AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Highly anticipated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine fall flat less than two hours in, with few signs of progress, and both countries' presidents notably absent.

AMNA NAWAZ: As President Trump returns from a foreign trip marked by lavish displays and dealmaking, a look at how the Trump family could be profiting off the presidency.

ERIC LIPTON, The New York Times: It's sort of impossible for us to know if it's influencing U.S. foreign policy.

And that's pretty troubling and pretty unusual in American history.

GEOFF BENNETT: And a medical breakthrough.

A baby born with a rare deadly disorder becomes the first to receive personalized gene-editing treatment.

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

Today, senior Russian and Ukrainian officials did something they have not done in more than three years, sat across from each other and talked.

Since their last negotiation, more than one million people have been killed or wounded.

AMNA NAWAZ: Today, the two sides agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners.

That would be the war's largest swap.

And they agreed to keep talking.

But, beyond that, there were no breakthrough.

And in some respect, the two sides seem even further apart than when they started.

Nick Schifrin begins our coverage.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today in Istanbul, foes finally faced each other.

Senior Ukrainian Russian officials haven't been this close in nearly 1,200 days.

But, by the end of the meeting, they have never been further apart.

HEORHII TYKHYI, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Spokesman: There were a number of things that, of course, were unacceptable.

But again, the Ukrainian delegation took it with a very calm posture.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The last time Ukraine and Russia negotiated, in March 2022, in the exact same location as today's talks, Russia demanded caps on Ukraine's military, the ending of Western support, the end of Ukraine's NATO dreams, and the dissolution of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government.

Today, Russia reportedly expanded its demands to include Ukrainian withdrawal from four regions that are under partial Russian control, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kherson, and Luhansk, and buffer zones in other provinces of Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk.

Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said today that, compared to 2022, Moscow wanted more.

VLADIMIR MEDINSKY, Head of Russian Delegation (through translator): It was a little bit tougher in relation to the realities on the ground.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The two sides did agree to the largest prisoner release of the war, and Russia said it would consider a Ukrainian request for a Zelenskyy-Vladimir Putin meeting.

VLADIMIR MEDINSKY (through translator): We agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future cease-fire and spell it out in detail.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But Russia continues to reject U.S., Ukrainian, and European requests for a 30-day cease-fire.

HEORHII TYKHYI: You all know that this is how it works.

You first make guns silent, and then you talk.

VLADIMIR MEDINSKY (through translator): As a rule, as Napoleon said, war and negotiations take place simultaneously.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Zelenskyy and the European coalition of the willing who spoke to President Trump today pushed back.

KEIR STARMER, British Prime Minister: The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.

JEFFREY EDMONDS, Center for Naval Analyses: I'm just not very optimistic as to where this is going to go, because I don't think Putin has changed his strategic goals in Ukraine, of at least a neutral Ukraine, demilitarization, Zelenskyy gone.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Jeff Edmonds is a former defense White House and CIA analyst on Russia and Europe, now at the Center for Naval Analysis.

JEFFREY EDMONDS: The Russians, despite the massive amounts of manpower they have wasted on this war, are meeting their recruitment goals.

And so they can stay in this fight longer.

I think they will make some progress.

They believe they're able to negotiate from a stronger position because they're winning.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Those battlefield advances, despite enormous losses, reinforce Putin's belief he can achieve maximalist goals.

But Ukraine has adjusted and can likely hold the line against Russian troops, says Edmonds.

JEFFREY EDMONDS: They are making incremental improvements, and there's talk of another offensive coming.

There's talk of more troops being built up on the Russian side.

But the Ukrainians have learned I think in some sense from their failed offensive in 2023 how effective defensive measures can be.

And so I know that they're concentrating on that.

So I don't see a big breakthrough coming in any region.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And so, most likely, the two sides will continue to fight and negotiate to stalemate.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

AMNA NAWAZ: For a perspective on the state of play of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, we turn now to Andrew Weiss, a former State Department official who served in the George H.W.

Bush and Clinton administrations.

He's now the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Andrew, always great to see you.

ANDREW WEISS, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Great to see you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So those peace talks today wrapping just shy of two hours, a historic prisoner swap, but no cease-fire, no major breakthroughs.

What do you see here?

Is this progress?

ANDREW WEISS: This process is about an audience of one.

Both sides are trying to appeal to President Trump and avoid being blamed for the process not going anywhere.

So the Ukrainians have gone great, far - - taken a lot of steps to agree to an unconditional 30-day cease-fire, to agree to meet with the Russians, and to sort of play nicely with this administration.

The Russians, who have given no ground, and, in fact, as you heard from Nick Schifrin just a moment ago, are actually expanding their demands, also want to look like they're nice people and that they are serious about peace.

They're not.

And as we heard just a moment ago, they think time's on their side.

AMNA NAWAZ: So we know Vladimir Putin was not at these meetings, and you heard President Zelenskyy say that that is a sign that Putin is not serious about wanting a cease-fire.

You agree with that assessment?

ANDREW WEISS: Yes.

No, the Russians at this point have very maximalist goals.

Those goals amount essentially to wiping Ukraine off the map.

That's what they want.

They want Ukraine to disappear and to become forcibly reintegrated into Russia's orbit.

The Ukrainians are not in any position where they're desperate for a deal.

And I think this White House in part is hampered in its peacemaking efforts because they have a misunderstanding of where things are on the ground.

They believe Ukraine's in a dire situation desperate for a deal, and they think that the Russians, if the United States were to cut off military assistance again to Ukraine, could roll over Ukraine in short order.

Both those, unfortunately, are not the case.

Ukraine is in a bad situation, but the defense is inherently favored in this war.

They have been able to expand their own defense production capabilities.

So a lot of what they need, drones, artillery, things like that, they can now produce at home.

They're seriously in need of continued U.S. military and intelligence support.

They also have some niche important requirements, including for air defense, that they can't replace on their own.

AMNA NAWAZ: You heard this audience of one, as you referred to him, President Trump, yesterday, as he was traveling in the Middle East, say that nothing is going to happen until he and Putin speak directly.

Do you agree with that?

And what do you think would come of that kind of meeting?

ANDREW WEISS: The Ukrainians and the Europeans are really worried that any bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia could be rammed down Ukraine's throat and rammed down Europe's throat.

So there's a desire to make sure that the United States president doesn't set off in a spontaneous way, as we have seen him do in other foreign policy matters, where he sort of runs around, makes spontaneous decisions, does things on the fly.

This is a very dangerous, delicate moment for the Ukrainians.

They don't want to see a peace deal that's agreed behind their backs.

At the same time, Donald Trump, I think, has been bending over backwards to avoid putting blame on Vladimir Putin.

So, asking for a meeting is now just the next sort of way of kicking the can and avoiding the moment of decision that Putin - - that Trump had promised us, where he said, if I can't get this settled within my first 100 days, I'm going to walk away.

That's the moment we're waiting for Trump to reveal, what walking away means.

AMNA NAWAZ: When it comes to the U.S. involvement here, though, I want to share with you something the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink published just today in this op-ed in The Detroit Free Press.

She basically said she resigned last month because of Trump's foreign policy after serving three years in Ukraine.

She wrote this: "I cannot stand by while a country is invaded, a democracy bombarded and children killed with impunity.

I believe the only way to secure U.S. interests is to stand up for democracies and to stand against autocrats.

Peace at any price is not peace at all.

It is appeasement."

Is President Trump here pursuing a policy of appeasement?

ANDREW WEISS: I think he is.

And I think the risk is that the policy that we had in place when Donald Trump became president focused on unity with the Europeans, common cause with the Ukrainians, and showing the Russians that they can't get what they want and that we would build leverage over time to get them to see that this was a hopeless goal, that they were never going to get Ukraine back.

At this point, Donald Trump has cut off military aid for a brief period for the Ukrainians, cut off intelligence support.

He's blown up a lot of our key relationships with the Europeans, treating them as more as adversaries than as U.S. allies.

Those are all, I think, making Putin confident that, even if the negotiation fails, he still comes out ahead.

AMNA NAWAZ: Andrew Weiss, thank you for your time.

Always great to speak with you.

ANDREW WEISS: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we start today's other headlines in the Middle East, where Israel is ramping up its military activity.

Today, the IDF says it struck two Houthi-controlled ports in Yemen and launched dozens of airstrikes across Gaza.

Israeli officials say it's part of a pressure campaign to get Hamas to release the remaining hostages.

As body bags line the ground, Palestinians line up to say goodbye.

These are just the first bodies recovered from an airstrike today on Jabalia.

Many more victims are still under the rubble as their loved ones try to dig them out with any tools available.

ABU OMAR AL ZANATI, Gaza Strip Resident (through translator): There is no equipment.

What are we working with?

He works with a hammer.

What should we do?

GEOFF BENNETT: For those who survive, there's nothing to do but try to escape the next strike.

FADI TAMBOURA, Displaced Palestinian (through translator): Where should I go today?

I go to West Gaza.

There's bombing in West Gaza.

I go to the south.

They're killing in Khan Yunis.

I go to Deir, there's bombing in Deir.

Where should I go?

GEOFF BENNETT: The Israeli military has unleashed a devastating barrage across Gaza this week.

More than 100 people were killed today, according to the initial death toll, after days of attacks that killed at least another 130, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel's military says they're targeting terrorist cells and Hamas military infrastructure.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said IDF forces are mobilizing for a larger offensive, saying that: "There will be no way we will stop the war.

We're going to the end."

After a brief cease-fire earlier this year, the violence has escalated once again, with devastating consequences.

But it's not just the fighting that's deadly.

Israel's ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance and food supplies has created a parallel crisis, hunger.

FATEN AL-MADHOUN, Owner of Distribution Food Charity (through translator): I have been cooking for people for a year and eight months now, but there is real famine over the past three months.

GEOFF BENNETT: Experts warn that nearly half-a-million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation.

Some wait all day for food, but once these pots are empty, these children will go hungry.

UM ABED, Beit Lahiya Resident (through translator): I come here from 9:00 a.m., I swear from 9:00 a.m. and I went home yesterday without food, and today I'm going home without food.

I have a 3-year-old child who's crying all day because he wants to eat.

GEOFF BENNETT: All this unfolded as President Trump toured the Middle East this week, making stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, notably skipping Israel.

Aboard Air Force One today, the president told reporters the Palestinians, in his words, need help.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Well, we're going to see what happens.

I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month, and we're going to see.

We have to help also out in the Palestinians.

A lot of people are starving on Gaza, so we have to look at both sides.

GEOFF BENNETT: Satellite imagery shows how densely populated the Southern Gaza City of Rafah was in October of 2023.

By February of this year, much of Rafah had been reduced to smashed concrete.

Pictures this week show a barren wasteland.

For Gazans, there's no way to know when or if things will improve or just how much worse they still might get.

Back here at home, a transit strike in New Jersey forced some 350,000 people to make alternative plans today.

PROTESTER: What do we want?

PROTESTER: Contract.

PROTESTERS: When do we want it?

PROTESTER: Now!

GEOFF BENNETT: Union members walked off the job at midnight after contract negotiations stalled.

It's New Jersey's first mass transit strike in more than four decades.

Stations across the region went quiet as the nation's third largest rail transit system ground to a halt.

The union says it wants better pay, but state officials say meeting its demands would bankrupt New Jersey transit.

GOV.

PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): It is, frankly, a mess of their own making.

And it is a slap in the face of every commuter and worker who relies on N.J.

Transit.

The stance that we're taking to get a fair deal for our workers and not blow up N.J.

Transit's finances is exactly a central tenet in fixing N.J.

Transit.

GEOFF BENNETT: But union leadership says their members are among the lowest paid in the country and that they are not the problem.

JAMES LOUIS, National Vice President, BLET: If the little extra we are asking for is causing bankruptcy, there are bigger problems than us.

GEOFF BENNETT: The next talks are scheduled for Sunday with help from federal mediators in the hopes of reaching a deal before the Monday morning commute.

A group of conservative Republican lawmakers blocked President Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill in a pivotal vote today.

REP. JODEY ARRINGTON (R-TX): Well, the no's have it.

GEOFF BENNETT: By a vote of 16 to 21, the House Budget Committee declined to move forward the massive package of tax breaks, funding priorities and spending cuts.

The Republicans who joined Democrats in voting against the measure want more spending cuts, including cuts to Medicaid.

Earlier, President Trump had posted on social media that Republicans must unite behind the bill.

The Budget Committee will reconvene on Sunday night to try again.

President Trump says former FBI Director James Comey called for his assassination in a since-deleted Instagram post, Comey shared a picture of seashells on a beach arranged to form the numbers 86 and 47; 86 is a slang term that means get rid of something.

That's according to Merriam-Webster.

Trump is, of course, the 47th president.

Comey wrote in a follow-up post that he didn't see the connection saying it -- quote -- "Never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind."

Mr. Trump fired Comey in his first administration.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service say they are investigating the post.

A federal judge says the Trump administration has failed to provide sufficient information regarding her order to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.

He was deported to El Salvador in March, which government officials admitted was an administrative error.

WOMAN: Bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home!

Bring him home!

GEOFF BENNETT: Abrego Garcia's supporters rallied outside the courtroom in Maryland, the state he has called home for more than a decade.

The Trump administration argues that details about his case are protected state secrets.

At today's hearing, the judge called the case -- quote -- "an exercise in utter frustration."

The New Jersey man convicted of stabbing author Salman Rushdie was sentenced to 25 years in prison today.

Hadi Matar received the maximum sentence for the attack on a stage in 2022 that left Rushdie blind in one eye.

The jury found the 27-year-old guilty earlier this year of attempted murder and assault.

Rushdie was not present at today's sentencing, but submitted a statement to the court saying he still has nightmares about the incident.

Matar will next face a federal trial on terrorism-related charges, which is expected to focus on his motive for the attack.

There is a developing story in New Orleans tonight, where this afternoon police officials said that the 10 inmates who escaped from jail today may have had help from the inside.

The Associated Press obtained this photo showing the hole through which they escaped from a cell at the Orleans Justice Center.

Louisiana State Police also released this image showing one of the escapees being recaptured in the city's famous French Quarter.

That means, as of this afternoon, nine inmates remain at large.

Officials warn they may be armed in dangerous and have asked people to call 911 if they see them.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended higher as investors brushed off a report that showed consumer confidence at a three-year low.

The Dow Jones industrial average added more than 300 points on the day.

The Nasdaq rose nearly 100 points, or about half-a-percent.

The S&P 500 also ended the week on solid footing.

After the closing bell, Moody's downgraded the credit rating of the U.S., stripping it of its perfect AAA status.

In a statement, the ratings agency blamed -- quote -- "successive U.S. administrations and Congress for failing to agree on measures to trim the nation's deficits."

Moody's was the last of the three major agencies to cut the rating, which the U.S. had held for more than a century.

Still to come on the "News Hour": a personalized gene-editing treatment appears to have saved a baby born with a rare disorder; David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart break down this week's political headlines; and in his new book, poet Ocean Vuong explores the idea of a chosen family and unexpected acts of kindness.

AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump is on his way back from visiting three Middle Eastern nations, where the Trump family has deep business ties.

GEOFF BENNETT: Over the past month, billions of dollars have poured into Trump-owned companies, reviving a longstanding ethical debate from his first term.

Are the president's financial windfalls for his businesses influencing government policy?

Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has a look.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: On the first foreign trip of his second term, President Trump is once again paying special attention to the Middle East.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I'm honored to be the first American president ever to officially visit your great country.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: It's a region where the president's political and personal interests increasingly overlap.

DONALD TRUMP: I think it's a great gesture from Qatar.

I appreciate it very much.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The president's meetings in Qatar come just days after saying he would accept a major gift from the country, a new luxury jet to replace Air Force One.

DONALD TRUMP: I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.

I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But the jet, worth an estimated $400 million, has set off ethical and legal alarm bells.

NOAH BOOKBINDER, Executive Director, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: It's entirely unprecedented.

I'm certainly not aware of any kind of gift from a foreign nation that is even in the ballpark of this.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Noah Bookbinder is the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a former public corruption attorney for the Justice Department.

Questions about Trump's potential use of the plane after he leaves office miss the larger conflict, Bookbinder says.

NOAH BOOKBINDER: Some of these transactions may turn out to be kind of just on the right side of the law.

Some of them may well end up violating the Constitution.

But even where there is technical legality, where you have a senior government official getting personal benefits from people who have every reason to want to influence their policy decisions, that's inherently corrupt.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Trump placed his business interests in a trust controlled by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., rather than a blind trust like most modern presidents.

But the jet is just the latest in a series of actions taken by the president and the Trump Organization, run by two of his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric, that flout ethics norms or enrich the Trump family.

The family's budding cryptocurrency empire is at the top of that list, with some analysis estimating the president's crypto holdings now represent roughly 40 percent of his net worth.

ERIC TRUMP, Executive Vice President, Trump Organization: I believe that the crypto world is going to take over those big banks.

I think it is going to leave them in the dust.

And I think it's going to change our modern financial system forever.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: At a recent auction of Trump's cryptocurrency, bidders spent nearly $150 million Trump's meme coin, a form of cryptocurrency typically inspired by viral trends or endorsed by celebrities.

The reward?

For the top 220 bidders, a private gala with President Trump at his golf course just outside of Washington, D.C., and the top 25 will receive even more exclusive access to the president, including a special VIP tour of the White House.

NOAH BOOKBINDER: The profits from it go in large part to Donald Trump, both when the value of the coin goes up, but also there are transaction costs that he profits from when people buy and sell these coins.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: According to recent estimates, the Trump family and its partners have made some $320 million in trading fees since the president's meme coin launched.

Four months into his second term, Trump and his family are rapidly finding new ways to potentially profit off of the presidency.

If foreign governments or wealthy individuals want to curry favors with the president, there are four main avenues for them to do it, cryptocurrency, new real estate deals, Trump Media, which runs the president's social media app TRUTH SOCIAL, or direct payments at social clubs, hotels, and golf courses run by the Trump family.

In addition to the president's meme coin, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., alongside Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump's Middle East envoy, are leading the Trump family's crypto firm known as World Liberty Financial.

ERIC TRUMP: Modern finance is absolutely broken.

And so when the banks came after our family, I will never forget it.

We became the most canceled people in the world all because we're associated with politics in the United States.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The firm recently developed a stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency that maintains a constant price of $1 and is meant to replace traditional money.

And that Trump family crypto business just got a major $2 billion infusion from the government of the United Arab Emirates, a deal that will make the Trump family tens of millions of dollars per year from the investment.

ERIC LIPTON, The New York Times: It's sort of impossible for us to know if it's influencing U.S. foreign policy.

And that's pretty troubling and pretty unusual in American history that we would even have this question.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Eric Lipton covers the president's business dealings for The New York Times.

He says the family's crypto transactions make Trump's first-term conflicts appear small.

ERIC LIPTON: So it's not just millions or hundreds of thousands,.

We're talking billions of dollars that involve foreign governments, really enormous in scale compared to people buying martinis at the Trump Hotel in D.C. or going to Mar-a-Lago.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: All of this comes as the Trump administration has rolled back crypto regulations.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Meanwhile, Trump's first international trip happens to be in the same region that the Trump Organization is planning to build an 80-floor hotel and residential tower.

ERIC TRUMP: We're going to come in here and build a crown jewel and everybody is going to know that's Trump International Hotel and Tower.

That's Trump.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And a new luxury complex in Qatar.

Trump may not be technically running his companies, but he's the financial beneficiary, said Lipton.

And outside of these new real estate projects, money is flowing in other ways.

ERIC LIPTON: It's hard to keep track of all of the various moneymaking ventures that the Trump family is currently involved in that bring benefit in many cases to President Trump himself.

There's his son who is selling $500,000-a-head private memberships at a new club that's about to open in Washington, D.C. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That new club is called The Executive Branch and will give paying tech and business moguls some private face time with Trump administration officials in D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, White House Press Secretary: Good afternoon, everybody.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The White House says everything is aboveboard.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: It's, frankly, ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said Trump may not be breaking criminal conflicts of interest law.

RICHARD PAINTER, Former Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush: It would be a crime for an executive branch official to participate in the regulation of cryptocurrency while holding cryptocurrency assets and investments in a trading platform for cryptocurrency.

But that criminal statute does not apply to the president of the United States.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But, Painter says, Trump is potentially violating a part of the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause.

RICHARD PAINTER: Foreign governments will always seek to try to influence the United States and our public officials.

And if foreign governments can do business deals with the United States, public officials, private business deals, they could easily corrupt our government.

And that is the danger we face today, as much as we faced it at the time of the founding of this country.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The founding fathers, concerned that elected officials could profit from leadership, wrote a clause in the Constitution that prohibits the nation's leaders from accepting gifts, titles and funds from foreign governments.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I'm going to leave it to the administration.

They know much more about the details.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have largely brushed aside Trump's new overseas business deals and his growing cryptocurrency empire.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Look, there are authorities that police executive branch ethics rules.

I'm not an expert in that.

Whatever the -- President Trump is doing is out in the open.

They're not trying to conceal anything.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: As for Qatar gifting a luxury jet, some of Trump's top MAGA allies were less forgiving.

BEN SHAPIRO, Conservative Political Commentator: Taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Jazeera, all the rest, that's not America first.

If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop.

RICHARD PAINTER: The accountability for the president will come from Congress or not come from Congress.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But, so far, the Republican-controlled Congress has shown no interest in conducting oversight of the president's ever-expanding business interests.

RICHARD PAINTER: Financial conflicts of interest of the highest-ranking government officials do have consequences.

When we face serious problems as a society, will those problems be resolved by our government or will our government officials simply focus on making money for themselves?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: It's a question ethics lawyers and government watchdogs will continue to ask as Trump and his family stand to make billions from his presidency.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's turn now to a promising medical breakthrough.

Doctors announced this week they have treated a newborn baby with a rare genetic disease using the world's first personalized gene editing treatment.

In the arms of his parents, Nicole and Kyle, K.J.

Muldoon looks much like any other happy, healthy 9-month-old baby.

But just days after he was born, his parents were initially given alarming parents.

KYLE MULDOON, Father of K.J.

Muldoon: One of the doctors came to us and said: "We think we know what's wrong.

Your son is very sick.

But the best place in the world for your child to be when he's very sick is next door."

GEOFF BENNETT: Doctors at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia told them that their son had a rare genetic disease known as CPS1.

It only affects one in 1.3 million babies, but the disease caused by a single mutation in his DNA meant their child's body couldn't process ammonia and doctors had to carefully restrict protein in his diet.

NICOLE MULDOON, Mother of K.J.

Muldoon: You Google CPS1 deficiency and it's either fatality rate or liver transplant.

GEOFF BENNETT: The choices were stark.

KYLE MULDOON: Our child is sick.

We either have to get a liver transplant or do this -- give him this medicine that's never been given to anybody before, right?

I mean, what an impossible decision to make.

GEOFF BENNETT: Doctors told them they could try a new experimental procedure with K.J., one that had been in the works for years.

Doctors used the gene editing technology known as CRISPR to isolate and correct that single mutation.

In essence, CRISPR technology was used as a kind of GPS to go into the baby's DNA and use an enzyme to fix just one errant letter out of about three billion in his DNA.

DR. REBECCA AHRENS-NICKLAS, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Therapies quickly is essential.

GEOFF BENNETT: Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas was one of the leaders of the team.

DR. REBECCA AHRENS-NICKLAS: K.J., we knew that every day that passed there was another risk that he could have neurologic injury from an elevated ammonia episode.

And so as every day passed, we knew we had to work quickly in order to try to get a solution for him.

GEOFF BENNETT: K.J.

responded well, and after follow-up treatments, doctors say he's made significant progress.

NICOLE MULDOON: We have been operating in fight or flight for so long that... KYLE MULDOON: Yes.

Yes.

NICOLE MULDOON: ... that positive things still look forward to, we kind of were just like, let's get him to this.

Now it's like we're planning for him to come home.

GEOFF BENNETT: For more on this treatment and its potential, we're joined now by Dr. Peter Marks, who oversaw gene therapy treatment and vaccine safety and approval for the FDA before he left in March.

It's great to have you here.

Thanks for coming in.

DR. PETER MARKS, Former Director, FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research: Thanks so much.

GEOFF BENNETT: So explain a bit more about what doctors were able to accomplish here.

How big a deal is this?

DR. PETER MARKS: Yes, I think it's a pretty big deal because they were able to go from making a diagnosis remarkably rapidly at the genetic level by using genetic sequencing, which built on decades of work, to be able to get a genetic sequence that rapidly at reasonably low cost, and then taking that sequence and making a medicine within a matter of weeks' time to be able to treat a child before they suffer the consequences of a potentially life-ending disease.

So, really a tour de force of molecular medicine applied and making a difference.

GEOFF BENNETT: A tour de force.

I mean, what are the implications?

Can this be scaled and what other illnesses or diseases can it be used to treat?

DR. PETER MARKS: Yes, so I think this really can be scaled.

It may take a little bit of time to get there, but, by scaling it, we should be able to treat a lot of cases like this where there are N of ones, one individual affected by a very bad disease, but we also will be able to scale this up to deal with other diseases which are more common, things like sickle cell disease, et cetera.

And this approach of being able to have a gene editor given directly to someone may really bring down the cost and the complexity of gene therapy, so that it can be applied much more broadly, both here in the United States, as well as globally.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you have worked in this field for a while.

What are the caveats and limitations that we should keep in mind?

DR. PETER MARKS: So this is not going to be able to be applied immediately to every genetic disease.

There are some challenges which people are working to overcome.

Getting these kind of gene editors into the brain, where there are any number of diseases which we'd like to approach things, like Huntington's disease, et cetera, they may be a little bit more difficult, but I think we will get there.

Again, some of the challenges will take a little more time to overcome.

I think the scale-up, the technology will be important, but another piece will be the education that's necessary so that people can have the acceptance of the fact that these are remarkably good technologies which can really potentially positively benefit human health in a way that we just haven't seen previously.

GEOFF BENNETT: Are there ethical questions or are there potential questions about this kind of treatment being available to people who are affluent or people who have good private insurance, while others would have to be left to fend for themselves?

DR. PETER MARKS: Yes, I think that's a really important discussion to be had.

And I think one of the reasons why this technology is so exciting, at least to me, is that it has the potential to bring down the cost of gene therapy, which people might know, many of the gene therapies now are in the millions of dollars, a whole order of magnitude.

So this is in the -- hopefully, first -- the next step will be into the hundred thousand of dollars and then hopefully into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Could be a huge game changer, because we could see these types of gene therapies making their way into low- and middle-income countries, where they could essentially leapfrog care and help people, for instance, with sickle cell disease, where, right now, there's just nothing for them.

GEOFF BENNETT: To what degree is the administration's cuts to medical research and funding, to what degree does that limit the potential here?

DR. PETER MARKS: Hopefully, it's not going to a whole lot.

I think it is going to be a challenge.

I think, if we don't maintain leadership in this area, it will be taken over by other countries.

I think there are plenty of other countries that are looking at this technology.

They realize its potential, and they will move forward with it.

So, right now, the U.S. has had tremendous leadership in this area.

One of the people who discovered this technology, put it forward and the people who have brought it forward, located in California and MIT, they really have helped us stay in a leadership position in the U.S.

If we see that, I suspect others will move it forward.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's an exciting advancement.

Dr. Peter Marks, thanks for coming in.

Good to speak with you.

DR. PETER MARKS: Thank you so much.

AMNA NAWAZ: For more on the president's trip to the Middle East and the week's political headlines back here at home, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart.

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

Great to see you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hey, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's jump right in.

The president's first foreign trip to the Middle East, those three nations we talked about earlier, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, all places where the Trump family has deep business ties, and also a lot of headlines, David, right?

We saw some investment deal sign.

There was a meeting with the new Syrian leader, a man the U.S. has previously called a terrorist.

Iran nuclear talks continue.

What did you take away from that whole trip?

DAVID BROOKS: I thought there were two really big stories.

The first was the flip-flop on Iran.

If you -- people remember the Trump first term, he was the guy who walked away from the Iran nuclear deal that Barack Obama had signed, saying no deal.

And now he's back into the deal business.

And I happen to think this is the right move.

Iran is much weaker than they were even five years ago.

Israel has taken out Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Iranian economy is much weaker.

The Saudis, their rival, are much stronger.

And so they're much more inclined, I think, to do a deal than they were at any time in the last 15 years.

And so I'm glad Trump is exploring this.

I think it's the right move.

The second big thing I think on the speech - - on the trip was the Riyadh speech.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: And that was a speech in which he defined his foreign policy.

And he basically -- all of American history, at least since postwar, is like, we care about democracy.

We don't like it if you're throwing people off roofs.

Like, we don't like it if you're murdering journalists.

Like, we don't like that stuff.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: And that was partly realpolitik, the idea that tyrants are more likely to be expansionist and destabilizing, but also who we are as Americans.

Like, we do have a moral foreign policy.

And the two key pieces of the Trump speech were, we're not going to tell you how you run your country.

You want to blow off some journalists you don't like, that's your business.

And the second was we're not in the nation-building business anymore.

We're just staying out.

And that's a pretty sharp reversal of what had been 100 years of bipartisan foreign policy.

And we will see if it's right, whether we should be tolerant of dictators.

And we will see whether Americans can stomach it, because we define our national identity by how we see ourselves acting abroad.

And if we become amoralists, then that will shift how Americans think of their own country.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, what did you make of the trip?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: So, I look at the trip.

There's a -- I guess there was an old Western "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

David talked about the good, the flip on Iran, talking to the new leader of Syria and ending the sanctions, give that new regime a leg up, the bad being what you were just talking about in terms of the president's speech.

And then there's the ugly.

You would be a stupid person if you didn't accept the free plane.

And the idea that the president of the United States is going to take a hand-me-down plane, a 13-year-old plane from a foreign country just on its face is horrendous.

And yet he's insisting on it.

And so even though he's done some, objectively speaking, good things on this trip, it has been overshadowed by the plane from Qatar, but also, to Laura's huge story... AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: ... interwoven in there is these deals that the Trump family is just mixed into completely.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we know we're going to continue to cover all of those stories as they unfold.

On immigration-related headlines this week, I know you both were tracking, of course, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments on birthright citizenship, which is an issue the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed over 125 years ago, Congress codified 100 years ago.

And then we end this week with the news that the Department of Homeland Security is considering backing a reality show in which immigrants compete for citizenship.

And I should note, our Laura Barron-Lopez spoke to the producer who said, it's not like we pit people against each other.

We're celebrating their journey.

It's people in the process, but someone has a chance to basically win getting to the front of the line.

Just the way that we're talking about who gets to be American right now, David, how are you looking at this?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, a couple things.

First, we have birthright citizenship in this country.

We have had it, as you said, since the 14th Amendment at least.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: The European countries, by and large, do not.

Asian countries, by and large, do not.

African countries, by and large, do not.

If you look at the countries around the world that have birthright citizenship, they tend to be in the Americas.

And that's because we saw ourselves as a certain kind of country, as a country that welcomed a lot of people, and a lot of people came here and then their kids were born here and we said, welcome, you are one of us.

And that, again, just like the foreign policy, is a longstanding tradition of America and its certain conception of what America was.

You go to non-birthright citizenship, which will not happen, by the way, because it's so unconstitutional -- it's not even a little unconstitutional.

It's major league unconstitutional.

And -- but you're looking at a European-style conservatism, not an American-style.

And, again, that's Trump really breaking with a lot of traditions here.

I was struck by Brett Kavanaugh asked the solicitor general on the Supreme Court, suppose a baby is born.

What's going to happen to that baby without birthright citizenship?

And the solicitor general said, I don't know.

We don't have a plan for that.

You think you would have a plan for that.

And then, finally, on the game show or whatever, the reality show, I have to confess, like, American -- I have never seen a reality show in my life, so... AMNA NAWAZ: You have never seen a single reality show in your life, David Brooks?

DAVID BROOKS: I have not seen "The Housewives of Bethesda, Maryland."

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: I have not seen "Love Is Blind."

I did not see "Duck Dynasty."

JONATHAN CAPEHART: There's another one.

DAVID BROOKS: So it's just not - - I'm bad with emotional drama.

AMNA NAWAZ: OK. DAVID BROOKS: But if we're going to be in reality television land, I, frankly -- and this is counterintuitive.

I think it would be OK if Americans saw what immigrants are really like and that immigrants are not, like, rapists and gang members.

They are people who generally love this country and want a show that they are here.

And the guy who has allegedly conceived of the show was an immigrant.

It occurred to him during his naturalization ceremony.

And if Americans could see a naturalization ceremony, that alone would do a lot to improve how Americans think about immigration.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, what do you think?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I have been to a naturalization ceremony, and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

However, in the time that we're in -- and, to be clear, this producer proposed this during the tail end of the Obama administration.

This isn't something that's popped up just for the Trump administration, but you can't think about that television show without thinking about it in the context that we're living in, which is why I think a lot of people were thinking, wait, what, a Hunger Games for immigration?

Just because of how cruel the Trump administration has -- cruelly the Trump administration has treated immigrants, treated migrants.

I mean, I have watched reality television shows -- OK, well one, "RuPaul's Drag Race," which is a fabulous reality show.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: But I think that where we are right now, as wonderful as it would be for the American people to see immigrants who want to be in this country and do these competitions, I don't think, if this producer ends up having conversations with the DHS secretary in the Trump administration, what things they would want put into this show that would make it just demeaning.

And I just think, having read the interview that Laura did with the producer, it just strikes me that the guy has not read the room.

He doesn't, I think, fully appreciate why his idea has hit like a lead balloon.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we should note the homeland security spokesperson says it's in the early stages of vetting and the secretary herself has not seen it or signed off on it.

So we will continue to keep an eye on that.

Meanwhile, I have been dying to get both of your takes on this other story.

We reported earlier on the former FBI Director James Comey posting online this image: "Seashells arranged in 8647."

Of course, Donald Trump is the 47th president; 86 has become slang for getting rid of something, shorthand for a military phrase.

It can also mean to kill someone.

And Comey says he didn't realize it meant.

That's why he deleted the post and apologized.

There's still a federal investigation into this now.

David, what did you think when you saw this?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I didn't know what 86 meant.

And so I only knew the kill, so I thought that was -- it's incredibly that it's a call to violence.

That was my first assumption.

I have now learned a lot more about diner slang.

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: OK. DAVID BROOKS: And, apparently, starting in the 1920s, when you were out of something, you wrote 86.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's right.

DAVID BROOKS: And I have learned that, if there was a pretty girl at the table, you wrote 89.

I knew none of this.

(LAUGHTER) JONATHAN CAPEHART: That, I did not know.

AMNA NAWAZ: Learning so much from David Brooks today.

DAVID BROOKS: And so I don't know Comey.

I know a little about him.

We have exchanged e-mails.

He's a very earnest, intellectual guy.

He's not an Instagram memester.

And so I assume that it would not have occurred to him to do violence.

I assume that his conception of 86 is from the diner or some other era, where it just means, we're out of this, let's get rid of this.

And so I assume he's not the first person, myself included, to have send really stupid texts.

And so, in retrospect, that was kind of stupid.

But I don't think he meant -- I would be shocked if there was evidence that he meant actual violence.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, what did you think of this?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: No, I mean, I agree with that.

I just thought it was boneheaded.

I mean, in our business, any time I put anything on social media, I mentally go through all sorts of permutations.

How will this be read?

What will people think in this photo?

What's in the photo?

All the things I do before I put something on social media.

The idea that the former FBI director didn't put all those numbers together and realize, hmm, maybe I shouldn't do that.

But then I have to also factor in one more thing.

James Comey does indeed have a book coming out on May 20, the same day as mine.

I'm not jealous.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: But what are we doing right now?

We're talking about James Comey.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's right.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And so from selling a book perspective -- and, again, I don't know if this is why, this is part of some master plan to sell the book, but I just think the timing is very, very interesting.

AMNA NAWAZ: This is why I wanted to put the question to you, to get your takes, to learn about diner slang.

DAVID BROOKS: I'm following Jonathan's social media tonight, because I think there's going to be a counterattack.

AMNA NAWAZ: Tonight.

There's a reality show in your future too, David.

I can see it.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Watch "RuPaul's Drag Race."

It's really fun.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, great to see you both.

Thank you so much.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Amna.

GEOFF BENNETT: He's a writer who draws deeply from personal experience to explore the wider story of working-class life in America.

In his latest novel, just released, Ocean Vuong blends grief, healing, and resilience into a powerful and poetic narrative.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown sits down with him for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

OCEAN VUONG, Author, "The Emperor of Gladness": There's just something connected to the brain with the way the hand moved.

JEFFREY BROWN: He writes by hand.

OCEAN VUONG: When you're writing by hand, every sentence takes about 10, 15 seconds longer.

JEFFREY BROWN: Types drafts on a vintage typewriter.

In an age of instant output, poet and novelist Ocean Vuong takes the long way in.

His latest novel, "The Emperor of Gladness," is a meditation on pain, unexpected acts of kindness, and a reckoning with the history that shaped him personally.

OCEAN VUONG: I have always been fixated on kindness without power.

There's so many people in America who don't have the means to alter each other's lives, the communities that I grew up with, working-class poor folks, who don't have money or positions or means to rescue each other, and yet I have watched people still commit themselves to kindness, even though that they know it won't change anything.

JEFFREY BROWN: An immigrant from Vietnam, Vuong, now 36, spent most of his childhood in a working-class community in Hartford, Connecticut, much like the one where he set his novel, a fictional New England town called Gladness, where his young protagonist, like Vuong himself, is shaped by a postindustrial landscape after the 2008 financial meltdown and the ongoing opioid crisis.

OCEAN VUONG: I saw the opioid epidemic before it was this convenient term used by politicians.

I saw lunch ladies over those overnight, teachers, your friend's mom, everyday Americans who lost themselves to this drug so quickly.

It's kind of this pharmaceutical slaughter, wherein they were so ashamed of it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Vuong also tapped into another aspect of Americana he himself experienced, working in fast-food restaurants, for him, part of the illusion of the American dream, but one offering a different kind of family.

OCEAN VUONG: The fast-food restaurant is all about deception.

We truly didn't cook anything.

We were one giant microwave.

But we presented our food as if it was home-cooked, it was made by some grandmother in the back, like -- you know.

And so there was the... JEFFREY BROWN: That's the myth of it, right?

It's fast-food, but it was made by grandma in the back, right?

OCEAN VUONG: It's, like, impossible, right?

A lot of this country is founded on the nuclear family.

And one alternative to that, you can say, is the found family, chosen family.

But there's a huge sector, I think, I wanted to tap into, which is the circumstantial family, the family at work, the family cobbled arbitrarily together during a shift.

And there's an intimacy and bond and kinship there that actually corrodes ideology.

We all had different politics.

We came from different parts of life.

JEFFREY BROWN: Where we all come from and how we got here is a longtime obsession of Vuong's, a subject of his poetry in two volumes, "Night Sky With Exit Wounds" and "Time Is a Mother" and an earlier novel, "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous."

He's often tackling the feeling of being an outsider, queer, an immigrant, and, as he puts it, caught in tragic history,descended from an American grandfather who served in the Vietnam War and a Vietnamese grandmother.

How much of that past history still lives on and kind of finds itself even into a story of your -- of a young man living in Hartford, Connecticut?

OCEAN VUONG: History doesn't leave us.

I think history is something that we pass through, and it's almost like a -- this web you pass through, like a spider's web.

You pass through a spider's web and it clings to you.

I have been caught by history.

I have also been made by history.

I joke and I say, suffering is diverse in this one, many lineages of trouble.

But... JEFFREY BROWN: But, sometimes, you bring it to the surface in different ways, right?

OCEAN VUONG: Yes, because I think we don't get to choose how we're -- how we get a life.

And we don't get to choose whether we're victims or not.

But we do get to choose whether we live in victimhood.

And I think, for me, being a writer, creating stories is my way of saying I'm not marked by my history.

But, also, there's no solution to my history.

There's no easy way to say that the Vietnam War cost millions of Vietnamese lives, thousands of American soldiers who did not want to fight in this war, drafted against their will.

And yet I owe my life to such a black page in history.

JEFFREY BROWN: A rich history and a literary voice that has resonated with students -- he's a professor at NYU -- and with many readers, especially in this moment.

While Vuong didn't set out to become a public voice, he finds himself settling into that role.

You are representing people and you are speaking for people whether you like it or not.

OCEAN VUONG: Whether you like it or not.

And so you have to now put more care and concern into the words.

And then I thought, oh, but that's what I have been doing anyway as a writer, care and concern.

I mean, who wakes up and decides to maneuver one of the smallest, fragile mediums in our species as letters around the smallest fragile forms of a poem, who does that without care?

Writing is an act of care.

JEFFREY BROWN: Does it change the way you feel about yourself or you think about yourself as a writer?

OCEAN VUONG: The desire underneath all this that brings everything together is a central question in my life, trying to understand why there is so much suffering in our life as people, and yet why is there so much beauty?

Why do we suffer so much and yet have the capacity to recognize with absolute mystery and wonder the beauty of the world?

I don't know the answer, but I'm always writing towards that.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in New York.

GEOFF BENNETT: Be sure to watch "Washington Week With The Atlantic" tonight here on PBS.

Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel will discuss President Trump's transactional approach to diplomacy.

AMNA NAWAZ: And on "PBS News Weekend," we explore how to navigate financial uncertainty, as consumer confidence sinks to a near record low.

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, and have a great weekend.