PBS NewsHour : KQED : November 24, 2023 3:00pm-4:00pm PST : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive (2024)

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. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. nick: good evening. i'm nick schifrin. geoff bennett and amna nawaz are away. tonight on the newshour, finally free. the first set of israeli and foreign hostages and palestinian prisoners are released during a four-day pause. >> i emphasize to you, the families, and to you, the citizens of israel, we are committed to the return of all our hostages. this is one of the goals of the war. nick: then, parents of young athletes who suffered repeated head injuries speak out about the risks they wish they had known earlier.

and it's friday. jonathan capehart and eliana johnson weigh in on the week's headlines. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. >> it was like an aha moment. this is what i love doing. early stage companies have this energy that energizes me. these are people who are trying to change the world. when i volunteer with women entrepreneurs, it is the same thing. i am helping people reach their dreams. i am driving by helping others every day. people who know, know bdo.

♪ the james s. and james l. knight foundation, fostering engaged communities. more at kf.org. ♪ 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, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. nick: welcome to the newshour. seven weeks of captivity, seven weeks of worry for the families of some hostages is now over.

today, hamas released some kidnapped in the october 7 terrorist attack. in exchange, seven weeks of war in gaza is on pause. israel silenced the guns and allowed more humanitarian aid to reach gaza. the hostages range from four to 85 years old. tonight, they are receiving medical care surrounded by their families. tonight, the sounds of freedom. horns and rousing cheers. the first red cross trucks carrying released hostages arrived at the rafah crossing. women and children loaded into buses that crossed into israel to be reunited with their families after 49 days of the captivity. among the released, a mother to three, great-grandmother to seven. on october 7, she was abducted and paraded through gaza city. her oldest grandson is still a hostage.

also released, a family. the osher family seen here being kidnapped. and danielle and her five-year-old daughter. there are so many released children, the hospital's receiving them are trying to create an atmosphere that feels like home. prime minister benjamin netanyahu welcomed the release and said it was just the beginning. >> each and every one of them is a whole world. i emphasize to you the families, and you come of the citizens of israel, we are committed to the return of all of our hostages. this is one of the goals of the war and we are committed to achieving all of the goals of the war. nick: president biden welcomed the news from nantucket. pres. biden: we will not stop until we get these hostages brought home, and an answer to their whereabouts. i remain in personal contact with the leaders of cutter,

egypt, and israel, to make sure it stays on track. nick: part of the deal was the release of 10 thai and one european worker --filipino worker, and three palestinians imprisoned in the west bank. 150 will eventually be freed. israel security forces used tear gas to disperse those waiting to see the exchange, but some finished their long wait at home. his daughter had been jailed in israel for eight years. when the october some of the tax took place, she was moved into solitary confinement. >> these are tears of joy. do you know what it means that mara has not been with us for eight years? i have been trying to cry for a month now and was not able to. nick: they pledged to respect the deal as long as it remained neutral. >> as long as the enemy commits

to implementing it. nick: israel 's part of that today, the sun rose for the first time without the drones buzzing overhead or airstrikes hammering the ground. many displaced palestinians hope to return to their homes. >> i am now very happy. i feel at ease. i am going back to my home. our hearts are rested, especially that there is a four-day official cease-fire. i am very tired of sitting there w without food and water. nick: the idf today delivered a clear warning in arabic to gazans displaced in the south. don't go north. and israeli troops enforced that morning by opening fire on palestinians trying to move north. tanks also guarded the evacuation route. the final condition of today's deal, more humanitarian aid. egypt sent tens of thousands of gallons of fuel and 200 aid

trucks into gaza each day as the troops hold. but the u.n. warned that is a fraction of what is needed. >> we hope the agreement between israel and hamas will bring respite to the people of gaza and israel, and some relief to the hostages and detainees who will be released, and to their families. we hope it allows grieving families to honor their dead and buried them with dignity, and we hope that this humanitarian pause leads to a longer-term humanitarian cease-fire for the benefit of the people of gaza, israel, and beyond. nick: the hostages who were released face immense mental, and for some, physical, trauma. earlier today, i spoke with professor hagai levine, the head of the medical and resilience team for the hostages and missing families forum, as he is part of the team meeting with hostages who are free. professor, let me begin by

asking you, how are they doing? >> we know for some of the hostages that were released today, two women already arrived here. some of them spoke with the families and i know from one of the families that their grandmother sounds well over the phone. and we have seen some pictures of them walking, which is encouraging. however, the recovery process is going to be long. they will be needing not only mental and physical support, but also to be examined to rule out any specific medical problems. for some of them, i know their medical profile. i know they have severe chronic illnesses that probably were not properly treated. so, they still need to be examined, and over 200 innocent people still being held by hamas, and they are not receiving the proper medical care and psychological care for recovery.

tonight, we really hope that this week all of them will be either released, or at the very least, be able to examine them. nick: how are you approaching the treatment overall as different groups of hostages are going to different hospitals? >> the principles of the care should be personal, professional, and patient. in any case, it is better to be separate at several hospitals. so i know at one hospital they are preparing for the release of people that came from thailand and the philippines. the food that is needed, the family members of some of them are there to treat them with cultural treatment for them. and here, mainly for elderly women, so the team was prepared to give them the care they needed. nick: these are people who have

been presumably kept undergound in tunnels and in very difficult conditions. what do they need mentally to begin to understand the trauma they have been through, and begin to recover from it? >> so we need to help them to get that control over their lives. they were very afraid over the last seven weeks. it started with a surprise, with the october 7 massacre. they will have seen some murdered or their houses burned. they don't know the atrocities that have been. we need to see how we deliver the bad news to them. and they did not have any control of their life. now, we need to help them to be active again, to become humans again, by making the choices, but it will be step-by-step. we need to help them gain back trust in humanity because to have this kind of experience is

very difficult for anyone. that is why the family members are so important to feel the supports for people they know well. fortunately for some of them -- unfortunately for some of them, family members are still captive in gaza or murdered. i want to look at the positive side. several weeks ago, i was amazed by their resilience and ability to recover. i hope we will see similar things with the help of the medical teams and dislike -- and a psychologists. they will be able to recover as much as possible and as quickly as possible. again, unfortunately for those who are still captive, they cannot even start the recovery process. nick: do they also need a specific environment? open spaces, green, that they presumably have not seen for seven weeks? >> well, yes.

they have been underground, did not see the sunlight, did not have a place to do some physical activity, did not have the social encounters they needed. maybe some of them missed the most their pets. that is why pets were allowed to be brought to the hospital. each one of them will have to choose what is the most appropriate place for them. i must tell you, our colleagues all around the world with the amazing support we get from people all around the world, it is very encouraging for the families and now for the hostages. i am sure they realize so many people in the world care about them and want them to be healthy and well. that is very helpful for the recovery. nick: as you have said, you have met recently with hostages who were released in previous rounds. what advice did they give you in order to try to help those who are being released today? >> the first advice was to keep away from the journalists, the media.

that is actually what they told me, because again, they want to tell their story but it is difficult for them to be in a crowded place. they are sensitive. of course, they may need am an entity. they became famous all around the world. politicians and others cannot try to come take photos with them because they want just to come back to their normal life. nick: dr. hagai levine, thank you very much. 12 of the 13 israeli hostages released from gaza today were kidnapped from one kibbutz, nir oz. one out of four of nir oz's residents were kidnapped or killed. 79-year-old chaim peri was kidnapped from there. he remains a hostage. his daughter, noam perry, joins us now. thank you very much. welcome to the newshour again. how are you feeling today?

your father remaining in captivity, but so many of these people from nir oz freed. >> it's a day of mixed feelings. i am thrilled with everyone i see. i think for most of those people, we've been waiting to see them. i'm sure the families are waiting for them just in those very moments that that we talk. but obviously, we still wait and worry very much about my father. he was not included in this deal, and many others as well. nick: have you been able to talk with any of the families whose family members have been released today? >> not yet. we have been texting together, the families, this whole very tense day and wishing them the

best and wishing to see their family members. so, you know, we were waiting now for hours. nick: we can only imagine what you're all going through. about a month ago, we had you on the show. you were talking to my colleague amna nawaz, and you said that you had received a sign of life of your father from a hostage who had just been released. have you received any new updates about your father's condition since then? >> so, no, since then we had no signal and no sign of life. and it has been very, very long, seven weeks now since my father was kidnapped from his home. and it's very hard to think about him. how he survives this seven weeks?

50 days. i don't know. it's very hard to think about it. nick: do you have faith? do you have a sense perhaps that he's ok in there? >> definitely. i have faith. i hope and i know he is a strong man mentally. he's a brave man. but he's also not gonna get any younger. he's going to celebrate his 80th birthday in april. he suffers from a heart disease and has undergone two surgeries. he is dependent on medications. two days ago, some reporters have been taken down the tunnel underground, under the shifa hospital in gaza. and these reporters were, i think probably most of them men of 30 or 40 years old.

and they have reported that after an hour, one hour in those tunnels, it was hard to breathe and the conditions were terrible. i'm thinking, how how can an 80-year-old man survive there for seven weeks? nick: over the next three to four days, about 50 women and children are scheduled to be released. there's a formula after that for one day of pause, another 10 women and children to be released. do you have faith that after that, this ceasefire will hold and your father will indeed be on the list? >> i'm crossing my fingers every would hold. and we will see every day people coming out of there, people that shouldn't have been there from

the beginning and definitely should not be here for even one more day. and yes, i hope this will happen and we will see all children, women come out. and then, obviously, i'm hoping that we will see my father and the other elderly like him going out of there, and we will not rest for a moment until this happens. nick: some israeli officials oppose this pause because hamas, of course, will use it to regroup, restrengthen, perhaps. what do you say to that argument? >> i say, i think this is one of our strengths as a society that we put lives in the first place. there is no other priority at the same place. and some, i think that our

enemies think it's a weakness, but it's not. it's a strength. it's a strength of society. and i think that the voices that talk against it are minority. nick: noam perry, joining us from israel tonight. thank you very much. >> thank you. nick: today's deal between israel and hamas was mediated by qatar, and i'm now joined by dr. majed bin mohammed al ansari, advisor to the prime minister of qatar and official spokesperson for the qatari foreign ministry. thank you very much. has this day gone as smoothly as you hoped it would? >> thank you for having me. of course, it is always a difficult and very frustrating operation when you are working on such difficult confines. but i can gladly say that all we wanted to accomplish today was done. the people who were supposed to be reunited with their families

are now all in a safe place, and that is what makes it all worth it. nick: the steps we saw today, the israelis released by hamas and brought into israel, the prisoners that israel has released and sent back to their families on the west bank, are those steps you have confirmed can happen again tomorrow, and have the lists been confirmed already? >> we are working on that right now. it is a very difficult process, very delicate process. it includes a lot of moving parts on the ground. i can confirm at this moment that we have shared the lists on both sides. but we believe both sides are committed to the humanitarian pause and to the process which we agreed upon. we are hopeful that we will see the same results we saw today. nick: any word on any americans that might be released? >> i can't share any details on that right now. we are working day today.

-- day to day. that is how it works. we don't have the lists for tomorrow. but i can tell you there is a commitment on both sides. nick: as you mentioned, hamas was not able to even deliver a list of the 90 to 100 or so women and children we believe to be hostage inside gaza. american officials say there are other groups. what does that mean? is it possible to even get these 90 to 100 women and children out? >> of course, it is a war zone. when there is a conflict of such magnitude, moving on the ground, getting information on the ground is difficult in all respects. we hope that through that period of calm, it will allow people on the ground to collect information and provide that information. nick: some of your israeli and american critics call you both

the firefighter and the arsonist. they thank you for your help this week, but they say you are hosting hamas' leadership and delivering money to gaza, which gives hamas political stature, and frankly the money that hamas used to build a terrorist infrastructure. what do you say to those critics? >> we have taken a lot of heat and there is a lot of disinformation that is knowingly misleading by people who want to sabotage the mediation effort. we have been working on mediation since 2006. it is not a new occurrence. this is known by both parties that all the aid going into gaza was going through israel, through israeli companies, and through the israeli crossing. any accusation against my country that we were aiding hamas, the same accusation should be held to the israelis who were part of this aid process. obviously that doesn't make any

sense. we were doing this as part of an agreement between israel, us, and the palestinian authority to make sure that life is sustainable, that there is hope for the people, and we can de-escalate and be an active mediator. this will not deter us from playing our role as a mediator on this. regardless of how much we will take as heat on this, this is something we believe in. we think it is our mandate as a country. no matter how difficult the discussions are, we will keep having it. nick: dr. majed bin mohammed al ansari, thank you very much, sir. >> thank you. nick: in the day's other headlines, a wave of walkouts across europe hit amazon on this

black friday. one of the biggest shopping days of the air. earlier today, more than 1000 amazon workers in britain joined the job action. it is part of a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions. >> in the protest here, we've got people joining us from germany, from the u.s., from italy. there are also spanish workers that are out on strike today. this is now a global wake-up call for amazon. they can't keep ignoring the concerns of these workers and the workers in warehouses right across the world. nick: organizers said the amazon strikes are planned to last through cyber monday. meanwhile in washington state, more than 400 macy's employees walked off the job today at selected stores over safety concerns and pay demands. they're expected to return to work before monday. in the russia-ukraine war, fighting escalated in key areas as both sides try to make gains before the worst of winter sets in. russian forces in occupied crimea claimed they shot down dozens of ukrainian drones overnight. and ukraine's military said it blunted heavy new assaults on

avdiivka, north of donetsk. russians have been trying to capture it for two months. a tense calm has returned today in dublin, ireland, after anti-immigrant rioting. it began thursday when three children were stabbed outside a school. police arrested a suspect, who's still unidentified, but rumors spread that he was a foreigner. with that, far-right protesters stormed the streets, burning buses, battling police, and looting stores. officers arrested 34 people, and today, the prime minister condemned the violence. >> yesterday, we experienced two terrible attacks. the first was an attack on innocent children. the second, an attack on our society and the rule of law. i want to say to a nation that is unsettled and afraid, this is not who we are, this is not who we want to be. nick: the violence came amid rising tensions over asylum-seekers in ireland, as elsewhere in europe. the double-amputee olympic runner oscar pistorius was

granted parole today in south africa. he fatally shot his girlfriend in his apartment 10 years ago, at the height of his worldwide fame. pistorius said he thought an intruder had broken in, but he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 13 years in prison. he is scheduled to be released on january 5. and on wall street, trading was shortened to a half-day for the holiday weekend. the dow jones industrial average gained 117 points to close at 35,390. the nasdaq fell 15 points. the s&p 500 added two points. still to come on the newshour, residents of lewiston, maine, reflect on how a mass shooting changed their community. jonathan capehart and eliana johnson on u.s. support for israel and ukraine. plus, much more. >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. nick: for years, researchers

have studied the effects repeated blows to the head have on athletes in pro football, hockey, soccer, and other sports. now, as john yang tells us, they're turning their attention to players who start as early as gradschool. john: researchers at boston university are conducting the first major study of cte, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, in athletes who died before their 30th birthday. cte is the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head. researchers recently released findings based on the study of the brains of 152 athletes, 63 of them, more than 40%, had cte. 48 of them played football, most of them no higher than high school or college. some started playing tackle football when they were as young as six. the main sports for others in the study included hockey, soccer, and wrestling. some of the parents of these young athletes told the new york times about the changes they saw in their children. >> his whole person started to change.

>> it was an abrupt change. >> he just was -- he was a different person. >> he wasn't the same kid. >> he became unrecognizable. >> just a fragment of himself. >> and we couldn't figure it out. >> and unfortunately, we couldn't recognize possibly what was happening with him until it was too late. john: that video was part of an interactive story in the new york times website. times reporter john branch worked on the project. john, we heard those parents talk about these changes that they saw, this unrecognizable children. did any of them make the connection to football? >> yeah, most of them did not. and that's not uncommon. i think it's because they're so young that they weren't assuming that that was the cause of their problems. these kids were 18, 19, maybe into their early 20's. and so, kids are going through a lot of changes at that time anyway. so, they wondered if they were just typical changes that we see or if the kids are now using drugs or alcohol, maybe even just running in with the wrong crowd. they couldn't make sense of it, unfortunately, really until it

was too late. john: and not only could the parents not make sense of it, some of the athletes couldn't make sense of it. >> yeah, that's right. one of the clips i believe you played was the bramwell family, and wyatt bramwell did not tell anybody this until he recorded a video before his suicide, in which he said that he had heard voices in his head, the demons in his head, that his life had been a living hell because of what he assumed were the concussions that he had absorbed over several years of youth and high school football. john: cte, of course, can't be diagnosed until after death. they can examine the brain after death. these parents sent, donated their children's brains for research because they were seeking answers. what was their reaction when they got the confirmation that, yes, their children, their child had cte? >> yeah, i think the reactions are really mixed, of course. i think there's a little bit of horror and regret. they think, oh my gosh, what have i done to my child? what did i do to my child? what could we have done

differently to prevent this? you know, for the most part, they're the ones who send their kids into football. some of them coach their kids in football. phat tells them that all the things they thought they were doing right for their kids may have actually been one of the causes of death for their kids. also, when they get the diagnosis, there is a strange bit of relief because of all the answers they could not quite get or find. they were searching for them with doctors or therapists. now they know that there is a scientific explanation, at least in their minds, of what happened to their children. john: you talk about how what they could have done differently. you also asked the parents if knowing what they know now, they would have still had their child or let their child play football. the first couple we're going to hear from are the parents of hunter foraker, who played at dartmouth and died when he was 25. >> if we had the knowledge

today, hunter would have never played football, period. if i have a grandson, he will not play football. it's not worth the risk. >> when i drive by a football field and see these young kids in helmets and pads, it just -- it just breaks my heart. >> delaying the onset of contact is what i would have championed. and i still love football. we still have a son that plays football. >> does it hurt that i lost my son 100%? -- does it hurt that i lost my son? 100%, it does. but if you were to ask me today how i feel, you know, like i said, i have grandsons now that love football and are playing contact football before high school. i would be willing to say that i would do it again. john: that last couple, we

should note, is the parents of meiko locksley and his father. -- his father michael locksley is the head football coach at the university of maryland. interesting division there. some saying, i would never have let my child play football. others saying, my grandchildren are playing tackle football. what do you make of that? >> yeah, michael locksley is a fascinating case because he coaches football. he coaches 100 or more young men to play this game, knowing that his son had cte. and to michael and to many of the others, it's a strange calculation, an impossible calculation between risk and reward. while many of us might say, oh, of course, we would never let our kids play football knowing that they might end up with cte , families, even these families are a little bit more torn than that, because they wonder or they look at all the rewards that football can offer, you know, the things like the camaraderie, the physical fitness, the sense of community, especially in small towns in america. they don't want their kids to be ostracized in certain places for not playing football or not being part of it and love the game.

and so, they're trying to balance those kinds of rewards for the risk. and the tricky thing with cte is we don't know exactly what the risks are. we don't know if a child who plays high school football has a 1 in 100 chance of developing cte, or is it 1 in 20, or is it 1 in 10? to some, no matter what the risk is, that's too much. but to others, they're trying to figure out where that lies and what's best for their own children. john: do you think this is going to lead to changes in youth football, or is the sort of the cultural pull of football in america just too great? >> yeah, it's an interesting question. i think at least having the conversation, and i think there's a push more and more for having these conversations about whether children, especially before high school, should play tackle football. the researchers behind this believe that there is a correlation between the number of years that somebody plays tackle football and the likelihood of them getting cte. and most kids never go on to college, and certainly not on to the pros. they would like to see that number limited by at least not

how many people play or kids play tackle football until, say, high school. in the case of wyatt bramwell, who took his own life at age 18, he played 10 years of tackle football. would it have been different had he played three years only in high school? we don't know exactly, but that's the kind of limitations that i think a lot of people would like to see. we're going to be talking about in the next few years. john: john branch of the new york times on an important subject to be talking about. thank you very much. >> thank you. nick: tomorrow marks one month since a mass shooter murdered 18 people and injured 13 others in lewiston, maine. this week, an investigative commission established by maine governor janet mills requested the power to subpoena witnesses as part of their work. pbs member station maine public recently brought together members of the lewiston community as they lean on each

other in the wake of shared tragedy. here are excerpts from that program, "love lewiston," hosted by jennifer rooks. >> we already know there are these skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, suicide among our young people, and i can only imagine that having this happened in your community, and your states, do you pretend this didn't happen and go about your life trying to push it away? do you acknowledge it and move on? >> my biggest advice is not to push it away, not to push those feelings away, but really lean into them and let yourself experience them. this event is not something we can ignore. it is going to be woven into the fabric of who we are as a community. but we also want to weave in courage, we want to weave in hope, we want to weave in healing into that fabric. so, dealing with this as a trauma allows us to weave in

those beautiful experiences of hope and healing and courage that we are also seeing right now. >> four of those killed were deaf. they were at a bar with a big group of friends. how do you move your community to a place of feeling safe again, given that? >> for many, many years, the word "access " has been a huge issue. with that initial reaction about the tragedy in lewiston that wednesday night, some of the deaf community did not understand what was going on because captioning was not clear on the televisions. the next morning, some of us woke up and honestly we made this connection that there was a possibility that members of our deaf community had been there in lewiston and been part of that situation. at that point, the news

reporting's were not clear. information had been cut off. the interpreter was not on screen. later on that day, there was a deaf interpreter on the television, and that was very powerful. that gave us a lot of access and information. we could finally see what was going on. our local representatives are asking questions. the white house is asking questions. a lot of local organizations are banding together. so, yes, tragic. at the same time, it is raising the awareness. >> if we don't do anything about guns, how do we have any confidence that what happened here two weeks ago won't happen again and again and again? do we really care more about our guns than we do our neighbors and our kids? >> we do need common sense gun safety. i have been a longtime advocate for that. it goes beyond banning

assault weapons. it goes limiting the size of magazines, background checks, it goes to increasing our mental health workers so that they can be along with law enforcement and to deal with those situations as they arise. >> mental health is a huge problem in the state of maine. it is underfunded. this is not a job for law enforcement. it is a job that community social workers can manage. but we don't have enough of them. the issue with weapons, i think it is an issue that we have got to find consensus and compromise. if we go to each of our silos, we will not solve this problem and we will be back here again. >> january 3, you are back in the state house. how does this change your priorities? what do you do now? >> i am totally determined that we will honor the lives that have been lost by moving forward

on policy areas that will prevent such tragedies again in the future. this experience has shaken everyone to the core. i think you will see people in support of gun safety measures that are not there yet. >> having come from a place where there is war, where there is insecurity, coming from a city that you believed was safe and has been safe for your family, as you listen to this conversation, what are you thinking? >> many from my community are coming from war-torn countries. and what we see is trauma after trauma after trauma. and a country that has loss and a sense of peace, how does it happen -- a country that has laws and a sense of peace, how does it happen?

because i feel maybe this is not the place you were seeking for safety. >> everyone in this community is the walking wounded. how do we move forward? >> we have to talk about the power of forgiveness. and that some of us may not yet be there, but that doesn't mean we should not be talking about it. every spiritual and religious tradition in the world has the resources for this, and that is a powerful way not for the hole in our hearts to be repaired immediately, but for it to begin. >> when you say forgiveness, what do you mean? >> i mean trusting that holding on to anger or hate or a sense of why is not going to be helpful to us in the long term to move forward. so, letting go, trusting that there is a higher power. some of us refer to that higher

power as god. i think there is great power in trusting that together we can let go of this pain and move forward. nick: you can find the entire "love lewiston: a maine calling" special on our website at pbs.org/newshour. nick: the biden administration's foreign policy efforts are once again in the spotlight, as u.s. officials push for more hostages to be released by hamas. on that, and what's ahead in the republican presidential primary, we turn to the analysis of capehart and johnson. that's jonathan capehart, associate editor for the washington post, and eliana johnson, editor-in-chief of the washington free beacon. david brooks is away. thanks, guys. great to see you. happy day after thanksgiving. jonathan capehart, i wonder if we can look at biden's policy overall for israel.

how do you rate it right now? jonathan: first, today is a great day that we have seen some hostages of the couple hundred that have been held hostage in gaza be released. that is primarily the efforts of the united states, qatar, israel, but really, the president of the united states pushing really hard to get to some kind of situation where hostages can be released, there can be a pause in the fighting so that humanitarian relief could get inside gaza where the people who desperately need it, the palestinians who desperately need it. it doesn't mean that this is by any means over or that there are not more pitfalls to come. but with that incentive in the pause, meaning if 10 more hostages are released, there will be an extra day in the pause. it is my hope that that does

indeed happen, and that this pause lasts longer than the four initial days. nick: what do you think president biden should be focused on? either this pause or relief into gaza, or the release of u.s. hostages? eliana: i wish it was an either-or question and i could give you a simple answer. but the president has to be under enormous pressure to secure the release of the american hostages. he has indicated he does not even know the location of all the american hostages. and today, we saw the release of 13 hostages, none of them were americans, and i do think he is under enormous pressure. he has got to get some american hostages out under this deal. going forward, he is coming under huge pressure from the left flank of the democratic party to pressure israel to stop its war. from my vantage point, the president has to resist that pressure and allow israel to

continue the war at the end of this pause. it is worth noting, hamas has already violated the terms of this agreement. the red cross was supposed to be able to see and evaluate the hostages. they were not permitted to do so. civilians were not to return to the north of gaza, and hamas is encouraging them to do so. i think president biden has got to give israel the green light, when it wants to do so, to resume this war. nick: let's think about that, resisting pressure. there is a lot of pressure on the left, some of it generational, but not all of it, to call for a cease-fire. that is not something many members of the democratic party have followed. yet, there are calls for the president to basically rein in the israelis even more. can he resist that pressure? should he resist that pressure? jonathan: he can resist that pressure. he will resist that pressure. and he should resist that pressure. i would say to my democratic friends that we have to remember

that president biden is president of the united states, not the president of israel. he has no control over prime minister benjamin netanyahu. he can strongly suggest, he can strongly talk to him behind-the-scenes, more strongly than the words he uses, the president uses in public, but president biden is doing absolutely everything he can to encourage a small d democratic nation, which has its own national security interests, to act in the best interests of small d democratic values. i would also say to my democratic friends and to others, you've got to remember for all the talk about president biden being oh-so old and he is too old for the job, he has 36 years in the senate, eight years as vice president of the united states. it is coming in handy right now when we boast need it. this is the time when president biden is at his best.

he knows what he is doing. i just wish that democrats in general, and the american public in particular, would give him the grace and give him the room to exert american will and american pressure as much as he can on a situation that is infinitely more complex than a lot of his critics give it credit for. nick: eliana, when it comes to the power of the purse, the president has asked for some $60 billion for ukraine aid, tying that to $14 billion for israel. is that effort to tie ukraine and israel aid dead or still alive in congress? eliana: the ukraine aid in particular is controversial among republicans. i personally wish it wasn't, but it is. and we have had democrats come forward and say republicans wanted to tie additional money for the border, and it currently is in this bill, and that is

controversial among the democrats. my guess is that ultimately the senate may come under pressure to split this bill into pieces. right now, it is the israel money, the ukraine money, and these border security measures. i cannot predict what will happen with that bill, but there are parts of it, the ukraine money controversial on the right and the border security money controversial among democrats. i think it will be a tough sell. nick: let's switch over to republican politics. basic question, can anybody stop trump? jonathan: right now, no. last i saw, he is 20 or 30 points ahead of ron desantis and nikki haley, who are battling for number two. but what i really think we are looking at right now is we are looking at poll numbers that show donald trump far and away the front runner for the republican nomination. but i am looking for is what

happens on the night of the iowa caucuses and new hampshire primaries? when those poll numbers give way to actual votes. donald trump will be in trouble if his actual vote totals, his actual vote margin, assuming he comes in first place, is dramatically smaller than the huge leads we see he has over ron desantis and nikki haley. i think for the folks battling it out for number two, the person with the wind in her sales and at her back is nikki haley, from the infighting we are seeing in ron desantis' camp, the slide he is experiencing might be inexorable. nick: eliana, is iowa a must win, or a must proving you have positive momentum for ron desantis, and is new hampshire the must win or proving you're gaining positive momentum for nikki haley?

eliana: iowa is a must win for ron desantis. he has staked so much energy on that state, and i do believe he has got to win there to keep his campaign alive. these guys are not running for understudy or second-place. they are running to displace former president donald trump and to win this nomination, and by the same token i think nikki haley has to win one of these early states. she is performing best in new hampshire. i think chris christie has to drop out of this race for her to do that. his votes are likely to go to her. a win in new hampshire would set her up nicely for her home state of south carolina, which comes next. donald trump remains the strong front runner, but we have seen crazier things happen. never say never. there is another debate, at least one more, between now and then. poll after poll shows that republicans may say they support trump, but they also say they

are open to other candidates. so we will have to see what happens. nick: i have 40 seconds left. i have to say i am grateful for my family and support. each of you have 20 seconds. jonathan, what are you grateful for? jonathan: nick, i am grateful for science. on sunday, i tested positive for covid, so i have been at home since sunday, and three years ago right now, the nation was listening to ambulance sirens, hearing about hospitals that were overflowing with people who had come down with coronavirus, people who were intubated, folks who passed away without being able to see their family. and because of science, i got a positive covid diagnosis and the most major thing i have had to deal with are the sniffles. i am thankful for science. nick: and we are thankful you are feeling relatively well.

eliana, you have about 20, 30 seconds. eliana: nick, i am with you. i am grateful for my family, and particularly watching these excruciating scenes of families in israel. i pray for the return of their small children, many under the age of five. i am grateful for the health, safety, and security of my daughter, and to live in what hopefully still is the greatest country in the world. nick: eliana johnson, jonathan capehart, thank you very much both. jonathan: thank, nick. eliana: thank you. nick: finally tonight, the longtime journalist who wrote the column tilting at windmills. charles peters, who was often called the godfather of neo-liberalism, died thursday at his home in washington. peters was once a campaign staffer for john f. kennedy and later an executive at the peace

corps. he was also the founding editor of the washington monthly, a political journey. -- political journal. judy woodruff sat down with peters in 2017. judy: you launched a magazine in the late 1960's, you said because you wanted to look at what the federal government was doing right, and what it was doing wrong, how it could do better. but you soon expanded that to look at the whole country. >> we felt we had to get into those broader cultural issues. but the main thing that happened was the snobbery that began with the anti-war movement. that was, i think, one of two really bad things that happened to divide the country. the other was the growth of greed and the conspicuous consumption that fueled the greed. judy: snobbery. it's not a word that's thrown out a lot. what did you -- who do you mean by what happened? >> in the anti-war movement,

there was a feeling that the people who were against the war were morally superior to those who were for the war. well, i was against the war, but i understood there were an awful lot of good people who believed in the war. that's when i began to worry about what was going wrong with the anti-war movement, even though i was part of the anti-war movement. judy: you point out a number of ways in which the country, for all of its progress, has gone downhill. and another way is, you cite the greed that you saw crop up among people in washington who came here originally to do public service, but then that changed. >> even though it contained that element of snobbery, that was also a beautiful element of idealism in the anti-war movement. but that gradually changed in the '70's. i think part of it was simply these people were getting older. the v.w. beetle was no longer the adequate car. they had to get the station

wagon, and then they had to get the house. but then they got the house. and then they got -- it had to be a larger house, and it had to have a workout room, and it had to have a home office, and it had to have walk-in closets and state-of-the-art bathroom and kitchen. and, suddenly, people were into thinking they needed a lot of money. and then they forgot about the wages paid to the worker. they became concerned with increasing their dividends, meaning increasing profits. and when they read about a plant closing, well, that might increase profit, you know? and we have got to watch those wages, because wages take away from profit. nick: charles peters was also the author of five books on politics and history. he was 96 years old. be sure to tune into washington week with the atlantic tonight on pbs. our very own lisa desjardins and her panel discuss the pressure building on speaker mike johnson and the challenges he's facing when congress returns next week.

and watch pbs news weekend tomorrow for a look at the controversial legacy of charles curtis, the only native american to serve as u.s. vice president. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm nick schifrin. for all of us at the pbs newshour, have a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and

institutions, and friends of the newshour, including kathy and paul anderson, and camilla and george smith. the walton family foundation, working for solutions to protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, 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 newshour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> you're watching pb.

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