AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Harvard sues after the Trump administration bans the university from enrolling international students.

AMNA NAWAZ: Cryptocurrency investors spend millions for a seat at the table with the president.

The private dinner that's fueling concerns about Mr. Trump profiting from the presidency.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine explains why she resigned.

BRIDGET BRINK, Former U.S.

Ambassador to Ukraine: The policy of the Trump administration was to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia.

And peace at any price is not peace.

It's appeasement.

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

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's move to prevent Harvard University from enrolling international students.

The judge's decision came just hours after Harvard filed a lawsuit in response.

AMNA NAWAZ: That initial move by the administration put about 6,800 students, or more than a quarter of the student body, at immediate risk of losing their international status.

Harvard has been at the center of the administration's battle over higher education, which includes multiple investigations, canceling or freezing billions of dollars in grants and threatening the school's tax-exempt status.

For more on what this legal and political clash can mean for higher learning, I'm joined by Laura Meckler of The Washington Post.

It's all part of our Rethinking College series, which is focusing on the battles over higher education.

Laura, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

LAURA MECKLER, The Washington Post: Thanks for having me again.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, for the moment, as we said, the administration is blocked from revoking Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students.

But should it go into place, how big a threat is this to Harvard, both reputationally, but also economically?

LAURA MECKLER: Well, it has several elements.

First of all, if you're talking about theoretically such a large number of thousands of students not able to join them this fall, the question is, can you just replace those students so quickly?

Harvard clearly has a lot of people who want to go there, but it's not entirely clear that you could completely replace those students if it came to that.

So there's some implications when it comes to things like tuition and that sort of thing.

But, really, I think there's a bigger issue about sort of how Harvard sees itself.

It sees itself as a place that's really attracting the best and the brightest throughout the world and that the people who are there are learning from each other, learning from people who come from different places, from different cultures, and that, if those students weren't there, that would take away something from what -- how the university is and what sort of a place it is to be and to study.

AMNA NAWAZ: We know that international students often pay higher tuition in some places.

Is that true at Harvard?

I mean, does it make a difference for their bottom line?

LAURA MECKLER: You know, in a lot of schools, it makes a big difference.

There are many schools that will charge international students full freight, and whereas U.S. students will often get financial aid.

As it happens, at Harvard, they actually do offer financial aid to international students as well.

So it isn't the same sort of disproportionate hit that you would have at another university.

But it doesn't mean they're not paying anything.

That is still, of course, revenue to the school.

But I think that this is less about the revenue and the tuition for the school.

This is a big operation there with a lot of students and a large endowment and more about who's going to decide what sort of policies they can have, who's going to -- essentially, can the Trump administration impose its philosophical and political agenda onto the university?

And, obviously, Harvard has a lot at stake in trying to resist that.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, for its part, the White House has issued a statement saying, in part: "If only Harvard cared this much about ending the scourge of anti-American, antisemitic, pro-terrorist agitators on their campus, they wouldn't be in this situation to begin with."

And we heard President Trump also weigh in on this today.

This is what he said.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Billions of dollars has been paid to Harvard.

How ridiculous is that?

Billions.

And they have $52 billion as an endowment.

They have $52 billion.

And this country is paying billions and billions of dollars and then gives student loans and they have to pay back the loans.

So Harvard's going to have to change its ways.

AMNA NAWAZ: Laura, why has Harvard in particular come into the president's sights in this way?

LAURA MECKLER: Well, it depends who you ask.

Some would say that it's because they have a real problem with antisemitism on campus.

And many people would say that.

Even Harvard has said that there are things that they need to do to better address issues of antisemitism on campus.

And so the administration certainly would say that they're going to -- they're there to try to fix the problem.

They would also point to DEI programming around diversity, equity, and inclusion campus and say they believe that much of that is illegal.

I think there's also something else here going on, though.

Number one is that Harvard is almost synonymous with elite education in this country.

So there is a certain symbolic heft that comes with getting into a fight with Harvard.

It's also -- this hasn't been -- this has been escalating for several weeks now.

This has been -- it started out with threatening to pull money, with pulling money, with threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status.

So there's been a variety of pieces that have built on itself.

And then you have had Harvard, of course, filing suit to try to stop some of the earlier efforts by the Trump administration.

So, really, this has been a slow boil or maybe a fast boil that has developed over -- just in the short time since Donald Trump returned to office.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, in another statement, Harvard's president, Alan Garber, condemned the move, called it unlawful and unwarranted.

He also said in part it -- quote -- "It serves as a warning to countless other colleges and universities throughout the country."

Laura, is there a broader impact here beyond just Harvard?

LAURA MECKLER: Absolutely.

I mean, what this is really is a war, not just on Harvard, but on higher education more broadly.

And it comes amid like a real -- what used to be thought of sort of as a rift and now is a real rupture between the relationship between the Republican Party and conservatives and higher education, specifically elite higher education.

Whereas colleges and universities were once thought of, sure, of universally as a crown jewel of this country, something we could all be proud of, something that the government was happy to invest that money into federal grants, because they were producing groundbreaking research in medicine, engineering, and other fields, and now it's viewed much differently.

And that has implications for everyone.

Today, it's viewed as a place where conservative thought is not welcomed, where they are elite and looking down their nose at everybody else in the country and that the Republican Party, especially Donald Trump, has tapped into that.

And that's really what we're seeing play out.

This is a fight with Harvard right now, but it is really a much bigger question about, how does this country view higher education?

And will the Republican Party continue to its historic support for research and educational opportunity that these colleges and universities provide?

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Laura Meckler of The Washington Post joining us tonight.

Laura, thank you so much.

Appreciate your time.

LAURA MECKLER: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: We start today's other headlines with the latest escalation in President Trump's trade wars.

In a pair of social media posts early today, Mr. Trump said he's recommending a 50 percent tariff on all imports from the European Union starting June 1 and a 25 percent tariff on Apple's iPhones unless they're made in America.

Speaking to reporters today, the president said talks with the E.U.

have been too slow-moving and that he's not necessarily looking to make a deal.

His treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told FOX: "I would hope this would light a fire under the E.U."

In response, European leaders said the tariffs would only disrupt the global economy.

JOHANN WADEPHUL, German Foreign Minister (through translator): It is up to the European Commission to respond.

I believe that such tariffs do not help anyone, but would only lead to economic development in both markets to suffer as a result.

GEOFF BENNETT: As for Apple, CEO Tim Cook said earlier this month that most iPhones being sold in the U.S. are currently coming from India.

Experts say it would take Apple several years and cost billions of dollars to move production here and the iPhone itself could cost triple what it does now.

The Department of Justice has reached a deal with Boeing that allows the plane maker to avoid prosecution for crashes involving its 737 MAX aircraft.

Under the agreement, Boeing will pay more than $1.1 billion in fines, safety improvements and compensation for victims' families.

The deal reverses a separate agreement reached last year during the Biden administration in which Boeing had agreed to plead guilty.

Relatives had long called for a public trial after 346 people died in separate crashes back in 2018 and 2019.

The current deal still needs to be finalized.

Turning to the Middle East, health officials in Gaza say Israeli airstrikes killed at least 60 people overnight and into this morning.

Israel says it targets militants and has vowed to press ahead until Hamas disarms.

Meantime, aid is finally trickling in after Israel ended its monthslong blockade.

But the U.N. says only 115 of its 400 aid trucks in Gaza have actually reached Palestinians in recent days.

Today, the secretary-general compared that amount to -- quote -- "a teaspoon of aid" when a flood of assistance is required.

ANTONIO GUTERRES, United Nations Secretary-General: The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine.

Families are being starved and denied the very basics, all with the world watching in real time.

GEOFF BENNETT: The World Food Program says that more than a dozen of its trucks were looted last night amid the desperation.

It called on Israel to allow more aid in faster and more efficiently.

Ukraine and Russia began their biggest prisoner exchange of the war today, with each side freeing nearly 400 people.

Video from Russia's Defense Ministry showed the released Russians being bused to Belarus for medical treatment.

Kyiv released similar images of Ukrainians now back in their home country.

Ukraine and Russia signaled the exchange will continue into the weekend.

The two sides agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each during last week's talks in Istanbul, but they failed to make any progress on a potential cease-fire.

Authorities in Hamburg, Germany, say multiple people were injured in a stabbing attack at a train station in Germany's second largest city.

Some of them remain in life-threatening condition.

A 39-year-old woman was arrested at the scene.

Police say the attack happened around 6:00 p.m. local time in front of a waiting train.

Authorities say there was no immediate indication of a political motive.

They're looking into whether the suspect may be mentally ill. A nor'easter is heading away from New England as the Memorial Day weekend is about to start, but not before drenching the region and bringing some record cold temperatures.

Parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island were soaked with several inches of rain, while New Hampshire saw temperatures dip into the 40s.

Elsewhere, NASA released this footage of recent storms across the Eastern and Southeastern U.S. as seen from space.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station say some bursts of lightning looked as large as cities.

On Wall Street today, stocks took a hit following those tariff threats from President Trump.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost about 250 points, but it was off its lows of the day.

The Nasdaq fell nearly 200 points.

The S&P 500 also ended in negative territory to finish the week.

And Billy Joel is canceling all of his upcoming concerts after being diagnosed with a brain disorder known as normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH.

That involves a buildup of spinal fluid in the brain.

A statement posted to his social media accounts says, the singer's condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance.

The 76-year-old had concert dates scheduled through July of next year in North America and England.

Those who had tickets will get an automatic refund.

Joel says he's sincerely sorry to disappoint his fans.

We wish him the best.

Still to come in the "News Hour": how federal spending cuts could make it harder to guard against severe weather; David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines; and basketball legend Dawn Staley opens up about the successes and the challenges of her career.

President Donald Trump last night hosted a gathering with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency business, sparking bipartisan concerns that he's selling access to the presidency for personal profit.

The dinner held at his Northern Virginia golf club was organized to boost sales of his cryptocurrency coin launched just days before the inauguration.

The top 220 buyers of the meme coin were extended invitations.

A guest at the dinner provided a video of the president to The New York Times.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We have been pushing the market of crypto and Bitcoin and all of it every day.

And I do it for a reason, not for me, for you, because I think it's the right thing to do.

GEOFF BENNETT: The gathering featured hundreds of guests, including former NBA player Lamar Odom and Justin Sun, a well-known crypto investor who has reportedly spent more than $40 million on President Trump's meme coin.

JUSTIN SUN, Crypto Entrepreneur: It's really nice to be here today with everybody in the crypto to witness this great moment of crypto.

GEOFF BENNETT: Sun was once under investigation by the SEC and DOJ for securities fraud.

After Mr. Trump took office, the SEC probe was dropped.

Joining us now to discuss all this is Eric Lipton, who covers the intersection of the presidency and Mr. Trump's businesses for The New York Times.

Thanks for being with us.

So, Eric, to secure a seat for this dinner last night, attendees had to be among the top 220 holders of the Trump meme coin, which meant that they spent somewhere in the range of $2 million.

How does this all work?

And how is the president and his family, how are they profiting off of this?

ERIC LIPTON, The New York Times: This is a very unusual situation.

This is not a campaign contribution that's going to a political cause that supports a candidate.

This is money that's going directly to Donald J. Trump, his sons, and his family, along with their business partners.

And so you have individuals here that, with his position as president, he's urging people to buy the cryptocurrency meme coin in exchange for getting access to him at a dinner and also visiting the White House.

And, in fact, I was outside of the White House today while 25 of the VIPs, the big ones, biggest holders of his cryptocurrency.

I watched them as they entered the White House, and then I was there as they exited as well.

So, I mean, this is what you pay to play.

I mean, this is where the term comes from.

You're paying to get access to and directly personally financially benefiting the president and his family.

It's a very unusual situation in American history.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, the guest list was private, but tell us more about who was in the room, including the 25 people you just mentioned.

ERIC LIPTON: The guest list was private, but actually we obtained a copy of the guest list, and we know who was at the dinner and we have identified many of them and communicated with many of them.

And they come from all over the world, but particularly from Asia, from China, from Singapore, from Korea.

Many of them are major crypto players from Asia, and they are seeking in some cases to enter the United States marketplace.

And they're seeking a regulatory blessing from the Trump administration to begin to seek profits here in the United States.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about the ethical concerns because there are two mainly.

One is that Trump is profiting off the presidency by selling access and, to your point, that this type of event allows foreigners the opportunity to purchase access to the president, and the Constitution bans a president from receiving foreign gifts or money without congressional consent.

So walk us through the ethical questions here.

ERIC LIPTON: That's right.

As well, it would be an election law violation for him to take a campaign contribution from a foreign national.

But foreign nationals can buy his cryptocurrency and give him money directly and his family.

And that's what's happening here.

So, I mean, the president is exempt from the federal conflict of interest law.

The president and vice president are the only two who are exempt.

So, even though he's taking actions that benefit the crypto industry and then actions that indirectly benefit some of these individuals that are buying, like Justin Sun, with the SEC putting a pause on that investigation, he is not actually criminally liable for that conflict of interest, because he's exempt from that.

Additionally, the Supreme Court has ruled that any type of a notion of a bribe that, if it involves an official action by the president, then he is largely protected.

So the president is doing what he wants.

He asserts that he has no conflicts of interest, that these companies are run by his sons or his associates, and so, therefore, he doesn't have a conflict of interest.

But the bottom line, when we look at his financial disclosure report, we see that he personally financially benefits from the same corporate entities that are profiting from these cryptocurrency sales.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the White House made the point yesterday, the White House press secretary said that President Trump was attending in his personal time, although in that video we saw the presidential seal on the lectern.

Another question here, though, are President Trump's business dealings influencing the administration's policymaking, especially when it comes to cryptocurrency?

ERIC LIPTON: It's -- the quid pro quo is really a hard thing to prove when you have an explicit action in exchange for a financial gain.

I mean, what you have sequentially is that there does appear to be a sequential relationship between people are investing literally billions of dollars in the Trump family-related cryptocurrency companies, and the president is pushing for actions by the federal government or taking the actions himself that benefit some of these same companies.

So these things are happening.

They are factually occurring.

But whether or not he is doing them explicitly in exchange for the financial benefits that he's getting is something that to some extent is really up to a prosecutor or a court to document.

And we don't know for certain, but it does create an appearance of a conflict of interest.

And, at a minimum, it is very unusual.

There really is nothing like this in American history.

We have had other families of presidents that have been -- have had various financial engagements from the oil industry to banking industry, to Hunter Biden, who was working as a consultant and selling paintings even.

But we have never had such an intense and far-reaching corporate engagement that personally benefits the president, as we're seeing right now with President Trump and his family.

GEOFF BENNETT: Eric Lipton of The New York Times, thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

ERIC LIPTON: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Today's prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine was the largest since the war's onset.

But skepticism of a lasting truce and President Trump's peacemaking remains.

Former Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink resigned her position in mid-April, faulting the Trump administration's Ukraine policy.

A diplomat for nearly three decades, Brink served as ambassador to Ukraine under both Presidents Biden and Trump starting shortly after Moscow's full-scale invasion three years ago.

She's now considering a congressional run as a Democrat representing Michigan, and joined me yesterday to discuss her resignation and the war.

Ambassador Brink, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thank you for being here.

BRIDGET BRINK, Former U.S.

Ambassador to Ukraine: Amna, thanks for having me on.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, in your op-ed for The Detroit Free Press, you explained why you chose to resign.

And you wrote this.

You said: "I could no longer in good faith carry out the administration's policy."

What specifically did you see or did you hear that pushed you to make this decision?

BRIDGET BRINK: Well, maybe I can just step back a minute to talk about the context, but over three years of leading my team in Kyiv, I was there as Russia launched thousands of missiles and drones that killed men, women, and children in their sleep, that tried to take down the energy grid and take out the power, the heat, and the lights for millions of people, and committed war crimes and atrocities at a level we have not seen since World War II.

It was absolutely devastating and horrifying.

And to see that firsthand was something that left a big impression me.

I agree that the war needs to end, but the policy of the Trump administration was to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia.

And peace at any price is not peace.

It's appeasement.

And we know from history that appeasement only leads to more war.

The specific thing that started my questioning, could I remain implementing the president's policy, it wasn't a quick decision.

It was when I took over about three months, the first three months of the administration.

But the first sign was the Oval Office meeting, which was horrifying to see, and also to see that we weren't standing up with our democratic partners and allies.

AMNA NAWAZ: That was the meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy you were referring to in February.

BRIDGET BRINK: In February, yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

We saw there that President Trump blamed President Zelenskyy for the war.

We all saw the contentious nature of that meeting as well.

After that, I should point out that you had reposted, in Ukrainian, something that Secretary Rubio had posted, basically thanking the president, saying that he was standing up for America in a way that no president has ever had the courage to do before, very supportive of the president's approach.

BRIDGET BRINK: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Why repost that?

You did face backlash from Ukrainians for that.

BRIDGET BRINK: I did, but, at that time, I was the president's representative and representing the president's policy.

And I reposted Secretary Rubio's tweet, and that's something that we do routinely to use the talking points of the president or the White House.

And, to me, this is part of our professional ethos.

However, it was internally a sign that I wouldn't - - I didn't think I would be able to remain in the position.

It wasn't the only sign, but it was the first sign.

There were other things.

we withdrew our defense, our security, and our intelligence assistance for a period of time.

That too is something I don't think is the right approach to support a democratic partner.

We also changed the way we talk about the war.

So, instead of talking about Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, we call it now the Russia-Ukraine war.

I think to stop Putin, which I think is in U.S. national interests, we have to be clear on who's responsible for the war, and it's Russia.

AMNA NAWAZ: What is it that you hope changes as a result of your resignation?

Do you see this White House's approach to the war changing?

BRIDGET BRINK: I mean, I can't predict the future.

And I resigned not to try to change the policy, but because I myself felt that I couldn't execute the policy.

But the reason that I'm speaking out is because I think it's important for people to know the truth and people to understand the reasons behind the resignation.

For me, this is about the United States being on the right side of history.

For the first time in 28 years of service under five different presidents, I felt we were on the wrong side of history.

And, to me, this is something that's not acceptable as someone who has devoted a life of serving the American people and presidents, but also trying to achieve our foreign policy goals.

AMNA NAWAZ: Are there other people in the embassy in Ukraine, other people in the Foreign Service who share your concerns, who talk to you about this?

BRIDGET BRINK: I mean, of course, we have a robust policy debate, and that's a normal thing.

I have seen that happen, especially on very high, important, high-level policy issues.

I think, as part of our profession, that's good.That's healthy.

I think, right now, especially after a lot of the cuts in government and the way in which those have gone about, it's made debate less, and it's made people afraid to speak out.

To me, that's very dangerous.

I haven't seen this kind of atmosphere in our country in my professional lifetime.

I have seen it a lot overseas.

I have seen it a lot in democracies that are very young and not 20 or 30 years old.

But I think to have that happen in our country, a democracy, the biggest, strongest, in my view, best democracy in the world, is quite disconcerting.

AMNA NAWAZ: As you noted, you did say peace at any price is not peace at all.

You went on to say it is appeasement.

Do you believe that it is President Trump's goal here to appease Putin?

And why, if so?

BRIDGET BRINK: I mean, I take President Trump at his word that his goal is to end the war.

I just believe that, to end the war, we have to take a much stronger, harder line with Putin and that we must be clear in our principles.

We must be clear about who's responsible.

And we need to find a way where we're playing on our playing field, not on Vladimir Putin's playing field.

I think, by not doing so, we're playing into Russia's hands.

AMNA NAWAZ: There are experts and Russian analysts we have talked to who say that this is actually not a war of territory, it's a war of identity, that Russia is looking to change the very fabric of Ukrainian culture and identity.

Do you agree with that, based on what you have seen?

BRIDGET BRINK: Absolutely.

I think it's even broader than that.

I think, horrifyingly, that Vladimir Putin wants to wipe Ukraine off the map as a country, as a people, as a culture.

And, to me, this really hearkens back to some of the darkest periods of Europe.

And this is why I never thought I'd be in a position to resign and then speak out publicly.

But I think the stakes are so high, not just for Ukraine, not just for Europe, but for the United States.

And we must be on the right side of history.

AMNA NAWAZ: Bridget Brink, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Thank you for joining us, Ambassador.

Appreciate your time.

BRIDGET BRINK: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: For many people, Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer.

But along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, it also means the start of hurricane season is nearly here too.

And this particular hurricane season comes at a moment when NOAA and its agencies are being cut and facing their own turmoil.

Science correspondent Miles O'Brien has the story.

MILES O'BRIEN: Nearly 20 years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, federal officials came to Gretna, Louisiana, to predict the U.S. is on the cusp of another above-normal hurricane season, between 13 and 19 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes, three to five of them major.

National Weather Service Director Ken Graham did not utter the word climate, now scrubbed from the federal lexicon, and yet still made clear the main culprit.

KEN GRAHAM, Director, National Hurricane Center: When you have a planet that's warmer, you look at the ocean temperatures could be impacted by that.

Warm sea surface temperature is probably the number one contributor to the whole thing.

MILES O'BRIEN: A lot has changed since Katrina.

Forecasters now issue an outlook for global tropical storms three weeks in advance.

Hurricane hunter aircraft are flying with new experimental radars able to collect data on the ocean waves and the wind.

And there are improved models for predicting precipitation and the rapid intensification of storms.

KEN GRAHAM: The modeling has never been better.

Our service has never been better.

Our ability to serve this country has never been better, and it will be this season as well.

MILES O'BRIEN: And yet the Weather Service and its parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are facing an uncertain financial forecast.

The Trump federal spending overview, known as the skinny budget, released by the White House on May 2, calls for a 24 percent cut to NOAA's budget.

The Department of Government Efficiency terminated more than 800 NOAA employees, raising concerns about the frequency of essential forecasting tasks like launching weather balloons.

And the science budget is hit even harder.

Trump proposes a 74 percent cut to the Office of Oceanic Research.

WALEED ABDALATI, University of Colorado Boulder: I think these numbers are very difficult to believe, frankly.

MILES O'BRIEN: Glaciologist and former NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati is the director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, CIRES, a joint venture between NOAA and the University of Colorado Boulder.

WALEED ABDALATI: It's important to study climate change because it is a big driver of our environment, the environment in which we live now, the environment in which we're going to live a year from now and 10 years from now.

And understanding that enables us to anticipate what the future may look like.

If some challenges are coming, how do we head them off?

MILES O'BRIEN: At first, the Trump budget sought to eliminate all funding for climate, weather and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes housed primarily at major research universities.

CIRES and 15 other cooperative institutes are strategically distributed across the country.

Collectively, they explore climate, weather, oceans, coasts, air quality, water resources, and disaster resilience.

The Cooperative Institute at the University of Miami is deploying drones and remote research vessels to improve hurricane forecasts.

In Boulder, Waleed Abdalati showed me some of the tools they have developed to predict how fires behave.

WALEED ABDALATI: But this is derived from satellite observations, coupling this with information on the ground, drought information, how much fuel is there for a fire, to really get at the dynamics and the ultimate implications.

NELS BJARKE, Western Water Assessment: Certainly, there are many places like Park City.

MILES O'BRIEN: That's what this team of CIRES scientists is focused on.

They manage the Western Water Assessment, one of 13 NOAA-funded teams across the country focused on climate adaptation.

They work closely with small agricultural and ranching communities, trying to cope with worsening drought conditions fueled by rising temperatures.

Benet Duncan is the managing director.

BENET DUNCAN, Western Water Assessment: Looking at things like how drought is changing, it's getting bigger, it's getting drier, it's coming on more quickly, trying to understand how we can better predict that, which is so important for things like agriculture, farming and ranching, figuring out what to plant when.

MILES O'BRIEN: This was among 13 NOAA climate adaptation teams.

At least one has closed, and there are concerns that others may as well.

What would you do if it ended?

BENET DUNCAN: If it ended, I don't know.

I planned -- I was one of the people who hoped to retire here at CIRES with Western Water Assessment.

Like, I really -- it's my passion and I love it.

And so if it ends, I'm going to kind of have to restart and figure out what that means.

NELS BJARKE: It's worse in parts of Western Colorado now.

MILES O'BRIEN: Her colleague, hydrologist Nels Bjarke, is a newly minted Ph.D. now eying greener scientific pastures.

NELS BJARKE: If I lost this job, it is unlikely that I would reenter the work force here in the U.S.

I probably would moved to Australia.

There are plenty of positions I would be qualified to do, and it is much less adversarial.

MILES O'BRIEN: When we visited, layoffs were imminent.

However, after the universities and members of Congress raised serious concerns, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick approved funding requests for CIRES and a few other cooperative institutes that were on the brink.

But the extent and duration of the reprieve are uncertain, and uncertainty is something NOAA is chartered to fight.

Despite all of this, Ken Graham offered some assurances.

KEN GRAHAM: And we had some folks go, but we're going to make sure that we have everything that we have on the front lines.

Every warning is going to go out.

MILES O'BRIEN: But the most important warning may be coming from scientists now sidelined who were doing the work that makes the forecast better.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Boulder.

GEOFF BENNETT: From the Trump administration's latest move against Harvard University to House Republicans narrowly passing their massive spending and tax cut bill, lots to discuss tonight with Brooks and Capehart.

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

Welcome, gentlemen.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hey, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So.

House Republicans this week managed to pass their version of President Trump's legislative agenda, a massive bill that passed by one vote.

Jonathan, this bill extends the Trump tax cuts, but to pay for them, it cuts Medicaid, it slashes food stamps, it rolls back the Biden clean energy agenda.

What does this bill say about Republican priorities?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, when Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House, she has two favorite sayings.

One involves Lincoln.

The other one is, show me your budget and I will show you your priorities.

And what this budget shows is that Republicans are hell-bent on financing tax cuts for the upper income at the expense of middle-class, working-class and poor Americans.

And it's something that Republicans -- House Republicans are going to have to explain to their constituents, because if you look over on the Senate side, particularly I saw a clip of Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, no liberal at all, railing against the deficit impacts of what the House has passed.

GEOFF BENNETT: The deficit impacts and the Medicaid cuts in particular.

That's tricky politics for Republicans because there are now so many more people on Medicaid.

Over the past eight years, Medicaid enrollment has surged to a record high and more red states have skin in the game, more Trump supporters.

How do you see this playing out?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, and a lot of those rural hospitals really demand that.

And if they shut down, there's not a lot of options out there.

As this thing was going on, I was thinking of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, as I often do... DAVID BROOKS: ... with a frisson of pleasure.

But starting there like 100 years ago, and the Republican Party stood for fiscal discipline.

Like, it was in their bones.

And you don't have to go back too long to get to the Tea Party movement.

And this bill will add to the deficit -- or to the national debt by $3 trillion, $4 trillion?

Mind-boggling.

This is already at a moment when we are paying more interest -- on interest in the national debt, paying more to the bondholders than the entire defense budget.

And so you can run deficits when your interest rates are zero.

But when your interest rates get higher, it gets ruinously expensive.

And then when your interest rates are above your growth rates, that's a recipe for national decline, because you're building up debt and cost faster than your economy is generating wealth.

And so we're at a moment of true national peril.

Nations decline for a lot of reasons.

They lose wars.

But they do decline because they get swallowed up and buried in their own debt.

And it's so mind-boggling to me that the Republican Party of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge is the author of this.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is there an opening here for Democrats, especially on the health care and the Medicaid cuts?

Because that's a playbook that Democrats know.

That's how they won back the House in 2018, really going after Republicans who tried to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Oh, absolutely.

It'd be malpractice if Democrats weren't already running against Republicans, vulnerable Republicans.

Look, the president and the speaker made vulnerable Republicans cast a really bad vote for a bill that, sure, it passed the House, but is going to go to the Senate and is going to come back to them completely unrecognizable, thus giving Democrats all the material they need to hammer away at those House Republicans.

And I'm being very specific here.

I'm talking about House Republicans, but -- because the Senate Republicans, at least the ones I have been watching, are closer to the Harding Republicans you're talking about, David.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's shift our focus here and talk about Donald Trump's fight with Harvard University, because, yesterday, the Trump administration, as you both know, took the extraordinary step of blocking international students from attending Harvard.

This afternoon, the school filed a federal lawsuit accusing the administration of waging a campaign of retribution, and a judge has quickly blocked the move.

David, the Trump administration is really trying to hit Harvard where it hurts, because foreign students typically pay full freight, and that in many ways subsidizes the tuition of American students.

It really is trying to go after the ability of Harvard to operate.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it's an attempt out of spite to destroy Harvard.

Now, I have my beefs, like all of us do, with Harvard.

I used to go.

There's a bookstore called the Coop in Harvard Square.

And I used to go there, and there's a section where the Harvard faculty had their books.

And I used to thrill to this section.

I shouldn't admit this on TV, but like Sam Huntington, E.O.

Wilson, Skip Gates, Helen Vendler, all these legendary scholars.

And you would think Harvard is the greatest university ever.

And over the last couple years, that section of the bookstore has gotten more boring because of progressive orthodoxy has had a smothering effect on the intellectual vibrancy of the place.

So I have my criticism of Harvard.

It still remains one of the greatest universities in the history of the world, where they do amazing scientific research, amazing humanistic research.

So you have got to behold the belief that, if you're like me, yes, the place has some serious flaws on antisemitism and on excessive progressivism.

But does that mean it's not one of them are most wonderful, valuable institutions and that you're destroying a large part of American wealth creation, American civilization when you take it down?

And these are the kinds of distinctions that the Trump administration simply can't make.

And I may have said this before, but it's like you go to the Trump administration like it's a doctor saying, I have acne, and the Trump administration says, OK, we will do decapitation.

And they think that's a cure.

And that's what's happened here.

It's a spiteful, incredibly destructive act.

GEOFF BENNETT: And this fight combines two of Trump's major themes, immigration and culture wars.

I mean, how do you see this playing out?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: The thing that I appreciate most about this is that Harvard is not backing down.

And one of the reasons why the president is going after Harvard is because Harvard had the temerity to say no.

When that letter came with all the demands that the administration later said was accidentally sent to Harvard, Harvard immediately said, we're not doing this.

We're not acceding to your demands.

And this came after Columbia University did the exact opposite.

And what Harvard did was -- I remember we talked about it after it happened, that what Harvard did, because of all the things that David said, the stature of Harvard, Harvard gave all those other colleges and universities that were looking for leadership at a time when they were under intense assault from the president of the United States, gave them a beacon.

And the fact that Harvard keeps going back and fighting back, it's fighting for itself as a university, but it is also fighting for academic freedom and the freedom of universities to teach the next generation of not just students, but of leaders.

GEOFF BENNETT: The other story I want to talk about before we wind up our conversation here is President Trump's meeting in the Oval Office with South Africa's president.

In what many people described as an ambush, the president, as you see there, he used misrepresented images to support false claims of white genocide in South Africa, really the latest data point in Trump's history with race and white grievance.

How did this meeting strike you and President Trump's overall message?

DAVID BROOKS: Two obvious things.

Donald Trump seems to be hostile to all immigrants, unless your ancestors created apartheid.

And so the racial element, it's pretty obvious.

The second thing, not quite as appalling, but coming in a close second, is how dishonest, how detached from reality the charge is.

I looked into it.

I looked through the crime statistics in South Africa.

I looked.

It took me like half-an-hour of Internet searching of finding credible authorities who are experts on this field, like, is there genocide, is there ethnic attacks?

And there's a lot of crime in South Africa.

There are 27,000 murders there.

It's a violent, dangerous place.

Is there evidence that people are targeted because of their ethnicity or skin color?

Not really.

And all you have to do is have some mope in the White House do 15 minutes of Googling.

But the administration just does not care about some basic loyalty to maybe we should see what's really going on there.

And so that's detachment for reality.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: The White House - - I'm sorry -- the Oval Office has become a Venus flytrap.

You walk into the Oval Office, you might not get out alive.

We saw that happen to President Zelenskyy.

He got mauled in the Oval Office.

We even saw Governor Gretchen Whitmer, when she was called into the Oval Office and ended up hiding her face behind, trying to, behind file folders because she was caught in there.

And now you have got the president of South Africa sitting with a president and delicately trying to fact-check him, and doing a little joke about, I wish we had a plane to offer you, and he said, yes, great.

I mean, I wish you did too.

I mean, that place is not a -- the Oval Office is no longer a serious place of business.

Leaders go in there.

And now I watch to see, how is the president going to humiliate this person in the most unserious way possible, while at the same time lending credence to already debunked racist theories?

And I am glad you pointed out the fact that this president has a long history of racist comments, racist actions, and peddling white grievance.

And he has a problem with immigrants, as long as they don't come from -- quote, unquote -- "S-hole countries."

And usually those countries that he defines that way are not white.

GEOFF BENNETT: I mean, what are the implications, David, if what used to be a coveted invitation to the Oval Office is now viewed by world leaders, to use Jonathan's phrase, a Venus flytrap?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, they all understand that he has all the power, because the U.S. needs them less than they need the U.S. And so it's a perfect situation for a bully, and they should have to walk in there saying, OK, I have got to be ready.

What am I going to do?

Or maybe I just don't go.

GEOFF BENNETT: David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, memoir out this week, "Yet Here I Am."

GEOFF BENNETT: You have a book too, "How to Know a Person."

DAVID BROOKS: That was a long time ago.

(CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: But people should still buy it.

GEOFF BENNETT: That's right.

Have a good weekend.

Thanks for being here.

Appreciate it.

AMNA NAWAZ: Dawn Staley is a woman of many titles, five-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, head coach, and now an author.

In her first book, Staley reflects on the lessons that made her who she is today, from growing up in the projects of North Philadelphia, to college stardom, to being a WNBA pioneer, and an architect of an NCAA powerhouse at South Carolina.

The memoir is called "Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned From All Three."

I spoke recently with Staley and asked her about first discovering her love of the game.

DAWN STALEY, Author, "Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned From All Three": Basketball was everything to me, but when I look back on it, being the youngest of five, you grow up in a household where you don't really have a perspective or an opinion because you're the youngest, and no one's listening.

And then, when I picked up a basketball, it really was a love affair.

I found my identity playing the game, like, people saw me.

Like, they really saw me for who was, whether that was a girl playing with all boys or whether there was a girl that was tough, a girl that didn't back down.

There was a light shined on my life.

And it was -- it's in a weird way that I felt that.

But that light has never dimmed.

And it's all because of the game that I fell in love with.

AMNA NAWAZ: You're so honest about the challenges you faced along the way too, about it being a tough adjustment from Philly to UVA, and then again a tough adjustment when you're playing overseas.

There's a great story about Kid 'n Play and the "House Party" movies I won't get into here, but a lot of folks know you from that big moment in the 1996 Olympic Games, the women's Dream Team you were on with all those legends of the game of, Sheryl Swoopes, and Lisa Leslie, and Teresa Edwards.

There was a lot of pressure on you then, because we knew, if that team didn't win gold, there would be no professional women's team on the back end.

You write about that and you say: "We feared the promise of stateside professional women's basketball would die on the vine" if you flopped.

After carrying that burden, what was it like to feel that gold medal around your neck?

DAWN STALEY: We didn't get gold in the '92 Olympics.

We had to win gold in '96 because we were hosting.

We had the win gold because they told us almost halfway through the training of the U.S. national team that the WNBA was going to start a league.

The ABL was going to start a league.

And we felt the weight of women's professional basketball during that time.

And we felt like -- we had to we had to ace the '96 Olympic Games with winning gold, or else people would question whether or not women's basketball could be a mainstay.

And looking back on the history of the game, I'm so happy to be a part of that team, because we are still ambassadors of the game.

And I hope that the youngsters that are playing the game today really understand what was at stake just 29 years ago.

AMNA NAWAZ: I mean, the league would not exist and it would not be where it is today without you and that team back then.

What is it like for you to see that arc, to see what it's become today?

DAWN STALEY: It feels normal, which is a great thing.

Like, it feels like this is what we're supposed to be doing.

Me going to college, I should have naturally gone right into the WNBA.

But that wasn't the case.

But I'm glad it's happening through -- during my -- like, I can feel it.

I can see it.

I can see it continuing to grow.

AMNA NAWAZ: Your success on the court has been surpassed by your success as a coach.

You have built South Carolina into a blue blood powerhouse now.

But you talk a lot about the fact that there are not enough Black coaches in the game, despite the abundance of Black players and Black stars playing the game.

Why is that?

What needs to change?

DAWN STALEY: Well, what needs to change, and I do speak about it in "Uncommon Favor," is the decision-makers.

Like, I hope that I represent a portion of Black coaches that could be super successful in our game.

Like, someone took a chance on me 25 years ago.

I had zero coaching experience.

All of my experience was playing.

I'm sure, at this stage of the game, there are a lot of Black coaches out there that have more, like way more experience than I did 25 years ago.

They only need a chance.

And I would say that, like all of us, if I have a -- if I have someone to hire, yes, I'm going to reach into my personal Rolodex and I'm probably going to go through and see who have I worked with, who comes highly recommended?

And it is probably going to be a Black person, only because that's who I hang out with.

That's who I know, right?

It will take somebody else to give me another name that I didn't know for me to take a chance on.

I think decision-makers will have to stretch themselves a little bit.

And we have to be less probably lazy about gathering lists of people that you can draw on, you know, if you have an opening.

I'm talking about A.D.s, I'm talking about presidents, I'm talking to anybody that's going to be a part of the decision-making in deciding who's going to be your women's -- your head women's basketball coach.

AMNA NAWAZ: Central to your story is your faith, which, as you share, is instilled in you by your late mother, Estelle Staley.

This idea too of a purposeful life, you talk about a lot.

You write that you want a life that means something.

So I got to ask, at this stage of your life, at this age, looking forward now, what does that look like for you?

DAWN STALEY: You mentioned my mother, Estelle Staley.

Like, my mother lived for the church.

She lived for, every time the church door opened, she was working in the vineyard.

I mean, four to five times a week, she was at church.

Like, I saw her purpose, I saw what made her happy.

And that grew on me.

Of course, I'm not working in the vineyard as much as my mother, but basketball and being a dreamer is my vineyard.

It really is, like, the players that I get a chance to coach, the families that I get a chance to impact.

And, hopefully, I impacted so much that their generation would change.

I coach first-generational college graduates.

Do you know the impact that that has on a family and the generations that come after that?

Like, that is my purpose in life.

That is what I am supposed to be doing in.

And, hopefully, I'm fulfilling the debt that I owe basketball, because I owe basketball an incredible debt that I can't seem to pay down, because it keeps on giving me more and more.

AMNA NAWAZ: The book is "Uncommon Favor."

The author is coach Dawn Staley.

Coach, always great to talk to you.

Thank you for making the time.

DAWN STALEY: Thank you so very much.

AMNA NAWAZ: Remember, there's much more online.

And be sure to watch "PBS News Weekend" tomorrow for a look at how some cities are adding taxes to popular sodas and sugary drinks in an effort to improve public health.

And that is the "News Hour."

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, and have a great weekend.