wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. made for streaming. ♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the “news hour” tonight, tech and trump. billionaire elon musk tries to drum up support on capitol hill for slashing government programs, while bitcoin spikes

on news of a crypto-friendly presidential appointment. how mr. trump's picks to head the nation's intelligence agencies appear poised to radically shift the way those departments operate. >> it's not really clear with these people yet whether their goal is just to get real loyalty for donald trump or whether it's to destroy these organizations. geoff: and, a palestinian chef who ran a soup kitchen in war-torn gaza is killed delivering aid to a hospital in what his family says was a targeted israeli drone strike. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs "news hour" has been provided by. >> a law partner rediscovers her grandmother's artistry and creates a trust to keep the craft alive. a raymondjames financial advisor gets to know you, your passions,

and the way you enrich your community. life well planned. >> carnegie corporation of new york, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. more information at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

thank you. geoff: welcome to the “news hour.” it has been a busy day on hill, where the people donald trump have tapped elon musk and vivek ramaswamy met with house and senate republicans. the two were recently appointed to lead the department of government efficiency. meanwhile, pete hegseth, mr. trump's nominee for secretary of defense, continues to face an uphill climb on his path to confirmation. our lisa desjardins joins us now for the latest. let's start with ramaswamy and musk. what were they telling congress? lisa: these two men who don't have any official government function at this point where the center of political gravity. what we saw from them was them crisscrossing the capital, musk with an ax on his shoulders.

as far as we know the only met with republicans, including speaker johnson and incoming senate leader john thune. we are told they were largely brainstorming sessions. republicans said they felt heard. most but not all were enthusiastic about cutting government. musk indicated to house and senate republicans that his goal is getting on a trajectory towards a balanced budget. that has significant consequences if the u.s. is to get there. their stated goal of cutting $2 trillion is tough. but that is what they are pitching. they say they want to cut the federal workforce. they also want to force workers to work more from the office. they didn't speak in public today but ramaswamy sat down yesterday at a forum and spoke more about what he thinks about federal workers, as well as it is not just about cutting costs but changing government. >> i think part of the project of thinning out the federal

bureaucracy, that's less about the head count expenses and it's more about actually respecting the rules of the road in the constitutional republic. i'm hopeful it's going to even be good for many of the individuals who may make a transition from government service back to the private sector. lisa: government worker unions do not think it will be good for their workers if they are laid off and they are taking action to protect them. they also signed a deal with the biden administration to protect telework. that sets up a real clash in the trump administration. geoff: what more have you learned about how these two men will operate? we keep saying so-called, because only congress has the ability to create a new agency, and this department does not exist. lisa: this is the question i have the hardest time getting an answer to. what is the department of government efficiency? it is not a commission. let's go over what we do know about it. this was established by president-elect trump november 12 just using this title.

it is not an official commitment. they have announced musk and ramaswamy an end date for it. republicans i asked them, what is this exactly? they said they were not exactly clear. i asked jim jordan, is this subject of freedom of information requests what they are doing? he said i don't know. i asked if this will be government funded? not clear. right now it is two billionaires who are advising fools. the only structure for this group right now officially is the congressional caucuses that have just launched and they did that purposefully. that structure is coming from congressional republicans to bolster this idea. geoff: bring us up to speed on the nomination of pete hegseth to serve as descents -- as defense secretary. he faces serious allegations which has imperiled his standing.

lisa: he was on the hill again today meeting with senators all day long. hegseth spoke to cameras briefly today and explain his argument for keeping his nomination. >> i'm a different man than i was years ago. and that's a redemption story. i think a lot of americans appreciate and i know from fellow vets that i've spent time with, they resonate with that as well. you fight. you go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country. and sometimes that changes you a little bit. lisa: he met with the center of south dakota. he is seen as an important person to watch. sometimes moderate in how he expresses his opinion. he told reporters after the meeting that hegseth went a long way towards getting his support, but that he has more work to do. i can report he certainly does because again, hegseth can only afford to lose three republican senators and right now more than that have problems with the

nomination. as hegseth worked however, he's taken the spotlight over other potential controversial nominees like patel for fbi, who is gathering support even as we focus more on hegseth and pam bondi. she is also gathering support and has been on the hill. geoff: lisa desjardins, thanks as always. meantime, the world's largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin hit a record high, rising above $100,000 for the first time yesterday. and it came just hours after president-elect donald trump announced crypto currency advocate paul atkins as his pick to lead the securities and exchange commission. mr. trump, who saw crypto as a scam a few years back, is now a full supporter and took credit for the surge on his truth social platform, saying congratulations bitcoiners. you're welcome. atkins was an sec commissioner under president george w. bush

and he favors lighter regulation of financial firms. for more on crypto's soaring values and the trump/atkins connection to all of this, i spoke earlier today with david yaffe-bellany, technology reporter who covers the crypto industry for the new york times. thank you for being with us. first for the unfamiliar, explain what it means that bitcoin surpassed the $100,000 mark. why is that significant? david: it's really an important symbolic threshold for bitcoin. i mean, this is an investment product that started at $0 of value, and over the last 15, 20 years has risen to become one of the most successful assets in the entire financial system. and so it's really the kind of culmination of an extraordinary roller coaster ride that's been going on for a while, and, you know, it's a sign that this is part of the financial system now. it's not, you know, a passing fad. it's something that is here to stay and that really holds tremendous real world value. geoff: since donald trump's win

a month ago, the price has surged by some 45%. how much of this run up has to do with him and his team? david: it has a ton to do with donald trump. i mean, it's not entirely a trump phenomenon, this run up started before the election, after financial firms began offering investment products tied to bitcoin. that made crypto a little bit more accessible to the public, but trump has really given it the most significant boost of the year. on the campaign trail, he said he was a bitcoin believer. he said he would start a kind of national bitcoin stockpile, you know, the government would kind of buy bitcoin, and that just created a tremendous amount of investor enthusiasm in the industry, and it's what has propelled us to the last couple of days with bitcoin surging past $100,000. geoff: and yet it wasn't that long ago that we were covering the collapse of ftx and the industry seemed to be in a slump. what happened? what changed, so quickly? david: yeah, absolutely. i mean, it's worth remembering that in the relatively short history of crypto, there have already been several boom and bust cycles, and so this kind of fits that pattern, and we could

well head for another bust at some point. and so i don't think people should assume that bitcoin will stay at this high level forever necessarily. but what's changed is that traditional financial firms, you know, blackrock, fidelity, franklin templeton, have started offering exchange traded funds tied to bitcoin. they basically allowed traditional investors who might not want to experiment with cryptocurrency, they've given them kind of a way to gain exposure to the bitcoin market, and that's driven a whole lot of new investment into the crypto world, and that kind of tied to donald trump's enthusiasm for crypto, his promise to end some of the regulatory crackdowns on the industry has kind of driven the price way up. geoff: let's talk more about paul atkins and his connection to crypto and how his leadership of the sec might be different than the current chair, gary gensler. david: gary gensler has been the number one villain of the crypto industry for the last few years. it's really kind of hard to

overstate the amount of animosity that the industry feels toward him, and that's because he's sued crypto companies, argued that they're violating securities rules, and essentially put the industry in a position where it could be driven offshore. the expectation is that paul atkins will significantly deviate from that approach. he is somebody who has worked closely with the industry in the private sector, who served on the advisory board of a crypto industry alliance, and so crypto companies and founders are very enthusiastic right now. they're expecting him to kind of abandon the gensler approach and really take a much kind of lighter touch, approach to the crypto industry. geoff: and what more do we know about donald trump's change of heart on crypto over the last year or two? david: yeah, i mean this is something that i think people sometimes look past, but, you know, when he was president during his first term, trump said things like bitcoin's a scam, you know, it's designed to undermine the u.s. dollar, and he really pivoted on the campaign trail this year. the obvious explanation, i think, is that the crypto industry has been spending a

huge amount of money on campaign contributions and has really become kind of a financial heavyweight in politics. and so there was sort of a kind of an opportunistic element to trump's pivot on the issue. but he's also said that genuinely changed his mind about crypto that his sons, including baron, are super enthusiastic about the technology and that they kind of talked him into kind of being more enthusiastic about it. geoff: david yaffe-bellany of the new york times, thank you for your insights this evening. we appreciate it. david: thanks for having me. ♪ geoff: rebels dealt another serious blow to the syrian government today by capturing a key city in the center of the country. opposition forces took control of hama, north of damascus. and one of the few cities that's remained largely under government control since the civil war started in 2011.

the northern city of aleppo fell earlier this week as the opposition launched a major operation against the regime of bashar al-assad. john yang has our report. john: after two days of fierce fighting as the opposition dealt with both the regime and russian airstrikes, today the city of hama in central syria fell to opposition forces. locals and others rejoiced. it is a key strategic hub in the fight for syria that lies at the crossroads of aleppo and damascus on the m five highway which is a vital route connecting syria's northern and southern regions. it is also home to the hama military air base, and now both the base and its stockpile are in the hands of the opposition

coalition led by the hayyat tahrir al-sham and syrian national army opposition groups. the city had been in the regime's hands. for the past 13 years of civil war. until today. how big a deal is it now that the rebels grab hama? >> it is a huge deal. pushing further south. the rebel forces are now into what's called the spine of the country. it really is where the two parts of syria that the two the the neck and the in the base of syria connect. and that's why it's strategically important. john: andrew tabler is a senior fellow at the washington institute and the former director for syria at the national security council's middle east affairs directorate during the first trump administration. >> what this at a minimum, will do is it's causing a major contraction, probably the biggest contraction since since russia entered the conflict in 2015. most likely, it will lead to a different configuration of the de facto partition of syria, which has been in place for well over a decade. and whatever american administration decides to do, the incoming trump administration will have to deal with that.

john: russia and iran have long had a stake in the syrian civil war and have steadfastly supported assad's regime. but now their support is waning at a crucial time. >> the most important thing that turned that turned the tide here was iran's weakening over the last year following the october 7, 2023 hamas attacks. that has distracted iran. it's depleted it. there are different questions about why russia is not intervening more forcefully. so either they don't want to or they can't because they're busy elsewhere in ukraine and overstretched as the iranians are. john: the capture of hama comes as part of the opposition's lightning fast offensive down northwestern syria. they are now just 25 miles from homs, syria's third-largest city and the opposition's next target. >> homs would be a game changer because it is adjacent to lebanon. it also has a lot of energy facilities that are nearby refineries and other manufacturing. it is it is the

literal heart in the center of syria. and so the capture of homs would be a major which would actually put damascus in jeopardy. and i think it would cause a real panic among the regime. 00:10:27 20.3 john: and so, the battle for syria and its future continues. for the pbs "news hour" i'm john yang. geoff: in the day's other headlines, after his prime minister was ousted by his parliament, french president emmanuel macron has vowed to stay in office until the end of his term. the no-confidence vote in the national assembly yesterday forced prime minister michel barnier to step down after just three months, the shortest tenure of any prime minister in modern french history. it also left the country without a functioning government. in a fiery, defiant televised address, macron blamed the chaos on opposition lawmakers for putting their own interests above the country. >> yesterday, the government lost a no-confidence vote, despite the concessions made by prime minister barnier because far-right and far-left joined together in an anti-republican front. i will never take the blame for the lack of responsibility of

others, and notably lawmakers who chose, knowingly, to bring down the government of france. geoff: macron said he will name a new prime minister within days. the replacement will have to lead a deeply divided parliament where no party holds a majority. in new york city, the manhunt continues for the suspect who stalked and killed united health care's ceo brian thompson yesterday. today, the nypd released this photo, taken in the lobby of a nearby hostel, of a man wanted for questioning in connection to the killing. law enforcement officials also said shell casings found at the scene were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose." some of those are terms associated with ways insurance avoids paying claims, though police say they are still working to establish a motive for the killing. the department of justice has found that memphis police routinely used excessive force and discriminated against the city's black residents. that's after a 17-month

investigation prompted by the fatal beating of a black man, tyre nichols, during a traffic stop last year. the report said memphis officers cite or arrest black people for things like disorderly conduct at nearly four times the rate of whites. it also found officers would punch or kick people who were already handcuffed or restrained. today, doj's top civil rights attorney said that was a breach of public trust. >> the practices i described however violate the constitution and federal law. they harm and demean people and they promote distrust, undermining the fundamental safety mission of a police department. geoff: the doj said it could sue if the city doesn't agree to what's called a consent decree, requiring memphis police to pursue reforms under federal oversight. memphis' mayor says the city has already made positive changes to its policing, and pushed back on the need for a binding deal.

the secret service is promising to re-organize and re-imagine how it operates, months after a gunman attempted to assassinate president-elect donald trump at one of his campaign rallies in butler, pennsylvania this summer. one attendee was killed. on capitol hill today, acting director ronald rowe faced a grilling from a bipartisan house task force investigating the shooting. lawmakers pushed for answers about communication failures between secret service and local police, and how agents missed, or didn't speak up about, glaring security vulnerabilities at the rally. congressman jason crow pressed the acting director. >> can you speak to that culture and how you change that culture, so that folks speak up, and everybody's empowered to make necessary changeon the spot if they need to. >> we have to get back to that, and i think training, which touches everything from the cradle of your career, all the way to the end of your career. training is where we need to make that investment. geoff: the task force will

release a report on its findings, along with recommendations, later this month. and stocks fell on wall street, ahead of tomorrow's big jobs report. concerns about the french economy have also sent waves through the global markets. the dow jones industrial average dropped more than a half a percentage point. the nasdaq fell slightly lower. and the s&p 500 also fell, but all stocks stayed close to their record highs. still to come on the “news hour,” president-elect trump's transition team finally agrees to background checks, but concerns remain about u.s. security interests. and a new documentary examines the first trump administration's migrant family separation policy. >> this is the pbs “news hour” from the david m. rubenstein studio at weta in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: amnesty international

is accusing israel of committing genocide in gaza, and called on the u.s. to block weapons transfers. in response, israel's foreign ministry called the nonprofit deplorable and fanatical, and said its report was entirely false and based on lies. for the last two months, israel has been waging a new operation in north gaza. nick schifrin has the story of one palestinian man whose family says he was caught in the crossfire. nick: in north gaza, he fed the famished. they called him chef for running a soup kitchen for the most vulnerable. his team filmed these scenes for us in march providing substance to stop starvation. he told us he had to help. >> when you think you're going to die you want to start serving and helping others. it is like a new lease on life. nick: more recently he opened a school with a sign on the roof,

please don't bomb. that is him in red wheeling in water and providing much needed produce to the hospital. >> we hope for more vegetables for the sick and the injured and children in medical staff. nick: that was his last public statement. four days later his family says he was killed by an israeli drone. his 15-year-old son seriously injured beside him. a few weeks before his family says the school he opened was also attacked. for two months the israeli military has waged a new operation in northern gaza hugging what it describes as members of hamas, some of whom participated in the october 7 attacks. israel calls this a high mosh rocket launch site. >> we will reach anything that fires towards the citizens of

the state of israel. nick: israel says the hospital has facilitated the evacuation of patients and the delivery of fuel, medical supplies and food and water. it accuses hamas of stealing aid. but u.s. officials say as israel has tried to evacuate the entire area it has not allowed in nearly enough aid. so he was trying to provide what he could. he leaves behind his wife and seven children. the youngest, barely two weeks old. >> at the hospital day after day he brought food, gave money to those in need, the young and old. this is a great honor that mahmoud was martyred as he fed the people, i hold my head high for him. nick: when i spoke with mahmoud ahmadinejad earlier this year, i also spoke to his brother, honey amadou, who joins me now. he is also the director of philanthropy at unrwa's independent american arm. honey ahmadinejad, thank you

very much. thanks for bei here. let's talk about your brother. tell me about him. tell me about the work he was trying to do. honey: my brother mahmoud is a great guy. he's my baby brother. he started a soup kitchen when we couldn't figure out how to feed our family, our neighbors. he started cooking, like, for a dinner or lunch for people that we knew all our lives. and he cooked for 120 families, ate. and then he thought, this is it. but then kids showed up to the house asking for food. and he said, hey, let me figure this one out. so he's a business guy. he would go and like, if he finds potatoes, he would buy whatever the dealer had. and at the time, there was no pasta or rice or starchy things, so potatoes was a big deal. he bought it and cooked for the family, for the neighborhood. he started serving up to 600 families every day. and it's just beautiful because i work for usa and we couldn't

because israel banned unrwa from working in north gaza. early on, we pivoted to do small shop, you know, soup kitchen like the gaza soup kitchen. and unfortunately, things did not turn the way that should turn. nick: we heard from him a little bit in the story we just played about why what motivated him. what do you think motivated him to do what he did? >> he just saw a problem and he wanted to solve because, you -- it was hard. there is no banks. there is no phones that worked at the time. but then he figured out a way to do it, you know, leaning on the local farmers, leaning on their nature. you know, when it rained, he had a lot of leafy greens that he could find and just chop and cook up. literally he would go at 7:00 a.m., my mom would wash the veggies and cook. but then eventually he hired a lot of people that, you know, because we wanted to scale and we expanded beyond where we started.

and unfortunately, things, you know, instead of celebrating my brother's achievement and enjoying a possible cease fire, now we have to mourn his life. nick: tell me about how he died. hani: it was saturday around 9:00 a.m. local time. he left the third or fourth shelter at his base that he walked about 30 yards or less outside the house and a drone was waiting in the neighborhood and just shot at his feet. and the explosion was led to his death. basically, you know, he died on the spot. our friends who saw him tried to rescue him, they thought they could save his life, tried to take into the hospital where he was headed. nick: the very place he was trying to help. hani: he was he wanted to make sure they got the produce because the day or two days before he ordered the last shipment produced, that's largely restricted in north gaza. and they couldn't because there was sniper fire. and you don't really believe it because this is turned into a

legend. this guy is always there with videos and solving problems and people really lean on him to provide those meals. and sadly, we buried him. and he leaves behind a legacy that's respected across the globe, people who are mourning him, who live in the u.s. and people who live in palestine, but also seven kids. nick: i reached out to the israel defense forces and they said they were formulating a response on your brother's death but have not, as this moment, provided me any response. and as i mentioned in my story, what the context is, is there's been an operation in northern gaza that the israelis have launched for the last couple of months around the hospital where your brother was helping. the fighting has been fierce. israel says that it is targeting hamas fighters, targeting hamas ammunition, infrastructure. but as i also pointed out, u.s. officials say that israel has not allowed enough aid into northern gaza.

how short of basic necessities, as far as you can tell, are the people living in north gaza? hani: it is real, we feel it, because the famine brings people to our soup kitchens. more families have to be fed and we work together to provide those meals. eventually what is in gaza is there is not much food left. there is probably some canned meat and some flour. however in the south they are running into crisis with flour. we're one bag of flour that's about 50 pound bag of flower will bring about $1000. that's that's a lot. and you could buy the same back here for $15. nick: and the problem with the black market, israeli and u.s. officials admit, is that criminality has skyrocketed, especially where you just mentioned, southern gaza, central gaza. there's not a lot of security at all. and that has led some other organizations to stop even delivering aid right at all. in terms of your family, will you guys try and continue your brother's legacy?

hani: my brother always finished his videos with saying two things. i send my love to all my friends in the united states, and he would say in arabic, mr. marine, we will continue. and we are trying to do this. we expanded our operation in different parts of north gaza. that means we have now three active full soup kitchens in north gaza and two in the south. i look forward to the day we're not expanding because the need is gone. and you've mentioned the criminality. these are organized criminals that somehow the israeli army is turning a blind eye to. this is not somebody who is -- you know, it's not rocket science. these people carry guns within 10 meters away or 20 meters away from the israeli army. if they wanted to stop these criminals, they can. but they choose to look the other way, creating that massive need we see in both north and south gaza. i pray we're close to a cease fire, but it's sad because i'm not going to celebrate the ceasefire with my brother

mahmoud, who was my partner during these difficult times. nick: thank you very much. ♪ geoff: many of the people trump has selected to head up his next administration have promised to shake up long-held norms and that could have wide-ranging implications for u.s. security interests. laura barron-lopez delves more into those selections. laura: donald trump's picks to lead agencies that will oversee the nations things have repeatedly expressed contempt towards the agencies they are nominated to run. for more i am joined by a retired cia operative who worked for nearly three decades at the agency and is now a fellow at the atlantic council. thank you so much for joining us. let's talk about tulsi gabbard

and cash patel. tulsi gabbard is -- both have talked about the cia and other agencies including the ones they would lead being a part of the deep state. gabbert has labeled the cia as filled with rogue agents. what impact would both of these people have on the agencies and the intel community? john: it is not clear with these people yet whether their goal is just to get real loyalty for donald trump or to destroy these organizations. there have been different views with this. steve manning and others said they wanted to destroy the administrative state. some of the comments patel and others have made suggest they want to fire a lot of people. but that term rogue is very interesting. they both called the cia a rogue organization. in the 1970's famously senator

frank church who headed a commission to investigate the cia in -- his point was to cia was involved in illegal and unethical activities and so they investigated that at the time. later on he came back and said i changed my opinion. presidents had unfiltered power. they could ask the cia to take action that they did not want to go to congress or the public with. so this was more about untethered presidential power. laura: how could they impact information gathering and relationships with sources and spies? john: yes the cia runs large technical operations and has spies around the world. foreign organizations and foreign partners we work with provide the bulk of the information this government gets. our friends in britain and around the world, partners we

work with share information that is very sensitive for them. so they are going to have to ask themselves are we now working with a professional serious organization or working with an organization that is about partisan politics and cronyism and corruption? i worry that some of the people who give us really important information are going to hesitate to do that if it is seen in these organizations are no longer professional but are just partisan weapons for trump. laura: trump's transition team signed a document with the justice department, a memorandum of understanding. essentially what that does is people who need security clearances will now be able to get security clearances and be investigated for those clearances. but that doesn't mean that all of donald trump's nominees are going to necessarily undergo a thorough, broad fbi background check. i spoke to frank montoya earlier

today, former fbi special agent, and he said there is a big difference between fbi background checks and those conducted by outside sources. >> it is really important. farming it out to another agency or doing it to a private entity, you are not going to get the objective perspective that you are going to get from the fbi. the reality is the folks that are conducting these background investigations, a lot of them may even be trump supbut the far job in a neutral and effective way. laura: a source told me if the president elect does not want his nominees and the others that go through senate confirmation to undergo background checks, then they won't. so what does that mean if these nominees and others don't ultimately go through that kind of check? john: my understanding is this memorandum is to provide fbi background checks for nominees

so that the senate can do is constitutional duty when they decide whether to approve or not approve these nominees. there is still another step yet. four intelligence professionals, background checks are a step further. the intelligence community often does their own background checks, not just have the fbi do it. it is a full background check. polygraphs, going through your background, all the places you have lived come all of your professional correspondence have to be looked at. it is really intrusive. frankly it is failing leadership 101. if you are going to lead an organization that has every person from the lowest to the highest has to go through this every day for their entire career and you say that you don't need a background check, that is failing leadership 101. also, these organizations are like the military, they are hierarchical.

people get more senior experience -- provisions by expertise. if you install leaders with no experience and don't do background checks, you're in a tough position in terms of leading these organizations. laura: thank you for your time. ♪ geoff: on a recent evening in washington, moviegoers filled the lobby of a local theater to watch the d.c. premiere of a new film from a renowned documentarian that explores the first trump administration's family separation policy on the u.s. southern border. i recently sat down with one of the executive producers of the film, "separated." >> systematic separation of children from parents. officially, it wasn't happening. but it was happening. geoff: the new documentary “separated” is a searing exploration of the first trump administration's zero tolerance

immigration policy at the u.s./mexico border which forcibly separated over 5000 migrant children from their families, who illegally entered the country. directed by the legendary documentarian errol morris, the film is based on a book of the same name by nbc news journalist jacob soboroff, who is also one of the film's executive producers. one of the things that so often gets lost in conversations about trump's family separation policy, is that harm to children was the point. it was, in fact one of the civil servants who you speak with in the film says that it was meant to terrify parents from making that trek from those northern triangle countries to the u.s. jacob: based on the facts that we know, which in this film are firsthand interviews with civil servants who tried to stand up and stop the policy and in fact help the policy reversal, we know what they wanted to do. they wanted to hurt kids in order to scare other families from coming to this country and scare congress into enacting

more restrictive immigration laws. it's exactly the way that they drew it up and exactly what they wanted to do. geoff: one of the civil servants who offers a firsthand account is jonathan white, who worked for the office of refugee resettlement. >> the unaccompanied children program, which i worked in, was essentially hijacked for a purpose for which it was never intended, nor authorized in law. it was a program designed to be a child protection progr for children who entered the united states without parents. and it was instead used as a tool to take children from their parents. geoff: since there's no footage of the actual family separations, the film includes narrative vignettes depicting the forced separation of a mother and son who illegally crossed the border. one of the questions i had during this entire process, the family separation process, was like, what about the guards? what about the people who worked at these facilities? what about the civil servants who were really tasked with overseeing this process, separating infants from their parents?

how did they grapple with this? jacob: you know, many of them carry out the orders and many of them didn't stand up and protest, but some of them did. and they spoke out, especially within the department of health and human services. geoff: soboroff says it was career officials like white and his coworker jallyn sualog who pushed to reverse the policy, and later faced the difficult task of reuniting children with their parents, since there was no formal process of tracking family separations. >> when you have a two-year-old, their assessment form in the system doesn't have that much information. what's your mom's name? mom. like every mom, their name is mom. geoff: and he connects trump's policy to decades of punitive immigration laws enacted under both republican and democratic administrations. jacob: bill clinton built the first wave of border walls. george w. bush exponentially increased the size of the border patrol, created dhs in the wake of 9/11. barack obama deported more people than any president in the history of the united states of america. they called him the deporter in chief.

and that's why, like that, donald trump was able to take away 5500 children from their parents in an act that a republican appointed judge called one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country. geoff: so it was the systematic separation of children that was new. the fact that the that there were these state created orphans, that was new under trump? jacob: 100%. and i hear often from people back then and even today saying, well, obama did this or this happened under biden to point the finger in every direction. but there never was until the there never was until 2017, when the pilot program was implemented in el paso, a deliberate and systematic attempt to rip parents and children apart from one another as united states immigration policy. and there hasn't been since. geoff: he says the biden administration failed to take action that might prevent it from happening again. president biden, he had called the practice of family separations criminal. promised a thorough investigation. to this day, no one has been held accountable. why? jacob: i remember you in some of those press conferences pressing on this exact topic.

geoff: during the campaign you said that practice was criminal, can you commit, will you commit to making sure the trump administration officials responsible for that policy will be held to account? >> i'll commit that our justice department and our investigative arms will make judgments about who is responsible, how they're responsible, and whether or not the conduct is criminal across -- is criminal. but there will be a thorough, thorough investigation about who is responsible. jacob: what's been done to this day is absolutely nothing. nobody's been held accountable for the policy. some of the people responsible for it are going to be in some of the most senior positions in the incoming trump administration. immigration in the eyes of the biden administration became a political liability. and so they backed away. they backed away from financially compensating these families. they backed away from any idea of a criminal prosecution of people responsible for it. and i think history will remember that. geoff: president-elect donald trump signaled he would declare

a national emergency, and use the u.s. military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants when he takes office. there's been so much outrage fatigue since then. trump has already policy -- promised mass deportations but if we see a policy that is very similar to the family separation policy, i mean, how do you think the american public will respond? jacob: mass deportation as family separation by another name. it's not ripping away children from their parents at the border, but it is taking parents away from children in their homes and at their schools a in the interior of the country. i think when they're reminded of what that really means, the american people will respond in the same way that they did to family separation, because it's not about politics. it's about people. geoff: what do you want people to take away from this film as they watch it? jacob: that people remember their power and how people stood up in that moment, in the summer of 2018, and forced the trump administration to stop something that was universally condemned. and as we go into yet another

trump administration, where they're talking about doing a policy that would be orders of magnitude greater when it comes to disrupting the lives of immigrants in this country, the people still have that power. >> it troubles me profoundly that it could happen again. geoff: “separated” has screened in select theaters across the country and airs on msnbc on december 7. ♪ we'll be back shortly with a look at some of our student reporting about gun violence. but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like this one on the air. ♪

for those staying with us, nearly one-third of large u.s. firms are exploring new work schedules for their employees. economics correspondent paul solman takes a look at some companies that are trying out a four-day, 32-hour week with the same pay. paul: that metro caring in denver the food pantry is crazy busy. there were 45,000 visits last year, not far off the 47,000 start of the pandemic. the ceo felt overworked and overwhelmed. >> i worked far too many hours. hunger has been steadily growing. i was feeling discouraged. i don't see us making progress. that landed really heavily on me. paul: and on many of her coworkers. >> we were experiencing a lot of burnout on staff and feeling like we were treading water around our mission. paul: corey overseas food

distribution. >> we have had four different managers the last four years and it has 1000% and a burnout factor with every one. paul: they almost quit. >> burnout among nonprofit ceo's and employees was higher than any other industry, probably four out of 10 left the field. i was nearly there. paul: instead she took a sabbatical and came back with a proposal. a four-day workweek. >> if you can have a more balanced life and work fewer hours, you actually bring more creativity to your job and more efficiency. and those hours you do work mean more. paul: alex has written about working less, runs research and innovation at nonprofit four-day week global. >> if you are in an industry in which there are serious challenges with recruitment and retention, with worklife balance, or if you have concerns about the sustainability of your organization, a four-day week is a great way to address all of

challenges simultaneously. paul: a shorter work is hardly a new idea. in 1930, given ever-increasing output per person, increasing productivity that is, economist john maynard keynes foss -- foresaw a 15 hour work week in 100 years. in 1956 vice president richard nixon protected a four-day workweek in the quote, not too distant future. that future is yet to arrive, but thanks perhaps to covid, companies have begun to shift. the pilot began in late summer. the staff worked monday through friday -- thursday, took fridays off. 32 hours of work, same pay. to get their work done in a few hours, employees turned off computer alerts, reorganized their time. >> a lot of those have been around meetings and emails and not responding right away. and how to make meetings that are normally one hour into 15 minutes. paul: a shortened week increases

focus. >> if i have to be here monday through friday, i am much more likely to take that half an hour sitting and drinking coffee, or that 15 minutes stepping outside for a cigarette. paul: integrity pro roofing also tried a four-day week. >> there are so many tangible, technical ways you can give your team back that additional eight hours of time. paul: the ceo says her staff focused on tasks and projects in the morning when they were more energized, pushing meetings to the afternoon. >> the average worker loses about two hours a day. so for a lot of us, a 40 week is already here. paul: in surveys completed in february, employees reported well-being had improved. pretrial just 8% were highly or very highly satisfied with their work life balance. at the end that rose to 46%. at the start of the pilot, 50% felt burned out.

by the end, half that number. >> having four days and in a three-day weekend, oh my lord. it is rejuvenating on all levels. paul: the results did not surprise him. his firm helped run a 2022 trial of 61 british firms that showed benefits to worker health and productivity when their hours were reduced. >> managers and companies also reported that people were collaborating better, that they were happier in the office, all the important metrics trended positively. paul: at integrity pro roofing, a strictly 40 workweek did not work year-round. >> everything in construction tends to be very seasonal. paul: so employees now work fewer hours during the off-season. >> the summer and the fall is our busiest season. so we have find -- found where there are times we need to ask our team to be flexible and come back for a five-day workweek when we are experiencing that kind of high-volume.

paul: still, he remains committed to a shorter week for employees the rest of the year. >> time is our most precious resource. we have a really short life. so if there is anyway we can give them some additional time, that is really what we wanted to focus on. paul: at metro caring, the four-day workweek created some problems of its own. >> we rely on donations and foundations and grant funding to be able to exist in the way that we do. and they don't have a four-day workweek. they don't have a three-day weekend. there are deadlines due on friday. i often miss emails that are at home on friday. we really do need to be available for some of these bigger deadlines. paul: as a result, the ceo still has to put in hours on friday. >> i don't know all of us are at 32 hours yet. some of us on some weeks are at 35 hours. but frankly, 35 hours is way better than the 50 hours i was working prior to this trial. paul: metro caring plans to make

the shorter workweek permanent, even as they work out the details. >> it may not be exactly what we have done the trial. maybe we go to a 35 hour workweek, or relook at more flexibility. paul: different schedules perhaps. >> may be one team works a different set of days then another team. paul: and that flexibility may help with retention. corey thinks she will last longer than her three predecessors. >> i am feeling really good. i am not leaving. i broke the curse. paul: she bucked the burnout trend she says, thanks in part to the four-day workweek. for the pbs news hour, paul solman. ♪ geoff: gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the u.s.

but much of the news coverage about it is made by and for adults. that's why our journalism training team, student reporting labs, handed cameras to 14 student journalists from across the nation to make stories about what it's like to grow up in this generation. their work is part of a new documentary called "run, hide, fight: growing up under the gun." in this excerpt, student journalists alexis and brianna schmidt talk to their classmates at michigan state university about what it's like to live through a mass shooting. >> keep your hands up if you have experienced a lockdown drill before the age of 18. the age of 12. and the age of six. >> before you learn abc, you learn how to run, hide and fight. and that's where we failed. >> gun violence has become tragically familiar to people like maya manuel, a student at michigan state university. on february 13, 2023, three students lost their lives to a gunman.

during the shooting, students received text messages from the university instructing them to run, hide and fight. >> academic building, and then later at a student union. >> i'm alexis schmidt. >> and i'm brianna schmt. we're twins and student journalists who started attending michigan state a few months after the shooting. we wanted to talk to other students about their experiences with gun violence. how do you think that, like, msu students' perception of safety, like, on campus changed? >> you're trying so hard to get your degree. trying to go back into classes was so difficult. every student, every janitor now had to figure out a new way of thinking, because it was no longer, i'm listening to your experience. it's, i am understanding your experience. >> for other students like kylee osage, this was not their first experience with the trauma of a mass shooting. she was a senior at oxford high school in 2021, when a gunman opened fire inside the school. four students died that day and seven others were injured,

including kylie. she spent two months in the hospital and physical therapy recovering from her injuries. she had to learn how to do a lot of basic things again, such as walking and brushing her hair. >> i came to michigan state and i was so scared. living with ptsd like that is hard. i would always tell myself, like, this is never going to happen to you again. the fact that it happened to you once is crazy. it's never going to happen to you again. just relax. and then it happened to me again. to wake up and realize that like -- people have to wake up and realize that like this is bound to happen to everyone if there's no change. i live in an all-boys hallway. boys are like, very loud and they love to, like, slam their doors. anytime that happens, it definitely, like, alarms me and i have to, like, calm myself down again, tell myself it's just boys. >> for maya, the shooting has pushed her to become an activist. >> i hate that we have to beg for safety, but i love that we can come together and treat each other with empathy.

i want us to take that pain and i want us to push that into other change. >> despite her own pain, kylie hasn't given up hope for a safer future. >> there's positive things that can come from every story. you know, because there's so many negatives of the situation, i think if you're able to show some strength, i think a lot of people can bounce off you. it's important to kind of radiate that positivity around you. >> for pbs news student reporting labs, i'm alexis schmidt. >> and i'm brianna schmidt in east lansing, michigan. geoff: the student reporting labs documentary "run, hide, fight" is available to watch now on our youtube page and the pbs app. and that's the “news hour” for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. for all of us here at the pbs “news hour,” thanks for spending part of your evening with us. >> major funding for the pbs "news hour" has been provided by. ♪

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hello, everyone and welcome to amanpour and company. here is what is coming up. in south korea, the people fight back after a announcement of martial law overturned has crisis