AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: the fallout from new tariffs the Trump administration is imposing on cars and auto parts.

AMNA NAWAZ: The secretary of homeland security tours an El Salvador prison housing alleged gang members from the U.S. We speak to one of the top lawyers challenging the deportations.

GEOFF BENNETT: And in rural Nebraska, how trade wars and federal funding cuts are complicating daily life for some of the people who voted to put President Trump back in office.

LINDSEY NIELSEN, Clinical Microbiologist, FDA: I did not expect there to be such a massive, quick, rash cut to the federal government.

I really expected it to be logical.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

Foreign leaders in Europe, Canada and Asia tonight sharply criticized President Trump's announcement of 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and car parts, with some suggesting they may strike back with new tariffs of their own.

AMNA NAWAZ: Nearly half of all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. last year were assembled outside the country.

Experts said the tariffs could upend the global automotive industry and raise prices for consumers.

The administration said the move, scheduled to take effect next week, would spur domestic manufacturing and lead to over $100 billion in new annual revenue.

French President Emmanuel Macron called it both a betrayal and bad economic policy.

EMMANUEL MACRON, French President (through translator): Imposing tariffs means breaking value chains.

It means creating in the short term an inflationary effect and destroying jobs.

So it is not good for the American or the European economy.

In the same way, it is not good for the Canadian or Mexican economy.

I find there to be a sort of paradox in seeing the main allies of the United States to be the first ones taxed.

AMNA NAWAZ: For more now, we're joined by Gavin Bade.

He's trade and economic policy reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Gavin, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

GAVIN BADE, Trade and Economic Policy Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: The pleasure is mine.

Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So these tariffs were a campaign promise for President Trump.

Last month, he seemed to give automakers a bit of a reprieve.

Now that they have been officially announced and, as he says, now that they're permanent, what kind of reaction are you hearing from people in the industry?

GAVIN BADE: Today, I think, was a lot of surprise, confusion and trepidation.

Very few people, even those very close to the White House, expected that these tariffs would be unveiled yesterday.

We thought that maybe they would come after the April 2 tariff deadline, when we're going to see a lot more duties.

But they did roll them out yesterday, and it's really hard to overstate what a momentous moment this is for the U.S. automaking sector and the global automakers,probably the biggest disruption since COVID, and perhaps since the North American Free Trade deal was signed in the early 90s.

So, hard to overstate the impact here.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, it was welcome news, we saw, to the United Auto Workers union.

They called this -- quote -- "a long-overdue shift away from a harmful economic framework."

And they said -- quote -- "Thousands of good-paying blue-collar auto jobs could be brought back to working-class communities within a matter of months."

Gavin, what do we know about that?

Is that true?

GAVIN BADE: I think it's true for some parts of the automotive value chain.

I also think it is a convenient thing for the UAW to be able to throw their support behind a Trump action, because they have sort of been in the doghouse with the administration after they publicly supported Kamala Harris in the campaign.

But it is true that a lot of the assembly workers and UAW members may see more work and we may see new factories as these tariffs are rolled out.

But I think the impact across the auto value chain will be uneven.

I have just been on the phone with a bunch of parts suppliers, people who don't work in the assembly factories, but in the factories that make the parts that go into the car.

They are the brunt, most of the automotive industry employees in this country.

And a lot of them are very concerned about the impacts of these tariffs.

They have already been hit by steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump recently imposed.

And they are wondering that.

And a lot of them have global value chains as well.

So they're wondering if they're going to be able to continue operations as this trade war unfolds.

AMNA NAWAZ: What about the potential impact for American consumers?

We have seen some analysts project that a 25 percent tariff could increase the average list price of a new car by 7 percent from $49,800 to $52,500.

Should consumers be bracing for higher prices at the dealership this spring and summer?

GAVIN BADE: I think largely yes.

Obviously it will depend on if you're buying a foreign imported car or a domestically produced one, but even ones that are built in the U.S. or Canada and Mexico, which, remember, ostensibly, we still have a free trade deal with them, but they are going to get tariffed under this plan as well.

I think that the rollout will be a little uneven here.

Automakers have been -- or auto dealers have been stockpiling cars for months in anticipation of this day.

So a lot of them have parking lots full of new vehicles they're going to try to off-load.

So maybe this won't affect prices in the very near term, but we're also going to see a lot of consumers rushing the dealerships this week to try to get pre-tariff pricing on these vehicles.

So those stockpiles could be gone through a little bit faster than we might expect.

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned the impact on the manufacturers.

I just want to bring up a graph here, because Axios basically listed the companies that are going to be hit hardest by the tariffs, looking at their share of U.S.-sold cars that are built here in the U.S. Obviously, companies like Tesla and Rivian, whose cars were manufactured completely in the U.S., not impacted.

Foreign companies at the bottom of that list, Volvo, Mazda, Hyundai, they're going to be hit the hardest, but the tariffs hit the people in the middle of that list to American manufacturers, the Big Three, Ford, GM and Stellantis, Gavin, are they positioned to navigate this?

GAVIN BADE: I think they're going to be pushing for some exemptions, especially for vehicles that are assembled in Canada and Mexico and parts that come from Canada and Mexico.

So right now there is a formula they will go through to assess, OK, what is the value of U.S. content in a car that is perhaps coming from Mexico?

And then the plan is that you will only be tariffed on the foreign content value of that car.

I think, moving forward, you will see these automakers trying to maximize the U.S. content, and then those automakers and the other governments trying to push the Trump administration for exemptions from this as well.

Although the administration says that these tariffs are final, we know Trump's a dealmaker, and we know that the negotiation is never quite over.

So if they have something he wants, there may be some wiggle room here.

The key word for him is flexibility.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have seen the tariffs already spark a lot of anger and frustration around the world.

When you look at these in the context of some of the other tariffs you mentioned, how could they potentially impact the broader global market here?

GAVIN BADE: I think the idea from the Trump administration is to dramatically shift these value chains back to the U.S.

They do not like that after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in the early '90s we saw a lot of automobile assembly and parts assembly go to Canada and Mexico.

That's created in North American value chain that has lowered the price of vehicles.

But if you talk to Trump and his allies, they want that manufacturing to come home.

And I think that that is the motivation behind their steel and aluminum tariffs, the duties that we will see on global nations on April 2, and then further tariffs that they have planned on pharmaceutical products, microchips, and the like.

So I think we're looking -- we're living through a massive readjustment in global trade policy and, by extension, global supply chains.

And I think the big question is how economically disruptive is that going to be?

And can the administration soldier through the economic disruption and deliver this rebalancing before things get too bad in the economy back home?

AMNA NAWAZ: Gavin Bade, trade and economic policy reporter for The Wall Street Journal, thank you so much for being here.

Really appreciate it.

GAVIN BADE: Appreciate you all.

Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: We start the day's other headlines with major restructuring at the Department of Health and Human Services, slashing its work force by almost 25 percent.

The agency says it will lay off 10,000 employees on top of another 10,000 leaving voluntarily through buyouts or early retirement.

The vast majority of the job cuts will come from the FDA, the CDC, and the National Institutes of Health.

The plan will also shut down entire agencies, including one that oversees the National Suicide Prevention hot line.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said a -- quote -- "painful period" lies ahead, but he called the reduction in bureaucracy necessary.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary: We're going to eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments and agencies while preserving their core functions.

We're going to consolidate all of these departments and make them accountable to you, the American taxpayer and the American patient.

GEOFF BENNETT: Kennedy said some folded agencies would be merged into a new organization called the Administration for a Healthy America.

HHS claims the changes would save taxpayers $1.8 billion a year.

The White House has withdrawn New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik's nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations, citing concerns about the slim margins Republicans have on Capitol Hill.

Stefanik was seen as one of President Trump's least controversial picks, and her nomination even advanced out of committee before it stalled for months.

It's a turnaround for the congresswoman, who was expecting to be confirmed.

She'd even launched a recent farewell tour in her district.

Stefanik is now the fourth Trump administration nominee to have his or her name pulled.

Attorney General Pam Bondi this morning Signaled there is unlikely to be a criminal investigation into the sharing of military operational details by top Trump officials on a commercial messaging app.

Bondi said the information shared over Signal about when the operation would start and what weaponry would be used was not classified.

PAM BONDI (R), U.S. Attorney General Nominee: First, it was sensitive information, not classified and inadvertently released.

And what we should be talking about is, it was a very successful mission.

Our world is now safer because of that mission.

We're not going to comment any further on that.

GEOFF BENNETT: Bondi went further to accuse Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden of mishandling classified information while in office.

The Justice Department at the time opened investigations into those issues.Neither ultimately faced criminal charges.

Meantime, late today, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to preserve all Signal messages that discussed attack plans in Yemen.

Lawyers for a Tufts University international student who is currently in ICE custody were back in federal court today fighting for her release; 30-year-old Rumeysa Ozturk was taken by masked plainclothes federal immigration agents Tuesday near her home in a Boston suburb.

She's since been moved to an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

The Department of Homeland Security says she was detained for supporting Hamas, without providing evidence.

Friends and colleagues of Ozturk say her only known activism was co-authoring an op-ed asking Tufts to divest from Israel.

Turning to the war in Ukraine now and the European support on which it depends, representatives from nearly 30 countries, plus NATO and the E.U., gathered in a so-called coalition of the willing in Paris today.

Many pledged to hold firm on Russian sanctions and others pledged more aid to Ukraine, including France with a $2 billion defense package.

But there was far from a coalition another proposal, to deploy European troops inside Ukraine as a deterrent to Moscow.

Without consensus, the two countries leading the charge, that's France and the U.K., signaled they'd be prepared to go it alone.

EMMANUEL MACRON, French President (through translator): Today, these reassurance forces are a French-British proposition.

It's desired by Ukraine and it's also been agreed by several member states that have Signaled their desire to join in.

There's no unanimity on it today.

That's known, but we don't need unanimity to do this.

GEOFF BENNETT: All this as the conflict persists.

Russian drones damaged homes and injured two dozen people across cities in Eastern Ukraine.

Both Russia and Ukraine also accuse each other of continued strikes on energy infrastructure, breaking the limited cease-fire they agreed to just days ago.

In Turkey, authorities deported a BBC reporter today as part of a crackdown on the press and anti-government demonstrations.

Authorities pushed back more protesters with water cannons overnight.

Almost 1,900 people have been detained by police since the demonstrations began last week.

The protests sparked by the jailing of one of President Erdogan's main political rivals have been the largest in over a decade.

In Lithuania, rescuers searched for four U.S. soldiers who went missing two days ago during a training exercise.

The Army says the soldier's armored vehicle was found submerged in a body of water at a military training ground near the Belarus border.

Both U.S. and Lithuanian soldiers are combing the dense wetlands where the vehicle was found.

As of yesterday, President Trump said he still hadn't been briefed on the missing soldiers, all from the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.

QUESTION: Have you been briefed about the soldiers in Lithuania who are missing?

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: No, I haven't.

GEOFF BENNETT: NATO had to clarify confusion caused by comments yesterday from Secretary-General Mark Rutte after he suggested the soldiers had died.

NATO says the search remains ongoing.

And, on Wall Street, despite some encouraging numbers about GDP last quarter, stocks took a bit of a tumble today.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell by more than 150 points, while the Nasdaq lost half-a-percent.

The S&P 500 also took a small loss on the day.

Still to come on the "News Hour": we speak with one of the two Democrats the president fired from the agency that oversees big tech; a disinformation expert examines just how much of Project 2025 the Trump administration has implemented;and a new development tests whether car-free living is possible, even in sprawling cities like Phoenix.

AMNA NAWAZ: The showdown between President Trump and the judiciary continues this week.

GEOFF BENNETT: That's after a U.S. appeals court upheld a federal judge's ruling blocking the administration from using a rare wartime authority for deportations.

Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has more.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: President Trump's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants without due process could now end up in front of the Supreme Court.

The White House said it plans to appeal a circuit court decision that kept the temporary block on deportations in place.

This week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the maximum security prison in El Salvador where migrants the Trump administration alleges are gang members are now being held.

There, she recorded a message in front of prison.

KRISTI NOEM, U.S.

HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I also want everybody to know, if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face.

First of all, do not come to our country illegally.

You will be removed and you will be prosecuted.

But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: For more on this case, I'm joined by Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union and lead counsel in the case suing the federal government.

Lee, thank you so much for joining.

The Trump administration, as we said, is still blocked from deporting Venezuelan migrants using the Alien Enemies Act, who they allege are gang members or are tied to Tren de Aragua.

But that's a temporary block.

So what comes next?

LEE GELERNT, Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union: So the White House has said that they will seek to overturn that temporary block in the Supreme Court, so we expect to see something from the government any second now or tomorrow, at latest Monday.

We will obviously oppose that.

We think the block makes sense because this case needs -- has weighty issues and needs to play out in a proper way.

If the TRO is vacated by the Supreme Court, the government will seek to send hundreds more men to a Salvadoran prison, potentially for the rest of their lives, without any due process.

We don't think this wartime authority can be used during peacetime.

And certainly, if it can be used, there has to be some due process, because many of these men dispute that they're gang members.

And the more and more we're learning about the men, the more and more we have real doubts that they are in fact related to the gang.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Lee, what's the ACLU's main argument here?

Why do you say that the president's use of this centuries-old wartime power is potentially unlawful?

LEE GELERNT: The first, and I think most important maybe, is that this wartime authority can't be used.

Congress was very, very clear in this statute, as you said, enacted in 1798, that there must be a foreign government or nation in a declared war with the United States or a foreign government or nation must be invading the United States or there must be predatory incursions, threatened or attempted.

Nothing like that is happening.

As judge Henderson and the D.C.

Circuit pointed out, migration is not an invasion.

This is a very dangerous path we're going on if the government can say we're unilaterally going to designate any gang we want during peacetime as an enemy alien and then ship people off, especially if there's no due process.

I would just add that Congress was so specific that no other administration in the history of this country has been confused about what powers it vests the president with.

It's only been used three times in the history of the country, all during declared wars, the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

No president has tried to take this lawless action of saying we're going to designate a criminal gang as a foreign country invading the United States.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: During the last hearing before the district court, Judge James Boasberg said that he will get to the bottom of whether his order to pause deportations was violated by the administration.

Where does that stand?

LEE GELERNT: Yes, so that's a parallel proceeding.

On the Saturday night in which we filed, the judge said, I want the planes turned around if they're in the air and the people haven't been turned over the Salvadoran government yet.

He was very clear about that.

Nonetheless, the government turned those individuals over to the Salvadoran government, despite his order.

The government's claiming they didn't violate the order.

He has made clear that he wants to get to the bottom of whether a federal court order was violated.

Those proceedings are ongoing.

The government has said, we won't answer the judge's questions.

They have invoked what's called the state secrets privilege, saying these are such secrets that we can't let anybody see them.

We have a brief do on that on Monday, and I suspect the judge will move fairly quickly to determine whether his orders have been violated.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The administration says that they are being stopped from deporting criminals and now terrorists after classifying Tren de Aragua as such.

Are there other immigration laws that the administration could use to deport criminals?

LEE GELERNT: Yes, I'm glad you asked about that, Laura.

The judge was extremely clear, took pains to emphasize he is not saying these individuals cannot be criminally prosecuted if they have committed a crime, nor is he saying that they can't be removed from the country under the immigration laws.

Congress has set up a process to remove people who don't have a right to remain in this country.

All he is saying is that this wartime authority -- the courts are saying this wartime authority cannot be used during peacetime.

Use your other authorities, and they can continue to detain these individuals.

So the government's suggestion that these individuals are just going to be roaming around the streets if they don't have the authority to use the Alien Enemies Act is absolutely wrong.

So this is more a situation of, can you now allow the president to unilaterally declare a war against anybody and then send them to a foreign prison, and perhaps for the rest of their lives, based on unilateral allegations that they're gang members without any process?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I want to ask you about some of those Venezuelans that were deported to El Salvador mega-prison, CECOT.

"Mother Jones" talked to the sister of one man, Neri Alvarado, and she said that her brother has no ties to Tren de Aragua.

One of his tattoos is an autism awareness ribbon tattoo in honor of his little brother.

And "Mother Jones" reports that ICE told Alvarado that they were finding and questioning everyone with tattoos, but that Alvarado was deemed -- quote -- "clean by ICE."

And then, in another report from The Miami Herald, they found that one man, Frengel Reyes Mota, was in the middle of a political asylum case.

He has no tattoos.

His detention records are riddled with errors and reportedly has no criminal record in Venezuela.

Lee, how many cases are there like these?

And if some of these Venezuelans deported to El Salvador are found to have no ties to Tren de Aragua, can they return home and be reunited with their families?

LEE GELERNT: Yes, you're asking the exact right question, and I wish I knew This was all done in secret to begin with.

The president signed the proclamation apparently on March 14, although now he says he didn't sign anything.

But they didn't publish it until the 15th.

In the meantime, they tried to move everyone out in secret.

We don't know too much about all the individuals.

But what we are learning about many of the individuals is that they appeared to have had no relation to the gang.

And I think we're going to see more and more information come out that the people who were removed didn't have a connection to the gang.

And one of the things we're hearing is that the government based it on tattoos.

But what experts say is, there's no definitive way based on tattoos to know whether someone is a gang member.

And so I think what the judge is going to do is take this one step at a time and see whether his order was violated, whether the government deliberately violated his order to turn around the planes.

And if they were, we're going to ask him to order the government to bring these people back.

The government is saying, well, they're now in another country's prison, but the truth is that we pay for these detentions.

They're -- El Salvador is doing it at our behest.

And so there's no question the United States could get them back out if they wanted to.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Lee Gelernt of ACLU, thank you for your time.

LEE GELERNT: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump's sweeping measures, from tariffs to federal worker cuts, are taking shape in Washington, but their impact is already rippling far beyond the Capitol.

AMNA NAWAZ: Correspondent Lisa Desjardins traveled to red state Nebraska, where livelihoods are on the line.

LISA DESJARDINS: As each day starts in rural Nebraska, Lindsey Nielsen makes breakfast, a gets her kids out the door... LINDSEY NIELSEN, Clinical Microbiologist, FDA: Love you, sweetie.

Bye.

LISA DESJARDINS: ... and drives her youngest to school.

And that is where, these days, the normal routine ends, thanks to an e-mail she read to us.

LINDSEY NIELSEN: "Your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the agency's current needs, and your performance has not been adequate."

LISA DESJARDINS: Lindsey was fired from her job at the FDA, then temporarily reinstated by a court order.

She's now on administrative leave.

What's it feel like even reading that now?

LINDSEY NIELSEN: It's still very, very hurtful.

It's a lie, completely.

LISA DESJARDINS: Her performance reviews portray a top employee in a microbiology job affecting millions, approving tests for COVID, the flu, and other fast-moving and changing diseases.

Like nearly 60 percent of Nebraska, she voted for Trump and initially was glad he won.

LINDSEY NIELSEN: What happened afterwards, though, is not something I expected.

I did not expect there to be such a massive, quick, rash cut to the federal government.

I really expected it to be logical.

LISA DESJARDINS: She and her husband are veterans and serve in the Army Reserves.

They're also both federal employees, accepting multiple moves and lower pay as the price of public service.

What would it mean if both of you all are RIFed, or terminated?

LINDSEY NIELSEN: It means that we both will find new jobs.

I think we will bounce back.

I can't say that about some other people I know.

We go to church with some other people that work for the USDA and they're very worried.

LISA DESJARDINS: They're not alone.

Nebraska is home to more than 17,000 federal employees.

Per capita, that's a bit below the national average, but the U.S.

Postal Service and military are two of the state's biggest employers.

At the same time, it is a conservative state.

ERIC THOMPSON, Economist, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: I'd say it's a state that wants a smaller federal government.

LISA DESJARDINS: Eric Thompson is an economist with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

ERIC THOMPSON: It's a college town, to some extent.

LISA DESJARDINS: He says Trump's actions aren't felt widely here yet, that some things like cuts to taxes and government spending could help Nebraska's economy.

ERIC THOMPSON: I think the problematic policies are the tariff regime and also the limits on legal immigration.

Legal immigration is really important for our economy, certainly in this state.

LISA DESJARDINS: Last year, 37 percent of Nebraska's state budget came from the federal government.

That includes Medicaid, research grants, roads and bridges.

But one of the biggest areas watching Trump's policies is the ag economy.

SCOTT THOMSEN, Nebraska Farmer: When you're looking at your margins and your rate of return, you're squeezing pennies.

LISA DESJARDINS: Outside Nebraska's other big city, Omaha, Scott Thomsen's farm roots stretch back over three generations.

He says farm families like his are used to a bumpy financial ride.

Was there a point you thought about getting out?

SCOTT THOMSEN: Oh, yes, usually five days in the summer and five days in the winter.

SCOTT THOMSEN: The tech has evolved, but not the seasons.

Every spring, he fertilizes his fields that will grow corn and soy.

That produce and the cattle he raises put the family farm and much of the state at the center of the president's trade war.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I'm going to be much more lenient with regard to the tariffs that you will see on April 2.

I'm going to be much more lenient than they were with us.

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump has already sparked a tariff battle with China, possibly hurting farmers' demand.

And he's threatened Mexico and Canada, which could further spike key supply prices, like for fertilizer.

But Scott hasn't seen that yet.

SCOTT THOMSEN: So far, as bad as it's made to be sound, it really hasn't been a sledgehammer, because he's backed off our Mexico, Canada trade tariffs two times now.

LISA DESJARDINS: This year, he's locked in a strong crop insurance rate, allowing him to bank on income from his fields even if the market turns.

He likes what Trump and Elon Musk are doing to cut government and shift the trade balance.

He also knows there's a risk to farmers.

But you're hopeful.

SCOTT THOMSEN: Absolutely.

LISA DESJARDINS: Why is that?

SCOTT THOMSEN: We have already been through this once.

We went through it in 2020.

And it was a hand grenade that went off that time, and the prices fell out of bed.

Made it through.We were subsidized by the government, basically the loss of what they thought the trade, the tariffs impacted the price.

And it ended up being a really profitable year for farmers.

LISA DESJARDINS: Back in Lincoln, freshman college student Asraa Al-Lami faces a major loss.

The teaching student and native Nebraska's scholarship has been frozen and may be canceled.

She describes herself as apolitical, didn't vote last year and never expected Washington politicians would get involved in her education.

ASRAA AL-LAMI, Student, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: They just feel so far from us.

Like, the government isn't something that I feel like -- a lot of people say, oh, it's not going to affect my day-to-day life.

It's not going to affect me and stuff.

LISA DESJARDINS: It feels far away.

ASRAA AL-LAMI: Yes, it just feels like something that's so unreal.

and for me, it's like, now it just feels so real.

LISA DESJARDINS: Asraa, who helps at an after-school program for teens, is part of the RAICES Scholars Program, a federally funded program in Nebraska that aims to fill the state's teaching shortages by training local students for the job.

But the Trump administration recently pulled its share of the program's funds because the school's grant application referenced diversity.

ASRAA AL-LAMI: You had to be from Nebraska.

It was literally just that you just had to want to be a passionate teacher and teach in your communities.

LISA DESJARDINS: Asraa does not know, no one does, if the scholarship will be reinstated for next year.

But she does know she can't afford to take on student loans on a teacher's salary.

ASRAA AL-LAMI: If we don't have those programs in support, like, how do we go about this?

We're just going to lose so much people.

We're going to stay in this teacher shortage.

It's just going to get worse and worse.

LISA DESJARDINS: Nebraska's political landscape is a patchwork of rural red dotted by a couple of big blue cities.

It's all 1,000 miles from Washington.

But like the first signs of spring, the first signs of Trump's actions are here.

And families, farmers and others are closely watching for what's next.

For the "PBS News Hour" in Eastern Nebraska, I'm Lisa Desjardins.

AMNA NAWAZ: Two Democratic former members of the Federal Trade Commission today sued the Trump administration after being fired last week before their terms expired.

The independent agency, designed to be bipartisan, protects consumers and enforces antitrust laws.

The White House defended the move, saying -- quote - - "The time was right to let these people go."

One of those fired commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya, joins me now.

Welcome to the "News Hour."

ALVARO BEDOYA, Former Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So the current chairman of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, released a statement after your firing.

In part, he said this: "I have no doubts about President Trump's constitutional authority to remove commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government."

We should say you were appointed by President Biden back in 2022 to a seven-year term.

ALVARO BEDOYA: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: The new administration says they can pick their own people.

Why do you think they're wrong?

ALVARO BEDOYA: Well, let's quote that gentleman, Andrew Ferguson, because when the Senate asked him the same question when he was nominated, he, as solicitor general of Virginia, said the opposite.

He said that the 90-year-old Supreme Court president that says we can't be removed without cause was good law and only the Supreme Court could overturn it.

So I agree with that guy, and that's what we're trying to reiterate and protect today.

AMNA NAWAZ: So what are you suing for?

What do you hope to see happen as a result of the lawsuit?

ALVARO BEDOYA: It's been a bedrock principle of American law for 100 years that independent agencies like the FTC are protected by these removal protections.

But it isn't just us.

It is the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the SEC.

And so in a world where the president can fire us for no reason at any time, he can also do that to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the head of the FDIC.

What this lawsuit is about is not just protecting the independence and the integrity of the FDIC.

It's also making sure that if you have a retirement account in the stock market, if you have a checking account insured by the FDIC, you are also protected from the chaos that comes from having the head of your agency fired on a whim.

AMNA NAWAZ: And when you say removal protections, that refers to the fact that, to be removed, you have to be fired for cause.

ALVARO BEDOYA: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: You said there was no cause given when you were removed, correct?

ALVARO BEDOYA: That's right.

And, in fact, there's only three causes we can be removed for, inefficiency, malfeasance, and neglect.

And none of that was asserted in the e-mail that we got when I was at my daughter's gymnastics class last Tuesday.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's when you got the call?

ALVARO BEDOYA: That's right, the e-mail, yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: The FTC, just for folks unfamiliar, it's an independent agency.

It basically keeps tabs on big business, right?

For people who aren't familiar, who don't know a lot about what the commission does... AMNA NAWAZ: ... can you give us some examples of where they might have seen the commission's work show up in their lives?

ALVARO BEDOYA: Absolutely.

Let's talk about medical bills.

There was a gentleman by the name of Martin Shkreli.

He bought orphan drugs.

He would jack up the price on them and basically rip off tons of people who needed that drug to survive.

We got that guy banned from the pharmaceutical industry for life.

Take insulin.

A lot of people have to take insulin to survive.

And yet the price is too high.

FTC staff right now is filing a lawsuit before the commission.

I'm a judge in that lawsuit that argues that these companies called Pharmacy middlemen, or PBMs, are competing not to lower the price of insulin, but to raise it.

And so by firing me or trying to fire, I would say, me and Commissioner Slaughter, we have no idea what's going to happen to that lawsuit, because both of the judges in that lawsuit are gone.

Chairman Ferguson and Commissioner Holyoak are both recused.

AMNA NAWAZ: So the FTC historically has five members, right, no more than three from the same political party.

After you were fired, with Rebecca Slaughter, we should mention, another Democrat... ALVARO BEDOYA: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: After you were fired, you wrote online -- quote -- "The president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies."

What are you worried about happening on the FTC in the absence of bipartisan representation?

ALVARO BEDOYA: Here's what I meant by that.

Think about the gentlemen over the president's shoulder at the inauguration.

I am responsible for enforcing a 20-year privacy order against the social media company X. FTC staff right now is trying to tighten the privacy restrictions to users of Facebook.

I'm a judge in that.

And I am suing Mr. Bezos' company, Amazon, in not one, but two separate lawsuits.

So what I am worried about is that what allegedly happened with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, where he was let loose from the charges he was facing apparently due to some kind of sweetheart deal or something like that, I'm worried about that kind of thing happening at the FTC and situations where the White House might call the FTC and say, hey, Mr. Bezos right now has two lawsuits.

It would be great if it was just one.

And Chairman Ferguson, my colleague there, has a choice.

They can either obey and stay or, if they don't, my suspicion is that what's happening to me will happen to them.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, I should point out Chairman Ferguson has said the commission, in his words, will continue its tireless work to protect consumers, lower prices and police anticompetitive behavior.

You seem to be saying you don't believe him.

ALVARO BEDOYA: Well, I'm actually saying something different.

I'm saying it doesn't matter what he thinks, because, at the end of the day, in a world where he can be fired at any reason for any time, which is what the president is alleging,he either goes along with that agenda or doesn't and will be gone in short order.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to circle back to an idea you mentioned earlier because in your lawsuit you explicitly say: "Removal protections like those for FTC commissioners appear in statues for myriad agencies, notably including the Federal Reserve."

ALVARO BEDOYA: That's right.

AMNA NAWAZ: You're basically saying how the court rules in this case could have a much broader impact.

Is that right?

ALVARO BEDOYA: That is precisely what we're saying.

It is the same set of protections for the Fed that apply to the FTC.

It is an even arguably weaker set of protections that apply to the FDIC or the NCUA.

And so if the president manages to break that 90-year-old Supreme Court president, if he manages to break that norm, it's going to have ripple effects through the whole economy, I'm afraid.

AMNA NAWAZ: So what happens next with your lawsuit and the legal fight?

ALVARO BEDOYA: So we filed, I think, around 12:30 today.

We should get assigned a judge this evening or tomorrow.

Our hope is that in a month or two that district court judge will reach a decision, we hope reinstating us, like Gwynne Wilcox, the NLRB board member, was reinstated.

But then it will almost certainly be appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals and a lot of people think to the Supreme Court.

AMNA NAWAZ: Alvaro Bedoya, former member of the Federal Trade Commission, joining us tonight, thank you so much for your time.

ALVARO BEDOYA: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Time now for our series On Democracy, where we hear a range of perspectives on how government should function, what led to this moment in American history, and where the country goes next.

Our primary focus tonight is Project 2025, the conservative policy project authored by former Trump administration officials, which became a flash point during the presidential campaign.

Angelo Carusone has studied that 900-page document.

He's president of Media Matters, a progressive nonprofit focused on researching and analyzing news media, including disinformation and online ecosystems.

I spoke with him days ago.

Angelo Carusone, welcome to the "News Hour."

ANGELO CARUSONE, President, Media Matters for America: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: You have emerged as an expert on Project 2025, this road map that then-candidate Trump during the campaign repeatedly disavowed.

Now the architect of Project 2025 was just quoted as saying the way that Trump has implemented it has exceeded his wildest dreams.

When you look at the way President Trump has expanded his executive authority, he's dismantled federal agencies, he's purged the federal work force, how much is Project 2025 guiding this work?

ANGELO CARUSONE: What Project 2025 provided was sort of the core story here, which was to -- who's the bad guy?

And that was the deep state.

And they basically said, essentially, most of the federal government, most of the federal workers were part of this deep state, a conspiracy to sort of prevent Donald Trump or anybody else from implementing major changes and then - - and sort of a conservative agenda.

And then the second thing it did was not only provide who the bad guy was, but then who's the good guy.

And, in this case, the good guy is not just Donald Trump.

It's a unitary executive.

So that is it.

Obviously, there's a lot of policy that Project 2025 has sort of provided the framework for, but essentially it was a story.

And it was a story of who's the bad guy and who's the good guy?

And, to that extent, that story is playing out exactly according to plan.

The only major difference is the timeline.

It's just moving along a lot faster.

We're basically in sort of like the fifth or sixth month of Project 2025, according to the book, even though we're only in the second month of the administration.

GEOFF BENNETT: So where does this head next then?

ANGELO CARUSONE: Well, one is that we're barely through -- even through the layoffs and the terminations.

We have only gotten rid of about 70-or-so-thousand federal workers.

Project 2025 calls for somewhere around 300,000 to about a million federal workers to be removed.

So where does it go?

More layoffs, more terminations.

The second thing, and this is the big one, is to sort of set up a collision between the executive branch and the judicial branch.

One of the big parts of Project 2025 was to make it very clear that the president and the executive has ultimate authority.

And that means that you start with Congress.

And Congress has largely abdicated itself to the administration.

So that was sort of their first target, but politics basically said, we're not even going to try to fight this out.

We're not even going to defend our sort of co-equal status.

So now where it goes next is sort of a showdown with the federal -- with the courts.

GEOFF BENNETT: If the strategy is all laid out and President Trump, you can argue about what he's done.

You can't argue that he hasn't been entirely transparent about it.

GEOFF BENNETT: How should those opposed to what he's doing, how should they fight back?

ANGELO CARUSONE: I think the thing that's really important here is that we are not fighting a standard political battle.

Project 2025 is really unpopular.

Nobody actually really likes the policies there except a very small extreme few, but they don't see how those policies are actually affecting them.

There has to be a bigger story here.

And that starts with connecting the dots to the administration's actions and the harms that people are experiencing.

That's a political issue, but that is that's as much of a media issue as well.

And then, broadly, not this, consensus around not this.

And if we are not able to win the hearts and minds, Project 2025, whatever it becomes called, will be the new norm.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the right and Trump-friendly voices have an advantage here, because the other part of your work is looking at their saturation in the media ecosystem.

Tell me about that.

ANGELO CARUSONE: I think the biggest challenge right now that we're grappling with, and there are lots, but they all sort of play out in one arena, and that is an information landscape.

And the real battle from my perspective is in the information war.

And the right just has an enormous advantage there.

They have had some advantages along the way.

There's always been a little bit of an imbalance.

Talk radio and FOX News in the '90s and early 2000s, they had dominance.

They had a lot of listeners, but there were other things that counterbalanced them.

So they weren't dominant in the entire information landscape.

They just spoke to a very consolidated few.

That's just not the case anymore.

So we just did this really big study that looked on online voices and sort of the largest programs, sort of political and non-political, adjacent left, left adjacent, right, right adjacent.

When you add it all up, the right and right-leaning and right adjacent programming accounts for 82 percent of the major online shows.

That's podcasts.

That's streaming channels.

That's just -- that's narrative dominance.

That -- yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that includes podcasts that aren't overtly political like sports and comedy podcasts, for instance.

ANGELO CARUSONE: Yes, that was the part that was the most to me surprising and yet disturbing about the study, is that of the 400-plus shows that we looked at, 100 or so of them were non-political, sports, culture.

But when you actually looked at an analysis of the program, you listened to them, you coded them, we found that 72 percent of them, 72 percent of explicitly non-political programming contained not only political content, but right-leaning political content.

They just branded it or framed it as something different.

And that's where this really becomes key is, is that is the lens through which people see the world.

And so when all of that programming is sort of tilting the scales in favor of the right, the story that the majority of Americans are getting day-to-day is right leaning.

And I see no better illustration of that gap than if you look at in particular what's happening with young people.

Young people are accelerating and moving to the right faster than any other demographic.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that they just happen to consume online media more than any other demographic does.

That's their primary source and yet they themselves are moving at a faster and faster clip to the right because that landscape is so heavily dominated and saturated by the right.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's quite an asymmetry.

I mean, is there any way that Democrats could account for that in a way that is authentic?

ANGELO CARUSONE: I mean, that is the key issue here, right, is that they -- that they're playing with a very old playbook, that when they -- they think that the issue here is about messaging and message discipline, and say, well, if we all just go out there and say the same thing at the same time, that will get our message out.

That model worked 20 years ago.

That doesn't work now.

In fact, it feeds into the opposite.

They are feeding into the story that's being told about them, which is that they're puppets, that they're inauthentic, that they don't have anything original to say.

So what does that mean in practice?

Stop worrying about paid media.

Ads are not going to be the solution here.

Investing in storytellers -- the people online that do this work day-to-day, they're artists in a way.

They're storytellers.

They're creators.

They just need the resources to continue to do what they're doing.

That will help balance out the scales.

The second is to stop being so afraid.

The right has an advantage.

That asymmetry doesn't just give them the ability to project a story.

It also gives their leaders comfort and confidence.

If I know that I could go out there and face-plant, and I have a massive ecosystem that is going to be like sandpaper to smooth out all the edges, and not only make that face-plant look like the greatest acrobatic feat ever, but somehow turn it into a reward system for me, I have a lot more comfort.

I have a lot more confidence.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that speaks to the broader implications about what it means for our democracy.

ANGELO CARUSONE: That's right.

And so unless there's a real concerted effort around that asymmetry, the problem is not only going to not get better.

It's only going to get worse, because let's keep in mind that when we talk about all the tech oligarchs and the tech giants rolling back their policies, cozying up to Trump, it's not just that the leaders are doing that.

It actually affects the rules of their algorithms, what their systems are doing.

That imbalance is only going to speed up because the very systems that support them are actually privileging right-wing lies and right-wing misinformation.

GEOFF BENNETT: Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, thanks for being here.

ANGELO CARUSONE: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: The sprawling metropolis of Phoenix is an unlikely place to build an apartment complex without parking for residents.

Car dependency is just part of life for most people there.

But a new development in the suburb of Tempe is providing a blueprint for more environmentally-friendly and car-free living.

Stephanie Sy has this report for our Tipping Point series and our arts and culture series, Canvas.

STEPHANIE SY: The vast suburbs of Phoenix make driving a necessity for most people who live here.

RYAN JOHNSON, Co-Founder and CEO, Culdesac: There's not a drop of asphalt in the project.

STEPHANIE SY: But developer Ryan Johnson, who grew up in the area, has a different vision for its future.

And it starts with this apartment complex in the city of Tempe.

RYAN JOHNSON: It's a 1,000-person neighborhood where it's the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S. STEPHANIE SY: Car-free meaning no parking spaces for the more than 300 residents.

RAVAN ROSS, Culdesac Resident: I love it so far.

It's done wonders for my lifestyle.

STEPHANIE SY: Ravan Ross, a full-time artist, moved to Culdesac last February.

When residents sign a lease, they agree to not keep a car at the property.

So how has it been being without a car?

RAVAN ROSS: So I take public transit now.

So sometimes my bus stop can be like a 13-minute walk or it can just be a two-minute walk.

So just having that walking time every day that I probably wouldn't normally get if I had a car has been a benefit.

STEPHANIE SY: The savings from not having a car can be up to $1,000 a month.

And Ross has lost 25 pounds since moving here.

Aracely Delgadillo and her family are big on bikes, even the 5-year-old rides.

How do you take a watermelon back from the grocery store on a bike?

ARACELY DELGADILLO, Culdesac Resident: Well, we actually -- well, I don't think we have tried that yet.

ARACELY DELGADILLO: Just the little ones, but not the, like, super big ones.

But we have a cargo bike for that now, so probably would work.

STEPHANIE SY: She and her husband sold their cars in home to move to Culdesac last July.

ARACELY DELGADILLO: We used to have to commute 26 miles every day, twice a day, five times a week.

It was just so rough on me.

So I'd always sit in the passenger and I'd look around and I'd just see everybody kind of like a zombie.

STEPHANIE SY: Like, miserable And in traffic.

ARACELY DELGADILLO: And in traffic.

There we go.

Nice.

STEPHANIE SY: Now she bikes or takes the light rail to get her and her son Leandro (ph) to and from Arizona State University during the week.

They have given themselves a year to see if a car-free lifestyle is sustainable, relying on the rentable e-cars that Culdesac provides on site to visit family on the weekends.

ARACELY DELGADILLO: I just enjoy being outside more and making it part of my day versus being stuck in the car for those hours and then just getting home and being too tired to do anything.

STEPHANIE SY: Besides e-cars, residents have access to e-bikes and scooters and are frequently seen getting into Waymos, the driverless electric cars that seem to be everywhere in the region these days.

The city of Tempe's existing infrastructure is what makes developments like Culdesac possible.

There's already a mix of public transportation, bike lanes and wide sidewalks friendly to walkers that makes car-free or at least car-light living possible.

ERIC IWERSEN, Transportation and Sustainability Director, Tempe, Arizona: We have separated the bike lane from the road here, added plants, tried to add shade.

STEPHANIE SY: Eric Iwersen is the director of transportation and sustainability for Tempe.

ERIC IWERSEN: We have been a little bit on the leading edge of how you urbanize and grow a city in this region.

Many cities, especially the ones that are kind of in the older parts of the valley, have been confronting this too, and seeing that density and maybe a car-free lifestyle is an attractive option for many people.

STEPHANIE SY: One of the keys to car-free development is actually parking-free development, says David King, a professor of urban planning at ASU and a former student of Donald Shoup, who died last month.

While at UCLA, Shoup wrote the groundbreaking 2005 book, "The High Cost of Free Parking."

DAVID KING, Arizona State University: Parking is, as Donald Shoup says, a fertility drug for cars.

STEPHANIE SY: He explains the basic thesis.

DAVID KING: What cities do is that they require a certain amount of parking for everything that's built.

So if you build an office or an office building, you have to supply something around three parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of office space.

Or if you're building an apartment complex, you have to supply one or two parking places for every unit that you're building.

So with all this parking that's required for everything that we do, parking becomes ubiquitous, it's free, and we all expect free parking everywhere we go, and because of that, we all drive everywhere.

STEPHANIE SY: The parking requirements started in earnest before World War II, and by the 1950s had become commonplace in American urban planning.

The result in Phoenix is not only sprawl, but heat.

Climate change has led to record-breaking summers in the Valley of the Sun.

DAVID KING: One of the reasons that Phoenix is continuing to get hotter and hotter, especially in the summer months, is that it's the overnight temperatures that are really rising, and a lot of that is heat that's trapped in our roads and our parking lots that is just being released overnight.

STEPHANIE SY: With a mind toward climate change and sustainable development, Tempe's parking policies are evolving.

ERIC IWERSEN: So we have reduced our parking requirements, especially if you're attached to a major public transit route, for example.

We have made it easier to have less parking.

We have also made our buildings face the street, face the pedestrian environment, face public transit, rather than being -- having a building separated by a large parking lot from the street.

STEPHANIE SY: Developer Ryan Johnson is also a Shoup-inspired urbanist, generally averse to parking, although there is a lot on his complex reserved for retail customers.

RYAN JOHNSON: What's interesting is if you ask people to visualize what the heat of Phoenix is, it's not 100 or 110.

It's when they went to the grocery store, they walk back to their car in an asphalt parking lot that's got the greenhouse gas effect and they walk in, it's not 110.

It's 175 and they might burn themselves on the seat buckle.

STEPHANIE SY: When he was conceiving of Culdesac, Johnson sought ways to bring down the heat.

The desert-adaptive architectural style is meant to make it feel 15 or more degrees cooler in the apartment complex.

The overall vibe fills European with walkable pathways and a plaza with dining and shopping.

Artist Ravan Ross was attracted to all of that.

RAVAN ROSS: I felt like I was in like Rome or Italy.

The place is very colorful, bright, which reflects a lot of how I create my paintings.

They're full of color and light.

STEPHANIE SY: Culdesac is currently 85 percent occupied and there are plans to build hundreds of more units on the 17-acre property.

RYAN JOHNSON: It's better to build walkable neighborhoods.

It's better for climate, it's better for health, it's better for happiness, it's better for low cost of living, it's better for low cost of government.

It's a better way to build cities and it makes for a better life.

STEPHANIE SY: Whether the concept can be replicated elsewhere and whether there is political will to is an open question.

For now, Culdesac is a tiny oasis in a vast desert of suburban sprawl.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy in Tempe, Arizona.

GEOFF BENNETT: And there is a lot more online, including a look at a controversy over an apology St. Louis University was set to issue for its role in slavery.

That's at PBS.org/NewsHour.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the "PBS News Hour," thanks for spending part of your evening with us.