April 10, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Navaz is away on the news hour tonight. A crucial moment in the Gulf region ahead of talks between the U.S. and Iran that could lead to a permanent end to the war. Hungarians prepare to vote in an election that could end far right strongman Victor Orban's grip on power and dramatically change the political landscape in Europe. And we examine the many causes and potential effects of the decline in birth rates and overall population in the U.S. Not change that shrinkage is going to come much sooner now than once predicted because there are fewer and fewer babies being born and also we've begun to squeeze immigration. Welcome to the news hour. Vice President J.D. Vance is heading to Pakistan where he's set to meet Iranian officials this weekend in a bid to end the nearly six-week U.S. Israel war with Iran. The demands are steep, trust is thin and President Trump said today he's unsure if he'll support further talks after this round. Meantime in Lebanon, residents are still digging out from this week's Israeli strikes. Liz Landers starts our coverage. Today in Lebanon, pain and grief as mourners gather to share memories and bid a final farewell to loved ones following Israel's deadliest wave of strikes since the start of war. Devastating buildings and leaving more than 300 dead. The loss of people can never be replaced, you know. But as for the stones and buildings, God can compensate for that. What can we do? We want to live, not continue in this situation. It's compounding an already desperate humanitarian situation. According to the World Food Program, the conflict test has placed over one million people. And even before the Iran War, more than 800,000 people in Lebanon faced acute food insecurity, causing aid teams to scramble on the ground and provide food to families like this one. That suffering is dividing Lebanon's people on the merits of planned peace talks with Israel next week. Negotiation is the only way to peace and for people to live. People are all displaced living on the streets. People aren't living. If you want to conduct negotiations under war, as Israel wants to operate under fire, we do not accept, and we will remain steadfast. Meantime in Israel, sirens blared after Iran-backed Hezbollah fired a barrage of missiles, one of which damaged this church complex. The IDF says it struck 10 Hezbollah launchers inside Lebanon. But before the Israel-Lebanon talks, another major test of diplomacy. U.S. and Iranian officials are gearing up for high-stakes negotiations this weekend, aimed at making a ceasefire permanent. Earlier this week, President Trump escalated his rhetoric with a startling threat to wipe out Iran civilization, but he quickly reversed course after a shaky two-week truce was reached. The president relayed his expectations to reporters this afternoon. What would a good deal look like for you? No nuclear weapon, number one. I think it's already been regime change, but we never had that as a criteria. No nuclear weapon. The talks to be held in Pakistan are the most senior-level negotiations between the U.S. and Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The U.S. is sending members of Trump's innermost circle, special envoy Steve Whitcoff and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner and vice president J.D. Vance, who gave the Iranians a warning as he boarded his plane to Islamabad early today. If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we're certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive. Leading the Iranian side, the speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibov, he warned tomorrow's negotiations could be called off unless two outstanding agreements from the temporary truce are implemented, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran's blocked assets. Those conditions were echoed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and the foreign ministry. In the meantime, the U.S. has made demands of its own, namely for Iran to end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as agreed upon. Marine traffic data from today shows hundreds of vessels crowding the Gulf, yet only a handful selected by Iran trickling through the narrow but critical maritime passageway. On Truth Social today, President Trump said Iran has, quote, no cards other than a short-term extortion of the world by using international waterways. And last night, he acknowledged reports that Iran is charging tankers to pass through $2 million in Bitcoin per ship, as Iran has publicly claimed. Quote, they better not be, the president wrote. And if they are, they better stop now. Iran meanwhile doubled down. The Strait of Hormuz will not return to the pre-war control system. All movements, traffic, timings and goings in the Strait of Hormuz are under strict, precise and calculated control of our armed forces. Meanwhile, the world is watching. Today, Pope Leo warning that, quote, God does not bless any conflict, instead urging parties towards dialogue to reach peace. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Liz Landers. And we start today's other headlines with consumer prices. The latest inflation report confirms what many Americans have surely been feeling that prices are rising fast, especially for gas. The Labor Department said today that prices rose 3.3 percent from a year ago, the biggest such increase since 2024. That was driven largely by gas prices, which saw their largest monthly rise in six decades. If you take out energy and food, though, so-called core inflation, rose only slightly last month. It comes as a separate report showed consumer sentiment plunging to a record low amid concerns about the war and higher gas prices. The four Artemis astronauts are on track for a splashdown tonight off the coast of San Diego, closing out humanity's first lunar voyage in more than half a century. NASA ground control woke up the crew this morning with two songs, including Free by the Zac Brown Band. The singer-songwriter praised what he called their courage and grit. All eyes are on the Orion capsule and its life-protecting heat shield as it must withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees. It's one of the most dangerous parts of the mission. Meantime back on Earth, U.S. Navy recovery ships, military planes and helicopters spent the day preparing to pick up the crew after the splashdown. The Trump administration released its latest plans today for a new triumphal arch in Washington, D.C. It's the president's latest effort to leave a lasting mark on the nation's capital and reshape the capital in his image. The renderings depict a 250-foot structure with a winged figure at the top, flanked by two eagles, and guarded by four lions. The monument would have the phrases, One Nation Under God and Liberty and Justice for All inscribed on either side. The White House says it's intended to commemorate the nation's 250th anniversary and would be paid for at least in part by taxpayer dollars. A federal panel stacked with Trump allies will consider the design at a meeting next week. Starting in December, all men between the ages of 18 and 25 will be automatically registered for the military draft. They'll be added into the Selective Service System. That's the independent government agency that keeps a list of all eligible Americans. For decades, the majority of men would register themselves or face a felony. Congress tucked the rule change into a bipartisan defense bill that President Trump signed into law late last year. It comes as enrollment has slipped in recent years, even as worries about conflicts with nations like China and Russia have grown. There has not been a military draft since the Vietnam War. Russia and Ukraine are preparing for a brief ceasefire this weekend to mark Orthodox Easter. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the temporary truce yesterday. It's set to begin tomorrow afternoon and last for about 32 hours. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out that he had already proposed such a pause and that his forces would act accordingly. But across Ukraine today, from its capital, Kiev, to the Russian-controlled areas of the Donetsk region, people on both sides of the war were skeptical it would hold. How can you trust a man who destroyed his own people, attacked Ukraine, and is basically the number one terrorist? How can you trust Putin? He lies. We have no other choice but to defeat this plague because it will not leave us alone. Ukraine will keep doing nasty things to us. It is their way. Whenever there is a sacred feast, they always do something bad. Meantime the fighting continued today and the southern port city of Odessa, Ukrainian officials say Russian drones struck electrical and energy infrastructure causing a massive blaze. No casualties were reported. Today marks six months since the ceasefire in Gaza displaced residents remain in limbo with aid trickling in through a single border post controlled by Israel. And in northern Gaza today, Palestinians once again mourned loved ones killed in an Israeli attack. Medics say an Israeli airstrike killed at least two people yesterday. Israel's military has yet to comment on the incident. Some Palestinians say this is their new normal and that despite the ceasefire, danger and uncertainty persists. Every day is the same. Every day martyrs. Every day injuries. Every day we lose someone dear to us. Our place has become sitting at the doors of the morgue. We sit there daily. Also today Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Spain is being expelled from peacekeeping efforts in Gaza, saying the country has, in his words, chosen repeatedly to stand against Israel. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran calling it quote, illegal, reckless and unjust. On Wall Street today stocks ended mixed ahead of those Iran ceasefire talks this weekend. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped about 270 points on the day. The NASDAQ managed a gain of about 80 points. The S&P 500 closed out the week with a minor loss. And former New York Congressman Elliot Engle has died. The Democrat was first elected in 1988 and spent 16 terms in Congress where he rose to be ranking member and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Before that he was a member of the New York State Assembly for over a decade and is being remembered today as a giant of New York politics. In a statement his family says Elliot Engle died peacefully today in the borough that raised him the Bronx. Still to come on the NewsHour, the specter of massive job losses to artificial intelligence increases economic concerns. How people in Israel have been marking Easter in the shadow of war. And David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the Weeks News. Hungarians will go to the polls this Sunday in one of the most closely watched elections this year. Long time Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an ally of both President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin, is facing the most serious challenge to his 16 years in office. As Lisa Desjardins tells us, the White House also has a lot rioting on Hungary's vote. In Hungary this week, a nation on a precipice. Between a leader linked to the East... Democracy is dying in Europe because Brussels is directly interfering in national elections. They openly demand that Hungary should have a pro-Brussels and a pro-Ukrainian government. Well, it won't happen, my friends. And a challenger promising a turn to the West. The Hungarians still see that Hungary's peace and development are guaranteed by the membership of the European Union and NATO. Incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban has led Hungary for 16 years, the longest of any serving European Union leader. Long-towdy nationalist conservative policies promoting in his own words an illiberal state based on national values, from fiscal conservatism pursuing state control in the economy, to crackdowns on immigration, and passing anti-LGBTQ laws, banning pride events and same-sex marriage. Orban has been accused by the European Union and human rights organizations of dismantling democratic institutions, from cracking down on free press and restricting content, to co-opting ownership of independent media. Pro-Orban oligarchs now own 500 media outlets, approximately 80 percent of the nation's media is controlled by Orban's Fidesz party. Hungary's new constitution has angered opposition... The hard-right party also successfully passed a new constitution in 2011 that hands control over the judiciary to a political appointee in the parliamentary majority, Orban's Fidesz party. In the first year alone, 274 judges and prosecutors were forced into early retirement, according to a report by the European Commission. And despite the commission decrying the legislation as illegal under EU law and large-scale domestic protests, Hungary has since passed more laws limiting the judiciary's power. Orban has also maintained an anti-Ukraine stance, having vetoed a $103 billion EU loan package after a key pipeline transporting oil from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia was bombed in Ukraine in January. Ukraine has blamed Russia for the attack, but Orban maintains it was Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky's government. As long as Zelensky does not give us what is ours and let through our oil, which we have already paid for, until then we and I will not support any decision in Brussels that serves Ukraine's interests. Orban has also been criticized for his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bloomberg reported this week that Orban told Putin in an October phone call, I can help in any way. There's a story in our Hungarian picture books where a mouse helps a lion. I am ready to help immediately. But Orban is also a close ally of President Trump. Vice President JD Vance visited Budapest this week in a controversial endorsement before the upcoming election. Together, the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Hungary have been able to do amazing things. And we're here because we want to celebrate those amazing things. We want to build upon those amazing things. And of course, I want to help as much as I possibly can the Prime Minister. Mr. President, you are on with about 5,000 Hungarian patriots and I think they love you even more than they love Viktor Orban. Well, I can't. During the event, Vance called Trump. I love that Viktor. I'll tell you, he's a fantastic man. We've had a tremendous relationship and he does a job. But Orban is facing faltering support and independent opinion polls predict he will lose Sunday. To opposition leader Peter Majar, once a member of Orban's party, he formed the Tisa party in 2024 amidst a Fidesz party corruption scandal. Majar has accused Orban of democratic backsliding and collusion with the Russian government. While Orban today accused Majar's Tisa party of the same. Your opponents will stop at nothing to seize power. They are colluding with foreign secret services, threatening our followers with violence and calling out election fraud with fabricated accusations. Hungary faces an election that could determine its future as a European nation, united with the West, or as one sliding further toward electoral autocracy. For more on the upcoming election in Hungary, we turn to our Daniel Kellerman, Associate Dean for Faculty at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. He's written extensively about Hungary. Now Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. You can see on the map it borders Ukraine as well as six other nations there, Russia just beyond Ukraine. 10 million people live there. Why should people pay attention to this particular election? Well, I think this election is very important despite Hungary being a small country because of the role Orban has played within the EU and internationally as a role model for aspiring autocrats that is leaders who are elected initially in a fair democratic election, but then basically use their power to entrench their rule, control the media, the judiciary, as you were saying in your segment, and pursue that far right ideological agenda as well. He's been the role model for that and if he loses, that is really significant showing that maybe leaders like that run out of road eventually with that model. Orban's challenger is a former protege of his. How has he been able to gain momentum and how deep does his break with Orban go? The break is fundamental. He came out with a Facebook post a while back where he decried corruption, high level corruption with Orban and associates of his and tried to reveal what was going on with the party leadership. That got a lot of attention and he became celebrity instantly because of that. It's a fundamental break. I think it's important that he came from the ruling party because basically the electorate is pretty conservative and so he can campaign as a conservative, but one who is going to stand up for fighting corruption and repairing relations with the EU and distancing the country from this pro-Russia policy. Now the parliament and the system has been shaped by Orban significantly over his time in office. In terms of the results, does the margin matter and explain why it might? The margin is crucial because I think the thing we have to understand is this is a kind of soft what they call electoral autocracy. So the votes will be counted tomorrow. It won't be just rampant ballot stuffing or something that would happen in Russia, but the playing field is tilted because he's rewritten the electoral rules and manipulates the system in a lot of ways we could go into detail on. But the point is the opposition needs to win by at least 5 percent to get a majority in this system. But it's looking like he's polling so far ahead that Orban won't be able to manipulate things to come out on top. Now President Trump had more to say about this today. He posted this message. It was unusual. But my administration stands ready to use the full economic might of the United States to strengthen Hungary's economy. Why is the White House working so hard for Orban? Clearly the economy is an issue there too. But is this election also a test of Trump's resonance right now? Well Trump's treating it that way by sending vans there to campaign, which all indications are that didn't really help Orban. But I think it's important for Trump for a couple reasons. First of all, you may recall that CPAC has held conferences in Hungary. They're building these ties. And really it's because I think Trump and some of the MAGA movement see Orban as a role model on a miniature scale of what they would like to do to build an enduring hold on power here. And so if he's defeated, that's bad for them and for that model. And then also Orban is Trump's closest ally within the EU with a seat in the European Council when key issues are voted on, et cetera. So he loses a crucial ally if Orban's out. We talked about what it means for Trump. What about other world powers, Russia, China? Well besides his close ties with Trump, let's be clear. Orban is a Trojan horse for Putin within the EU. There were revelations just a few weeks ago where recordings were released of the Hungarian foreign minister calling the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov after EU meetings offering to share with him confidential documents about the negotiations with Ukraine and also offering to coordinate on undermining sanctions on Russia that the EU is trying to do. So the Orban government basically works for Putin within the EU. And so it would be a big loss for Moscow. In the last 30 seconds or so that we have, the last time that Orban lost an election, George W. Bush was president in this country. It was a long time ago. Do we know if Orban would go from power peacefully? Well, I don't think he will go easily. I wouldn't say he'll resort to violence, but I do think that he will not simply say, I lost, fair and square, goodbye. I think he will challenge the results. He's already claimed that the Ukrainians and Zelensky are funding this opposition campaign. So I think he'll go down fighting. Our Daniel Kaleman, thank you so much. Thank you. The U.S. fertility rate has dropped to an all-time low according to new CDC data. Researchers say it's not a blip. It's a generation of women choosing to wait or not have children at all. Our William Brangham has more. That's right, Jeff. This trend has been going on for a while. Since 2007, the number of Americans having babies has dropped 23 percent, and that means not enough kids are being born to replace older workers or those that die. If this trend continues, or unless immigration levels change, the nation will have 8 million fewer residents by 2055. But there are some nuances to these numbers. There was a 7 percent drop in teen pregnancies last year, which many experts say is a very good thing. So for more on what this means for current and future generations, we are joined by Brian Mann of NPR. He's been reporting a long investigative series about global population trends. Brian, welcome back to the show. The U.S. population has been on this significant downward trend for almost two decades. You've spent a good deal of time looking into this. What does your reporting say about what is driving this? There's a mix of factors, William, that are causing women and young couples to choose to have fewer children, smaller families, and in some cases, no children at all. As you say, this is already affecting the fabric of the country. The population of the United States is aging rapidly. The growth of the population has slowed dramatically already. As you say, later this century, the population of the United States will actually begin to shrink if we stay on this path. And that shrinkage is going to come much sooner now than once predicted because there are fewer and fewer babies being born and also we've begun to squeeze immigration. What are the implications here? I mean, I guess I'm asking how serious is this? When does this become not just a demographic story, but something more serious? I think many of the economists I'm talking to think this is a right now thing. This is not something where we're talking about 10 years or 20 years from now. I mean, that statistic that we cited at the top of the segment, 710,000 fewer babies every year, those are fewer children going into public schools. Those are eventually fewer workers who are going to be turning up in the economy. And as the population of Americans age 60 and older grows rapidly, we're actually already beginning to see the population of Americans under the age of 25 begin to shrink. And so we've really lived in a youth culture. The United States, since the baby boom after World War II, we've shaped our culture, our innovation, our industries by young people getting out, taking risks, starting new businesses, building the economy. We're really pivoting now faster and faster toward a geriatric culture where old people like myself were the growing population. And that is going to mean a United States in the years ahead that many people say will be unrecognizable. As you're reporting, the rationales, why people seem to say and tell demographers why they're not having children, is this an economics issue? What is it causing people to not have so many kids? Yeah, it's been interesting to sit down in living rooms with young women, with couples who are talking through these decisions. And a lot of it is economics. Affordability is something that comes up again and again. Housing costs are soaring. It's hard to get that starter home where you could envision having a couple of babies and getting your family started. Childcare is more expensive every year. There are also big cultural shifts. It used to be that there was just a lot of social pressure for women in their 20s to have more children, to have children sooner. Now what we're seeing, and this is a remarkable shift, we now see half of all American women reaching age 30 without being moms. Some of those women are having babies later. We're seeing actually some increases in motherhood in age 35 and older, but not enough to offset this really stunning drop in women in their 20s who are opting out. It's important to say this is not all downside. A lot of those women, because they don't have children or they have fewer children, are getting more education. They're starting careers. They're building businesses and lives. There are trade-offs here. It's demographically very challenging for the country, but for some women and some couples, there's a big payoff here. To that same point, the declining teen birth rate is good news, right? I think it's astoundingly good news. This is a public health victory, a social win that in the United States we've been looking for for decades. A lot of young women and children have been having babies. This one-year decline of 7%, that builds on improvements that have been happening for years. Yes, it affects the demographics of the country, but I think this is one trade-off that everyone is happy with. Again, what some demographers hope is that some of those young women will then choose to have babies later when they are more educated. They have more successful economic lives. There will be a more appropriate moment for motherhood, not when they're still in high school, not before they've been born. They're not going to be able to have babies. They're going to be able to have babies. It's an appropriate moment for motherhood, not when they're still in high school, not before they've really started their adult lives. That is NPR's Brian Mann. Brian, thanks as always for sharing your reporting with us. Thanks for having me. A number of polls, including our own, show Americans are increasingly worried about the economy and more pessimistic about where it's headed than at any point in recent memory. March brought the biggest jump in inflation in nearly two years, but it's not just prices. Americans are anxious about their jobs and specifically about whether AI is coming for them. Some prominent voices are calling it catastrophic. Others say it's all hype. The data so far is somewhere in between and deeply contested. Let's try to break down some of this with Josh Terringale. He's a big fan of the Atlantic. He's spoken with economists, CEOs, and a number of experts all about this for his recent piece, America isn't ready for what AI will do to jobs. Josh, thanks for being with us. My pleasure. So there's been a lot of talk in recent months about AI coming for, especially entry-level white collar jobs. You've done all the reporting. Paint a picture for us. Sure. What I really set out to try and figure out is exactly to your point, like what's actually happening and what's about to happen. So I did a little bit of a tour. I spent a ton of time with economists. And economists are divided really in two ways. We have seen technological disruptions before. And so economists who love looking backward and comparing data say, you know, there's a large school of them who say, look, if this plays out over a decade or more, there's a natural rate of adjustment in the labor force. And it may be fine. And it may even be better than fine, because what we see is that productivity could lift all boats. And so AI may deliver tremendous productivity. They're a cohort of much younger economists. And I point that out because a generational divide is really important here. Who don't think that their elders are wrong about the data, they think they're wrong about the tech. So when you look back at things like electrification, which happened in the early 1900s, it took about 40 years to fully electrify America and to see the productivity in the data. The difference is that AI rolls itself out. And you're dealing with software that is inherently smart, that makes machines very, very smart. And so this younger cohort of economists says, you're not seeing in the data yet, but when you see it, it will be too late because the tech moves that quickly. And we will see it in the job force. And it will be too late for us to do anything about it. And so they're advocating for making plans right now. What happens if unemployment gets to 10%, 15%? What does a society look like when labor is that challenged and when you consolidate wealth all within one cohort of people? And so what I discovered is that the economists are really at war with each other about what's about to happen. It's a very calm war. It's a very polite war. So in my next phase of journey, I went to CEOs and largely the CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, they too are a little bit divided. Some have made tremendous investments in AI. Others are a little late to the party where they're not divided. Is that they all said to me, look, Wall Street has watched us make these investments into AI for the last three or four years. This is the year they are going to expect action. And by action, they mean money. If we don't have gains to show, that does mean we're going to make cuts and we're going to make cuts that we may say are AI related or not, but we are going to replace labor with automation. And that was very definitive across a bunch of the largest CEOs that I spoke with. I would point out that most of them did not want to speak on the record. And that that itself is telling about the state of people's anxiety and ambivalence about AI and the economy. Well, those younger economists, so you say, make the point that we need to make plans now. We know that's not really happening in Washington. But the CEOs you spoke with, when they talk about smart regulation, what do they have in mind? Well, I think in fairness to those CEOs, they are not regulators, right? And left to their own devices, their job is to maximize shareholder value, a phrase that they will repeat constantly. And what they want ultimately is a fair system of regulation. Now they also want the right to say that they don't want any regulation in public while clamoring for it in private. But they, for the first time in a long time of reporting, I sensed an eagerness among those CEOs for Washington to get involved, both in regulating the technology itself, but also to be driving contingency planning. Because a lot of these folks, they like their workforces, but the moment a competitor slashes their workforce and their stock price goes up, that competitive CEO is the one whose job is next. And so this is what regulation is for. It's to step in when the market can't control itself. And what the CEOs were telling me is essentially they see a scenario where the market will not be able to control itself. Efficiency rules all when it comes to shareholder value. So they look to Washington. And when I went to Washington, what I discovered is that this is just not really something that is on the minds of most mainstream lawmakers. Is there a way that people can in some way AI-proof their job or incorporate artificial intelligence into their work so that it's useful? Yeah, look, I think that the AI industry has done a pretty lousy job of educating people about what it's good for. They've led with how much money they need to make it work. They've led with job replacement. They've led with the downsides of AI. And the truth is that it's pretty easy to use software. And it will benefit anybody who starts to play with it and figure out, how can I incorporate this into my job? It's not terribly scary when you use it on your own. It's also not flawless, as I'm sure you know. Like, we've seen statistics that Google Gemini has a nine out of 10 success rate at summarizing articles. Nine out of 10 is not actually that good. And so there are still flaws with a lot of LLMs. But it's here. It's here to stay. And the best thing people can do to sort of AI-proof themselves is to actually figure out, how do I integrate this to make my work faster, better? What are the lines around it that I want to draw for myself so that there are things I trust it to do and things I don't trust to do? Everybody's mileage is going to vary based on their personalities, based on their jobs. Sending it out, waiting for regulation, you know, you can't duck and cover. This is actually a really important technological moment. And I would encourage everybody to start thinking about themselves in relation to AI. Josh Terengull of The Atlantic, thanks again for your time. We appreciate it. Thanks, Josh. Today, holy sites in Jerusalem are open once again after being largely closed for 40 days during the war with Iran. Last night, we reported on Israeli families who marked Passover under threat by Iran and Hezbollah. State producer Karl Bostic and our Nick Schifrin visit Palestinian Christians who weren't able to access their holiest sites during their holiest days. In Jerusalem's old city during Holy Week, the streets should have been packed with pilgrims. But stone passageways worn smooth through centuries by the faithful echoed with the silence of absence. And on Good Friday, the path that marks Jesus' final steps via De La Rosa, the way of the cross, stood mostly empty, a casualty of war. What a sad day today for Jerusalem. The Israeli authority forbids us to have the way of the cross and to pray in the station of cross. Jesus put his hand while he was carrying the cross. Rafi Gattas is an official at the Catholic St. James Church, but also works as a tour guide. The Iran war threatened him and this ancient city's holiest shrines. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile landed right next to the old city walls, other pieces next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site of Christ's resurrection, and outside the nearby Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site. And so Israeli police restricted who could access the old city and capped the number of people who could come to worship. Two thousand years ago, Jesus on this same day was carrying his cross, walking here through these streets of the old city of Jerusalem, the holy city, carrying the cross and walking alone. And today we are doing the same. A few of the faithful were allowed carrying crosses, whispering prayers. At the stations of the cross, they stopped, where Jesus stopped, to walk in his footsteps. We can touch the same place where Jesus touched. We can feel the spirit of Jesus that is here. In this place, his blood were mixed with the stones of this city. It's the same Jerusalem that Jesus Christ gave us his salvation. It's the same Jerusalem that Jesus was crucified here. And today our heart is broken. And we are feeling sad and emotions because it's our right to pray in this place. And so, with large groups prohibited from the old city, Palestinian Christians improvised. In East Jerusalem, Palestinians recreated the stations of the cross, where Jesus took his final steps. This is Beit Hanina, part of Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967. Many of the residents here are known as Jerusalemites. They're multiple identities born from their being from this city, Christian and Palestinian. Across Israel and the West Bank, there are about 220,000 Palestinian Christians bound on this day by one ritual. Among the youngest faithful, six-year-old Alexander, the son of Sami Helu. If they close the old city for us, it doesn't matter. I mean, it hurts. But it will not stop me from living my faith and practicing my faith. I will practice it anyhow, regardless. I will always have my Via Dolorosa. Nobody can take it from me. And so, on this day, when the Bible teaches that Jesus was crucified, Helu marked a 2,000-year-old tradition in this Catholic church. Saint James the apostle led in part by Rafi Gatas. But these Christians accuse Israel of seeing only one side of their identity and restricting their freedom as Palestinians, leading many Palestinian Christians to leave. Jenny Helu-Rad is Sami's sister. We are constantly pushed out. And when you're a minority, I think this gives you always this feeling of threat, of uncertainties, of fear, let me say. Christian Palestinians, we have persevered throughout many political changes, throughout history, 2,000 years. We have carried our crosses. We have shed our blood, happily. However, in these days, you know, you are being treated as Palestinians, so it doesn't matter. And yet during these holy days, their main message echoes Pope Leo's call for peace, including in Iran. Only through a return to negotiation can an end to the war be achieved. War has never came out with any good outcome. The Iranian, Gaza, Jewish, everybody has parents and children or families that love me. So people just die for nothing. Everybody loses. Nobody loses in the war. Holy days during war can be a test of faith. And so they struggle to preserve their traditions, to keep and nurture that faith. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Nick Schifrin. The fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran appears to be holding after threats from President Trump to wipe out Iran earlier this week. Meantime, two prominent Democrats said today they're considering running for president in 2028. To discuss that and more, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's the Atlantic's David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS Now. Good evening to you both. Good to see you as always. So David, the president this week threatened to wipe out an entire civilization and then he took a ceasefire deal 88 minutes before his own deadline. Is this maximum pressure or maximum chaos? Maximum malevolence. We shouldn't let that comment about the wiping out of civilization go by without saying what an antithesis it is of American history. That we started the first war America ever fought was to keep sea lanes open. We've always prided ourselves, whatever stupid stuff we do, on not being a rapacious European style imperial dominating power. After World War II, we didn't try to take over Germany and Japan. We gave them money so they could recover. Even George W. Bush, whatever you think of the war, the intentions were okay. But to threaten to wipe out a civilization is pure malevolence. It's an assertion of true evil. And it didn't work. And so if you want to know how the war is going, look at who's moving. The U.S. used to have regime change. Now today Trump said just if we can stop the nuclear program and the nuclear material have been unaffected by this war by the way. So we're pulling back our goals. The Iranians when they put forth their negotiating position, they're sticking with the goals they had and then they're adding more. We want to control the streets of Hormuz. We want reparations. We want you to release all our money. So they clearly on the offensive. And so if you think America is winning, why are we going backwards and why are we retreating? The only final thing I'll say is that someday the Iranian regime will fall. And I don't know when it'll be, but someday a failing regime will fall. And will that happen within a year with some benefit from this war? Possibly. But right now it doesn't look great. And Jonathan, what does it mean for American foreign policy? When the distance between the president saying on social media a whole civilization will die tonight and a ceasefire announcement is roughly eight hours? It speaks to the chaos that is, that characterizes the president himself, that characterizes how he is running his administration. It was, I was on air Sunday morning when his, the tweet before that, where he was demanding, you know, explicitly to open the Strait of Hormuz, you crazy bastards, from a president of the United States on Easter Sunday. I mean, to your point, this is not the America that we know. The American president is supposed to be a statesman, supposed to be someone who is a reflection of our better selves or who we hope to be, who we project our image to be. And right now, our image is so bad that we not only have the French, the French leader calling out the American president, but the British prime minister called out the American president basically lumping him with Vladimir Putin of Russia in terms of malevolent force on the world stage. I, this gets to the bigger question for me about, in terms of chaos, is the president all right? Because no American president ever has written the things, said the things, threatened the things that he did in the span of what, 72 hours. Let's talk more about that because last night President Trump shared this graphic video of a woman being beaten to death. We're not going to show that video, but you can see the, you can see the screenshot of the social media message there on the screen. And he used this video to attack former president Biden, Democrats, federal judges, a sitting president posting footage of a murder as political content. Is there no line left? Apparently not. Apparently not. You know, I think he is spiraling out of control and I say that in part, and a little psychologically, narcissists tend to disinhibit as they age, and so they just get more of themselves, which is not a good thing. But you know, last January, as we watched this spiral of psychologically, I did because I'm me, I read Roman histories, and so you get tasked to this and Salas and those old guys, because they had a front row seat to tyranny, and they watched authoritarians one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate. They create a situation around them when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Somebody who's reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral. And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tassadis, they loved these guys, and John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our constitution the way a whale goes through a net. So they completely understood and their worst nightmare is now happening. Jonathan, 61 percent of Americans, including 30 percent of Republicans now say that President Trump has become erratic with age. That's according to a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll. The press corps, I guess we should hold up a mirror to ourselves. The press corps spent two years making President Biden's mental fitness his acuity. The story, why isn't that same scrutiny now being applied to President Trump broadly? Yes, exactly. That has been my question since, excuse me, since January 20th of last year. We, the press, spent a lot of time talking about President Biden and his age because he looked old. He moved slowly. He wasn't as vigorous and agile, supposedly, as the guy he pushed out of office and then the guy who was running against him. And even little slips of the tongue were used to show, see, aha, he's not all there. He's losing his mind. How does that compare to what we're going through right now? I wish people who have written books, people who have gone on air talking about President Biden nonstop, where are they now? Where are those books now that we have a president who has given ample evidence, ample evidence that something is not right? Where are the people who are standing up and saying, you know what, something needs to be done? And that goes back to, you were talking about the founders, they were prepared for something like this. What they weren't prepared for was the Article I branch just ceding all authority. What they weren't prepared for were people from the president's own party willing to either turn a blind eye or enable him to run rough shot over the Constitution. Even when you've got him out there threatening annihilation of a civilization, even when he's started a war for no reason and the enemy is in a stronger position now than it was before he started this war of his own choosing. At some point Republicans writ large and those on Capitol Hill have to start standing up for their Article I prerogatives, but also start standing up for the country. I don't know how much longer we as a nation can withstand this. And I know the world is beyond done with us, but I think they're also frightened of us. I was going to say the Puy and the Main Street media have been exactly pro-Trump cheering section. Our business model is bashing Trump. We know we can get clicks and ratings if we bash Trump enough, so we do it over and over and over again without having any nursing say half the time. And by the way, if we did do everything we could, it wouldn't make a difference. The people who need to be persuaded are not persuaded by us. We've been doing this since 2015. And so I'm not totally persuaded that it would make a huge difference if we challenged his age and mental acuity because we've been doing it morally for 10 years. We should do more of it. Well, in the time that remains, I want to focus on all of the news really coming out of the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network Convention today. You have Vice President, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg saying that they're considering a run for the Democratic nomination in 2028. Here's VP Harris. Are you going to run again in 2028? So, okay, you know, you know. I tried to be subtle, but I just figured I'd go right in. But as subtle as Reverend Al Sharpton could ever be. We love you for many things, but not being subtle. Listen, I might. I might. I'm thinking about it. What do you think? Yeah, she's thinking about it. And why shouldn't she? She was the former Vice President of the United States. You know, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, of course, he's thinking about it. Anyone who's been mentioned as a potential 28 candidate, none of them is going to take that option off the table, least of all the former Vice President. Whether she does it or not, that's up to her. Is President Trump so polarizing that he could resurrect candidacies that voters already said no to? Possibly. I think this is going to be one of the biggest change elections, speaking about 2028, in American history. There are certain moments where people not only decide to change candidates, they decide to change cultures. And so, John F. Kennedy was a change in culture from the 1950s, a more audacious culture. Jimmy Carter was a change of culture from the corruption of Watergate. Ronald Reagan was a change of culture. So it's not only a change of policy. I don't think it's that. People are going to be tired of corruption, of negativity, of rage, of American carnage, and they're going to want somebody who practices idealism, somebody who can make you feel good about America again. And so I don't know who that candidate is going to be, but I would bet on somebody who says, different from Donald Trump, says humanly possible to be. David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart. Thanks, Steve Booth, as always. As always, there's a lot more online, including live updates of the Artemis II cruise return to Earth tonight. You don't want to miss that. That's at pbs.org slash news hour. And be sure to watch Horizons this weekend in the wake of soaring energy prices. William Brangham and his guests discussed the realities and challenges of transitioning to renewable power. And on Compass Points, our Nick Schifrin and his panel examined by President Trump accepted the ceasefire deal and the fallout of the shaky agreement. You can watch those on your local PBS stations. Check your local listings for more. Well, that is the news hour for tonight. And this week I'm Jeff Bennett. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us. Have a great weekend.