captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> cornish: and i'm audie cornish. >> woodruff: on the newshour tonight... >> a new era of justice begins, and it begins right now. >> woodruff: jeff sessions is confirmed as attorney general, while fallout from the president's attacks on the judiciary mounts. >> cornish: also ahead this thursday, the latest from the 9th circuit court on president trump's immigration order. >> woodruff: and, a look at steve bannon the filmmaker-- what mr. trump's chief strategist's works reveal about his influence as the president's close advisor. >> what we've seen over the course of his films is that he explored a lot of the themes-- the nationalist and populist themes that really then echoed in donald trump's campaign. >> cornish: all that and more on

tonight's pbs newshour.ign. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of

humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: hello and i'm joined again tonight by audie cornish of npr's "all things considered." welcome, audie. our lead story: president trump

an appeals court in san francisco will rule this evening on whether to reinstate president trump's immigration order that. comes as the president is standing by his criticism of the court. john yang begins our coverage from the white house. >> a new era of justice begins and it begins right now. >> reporter: the man who made clear today he's now the law and order president as jeff sessions was sworn in as president trump's attorney general. >> we face the menace of rising crime and the threat of deadly terror, and it's not getting better, but it will get better. >> reporter: for days mr. trump has been attacking the federal judges considering challenges to his temporary ban on travel from seven mainly muslim countries. his supreme court nominee, neil gorsuch, told connecticut democratic senator richard blumenthal that a tweet referring to one of the jurists as a "so-called judge" was

disheartening and demoralizing. even though a spokesman for gorsuch confirmed the comment, today the president insisted otherwise. >> his comments were misrepresented, and what you should do is ask senator blumenthal about his vietnam record that didn't exist. so you misrepresented that, just like you misrepresented judge gorsuch. >> reporter: blumenthal, who was in the marine corps reserves during the vietnam war but never served overseas apologized in 2010 for saying during his senate campaign he had served in the war. the president's comments came in a bipartisan meeting that included democratic senators he hopes will vote for gorsuch. they included four democrats up for reelection next year in states that mr. trump won, like john chester of montana. >> the president can say what he wants about dick blumenthal, but dick blumenthal is a quality guy and a very, very good senator. >> reporter: does that sort of thing impact your decision at all? >> no, not on this, not on this

at all. i think we'll take a look at the nominee for what he is and what his past work and we'll move forward from there. >> reporter: meanwhile, senior tripadvisor kellyanne conway got into hot water today when she followed up on the president's criticism of nordstrom for dropping ivanka trump's fashion line. >> i own some of it. i'll give it a free commercial. go buy it. you can find it online. >> that appeared to violate an ethics line of federal employees endorsing products. the president is exempt under that law but conway is not. white house secretary sean spicer. >> kellyanne has been counseled on that subject and that's it. >> reporter: house oversight committee jason chaffetz said conway's remarks were clearly over the line and unacceptable. tonight chaffetz and elijah

cummings sent a letter to the office of government ethics saying conway should be disciplined, anything ranging from a reprimand to dismissal, but the white house says mr. trump continues to have confidence in conway. judy? >> woodruff: john, so we know the president has also been busy talking to a number of former leaders. >> that's right. every day this week he's been on the phone with foreign leaders. today he was scheduled to talk to the heads of afghanistan, qatar, kuwait and iraq. starting tomorrow he's got a flurry of face-to-face meetings, tomorrow japanese prim shinzo abe will be here and travel to mar-a-lago for a weekend of golf. on monday, justin trudeau, prime minister of can dark and on wednesday, prime minister benjamin netanyahu of israel. >> woodruff: john yang at the white house, we thank you. >> cornish: in the day's other news, the top u.s. commander in afghanistan said thousands more troops are needed to help defeat

taliban insurgents. general john nicholson testified before the senate armed services committee saying more trainers and support could help the afghan army break what he called "a stalemate." >> i have adequate resources in my counterterrorism mission. in my train, advise and assist mission, however, we have a shortfall of a few thousand. this is in the nato train, advise and assist mission, so it can come from the u.s. and it's allies. >> cornish: the u.s. still has more than 8,400 troops in afghanistan, in a war that's now lasted 16 years. >> woodruff: a powerful storm paralyzed cities across the northeastern u.s. today, dumping more than a foot of snow in some places. scores of accidents tied up roads across the region. and, the heavy snow and high winds forced hundreds of schools to close, from new york to boston to maine. officials everywhere appealed to the public. >> when we get into the evening and the overnight if people continue to stay out of the way of sanitation let them do their job then they go on offensive

and are not fighting a constant barrage of snow coming in. they can get things for pretty good for tomorrow morning. >> woodruff: the storm has also grounded more than 3,500 flights through tomorrow. >> cornish: construction on the final stretch of the controversial dakota access oil pipeline is now underway. that's after the u.s. army corps of engineers gave the go-ahead for crews to lay pipe under a north dakota reservoir. the cheyenne river sioux tribe filed a last-ditch legal challenge to try to stop its completion. the tribe fears a leak could taint their water. >> woodruff: the newest member of the united states senate took his seat today. the governor of alabama appointed state attorney general luther strange to the post. he was sworn in by vice president pence this afternoon. a special election will be held in 2018 to fill the seat permanently. strange replaces jeff sessions who officially became the u.s. attorney general today. >> cornish: and, on wall street, a rally fueld by strong corporate earnings reports. the dow jones industrial average

gained 118 points to close at 20,172. the nasdaq rose 32 points, and the s&p 500 added 13. still to come on the newshour: president trump's continued attacks against federal judges. the white house takes heat for calling a deadly raid in yemen a success. arizonans outraged over an undocumented mother's deportation, and much more. >> woodruff: now to president trump's immigration ban. at this moment, we are waiting for a decision from the 9th circuit court of appeals. they are considering an earlier ruling by judge james robart of the federal district court in seattle that permitted those previously barred by mr. trump's executive order to again enter the country. we've been told a ruling by the

9th circuit will be delivered tonight. here to remind us what the judges are weighing is newshour regular, marcia coyle of the national law journal. marcia, welcome. so we are waiting. we've been given the word by the court. they intend to hand down this decision. remind us what they are ruling on. >> okay. they are examining the government's appeal of the seattle judge's temporary restraining order that blocks the president's executive order on immigration. now, a temporary restraining order is exactly what it says it is, it's a brief halt that basically gives a judge time to have full briefing and a hearing on the claims before him, but the judge doesn't just say, okay , for a request to a temporary restraining order. the moving party here, the states of washington and minnesota, had to show the judge that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm if the executive order went forward and

also that they were likely to succeed on the merits. so now that the government has appealed that, the burden was on the government to show the three-judge appellate panel that the government of the united states would suffer irreparable harm and was likely to succeed on the merits. >> woodruff: marcia to, what extent are these three judge, who are based in california, the san francisco ninth circuit, to what extent are they being asked to judge whether president trump was within his authority as president when he issued this executive order in the first place? >> this really isn't going to be i don't believe a ruling on the merits of the claims by washington and minnesota that the order is unconstitutional, because, they say, it discriminates on the basis of nationality and discriminates on the basis of religion. basically this panel is looking at whether the seattle judge properly entered the temporary

restraining order. so a full fight on the merits may come at a later time. >> woodruff: i'm being told in my ear by our producer that there may be a ruling handed down. if that's the case, we'll report it as we get it in just a moment. but as we wait, marcia, so a number of us listened very closely to the arguments that were made on tuesday night, tuesday eastern time, when the judges considered this. each side had half an hour to make their case, and could you tell anything from the questions asked by the judges, what they were most interested in? >> they were interested in finding out if both sides had evidence of harm that would be caused either by stopping the executive order or allowing it to go forward. they pressed both sides on whether this was a muslim ban, which really raises serious

constitutional problems, and they pressed both sides on whether this discriminated on the basis of religion, and i will say that it was... the judges did not telegraph whether they favored one side or the other. and like almost all appel et judge, these judges are very good at playing both sides in order to try to find what the correct answer is. >> woodruff: do i hear you saying that it could be as narrow as what to do about this restraining ortder, but it could be broader decision. >> there may be... there will be looking at whether either side had the likelihood of prevailing on the merits, so we may get a hint from these three judges as to who has the stronger arguments. it's very possible that the panel could send the case back to the judge in seattle so that he could go forward with what was the normal process, a full hearing and briefing on the merit.

>> woodruff: i don't want to confuse things, but we should say meanwhile, while all this is going on, there was a court in boston that ruled differently from this federal judge in seattle. >> that's right. the court in boston, and there are suits now popping up around the country, so we're going to see a number of perhaps different rulings, and eventually we may have a conflict that will go eventually to the supreme court. >> woodruff: so i'm just now being told by our producer, marcia, that the government's appeal has been denied by the circuit court. that means we go back to what judge robart... >> technically, procedurally, yes, however, the government now has to make a strategic decision on what its next step is going to be. will it decide that it will go to the u.s. supreme court with an emergency application to halt the lower court's order? will it seek full hearing before the ninth circuit?

remember, this was just three judges of the ninth circuit? they have to decide very soon probably what their next step will be. >> woodruff: we can't really talk about this, mar sharks without talking about what president trump has been saying about these federal judges in san francisco. it's become a big story over the last couple days. he called their hearing, in fact, he called it disgraceful. that was his word, and he also again talked about the politics involved. >> that's why i said earlier that appel et judges are very good at playing devil's advocate and rarely signal to whoever is listening or watching what their position actually is. you see it all the time in the u.s. supreme court. there are some judges that will do that, justice scalia in particular often made his feelings known very clearly in an oral argument, but from what i could tell of these three judges, they did exactly what they were supposed to do. they probed both sides for the weakness in their argument.

>> woodruff: marcia coyle, again, we're just learning in the last moment or so that the ninth circuit court in san francisco has ruled that the government appeal of a decision by this federal district judge has been denied, and so that's a loss for the white house, for the trump administration, but we'll see where we go from here. marcia, we'll give you so time to look at the order that was issued by the ninth circuit, and we'll bring you back on at the end of the program to talk about it. >> sounds good. thanks, judy. >> woodruff: now, to the mounting controversy over president trump's attacks on the judiciary. for that we turn to two former judges: paul cassell teaches at the university of utah college of law. he served as a federal judge for

five years in utah's district court. and rebecca kourlis is a former justice of the colorado supreme court and now runs the institute for the advancement of the american legal system at the university of denver. and we welcome both of you to the program. and, of course, i'm talking to you, professor cassell and justice kourlis just as we've learned about what the circuit court in california has ruled, and that is denying the administration's appeal. let me turn to you first, justice kourlis. what is your reaction to what president trump has been saying in recent days about this circuit court in california? >> good evening, judy, and thanks for the opportunity to comment on this. my concern is not so much the disagreement with the outcome but rather the attack on sort of the legitimacy of the process,

and that risks further polarity, further critique of the judiciary as a political branch of government, which it is not, cannot be, was never intended to be. >> woodruff: so an attack on the illegal system is what you're saying, and you're saying it's inappropriate, it's over the line? how would you characterize it? >> well, i don't want to sort of join in the epithet-tossing contest that we seem to be in nationally at the president, but i am a longtime former judge, justice, and i now study the court in the context of the institute at which i work. our whole focus is on trying to protect the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, which is not to say that i'm an apologist for judges. judges make mistakes.

judges can approach cases in a biased way. there are some judges who are activists. but the point is that the process itself is what we count on, and we agree as a society that we will trust the ultimate outcome from that process. there are appeals. there are ways to approach things, but ultimately it's about the balance of powers and the legitimacy of the court. >> woodruff: professor cassell, how do you see it, what the president has been saying about the clerk, very critical remarks? >> well, i think he's been very critical of the courts, but then again, the court has been striking down or at least staying one of his signature pieces of his campaign, the immigration reform. we have a long tradition of three coequal branches of government, coequal branches of government that have often felt free to criticize what the others are doing. you can go all the way back the abraham lincoln, who very famously even refused to follow

some edicts from the u.s. supreme court. so i see the dialogue as in some wayings being healthy, althoughi hope the discourse could be elevated at least above some of the things that have recently been said. >> woodruff: justice kourlis, why isn't it just healthy dialogue? it does go back. we think about what other presidents have said and done about the court? >> it's sort of the bottom line for me, judy: it's not okay to criticize a judge as illegitimate or activist just because you disagree with the outcome. it's fine to say, i think that's the wrong ruling, i disagree with the basis upon which the ruling is issued, but to sort of claim that the judge has no right to issue that ruling, that to me crosses the line. >> woodruff: and professor kourlis, when president trump called judge robart a so-called

judge and then he went on to talk about... i think he used the word "disgraceful" the way the judges conducted themselves or some of the judges conducted themselves at the appel et hearing on tuesday of this week, is that not stepping over the line? is that calling into question the very role that judges play? >> it is to me. >> woodruff: i'm sorry, i meant that for professor cassell. >> i think he's stepping over a line of decorum, but i'm not sure he's stepping over some line that invalidates the separation of powers. president trump has made it one of his signature i guess style points you could say that he's going to be very plain spoken some it's not surprising to find he's using strong language to criticize the judges. i wouldn't be using that same language. i think it's a violation of our rules of civility, but one of the things that president trump has indicated is that he's going to press some of those boundaries and he's going to use these forms of communication

like twitter that probably prevents some of the nuance or maybe some of the elegance we've seen from previous presidents. >> woodruff: justice kourlis, what about that? it can be argued that this president is taking advantage of new methods of communication, including twitter. >> i'm okay with that actually, and i'm okay with plain talk and an effort to pierce through some of the complexities of the legal system because i certainly don't think it's okay to hide behind that, but my point fundamentally is that judges have a role. their role is to determine the facts in from the of them at the trial court level, apply the law, rule, and then the parties can appeal it as far up the process as possible. if the whole process is perceived to be political, if judges are perceived to rule on the basis of who appointed them or what political party they

have, then impartiality goes out the window. so people in positions of power, people in leadership positions i hold to a higher standard of acknowledging the balance of powers, the role of each branch of government, and by the way, i would apply this even handedly. i don't think it's okay to call president trump a so-called president. there's a legitimacy of process that we all honor and that's part of democracy. no what about the point she's making, professor cassell? >> well, president trump i think has recognized legitimacy of the process. he's appealed to the ninth circuit and i'm assuming he's going to ask the justice department to appeal to the supreme court now to have the decision overturned. but i think it's unfair to take certain labels off the table as inappropriate. there is a healthy debate in this country about whether our judiciary and particularly our federal judiciary is too

activist, that is it is making laws rather than applying laws. you can have that debate in the dry language of law professors or you can have it in the more robust language of twitter feeds and plain-spoken talk. i think president trump is trying to have that debate in a way that average americans can understand and communicate effectively in that way. again, i wouldn't speak in those ways, but i think he certainly is entitled to speak in those ways. >> woodruff: i want to come back to you quickly professor cassell and read to you what president trump said in one of his remarks. he said, "this judge opens up our country to potential terrorists. he said, "if something happen, blame him and the court system." you think that's within the bounds of what a president can say? >> yes, absolutely. what's at stake on this immigration debate is ady bait about whether we're effectively protecting our country from terrorism. so to point to the consequences of an adverse ruling is exactly what the government lawyers are doing out in the ninth circuit and i assume will be doing soon

before the supreme court. no and we do expect we have ever reason to assume the white house, the administration will continue to challenge and to appeal that decision. well, we want to thank both of you, professor paul cassell, justice rebecca kourlis, we appreciate you joining us. thank you. >> thank you, judy. >> thank you. >> cornish: there are lingering questions over the deadly raid by u.s. navy seals launched in yemen in late january. while it's still unclear exactly what happened on the ground, the issue of whether the raid should be seen as a success has become political. eight days ago, president trump flew to dover air force base in delaware to honor a navy seal killed in yemen. the u.s. also lost an osprey aircraft in the january 29 raid on al-qaeda. despite the losses, the white house called the operation a

"success," but critics like republican senator john mccain disagreed. >> when you lose a $75 million airplane and more importantly american lives-- life-- is lost and wounded. i don't think that you can call it a success. >> cornish: the president fired back this morning, tweeting that it "only emboldens the enemy" to discuss the raid with reporters. he said of mccain: "he's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore." later today mccain's daughter defended her father on twitter. she said, "trump has never served. my father cannot bend one of his knees or lift one of his arms above his head. i am done with this. done." sean spicer argues the seals gathered critical intelligence. >> it's absolutely a success. and i think anyone who would suggest it's not a success does disservice to the life of chief ryan owens. >> cornish: the raid also killed civilians, including women and children. "the new york times" reported this week that yemen has now withdrawn permission for such operations. yemen's foreign minister denied

that, but said they are seeking a re-assessment. we break down what we know of the raid now with nancy youseff, national security correspondent at buzzfeed news. >> thank you for having me. >> cornish: now with the tweets from the white house, congress, this has really become a kind of political football. what are people saying inside the pentagon? >> well, it's frankly made it hard for people in the pentagon to talk about this because what they see as a military operation has now involved into a political issue. inherently they don't talk about covert operations. now you have everything being put in this context trying to answer the question of what is success on a u.s. military operation. john mccain has called it a failure. last week the white house is saying success was a delicate term because civilians and chief owens had been killed in the raid. and this week they said it was categorically a success. so inside rather than a discussion about success or

failure, there is a measure going on about the risks and rewards of this raid and was it worth it given how mum mull choose that it would involving into a firefight and you now have questions swirling around it that was this worth it? was the intelligence gathered worth all that's come out of it since. >> cornish: i think this has also sparked a greater conversation about the process and the thinking that goes into green lighting a raid like this, right, and also comparing it to the obama administration? talk about that. what do we know about what happened in terms of that process? >> so the obama administration was really risk averse, and president trump during the campaign really campaigned on the idea of being more aggressive in terms of going after extremist elements like al qaeda, which was the target of this raid, and the islamic state. and so we've heard that the obama administration was aware of the raid and the planning for it, which was months before it

actually happened, but that they had decided essentially that this was not a decision for them to make. while it had reached to the national security council, it hasn't reached the president. because the military wanted to launch this raid on the first lunar moon, which was on january 29th, nine days after the raid, the decision was formally made by president trump. i think the question that people are having is: what does the process tell us about how president trump will make decisions on these raids and how much of that differs from the obama administration. and is this more aggressive approach how... is it going to manifest in more risky raids, more risky operations than we have seen in the past eight years under the obama administration, which really was willing to endure some risks of terror groups being allowed to sustain rather than take the risk of doing operations like this, dropping boots on the ground in a come bat zone like

war-torn yemen. >> as you mention, yemen has been in free-fall for many years now. we're seeing a renewed focus by the u.s. on this country, and do we have any sense about what that could mean going forward? >> remember the early hours of the trump administration, they conducted drone strikes in yemen, and we had started to hear talk that while the focus has been on isis for the past few years, al qaeda in the arab peninsula has been one of the few groups that's been able to execute external attacks on western allies. remember they were part of the planning for the "charlie hebdo" attack in paris, france. so there has been a feeling that perhaps this administration would want to expand its counter-terrorism operations to not just focus on isis but focus on a group like al qaeda that has really been able to flourish in the last five years of the yemeni civil war because there's so much ungoverned space and such a fertile ground for them to recruit and train. >> woodruff:>> cornish: nancy ys

national security correspondent for buzz feed. thank you for speaking with us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour, the ideology white house chief strategist steve bannon portrayed in his films. but first, what kind of separation there is between the president, his family and the promotion of their businesses. kellyanne conway's comments about ivanka trump fueled a new round of criticism, and concerns for the companies involved. all of which gets to a tricky question: how should companies navigate the waters of the new trump administration? our economics correspondent paul solman explores that for his nse."y installment of "making >> reporter: the super bowl, politicized this year, through ads: air bnb branding itself as immigration-friendly.

♪ oh beautiful for spacious skies coca cola recycling a 2014 ad that also suggests an alternative definition of american patriotism. and in the larger world, backlash from uber customers over president trump's immigration ban-- #deleteuber-- that ultimately forced its c.e.o. to step down from a white house advisory panel. nordstrom, dropping the first daughter's clothing line back in january, with neiman marcus and following suit, prompting a tweet from president trump yesterday: "my daughter has been treated so unfairly by nordstrom. she is a great person-- always pushing me to do the right thing! terrible!" so are we seeing the rise of a new partisan consumerism, echoing the country's polarized politics? we invited two harvard business

school professors, nancy koehn and len schlesinger, to answer the question. >> what we're seeing now is the culmination or perhaps the next logical step of a long series of events and trends among consumers, where they use their dollars to vote on social, political and economic issues. >> and relative to today's administration there are countless examples of how that's being played out on a daily basis. so we have the scenario of the ivanka merchandising line which has now been essentially removed from nordstrom and neiman marcus. a hashtag boycott nordstrom, a hashtag boycott neiman marcus for actually tossing our ivanka out of the store and the same on the other side of the equation. >> reporter: so boycotts have been used to express political beliefs and to try to affect political outcomes.

>> for at least 50 or 60 years and probably going back farther than that. what's new i think, paul, is the reach and the speed. and that's all running on the high octane fuel of social media and i think the other thing that's new and different is the emotional energy that social media allows. these are all businesses that have a very big word of mouth component to them, they have a big ego or identity component to them, so the ability of these boycotts to affect those aspects of success, consumer loyalty, word of mouth, brand power, that's a big deal. >> an interesting thing is seeing where it really is a big deal is in the context of uber. it is a service that people hate to love or love to hate and the c.e.o. announces he's going to join the president's business advisory council and in the

midst of everything that was going on at uber and everything that was going on in the administration within the immigrant community, he had no choice but to withdraw from the president's advisory council. you wonder what got him possessed to join in the first place. >> reporter: because he ought to have anticipated the uproar that-- >> given the population he served and the populations quite honestly the uber services having a huge negative impact on, it should have been obvious. >> i would ask or want business leaders to have the same kind of consciousness about the divisiveness about the electorate about the different kinds of issues that were uncovered during the campaign. so it's not stay away, it's let's think this through very carefully as we think about how to respond, react, predict. >> reporter: but aren't you saying at the end of the day stay away?

>> i've been advising in more situations than not for c.e.o.'s after doing their balance sheet to actually lay low until there's a bit more certainty of how the administration truly is going to govern going forward. are we seeing what's been called identity politics playing out now across the board? >> think about how people that are on the boycott-trump- businesses side of things are thinking of themselves. they're thinking of themselves first as i don't support the president. secondly, i want to make a difference here in voicing and in doing something with my opposition, my resistance, so that is in some ways an exercise in identity. interestingly, when we talked during the campaign about identity politics we talked often on the side of trump supporters. i'm not sure of my identity, i'm not sure where i belong in this country, i'm not sure that

people in washington understand or are acting on my behalf. >> reporter: because candidate trump embodied their sense of identity sort of counter to the mainstream. >> absolutely. i wonder if we're not going to see a kind of consumer activism, identity politics, potentially a cohesion of the resistance or opposition to mr. trump, that actually has to do with an emerging patriotism. a huge amount of the resistance when you dig down deep in is about the integrity of trump's actions with relation to the constitution or fundamental american values. >> reporter: how does that manifest itself in terms of consumption? >> you see it play out just this week at the super bowl, okay? so i'm fascinated by listening to all of the responses to the lady gaga halftime show but the reality is she started singing

god bless america and she had a whole portrayal of what i will call incredibly patriotic songs by someone who would not be naturally assumed to be among the great patriots. and the reality is it's exactly what we are talking about. >> and then think about the ads. >> reporter: for example? >> well you know the anheuser busch commercial celebrating the arrival of august busch, the airbnb commercial, celebrating the diversity in the american population without ever talking about what airbnb is or what it does. >> reporter: i literally did not know that was an airbnb commercial. >> think tactically from a marketing perspective, we're not talking about what airbnb is, but we are talking about the values of the airbnb brand or the values of the anheuser busch brand. it's a little bit like nike towns, we make these investments in our brand that may or may not translate quickly into profitability or feed the bottom

line and yet they're long term investments in how we want our consumers to understand who we are. >> reporter: and your point about the airbnb ad being like nike, i mean, nike is all about image and identity and not function. >> just do it. absolutely. and it's been viewed from the long term remarkably successful. >> reporter: do you think that there will be a group of companies now, or even products or services that actually embody the oppositional form, i don't know how to put this, the oppositional form of american patriotism and if so what would they be? >> i think we saw some of it this weekend as we saw some of the more subtle messages that came out of the commercials. we're about all americans, we're about being open to everybody we're about being absolutely clear that we welcome all to our

country and to our businesses. >> reporter: so last question. do you guys imagine that four years from now we will have a country that's as divided in terms of what it shops for as who it votes for? >> if i extrapolated from the trends of the last several months i would say yes but that requires me to actually predict that what we're experiencing today continues and gets exaggerated over the next four years. i as an academic can say that would be really interesting. as a human being, that's scary. >> reporter: from the harvard business school in boston, this is economics correspondent paul solman, reporting for the pbs newshour.

>> cornish: now to a rare look >> woodruff: and finally, we 6close with a different kind of look at the views of one of the president's closest advisers, stephen bannon. how his past work in film provides a window into some of his ideas. jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: he is chief strategist to president trump, close at hand as policy is made and decisions come from the white house. the president even recently appointing him to a seat on the national security council-- a controversial decision. stephen bannon has quickly gained so much of a reputation as an influential behind-the- scenes string-puller that saturday night live portrayed him as the grim reaper in a recent skit. >> send in steve bannon. >> brown: bannon was well-known previously as chairman of breitbart news, the right-wing news organization that bannon himself called the "platform of the alt-right"-- a fringe conservative group that mixes populism, white nationalism and racism. but he's also worked extensively in the film world, as executive

producer on two traditional dramas including "the indian runner," sean penn's directorial debut. and as the producer, writer and director of political documentaries, often released during election cycles. among his film topics: the global financial crisis, in 2010's "generation zero," sarah palin, featured in "the undefeated" in 2011. more recently, 2016's "clinton cash," about alleged corruption in the clinton foundation. and also last year, "torchbearer," about an america turning from god, and the concurrent rise of a violent and radical islam. reporters at the "washington post" have been looking at stephen bannon's work in films and how he may inform his role as the president's rite-hand man. ann hornaday is a film critic for the post.

matea gold covers news. >> bannon has made and produced fiction films in the past. it's really his documentaries that get the most attention. and often they have political themes. he has a few sort of canards and villains that he returns to. he doesn't like the clintons very much. he doesn't like any political elite very much. he rails against the sort of permanent political class. he sees... the films often predict the world in very manaquin terms, very apocalyptic terms. >> brown: manaquin, black and white. >> good versus evil, clash of civilizations cage match. lately that's centered around what he calls the judeo-christian west and what he sees as radical islamic

jihadism. >> woodruff: well, matea gold, he's referred to the work as a weapon newsing film. he said, "we've tried to weapon news films and do it in a certain way to get it to people who might not necessarily see a political documentary." so he's very upfront in this work as at breitbart. >> one thing that's important to understand about bannon is he's a canny practitioner. he's spoken admiringly about the techniques of the nazi propagandaist and michael moore the liberal filmmaker. and what we've seen over the curse of his films is that he explored a lot of the themes, the nationalist and populist themes that really then echoed in donald trump's campaign. he did a documentary about illegal immigration. he went through a whole film that examined the fallout of the financial crisis. we saw him elevating figures such as sarah palin in his film. so we really saw him wrestling with some of these same issues that later came to bear in his

politics. >> brown: let's take a short look at the "torch bearer" featuring phil robinson, best known for "the duck dynasty series" and the theme of defending christianity against the rise of violent islam. >> in the absence of god, the man with the biggest stick determines your worth. caesar demands his piece of incense. violence, decadence, political anarchy, moral decay, welcome to the city of man. when he opened the fourth seal, i heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "come and see these events, more to come," and i looked and behold a pale horse, and the name of him who sat on it was death, and hades followed with him. >> brown: there's a lot more graphic imagery we were not able to show. a lot of it is fast-paced and louder. what do you see?

>> he's definitely perfected this rhetoric that's very hyperbolic, very stylized. he's an emotional storyteller. there are many ways to make a documentary. some documentaries are explanatory. they try to make a case in terms of rationality and data and evidence-based learn, but he's very much a guy who goes for the jugular. it's very emotional, very emotionalistic. and as matea said, you can see the echoes of threat rick style, that rhetorical style, not only in trump's rhetoric, but just in the behavior in the first couple weeks in terms of the way they've approached, you know, say the immigration policies that they unfurled really without a whole lot of process involved in terms of making sure you get buy-in from agencies and legislators, because i think, you know, that kind of fused the same principle of make a big splash. >> brown: you got a look at an

outline for a proposed film that never got made written by stephen bannon called "destroying the great rise of islamic fascism in america." >> this explored a lot of aspects of not only the potential of radical muslims to inflict attacks here in the united states, but the potential for muslim organization, community groups to be serving as front groups, and it also would have explored the sort of appeasement, as he put it, of enablers such as the media, the university, the american jewish community, that the outlying argued were facilitating the rise of some of these radical elements. and this is a window enter how concerned and preoccupied i think bannon has been with the potential of fundamental islam here threatening the united states. >> brown: it uses phases like "fundamental clash of

civilization," right? >> you've heard him speak about. this he actually gave a talk to a group at the vatican in 2014 in which he outlined a lot of these worries, the sense that he has that the west and islam are on the path of a major clash and war, something that's going to be very destructive. he warns in very dire apock lick tip terms, as ann put it, the potential for radical islamic jihadis to really gain ground in europe and also the united states, and that's something that you see spread through all of his work. >> brown: stephen bannon didn't talk to you for the article, but you did talk to other people around him or who have worked with him. what do they say to explain or defend what he's after? >> people who know him and have worked with him say he does not harbor a bias, an animus toward muslims as a whole, but it seems that really this perception of what islam is has been overtaken in his mind by the radical elements that he really sees as

the vast majority of people who practice islam. so i think it's sort of hard to separate where his personal views are and his political views are, but there is no question when he talks about islam, he talks about it as a sort of threatening set of beliefs as opposed to a religion. >> brown: ann, you brought up michael moore earlier as someone that stephen bannon admires as a filmmaker? there's a a long tradition of agitprops. >> they're both polemics. >> brown: completely other side. >> he's perfected his on screen every-man persona. that's a rhetorical strategy in and of itself. but ban non-has stayed behind the scenes. sometimes he directs these films. he of often will write them. but when he's producing them, they really do share, i think, this kind of common grammar, and as matea said, what's interesting, especially in torch

bearer, is that nowhere does he kind of acknowledge that islam all abrahamic religions. the god is presumably the same god, but that's nowhere... he doesn't see islam as a religion, it's more of an ideology. >> brown: matea gold and hornqvist -- ann >> woodruff: for the record, we've asked the white house for an interview with mr. bannon about this and other subjects. they have declined our requests for now. >> woodruff: we had hoped to bring you a conversation about the story of a woman deported in arizona, stirring protests there. but we return to tonight's breaking news: the 9th circuit court of appeals ruling to deny a move to reinstate president trump's immigration ban. marcia coyle of the national law journal has now had a chance to

read the decision and joins me again. >> woodruff: you rejoin me now. so what did you learn? what are the arguments? a unanimous decision by these three judges. >> that's right. it was unanimous and it was an unsigned opinion, something that we call a per curium opinion. a couple takeaways. first of all, the three-judge pam rejected the government's argument that the executive order was unreviewable by a court, and here the panel said that that runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy. it is the role of the judiciary to interpret the law. the panel also found two major things. we talked about factors earlier in the show that the cowrmt would look at. the government did not show a likelihood of success on the merits and the government did not show a likelihood of

irreparable injury if the executive order did not go forward. so you take that apart. first of all, on the injury side of things, the panel said basically it pressed the government for evidence of the harm that would result if the order, if the executive order did not go forward, but the government did not provide enough evidence of that. the court found that the temporary restraining order simply returned the status quo that's been there for years. >> woodruff: to interrupt, that was looking for evidence of a potential terrorist attack by one of these individuals? >> or other types of harm. there just wasn't enough evidence. on the likelihood of success on the merits, the court found that, again, the government did not show enough evidence to support its arguments that this was a neutral document. the court found there were serious claims of religious

discrimination here that need to be explored in a full hearing. it also found that the due process claims by the state, a claim that people were not given notice, advanced notice or a hearing before they were denied the right to travel, that that was a serious problem here. and particularly with the dew de process, the order as it applies to lawful permanent residents, even though the white house had said that the order does not apply to lawful permanent residents, the pam -- panel said that statement by the white house council may not be biding, so there is a due process problem here. and in the end, the court looked at the public interest. and it found there were aspects here that favored both sides. there was national security on the one hand, and on the other hand, there were freedom from discrimination, the right of free flow of travel and avoiding separation of family.

>> woodruff: mar shark we should point out that president trump didn't waste any time. within a few minutes after this opinion was handed down by the ninth circuit, he tweeted, "see you in court. the security of our nation is at stake." so as we discussed earlier, there was every expectation the administration will appeal. so what does that mean? >> all right, the panel did say, it gave a time frame. the government has about 14 days to decide whether it wants to go and seek review by the full ninth circuit, but it also has the option of going to the u.s. supreme court with an emergency request. the department of justice has said that it is exploring its options right now. >> woodruff: all right. so with 30 minutes to digest this, marcia coyle, thank you very much for reporting to our audience on this. >> my pleasure, judy.

>> cornish: on the newshour online right now, the senate held rare back-to-back overnight sessions this week as democrats worked to prove their opposition with a speech-a-thon against two of president donald trump's cabinet nominees. it was ultimately a symbolic effort. but for dozens of capitol hill employees, the 57-hour-and-five- minute marathon meant nonstop work to keep the senate running. read more on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm audie cornish. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you then. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> glor: welcome to the program, i'm jeff glor of cbs news. as many of you know, charlie will undergo heart val of replacement sirnlgry tomorrow and will spend several weeks recovering. charlie writes to continue to live this amazing life so full of challenges and friends, including so many of you in the audience, i have chosen to replace my val of with a new one. the timing is my choice, i will see you in march. during charlie's absence this program will continue with a series of guest hosts sitting in for him at the table. for myself and many others, charlie has been a friend, a mentor and an inspiration. we will aspire to bring you the highest standard of conversation just as charlie has done over the last 25 years. we all wish him the very best. we begin this evening with adam liptak of "the new york times" and a look at president trump's controversial immigration order.