♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the "newshour" tonight, the israel-hamas war spills over into the red sea, where houthi rebels are attacking commercial ships, disrupting global trade. immigrant rights groups sue over a new texas law that empowers local police to arrest people suspected of entering the u.s. illegally. will the measure hold up in court? and, ukraine races to shore up its power systems in anticipation of russian attacks on the energy grid in the heart of winter. >> we are preparing physically, we are preparing equipment, we are preparing mentally.

it's scary. of course it's scary. but energy is the lifeblood of the economy. we have to maintain it. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour been provided by. the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the newshour including kathy and paul anderson and camilla and george smith. >> consumer cellular. how may i help you? >> this is a pocket dial. >> thought i would let you know with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. >> actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it is exciting to be part of a

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geoff: welcome to the newshour. israel's campaign in gaza continues tonight with deadly effect, as diplomats work to secure another deal to pause fighting to release hostages held by hamas and other groups -- in return for palestinian detainees in israeli custody. meantime, an attempt at the united nations to secure even a vote in the security council on a ceasefire was delayed at least one more day. william brangham reports. william: rafah, the very area where israel told displaced palestinians to seek shelter, has become a battle zone. >> we have never seen such weapons. i witnessed the 1956 war, and there was not anything like this. i witnessed the 1967 war, and there was not something like this. this is a barbarian act that we -- and israel is the biggest criminal. william: excavators comb through the rubble of what was once a home. it was flattened by israeli airstrikes overnight. some two dozen people died, including a newborn baby and her

2-year-old brother. their injured father, in a hospital bed, grieves his dead children. >> we were sleeping. we were buried while sleeping. william: relatives preparing to bury the dead prayed over their shrouded bodies. sarah kraeem lost her sister in the strike. >> my feeling is indescribable. imagine that yesterday, i was combing her hair and making her a sandwich for dinner, then tucking her in to sleep. we woke up in the morning, and there is no fatima. fatima is gone. william: tens of thousands of palestinians have packed into rafah to escape the intense bombing farther north. but southern gaza has repeatedly come under attack in recent days. israel insists it's going after just militant targets. in central gaza, scenes of chaos after a bombing at nuseirat refugee camp. locals rushed to help the

wounded, as health workers carried the dead away in body bags. a boy, barefoot and bewildered, pulled from the rubble, and carried away. >> i was in my store, and the kids around me were playing. people were coming and going, and they were having a good time, and then this aggressive bombing came. i don't know what they think we have in our houses for us to deserve althis bombing. this is enough. enough of the bombing of children and women and displacing people from their homes. william: fierce battles also raged for another day in the north. israeli forces raided al-ahli baptist hospital in gaza city overnight, one of the last functioning hospitals in northern gaza. they detained most of the hospital's staff, leaving only two doctors and four nurses to tend to over a hundred seriously injured patients, all without water and electricity. ganization officials denounced recent israeli strikes on hospitals.

>> the people in the hospitals, yes, they need everything. they need medical supplies, but what they ask for first is food and water. the very basics. they do not have them. one of my colleagues described people lying on the floor in severe pain, in agony, but they weren't asking for pain relief. they were asking for water. it's beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue. william: meanwhile, scores of hostages are still being held by hamas in gaza. israeli president isaac herzog said he hopes more will be released soon. >> israel is ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid, in order to enable the release of hostages. and the responsibility lies fully with sinwar and the leadership of hamas. william: but hamas has insisted it won't comply until there is a

ceasefire. meantime, the armed wing of the palestinian islamic jihad movement, known as the al quds brigades, posted video on their telegram account showing two israeli hostages, seen here in a screenshot, pleading for their release. all this comes as tensions are intensifying in the broader region. yemen's houthi rebels, backed by iran, have attacked a string of commercial ships in the red sea with missiles and drones. the strikes have prompted some of the world's largest shipping and oil companies to reroute to avoid the suez canal. u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin, who was in qatar today, said the u.s. and its allies have formed an international coalition to respond to the houthi attacks. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. geoff: in the day's other headlines, senate leaders say they don't expect a deal on financial aid for ukraine, and tougher border security, until after the holiday break.

negotiations continued, with the white house warning that current aid for ukraine will run out at year's end. but republicans are pressing for border policy changes, and that remains the sticking point. >> no question, this package is extremely important. the most complicated part of it actually is the border. i think we haven't passed a significant immigration bill since reagan's second term. so this is not easy. >> both democrats and republicans understand that there's more work to do to pass legislation protecting america's security and the security of the western world. geoff: meantime, in kyiv, ukraine's president zelenskyy said he is confident the u.s. will not let his country down. he also said he's considering whether to mobilize half-a-million more troops, on top of the 800,000 already fighting. in northwestern china, an overnight earthquake shook rural gansu province, killing at least

127 people. it was the country's deadliest quake in nearly a decade. state television showed crews searching the wreckage of destroyed homes. landslides had buried some of them in several feet of mud. thousands of people were left to shelter in tents in sub-freezing conditions. bushfires in australia made the air quality in sydney among the worst in the world today, a rarity in the famed harbor city. smoke drifted in from fires burning in a forest some 260 miles to the north. the burn was so large it created its own thunderstorm, but firefighters said winds could help dispel the smog over sydney this evening. the u.s. forest service is calling for cuts in logging to conserve old-growth forests in the face of climate change. the proposal today would sharply limit harvesting older trees. the agency says they store large amounts of carbon and provide crucial habitat for wildlife. timber interests say the change

will increase fire dangers for communities near forests. family and friends of the late sandra day o'connor paid final tributes today at her funeral at the washington national cathedral. beneath the vaulted ceiling, president biden eulogized the first woman on the supreme court as a "pioneer in her own right." chief justice john roberts and one of o'connor's sons paid tribute to her public and private legacies. >> her leadership shaped the legal profession, making it obvious that judges are both women and men. the time when women were not on the bench seems so far away, because justice o'connor was so good when she was on the bench. >> "don't hit your brother" was the first lesson in her own philosophy that she taught us over time, to not lash out at anyone, even your opponent, and to treat everyone with kindness and respect. this approach allowed her to navigate every situation with

grace and goodwill. geoff: o'connor died on december 1st, in phoenix. she was 93 years old. google will pay $700 million to the states to settle allegations that its android app store stifles competition. federal court documents say the deal was reached in september. most of the money goes to compensate about 100 million customers. just a week ago, google lost a similar case that went to trial. and on wall street, stocks advanced after japan's central bank opted to keep interest rates low. the dow jones industrial average gained 252 points to close at 37,578. the nasdaq rose 98 points. the s&p 500 added 27. still to come on the "newshour", an entire town in iceland is threatened by an erupting volcano. how media organizations are facing the task of covering former president trump's campaign. and, the first hand-written and illustrated bible since the printing press celebrates its

25th anniversary. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from wbt a studios in washington and in the west, from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: we return now to the conflict in the middle east, and rising tensions in the red sea, where about 12% of the world's global trade passes through, and where houthi militias in yemen have been attacking ships. the houthis say their attacks are in support of the palestinians. yesterday, u.s. defense secretary austin announced a new multinational effort to protect ships in the region. but what how will it work? for that, we turn to the former commander of u.s. forces in the middle east, retired general frank mckenzie. he's now the executive director of the global and national security institute at the university of south florida. thanks for being with us. help the audience understand, who are the who these -- and why

are they attacking ships? >> they see -- seized control in yemen and has been responsible for mass starvation in the country. with around they pursued a policy for the destruction of israel. they are not under the direct control of iran but iran provides equipment and resourcing and supplies. they are not at the beck and call of iran in this matter. the houthis have wanted to attack israel. it is hard for them to do that so they settled on trying to cut off communication of maritime shipment at the southern end of the red sea. geoff: the u.s. announced the creation of a multinational task force to protect commercial traffic at the red sea. how will that work? will it be enough to deter future attacks? >> ships will be important. our friends and partners will provide ships and those warships will shepherd the merchant

vessels through. what will be equally important is the intelligence architecture we have put over the area. you need to see what is going on and when you do that, with manned aircraft, drones, unmanned aircraft, you can see what the houthis are up to. we know from dealing with iran, they don't like to be observed. it can have a deterrent effect. in 2019 heavy use of isr intelligence assets around the strait of hormuz prevented the iranians from carrying out attacks. the houthis tend to be aggressive. i think we will have to consider striking some of these launch sites and radar outposts come of the things that make attacks possible, but the houthis will understand. i think the odds of an escalatory spiral coming from self-defense strikes in yemen, those odds are small. geoff: bp is the latest company

to announce it will pause shipments through the red sea. with so much global trade going through the area, what does that mean for the future of big business? >> if we can't reestablish the right of passage and keep the houthis from attacking, everything will slow down. it is 14 more days to go around africa and that will exert greater pressure on the market. probably the energy market first but other markets as well. it is in everyone's interest, every nation has an interest in ensuring this area will be open for free passage of ships. geoff: the houthis are an iranian proxy. what does this suggest about the israeli war against hamas to escalate into a regional conflict? >> the odds of escalation are fairly small. hezbollah has chosen not to enter the ring despite the fact

that they are exchanging low levels of buyer with israel. iran has not directly attacked israel. those are important things. hamas is not getting a lot of support from those entities. houthis are but they have limited ability to strike israel. they are reduced to carrying out attacks elsewhere. that is a problem i believe we can solve. we may need to be more aggressive come up the larger issues, i don't think it leads to escalation. geoff: thank you for your insights, general. ♪ geoff: with migrant encounters along the southwest border at near-record numbers, both democrats and republicans agree something needs to be done to fix the u.s. immigration system.

a bipartisan group in the senate continues to negotiate on a border security bill while border state governors are grappling with the on-the-ground impact. last week, arizona's democratic governor katie hobbs dispatched the national guard to the border. and yesterday, texas republican governor greg abbott signed a controversial new law aimed at curbing illegal immigration that, as stephanie sy explains, will likely set up a battle with the federal government. stephanie: the new texas law makes it a state crime to illegally cross the border from mexico into texas. offenders could face up to six months in jail, but state judges can also drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to the country they entered from. while the biden administration has implemented policies to beef up personnel on the border and expedite removals, abbott believes it hasn't done enough. >> biden's deliberate inaction has left texas to fend for itself. stephanie: in the past, courts have ruled that only the federal

government has the right to enforce immigration laws. the american civil liberties union and the texas civil rights project have already filed a lawsuit challenging the law. texas republican state representative david spiller sponsored the bill and joins us now. thank you for your time. a lot of legal experts are saying this law is unconstitutional. a group of 30 former immigration judges in fact issued a statement recently saying the legislation, quote, would allow a state court magistrate judge to issue a removal order, is not lawful. immigration is plainly a federal function." they question the point of this law and i have the same question. >> the point of the law is, it has become necessary because the biden administration has failed and refused to secure the border and for -- and force -- enforce federal immigration law.

if not for that, i would spend my time securing the border and dealing with immigration. because of that failure, texans have to protect texas and that is what sb four does. i would respectfully disagree with what the so-called experts say. i believe it is constitutional for several reasons. stephanie: the last time the supreme court look at this was in the arizona versus u.s. case in which they struck down most of arizona's argument that local law enforcement can enforce immigration law? >> that is a fair question. sb four is what we passed and i believe it is constitutional because it is not in conflict with the arizona versus u.s. case. the things arizona tried to do in 2010, the subject of the case, were different than what we have done here. we have tried to stay away from

problem areas that arizona dealt with, areas that had already been preempted. we have stayed away from that. we are also not preempted by federal law because again, immigration is tricky with preemption, the presumption is that something is not preempted unless burden of proof can be met to show it is. we have stayed away from those areas. stephanie: some would say the texas law goes beyond the arizona law because in the arizona case, those apprehended would be turned over to federal authorities law say what you are establishing in texas is your own deportations system, that you are giving texas magistrates the authority to deport potentially asylum-seekers. >> we are not deporting anyone. we are ordering them to return. it is not unfair to ask someone to go back where they came from

if they got here illegally. there is a distinction and i think there is a legal distinction. this is not deportation. if you look at the constitution, the word immigration, giving congress the authority to regulate immigration, is not in it. it talks about acquisition but doesn't talk about immigration. two different things. i believe we have the ability to do that. stephanie: how does a local or state policeman practically enforce the law? if it doesn't to show me your papers kind of enforcement, how will they know who to apprehend unless they are literally seen crossing illegally? >> i think most of them will be literally seen crossing the border illegally. i believe and i have said i thought 95 percent of the enforcement for illegal entry will occur within 50 miles of the border. that is not to say people in dallas or houston or texarkana or in the panhandle, there may be circumstances where they can

ascertain and law enforcement can determine they have crossed illegally or they somehow know who crossed, when they crossed, where they crossed. the statute of limitation for misdemeanors in texas is two years so we aren't looking at rounding people up like arizona tried to do, who have been here for years. we aren't looking to put someone's grandmother in jail or deport her. that is not what this does. stephanie: critics say the law is going to mean anyone that looks latino or black has a higher risk of being accosted by law enforcement. how are you going to address that concern, especially given that 40% of your state is latino? >> i think that shows how silly the argument is. and frankly it is offensive. how can, we are a country of immigrants. how can you tell by looking at anyone whether they crossed illegally or when they did sell or where they crossed?

you can't. law enforcement can't. there are things law enforcement can determine but there are things they can't. arizona did the show me your papers, there is no requirement to show any papers whatsoever. can law enforcement prove, and prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that every element for illegal entry has been proven and if so, they can be prosecuted for that. otherwise, there is no probable cause to believe someone just because they may look different, and the other thing is -- we are getting people crossing illegally into texas from over 100 countries around the world. this is not about hispanic people or black people, it is about people entering our country illegally and we are doing our best to address the problem. we are having to address the problem because the federal government refuses to do so. stephanie: representative, thanks for joining the newshour.

>> thank you. i appreciate it. ♪ geoff: iceland appears to have so far escaped the worst case scenario after a volcano erupted overnight about 50 miles from the capital reykjavik. the lava flow is moving away from important infrastructure, including a fishing port where 4,000 people had been moved waiting for just this moment. special correspondent malcolm brabant reports. >> after two months of intense earthquakes southwest of iceland's capital, the volcano finally erupted. this webcam captured the moment, but not the roar of mother nature, as molten rock lit up the night sky. once the earth's crust had been breached, the lava flow quickly spread along three miles of fissures that had been formed by thousands of earthquakes. as scientists had predicted and hoped, the eruptions took place north of a small fishing town

called grindavik, abandoned by its 4,000 residents in october when the their homes were first threatened. the icelandic authorities despatched a helicopter crew to assess the potential damage. they were concerned that the rivers of lava might jeopardise a geothermal power station, and the world famous blue lagoon thermal baths. on the ground, police officer thorir thorsteinsson was working to enforce the exclusion zone. >> we're clearing the town and the area, and now we're just securing the area and closing every road to the area. we're just trying to manage the situation here. >> some thrill seeekers managed to get close to the action. among them, american tourist robert forrester. >> i'm very excited to be here in this place, in this time, and it is fascinating to see nature in action. it's like something from a

movie. >> but the first concerns of french tour guide ael kermarec were for the people worried about losing their homes. >> it might end up under the -- under the lava flowing behind us. so with his mixed feelings. it's still amazing to see but, that's kind of a bittersweet feeling at the moment. >> as night gave way to day, the eruptions above grindavik had diminished by two thirds. >> the location of this erupting fissure is optimal. if we were absolutely to have an eruption within this volcanic system, it is quite favorable towards being as far from infrastructure as possible. >> rikke pedersen leads the nordic vulcanology centre at the university of iceland. so do you think this is it? is this as bad as it's going to get? >> well, that is very difficult to say. this is the typical

behavior of a fissure eruption. it starts quite vigorously, and it also also often has an exponential decay. but the extent, the duration of it we can't say anything about it doesn't mean that it's over in two days. it could be, but it can also continue with low effusion rates for weeks to months. it's simply not possible to say. >> what about the threat to the geothermal power station and also to the blue lagoon? >> so both the blue lagoon and the geothermal power plant has now been fenced off with some big dikes. so that's been constructed during these 40 days that we've had since the first dike was intruded. >> compared to other eruptions around the world, this is pretty small. but i had a question for professor dougal jerram, a vulcanologist at oslo university. is this particular volcano likely to kickstart other ones

within the chain in iceland? >> that's not necessarily the case. one of the great things about iceland is it's very well monitored and one of the reasons why we've been able to sort of focus in on this region, they've been able to successfully evacuate people and minimize the risk associated with the eruption is because iceland monitors the ground very, very well. so they would be looking at a number of different places in iceland where they have good seismic ground monitoring and also satellite data, which monitors whether the ground is kind of expanding or contracting. so any changes in the volcanic system they should be able to pick up. >> the people watching most keenly of all are the people of grindavik. they'll be hoping that the volcano goes back to sleep so they can return to their homes. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant. ♪

geoff: responding to a reporter's question, ukrainian president zelenskyy dismissed the idea that ukraine might lose the war to russia. his country is waiting on more support from the u.s. and the european union and that aid is crucial for ukraine's air defense, which is becoming more important as russia begins what appears to be another winter long campaign of strikes on ukraine's infrastructure. nick schifrin and eric o'connor report from ukraine. >> it was the winter of ukraine's disconnect. a russian campaign targeted ukraine's critical infrastructure, and left this power plant burned out and gutted. russia hoped to engineer a humanitarian crisis, and sap ukraine's will to fight. it failed. but attacks on this plant alone, left more than 18,000 people without power or heat. and they almost killed shift manager oleksandr.

>> we heard the sound of a missile. i only managed to shout to my partner, "get down!" before we heard the first explosion. the windows blew out and parts of the ceiling fell. then, we started hearing more explosions. >> his dedication to the plant goes back decades. his father was an engineer here in the 80s and 90s. last winter russian missiles and suicide drones hit the plant three times. they caused catastrophic damage, including to the units that create power, and distribute it. attacks like this caused $10 billion of damage, and affected 12 million ukrainians. and u.s. and ukrainian officials believe winter is coming, again. >> we are preparing physically, we are preparing equipment, we are preparing mentally. it's scary. of course it's scary. but electricity, energy is the lifeblood of the economy.

we have to maintain it. >> in the last few weeks, russia has launched drones and ballistic missiles targeting ukrainian critical infrastructure. the threat is now constant. almost every night, the air raid sirens sound. the spotlights hunt, and ukraine's air defense engages. heavy machine guns target an iranian-designed shahed drone. on this front, ukraine claims widespread success. last week, it said it shot down 104 out of 112 shahed drones. outside of kyiv, mykyta shows the remnants of shot-down shaheed drones. each can carry 100 pounds of explosives. he says his air defense unit is getting better, but so are russian drones. >> before, when shaheeds were first used, they were less maneuverable, easier to see, and louder. their thermal footprint was also larger. now, the heat footprint is much

smaller, they have become quieter, and it has become harder to see them on radar. >> ukraine has long relied on soviet-produced air defense. but the missiles aren't made in the west, and earlier this year, ukraine started running out. so ukraine's air defense is now a melting pot of western munitions that the ukrainian air force shows off in online videos. they include the german iris-t, american patriots that have hit some of russia's most advanced missiles, and the u.s.-norwegian national advanced surface-to-air missile system, or nasam. it protects washington, d.c. and is the system that mykyta fires. why do you have to use the expensive nasam system against a relatively cheap drone? >> we have no choice. despite the fact that these drones are very cheap, they cause a lot of pain.

and they are also a means to exhaust our air defense. >> do you have enough? do you have enough weapons systems and missiles in order to do your job? >> we don't have enough weapons or ammunitn. our enemy is launching attacks on our country non-stop our enemy doesn't hit twice in the same spot. the enemy is changing its tactics and the only way to counter that is to increase our anti-missile capabilities. >> we'll continue to supply ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can. >> but u.s. and ukrainian officials are worried funding impasses in congress and in the european union, could mean ukraine runs out of air defenxse munitions. >> who controls the skies controls the war's duration. >> ukrainian officials say they will have to increasingly rely on their own ingenuity, and mobility. this mobile unit says it survives russian attempts to

destroy ukrainian air defense, because it's never in the same place twice. the mobile units complement the large western air defense to create what's known as defense in depth. around kyiv, the various systems are coordinated by col. serhii yaramenko, who says this winter, they are applying lessons learned from last winter. >> we are stronger. we have more experience. we know the main flight routes of their cruise missiles. we are taking preventive measures in order to effectively counteract the intentions and mission of the enemy. >> back at the power plant, workers are trying to repair the plant as quickly as possible. it may not look like it, but they've repaired enough to once again power the local community. for oleksandr, that success isn't only about continuing his father's legacy. it's also about lighting his family's future. that's his daughter, 24-year-old daria, the plant's press officer. >> they work in rough conditions, and they do their best.

>> they still have a lot of repairs. and they know the winter will be long. but they feel resilient, and determined that this plant will provide rays of hope, no matter what this winter brings. >> we even have a project which is called like "the brave ones who bring the light," because that's what they actually do. that's our future. we want to be free. our people, when they are united, they are a strong force. >> her father echoes her determination. she translates. >> no matter what, we are going to stay strong, and yeah, just do what we do. >> and so, after a break, it's back to work. as the sign says, "if we got through this winter, we can get through anything." for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin in central ukraine. ♪ geoff: the 2024 election is

shaping up to be unlike any other in modern history. today, the colorado supreme court decided to disqualify former president donald trump from the state election ballot because of his involvement in the january 6 election. the ruling has been put on hold pending appeal. here to cover the campaign -- how to cover the campaign presents one of the greatest challenges journalists have faced. laura barron-lopez has more. laura: in the span of one week, former president donald trump, who's the overwhelming frontrunner for the gop presidential nomination, said he'd be a dictator for one day and echoed the anti-immigrant words of adolf hitler. >> they're poisoning the blood of our country. we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections. it's so bad, and people are coming in with disease. people

are coming in with every possible thing that you could have. laura: this isn't new. it dates back to 2015. >> when mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime. they're rapists. laura: historians of fascism and veteran reporters warn that the gop is poised to nominate a candidate, in trump, who is anti-democracy. since launching his campaign, trump has called for terminating the constitution, lied about america's election system, and has vowed to use the prosecutorial power of the justice department as his personal tool for revenge. how will the press cover trump in the coming year? to discuss i'm joined by jeff goldberg, editor-in-chief of the atlantic and moderator of washington week, and jay rosen, professor of journalism at new york university thanks for joining us. the atlantic's final edition of

this year is from front to back, all about the stakes of the second trump term. why did you do that? >> i don't want to participate in the normalization of extremism. i thought it would be important before the primary season starts to put in one place, one package a reminder to people of all of the different manifestations of trump ideology and trumpism as kind of a warning. what i did was, we asked a group of writers, many of whom had been covering trump since 2015 at least, i asked them to simply tell me what you think will happen the second time around. it is not totally predictive because trump says things out loud. he is telling us that he is an authoritarian. he is telling us that he will have a revenge threat. he is telling us these things and he says it so often that we tend to ignore it.

it is a seeming contradiction, that he is saying to us so frequently that he is going to be a dictator now that it becomes background noise. i think there is a danger in that. it becomes normalized. laura: and we become desensitized. how would you grade press coverage so far since january 6 and do you think the press has an obligation to protect democracy? >> i think it started out as business as usual, where the horserace perspective on politics was alivend well. it has shifted recently to something that is a lot more reductive. i call it not the odds, but the stakes in which journalists are, as the atlantic did, trying to be very clear about what could and probably will happen if he

is reelected. i think the reason why this has spread is first, that the horserace among republican candidates isn't very interesting this year. most of trump's challenges are not interested in criticizing him. this is a favorable environment for skipping to what matters a lot more than the horserace, which is the stakes. the odds, advice -- as i called them, is a gambling term. they game-ify the election but this election is not a game. you can't compare donald trump as a candidate to any other candidate, and in american journalism the practices of political reporters and editors rest on kind of a mental image of the political system in which you have two major parties that operate in roughly the same way,

but they have different ideologies, different priorities. and that hidden sort of structure is now completely bankrupt. the two parties don't resemble each other at all and you simply can't use the tools from the long period in american politics where you had two roughly similar parties. no you don't. laura: speaking of stakes, the comment the former president made about being a dictator for a day, they get a lot of attention but john dickerson of cbs news called that, quote, bait. trump says these on purpose so they will be replayed and will narrow the focus of what he would do if he is elected again. dickerson says we should focus on the specifics of trump's actual plans, comments like this. >> i will direct a completely overhauled doj to investigate every radical out-of-control prosecutor in america for their illegal racist in reverse enforcement of the law.

laura: do you agree with dickerson? how should the press cover trump's rhetoric versus his action? >> we can do two things at once. we can cover the outrageous authoritarian language, which of course leads you to the policy. when he says he wants to be a dictator, he is saying he wants to build a wall and he is going to destroy the federal bureaucracy and he has promised to sort of undo 100 years of civil service among other things. so i think you take the language, i understand the point. there is a carnival aspect and the bureaucratic aspect. i think we can cover both at the same time. when he says i want to be addict hater, that should be the headline across every wire service, every newspaper or website that should be it. he is the presumptive nominee of one of the two major parties

that is newsworthy. i think they should look at what he is saying. we did that. we have a whole piece on what he would do to the department of justice should he come back into power. laura: you often talk to national and local journalists about changing their standards and adapting to the current environment. you are currently encouraging a lot of news outlets to, quote, demote the horserace. what does that look like in practice? >> the horserace in practice starts with who is going to win. an alternative model for election coverage, called the citizens agenda, starts in a completely different place. this model has been around since the 1990's prior to the internet. instead of starting with the candidates and who is going to win and who has the smart strategy, you start with the people you are trying to inform. you ask them a simple question,

which is, what do you want the candidates to talk about when they compete for votes? if you can ask that question, not just once or twice but thousands of times, patterns will emerge in their responses. you can synthesize from those patterns a kind of agenda or priority list, and then use that priority list to structure your coverage. so you know where to put your reporting resources, and that brings journalists back in touch with the public they are supposed to inform. then, we will have a better chance of serving democracy. laura: at least two dozen former cabinet ended administration officials who served under trump, including two former defense secretaries and his former attorney general, say he is not fit to be president. in a recent fox news poll, 30% of trump 2020 supporters set a

president breaking some rules and laws is justified to set things right. how is it that a sizable portion of the public doesn't view trump the way a significant number of people who worked with him, who knew him well, do? >> if i had the answer i would be a political consultant, not a magazine editor. it is disturbing. the destabilizing aspect of the trump period in american history is that the normal laws of political physics don't seem to apply within the trump ecosystem. if two dozen of a former president's top aides say he is unfit for leadership, that would destroy a normal candidate's chances of coming back into politics. for that matter, in 2015 when trump said john mccain, he didn't admire john mccain because he likes people who were captured, in a republican base you ask anyone if i candidate

could survive that in 2014, they would say no but there you have it. there is a distrust of the elites. anyone in the cabinet is automatically elite in the mind of a voter. there is a mistrust of general authority. there is a mistrust, and by the way, this is fomented on purpose. it didn't grow organically. this paranoia. there is an exploitation of resentment. for a lot of people it is donald trump, he vibrates to their resentments and understands and articulates them. he says he wants to be there rep. britt: -- retribution and revenge. laura: thank you all for your time. ♪ geoff: when the printing press was invented nearly 600 years ago, it put an end to centuries

of hand-written manuscripts, in which scribes, mostly in monasteries, tediously wrote and illustrated sacred texts, such as the bible. fred de sam lazaro revisits one monastery that brought back that tradition, just once, and, in the process, is helping bridge divides. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. >> it was a ceremony rife with symbolism, held in a 13th century chapel called the crypt, in london's lambeth palace. >> father abbot, let's have a go. >> a special edition of the st john's bible, commissioned by an american catholic monastery, was gifted to the head of the church of england who, alongside the american abbot, john klassen, burnished a tiny gold dot on the dedication page. >> perfect. >> his glistens more than mine. >> joking aside, justin welby, the archbishop of canterbury, had high praise for a glistening addition to the palace library.

>> this is something of great preciousness as a book. it isn't just a collection of ancient documents. the beauty of the illustrations, i mean, the facing page to genesis chapter one is breathtaking. >> the genesis of the st john's bible took place nearly three decades ago in a welch village, where donald jackson, a noted calligrapher, scribe to the queen, dreamed up his own sistine chapel project, a hand-written, illuminated bible. he then brought the idea to the monks at st john's abbey and university in minnesota. >> the initial reaction was one of, really? in a world that's going digital, is this a good thing to do? >> not to most people, perhaps. but these are benedictine monks. >> historically, writing the word, scribing it, illuminating it, it's deeply woven into

monastic dna. so we moved steadily toward it. >> after agreeing to raise several million dollars the effort would cost, the monastery and scriptorium began collaborating. a minnesota committee of scholars, weighing in, informing the art and layout for jackson and his team of illustrators and scribes. >> i'm satisfied with the image itself, but not so much with the position and scale. >> over fax machines and snail-mail, long before facetime or zoom, it took nearly 15 years to complete the 160 illuminations across 1120 pages of hand-written script. all of it, faithful to the ancient methods. quills from feathers, natural inks, and vellum or calfskin, not paper. the text came from the revised standard version of the bible accepted by most christian

denominations >> this represents the tree of life. we are all related. >> it's in the illuminations that the st john's bible shows its distinctiveness and a sensibility to the modern times. this one, for example, called the genealogy of christ, is a menorah-shaped family tree, with hebrew text alongside latin. also, a nod to the third branch of abrahamic faiths. >> i just added the name of hagar, the mother of ishmael, the ancestor of mohammed, whose name i put in arabic. >> the pages and artwork of the original st john's bible have been exhibited on tours across the united states and even great britain. but their permanent home is here at st john's in collegeville, minnesota. >> this was never meant to be a museum piece. it was meant to be shared, but in reality, it does need care. >> that's tim ternes' job, as director or as he puts it, keeper of the pages, which,

along with the sketches and raw elements that preceded all the finished art, are meticulously cataloged and stored in a temperature and light-controlled environment. in a time of so much polarization, ternes says, these pages have had something for everyone who's visited the exhibits. >> we have people who are non-believers, people who are staunch believers, people who are fairly liberal, people who are fairly conservative, and they all come together. and so it does what it's intended to do. for me, the most surprising thing is how, how truly communal the bible really is. >> the bible has often been used as a weapon to justify violence against other people. >> abbot klassen says a key goal of the project is to heal religious divides. and this was an apt place to begin, the very place where, in the 16th century, the church of england declared its independence from the pope and professed its loyalty to king

henry the eighth. henry also ordered monasteries confiscated or destroyed amid the bloody break and the protestant reformation. >> we are just aware of the enormous wrenching pain of the most awful conflicts between the roman catholic church and the anglican church. and, frankly, the loss of the benedictine world in some respects, here in england. so to be burnishing this together with the archbishop here. we would hope that it would lead to other kinds of communion and other kinds of dialogue. >> in that spirit, the anglican archbishop of canterbury invited his catholic guest to co-lead an evening prayer service, the new bible at its center. ♪

in the front pew, the scribe donald jackson. looking back, he says even as events of our time influenced the artwork, the words themselves influenced the artists. on september 11, 2001, for instance, he happened to be working on an illumination of the prodigal son, the parable of a father's enduring love and forgiveness toward a wayward son. >> bam! the twin towers. it was happening before my eyes. we were stunned, like everybody else in the world >> the twin towers are now part of this biblical illumination. >> as i was burnishing the gold leaf on those two tower blocks, which i inserted into the background of the view of the father, reaching out to the prodigal son, i realized that i was feeling hatred, but i realized i can't hate my way out of this. i have to somehow or other find what god wants, what

jesus was telling us. we have to love our way out of this. >> this so-called apostles addition, one of a handful of fine art facsimiles printed on high quality paper, is dedicated to the late queen elizabeth ii. it is on display at london's lambeth palace library, where her son, king charles iii, recently popped in for a visit for the pbs newshour, i'm fred de sam lazaro, in london. ♪ geoff: a reminder to tune-in to our special, "america at a crossroads with judy woodruff," which explores the country's divisions as we head into 2024. >> a nation that god's. >> the country is more divided certainly along partisan lines. >> it is about our feelings

about each other. we are angry at one another. >> the culture war stuff is breaking her ability to go together. >> what is driving our conflicts. >> how many people believe the election was stolen? >> and whether we can come together. geoff: that's airing at 9:00 eastern, 8:00 central on pbs and streaming online at pbs.org/newshour. and you can read more online. judy woodruff reflects on her last year of reporting on divisions across the country, and what's ahead. that's on our website. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. thanks for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by. >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. ♪

>> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement and the advancement of international peace and security at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

- [narrator] the following program, blacks blues black is made possible by a public service grant from the olympia brewing company. (singing in foreign language)