geoff: good evening. i am geoff bennett. amna: and i'm on the divorce -- i am amna nawaz. geoff: benjamin netanyahu rejects hamas's cease-fire terms and says complete victory is months away. amna: tensions remain high in a

rock as a malicious regroup after widespread strikes by u.s. forces. >> if things continue to develop like this with action and reaction by the parties involved, it may lead to an unpredictable regional war. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by. >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. the world awaits. a world of flavor. diverse destinations. and immersive experiences. a world of leisure. and british style. all with cunard's white star service.

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thank you. amna: welcome to the newshour. tonight, the future of the u.s. border crisis and for allies across the world rests with the u.s. senate. which earlier today blocked the bipartisan bill to address immigration and ukraine funding and now is frozen while considering what happens next. geoff: it follows an unusual day in the house yesterday, where gop leadership lost votes on articles of impeachment against homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas and a stand-alone aid package for israel. congressional correspondent lisa desjardins has been watching it all unfold. senate republican and five democrats blocked the borr compromise today in the senate. the day is not over. could any part of this compromise survive? >> that is the question. democrats are trying to salvage the ukraine, israel, and other foreign aid portion of this will but i want to tell you where we are by showing you where we are.

let's look at the senate floor. you see almost nothing happening on the senate floor. staffers, a few senators in and out and that is because right now we are waiting to see if republicans and democrats will agree on a way forward. the question is whether they can get to this ukraine aid bill. senator schumer this morning talked to us and said he is hopeful, he wants it to pass the senate so it can put pressure on the house. >> the majority of republicans in the house said they want to do ukraine, they want to do israel. we hope that if we pass it in the senate the house would rise to the occasion. the house is in chaos. it does not behoove the speaker well to block everything because 30 hard right wing people just want chaos. lisa: if this ukraine and foreign aid bill moves forward we will break down what is in it. right now i want to talk about where we are. i try very hard not to harm people's heads and brains with

what happens here in congress but i want to try and explain the strange paradox we are in. as you explain, let's take a look that there is this block from mostly senate republicans today and four democrats, one independent in regards to the funding bill. democrats have offered this idea of a bill without the border policy, just the foreign aid. the problem is those same republicans blocking the bigger deal, they want their own border policy ideas in this. essentially what is going on is republicans do not agree amongst themselves about what this bill should look at. their internal divides are holding a lot of things up. senator mcconnell and senator schumer are trying to work out if they can just bring up enough different ideas to the floor to move anything forward. it is minute by minute and it could be a long night. geoff: in the lower chamber yesterday the house gop tripped at the finish line trying to bring articles of impeachment against the dhs secretary.

what does it say about their capacity to pass anything or to just govern at the most basic level? lisa: an extraordinary sign that the house is not able to govern right now under republicans, doing some of their key priorities. the impeachment of senator mayorkas was a priority. they failed on that vote. house republicans were surprised when a democrat who had been in surgery came to the house floor. if that is the reason your vote fails, if you are not counting the potential democratic votes, you have a much larger problem. also failed yesterday, a bill to fund israel aid and republicans could not get enough support for that. mike johnson knew he had a lot of questions hovering over him and he did speak to reporters about what happened. >> democracy is messy. we have a razor thin margin here. every vote counts. sometimes, when you're counting votes and people show up when they're not expected to be in the building it changes the

equation. the process is messy sometimes, but the job will be done. lisa: he told us they are committed to bring back the impeachment of secretary mayorkas in the future. we did not get answers on what they plan to do on the border itself, or on ukraine funding. senator rick scott, republican of florida, said he spoke to mike johnson and mike johnson said a larger aid package is dead. there's a lot of confusion, a lot of questions. i have a large capacity i think for covering let's say legislative nonsense and irrationality. but this week has given even me a headache and the stakes are incredible he hi. -- incredibly high. geoff: how are voters seeing this? lisa: let's look at the results of the latest pbs newshour and marist poll for who they think handles immigration better. registered voters said it is republicans. 42%, democrats 30%.

the next category, folks who said neither party would handle it better, 19%. the politics here are what is driving things especially for republicans. they see immigration and the border is a key issue helping them at the polls. however, when you dig deeper and ask about approval of members of congress, let's look what registered voters said. who do they approve? voters feel better about democrats in congress, neither by the way getting a majority approval. democrats edged out republicans. here's the important part. let's look how each party's voters looked at their own members. when you ask them a credit voters, do you approve of your members of congress, 77% say yes. republican voters, barely a majority even approves of members of congress. who do republican voters approve of? 84% favorable for donald trump. that is the problem for

republicans here. their own voters do not really like them. there voters like donald trump, they continue to try to be donald trump but they are not. they are not able to come up with any formula to works. the result is gridlock. geoff: right after senate republicans blocked that bipartisan border package, i spoke with west virginia democratic senator joe manchin to get his reaction. senator joe manchin, welcome to the newshour. sen. manchin: good to be with you, geoff. thank you for having me. geoff: sure. i want to start with your assessment of what transpired in the senate today. republicans blocking the border security deal that the gop initially said it wanted. what do you see as the impact and the implications of the unraveling of what would have been the most significant immigration law in decades? sen. manchin: geoff, i just i can't even describe i have no description of what i witnessed today on the floor of the senate. only thing i can tell you, it reaffirmed my decision not to

run again because i have totally come to the conclusion. they reaffirmed it today. you're not going to fix washington with the political discourse and division that we have here in washington. so i'm going to do everything i can going around the country trying to get people to understand that the pressure has to be put on. it's about our country. it's not about you or the party and people that are running as worried about themselves or the party that they represent or the party they belong to, that should be immaterial concerning what the job you have to do, which is basically protecting and defending the constitution and healing our country. geoff, 18,000 border patrol agents, 18,000 have supported this piece of legislation, not for political reasons. these are people that were totally opposed to joe biden's handling of the border since day one. they now have said this is the most transformative piece of legislation that they have seen that would secure a border. and then all of a sudden, because of politics, geoff, it

fell apart. geoff: and at the moment it appears emergency aid for ukraine, israel and the indo-pacific region, all of that stands in limbo as well. you serve on the senate armed services committee. absent action from congress, is there any other way weapons and emergency aid can be delivered to ukraine? sen. manchin: well, we're trying everything humanly possible, and i would like to think that people can come to their senses. ukraine desperately needs our support. we need ukraine to win this fight. we need them to stop russia. they've been unbelievable what they've been able to do and the damage, and they've been able to show the vulnerabilities of russia, which i think has been helpful. when you see those bad actors we have around the world that would like to cohese around another movement, and we have countries that we have foreign concerns, which is russia, china, north korea, iran. and to give them any more validity and to show that ukraine can do what they

can by themselves with assistance of us, but fighting it themselves. and we're not going to be there for them. shame on anybody that would not be able to continue to support ukraine to have a victorious outcome. unbelievable. geoff: i want to return to what you said about how this chaos on the hill reaffirms your decision to not seek reelection back in december, you said that you're relaunching a two month winter tour to determine whether there's a national movement for a third party ticket. it's been two months. what have you decided? sen. manchin: well, i think i've said this, that december, i mean, the super tuesday march. i will tell you what you have. are we going to have what we have now? have they moved and changed their positions any whatsoever? has the grand old party, can it become grand again? and can the democratic party become the responsible, sensible party that it once was? can they come back or are they going to stay in their respective corners? the extreme left and extreme right, where you basically have, radical, if you will, radical

positions that they're trying to mainstream. they're weaponizing the political process in america. they're making people pick a side. and the other side, whatever side, you pick the other side supposed to be your enemy, geoff. well, i can assure you the other side is not my enemy. that's my colleague. we might have differences. we might be opponents on different types of subject matters, but we should always be working to strengthen and make our country better. if you want to find out where the enemy is, i can show you where the enemy that wants to do us harm around the country or around the world, but it's not fellow americans, and we're allowing that to be weaponized. we have to stop that. i'm going to be talking, there are other good people, hopefully get more people involved, let's see what happens. geoff: the dynamics of the race likely won't change between now and super tuesday. they will likely emerge with donald trump as the republican nominee, and joe biden is the democratic nominee. so what more are you waiting for? sen. manchin: well, that's

exactly what we end up with. and we see that there is any type of an opening, and there's a third party that can truly be competitive and not be a spoiler. that's a whole other condition. that's a whole other scenario. no one knows about that and who those people would be. i believe the country's ready for a person who might have been identified as a democrat at one time in there life. a person who might be identified as a republican one time in her life, different party affiliations at one time that aren't going to subscribe to the extremes of both parties and can come together as a team to run our country and put it back together. so we're continue to be the great united states of america and ourselves become the divided states of america. we'll be looking for that. geoff: would that candidate be you? sen. manchin: could be me or many other people. could be a lot of people. there's a lot of good people that have left this body because what they saw happen today, they couldn't take anymore. i can't either. it's ridiculous. geoff: let me ask you this, sir, because no labels holding -- own

polling from last year shows that donald trump gains when a moderate independent candidate is included in the race, he gets a 4.4% gain. is there a way to be a third party candidate without being a spoiler? history suggests there isn't. sen. manchin: well, i've never been a spoiler in my life, geoff, and i'm not going to start now. i would not be involved in a movement such as that. we have to see clear evidence that there's some other opportunity that we could help solidify our country, unite our country. geoff: cnn reported days ago that privately you've been telling people that a joe biden health scare or a donald trump conviction could give you an opening to run as an independent. is that the case? sen. manchin: there's a lot of things that could give myself or many people, i just i don't have a burning desire. and i've said that i'm not out campaigning. i will do whater it takes and sacrifice anything i possibly could to save my country and protect my country and bring it together. and i believe we are dangerously, and after today's vote on the most dangerous thing that we have, a crisis we have facing us, which is the unsecured border. and we have a fix that people that are opposed to the democrat

administration that caused the problem but are willing to fix it today. and the republicans who have identified the problem, and we worked together and got a bill and a compromise republican democrat bill, the border security bill that we had in front of us today. and they walked away from it because of the politics. that's what's wrong. that's what we should be concerned about. geoff: there are certainly democrats who will hear you say that and say that's why you're needed in the senate, that you are the only democrat, arguably, who could, who could win statewide across west virginia. and that as democrats face a tough election map, for the senate to try to keep control of the senate. they need you there. sen. manchin: well, i've said this, geoff. it's i've been here 14 years. i've been in public service for 42 years. i've given everything i have to represent my great state and the beautiful people of west virginia, and to defend the constitution. i've done everything i can, and i will continue. i've come to the conclusion it

can't be fixed here the politics, the business of politics, the business of the democrat party, the business, the republican party. the amount of money comes in by just fighting for your own identity and your own party is not what we need for our country. but the business model is so profitable, they're not going to change, geoff. and unless the people demand changes, it's not going to happen. geoff: that is democratic senator from west virginia, joe manchin. thank you for your time, sir. sen. manchin: thank you, geoff. appreciate it very much. bye, bye. stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with newshour west. here are the latest headlines. a new wave of russian missiles and drones struck six regions across ukraine and killed at least five civilians. the bombardment targeted at least three major cities, including kyiv. attacks there gutted several floors of an 18-story apartment building and triggered the

city's first major power outage this winter. a pair of bombing in pakistan killed at least 30 people on the eve of parliamentary elections. more than two dozen others were wounded. the tarts tag and it -- the attacks targeted political offices in the southwestern part of the country. one bomb exploded at an independent candidate's office. the second blow up the office of a radical islamist party. party leaders insisted they will not be stopped. >> god willing, we will maintain our determination and continue our work. we will continue our election activities without any fear. these blasts will not stop us from our working. stephanie: late tonight in pakistan, the islamic state group claimed responsibility for the bombings. a history-making storm gave parts of southern california one last drenching today as it moved

out. since the weekend, the system caused nearly 500 mudslides in the los angeles area after dropping up to a foot of rain. collapsing hillsides remained a threat today, before drier weather moves in. the storm is now blamed for nine deaths. five u.s. marines are missing tonight after their helicopter went down in southern california during that storm. the wreckage of the super stallion helicopter was found this morning in a mountainous area in pine valley, east of san diego. the marine corps says the crew had been on a training flight and were returning to their base in san diego. the republican primary results are in, and the landslide winner was not an actual candidate. former president trump's campaign encouraged voters to choose the "none of these candidates" option -- and it beat nikki haley by better than two to one. trump skipped tuesday's contest which did not award any delegates. in the state's democratic primary, president biden cruised to an easy victory. the special counsel investigating president biden's

handling of classified documents has completed its inquiry. attorney general merrick garland informed congress today that he will release the report to the public after the white house reviews it for executive privilege concerns. the yearlong investigation centers on the improper retention of documents found at biden's delaware home and the private office he used after serving as vice president. still to come, the supreme court prepares to hear arguments on whether donald trump can be barred from colorado's presidential ballot. meta's president of global affairs on the challenges of ai generated content and misinformation the co-owner of a women's tackle football team gives her brief but spectacular take on building a team. and much more. >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios them a crown wash

-- studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: israeli prime minister benjamin netnyahu today rejected a counterproposal from hamas that would have paused the war in exchange for releasing israeli hostages over the next few months. he said the israel defense run forces could achieve that goal in months. >> surrendering to hamas is -- hamas's delusional demands will not lead to freeing the captives , it will invite another massacre. it will invite what none of our citizens would accept. >> the agreement calls for a

pause to release women and children and the promise of more pauses to release others. hamas's counterproposal demands israeli withdrawal from populated areas and then from gaza completely. it also demands reconstruction, more than 500 humanitarian aid trucks per day and the understanding hamas would remain a macron power. the u.s. has helped a pause could spark broader regional diplomatic process. today antony blinken said talks would continue. >> while there are clear nonstarter's in hamas's response, we do think it creates space for a deal to be reached. >> netanyahu said israel has killed hamas fighters and the operation would extend into rafa where more than half of godless people are now sheltering.

so where do things stand? we get two views. marwan muasher was jordan's foreign minister and then deputy prime minister from 2002 to 2005. he's now vice president for studies at the carnegie endowment for international peace. and dennis ross was a longtime middle east peace negotiator for both republican and democratic administrations. he's now a distinguished fellow at the washington institute for near east policy. let me start with you, dennis ross. what is your reaction to what prime minister benjamin netanyahu said in response to hamas's counterproposal? >> he had two audiences in mind. the first was idea sinwar who is the head of the military wing in gaza and actually is the person in control in gaza. and the other audience was probably the right wing of his own coalition where he knows they are threatening to break the government if he looks like he is prepared to end the war or give too much to hamas. so i think for sinwar, what he wanted to signal was, look, you're asking to end the war and you stay in power. no way. not accepting that. this was netanyahu's way of beginning a readiness to signal

that he's going to negotiate, but he's going to negotiate hard. and i would say the hamas counterproposal is itself a kind of first counterproposal designed to produce a negotiation. i don't think there was any hamas expectation that the israelis would accept something like this. >> marwan muasher, is this a signal that netanyahu's going to negotiate, even if it isn't -- even if it is negotiate hard? >> well, look, netanyahu says that the law will not end until he kills the hamas leaders. from the point of view of hamas, why should they agree to release of hostages and then agree to a truce of, whatever, two months, three months, and then after that they get bombed again? so if this is the real position of mr. netanyahu, then i'm afraid that, you know, this is a nonstarter. secretary blinken talked about the palestinian position being a nonstarter. i see the israeli one being and

nonstarter if this is the right position. i think the priority today has to be a permanent end to the war. after 27,000 people killed, one cannot keep talking about the truces that are not permanent. >> dennis ross, is this netanyahu's actual position or is this a public stance? and does this doom any effort to end the war in gaza, even if temporarily? >> look, i do think it's a negotiating posture, but i also think that we really have at this two point -- at this poin t two irreconcilable positions. the hamas position, as marwan just suggested, is they want an end to the war and they want to remain in power. and the israeli position is, at the end of the day, hamas is not going to be in power. i do think what the actual position should be, at least on the israeli side, should be the demilitarization of gaza and the certainty that it can't be

militarized. i also think you can see you can tie a reconstruction to demilitarization, something the israelis are in the process of doing. no one is going to be able to eliminate hamas, partly because it's an idea, partly because it's a group, partly because in some ways it is embedded, at least sociologically, psychologically in gaza. but hamas not being in power, hamas being demilitarized, gaza being demilitarized, those are objectives i think that could be achieved. i think of the focus turns to that. then the gaps between the two sides, which seem so irreconcilable, might be bridgeable. >> is there a version of gaza in the future that has hamas not in power? >> i don't think gaza is the end game. the end game has to be the end of the occupation. if we talk about the package where the endgame is the end of the occupation and the establishment of the palestinian state, a lot of these questions that are difficult to answer, they become easier to answer. are we serious about finally ending the occupation and establishing a two state solution, as the united states says it is, in the end, hamas

has to become a political force. we have seen this with the ira in ireland. we have seen this in many countries across the world. we have seen organizations that were called terrorist but that became political forces in the end. look, today, the palestinian polls are clear. 60% of palestinians in the west bank and gaza want hamas to stay in gaza and rule over gaza after the war. these are numbers that cannot be ignored. the question is, how do we give these people a political horizon so that they do not believe in armed resistance, but that they do believe that finally a process can lead to the end of the occupation. >> dennis ross let's use that occasion to zoom out. the u.s. theory of the case right now is that a temporary pause could lead to larger discussions about exactly what marwan muasher just said. gaza reconstruction. the future governance of gaza and then normalization between

israel and saudi arabia, leading to a two state solution. is that the correct approach of the biden administration? >> i think it is a logical one and could be the right one. it is not just that the doubles are in the details -- the devils are in the details. the israeli public was traumatized by october 7th. they fear when you talk about a palestinian state, that hamas will come to dominate that state. and hamas, by definition, doesn't accept a two state outcome. and this is not just a recent phenomenon. this was the case throughout the 1990's. every time we were making progress we got a hamas bomb. there is an ideology in hamas that rejects israel's existence. the question is, do you have a palestinian national movement that in the end will be dominated by those and who will demonstrate they're dominated and controlled the movement that is prepared to live with israel as a nation state of the jewish people. if that becomes very clear, then you can get a palestinian state, you're not going to have peace until you have an end of occupation. but there's got to be responsibility and

accountability on both sides. on the israeli side, they're going to have to demonstrate they're prepared to live with an independent palestinian state. but the palestinians are also going to have to demonstrate that they reject those who reject the idea of two states. >> is there a palestinian leadership that the us and the region is working on today that could foresee that future that dennis ross just imagine happening? >> of course. one of them is in prison. marwan barghouti, who is ready for a compromise. >> marwan barghouti, who israel convicted of terrorism charges but maintains his political viability and is one of the most popular palestinian leaders today. >> absolutely. dennis talks about ideology. what about the ideology of members of the israeli cabinet today that are openly calling for the expulsion of palestinians? ideologies exist on both sides. we need to change the mindset of both israelis and palestinians who today do not believe there

is a partner on the other side. and the only way we can change the mindset is if we offer a serious process, not an open ended process, but a serious process that ends the occupation. if we do that, i believe we can change the mindset of both palestinians and israelis. but today we cannot have the extremist ideologies once again on both sides dictate the outcome of this conflict. >> if i could just ask quickly, both of you, to turn to an incident this afternoon in baghdad. the u.s. military has announced that it took a drone strike that killed one of the leaders of the -- of hezbollah, one of the pro-iranian militias in iraq, responsible for the deaths of three u.s. service members. the the u.s. military saying that it killed the commander, quote, responsible for directly planning and participating in that attack. dennis ross first, could this kind of attack end attacks by pro-iranian militias on u.s. service members in iraq and

syria? >> it's clear that the administration has made a decision that one of the things it has to do is at a threshold was crossed when three americans were killed. and then when that happens, the american response is going to be disproportionate to what we saw before. the u.s. is clearly trying to change the calculus by showing those who are doing this are playing with fire. is this going to be sufficient to do it? i am not sure. >> does this kind of strike code change the calculus? >> i still think that both the united states and iran are not interested in widening the conflict. i think that what we have seen so far, both from iran and from the united states, that our -- they are tactical engagements, but i do not think that they are going to amount to a widening of the conflict, and i certainly hope they don't. >> marwan muasher, dennis ross, thank you very much to you both. >> >> thank you. amna: that u.s. airstrike in baghdad tonight killed a leader of a group that has struck american forces for years, and was a target of the first american strikes last friday.

but another group bore most of the dead and casualties, and claims no connection to the attacks on the u.s. special correspondent simona foltyn traveled to the site of those airstrikes in western iraq, and met members of this other paramilitary group for this exclusive report. reporter: conflict is spreading through the middle east. four hundred miles from gaza, another front has claimed three american and many more iraqi lives. we've been driving for hours into the deserts of western iraq to reach a place called akashaat. it's located near iraq's border with syria and has been heavily hit by american airstrikes. those strikes were the biden administration's response to a drone attack that killed three u.s. service members in jordan. but who exactly did they hit? this stretch of barren land has been carved up between a number of armed actors, jostling for power and control over the strategic border. akashaat, a small town left abandoned since the war with

isis, falls under the 13th brigade of the popular mobilization forces, an umbrella group of paramilitary forces ies -- forces formed to fight isis beginning in 2014, and that are now officially part of iraq's security forces. abu saif witnessed the attacks. he tells me that the first missile struck the military hospital. >> around three to four rockets hit the hospital. five people were inside, all of them were killed. reporter: the wrecked hulk of an ambulance still lies beneath the rubble. seventeen pmf members in total were killed. >> they targeted other places in this compound, so that anyone who's injured can't get medical care. reporter: so you think it was on purpose? >> yes it was on purpose, why else would they start with the hospital? reporter: this is the first time brigade 13, also called liwa al-toufuf, was targeted by the united states, and many here are

struggling to understand why. it's not part of the four entities that make up another, more secretive grouping called the islamic resistance in iraq, which has claimed responsibility for attacking american troops at bases throughout iraq and syria. >> we don't have anything to do with the attacks. they cannot get to those who carry out the attacks, so they target those protecting the country's borders. reporter: the group that is believed responsible for the bulk of attacks on american forces is kataib hezbollah. i visited their bases not far from akashaat back in 2021. kataib hezbollah is the most powerful of the self-dubbed resistance. but part of it has been incorporated into the larger pmf, and it tries to use this official government-bestowed status to shield itself from american retaliation. the united states has designated kataib hezbollah, and other members of the resistance, as terror organizations.

the pentagon said that american fighters hit, quote, terrorist groups supported by iran's revolutionary guards" and not the popular mobilization forces, or pmf, which is part of the iraqi state. but the strikes its -- but the targeting of the 13th brigade here in akashaat raise questions about those claims, and the accuracy of the intelligence. the other possibility, some iraqi officials worry, is that the united states has broadened its definition of what it regards as a legitimate target to all of the pmf. under heavy guard, the commander arrives to inspect the aftermath of the strikes. his men warily eye an american surveillance drone hovering above. qasem musleh heads brigade 13 and the pmf in this area. he tells me that these installations have never been used to launch attacks on american forces. >> this place and this entire sector falls under my responsibility. it has no aggressive activities

towards american forces. we are part of the popular mobilization forces and we take our orders from the prime minister. >> there are accusations against you that liwa toufuf enabled groups like kataib hezbollah to launch attacks against the americans. >> first of all i hope that the united states will reveal one piece of evidence that there is support to the resistance factions. there was no leadership here, as they claimed, or people with ties to foreign countries, or who took part in strikes on coalition forces. reporter: so you can say with confidence that your brigade has never attacked american forces. >> absolutely not and we won't. reporter: what is your message to the american government? >> first of all, let them review their accounts and their agents who transmit information the . information they received about the town of akashaat is false. they should verify the information they receive because there are innocent people here. reporter: the white house gave plenty of advance warning of impending strikes, giving the factions responsible for

attacking american troops time to vacate their facilities and leaving others to pay the price , including civilians. we drive onwards to al-qaim, where american strikes targeted a kataib hezbollah base inside a residential area. there, i met anmar al-rawi. his younger brother, twenty-year-old student abdulrahman, was killed when a missile fell on the family home. >> i was here when it happened, i carried my brother's body away with my own hands. we are civilians, this is our area, it belongs to us, iraqis. reporter: this security camera captured the impact; another clip, filmed on a cell phone, the sobs of desperate relatives. it's unclear whether this was a direct hit from an american warplane, or secondary explosions from weapons depots that caught fire. who do you think bears the responsibility for your brother

death? >> in the first place, the americans. of course their strike was a reaction to the attack on them, but their response fell on the civilians, not on the militaries. not one from kataib hezbollah was killed. they knew there was ammunition in the base, and that civilians would be affected. reporter: nearby, people gather to pay their respects for the dead. many iraqis see the us strikes not as self-defense, but as yet another violation of their country's sovereignty. tribal leader ragheb al-karbouli fears worse is yet to come. reporter: perhaps if things continue to develop like this with action and reaction by the parties involved, it may lead to an unpredictable regional war. reporter: i ask him what the solution is to prevent further escalation. >> the solution is the solution to the palestinian issue. an independent palestinian state with full sovereignty will give an opportunity for security and peace in the entire region.

reporter: by striking inside iraq, many here think, the united states is fuelling anger, while not making enough effort to address the root cause of what has already become a regional war. for the pbs newshour, i'm simona foltyn in western iraq. geoff: tomorrow, the u.s. supreme court will hear arguments in one of the most consequential elections cases ever. at issue: does the constitution's civil war-era insurrection clause disqualify donald trump from holding higher office? the court will hear a case out of colorado, where its state supreme court ruled trump is ineligible to be on the ballot. other states have come to the opposite conclusion. william brangham explains the background to this historic case.

>> we fight. we fight like hell. reporter: it was a day scarred by chaos and violence. thousands of supporters of donald trump stormed the u.s. capitol trying to stop the certification of joe biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. was that day and the events leading up to it an insurrection? if so, does an obscure provision in the constitution prohibit donald trump from holding political office ever again? those are the key questions the u.s. supreme court will wait tomorrow as the justices parse a rarely considered provision of the 14th amendment for the first time since -- the first time in the court's history. >> the amendment was passed a few years after the civil war. reporter: a civil war historian at the university of connecticut is one of the many who submitted amicus briefs in this case.

>> the reason the framers decided to do this was to discourage political domestic violence which is exactly what is happening in the postwar south in this time. reporter: written after the civil war, the 14th amendment addresses the rights of american citizens, particularly formerly enslaved people. of its five sections, section three is the crux of this case. it says no one who took an oath to support the constitution can ever hold office again if they, quote, engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. is it clear to you that january 6 and the events leading up to it and that they itself constitute insurrection? under section three? >> it is my opinion that it does. it is also very much an historical record. reporter: he won a pulitzer

prize for his biography of frederick douglass and also submitted a brief to the court. >> an insurrection is when a group of people engaged together to resist the power of the federal government by force with a large public game, and what -- public aim, and what could be more important than overturning a legitimate election? not only engaged in violence, invaded the u.s. capitol, broke down its doors and windows, it lead to death. it led to all sorts of injuries. it is a miracle there were not more guns involved. >> how could more easily subvert our democracy from within the commander-in-chief who has tried to do so. >> last december in colorado was the first time a group of voters successfully won a case against trump citing section three.

even though trump's legal team argued he was exercising his right to question the election and never urged anyone to commit violence, colorado supreme court in a split decision ruled trump had engaged in an insurrection and ordered him struck from the state's republican primary ballot. not long after, maine's supreme court decided he should be removed from that states ballot on similar grounds. the u.s. supreme court will try to determine whether this applies to donald trump. the former president's legal team will argue donald trump did not engage in insurrection, that section three is not applicable because he has not been charged or convicted, and that section three does not say the president is a quote officer of the united states. >> those who discuss the

disqualification because, this would apply to the president of the united states. in order to be president you have to be 35 years of age, you have to be born in this country, and you have to not have been -- have incited insurrection against the government of the united states. reporter: while the justices debate constitutional questions, there is an equally pressing political one. if the supreme court lets colorado's ruling stand and more states like maine take similar action, what will it mean for our democracy when millions of americans cannot cast a vote for donald trump because of a constitutional provision that few voters have other -- have ever heard of? for the pbs newshour, i am william brangham. amna: meta

policy on ai is under scrutiny. after it allowed an altered video of president joe biden to remain online. this week, meta's oversight board called the company's manipulated media policies quote: "incoherent" and "confusing." meta now says it's taking a number of measures to address ai-generated content on its platforms, including labeling them as such in the months to come. nick clegg, president of global affairs at meta, joins me now to discuss these concerns. i want to end -- show people again the image. wen yu -- when you post, there's going to be a label, ai info. how do you know it is ai if it is not generated on your own platform? do you have the tools to detect an ai generated image if it is created somewhere else? >> you make exactly the right distinction, which is people use our tools to generate ai images,

we know that and we can watermark that. we do that already. if you use one of our tools to concoct an image using ai, there is a circular watermark which makes it very clear it is not a real photograph taken by a human being. your question is what happens when someone uses someone else's tools, and there are more and more of them, they are multiplying, and then seeks to share with their friends and post it on instagram, facebook threads? i think we have made progress as an industry under the umbrella of an organization called partnership for ai which brings together a lot of the main players to develop common standards so that when we as it is called in the jargon ingest, we bring onto our platform because someone is sharing it, something which has been concocted elsewhere, has been generated elsewhere, there's an invisible watermark which allows our technology to automatically

identify it and then we can choose as we will to label it so users can distinguish between what is human and not human, synthetic and -- amna: is that something you can do now or something you will be able to do? >> it is something we can do now with images and will be instituting in weeks and mons to come. the difficulty is the technology does not exist across the industry to apply the same kind of common standards on audio or video content. and of course there was always the risk that people who want to use these tools for malicious purposes will try and evade those rules. i do not think it is a perfect solution. just because it is not perfect does not mean we should not do anything. this is the best thing we can do right now in keeping with the state of the technology as it exists today. amna: let me ask you about your policies because it was your oversight board that said your current policies are confusing

and incoherent. there was this video that spread on facebook last year with the unaltered original video showing president biden placing an i voted sticker on his granddaughter's chest. the fake one made it look like he was repeatedly inappropriately touching her. that spread quite a bit. you made the decision to leave it up. why did that video not violate your rules? >> i should be clear, the oversight board said we were right to keep it up and they criticized us for being inconsistent about when we remove content. they said trying to play whack a mole and remove individual bits of content is inconsistent and not effective. what we are saying this week is in keeping with the critique the oversight board delivered. namely, we are going to label much more visibly for users on a much wider scale content that is artificially generated. amna: if i may, that video

especially in this election year, showed a presidential candidate doing something he did not do. how worried are you those kinds of videos are going to be spread even more widely and they actually could help spread dangerous information in a key election year? >> i do not think it will be that dangerous as long as we can tell users it is synthetic, it is ai generated. do remember that any synthetic content, any ai generated content about any candidates will immediately be noticed by those candidates. i don't think there is much risk it will go unnoticed and many millions of people will see it and no one will realize. we will of course be able to move if our automated systems and the way i described earlier have not caught it already, we will be able to label it. i think considerable efforts will be made by us and others to make sure users can to the best of our powers be able to

distinguish between something that is actually being produced authentically and something which is being produced by ai. i hope also alongside our policies, which mean no one can run a political ad on facebook or instagram without declaring, disclosing that they have used ai, and if they do that, they systematically try and avoid that policy, we will of course take action against them. amna: when you say take action against them, i want to make sure i'm respectful of your time. what does that mean? you will take the videos down, take the ads down? >> we have a range of penalties which could start with a warning if they have done inadvertently right through to saying they cannot run ads on facebook and instagram. there's a range of penalties we can apply and most mainstream campaigns would want to retain the ability to communicate with political ads on our platforms. i think they have a huge incentive to play by our rules. amna: what is the role for

lawmakers? there was a bipartisan bill which would officially ban the use of ai content that deceptively portrays candidates for federal office in political ads. do you support that bill? >> i have not looked at that bill specifically but there is very much a need, and a space regulation at the end of the day, we are talking here about the policies we have developed to the best of our abilities about how users will be able to view, to decide for themselves whether something is ai generated or not. when it comes to elections, elections belong to the country, not to big tech companies. it should be part of the democratic process for politicians to come together across party lines and decide for themselves the guardrails they want to apply in elections. we will abide by whatever guardrails they come up with. amna: that is nick clegg joining us tonight.

good to see you. rachel ortiz marsh is the co-owner of the tennessee trojans, a women's tackle football team in nashville, tennessee. she founded the team in 2022 with her wife, tessa, to build community and break barriers for women through sports. tonight, ortiz-marsh shares her "brief but spectacular" take on building a team. >> the common misconception about women in sports is that we're not as passionate and raw as men are, that somehow we play it differently, but we don't i -- we don't. >> ready, set, go. >> 1, 2, 3, trojans.

>> i am the owner and founder of the tennessee trojans. we are one of 16 teams in the women's national football conference. it's a full tackle, 11 on 11 women's football league. my earliest memory of football is when we were in high school and my coach told us that females could never play football. after that moment i've been on a mission to play ever since. i'm a sister of five brothers and i played football since i was like three, four years old trying to hang with them. they tackle me and i, you know, i'm ready to give them elect back. i'm still a rookie. this is my second year playing football and my brother got me into it. i love the intensity. feels like home. feels like i don't get judged. i can be myself. when i was 17 years old, i decided to join the military and i said, you know, i'm only going in for four years. i'll be back in, you know, 22 years, eight months and 14 days later when i retired. that's when i came back. i started the team with my wife. she is the quarterback of our team.

she said one day, i found this newspaper ad about a get together to discuss playing women's football. up until that point, i had never even known that women's tackle football existed. when i went out to that first game, there was like, nothing like it. seeing women like yourself just being able to be passionate and raw and emotional about something other than what you expect a woman to traditionally be passionate about, which is family. kind of where my journey started. >> the team feels like family. >> a lot of us come from single parent homes. we got busy lives and we lived -- lift each other up. >> my teammates are everything to me. i would give my life to them. >> this team has benefited women's lives by impacting how they view themselves, how their family views them. the confidence and esteem that they build. for me, this team brings as much life into me as i do into them. and i look at them and i'm just

like, they are the reason i'm here. my name is rachel ortiz marsh and this is my on building a team. amna: you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. geoff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. including the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these individuals 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. >> this is pbs newshour west from wha studios -- from weta studios and our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism. ♪

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