this is bbc news. the headlines: in china, a city of more than 1 million is under lockdown afterjust three reported cases under the government's zero—covid strategy. residents of yuzhou are not allowed to leave their homes, the transport system has been shut down, and only food stores can stay open. the united states hasjust recorded more thani million cases of the omicron variant. that's the highest daily tally of anywhere in the world. speaking at the white house, president biden has pleaded with the american people who haven't been vaccinated, to get the jab. lawyers for prince andrew have argued for the first time in court that the sexual assault civil lawsuit against him should be thrown out. they say he can't be sued, because of an agreement signed by his accuser, virginia giuffre. prince andrew has consistently denied her allegations.

now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. it is a year since pro—trump protesters stormed the us capitol and unleashed a spasm of violence which left five people dead. while hundreds of people have since been charged, none have been key associates of donald trump. and mr trump seems to be contemplating another run for the white house, still insisting, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen. well, my guest is american constitutional law professor laurence tribe, who contends that the us system of government is now in peril. how strong is his case?

professor laurence tribe in massachusetts, thank you. professor tribe, it is, as i say, one year since those extraordinary events on capitol hill. isn't it time to be positive? time to say that, despite those extraordinary events, the us institutions of government withstood the storm? well, i wish we could say that, because i am an optimist by nature, but we came so close to losing our democracy that simply basking in our having survived would be a dangerous course of action.

it turns out even though trump is no longer president, that he has learned quite a bit from his failure to successfully overturn the results of the last election to the point where he and a very loyal following and tens of millions of americans, i'm afraid, are propagating the myth that the last election was stolen, thatjoe biden is not the legitimate president and that anything that they can do in order to seize the white house is fair game — and they are changing the rules at the state level where american elections, including the election for president, are ultimately decided and putting in place all sorts of mechanisms for stripping people of the right to vote, for miscounting the votes, for replacing the popular vote

in each state with possible apparatchiks named by trump and his loyalists, so that what we confront is in greater peril than we were in a year ago. right. there's a lot in that answer, professor tribe, butjust a couple of points i would make. number one, you refer to the republican effort at state level to limit the way in which voters can vote, which may well reduce turnout in some states, maybe they're democratic voters that they want to deter from voting, but they're doing it through constitutional means, they're not doing it by any local level coup d'etat — and i come back to my basic point, that the system has survived, and those people who used mob violence a year ago, they are now facing court charges. again, the system is working. well, i really wish i could agree with you. it is true that the system is

being used to undermine itself, but what that is showing is that the system is designed in a way that depends on the goodwill of people. it is operated by people who, if they are loyal not to the constitution, but to a particular despot or demagogue, can through using apparently lawful means, subvert the underlying democratic ethos of the system, it's... let me let me stop you, because, again, the detail�*s important. i mean, you're using words like "despot" to describe — i take it you mean donald trump. well, donald trump... exactly. donald trump's role in january 6 last year is being investigated currently by a house of representatives committee, and we know that they are exploring all angles, including trump's role. now, if there is sufficient evidence of criminal activity by the president

and his key associates, i guess we can assume that will be acted upon by the department ofjustice led by the attorney general. well, the attorney general, merrick garland, is a very good man, a friend of mine, a former student of mine, and i am hoping that he will do exactly what you say, but i'm not confident. the reason i'm not confident is that there is very little reason to believe that anyone other than the foot soldiers, the people who actually stormed the capitol is being investigated. the fact is that the investigation ought to extend to the plotters, the planners, the funders, the people at the top — and it is quite possible that the committee that you're describing, two of whose members are former students of mine and quite brilliant, adam schiff and jamie raskin, will get to the bottom of things. but the culprits have to be held accountable.

it's not enough to simply announce something that most of us already believe — namely that donald trump and his chief of staff, and his inner circle planned the coup that almost succeeded. they have to be held accountable. that means indicting them if the evidence supports it, and i argued in a new york times opinion piece a couple of days ago that the evidence certainly supports more of an investigation than we see the justice department engaging in now. and that is your opinion — but i dare say that merrick garland, despite being a friend of yours, wouldn't tell you exactly where he's inclined to go in terms of a criminal investigation, even if he were on the phone to you. i mean, he has the right — indeed, surely he has the obligation to actually keep his cards close to his chest, and you appear to be prejudging the issue. now, you're a renowned constitutional expert. what is the validation for prejudging? i am not prejudging.

i am saying that the evidence is there for an investigation, and all experts — and that includes people on the republican side, as well, someone like don ayer, who was the deputy attorney general in a republican administration, joined me in saying that the evidence at least warrants investigation. and merrick garland does quite rightly hold his cards close to his chest — but the rules of the justice department specifically say that it would be appropriate in his discretion for the attorney general to reassure the public if he, in fact, is investigating the leaders of an insurrection or some event of great public moment without prejudging anything. well, i have to say, i don't know how you define prejudging, but when on twitter, you talked about trump's unique attempt to overthrow the election being "the gravest crime against the united states "in our 235—year history." that sounds a bit

like prejudgment to me. well, that is my opinion, and it's an opinion based on careful observation of hundreds of interviews that have been conducted by the committee. we now know, among other things, that while the storming of the capitol was going on, and while people were being battered and bludgeoned, after president trump — then president trump — urged them to walk to the capitol and be strong in preventing the certification of the election results that he was watching television and he was being implored by members of congress, by members of the media, by others, to use his powers as president to call off the mob and did absolutely nothing for 187 minutes. yeah, professortribe, let me stop you there, because we don't want to rehearse everything that happened a year ago, but we do want to pick out the nuance and the context which matters in any legal process today. would you not, as a renowned scholar of constitutional law,

would you not recognise that this isn'tjust a straightforward legal case? because ifjoe biden's attorney general were to file charges against donald trump when it seems quite clear trump is toying with the notion of running for president again and, according to all the polls, stands a decent chance of winning back the white house, that would represent some sort of massive political problem in the united states. millions and millions of people might well see biden going after trump as an attempt to knock out his most viable opponent in the next presidential election. how does america get around that? you point out something quite important. there is no way of proceeding that will not look political. a decision to prosecute the former president for an attempt to stage a coup and forfomenting an insurrection will look political.

a decision to give him a bye and to essentially say that he is above the law will look political as well. it seems to me that the least dangerous course is to follow all of the evidence where it leads. of course, it will ultimately be up to a jury to decide whether the chief of staff meadows, or whether giuliani, or whether trump or anybody in his circle was guilty of trying to undo a fair election — but when the evidence is presented, when we hear a recording of trump saying — and we've heard this with our own ears — saying to the secretary of state of georgia, "just find me 11,780 votes and i'll do the rest." when we hear all of that, the chances are he will be found guilty. it's going to be political either way. just a point of law, and i want to keep this brief, because there's so much else i want to talk to you about, professor tribe, butjust on a point of law, as i understand it, even if donald trump were found

guilty of criminal offences — and he is, of course, also being investigated in new york state, and i believe there is some sort of investigation of his role after election night in georgia, as well — but even if, ultimately, he's found guilty of offences, that is not going to bar him from running for the presidency again, is it, just on a point of law? on a point of law, you're correct. if the offences are tax offences, but one of the key offences is aiding and abetting an insurrection, and under the united states federal criminal code, anyone who is found guilty of that offence is ineligible ever again to run for any federal office. all right. now, part of this is, for people like you, it's to sort of influence the political debate as best you can with your legal knowledge. is it helpful, and i put this as politely as i can, that you, from the very beginning of the trump administration, have seemed deeply partisan

with an animus toward donald trump? i believe you called for his impeachment before he'd even taken office, and you called for it again after he'd served as president for two weeks. what sort of credibility does that give you right now? well, it's not up to me to decide what my credibility is. the only reason i was calling for his impeachment is that from the beginning it was clear that he was violating the emoluments clauses, as courts have held, although nothing has been done about it. those are the clauses that were designed in our constitution to prevent a sitting president from accepting benefits of a private sort from foreign leaders, and we know that donald trump, throughout his administration, enriched himself at the hands of people like the saudi prince and others, people who rented whole floors of his hotels. it's not a personal thing with me, i don't know the man, i've never met him — but i have believed from the beginning

that he was a threat to our constitution. right, but you, if i may say so, you've now become a voice in an extraordinarily polarised debate in the united states, which often plays itself out on social media platforms and often seems to blur the lines between fact—based, evidence—based truths and rumours and speculation, and, therefore, it is important to perhaps look at your record, too — and if i look at your record, i do see that on twitter, from time to time, you have retweeted allegations involving trump and others close to him which have then been disproved, and you've had to delete your tweets, and just one particular example when you tweeted insinuations that a plane that had gone down in russia might have been downed by putin because it carried a passenger who had important information about the trump—russia investigation — turned out that was complete nonsense, and i believe you had to retract. you know, you've become a player, and sometimes you've been peddling fake news. well, i think you're being quite unfair.

of the thousands of things i've tweeted, there have been three that within hours i retracted because i found out that the sources were not as credible as i thought they were. but i'm willing to stand by the accuracy and record of my 50 years of writing in constitutional law, and i'm willing to compare it to anyone�*s record. i'm not like someone like alan dershowitz, who simply seeks public attention. i'm trying to influence the debate with my knowledge and with the expertise that i have. but in a way, that's my point. but you bring a reputation to the table, and i wonder... i'm going to finish my sentence, whether you want me to or not. go on. i think it's unfair to make the kinds of allegations that you've made on the basis of 1—2 things that i've made a mistake about. everybody makes mistakes, and i'm not exempt. now, i really don't want to be unfair, but i am interested in the political

atmosphere in the united states today and indeed your reflections on it. i look at polling evidence, which partly, i think, because of the american public�*s exposure both to truths, but also to untruths which are masked as truths. the american public�*s confidence in key institutions, notjust the presidency and the congress, which of course are partisan, but also the supreme court. their faith in these institutions is plummeting, according to all of the survey evidence — and i wonder whether you feel that the polarised atmosphere in america today, the sort of political and culture wars that we see are part of that erosion of confidence. they very much are, and i think it's a sad thing. i mean, no longer is there a shared sense of truth and reality. all of the investigations into the 2020 election suggests that claims of massive fraud are completely baseless, that it was, even according to the trump administration's own officials at the time he was president, the fairest and most thoroughly—vetted election for president in american history —

and yet vast numbers of people believe with no evidence that the election was stolen. i think it's a terrible thing, whether it's about climate change or about vaccines, or about politics when we don't have a shared sense of reality. i can't imagine any outcome in 2024 that will be widely accepted in this country. whoever wins, the loser is likely to have a great many people who are not sure about the truth of the matter. that's scary. i'm particularly interested in your thoughts on the supreme court, given your background, notjust as a legal scholar, but also as a practitioner of the law who has taken some extraordinarily important and high—profile cases all the way to the supreme court. you said in a recent op ed in the washington post, co—written, you said that you no longer have confidence in the supreme court.

so if we go back to this notion that the american public as a whole is losing confidence in the key pillars of your democracy, you're part of that. i mean, if you tell the american public they should no longer have confidence in the supreme court, how are they to put any trust in it? i don't think they should. really? i think i'm speaking the truth. 0n highly contested matters, the supreme court of the united states is less than candid and is not to be trusted. three of the members of the supreme court are appointed by processes that i think are of dubious legitimacy. 0ne, gorsuch, who was put there to a seat that was deliberately kept empty for a year on the ground that an election was approaching, and then amy coney barrett, who was confirmed during an election. the court no longer has the confidence of the american people, not because it will make false statements about it, but because of its own behaviour. the things it has done with respect to voting rights and a number of other areas

deprive it of the basis for confidence that i wish i had after teaching about the supreme court for 50 years. but hang on minute, hang on, hang on. this is important. you accuse donald trump of delegitimising democratic institutions — you are now delegitimising the supreme court, and, in essence, are you telling me that you think keyjustices sitting on that court, several of the nine, are not legitimate and have no right to be there? i'm not saying they have no right to be there. you are putting words in my mouth. i'm saying that the court, as an institution, does not deserve the confidence that it once did, and i do not think that by pretending that the emperor is beautifully clothed, that we can solve the problem. i'm not saying that people should cast no aspersions on any american institutions. i'm saying that the attempt to say that, as donald trump did, that any election outcome

in which he doesn't win is bound to be fraudulent, that undermines faith in the very process elections. 0k, just a couple — if i may, because we're running short of time, just a couple of really important questions on the supreme court. first one — you appear to be saying that, yeah, the politicisation of the court has happened under republican presidents who have appointed justices whom, you know, you feel were not appointed in the right way. your response, and you just sat on a commission appointed byjoe biden to look at the future of the court, which said that it wasn't keen on dramatic actions, but your personal response seems to be that you want the court re—engineered by creating, i guess, at least four new justices to ensure that the current conservative majority is overturned. how on earth could that restore any notion of independence and credibility to the court? it would do quite the reverse.

it would make it even more political, wouldn't it? you seem to have figured it all out. i'm not sure why you want to bother interviewing me! well, it is a question, it's a question for you. well, and my answer is that the court right now is set on a course that is fundamentally anti—democratic. it's overturned important protections of the right to vote. it is locking in a permanent majority of a permanent minority — that is, the minority of the american people are going to be calling the shots against the majority under the rules set by this court. it's not to preserve the reputation of the court that i want to add justices. it's to rebalance a court that has been packed and stacked in an anti—democratic direction. but is the answer to pack it in a slightly different way? well, i think packing is a pejorative term, the only reason i use it is specifically when a seat is left open simply becausejustice scalia died,

and when no hearing is given to merrick garland when he was nominated to the court. the seat is kept open for a year. the court's size was basically cut from nine to eight for political reasons. right now, what i'm suggesting is that it's not a perfect solution, but adding four justices would rebalance the situation. it's not perfect, butjust better than doing nothing. just one looming issue the supreme court is going to wrestle with, probably in a ruling that will come out in the summer, is whether to roll back roe versus wade. that is the us—wide right of a woman to an abortion. if the court undermines roe versus wade, given what you've said about the legitimacy of the court and your lack of confidence in it, do you think the american public is going to be profoundly polarised by that? it could lead to a whole new set of difficulties. well, i do think so. i think women are going to see that the equality that they thought they had

gained in 1973 with the ability to control their reproductive lives is in great danger. many women will have dangerous abortions and more women will die. i'm not sure how many unborn babies will be saved, because desperate women are going to seek desperate solutions, and i do think, unfortunately, the court is going to make the equality of the sexes in this country much more dubious. roe v wade is not a decision that generates consensus, ever has, but i do think that there will be a kind of backlash, yes, if the court does what i think it will do, and that is basically cut the heart out of reproductive freedom. a final thought, professor tribe, and it goes back to your origins. yours is an extraordinary story. you were brought to the us

by your parents, who were jewish—russian refugees, ended up in the us and you made your career at harvard university. you've always looked at, and had an extraordinary sort of fascination with the us constitution, having escaped from totalitarianism. i just wonder whether your faith in the enduring strength of the us constitution and us democracy is dying right now? not at all. i do think that the constitution, in its best form — the constitution has made many compromises, starting with the compromise with slavery, but it has aspirations toward equality and inclusiveness and freedom. those aspirations are not dead. it is up to us, the living, to make sure that they are not killed. i see the work remaining to those of us and future generations, especially, generations that i have... that i have taught, i see that

were very much laid out for us and i see the challenge ahead and i haven't given up hope. that's simply not in my character. all right. well, professor laurence tribe, sadly, we have to end there, but i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. winter has certainly staged a return after the very mild start we had to this year. temperatures over the last

couple of days have been dropping, and some places have seen a covering of snow. so, where we have snow on the ground and where we've seen wintry showers, there's the potential for ice to take us into wednesday morning. and with this little ridge of high pressure temporarily building in, well, that means wednesday actually is going to bring a lot of fine and dry weather. the greatest risk of ice will be across northern scotland and northern ireland through the first part of the morning. we will continue to see some wintry showers here, a few too into wales, the southwest of england, and a few grazing the east coast of england as well. but for most places, as we go through the day and the showers become fewer and further between, we will see more in the way of sunshine, the winds will slowly ease — but it won't be a warm day by any stretch, top temperatures between 3—9 celsius. now, as we go through wednesday evening, still some showers grazing the east coast, some out west for a time. but things generally will be dry with long, clear spells. cloud tending to increase across northern ireland later in the night — that'll lift the temperatures here just a little, but for most places, a very cold night, —8 likely in some sheltered rural spots in scotland. but after that cold start, we bring in this frontal system

from the west on thursday. there is, associated with this, going to be a very narrow wedge of milder air. so, what we will see as this front moves in is initially a spell of snow, even to quite low levels across parts of scotland and northern england seeing the rain run into the cold air. some snow over high ground in wales, perhaps into the midlands as well. but any wintry weather tends to turn back to wet weather as we go through the day, as that little wedge of milder air starts to work its way in. and then, cold air will return from the west later. it will be windy, gusts of 50—60 mph or more in some exposed western spots. and temperatures still stuck between 4—9 celsius for the most part. and then, into friday, we're back into cold air again. we will see some sunshine, but we will see some showers, too, these falling as a wintry mix of rain, sleet, and snow. it'll be a fairly breezy day in many places — and top temperatures again

between 3—9 celsius. that's all from me, bye for now.

this is bbc news, i'm sally bundock with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. china's covid commandos. authorities close down a city of more than 1 million afterjust three reported cases under the government's zero covid strategy. it's a strategy that includes things like pop—up tents where you can get a booster on the way home and win prizes as well, but it also includes very, very harsh measures that can be imposed on a city in a matter of hours. investigating the capitol riots, a year on — a congressional panel wants to question a us tv host about text messages he sent to donald trump. state of emergency in kazakhstan,