PBS News Hour - Full Show - January 22, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Thursday on the News Hour, President Trump launches his Board of Peace to pursue the rebuilding of Gaza as European leaders hold an emergency summit on transatlantic tensions. A massive winter storm is set to deliver damaging ice and heavy snow to nearly half the U.S. Plus, we examine the Trump administration's hardline immigration crackdown a year into its implementation. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Omna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, President Trump launches his Board of Peace to pursue the rebuilding of Gaza as European leaders hold an emergency summit on transatlantic tensions. A massive winter storm is set to deliver damaging ice and heavy snow to nearly half the U.S. And we examine the Trump administration's hardline immigration crackdown a year into its implementation. You can do this without all of this chaos. I should return to those tactics where we're focused on public safety first. Welcome to the News Hour. President Trump is back at the White House tonight.

He returned to Washington after wrapping a whirlwind trip to Davos for the World Economic Forum where he seems to have diffused a crisis he first created by insisting the U.S. acquire Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. Leaders across Europe roundly criticized and rejected a U.S. takeover. Trump also presented his plan for what he calls the Board of the United States. of Peace, which he would chair, in order to establish and oversee the ceasefire and post-war plans for Gaza. But already, the American president has expanded the proposed board's purview to conflicts

around the world. Please welcome the chairman of the Board of Peace, the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump. In Davos today, President Trump officially introducing what he calls the Board of Peace. Together we are in a position to have an incredible chance. I don't even call it a chance. I think it's going to happen. To end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed

and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace. So far, some 35 nations have signed on, many attending today's ceremony, from Argentina and Bulgaria to Qatar and Saudi Arabia to Turkey and Mongolia. Some, including Canada, Germany and Israel, have joined but were absent to. today, and others, like France and Britain, have rejected the invitation. The rollout of the board, born of a peace plan for post-war Gaza, was accompanied by this. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. A pledge by the American president to rebuild Gaza into a sprawling seaside metropolis.

See, I'm a real estate person at heart, and it's all about location. And I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property, what it could be for so many people. Special envoy Steve Wickoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, presented the vision. A $25 billion proposal for gleaming skyscrapers, 100,000 housing units, 75 medical centers, and an expected GDP of $10 billion by 2035. I think that the war is over. Let's do our best to try working together. Our goal here is peace between Israel and the Palestinian people.

Everyone wants to live peacefully. Everyone wants to live with dignity. Let's put our efforts towards promoting those. who are doing the work to build this up. But there are no representatives from Gaza on the board overseeing its future. And on the ground, Olfattal Chalaf, still displaced from her home, is skeptical of the plans. Honestly, I don't expect not even 1% to be rebuilt. You're just offering tents and talking about reconstruction?

What reconstruction? Let them remove the rubble first, then start rebuilding. Trump has already expanded the board's scope beyond. and Gaza to other conflicts around the world, raising concerns about how the group he chairs works with or around the United Nations. Once this border is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do, and we'll do it in conjunction with the United Nations. You know, I've always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, an emergency summit for European leaders to discuss Greenland's future. A day after President Trump walked back military threats of a U.S. takeover and proclaimed a deal was in the works. Before the meeting, Denmark's prime minister reiterated her nation's red line that the island, home to 55,000 people, is not for sale. We have said from the very beginning that a discussion about our status as a sovereign state, it cannot be discussed, it cannot be changed. We are willing to work together with the U.S. of course, as a discussion about our status as a sovereign state, it cannot be discussed. It cannot be changed. We are willing to work together with the U. of course, as we have always done about security. Greenland strategically sits in the middle of the shortest route for land-based missiles and bombers between the U.S. and Russia.

And experts worry that as the ice melts, sea lanes open up, including to Russian and Chinese ships. Despite no official details for a deal yet, Trump declared the U.S. would have total access. We're going to have all military access that we want. We're going to be able to put what we need on Greenland because we want. We're talking about national security and international security. And our foreign affairs correspondent, Nick Schiffon, has been covering this all and joins me now. And, Nick, let's start with what the president said about Greenland, total military access. What does that mean?

Multiple European officials tell me tonight there is no agreement for what that means, but there is a framework. So that would include more U.S. bases on Greenland. It would include guaranteed American mineral rights for mining on Greenland. It would be increased NATO presence, not only around Greenland, but across the Arctic. and Russian military and investments would be specifically excluded. There will be two tracks moving forward. Omna, the U.S. will negotiate directly with Denmark and Greenland over the fate of the island itself. Could that end up with American sovereignty over bases in Greenland?

Despite what you just heard from the Prime Minister, one senior European official actually tells me it's too early to tell the answer to that question. Secondly, NATO will increase its Arctic presence with the goal of having actual plans for that increased presence by a summit in July. So this is just the beginning of the process, but nothing we just talked about was what the president has been demanding, which is ownership over Greenland.

So clearly, he decided to take an off-ramp. And to extend the metaphor, European officials are asking me whether there is like a 17-car pile-up in the rear-view mirror that he left behind. What is the lasting impact of all of this Greenland talk on the Transatlantic Alliance?

European officials I talk to are split between saying this is a real rupto, and say, no, we have no choice. We will continue to rely on the U.S. So for those who think it is a rupture, why is that? Why has this moment been so harmful? I think there's a psychological sensitivity to the president flying to Europe to disparage Europe yesterday in Davos. He said of NATO, quote, we've helped them for so many years.

We've never gotten anything. And that offends Denmark especially. More Danish troops died in Afghanistan per capita than U.S. troops died in Afghanistan. And then there's the reality of the relationship. European officials tell me they are relieved. They're relieved that the president has taken off the table, the military, the economic threats. But multiple officials also said to me, they don't know if that will be the president's policy tomorrow. Nick Schifrin, thank you as always.

Thank you. A sprawling and potentially devastating winter storm is projected to slam a massive swath of the country tomorrow and through the weekend, from New Mexico all the way to northern Maine. Heavy snow, life-threatening cold, and dangerous ice accumulation are all in. in the forecast. More than 130 million people are currently under winter storm alerts, and nearly every American east of the Rockies will be affected. That's according to the National Weather Service. To help break down what we expect to see and how you can prepare, we're joined now by My Radar Senior Meteorologist Matthew Capucci. Thanks for coming in. Yeah, good to be here. I have to say the scale of this storm is matched only by its intensity. I mean, the fact that we have

roughly 1,800 miles nonstop of winter storm alerts watches warnings from Arizona all the way to the East coast shows just how big this storm is. It's getting going right now off the U.S. West Coast. That's an upper level pocket of cold air, low pressure, and spin, this big swirly twirl on the water vapor satellite. It's kind of the impetus for this storm system, but you'll notice it's still offshore, so we can't launch weather balloons into it. And so actually last night, the hurricane hunters, those folks who fly into hurricanes, flew into this storm to collect data to help us figure out what this thing's going to do. We pump that into models, and you can see just an absolute mess on the simulated radar.

snow, sleet, freezing rain, the worst of everything from New Mexico, Texas, all the way to southern New England. What does the forecast say about snowfall? Where do we expect to see the most? So I think the snow jackpot should be in roughly a 50 to 100 mile wide zone north of the rain snow line. It starts near Oklahoma City, pushes northeast all the way towards D.C., Baltimore, Philly, New York City.

All those places have a roughly 50-50 shot of seeing a foot or more of snow. Tulsa, probably 12 to 18 inches. Then southern Missouri, the boot heel, western. Kentucky along the Ohio River, that's where the worst will be. But in addition to that, on the southern side, it's not just the snow, it's the sleet and the freezing rain, too. And what about the life-threatening cold? There's also threats of ice accumulation. Yeah, the ice accumulation is really what worries me the most, because for folks at home, ice happens when you have rain that essentially falls as a liquid and then turns into ice

on the ground, given sub-freezing surface temperatures. You know, in that freezing rain zone, temperatures might be in the mid-40s, a mile above the ground. So, The liquid rain is going to fall, but the surface might be 25, 30 degrees. So all that liquid freezes on the ground. Two main areas I'm really watching for the worst ice accretion. I think northwestern Mississippi, northeast Louisiana, probably south of Memphis along Interstate 55. That's the zone I'm really watching for potentially significant ice accretion. We're talking like a half inch to an inch in spots.

And it only takes about a half inch of ice to pull down the power lines, get power outages. The roads impassable, probably from Friday night all the way through Monday morning. And then behind it, of course, the cold comes in. The other zone I'm really watching, northeast of Atlanta into, for example, the Western Carolina's, Asheville, Greensboro, Spartanburg, Greenville. I'm really worried that cold air at the surface draining down the Appalachians will keep the surface sub-freezing even when it's warmer upstairs. So, again, serious ice accretion is possible northeast of Atlanta.

And I wouldn't even be surprised for some thunder-sleeat and thunder ice to mix into. Thunder? Thunder, lightning, freezing rain all at once. All right, Matthew, so two questions. What are the dangers of this type of weather, and what should people be doing to prepare? I'm really concerned about both the snow and the ice especially, because snow, you can pretreat. You can put stuff down on the roadways. Ice, you know, comes down as a liquid, and it washes away any pre-treatment. So I think it's going to be like a skating rink for a lot of people until the middle of next week.

And the worst part, given these cold temperatures invading, there's nothing to really melt this until the end of next week. Look at temperatures early Monday morning. We're talking negative double digits over the upper Midwest, the northern tier, excessive cold warnings in effect for a wide area from really Minnesota down to Oklahoma City, single digits below zero, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, single digits above zero in Texas. And given how much ice is coming down, I think a lot of folks will likely lose power too. So you have systematic issues with vulnerability. You're going into a cold air outbreak with a lot of people who won't have power. I'm very worried about that. So given the forecast, I'd say, bundle up.

Make sure you have everything you need for about three to five days off the grid. Make sure you're taking care of elderly, vulnerable neighbors, loved ones, and ultimately having a plan to hunker down for days on end. That is good advice, Matthew Capucci. Our thanks to you, as always. Thank you. In the day's other headlines, President Trump is suing J.P. Morgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Diamond, for $5 billion, saying the company closed his accounts for political reasons

after he left office in 2021. The lawsuit alleges the decision known as debanking abruptly cut the Trump organization off from access to millions of dollars and disrupted its operations. In a statement, J.P. Morgan said the suit lacks merit, adding that the company does not close accounts for political or religious reasons. Trump and other conservatives have accused banks of improperly cutting off their accounts following the January 6th attack.

In Davos, Switzerland earlier today, President Trump met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. How was your meeting with President Trump, Mr. Zelensky? How was the meeting? Their meeting happened away from the cameras, but afterwards both leaders used the word good when describing the talks. And in his address to the forum, Zelensky cited progress on peace efforts and called on Russia

to come to the table to end the war. The documents aimed at ending this war are nearly, nearly raised. Ukraine is working with full honesty and determination, and that brings results. And Russia must become ready to finish this war, to stop this aggression. Zelensky was also critical of Europe's slow and disjointed response to the war in Ukraine, comparing his repeated warnings of the threat Russia poses to the film Groundhog Day. It comes as President Trump's envoys Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are in Moscow, where they met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Meantime, on the ground in Ukraine, the latest Russian strikes hit the eastern city of Nipro, where at least seven people were injured. Today marks America's official withdrawal from the World Health Organization one year after President Trump signed an executive order setting the nation's exit in motion. The pullout threatens to plunge the WHO

into an even deeper budget crisis, with Washington long being the health agency's biggest financial backer. The U.S. is also leaving behind a two-year-old. $260 million bill in unpaid fees, even as it's required by law to pay all outstanding debts. The State Department today argued that the American people have paid more than enough to this organization, and this economic hit is beyond any financial obligations to the organization. In Australia, a gunman who shot and killed three people and injured one more remains at large. The suspect shot two couples in two separate locations in the small town of Carr-Jaleco.

In New South Wales, police say the shooting will have a lasting impact on the town of only about 1,500 people. What I will say is that, again, it's a tragedy that's taken place in a very small country town that will have a big effect on the community. Become a force that can't be measured. The latest shooting took place as that country observed a national day of mourning for the 15 victims of last month's massacre during a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration. At a service in Sydney's iconic opera house, attendees lit candles and heard from the country's prime minister who apologized for failing to prevent the attack. Here in the U.S., a closely watched reading on inflation ticked higher. The Commerce Department said today that the personal consumption expenditures price index rose 2.8% in November from a year earlier. That's a bit more than the month before and above the Fed's preferred target of 2%.

Today's report was delayed by last year's government shutdown. Meantime, on Wall Street today, stocks continued their rebound as tariff concerns ease. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added around 275 points on the day. The NASDAQ rose nearly 200 points. The S&P 500 has now recovered much of its losses from earlier in the week. And a blues-infused vampire epic has made Oscar history. Sinners. Michael B. Jordan in Sinners.

And Ryan Coogler, Sinners. The film Sinners is nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. That breaks the previous record of 14 nominations set by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land. The Action Packed One Battle After Another starring Leonardo DiCaprio trails just behind with 13 nods. Both films made the cut in a brand new category Best Casting, alongside Hamnet, Marty Supreme, and The Secret Agent. The 98th Academy Award Ceremony will air on Sunday, March 15th. And longtime Vatican reporter, author and friend of this program, John Allen Jr. has died.

The Kansas native covered multiple popes starting in 1997, first for the National Catholic Reporter and later the Boston Globe. Alan was also a frequent news hour contributor sharing his insights as recently as last year for a report about the conclave that elected Pope Leo. John Allen Jr. passed away today after a long battle. with cancer. He was 61 years old. Still to come on the News Hour, former special counsel, Jack Smith, faces congressional scrutiny over his investigations into President Trump. A Texas jury acquits a former Uvaldi police officer for failing to act quickly enough during the Robb Elementary School shooting. And we examine the president's confrontational approach to the U.S. court system one year into his second term. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein

studio at WETA in Washington. quarters of BBS News. Vice President J.D. Vance was in Minneapolis today as federal agents continue to clash with protesters two weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old mother Renee Good. Vance had this message for city residents. Do we want these things to happen? Do we want these arrests to be so chaotic? No, we don't. These guys want at least of all. But if we had a little cooperation from local and federal, and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community.

This is just the latest development in what's been a turbulent year, as President Trump has carried out his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration. Liz Landers takes a closer look. First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. President Donald Trump wasted no time following through on his campaign promise to crap down on immigration. Signing executive orders his first day in office designed to expedite removal and reinterpret the citizenship clause of the Constitution. Border crossings began to drop soon after and are down dramatically year to date, a 93% reduction according to the Department of Homeland

Security. The agency estimates 1.9 million self-deportations and 622,000 deportations have taken place in the last year. This was an invasion. This wasn't people coming in. This was an invasion of our country. But the administration quickly ran into legal challenges with some deportation measures when it deported more than 200 Venezuelan men to a notorious Salvadoran prison. These were bad people. That was a bad group of, as I say, humbred. The president invoking the little used Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming the men were part of the Venezuelan gang Trend de Aragua. Among them, Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia, a Maryland man with no

criminal record, deported despite a court order barring his removal. Albrego Garcia was eventually returned to the U.S. and is now challenging efforts to deport him to a third country. A ruling is expected next month. Turn around. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, signaled a crackdown on international student visas in early March. We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. In total, more than 8,000 student visas revoked in the past year, the State Department says. The Trump administration has also moved to narrow pathways for legal immigration, using executive orders to institute travel bans in June, revoke humanitarian

programs that shielded migrants from deportation, and cut refugee admissions to record lows. The shooting of the two National Guardspeople in the nation's capital in November prompted a further tightening of visas. Also this year, the administration began a controversial rollout of deportation operations in major sanctuary cities across the country. With agents often masked arresting immigrants at workplaces, courthouses, even Home Depot parking lots. In June, fiery protests in Los Angeles caused President Trump. to send in National Guard troops. These are paid insurrectionists. These are paid troublemakers.

Prompting the president to float the idea of using the Insurrection Act, which would allow the president to use the military in a domestic setting. It's a threat he's continued to make into the new year. We did discuss the Insurrection Act. He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that. Those targeted operations spread nationwide to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and just this week, Maine.

All this bolstered by a surge in funding after the president's signature tax and spending bill passed in the summer, tripling the annual budget for ICE. The administration faced significant legal pushback in Chicago. When a federal judge there determined customs and border patrol official Greg Bovino was overstepping his authority and handling protesters.

The use of force that I've seen has been exemplary. And by exemplary, I would say the least amount of four necessary to accomplish the mission. In the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed woman, Renee Good, by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, protests flared again. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller with this message to ICE officers. You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing

a felony. But Democrats are hoping to use the latest incidents. to reduce funding or force changes to immigration enforcement if they do well in the midterm elections. Joining us now to discuss all of this are Chad Wolf. He's a former acting secretary of Homeland Security in the First Trump administration and the current executive director of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, and John Sanweg, the former acting director of ICE in the Obama administration. Thank you both for joining us. Chad, I want to start with you. The president campaigned on this issue of cracking down on illegal immigration, getting rid of people who are in the country

illegally. But some of these chaotic scenes that we're seeing out of Minneapolis, just this week, we've seen CBP officer Bovino using a smoke canister to clear a crowd. Some of this is causing public opinion to turn on him. Polls are showing that a majority of Americans think that ICE is going too far. Could this become a political problem for the president? Well, I think it's certainly a political issue. I think it's important to remember, as you indicated, ran on a very aggressive agenda, and the American people agreed with him. But first, to secure the border, which I think most Americans would agree that has happened. We have, you know, record low apprehension numbers. The second part, which is the most difficult part, is to figure out where the millions of folks went to that came across that border during the Biden administration, and then to remove the ones that don't have a legal right to be here. So that's what they're doing in places like Minneapolis, Chicago, but other places, like Texas and Florida, also have a very high illegal alien population, but you don't see those making the news, right? You don't see big operations in Florida and Texas making the news. And why is that? Because you have local law enforcement that

support them. And so places like Minneapolis and others are really the exception to the rule. The rule being that that close support with local law enforcement really makes ICE's job. They really do it outside of the limelight, right? But when you don't have that, then ICE is in the forefront. John, speaking of how ICE operates. Yesterday, we learned about an internal ICE memo that authorizes officers to use force to enter a residence without a judge's warrant to arrest someone with an administrative final order of removal. Vice President Vance said today that this practice was also used in previous administrations. Was this part of the training and guidance when you oversaw ICE?

Liz, it wasn't. It was a widely held belief in a firm legal opinion of the department that, You cannot forcibly enter a residence without a judicial warrant, right? A warrant that where you swear out an affidavit explaining the probable cause and it's issued by a federal judge or a magistrate. Let me give you just a quick backdrop on this. I mean, a lot of this is a buy. First of all, ISIS has become very good at making apprehensions of people at their residences without those judicial warrants. In my experience, it was incredibly rare. And I can't even think of a single case where we obtained a warrant prior to a civil enforcement action.

That said, the agents were great, you know, would approach the home, knock on the door, asked the target to exit the house, make the arrest there, or it gained the consent of the homeowner in order to enter the home. It really wasn't a significant impediment in ICE's operations. What's changed, though, of course, Liz, is that as part of these really highly publicized, and in my experience, you know, highly unusual law enforcement operations, immigration advocacy groups have cautioned people to explain, you know, really been aggressive in promoting efforts to people know their rights, giving out those little cards.

you know, saying, be aware of your rights. And included in there is this idea, or the fact, rather, that ICE agents could not enter a home without a judicially authorized warrant. Running up against that, I'm sure the pressure, you know, at the agency, it would be very cumbersome and slow if they had to go get a judicial one every time. Chad, I want to ask you, the administration says that ICE agents have absolute immunity. We've heard that from administration officials. Do you think they should in all cases?

Well, I think law enforcement enjoys some pretty broad immunity to do their job. Absolutely. But, you know, depending on if it's a state official or a federal official, there are limits to that. So a lot depends on the circumstances. A lot depends on the action that they're involved in will depend on what type of consequences can be held. I will go back just to that last question. I think the larger issue here at play is that, and John's right, you do have activist groups that are saying, look, here's what you can do to stop ice. Here's what you can do to slow them down. We've entered this world where most, where there are some people. here that think ICE is some type of second-class law enforcement agency, that it's okay to put your car in the middle of an operation, it's okay to slam the door in their face. You would never do this for the DEA, the FBI, if they are doing a criminal operation in your neighborhood. But yet somehow people

believe it's okay to do that because it's just ICE. They're just enforcing immigration law. These are, they are criminal operations that ICE is involved in. You know, I heard recently they go door to door. They don't go door to door. They have targets that they are. identifying that could be in a car, if they do a vehicle stop or it's in a house if they approach the house. These are criminal enforcement actions. And this idea that you're going to have activists and agitators and others trying to impede or not adhere to lawful commands is absurd. You would never do that in any other type of law enforcement operation. And so I think the local officials, whether that's a mayor or a governor or it's your activist, telling citizens to do

certain things, they're putting them in danger. John, I want to ask you also about this image that we saw of this five-year-old boy who was held in Minnesota by ICE yesterday. ICE has said that the child was abandoned by his father who was in the country illegally and was being pursued by officers. But officials from his school have said that officers used him to lure family members from their home. How should agents navigate this kind of situation? And do, did the agents do the right thing here? You know, Liz, it's hard to know on any one of these particular cases, right? We're only hearing glimpses of it and we're, you know, thousands of miles away from where these incidents happen.

At that said, I'll say one thing, a couple of observations I've made. I do worry about the agency's reputation. I do worry that it's impacting its ability to do its job. And I do worry that what Chad is talking about, the lack of respect the agency is getting. Some of this is brought on, you know, by the actions the agency is taking the manner in which they're being deployed. And that case there, for instance, right, boy, you know, you want to have an immigration enforcement policy that also recognizes we need to protect family unity at all costs. I understand their allegations, the father went away. And again, I don't know all the facts.

But what I do know is my understanding is there was no criminal history there. And typically what the agency would do, and even I venture to say when I worked with Tom Holman, Tom would do, is that if you encounter a case like that where you decide we need to take an immigration enforcement action, it doesn't necessarily mean we have to effectuate an arrest. or if we do affect you an arrest, we can at least wait until the mother or a legal guardian arrives to take custody of the five-year-old without threat of being arrested. But when you adopt this zero-tolerance approach, it creates these situations where now you're going to have these risks of separating families. The public has to see this image of ICE agents hauling away a five-year-old kid wearing a snow hat that looks like an elephant. And it's hard to go out there and say, hey, we're really focused on the worst of the worst. And we're a serious criminal law enforcement agency out here to promote public safety when you see images like that. I would just, listen, I think, I'm not saying, I think I've heard people say it's a choice.

It's a choice between open borders and supporting criminal aliens or the images we're saying. And I just reject that. The Obama administration was heavily criticized for its immigration enforcement record. We deported hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens, and we did it without any of the scenes you're seeing today or five-year-olds, you know, images like that being separated from their brothers and sisters. John Sanweg and Chad Wolf. Thank you so much for joining the News Hour. Thank you. Thanks, Liz.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee today sharply criticized former special counsel Jack Smith over his investigation of President Trump, which produced more than 40 criminal charges that have since been dropped. GOP lawmakers accused Smith of partisanship, but as Ali Rogan reports, Smith defended his conduct,

saying the law required him to act. Do you swear our firm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is... The first public hearing for former special counsel Smith... I do. Quickly became a sharp partisan debate. With that, I yield back in disgust of this witness. These guys, my Republican colleagues are a joke.

Even as Smith tried to stay above the political fray... I am not a politician, and I have no partisan loyalties. As he defended his more than two-year investigation into President Trump. We followed the facts, and we followed the law. law. Where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power. Smith's team charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost, culminating in the January 6th Capitol riot. Smith and the Department of Justice dropped the charges after Trump was reelected. A separate case and 40 criminal charges

related to classified documents Trump kept at his Moralago estate in Florida were dismissed by federal judge in 24, who said Smith had been unlawfully appointed. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican. Smith's testimony comes as the Trump administration continues to attack his credibility. The Justice Department has fired many who worked on the January 6th investigation. A watchdog agency is looking into Smith's work, and President Trump continues to attack him, including during the hearing.

Posting on truth social that Smith is a deranged animal who shouldn't be allowed to practice law and that he hoped the Attorney General was looking at what he's done. Democrats read the post aloud. We have a word for this. It's called weaponization. It's called corruption. But Republicans backed the president, directly accusing Smith of being a partisan actor, weaponizing the Department of Justice. You, like the president's men for Richard Nixon, went after your political enemies.

Maybe they're not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden's political enemies, weren't they? They were Harris's political enemies. They were the enemies of the president, and you were their arm, weren't you? No. Republicans also press Smith about secretly obtained subpoenas for records of phone calls made by Republican senators around January 6th. Smith said it was common for investigators to collect call logs which do not include their content. Not going to be charged. They're not going to see it. They're not going to know because we're not going to tell them. So let's go ahead and do it. It's exactly what happened.

The toll records that we secured and the nondisclosure orders were consistent with policy. Democrats on the committee praised Smith for his service. I think you're a great American and you came out of this as being somebody who people can respect and look up to it. And asked about how many Republicans he relied on during his investigation into the 2020 election. Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and who wanted him to win the election. The classified documents case got far fewer questions. questions. The Trump appointed judge in that case had sealed a report Smith's team prepared, and Trump's lawyers are asking for it to be permanently blocked from release. One question

Smith left open was whether someone could or should revisit his charges when Trump leaves office. So they can be refiled and he can be prosecuted after he leaves office. Is that correct? I'm not going to speak to that. He only said the case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it was not closed for good. For the people, PBS NewsHour. I'm Allie Rogan. Former school police officer Adrian Gonzalez was acquitted Wednesday on charges that he failed to act against the gunmen during crucial early moments of the mass shooting at Rob Elementary School in Uvaldi, Texas. The 22 school shooting, one of the deadliest in American history, left 19 children and two teachers dead. Gonzalez was one of the first officers to arrive and one of just two charged for their initial response.

At least 370 law enforcement officers ultimately rushed to the school. Jesse Rizzo, whose nine-year-old niece Jackie Cazares, was killed that day, spoke after the verdict. I was very hopeful for a guilty verdict. I mean, at stake, what do we have? We have children at stake. Absolutely, innocent children that did everything that they were trained to do. Hide. Turn the lights off.

But the officer that was trained to do exactly to encounter, to go towards a shooter, to listen to the gun, Everything, right? And what does he do? Sit back for an hour and change. I'm sorry, for a minute and change while the massacre continues to happen. For more on the trial and how the Uvaldi community is reacting, I'm joined by Tony Plahetsky. He's investigative reporter for the Austin American statesman. Tony, thanks for joining us. So Gonzalez was facing 29 counts of abandoning or endangering children. What were prosecutors saying he did wrong and how did his defense team respond? On the this case was, according to experts, going to be legally complicated from the outset. But prosecutors contend that there were a couple of crucial minutes when Officer Gonzalez, who was one of the first officers to arrive at the elementary school, could have intervened or even distracted the gunman prior to his entry into Rob Elementary School.

But his defense set forward a case in which they said he took a number of, of actions to, in fact, protect children that day. He took a number of steps, and they say that he was also operating in a very confusing, quickly moving, and highly dynamic situation. What about some of the families? We know they were in the courtroom during this trial. You heard from one of the uncles there, and people have been fighting for accountability. How were they reacting to this acquittal?

This is the latest in a profound disappointment for the families of those. 19 children and two teachers. They have been calling for action in the three and a half years since the shooting. They, of course, went to state lawmakers to try to press for some sort of gun reform. And they also were hoping that they would receive some measure of accountability at the criminal courthouse. Many of them traveled hundreds of miles from their home in Yuvaldi to Corpus Christi, where this trial was held for a change of venue, but again, leaving that courthouse and that courtroom profoundly disappointed in the outcome. But as we also know, looking ahead to the future, where there will be another trial of former Uvaldi School District Police Chief Pete Eradondo.

And Tony, what do we know about that upcoming trial? Does this acquittal in this trial mean anything for that other upcoming trial? Legal experts, I have been talking to today say that the ability, and we know that prosecutors did have the ability to meet with jurors who delivered that not guilty verdict yesterday evening, that they did have a chance to receive their feedback. And so what legal experts say is that they will likely take that information and use it to continue to firm up their case against the former police chief. But it's also very important to note that Officer Adrian Gonzalez, and the police chief, the former police chief,

are not similarly situated in terms of their actions that day. Experts say they took very different actions and also had very different responsibilities. So it is likely, according to numerous experts we've talked to today who have been following these cases, that the prosecution almost undoubtedly will proceed in coming months in its case against the former police chief.

Tony, I've got less than a minute left, but I have to ask you because I know You have covered this shooting, as have I, since it happened in the three and a half years, in this tight-knit community in Yuvaldi. How are they doing today? I think that many of them continue to press forward. They want accountability, but also the profound grief in that community still exists today as parents try to, as best as anyone could possibly do so,

move forward with their lives with what happened to them that terrible day in 2020. We should note those children killed that day today would be 12 or 13 years old. Thoughts are with their families. Tony Plahetsky of the Austin American statesman. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. America's judicial system is undergoing one of its most consequential stress tests in decades. As the president pushes the limits of executive power and strains the nation's system of checks and balances.

Over the past year, the courts have moved to the center of the country's most significant political fights. while the Trump administration has increasingly challenged the authority of judges whose rulings have stalled key parts of its agenda. As we mark a year into President Trump's second term, we're returning this week to guests from our On Democracy series, which explores the laws, institutions, and norms that have shaped this country and the different pressures they face today. We're joined now by Steve Vlatic, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University. Welcome back to the program. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me. I want to start with immigration enforcement because it's raising the most immediate constitutional questions.

As you well know, there is this newly revealed internal ICE memo that authorizes federal agents to forcibly enter homes with an administrative warrant instead of a warrant from a judge. And the whistleblowers who presented this memo to Congress says, you know, this goes not just against their training, but also the law. How do you assess the constitutional legitimacy of this policy? Yeah, it's not legitimate. I mean, the whistleblower is right. So the Supreme Court, even as it has poked holes in the Fourth Amendment over the last 35, 40 years, the one thing it has kept coming back to is that an American's home is their castle. And so there are exigent circumstances in which law enforcement officers are allowed to enter a home without a warrant.

We just had a case about that a couple of weeks ago. There are circumstances where a law enforcement officer might have probable cause to believe that there's a crime being underway in a home. But this notion that an ICE officer can simply sign a piece of paper called an administrative warrant and use that as a basis for entering someone's home without any probable cause, without any exigency, without a federal judge signing off has no precedent in our jurisprudence and is frankly flatly inconsistent with everything the Supreme Court has said about the Fourth Amendment. Our team reached out to DHS and received a statement, part of which reads this way. the officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause. For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement.

Is that the case? No. So administrative warrants, when there is a basis for believing that there is a crime underway or when there's a basis for believing that you're definitely going to find someone who's immediately arrestable and subject to mandatory detention, that's closer. But, Jeff, you can't put the cart before the horse. You can't say we went into the house without a judicially signed warrant and then found someone who we could arrest on an immigration violation that's bootstrapping. The reality is that the government's not supposed to be able to go door to door without warrants barging into Americans' homes. I mean, just to go way back, this was one of the grievances against King George III that we list specifically in the Declaration of Independence. There's a reason why we have a Fourth Amendment. There's a reason why it applies even to folks who are suspected of and may well be out of status from,

immigration perspective. If immigration enforcement in particular is pushing the limits of executive power, where does the president's constitutional authority begin and where does it end? So, I mean, at least historically, we have viewed immigration enforcement inside the country, not as part of the president's exclusive Article 2 powers, but as a shared authority between the president and Congress. Maybe, Jeff, it's different at the border because the president could have an argument at the border that now I'm engaged in my Article II self-defense function, but once we're talking about law enforcement on a house-by-house basis in American cities, that's where it has historically been up to the president to carry out what Congress has provided for. Congress hasn't provided for this.

And, you know, this dovetails with this broader push by the Trump administration, also dating back to last summer, to treat anyone who's in the country who was never lawfully admitted, even if they've been here 30 or 40 years, as if they were stopped at the border so that the government can then try to deny them a bond hearing if they're arrested. It really is a categorical wholesale rethinking of immigration law that, Jeff, so far, federal courts have been blocking overwhelmingly judges from across the geographical and ideological spectrum. When we spoke almost a year ago about this very topic, whether the courts could meaningfully act as a check on executive power, we didn't really know much because it was so early into the second

term, but looking back over that year, what has stood out, what has surprised you the most. I think a couple of the points that stand out. One is the federal courts, I think, have done a really remarkable job of at least serving as a speedbreak on many of this administration's more aggressive tendencies. The Alien Enemies Act, for example, was never successfully deployed because of the federal courts. President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order still hasn't gotten to effect because of the courts. But the courts can't do it alone. And some of that's because we've had all these interventions from the U.S. Supreme Court that have allowed the administration to carry out a bunch of these policies while these cases are going forward.

But even in the cases where there hasn't been Supreme Court intervention, the courts are more of a rear-guard action here, Jeff, right? And you really need multiple institutions holding each other accountable. Are we in the midst of a constitutional crisis? You know, that question, I think, is sort of has different meanings to everybody. I don't know where the line is, where you cross the line and say, hey, now it's a crisis. I think we're in the middle of an institutional crisis,

And we have been for the better part of a year. And it's a crisis caused largely by the fact that we have an ambitious executive, we have a, I think, fairly well-functioning judiciary, and we have a completely sort of indolent Congress. And, you know, the founder set up our constitutional structure so that the branches would work the best and our rights would be best protected when the branches were all pushing against each other. With an ambitious executive and ambitious courts and no Congress,

I think we're seeing the problem, which is everything comes down to, injunctions, temporary restraining orders, and whether the executive branch is going to comply. I don't know that it's a constitutional crisis, but also I'm not sure that that's the relevant question. Our institutions are under pressure in ways that they really haven't been in American history. And although I think the courts have done a very good job of holding the line to this point, you know, there's going to come a point where they need some help. And whether that's going to be from Congress, perhaps, on the far side of this year's midterm elections or from some other actors,

I think that's going to be the critical question as we look toward, you know, the next 12 months of this presidency. Steve Lattick, always a pleasure to speak with you. Likewise, Jeff, thank you. In this morning's Oscar's announcement, the movie, It Was Just an Accident, made by Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jaffir Panayi, was nominated for Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay. Senior Arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown recently met with the director to talk about his work, his country and distress, and the work of what he calls a social filmmaker. It's for our Art in Action series, exploring the intersection of art and and democracy as part of our canvas coverage.

The sound of a prosthetic leg dragging across a floor. Terrifying to a mechanic named Vahid, who, blindfolded as a political prisoner, was tortured by a man he knew only from his voice and this very sound. Bahid kidnaps the man, and then he and a group of others who suffered the same horror and are now trying to pick up the pieces of their lives are forced to wonder. Is this in fact their torturer? And if so, what now? For Jafar Panahee, the director of it was just an accident, the story is personal, partly based

on his own experience in prison. When I was being interrogated, I always had a blindfold on my eyes, and I was facing a wall with a piece of paper in my hand. Someone would ask me questions, and I would answer on the paper. I didn't know who was behind me. I only heard his voice or his movements. he was walking. And I always wanted to know who he was, know what he looks like. And if I saw him outside of here, would I recognize him or not? Panahee 65 is a celebrated figure in

world cinema, winner of top awards at major film festivals. His films renowned for capturing the humanity of life in Iran, even amid the ruling Islamic Republic's authoritarian stifling of daily existence and violent crackdowns on dissent. But he has also paid a price. In 2020, 10, he was sentenced to six years in prison for propaganda against the state. He undertook a hunger strike and amid an international outcry was released after three months, but not allowed to travel. Film festivals honored him with an empty chair on stage. In 2022, he was arrested again and served seven months in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Upon his release, he vowed not to forget those still held.

Some of them have not seen the outside world for five or six years. They shared their pain and suffering. They talked to you. They ate with you. They walked in the yard with you. All these things come together so that when you leave prison, you feel like there is a weight on your shoulders. One result of the new film, a different kind of vengeance thriller, one that often sprinkles

in bits of humor. As when his characters constantly bickering, one in bridal gown for the film. for her wedding photos have to push their van through Tehran traffic. For Panahy, the real question isn't retribution, but how a society ever moves beyond the cycle of violence? History has shown that these kinds of governments can't survive. One day it will end. One day it will stop, it will collapse. In the film, all these people in their conversations with their emotional standpoints,

they want to release it in some way. All of this is just to make the viewer think, What's going to happen? The same conditions? The same anger, same conflict, same violence, same harsh treatments? Is it supposed to continue? Or no, it must stop one day? You have said that you're not a political filmmaker, but a social filmmaker. What does that mean?

Social filmmaking is a filmmaking that takes the subjects of its films, its ideas, and what's in its past into consideration. And it never categorizes the characters into the good people and the bad people. contrary to political films. That is why I say I make social films, but it may be a political subject. He's also an endlessly creative filmmaker, often out of necessity. When he was punished with a 20-year ban on filmmaking, he responded with, This is Not a Film, a kind of home movie shot on an iPhone.

It was shown the world over. So, this is not a film, but it is a film. It's almost a kind of joke, but a... but a very serious one. Yes, because they give an order that was more of a joke. What does it mean when you tell a filmmaker, you can't make a film for 20 years? That's when you say, no, you can't stop the filmmaker from making movies. He finds a way. He makes a film.

You say, stop making films, so I'll say this is not a film at all. That ban was eventually lifted, but Panehi still refuses to submit his scripts to government censors. He shot it was just an accident in secret, made nightly backups of digital material, and protected his actors, many of them non-professional, by limiting their knowledge of the full story. But when you were in those circumstances, the type of filmmaking working underground. That's what it looks like. That's the norm. Do you believe that an artist, do you believe that you as an artist have some responsibility to use your art, your filmmaking, to address the social conditions in the country. Whether I have a duty or not, I don't look at it as a duty. Rather, I feel that in these conditions I must speak up.

I must make this film. Even if my films are not being shown, at the end of the day, I've prepared a new set of conditions for history, for the future. For the time when the conditions are suitable for these films to be seen, these films to be seen. As Panehys film racks up acclaim and awards, his country is a very important his country is again in turmoil, with demonstrations in the streets and deadly responses from the regime. And Panahy himself faces an uncertain future. A new one-year prison sentence

handed down while he was out of the country for so-called propaganda activities related to his work. I know you're appealing, but you've also said publicly that you will return to Iran. Why? I don't understand this question. I don't understand this question at all. When you know that what you do has a price and you have to pay it, and when you see people in prison who have been imprisoned over and over again, but they stand on their beliefs, well, why don't you as a filmmaker do the same? And he adds, Iran is the place he knows, its language and culture, the small details

of its life and big questions of its future. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in New York. And that is the NewsHour for. for tonight. I'm Omna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett for all of us here at the NewsHour. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.