendy Edelberg, former chief economist at the Congressional Budget Office.

WENDY EDELBERG: But those tariffs will most assuredly raise prices of the manufactured goods that we try to sell.

PAUL SOLMAN: Because there's so much aluminum in so many domestic products and higher prices usually mean lower sales.

WENDY EDELBERG: And that in turn will actually reduce employment in manufacturing.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so the skepticism.

Here's another,the cost of producing more aluminum here at home.

WILLY SHIH, Harvard Business School: The challenge about aluminum... PAUL SOLMAN: Professor Willy Shih... WILLY SHIH: ... is, it has a tremendous amount of energy content, electrical energy.

PAUL SOLMAN: And electricity is far more expensive in the U.S. than in hydroelectric-heavy Canada, say, from which we buy more than half of all our imported aluminum.

In 2018, Trump imposed aluminum tariffs to right the trade imbalance.

CHARLES JOHNSON: The original intent of the tariffs that President Trump put in place in his first administration was to get more smelters in the United States, and that has not been the case.

Tariffs alone won't produce smelters in the United States.

PAUL SOLMAN: And with massive A.I.

data centers going up all over the country, straining our energy resources already and driving up demand, says Charles Johnson, more than ever, the industry needs electricity that's cheap and, crucially, dependably cheap.

CHARLES JOHNSON: Energy at the right price, but also the surety that you're going to get that energy at that price for 20 to 30 years into the future.

There are multiple paths forward for a government that wants to support this type of expansion, tax incentives, for instance, and others.

PAUL SOLMAN: Including U.S. government subsidies, if necessary, he says.

And Scott Paul agrees.

SCOTT PAUL: We do have to invest in a smarter, more modern grid, but we have the capacity to do this in the United States.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, ask tariff skeptics, given budget constraints, will we actually pay to subsidize low energy prices for the aluminum industry, given that, as you have heard, a major complaint of tariff supporters is about Chinese government subsidies?

OK, but what about the national security argument?

Don't we need to cushion ourselves against other countries suddenly choking off our aluminum supply?

WENDY EDELBERG: If the president's right that we need to support our aluminum sector for national security reasons, then it makes sense that we should, in turn, decide to pay more, pay higher prices, support that industry.

And that is all in service of national security.

PAUL SOLMAN: Again, Wendy Edelberg.

WENDY EDELBERG: What I worry is that national security is just a pretense, and then something's wrong.

PAUL SOLMAN: Yes, but even if it is a pretense, don't we need a resilient supply?

WILLY SHIH: If I need domestic production for resilience, either I need my energy costs to be lower or I need to be willing to pay more.

In other words, the price of resilience is, it costs me more.

People always talk about resilience, but they don't want to pay for it.

PAUL SOLMAN: And there's a final constituency that may find tariffs unappealing, American consumers, who figure to be paying more for products that contain a lot of aluminum, whether made here or abroad.

How much more?

GLENN STEVENS JR., Executive Director, MichAuto: Between $3,000 and up to $10,000 on a higher transaction price vehicle could be the increase that a consumer would be looking at.

PAUL SOLMAN: Glenn Stevens Jr. of MichAuto, a car industry trade group in Detroit.

GLENN STEVENS JR.: And the question is, what does it do to overall demand?

Consumer sentiment has taken a hit recently.

Our concern, and we're hearing this from dealers in the showrooms already, is that traffic has declined.

PAUL SOLMAN: Indeed, this may just have become President Trump's concern as well.

It's now being reported that he may exempt imported parts for U.S. automakers, including parts made of aluminum.

No such accommodation for the construction industry, though, at least not yet.

Los Angeles construction contractor Cheryl Osborn.

CHERYL OSBORN, President and Founder, Casco Contractors: Everyone's afraid.

I mean, we hate to use the R-word, but everyone's afraid that there's going to be a contraction of demand for construction.

PAUL SOLMAN: To Wendy Edelberg, the key word is the uncertainty introduced by President Trump's policy terms.

WENDY EDELBERG: I worry that what he's actually doing with tariff policy more broadly is just creating debilitating uncertainty for our industries.

If you look at survey evidence of what industries are saying about their plans for capital expenditures, for example, those plans have become way more pessimistic over the last months.

I worry that the damage on investments already been done.

PAUL SOLMAN: Contractor Osborn?

CHERYL OSBORN: I would 100 percent second that.

That's the word that everyone's using.

"Just the uncertainty is what I don't know, Cheryl."

When COVID happened, for example, people were so unsure and they just completely stopped building.

Same thing happened after 9/11.

I saw people just pull the plug on projects very quickly.

PAUL SOLMAN: Uncertainty in the aluminum sector and plenty of others for the unforeseeable future.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman.

AMNA NAWAZ: Money for heating and cooling assistance for those in need is on the line.

As part of the cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this month, the Trump administration reportedly fired the staff that runs the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.

That program helps about 6.2 million low-income households nationwide pay their home energy bills.

Congress already approved funds for the program for fiscal year 2025, but with the staff gone, the rest of the allocated money is currently frozen.

For more on this, we're joined by Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

That's a consumer and environmental advocacy group in the state of Louisiana.

Logan, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE, Executive Director, Alliance for Affordable Energy: Thank you so much for covering this issue.

AMNA NAWAZ: So this is a program started by Congress back in 1981.

When we're talking about over six million households nationwide who use it, who are we talking about generally and where are they, geographically speaking?

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: Sure, these Reagan era block grants, these are incredibly powerful programs, really hit every kind of household across our country, but really focusing in on the elderly, on families with young children, and those who are disabled.

And the programs serve to help people pay to keep the lights on, especially during the summer and the wintertime.

These kinds of programs mean that, in the most dangerous part of the year, when it's incredibly hot or cold, that people can simply stay safe and healthy in their homes and then also meet their other basic needs.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, the program, to be clear here, wasn't cut, but the staff were fired.

So we know there's about $378 million left in the funds that Congress already allocated to the program.

With no staff there, though, what's going to happen to that money?

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: Well, that's the question that everyone is asking.

And, furthermore, what's going to happen next year?

These kinds of programs, they keep rates low for everyone, because, if people can't pay those utility bills, it means that those costs have to be covered elsewhere.

We're particularly concerned about states that don't have other kinds of safety net programs, because they are the ones who most likely need to keep these kinds of federal dollars coming into the state.

AMNA NAWAZ: The administration is saying the assistance will ultimately get delivered in some form.

Is it possible they will find another way to distribute those funds, just not through this program?

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: Well, the thing that's dangerous about that is, especially if they're thinking about accountability, the value of having a federal staff whose job it is to oversee these dollars is to make sure that every dollar is getting put to good use, getting put to reduce people's utility bills.

Without having that federal staff, we don't have the accountability and oversight that these kinds of programs are supposed to have.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, Logan, are there any legal questions around this move?

Is there a way for states to eventually still access those funds?

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: Well, that's another question.

We keep seeing programs like LIHEAP and others at the federal level getting slowed down or slow-walked.

And over and over, all we see is the opportunity for litigation, which then turns into more, is the Trump administration going to take this next step again?

AMNA NAWAZ: So in terms of the timeline of how these funds generally roll out, does the timing of these cuts right now, does that mean that people are already going to face trouble this summer paying for their cooling bills?

Or is it more likely to be an issue if nothing is distributed later this winter?

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: We're really concerned about the summertime.

Here in Louisiana, it gets extraordinarily hot.

And if our local community action organizations don't have the funds to support people through the summer, it gets people off-balance and unable to manage all of their other costs.

And so we really want to make sure that those dollars make it to the states as soon as possible.

AMNA NAWAZ: You know, Logan, the administration may argue here, this is a $4-billion-a-year program.

Maybe it's not an efficient or critical use of government funds for the administration to be helping people to pay their utility bills.

So what would you say to that?

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: I would say that utility costs are fundamentally housing costs.

And if we aren't making sure that people have the very basic needs to keep their lights on, it means that they're also -- they don't have the dollars to put to their other basic needs, like their rent or their mortgage or their food.

All of those costs are also going up.

There's no other mechanism to help people really make sure they can keep those lights on.

And so these programs are absolutely necessary to do that.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

Logan, thank you so much for your time.

LOGAN ATKINSON BURKE: Really happy to talk to you.

Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: For decades, Catholic leaders in the U.S. have placed restrictions on certain reproductive health services at Catholic-run hospitals.

But as abortion is becoming harder to access nationwide, there's a new spotlight on care at these facilities.

Special correspondent Sarah Varney traveled to Eureka, California, to meet one woman who ran headfirst into the limits of Catholic-run health care.

ANNA NUSSLOCK, California Resident: Yes, it was a very fun day.

It was a nice wedding.

SARAH VARNEY: Five hours north of San Francisco, among ancient redwoods and along rainy coastlines, 36-year-old Anna Nusslock and her husband, Daniel, live in the small city of Eureka, California, with their loyal dog and two cats.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: We went out into the woods and we took really sweet pictures with the redwoods.

SARAH VARNEY: The Wisconsin native moved to this rural community a decade ago to begin her career as a chiropractor and to start a family.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: This first one, I started before I was pregnant.

And then I was making the first one.

I couldn't stop imagining a second one.

So I made the second one, and then I found out they were twins.

SARAH VARNEY: Not knowing you had - - were going to have twins, right?

But last February, 15 weeks into her pregnancy, Anna says something felt wrong.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: I started having bleeding and cramping and I went to our hospital, Providence St. Joseph Hospital, and it was a terrible experience.

SARAH VARNEY: Her amniotic sac, where the fetus grows, had ruptured far too early, putting Anna at high risk for infection and uncontrollable bleeding.

Doctors said she needed an abortion right away, but they couldn't help her because an ultrasound was still picking up her daughter's heartbeats.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: I could either wait until somebody's heart stopped, either mine or theirs, or I could leave.

SARAH VARNEY: At what point did it become obvious that this was going to be a very different experience at this Catholic hospital?

ANNA NUSSLOCK: When the doctor told me that my daughters weren't going to survive and then told me that they couldn't do anything because they were a Catholic hospital was the moment that everything kind of came crashing down.

SARAH VARNEY: She was given the option to take a helicopter to San Francisco, which would cost her and her husband $40,000 out of pocket for a 20-minute ambulance ride to a non-Catholic hospital.

Here in California, most people assume they have guaranteed access to abortion care, including when they're experiencing a miscarriage.

That right is guaranteed in the state constitution.

But medical care can get more complicated when Catholic hospitals are involved.

At the center of those complications are the ethical and religious directives, or ERDs.

FATHER CHARLES BOUCHARD, Aquinas Institute of Theology: They started out as kind of a list of do's and don'ts.

SARAH VARNEY: Today's version lays out 77 rules for providing health care in the U.S. Those rules are based on the Catholic Church's theological and moral beliefs, says Father Charles Bouchard, an ethicist and senior fellow at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis.

FATHER CHARLES BOUCHARD: Everything we try to do, we believe, comes from the Gospels, Jesus' healing and teaching.

SARAH VARNEY: The directives prohibit certain medications and procedures like abortion, sterilization for both men and women, euthanasia, infertility treatment and contraception.

MAN: Good morning, brothers.

SARAH VARNEY: They are written and voted on by the influential U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, a group of active and retired bishops who set religious policy in America.

But Father Bouchard says it's often up to the local bishop to interpret them.

MAN: This morning, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix made the announcement that St. Joseph's Hospital is no longer considered Catholic.

SARAH VARNEY: If hospitals go against a bishop's wishes, like in 2009, when a Catholic hospital in Phoenix performed an emergency abortion, they can be stripped of their religious affiliation and clergy members excommunicated.

What happens when there's a gray area?

FATHER CHARLES BOUCHARD: In my experience, and I had many calls about these exact situations, it was usually a problem either misunderstanding by the physician or a scrupulous ethicist.

But that normally wasn't the case.

It was usually just that you had a physician who wasn't sure what to do and didn't want to go out on a limb.

LORI FREEDMAN, University of California, San Francisco: If you talk to any doctor in the Catholic hospital, they will tell you they will remember some stories like this.

They will remember stories of suffering or inconvenience where they couldn't provide the standard of care.

SARAH VARNEY: Lori Freedman is a sociologist and bioethicist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Her book "Bishops and Bodies" explores how hospitals navigate these rules and what happens to patient care as a result.

Freedman says doctors at Catholic hospitals frequently get around the directives by concealing treatment or exaggerating symptoms.

LORI FREEDMAN: Doctors would talk about sort of stretching the truth a little, saying, oh, there's tenderness, there's a smell, the fever's rising, sort of giving indications that are close to the truth, but will help them get intervened before it becomes a problem.

SARAH VARNEY: Nationwide, one in six emergency beds are found in Catholic hospitals, and rural areas, like Eureka, are relying increasingly on Catholic health care.

Many rural hospitals are in financial dire straits due to declining populations and falling revenues.

And now only 42 percent of them still have labor and delivery services, leaving Catholic hospitals as the only option for many.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: The sun was just starting to come up over those mountains that way, so it was just a very faint yellow line and starting to brighten.

SARAH VARNEY: After being told she could not get an emergency abortion at the Catholic hospital, Anna Nusslock and her husband, Daniel, drove 20 minutes north to a community hospital.

By the time she was pushed into the operating room, her first twin had delivered on the gurney and Anna was starting to hemorrhage.

Eight months later, that community hospital closed their birth center.

So you have lived in Eureka for about 10 years.

You have had multiple pregnancies, multiple miscarriages.

Were you aware that there were restrictions on the types of reproductive health care you could get?

ANNA NUSSLOCK: I knew that I couldn't get an elective abortion, but I thought I could get emergency care that I needed.

SARAH VARNEY: Lori Freedman says patients like Anna are often surprised that they can't get common reproductive health care, like sterilization after having a baby or birth control pills to treat excessive menstrual bleeding.

That means patients have to rely on doctors to find work-arounds.

LORI FREEDMAN: Work-arounds are not policy.

When you have patients coming to you for care, and the only way they can get the safest care is if you work around the policy, that means that not everybody is going to get the same care.

And I think we know that's where discrimination happens.

SARAH VARNEY: Anna's story is now at the center of a lawsuit brought by California's attorney general against St. Joseph.

Another patient who says she was denied an emergency abortion during a miscarriage is also suing the hospital.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: No religious hospital policy should have sent me away bleeding with a bucket when I needed help.

SARAH VARNEY: During a hearing in February to dismiss California's case, a lawyer for St. Joseph argued providing abortion care violates the hospital's religious freedom and First Amendment rights.

Providence St. Joseph turned down our request for an on-camera interview, but in a statement said it's committed to delivering care in accordance with federal and state law and maintaining its faith-based mission, even if that results in fetal death.

In recent years, the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court has increasingly favored institutions seeking these kinds of religious freedom exemptions.

Since 1986, a federal law has required hospitals to stabilize patients in medical crisis, even if that means ending a pregnancy.

But after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights, states that banned abortion have argued they shouldn't have to follow the law.

These changes have put a new spotlight on how Catholic hospitals have operated for a long time.

FATHER CHARLES BOUCHARD: I think that we have gotten a bad reputation that was not fully deserved because of some of these women's health care issues.

Now, I don't deny that there have been a lot of problems, but I think the biggest misconception is that we're anti-women.

We have to remember these hospitals were almost all founded by women and largely for women and children.

SARAH VARNEY: One year on, as Anna Nusslock works through the grief of losing her daughters, the fear of nearly losing her own life remains.

How are you feeling about wanting to try and get pregnant again?

ANNA NUSSLOCK: I want to be a mom.

I'm scared because I'm here.

This is where I live.

So I'm trying to make plans to, like, figure something else out, but it's hard.

SARAH VARNEY: Anna says she's channeling that pain into a new purpose.

ANNA NUSSLOCK: Somebody asked me a couple of months ago if I was an activist.

And I said, no, I'm a chiropractor.

And then everybody laughed.

And I was like, why is everybody laughing?

Because I am a chiropractor, but I guess now I have two jobs.

SARAH VARNEY: For "PBS News Hour," I'm Sarah Varney in Eureka, California.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we have much more online that includes new podcasts from our Student Reporting Labs.

Season five of "On Our Minds" features student journalists from across the country in conversation with people they look up to.

STUDENT: Inspiration comes from all kinds of places.

STUDENT: A late-night chat with a friend.

STUDENT: Or a letter from a pen pal.

STUDENT: A single comment can shape us.

STUDENT: Whether that's from a mentor or a parent.

STUDENT: Or your favorite author.

STUDENT: On this season of "On Our Minds," we are exploring... STUDENTS: ... who inspires us.

STUDENT: From PBS News Student Reporting Labs.

STUDENT: "On Our Minds"is a podcast produced by teens for teens.

STUDENT: Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

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