Good evening. I'm William Brangham. I'm the Nevaaz and Jeff Bennett are away. On the news hour tonight, gas prices in the U.S. top $4 a gallon. With mounting pressure from the war with Iran, President Trump lashes out at allies for not helping reopen a key oil shipping route. The Supreme Court sides with the therapist challenging a state ban on the discredited practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ children. And some suspicious trades in prediction and financial markets regarding Trump administration policies raise questions about who's really benefiting. It's right for us to assume that there is a lot of insider trading that goes on on prediction markets, just as there's a lot of insider trading that goes on in the stock market. Welcome to the News Hour. President Trump said tonight that the war with Iran will likely last another two to three weeks. But the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz continues to be a problem for the U.S. And the president again lashed out at allies for not doing more to help. Iran's de facto blockade of that waterway has driven up the cost of oil worldwide and sent American gas prices to their highest level in years. Overnight, targets outside the ancient, historic Iranian city of Isfahan were set ablaze by U.S. strikes, home to a large ammunition depot in one of the country's main nuclear complexes, now a towering inferno. President Trump posted this video to his social media, projecting U.S. strength before hours later conveying frustration. The president said that nations that were upset by Iran's choking of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil normally flows, should take matters into their own hands. Go to the Strait and just take it, the president wrote. You have to start learning how to fight for yourself. Go get your own oil. House Secretary Pete Hegseth today directed more blame on U.S. allies who have so far refused to participate in this war. This is an international waterway that we use less than most, in fact, dramatically less than most. So the world ought to pay attention to be prepared to stand up. President Trump has been willing to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the free world to address this thread of Iran. It's not just our problem set going forward. Iran has allowed some ships to pass through the Strait, including from China, India and Malaysia. The U.S. claims up to 20 tankers are expected to pass through in coming days. But Iran's attacks in and around the Strait continue, including a drone strike on a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker off the coast of Dubai. The attack punctured its hull and set the ship ablaze. The crew managed to put out the fire before it ignited its cargo and no oil was spilled. Attacks like these have sent shockwaves through global oil markets. Dozens of oil and gas facilities have been targeted and damaged by Iran's retaliation, including fields, refineries, storage and ports. And as fuel prices have soared worldwide, here in the U.S., the price at the pump hit $4 a gallon, the highest level since 2022. The national average up more than a dollar since before the war began. Trump will make a deal he is willing. Secretary Hegseth said talks were ongoing and gaining strength, despite Iran's public denials. But he said the U.S. was prepared to ramp up the war if Iran didn't yield to U.S. demands. We don't want to have to do more militarily than we have to. But I didn't mean it flippantly when I said, in the meantime, we'll negotiate with bombs. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Kaine, added that the U.S. military campaign was increasingly limiting Iran's ability to replace what had been destroyed. We remain focused on interdicting and destroying the logistical and supply chains that feed these programs. And this remains a truly joint effort prosecuted around the clock from air, land, sea, space and cyberspace. Iran's Revolutionary Guard hit back today with a new threat, saying it will soon target U.S. companies in the region, including Google, Apple, Intel and Boeing. Meanwhile, in Iraq, the U.S. State Department said it's aware of the reported kidnapping of an American journalist there, identified as Shelly Kittleson by one of the outlets that she worked for. A U.S. official said a member of an Iranian proxy known as Qatayb Hezbollah was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the kidnapping. Today, a defiant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran could no longer threaten Israel's existence and promised to speak soon about new alliances in the region. And the U.S. is reportedly adding even further to its forces, dispatching a third aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, the USS George H.W. Bush. Secretary Hegzeth would not stay today if the U.S. would deploy ground forces. We're not going to foreclose any option. You can't fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground. All options open to a potentially open-ended conflict. And so, from an on-the-ground perspective, we turn to Reza Sayyab. He's the news hour's special correspondent in Tehran. Reza, thank you so much again for talking with us. When U.S. officials are talking about these strikes, they keep stressing that they are hitting military targets in Iran, not civilian targets. Is that your understanding? Well, I can tell you firsthand that that's not the case. Indeed, they are hitting military targets, but they're also increasingly hitting non-military targets. Yesterday, airstrikes knocked out power in parts of Tehran that happened again today, and also in the island of Esh along Iran's southern coast. The power is back on, but that's two days in a row where we've seen power outages. And that has many here worried because the President Trump's threats to hit Iran's power grid. This morning, state media reported an airstrike hitting one of Iran's leading pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. And this adds to the list of strikes on non-military sites. We've seen airstrikes on universities, fuel storage depots, sports facilities, event and steel factories, and historical and cultural sites. Reza, what is your understanding of the diplomatic talks that are underway? We've heard conflicting reports from the President and from the Iranian government. What are your sources telling you about the status of those talks? Well, I think any reasonable person would say that many of Mr. Trump's statements about talks are often inconsistent. One day he's saying negotiations are happening and he's winning the war. The next day he's deploying troops making threats. So, Tehran pretty much dismisses his statements. The foreign ministry is often very polite, but military leaders often mock him. Tehran's position is this is a President that's twice attacked Iran in the middle of talks, so they don't trust him when it comes to his claims about negotiations. Their focus is on defending their country against what they view as an illegal attack. At the same time, the foreign ministry says they're always prepared for talks if the talks are held with respect and recognize Iran's rights. Reza, at the beginning of these attacks, President Trump said he wanted to create the conditions where Iranians themselves could rise up and thus weaken the Iranian government and allow individual Iranians to rise up and take power. How realistic does that seem to you? Well, at this point, I can tell you that we're in the fifth week of this war and there's been no indication of an anti-government uprising. In contrast, almost every day, even on nights where it's been raining, you have pro-government supporters rallying in major intersections in major squares. And increasingly, you're seeing different sectors of the population joining. The most of the core supporters of the government are religious and conservatives, but increasingly, you're seeing more progressive liberal Iranians. Obviously, many Iranians were dissatisfied with this government, but they didn't want their dissatisfaction to lead to an attack by the United States in Israel. So you're seeing increasingly solidarity among different sectors of the population for the military troops. All right. That is Reza Sayeh joining us from Tehran in Iran. Reza, great to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you. The steep rise in gas prices because of this war is the second largest spike in three decades and it is hitting Americans' wallets. Many have told us how they're now scrambling to fill their own tanks. My name is Samantha Lott. I currently live in Denton, Texas. I'm Jim Lawrence. I live in Omaha, Nebraska. My name is Alexis Mims. My name is Jamie Pardue and I live in Kailua, Kona, Hawaii. I'm Jonathan Tipton Myers. I'm a full-time rideshare driver. As soon as this war started, gasoline prices jumped up minimum 50 cents, but in certain areas it was a dollar as well too. My husband and I are making an effort to combine any trips that we take into town or to stores so that we aren't driving unnecessarily. I don't think it ever occurred to me that our gas would be over five dollars a gallon. You know, we are we are struggling. Now it's not just the groceries that are expensive, but now it's the gas that is out of control. I am a community mental health social worker. As I'm sure you know, I do not make a lot of money. And so having to use my own car and drive a lot around two different counties, I'm buying a lot of gas. Then in order to make ends meet as well, I have to deliver groceries on the side in the evenings and the weekends. I'm filling up my tank every other day and I'm having to pay like 40 to 50 dollars to do so. Any money that I get from my daytime job is usually a month late for reimbursement. And so I'm having to like figure out how to make that money stretch and like what kind of food am I going to eat this month, that type of thing. It's really anxiety written right now times for me and a lot of other people, especially people that are single and are having to pay all of their household costs themselves. It's really difficult. Right now my income is tied to the market since in my retirement accounts. And so with the volatility of gas goes the volatility of the market and one goes up and your bank balance goes down. And that really is the most concerning thing about the future. All of this needs to stabilize. In Hawaii so much of what we have purchased in the stores is imported. And so it isn't really just the cost of gas that is going to be impact our community. It's going to be the cost of just about everything. We're constantly trying to calculate whether a ride can actually be profitable for us. So if you add on an increased gas price, it just makes making those decisions even more difficult. And at the end of the month, that's a significant raise in your actual price, in your anxiety, in your ability to drive safely and maintain your car and do your job. My son is three hours away in college and my daughter is 30 minutes away. The amount of gas is too much to go ahead and travel at this time. So we are for going plans for any type of get-togethers. But thankfully, we have modern technology. So for now, we just keep in touch that way. I don't really do a lot of things other than work just because I can't afford to. And that's really sad because in order to have a well-balanced life, people need to be able to go do things, support local businesses, hang out with their friends. And those are kind of luxuries at this point that I just truly can't afford. So how long are gas prices expected to stay high? And more broadly, how bad a shock will this war deliver to the global economy? For that, we turn again to Cliff Kupchin. He is chairman of the Eurasia Group, which is an international consulting firm. Cliff, so good to have you back on the News Hour. So you've heard from these people about how difficult it is for them just to fill their tanks. Gas is over $4 a gallon, Brent crude at over 118 a barrel. If this war continues, as the president said tonight, even for a couple more weeks or maybe longer, how much worse could this get? You can get a lot worse. The straight-of-form moves is so critical to the international economy. For oil, for LNG, for helium, for chips, for food, for fertilizer. It is just a choke point for the international economy. I don't think that for the foreseeable future, I think this war, I think is going to get worse. Judge President Trump, by his actions, which is sending more equipment to the Gulf, not by something he might have said today about not caring about opening the Gulf. So I think this is going to be a stranglehold on the economy. It's raised prices in many sectors and stowed conflation in countries around the world. It's a real problem. You touched on a few of those other products that come through the Gulf, apart from energy supplies. What other industries will those mostly affect? Again, helium, which is critical to making advanced chips for AI, aluminum, petrochemicals, fertilizer, and food prices. Those are the main ones. But that's a whole lot. Especially for countries that import food, it's going to be a real battle to keep the books balanced and to keep inflation under control. Do you think that consumers, or maybe even more importantly, the market, has taken on board this idea that this could get so much worse? No. Unfortunately, I think that markets, which I can speak to on consumers, is more broad. But markets have had their head in the sand. I think markets still have their head in the sand. I mean, the market rally today, in part on President Trump's comments that he could end the war without opening the Strait of Hormuz, that's just really wishful thinking. President Trump also sent a third aircraft carrier to the Gulf today. He's sending more troops to the Gulf. I think markets are in denial that there's a strong chance we get ground forces in US ground forces in Iran, and that prices go up even further towards the 130 level. It's $130 a barrel for Brent. I mean, it's going to get bad. Do you really believe, judging by what you're saying, that this conflict will escalate, that despite what the president has been saying... I do. I do. President Trump has, again, I'm not, I don't put a judge on it, but he's now attacked Iran twice in the middle of ongoing negotiations. I think that as an analyst, it's just not useful to track his day-to-day words. It's much more useful to track the administration's day-to-day movements, which is putting men and a whole lot of metal and hardware into the region. So, yeah, I think it's going to get worse. May not go on more than two or three weeks, but I think we're going to see a lot of combat and bombing before then. The president, again, reiterated this point that if nations are not willing to help reopen the strait and they're thirsty for more oil, that they ought to just buy that oil from the United States. Is that a realistic exchange? No. Global markets are... Energy is a global market. It's fungible. Barrels are interchangeable. Energy prices are going to stay high as long as the strait of Hormuz is closed, and alternative sources are hard to come by, especially for LNG. So, the president's comments really don't speak to how energy markets work, unfortunately. All right. That is Cliff Cupchin of the Eurasia Group. Always great to hear from you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, sir. In the day's other headlines, a federal judge today ordered the Trump administration to stop construction of its $400 million White House Ballroom Project. District Judge Richard Leon sided with a preservationist group that called for further reviews and input from Congress. In his opinion, the judge wrote that Trump is the steward of the White House, not its owner, and that, quote, no statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to have. But the judge also delayed enforcement of his order for 14 days and acknowledged that the administration is likely to appeal. Also today, a separate federal judge ruled that President Trump's executive order that barred federal funding for NPR and PBS unconstitutional. Judge Randolph Moss said the order violated those groups' First Amendment rights. While PBS and NPR leadership both celebrated today's decision, the ruling will likely have little effect on their immediate financial health. That's because the Republican-controlled Congress voted to claw back the roughly half a billion dollars in annual funding last year. Still, it could allow Congress to provide future money should it choose to do so. Turning overseas, a group of 12 top European diplomats visited Ukraine today to mark four years since Russia's massacre in the town of Butchah outside Kiev. They placed candles on a memorial to honor the more than 400 people who were killed there. Russia invaded Butchah early on in its war, now in its fifth year. In Russia today, thick smoke rose from an oil storage facility at a port in the Baltic Sea near St. Petersburg. Ukraine has targeted energy infrastructure in that area for the past week. A Kremlin spokesperson downplayed the strikes and vowed to respond. All critical facilities important to Russia's transport infrastructure are being protected. If airspace is being made available for hostile terrorist activity against Russia, this obliges us to draw the appropriate conclusions and take appropriate measures. Ukrainian officials are hoping their long-range drone strikes in the region will prevent Moscow from profiting off its oil exports amid global concerns over energy supplies brought on by the Iran War. In Gaza, health officials say two Israeli air strikes killed at least five people today. Palestinians in Kanyunas mourned a father and his two-year-old son, who died in one of the strikes. Israel has not yet commented on either incident. Meanwhile, in central Gaza, a chaotic and emotional scene as a group of 11 toddlers were reunited with their families. They had been evacuated as premature newborns back in late 2023 amid violence brought on by the Israel-Hamas War. One father described his reunion as, quote, the most important moment of his life. Our feelings are indescribable. She is my first daughter, but our feelings are mixed with pain because of the reality we live in. We hope our children's future will not be filled with the tragedy or suffering they faced at the beginning of their lives. A total of 31 premature babies had been evacuated to Egypt. Doctors say four died after arriving, though the fate of the others remains unknown. An update now on a story we brought to you last night. A Russian tanker carrying more than 700,000 barrels of oil arrived in Cuba today. It is the first such delivery in three months, and it's expected to provide up to 10 days of Cuba's energy needs. The Trump administration allowed the vessel to proceed despite an ongoing oil blockade of the island. That blockade has led to a series of blackouts and further crippled the country's economy. Despite this delivery, the White House says it has not changed its broader policy towards Cuba. A panel of high-level U.S. officials voted today to exempt offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from rules related to the Endangered Species Act. The decision came at the request of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who cited a threat to U.S. energy production during the ongoing war with Iran. Critics say the move could threaten a rare whale species and harm other kinds of marine life. The panel is chaired by the Interior Secretary, and it's commonly called the God Squad because its actions can decide whether a species lives or dies. NASA has begun its 24-hour countdown to humanity's first flight to the moon in more than half a century. After weeks of fuel leaks and other glitches, officials say Artemis II is finally set to launch tomorrow night from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At a press event today, weather experts said the odds of a favorable condition tomorrow are at a promising 80 percent. Weather has been a nuanced thing for us at times here in the generation phase of this mission. But again, look outside right now. Great weather. There's nothing here that is screaming a no-go for the entirety of the window for any one of these attempts. The four astronauts of the Artemis crew are set to become the first lunar visitors since Apollo 17 back in the early 1970s, but they won't land on the moon's surface or even orbit it. Instead, they'll zip past the moon's far side and then head back to Earth in a trip that's planned to last less than 10 days. On Wall Street today, stock surged amid hopes for an end to the Iran War. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 1,100 points. The Nasdaq added nearly 800 points or almost 4 percent. The S&P 500 posted its biggest gain since last May. And we have a unique passing of note. Sugar, the surfing dog, has died. The mixed breed rescue pup from Huntington Beach, California, was a five-time dog surfing world champion and the first canine inducted into the Surfer's Hall of Fame. Wearing a life jacket, she often rode solo, but sometimes alongside her owner Ryan Rustin. Sugar also spent time comforting veterans as a therapy dog. The city of Huntington Beach called her a local legend whose impact reached far beyond the shoreline. Sugar, the surfing dog, was 16 years old. Still to come on the news hour, communities rebrand Cesar Chavez' day following sexual assault allegations against the late labor leader. Partons and prediction markets raised questions about who's making money during the Trump presidency and the next stage for the Washington National Opera after its departure from the Kennedy Center. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. A Colorado law that bans what's called conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth hit a potentially far-reaching roadblock at the U.S. Supreme Court today. In an eight-to-one decision, the justices sided with a Christian counselor who argued that the law violated her First Amendment rights. Our Justice Correspondent Ali Rogan has more on the ruling. William, the majority of justices cast doubt on whether the state of Colorado can ban licensed therapists from talking to their minor patients about their sexual orientation or gender identity. Supporters of the law argue the ban was necessary to protect children from the practice of conversion therapy that they say is harmful. In the court's majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch said, quote, Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety, but the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. Last fall, the news hour spoke to Kaylee Childs, the therapist at the center of the case. The care that is at stake in this lawsuit is that we are allowed to speak freely and that we are allowed to buy the product of that, sort through feelings, sensations, thoughts, beliefs. The ruling sends the case back to a lower court to weigh in on if the law is constitutional. Colorado is about one of two dozen states that have banned conversion therapy for minors. For more on today's decision, I'm joined now by the news hour Supreme Court analyst Amy Howell, co-founder of Scotis Blog. Amy, great to see you again. Good to see you too. So in this argument, the therapist made the case that because she was doing talk therapy with her clients, talking them through these issues, that this really was a violation, this ban is a violation of her First Amendment protections. Did that seem to land with the majority? It did indeed. The state had argued that states have long had the power to regulate medical treatment and so that the ban was part of an effort to regulate conduct rather than speech so that the First Amendment wouldn't apply and to the extent that it regulated speech like childs as it did so only incidentally, sort of as part of the regulation of conduct. But the majority didn't buy that argument at all. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the First Amendment is not a word game and it said that what she's doing is speech and the state is regulating that. What this case was about was whether or not the lower courts applied the correct standard, the correct test to determine whether or not the conversion therapy ban was constitutional. The childs argued that the lower courts should have applied a less deferential, more stringent test called strict scrutiny precisely because her conduct was in fact speech, her talk therapy was speech, and therefore the First Amendment was involved and the Supreme Court agreed with her. It didn't go ahead and actually apply that test. Instead, it sent the case back to the lower courts. The court kept coming back to this idea of viewpoint discrimination, that this law allows therapists to affirm a person's identity but not discourage that. Why was that framing so important in this ruling? It was essential, I think in no small part, because you have, when you have viewpoint discrimination in the Supreme Court's view, you have the state choosing a side in the debate. And so you have the state saying you can affirm a client's gender identity but you can't work with them to try to realign their gender identity to the one that they were assigned at birth. It seemed pretty clear after oral argument that Cayley-Chiles was likely to win in some form. It was a little bit of a surprise that it wound up being eight to one with Justice Katanji Brown Jackson being the only dissenter. Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority. Justice Kagan wrote a concurring opinion in which she said this might have been a different case if we had a law that regulated content but didn't discriminate based on viewpoint. You mentioned Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenting voice. And in her dissent, she really focused on the harm that she would argue is done potentially to children who undergo conversion therapy. She wrote, quote, like it or not, treatment standards exist in America and those standards necessarily reflect the expert medical community's current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments, whatever those beliefs might be. Beyond Justice Jackson's dissent, how did the issues of the potential harm and concerns about conversion therapy play into this argument and this opinion? It was an issue that came up at the oral argument and then resurfaced again in Justice Kors' opinion, but relatively briefly. And he acknowledged that there is this debate. The state had relied on it as the rationale for the conversion therapy ban. But the opinion sort of downplayed the consensus among major medical organizations right now on the idea that conversion therapy is harmful to LGBTQ teens. Justice Samuel Alito, I believe at the oral argument, had pointed out and then the opinion made the same point that back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, major medical associations had called homosexuality a mental disorder. And so the point that the opinion was making was that these kinds of consensus can change. So where does this go from here, both in terms of this particular case that gets put back to the lower courts and the other approximately two dozen states that have similar bans? So this case will go back to the lower court for it to apply strict scrutiny, this very demanding constitutional test. Both in this case and in the roughly 25 other states that have similar bans, the Supreme Court didn't sort of tiptoed right up to the line. It didn't come right out and say that it believed that the ban, at least as applied to Kayleigh Child, someone doing talk therapy, was unconstitutional, but really strongly signaled that the eight justices believed that a ban like this was. And so I think that in the case of Colorado and in other states that have similar bans, it's going to be a really tough sell to try to convince courts that these laws can survive strict scrutiny and are constitutional. Amy Howe, co-founder of Skotis Blog. Thank you so much. And we will see you back here tomorrow to discuss the big birthright citizenship case that is before the Supreme Court. Looking forward to it. Thanks so much, Allie. Just two weeks ago, cities across the country were finalizing plans for celebrations of Cesar Chavez Day. Then an investigative report from the New York Times revealed allegations that Chavez sexually abused women and girls for years, including Dolores Huerta, with whom he co-founded the United Farm Workers Union, or UFW. Now, many of those cities are canceling those plans, and a day that was once a celebration has become a painful reminder of his now-tarnished legacy. Stephanie Sy reports. On a day that once celebrated him, communities are now moving swiftly to distance themselves from disgraced labor leader Cesar Chavez, who died in 1993. A New York Times investigation this month uncovered evidence that Chavez sexually abused women and girls for years, while leading the farm workers movement. Hearing about these allegations is definitely a hard thing to digest, but it's also a hard thing to ignore. Cities like Milwaukee and Austin canceled celebrations entirely, while others emphasized the movement over the man. In Denver, where Chavez statue was dismantled, activists instead celebrated Cesar Chavez Day. In English, yes we can. And the patch of grass that bore Chavez's name for two decades had a new handwritten sign, Dolores Huerta Park, after the woman who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union. Huerta herself, now 95, was revealed by the New York Times to have been raped by Chavez. I'm hoping that even though this is really difficult news and devastating news to absorb, that it might give some new life to the farm worker movement to get out from under his shadow. Geraldo Codava is a professor of history and Latino studies at Northwestern University. I think historians have already made the move toward recognizing that the United Farm Workers was a broader social movement. I think what placing Dolores Huerta at the foreground of the movement now does, on the one hand it acknowledges women's contributions and the idea that women have always been part of the union and were central to its successes. I guess I would only caution against just simply replacing Chavez with Huerta and lionizing her, coming to lionize her in the same way that we lionized Cesar Chavez, because to replace one hero with another hero could also stunt the movement in some ways, I think. Women who speak up. Last week, both Minnesota and California, which was the first state to recognize Chavez's birthday as a holiday, quickly passed new laws renaming March 31st Farm Workers Day. This is not about one narrative, it's about honoring generations of sacrifice, of resilience and hope. And the UFW itself canceled its planned events, calling the allegations against Chavez shocking and indefensible. Taken together, it marked a nearly unthinkable fall from grace for the late civil rights icon, once mentioned in the same breath as Martin Luther King Jr. And whose name and image adorn schools, street signs and murals nationwide. Those tributes once a point of pride, now a source of pain in cities like Los Angeles. Cesar Chavez Avenue needs to be replaced. I have a 10-year-old little girl who lives in that building on Cesar Chavez, who today after school, I'm going to have to sit down around the dinner table and explain to her why we're out here doing this, what the rumors, the allegations and the facts are. There, the board of supervisors has now voted to erase Chavez's name from county streets and buildings. Phoenix has done the same. Betty Wardotto is a member of the city council. For us, you know, to be able to act on this as fast as we did, it just means that we're not going to tolerate this type of behavior and that we're going to continue to hold everyone accountable, that we will continue to lift the victims, that we will continue to do the right thing as the city. Still, what's next will likely be tougher than removing street signs. A full reckoning with Chavez's legacy, both the vital role he played in advancing civil rights and the disturbing truth of his sexual abuse. In a letter to the public this afternoon, the Cesar Chavez Foundation said, during this time of painful internal reflection, we do not want to lose sight of the very real threats our community currently faces. We cannot let this moment fracture what so many work so hard to build. A sentiment echoed by the current president of the UFW, Teresa Romero. You know, we have in one hand Cesar Chavez, the man who committed its horrible acts that we're not going to justify, that we don't condone. On the other hand, we have Cesar Chavez, the organizer, who brought thousands and thousands of people together to be able to work for farm workers. And unfortunately, you know, those two things came from the same man. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Stephanie Sy. The Pentagon today is strongly denying a report by the Financial Times that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, stockbroker, was seeking to make large investments in major defense companies in the days right before the U.S. and Israel first struck Iran. That report is raising yet more concern about the many people in and around the Trump administration who seem to be profiting in unusual ways. White House correspondent Liz Landers takes a closer look. Early last week as the United States and Iran continued to exchange strikes in the Middle East, there was a spike in the crude oil futures trading volume around 6.49 a.m. Eastern time. A few minutes later at 7.05 a.m., the president posted on his social media platform that he was suspending strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days. The stock market opened up and oil prices went down. A combined $800 million in trades was made. The timing of the market movement could be coincidental, but it produced a windfall all the same. And traders aren't just getting rich in traditional marketplaces. Polymarket, a prediction marketplace where individuals can bet on anything from sports to politics, has seen several users bet specifically on U.S. military action related to Iran and rake in money. Before the president's latest announcement claiming the U.S. and Iran were actively engaged in productive talks, several newly created accounts bet nearly $160,000 that a ceasefire will happen by March 31 or April 15. After the president's comments, the value of those bets doubled and stand to pay out to $1 million if the ceasefire happens by April 15. Who's behind these bets? Polymarket and other online prediction market sites like Kalshi allow users to place bets anonymously, so the identity of the better remains unknown. But potentially lucrative payouts like these have raised concerns about the possibility of insider trading, says David Hill, a journalist who writes about gambling for Rolling Stone and hosts the podcast American Gambler Book Club. I think that it's right for us to assume that there is a lot of insider trading that goes on on prediction markets, just as there's a lot of insider trading that goes on in the stock market. You know, lots of people know the outcomes of these things prior to the public knowing them. And so some people are going to be opportunistic about that and take advantage of it. Polymarket, which calls itself the world's largest prediction market, announced new rules last week, clarifying three categories of prohibited insider trading conduct, banning trading that involves stolen confidential information, illegal tips, and trading by people who can influence outcomes. They even specifically give an example about military members betting on military operations, advising that's banned. It's raising questions about the morality of betting on these actions, which inevitably involve life or death situations. I personally would not want to make a bet on whether or not somebody would live or die. I think that one of the things that's a concern here is that is that if there is a market on something like death, that there's sort of moral hazard involved, right? And that people people shouldn't be allowed to wager on predicting somebody's death, not just because it's moral, but also because there may be, you know, that it creates these sort of perverse incentives. And that people's lives are involved in our state. Kowshi told us that government employees are not permitted to place predictions on geopolitical markets and said it does not comment on potential investigations. Polymarket did not respond to questions from PBS News. There are at least eight bills in Congress seeking to regulate prediction markets, including a bipartisan House bill that would bar elected government officials senior federal staffers and their families from trading in prediction markets. But these platforms aren't the only way that people are profiting off of politics these days. For others with ties to the president or who claim to have connections to him, there's another lucrative business opportunity that's emerged, lobbying for presidential pardons. Trump's prolific use of his clemency powers has been controversial from the beginning. We hope they come out tonight. Hours after he was sworn in for a second term, he pardoned more than 1500 defendants involved in the January 6th Capitol attack. Dozens of other high-profile pardons have followed, involving political figures, business leaders and people with personal connections to the president or his allies. And lobbyists have stepped in to help facilitate who can get through to the administration, earning millions. Ken Vogel is a reporter for The New York Times. In the first year of Trump, 2.0, we saw $5.2 million in lobbying fees disclosed for pardon-related or clemency-related lobbying efforts. And that was eight times more than what we saw in the final year of the Biden administration. Buolo says this has created a sort of pay-for-play mentality during the Trump administration, where people with money and connections can skip to the front of the pardon line. It's created this sort of pardon-industrial complex that, in some ways, seems to turn on its head, the idea that the people who are most deserving are the ones who are going to get clemency and instead sort of reward people who either have connections or the ability to pay people who have connections to get directly to President Trump. And while President Trump in his speeches says attacking fraud is a major priority. We're cracking down on the Somali scams, ending the brazen and shameless theft of taxpayer dollars. His decisions about who gets a pardon seem to be at odds with that. More than 50 of the pardons and commutations he has made in his second term are for fraud. White-collar offenses, such as money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud, are among the most frequent crimes he has wiped clean. In a statement, the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said, President Trump exercises his constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations at his discretion. Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money. The Trump administration has a robust pardon review process, which includes White House counsel, the Department of Justice, and ultimately, the president himself as the final decider. Many of the people granted clemency by Trump had their financial penalties and restitution forgiven, totaling tens of millions of dollars. But for their victims... They're appalled to them this is sort of an insult to injury. And these pardons, and in some cases even the commutations, wipe away those obligations, those financial obligations. So this is sort of taking money out of the victim's pockets or at least stopping an avenue that might otherwise result in them getting at least like some compensation for the financial losses that they've incurred at the hands of these people who have gotten pardons. For people in the White House orbit, there is potentially big money to be made trading in the currency of access to either information or to the ear of the president. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Liz Landers. Earlier this month, the board of what is now called the Trump Kennedy Center formally approved the president's plan to close the center for two years. Meanwhile, the Washington National Opera, which is one of the center's largest arts organizations, had already announced that it was leaving. That exit is one of the most consequential in a year full of turmoil. Senior Arts Correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports for our Art in Action series, which explores the intersection of art and democracy, part of our Canvas coverage. A rehearsal for The Crucible, a 1961 opera by Robert Ward, based on Arthur Miller's seminal 1953 play about the Salem witch trials. Miller wrote it as a warning about injustice and mass hysteria in the McCarthy era anti-communist trials of his time. Now says Francesca Zambello, artistic director of the Washington National Opera, it has new relevance for ours. I think that everyone in this country, whatever side of the fence you're on, is certainly wondering what is happening with our legal system, what is happening with democracy. Are the, is the Constitution still serving us today? Is it serving us right now? And our democracy is on trial now. Few in the art world have been quite so caught up in the political maelstrom as the WNO and Zambello, whom we met recently at the company's rehearsal studios in Washington. Let's focus everybody, okay? Great, thank you. Places for top of show, please. Founded in 1956, now celebrating its 70th season, the opera company has performed at the Kennedy Center since the Center's opening in 1971, bringing some of the world's greatest singers to its grand opera house and other stages. In 2011, it signed a so-called affiliation agreement to formalize its relationship, making it one of the Center's tentpole organizations. But everything changed with Donald Trump's second term. This last year has been something I could never have imagined. I could not have dreamt this up. Last February, there was literally a coup d'état at the Kennedy Center. That's how it felt to you. It absolutely felt like a coup d'état. The longtime leadership respected arts leaders fired. New leadership put the president himself as chair in its place. A new requirement that arts groups break even or earn a profit on every production, contrary to how most opera, dance and theater groups operate, with their need to plan far into the future and experiment with their art forms. Leading artists canceled performances. Audience members stayed away. The building felt politicized. Everyone who worked in the building, if they did not march in lockstep with the new management, were fired. The audiences felt this, I think, incredible burden that everything was about us or them, about the two parties, whereas we've always been an apolitical building, an apolitical arts institution. In the Crucible, Janaye Bridges, one of today's leading mezzo-sopranos, sings the role of Elizabeth Proctor, falsely accused of being a witch. When Bridges first signed on, she fully expected to perform at the Kennedy Center, even as she wrestled with going ahead. I was a bit hesitant because it's a tricky thing to navigate. Not everyone was for my choice of performing at the Kennedy Center. I felt that the role in the opera is so relevant that it was almost, in a sense, a protest. So I really felt like, okay, as uncomfortable as this might feel, I'm ready for it. But then things changed. And I have to say that I am relieved. You are relieved? Yeah, I'm relieved for sure. And I think that it was the right decision. That stunning decision announced in January by WNO leadership and its board to leave the newly renamed Trump Kennedy Center and go out on its own. The drop in ticket sales and donor support meant the shows could not go on. Anne says Zembello, there was more. I think that by making the move away from the Center, we made a big statement. Which is it should not be about us and them. It should be about a good civil society. But I was very concerned knowing what it's like to be homeless. A theater company, an opera company, a ballet company. You can't be homeless. But you are, in a sense, homeless now. I think we're now part of a bigger picture. We're now we're part of a bigger community. You're changing the nature of home. I'm changing the nature of home and I'm making it about geographic diversity. Now the WNO is performing in theaters across the D.C. area and further afield, in different size halls for different productions. Trey Monisha, an opera by Scott Joplin, performed to a packed and appreciative crowd at Lisner Auditorium in Washington. The same venue as the Crucible. It's a full circle moment. The company's first ever performance was here in 1957. A May production of West Side Story will be put on in two different forms. Fully staged at the Lyric Baltimore and a smaller production at Strathmore Music Center outside Washington in Maryland. I'm thinking of this as a new kind of creative freedom that we are producing in different venues that really are appropriate for the works that we will be presenting. And she says the company will continue its American Opera Initiative, which fosters new operas by contemporary composers. For its part, the new Trump-Kennedy Center Board recently formally approved an early termination of its agreement with the WNO. Having earlier claimed the parting of ways was its decision due to a financially challenging relationship. What now? Can the Washington National Opera survive, even thrive independently? Grand Opera now becomes a grand experiment. When we met Bridges during rehearsals, she was optimistic. So many people are excited to support what we're doing. I know the theater will be filled with an audience that wants to support WNO, this great company, and art and artists. Francesca Zambello sees even higher stakes. I think that the arts are certainly under attack right now. I think that many people don't believe that they're necessary. And if all of us as artists and as people working in arts organizations do not stand up to the injustices that are around us, then we are not doing our jobs. Zambello says the Washington National Opera will soon announce its productions and venues for next season. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in Washington, D.C. And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm William Brangham. On behalf of the entire NewsHour team, thank you so much for joining us.
