i'm geoff bennett amna: and i am amna navaz. tonight, president trump charges forward with his agenda.

>> displaced gazans are returning home. we speak with the united nations' top humanitarian official about the situation. >> the biggest need we have right now is hold that ceasefire open. every day the ceasefire lasts, we're saving lives. amna: and hiring slows but the unemployment rate ticks down. what the latest jobs reports means for the u.s. economy. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by friends of the news hour, including jim and nancy build new and the robert and virginia schiller foundation. the judy and peter blum kovler foundation. strengthening democracies at home and abroad.

>> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. the world awaits. a world of flavor, diverse destinations and immersive experiences. a world of leisure and british style all with cunard's white star service. >> the john s and james l knight foundation, fostering informed and engaged communities. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the news hour.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting big contributions from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the news hour. courts and congress are struggling to keep up with the pace set by the trump administration as it reshapes the american government, national politics in the international order. geoff: president trump promised more cuts and more political payback even as the courts stepped in to at least temporarily stand in the way of big changes he put in motion days ago. lisa starts her coverage. lisa: standing next to the prime minister of japan, a question about how president trump uses power. he was asked will he fire every fbi agent investigating the

january 6 assault. he later seemed to clarified he wanted to fire corrupt agents. this as agents involved saw a win. the department of justice agreed not to release the list of agents who worked on january 6 cases without two days notice. a court case will continue in the meanwhile. that came as trump welcomed to the japanese prime minister, the second foreign leader to visit the white house since president trump returned. >> have you changed your mind about the sale of u.s. steel? >> i have not. >> u.s. steel has struggled of late. japan's nippon steel wants to buy it but the sale was blocked by joe biden. trump has agreed so far no sale but promised an investment deal to come. >> they are doing it as an

investment, not a purchase. >> as he extends a hand to some, trump and elon musk are pushing to get workers out. workers dismantled the agency sign at usaid. leadership has been told it as few as 300 workers total may be all left. trump was asked about musk. >> we have smart people going in so i have instructed him to go into education and other things as we go along and they are finding massive amounts of fraud, abuse, waste and all these things. i will pick out a target. >> elsewhere -- >> we are members of congress. >> democratic members of congress were turned away at another agency where they said they had unanswered russians on capitol hill -- questions.

on capitol hill, house democratic leader hakeem jeffries and others are criticizing republicans in the president for not coming up with a draft for a budget deal and they say they are ignoring funding problems and the sudden unraveling of usaid. >> republicans did that and republicans in congress are doing nothing to stop this chaos. >> but republicans, including house speaker mike johnson say they are honing in on major legislation and trump is getting things done. that includes 1500 more active-duty troops that the pentagon said it is sending to the southern border to block new migrants from crossing into the country. also as part of trump's agenda on immigration, kristi noem said she is heading to guantanamo bay facilities.

the aclu is suing for information and access to assess their treatment. trump's critics look increasingly to courts to slow him down and we have seen court action in just the past hour. a federal judge has at least partially blocked an attempted purge at usaid. the judge said his ruling will hold well other lawsuits continue. he called his ruling a temporary limited pause. geoff: some latebreaking news there. we also heard president trump talk more about the mandate he says he's given elon musk. we heard him say he's unnerved fraud across the government but provided no evidence but walk us through your reporting. lisa: this was an important moment when trump was asked about these questions. this was public permission by the president that he can go almost anywhere.

i also want to point out that he specifically mentioned two areas, the military, which we hadn't heard that musk might be trying to access before, and education. the court has limited musk's team's access to treasury because of a lawsuit there but we don't know if it is team -- if his team is following that court order. if you look at musk's posts on social media, he's constantly posting examples. for instance, he talked about leases the government is no longer using. he talks a lot about dei initiatives. one issue is this is all being done in the dark. we don't know who is making these decisions, which contracts are problematic and which are not and a lot of these agencies don't know as well. geoff: let's shift our focus to capitol hill. where does the push stand for major trump backed legislation? lisa: believe it or not,

putting together what might be the most complex and large bill in recent history is harder than you might predict. republicans are having a hard time getting out of the starting gate with this massive trump bill. what we know now is that they met at the white house last night to figure out their first starting point, which is a budget resolution. here is speaker johnson talking to reporters after that meeting. >> our message to our friends and colleagues in the senate is allow the house to do its work. we are moving this as quickly and expeditiously as possible. lisa: that was last night. it's a day later and we still don't have the resolution. it's hard to do these things and they have missed their initial deadline. geoff: what are republicans trying to accomplish? lisa: we will talk about this in coming days but here's a reminder. it's a big ambitious engine -- agenda.

they want to extend the tax cuts passed in the first trump term of us -- of office and extend them, potentially in a lot of directions. at the same time, they want to cut the deficit. those two things are hard to do together. and of course significant border in homeland security measures. a lot of money involved in fitting that into a package that reduce the deficit is hard. geoff: what determines whether republicans can get this done? lisa: i want our viewers to know the players that are the most important. one of the issues is the house wants to do it one way. they want one giant bill. the senate says let's just get small things done, including border security. you see speaker johnson and the ways and means chair, jason smith. opposing them are the new senate majority leader, john thune, and lindsey graham, now chairman of the budget committee. both of them actually, when the

house could not get it together, the senate went ahead and moved forward its budget resolution, which is something president trump has not yet rained in on. he's trying to let them figure it out and they are not. one problem for republicans as they cannot figure out which direction they want to go to get to this goal. geoff: you have such a way of simplifying all this stuff. grateful for your insights and your reporting. thank. ♪ amna: deadly storms are sweeping across the united states from one coast to the other. in california, floodwaters inundated roads, killing at least two people in sonoma county, where heavy rains triggered landslides and destroyed homes. farther east, a possible tornado ripped through eastern tennessee late last night. officials confirmed two lives were claimed in that storm as well.

>> roads will be blocked. power lines are down. there's still safety issues going on. and just ask people to pray for this community again as they go through these tragic times and the people that lost their life. amna: in the pacific northwest, more peaceful scenes. snow blanketed the dense forests of southern oregon and that winter weather is headed east. and poised to affect millions, as forecasters say snow and freezing rain is traversing the northern states, and will reach new england by sunday. more than a foot of snow could fall in parts of the northeast. u.s. job growth slowed last month, but still signaled a labor market on solid footing. the first jobs report of president trump's second presidency showed u.s. employers added 143,000 jobs last month. that's the lowest number since october and short of predictions that were around 170,000. the unemployment rate fell to 4%, which experts say may lead

the federal reserve to hold off on cutting interest rates until at least june. turning overseas, a small plane this morning crashed in the middle of a busy road in sao paulo, brazil shortly after taking off from a private airport nearby. both the pilot and plane's owner onboard were killed. and at least six others on the ground were injured. pieces of the wreckage hit a bus and a motorcyclist, but the crash just missed a crowded intersection and a long line of waiting cars. the cause of the crash is not yet known. sources on the ground in sudan tell the new york times hundreds of people have been killed in recent days as fighting escalates in the country's civil war. the u.n. reported this week at least 80 deaths in the southern city of kadugli. residents there say they don't have access to food or medicine. as the civil war approaches its third year, the sudanese army and rival rapid support forces have also clashed in the capital of khartoum, and in omdurman,

sudan's second-largest city. the u.n. says at least 40 children were among those killed just this month. in sweden, government officials say they will work to tighten gun laws after the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history. swedes are still in shock after a gunman killed ten people and himself at a school for adults in the city of orebro earlier this week. authorities believe the shooter used several of his own licensed rifles. sweden's prime minister said he wants to restrict assault-style rifles and toughen the process for obtaining a license. >> it is about tightening regulations for getting a weapons license at all. it's about banning certain types of semiotic manic -- of semiautomatic weapons. we're also adding a proposal that would allow police and social services better opportunities to investigate medical reasons that would deny a person a gun licence. amna: police are still looking into whether the suspected

gunman may have been a student once at the education center he attacked. they're still searching for a motive. back here at home, this may be by one measure the most intense winter flu season in the last fifteen years. the cdc says the percentage of visits to doctors' offices due to flu-like symptoms was higher last week than the peak of any winter flu season since 2010. flu season typically peaks around february and the cdc estimates at least 24 million flu cases this season so far. at the same time, cdc models show both covid-19 and another respiratory illness, rsv, on the decline. and markets slid today on the heels of those lower-than-expected jobs numbers as well as concerns about tariffs and inflation. the dow jones industrial average dropped nearly 450 points, it's worst day in almost four weeks. the nasdaq headed to a market-leading loss of 1.4% and

the s&p 500 wiped out its modest gains on the week. still to come on the newshour, jonathan capehart and matthew continetti weigh in on the week's political headlines. ahead of the super bowl, the boom in legal sports betting. and long-time chef lawrence chu gives his brief but spectacular take on treating every day like a grand opening. >> this is the pbs newshour from the david rubenstein studio in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: president trump said today that he is in no rush to do anything in gaza. he talked about the need for palestinians to lead gaza, calling it a demolition zone. amna: meanwhile, hamas is accusing israel of delaying aid deliveries that were agreed to in the cease-fire deal, an

accusation israel denies. stephanie sy has this report on the latest. >> half a million families streaming back to their homes in gaza on foot, on piggyback, children in tow. for more than a year, their home a battleground in the israel-hamas war. they survived while many did not but their apartments, their businesses, everything that makes a community are in ruins. amidst the destruction, rescue workers and families dig, trying to locate the remains of loved ones. bones are taken to the local morgan the hope they can -- local morgue in the hope they can be identified in the future. sheltering intense while the elements be down upon them and temperatures drop. this woman's tent housing her and her children collapsed in the strong winds. >> something like an earthquake

occurred and the would collapse on us. i have two children in the hospital. one of them had two stitches and another was injured by this. >> she recalls a life of comfort and dignity long gone. >> we have no food. look at the tent. i do not have money to buy them food. i was living decently and comfortably. who can i turn to now? >> nearly 91% of gazans are projected to suffer from food insecurity this year and according to united nations estimates they will need treatment for malnutrition. gaza's residents have long relied on food assistance. prior to the war, the united nations was sending 500 trucks

of aid a day. during the war, those deliveries became scarce and sporadic. to make matters worse, they have targeted trucks, further threatening the survival of civilians. one desperate scene, idf soldiers began shooting into a crowd waiting for aid to be dispersed. 112 people were killed. since the cease-fire began, thousands of trucks with food, medicine intense arrived but the future may lie in the hands of politicians, diplomats and dealmakers far away. speaker of the house mike johnson and israeli president benjamin netanyahu met in washington today days after donald trump proposed a relocation in egypt, a proposal johnson has backed as a logical move.

the plan has been roundly rejected by the country's leaders and palestinians themselves who want to stay in their homeland, shattered as it is. for the pbs news hour, i am stephanie sy. geoff: one of the agencies overseeing the provision of aid into gaza is the united nations office for the coordination of humanitarian it fails that humanitarian affairs. i spoke with its leader, tom fletcher, who joined us from jerusalem. you were in gaza. what did you witness, especially in areas that were harder to reach? tom: i came in through the north, which was the area most affected by the conflict in the last 14 to 15 months. it's been pummeled. you cannot tell what was a house, what was a school and what was a hospital. you see civilians picking through the wreckage and it takes time to even find where the homes were because everything has been flattened so it is grim and desolate but they

are heading home and trying to rebuild. >> parts of northern gaza were on the brink of famine. what is the situation now? tom: when we got the cease-fire in place, we were worried about starvation levels and famine. we now have 2.5 weeks worth of trucks and convoys. so we have made progress in getting food to those who need it and the risk is receding. we got food to one million people but the needs are still massive. the biggest needs are tense and shelter because people are heading back to where their homes were and winter is here. it's cold, wintry conditions. geoff: what challenges remain when it comes to distributing that aid given the scale of desperation and need? tom: it is the scale that is so significant and massive.

i have been in sudan recently, on the ukrainian front lines, and nothing matches what we are trying to do in gaza now. the good news is that since the cease-fire, and this is a credit to everyone who got that in place, it's become easier. every day the cease-fire lasts, we are saving lives. geoff: israel has passed a law banning unfra from operating within gaza. what is the impact of that end is that organization still distributing aid? tom: unra is the largest of the u.n. operations working in gaza and it is the backbone of the operation, particularly in the education and health sectors and no other agency or organization

frankly including the palestinian authority can step in and deliver education at that scale. but they are operating across the region and those are continuing unimpeded. geoff: the trump administration is in the process of hollowing out usaid. what will be the effect of that? tom: i don't think you build a golden age by retreating from the world. the u.s. has been a humanitarian superpower for decades now. almost half of the humanitarian campaigns funded by the americans. i think they can ask us to be more innovative but without that support -- i hope this is only a temporary freeze -- we will not reach tens of millions of people who in the past have been supported by the generosity of the american government and the

american people. geoff: how are gazans responding to president trump's idea for the u.s. to take ownership of gaza for its reconstruction? he is also suggested gaza should be emptied of its population. how is the region responding to that? tom: most of them are searching through rubble for their loved ones so that's what they are thinking about, but everyone mentioned it and they say firstly tell our story. someone has to see what has happened to us. they feel like no one has consulted them on this plan and they are the ones who are being threatened with this movement, being displaced again. the third thing they say is this is the land we were born in. we have been displaced so many

times and we keep rebuilding. there a defiance there and they are determined to survive and to survive on their own land. geoff: a defiance and determination. thank you for joining us. tom: thank you. ♪ amna: today's jobs report not only showed the pace of hiring slowed slightly in january, adding 143,000 jobs but revised down jobs numbers between april of 2023 and march of 2024 by nearly 600,000, the largest annual revision in 15 years. to help us make sense of this, we are joined by austin goolsby, president and ceo of the federal reserve bank of chicago. good to see you. let's start with today's numbers. 143,000 jobs added, more than

expected. wages also rose 4.1% from the prior year. what does that say to you about where we are? >> there's a lot of numbers and you want to be careful over indexing on one month during remember the payroll jobs created number is plus or minus around 100,000 so it was 150 thousand plus or -100,000. i think most measures of the job market have been largely solid and they are saying the economy has settled in at something like employment. in january, you have these big revisions and this was the biggest in some time looking back on the previous year but we have had a lot of variability. just the last month's number got revised way up so we just have to look for the through-line and not overreact to any month.

>> and that they provision down, there are some technical reasons as well, but does it say to you that the economy has growing -- has been growing more slowly than previously thought? >> i don't think so because we have a lot of measures of the job market. the unemployment rate, the number of jobs. we can look at how many vacancies there are. hiring rates, quit rates, layoffs, and by taking those totality of those measures, it looks to pretty much -- looks to be kind of a stable arrangement. that said, i do think we had the experience over the year because this recovery has been so much different coming out of covid compared to previous recoveries, a lot of the adjustments the bureau of labor statistics has

to do to come up with the numbers, as they got with -- the real data, they had to make bigger revisions. >> obviously you and your colleagues have to watch this closely. we have seen inflation trending down. we know the fed wants to see 2%. the next decision could be on march 19 on interest rate cuts. as of today, where are you on the possibility of that? >> i have been saying -- i said in the summer that i thought where we were going to end up in the relatively near future, one to 1.5 years, was the rates would come down because the economy was looking solid, the job market had settled in about where we thought it would settle and inflation was coming down to 2% and we then cut a full percentage point off of rates and now if we slow the pace of

how fast the cuts come, that would make sense to me because we are getting closer to the stopping point but i think that if you take the through-line and we can get around some of these uncertainties i still think that rates will be trending down. >> but you are saying slowing on the pace so likely no rate cut ahead on the next decision day? >> i don't like tying our hands when we still have a lot of information to get before the next meeting but at the last meeting i said it makes sense to me as we are getting to this spot where we need to figure out and feel our way toward what in our language we call neutral, we have to feel our way to neutral, it makes sense to slow down how rapidly you are doing that because monetary policy's impact

on the economy comes with a lag it does not happen instantaneously. amna: we have a little over a minute left but i want your take on this because there's new proposals and policies we have seen from this administration on things that could impact the workforce or trade in dramatic ways when you look at deportations ramping up, potential tariffs on major trading partners. how are you looking at those and do you see those as potentially inflationary? austan: some of those could clearly be inflationary. you have others, the regulations. we have had a high productivity growth rate. some of them would be dis-inflationary. my view has been we want to get a through-line and this is adding a kind of dust in the air and making it harder to see so i think in less we get to the

point where we get to resolve some of these policy uncertainties that might muddy our index of, if you see inflation progress stalling or going back up, is that because the economy is overheating, in which case the fed would be primed to act, or is that because of some of these policy things that might just be temporary? that's going to be a tough spot for the fed to try to disentangle and so that emphasizes slowing down the pace at which it is going even more. geoff: austan goolsbee, president and ceo of the federal reserve bank of chicago, thanks. austan: great to see you again. ♪

geoff: from elon musk gaining unprecedented access to sensitive government information to democrats trying to build what they call a bigger and better party, we turn tonight to the analysis of capehart and continetti. that's washington post associate editor jonathan capehart and mathew continetti from the american enterprise institute. david brooks is away. good to see you both. so donald trump and his allies are making quick progress toward their stated goal of the deconstruction of the administrative state. we have takeovers and the hollowing out of major government agencies offering severance agreement to government workers, federal grants and loans now tied up in the courts. are the shockwaves being felt across the government signs of a super committed new administration shaking up the status quo or are we witnessing the full assault on the limits of executive power? jonathan: both.

both. remember, donald trump campaigned -- he told us this is what he was going to do. project 2025 is all about doing what is happening right now and so they are trying to deconstruct, as i think steve bannon said, the administrative state, and as i said last week, president trump and elon musk in particular are taking a wrecking ball to the federal government by sowing chaos and confusion and fear, but he's following through on what he promised to do. geoff: how do you see it? matthew: i think jonathan is right. this was a promise made, promise kept, as they like to say in trump world. the important thing to understand about trump is he wants to deliver results. he always feels as though the political class that preceded him talk to big game but never accomplished anything. so we had the grace commission

during reagan, al gore's reinventing government, the commissions dealing with the debt and taxes during the obama years. nothing happened. and so here elon musk says he wants to treat the federal government like a new acquisition. donald trump says go for it. let's see what happens. geoff: what about the question democrats are raising, you know, where are the guardrails? it was going to stop this? democrats do not have any power and republicans are moving in lockstep with this administration. the courts have stepped in where they deem appropriate but cannot keep up with the velocity of the trump administration. is there any guard against his instinct to wield -- to really claim and wield expansive power? jonathan: right now, the courts are the only guardrail, and i think people need to understand that they operate on a timetable that isthe fact that citizens ad

lawmakers and organizations have gone to court to stop president trump on a host of things from birthright citizenship to the buyout plans, that is for lack of a better term a court of last resort. in the old days it used to be that congress would be the backstop, would be the entity standing up for his prerogatives and saying we are the ones who decide what agencies come and go and decide what the budget will be but instead the maga republicans from speaker johnson on down are happy to go along with what president trump and elon musk are doing which is why they are silent on a host of things that even 10 years ago

would have had congress up in arms. geoff: how do you view congress abdicating the role, cedeing their power to the executive? matthew: i think this process is decades in the making and it's bipartisan. congress has become an investigatory body that still a gated tremendous authority to the executive and bureaucracy. you have trump wanting to leave a profoundly changed country in his wake after leaving office and because of congress abdicating its role he has enormous power to wield. remember when obama said he had a pen and a phone. joe biden tried to cancel student debt through executive order. this process is long in the making and one reason washington is stunned is you have an outsider in elon musk actually

punching the delete button on some of these programs. geoff: matthew raised the question i was going to ask you , that some have said democrats cannot in good faith criticize trump when joe biden tried to wave student loan debt and when the supreme court said he could not he basically shrugged and tried to do it via a piecemeal approach. jonathan: this is like comparing apples and cannonballs. what we are seen coming from the trump administration's executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government and what makes this all the more galling and terrifying is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone who was elected to know office, to someone who is not confirmed. he is accountable to no one except for maybe president trump

and he has already said we will do things we want to do. that is what is so terrifying, that you have someone who happens to be the most wealthy person in the world and also the wealthiest person in the world who owns a huge social media megaphone and is able to manipulate the information the people on that platform receive. that is what is so dangerous about what is happening and as we are trying to compare president biden's executive order on student loans and what donald trump is doing, he is destroying -- president biden signed an executive order and pushed the limits of executive action but to the benefit of people drowning in student debt in order to help

people and not to destroy the government that the american people depend on for a whole host of things. geoff: here's how president trump responded to a question about whether he gave elon musk any redlines. >> is there anything you have told elon musk he cannot touch? >> well we havent discussed that much. i'll tell him to go here, go there. he does it. he's got a very capable group of people, very, very, very, very capable. they know what they're doing. they'll ask questions, and they'll see immediately, as somebody gets tongue tied, that they're either crooked or don't know what they're doing. geoff: so it would appear that elon musk is a fairly broad mandate in that it is not spelled out at all if you take into account would president trump is saying. matthew: he has told elon musk

let's change the government, slim it down, reduce the federal workforce, and if you need to move fast and break things, so be it. if he were the energy czar, i think there would be a lot less uproar. it's the fact that he has the goal of changing the federal government and limiting it at a time when we have record deficits and debt is angering a lot of people invested in the current system. geoff: i want to return to this open question about the path forward for democrats, because, jonathan, you wrote a column for the washington post this week, the thesis of which is that the problem is not rooted in policy for the democrats but perception. talk about that and whether ken martin, the new head of the dnc, can effectively change that. jonathan: the perception is the democratic party is filled with

elites who only care about niche issues and don't listen to the rest of us. as everyone knows, in a lot of instances, perception is reality. i was one of three msnbc anchors who hosted the last dnc forum and there were two instances that happened that sort of put this perception in high relief. one was a question asking for a commitment to dedicated seats for transgender folks within the party to serve within the party and governing structure. another was protesters who were loudly screaming about climate change and getting big money out of politics, something that everyone on that stage was for and yet no one wanted to listen to what they had to say and what was great -- good about those moments that were instructive was the only person who was on the stage two did not raise his

hand on the transgender question is also -- question also said i don't think we should be dividing people by identity. we should focus on people who are up for the mission and program and bring their identity to the table. he was right. and jason paul said this is the way people in the country view the democratic party and that is our problem. that's why i say that the policy is not the problem. democrats have policies that address the american people's issues. it's the perception. that is what ken martin has to do and we are able to find out -- we are going to find out if he is able to do that, change the perception. geoff: thank you. ♪ amna: this sunday in new

orleans, the philadelphia eagles will try to block the kansas city chiefs from taking home an historic third consecutive super bowl title. there will also be an historic amount of money riding on the game. the american gaming association estimates the nearly $1.4 billion will be legally wagered. as paul solman reports, proof of a snowballing and potentially perilous sports betting craze. >> i'm doing the fanduel kick of destiny, live super bowl sunday. >> super bowl sunday, our eyes and ears blitzed by calls to get in on the action. >> now i know it's the super bowl and all but everyone gets a free bet? paul: nearly seven years after the supreme court struck down the ban on commercial sports betting, 39 states and the district of columbia have legalized it. last year, more than one in three americans said they'd put money on a game at some point in their life, up from the year before. while the american gaming association estimates that commercial sports betting revenue reached more than 14 billion dollars, up 28% from 2023.

>> and it's gotten to a point where if you're not betting on sports, people are starting to question why you're watching the game. paul: for 25-year-old philadelphia resident rob minnick, the gambling gateway was fantasy sports played as a teenager. the switch to sports betting -- which he began on illegal and offshore sites before turning the legal age of 21 -- was all too easy. >> if i was going to hang out with my friends or a family event was going to be happening, the center focal point was a professional sport of some kind. and so this idea that we could do what we were already doing but now make money doing it, it was like way too good to be true. and it was. paul: too good, because fun with friends became six to eight hours a day of compulsive gambling. >> gambling was my way of expressing myself to prove i was smart, to prove i could win, to prove that i was worthy. and the money kind of reflected the scoreboard. paul: after six years of

betting, he joined gamblers anonymous, eventually kicking his habit two years ago. and now hosting a podcast -- one day at a time, gambling awareness -- talking to people like himself, about their struggles. collects sports gambling was my biggest vice. >> i will call this an epidemic of addiction that's heading towards the united states, if not already hitting the united states. it's not because the doors opened up and you got access. it's because the dors opened up and people started pulling you through those doors. >> who are we betting on? paul: with the ads and come-ons that now buffett us all. of course, gambling addiction is nothing new, but understanding how big the problem is is difficult as there's no comprehensive national data. the national council on problem gambling estimates about two point 5 million americans meet the criteria for severe grambling -- two point 5 million

americans meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem while another 2% to 3% have a mild or moderate problem. recent studies found that legal sports betting decreased household savings and investments, led to more bankruptcies and loan delinquencies, contributed to a rise in domestic violence. >> i made my last bet on april 27, 2014, and on that same night, nearly took my own life. paul: former lawyer harry levant, disbarred for stealing some $2 million from client funds to fuel his gambling addiction. now a licensed counselor and advocate for reform, levant testified before the senate judiciary committee in december. >> we have known for more than 12 years that gambling is an addictive product and gambling disorder is an addiction just like heroin, alcohol, tobacco and cocaine. paul: levant's own struggles began well before the advent of widespread legal sport betting. he acknowledges that states now receive a cut of gambling revenues to build roads, schools, and even fund treatment, like the 1-800-gambler helplines tagging those ads that you see everywhere. and so -- >> i am sympathetic to the need

of our elected officials to balance budgets but what has happened here is they have no recognition or very little recognition of the product the gambling industry and its sports and media partners have rolled out. >> this is you and this is your powerful hunch. paul: he's pointing to the boom in offerings since the ban was lifted proposition bets, wagers on the first player to score a touchdown, the length of the national anthem at the super bowl, whether taylor swift and travis kelce get engaged. >> we have all the sports betting in one place. paul: there's live-betting -- which turns every moment of every game into a betting opportunity, and with ai constantly adjusting the odds. and there are parlays, which string together multiple bets, giving winners potentially sky-high payouts but stacking the deck hugely in favor of the house, a fact that's not advertised.

>> we will get our money back. paul: finally, livestreaming on both legal and offshore sites and featuring influencers like mega-rapper drake, who's paid to play and lure in new players. all the while, the sports books harvest data from users, gaining insight into how to keep customers coming back. >> i like to say at this way. when the first cave person invented the first wheel, there was some schmuck three caves down saying three to one the wheel wouldn't work. gambling's been around a very long time. it's not going anywhere. but this is a fundamentally new, different, defective and dangerous online product. paul: last year, senator richard blumenthal and representative andrea salinas, both democrats, introduced the gambling recovery, investment and treatment act to fund treatment and also research. five states with some form of legal gambling currently offer no funding at all for treatment. and in september, blumenthal joined democratic representative

paul tonko of new york to propose the safe bet act to limit tv ads, restrict the number and the type of bets, ban ai use to track players' habits and create microbets, among other things. >> every other addictive product, the government regulates the advertising, promotion, distribution and consumption. paul: just behind. levant at that hearing in december was the american gaming association's joe maloney. the aga thinks federal regulation not only isn't necessary. it will actually make things worse. >> the advancements in technology are just going to continue to take place. they're just not going to take place in the legal regulated market. >> this is the key to the legal industry's argument, that it's taken the action away from illegal gambling, with its loan sharks, knee-cappers, and unregulated offshore markets that teenagers like rob minnick used. so, for example, in 2022, in texas and california, which haven't legalized sports betting, the aga says players

spent more than $600 million in illegal markets. >> where they're prey to deceptive consumer practices, where there's no promotional -- no promotion of responsibility whatsoever and there's zero taxes being remitted back into the state for the purposes of providing accessible clinical support for those demonstrating problematic activity or any other priority that they might deem those monies to go to. paul: the safe bet act is expected to be reintroduced in this congress although both rob minnick and harry levant agree: the legal gambling genie is now out of the bottle. >> i encourage people to become more aware of what's happening in understand -- happening and understand the risks involved and become part of the conversation to bring public health reform not to prevent people from enjoying gambling but to prevent an industry and its partners from preying on the public. and with that, i wish people who are gambling on the super bowl for recreational reasons, i wish

them well with their bets. enjoy the game. i'm in philadelphia right now. i need to say, go birds. paul: for the uninitiated, those birds would be the eagles, and for you all and the pbs news hour, paul solman in boston. ♪ geoff: as the chinese new year celebration continues this month, we bring you a brief but spectacular take from lawrence chu, the heart and soul behind chef chu's, a beloved dining destination in the bay area for over five decades. amna: known for his culinary artistry and commitment to community, chef chu reflects on the power of food to bring people together. here he is in his own words. >> so many people ask chef chu, will you retire?

are you kidding me? before i came to america, my father told me america is the best country. it's a country where a person can have a dream. with a lot of hard work and a little luck, your dream can become true. i believe that. i came here in 1963 and said wow, this is america. i have been dreaming for years. finally i arrived. i lived in san francisco chinatown. i cannot believe it. every morning, it's like an earthquake when the cable car went through. i love san francisco. i was so looking. the third day i arrived, i was able to find a job at trader vic's. they gave me a busboy job. from that i learned a lot. chef chu opened a restaurant because i met my future wife and

wanted to impress her. i told her i have a dream, to open a chinese restaurant on the corner, and i want you to help me. she said, no, but, if you own another location, i will help you. that's how we started the restaurant. a few months later, i found a location at 1067 north san antonio road, los altos. the idea is serving comfort food for a comfortable price. in a chef chu restaurant, our motto is treat each day like a grand opening day. the difference between chinese cooking, american cooking, french cooking, we often use a wok. everybody talks about it. chef chu, what dish is that?

my father is the one to talk about family values. before you finish dinner, we start talking about what we are going to be. my wife is my inspiratior, motivator. i have a dream but she knows dreams are just dreams and this is america. you have to make your money the old-fashioned way. you have to earn it. now i am 81. i still enjoy doing it. i could never imagine i could reach at this level in my life. the most i am proud of is all of my children respect me. a sense of achievement, accomplishment, above all, authority, authority in chinese cooking, so i'm not going anywhere. i'm waiting for you to come in.

my name is lawrence chu. people call me chef chu and this is my brief but spectacular tape on treating each day like a grand opening day. geoff: we have to go to chef chu 's. and you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. amna: and a news update before we go. president trump said on social media this evening that he will immediately revoke former president bidens security clearance and will end his intelligence briefings. geoff: the ability to receive intelligence briefings after office is a courtesy extended to past presidents for decades. president trump noted a similar action and 2021 when then president biden said there was no need for mr. trump to get briefings, citing his erratic behavior. that is the newshour tonight. i am geoff bennett. amna: and i am amna navaz. on behalf of the entire newshour

team, thank you for joining us and have a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the news hour, including kathy and paul anderson and camilla and george smith, the walton family foundation, working for solutions to protect water so people and nature can thrive together, the william and flora hewlett foundation, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world at, hewlett.org. ♪ and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the news hour.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company". here's what is coming up. from gaza, after trump's shock proposal to take it over, i speak to the united nations' release chief, tom fletcher, but what he is seeing and