AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Republicans, including Vice President J.D.

Vance, challenge limits on campaign donations in a case before the U.S.

Supreme Court.

AMNA NAWAZ: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a fierce ally of President Trump, speaks out as she prepares to leave Congress.

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): There's a problem in the Republican Party when the leader of the Republican Party, the president of the United States, would actually attack one of his own members that has been so good to him.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we explore the economic and security concerns surrounding the Trump administration's decision to sell advanced artificial intelligence chips to China.

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

With less than a year until the 2026 midterm elections, it's already expected to be one of the most expensive campaigns in history.

And how that money is being spent could be changing.

AMNA NAWAZ: At the Supreme Court today, major arguments that could reshape campaign finance laws.

Our Lisa Desjardins has more on the Republican push to remove key spending limits.

LISA DESJARDINS: The ads have begun.

The 2026 battle for Congress and a waterfall of spending are under way.

NARRATOR: North Carolina doesn't need another career politician.

NARRATOR: Jon Husted supported the tariffs that are jacking up prices.

NARRATOR: Life in Maine, the way it should be, is harder thanks to Janet Mills.

LISA DESJARDINS: And all of that could be significantly affected by the nation's highest court.

The case filed in 2022 by the Republican House and Senate campaign committees, as well as then-Senate candidate J.D.

Vance, sues the Federal Election Commission over current law.

That law puts a $7,000 limit on how much individuals can give a candidate per cycle.

But individuals can donate more than a million dollars to political parties.

So the law separates the two.

Parties are limited in how much they can spend directly with the candidates.

Those are called coordinated expenses.

Republicans want to remove those limits and be able to send more money to candidates.

Doing so would change decades of campaign law.

ADAV NOTI, Campaign Legal Center: So, all of these limits, all of these rules, they're all about preventing corruption.

LISA DESJARDINS: Adav Noti is the exec director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former lawyer at the FEC.

He says these limits were put in place after the Nixon Watergate scandal, which exposed large secret donations.

ADAV NOTI: There was a widespread bipartisan understanding that, while some amount of money is needed to run elections and campaigns, it is best if that be limited, that no undue amount of it come from any one source, and then it be fully disclosed to the public.

LISA DESJARDINS: This century, the Supreme Court has overturned some limits, including in the Citizens United case, removing caps for donating to super PACs and ruling they violated free speech.

That argument is central today.

CARRIE SEVERINO, President, Judicial Crisis Network: If you're telling someone they can't pay any money to help broadcast their speech, that's the same thing as limiting their speech.

LISA DESJARDINS: Carrie Severino is president of JCN, a conservative legal group which supports removing these limits.

She also argues the limits create a convoluted system, parties and candidates with the same goals, but which can't work together.

CARRIE SEVERINO: We want Americans to have information about their candidates.

And forcing that information to be incredibly costly by having all of these extra limits and tying the hands of the political parties who are trying to communicate with voters isn't a good way to do that.

LISA DESJARDINS: But Democrats see other motives.

MARC ELIAS, Founder, Democracy Docket: It's just that the Republican Party doesn't believe in campaign finance reform and they don't want these particular limits in place.

LISA DESJARDINS: Marc Elias is an elections attorney representing the Democratic Party before the Supreme Court.

He sees corruption risk.

MARC ELIAS: If the coordinated party's spending limits go away, then now the money that is going into those committees in these hundreds of thousands of dollar checks or million-dollar checks can now be spent on an unlimited basis to benefit a particular candidate.

And that opens up a risk of quid pro quo corruption, bribery.

That is exactly why the Supreme Court has upheld these kinds of base limits before.

LISA DESJARDINS: In today's arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned how the court should balance concerns about corruption versus political speech.

BRETT KAVANAUGH, U.S.

Supreme Court Associate Justice: The combination of campaign finance laws and this court's decisions over the years have together reduced the power of political parties as compared to outside groups, with negative effects on our constitutional democracy.

I'm also concerned, of course, about quid pro quo corruption and the circumvention concerns.

LISA DESJARDINS: Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the court's liberal justices questioned if the case would lead to a steep slippery slope.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S.

Supreme Court Associate Justice: Once we take off this coordinated expenditure limits, then what's left?

What's left is nothing, no control whatsoever.

LISA DESJARDINS: Justices will issue a decision in the case by next summer.

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

GEOFF BENNETT: And we start today's other headlines in New York.

A federal judge has approved a motion by the Justice Department to unseal records from the grand jury investigation of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate.

Judge Paul Engelmayer had rejected such requests in the past, but today cited a new law signed by President Trump that requires the government to release files related to Epstein by December 19.

But he cautioned that the Maxwell files won't reveal anything new, noting they do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein's or Maxwell's crimes.

We have an update now to a story we brought you last month.

The Army has filed criminal charges against a gynecologist who has been accused of secretly filming patients.

Dr.

Blaine McGraw has been charged with indecent visual recording and conduct unbecoming an officer, among others.

They stem from his work at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas.

Officials say there are a total of 44 victims.

He's currently being held in a county jail in Texas.

President Trump is doubling down on threats to expand U.S.

military operations against drug trafficking targets.

In a wide-ranging interview with Politico, Mr.

Trump said he was open to actions in Colombia and Mexico, and he declined repeatedly to rule out a ground invasion in Venezuela.

It comes as administration officials briefed top lawmakers today on the military's nearly two dozen strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

Democratic lawmakers are pushing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release unedited video of a September strike in which two survivors were killed as they clung to the wreckage of their boat.

SEN.

CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): His answer: We have to study it.

Well, in my view, they have studied it long enough, and Congress ought to be able to see it.

I told him that every member of Congress, so many members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, had a right to see it, wanted to see it, and should see it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Also today, Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey, who will retire from command of the campaign to destroy alleged drug boats, held a separate classified video call with lawmakers.

Honduras is seeking the arrest of the country's former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was pardoned by President Trump and released from a us prison last week.

The attorney general of Honduras is asking authorities there and Interpol to execute a 2023 arrest warrant for Hernandez over fraud and money laundering charges.

He was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for helping move tons of cocaine to the U.S.

Mr.

Trump announced his plan to pardon Hernandez just days before national elections in Honduras, claiming that he had been treated unfairly by prosecutors.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he's ready to hold elections within 90 days, but only if Ukraine's U.S.

and European partners can help ensure security for such a vote.

Zelenskyy has been criticized for staying in his role after his term ended last year.

Just today, President Trump said in that Politico interview that without elections in Ukraine -- quote -- "It gets to a point where it's not a democracy anymore."

Zelenskyy has said it's unsafe to hold a vote during wartime and has pointed to Ukraine's Constitution, which bars elections while martial law is in effect.

But, today, he offered to work with that country's Parliament to change the law to allow a vote.

Australia has officially rolled out the world's first social media ban for those under the age of 16.

It's up to the companies to decide how they enforce the ban.

Ten platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, face fines of up to us $30 million if they fail to comply.

One high schooler who is part of a lawsuit challenging the ban says it's unfairly cut off his access to the broader world.

NOAH JONES, Social Media Advocate: As young Australians, we will be completely silenced and cut off from our country and the rest of the world with this ban.

We have just grown up with this our entire lives, and now it's just being taken away from us all of a sudden.

GEOFF BENNETT: The rollout is being watched closely by other countries which are considering similar measures amid global concerns over the impact of social media on children's health and safety.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed ahead of tomorrow's decision by the Fed on interest rates.

The Dow Jones industrial average gave back about 180 points on the day.

The Nasdaq managed a modest gain of about 30 points.

The S&P 500 slipped just six points, so roughly flat.

And Raul Malo, lead singer of The Mavericks, has died.

He helped write some of the band's most popular songs, including "There Goes My Heart" from 1994.

He co-founded the Grammy Award-winning group back in 1989 fusing alt-country Americana and Latin sounds.

Malo brought his expansive, soulful voice to more than a dozen albums in both English and Spanish.

Last year, he announced that he had stage four colon cancer.

Raul Malo was 60 years old.

Still to come on the "News Hour": how parents and students are deciding which college to choose in the ever-changing higher education landscape; a man wrongfully detained by ICE discusses his arrest and treatment in an immigration facility; and our list of the best books of 2025.

AMNA NAWAZ: Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene rose to national prominence as one of the most vocal backers of President Donald Trump.

But the pair fell out, dramatically and publicly, after she called for the extension of expiring health care subsidies and fought for the release of the Epstein files over his objections.

She prevailed in the latter fight, but has announced that she will be resigning in early January.

Marjorie Taylor Greene joins us now from her office on Capitol Hill.

Congresswoman, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Hi.

Thank you for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: Can we just begin with some of the news today, which, as you know, is President Trump kicking off with the White House says is going to be a series of events talking about affordability.

I know you broke with the president, sided with the Democrats on this issue, specifically as it relates to health care costs during the shutdown, but I have to ask, you have seen the polling.

You have seen how Americans are looking at this.

Do you think the president has lost the Americans' trust on this core issue of affordability?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Well, this is an issue actually I have been talking about for months and months.

Americans truly suffered under the past four years, where we saw inflation skyrocket to 40-year highs in 2022.

And while inflation has steadied, prices have not really come down, except in a few key areas.

But, unfortunately, over the past year, we have seen the president and the White House as a whole focus tremendously on foreign policy.

My stance, of course, and many others is no more foreign wars.

That means that we don't have to participate or fund them.

But we haven't seen a strong focus on America's economy and affordability, just as you mentioned, just until recently.

Now, I'm happy to see that turn and that focus put there, but I think, unfortunately, that should have been the focus the entire time.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have seen President Trump also previously dismiss concerns about affordability as a Democratic hoax.

You think that was a mistake?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Yes, I do.

Affordability or the lack of ability of Americans to afford the cost of living is not a Democrat hoax.

Credit card debt is at an all-time high right now.

And there's many other problems in the economy.

It just hasn't quite stabilized yet.

AMNA NAWAZ: You have also broken with President Trump when it comes to backing an effort to release the full Epstein files.

And I know you have said in the past too the survivors have come to you and offered to provide you a list of the perpetrators they have compiled so that you can read it on the House floor.

You have only got a few days left in Congress.

So are you going to do that before you leave?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Well, just to be clear, they have not given me that list of names.

So that's a list that they still hold.

And I can tell you firsthand I can understand the fear that these women have to release that list of names.

And they are the only ones that can choose to do so.

So if they were to give me that list of names, I certainly would be willing to do it before I left.

AMNA NAWAZ: When you came out to back the release of those files, you said that President Trump told you that people will get hurt if those files are released.

I have to ask, what did you take that to mean?

Was the president talking about himself?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: I really don't know what that means, and I can't comprehend it.

So, just going by what the women themselves have told me, and I have met with them several times, is, they said, that Donald Trump had done nothing wrong.

Their attorney said that he was the only one that helped them years ago with Jeffrey Epstein and lawsuits and convictions.

So it's -- again, based on their words, it doesn't sound like Donald Trump is guilty of harming them in any way.

(CROSSTALK) AMNA NAWAZ: So, if I may, if that's the case, who do you think the president is worried about here?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Well, if he says people will get hurt, I don't think it's the women.

I think it's maybe the men that they're talking about that they're scared to say who they are.

Maybe those names are in the files.

And we don't know because all the files have not come out yet.

AMNA NAWAZ: Congresswoman, I have to ask you, as you have pointed out, you were a staunch, vocal MAGA loyalist for the president, voting with him 98 percent of the time.

And it went very quickly to you breaking with him publicly and deciding to leave Congress within just a matter of months.

And earlier this year, you were calling him "my favorite president of all time."

Meanwhile, he's called you a lunatic, a traitor.

After your recent "60 Minutes" interview, he said your views are -- quote -- "those of a very dumb person."

Is he still your favorite president of all time?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Well, I think the president's words are unfortunate.

But this is the behavior that, unfortunately, America is used to seeing from Donald Trump.

And when I have talked a lot about how politics have become.

It's so toxic and it's violent.

My office has reported 773 death threats since I have been in Congress, and that isn't -- that's not all of them.

There were many more.

And after the president unfortunately called me a traitor, even though I have been his most loyal member of Congress and have such a strong voting record with him, I also have legislation that directly reflects many of his executive orders.

The result of that was a pipe bomb threat on my house, a pipe bomb threat on my construction company, multiple pizza doxxing deliveries, and a direct death threat, multiple direct death threats on my own son.

And this is the type of the nature of toxic politics that I think America is so tired of.

But it shows, it really shows there's a problem in the Republican Party when the leader of the Republican Party, the president of the United States, would actually attack one of his own members that has been so good to him.

I very much support America first policies, which the president campaigned on.

I would love to see him be successful in those for the American people, but I just can't allow myself to be what I call a battered wife and be treated this way.

It's just too much.

It's too high of a bar.

And I shouldn't have to wait here until I'm possibly murdered like Charlie Kirk or, God forbid, one of my kids be murdered as well.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, Congresswoman, it's so disturbing to hear what you have been facing recently as a result, as you point out, directly of the president's own words.

But, as you well know, the president has long really focused much of his anger and ire on Democrats, on officials, on lawmakers, but also everyday civilians.

I mean, election workers in your own state of Georgia faced those kinds of threats from the president.

Do you now, knowing what you know now, having experienced what you have experienced, do you wish you would spoken out earlier about some of that rhetoric that you're clearly worried can lead to real-world violence?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Yes, this is actually something I have been talking about recently.

I have been here five years and have seen it up closely, not just from my perspective.

I have watched many of my colleagues go through political violence.

We have seen it across the country.

We saw the president shot at a rally.

We saw Charlie Kirk assassinated, Josh Shapiro's home arson -- burned, the Minnesota lawmakers.

And the list goes on and on.

And this is not what it should be like for any lawmaker on either side of the aisle.

But there's the -- it's -- I call it the political industrial complex.

It's the way the two parties are built and they're designed to attack one another.

And that's how fund-raising happens.

That's how people get elected.

It's literally ripping our country apart.

And I don't think that's a good thing.

So it's just something I don't want to participate in.

AMNA NAWAZ: But, Congresswoman, I have to ask.

People will wonder, if you felt this way before, the fact that you didn't speak out against it until you experienced it yourself, they will wonder why not.

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: No, I actually had.

I'm on record many times denouncing political violence when I had seen it on both sides.

So I am on record denouncing it.

AMNA NAWAZ: Can I ask too, you mentioned this political industrial complex.

Obviously, these systems are made up of people, right, people who are acting and saying things in different ways.

And I know our audience would welcome the chance to hear from you on this, because they want to see that end to that political toxicity as well you have talked about.

They have also seen headlines in which you yourself have been yelling at President Biden, calling him a liar during the State of the Union, or saying your Democratic colleagues at a congressional hearing was messing up her reading because of fake eyelashes, or tweeting after Pope Francis died that "Evil is being defeated by the hand of God."

So, I want to give you a chance to speak directly to our viewers and just reflect back on anything you have said in your time in office that you wish you hadn't or something you wish you hadn't done.

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Well, I have already addressed that and I have done that publicly.

And I think the problem with the political industrial complex is, I'm -- not only have I been a part of it, but I have also been a victim of it.

I will give you an example that has been outlandish.

People accused me of being the January 5 pipe bomber for a very long time.

They made videos.

It was posted all over Twitter.

It was Twitter at the time.

I was -- I have also been used by Democrats in many of their campaigns and fund-raising e-mails, demonized, so that they could raise money off of me.

And so I have been a victim of it as well.

As a matter of fact, all of us have.

So this is something that I have definitely already addressed.

AMNA NAWAZ: Forgive me if I have missed it.

Do I take that to mean that you do regret yelling out during the State of the Union calling President Biden the liar?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: So, just you know, I have already addressed that.

I think it was on Dana Bash's show on CNN.

I have already also addressed that back in 2021.

And so it's just important that -- to understand that this is something that I have definitely already addressed.

AMNA NAWAZ: I just want to be clear, Congresswoman.

That is to say that -- is that a yes I'm hearing from you?

REP.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Yes, it's already been addressed.

AMNA NAWAZ: And a technical note.

We lost Congresswoman Greene's video feed during the interview and were unable to reconnect.

But we thank her for joining us.

GEOFF BENNETT: In a move with major implications for national security and the global race to dominate artificial intelligence, President Trump yesterday announced he will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 computer chip -- that's an advanced chip used for developing A.I.

-- to China.

In a TRUTH Social post, the president said the sales would move forward under conditions that allow for continued strong national security and that the deal would support American jobs, strengthen U.S.

manufacturing and benefit American taxpayers.

Under the arrangement, the U.S.

government would receive a 25 percent cut of Nvidia's sales to China.

The decision marks a sharp reversal from the Biden administration, which had banned shipments of advanced A.I.

chips to China, and from President Trump's own earlier stance, when he followed a similar ban on national security grounds.

For perspective, we're joined now by Chris Miller, author of "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology."

He's also a professor of international history at Tufts University.

Thanks for being with us.

CHRIS MILLER, Author, "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology": Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, help our viewers understand why this is happening now.

We know that Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has aggressively lobbied to lift this ban.

In your view, what actually changed the president's position?

CHRIS MILLER: Well, I think the president was convinced that the sales of these chips would generate enough revenue both for chip companies, but also for the U.S.

government, that it was in the U.S.

interest.

I think there's also a belief in some quarters in Washington that, if you sell more chips to China, you can dissuade them or prevent them from trying to build up their own chip ecosystems.

And those were the two primary rationales for this flip-flop on export control policy.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, lay out the core national security concerns here.

CHRIS MILLER: I think there are two main categories of national security concern.

First is that it's already the case that all of the world's leading militaries and intelligence agencies are using A.I.

for their own purposes.

You already see drones powered by A.I.

flying in the skies between Russia and Ukraine.

You already see intelligence agencies using A.I.

to sift through information, and this is only going to continue.

And so there's a strong reason to believe that whichever country has the best A.I.

capabilities for its military will have the strongest military power.

That's the first reason.

The second is that it's clear we're entering a new era of technology that will be defined by companies that have the most advanced A.I.

capabilities.

And I think, just like there was a huge geopolitical implication driven by the fact that the U.S.

had the world's largest tech firms, companies like Google and Facebook in the Internet era, well, in the A.I.

era, it's going to be the same.

If it's us firms that lead, the U.S.

will gain a lot of leverage from that.

If it's Chinese firms that lead, it will be at the whim of the Chinese government.

And so shaping the future of the A.I.

ecosystem is itself something that will have not only economic, but also, I think, really substantial geopolitical implications.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about that, because the same day the Trump administration approved the sale of these H200 chips to China, the Trump Justice Department announced that it had shut down what it called a tech smuggling network involving these exact same chips.

And the Trump DOJ put out a statement, part of which reads this way: "These chips are the building blocks of A.I.

superiority and are integral to modern military applications.

The country that controls these chips will control A.I.

technology.

The country that controls A.I.

technology will control the future."

So what does this apparent contradiction signal?

CHRIS MILLER: Well, look, I think the Justice Department is right in describing the importance of these chips, which is why there's been a bipartisan consensus in both houses of Congress among not just the current administration, but also the prior administration, to control the most advanced A.I.

technologies.

And the Trump administration itself has been divided internally about what the right policy approach is here.

And I think it's only after a lot of internal debate that the president decided to reverse his prior decisions to actually tighten controls on these semiconductors.

GEOFF BENNETT: Supporters of what the president is doing here argue that the White House wants to ease trade frictions with Beijing.

This is a key way to do that.

They also say these H200 chips are roughly 18 months behind Nvidia's most advanced offerings.

Are either of those arguments persuasive, in your view?

CHRIS MILLER: Well, I think it's true that the chips under discussion are not the most advanced chips that U.S.

firms can produce, but they're a lot more advanced than what China can access at scale today.

The key dynamic is that China does not have substantial volumes of chipmaking capability at the cutting-edge level that A.I.

requires.

In a base case today, if you look at projections for next year, the U.S.

plus its partners like Taiwan and Korea will produce over 95 percent of the world's A.I.

chips.

China's going to produce less than 5 percent of them.

So China needs to import U.S.

semiconductors to keep its A.I.

companies going.

It needs our chips to train their most advanced models.

And so, yes, it's true these aren't the most cutting-edge, but they're better than China can get today.

And so selling these chips will almost certainly enhance China's A.I.

capabilities.

GEOFF BENNETT: The Commerce Department still has to finalize these rules.

There's pushback from Democrats and Republicans on the Hill, Democrats to include Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

He said in a statement today: "Unfortunately, the Trump administration's haphazard and transactional approach to export policy demonstrates that it does not have any sort of coherent strategy for how we will compete with China, specifically as it relates to whose chips, tools, cloud infrastructure, and ecosystem will influence the most A.I.

developers worldwide."

How much power does Congress have to stop or reshape this?

Of course, Republicans controlling both chambers.

CHRIS MILLER: Well, Congress has thus far relegated export control policy to the executive branch.

That's been a longstanding approach.

But I think we have seen a number of initiatives in Congress from Republicans, as well as from Democrats, to take back some of that authority and impose some legislative restrictions on chip exports as well.

And so I will be watching carefully whether these efforts in Congress pick up steam, and they could be driven by the president's decision to loosen some of these controls.

GEOFF BENNETT: Chris Miller, thanks so much for sharing your perspectives with us.

We appreciate it.

CHRIS MILLER: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, we're in the middle of that fraught period when high school students are finding out what colleges they have been accepted to and have to then decide, which is the right one for me?

About 60 percent of high school students are going through this process right now.

William Brangham has more on this exciting and bewildering phase in American life and why some select schools may not necessarily be the right fit.

It's part of our series Rethinking College.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Anyone who is in the middle of this or has been through it recently knows exactly what we are talking about.

The process of applying to college has likely never been more pressured, with college costs soaring, competition rising, and many schools mired in controversy or conflict with the Trump administration.

Luckily, we have a recurrent guide to this anxious period.

Jeff Selingo studies and writes about higher education.

And he has a new book, "Dream School: Finding the College That's Right For You."

Jeff, so good to have you back on the program.

You urge families in this book to slow the process down, to start talking to kids even younger, like even 10th grade in high school, about what it is they really want out of higher education.

Isn't that extending this stressful period?

And what do you want parents to be talking to them about?

JEFFREY SELINGO, Author, "Dream School: Finding the College That's Right For You": Well, often, William, what I say in the book is that we often start the college process midstream.

What do I mean by that?

We just start putting names on a list on a piece of paper.

And where do we get those names from?

Those are the names that we see on stickers on the back of car windows.

Those are names that we hear in our community.

In fact, I did a survey for the book of 3,000-plus parents, and I asked them, how important is prestige to you as a family, as a parent?

And only 16 percent... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Prestige of the school.

JEFFREY SELINGO: Prestige of the school.

And only 16 percent said it was important to them; 27 percent said it was very important to their kids.

But this is where it got interesting; 62 percent said it was important to people in their community.

So we often look for that social -- those social clues about what is a good school without first in our sophomore and junior year, just understanding, what do we want?

Do we want a big school, small school, big, public, small, private?

Do we want rural or urban?

And I often tell people, within 100 miles of home, they could go visit every type of college and university, forget about the name, but just go and see what you really want out of the process first, what do you really want out of college, before you start to put names on a piece of paper.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You have also urged parents to dial back certain things in their conversations.

Like, what do you want them to do in that regard?

JEFFREY SELINGO: Well, so often, what -- everything we're doing in high school is about getting into college.

Often, as I have been talking about this book, I would have parents or students coming up to me and saying, well, do I need to take one more AP class?

Do I need to become captain of yet another team?

Do I need to join another club?

What else do I need to do to get into X-college?

And what I often ask them, I turn the question around, I say, what do you want to do?

Because what's going to happen is, at some point, your application's going to land at one of these super selective colleges, they're going to open it up, they're going to read it in seven or nine minutes, and then they're going to make a decision.

And they have way many more qualified applicants than they have seats.

And that decision will come back to you, and hopefully it'll be good, but it might be a denial.

And often what I hear from students is, when they get denied, what did I do all that for?

Meaning what they did in high school was to get into college.

And we really should return high school to what it was meant to be, a moment of exploration, right?

The teenage brain is developing so quickly.

It should be a moment of exploration and fun, not about another hoop to jump through to get into college.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But you're swimming against such -- I mean, I know you know this.

JEFFREY SELINGO: It's hard, yes.

Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On your book tour, you must be seeing this everywhere you go.

JEFFREY SELINGO: Yes, people basically nod politely and then they go on and do the same thing over again.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: There's so much of this talk about getting into the right school, the perfect school that's going to get you the right network, onto the best job.

And you think a lot of those assumptions are wrong or misleading.

Like, explain a bit more about that.

JEFFREY SELINGO: Well, the book is not to say, don't apply to the top colleges, right?

But most of the top colleges, their application numbers have tripled in the last 20 years, and the size of their freshman class has stayed the same.

So, even if you're highly qualified, you're more likely to get a denial.

And so you need a plan B. And often that plan B could be just as good as those selective colleges, especially when it comes to the job market.

We found not only in the research that's done by David Deming at Harvard University, but also in our own research that we did, the graduates of these colleges are ending up at great companies.

They're ending up in the Fortune 500 from lower-ranked schools just as often as those at higher ranked schools.

So I often tell parents and students, as they're touring campuses, talk to professors, talk to the career center.

Ask them where last year's graduates have gone on in your major.

Where have they gone on to work?

Where have undergraduates gone on to intern?

That tells you a lot more about the quality of where those students are going to end up than any ranking of a college.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: There is also this new overlay in higher education, and that is the conflict that higher ed is having with the Trump administration, allegations that schools have overlooked antisemitism, pulling back research funds at a lot of these schools.

How do you counsel parents and students to navigate those waters?

JEFFREY SELINGO: You know, I think it's really hard because you're making a decision on a college or university for the next four years.

It's very much like I get a lot of questions right now from parents about, what should my kid major in?

I was told three or four years ago computer science was the future.

And now we know, because of A.I., it may not be the future necessarily or at least in a big way.

And so I think if we're making decisions on short-term things like what's happening right now with the Trump administration or what's happening with A.I.

and majors, I think it's too shortsighted.

I think we should be making decisions on the long term, on how we -- what we want to pursue long term, on what we think this college will be for the long term.

I think we should pay attention to what's happening, but I think there's a lot of noise.

And the signal really is a longer-term play when it comes to higher education.

It's not just something that you're going to do for four years.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It seems like it's also getting back to that essential age-old question about the purpose of education.

Are you here to get a job in four years or are you here to learn and become a critical thinker and hone your talents and skills or your art or whatever?

JEFFREY SELINGO: And it's more important than ever with A.I., right?

When you think of how do you complement a technology, rather than compete with it, it is those age-old things that we always knew that college provides, the opportunity to think critically, to problem-solve, to actually just get things done, to work in teams, to read and communicate.

All of those skills are going to be even more important, I believe, in an A.I.-driven world.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The book is "Dream School: Finding the College That's Right For You."

Jeffrey Selingo, always great to see you.

Thank you.

JEFFREY SELINGO: It was great to be here.

Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: While President Trump's targeted immigration sweeps in cities like New Orleans and Minneapolis have drawn national attention, the reach of his administration's policies extends far beyond those headlines.

Lisa Desjardins spoke with one man caught up in what authorities call the Portland sweep now entering its eighth week.

LISA DESJARDINS: Fifty-five-year-old construction worker Victor Cruz was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on his way home from work in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Eyewitness video posted on social media shows ICE agents in civilian clothes pulling him over and arresting him.

The grandfather of two entered the country illegally 26 years ago.

He has a construction business and a work permit.

Victor was detained in Tacoma, Washington, for three weeks.

Victor joins us now with his lawyer, Julia Braker.

Thank you to you both.

You were on your way back from work when you were detained.

Tell us what happened.

VICTOR CRUZ, Detained By ICE: As I saw them stop behind me, I knew that it was ICE.

They asked for my name.

As soon as I get off from my car, I told them that I have a permit to work legally here.

And one of the officers wanted me to show the I.D.

He told me: "This means nothing to us.

For us, you are still an illegal."

And they just cuffed me and chained me on -- around my waist, my ankles, and they put me in their vehicle.

LISA DESJARDINS: When you got in the vehicle, it seemed they were looking for someone else.

What did you hear?

VICTOR CRUZ: One of the officers have a picture of the man that they were looking for.

And they were talking just to each other, asking if it was me, if it was the person that they were looking for.

I was scared, terrified, and I was just thinking about my family.

I didn't know at that time if they knew that I was arrested or not.

So it was a terrifying moment.

As soon as they arrest me and we got into a facility, immigration facility in Portland, Oregon, they run my fingerprints.

And still they didn't found anything.

And the other officer just told me: "Well, since you are here, we must take you to Tacoma."

LISA DESJARDINS: You were detained for three weeks.

There are a lot of questions about how the Trump administration's handling detention.

What was your experience?

VICTOR CRUZ: They put us in this cell with A.C.

It was really cold.

And the room was -- it's made out of concrete.

The benches are concrete.

In the cell that I put in, in the beginning, it was 80 of us.

And the food also is not good.

It was a lot of hours between one meal to another.

LISA DESJARDINS: Julia, you and another attorney were able to get him out of detention.

What is his status right now?

JULIA BRAKER, Attorney For Victor Cruz: Mr.

Cruz has what's called deferred action status, which means that the Department of Homeland Security has looked at his application and decided that they're going to defer any removal or deportation on his case while his case is pending.

LISA DESJARDINS: But he was still detained despite having that status.

JULIA BRAKER: That's correct.

LISA DESJARDINS: Is that lawful, in your opinion?

JULIA BRAKER: No, because when the Department of Homeland Security makes such a determination, it goes in complete contradiction for it to then detain that person and put them into deportation proceedings.

LISA DESJARDINS: We did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security.

And here's what a spokesman told us about this case in particular.

She said: "No one was arrested by mistake.

ICE will continue to arrest illegal aliens who have no right to be in this country.

Work authorization does not confer any legal status in this country."

How do you respond to that statement from Homeland Security?

JULIA BRAKER: I think this statement by Homeland Security is an attempt to obfuscate the fact that Mr.

Cruz's rights were violated in the process of this arrest.

It simply doesn't make sense that the Department of Homeland Security would both grant him a status that explicitly says that he won't be removed and at the same time put him into removal proceedings.

LISA DESJARDINS: Victor, I want to ask you.

There is a fierce debate, of course, about immigration in this country right now, as you well know.

Some people argue that you broke the rules when you entered this country, you did it illegally, and that you should be forced to leave.

What do you say to those people?

VICTOR CRUZ: I don't know if people can say that it was a crime that I crossed the border without any proper documents.

But I can tell to them that they are getting the wrong people.

In the cell that I was in, like I said, it was about 80 people; 90 percent of those people that were in there had no records at all.

LISA DESJARDINS: You now have ankle monitoring.

Your work permit, you were not given that back.

What has this time meant for you and your family?

VICTOR CRUZ: I'm not able to go to work.

And it is awful, because I'm the main provider for my family.

So, it is kind of a scare knowing that the bills and that the rent are not going to wait for us.

My wife and I are very scared to even go outside to the store because there is still a lot of ICE activity around these neighborhoods.

We also discuss about what we're going to do in the case that I get detained again.

It is sad that all this has been happening, but I told my wife and kids that, if anything happens to me again, I just don't want to live the same nightmare again.

I will just sign my deportation right away, because I don't want to go through this again.

Sorry.

It was so hard, not only on me, on myself, but on my family.

They don't think that they can go through the same situation again.

LISA DESJARDINS: That's a discussion no family wants to have.

VICTOR CRUZ: Thank you.

Yes.

I'm so proud of them.

LISA DESJARDINS: Julia Braker and Victor Cruz, thank you so much for talking with us.

JULIA BRAKER: Thank you.

VICTOR CRUZ: Thank you for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, it's that time of year when "PBS News Hour" invites two of our regular literary critics to highlight their favorite books of the year.

Jeffrey Brown picks up that conversation for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: 2025 was another year of great releases across an array of genres.

For a look at which books you should be reading and gifting this holiday season, we're joined by two of our favorite readers and recommenders, Maureen Corrigan, a professor at Georgetown University and book critic for NPR's "Fresh Air," and acclaimed author Ann Patchett, who's also the owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, where she joins us.

Nice to see both of you again.

So let's start with fiction, as we often do.

Ann Patchett, I'm going to start with you and give you two picks.

ANN PATCHETT, Owner, Parnassus Books: OK.

I'm only going to take one of the two picks because my other pick is going to be my best book of the year.

This is very close to my best book of the year.

This is "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" by Kiran Desai.

It was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

It is a sweeping epic about two young people who are both from the same small town in India.

They are living in the states.

And when they're in the states, they feel too Indian.

And when they go home to India, they feel too American.

And this is the story of how they slowly wind their way to one another and maybe cure their loneliness.

Kiran Desai is a brilliant, all-encompassing writer, and I love this book.

JEFFREY BROWN: OK, and I love Ann Patchett.

She makes her own rules.

When I give her two, she takes one, and she will take her other one later.

(LAUGHTER) JEFFREY BROWN: Maureen, do you want to take two?

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, NPR Book Critic: My first pick is "The Antidote" by Karen Russell.

Nobody does the old, weird America better than Karen Russell.

This novel is bookended by two real events, an epic Dust Bowl storm and an epic flood in 1935 in Nebraska.

And in the middle is our main character, a prairie witch called the Antidote, who holds people's memories that they otherwise can't contain.

My other one is by Lily King, "Heart the Lover."

And Lily King... JEFFREY BROWN: Which is sort of a follow-up to an earlier one, right?

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: It's a follow-up to "Writers & Lovers."

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: But Lily King is such a brilliant designer of narrative that you don't have to have read the first novel to really fall in love with this one.

It's about a love triangle at a college campus in the 1980s, and it follows our main character, a woman nicknamed Jordan, as she tries to pull her life together and the decades afterwards.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let's move to nonfiction.

Ann Patchett, you can start this one again.

ANN PATCHETT: Arundhati Roy, "Mother Mary Comes to Me."

Arundhati Roy burst into the literary scene in 1996 with her international bestselling Booker Prize-winning "The God of Small Things," which sold over six million copies.

This is the story about her relationship with her brilliant and difficult mother, Mary Roy, but that's really only about 15 percent of the book.

The rest of it is about Arundhati Roy's life.

She was an architect.

She was an actress.

She was a screenwriter, but more than anything, she was a political activist.

But let me throw in one small book that I also love that just came out.

And this is called "A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction" by Elizabeth McCracken.

There are so many people on your holiday list who want to be writers, and she has wonderful, wonderful, tough love, direct, and very funny advice on how to be the writer you want to be.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Maureen Corrigan, two in the nonfiction category.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: Yes, "Last Seen" by Judith Giesberg.

Judith Giesberg is a historian.

In 2017, with a lot of her research grad students, she constructed a Web site, the Last Seen Web site, that gathered together every ad they could find placed by formerly enslaved people looking for their family members who were sold away.

This book focuses on 10 of those ads.

It really deepens our understanding of the lived experience of slavery.

So that's one.

And then switching gears, Patti Smith's "Bread of Angels."

JEFFREY BROWN: Oh, her latest memoir.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: Her latest memoir in this year which celebrates the 50th anniversary of her landmark album, "Horses."

Patti Smith is such an American original.

And her prose is both filled with poetry, but also this rough authenticity and I love her.

JEFFREY BROWN: As do many.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: Yes, yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, now, Ann, I have been to your great bookstore in Nashville.

I know you have a wonderful children's book section.

So this one's just for you.

ANN PATCHETT: All right, let's start off with my favorite picture book this year, "If We Were Dogs" by Sophie Blackall.

This is about two people who are having a conversation.

Hey, what would we be like if we were dogs?

What would our relationship be like?

This is the answer.

It turns out one of the people doesn't want to be a dog.

We cannot keep this book in the store.

And not only do parents love reading it to children.

The children are going crazy for this book.

So, Sophie Blackall, writer and illustrator.

And then, coincidentally, Sophie Blackall is also the illustrator for the "Norendy" series.

These are three very tiny little books by Kate DiCamillo, three very short novels put together in a box set.

They are a little bit fairy tale, very imaginative, very beautiful.

They all have a full arc.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Maureen Corrigan, I have got a special category for you.

We're going to call this surprise or a hidden gem.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: Yes, yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Something that took you unawares.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: "Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife."

I didn't think there was a lot left to learn about Gertrude Stein.

JEFFREY BROWN: This is a new biography.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: A new biography.

Somehow, Gertrude Stein inspires, I think, almost an obsessive investigatory zeal in her biographers.

And I read this at night before I went to sleep, like a detective novel.

It goes deep into Stein's life in Paris and of course, her relationship with Alice B. Toklas, but also the afterlife, how her reputation has been constructed, reconstructed.

It's fascinating.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, Ann, your favorite book of the year that you could not live without?

ANN PATCHETT: "Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.

This is just such a terrific novel.

It goes from the First World War through Vietnam, showing the effects of war and love, war and peace, shall we say, on a small Ohio town.

This is a book that women will love, that men will love, that if you have someone on your list who says, oh, I only read nonfiction, they still will love this book.

It really meets everyone's needs and everyone who comes to this store has loved it.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Maureen Corrigan, a favorite.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: Oh, gosh.

Don't make me.

JEFFREY BROWN: I am making you.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: "The Antidote."

I would come back to Karen Russell.

It's -- that's the book I'm going to keep thinking about long after Christmas and the holidays and everything.

It's an amazing book.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, as always, you both have given us a great list.

Maureen Corrigan, Ann Patchett, thank you so much.

ANN PATCHETT: Thank you.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Before we go, we want to invite you to join us tomorrow morning.

AMNA NAWAZ: Deema Zein and science correspondent Miles O'Brien host a special livestream on all things science.

DEEMA ZEIN: Hey, Miles, are you on your way?

Are you ready?

MILES O'BRIEN: I'm wrapping up a few loose ends, Deema, but I am on my way.

Are they ready?

DEEMA ZEIN: Are you all ready for this?

MILES O'BRIEN: Hope you are, because we are going live for a special Tipping Point event December 10 at 11:00 a.m.

It's all about science.

It's about communicating science.

We have some of the greatest influencers out there, scientists, academics, and people who are just good at explaining things to talk about how to explain this complicated world of science, the environment, and climate in the digital era.

I'm excited about it.

DEEMA ZEIN: Yes.

Learn how to spot misleading A.I.

online.

Get tips on how to fight science misinformation.

See how legacy media is taking bold steps into the digital space and so much more.

And this conversation is all driven by... MILES O'BRIEN: You.

It's an AMA, the mother of all AMAs.

This is going to be amazing.

DEEMA ZEIN: For more than three hours, awesome guests will be answering your questions on Reddit.

And it will all be live right here from our digital studio.

MILES O'BRIEN: I'm really looking forward to being there and working with you.

And I really hope everybody takes a few moments to participate, because we can't do it without them.

We will see you soon.

DEEMA ZEIN: We will see you soon.

AMNA NAWAZ: We will see you soon.

And you can watch and take part in our AMA.

That's our Ask Me Anything session.

You can do that on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

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

We will see you tomorrow morning.

You're watching PBS.