Politics and views in the United States

Trump continues to make accusations of vote fraud. A former 60 Minutes anchor warns of political bias at the show and residents of Springfield, Ohio, defend Haitian immigrants.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

You play right into their hands with this rap.

You know that these elections are rigged.

Your network knows that they're rigged.

You know that I won an election in a landslide, and I got 94% bad press.

President Donald Trump stormed out of an NBC interview when asked to prove the California primary is rigged.

Officials are still counting what could be more than 20 million mail-in ballots, which might take weeks.

Trump endorsed reality TV star Spencer Pratt for LA mayor, but Pratt has been losing ground in the count and might not be one of the top two candidates to advance to the general election.

Former 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley says CBS News and the admired show are, quote, in flames.

The network's parent company, Paramount, named right-wing commentator Barry Weiss as head of its news division, in spite of questions about her journalistic integrity.

Pelley says politics is now dictating coverage.

He says Weiss wanted to report that a woman shot by ice in Minneapolis last winter had been driving towards the federal agent, which runs counter to video from the shooting.

There's a subtle political bias that I've never seen at 60 Minutes before or at CBS News before.

That is my hope.

A return to sanity, a return to honor, a return to courage.

We used to have all of those things in abundance, and now we don't.

The network says Pelley was fired for physically abusing the show's producer.

He denies that.

Vice and the owners of Skydance, which just took over Paramount, are Trump allies.

A pending Supreme Court decision could spell disaster for the estimated 15,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

The high court is considering whether the Trump administration can end the temporary protected status program, which would place them under the immediate threat of deportation.

Springfield's faith leaders, like Pastor Carl Ruby of the Central Christian Church, say the migrants are valued members of the community who work and pay taxes.

Ruby says they've revitalized a declining town.

For us, this rises to a level where it may require civil disobedience to protect our Haitian friends.

And there are many people willing to do that.

A new bill in Congress would let some oil and gas companies bypass Clean Air Act requirements.

Proponents say smaller drilling companies are being squeezed by Biden-era rules.

But Luke Metzger, with Environment Texas, says the legislation would exempt the majority of wells from rules that stop them from freely pumping dangerous chemicals into the air.

They are responsible only for about 6% of the nation's oil and gas production, but they are likely responsible for about half of the pollution coming from oil and gas sites, at least according to a study of sites here in Texas in our Permian Basin.

Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders says he still supports presumptive Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Plattner.

Press reports say the Oysterman and former Marine engaged in multiple relationships with women via text while married, and some contested reports say he had volatile and emotionally abusive relationships with previous partners.

Plattner says his combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan distorted his view of manhood and damaged his relationships.

I'm Zamone Perez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.