captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight... >> our counter intelligence mission is investing the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. >> woodruff: f.b.i. director james comey confirms a probe into russian meddling including possible links between moscow and the trump campaign, while saying there's no evidence for the president's charge he was wiretapped. in our other lead story, president trump's supreme court nominee judge neal gorsuch faces the senate judiciary committee on the first day of confirmation hearings. >> 97% of those 2,700 cases i've decided were decided unanimously. and that i've been in the

majority 99% of the time. that's my record and that's how we do things in the west. >> woodruff: and, from the items in a market to celebrating work, how one art exhibit is defining the nature of home here in the u.s. for latino americans. >> i'm at once mexican and american. i'm in-between. that in-between space, that in- between place that i occupy is something that is constantly changing within myself. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪

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>> 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: an unusually newsy day in the nation's capital, even by washington standards, that make up our two leads: a house committee delves into a possible russian role in the campaign that elected donald trump. and, a senate panel begins hearings on the man chosen by president trump to serve on the supreme court. we begin with the russia file, and lisa desjardins who has been

watching it all. >> reporter: in a rare open hearing of the house intelligence committee, a rare admission from the f.b.i. director. >> i have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the f.b.i., as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. >> reporter: beside comey sat national security agency chief michael rogers. both stood by the intelligence community's earlier report that russian president vladmir putin clearly favored the candidacy of donald trump. >> he- putin- hated secretary clinton so much that flip side of that coin was he had clear

preference for the person running against person he hated so much. >> reporter: committee democrats and republicans pursued sharply different lines of questioning: >> in early july, carter page travels to moscow on trip appoved to campaign.... >> reporter: ranking democrat adam schiff listed contacts between trump advisors and russian officials and raised concern. >> many of trumps campaign personnel including the president himself have ties to russia and russian interests. this is of course no crime. on the other hand, if the trump campaign or anyone associated with it aided or abetted the russians it would not only be a serious crime. it would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history. >> reporter: but committee chair devin nunes and other republicans pushed to show that russians did not directly change vote totals. >> admiral rogers, do you have any evidence that russia cyber

actors changed vote tallies in >> no i do not, but i would >> reporter: the president took that as his cue to tweet that "the n.s.a. and f.b.i. tell congress that russia did not influence electoral process." back at the hearing, democrat jim himes pounced: >> so it's not too far of a logical leap to conclude that the assertion that you have told the congress that there was no influence on the electoral is not quite right. >> it certainly wasn't our intention to say that today because we don't have any information on that subject. that's not something that was looked at. >> reporter: republicans also raised alarm over stories and leaks of reportedly classified information and names in the investigation. >> i thought it was against the law to disseminate classified information. is it? >> yes sir, it's a serious crime.

>> reporter: south carolina congressman trey gowdy went farther, warning that unless the leaks are stopped a key provision of the foreign intelligence surveillance act may not be reauthorized by congress this year. >> trust me you and i both want to see it reauthorized it's in jeopardy if we don't get it this resolved. >> reporter: the hearing hit extraordinary territory, democrats pushed on president trump's charges that president obama wiretapped him. >> with respect to the presidents tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, i have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked >> reporter: republican chairman nunes agreed, but did not rule out that other measures could have been involved. >> it's still possible that other surveillance activities were used against president trump and his associates. have refused to back off the charge. they say it's criersty is for the investigation to determine. meanwhile, sean spicer defended the president and his campaign

but seemed to downplay the campaign role of two key players known for their ties to russia, former campaign advisor michael flynn and former campaign manager paul manafort. >> even general flynn was a volunteer of the campaign and then, obviously, there's been discussion of paul manafort who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time. >> at the hearing over it all i russia, a country the n.s.a. chief said changed its tactics in 2016. >> i'd say the biggest difference from my perspective was both the use of cyber, the hacking as a vehicle vehicle to physically gain access to information to extract that information and then to make it widely publicly available without any alteration or change. >> the only thing that i'd add is that they were unusually loud in their intervention. it's almost as if they didn't care that we knew what they were doing or wanted us to see what they were doing. >> reporter: and, they warned, that's not the end of it.

>> they'll be back. they may be back in 2020. they may be back in 2018. and one of the lessons they may draw in this is that they were successful because they introduced chaos and division, and discord. >> reporter: chairman nunes closed the hearing with a stark verdict on the five-hour session. >> there is a big, gray cloud that you've now put over people who have very important work to do to lead this country. and so the faster that you can get to the bottom of this, it's going to be better for all americans. >> reporter: for pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins at the capitol. >> woodruff: we turn now to the ranking member of the house intelligence commitee, democratic congressman adam schiff of california. congressman schiff, welcome back to the program. what's the main thing that you think was clarified at today's hearing? >> well, i think a number of things. first, i think director comey made the case that he had opened an investigation into potential

agency with a foreign power or coordination with a foreign power. that's not done unless there is a specific and credible information or evidence that someone is colluding. i also think that it was significant that you had two directors directly rebuff the president's claims that he was illegally wiretapped or wiretapped at all by his predecessor. but more than -- i think the main takeaway, i hope, for the country from the hearing is a recognition of just what serious business this is because, as director comey says, the russians will do this again, and we really need a thorough investigation to determine just what the russians did, how did they do it, were there u.s. persons involved, and how do we protect ourselves from their future efforts to interfere. >> woodruff: i hear you say this, congressman schiff, and, yet, president trump tweeted today that admiral rogers and f.b.i. director jim comey told congress that russia did not

influence the electoral process in the united states last year. that doesn't seem to square with what you just said. >> it didn't square with what the witnesses said at the hearing either, pointed by my colleague who followed up with the directors and did fact checking on the president. that's not what the directors said. the directors can't comment. it's not their mission, job or expertise to say what effect the russian interference had in terms of outcomes, but clearly they interfered with the electoral process. here's the problem -- if the president is going to disfort what the imedges community says in open hearing, how can we have confidence when the president comes before the country to share what the intelligence agencies have told him in closed, classified session because the country needs to know because the president wants to take action, and the president needs to show what's going on with north korea or

iran, how can we know he's truthful? the answer is we can't, and that's a danger to the country. >> woodruff: what are you saying you're worried could happen? >> the best example i could give is let's say six months from now the president says iran is cheating on the nuclear deal. obviously, if iran isn't cheating, that's a big problem. if he's making this up the way he's making up the claim president obama wiretapped him, that's a big problem. if the president is telling the truth in a way, it's a bigger problem, because will he be believed? will he be believed by the american people, by our allies that he needs to rally or reimpose sanctions or takes some action against iran? each time he underminds the credibility, he weakens himself, the presidency, the entire country and our standing in the rest of the world and when there is a crisis, we pay a dear price for the loss of credibility.

>> woodruff: on the other hand, republicans were calling into question whether the intelligence community can be relied on. question after question about leaks coming from the intelligence community and anyone who had access to that information. the president, president trump, is saying what the intelligence community says is fake news. he's dismissing it. republicans are saying tare leaking all over the place. so i guess my question -- and then you also a had congressman trey gowdy, a republican colleague on the committee, saying perhaps the f.i.s.a. courts, the courts that authorize much of their investigation, might be in trouble. are you confident an investigation will be thoroughly carried out here? >> on the leak issue, i think we have to understand the breadth of what people are talking about when they talk about leaks. the leaks that most concern me, that ought to most concern the country, is information that is leaked that betrays sources and

methods of information that our allies -- well, that expose us to danger because our enemies can then perpetrate attacks because we lose those confidential sources of information. those are the most serious leaks. what seems to upset the administration is a different kind of leak. it's a leak that exposes malfeasance within the administration. what really upset the president wasn't the fact that mike flynn was unmasked to the country and exposed as having lied to the country and the vice president about his conversations with the russian ambassador. what really upset the president is, essentially, he was caught in the lie. and you remember, even after firing flynn, he wanted to praise flynn and castigate the press. that's something very different. that's a leak that discloses malfeasance in the administration. i'd say, look, this leak problem, every administration has it, and one of the things my g.o.p. colleagues didn't want to acknowledge today and the president certainly doesn't want to acknowledge is they can say

we think, we fear, we suspect this is coming from the intelligence community. they're a bunch of nazis. that's essentially the president's original tweet on this. but it's also very possible some of these leaks are coming from the white house itself, and a division among people, staff in the white house -- >> you mean from the trump white house? >> from the trump white house, exactly. because the trump white house knew this information as well, and there have been lots of public reports about how there's infighting among the trump administration and to watch your back. well, maybe somebody wanted michael flynn out among the president's own team. i don't know that's happened, but if we're serious about this, i'd say to my g.o.p. colleagues, be careful what you wish for because the trail might lead back to the white house. >> woodruff: congressman adam schiff, ranking member of the house intelligence committee. thank you, we'll be talking to you again, i know. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: in a moment, we'll hear from republican senator charles grassley. but first we want to turn to the other major story today: day one of the confirmation hearings for neil gorsuch, president trump's pick for the supreme court. here are excerpts of what senators on the judiciary committee, as well as the nominee himself, had to say in opening statements. >> judge, welcome to the senate judiciary committee. >> woodruff: it was day one of judge neil gorsuch's hearing, as senators took turns making opening statements, and laying out partisan attacks for the week to come. senate judiciary chairman chuck grassley began with a pre- buttal: >> judge, i'm afraid over the next couple of days, you'll get some questions that will cause you to scratch your head. senators will cite some opinion of yours, and then we'll hear that you're for the "big guy," and against the "little guy." >> woodruff: gorsuch's record on corporate cases was a theme that carried through the day's hearing.

>> your record on corporate vs. human litigants comes in, by one count, at 21-2 for corporations. tellingly, big special interests and their front groups are spending millions of dollars in a dark-money campaign to push your nomination. >> one of my colleagues said judge gorsuch is pro-business or against the little guy. i think the record shows that we can be confident he will read the law as written and not legislate from the bench. >> woodruff: for their part, republicans spent most of the hearing praising gorsuch's legal resume. >> judge gorsuch's legal experience is well known. my democratic colleagues will refer to the american bar association gold standard for evaluating judicial nominees. the a.b.a.'s unanimous for gorsuch confirms that he has the highest level of professional qualifications, including integrity, temperance and temperament. >> woodruff: while democrats

knocked his constitutional philosophy as too rigid. >> judge gorsuch has also stated he believes judges should look to the original public meaning of the constitution when they decide what a provision of the constitution means. this is personal, but i find this originalist philosophy to be really troubling. i firmly believe the american constitution is a living document, intended to evolve as our country evolves. >> woodruff: republican senator mike lee pushed back. >> referring to you as an originalist just doesn't stick. this is not a description that was attributed to you. the last time you stood before this committee, nowhere was there a reference to you being outside the mainstream. >> woodruff: all this, amidst a bitter backdrop for democrats,

after republicans last year blocked merrick garland, president obama's pick to replace the late justice antonin scalia. his seat has now been vacant for more than a year. >> it's clear that senator mcconnell was making a political decision, hoping a republican president would be elected. he was willing to ignore the tradition and precedent of the senate so that you could sit at this witness table today. >> woodruff: republican senator michael bennet, who testified on behalf of gorsuch, acknowledged the tension. >> i believe the senate has a constitutional duty to give fair consideration to this nominee, just as we had a duty to consider fairly judge merrick but mr. chairman, two wrongs never make a right. >> woodruff: some democrats also aimed their attacks at president trump. >> the independence of those judges has never been more threatened and never more important and a large part of the threat comes from the man

who nominated you, who has >> woodruff: as for the nominee, himself: he spoke last, giving an opening statement of his own, and promising independence. >> mr. chairman, these days, we sometimes hear judges cynically described as politicians in robes, seeking to enforce their own politics rather than striving to apply the law impartially. if i thought that were true, i'd hang up the robe. my decisions have never reflected a judgment about the people before me, only a judgment about the raw and the facts at issue in each particular case. a good judge can promise no more than that, and a good judge should guarantee no less. for a judge who likes every outcome, he reaches, is probably a pretty bad judge. >> woodruff: the hearings continue tomorrow and through the week. now to my conversation with republican senator chuck grassley of iowa. we spoke a short time ago and i

began by asking what the country learned about judge gorsuch today. >> i think they learned that he is willing to be a judge and not be a legislator, and i think he tells best what he's up to when he says, a judge that likes all his decisions isn't a very good judge, he's getting back to the independence that a member of the judiciary branch needs to show if he's going to truly be a referee within our governmental system, and he showed that very clearly by demonstrating that you should look at the facts of the days, look at the law and be dispassionate -- in other words, leave your own personal views out of it -- and i think that's reinforced by his writing very well. of course, we're going to go over this all the next 48 hours, but i believe what i'm telling

you kind of sums up what we'll know at the end of 48 hours. >> woodruff: senator , many republicans say they want judge gorsuch to be as close as possible to the late justice antonin scalia. he's clearly a different person, but are his views different from those of justice scalia? >> well, i think the difference is only in the sense of degrees, and i don't know whether there is been enough comparison to his writings with justice scalia, but from the standpoint of being a strict constructionist of the constitution and following the intent of congress and not legislating from the bench, i think, in that general way, he fits well in with scalia. quite frankly, i don't know whether anybody can replace scalia. >> well, we noticed senator grassley democrats on the judiciary committee today said they're concerned about judge gorsuch. among other things, we heard

senator pat lahey say he's got support from conservative interest groups that are anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-corporate. are these areas, though, that republicans, conservatives, are counting on him to reflect? >> well, i think that you're not going to get any opinion out of him other than what he said in his cases, and i don't think it's fair to say that he's pro one way and anti another way. i think in regard to corporate interests, as an example, he's been on both sides of it. he does not have a philosophy that is easy to predict, except that he's going to interpret the law and not read something into the law that congress didn't intend. >> woodruff: your fellow republican senator lindsey graham today deplord the fact

that there is decreasing partisanship in senate votes to confirm supreme court and other judicial nominees. and it is the case, senator , that the votes have been increasingly along party lines. do you think judge gorsuch will end up winning democratic votes? >> a few, but i don't think very many. i think the base of the democrat party is very strongly wanting to demonstrate two things -- one that they may not approve of his approach to the law and the constitution and, secondly, they want to make a case that garland should have been last year. >> woodruff: finally, senator grassley, i want to ask you about the other story of the day. it happened on the other side of the capital and that's the director of the national security testified in front of the agency. comey confirmed his agency is looking into any possible connections between the russian

attempts to influence the 25016 election and the trump campaign. he also said there's no evidence that president obama ordered a wiretap of president trump. overall, do you believe -- do you have confidence that the f.b.i. is going to get to the bottom of all this? >> i think it's going to be very, very difficult and it's going to go on for a long time, but i do think that they should be just as vigorous in investigating the leak possibility as well because that's where national security could be at risk, and we talk all about investigating trump or trump people, but i don't hear enough from them on investigating the leaks, which is a felony if the person can be found. >> so you think the leaks are more important than any possible coordination between the trump campaign and the russian interference in the election?

>> not at all. i think they're both of equal importance but all i hear them talking about is the relationship between trump people and russia. i don't hear anything about the breaking of leaks and, in the first place, in regard to the relationship, there is a lot of accusations, but it was pretty clear today it didn't lead to them believing that there was any connection between the trump campaign and the russian government. >> do you think, finally, senator , that the f.b.i.'s statement they don't see any evidence that president obama ordered a wiretap of president trump during the campaign, that that puts that to rest? >> i think you're going to have to wait until the gnat intelligence committee gets done if a couple of weeks. they are going to get into that before i can draw that conclusion. >> woodruff: chairman of the

senate judiciary committee, charles grassley. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, judy. >> woodruff: back to the supreme court nominee now: we want to take a closer look now at judge gorsuch from those who know him well and have studied his record closely. jeffrey brown has this portrait. >> brown: president trump announced his pick in the east room of the white house on january 31. >> he is the man of our country and a man who our country really needs and needs badly to ensure the rule of law and the rule of justice. >> brown: and americans had a first chance to meet neil gorsuch, his wife louise at his side, a man who at age 49 could have a profound effect on the nation's laws, and political life, for decades to come. >> standing here in a house of history, and acutely aware of my own imperfections, i pledge that if i am confirmed i will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the constitution and laws of this great country. >> he's very humble.

if you met him in a crowd of people he would not be the person that stood out and tried to capture the most attention of the group. he would be the person that would listen and sort of wait for an opportunity to share his thoughts. >> brown: michael trent has known gorsuch since they were freshman in high school, and served as best man at his wedding. he's talked with his friend in recent days. where is his head at right now? >> it's very focused on preparing for the hearings. he wants to be sure that he gets it right. he wants to make sure that he puts his best foot forward. >> brown: he also know of course the politics of our time. >> i wish people would look past, you know, the rough and tumble bit of politics and what's going on in the press and look to the person that he is. >> brown: neil gorsuch, says trent, is a coloradan through and through, a lover of the outdoors-- fishing, hiking, and skiing. he was raised in denver with two siblings. his mother a prominent republican state legislator, she was tapped by ronald reagan as

the first woman to head the e.p.a., bringing the family to washington, d.c. when neil was 14. anne gorsuch burford resigned in the wake of a congressional investigation into mismanagement of a hazardous waste program. just 22 months into her tenure. politically conservative from an early age, neil gorsuch attended columbia university where he and friends started their own conservative paper called "the federalist." >> i think probably what he saw at columbia was one side being reported over and over again, and he wanted to provide another side. >> brown: even more than that he wants to put a kind of conservative view into a liberal bastion. >> well, it was columbia, i mean, you know new york city in the 1980s. the fact that he was ambitious enough to start his own paper and get his own thoughts out

there i think speaks a lot to the type of person that he is. i mean, a lot of people will go off and do wild things in college and you know neil basically took that opportunity to put his thoughts on paper and get them out there. >> brown: gorsuch attended harvard law school, and was a marshall scholar at oxford where he met his wife. he clerked for supreme court justices byron white, and anthony kennedy, who remains a key player on the court today. he spent ten years in private practice, and one in the justice department under george w. bush, who appointed gorsuch, then just 38, to a seat on the 10th circuit court of appeal, based in denver. you're not surprised that he's up for a supreme court nomination? >> well, actually, i'm shocked! >> brown: you are? >> yeah, to be honest with you. because he's such a down-to- earth guy. you just don't get that sense of, he's going to go try and run the world. >> brown: jamil jaffer worked with gorsuch at the law firm and later as his law clerk and has remained a friend. jaffer now teaches at the antonin scalia law school at

george mason university, named for the man who neil gorsuch may replace. >> one of the interesting things about judge gorsuch is that he really is a judge's judge, you >> brown: what does that mean, exactly? >> yeah, so he's not looking to get a particular outcome. he doesn't have a particular policy view that he wants to impose upon the law. it's applying the laws congress wrote, applying the constitution as the people who wrote it understood it. and not going outside those bounds. and so maybe that's a conservative philosophy in the sense that it's originalist, it's textualist, in the mold of, i would say, justice scalia. but also very mainstream in the sense that when you apply it to any given case, you're not going to necessarily like all the outcomes. >> brown: i understand, but it also sounds a little maybe naive in the political context we're talking about, right? >> sure. >> brown: scalia was a lightning rod on all kinds of social and all kinds of political issues. >> don't get me wrong. judge gorsuch is surely conservative. but i would say he's in the mainstream of conservatism. you're not going to get a liberal judge from president donald trump, right? that's not what he ran on, it's

but if you're looking for a mainstream conservative, a judge's judge, somebody who's not going to go out of the way to either get to a conservative outcome or a liberal outcome, then you've got neil gorsuch. >> brown: what is known of neil gorsuch's views? among his early writings: a book on assisted suicide arguing against the practice and for the "inviolability" of human life. and a "national review" article, from before he became a judge, critical of liberals who "have become addicted to the courtroom rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda." in a prominent and contentious case, judge gorsuch sided with "hobby lobby stores," which objected to a requirement under the affordable care act that it provide contraception coverage. that decision was later upheld by the supreme court. but he's also written on the needs of low-income litigants and prisoners, calling for more affordable legal services and better representation in death penalty cases. gorsuch was personally close to

justice scalia. in a speech last year at case western reserve, he spoke of being on the ski slopes when he learned of scalia's death. >> i immediately lost what breath i had left. and i'm not embarrassed to admit that i couldn't see the rest of the way down the mountain through the tears. >> brown: he added this of their shared judicial philosophy. >> as justice scalia put it, 'if you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. if you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong." >> brown: conservatives and business groups like what they see. but liberals see a different picture-- one in which gorsuch could fall on the court's far right end of the spectrum. >> you know it really doesn't matter whether he's a genial person or a great guy to go skiing with. i'm sure all of those things are

true. but what really matters is his record and whether he can be the independent justice that we really need on the supreme court to provide a potenti check on the potential overreach from the elective branches. >> brown: elizabeth wydra, head of the constitutional accountability center, a public interest law and advocacy group, says donald trump set out a clear litmus test, including a willingness to overturn roe v. wade. one can only assume, she told me, gorsuch met the test. >> certainly we want our justices to look to the text and history of the constitution, but what i'm concerned about is whether he looks to the text and history of the whole constitution, including amendments that made our constitution more equal ensuring that people of all colors, men and women are treated equally. >> brown: it almost sounds as though anybody that trump would put forward, because he was very clear about what he wanted, right? >> i think this is where the hearing becomes very important. there is a big burden placed on

neil gorsuch to come before the senate judiciary committee and show that despite the process by which he was picked, replete with litmus tests and high rhetoric from donald trump, neil gorsuch has the burden to show the senate judiciary committee that he will be this fair, independent judge who will follow the law where it leads. >> brown: neil gorsuch has spent recent weeks meeting with senators on both sides of the aisle and preparing for those hearings, a very public debate from washington, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: we continue our look at the record of neil gorsuch and the opening day of his confirmation hearings with: newshour regular, marcia coyle of the "national law journal." tom goldstein, founder of scotusblog.com. pam karlan, a professor of law at stanford university, who worked in the justice department during the obama administration, and paul clement, a former solicitor general under president george w. bush.

and we welcome all of you to the "newshour". marcia, i'm going to start with you. overall takeaway from today's session? >> well, the first day usually is not all that substantive. the hearing played out the way it has traditionally. the senators -- each senator has an opening statement. ten there is an introduction of the form knee, and the nominees' opening statement. that did happen. but what we gater from the first day is we see where the concerns are on both sides, where the questioning may lead, what kind of difficulties the nominee may have if answering some of the questions. on the republican said today, we saw a lot of emphasis on judge gorsuch's qualifications. on the democratic side, we saw specific concerns about opinions he has written in certain areas such as workers protection,

whether he would give deference to agencies' rules. so it's really a laying out of what's to come. >> woodruff: paul clement, what was your main takeaway today? >> well, i thought probably the i think the single most interesting part of the hearing was judge gorsuch's own statement, and i think what the american public saw was somebody who's very poised, very experienced. he's been a federal court of appeals judge for over ten years. and i think somebody by any conventional standard is qualified to be on the supreme court of the united states. so i think that will probably give us an indication. we'll obviously see a lot more of judge gorsuch in tomorrow's hearings answering questions and the back and forth, but that was really the high light for me. >> woodruff: and pam karlan, we only heard a moment ago from judge gorsuch himself, but what was your main takeaway in terms of watt we now know? >> well, from judge gorsuch himself, he made this point, and

you saw it in the clip, that in 97% of his cases below the decision is unanimous. that's totally different from what happens on the supreme court. the job of a judge and the job of a justice are very different because justices are resolving the constitutional questions that divide us most, and i think you got a sense from the senators that the senators, too, recognize there are two very different constitutional visions at stake here. >> woodruff: i wanted to ask you about that, tom goldstein, because it struck me, he said that's how we do it in the west. he said 97% of the cases he decided on were unanimous, even more were decided by -- he was in the majority. does that tell us something about him or not? >> it probably doesn't tell us as much about the outcomes in the cases and the cases where there was a division. when you get to the supreme court, the stakes are higher and the questions are harder. i don't think there is any suggestion that you would really

see neil gorsuch assuming the mentor of the justice. i think he'll be a solidly conservative judge. >> woodruff: what did you hear today, marcia, in terms of lines that you expect the democrats -- questioning criticism you expect the democrats to -- >> judy, i think every confirmation hearing, at least ones i've covered, has something unique about it that drives the questioning. on the democratic side today and what i think will drive a lot of the questioning is something that senator klobushar said that stuck with me is becausecally we can't evaluate your credentials in a legal cacoon. they have to be evaluated in the context of the era we live in. for her and her colleagues, that context is pretty much what they believe the trump administration has created. she talked about the president's

criticisms of judges, the obstacles to voting, just a whole range of things that she feels he has to be measured against in terms of his independence. so i think we're going to see a lot of questioning that follows along those lines. one of the sort of unfortunate things, i think, of what the senate did on the garland form nation was that it pushed the supreme court into a very bitter election campaign, and that resulted in both candidates having litmus tests for their judicial nominees, and the fact that president trump said he would appoint someone who, for example, would overturn roe v. wade creates a problem for judge gorsuch when he gets questioned about that. >> woodruff: paul, how do you think that will affect his approach to this process for the

next few days? >> i think what he will anticipate is he will be careful not to compromise his ability to sit on cases if he gets confirmed. so i don't think there is going to be a dramatically different willingness to answer questions compared to prior nominations. that may be dissatisfying for some members of the commit. you don't want somebody confirmed and having to recuse themselves on all manner of cases because they've gotten into the nitty gritty of how they would decide cases. so i don't anticipate you will see a lot of that. you heard some of this in the senatorial cases -- big guy vs. little guy, religious liberty because the hobby lobby case was one of his more prominent, but in a way that speaks volumes to the cases they're not talking about. he managed in ten years -- in

ten years to not decide cases in the hot button causes. >> woodruff: pam, where can democrats go in talking, in questioning judge gorsuch that will elicit some feel, some information about how he's going to judge, how he will rule as a supreme court justice if he's confirmed? >> i think one of the places they can go is to talk about cases that have already been decided in areas of law that are quite fixed and ask him what he thinks about the way prior justices went about thinking about those cases. i'll give you an example. when supreme court decided brown vs. board of education, where the court held degree gages in public schools was unconstitutional. they decided two things that day, one, is that applied to the federal government as well through the fifth amendment. you can't read the fifth

amendment enacted in 1791 to suggest those people who enacted it thought it prohibited race discrimination, so how do we get the right result if you're a strict originalist? same thing with the 14th amendment? chief justice's warren's opinion said in trying to decide whether segregation is unconstitutional, can't turn the clock back to 1968. did judge gores. think that's wrong? or did he take the view of justice scalia where he said the 14th amendment really has very little to say about whether sex discrimination is unconstitutional. so i think he can be pressed on cases that aren't going to come before the court but, quite candidly, i think if he's anywhere as skillful as the four predecessor nominees, he'll play rope-a-dope. >> woodruff: we'll pick up on that. >> one is where the nomination knows they have the votes and

the other kind of hearing where they don't, and neil gorsuch does. the republicans have the majority in the senate. no prospect in republican will vote against him. all he has to do is do no harm so i think he'll say relatively little because that's the common sense things to do and he has no reason to get into details because those issues may come in front of him. we saw the democrats may filibuster and force the nomination to get to 60 votes or cause a change in the rules. the democrats don't seem to have the strategy to lay down on the tracks because he seems to be in the mean stream. >> woodruff: how much pressure is there on him to come across as so acceptable to the democrats that they don't resort? >> i don't think that much. he does come across as a common sense guys, relatively plain-spoken, very clear. he hasn't decided hot-button

issues like abortion and affirmative action in extreme ways so all he has to do is not give democrats to give an excuse to caricature him as an extremist on the right and he's fine. >> we'll follow it the next few days and have all four of you back. tom goldstein, marcia coyle, pam karlan, paul clement, look forward to seeing you tomorrow. >> thanks. >> woodruff: tomorrow morning, you can turn to pbs.org/newshour to find continued live coverage of day two of the gorsuch hearings along with our live blog of news, commentary and other details related to the confirmation proceedings. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, there's word that u.s. authorities will ban many electronic devices on certain

incoming foreign flights. news accounts tonight say the homeland security department will announce the move tomorrow. it's said to include about a dozen foreign air carriers flying out of africa and the middle east. a suicide car bomb killed at least 23 people and wounded nearly 50 more in baghdad. police and hospital officials say the target was a busy commercial district in a mostly shiite neighborhood. the islamic state group has staged a number of attacks in baghdad, even as it's losing ground to a government offensive to re-take the city of mosul. the violence erupted as iraq's prime minister haider al-abadi was visiting president trump at the white house. the president praised abadi, but said the u.s. pullout from iraq left a vacuum for isis militants to fill. >> your troops are fighting hard. i know mosul is moving along. but mosul was ours until we

left. so perhaps we shouldn't have gone in and certainly we shouldn't have left. we should never ever have left. >> woodruff: today's visit comes as mr. trump prepares to host a meeting of 68 nations to discuss strategy to combat isis. in syria, government forces recaptured parts of damascus a day after a surprise rebel incursion in the capital city. the rebel blitz marked the biggest infiltration of damascus since 2012. the syrian air force carried out air strikes today on besieged areas. activists reported dozens killed, and said fighting was continuing in some places. a new shakeup has hit the ride- sharing company uber. jeff jones has resigned as president after six months on the job. in a statement, he said his beliefs are "inconsistent with what i saw and experienced at uber." the company faces allegations that it ignores sexual harassment. it's also acknowledged using

software to disguise its activities in cities around the world. billionaire and philanthropist david rockefeller died today. he was the last surviving grandchild of john d. rockefeller, who built the standard oil fortune. david rockefeller served as president of chase manhattan bank for 20 years and was a major benefactor of the arts and environmental conservation. at his death, david rockefeller was 101 years old. wall street started the week with a lackluster showing. the dow jones industrial average lost eight points to close below 20,906. the nasdaq rose half a point, and the s&p 500 slipped four. and, there's a new happiest place on earth-- norway. it bested denmark for the top spot in this year's "world happiness report". the survey was co-authored by economists in the u.s. and canada. it takes into account life expectancy, wealth and other factors. the u.s. slipped a spot to 14th

overall, among 155 countries. the central african republic ranked last. >> woodruff: now, a new art exhibit explores contemporary life in the american west, as seen through the eyes of latino artists and their immigrant experience. jeffrey brown is back with the story from denver. >> brown: at the denver art museum recently, an emotional moment for artist ramiro gomez and his parents. >> i'm very proud of him. >> brown: he'd brought them here to see his newest work, called "lupita," an installation that pays homage to a janitor who worked at these galleries. it was particularly poignant: gomez's parents themselves are laborers: his mother a janitor, his father a truck driver. >> i wouldn't be here without their labor. i wouldn't be here without their sacrifice. >> brown: today, gomez is an up-

and-coming artist in los angeles. featured in galleries and exhibitions for work that captures a life of work by immigrants and others, not typically the subject of art. >> it's important for me to highlight these people who are not going to be recorded in our history. >> brown: in denver, gomez was one of 13 young mexican-american artists chosen for an exhibition called "mi tierra." their assignment: to create a new work that explores the idea of 'home' and 'place' in the american west. there were smaller paintings and large installations, videos about the land before europeans settled here, and a garden that looked like a giant pinata. some of the artists tackled the politically charged topic of immigration. >> for me, "place" becomes a difficult word to focus on because "place" is never permanent. we're constantly moving.

it's constantly shifting. i'm an american-born child to mexican immigrants. i'm at once mexican and american. i'm in-between. that in-between space, that in- between place that i occupy is something that is constantly changing within myself. >> brown: dimitri obergfell's installation reflects an internal identity struggle. he was raised in colorado by his american mother and was estranged from his mexican father until recently. for the museum, he created a market typical of many latino neighborhoods in denver, selling t-shirts, sculptures of "narco- saints" and praying hands with manicured nails. >> the reason i wanted to explore this theme in this way is because i always existed on the perimeter of latino culture in a weird way. >> brown: you feel complicated when it comes to identity? >> i think it would be maybe in

bad taste for me to take this opportunity and come into this exhibition and say "okay, i'm fully latino now." for me it was about exploring and having this cathartic process to work through these complicated identity ideas." >> brown: jaime carrejo is a professor at rocky mountain college of art and a fourth generation american who grew up in the border city of el paso, texas. he created his own border 'wall,' with video images of mexico projected on one side and of the u.s. on the other. >> i'm really interested in the construction of divisiveness and how we use that to make people part of a group or exclude them. >> in making art you can create complex discussions about complex issues. things don't exist in dualities. >> brown: that's interesting because there is a duality here, right? there's one country and there's another? >> you have the dualities, but the wall itself-- because of the reflective materials-- they end up collapsing on each other. there would be moments when the

image of mexico will be transcribed on the image of the united states and we have this whole different landscape. you end up with these complex layering of an image which i think is the perfect metaphor of what it means to be a citizen of the united states. >> brown: landscape and two worlds colliding was also the focus for daniela edburg, who's lived her life back and forth in both countries. her piece, titled "uprooted", featured a large crocheted root and plant system that weaves together photographs of immigrants and images from the western terrain. >> i've always had this thing of being of two places. >> brown: that's how you grew up. >> yes. that's how i grew up with two languages, two points of reference culturally that are similar but not the same. in my adulthood i have found it very comforting to find connections between the places through landscape. >> brown: how much are you watching the headlines and reading the news in this

context? >> of course i'm watching what's going on. of course it informs my work. i am also talking about stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. >> brown: the exhibition, "mi tierra," shows through october. from the denver art museum, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, it's the first day of spring and that means more hours of sunlight each day, and for some people, more sneezes. why does just looking at the sun trigger our noses? we explore this strange phenomenon on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. finally, a correction to friday night's program. in a report about carbon emissions, we had a missing word in the copy. we reported that emissions fell

in the u.s. and china in 2016 and we should have said that drop is thanks to greater use of renewable energy and nuclear and gas power. the newshour regrets the error and we thank our alert audience members for flagging it. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> it's hard not to feel pride as a citizen of this country when we're in a place like this.

>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org