AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

Geoff Bennett is away.

On the "News Hour" tonight: A federal judge scolds the Trump administration for withholding information about the deportation of Venezuelans and potentially defying his order.

Big law firms and elite universities face pressure from President Trump, raising questions about if and how to push back against the administration.

Our exclusive interview with the president of Princeton University.

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER, President, Princeton University: Princeton University: Academic freedom is a fundamental principle of universities.

It has to be protected.

And so I have concerns if universities make concessions.

AMNA NAWAZ: And inside a recent town hall where constituents share fear and frustration over what they see as a lack of action from Democratic lawmakers.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

In a D.C. courtroom today: A federal judge questioned the legality of the Trump administration's authority to deport hundreds of migrants without due process and refusal to answer his questions.

White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez has been covering the near daily developments in this case.

She joins me now.

So, Laura, this hearing today was about whether the president's use of this wartime alien enemies power is legal.

What did the judge in this case, Judge Boasberg, have to say?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Judge Boasberg seemed skeptical, Amna.

So he appeared to be questioning the use of this wartime order, saying that he believed that it had big policy ramifications that were -- quote -- "extraordinarily troublesome," potentially problematic and concerning.

He also said that he believed that the use of this Alien Enemies Act was a long way from the heartland of the law's intention.

And he appeared as though he was heading towards extending his temporary block on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

That doesn't mean that the president can't deport migrants under other immigration laws.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now, the hearing was not about whether the Trump administration had violated his previous order to turn around deportation flights, but that issue did come up quite a bit.

How did that play out?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: It did come up, especially right at the beginning.

Judge Boasberg said that he had a lot of questions for the government.

He asked the Justice Department lawyer if he had told the Trump administration, if he had told the top of the DOJ, as well as the president and others, he said, did you make clear that my order said that planes needed to be turned around in whatever fashion was possible?

And the Justice Department lawyer said that he understood that Judge Boasberg's order, verbal order, he understood it to be binding, but didn't seem to have any justification or explanation for why in public the administration has said that they don't consider the verbal -- that they don't consider the verbal order binding, because that's kind of contradicting with the public statements.

And he also, Judge Boasberg questioned, if they were so confident in their use of the Alien Enemies Act, why did it appear as though the president signed this executive order in the dead of night and then appeared to be rushing migrants on planes over to El Salvador?

AMNA NAWAZ: So the president's been using this act to deport largely Venezuelan nationals to this mega-prison in El Salvador, claiming they're members of this gang Tren de Aragua.

You have been reporting that some of these Venezuelan nationals, though, do not seem to be members of this gang at all.

Has the government provided evidence of that gang membership?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The short answer is no.

We have asked DHS repeatedly, others have asked the White House repeatedly whether or not they will provide a list of the migrants, of all the migrants available.

CBS did obtain a list, but the -- Homeland Security has not provided one to us at all, Amna, of who these migrants are.

And in court today, the ACLU's lead attorney, Lee Gelernt, actually provided some new information, saying that pretty soon they may file some sworn declarations showing that at least a number of the migrants that were sent to El Salvador had to be returned, because they were women or because they were not El Salvadoran or they were not Venezuelan.

And he expects to file some of those sworn declarations in the coming days.

Now, President Trump was asked about the fact that multiple examples are emerging that some of these migrants appear to have no ties to Tren de Aragua whatsoever.

And here's what he had to say.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I was told that they went through a very strong vetting process, and that that will also be continuing in El Salvador.

And if there's anything like that, we would certainly want to find out.

But these were a bad group.

This was a bad group.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And multiple lawyers and family members have made clear that they have not been able to reach some of their loved ones who were deported, the ones that they believe are not tied to Tren de Aragua at all.

And on this matter of them being sent to this mega-prison, Amna, the president floated today that he is thinking that potentially they may send some American citizens to this El Salvadoran mega-prison if they are found to be convicted of attacks on Tesla.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now, this is all, of course, happening as President Trump and Elon Musk are targeting judges.

They're labeling them as radical.

Did Judge Boasberg specifically respond to any of that today?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Judge Boasberg did not respond to President Trump's attacks directly, but he did take issue with the way the Justice Department has talked about him in their filings, specifically saying that he found their language disrespectful, intemperate.

And President Trump has posted repeatedly over the last 24 hours attacking Boasberg and the judiciary, saying that Judge Boasberg is trying to usurp his power.

So those attacks are still ongoing, Amna, from President Trump, as well as from allies like Elon Musk.

AMNA NAWAZ: A fast-moving story.

We know you will stay on top of it.

Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you so much.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: We start the day's other headlines in the U.K. London's Heathrow Airport has resumed some flights tonight after a massive fire at an electrical substation cut power to the airport.

That threw travel plans for hundreds of thousands of people up in the air.

WOMAN: It's just lots of confusion, and we don't know -- no one really knows what's going on.

AMNA NAWAZ: Authorities at Europe's busiest airports say they will prioritize bringing back stranded passengers who'd been diverted to other airports.

They hope to return to full operation Saturday.

In all, more than 1,300 flights were disrupted in the unprecedented standstill, affecting at least 200,000 passengers.

British Airways, the largest carrier at Heathrow, says the trickle-down effects of those disruptions will take time to iron out.

SEAN DOYLE, Chairman, British Airways: This is an unprecedented situation, and we have not seen a closure of Heathrow on the scale for many years.

Unfortunately, it will have a huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days.

AMNA NAWAZ: An investigation into what caused the fire is under way.

It took seven hours to control the blaze.

Officials have said that no foul play is suspected and no injuries were reported.

President Trump laid out plans today to transfer some of the responsibilities of the Department of Education to other agencies.

This comes a day after he signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the department.

For one, the Small Business Administration would oversee federal student loans.

That portfolio covers about $1.6 trillion in loans involving roughly 43 million borrowers.

It comes on the same day the administration announced plans to cut the SBA's work force by more than 40 percent.

The president also suggested that Department of Health and Human Services would take over programs for students with disabilities.

In the Middle East, Israel's defense minister ordered troops to push further into Gaza today, vowing to hold more land until Hamas releases the rest of its hostages.

The Israeli military already took back part of a key corridor that bisects Gaza after restarting the war earlier this week.

Forces have since moved toward cities in the far north and south.

Residents of those areas worry that the renewed offensive will force them to leave their homes again.

HUTHAIFA LAFI, Rafah, Gaza, Resident (through translator): The mere idea of returning to displacement is difficult.

To live in tents, your private life becomes public for everyone.

You get fear and anxiety.

You don't know your neighbors or where your life is heading.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meantime, in Israel, the Supreme Court halted the firing of the country's domestic security chief, Ronen Bar, until an appeal can be heard.

It came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet unanimously approved the dismissal.

Critics of Bar's firing joined anti-war protesters outside of Netanyahu's residence today, saying his attempted removal is a politically motivated power grab by the prime minister.

Russia and Ukraine say that attacks are continuing even after the parties agreed in principle this week to a limited cease-fire.

Ukrainian officials say Russian drones hammered the Black Sea port city of Odesa overnight, injuring at least three people and causing massive fires.

A local official said the city suffered -- quote -- "local emergency power outages," suggesting that energy infrastructure had been hit.

In the meantime, Russia accused Ukraine of blowing up a gas facility in Russia's Kursk region.

Ukraine denied any responsibility.

Sudan's military says it has retaken the country's former seat of government in the capital city of Khartoum.

Sudanese soldiers celebrated the victory today outside the Republican palace after two years of fighting with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

The victory is a big step towards retaking all of Khartoum, though the RSF still controls much of Western Sudan, including most of the Darfur region.

The nearly-two-year conflict has produced what the U.N. calls the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

Around half of the country's population suffers from acute hunger.

On Wall Street today, stocks managed to eke out modest gains to end the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average added around 30 points.

The Nasdaq tacked on more than 90 points, or about half-a-percent.

The S&P 500 ended just barely in positive territory.

Still to come on the "News Hour": David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines; a nurse reflects on the struggles of the COVID pandemic five years later; and musicians push back on the amount of money they get from streaming services.

President Trump yesterday rescinded an executive order targeting prominent law firm Paul Weiss after that firm agreed to drop its DEI policies and to provide $40 million in pro bono work for Trump-aligned causes.

It's the latest in a series of punitive actions the president has taken targeting the legal community.

John Yang has more.

JOHN YANG: Amna, the president targeted firms that either were connected to the criminal cases brought against him or represented Democrats, including Hillary Clinton.

The orders revoked security clearances and banned their employees from government buildings.

The Paul Weiss deal came after a federal judge blocked a similar order against another big firm, Perkins Coie, saying it's likely unconstitutional.

Last week, hundreds of associates at big firms signed an open letter calling on their employers to defend their colleagues and the legal profession and condemn what they called Mr. Trump's intimidation tactics.

Rachel Cohen was an organizer of that letter, and yesterday she quit her job as a financial associate at Skadden, which is one of the highest grossing law firms in the country.

Rachel, yesterday, when you quit, you shared your resignation letter with your colleagues, and I want to read a little bit of it.

You said that: "This is a moment that demands urgency.

Whether we are failing to meet it because we are unprepared or because we don't wish to is irrelevant to me and to the world, where the outcome is the same."

What was it about this moment that led you to quit?

RACHEL COHEN, Former Associate, Skadden: Well, I have been working on a lot of advocacy that did not require me to quit a job that I enjoyed and was very good at.

But the Paul Weiss decision to capitulate to the Trump administration's attempted coup, because that is what we are experiencing right now -- the president issuing an executive order over a temporary restraining order issued by a district court judge on a near identical executive order issued nearly -- nearly a week before is a blatant disregard for rule of law.

And it has been a blatant disregard for rule of law and it's been building an obvious over the last several weeks.

But Paul Weiss' decision to give in to the Trump administration and particularly what they chose to give him made clear to me that the industry is not prepared to meet it.

And if the industry is not prepared to meet it, then I cannot work within it.

JOHN YANG: Rachel, what is it about what Paul Weiss agreed to that you find so objectionable?

RACHEL COHEN: There's two things that Paul Weiss agreed to do that are being widely reported on that are incredibly troubling.

The first is their agreement to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services to the Trump administration, including to support its Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

It is challenging to come on to TV and say that that's a bad thing, because, of course, we want to combat antisemitism.

But that task force played an integral role and will continue to play an integral role in the type of actions that we have seen very recently in terms of storming of Columbia University dorms, removing people who have legal status in this country and holding them in indefinite ICE detention for exercising free speech rights last year.

So that's item number one.

Item number two is their willingness to collaborate with the Trump administration to examine their hiring policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That's not just a go-forward commitment.

They have also committed to working with the Trump administration to examine their past hiring practices, which is particularly troubling, because Paul Weiss until yesterday was a place that recruited very, very actively under a notion of diversity.

They targeted Black law students groups and convinced them that, if they came to Paul Weiss, they had a real chance at advancement.

And so they are now taking those associates and throwing them under the bus.

That troubled me in particular because there are 20 firms that have received an EEOC demand letter from the Trump administration related to their hiring practices and demanding personal information about applicants from 2019 on.

That information includes name, telephone number, e-mail address, and it focuses heavily on SEO Fellow applicants and 1L diversity scholar or diversity scholarship applicants broadly.

Those are programs that existed across the industry until extremely recently and a strong pipeline for nonwhite associates to come into the industry.

EEOC demand letters are not legally binding.

You do not have to respond to them.

And what prompted my ultimate resignation was that I am at one of the firms that received a demand letter, and they refuse to confirm that they will not be cooperating and providing that information.

I cannot allow an employer that I continue to dedicate time and effort and energy to throw my colleagues of color under the bus.

JOHN YANG: What's your concern if more big firms try to reach agreements, as Paul Weiss did, rather than stand up and challenge it, as Perkins Coie is doing?

RACHEL COHEN: I think that my concern is that the coup that is ongoing will be done.

JOHN YANG: Well, talk about the role these big law firms play in sort of a watchdog role to government.

RACHEL COHEN: Listen, I am not coming on here and saying that big law firms are going to be the front lines of the defense of justice in this country.

But they are a powerful resource for the public interest attorneys and organizations that are on the front lines of challenging Trump administration actions, particularly those that are unconstitutional.

The Trump administration is waging a campaign to see what the legal industry will put up with, because it's a multipronged attack on the court system broadly, as the only branch of government that currently might have any power to check him when he oversteps his authority.

And so if big law firms are unwilling to throw those resources behind the public interest attorneys doing the work, which was an important part of challenging things like the Muslim ban in 2016, there is no rule of law.

JOHN YANG: Since you went public with your resignation yesterday, what have you been hearing from your counterparts at other firms and your colleagues at Skadden?

RACHEL COHEN: Gratitude.

JOHN YANG: Have associates at Paul Weiss reached out to you about anything?

RACHEL COHEN: They have.

I had a couple that reached out today and said, how do I do that?

JOHN YANG: How do I quit?

RACHEL COHEN: How do I quit the way that you did?

And I say, the e-mail is online.

JOHN YANG: You have set the model for them, in other words?

RACHEL COHEN: I hope so.

But, more than that, I'm hoping that the associates do not have to do that and that their employers, the partnerships, the people that should actually be defending the rule of law in this way, will step up, because it is not yet too late, but it is about to be.

JOHN YANG: Rachel Cohen, thank you very much.

RACHEL COHEN: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Columbia University has agreed to comply with a series of demands from the Trump administration about how it will handle protests, antisemitism, and even some academic departments.

The university faced a deadline today to either comply or risk losing $400 million in federal funding.

Columbia agreed to ban masks that conceal identity, to give some campus police new power to arrest protesters, review its admission procedures, and to appoint a senior university official to oversee several academic departments, including those focused on the Middle East, as well as Jewish and Palestinian studies.

It's part of a broader crackdown on higher education.

Jeffrey Brown has our latest look.

JEFFREY BROWN: As colleges are under pressure from the Trump administration, how should they respond?

Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber is speaking out publicly and joins the "News Hour" now for this exclusive interview.

Thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with news that we're both learning about right now, I believe, which is that Columbia University seems to have agreed to many of the demands from the Trump administration, in the hope of keeping that $400 million in research.

What's your response?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER, President, Princeton University: Let me say first of all, I have huge respect for Columbia University and tremendous respect for their president, Dr. Katrina Armstrong.

So I don't want to be in the position of second-guessing a peer institution, particularly under circumstances where I have just learned about the agreement.

What I will say is this.

Academic freedom is a fundamental principle of universities, has to be protected.

And so I have concerns if universities make concessions about that.

And I think once you make concessions once, it's hard not to make them again.

So that would be a framework that I would bring to this decision at any American university.

JEFFREY BROWN: In an essay in "The Atlantic" now, you refer to what's going on as an assault on academic freedom.

You write: "The attack on Columbia is a radical threat to scholarly excellence and to America's leadership in research."

Tell us, what do you see going on and how big is that threat right now?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Well, what it says is this.

America's research universities are the best in the world.

I think they are also the best that they have ever been.

If you look back at American history, two of the things that have been critical to making American universities as strong as they are academic freedom.

That is the right of universities to make decisions about how to constitute academic departments and the right of faculty, scholars, and scholarly disciplines to make judgments about what counts as quality.

That's one of the key factors.

And the second is the partnership with the government that has benefited the American people tremendously by producing these great research universities.

Right now, when you see that government partnership and the government funding being used in ways to kind of force concessions from universities around academic freedom, it threatens the strength of those institutions by undermining the ability of scholars to insist on the right standards of excellence.

JEFFREY BROWN: But I think this is an interesting point that many of us are not so aware of, which is how -- which is what you write about, how universities became responsible for a large part of government scientific and research programs, accepting a lot of money for that, but, as you write, therefore, making universities particularly vulnerable, as now.

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Yes, I think if you look back at American history, one of the important developments in making America's research universities the strongest in the world was this partnership that originated around World War II.

The United States government recognized that by asking research universities to perform research on behalf of the American people and the American government, it could strengthen our economy, improve our health, increase the security of the country by making us a world leader in innovation.

And it has.

But, in doing so, the government also became a uniquely powerful patron of all these universities.

It was supplying large amounts of dollars to universities.

And this partnership created a kind of interdependence.

For decades, leaders and politicians, government officials from both parties respected the academic freedom of those universities.

And that's what's made our universities so great.

What concerns me so deeply about what's happening at Columbia and elsewhere right now is that the government seems to be using that funding stream to force concessions that are violations of academic freedom.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about, though, the main charge from the administration?

Does Columbia, do you and other universities, do you have a problem of antisemitism on campus?

Or do you think that's being exaggerated?

And what, if anything, is being done about it?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Look, I'm a scholar of religious freedom.

I'm Jewish myself.

I'm deeply concerned about antisemitism.

It is an appropriate thing for the government to be concerned about.

And it's something that all of us as university presidents have to be concerned about.

There are laws that require us to care about any kind of discrimination our campus, including antisemitism on our campuses.

And it's important that the government enforce those laws, but there are also processes specified in those laws in court decisions and in regulations that the government needs to follow.

So there are right ways and wrong ways to go about that.

And the wrong way to do it is to use federal funding as a cudgel to force concessions to academic freedom.

JEFFREY BROWN: We have not yet to date seen a lot of pushback from the academic world.

Is each university on its own at this point?

Do you expect to see a more collaborative effort?

What do you want to see universities do?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Well, first of all, I think all of us need to speak up for the fundamental principles that define our universities and that define our missions.

That's one of the reasons why I wrote the essay that ran in "The Atlantic" that you mentioned earlier.

It's also the case that universities work together through associations, including, for example, the Association of American Universities, which is a group of 70 leading research universities in the country.

These issues are critical to us.

And we want to work with the government in order to ensure that the basic principles that I have described around academic freedom and this critical compact between research universities and the government are preserved.

I think that should be in everybody's interest.

It's in the interest of the American people.

It's in the interest, I think, of a government that wants to make America a world leader and to preserve our eminence in scientific research and the benefits that come with it.

JEFFREY BROWN: So how serious is this?

Is it an existential moment for the university as we know it?

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: I think that, when you are dealing with potential intrusions on academic freedom, when you're dealing with very serious threats to the funding that has been at the core of this compact between universities and the government, you're dealing with very serious issues and a crisis that deserves everybody's attention.

That principle of academic freedom and the ability of scientists and scholars to follow their research where it takes them and the funding that has enabled our research universities to be the best in the world have made a difference to our universities and to our country in ways that should be the concern of every university, every American and every official in our government.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Christopher Eisgruber is president of Princeton University.

Thank you so much for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: Thank you, Geoff.

AMNA NAWAZ: In our coverage of town halls during the congressional recess, we have been reporting on the latest pushback Republicans have seen when they're facing their constituents.

Tonight, a Democratic perspective and how a representative from Virginia is handling concerns from voters.

Our Lisa Desjardins reports.

LISA DESJARDINS: For usually sleepy Warrenton, Virginia, a throng drawn here by a congressional town hall and by more, a thirst to respond to President Trump.

CALVIN HICKEY, Constituent, Virginia's 10th Congressional District: If you had told me five, six years ago that this would be the state we'd be in, I'd say no, that's just incomprehensible to me.

LISA DESJARDINS: This is a Republican area, but we found no current Republican voters here, instead, a spectrum of former Republicans, independents and progressives.

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA): Nice to see you here.

LISA DESJARDINS: Their Democratic congressman, Suhas Subramanyam, has been in office all of 76 days.

He has an advantage over Republicans facing these crowds.

These voters want him to lead them.

JENNIFER COATES, Constituent, Virginia's 10th Congressional District: He's saying that we're going to fight back, whether it's through the courts or in Congress.

And I really like that he's standing up for us.

LISA DESJARDINS: That us includes many military veterans and some federal workers.

BETH SIDERS, Constituent, Virginia's 10th Congressional District: It's hell, sleepless nights.

EARL SIDERS, Constituent, Virginia's 10th Congressional District: We don't know what's going to happen the next day.

Every day, you talk -- you turn around, there's another executive order dismantling everything that this country's really stood for all these years.

LISA DESJARDINS: Inside, Subramanyam addresses that.

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM: We're not in normal times anymore.

And I will say that, right now, the American people, I think, want us to fight.

They want us to be bold and they want us to act.

LISA DESJARDINS: They largely agree with their congressman, but want more, for some, insight.

MAN: I'm here because I'm scared.

I'm not an intelligent, knowledgeable person.

I'm just a guy.

And I see what's happening.

What are the Republicans scared of?

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM: I think the most courageous Republicans right now are the ones that are retired, right?

They retire and then they speak out, right?

But we need some more people who are in office right now speaking out and being able to be principled.

LISA DESJARDINS: But others want something less vague.

For Matt Lee (ph), he's concerned that Democrats aren't doing enough to support members of the LGBTQ+ community.

MATT LEE, Virginia: How can anybody feel like this party has their back when the lowest tier of marginalized people is just, we will gladly toss them out?

LISA DESJARDINS: There is one moment of disagreement and it comes from recent news.

MAN: On this vote, the yeas are 217, the nays are 213.

LISA DESJARDINS: When all House Democrats but one, Jared Golden of Maine, voted against a short-term spending bill to keep government open, including Subramanyam.

MAN: So I just wanted to say that I'm a little bit disappointed in that decision and I was hoping that you would vote more like Jared Golden.

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM: It was the worst C.R.

I have ever seen in recent history because it basically let the administration take money and move it around however they'd like and spend it however they'd like, right?

LISA DESJARDINS: Many told us they did not like how Senate Democrats responded.

After the town hall, a theme.

Those here like their new Congressman, but they want action.

These three women are all organizing for the progressive group Indivisible.

WOMAN: We need fighters, and I think that the constituents really do need to push their elected Democrats to fight more.

LISA DESJARDINS: What did you get from the crowd and as far as how they see Democrats in general?

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM: I think most people thought that I'm fighting, but, at the same time, they want us to do everything we can and understand that this is not a normal time, and so we have to take every opportunity and every piece of leverage to give them a voice.

LISA DESJARDINS: In a northwest corner of Virginia, those opposing Trump are speaking up and heading out, looking for not just what to say, but what to do.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins in Warrenton, Virginia.

AMNA NAWAZ: From more on the moon the ground from voters and the other big political stories that are shaping the week, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart.

That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Great to see you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's pick up where Lisa left off there.

David, kick us off here.

The anger she reported on yesterday from people at a town hall for Republican lawmaker in Nebraska, frustration with the Democratic lawmaker tonight, he's not doing more, what do you take away from this?

And what do you think lawmakers are taking away from these town halls during this recess?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it's a traumatic time, obviously.

A lot of us feel traumatized and embarrassed, grief-ridden by what's happening in the country.

But a couple of things have to be said.

First, the town halls are not representative of where the country is.

Obviously, people who show up at a town hall are unrepresentative.

And if you look where the country is, you have got to have anecdotes, like a town hall.

Oh, maybe that's something.

But then you have got to have data.

And so far, the polls show Trump is slipping a little, but not a lot.

And so we haven't yet seen the kind of collapse the town halls kind of suggest.

The second thing is, what does fight mean in this context?

Like, we all want to fight back.

But what does fight mean?

Does fight mean going on social media and saying something all your followers agree with?

Like, that doesn't sound like fighting to me.

It may make you feel good, but that doesn't sound like fighting.

And so, to me, fighting is probably the wrong word in a democracy.

Persuasion is the right word.

And I do think there are persuadable Trump voters, and those are the people you have to care about.

He's not going to worry if people in Indivisible don't like him.

If you can persuade Trump voters that he is incompetent.

Don't go after moral outrage.

Say, he just doesn't know what he's doing, and he's causing you serious harm, and specify what the harm is.

He's taking away this medical care.

He's taking away that.

He's taking away that.

You can't get your passport renewed.

You can't get your VA benefits.

The history shows you have got to have very specific things that they are losing, that people are losing, that Trump supporters are losing that will get them to change their mind.

Just screaming, marching, resistance, the stuff that was tried in 2017, don't really think that works.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, persuade not fight?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Breaking news, I disagree.

(LAUGHTER) JONATHAN CAPEHART: I disagree.

Look, when Democrats talk about fight, they're not talking about it in the -- in terms of violence, in terms of not having any purpose.

People are angry.

These aren't just progressives.

It's not just people from Indivisible.

It's people around the country who see what has been happening since January 20, and who are very angry and very afraid.

And they run the political spectrum.

And so I think it's a mistake to say that -- to mistake the fact that the president's polling is slipping but hasn't collapsed, don't confuse that for the country not being angry.

We're just two months in.

And the president and Elon Musk have done so much in this time that the impact of what they have done is going to be felt.

And the anger and the desire of people wanting Congress, but particularly Democrats, to fight back -- and the fight is not just fighting without any reason or any purpose.

What Democrats want is for their elected members to do what Trump did for his members.

Trump fought -- Trump's followers and supporters like him because he fights.

He doesn't necessarily win, but he shows that he is fighting for them because he's standing up for them.

Democrats want their elected officials to stand up for them.

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned Elon Musk, and we should mention today as well that Mr. Musk was at the Department of Defense, right, being hosted by the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth there, really an unprecedented top-level meeting that he was attending,part of his campaign, we believe, to continue to cut government spending.

And a lot of that anger at town halls has been directed at Elon Musk, but, David, as Jonathan mentioned, we're 60 days into this presidency.

What has this revealed to you, both the meeting today and also what we have seen so far about the role and the influence of Musk in this presidency?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I did not have DOGE being the center of the Trump administration before January 20.

But it certainly has become the center.

And, to me, it's revelatory.

You get the richest guy in the world cutting off food for the starving children around the world.

Like, that's the essence of what it is.

The second thing it is, it's cruelty and ruthlessness.

I have had so many conversations over the last couple of weeks with people inside federal agencies when the DOGE boys comes to count.

And they are naked in their cruelty that this agency disagrees with Donald Trump.

People here, we don't like what you believe, and we're just getting rid of you.

And so that cruelty is kind of naked.

And, to me, it symbolizes something that is at the epitome of this administration.

These DOGE people, Elon Musk, he went to Penn.

The DOGE people went to Harvard.

They went to Stanford.

They worked at McKinsey.

These are not populists.

These are elitists.

These are conservative micro elites who've been in elite universities who play in the elite circles and they want to take it out on their fellow elites.

And that's what this administration has become about, a battle between elites, not somebody representing the working class for problems that are real.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And this is why people are angry, exactly to that point.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let me ask you too about a couple of the earlier conversations we had on the show, because this is a big deal.

We saw President Trump going after institutions, including big law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school.

And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration.

We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they're going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services.

Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don't lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It says to me that our democracy is teetering.

And I will focus on Perkins -- I'm sorry - - on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere.

We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive.

And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.

And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to the folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard.

When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary's ability to stop a president like Trump?

And that's what's so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.

AMNA NAWAZ: David?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he's an extortionist.

That's actually a difference.

There's -- a transaction is, we do a deal.

Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want.

And so that's what we're seeing here.

Now, I put myself in the shoes of, say, the president of Columbia, the head of Paul Weiss.

And I think, well, if I compromise with Trump, I'm hurting my institution.

But if I lose $400 million, I'm also hurting my institution.

These are real choices that people have to make.

And I understand that.

In the case of Columbia, I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all this stuff five or 10 years ago.

They really did get ideologically out of control.

And if they were publicly funded, partially publicly funded, then you have got a problem.

And they created this problem.

So I understand why, I got to save my university.

I got to save $400 million.

On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that.

Here's my next demand.

Here's my next demand.

And if you look at the history of Zelenskyy, Macron, people -- all the people who've tried to cozy up to the extortionists, they will all end up losing in the end.

And so I think it's time for the universities as a body -- and we saw this with the Princeton president -- to say, no more deals.

We are standing up, because there will be a time -- and, again, I don't think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration.

There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, no, no more deals.

AMNA NAWAZ: There's the institutions.

And then there's also we're seeing the individuals who are holding the line wherever they are.

Judge Boasberg seems to be one right now who's overseeing the case that involves the wartime Alien Enemies Act the president has invoked to deport hundreds and hundreds of Venezuelan nationals to an El Salvadoran prison.

This is someone the president and Elon Musk have called for to be impeached, along with other judges.

Jonathan, impeachment of a federal judge would take Congress to act.

Do you see that happening?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don't, primarily because, if they were really serious about it, they have got the Republican majorities.

They should have done it by now.

And Congressman Swalwell, Eric Swalwell of California, has called them out on this, particularly the threat against Judge Boasberg.

You want to do it?

Fine.

Bring it to the floor.

But he also said that Democrats would fight it.

And they should, because these threats against not just Judge Boasberg, but other judges, threats of impeachment, it's an attack on the judiciary.

That's the other piece of the previous answer that I gave, that they're attacking Judge Boasberg.

They're attacking other judges.

My big concern going forward is, let's say that, when the judge issues his decision, does the president, does the Trump administration abide by his decision?

And from everything that I have seen so far, I don't expect them to.

And then where are we?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

I'd just like to talk about one other set of conversations I find myself having frequently.

These are people in the judicial system, in the government agencies.

People are saying, well, if I speak out, how am I going to guarantee my safety or my family's safety?

I can't tell you how many conversations I have had in the last six or seven weeks, whatever it's been, how much does a personal security detail cost?

It turns out it really costs a lot.

But that's how people are thinking, and that's the climate of fear that pervades everything that's going on here, a sense, I have got to keep my head down or else I won't be safe.

And we didn't expect to live with that.

AMNA NAWAZ: We did not.

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, always great to see you both.

Thank you so much.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: And now we continue our look at the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have spoken with a handful of the countless people whose lives were turned upside down by the virus.

We hear now from a nurse who worked on the front lines in New York.

SANDRA LINDSAY, Former Critical Care Nurse: My name is Sandra Lindsay.

And I was the first person in the United States to receive the COVID-19 vaccine outside of a clinical trial.

I can hardly believe it's five years, as it feels like just yesterday.

It was such a tough time on many levels.

Personally and professionally, I was heartbroken to see the amount of patients that were dying despite doing our very best.

I couldn't sleep.

I felt like I was always thinking about work.

I felt like I was carrying the responsibility of an entire critical care division team on my shoulders.

On one of my days rushing out of the house to go to work, I had a sculpture of a face, and I slammed the door.

The piece fell to the floor and broke.

All I had the energy to do was pick up the pieces and I put them in a bag and I said, someday, I will put this back together.

Personally, my grandson was born prematurely, and so he was in an intensive care unit fighting for his life.

And here I was trying to save lives.

Nobody knew my struggles, because I had to be focused and I had to be there for my team.

And I felt like I couldn't share that information, because people had other issues that needed my attention.

I was really, really devastated to see the number of people that looked like me that were disproportionately being impacted by the virus.

I am definitely a different person today than I was back in 2020.

People still recognize me.

They say, it's because of you why I felt OK and felt like I should go get the vaccine.

I hear that all the time.

There's so much misinformation and politics involved in vaccines and in science and in medicine.

It doesn't give me hope that we have learned our lessons and are in a better position to deal with future pandemics.

As a country, I'm fearful.

I have been given this amazing platform that I can use now to advocate, to educate, to dispel misinformation, and just to work alongside our communities to improve health and well-being for all.

After one of the many waves of the pandemic, I sat down and I started putting the sculpture together with all the scars and the glue marks, the missing pieces.

It came together just the way I wanted it and just the way that I was feeling at the time, which is perfectly imperfect.

Next month, my scrubs, my vaccine card, and all the paraphernalia from that historic day will be showcased in the Smithsonian.

I am going to feel so proud.

It's going to be surreal.

It's way more than I could have ever imagined my life to be.

AMNA NAWAZ: For tens of millions of Americans, it's a no-brainer, nearly every song ever recorded for just about $12 a month or free if you don't mind the ads.

But while the streaming giant Spotify has conquered the music industry, many of those responsible for the music on the platform, the artists themselves, say they're getting a raw deal.

It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

WOMAN: Chappell Roan.

GEOFF BENNETT: At this year's Grammys, a plea from one of pop's biggest stars, Chappell Roan, in her speech accepting the award for best new artist.

CHAPPELL ROAN, Musician: I told myself, if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists.

(CHEERING) GEOFF BENNETT: But you don't often hear it on music's biggest stage.

It's a common refrain.

Despite record profits and nearly a decade of sustained financial growth across the industry at large, many musicians say they're being left behind and that the rise of streaming is to blame.

DAMON KRUKOWSKI, Musician, Galaxie 500: It has become enormously more difficult to make a living as a professional musician since streaming entered the marketplace.

GEOFF BENNETT: Damon Krukowski has been a professional musician since the late 1980s.

He's one of the founders of the influential indie rock band Galaxie 500.

DAMON KRUKOWSKI: For an independent artist like myself, I never really needed or participated in the mass market.

But I still had a career, a career that supported me and the labels I worked with.

GEOFF BENNETT: He's also a member of the UMAW, United Musicians and Allied Workers, a group of thousands of artists organizing to change working conditions in the music industry.

He says the current system isn't working for the vast majority of his peers.

DAMON KRUKOWSKI: What's changed is that, with the concentration in streaming and the concentration in the marketplace to just three companies, Spotify, Apple and Amazon, we have no way around it.

We have no other ways to reach our audience and no other ways to market and sell our music.

GEOFF BENNETT: Twenty years ago, more than 90 percent of revenue from recorded music came from physical album sales.

But, today, streaming accounts for 84 percent of that money.

And Spotify, with an estimated 103 million American users, nearly twice as many as competitors like Amazon or Apple Music, dominates the game.

And that has big implications for how artists get paid.

LIZ PELLY, Author, "Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist": Streaming services don't pay per stream, and they also don't pay artists directly.

GEOFF BENNETT: Liz Pelly is a music journalist.

She recently published a book on the company, "Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist."

She says the way that Spotify pays means your subscription dollars don't go directly to the artists you listen to.

Instead, they fan out across all music on the app by total listening percentage.

And even that money goes to rights holders firsts, like record labels, before it gets to the artists.

In 2020, that averaged out to about .003 cents per stream, which means a musician would need roughly 800,000 monthly plays to equal a full-time $15-an-hour job.

LIZ PELLY: The reality is that the vast majority of that revenue that has passed along to the global recorded music business ends up being passed along to the major record labels.

GEOFF BENNETT: And it's not just independent musicians who say they're getting squeezed.

In 2014, Taylor Swift briefly withdrew her entire catalog from the platform, saying in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: "Valuable things should be paid for.

It's my opinion that music should not be free."

And other big names from neo soul pioneer India.Arie to Radiohead's Thom Yorke have done the same.

Pelly's book also unpacks the other ways Spotify has shifted music culture, like through its influential editorial playlists and personally tailored algorithms that can make or break a song.

She compares some of the company's tactics to payola, the now illegal practice of secretly paying for song plays on commercial radio stations, though Spotify says its internal marketing tools give artists a chance to reach larger audiences and don't guarantee plays.

ROLAND PEMBERTON, Rapper: If you don't get on one of those playlists, basically, nobody's going to hear your song.

GEOFF BENNETT: Rollie Pemberton is a Canadian rapper who performs under the name Cadence Weapon.

His 2021 album, "Parallel World," won the Polaris Prize, Canada's award for best album of the year.

ROLAND PEMBERTON: And it's become this thing where every label and artist in the world is fighting for these few spots, how many monthly listeners you have, how many streams you have, how many followers you have on social media.

It's -- these metrics have become extremely impactful, when they didn't exist before.

GEOFF BENNETT: In a statement, a spokesperson for Spotify said it has paid out more than $60 billion to the recording industry since the business began.

Spotify also said half of last year's $10 billion payment, a record for a single retailer, went to artists signed to independent record labels.

"That," the company said, "is a far cry from the pre-streaming era, when a radio station only had room to spin the top 40 tracks.

It is an indisputable fact that with each year more artists are making more money on Spotify.

The number of artists generating at least $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, even $10 million per year has at least tripled since 2017."

But musicians like Sadie Dupuis of the band Speedy Ortiz say artists just don't see enough of it.

SADIE DUPUIS, Musician, Speedy Ortiz: It's really a tiny, tiny portion of a cent per stream.

It doesn't add up in a substantive way in the way that a large amount of record sales might or a sold-out concert in front of quite a lot of fans might.

Most of the income really comes from the live music sphere.

It comes from creating and selling merchandise.

Sometimes, that's records.

Often, it's T-shirts.

GEOFF BENNETT: Which is why she and others like Krukowski are advocating for an alternative, the Living Wage for Musicians Act, introduced last year.

The bill would create a new revenue stream via attacks on streaming platforms and a new fee for subscribers, which would then pay out to musicians directly until they reached a cap.

It's based on a similar payment system Congress established for satellite radio.

DAMON KRUKOWSKI: It would be a game changer for musicians in the industry.

It would rectify the situation where we are not being paid directly at all for the principal distribution of our recorded music.

And it would make the profession of music so much more sustainable for so many more people.

GEOFF BENNETT: The bill faces stiff headwinds, but Krukowski says he thinks it's a bipartisan issue, since he says music has no political party.

In the meantime, Pemberton says, those who want a different future should look to themselves to build it.

ROLAND PEMBERTON: I really think we just need to get back to a more DIY spirit, a more community-led situation where we're buying each other's records again, we're going to each other's shows.

I think people just need to divest as much as they can.

AMNA NAWAZ: That report, of course, from our very own Geoff Bennett.

Thank you, Geoff.

Remember, there's always a lot more online, including the latest episode of "PBS News Weekly," which takes a deeper look at President Trump's move to shutter the Department of Education.

That is on our YouTube page.

And be sure to watch "Washington Week With The Atlantic" tonight on PBS.

Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel discuss President Trump's standoff with the courts.

And on "PBS News Weekend": a visit to the United States Mint to see the creation of a new quarter celebrating civil rights activist and journalist Ida B.

Wells.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us.

Have a great weekend.