captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, dividing lines-- even as lawmakers pay respect to a fallen capitol hill police officer today, republicans face a defining moment for the party's future. then, a new start-- the u.s. and russia agree to extend the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty. plus, immigration reset-- policy changes leave the future of former president trump's border wall and migration to the u.s. in question. >> we're a nation of immigrants. and that's true. and at the same time, we're a nation that has typically always rejected the newest immigrants.

>> woodruff: and, upending the markets-- we explore the unconventional trading that led to turmoil on wall street. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> supporting social entrepreneurs and thei solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> 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. >> woodruff: republicans in the u.s. house of representatives are split tonight over the fate of two members, and perhaps, of the party itself. at the same time, republicans and democrats in the senate have come to an agreement. congressional correspondent lisa desjardins reports. >> desjardins: at the capitol, a bipartisan move forward today-- a deal to give the senate basic and much-needed operating rules. democratic majority leader chuck schumer: >> we will pass the resolution through the senate today, which means that committees can promptly set up and get to work with democrats holding the gavels. >> desjardins: but otherwise, the building remains a scene of bitter divisions, especially among house republicans. last night, house minority leader kevin mccarthy met with georgia freshman representative marjorie taylor greene, who has

promoted conspiracy theories and published threats of violence against other members. mccarthy is under pressure to take action against greene. >> we have never had a hearing like this before. >> desjardins: ...as house democrats today started moving on a rare resolution to strip her of all of her committee assignments. they argue greene is dangerous and unrepentant. >> anyone who questioned the 9/11 attack, endorsed executions against our colleagues, referred to the mterms as islamic invasion, simply put, is a danger to this institution and our personal safety. >> reporter: no republican defended taylor greene. stead they argued process, charging that democrats are streamrolling. >> it really does seem to me that this would be setting a new >> it really does seem to me that this would be setting a new precedent and one that i think could be very dangerous.

it's a precedent where the majority party can punish a member of the minority party by removing them from their committee assignments. >> desjardins: that g.o.p. battle played side-by-side with another, as house republicans met this afternoon to debate their number three leader, representative liz cheney of wyoming, and her actions last month. >> the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. >> reporter: that was the vote to impeach now-former president donald trump. cheney was one of 10 republicans who voted for impeachment. since then, a vocal group of republicans has pointed since then, a vocal group of republicans has pointed heated criticism at her. all of this played out at a capitol that is torn, tense and toda grieving. >> would you pray with me? >> desjardins: with fellow officers on watch, the cremated remains of u.s. capitol police officer brian sicknick lay in the capitol rotunda. sicknick died after defending the capitol in the january 6th riot, ki by ext supporters.

president biden and the first lady paid respects last night. sicknick is only the fifth person to have lain in honor in the capitol rotunda, an expression of national gratitude and tribute for americans who were not public officials. a combat veteran, his remains were taken to arlington national cemetery for burial. >> woodruff: and lisa joins me now. so, lisa, let's go back to what you reported. republicans meeting today, tonight, to discuss liz cheney, who is in their leadership. can you tell us what's happened? >> reporter: the future of the house republican caucu conference is still unclear right now as i speak to you, judy. the house republicans have been meeting for now over two hours. they have not yet decided whether they will vote on liz cheney's future or not. but one of their other top aders, the number-two republican, exited the meeting when they went on a short break to take votes on the house floor and said he wants his

republicans to deal with this tonight. what that means is we expect a long night of speeches, kind of a family feud, behind closed doors. liz cheney, we know, i can report, herself spoke to her fellow repubcans and said she does not apologize for her vote to impeach president trump. we also know behind the scenes, she has been calling nearly every member of her 211-member conference to try and keep her job. one factor in her favor-- the big boss, the house minority leader kevin mccarthy, the top republican, walked out of the meet during this break and said he does support cheney. he spoke in favor of her, and that's in her favor. but there are many who criticize her. so tonight we're still waiting to see what happens to the number-three leader in the house republican caucus. >> woodruff: so, meantime, lisa, also under discussion is another member of the republican caucus, the freshman congresswoman from the state of georgia, marjorie taylor greene. what are you learning about

that? >> reporter: so extraordinary. as we talk about the current leadership of the republican party, we're also talking about its identity. we know now, as i said, top republican in the house, kevin mccarthy, spoke to reporters during this break. he told them that he offered a deal to democrats about miss greene. he said he would remove her from the education committee, put her on the small-business committee, and that democrats rejected that deal. democrats feel strongly she belongs on no committees, that she's dangerous. she's someone who has repeated, publicized threats, including threats against house speaker pelosi to assassinate her. now, kevin mccarthy came out with this statement just in the last hour about congresswoman greene. he said h made clear as a member of congress we have a responsibility to hold ourselves to a higher standard than how she presented herself as a private citizen. marjorie recognizes in our conversation. i hold her to her word. it sounds to me like mccarthy is essentially giving her

another chance. however, will democrats probably not. they are moving to vote tomorrow as a house to remove her from committees. that is something that has never happened. it's an extraordinary precedent. it shows how strongly democrats feel. but republicans say they're moving way too fast. >> woodruff: with all that going on, lisa, there are a number of issues to ask you about. but let's talk about the big one, and that is the covid relief proposal put forward by the biden administration. what is that looking like on the hill right now? >> reporter: so happy to talk about this important issue. we know that president biden today spoke with democrats at the white house, including democratic senate leader chuck schumer. schumer walked out of that meeting saying, "we all agree we want to go big." that total is about-- approaching $2 trillion is what president biden has initially asked for. but there is some talk among my sources on capitol hill that they are hearing the biden administration may lower some of

its requests, targeting, for example, the direct payments to fewer families, perhaps changing the unemployment ratio that they're asking to get closer in line to what a bipartisan group is asking for, what republicans are asking for. but in genal, it looks like right now, democrats are ful speed ahead on what could be a larger package than republicans are comfortable with. they do technically have the votes to do that. they have to decide are they willing to go it alone, as democrats, on a big coronavirus package, or will they make it smaller to try and bring republicans on board? right now, it does look like they're going big, and they're going partisan. >> woodruff: all right, watching all this, lisa desjardins, reporting on the capitol. thank you, lisa. >> woodruff: and to talk more about where the republican party is right now, i'm joined by former republican senator john danforth of missouri. senator danforth, thank you so much for joining us. you garnered a good deal of attention last month when after the attack on the u.s. capitol,

you were quoted as saying that your support for your home state senator josh hawley a couple of years earlier was "the worst mistake you've made in your life." you said he was instrumental by his actions in creating perhaps the darkest day in american history. what did all that say about the republican party? >> well, it says that the republican party today is not just different from what it had been. it's the opposite, in many ways, of what it had been. america needs a srong, responsible, conservative party. that has been the republican party. it is neither strong nor responsible nor conservative today. it's losing, i think, its grip on the country as a whole. it's becoming increasingly a regional party, with almost no exceptions. the northeast now is gone, as

far as the u.s. senate is concerned. the west coast is completely gone. so we're in decline. in the last two presidential elections, president trump lost in 2016 by three million votes. he lost in 2020 by seven million votes. we're going in the wrong direction. but the worst thing is that we have become really kind of a grotesque caricature of what the republican party has traditionally been. we were founded as the party of the union, of holding the country together. and now we've got on this populous tact which is very much us against them. there are conspiracies out there involving liberals and corporations and big tech. ey're picking on you, the american people. you should resent this. you should feel your grievances.

we feel them for you. and we're going to continue to create wedges to drive americans apart. so it really is, as i say, kind of a grotesque departure from the tradition of the republican party. >> woodruff: and, senator, when senator hawley and others say they don't see anything wrong with challenging the election results, and in fact, senator hawley himself said what he had done was not an effort to overturn the election. what is the danger? what are the consequences in challenging a legal election outcome? >> well, the consequences are what you saw on january 6. it's a-- it was there then an attack on the capitol building. it's a fracturing of the country. previously, the certification of the electoral college votes was a mere formality.

i never attended one. i mean, they may have lasted an hour or so. but what hawley did was to create an event. he announced that he was going to object, that he was going to make this into a big deal, and then he repeatedly said that the election was in doubt, that january 6 was going to be the decisive day, this wasn't over yet. and then he appeared in front of the capitol building in that famous photograph, encouraging what was going on. so, ye, i mean, it's-- it's not the democratic process. he claimed that all he was trying to do was to use the opportunity to speak. he didn't speak. i mean, when pennsylvania came up on the floor of the senate, he remained in his chair. so it was-- it was really an effort to create an event, and there was trouble that was created in that event. >> woodruff: two other things. i want to ask you, we know what senator hawley said, did, what

senator cruz did, but it's also others in the senate, the leader, then-majority leader mitch mcconnell, your other home state senator, roy blunt. they were saying as late as december that president trump had-- there's no evidence that president biden had won, even though, as you just said, he had won by seven million votes. should they be held accountable, too? >> well, i think, really, the question is what republican elected officials are hearing from their constituents. and what they're hearing from the trump types and from trump, because what they're hearing is if they don't toe the line, they're going to lose their jobs. and most people, understandably, are motivated by self-preservation. they don't want to lose their jobs. so all the pressure now has come from what i would call the

populist wing of the party, or the trump wing of the party. and the rest of us have been just pushed and pushed and pushed. and it's really time now for us to start pushing back. >> woodruff: should former president trump be convicted in this upcoming trial in the sete? >> yes, absolutely he should. if this-- if what he did doesn't warrant conviction, what does? now, some people say, "well, is this constitutional to do this after he's lest office?" most legal scholars would say yes. but i think that debating that is kind of a■ç subtle tee right now, and the real question is what is the position of the republican party with regard to president trump and how he behaved in office and what he did to our country? and i think anything other than a strong vote of conviction by republicans is going to be

viewed, rightly so, as condoning trump. >> woodruff: senator danforth, as you know, most republicans are saying that they don't believe he should be convicted-- at least they've said they don't think the process is constitutional. how do you explain that? >> well, i think that they're looking for some reason to duck the vote, and i think that they're looking for a reason not to, in effect, condemn trump for what trump did. but i don't think we can afford to do that anymore. i mean, is this guy going to be in control of the republican party, or is he not? is he going to define the republican party going forward or is he not? so it now is time for a clear expression on the part of republicans that this whole

populist strategy that we've been following is just plain wrong, and we're going to return to the republican party that is a responsible party, that is a conservative party, and that is a party of-- that is capable of being a national party again, which it is not now. >> woodruff: quickly, finally, do you still consider yourself a republican? >> yeah, i've always been a republican. i'm a republican. and i believe in the republican party as it has been. i believe in the party of lincoln. i believe in the party thats try to hold our country together. i believe in the party that stands for the constitution and not as-- and not one that tries to undermine the legitimacy of an election or the legitimacy of a presidency. that to me is what conservativism is. it's what the republican party is. it's what it always has been. but we have recently been on a

side track from that, and it's time to get back on track. >> woodruff: former senator john danforth of missouri. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the united states neared 450,000 deaths from covid-19, even as new infections are declining. at the same time, the head of the c.d.c., dr. rochelle walensky, said it is safe to reopen schools, if everyone wears a mask and observes social distancing. >> there is increasing data to suggest schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggesthat teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely. >> woodruff: also today, the

city of san francisco sued its own school system, to force a return to in-person learning. we'll get back to this, later in the program. president biden suggested today he's open to cutting his covid stimulus plan below $1.9 trillion. he spoke virtually to house democrats, and reportedly said he is "not married" to that number. but, he insisted he still wants $1,400 dollar checks for most americans. later, the president called senate democrats to the white house, and said again he thinks he can win over republican vos. two more of president biden's cabinet picks have advanced to the full senate. the senate commerce committee backed rhode island governor gina raimondo to be commerce secretary today. and, the energy committee cleared former michigan governor jennifer gnholm for energy secretary. in russia, the kremlin dismissed protests over the jailing of

opposition leader alexei navalny. a moscow court sent him to prison for two and a-half years for violating probation. demonstrations erupted overnight, and police in riot gear arrested than 1,400 people. foreign minister sergey lavrov condemned the protesters and outside criticism. >> ( translated ): the hysteria we've heard over the trial process for the navalny case is of course off the scale. absolutely, it's concealed from society that laws that regulate demonstrations and protests in the west are much stricter than in the russian federation. >> woodruff: the u.s. is urging moscow to free navalny and all of the protesters. police in myanmar have charged ousted leader aung san suu kyi with possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies. she's been detained since sunday's military coup in the former burma. the newly announced charge allows authorities to hold her until at least mid-february.

back in this country, defense secretary lloyd austin ordered all commanders to talk to their troops about the dangers of extremism. it's to happen over the next 60 days. the move follows disclosures that some current and former troops were involved in the assault on the u.s. capitol. the u.s. justice department withdrew a discrimination lawsuit against yale university today. the trump administration had accused yale of illegally favoring others over white and asian american applicants. a federal investigation of yale's pctices will continue. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 36 points to close at 30,723. the nasdaq lost two points, while the s&p 500 added three. still to come on the newshour: the u.s. and russia agree to extend the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty. policy changes leave the future of former president trump's

border wall in question. we break down the unconventional trading that led to chaos on wall street. and much more. >> woodruff: today the u.s. and russia agreed to extend the only remaining treaty that limits the deployment of nuclear weapons new start restricts strategic, or long range, nuclear weapons. today's agreement will last until 2026, but there are critics who say the treaty, and the biden administration's efforts to extenit, didn't go far enough. nick schifrin has the story. >> schrin: they are the world's deadliest weapons, able to fly thousands of miles and

obliterate entire cities. and for 10 years, the deployment of russian and american long range nuclear weapons has been restricted. >> today is an important milestone for nuclear security and nonproliferation and for u.s.-russian relations. >> schifrin: in 2010, president barack obama and then russian president dmitry medvedev signed the new strategic arms reduction treaty, or new start. it limits russia and the u.s. to 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. and those warheads can be carried by no more than 700 missiles and bombers. it also includes verification measures, such as movement notifications, data exchanges, and on-site inspections. today secretary of state anthony blinken wrote, “extending the new start treaty makes the united states, u.s. allies and partners, and the world safer. an unconstrained nuclear competition would endanger us all.” >> the future of nuclear arms control must address all nuclear weapons.

>> schifrin: but the trump administration called the trea“" deeply flawed,” because it does not limit russia's shorter range deployed nuclear weapons, as former special envoy for arms control marshal billingslea said last year. >> maybe during the cold war it made sense to talk about strategic or non strategic nuclear weapons, i would say that is not what we feel anymore, we view every nuclear warhead as having strategic implications. >> schifrin: the trump team also tried to get russia to cap the number of all nuclear warheads, short and long-range, including those in storage; something russia has never agreed to. and it sought to include china, as former assistant secretary of state chris ford told me last year: >> we think it's essential that china live up to its obligation to pursue negotiations in good faith towards avoiding a nuclear arms race. >> schifrin: today, ford told me the biden administration should have demanded a shorter extension. >> i just think it's a bit of a squandered opportunity. we didn't have to extend it for five years. we could have extended it incrementally and used successive extensions as a tool

of a negotiating strategy for dealing with the russians and perhaps others. >> schifrin: ford also says biden's campaign promise to extend new start, undercut trump negotiators with the russians. >> if they wanted a full five year extension with no strings, they knew that they didn't have to talk to us at all, because biden would come into office, as indeed it has now done, and give them precisely that. so the russians, in effect, had essentially zero reason to talk seriously with u.s. diplomats for the better part of 2020. >> schifrin: for more on all of this, we turn to rose gottemoeller, who is currently a distinguished lecturer at stanford university. during the obama administration she served as under secretary of state for arms control and international security. in that position she was the chief u.s. negotiator of the new start agreement. to the newshour. what's your reaction today to the biden administration extending new start for five years? >> i'm delighted. i think it's the right move for the united states of america because, you know, we are embarking on some modernization of our nuclear forces, and i think we really need the

predictability and stability that new start will give us over e next five years to make sure that we can do that modernization and keep the price tag within bounds. otherwise, i think we might be chasing the russians as ey build more missiles and more warheads and we couldn't end up having the kind of predictable nuclear modernization process we need right now. >> schifrin: you heard, of course, some of the criticism in that piece-- chris ford, marshal billingsly-- that the administration should have tried for a shorter extension, perhaps only one year, and that the biden administration gave up leverage. what's your response to that? >> ah, the leverage myth. i do think it's pretty hilarious, because, first of all, you know, when president biden came into office i wasn't at all sure that he was going to go for a five-year extension. there was a debate among his own team among that, people like victoria newland, very well respected, saying we should try for leverage on that.

i disagree on that. the russians have been very, very clear for the last year-plus, that they don't want this treaty more than we do, and, therefore, they were signaling that they would not be leveraged in this way. that's why i calit the "leverage myth." i don't think it would have happened. >> schifrin: do you think extending it five years one day after alexey navalny was sentenced to prison, just a few days after the russian security forces arrested thousands of protesters on the streets of moscow, sends the wrong message to the kremlin? >> i consider to say, nuclear weapon are an existential threat to the united states. these missiles, these long-range missiles armed with nuclear warheads could obliterate the united states in 30 minutes and, indeed, destroy the globe, if we somehow got into a major nuclear exchange with the russians. that kind of existential threat means to my mind that we have to keep working these problems. we have to keep work them, despite the fact we have severe disagreements with the russians

in many, many areas. that, in fact, was the clear message from the administration, from president biden today, and secretary of state blinken, saying that we have to be clear-eyed about the challenges from russia and really press them on those issues that are ss difficult, so problematic. the cyber attacks, the alexey navalny case, so many other things troubling about what russia is up to today. >> schifrin: we saw in the story some members of the trump administration negotiating team. do you think they did well overcoming some of the long-term demands to get to where the new start is today? >> i give the trump administration credit for a couple of things. one is that they esablished the principle that we should directly limit warheads and i think that's a good thing, and that freeze they proposed on all nuclear warheads. that was a good principle to establish, and i know that president biden intends to carry it forward because he said in his announcement today that he

plans to be working next on a treat tow limit all nuclear weapons. so i think that is a really good step. the other thing, though-- and here i think it's important to say that china should be at the tablas well. and here, too, president biden today said that, yes, indeed, china should be part of the next phase of discussions, and i welcome that news very much, also. >> schifrin: how do you propose tackling china. beijing has said its number of nuclear weapons, believed to be in the hundreds, would have to be somehow matched by the u.s. and russia, which have well over 1,000, before beijing would be willing to even undertake arms control negotiations. how can that challenge be tackd, do you think? >> you're right. we don't want to encourage them to build up. that's the lasthing we want them to do. but we need to look for area where's there is equality of capability on the chinese side. for example, hypersonic glide

vehicles. these are new technologies, new missiles being developed that are super fast and super accurate. there are some equality of capability in china, in russia, in the united states developing as well. here is an area where all three of us may have an interest in sitting down together. i also think we may have a more or less equal interest in constraining ground-launched intermediate-range missiles that really are out there proliferating at a time when the i.n.f. treaty has now gone away. so we should be, i think, ready to engage the chinese. but we need to engage them where they may have an interest in coming to the table because they want to see some restraints on us, perhaps on the russians as well, not just, you know, forcing them in a direction they don't want to go, like building up their warhead numbers. that is not good for u.s. national security, definitely. >> schifrin: rose gottenmoeller, thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: now to arizona, where people are feeling the impact of president biden's order to halt border wall construction. while the wall's presence has already had a profound impact on border communities, its enduring legacy under a new president remains unclear. amna nawaz has our report. >> nawaz: for 125 years, john ladd's family has raised cattle in this corner of arizona. 10 miles of his ranch run along the u.s.-mexico border. for years, ladd says his work was made harder by the steady stream of migrants and smugglers he says regularly crossed here. >> they just cut all my fences, they cut my water lines, they chase cattle around. so there's an economic impact right there. i spend about 50% of my time checking fences and water lines.

>> nawaz: which is why, he says, he welcomed president trump's wall construction, and is worried by president biden's order to halt it. >> if biden carries through with what he's proping. if the law enforcement is going to be under the gun. border patrol is already outmanned. it's going to be a real serious security issue. >> nawaz: looming, gleaming, and incomplete. president trump's so-called“ new” bder wall extends 450 miles, including this stretch of the arizona desert, which advocates say has destroyed habitat for endangered species and divided cross border families and communities. much of it upgraded existing wall with these 30-foot- barriers, totaling $11 billion, mostly paid for by tax dollars diverted from the pentagon. at roughly $20 million a mile, some estimate it's the most expensive wall of its kind in the world. >> if the wall immediately, that will hurt us economically. >> nawaz: for donald huish,

mayor of the border city of douglas, arizona, those construction contracts were a boon, especially after the pandemic shuttered cross-border commerce. >> we estimate between 60 and 70% of our sales tax revenue comes from the mexican side. and so the restrictions that have been put in place, we anticipated roughly probably a 33% drop in our budget. that hasn't happed. and the reason it hasn't happened is the influx of what we call the wall people, the people that have been brought in from out of state to work on the wall. >> nawaz: huish, a republican, grew up here and has family on both sides of the border. he says fencing, dating back to the early 2000's, helped to cut down illegal traffic. >> it pushed that element outside of our community, which in turn made our community much safer in that aspect of it. with the new wall, it's pushed it even further away from our community. and we've virtually seen none of that activity happening here

anymore. >> for the majority of our history, we have not had a steel barrier that's divided us from one another. i think for many people in dougla seeing a wall and then seeing, you know, 500 border patrol agents come to town. well, there has to be something dangerous over there. >> nawaz: pastor mark adams has lived here for 22 years. his presbytarian ministry, frontera de cristo, is a cross border community, stretching from douglas, arizona to its sister city of agua prieta in mexico. he says the perception of safety, from an increase in security has not meant safety for all. >> our border policy has been one that uses deserts and mountains as lethal terrents and we've seen thousands of people die because of that. >> nawaz: for decades, successive u.s. governments have stepped up security at the border. bill clinton's operation gatekeeper; george w bush's cure fence act, which then- senator barack obama supported; and now, trump's wall, which biden plans to halt. >> there's no discussion that they're going to demolish the

wall. >> nawaz: javier osorio is a political scientist at the university of arizona. he says there's little evidence the wall has stopped drugs or migrants from reaching the u.s. >> walls have never worked since the middle ages, right. i mean, there are always ways to bridge, to go around, to break the walls. so these physical barriers are actually not creating an important deterrent on all migration patterns into the u.s. why? because there's always a supply and demand of these human crossings. >> nawaz: those crossings, osorio says, continue. they've just been pushed into emptier, deadlier stretches, something mayor huish has seen. because the supply hasn't changed, what you're really doing when you build a wall is you're pushing them out into more dangerous positions, and further endangering their lives and maybe even the lives of

those on the border who are trying to enforce it. do you worry about that at all? >> i do. and you're absolutely correct. and that's why i'm saying that the immigration laws need to change somehow. they need to be better set up, that we can handle those situations, that if somebody has a legitimate reason why they need to be here or want to be your desire to become an american citizen, then we should have a way that that can happen. and so they don't have to resort to these means of trying to get across illegally. >> nawaz: pastor adams says u.s. laws greeting people are one challenge, the forces causing them to flee are another. >> this has been the biggest death year in over 10 years of people crossing the border. it just rerouted the traffic because we weren't dealing with the root causes of why people were migrating. >> nawaz: nightfall at the border. another group of migrants is deported back to mexico at a port of entry far from where

they originally crossed. confused, they gather for a meal at the migrant resource center and try figure out next steps. many reach out to the smugglers they hired to try and get back to the u.s. others end up spending the next few days at came, nearby shelter that houses migrants. we met aoman there, who fled violence in march, and tried t enter the u.s. she's now living in this shter, waiting her turn to request asylum. she doesn't want to be identified, fearful of consequences if she can't leave. >> ( translated ): with the wall, we have to go over the mountains or through the desert. it's much more difficult. i hope that biden welcomes us and has compassion for those of us who have been trapped here for a long time. the truth is, we have nowhere else to go. >> nawaz: the wall, to many, is more than a tangible deterrent. it also sends a powerful signal >> ( translated ): it's not just a wall, but also it is a

physical representation of immigration policy. >> nawaz: perla del angel is the outreach coordinator at came, and a volunteer at the migrant resource center. >> ( translated ): even before the new construction, we saw many people get injured who fell from the top of the wall and ended up with broken bones. there's even been people who've died from falling off the wall. so it's obvious with an even bigger wall now that these accidents are going to increase. >> nawaz: every tuesday for the last 20 years, faith leaders and congregants have gathered here on the u.s. side to rememb those who die making the brutal trek across this desert. during the pandemic, only a few gather in person, the rest on zoom. pastor adams shares their stories, and notes their lives,

even across a border, are part of the larger american story. >> part of that mythology of the nation is, you know, we're a nation of immigrants. and that's true. and the same time, we're a nation that has typically always rected the newest immigrants. >> nawaz: for now, his community is divided by a wall, he says, but remains united in faith. for the pbs newshour, i'm amna nawaz. >> woodruff: in late january, a handful of unlikely wall street stocks began to skyrocket in value. it's led to big market volatility, and that will be the subject of a special meeting tomorrow with treasury secretary janet yellen and other regulators. as paul solman reports, the

spike in these stocks was driven by an unconventional group of traders who banded together on a buying spree, determined to take on the market for their own, reasons. it's the latest in our economic series, "making sense." >> reporter: the frenzy: >> obviously this thesis is based largely on the fundamentals. >> reporter: internet chatters hyping and buying stock in seemingly moribund companies. >> and you're right, it doesn't make any sense at all. >> reporter: amc. bed bath and beyond. and above all, gamestop. crazy? >> and we're not as dumb as everyone thinks we are. we know what we're looking for. >> it's the regular joes versus wall street. >> reporter: joes using the free app, robinhood, to buy gamestop, a money-losing, brick-and-mortar monger of video game discs that seems obsolete, now that games are bought and downloaded online. and yet, the stock skyrocketed last month. we're going to try to explain what's beehappening with alex imas from the university of chicago business school and my grandson, joe viola, 17.

so, alex, set the scene for us. try to get out here what's been going on? >> there's people on this platform called reddit who decided to buy up a lot of this stock, a lot of shares, partly because hedge funds on wall street started short selling it. >> reporter: before we get into that, joe, i remember taking you to gamesp when you were younger it has kind of a nostalgic appeal? >> absolutely, you know i think a lot of people my age and a little bit older grew up with gamestop. i'm thinking that i'm seeing a lot of people on these platforms, such as reddit, who are saying buy buy gamestop for two reasons: one, to make money, and the other to stick it to the rich elite of the hedge funds. >> reporter: the hedge funds that have been betting against retro gamestop by shorting its stock, that is. now in keeping with the retro theme, alex suggested a retro product to visualize short selling. so here i've got an ipod, which i scrounged from somewhere in my basement. >> right. so an ipod's kind of like gamestop, it was very popular in

the 2000s and it's a bit obsolete because everybody's got music on their cell phones. >> reporter: so, how do you short sell an ipod? >> so let's say i'm a hedge fund and i think that the ipod is worth less than what it's being currently sold for. i go to you, paul, and i say, can i borrow your ipod? so what i do is i sell the ipod that i just borrowed from you and then buy it back for the future price. so if the price goes down, i make money because i'm basically getting the difference between that. >> reporter: you just want me to lend it to you? >> i'm going to borrow your ipod and i promise i'm going to give you a little bit extra money whenever i return it. >> reporter: and to promise, contractually, to return my ipod by a certain date, or whenever i ask for it back. so now you get wind of this short selling, joe. and what do you do? >> okay, i grew up with this product, it's got a certain nostalgic value. so i'm going to tell lots of my friends on social media, maybe reddit, to go out and buy ipods so we can all get in on the

trend. >> reporter: what happens to the hedge fund, alex? >> so because i am betting that the price is actually going to go down in the future, if it ends up going up, i end up losing money because i have to buy it for more than what i sold it for initially. >> reporter: and as you buy it, you're driving up the price even higher. >> exactly. >> reporter: and that's what's happened with gamestop, $18 a share just last month. my grandson bought one share last wednesday. and at what price? >> $293. >> reporter: i want to point out that i did not advise on this trade. i'm thinking that as more people are saying on social media that they're going to buy, the value is going to go extremely high. as well as that, i want to continue to stick it to the man, these people on wall street who have been running everything. >> reporter: and sure enough, out on the street: >> i think it's great that rich people are losing money because capitalism is destroying this world. >> i look at the whole gamestop thing with the stocks as a revenge of the nerds kind of attack.

>> this is one of the most complex attempts to coordinate on a single strategy that i think we've ever seen. >> reporter: a sort of people's hedge fund, says imas, coordinating on the reddit for“" wall street bets,” urging one another to buy, with rocket ship emojis. whh is to say, look, this asset is going to keep going up so everybody should buy. >> reporter: and to hold with“ diamond hands.” >> we are not going to break, we are going to keep the price up. >> reporter: and there's even a buy-and-hold sea shanty. >> ♪ with diamond hands they kn they'd profit if they could ♪ only hold. ho! >> reporter: but hold on. most wall street hedge funds aren't short sellers, they bet on stocks going up. and in this case, some hedge funds have actually profited hugely from the so-called“ revenge of the nerds.” as have robinhood's paying customers, big investors, many of them hedge funds, who buy information from robinhood about what people there are trading.

as for short sellers, are they bad actors? sure, they bet against apparent losers like gamestop, but also against frauds, like the infamous enron, which short sellers helped take down 20 years ago, by exposing its phony accounting. financial analyst james early. >> they find the bad stuff, the dirty stuff, the frauds, the scams. they protect investors. >> reporter: which brings us back to the reddit flash mob. >> ♪ one day when the trading is done we'll take our gains ♪ and go >> reporter: yes, they successfully ran up gamestop's stock price, which squeezed the short sellers. >> but this is also incredibly risky because people in the community can start selling gamestop because, for example, they think it's overvalued and the price is going to start going down and the people who bought at the height of this thing are going to end up holding the bag. >> reporter: this past weekend, i put twlast questions to grandson joe, until gamestop a remarkably savvy investor. when are you going to get out?

>> i was initially going to get out at $1,000 a share. however, i've revised it to $400 a share after it hasn't soared as much as quickly as i thought it would. >> reporter: 293 is what you spent, let's say it goes back to $18 a share, how are you going to feel? >> i'm going to be honest with you. i will be pretty disappointed. however, i'll always be fairly happy that i was able to partake in such a historical time in investing and was able to be a part of this movement to stick >> reporter: this afternoon, gamestop closed at 93. for the pbs newshour, paul solman. >> woodruff: the questions around when to re-open more schools for in-person classes remains front and center for millions of americans. data show about 42% of all students between kindergarten and high school are in virtual-

only schooling right now. there was more fuel for the debates around this today when c.d.c. director dr. rochelle walensky said there's growing evidence schools can reopen safely. and, she said, that's even before all teachers can be vaccinated. stephanie sy has our conversation again tonight. >> sy: judy, teachers and school staff say they need enough protective gear and safety measures in place before they return to in-person school. they also want more access to the covid vaccine. only about half of states ar specifically prioritizing teachers as an eligie group for vaccines right now, although teachers may still qualify because of their age or medical conditions. last night, we heard from the head of the largest teachers union. now, for a different perspective i'm joined by christopher morphew, dean of the school of education at johns hopkins university. dr. morphew, thank you so much for joining us on the newshour. there are k-12-age students that

have not been in in-person school since last march. how much learning has been lost? >> well, first of all, thanks for inviting me, stephanie. i really appreciate being here. you know, we're starting to see some evidence around a learning loss, and it looks pretty darn significant. last june, a colleague and i i here at hopkins wrote a piece in "jamma" and we were talking about what we and others called the covid slot, which was our prediction about what would happen as a result of closing schools during the pandemic, and we were predicting something that looked like like a nine- to 10-month summer melt in students. the early findings we're seeing in studies are substantiating just that. we're seeing evidence right now of students falling behind and most importantly, we're seeing lots of evidence of the students who are most at risk and who

entered into the pandemic, and entered into the schools' closures behind, falling further and further behind. so we're seeing evidence and data now that suggests we're looking at students who were behind losing another nine to 11 months. and these are students who entered into the pandemic, as i said, maybe one or two years already behind their peers in terms of learning. so it's those most at-risk students that we're primarily concerned about here as a result of the closures. but we're seeing general agreement from teachers, parents, and students that remote learning is not as high quality as the learning that was taking place beforehand. >> but the loss goes beyond academics, doesn't it? your web site says these same disadvantaged groups you're talking about-- students of color, low-income families-- have request the faced compounded threats to their physical, emotional, and educational well-being," that for them the most is at stake. >> yeah, what we're seeing now, i■ç think one study i was just reading described it as a

collective trauma. that students are experiencing. you know, i have two students in k-12 schools, and i'm seeing some of the mental health effects that other parents are seeing. and, again, we're starting to see from descriptive studies and national polls that, you know, 30% or more of parents are reporting significant changes in mental health. so that's greatly concerning. findings suggest that, as i said, students are experiencing the sort of collective trauma that is likely to have long-lasting impacts, well past the pandemic. and one of the things that we're concerned about here at hopkins is looking at the cases of abuse that are going undiscovered as a result of schools being closed. schools are a primary and essential piece for identifying evidence of abuse. and what we're really concerned about is the pandemic is very likely exacerbating this in communities and homes around the country, but students aren't in

schools, so we weren't seeing the effects of this the way counselors and teachers and school leaders have been trained to identify. so we're concerned about that as well. >> so the priority, it sounds like, should be getting all kids back to in-person learning. you now have the new head of the c.d.c. saying that this can be done safely, even without all teachers getting vaccinated. but you have major unions in big districts disagreeing with that. what's the best pact out of that impasse? >> i think it's realizing that vaccines are only one part of this. we know that-- we know a lot more about the virus. we know a lot more about how to reopen schools safely than we did nine months ago, and we need to take all of that into consideration, even beyond vaccines. the federal government really needs to think innovatively and think big when reopening school and that means stepping in, and making sure districts have the resources they need,

providing p.p.e., and they need to think innovatively about summer, to step in and make sure our children, especially at-risk children, don't experience the covid slide and the nine- to 10-month of summer melt we were talking about in learning loss. they have the rhetoric to be matched by action. >> christopher morphew, the dean of the school of education at johns hopkinsthank you so much. >> thanks, stephanie. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, singer mary chapin carpenter performs a song off her latest album, "the dirt and the stars," and talks about her ongoing, online music series, performed at home during the pandemic. watch on our website, pbs.org/newshour.

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, please stay safe, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: we offer a variety of no- contract wireless plans for people who use their phone a little, a lot, or anything in between. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> 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 u. >> at the pbs newshour, we have a long tradition of rthe eventsr times. new times have led us to find new ways to do what we do best. now more than ever, we seek answers to the tough questions. >> thenited states is still not testing per capita. >> and get you information you can trust.

>> we are the pbs newshour. >> week nights on pbs. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

hello, everyone, and welcome to amanpour and company. here's what's coming up. fighting for his freedom in court, alexey valny says the president will go down in history as putin the poizner. hundreds of protesters opened up and i asked what comes on both sides. he joins us with new work and a new project from his senegal studio. also ahead. >> our instincts is to become preachers and talk about why we're right. we're prosecutors and try to make it clear the other person is wrong. that just makes them defensive. >> psychologist adam tells our walter isackson how to reach

people you might find beyond the