♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the "newshour" tonight -- president trump charges ahead with his agenda, reshaping us foreign policy, sending more migrants to guantanamo bay and pushing out more government workers. geoff: while israel's prime

minister is in washington, 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 "newshour" has been provided by -- friends of the newshour, including jim and nancy milner and the robert and virginia schiller foundation. the judy and peter blum kovler foundation, a folding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad.

♪ >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, the world awaits. a world with the flavor. diverse destinations and immersive experiences. a world of leisure and british style. all with cunard's white star service. ♪ >> the john smj zone knight foundation, fostering an and engage communities. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting added by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the "news hour." courts and congress are struggling to keep up with the break-neck pace set by the trump administration, as it dramatically reshapes the american government, national politics, and the international order. geoff: today, 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 desjardins begins our coverage. correspondent: standing next to the prime minister of japan, a question about how president trump used his power. he was as will he fire every fbi agent to investigated the january 6 the salt? pres. trump: no, but i will fire

some of them. correspondent: he clarified he wanted to fire corrupt agents and that could be those involved in january 6 as fbi agent's involved saw a win. the department of justice agreed not to release the list of agents who worked on the case without two days notice. a court case around the list will continue in the meanwhile. that is coming is mr. trump welcomed japanese prime minister ishiba. a world to discuss, north korea, china, tariffs, and the future of u.s. seal -- steel. u.s. steel has struggled as of late. japan's nippon steel wanted to buy it. trump has agreed no sale but today in promised an investment deal is to come. pres. trump: we are doing it as

an investment purchase. correspondent: as he extends ahead to some, trump and efficiency czar elon musk are working to push workers out and chip away at their agencies. workers dismantled the agency side at what was usaid. 300 workers total may be allowed to could -- to continue. pres. trump: we have very smart people going in. go into education, military, other things as we go along, and they are finding massive amounts of fraud, abuse, ways, all of these things. i will pick a target and say go in. correspondent: elsewhere -- democratic members of congress were turned away at another agency where they say they had unanswered questions. >> where is your bill?

where is your budget proposal? correspondent: house minority leader hakeem jeffries and other democrats are stepping up witticism who have not come up with their draft for a critical budget deal, and they say are ignoring funding problems for head start, community health centers and the sudden unraveling of usaid. >> republicans did that, and republicans in congress are doing nothing to stop this chaos. correspondent: but republicans including speaker mike johnson say they are honing in on major legislation, and trump is getting things done. that includes 1500 more active-duty troops the pentagon is sending to the southern border to block new migrants from crossing into the country. also as part of the agenda on immigration, today homeland security 60 kristi noem said she was headed to the guantanamo bay festivities.

the aclu is suing for access to assess their treatment. as republican see a president who turns out action every day his critics turned to courts to slow him down. amna: and we have seen court action in just the past hour or so. a federal judge has blocked the administration's purge effort at usaid, with an order that temporarily protects thousands of workers there. judge carl nichols, a trump appointee, said the ruling will hold while other legal matters involving the agency make their way through the courts. he called it a very limited pause. geoff: we also heard president trump talk about the mandate he has given elon musk. we heard him say elon musk has unearthed fraud and have provided no evidence. correspondent: this was an important moment when trump was asked about these questions. this was public permission by the president that elon musk can

go almost anywhere. president trump specifically mentioned two areas. one, the military, which we had not heard musk trying to access before, and also education. the court has limited elon musk's teams access to treasury but we do not know if the team is following the court order. if you look at musk's post on his ex social media, he is posting examples. he talked about leases of the government is nomogram using for empty space and talks about d.e.i. initiatives, but all of this is being done in the dark. we do not know who is making these decisions, which contracts are problematic and which are not, and a lot of these agencies do not know as well. geoff: let's shift our focus to capitol hill. what is the push stand for major

trump back legislation? correspondent: believe it or not, putting together what might be the most complex and large bill in history turns out is harder than you might predict, so republicans are having a hard time getting out of the starting gate with this massive trump bill. what we know right now is house republicans met at the white house last night to try and figure out their starting point, which is a budget resolution. here is speaker johnson talking to reporters. >> our message to our friends and colleagues in the senate is allow the house to do the work. we are moving this as quickly as possible, but it is close and by tonight we wrap it all up. correspondent: it is a day later and we do not have the budget resolution. they have missed their initial deadline at least. geoff: what are republicans trying to accomplish? correspondent: it is big, an ambitious agenda. at the top of the list they want

to extend the tax cuts passe din -- passed in the first room term but expend the tax cuts. at the same time i went to cut the deficit, both of which are hard to do together, and significant border and homeland security measures. a lot of money involved and making all of that fit into a package that reduces the deficit, the methods hard. geoff: what determines whether republican wins -- republicans can get that done? correspondent: they want one giant bill in it. the senate says no. the house on that side you see speakers johnson and jason smith. opposing them are senate majority leader john thune and lindsey graham, the chairman of the budget committee, both of them, they could not get it

together. the senate went ahead and moved its budget solution, which is something that trump has not rained in on -- reigned in on. they are not making a decision. one problem for republicans as they cannot even figure out which direction they want to go to get to this ultimate goal. geoff: you have such a way of simplifying all of the confusing stuff. we are grateful for your insights and your reporting. ♪ stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with newshour west. here are the latest headlines. deadly storms are sweeping across the united states from one coast to the other. in california, floodwaters inundated roads -- killing at least 2 people in sonoma county, where heavy rains triggered landslides and destroyed homes. in tennessee, a possible tornado ripped through the eastern part

of the state late last night. officials confirmed 2 lives were claimed in that storm. >> 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. stephanie: in the pacific northwest, more peaceful scenes, snow blanketed the dense forests of southern oregon. that winter weather is headed east. a small commuter plane crashed in western alaska today, leaving all 10 people aboard dead. radar forensic data indicated the aircraft had an event that caused a rapid loss in elevation and speed. the bering air single engine plane was on its way to nome, alaska before the crash. the alaskan legislature is asking president trump to retain the name of denali for north america's tallest peak. during his first day in office, the president declared he was bringing back the name mt.

mckinley. the republican controlled state senate voted 19-to-zero on the resolution, weeks after the house passed a similar measure. denali, meaning the high one, is the name given by athabascan tribal members, who have lived in the region for centuries. 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 un 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 khartoum, and in omdurman, sudan's second-largest city. the un 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. 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 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 licence at all. it's about banning certain types of semi-automatic 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. stephanie: police are 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. 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. president trump is taking over the board of an iconic american cultural institution, the kennedy center. in a social media post late this evening, the president said he was terminating multiple members of the board of trustees and installing himself as chairman. presidents appoint members for 6 year terms to the board. the current chairman is financier and philanthropist david rubenstein, also a donor to pbs. 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 news hour from the david rubenstein studio at weta in washington, d.c. and from the west at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: president trump said today that he's in no rush to do anything in gaza. earlier this week he talked about the need for palestinians to leave gaza, calling it a demolition zone, and for the us to take over the area and develop it. 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 with the latest. stephanie: half a million families streaming back to their homes in gaza on foot, on

piggyback, children in tow. for more than one year their home, a battleground in the israel-hamas war. they survived while many did not come up their apartments, their businesses, everythng that makes a community are in ruins. i've minutes of the destruction it rescue workers and families dig trying to locate the remains of loved ones. bones are taken to the local morgue in the hopes that they can be identified in the future. 2 million gazans are displaced while winter's that are elements be done upon them and temperatures drop. this chan hao-ching her and her children collapsed in the strong wind. >> something like an earthquake occurred and the wood collapsed on us. i have two children in the hospital. one of them have stitches and the other one was injured by

this iron rod. we are dying. we have no food. look at the tent. i do not have money to buy them food. i was living decently and comfortably in the north. who can i turn to now? stephanie: nearly 91% of gazans are projected to suffer from acute food insecurity. according to you an estimate 60,000 children will need treatment for acute nutrition in 2025. gaza's residents along relied on food assistance. prior to the war that the u.n. was providing 500 trucks a day. during the war those deliveries became scarce and sporadic. to make matters worse armed looters have targeted a drugs in hundreds of cases, further

threatening the survival of civilians. in one desperate scene idf shooters -- soldiers began shooting into a crowd waiting for aid to be dispersed. since the cease-fire began thousands of trucks with food, medicine, and tents have arrived in gaza, but the future may light in the hands of politicians and diplomats far away. mike johnson and benjamin netanyahu metta washington, d.c. today days after president trump proposed to relocate all gazans in jordan and egypt, a proposal that johnson backed as a logical move. the plan as a bit rightly rejected by those country's leaders and the palestinians themselves who want to stay in their homeland, shattered as it is. geoff: one of key agencies overseeing the provision of aid into gaza is the un office for

the coordination of humanitarian affairs. earlier today i spoke with its leader tom fletcher, who was in gaza earlier today and joined us from jerusalem. you were in gaza earlier today. what did you witness especially in areas harder to reach because of the fighting. >> i came into the north, which is the area worst affected by conflict, and it is decimated. you cannot tell what was a house, a school, hospital, and you see civilians picking through the wreckage, and it takes them time to even find where their homes were because everything has been flattened, so it is grim. they are heading home and trying to rebuild. geoff: parts of northern gaza are on the brink of famine? >> two weeks ago we were very

worried about starvation and famine. we have 2.5 weeks of trucks, convoys, 14,000 trucks have gone in in that time. the risk is receding of famine. we got food to one million people come up the needs are still massive. the biggest thing right now are tents, shelter, because a lot of people are trying to head back to where their homes were and winter is here. geoff: what challenges remain when it comes to distributing that aid given the sheer scale of desperation and need? >> is the scale that is so significant, so massive. i have been in sudan recently, the ukrainian frontlines, syria, and nothing much is what we are trying to do in gaza right now. the good news is sent to the

cease fire, it has become easier to shift and 600, 700 trucks every day, and equipment, so the biggest need we have right now is hold that cease fire. every day cease fire last we are saving lives. geoff: israel has passed a law banning unrwa from operating in gaza. is that organization disturbing aid? >> it is the largest of organizations and is indispensable. particularly the education and health sectors where it takes the lead, and no other human agency, no other organization can step in and deliver education at that scale. others are operating in jordan, lebanon, and those operations

are continuing unimpeded. geoff: president trump is in the process of following out usaid. what might be the effect? >> the u.s. has been incredible generous, a humanitarian superpower. it is let the world and half of the humanitarian campaigns. americans are right to ask us to be more efficient and innovative to make sure more of that aid reaches the people who needed so badly, but without that support, and i hope this is 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 also the american people. geoff: how are gazans and regional stakeholders responding to president trump's idea for the u.s. to take ownership of gaza for its reconstruction.

he suggested because it should be emptied of its population. >> most are searching through rubble for their family members, so that is what they are thinking about. everyone mentioned it to me, and what they all say is firstly tell our story. get the media in. the second thing they say is someone should ask us. no one has consulted them of this plan, and they are the ones being threatened with this movement, with being displaced once again, and the third thing they say is this is the land that we were born in. each of the homes that our parents and grandparents built. they are going back. there is a defiance there. they are determined to survive on their own land. geoff: a defiance and a determination. thank you for joining us this

evening. ♪ amna: today's jobs report not only showed the pace of hiring slowed slightly in january -- adding 143,000 jobs. it also revised down jobs numbers between april 2023 and march of 2024 by nearly 600,000, the largest annual revision in 15 years. to help us make sense of it all, we're joined now by austan goolsbee, president and ceo of the federal reserve bank of chicago. welcome back to the news hour. >> thank you for having me. amna: 143,000 jobs added, a bit lower than expected. we sought unemployment ticked down to 4%. wages rose. what do all of these numbers think about where we are? >> there are a lot of numbers and you want to be careful over

indexing on one a month. it was 150,000 plus or -100,000. most measures of the job market have been pretty solid, and they are largely saying the economy as settled in at something like full employment. always in january you have these big revisions, and this was the biggest revision in some time looking back on the previous year, but we have had a lot of variability. last month's number got a revised way up, so we will have to look for the through-line and not overreact to one month. amna: the big revisions down, there are technical reasons, but does it say to get that maybe the economy has been growing much more slowly than we previously thought? >> i don't think so, because as i said we have a lot of measures

of the job market, the unemployment rate, the number of jobs. we can look at the ratio of how many job vacancies there are two how many unemployed workers there are. hiring rates, quit rates, or their layoffs, and by taking the totality of those measures, it looks to pretty much be a stable arrangement. that said, i do think we had the experience over the years because of the recovery had he been so much different coming out of covid than previous recoveries. a lot of the adjustments that bureau of labor statistics has to do when it comes up with the numbers, as they got the real didn't they lead to bigger revisions than they normally had. amna: obviously you and your colleagues at the fed watch this closely. you are a voting member. we have seen inflation trending

down. it has not hit the 2% target, and we believe the next decision could be on march 19, so as of today where are you on the possibility of a rate cut? >> well, i said in the summer that i thought where we were going to end up in the relatively near future, 1 to 1.5 years is the race would come down because the economy was looking solid, the job market had settled in about where we thought it would settle, inflation it was coming down to 2%. and then we cut a full percentage point off of rates, and now if we slow the pace of how fast the rate cuts come, that would make sense to me, because we are getting closer to the stopping point, but i still think if you take the through-line and we can get

around some of these policy uncertainties, i think we are over the next year to year and a half that rates would be trending down. amna: likely no rate cut ahead on the next decision day? >> i do not like tying our hands when we 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 the spot where we need to figure out and feel our way toward what in our language we call neutral. get to make sense to slow down how rapidly you are doing that, because monetary policy's impact on the economy comes with a lag. you cannot just jam it in covid is right. amna: i have a little over a minute, but there are a lot of

new proposals and policies we have seen from this administration on things that can impact the work force or trade in dramatic ways when you look at deportations ramping up, potential crackdown, tariffs on major trading partners. how are you looking at those and you see any of those is potentially inflationary? >> some of those could clearly be inflationary. you have others, to regulations. we have had a high productivity growth rate. some of them that would be dis-inflationary, my view has been we want to get a through-line, and this is adding dust in the air and making it harder to see, so at the point where we get to resolving some of these policy uncertainties that might muddy our index of if

you see inflation progress telling or going up, is that because the economy is overheating, or is that because of some of these policy things that might just be temporary? that would be a tough spot for the fed to disentangle. that just emphasizes slowing down the pace at which it is going even more. amna: austan goolsbee, good to speak with you. >> 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 is washington post associate editor jonathan capehart and mathew continetti with the american enterprise institute. david brooks is away. donald and his allies are making quick progress of their city goal of the deconstruction of the administrative state. we have takeovers in the hollowing out of major government agencies, offering severance agreements, pausing edible grants and loans. are those shock waves 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? >> both. donald trump campaigned, he told us what this is what he was going to do. project 2025 is all about doing what is happening right now, so

they are trying to deconstruct as steve bannon said the administrative state, and as i said last week, president trump and elon musk are taking a wrecking ball to the federal government by sowing chaos and confusion and fear, but he is following through on what he promised to do. geoff: how do you see it? >> i think jonathan is right. this was a promise he made to, promise kept. what is important to understand about trump is he wants to deliver results. trump always feels the political class that preceded him talk to victim but never accomplish anything. we had ronald reagan, al gore reinventing government, commissions dealing with taxes during the obama errors. here he is. elon musk says he wants to treat

the federal government like a new acquisition. donald trump says go for it and let see what happens. geoff: where are the guardrails? who was going to stop any of this. democrats in congress do not have any power and republicans in congress are moving in lockstep. at the courts cannot keep up with the velocity of the trump administration. is there any guard against his instinct to claim and wield expensive power? >> here is the thing. right now the courts are the only guard rail, and people need to understand that the courts operate on a timetable that is completely different than the rest of us, and we have to appreciate that. the fact that citizens and lawmakers and organizations have gone to court to stop president trump on a host of things from birthright citizenship to the buy out plans, that is right now

the court of last resort. in the old days, it used to be that congress would be the backstop, would you be the entity, the legislative branch is standing up for its prerogatives and saying, mr. president, no, we are the ones who decide what agencies come and go. we are the one to decide what the budget will be, but instead the maga republicans were there in congress 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 fed congress up in arms. geoff: how do you view congress abdicating their role? >> this process of ceding power

to the executive is decades in the making. congress is really no an investigative body. you see the results when you have from come in in his second term wanting to leave a profoundly change government in his wake when he departed to the oval office, and you see because of acts of congress, congress's own denial of its role the president has enormous power to wield. when president obama said he had a pen and a phone. joe biden tried to cancel student debt through executive order. one reason why washington is stunned as you have an outsider in elon musk punching the delete button on some of these programs. geoff: that is what i've heard from republicans that democrats cannot in good faith criticize donald trump when joe biden tried to unilaterally without

congress waive $400 billion, and went the supreme court shrugged and said you cannot do that he tried a piecemeal approach. >> this is like trying to compare apples and cannonballs. what we are seeing coming from the trump administration is executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government, and what makes this all the more terrifying for a lot of people is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone who was elected to no office, to someone who was not confirmed by the senate. he is accountable to no one except maybe president trump, and president trump has already said he will only do things we want him to do. so far elon musk is doing everything donald trump wants him to do.

you have an unelected person who also happens to be the wealthiest 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 that the people on that huge platform receive. that is what is so dangerous about what is happening now. as for trying to compare president biden's executive order on student loans and what donald trump is doing, donald trump is destroying. president biden signed an executive order and push the limits of executive action, but to the benefit of people who were drowning in student that -- debt. he did to help people, the american people depend on for a whole host of things. geoff: let's shift our focus back to elon musk.

here is how president trump responded to a reporter's question about whether she gave elon musk any redlines? >> is there anything you have told elon, he cannot touch? pres. trump: well we haven't 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: it would appear that elon musk has a fairly broad mandate in that it is not spelled out at all. >> i think president trump is told elon musk let's change the government. let's slim it down. let's dramatically reduce the federal workforce, and if you need to go fast and break things, that is fine. if elon musk were the health care czar for the energy czar

coming up with the big plans there would be a lot less uproar in washington d.c. he has the goal of changing the federal government and limiting it at a time when we have record deficits and debt that is angering people invested in the current system. geoff: i went to turn to the soup and questioned about the path for democrats moving forward. the democrat's issue is not rooted in policy. it is rooted in perception. tell us more about that and whether ken martin can effectively change that. >> the perception of the democratic party is it is filled with elites who only care about niche issues and only -- don't care about the rest of us. perception is reality. i was one of the three anchors who most of the last four on --

forum, and there were things that happen to put this question in high relief. it was a question asking to a commitment for dedicated seats for transgender folks within the party and the 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 i'm a and what it was good about those two moments were instructive, a friend of pbs newshour was the only person on stage who did not raise his hand on the transgender question. he said i do not think we should be dividing people of my identity. we should focus on people who

are up for the mission and have them bring their identity to the table. with the protesters jason paul said this is the way people view the democratic party, and that is our problem. the policy is not the problem. democrats have policies that address american people's issues. it is the perception. geoff: thank you again for being with us. we appreciate it. ♪ 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 that nearly $1.4

billion dollars 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. correspondent: 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? correspondent: 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 percent from 2023. >> 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. correspondent: 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 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. correspondent: 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. correspondent: after six years of betting he joined gamblers anonymous, eventually kicking his habit two years ago. >> i was so far into debt. correspondent: and now hosting a podcast, “one day at a time gambling awareness,” talking to people like himself, about their struggles. >> i started sports gambling

when i was 19. >> i'm going to 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 doors opened up and people started pulling you through those doors. >> who were we betting on? correspondent: with the ads and come ons that now buffet us all of course, gambling addiction is nothing new, but understanding how big the problem is difficult as there's no comprehensive national data. the national council on problem gambling estimates that around 1 -- about two and a half million americans, meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem, while another two to three percent have a mild or moderate problem. and 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 placed my last bet on april

27, 2014, and on that same night, nearly took my own life. correspondent: former lawyer harry levant, disbarred for stealing some two million dollars 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 the gambling is an addictive product similar to heroin, opioids, tobacco, alcohol, and cocaine. correspondent: 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. >> i'm 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. correspondent: 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. there's live-betting -- which turns every moment of every game into a betting opportunity, 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 take it 19 again. correspondent: finally, live streaming -- 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 would like to see if 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. correspondent: 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, government regulates the advertising, promotion, distribution, and something -- consumption. correspondent: sitting just behind harry levant at that senate hearing in december was the american gaming association's joe maloney. the a.g.a. 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. correspondent: 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 continue to use. in 2022, in texas and california which haven't legalized sports betting the aga says players spent more than 600 million dollars in illegal markets. >> where they're prey to deceptive consumer practices, where there's no promotional 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. correspondent: 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. >> we encourage people to become more aware of what is happening and understand there are serious 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. correspondent: 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 when he will retire? would you slow down? are you kidding me? before we came to america my father told me america is the best country. it is a country where a person

can have a dream, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck your dream can come true. i came here in 1963 and said this is america. i have been dreaming for years. i live in san francisco, chinatown. i cannot believe it. every morning i can feel it is like an earthquake where the cable car went through. i love san francisco. the third day i arrived in san francisco i was able to find a job. the chef opened in 1960. i told her, my future wife, i have a dream. i want to open a chinese restaurant at the big corner.

how about when location, i will help you? a few months later i found a location at 1067 los altos. the idea is serving food at a good price. our motto is share each day like a grand opening day. the difference between chinese cooking and american cooking, we use a wok. everybody talk about, chef chu, what dish is it? my father is the role model for me. he is the one that talked about family values. before you finish a dinner, we start talking about next sunday what we will eat.

my wife is my inspiration, my motivator. she knows what is really right. i have a dream, but she knows a dream is just a dream and this is america. you have to make your money, but you have to earn it. now today i am 81 and i still enjoy doing it. i never imagined i could reach this level in my life. the most i thought was all of my children respect me. have a sense of achievement, a sense of accompaniment, but most of all a sense of authority, authority in chinese cooking. i am not going anywhere. my name is lawrence chu. people call me chef chu. geoff: we have got to go.

you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. amna: a news update before we go , president trump said unsocial me to get this evening that he will immediately revoke president biden's 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. mr. trump noted a similar action in 2021, when president biden said there was no need for mr. trump to get briefings, citing his "erratic" behavior. and that is the newshour for tonight. i am geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs "newshour" has been provided by -- the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour

including kathy and paul anderson. the walton family foundation, working for solutions to protect more during climate change. the william and flora hewitt foundation, advancing ideas and promoting institutions for a better world. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individualists and institutions. ♪ and friends of the newshour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting at a by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

thank you. ♪ >> this is pbs news hour west from the david rubenstein studio at weta in washington d.c. and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state diversity

jeffrey: elon musk, the unelected, unconfirmed, unofficial but extremely powerful prime minister of the united states is wearing out his land -- is carrying out hihis pn to purge employees from the federal government even as donald trump identifies new assignments for federal