AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz Geoff Bennett is away.

On the "News Hour" tonight: President Trump hits pause on many of his tariffs.

The global response, plus how the back-and-forth is affecting businesses and consumers.

Amid a roller-coaster week for the stock market, how the global trade wars could affect Americans' personal finances.

And Judy Woodruff goes underground to explore some of the little-known, sometimes lifesaving work done by government employees who are now being fired en masse.

MICHAEL LEWIS, Author, "Who Is Government?

: The Untold Story of Public Service": If you want to destroy the society, you destroy the government.

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

President Trump stunned many this afternoon by pausing higher tariff rates on most countries for 90 days just hours after they kicked in.

The president raised tariffs specifically on Chinese imports to 125 percent after Beijing retaliated overnight.

And a 10 percent across-the-board tariff that took effect last week remains in place.

All of this led to an historic day of market rallies after multiple days of steep drops.

The Dow closed almost 3,000 points higher, up nearly 8 percent.

The Nasdaq rocketed to its best day in nearly a quarter-century, up 12 percent, and the broadest measure, the S&P 500, had its biggest gain since 2008, up 9.5 percent.

Lisa Desjardins begins our coverage.

LISA DESJARDINS: An extraordinary change of course after a night of market turmoil and action by other global powers.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.

They were getting yippy, you know?

They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.

LISA DESJARDINS: Speaking at a NASCAR event at the White House, President Trump explained why he paused a wave of tariffs on much of the world hours after they took effect.

DONALD TRUMP: A deal is going to be made with every one of them, and they will be fair deals.

I just want fair.

They will be fair deals for everybody.

LISA DESJARDINS: Earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted the pause has always been part of President Trump's strategy.

SCOTT BESSENT, U.S. Treasury Secretary: President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself.

We are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.

It wasn't a hard message.

Don't retaliate, things will turn out well.

LISA DESJARDINS: But, before the announcement, Europe did retaliate with 25 percent tariffs, and China responded with 84 percent tariffs on U.S. goods, that in response to earlier tariff hikes from the Trump administration.

LIN JIAN, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (through translator): The U.S. continues to impose excessive tariffs and exert extreme pressure on China.

China firmly opposes and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying behavior.

LISA DESJARDINS: President Trump's mercurial tariff policy has led Europeans to rethink their trade alliances.

Spanish President Pedro Sanchez met with leaders in Vietnam, which also faced steep tariffs now on hold.

He put it bluntly.

PEDRO SANCHEZ, Spanish President (through translator): No one wins with trade wars.

All countries lose.

LISA DESJARDINS: This a day after House Republican Whip Tom Emmer told "News Hour" that the Treasury secretary pledged in private yesterday that wide negotiations are starting now.

President Trump signaled as much at a Republican dinner last night.

DONALD TRUMP: These countries are calling us up, kissing my (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

DONALD TRUMP: They are.

They are dying to make a deal.

Please, please, sir, make a deal.

LISA DESJARDINS: In fact, just as U.S. markets were opening for the day, Trump gave investors a specific message, posting on TRUTH Social: "Be cool, and this is a great time to buy."

Before the White House reversed course, businesses spent the morning tentatively lowering their forecasts.

Delta Air Lines CEO told CNBC they no longer were expecting growth in 2025.

ED BASTIAN, CEO, Delta Air Lines: Everything has stalled.

And so there's been a freeze until we get better clarity.

And the hope is the administration moves quickly through the uncertainty.

I think our economy is going to continue to lose steam.

LISA DESJARDINS: Echoing that view at the time, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on FOX Business.

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX News Anchor: Do you personally expect a recession?

JAMIE DIMON, Chairman, J.P. Morgan Chase: I am going to defer to my economists to this point, but I think probably that's a likely outcome.

LISA DESJARDINS: On Wall Street, a sell-off of U.S. treasuries overnight roiled the bond market, as some investors fear the U.S. may no longer be a safe long-term bet.

Asked if that was a factor in freezing tariffs, Trump told reporters: DONALD TRUMP: The bond market is very tricky.

I was watching it.

But if you look at it now, it's beautiful.

The bond market right now, it's beautiful.

But, yes, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.

LISA DESJARDINS: On Capitol Hill today, Senate Democrats reacted sharply.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Donald Trump is feeling the heat from Democrats and across America about how bad these tariffs are.

He is reeling, he is retreating, and that is a good thing.

LISA DESJARDINS: Speaking to Congress, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was asked if this was all a ploy to help large investors buy low.

REP. STEVEN HORSFORD (D-NV): If it was a plan, if it was always a plan, how is this not market manipulation?

JAMIESON GREER, U.S. Trade Representative: It's not market manipulation, sir.

REP. STEVEN HORSFORD: Then what is it?

Because it sure is not a strategy.

JAMIESON GREER: We're trying to reset the global trade system.

REP. STEVEN HORSFORD: Who's benefiting?

What billionaire just got richer?

LISA DESJARDINS: Elsewhere in Washington, Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she supported bringing back American manufacturing, but said the president's tariffs have been hard on her state, which President Trump won in 2024.

GOV.

GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

These last few days have been really tough for Michigan.

It really is a triple whammy, higher costs, fewer jobs, and more uncertainty.

LISA DESJARDINS: For how long?

That is also uncertain.

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

AMNA NAWAZ: And joining us now to discuss all of this is Simon Johnson.

He's a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Also with us is Douglas Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College and the author of "Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy."

Gentlemen, welcome to you both.

And, Simon, I want to begin with you.

Just your reaction to the president's decision to pause most of those tariffs for 90 days.

What do you make of it and also why he did it?

SIMON JOHNSON, MIT Sloan School of Management: Well, it's a remarkable climb down, Amna, really.

I think the last week has been chaotic around the world, a lot of alarm, a lot of dismay across the American business sector.

It really felt like a strategy that had no point, no coherence.

It was very badly communicated.

So I think it's a big sense of relief for me personally and for pretty much everyone in the country and around the world that we have come to a slightly better, clearer place.

AMNA NAWAZ: When it comes to what may have gone behind this decision, as you saw in Lisa's report there was a sharp sell-off in U.S. government bond markets earlier today, and that followed Treasury yields, which typically investors would buy, rising the most that they have in decades.

Why is that sell-off significant and could that have impacted the president's decision?

SIMON JOHNSON: Well, a key piece of American strength is the idea that we're a safe haven for the world.

And a safe haven means, when something goes wrong, either out in the world or in the United States, people come into American government debt, into treasuries, which should mean that the interest rate will fall.

But, instead, the interest rate was rising.

So there was a pressure and at least a signal that we're not as safe as we thought we were, and perhaps there's a crisis of confidence in the United States.

All these thoughts were going around.

So I think the White House got the message that the bond market was signaling a lack of confidence in the strategy, and it was time to back off.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Doug, some relief in some countries, many countries, who now get a 90-day pause to negotiate some of those terms, but, of course, the trade war with China has only ramped up.

When you look at these tariffs now between the U.S. and China, how do they compare with tariffs we have seen in the past?

DOUGLAS IRWIN, Dartmouth College: Well, this is really historically unprecedented, to have the two world's -- the world's two largest economies that had been highly integrated, relatively low tariffs on one another, raising tariffs to such an extent, I mean, over 100 percent in the U.S. case, up to about 84 percent in the case of China.

You can compare this to past tariff acts, such as the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930.

That was more broad-based in terms of its impact.

But in terms of the total change in the tariff, doesn't even amount to this.

So this is really an amazing disintegration of trade between two large trading partners.

And, of course, we still have tariffs on other countries as well.

AMNA NAWAZ: And those other countries, of course, as you mentioned, still facing that 10 percent baseline tariff.

That's on top of, we should mention, to existing tariffs that went into place on Canada, Mexico on steel and aluminum.

What do we know, Doug, about the kind of impact that those existing tariffs will already have?

DOUGLAS IRWIN: Well, they will raise prices for consumers.

And a lot of consumers here are American businesses that depend on intermediate inputs and components to undertake production domestically.

So it's not just households.

It's businesses that have to adjust in terms of these higher costs, where you expect to see some retaliation as well.

The European Union has already indicated as much.

Obviously, a shrinkage of trade and uncertainty about whether these tariffs will remain in effect or whether they might be lifted at some point as well.

And one thing that's underestimated, or sometimes misinterpreted, is the poisoning of international relations.

So these are very disruptive.

They have been imposed, as President Trump has said, on our friends as well as our foes.

We have a lot of free trade agreements around the world.

Those are getting ripped up to some extent.

And so the disruption is worldwide in some sense.

AMNA NAWAZ: Simon, pick up on that idea.

It struck me earlier that the Treasury secretary said this 90-day pause will allow for negotiations for those countries to unfold on a country-by-country basis and that President Trump wants to be personally involved, he said, in each of those negotiations.

What do you make of that approach to do this country-by-country?

SIMON JOHNSON: I think there's going to be more than one 90-day extension, honestly.

It takes a long time.

A proper trade negotiation isn't 10 minutes in the Oval Office and 30 minutes down the hall to sign the papers.

You have got to spend days and sometimes weeks if you want to make real progress.

Now, if it's just for show, sure, that's relatively quick.

But 70 countries negotiating substantially with the United States and actually getting to a deal that we wouldn't otherwise have had, that takes a long time.

AMNA NAWAZ: Doug, what do you make of that, this country-by-country approach?

How do you see this playing out?

DOUGLAS IRWIN: Well, first of all, you have to sort of ask, what is the deal that we're looking for from other countries?

Other countries don't effect their trade deficit directly.

I think the extent of unfair trade practices has been exaggerated.

And we're hitting countries that we already have free trade agreements with, with these higher tariffs.

So we have actually a trade surplus with Australia.

We have a free trade agreement with them.

We have a trade surplus with Peru.

We have a free trade agreement with them.

And so it's quite indiscriminate who we're hitting with these.

And the question is, what sort of deal, what sort of the bilateral bargain is that we're asking for?

AMNA NAWAZ: Simon, holistically, when you look at this, the fact that these are now unilateral deals being negotiated, ramping up of a trade war between the two largest economies on the planet, does this suggest the end of the globalization era to you?

SIMON JOHNSON: It's not the end of anything.

It's the beginning of the -- of a phase, a new phase of stepping back from globalization, so de-globalization is what people are calling it.

But I think the key, Amna, is what happens with China.

So it's China's move next.

Where do they go with tariffs?

Where do they go with rare earths?

Where do they go with their holding of U.S. government debt, which was substantial?

China has a lot of cards to play.

We will see what happens, and we will see whether they want to de-escalate, and we will see whether Mr. Trump can find a way to de-escalate with respect to China.

AMNA NAWAZ: Do you see any potential off-ramps ahead?

So far, we have only seen the two countries going toe-to-toe in a matter of days.

Where does this go next between these two nations?

SIMON JOHNSON: Well, honestly, the most obvious off-ramp is for China to back down now.

But, politically, it's just very hard to imagine that they're going to want to do that.

And so, therefore, I think, as a practical matter, we're going to enter a new phase.

It's about the United States and China.

But that's a very important set of issues strategically and also in terms of trade.

These issues do need to be resolved, but are we going to do it in a peaceful, reasonable manner, or are we going to do it in some way that further destabilizes everyone's expectations and market prices?

AMNA NAWAZ: Doug, in terms of the way that markets globally and investors are looking at this, of course, we saw these rallies today, which the White House is pointing to as a sign of success in the strategy.

But that's, of course, in response to the tariffs being paused.

Does that say to you that if the tariffs go back up or if negotiations don't yield some kind of results, those markets will plunge once again?

DOUGLAS IRWIN: I don't know about plunge, but they will certainly go down.

Once again, if you look at the tariffs that the Trump administration had planned to impose, in fact, did impose at 9:00 -- 12:01 this morning, and then rescinded later in the day, they were very steep on other countries such as Vietnam, nearly 50 percent.

And so those are really draconian tariffs, once again, historically unprecedented.

This is only a pause.

The tariffs on Canada and Mexico had been paused previously.

But there's once again just creating a lot of uncertainty.

They could go into effect in the future.

The markets will respond to that negatively.

But the uncertainty is just unknowable at this point.

AMNA NAWAZ: Simon, it's a dangerous game to predict what happens next right now, but I will ask you the same question in the last minute we have.

What do you see happening now?

SIMON JOHNSON: More uncertainty, I think, Amna.

That's going to be the word for the quarter, maybe for the year.

And it's very hard for businesses in particular to make any kind of sensible decisions when everything is so uncertain.

Should we invest in this or in that in the United States or elsewhere?

Now, consumers obviously have to struggle with some of the same decisions.

For them, the uncertainty may mean they might want to make some purchases now before tariffs go into effect.

But on the other hand, they might lose their job, so perhaps they shouldn't make any purchases at all.

So uncertainty is generally going to have a slowing effect.

AMNA NAWAZ: Simon Johnson, Douglas Irwin, great to speak with you both.

Thank you so much for your insights.

Appreciate it.

DOUGLAS IRWIN: You're welcome.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, let's talk now about the kind of impact that these tariffs, threats, and changes mean for business directly.

In the United States, the vast majority of shoes sold here are imported, which means tariffs are a real issue.

I spoke just a short time ago with Matt Priest.

He's the president and CEO of the trade group Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.

Matt, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for being here.

MATT PRIEST, President and CEO, Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America: Thank you, Amna.

It's a pleasure to be here.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, things obviously are changing very quickly on this front.

As we sit here and speak now, we know President Trump has kept in place that 10 percent baseline tariff, ramped up tariffs on China, and paused them for 90 days on most other countries.

But it's worth pointing out the majority of shoes in the U.S. are imported.

When you look at where they come from, the vast majority are from China, also from Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and fewer than from India.

What does all of this back-and-forth on the tariffs mean for the businesses you represent?

And who are we talking about here?

MATT PRIEST: Yes, we represent 97 percent of the shoe industry here in the U.S., Amna.

So that is Nike, Under Armour, ASICS, Dick's Sporting Goods, Target, Walmart, and then all the way down to family importers that bring in product every single day.

And so our goal right now is to try to drive as much certainty to the business that we can, but it's a really difficult thing to do in this environment.

With each passing day, there's a tariff that's added, there's a tariff that's taken off, and so our members are scrambling to understand what the real-life impact will be on costing for consumers here in the days and weeks to come.

AMNA NAWAZ: Even with the rollback of these tariffs, does that mean the problems have gone away for these businesses?

Are they no longer worried?

MATT PRIEST: No, they're definitely still worried.

I mean, the rollback is a positive thing.

We want to commend the White House for doing that because we think there has to be some time to negotiate some of these outcomes with particularly these non - - these countries that aren't China.

But the fact of the matter is, the Chinese tariff is going 125 percent.

I had a member tell me just yesterday: "Matt, I have got to figure out how to sell a pair of shoes to a customer I sold to last year at double the price."

And in these hyperinflationary times that we're still in, that's going to be a really difficult thing to do.

AMNA NAWAZ: Double the price for -- you're expecting in terms of shoes coming from China?

MATT PRIEST: That's right.

That's right.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's what the tariffs would mean.

And with the other countries now, tell me a little bit about how this manufacturing process works.

Could it be that because the tariffs have gone up so high on China, a lot of that other supply will now shift from other countries, where the tariffs aren't in place?

How -- is that possible?

MATT PRIEST: I think the fact of the matter is, the tariffs are in place everywhere.

So, for example, a pair of sneakers coming out of Vietnam had a 20 percent duty prior to last night.

Overnight, we got to a 66 percent duty.

And now, with the president's action and the pause, we're down to a 30 percent duty.

So there's still 30 percent duty, a 33 percent increase on our costs coming out of Vietnam alone.

So there's really nowhere to go in particular.

But I think our members will continue to look for ways in which they can lever -- leverage other sourcing countries to deliver great product to American consumers.

AMNA NAWAZ: So one argument we have heard is that, if foreign imports on any products do become more expensive for American consumers, they will shift to domestic products.

Do you see that happening in your business?

MATT PRIEST: I don't.

And there's a reason for that.

We have long had duties in place for nearly 100 years.

We pay $4 billion a year before any of this action took place just on duties for imports.

Production has left decades ago or may have not even started here.

And so what we find is, what's still made here for footwear is made for U.S. military purposes or for consumers that really focus in on that.

But the fact of the matter is, we have 340 million consumers.

We bring in over two billion pairs of shoes a year.

We do not have the capacity or the willingness, to be honest with you, to make the types of shoes that are necessary to meet that demand.

AMNA NAWAZ: Is that the kind of manufacturing capacity that could be built up over time?

That's another argument we hear.

MATT PRIEST: It could be built over time, but it will not be with U.S. labor.

And the challenge is, all these tariffs, Amna, are actually being also placed on machinery, parts, components, and materials that we would import in to establish domestic production.

And so they're making it not very competitive from an economic perspective to bring that back here anyway.

AMNA NAWAZ: Matt Priest, president and CEO of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, thank you so much for being here.

MATT PRIEST: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, for more now on how the market volatility could affect your wallet, I'm joined by Michelle Singletary.

She's a personal finance columnist for The Washington Post.

Michelle, welcome back.

And I know how people navigate this moment really depends on who they are and where they are in life.

Let's take it group by group here.

For people who are close to retirement, for the 70 million Americans who invest in a 401(k), what should they be doing or not doing in this moment?

MICHELLE SINGLETARY, Personal Finance Columnist, The Washington Post: I hate to say this because the inclination is to do it, but don't look.

Just don't.

I have not looked at my portfolio since the Trump administration announced these tariffs because the market started to slide then.

When you look at the actual numbers, the natural tendency is for you to panic.

And you can panic and scream, but don't act on that.

And that's one thing.

And then, when things calm down, if they ever in the short term, you might need to revisit.

Perhaps you have too much risk in your portfolio.

But for many seniors, they're going to have 10, 15, 20, even 30 years left in their retirement.

And so you have to keep your eye on that, that your portfolio still needs to have growth in it so that you can buy the things that you need in your retirement years.

AMNA NAWAZ: What about for folks who've been weighing a big purchase, a house or a car?

They have been watching rates falls.

They have been waiting for the moment to jump.

Should they keep waiting?

MICHELLE SINGLETARY: I think if you had the money together, you knew that this -- you are in the market, you crunched the numbers, it was going to be OK, you're not going to be in trouble, go ahead and make that vehicle purchase now.

Don't wait.

You can see the flip-flop that's going on.

But if you already knew that you were stretching into that car, then I would not do it.

Fix it up if you can before you jump in, because if this flips back the other way, you could lose your job with a new car note on your books, and you don't want that.

AMNA NAWAZ: Michelle, I want to ask you to help us navigate some messages we have heard from the president directly, because, over the last few days, as the trade wars were ramping up, President Trump repeatedly online delivered this kind of message.

On Friday, he posted: "This is a great time to get rich."

This morning, he posted: "This is a great time to buy."

Who is he talking to with these messages, as the global and U.S. markets were plunging?

MICHELLE SINGLETARY: I don't know who he's talking to, because he's not talking to the regular people.

Maybe he's talking to his billionaire buddies who can buy another yacht, but he's not talking to the rest of America and the rest of the world really.

It's easy for him to say that.

He doesn't have to worry about the food on his table or even the roof over his head.

You're playing with people's money.

And the thing that bothers me the most is that it - - people lose their confidence in the economy and the market.

And when they lose their confidence, they pull back.

They're scared.

They're spooked.

And that's what really concerns me.

Lots of people jumped out, and they may not get back in.

And they need that growth, because one of the biggest dangers to your portfolio to your future is inflation.

And if your dollar is not invested in a sound way, then you could lose the value of that dollar that you might want to put in your mattress.

And so I think he's being too flippant in those comments about what's happened.

And I think that has angered a lot of people and concerned a lot of people.

I have heard from retirees and even young adults who are like, what should I do?

That's not how you want to lead.

AMNA NAWAZ: Michelle, we know, for most Americans, even the existing tariffs will be felt in some way as prices will go up.

In the 30 seconds or so I have left, what's your one piece of advice to everyday Americans about navigating this moment?

MICHELLE SINGLETARY: I think, if you were already struggling living paycheck to paycheck, or you're not sure about the security of your job, like the federal workers, you pull back, you budget tight.

You're going to cancel that vacation.

You're going to cancel that major project that you might have had on board.

If you're still OK, you have got a good amount of money saved, then I would go ahead and do some of the things that you were going to do, but be very cautious about that.

Just watch that budget, because it's still going to be a tough ride for a little while.

AMNA NAWAZ: All right, Michelle Singletary, personal finance columnist for The Washington Post, great to speak with you.

Thank you.

MICHELLE SINGLETARY: No, thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the day's other headlines: The White House says it's frozen nearly $2 billion in federal funds meant for Cornell and Northwestern universities.

The freeze includes more than $1 billion to Cornell and about $790 million for northwestern.

Neither school says it's heard yet from the White House or Department of Education on the basis for the freeze, but the administration says the schools are being investigated for alleged civil rights violations.

Cornell and Northwestern join other universities, including Columbia, UPenn, Harvard, and Princeton, that have had their federal funds tied to demands by the administration to change school policies.

Also this afternoon, President Trump signed executive orders that direct the Department of Justice to investigate Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs.

Both served as Homeland Security officials in Trump's previous administration and later criticized him publicly.

That follows a pattern by Mr. Trump to investigate former officials and perceived political opponents.

Two federal judges in Texas and New York have barred the Trump administration from deporting five Venezuelans jailed in those states for being alleged gang members.

The move is temporary while the men's lawyers challenge the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act that lets presidents imprison and deport noncitizens during war.

This comes after the Supreme Court ruled this week that deportations could resume under that 18th century law, but also said potential deportees must be afforded some due process.

The death toll from a nightclub roof collapse in the Dominican Republic has risen to at least 124 with more than 250 people hurt.

The roof of the Jet Set nightclub fell in early Tuesday morning, and rescue workers were still searching for survivors more than 24 hours later.

The club hosted regular merengue parties that drew well-known artists and celebrities.

Victims have included a professional baseball player, a politician and musicians.

Authorities are still investigating the cause of the collapse.

Beijing today denied Ukrainian claims that Chinese citizens are fighting alongside Russia in its invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released video on Tuesday which he said showed a captured Chinese soldier.

He added today that Ukrainian intelligence had knowledge of more than 150 Chinese citizens fighting for Russia.

Beijing called Ukraine's claims unfounded.

LIN JIAN, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (through translator): This statement is groundless.

China's position on the Ukrainian crisis issue is clear and widely recognized by the international community.

Ukraine should correctly view China's efforts and constructive role in seeking a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis.

AMNA NAWAZ: China added that it's asked its citizens not to get involved in any armed conflict, appearing to suggest that the captured Chinese joined Russia voluntarily.

The Trump administration has reinstated emergency food aid to at least six impoverished countries.

Earlier this week, the U.N.'s World Food Program received word that the U.S. was cutting funding to help feed 14 countries.

The State Department has since admitted some of those funds were cut by mistake without elaborating.

Food funds to Ecuador, Somalia, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria were restored, but cuts will remain for war-ravaged Afghanistan and Yemen.

The status of funding for six other unidentified countries remains unclear.

And every year, the Library of Congress adds new songs, albums, and sounds to its National Recording Registry.

This year, 25 new selections joined the hundreds of recordings considered instrumental to American society.

Inductees include Celine Dion's Oscar-winning "My Heart Will Go On" from the 1997 film "Titanic."

Other editions spanned almost a century, from the 1913 Hawaiian song "Aloha 'Oe" to the original Broadway recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton" in 2015.

There were less conventional inclusions too, like music from the "Minecraft" video game and the Microsoft Windows reboot chime.

For a full list of this year's selections, you can find them at PBS.org/NewsHour.

Still to come on the "News Hour": a shakeup at the IRS over plans to share personal data with immigration authorities; Michael Lewis' new book on why the work of government employees matters; and the stars of the hit series "The Handmaid's Tale" discuss its sixth and final season.

The top official at the IRS is resigning after news of a deal between the agency and immigration authorities to share sensitive personal data became public on Monday.

William Brangham joins us now with more -- William.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Amna.

For decades, the IRS encouraged undocumented immigrants to file their taxes, with the assurance that their data would be protected.

But now this unprecedented agreement would give authorities who want to deport migrants access to personal records that include job information, home addresses and more.

It comes less than a week before Tax Day and after a tumultuous few months that also saw mass layoffs across the agency.

So, to help understand what this all could mean we are joined now by Natasha Sarin.

She's the president of the Budget Lab at Yale University.

Natasha, thank you so much for being here.

So immigration officials will now have access to this personal data of migrants who are living in this country and filing their taxes.

And when news of this broke, the head of the IRS, Melanie Krause, quit.

How unusual is this agreement and this quitting?

NATASHA SARIN, President, Budget Lab at Yale University: So, to put the sort of quitting in some context, we are now at a state where the IRS has gone through three commissioners in one filing season.

I -- in modern history, there has been nothing like it or nothing even close to it, frankly.

And the fact that Melanie Krause chose to resign is really pretty indicative of things being quite awry at the IRS, because Melanie, in terms of public reporting, at least is what we have seen, has been someone who, from the agency's perspective, has been incredibly keen to work with the administration, to work with DOGE on their efforts with respect to work force reductions and data-sharing agreements.

And so for her to be of the view, that at this moment, one week before Tax Day, it is no longer tenable for her to be at the helm of this agency, I think tells you a lot about how dire circumstances really are there.

And with respect to the nature of this data-sharing agreement, there has really been nothing like it in the history of the IRS, and for very good reason.

As you mentioned, the agency has historically made clear to undocumented immigrants and to their employers that they should feel secure from a privacy perspective in complying with their tax obligations paying into the IRS $66 billion in federal taxes each year, because their data won't be weaponized or used for law enforcement in this manner.

And now, after sort of building up that trust with this population and being in a state where people really had faith that their data would be secure and protected and not used for any other purpose other than tax administration, except in incredibly rare circumstances, you're in a situation where this type of data-sharing is going to occur going forward.

And we think that's going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the course of the next decade.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, that seems like a natural occurrence from all of this.

Separate from that news, DOGE has also been cutting quite considerably the IRS work force.

What do you know about who has been laid off from the IRS and what kind of work were they doing?

NATASHA SARIN: So, so far, what we know is that the agency has laid off about 7,000 probationary employees.

And these are people who are either relatively recent hires to the agency or people who are, frankly, such good performers that they have recently been promoted to new roles within the agency.

And, disproportionately, these cuts are coming from individuals who work on activities related to tax compliance and tax enforcement within the IRS.

And that's really concerning, because already the IRS had so little capacity to be able to expend resources on enforcement, particularly of high earners, where every $1 that the IRS spends, every one hour that they spend auditing a multimillionaire generates $4,500 in owed taxes to the agency.

So these are highly productive people that were doing very important work.

And as a result of the work force reductions we have already seen there, they're -- they have left the agency.

You're also in a situation where the IRS is making preparations and DOGE is making preparations for work force reductions that range, based on public reporting, from somewhere between 25 to 50 percent of the agency.

That would put the size of the IRS at levels that it hasn't seen since 1960, at a time when the population was 60 million people fewer than it is today.

And so I am really concerned -- and this relates to the nature of the fact that we're on our sort of -- we will be on our fourth IRS commissioner of this filing season -- that the tax system is kind of on the brink of breaking already.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I know your organization did an analysis of what happens when you take a lot of these cops off the beat, to use an expression.

But you also tried to calculate what would happen if the general public started to get the idea that there were less cops on the beat and they were less likely to get audited.

What did you find there?

NATASHA SARIN: Importantly, the sort of cop on the beat, the taxpayer behavior effects that you're talking about, they're actually even more significant than the direct costs of not being able to do audits.

And what we find is that, as a result of those behavioral effects, the IRS is on track to lose anywhere from $400 billion to over $2.4 trillion in taxes that are owed over the course of the next decade as a result of not being able to have cops on the beat.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And these are taxes that are legally owed.

This is not like they're going after people in a punitive way.

NATASHA SARIN: No, these are taxes that are legally owed.

And, importantly, it's not just taxes that are legally owed by people who are looking to evade.

Another aspect of what the IRS isn't going to be able to do as well going forward is help taxpayers get it right when they want assistance from the agency about, like, should I be paying taxes on this type of income and how do I report it?

Those types of investments are investments that the IRS has recently been able to scale up because it's had some resources.

But now it's having to scale those back down already this filing season.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, that is Natasha Sarin of the Yale Budget Lab.

Thank you so much for being here.

NATASHA SARIN: Thanks so much for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: The role of the federal government has been squarely at the center of the national debate the last few months.

But who are the people who comprise that system of government?

Judy Woodruff set out for answers in her ongoing series America at a Crossroads.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A hundred and sixty feet below the surface, my team and I got a crash course on the history of coal mining and what was once one of the leading causes of death in mines.

CHRISTOPHER MARK, Federal Mine Safety Specialist: And this square is coal that has not been mined.

That's what's keeping the mountain over our heads.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Christopher Mark spent his life's work trying to prevent roof collapses in coal mines.

He works for the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, but was speaking to us as a private citizen.

CHRISTOPHER MARK: When I started looking at the data and saying, let's just not look kind of in general what the coal industry thinks is important.

Let's look at what's really killing people.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark began his career underground in 1976 working as a coal miner himself in West Virginia after graduating from high school in Princeton, New Jersey.

He later went on to get a Ph.D. in mining engineering and now lives near the Tour-Ed Mine & Museum we visited together just north of Pittsburgh.

CHRISTOPHER MARK: Part of the problem was that the engineers who had been attacking this problem had been looking at it with an engineering mind-set.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But Mark took that mind-set and combined it with statistics to create new software that's credited with saving an untold number of lives.

Mark and his work are one of the stories in a new book edited by bestselling author Michael Lewis, "Who Is Government?

: The Untold Story of Public Service."

It's based on a Washington Post series written by Lewis and six other authors.

MICHAEL LEWIS, Author, "Who Is Government?

: The Untold Story of Public Service": It's sort of like all the mess that the private sector can't solve, it is really hard to solve, ends up being government responsibility.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We met up with Lewis at Politics and Prose in Washington, where he explained how he picked Mark's name off last year's list of nominees for the annual Sammies Awards, Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, created by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.

MICHAEL LEWIS: There was one character who was kind of described in this list.

It said, Chris Mark, Department of Labor, solve the problem of coal mine roofs falling in on the heads of coal mines, which killed 50,000 coal miners in the last century, and then it said, a former coal miner.

And I thought, there's got to be a story there.

It's like, who comes out of a coal mine and solves a big technical problem like that?

He'd save thousands of lives.

No one knew who he was.

He didn't care if anybody knew who he was.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A turning point in Chris Mark's career and in mine safety was the August 2007 collapse at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah that killed nine miners and rescuers.

It was blamed on inadequate mine design that led to the failure of roof-supporting pillars.

Mark was asked by Congress to come up with a way to reduce similar accidents.

Since then, the number of roof fall deaths has declined dramatically to zero deaths in 2016.

Mark says the federal government, rather than private industry, was needed to make the changes.

CHRISTOPHER MARK: If somebody did come up with a better approach to pillar design, their own company would have wanted to keep that in-house because it would have saved them money and their competitors wouldn't have had it.

But because the federal government developed it and it was specifically a safety measure, then we're trying to diffuse it as widely and as rapidly as possible.

And nobody else has that incentive.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What is your estimate of how many mine collapses have been avoided and lives have been saved as a result of what you have done?

CHRISTOPHER MARK: That's really very difficult to do.

I mean, a big part of the role that the government plays in Americans' lives is to avert disasters.

And there's really no way of counting the disasters that you have averted and the number of lives that you have saved.

JUDY WOODRUFF: When Lewis was pulling the book together, he gave no guidance to the six contributing writers, other than to find interesting stories.

The result?

Eight essays, an ode to public service, that Lewis says were more typical than not.

MICHAEL LEWIS: I could write a hundred stories like this in the federal government.

They're just kind of there waiting, because it is this great and neglected institution filled with really interesting people.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: So help me God.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Since taking office, President Trump and special government employee Elon Musk have effectively shuttered entire agencies and slashed the federal work force.

DONALD TRUMP: Many of them don't work at all.

Many of them never showed up to work.

We want to cut the people that aren't working or doing -- not doing a good job.

We're keeping the best people.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Their goal?

To reduce federal spending by at least $1 trillion.

ELON MUSK, Department of Government Efficiency: At the end of the day, America is going to be in much better shape.

America will be solvent.

The critical programs that people depend upon will work and it's going to be a fantastic future.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Former President of the United States: In the working out of a great national program that seeks the primary good of the greater number... JUDY WOODRUFF: The modern federal government began to take form nearly a century ago as a reaction to the Great Depression.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, combined with the impact of World War II, significantly broadened the government's influence over nearly every area of life.

But by the 1960s, public support for government and the people who work in it began to wane.

And the role of government has become increasingly divisive.

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, just 38 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents expressed a great deal or fair amount of confidence in federal career employees, compared with 72 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Lewis said these starkly different views of government is a result of how the civil service is portrayed by elected officials.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Ronald Reagan famously campaigned on the idea that the most dangerous words in the English language is, I'm from the federal government and I'm here to help you.

There's a kind of -- there's an incentive system in politics.

And the incentive, if you're an elected official in Washington, is an incentive to take credit for anything that works and to blame career people for anything that doesn't work.

And the population has been more or less conditioned to hear negative things about the federal work force.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Lewis points out that the number of civil service employees has remained constant over the past 50 years, at 2.3 million, even as the country has grown.

He acknowledges there's room to cut waste and inefficiency, but questions how the administration is doing it.

MICHAEL LEWIS: The way they're going about it is not designed to save very much money.

I mean, if you look at the federal budget, I think 86 percent of it is either entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, interest payments on the debt, or defense, and they're not addressing any of those.

All their cuts are taking place in a sliver of the pie that's just 14 percent.

There's only so much they can do there.

And this is the first time I have seen anybody go in and vilify the work force in advance of getting rid of people, so, like treating them as the enemy and with a conscious strategy of traumatizing the work force.

JUDY WOODRUFF: With the careers of so many other civil service employees uncertain, Lewis told us none of the others profiled in the book were willing to speak with us on camera.

Two of the workers he profiled, he added, resigned before they could be fired.

Have you experienced a climate like what we're seeing right now, where there's fear of speaking out?

CHRISTOPHER MARK: No.

No, this really is something new.

I mean, I have worked for the federal government now for almost 40 years and I have seen administrations come and go, but I have never had the experience where we would get e-mails that imply that somehow we're the problem, that we're doing bad things.

In my experience, people work for the federal government primarily the same way anybody works anywhere else.

I mean, you're doing it to earn a living, but federal employees are proud of what they do.

They're proud of the contributions that we make to society.

MICHAEL LEWIS: The government's not just this incidental piece of democracy.

So what has happened and what is accelerating is, if you disable the government, like, make it even harder for the good people who are in it to do their jobs, so they do them less well, through no fault of their own, you just have not given them the tools to do their job, you reinforce the idea that government can't do anything.

You create this vicious cycle, like, of cynicism and make it -- make this -- the country essentially ungovernable.

So that's where you're -- so that's where it's headed, chaos.

I don't think we're going to go there.

I think we're going to bounce.

I really do.

I don't think -- I think we're a more constructive country.

We're too successful a country, basically.

We'd be throwing too much away.

So I think we're going to bounce, but if you want to destroy the society, you destroy the government.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington.

AMNA NAWAZ: "The Handmaid's Tale" began as a 1985 novel read by generations.

It's since been turned into a film and an opera, and then, beginning in 2017, a hit series on Hulu, one now coming to an end.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has a look for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

ELISABETH MOSS, Actress: For years, we have been afraid of them.

Now it's time for them to be afraid of us.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's time for a reckoning in Gilead, the fictional near-future theocratic dictatorship the U.S. has become in the hit Hulu series "The Handmaid's Tale," now beginning its sixth and final season.

ELISABETH MOSS: Our audience has been very loyal and patient, and revolutions take time.

(LAUGHTER) ELISABETH MOSS: Shut your mouth.

Be a good girl.

JEFFREY BROWN: Elisabeth Moss plays June Osborne, a handmaid, a category of women forced into sexual servitude as child-bearers in a future in which most women are infertile.

In season one, viewers saw how she and most women have lost their freedoms, and in some cases had their children taken from them, as democracy was overthrown, and the country came under the control of a religious patriarchy.

In 2017, as the series was making its debut, Moss spoke to us about her character.

ELISABETH MOSS: The heroine of the book is an anti-heroine, that she's a human, that she's a wife, a mom, is a normal person, and then is sort of picked up, taken and dropped into this scenario, and has to figure out how to survive.

JEFFREY BROWN: We talked again recently as the series prepared to reach its end.

Six seasons later, she has done a lot of fighting, a lot of surviving.

ELISABETH MOSS: A lot of surviving, and I think in the interim six years, I do think that she has become more of a hero, which is really interesting to hear that quote and hear where I was coming from and what I was thinking at that time.

And I was absolutely right.

And I think in the six seasons, I mean, very quickly, probably in that first season, she definitely became not a normal person, and she became a heroine.

And I think that -- but I also think that she became the heroine in the way that you or I would have to in those circumstances.

JEFFREY BROWN: The series is based on the classic 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, who mixed elements of past totalitarian systems with strains of American life to write what she calls speculative fiction.

In 2019, as she was releasing her sequel, "The Testaments," she defined that to us.

MARGARET ATWOOD, Author, "The Handmaid's Tale": The series as well as the book and as well as "The Testaments" follow one axiom, and that is you can't put anything in that doesn't have a precedent.

JEFFREY BROWN: After season one of the series, the tale ventured well beyond the original book, creating new plot twists, giving other characters larger roles and their own backstories.

YVONNE STRAHOVSKI, Actress: God has a plan for me, and I cannot hide from his plan anymore.

JEFFREY BROWN: One of those, Serena Joy, life of one of Gilead's leaders.

When we first meet her, she's seemingly a true believer in its system, even as other women suffer.

YVONNE STRAHOVSKI: It really has been a place where I have never really died a creative death, because it is so tricky and difficult, and she's such an interesting character to play.

I know what people think of the things that I have done.

ACTRESS: What do you think of the things you have done?

JEFFREY BROWN: Yvonne Strahovski plays Serena Joy, one of the most complex characters in the series, who comes to see the system for what it is, but whose actions raise issues of response and complicity.

YVONNE STRAHOVSKI: She sees it, and then she goes right back into her ways, and then she sees it again, and then she goes right back into it, and it's so complex and nuanced, the writing.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's been six seasons, but with production time, the pandemic, and the writers and actors strikes, the series actually unspooled over nine years.

Elisabeth Moss, who many got to know for her role on "Mad Men," has been involved throughout as executive producer and as an occasional director, as well as the lead.

ELISABETH MOSS: Lucas in jail.

He was arrested for defending me.

The man who ran me over died.

JEFFREY BROWN: Is it hard to sustain a series over so long a period?

Is it hard to sustain a character?

ELISABETH MOSS: It's why I love television.

I was thinking about this the other day.

There's something that happens in season six that you just -- you don't get to do and you don't get any impact from if you don't have six or five seasons of story to look back on, and it takes nine years to get there.

And I love that.

JEFFREY BROWN: The final season, like the first, is airing at the start of a new Trump administration.

For many, its themes have spoken to ongoing battles over women's rights.

And the handmaids themselves have become cultural figures beyond the screen.

YVONNE STRAHOVSKI: I find it incredibly just fascinating how aligned our show has been to the political climate and what we're living through, especially in the states, is sort of almost like a psychic alignment of art imitating life and vice versa.

ELISABETH MOSS: You know, sometimes, shows go through something where they're, oh, now it feels like people are drawing parallels.

But I have never had a moment where this show hasn't been relevant.

You did that interview with us seven years ago and here we are.

It's still -- we're having the same conversation.

Let the revolution begin.

JEFFREY BROWN: No spoiler alerts here, but the trailer for season six does tell us that an uprising is at hand, some relief in Gilead and for faithful viewers.

ELISABETH MOSS: A lot of people are living through dark times right now, and all over the world.

And we really wanted to provide something that was maybe a bit of, yes, just lightness and hope and positivity.

That's not to say -- of course, we're still "The Handmaid's Tale."

There's still darkness.

We can't walk away from that.

It wouldn't be an honest show or an honest story.

But we did try to give some light at the end of the tunnel.

JEFFREY BROWN: And for you personally, given these various roles you have played in the series, does it feel like the right time to bring it to an end?

ELISABETH MOSS: I would never end it if I had the choice.

ELISABETH MOSS: I would keep going.

Another next 10 years would be totally fine with me.

Rise up and fight.

JEFFREY BROWN: That won't happen, but the creator of "The Handmaid's Tale," Bruce Miller, is now working on its sequel, "The Testaments."

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown.

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

I'm Amna Nawaz.

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