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.
#News
#Jack Smith
#Board of Peace
#Davos
#Donald Trump
#Uvalde
#Robb Elementary School
#Winter Storm
#snow
#severe weather
#Oscars
#Oscars 2026
#Sinners
#Jafar Panahi
#Volodymyr Zelenskyy
#ICE
#immigration
#DHS
#PBS NewsHour
#NewsHour episode
#NewsHour episode today
#PBS
#National News
#Global News
#Current news
#happening now
#PBS NewsHour full episode
#NewsHour full episode
#NewsHour today
#PBS NewsHour today
#Newshour today
#news hour today
#News
#Jack Smith
#Board of Peace
#Davos
#Donald Trump
#Uvalde
#Robb Elementary School
#Winter Storm
#snow
#severe weather
#Oscars
#Oscars 2026
#Sinners
#Jafar Panahi
#Volodymyr Zelenskyy
#ICE
#immigration
#DHS
#PBS NewsHour
#NewsHour episode
#NewsHour episode today
#PBS
#National News
#Global News
#Current news
#happening now
#PBS NewsHour full episode
#NewsHour full episode
#NewsHour today
#PBS NewsHour today
#Newshour today
#news hour today
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the NewsHour tonight,
00:08President Trump launches his Board of Peace to pursue the rebuilding of Gaza
00:12as European leaders hold an emergency summit on transatlantic tensions.
00:17A massive winter storm is set to deliver damaging ice and heavy snow to nearly half the U.S.
00:24And we examine the Trump administration's hardline immigration crackdown a year into
00:29its implementation. You can do this without all of this chaos. And I'd like to see ice return to those tactics
00:34where we're focused on public safety first.
00:48Major funding for the PBS NewsHour has been provided by
00:52and friends of the NewsHour, including Robert S. Kaplan
00:56and Wendy J. Selden through the Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund.
01:05In 1995, two friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all.
01:11With no long-term contracts, nationwide coverage, and 100% U.S.-based customer support.
01:18Consumer Cellular. Freedom Calls.
01:19And with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.
01:26This program was made possible by the contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:56Welcome to the NewsHour.
02:01President Trump is back at the White House tonight.
02:03He returned to Washington after wrapping a whirlwind trip to Davos for the World Economic Forum,
02:09where he seems to have diffused a crisis he first created by insisting the U.S. acquire Greenland,
02:15a self-governing territory of Denmark.
02:17Leaders across Europe roundly criticized and rejected a U.S. takeover.
02:22Trump also presented his plan for what he calls the Board of Peace, which he would chair,
02:27in order to establish and oversee the ceasefire and post-war plans for Gaza.
02:32But already, the American president has expanded the proposed board's purview to conflicts around the world.
02:39Please welcome the chairman of the Board of Peace, the president of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump.
02:47In Davos today, President Trump officially introducing what he calls the Board of Peace.
02:54Together 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,
03:01to end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace.
03:08So far, some 35 nations have signed on, many attending today's ceremony,
03:14from Argentina and Bulgaria, to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to Turkey and Mongolia.
03:19Some, including Canada, Germany and Israel, have joined but were absent today,
03:25and others, like France and Britain, have rejected the invitation.
03:29The rollout of the board, born of a peace plan for post-war Gaza, was accompanied by this.
03:34Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
03:37A pledge by the American president to rebuild Gaza into a sprawling seaside metropolis.
03:43See, I'm a real estate person at heart, and it's all about location.
03:48And I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property, what it could be for so many people.
03:55Special Envoy Steve Wyckoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, presented the vision.
03:59A $25 billion proposal for gleaming skyscrapers, 100,000 housing units, 75 medical centers, and an expected GDP of $10 billion by 2035.
04:12I think that the war's over. Let's do our best to try working together.
04:15Our goal here is peace between Israel and the Palestinian people.
04:19Everyone wants to live peacefully. Everyone wants to live with dignity.
04:21Let's put our efforts towards promoting those who are doing the work to build this up.
04:25But there are no representatives from Gaza on the board overseeing its future.
04:31And on the ground, Olfat al-Shawaf, still displaced from her home, is skeptical of the plans.
04:38Honestly, I don't expect not even 1% to be rebuilt.
04:42You're just offering tents and talking about reconstruction?
04:45What reconstruction?
04:47Let them remove the rubble first, then start rebuilding.
04:50Trump has already expanded the board's scope beyond Gaza to other conflicts around the world,
04:56raising concerns about how the group he chairs works with or around the United Nations.
05:02Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do.
05:06And we'll do it in conjunction with the United Nations.
05:08You know, I've always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it.
05:14Meanwhile, in Brussels, an emergency summit for European leaders to discuss Greenland's future,
05:22a day after President Trump walked back military threats of a U.S. takeover and proclaimed a deal was in the works.
05:28Before the meeting, Denmark's prime minister reiterated her nation's red line
05:33that the island, home to 55,000 people, is not for sale.
05:37We have said from the very beginning that a discussion about our status as a sovereign state,
05:45it cannot be discussed, it cannot be changed.
05:48We are willing to work together with the U.S., of course, as we have always done, about security.
05:55Greenland strategically sits in the middle of the shortest route for land-based missiles and bombers
06:00between the U.S. and Russia, and experts worry that as the ice melts, sea lanes open up,
06:07including to Russian and Chinese ships.
06:10Despite no official details for a deal yet, Trump declared the U.S. would have total access.
06:15We're going to have all military access that we want.
06:18We're going to be able to put what we need on Greenland because we want it.
06:21We're talking about national security and international security.
06:24And our foreign affairs correspondent, Nick Schifrin, has been covering this all and joins me now.
06:28Let's start with what the president said about Greenland, total military access.
06:33What does that mean?
06:34Multiple European officials tell me tonight there is no agreement for what that means,
06:37but there is a framework.
06:39So that would include more U.S. bases on Greenland.
06:42It would include guaranteed American mineral rights for mining on Greenland.
06:46It would be increased NATO presence, not only around Greenland, but across the Arctic.
06:50And Chinese and Russian military and investments would be specifically excluded.
06:54There will be two tracks moving forward.
06:56The U.S. will negotiate directly with Denmark and Greenland over the fate of the island itself.
07:03Could that end up with American sovereignty over bases in Greenland?
07:06Despite what you just heard from the prime minister, one senior European official actually
07:10tells me it's too early to tell the answer to that question.
07:13Secondly, NATO will increase its Arctic presence with the goal of having actual plans for that
07:19increased presence by a summit in July.
07:21So this is just the beginning of the process, but nothing we just talked about was what the
07:27president has been demanding, which is ownership over Greenland.
07:30So clearly he decided to take an off ramp.
07:33And to extend the metaphor, European officials are asking me whether there is like a 17-car
07:38pileup in the rearview mirror that he left behind.
07:41What is the lasting impact of all of this Greenland talk on the transatlantic alliance?
07:46The European officials I talked to are split between saying this is a real rupture and
07:50saying, no, we have no choice.
07:52We will continue to rely on the U.S.
07:53So for those who think it is a rupture, why is that?
07:57Why has this moment been so harmful?
07:58I think there's a psychological sensitivity to the president flying to Europe to disparage
08:02Europe yesterday in Davos.
08:04He said of NATO, quote, we've helped them for so many years.
08:06We've never gotten anything.
08:07And that offends Denmark especially.
08:10More Danish troops died in Afghanistan per capita than U.S.
08:14troops died in Afghanistan.
08:16And then there's the reality of the relationship.
08:18European officials tell me they are relieved that the president has taken off the table
08:22the military, the economic threats.
08:24But multiple officials also said to me they don't know if that will be the president's
08:28policy tomorrow.
08:30Nick Schifrin, thank you as always.
08:31A sprawling and potentially devastating winter storm is projected to slam a massive swath of
08:49the country tomorrow and through the weekend from New Mexico all the way to northern Maine.
08:54Heavy snow, life-threatening cold and dangerous ice accumulation are all in the forecast.
08:59More than 130 million people are currently under winter storm alerts and nearly every American
09:05east of the Rockies will be affected.
09:07That's according to the National Weather Service.
09:09To help break down what we expect to see and how you can prepare, we're joined now by MyRadar
09:14senior meteorologist Matthew Capucci.
09:16Thanks for coming in.
09:17Yeah, good to be here.
09:18I have to say the scale of this storm is matched only by its intensity.
09:21I mean, the fact that we have roughly 1,800 miles nonstop of winter storm alerts,
09:26swatches warnings from Arizona all the way to the east coast, shows just how big this
09:30storm is.
09:31It's getting going right now off the U.S. west coast.
09:33That's an upper-level pocket of cold air or low pressure and spin, this big swirly twirl
09:36on the water vapor satellite.
09:38It's kind of the impetus for this storm system, but you'll notice it's still offshore, so we
09:42can't launch weather balloons into it.
09:44And so actually last night, the hurricane hunters, those folks who fly into hurricanes, flew into
09:48this storm to collect data to help us figure out what this thing's going to do.
09:52We pump that into models, and you can see just an absolute mess on the simulated radar.
09:58Rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, the worst of everything from New Mexico, Texas, all the
10:03way to southern New England.
10:04What does the forecast say about snowfall?
10:06Where do we expect to see the most?
10:08So I think the snow jackpot should be in roughly a 50 to 100-mile-wide zone north of the rain
10:13snow line.
10:13It starts near Oklahoma City, pushes northeast all the way towards D.C., Baltimore, Philly,
10:18New York City.
10:19All those places have a roughly 50-50 shot of seeing a foot or more of snow.
10:24Tulsa, probably 12 to 18 inches.
10:26Then southern Missouri, the boot heel, western Kentucky along the Ohio River, that's where
10:30the worst will be.
10:31But in addition to that, on the southern side, it's not just the snow, it's the sleet and
10:36the freezing rain, too.
10:37And what about the life-threatening cold?
10:39There's also threats of ice accumulation.
10:42Yeah, the ice accumulation is really what worries me the most, because for folks at home,
10:45ice happens when you have rain that essentially falls as a liquid and then turns into ice
10:50on the ground, given sub-freezing surface temperatures.
10:53You know, in that freezing rain zone, temperatures might be in the mid-40s, a mile above the ground.
10:57So liquid rain is going to fall, but the surface might be 25, 30 degrees.
11:02So all that liquid freezes on the ground.
11:04Two main areas I'm really watching for the worst ice accretion.
11:07I think northwestern Mississippi, northeast Louisiana, probably south of Memphis along
11:11interstate 55, that's the zone I'm really watching for potentially significant ice accretion.
11:16We're talking like a half inch to an inch in spots, and it only takes about a half inch
11:20of ice to pull down the power lines, get power outages.
11:23The road's impassable, probably from Friday night all the way through Monday morning.
11:28And then behind it, of course, the cold comes in.
11:29The other zone I'm really watching, northeast of Atlanta into, for example, the western Carolinas,
11:34is Asheville, Greensboro, Spartanburg, Greenville.
11:38I'm really worried that cold air at the surface, draining down the Appalachians, will keep the
11:42surface sub-freezing, even when it's warmer upstairs.
11:45So again, serious ice accretion is possible in northeast of Atlanta, and I wouldn't even
11:50be surprised for some thunder sleet and thunder ice to mix into.
11:53Thunder, thunder ice.
11:55Thunder, lightning, freezing rain all at once.
11:57All right, Matthew, so two questions.
11:59What are the dangers of this type of weather, and what should people be doing to prepare?
12:02You know, I'm really concerned about both the snow and the ice especially, because snow,
12:06you can pre-treat, you can put stuff down on the roadways.
12:09Ice, you know, comes down as a liquid, and it washes away any pre-treatment.
12:13So I think it's going to be like a skating rink for a lot of people until the middle of next
12:17week.
12:17And the worst part, given these cold temperatures invading, there's nothing to really melt
12:21this until the end of next week.
12:23Look at temperatures early Monday morning.
12:24We're talking negative double digits over the upper Midwest, the northern tier, excessive cold
12:30warnings in effect for a wide area from really Minnesota down to Oklahoma City.
12:35Single digits below zero.
12:37Little Rock, Oklahoma City, single digits above zero.
12:40And Texas, and given how much ice is coming down, I think a lot of folks will likely lose
12:45power too.
12:45So you have systematic issues with vulnerability.
12:48You're going into a cold air outbreak with a lot of people who won't have power.
12:52I'm very worried about that.
12:54So given the forecast, I'd say bundle up, make sure you have everything you need for
12:58about three to five days off the grid.
13:00Make sure you're taking care of elderly, vulnerable neighbors, loved ones, and ultimately having
13:04a plan to hunker down for days on end.
13:07That is good advice, Matthew Cappucci.
13:09Our thanks to you as always.
13:10In the day's other headlines, President Trump is suing JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon,
13:27for $5 billion, saying the company closed his accounts for political reasons after he left
13:33office in 2021.
13:34The lawsuit alleges the decision known as debanking abruptly cut the Trump organization off from
13:40access to millions of dollars and disrupted its operations.
13:44In a statement, JPMorgan said the suit lacks merit, adding that the company does not close
13:49accounts for political or religious reasons.
13:52Trump and other conservatives have accused banks of improperly cutting off their accounts
13:56following the January 6th attack.
14:00In Davos, Switzerland earlier today, President Trump met on the sidelines of the World Economic
14:04Forum with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
14:08How was your meeting with President Trump, Mr. Zelensky?
14:10How was the meeting?
14:11Their meeting happened away from the cameras, but afterwards, both leaders used the word
14:16good when describing the talks.
14:18And in his address to the forum, Zelensky cited progress on peace efforts and called on Russia
14:23to come to the table to end the war.
14:25The documents aimed at ending this war are nearly, nearly ready.
14:32Ukraine is working with full honesty and determination, and that brings results.
14:38And Russia must become ready to finish this war, to stop this aggression.
14:45Zelensky was also critical of Europe's slow and disjointed response to the war in Ukraine,
14:50comparing his repeated warnings of the threat Russia poses to the film Groundhog Day.
14:55It comes as President Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are in Moscow, where
15:00they met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
15:02Meantime, on the ground in Ukraine, the latest Russian strikes hit the eastern city of Dnipro,
15:07where at least seven people were injured.
15:09Today marks America's official withdrawal from the World Health Organization, one year after
15:14President Trump signed an executive order setting the nation's exit in motion.
15:19The pullout threatens to plunge the WHO into an even deeper budget crisis, with Washington
15:24long being the health agency's biggest financial backer.
15:27The U.S. is also leaving behind a $260 million bill in unpaid fees, even as it's required
15:34by law to pay all outstanding debts.
15:36The State Department today argued that the American people have paid more than enough
15:41to this organization, and this economic hit is beyond any financial obligations to the
15:46organization.
15:47In Australia, a gunman who shot and killed three people and injured one more remains at
15:52large.
15:53The suspect shot two couples in two separate locations in the small town of Karjaleco, in
15:59New South Wales.
16:00Police say the shooting will have a lasting impact on the town of only about 1,500 people.
16:05What I will say is that, again, it's a tragedy that's taken place in a very small country
16:09town, it will have a big effect on the community.
16:12Become a force that can't be measured.
16:17The latest shooting took place as that country observed a national day of mourning for the
16:2215 victims of last month's massacre during a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration.
16:27At a service in Sydney's iconic opera house, attendees lit candles and heard from the country's
16:33prime minister who apologized for failing to prevent the attack.
16:37Here in the U.S., a closely watched reading on inflation ticked higher.
16:41The Commerce Department said today that the personal consumption expenditures price index
16:46rose 2.8 percent in November from a year earlier.
16:50That's a bit more than the month before, and above the Fed's preferred target of 2 percent.
16:55Today's report was delayed by last year's government shutdown.
16:57Meantime, on Wall Street today, stocks continued their rebound as tariff concerns ease.
17:03The Dow Jones Industrial Average added around 275 points on the day.
17:07The Nasdaq rose nearly 200 points.
17:09The S&P 500 has now recovered much of its losses from earlier in the week.
17:14And a blues-infused vampire epic has made Oscar history.
17:19Sinners.
17:21Michael B. Jordan in Sinners.
17:24And Ryan Coogler in Sinners.
17:28The film Sinners is nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
17:34That breaks the previous record of 14 nominations set by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land.
17:40The action-packed One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, trails just behind with 13 nods.
17:47Both films made the cut in a brand-new category, Best Casting, alongside Hamnet, Marty Supreme, and The Secret Agent.
17:55The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will air on Sunday, March 15th.
17:59And longtime Vatican reporter, author, and friend of this program, John Allen Jr. has died.
18:05The Kansas native covered multiple popes starting in 1997, first for the National Catholic Reporter and later the Boston Globe.
18:13Allen was also a frequent NewsHour contributor, sharing his insights as recently as last year for a report about the conclave that elected Pope Leo.
18:22John Allen Jr. passed away today after a long battle with cancer.
18:25He was 61 years old.
18:27Still to come on the NewsHour, former special counsel Jack Smith faces congressional scrutiny over his investigations into President Trump.
18:34A Texas jury acquits a former Uvalde police officer for failing to act quickly enough during the Robb Elementary School shooting.
18:42And we examine the President's confrontational approach to the U.S. court system one year into his second term.
18:52This is the PBS NewsHour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News.
18:59Vice 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.
19:15Vance had this message for city residents.
19:18Do we want these things to happen?
19:20Do we want these arrests to be so chaotic?
19:23No, we don't.
19:24These guys want it least of all.
19:26But if we had a little cooperation from local and federal, or excuse me, from local and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community.
19:35This 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.
19:44Liz Landers takes a closer look.
19:46First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border.
19:54President Donald Trump wasted no time following through on his campaign promise to crack down on immigration, signing executive orders his first day in office designed to expedite removal and reinterpret the citizenship clause of the Constitution.
20:10Border crossings began to drop soon after and are down dramatically year to date.
20:14A 93 percent reduction, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
20:19The agency estimates 1.9 million self-deportations and 622,000 deportations have taken place in the last year.
20:28This was an invasion.
20:29This wasn't people coming in.
20:31This was an invasion of our country.
20:33But the administration quickly ran into legal challenges with some deportation measures when it deported more than 200 Venezuelan men to a notorious Salvadoran prison.
20:42These were bad people.
20:44That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres.
20:48The president invoking the little-used Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming the men were part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
20:58Among them, Kilmar Albrego Garcia, a Maryland man with no criminal record, deported despite a court order barring his removal.
21:06Albrego Garcia was eventually returned to the U.S. and is now challenging efforts to deport him to a third country.
21:13A ruling is expected next month.
21:16The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, signaled a crackdown on international student visas in early March.
21:26We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.
21:34In total, more than 8,000 student visas revoked in the past year, the State Department says.
21:39The 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.
21:55The shooting of the two National Guard's people in the nation's capital in November prompted a further tightening of visas.
22:03Also this year, the administration began a controversial rollout of deportation operations in major sanctuary cities across the country,
22:12with agents often masked arresting immigrants at workplaces, courthouses, even Home Depot parking lots.
22:19In June, fiery protests in Los Angeles caused President Trump to send in National Guard troops.
22:27These are paid insurrectionists. These are paid troublemakers.
22:31Prompting the president to float the idea of using the Insurrection Act, which would allow the president to use the military in a domestic setting.
22:39It's a threat he's continued to make into the new year.
22:42We did discuss the Insurrection Act. He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that.
22:48Those targeted operations spread nationwide to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and just this week, Maine.
22:58All 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.
23:06The administration faced significant legal pushback in Chicago when a federal judge there determined Customs and Border Patrol official Greg Bovino was overstepping his authority in handling protesters.
23:19The use of force that I've seen has been exemplary, and by exemplary, I would say the least amount of force necessary to accomplish the mission.
23:28In the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed woman, Renee Good, by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, protests flared again.
23:35White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller with this message to ICE officers.
23:41You 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.
23:52But 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.
24:02Joining us now to discuss all of this are Chad Wolf.
24:06He'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.
24:15And John Sanweg, the former acting director of ICE in the Obama administration.
24:21Thank you both for joining us.
24:22Chad, I want to start with you.
24:23The president campaigned on this issue of cracking down on illegal immigration, getting rid of people who are in the country illegally.
24:30But 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.
24:40Some of this is causing public opinion to turn on him.
24:43Polls are showing that a majority of Americans think that ICE is going too far.
24:47Could this become a political problem for the president?
24:50Well, I think it's certainly a political issue.
24:52I think it's important to remember, as you indicated, the president ran on a very aggressive agenda and the American people agreed with him.
24:59But first to secure the border, which I think most Americans would agree that has happened.
25:04We have record low apprehension numbers.
25:07The 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.
25:18So 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.
25:26But you don't see those making the news, right?
25:29You don't see big operations in Florida and Texas making the news.
25:32And why is that?
25:33Because you have local law enforcement that support them.
25:35And so places like Minneapolis and others are really the exception to the rule.
25:40The rule being that that close support with local law enforcement really makes ICE's job.
25:45They really do it outside of the limelight, right?
25:48But when you don't have that, then ICE is in the forefront.
25:52John, 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.
26:07Vice President Vance said today that this practice was also used in previous administrations.
26:12Was this part of the training and guidance when you oversaw ICE?
26:17Liz, it wasn't.
26:18It 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?
26:26A warrant that where you swear out an affidavit explaining the probable cause and it's issued by a federal judge or a magistrate.
26:32Let me give you just a quick backdrop on this.
26:34First of all, ICE has become very good at making apprehensions of people at their residences without those judicial warrants.
26:42In my experience, it was incredibly rare.
26:44And I can't even think of a single case where we obtained a warrant prior to a civil enforcement action.
26:50That said, the agents would approach the home, knock on the door, ask the target to exit the house, make the arrest there, or gain the consent of the homeowner in order to enter the home.
26:59It really wasn't a significant impediment in ICE's operations.
27:03What's changed, though, of course, Liz, is that as part of these really highly publicized and, in my experience, highly unusual law enforcement operations, immigration advocacy groups have cautioned people to explain, you know, really been aggressive in promoting efforts so people know their rights, giving out those little cards, you know, saying, no, be aware of your rights.
27:21And 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.
27:29I'm sure the pressure, you know, at the agencies, it would be it would be very cumbersome and slow if they had to go get a judicial one every time.
27:36Chad, I want to ask you, the administration says that ICE agents have absolute immunity.
27:40We've heard that from administration officials.
27:42Do you think they should in all cases?
27:44Well, I think law enforcement enjoys some pretty broad immunity to do their job.
27:49Absolutely.
27:50But, you know, depending on if it's a state official or a federal official, there are limits to that.
27:56So a lot depends on the circumstances.
27:58A lot depends on the action that they're involved in will depend on what type of consequences can be held.
28:05I will go back just to that last question.
28:06I 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.
28:14Here's what you can do to slow them down.
28:16We'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 OK to put your car in the middle of an operation.
28:26It's OK to slam the door in their face.
28:29You would never do this for the DEA, the FBI, if they are doing a criminal operation in your neighborhood.
28:34But yet somehow people believe it's OK to do that because it's just ICE.
28:38They're just enforcing immigration law.
28:41These are they are criminal operations that ICE is involved in.
28:45You know, I heard recently they go door to door.
28:47They don't go door to door.
28:48They have targets that they are identifying that could be in a car where they do a vehicle stop or it's in a house if they approach the house.
28:55These are criminal enforcement actions in this idea that you're going to have activists and agitators and others trying to impede or not adhere to lawful commands is absurd.
29:06You would never do that in any other type of law enforcement operation.
29:09And so I think the local officials, whether that's a mayor or governor or it's your activists telling citizens to do certain things, they're putting them in danger.
29:18John, 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.
29:27ICE has said that the child was abandoned by his father, who was in the country illegally and was being pursued by officers.
29:34But officials from his school have said that officers used him to lure family members from their home.
29:40How should agents navigate this kind of situation and do did the agents do the right thing here?
29:49You know, Liz, it's hard. It's hard to know on any one of these particular cases.
29:52Right. We're only hearing glimpses of it. And we're, you know, thousands of miles away from where these incidents happen.
29:58That said, I'll say one thing, a couple of observations I've made.
30:01I do worry about the agency's reputation. I do worry that it's impacting its ability to do its job.
30:06And I do worry that what Chad is talking about, the lack of respect the agency is getting.
30:11Some of this is brought on by the actions the agency is taking or the manner in which they're being deployed.
30:16And that case there, for instance, right.
30:18Well, you know, you want to have an you can have an immigration enforcement policy that also recognizes we need to protect family unity at all costs.
30:25I understand their allegations. The father went away. And again, I don't know all the facts.
30:29But what I do know is my understanding is there was no criminal history there.
30:32And and typically what the agency would do and even 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.
30:45Or if we do effectuate 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.
30:53But when you adopt the zero tolerance approach, it creates these situations where now you're going to have these risks of separating families.
31:00The 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.
31:06And and it's hard to go out there and say, hey, we're really focused on the worst of the worst.
31:10And we're a serious criminal law enforcement agency out here to promote public safety.
31:14When you see images like that, I would just listen.
31:17And I think I'm not saying I don't I think I've heard people say it's a choice to choice between open borders and supporting criminal aliens or the images we're seeing.
31:25And I just reject that.
31:26The Obama administration was heavily criticized for its immigration enforcement record.
31:30We 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.
31:40John Sanway and Chad Wolf, thank you so much for joining the NewsHour.
31:45Thanks, Liz.
31:47Thanks, Liz.
32:17Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the test money about to give?
32:20The first public hearing for former special counsel Smith.
32:23Help you God.
32:24I do.
32:25Quickly became a sharp partisan debate.
32:27With that, I yield back in disgust of this witness.
32:31These guys, my Republican colleagues are a joke.
32:35Even as Smith tried to stay above the political fray.
32:38I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalties.
32:42As he defended his more than two-year investigation into President Trump.
32:46We followed the facts and we followed the law.
32:49Where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.
32:57Smith's team charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost, culminating in the January 6th Capitol riot.
33:05Smith and the Department of Justice dropped the charges after Trump was reelected.
33:10A separate case and 40 criminal charges related to classified documents Trump kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida were dismissed by a federal judge in 2024, who said Smith had been unlawfully appointed.
33:23Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity.
33:31If 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.
33:42Smith's testimony comes as the Trump administration continues to attack his credibility.
33:47The Justice Department has fired many who worked on the January 6th investigation.
33:53A watchdog agency is looking into Smith's work and President Trump continues to attack him, including during the hearing.
34:00Posting 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.
34:10Democrats read the post aloud.
34:12We have a word for this.
34:14It's called weaponization.
34:16It's called corruption.
34:17But Republicans backed the president, directly accusing Smith of being a partisan actor, weaponizing the Department of Justice.
34:25You, like the president's men for Richard Nixon, went after your political enemies.
34:31Maybe they're not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden's political enemies, weren't they?
34:36They were Harris's political enemies.
34:39They were the enemies of the president, and you were their arm, weren't you?
34:45No.
34:46Republicans also pressed Smith about secretly obtained subpoenas for records of phone calls made by Republican senators around January 6th.
34:55Smith said it was common for investigators to collect call logs which do not include their content.
35:01Not going to be charged.
35:02They're not going to see it.
35:03They're not going to know because we're not going to tell them.
35:05So let's go ahead and do it.
35:06It's exactly what happened.
35:08The toll records that we secured and the nondisclosure orders were consistent with policy.
35:14Democrats on the committee praised Smith for his service.
35:17I think you're a great American, and you came out of this as being somebody who people can respect and look up to.
35:22And asked about how many Republicans he relied on during his investigation into the 2020 election.
35:27Some 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.
35:41The classified documents case got far fewer questions.
35:45The 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.
35:54One question Smith left open was whether someone could or should revisit his charges when Trump leaves office.
36:00So they can be re-filed, and he can be prosecuted after he leaves office. Is that correct?
36:06I'm not going to speak to that.
36:08He only said the case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it was not closed for good.
36:13For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Ali Rogan.
36:24Former school police officer Adrian Gonzalez was acquitted Wednesday on charges that he failed to act against the gunman
36:31during crucial early moments of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
36:37The 2022 school shooting, one of the deadliest in American history, left 19 children and two teachers dead.
36:44Gonzalez was one of the first officers to arrive and one of just two charged for their initial response.
36:49At least 370 law enforcement officers ultimately rushed to the school.
36:54Jesse Rizzo, whose nine-year-old niece Jackie Cazares was killed that day, spoke after the verdict.
37:00I was very hopeful, but guilty verdict.
37:02I mean, at stake, what do we have? We have children at stake.
37:04We have absolutely innocent children that did everything that they were trained to do.
37:09Hide. Turn the lights off.
37:12But the officer that was trained to do exactly, to encounter, to go towards the shooter, to listen to the gunshot, everything, right?
37:20And what does he do? Sit back for an hour and change.
37:23I'm sorry, for a minute and change while the massacre continues to happen.
37:26For more on the trial and how the Uvalde community is reacting, I'm joined by Tony Plahetsky.
37:32He's investigative reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.
37:35Tony, thanks for joining us.
37:36So, Gonzalez was facing 29 counts of abandoning or endangering children.
37:41What were prosecutors saying he did wrong, and how did his defense team respond?
37:45So, Amna, this case was, according to experts, going to be legally complicated from the outset.
37:54But prosecutors contend that there were a couple of crucial minutes when Officer Gonzalez,
38:00who was one of the first officers to arrive at the elementary school,
38:05could have intervened or even distracted the gunman prior to his entry into Robb Elementary School.
38:11But his defense set forward a case in which they said he took a number of actions to, in fact, protect children that day.
38:21He took a number of steps.
38:23And they say that he was also operating in a very confusing, quickly moving, and highly dynamic situation.
38:30What about some of the families?
38:32We know they were in the courtroom during this trial.
38:34You heard from one of the uncles there.
38:37People have been fighting for accountability.
38:38How were they reacting to this acquittal?
38:41This is the latest in a profound disappointment for the families of those 19 children and two teachers.
38:51They have been calling for action in the three and a half years since the shooting.
38:56They, of course, went to state lawmakers to try to press for some sort of gun reform.
39:03And they also were hoping that they would receive some measure of accountability at the criminal courthouse.
39:09Many of them traveled hundreds of miles from their home in Uvalde to Corpus Christi, where this trial was held for a change of venue.
39:19But again, leaving that courthouse in that courtroom, profoundly disappointed in the outcome.
39:24But as we also know, looking ahead to the future, where there will be another trial of former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo.
39:34And Tony, what do we know about that upcoming trial?
39:37Does this acquittal in this trial mean anything for that other upcoming trial?
39:41Legal 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.
39:59And 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.
40:11But 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.
40:23Experts say they took very different actions and also had very different responsibilities.
40:28So 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.
40:43Tony, 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 Uvalde.
40:52How are they doing today?
40:54I think that many of them continue to press forward.
41:01They 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 2022.
41:19We should note, those children killed that day today would be 12 or 13 years old.
41:23Our thoughts are with their families.
41:25Tony Plahetsky of the Austin American Statesman, thank you for joining us.
41:30Thank you for joining us.
42:00Thank you for joining us.
42:30He revealed internal ICE memo that authorizes federal agents to forcibly enter homes with an administrative warrant instead of a warrant from a judge.
42:40And the whistleblowers who presented this memo to Congress says, you know, this goes not just against their training, but also the law.
42:47How do you assess the constitutional legitimacy of this policy?
42:51Yeah, it's not legitimate.
42:52I mean, the whistleblower is right.
42:54So 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.
43:04And so there are exigent circumstances in which law enforcement officers are allowed to enter a home without a warrant.
43:10We just had a case about that a couple of weeks ago.
43:12There are circumstances where a law enforcement officer might have probable cause to believe that there's a crime being underway in a home.
43:19But 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.
43:35And it's frankly, flatly inconsistent with everything the Supreme Court has said about the Fourth Amendment.
43:41Our team reached out to DHS and received a statement, part of which reads this way.
43:46The officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause.
43:50For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement.
43:57Is that the case?
43:58No.
43:58So, 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.
44:11But, Jeff, you can't put the cart before the horse.
44:13You 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.
44:22The reality is that the government's not supposed to be able to go door-to-door without warrants, barging into Americans' homes.
44:29I 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.
44:36There's a reason why we have a Fourth Amendment.
44:38There's a reason why it applies even to folks who are suspected of and may well be out of status from an immigration perspective.
44:44If immigration enforcement in particular is pushing the limits of executive power, where does the president's constitutional authority begin and where does it end?
44:54So, I mean, at least historically, we have viewed immigration enforcement inside the country not as part of the president's exclusive Article II powers, but as a shared authority between the president and Congress.
45:06Maybe, 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.
45:13But 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.
45:24Congress hasn't provided for this.
45:25And, 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,
45:36as if they were stopped at the border so that the government can then try to deny them a bond hearing if they're arrested.
45:42It 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.
45:54When 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.
46:05But looking back over that year, what has stood out?
46:08What has surprised you the most?
46:09I think a couple of the points that stand out.
46:11One is the federal courts, I think, have done a really remarkable job of at least serving as a speed break on many of this administration's more aggressive tendencies.
46:21The Alien Enemies Act, for example, was never successfully deployed because of the federal courts.
46:26President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order still hasn't gotten into effect because of the courts.
46:32But the courts can't do it alone.
46:34And 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.
46:42But even in the cases where there hasn't been Supreme Court intervention, the courts are more of a rearguard action here, Jeff, right?
46:49And you really need multiple institutions holding each other accountable.
46:54Are we in the midst of a constitutional crisis?
46:56You know, that question, I think, has different meanings to everybody.
47:00I don't know where the line is where you cross the line and say, hey, now it's a crisis.
47:04I think we're in the middle of an institutional crisis, and we have been for the better part of a year.
47:09And 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.
47:20And, you know, the founders 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.
47:29With 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.
47:41I don't know that it's a constitutional crisis, but also I'm not sure that that's the relevant question.
47:46Our institutions are under pressure in ways that they really haven't been in American history.
47:50And 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.
47:56And 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.
48:07Steve Ladek, always a pleasure to speak with you.
48:09Likewise, Jeff. Thank you.
48:09In this morning's Oscars announcement, the movie It Was Just an Accident, made by acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jaffer Panahi, was nominated for Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay.
48:32Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown recently met with the director to talk about his work, his country in distress, and the work of what he calls a social filmmaker.
48:42It's for our Art in Action series, exploring the intersection of art and democracy as part of our Canvas coverage.
48:49The 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.
49:07Vahid 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?
49:22And if so, what now?
49:25For Jaffer Panahi, the director of It Was Just an Accident, the story is personal, partly based on his own experience in prison.
49:33When 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.
49:43Someone would ask me questions and I would answer on the paper.
49:46I didn't know who was behind me.
49:48I only heard his voice or his movements when he was walking.
49:51And I always wanted to know who he was, know what he looks like.
49:54And if I saw him outside of here, would I recognize him or not?
49:57Panahi, 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,
50:09even amid the ruling Islamic Republic's authoritarian stifling of daily existence and violent crackdowns on dissent.
50:17But he has also paid a price.
50:19In 2010, he was sentenced to six years in prison for propaganda against the state.
50:24He undertook a hunger strike and, amid an international outcry, was released after three months, but not allowed to travel.
50:32Film festivals honored him with an empty chair on stage.
50:36In 2022, he was arrested again and served seven months in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
50:43Upon his release, he vowed not to forget those still held.
50:46Some of them had not seen the outside world for five or six years.
50:53They shared their pain and suffering.
50:54They talked to you.
50:55They ate with you.
50:56They walked in the yard with you.
50:58All these things come together, so that when you leave prison, you feel like there is a weight on your shoulders.
51:04One result of the new film, a different kind of vengeance thriller, one that often sprinkles in bits of humor.
51:11As when his characters, constantly bickering, one in bridal gown for her wedding photos, have to push their van through Tehran traffic.
51:20For Panahi, the real question isn't retribution, but how a society ever moves beyond the cycle of violence.
51:27History has shown that these kinds of governments can't survive.
51:33One day it will end.
51:34One day it will stop.
51:35It will collapse.
51:37In the film, all these people in their conversations with their emotional standpoints, they want to release it in some way.
51:43All of this is just to make the viewer think, what's going to happen?
51:47The same conditions?
51:48The same anger?
51:49Same conflict?
51:50Same violence?
51:51Same harsh treatments?
51:53Is it supposed to continue?
51:54Or no, it must stop one day.
51:56You have said that you're not a political filmmaker, but a social filmmaker.
52:02What does that mean?
52:04Social filmmaking is a filmmaking that takes the subjects of its films, its ideas, and what's in its past into consideration.
52:11And it never categorizes the characters into the good people and the bad people, contrary to political films.
52:18That is why I say I make social films, but it may be a political subject.
52:23He's also an endlessly creative filmmaker, often out of necessity.
52:28When 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.
52:36It was shown the world over.
52:38So, this is not a film, but it is a film.
52:43It's almost a kind of joke, but a very serious one.
52:49Yes, because they gave an order that was more of a joke.
52:52What does it mean when you tell a filmmaker, you can't make a film for 20 years?
52:56That's when you say, no, you can't stop a filmmaker from making movies.
53:01He finds a way.
53:02He makes a film.
53:03You say, stop making films, so I'll say, this is not a film at all.
53:07That ban was eventually lifted, but Panahi still refuses to submit his scripts to government censors.
53:14He shot It Was Just an Accident in Secret, made nightly backups of digital material,
53:19and protected his actors, many of them non-professional, by limiting their knowledge of the full story.
53:25But when you were in those circumstances, the type of filmmaking, working underground,
53:32that's what it looks like.
53:34That's the norm.
53:35Do you believe that an artist, do you believe that you, as an artist,
53:40have some responsibility to use your art, your filmmaking, to address the social conditions in the country?
53:48Whether I have a duty or not, I don't look at it as a duty.
53:52Rather, I feel that in these conditions, I must speak up.
53:55I must make this film.
53:57Even if my films are not being shown, at the end of the day, I have prepared a new set of conditions for history, for the future,
54:03for the time when the conditions are suitable for these films to be seen, these films to be seen.
54:09As Panahi's film racks up acclaim and awards, his country is again in turmoil,
54:14with demonstrations in the streets and deadly responses from the regime.
54:20And Panahi himself faces an uncertain future, a new one-year prison sentence handed down while he was out of the country,
54:28for so-called propaganda activities related to his work.
54:32I know you're appealing, but you've also said publicly that you will return to Iran.
54:36I don't understand this question at all.
54:43When you know that what you do has a price and you have to pay it,
54:46and when you see people in prison who have been in prison over and over again,
54:50but they stand on their beliefs, well, why don't you as a filmmaker do the same?
54:54And he adds, Iran is the place he knows, its language and culture,
55:00the small details of its life, and big questions of its future.
55:05For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jeffrey Brown in New York.
55:18And that is the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Amna Nawaz.
55:22And I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the NewsHour,
55:24thanks for spending part of your evening with us.
55:27Major funding for the PBS NewsHour has been provided by
55:30Carnegie Corporation of New York,
55:39working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace.
55:46More information at Carnegie.org.
55:49And with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.
55:53And friends of the NewsHour, including Leonard and Norma Klorfein,
55:58and the Judy and Peter Bloom Kovler Foundation.
56:02And with the ongoing support of these institutions.
56:05And friends of the NewsHour.
56:21This program was made possible by the contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
56:28You're watching PBS.
56:43You're watching PBS.
56:44You're watching PBS.
56:44I'm a journalist.
56:45You're watching PBS.
56:45I'm a journalist.
56:45I'm a journalist.
56:46I'm a journalist.
56:46I'm a journalist.
56:47I'm a journalist.
56:47I'm a journalist.
56:47I'm a journalist.
56:48I'm a journalist.
56:48I'm a journalist.
56:48I'm a journalist.
56:48I'm a journalist.
56:49I'm a journalist.
56:49I'm a journalist.
56:49I'm a journalist.
56:50I'm a journalist.
56:50I'm a journalist.
56:51I'm a journalist.
56:51I'm a journalist.
56:51I'm a journalist.
56:51I'm a journalist.
56:52I'm a journalist.
56:53I'm a journalist.
56:53I'm a journalist.
56:54I'm a journalist.
56:55I'm a journalist.
56:55I'm a journalist.
56:56I'm a journalist.
Comments