February 12, 2025 - PBS News Hour full episode

House Republicans release their long-promised budget outline as they seek to fulfill President Trump’s agenda while cutting both the deficit and taxes. But it remains unclear whether the plan will achieve those goals, or if it even has the votes. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins reports.

President Trump handed more power over to Elon Musk on Tuesday, giving his team oversight over hiring decisions across every government agency. Musk has also continued to post misleading or false accusations against government agencies on his social media platform X, despite his government and private sector work potentially serving as a conflict of interest. Laura Barrón-López reports.

The House subcommittee that bears the same acronym as Elon Musk's agency, DOGE, held its first hearing Wednesday. While members from both parties said they were focused on rooting out waste and fraud, Democrats pointed out the man at the heart of today’s hearing did not appear. Amna Nawaz discussed the debate with David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office.

The Department of Education is on the Trump chopping block. Details have not been fully released yet, but the president has signaled plans to dismantle it and move some of its key functions elsewhere. The department oversees student loans, federal funds for lower-income students, special education programs and more. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Laura Meckler of The Washington Post.

One of the year’s most acclaimed films, “The Brutalist,” received ten Oscar nominations. Its star, Adrien Brody, was a winner at last month’s Golden Globes and is up for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown discussed the role with Brody for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.

It was a day of major diplomacy and policy statements from the Trump administration about the war in Ukraine. Amna Nawaz has two perspectives on the developments from Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute and the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Eurasia, and John Mearsheimer, author of "The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities."