The Cost of Budget Cuts on the National Cancer Institute, Uber CEO, The New Superman Movie

50 years after Jaws scared an entire generation out of the water. I looked down, and there was this great big head, these big white teeth. Radiolab? is pulling you back in. It was just like so much fear building of what's going to come out of that blue. Listen to Swimming with Shadows, a Radiolab week of sharks. Anything you dig down on is fascinating. These creatures. Now streaming. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for.

Their bodies are the scene of the crime. Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved your life. We're doctors and we're detectives. I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle. Save the patient. Watson. All episodes now streaming on Paramount+.

Good morning. Jane Pauley is off this weekend. I'm Lee Cowan, and this is Sunday Morning. $18 billion. That's how much the Trump administration says its proposed budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health will save American taxpayers. But with that savings could come a different kind of cost. one that's aroused concerns not only within the medical research community, but also for the patients it serves. This morning, Ted Koppel will explore the human cost.

The National Cancer Institute had an annual budget of about $7 billion. Too much? What price do you put on life? There. What price do you put on that? The administration is planning to cut the National Cancer Institute's budget by roughly 40%. I just had to hold out a little bit longer. Now funding's getting slashed and everything's getting slowed down.

Saving money, saving lives. Later on Sunday morning. It's blockbuster season at the movies and coming soon to a theater near you. The latest Superman reboot. Ben Mankiewicz introduces us to the new Man of Steel. As the new big screen Superman, David Korenswet is ready for the role of a lifetime. Somebody's got to play this part.

And if you're the person to play it and you give up everything else to do it, it would be worth doing. Would you believe this big budget film began with this guy? The dog is the whole reason that was the start of the movie for me. Really? Thousand percent. Crypto! The many stories of the latest Superman. Ow! Stop it! Stop it! Coming up on Sunday morning.

Summer has most certainly arrived, which for many around the country means warm nights, stretching out on a blanket in the park, and enjoying classical music performances, all under the stars. With that in mind, Leslie Stahl. has paid a visit to one of the world's great maestros. Michael Tilson Thomas, the great swashbuckling conductor.

has been interpreting music and setting tempos with the flick of his baton for over 50 years. Can we talk about what a conductor does? I'm asked that question a lot and I'm still trying to work on it. So why is he stepping away from the podium? An American maestro takes a bow ahead on Sunday morning. Jolene Kent sits down with the man in the driver's seat.

the CEO of Uber, an immigrant from Iran living his American dream. Seth Doan visits with some astronomers scanning the heavens from the Vatican Observatory outside Rome. Robert Costa examines how the influential writer and commentator William F. Buckley Jr. helped shape the modern conservative movement. Plus, humor from Jim Gaffigan and more. on the final Sunday morning of the month, June 29th, 2025. We'll be back in a minute.

To begin, senior contributor Ted Koppel, who takes a closer look at the human impact of federal budget cuts in the fight against cancer. They might easily be mistaken for congressional staffers reluctant to face the day. But these are among the most accomplished cancer specialists in the country. Dr. Elizabeth Jaffe, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center from up the road in Baltimore.

Her basic research of, what, 10, 15 years has led to a new clinical trial, but it takes that long, that kind of investment. Dr. George Weiner, a cancer specialist in Iowa for more than 35 years. Senator George Weiner. Good to meet you. has flown in frequently to lobby Congress for more research funds. We are making progress so fast.

We just can't slow down. Lobbying for cancer research, he says, used to be like pushing on an open door. Most of the time when I've come, I've met with Democrats and Republicans, and we talked about the bipartisan support for cancer research. This is the first time that I felt there was an existential crisis in our ability to make the type of progress that I see in front of us. These days, the conversation is all about thousands of layoffs.

Delays in research, massive budget cuts, close to a 40% proposed cut in funding to the National Cancer Institute. I wake up every morning looking at my phone. Did I get an email from the National Cancer Institute saying I'm no longer? receiving my grants. Have you felt the impact yet? Oh yeah, we certainly have felt the impact to the point where people are leaving. So in our clinical research operation, which takes years to build, trained research nurses takes two years.

Train coordinators take 6 to 12 months. These people are leaving because the funding isn't coming in. If they keep cutting back, how long before Dr. Jaffe says, that's it? I'll be honest, there are days where I do feel that, but I look around and I feel like I would be disloyal to our patients. We are in a technological revolution in cancer research. We are...

rapidly making discoveries that we couldn't even do 10 years ago. When you see some of the debates that are going on right now, and it relates to the National Cancer Institute and NIH.

raises the hair on the back of my neck. Kevin Callahan was a Marine in Vietnam when he barely survived stepping on a landmine. Decades later, he was diagnosed with a killer disease. pancreatic cancer. First came surgery and chemo. Now he's part of the clinical trial, which is where Dr. Jaffe and her colleague, Dr. Neha Zaidi, come in.

They were trying to develop a vaccine to prevent pancreatic cancer. From recurrent. That's Mrs. Callahan, Bess. She wasn't all that sure about the clinical trial at first, but... Kevin couldn't stop thinking about all that had gone into it, getting chemotherapy as an approved treatment. They would shoot me up with three drugs and a fourth one.

I would go home with a little bag on my chest. It wouldn't come out until Friday. It had to be done over 40 hours. I thought to myself, how many poor bastards went through tests to get that done? So I thought, if there's anything that I can do. I'm more than happy to go in with the study and see if I can help somebody else later on or develop this vaccine. Pancreatic cancer is particularly nasty even when, as with Kevin, it's detected early.

The experimental vaccine they've been administering to him is promising. But your chances of recurrence are 80 percent and your chances of being alive in five years is 20 percent. He is four and a half years out without recurrence, part of a small cohort of patients who received the vaccine on that trial, who are, like him, doing well without recurrence. Could it be anything other than the vaccine?

We don't believe so. This is not a cancer where sometimes it looks less aggressive than other times. This is a cancer that uniformly, it doesn't matter who you are, it comes back. So far it hasn't. It has not. Bottom line, I'm cancer-free. Five years. Now the Callahans are concerned the cuts at NIH could interfere with or even stop Kevin's vaccine trial.

They claim that they're not cutting back on any of the science, on any of the people who are really doing the research. I don't believe that for a minute. But if I say to you... Is it worth the money that the American public is investing, the tax money? What price do you put on life? It's our lives. It's our children's lives. It's our grandchildren's lives. What price do you put on that? We're not just talking about cutting funding to individual research programs. We're talking about NIH.

which is a gift that we have had in this country for decades. Why would we give that up as a country? Located just outside of Washington, D.C., the National Cancer Institute is the crown jewel of the National Institutes of Health. It is also the most expensive. The National Cancer Institute, its budget last year, $7 billion? I believe that's the number. That's a lot of money. Well...

Mary Lasker, who was a brilliant woman and a force of nature who worked with Richard Nixon on the original war on cancer, would say, if you think research is expensive, try disease. The administration is proposing cutting that $7 billion cancer budget down to about $4.5 billion. Dr. George Weiner thinks that America's widely recognized position... as the world's leader in medical research is at a tipping point. How much time do we have before the money is insufficient to do what you need to do?

Well, progress is going to be proportional to investment. So progress is not going to totally stop if funding... drops dramatically. The more it drops and the longer it drops, the slower progress will be. But that's not the case for patients. Our job as researchers is to bring those advances to help those patients as soon as possible because those patients can't wait.

That would describe Natalie Phelps' dilemma to a T. Natalie has stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. She and her husband, Jeff, live out in Washington state. We have one boy, one girl, and a giant German shepherd. Very average American. And I had always... hoped if I needed a clinical trial, I was like, I'm going to get to the NIH. I'm going to go to the top place in the world. Natalie was invited to NIH for testing to determine if she qualified for a promising breakthrough.

immunotherapy treatment that has shrunk tumors in about a quarter of the patients with gastrointestinal cancers. When I was invited to go back... I had cancer patients congratulating me. They were like, you made it. It's like making it into the Olympics when you're a cancer patient. The clinical trial is run by Dr. Steven Rosenberg, still practicing in his mid-80s.

and a legend in the field of cancer research. Well, she's a young woman with a metastatic cancer, and so that's a desperate situation. Every patient we see here at the National Cancer Institute... has been through all standard treatments that haven't worked. And they come here to the NIH, the National Institutes of Hope, trying to see if some experimental treatments might be of help to them.

In late May, Natalie Phelps finally qualified for Dr. Rosenberg's clinical trial, but budget cuts at NIH had already slowed the trial down. NIH has lost about 1,500 employees. Well, we did lose two technicians that are involved. producing the materials that are used to treat patients. And would that cause a significant delay? When I say significant, I mean in Natalie's case she feels that it has been delayed by a month.

Is that correct? That's correct. So, I mean, a month could be critical for her. Certainly can when you have metastatic cancer that's growing. That one-month delay means Natalie's specialized immune cell therapy won't be ready until late July.

I don't even know what seems like an appropriate question. You must be devastated. Well, yeah, Ted, I have. I was diagnosed in 2020 during COVID. after giving birth to my second child. And I had to spend the first bit of my child's life changing diapers and doing bottles with the chemotherapy pump attached to me. I've done 48 rounds of chemotherapy. I've had multiple aggressive surgeries and radiation, and I have been in treatment for five years, hoping.

that I can raise her, but at the very least, let her have a memory of who her mother was. I have endured so much, and now I have another hurdle just because of funding cuts.

I mean, my husband and I can't believe it. When is cancer political? In a recent online statement, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya pushed back on concerns about budget cuts and employee layoffs he said as to the current reorganization no clinical trial has been delayed nor has any participant been dropped from any clinical trial. Natalie Phelps is just one patient, one case out of many. But her participation in a clinical trial was delayed because

Two specialized technicians were let go. And that delay has proved to be devastating. She sent us this video message a couple of days ago from NIH. test results back today. I didn't pass. I have several new brain tumors. and it's not safe for me to participate in the trial the earliest. I could get back here for treatment would be about six weeks after having the tumors radiated, provided the radiation successful. So I don't know. It's a long time.

As for the budget cuts that caused the layoffs that produced the delay, it probably won't help much to learn that they were nothing personal. 50 years after Jaws scared an entire generation out of the water. I looked down, and there was this great big head, these big white teeth. Radiolab?

is pulling you back in. It was just like so much fear building of what's going to come out of that blue. Listen to Swimming with Shadows, a Radiolab week of sharks. Anything you dig down on is fascinating. These creatures. Now streaming. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for.

Their bodies are the scene of the crime. Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved your life. We're doctors and we're detectives. I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle. Save the patient. Watson, all episodes now streaming on Paramount+. This past week we got a tantalizing look into the depths of our solar system.

thanks to a powerful new telescope in Chile that experts say could increase our knowledge of the universe tenfold. Captivating images celebrated by astronomers like the one Seth Doan is about to introduce us to studying in a most heavenly place. Perched in the hills outside Rome sits Castel Gandolfo, the centuries-old lakeside summer palace for popes.

Leo XIV is coming next week, but there have been some less predictable summer residents living amid these sprawling Vatican gardens. Astronomy students. In that case, you can add as much molecular hydrogen as you want. Among them, American Isabella Macias, a graduate student at MIT. She's studying planetary formation and is sartorially on point.

I love your earrings. Thank you. It's the solar system. Macias is one of 25 students selected from around the world to attend free of charge this four-week summer school at the Vatican Observatory. What can you do at the Vatican? What can you do here that you can't do at MIT? OK, the Vatican has such a deep rich history of working with astronomers. It shows that science is not only for just super global superpowers around the world, but it's for the students, it's for humanity.

This past week they celebrated those new images coming from that telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Incidentally Vera Rubin was a teacher at our first summer school. You can see there's actually two telescopes here. Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno is director. He's one of a dozen astronomers working for the Pope. Why does the Pope...

have an astronomer? Well, shouldn't every major religion have an astronomer? You know, it's a great thing to have. Quite seriously, there are a couple of things that motivated Pope Leo XIII to start a Vatican observatory.

This all happened in 1891 and that was the time when the idea first really got into the public consciousness that there might be a war between science and religion. He wanted to show that there was no such war. This was a PR effort at first? It's always been a PR effort. It was useful in the years before the Vatican was recognized as a city-state in 1929.

when the observatory took part in a late 1800s effort to photograph the sky. Every national observatory got one piece to photograph. Italy got one piece, the Vatican got a different piece. So the observatory was a symbol of statehood. Today, discussing higher powers here can be about just telescopes. Are you religious? I am not a man of faith, no.

Polish student Simon Petenjak was surprised to see the Vatican had an observatory. I was not asked about my religious views once in the application. And it really goes to show how... wonderful science can be of uniting people. Often you see a scientist in a white lab coat, you're in a collar. Yeah, and actually I often wear the lab coat over the collar just for fun. Brother Bob Mackey is in charge of the Vatican's collection of roughly 1,200 meteorites, which he calls solar system time capsules.

History of science includes many, many clerics. You don't think of it today because we think of science as a very secular field of study, but in fact, who in the past had the time and the resources to study? On one outing, the students got to meet the new Pope, himself a math major at Villanova University. Be generous in sharing what you learn. But another field trip was a reminder of those historical tensions between the church and scientists. Galileo made his money, made his fame.

The Galileo Museum in Florence honors the astronomer whose writings in the 1600s about the Earth orbiting the sun, not the other way around as the church had seen it, was one issue that got Galileo Galilei into trouble. and put on church trial. So often faith and reason are seen to be at odds. The trouble is, of course, we teach science by getting the answers in the back of the book as if science was a big book of facts.

And we teach religion as if it was a big book of rules and a big book of what happens if the two books disagree with each other. But that's not science or religion. Brother Guy Consulmano says there's something inspiring about pondering such big questions in such a beautiful place. But really anyone, anywhere can just gaze upward toward the heavens and be awestruck. in our eternal celestial search for answers. Our 60 Minutes colleague Leslie Stahl.

is talking with one of the world's great maestros now 80 and taking a bow it's certainly one of the perks of the job A conducting lesson from Michael Tilson Thomas. With a finger, you could do it just with a finger. Good. This is Thomas in full. But this concert in April at the San Francisco Symphony, where he was music director for 25 years,

was unique because it was his last scheduled conducting performance ever due to the return of his glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. This is what Teddy Kennedy and John McCain had. Usually, people are told they have months to live. You were diagnosed over four years ago. You're a miracle. Thank you for saying so. Thank you for noticing. Did they give you any kind of special treatment? Stem cells? A glass of hot tea and a little schmaltz occasionally.

Thomas is known for his style, swashbuckling and charming, adding a bit of showbiz to Symphony Hall. He can trace his showmanship back generations. Thomas is a Tomaszewski. the grandson of once famous yiddish entertainers boris and bessie tomashevsky my paternal grandparents were yiddish theater superstars there's no other way of yiddish theater yes they were like

Taylor and Burton, basically, the Yiddish theater. Were they sexy? Tremendously. So this was the family that you grew up in. Yes. But it's showbiz. So you are a performer in many ways. Yes, totally. And you get that almost through your DNA? Correct. His parents surrounded their only child with art, theater, and music from birth. And he found his talent for piano early on.

working with the likes of Igor Stravinsky and Yasha Heifetz. So you were a prodigy. Well, I was in terms of the people that I was working with and meeting and the regard they had for me. But nobody, absolutely nobody, wanted me to go into show business or into anything remotely connected with performing art. No, not at all.

Instead, he was encouraged to be a scientist. But fatefully, when he was in junior high school, he picked up a baton and started to conduct. This is where I conducted for the first time. I was getting ready to play the oboe in the rehearsal, and then they announced that our teacher couldn't make it. So the first time you did it, you said, wow, this is for me? How did that move to conducting happen? I didn't like practicing very much.

Ah, we all understand that. And I could get very good results as a conductor very quickly. Classical music has always made sense to Thomas. He told us about the first time he heard the music of one of his favorite composers, Gustav Mahler, when he was just a child. And from the first moment the music started, everybody felt this jolt of some kind of awareness and power and profundity.

There are all these little folky things that come in and out. And one of them is... And of course, the whole Yiddishkeit association with that is perfectly obvious. MTT, as he's known, loved conducting. He excelled at it and was recognized early on for his talent with the baton by masters of the craft, including Leonard Bernstein, who was one of his mentors. There was somebody else in the music world.

who you also say you learned a great deal from people are going to be stunned to know that it was james brown the james brown i don't know where you are But you know I need you He has a song called goodbye my love and it just consists of bass player that all they do is go Goodbye my love. You're throwing me away. That's all it is. But every one of those, goodbye my love, has a different...

Slightly different shape. There was just this level of attack in his music making. Right here, right now, this is how it goes. MTT was unusually young, just 26, when he became music director of a full symphony orchestra at the Buffalo Philharmonic in 1971. His open and freewheeling style matched the tenor of the times, but the classical music community frowned when he was arrested for drug possession in 1978.

for which he paid a small fine. So you thought your career was hurt. Yes, there were times in various late evenings when I thought, well, it was nice while it lasted, but we've definitely come to some sort of ending here. But then I was really realizing that there were a lot of people who wanted me to be staying around. And so his career moved forward. But what about his personal life?

I had come out or I was coming out and various people had or did not have issues about that. Coming out as gay? Yeah. Was it a problem in your career? No, I think most of the time, nearly all the time, it worked well and so many people, they were very happy to see somebody like me come along. Your 21st century ears are quite happy with this last chord, even though a while back it would have puzzled or annoyed you or sent some of you running from the room. Besides conducting...

Thomas has another passion, teaching. It started when he took over New York Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts from Bernstein. Well, that's what we're going to find out today as we explore the difference between music... and Norse. He co-founded the New World Symphony in Miami, a teaching orchestra which has produced countless professional musicians.

Good. I still don't feel quite the yearning that's possible in this F major MTT is a composer himself, and he was kind enough to play one of his songs for us, Grace, that he wrote as a birthday present for Leonard Bernstein. These days, Thomas is devoting his time to being with friends and family. Joshua Robison is his husband. He has been MTT's companion, manager, and protector for almost 50 years.

The maestro may be leaving the stage, but music is still always with him. Well, I'm very grateful that the music still feels so fresh to me and that I can recall it as vividly as I can. Do you think you're a lucky man? Do I consider myself a lucky man? Oh, you bet your life, yes. Because you got to do what you love. I got to do it. I love it. I've had the opportunity to really share it with a lot of people.

We've lost one of our great broadcasters. Bill Moyers, who spent a good deal of time with us here at CBS News, as well as NBC and PBS, died this past Thursday at age 91. Good evening. Tonight, a special edition of CBS Reports. In his more than four decades as a broadcaster, Bill Moyers brought dignity and elegance to TV news. Some people say Adam and Eve are buried here too. And you can't get much older than that. An ordained Baptist minister, he had an East Texas sensibility about him.

that made its way into almost everything he did. I wouldn't trade the action for a herd of charlotte cattle in a perdenalis pasture, but there are times when I yearn for the serenity of a long Texas twilight and the repetitious tedium of small-town life. He was in his 20s when he served as deputy director of the Peace Corps back in its early days under John F. Kennedy. As a young White House aide, he was there when Vice President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office after JFK's assassination.

News Secretary Bill Moyers is about to make a statement. Ladies and gentlemen. He went on to become President Johnson's press secretary during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War. I do not know of any situation that concerns the president more or causes him deeper personal anguish than the loss of American lives in Vietnam.

But it was his work as a journalist where he truly distinguished himself, saying what he felt needed to be said in his soft, almost disarming tone. Big government, baffling issues, and a brittle public have turned politics into the art of the impossible. Walter Cronkite once described Moyers as the conscience of the country. There is still a great deal of economic disparity. Some compared him to Edward R. Murrow. He was a pioneer in public television, too.

Where on programs like Bill Moyer's Journal, he was the driving force behind reports that focused on poverty, violence, income inequality. Would you be better off if your mother stopped working and went back on welfare? Bill Moyers called himself a citizen journalist, no fancy name or title. He had a moral conviction that what he was reporting on was vital to democracy. He will be missed.

Jolene Kent is talking with the driving force behind one of America's most influential companies. It's pretty rare to sit down with a CEO and the CEO's mom. She insisted. What do you tell people that your son does? I actually say he works for Uber. Sometimes I say he drives. He's a driver. That's modest and proud mom of Lily Khosrowshahi. Her son, Dara, is behind the wheel at Uber as its chief executive. It's a beautiful thing.

They sat down with us to share their family's immigration story. In 1978, the Khazr-Shahis fled Tehran and the Iranian Revolution. We were forced to leave Iran. So it wasn't our decision. It was done in a day. You don't sit around saying, well, let's plan as a family for a revolution, right? It just never occurs to you. Dara's father ran a family business, which made them wealthy, but also, they say, a target. We lost everything. We came from a much better life to a smaller life at the time.

Coffee was 15 cents, and I wouldn't even buy a cup of coffee. In fact, I don't pay for Starbucks coffee to this day. Mama, Starbucks is a customer of Uber Eats. You got to talk it up. I love Starbucks. I'll let you pay. Yes. From point A to B in the best way. It's that easygoing yet strategic tone that Khazr Shahid brought to Uber. It's a big change.

from what you've seen. Launched in 2009, the company transformed how millions get around. But when Khosrowshahi took charge in 2017, Uber was infamous for a toxic work culture and a growth at all costs. Your job then was described as taking over one of the worst cleanup jobs in the history of American capitalism. That's a hell of a way to start.

Well, I think it was a little over-dramatized. But it was true that I had to come in and change the culture of the company. And I do think that the company, in hindsight, was too aggressive in certain ways. And I think now we get it right more than we get it wrong. Still, Uber is defending itself in lawsuits over its billing practices and passenger safety.

Then there's the company's relationship with President Donald Trump. Eight years ago, Khosrowshahi was CEO of Expedia and condemned Trump's so-called Muslim ban. Uber CEO, Dara. Today, he's one of many CEOs now engaging with the president. That's a hell of a name, but you've done a hell of a job. I do think that as a CEO of a US company, you want the country to succeed.

And so that means supporting whatever administration is in power. You're going to have your disagreements, you're going to have your agreements. We have to navigate through a period of a strong economy. but at the same time, significant uncertainty. Isn't a lot of that uncertainty caused by this president? Uncertainty comes with change. And I think the president ran on a mandate for change.

As CEOs, as companies, you know, we have to adjust to the environment that we see. And Uber is adjusting. Last month, it announced new, cheaper ride options. We're rolling out ride passes and route share. Route share matches riders with other passengers along preset commutes. This feels kind of like a glorified carpool.

Well, what is old is new again, right? We have heard from a lot of riders that Uber rides have gotten a lot more expensive over the past few years, more than the rate of inflation.

What's happening here? Well, I think it is about inflation, and the average Uber ride is now a little over $20. Our drivers need to make a living, and so really... The demand for drivers and pay has gone up, and that translates into the ultimate price of the Uber ride. Concerns over driver pay and benefits persist, even as Khazr-Shahi's own compensation has surged.

You're compensated about $40 million a year. What should people make of that? I think that we as a society, I think as a country, clearly we've done unbelievably well economically.

But I do think that the inequality that you see as it relates to the top-end compensation like someone who's lucky enough like me and The middle class etc. That is too big a chasm in my opinion too big of a gap yeah i do think it's it's too big of a gap now i don't have a solution for it it's a gap that may be getting even bigger

The Waymo driver has driven 2,000 times the mileage of the average driver. This past week, Uber expanded its robo-taxi service to Atlanta, launching rides in self-driving Waymos. Everyone wants on-demand transportation, food, etc. So we see actually AV and human driving can grow for the next five to ten years. So you don't think human driver numbers will decrease?

not in the next five to ten years, then we will need to adjust as a society. Now it's going to confirm the ride. For now, robo-taxis are neither cheaper nor faster than a human driver. But Uber claims... This is as safe as safe can be. You think this is actually safer than a human driver? Certainly the statistics bear it out. Khazrashahi is focused on the road ahead, but his past is never far behind.

It feels like a miracle from where we came from. When he was a teen, his father returned to Iran for what he thought would be a short visit. But the government wouldn't let him leave. For the six years that your father was away, you never even mentioned his name. And I told you that daddy was free to come. And you started crying like crazy. I mean, you couldn't stop crying. So you had learned to just hide your feelings.

But as immigrants, we all learn to hide our feelings. I need a break. Sorry. What's going through your head? I don't remember the particular moment, but I remember the time. And I think, you know, mom's totally right. You adjust to the situation. You do your best. Adjust. Dara Khosrowshahi. keeps coming back to that word in work and in life. You've said we came at a time that was welcoming to immigrants. Yes. Is that still the case right now?

I think we're going through a transition now as a nation. There's a reset going on in terms of making sure that immigration here is proper, is legal. It's difficult for a lot of people. But my hope is that we... remain the kind of country that attracts the best and the brightest who want to build a life here and hopefully I can help others live the same dream that I have.

We've still got a few days before the 4th of July, but Jim Gaffigan already has fireworks on his mind. This Friday is the 4th of July and there will be fireworks. Literally. Some planned, some quasi-legal, some beautiful, some kind of annoying. If Christmas has an unnecessary focus on presents and Halloween leans too hard into candy, then the 4th of July is all about fireworks.

Everyone seems to have that friend or neighbor whose enthusiasm for fireworks takes over their personality around the fourth. They boast of acquiring good stuff from a guy they can trust. But the fireworks were likely purchased from a temporary highway business that won't exist next week. These firework enthusiasts will also cause the sporadic explosions during the rest of July and August.

Americans may be patriotic, but they also don't like to be told what to do. Most people prefer the safety of an organized community fireworks display. These events give citizens an opportunity to not only enjoy the fireworks, but also sit uncomfortably in a field and witness neighbors overreact to the momentarily lit up sky. Are you people okay? You know it's just gunpowder, not a message from God.

I never know when the community fireworks display is over. There's usually a finale, but a fireworks finale is often just more fireworks closer together. I guess I don't attend enough fireworks to identify a finale. Oh, this must be the finale. Yay, that was great. Let's get out. I guess that was the finale. You feel like someone's watching you. Let me know when they stand up and grab the blanket and I'll light the last one. Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Be safe. You could lose a finger.

It's Sunday morning, and here again is Lee Cowan. Easy, miss. I've got you. You've got me! Who's got you? Superman has been appearing on movie and TV screens for some 70 years now. The most iconic, of course, was late actor Christopher Reeve. Still, a new Superman film is flying into theaters this summer. With Ben Mankiewicz... We go up, up and away. He was born on the planet Krypton. But the Man of Steel comes to life in California. Not a finished visual effect. Inside an edit room in Burbank.

We just got some of the visual effects. This is actually not a finished visual effect shot. James Gunn reviews a scene from what Warner Brothers hopes is a summer blockbuster. Superman, and its reported budget, at least $225 million, arrives in theaters July 11th. Let's try this and see if it all works out. It's the first feature from DC Studios, a division of Warner Brothers. Gunn is not only the film's director, he wrote the screenplay. And he's DC's CEO. How you feeling about everything?

I feel good about the movie, and I'm excited about that, and I think we've done something that's different. Among those differences... My Superman's not indestructible. We see him bleed immediately. At times, I've thought he's too strong. You don't want him to be able to punch a planet in half. Or, for that matter, go around a planet a billion times and make time go backwards. You know, I wanted a Superman who was a little bit more down to earth. What is this?

And few things are more down to earth... Crypto! ...than a dog. What the hey, dude? I thought you destroyed the whole... Superman robots. I thought I told you to keep an eye on him. We feed the canine, but he is unruly. You've added another thing here, which is instantly relatable to, I imagine, just about every American. He gave him a dog. I mean, the dog is the whole reason that was the start of the movie for me. Really?

A thousand percent. I adopted a dog. His name is Ozu. And he didn't want to be touched. He had never known human beings. He chewed up all our furniture. He was, you know, chasing the cat and just being the worst dog you can imagine. Ow! Stop it! Crypto! Ow! Ow! Stop it! Stop it! Sit! I thought, wow, what if... this terrible dog had superpowers, I'd really be screwed. The first Superman feature film came in 1951 with George Reeves, who later played the role on TV.

This century, Superman's been played by Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill. But in the last 75 years, only one big-screen Superman has fully captured the audience's imagination. Christopher Reeve. Trained in the theater, Reeve was a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York, as is the new Superman, David Cornswett. I don't think there's any way or reason to...

trying to sort of live up to Christopher Reeve. I just feel grateful to get to play that character that he embodied and put into the public consciousness in such a positive and strong way. Corn Sweat is 31. Seven years older than Reeve when he made his debut in 1978. We met Corn Sweat at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia. The last play I did here was Our Town. It's Corn Sweat's hometown where he still lives.

And it's here at the Arden where he landed his first paid gig. And this is the theater that I did my first professional play in when I was nine years old. Is that this? Yeah, this is... All My Sons? All My Sons by Arthur Miller. So these are my scenes with my lines highlighted. He wanted to read from his original script. You're finally up. Where's Tommy? Oh, sorry.

I'd be very good. I'd like to point out I wasn't given time to prepare. I love this play. Corn sweat, like his Superman, is immediately disarming. Yeah. As well as vulnerable. Ready? Let's do it, Cronkite. As in this scene with his girlfriend, reporter Lois Lane. Miss Lane. Played by Rachel Brosnahan. People were going to die! He is definitively different.

from everybody else on earth he is not human he's an alien and he has these powers that nobody else has and at the same time he wants desperately to be a part of humanity so ultimately the dramatic stakes of superman as a character is that he is lonely and he doesn't want to be he also has a sense of humor about those red shorts without the trunks the uniform can look very military So he puts the red underwear on.

A, so that everybody can see him. Against the blue sky, you can see the red trunks. B, so that everybody knows he doesn't take himself too seriously. He's not trying to look cool. I wear my trunks on the outside of my pants. It's liberating. Now that doesn't in any way undermine how badass and cool he is when he's up in the sky fighting the bad guys. But once he touches down, he wants to be the one that people can laugh at or make fun of because he can take it.

Superman has been saving the world for nearly nine decades. Created by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster, he first appeared in a comic in 1938. Is Superman the signature American movie character? I think he's a... Critic and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell. Batman's responsible for the death of everybody in his line of sight. They're all sufferers, but Superman, he stands tall and there's a pride of authorship literally in the character because he's creating his own narrative as his alter ego.

People want to see that. They want to believe that you can create your own narrative in a way that is benevolent, even if you have all the power in the world. It's wrong of you to turn away from people who need your help. You gotta go, man! Otis. James Gunn wants people to see Superman fighting for truth, justice, and, well, you know, the rest of it. Hey, buddy. Eyes up here. What do you want audiences around the world to take away from your Superman? I think just culturally being able to...

plays a little bit more importance on being a good human being. Be kind to each other. I think we're surrounded by a lot of meanness. I think Superman's surrounded by a lot of meanness in the movie, but he stands against that grain. And that's...

what makes him rebellious and in a way i think today in today's world superman's the edgier more rebellious character because he's the one who's standing up for the values that most people are not Corn Sweat is embracing the challenge, fully aware that success could mean Superman defines his career.

When you take a role that's going to be this visible and this iconic, even just visually iconic, and it's your face and the underwear, I wanted to be prepared for the possibility that it wouldn't lead to a bunch of other things, that this would be the thing. And I felt really lucky that when I asked myself that question, the answer came back. Somebody's got to play this part. And if you're the person to play it and you give up everything else to do it, it would be worth doing.

The famous 20th century writer and commentator once could only dream of a time like this with conservatives in power in the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Robert Costa has the tale of a man who helped design. this new world would you welcome william f buckley jr on late night television he was often a guest and sometimes a subject. This whole thing smacks of kind of a left-wing conspiracy paranoia, if it gets my drift. He had his own show too, Firing Line.

For decades, William F. Buckley Jr. was a one-of-a-kind character, author, columnist, and a celebrity intellectual. And I thank you for your views. You're very welcome. But beyond that stardom and upper crust accent was something consequential.

Bill Buckley was a conservative who sought to propel the nation to the right. Buckley invented cultural politics. Former New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tannenhaus says we are still living in the world created by Buckley. Is there a line from Buckley to McCarthy to Goldwater? to Nixon, to Reagan, to Gingrich, to Trump. You have just drawn the fever chart or outline of the modern Republican Party in America.

He's the founder of the movement we have today. Buckley, who died in 2008, would have turned 100 this year. Tannenhaus' sweeping new biography is Buckley. the life and the revolution that changed America. Yale is ground zero of William F. Buckley's life. Buckley's beginnings can be traced back to Yale University. which now houses an extensive archive of his personal papers. How did you get through all of this? I tried my best to get as deep into everything as I could.

From here, Buckley burst onto the national scene in 1951 with God and Man at Yale, a book which took on his alma mater as a thicket of secular professors and liberal elites. He was 25 years old, handsome Ivy League graduate who has everything going for him, but he's also going to reveal the secrets of the ivory tower. In 1955, he founded National Review, seeking to provide conservatives with coverage of their ideas and debates. I once worked there as a Buckley Fellow and reporter.

Though he never held office. Buckley caused a stir when he ran for mayor of New York City in 1965 and mused that if he won, he would demand a recount. He was really turning the party inside out. He was going to make the Republican Party the voice of the excluded middle class. But as he built that new coalition, he also drew scrutiny and denunciations, especially on race. In the 50s and 60s, Buckley opposed key civil rights legislation and supported segregation.

And he had his critics. And I built the railroads under someone else's whip for nothing. Buckley's views were rebuked at high-profile debate, be it with James Baldwin or Gore Vidal. By the late 60s, Tannenhaus says Buckley was seen as a central force, boosting Richard Nixon and in 1980, Ronald Reagan, who won the presidency. Bill Buckley...

reached his peak under Richard Nixon because Nixon needed Buckley. Reagan didn't? No, he didn't need Buckley. Reagan was a great pragmatist, and he knew that Buckley was still a movement guy. Then came a new generation of louder, brasher conservatives, starting with Rush Limbaugh. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program, a program exclusively designed for rich conservatives.

And in Washington, there was Newt Gingrich, who won the Speaker's Gavel in 1994. What did Buckley make of you and Rush Limbaugh becoming the new stars of the right in the 1990s? I think we amused him. He was proof that conservatism could be smart and that you could win the argument. Buckley was a model. of thinking about things and to say things that were true but not acceptable. Gingrich, now a close ally of President Donald Trump, says the flame of Buckley still flickers inside the GOP.

Much of the critique that Buckley made at Yale of the intellectuals is the underlying fuel for Trump's assault on the Ivy League. You see echoes of Buckley and what President Trump's doing with the universities today? Yes. What's the difference in your view between Buckley's conservatism and President Trump's conservatism? Trump is the most effective.

anti-liberal in my lifetime. I think Trump focuses on doing and achieving more than on knowing. I think Buckley thought his role was to be a genuine intellectual. And that meant, obviously, he wouldn't be a particularly good politician. He wants to defeat you, but he's going to defeat you with his vocabulary. And that is an aspect of democracy that's been lost.

Sam Tannenhaus says William F. Buckley Jr.'s legacy is complicated. His civility certainly stands out. Yet, there is also an inescapable conclusion. Buckley paved the way. for Trump. If Trump is able if he succeeds in some of the big things he means to do, then he may emerge as the single most powerful figure to come out of the movement William F. Buckley Jr. created all those years ago. I'm Lee Cowan. Thanks for listening, and please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.

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