♪ john: tonight on pbs news weekend. taiwan picks a new president. what the ruling party's win means for the region and u.s-china relations. then, how the once-rarely used process of impeachment has become a partisan political weapon.

and two new studies find we're drinking and eating more microplastics than we may have thought. >> the real question is, are the kinds of contaminants that are well known in plastics now being delivered at a sufficient dose to actually be a risk to human health? and that's the question that has not yet been answered. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> a proud supporter of public television. the world awaits. a world of labor, diverse destinations, and immersive experices. a world of leisure, and british style.

all with cunard's white star service. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. john: good evening. i'm john yang. heavy snow, biting cold, pouring rain. for much of today, there's been only one state in the continental united states

without a severe weather watch or warning -- arizona. everywhere else, a massive winter storm is spanning the country, upending life for millions of americans. it's disrupting presidential politics. in iowa, they're digging out from blizzard conditions ahead of the first contest of the 2024 elections. republican candidates ron desantis and nikki haley trimmed their campaign schedules and former president donald trump shifted to tele-rallies. and, the storm is affecting the nfl playoffs. tomorrow's bill-steelers game has been moved to monday, as more than a foot of snow is expected in buffalo. but, fans are still showing up for tonight's dolphins-chiefs game, despite winds that will make it feel like 30 below in kansas city. taiwanese voters rebuffed china by electing as president a candidate who rejects china's claim of sovereignty over taiwan. the victory of lai ching-te gives the ruling party an unprecedented third presidential term. in his victory speech, lai promised to safeguard taiwan's autonomy.

>> we are telling the international community that between democracy and authoritarianism, we will stand on the side of democracy. taiwan will continue to walk side by side with democracies from around the world. john: china responded with a statement, saying "taiwan is china's taiwan. this election will not change the basic landscape." the biden administration congratulated lai. but, responding to a reporter's question this morning, president biden said the united states does not support independence for taiwan. lai is to be inaugurated in may. president biden also told reporters that he's confident the united states is "well-prepared" after a second round of u.s. strikes against iranian-backed houthi rebels in yemen. biden said the united states sent a private message to tehran. u.s. officials say they expect the houthis to retaliate, sting concerns of a wider middle east conflict. in gaza, pre-dawn israeli airstrikes killed more than 30 palestinians, including young children. the hamas-run gaza health

ministry says nearly 24,000 people have been killed in gaza since the war began. still to come on "pbs news weekend". the rise of impeachment as a partisan weapon. and yomight be eating and drinking more microplastics than you think. ♪ >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios in washington, he of the pbs newshour, weeknights on pbs. john: the taiwanese presidential election has big implications for both beijing and washington. president-elect lai ching-te -- also known as "william-- rejects beijing's claim of sovereignty over taiwan. earlier, ali rogin spoke with bethany allen-ebrahimian, the china reporter for axios, who is based in taiwan. ali: what were the issues that taiwanese voters were most concerned with? and what do those issues say about the fact that william lai

has won? bethany: taiwanese voters in this election, as with every presidential election, were, uh, concerned about cross-strait relations. in taiwan's presidential elections the relationship with ina is always a key issue. and that was certainly the case this year. over the past year or so, the chinese government has been increasingly aggressive in its coercive actions towards taiwan. and so voters and the parties themselves made that a key issue. the kmt cast this election as a choice between war and peace. a vote for the kmt is a vote for peace with china, they said. a vote for the dpp is a vote for war, whereas the dpp cast this as an election. that was a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. with a rising china, you know, a sort of specter of authoritarianism looming over taiwan. but those were not the only issues.

basically on the ballot this year, the economy, unemployment and high home prices were also very much on voters minds. now, the fact that the dpp won, part of that has to do with the fact that this year, for the first time, there was a very significant third party on the ballot. that's the taiwan people's party and their candidate, ko wen-je. and ko wen-je got more than 20% of the vote, which is unprecedented. now, he was pulling mostly from the kmt. so if the tpp had not run, then it's possible we would have seen a kmt victory. what that says is that the kmt itself is not speaking to taiwanese voters, they still say that a close relationship with china is the best way to guarantee taiwan's security. most taiwanese voters, or many taiwanese voters, just don't feel that that's true anymore. ali: how markedly is this going

to affect cross-strait relations? bethany: well, at the end of the day, here are the facts. china wants to unify with taiwan, and taiwan doesn't. and, you know, regardless of how the voters in taiwan vote, that's not going to change. which means there is going to inherently be some level of tension with china. but what the voters were looking at is, you know, a continuation of the past eight years of dpp rule. now, the dpp is a party that china has cast as a separatist or independence party. in fact, when the current president was elected in 2016, china cut off all formal communications with taiwan. and since then have steadily coached -- steadily poached taiwan's remaining diplomatic allies. now, taiwan has just about 12 or 13 remaining countries that recognize it formally, diplomatically. if the kmt had won, it's

possible that beijing would have toned it down a little bit. but what's true is that the kmt, their position isn't unification with china. the dpp's position isn't unification with china. and even if the kmt had won, there would still be this kind of fundamental tension. ali: what do we know so far about how china is reacting to william lai's victory? bethany: what they said this past week is they will never compromise on their belief that china must unify with taiwan. frankly, they really hate william lai. they have branded him as a separatist through and through. not what we are expecting is certainly a very strong verbal denunciation from beijing of the results of today's election. analysts tell me that we are not expecting, at least not right now -- we're not expecting massive military drills like we saw after nancy pelosi visited

in 2022. one reason for that is that the legislature is how it's going to -- how the pieces will fall isn't quite set. now, the dpp did not gain a majority, but neither did the kmt. the tpp has a significant chunk of the party vote that will give it seats in the legislature. that means the dpp and the kmt are going to be vying for the tpp support. and in this kind of mix, it's likely that beijing does not want to so frighten taiwan's residents that there's an outpouring of support for a dpp, tpp kind of partnership in the legislature. ali: i also want to ask you about what this means for the u.s. china relationship. does it have repercussions there? bethany: certainly. the u.s. is a very important player in this nexus here, this, china, taiwan, u.s. nexus.

the u.s. is taiwan's most important partner and its strongest defender, even though the u.s. does not have official relations with taiwan. now, in the past week, there was a chinese official delegation to the u.s., and there were high level meetings between top chinese diplomats and biden administration officials. it is likely that what was one of the key topics of conversation on both sides this week was how are we going to maintain this very delicate stability that we have attained in the u.s. china relationship over the past few months regardless of what happens in taiwan? here's what's at stake. this could easily escalate. the china taiwan issue is one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the indo-pacific region. and so we are watching this very carefully to see if what's happened today in taiwan does

throw off that balance between the u.s. and china. ali: thank you so much for joining us and breaking this all do for us. bethany: thanks for having me. ♪ john: house republicans are pressing ahead with their efforts to impeach both president biden and his homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas. if the house approves articles of impeachment against mr. biden, it would be the fifth presidential impeachment in the nation's history - three of them coming in just the last five years. only one cabinet official has ever been impeached, and that was in 1876. there's also talk among some republican lawmakers of impeaching attorney general merrick garland and defense secretary lloyd austin. has what was intended to be a check on presidential power become a modern day political weapon? sarah binder is a professor of political science at george washington university.

all of this going on right now, is this what alexander hamilton had in mind when he argued that impeachment should be in the constitution? sarah: impeachment has had a long political history, and even the framers were a little worried about how it would be used. in fact, it might be the one the one thing that alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson agreed on. they worried that a party, a large majority, could weaponize it against their opponents. it does seem to be, though, that in today's recent years it's been used as a threat, even if sometimes they never get to a vote. and that seems quite a bit different than what we've seen before. john: i want to talk about the mayorkas impeachment inquiry. the chairman of that effort is mark green. he's chairman of the house committee on homeland security. and he defended this process in a hearing earlier this week. >> the constitutional history is overwhelmingly clear on this subject. the founders designed impeachment not just to remove officials engaged in criminal behavior, but those guilty of

such gross incompetence that their conduct had endangered their fellow americans, betrayed the public trust, or represented a neglect of duty. john: on the other hand, you had a group of legal scholars write an open letter to green saying that impeachment wasn't intended to cover incompetence, poor judgment or bad policy. they said it was for truly extraordinary misconduct. and on the third hand, you had gerald ford in the 1970's when he was trying to impeach supreme court justice william douglas, who said an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the house of representatives says it is at any given time. what's your take on this? sarah: there is a kernel of truth to representative green's argument that the framers said it shouldn't just be a standard of actual criminal misconduct, but at the same time, the letter writers, the legal experts are correct. in fact, the framers elicitly rejected this term, maladministration.

which essentially boiled down to policy differences, that that was too low a threshold that that should be the basis of impeachment. does that leave us with former president ford, but a majority is willing to support. in some ways, that's what it boils down to. john: you talked about earlier when the debate over this impeachment clause at the time the constitution was being written, hamilton said at the time that when impeachment happened, it would inevitably become political, that the country would be divided into camps for and against. are we seeing politics not being an effect of impeachment, but being what's driving impeachment now? sarah: well, there's a certain truth to that way of thinking about it. which is to say, we live in an inherently and intensely partisan time, and there's very little that escapes this sort of seeping partisanship in washington. your team is for it, so my team is against it.

and in some ways, impeachment and threats of impeachment is just another tool in the majority's toolbox. of course, you know, we have very tight majorities, very slim majorities, and you can't impeach somebody with a simple majority. you can't convict them. and so it festers, right? partisanship as it spreads. so too do we get more of these threats to impeach someone over policy differences. john: does that devalue the impact or the the import of impeachment? sarah: well, there's always a risk here that as more and more the threat of impeachment is wielded and presidents don't fear conviction because we rarely ever see two thirds majorities which are needed to convict the president and remove him from office. we rarely see those oversize bipartisan majorities. the risk, then, is that impeachment, which might have been used in perceived as a way to constrain presints in their exercise of power, that that's

not going to work to constrain those presidents anymore. and that i think the framers might not be surprised, but i think they would be quite a bit worried about. john: what are the risks or the pitfalls of that? sarah: first of all there is the sense -- and we can look to former president trump -- there is the risk here that presidents feel unconstrained. that is, they only feel beholden to their party base. they might only feel beholden to the set of voters who can get them reelected. now, that's not unique to one party or the other. but the danger here is if you don't fear any constraint from the senate or from the united states conduct, you can violate the public trust. you can abuse your power, knowing that there's very little that stands in your way. and that can be harmful. it can be harmful for national security. it can be harmful for social welfare. there's all sorts of ways in which the american public, in this sort of the strength of a democratic system, you know,

relies on holding politicians accountable for how they wield power. john: is this a product of this particular moment in american politics, or do you think the use and the attitude toward impeachment has really shifted forever? sarah: well, again, there are deep roots to this partisan and political use of impeachment all the way back right to 1789 and the early, early impeachment efforts in the early 1800's. so i don't want to overstate the uniqueness of the moment here, but there is something different, i think, going on here. certainly it seems in this ngress with the republican majority in the house, which is in the past, leaders seem to be able to kind of constrain their members, constrain the hardliners who really want to go after the other party's president or his cabinet. we have had two speakers this congress. neither has really been willing or able to rein in their hardliners. and in fact, it seems speakers are trying to get out ahead of the parade that maybe impeachment is the one thing that will unite their party.

and that seems quite a bit new to me historically. john: sarah binder of george washington university, thank you very much. sarah: sure. thanks for having me. ♪ john: plastic it seems is unavoidable in our daily lives, from takeout containers to water bottles and maybe even that tub of ice cream. two new studies out this week find we are eating and drinking more plastic than we might have realized. in one of them, for the first time, researchers were able to measure nanoparticles of plastic in bottled water. on average, a liter bottle had 240,000 tiny plastic particles, often smaller than a speck of dust. they can pass through the intestines and lungs, directly into the bloodstream and then to other organs. another study looked at what we eat.

it found microplastic in 88% of the tested protein samples. seafood, beef and pork, tofu - they all had it. geor leonard is one of the co-authors of the protein study and is chief scientist at ocean conservancy. scientists have known for some time about fish because of the water that it is in, but why did you decide to lookt other protein? and were you surprised by any of your findings? george: we were. at ocean conservancy we care deeply about plastic pollution. we have been interested in understanding the distribution of plastic in marine life and particularly in seafood for a long time. but we realize we also eat a lot of seaod, and we're all consumers of all kinds of different food. so we thought it would be useful to try to put marine data in the context of other proteins that we choose the grocery store. so our hypothesis really is that there might be some differences between those that are growing in the ocean, those that are grown on farms and that are animal products, or maybe the

new animal substitutes, the meat substitutes that are on the market. what we found out was in fact there are essentially micro-plastics in all of these protein choices. if you are looking to be a protein eater, you cannot really avoid microplastics. john: [16:30:34]i think we can understand in seafood where it comes from, it comes to the water that they're in. but where does pork and beef and especially plant-based protein like tofu, where does it come from there? george: in the ocean, plastics are in the water, so they are either ingested, they can come through the gill systems of fish and shellfish. for terrestrial animals and plants for that matter, in some respects it's very similar. we know there's a lot of microplastic contamination in the soil. so you can find micro-plastics that are essentially taken up by plants through the roof systems, through the soil, and animals are drinking water that is likely contaminated with microplastics.

they are eating a variety of different foodstuffs, which themselves may have plastic in them as well. many of the processed proteins and other foods we are eating may be picking up micro-plastics from the processing itself. john: [16:31:38]i know you're not a physician. you're not an epidemiologist. but is there any scientific agreement or understanding of what ingesting -- a person ingesting this kind of plastic does to them? george: that is true. all the authors on our study are marine biologists by training. but we think the medical profession should be concerned about this as well, and they a re. i would say we are concerned, but we should not be panicking. we know that plastics in the various chemicals used to produce them and the chemicals they absorb in the natural environment can be delivered into animals. and they have found their way into a variety of organ systems, including in humans.

we are finding it in oru p -- finding it in our poop, in our bloodstream, in other organs in our system. the question is are the kinds of contaminants that are well known in plastics being delivered at a sufficient dose to actually be a risk to human health? and that's the question that has not yet been answered. but i think it is important for all of us to address. john: so we know it's in bottled water, it's in sources of protein. if someone wants to minimize this or avoid it altogether, what can they do? george: you mentioned this bottled water study earlier, which was a fascinating study in its own right, because they found extremely small plastics, these are called nanoparticles. they are 1000 times smaller than the kinds of particles we were sampling in our study, and were found to be 10 to 100 times more common than we thought for plaque or sticks -- for plastics in bottled water.

this is the frontier of new techniques to detect these things at the nanoscale. there are some things individuals can do to avoid that , but more importantly at the societal level we need to reduce our use of plastics and advance policies to deal with those. that's what we do here at ocean conservancy. but you're if you're an individual consumer, there are a couple things you can do. i think you can use filtered water, you can use glass to store and drink your water rather than plastic. you can avoid foodstuffs that are wrapped in plastics. i have seen bananas in the store wrapped in plastic, which, of course, is completely unnecessary. there are other ways that you can essentially reduce your use of single-use plastics and keep your foodstuffs away from them. john: how easy are you finding that if you try to get away from single use plastics, how easy is it? george: it is a challenge, and that is why we need broad systemic changes to how we as a

society produce, manage, and dispose of plastics. it is easier than you think. i remember here in california we had a big debate a number of years ago about bringing your own bags to the grocery store so that we would not use single-use plastics in the grocery sre. we passed a bill to do away with that. within a week or so i find myself pretty easily using these bags. there are ways we can change our individual behavior that can overcome these entrenched behaviors many of us have. john: george leonard of ocean conservancy, thank you very much. george: thank you. ♪ john: before we go, an update on congressional negotiations avoid a partial government shutdown on friday. pbs news weekend learned congressional leaders agreed on a stopgap spending bill that would extend some funding

through march 1 and the rest through march 8, the day after president biden's state of the union address. it is far from a guaranty. it still has to be passed from the house and senate. that is pbs news weekend for this saturday. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, things for joining us. see you tomorrow. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. well, somebody's pocket, 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. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these indiduals and 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. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >>

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