captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: on edge. russia claims it won't start a president biden said he will soon send u.s. troops to eastern europe. ballot battle. texas restrictive then, ballot battle. texas' restrictive new voting law sparks confusion, forcing election officials to reject hundreds of applications for mail-in ballots. >> texas is already the hardest state to vote in, in the entire country, and this just turbo- charges how hard it will be. >> woodruff: and it's friday. david brooks and jonathan capehart consider the legacy of supreme court justice stephen breyer, and what his retirement could mean for the high court. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.

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thank you. >> woodruff: president biden confirmed tonight that u.s. troops will be heading to eastern europe and nato countries in the "near term," amid the ongoing ukraine crisis. he was asked by a reporter about any u.s. troop movements this evening. >> did you decide if you'll be moving troops to eastern europe? >> i'll be moving u.s. troops to eastern europe in the nato countries in the near term. >> woodruff: earlier today, ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky downplayed fears of an imminent war between ukraine and russia, urging the west not to panic over the escalating situation at the border. meanwhile, russia's foreign minister, sergei lavrov, said that moscow doesn't want a war. but, he also warned the west not to trample on his country's security interests, after the u.s. delivered its response to

russia on the ukraine crisis. >> ( translated ): we have got the answers only the day before yesterday. they are written in "western- style," and make things as clear as mud in many aspects. but, as i said before, there are some rational kernels in there regarding peripheral issues. >> woodruff: russia's president vladimir putin also spoke with french president emmanuel macron today and voiced his frustrations over his country's unmet demands. nick schifrin is here following all of these developments. so, hello, nick, what did the pentagon say today? >> schifrin: the u.s. and the reason it's done that is it's concerned not only about war in ukraine but about war in ukraine spreading into eastern europe and so it wants to reassure eastern flank allies, it wants to reassure n.a.t.o. part of that is giving u.s. troops over to n.a.t.o. command

to reinforce that eastern flank along the russian border and at the same time n.a.t.o. countries are trying to do the same, inforce with french with dutch, jets, with soldiers, moving to eastern europe to really try and make the message to putin career that, regardless of what happens in ukraine, we are -- we being the west, we being n.a.t.o. -- are able to deter you and send you a message about how strong we feel about the number of troops that need to be in eastern europe and our commitment to defend our n.a.t.o. allies. >> woodruff: so, nick, we reported what the ukrainian president is saying, telling the west not to panic, but the pentagon had something to say today. tell us about that. >> reporter: what's interesting here, the pentagon, u.s. and kyiv really aren't on the same page when it comes to the threat. from the u.s. perspective, they see russian troops, they see russian material rushing to the ukrainian border every day, these videos released by the russian military defense every

day, and what the u.s. sees is a more serious and imminent threat than europe has seen in decades. as we heard from the chairman of the joint chiefs mark milley and defense secretary lloyd austin. >> sure, with 100,000 troops, and you've got combined arms formations, ground maneuver, artillery, rockets, you got air and all the other pieces, parts that go with it, there's a potential that they could launch on very, very little warning. that's possible. but this is larger in scale and scope and the massing of forces than anything we have seen in recent memory, and i think you'd have to go back quite a while, into the cold war days, to see something of this magnitude. >> schifrin: just before that, ukraine's president volodymyr zelensky said that talk of imminent war was causing panic, and he criticized the u.s. for criticized the u.s. for making a decision last weekend for evacuating diplomats families as we heard today through sent

ski's interpreter. his interpreter: >> ( translated ): embassy employees should be here. these are the captains-- i'm sorry, but these are the captains of the diplomatic cause. they're the representatives of their respective countries. and the captains are the last who should be leaving the ship, and i don't think we have a "titanic" here. ukraine is moving forward. sometimes they're not even using diplomatic language. they're saying "tomorrow is the war." this means panic on the market, panic in the financial sector. >> schifrin: ukrainian officials tell me judy that they believe the u.s. is hyping the threat, leading international investors to refuse to lend to ukraine and that reduces ukraine's economic growth. they also say that they are frustrated in their request for more weapons. for example, patriot missiles, antiship missiles are being denied by the administration. senior u.s. officials tell me they are sending a lot of weapons to ukraine, and that they're frankly just calling it as they see it on the poredder with russia, and that frank talk

continued last night in a conversation between president biden and president zelensky. i'm told biden told zelensky that russia has the capacity to seize, hold territory and even or throw the -- overthrow the government in kyiv. >> woodruff: wle all this is going on, is the diplomatic track still alive here? >> reporter: yes, very much so. earlier this week u.s. and the n.a.t.o. gave official responses to russia's demands, rejecting russia's demands ukraine never join n.a.t.o., and that n.a.t.o. roll back basically to 1990s levels and, instead, the u.s. wants to limit military exercises in europe, restrict missile deployments and talk about new arms control. now, today as you've said, judy, vladimir putin said the u.s. failed to take russian security concerns into account but we heard something else from sergey lavrov. he said this is a kernel of

rationality in u.s. proposal and that could be a hint diplomacy will move forward. hint that diplomacy will move forward, u.s. naval war college's nikolas gvosdev told me today. >> what it means is that there are points at which lavrov believes that he can continue negotiating directly with the united states, perhaps understanding that the u.s. can't make certain formal commitments, but you might be able to jury-rig a solution with the u.s. that moscow might find satisfactory. and this is where another diplomatic track is going to be quite critical, and that is the revival of the normandy format with germanyfrance, ukraine, and russ. >> reporter: thaformat focuses on the war ongoing in eastern ukraine and requires moscow to reduce and give areas controlled by russian separatists some autonomy and those talks will continue over the next couple of weeks. >> woodruff: nick schifrin

following developments from every front tonight, thank you, nick. >> reporter: thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, an investigation is underway tonight to determine what caused a pittsburgh bridge to collapse into a ravine, hours before president biden visited the city to tout the new bipartisan infrastructure law. several vehicles, including a bus, were on the 50-year-old bridge when it caved in, early this morning. pittsburgh's mayor said there were a handful of injuries. >> i think ten have been seen, and they're okay. so, we're just going to continue to hope for the best and make sure that we get this under-- get this together. right now, we're still assessing the situation, getting information. but the good thing at this point is that there's no fatalities. >> woodruff: mr. biden stopped by the site of the collapse before his speech. he thanked first responders and surveyed the damage from behind

a concrete barrier. later, he vowed to fix the nation's aging infrastructure. >> this is the first time in the country's history that we dedicated a national program to repair and upgrade bridges. and it's about time. we're going to rebuild that bridge, along with thousands of other bridges, in pennsylvania and across the country. >> woodruff: the infrastructure law has earmarked more than $1.5 billion for repairing bridges in pennsylvania alone. on wall street, in a turnaround, stocks notched their best day of this new year, after a roller coaster week of trading. the dow jones industrial average soared 564 points to close at 34,725. the nasdaq gained 418 points, and the s&p 500 added 105. in other economic news, a key measure of inflation rose 5.8%

--a key measure of inflation rose 5.8% last year, the steepest increase since 1982. and, consumer spending fell more than half a percent in december. covid-19 cases have fallen 27% in the u.s. over the past two weeks-- while the average number of new deaths rose 34%. ten billion covid vaccine doses have also now been administered globally. but, fewer than one in ten people in low-income countries have received one. blizzard warnings are in effect along the east coast tonight, ahead of a major winter storm. conditions are expected to worsen as the storm moves across the northeast tomorrow, dumping as much as three feet of snow on parts of new england. boston is bracing for what could be its worst snow storm in four years. mayor michelle wu urged people to stay home. >> this has the potential to be a historic storm, a huge one. the national weather service has already issued a blizzard warning for boston.

this is likely to be an intense, dangerous storm with heavy snow, high winds, and whiteout conditions. >> woodruff: the snow is expected to continue through sunday. meanwhile, a severe tropical storm in eastern and southern africa has killed at least 88 people since it made landfall on monday. it flooded parts of madagascar, before hitting mozambique and malawi, where it destroyed homes and washed away bridges. another storm in the indian ocean is expected to strike the same region this weekend. more than a third of the people in ethiopia's war-torn tigray region are suffering from an extreme lack of food. that is according to a new report from the united nations world food program. the u.n. also said that tigray has not received humanitarian aid since mid-december. and on a lighter note, there is a new pet at the white house-- a two-year-old farm cat named willow. she was named after first lady jill biden's hometown of willow grove, pennsylvania.

willow joins commander, the first family's german shepherd puppy, introduced in december. so, something for both dog and cat lovers. still to come on the newshour: olympic skier lindsey vonn discusses the upcoming winter games, and her new book. david brooks and jonathan capehart weigh in on justice breyer's retirement, and more. a new tv series explores the cultural ramifications of bill cosby's downfall. plus, much more. >> woodruff: president biden has made tackling climate change a central piece of his agenda. he has secured more money for renewable energy and proposed tougher regulations on carbon and methane emissions.

but, it has been a more complicated story when it comes to drilling for oil and gas. william brangham looks at how that is playing out. >> brangham: judy, early on, president biden halted any new oil and gas leases on public lands. but, a federal judge blocked the move. since then, the administration has been issuing permits, even exceeding what president trump did. that included the largest sale of oil and gas leases in history, for drilling on 80 million acres in the gulf of mexico. but yesterday, a different judge blocked that, saying the government didn't adequately consider what impact that drilling would have on climate change. to help us sort through it all, i'm joined by lisa friedman of the "new york times."

does this ruling change in some fundamental way how we grant leases going forward? >> well, you're absolutely right. i think one thing i found today inted out as in the beginningts of the segment, we saw a judge in the 9th circuit last year, a recent case in alaska, saying, you know, hey, administration, whether it's trump or biden, we really need to see a much more robust analysis of the impacts of climate change. so i think what we're going to see in the future is that no

administration will be able to downplay or hide the impacts that the burning of the fossil fuels developed in these leases will have. that doesn't necessarily mean these lease sales won't go forward in the future, but there will be a much more transparent, i believe and i think experts believe, detailing of the impacts. >> reporter: lisa, what is the environmental movement's reaction been to this, both to this ruling and to the way in which the biden administration has somewhat surprisingly granted a lot of these leases? >> this decision was a huge win for environmental groups. you know, there's a mixed attitude toward the biden administration, i would say, in the environmental community. there's no doubt that the biden administration has made climate change a front and center issue. on the other hand, you know,

there have also been things that disappointed the environmental community, not long after returning from glasgow last year where president biden told the world to reduce fossil fuels emissions, the u.s. went forward with the land lease sale. there's been dispositions on the administration's decision on pipelines but going forward with the lease sale is probably the biggest concern of groups last year and they have been vindicated of the judge. >> reporter: all right, lisa freedman of the "new york times." thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: later in this midterm election year, voters in 19 states will head to the polls with new, more restrictive voting laws on the books. one of those states is texas, where the party primaries are just a few weeks away. some voters and election workers say one provision in the new law

in the lone star state is already causing confusion. geoff bennett has our report. >> reporter: in texas, election workers are reporting that hundreds of applications for mail-in ballots are being rejected-- one of the early effects of the state's new republican-backed voting law. it requires that voters provide either a partial social security number, or a driver's license number, on their ballot application-- and that number has to match what's on their original voter registration. the problem is, most people don't remember what form of i.d. they initially provided, especially older voters who registered decades ago. and that's not the only thing causing confusion, says jessica huseman, editorial director of votebeat. >> peoplaren't used to filling out the new forms, and they fill them out incorrectly. and then there was also a problem where the voter roll in texas is missing some information from voters. so, if they write down the incorrect number that is missing by accident or because they

don't know which one is in the system or that one is missing, then their registration will be automatically rejected. >> reporter: a problem, she says, which cod have been prevented. >> we pointed thisroblem out initially inuly of last year, which was well before this law passed. and so, there was an opportunity for texas lawmakers to address the issue. >> reporter: james slattery, with the texas civil rights project, warned members of the texas house in testimony last summer. >> it is easy to see the needless chaos and mass disenfranchisement that requiring this matching process will create. >> reporter: slattery sees it as another barrier to the ballot. >> texas is already the hardest state to vote in, in the entire country, and this just turbo- charges how hard it will be. these new vote-by-mail requirements will particularly impact certain groups of texans, because only certain groups of texans right now even have the right to vote by mail.

so, in particular, people who are 65 and older have the right to vote by mail in texas, and use it in large numbers. so do people who are disabled, and so are people who are temporarily away from home during the voting period. >> reporter: is this voter suppression by design, or is this just benign negligence on the part of lawmakers who failed to heed warnings from folks like yourself? >> it's hard not to see this as a feature rather than a bug. there is, you know, i think, an element of bureaucratic malpractice here, too, just because the state's election infrastructure is so underfunded already, that when you put a new 76-page bill on top of it, it's going to be bad regardless. >> election integrity is now law. >> reporter: in september, texas republican governor greg abbott signed a slew of voting restrictions into law, one of many efforts in republican-controlled states to enact new limits, after former president donald trump pushed

the debunked myth of voter fraud in the 2020 election. the u.s. justice department has since sued texas over the law, arguing that it disenfranchises voters. texas republican lawmakers say the voting law, known as s.b.-1, is aimed at increasing public trust in state elections. >> senate bill 1 makes it easy to vote, and hard to cheat. >> reporter: we tried to speak with texas state senator bryan hughes and state representative andrew murr, who wrote the legislation... >> i believe improves voter access. >> reporter: ...but both republicans denied our interview requests. it's not just voters who are frustrated by this new process. it's also election workers, who are frustrated that they can't help voters fix their applications because the law now prohibits them from doing so. >> absolutely. and i think we've seen that pretty open annoyance by the local clerks' office with the texas secretary of state's office over this issue. >> reporter: dana debeauvoir is the travis county clerk. she's served in county

government for 40 years. >> in so many ways, we can't even practice free speech with voters. you can't call them back to cure a problem with their application or their ballot, because that's seen as promoting by-mail voting when all we really want to do is figure out what their new, correct i.d. number should be. just to be passively helpful with voters-- we shouldn't be so hamstrung in that sense. >> reporter: a violation carries a mandatory minimum of six months imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. >> this is voter suppression. so, i'm-- i'm very concerned about our democracy. i'm concerned about why the legislature wanted to stop all voters, including their own republican voters, from voting by mail, when we're in the >> reporter: across the state, from houston to san antonio to austin, the law has caused a spike in rejections in mail ballot applications. travis county, home to austin, normally rejects 1% to 2% of

ballot applications. currently, officials say it's 6% to 7%. harris cnty, which includes houston, has rejected about a third of the applications they've received, over i.d. problems. that includes this 95-year-old world war ii veteran, who says his mail-in ballot application has been denied twice due to new requirements. >> there's just no point in taking a fully qualified, eligible voter and rejecting them. or maybe, we really do know what the point is, and that is to suppress them. >> reporter: what should voters do in the meantime? >> well, you've asked a very good question, because i can't tell voters directly what to do to cure their by-mail ballot, because that is seen as promoting by-mail voting, and i am in danger of a state jail felony. now, what other people, friends, the media, everybody else can

and is saying? the cure for that kind of a problem is to include both numbers on the application. the last four digits of your social security number, and your driver's license number. you heard that from everybody except me, the election official. >> reporter: she's urging those affected by the new mail ballot application process to not let it stop them from voting. for the pbs newshour, i'm geoff bennett. >> woodruff: and that brings us to the analysis of brooks and capehart. that is "new york times" columnist david brooks, and jonathan capehart, columnist for the "washington post." hello to both of you on this friday night. david, i know you two were listening, watching jeff bennett's report. what do you make of what's happened in texas and the aftermath of their tightening of election laws?

>> i think it's really important to send election clerks to jail for six months. that part of the bill strikes me as completely crazy. the overall principle of the thing that you should voter i.d. in person or by mail, that doesn't strike me as crazy, that strikes me as something 80% of americans support, it strikes me as something that happens in countries all around in the world, germany, france, israel, democracies all around the world have voter i.d. last summer, there were 2 million registered voters who did not have the proper numbers on the voter roles, so when they sent in their applications for mail it came back rejected and, so, that's just bureaucratic incompetence, something i think they're trying to fix. but the question is is this suppression, which we've just heard answered twice, and given the law about the clerks, you would have to think some nefarious motive is going on

here. >> woodruff: jonathan, nefarious motive? >> yes, i agree 100% with david! look, o one of the people in tht great segment with jeff ben bennett -- geoff bennett is where he said it's more of a feature ban a bug. the right to vote should be something that's as easy as possible. the obstacles and the barriers to exercise a franchise should be as few and as low as possible, and when you are now threatening poll workerswho, as this woman said, all she wants to do is help people cure their ballots and be able to exercise their right to vote, and, yet, she's threatened with jail. but i love that she, you know, gave advice without jeopardizing herself. what is happening in texas, what is happening in georgia, what is happening in arizona and other

states is happening because the governors and the legislatures in those states don't want their citizens to vote d they don't want particular citizens to vote. i mean, what else are you supposed to think when, in texas, for example, y can use your gun license as i.d. to prove your i.d., but you can't use your university or college i.d. what does that say to a potential young voter who wants to vote? and, so, you know, i think the nation's eyes are focused right now on this right to vote and the ability to vote, and it's going to take, you know, everyone who is concerned about this to push for remedies to keep these things from happening, and that is why it is very important that the freedom to vote act and the john lewis voting rights advancement act get out of their purgatory and get passed and become law >> woodruff: we'll watching to see if these kids of things

happen in other states. as we said, 19 states passed new restrictive voter legislation. i do want to ask you both about one of the big news headlines this week, david, and that was the announcement by supreme court justice stephen breyer that he is gng to step down from the court, retire after almost 28 years, he's going to do so at the end of this term. before we talk about what that means for the future of the court, what is your sense on what his friends on the bench has meant to the country, to the court, for these last few decades? >> two things. one, he just has an extraordinary mind. we were at a small conference and i was giving some presentation, and somewhere in the presentation, i said, here's a problem, i don't know really know the answer to the problem, but here's the problem -- i can't remember what the problem was. after the session he comes up to me with a piece of paper, justice breyer, and he says, i don't know the answer to that problem either but here's how you might think about it.

and it was in diagram of how you this this and this and this and it filled the whole page. i've never seen anything like it in my whole life. i thought, wow, this guys knows how to think. that's the first thing. the second thing is just the wy he did things, in the public eye. there's been conversation about how he's too naive, that we're in a time of bad faith and it's a brutal war so he's been accused of being too reasonable. i don't think justice breyer has any chance to be anything but reasonable. i think it's time for people to be reasonable and try to seek compromise and consensus and use reason in a prudent way. and he embodied that throughout his career.

>> woodruff: jonathan, he was a believer in trying to get the justices to come together on some of these most important cases. >> right. and that is what the court is going to lose when he retires. the court is going to lose a thinker. one of the things about justice breyer, especially in the profiles that i've read, you know, his questions could go on and on and on, that he would sort of think out loud as he was trying to figure out what he should think or test out his theories with the opposing lawyer, but what that said to me is here's a thinking who was open. here is a thinker who really wanted to debate and talk about and think through the issues in the way that david saw with his own eyes, with that diagram that he put out there. but the other thi that strikes me about justice breyer is the pragmatism. yes, he's known for being with the left, the liberal wing of

the supreme court, but pragmatists are people who compromise, they are about coming to, bringing all the sides together and coming to some kind of understanding and usually compromise is for the greater good, it's for something bigger than his own beliefs, but it's something that is for the greater good of either the court as an institution or the country as a whole, and it is my hope and it is my -- i really hope that whoever president biden chooses to be the nominee is someone who will be pragmatic, and i'll just, you know, say flat out, since we know that it is going to be a black woman who will be the nominee and hopefully confirmed as the justice, i can tell you right now there's no more pragmatic people in the world out of necessity than a black woman. >> woodruff: david, what do you make of the president's pledge? he made it first during the

campaign, he repeated it this week, he said i'm going to be naming, he said the most qualified person, and it is going to be a black woman judge, the white house said. >> yeah, i want the court like every other institution in life to look like america. we know how we've learned and know how important it is to have people from different backgrounds. we're not just machines who think, we come from different backgrounds and are formed by different experiences so it's important to have the diversity. i confess i'm a little uncomfortable with fronting that identity, putting that identity up front. i think universities learned as they seek diversity, they should treat the whole person. so naming it and putting the identity issues up front, to me, it's a matter of articulation, but i would like to emphasize and think the part of the person that's up front is their wisdom, their compassion and care and that they're treated as a whole

person. i confess i'm a little uncomfortable with the way joe biden used that pledge during the campaign, though i support the idea of the pledge i. jonathan, would it be better for the president to have said the first thing that maers is wisdom? >> well, that's what he said in his remarks yesterday. we have to understand something, that for far too long in this country, you know, qualifications and wisdom and everything were never things there were ideas or characteristics that were automatically ascribed to someone who was not white and certainly someone who was not white and male, and, you know, we have seen on the court that, you know, diversity has not been a thing on the court. until recently, we have an african-american justice, several women justice, a latina

and pretty soon a black woman justice. you can focus on the race, but how about we focus on the experience the person brings to the bench because of who they are, where they're from, their lived experience, and, also, the black woman who's going to be on the bench will probably be more impressive, have more qualifications, be more brilliant than the folks who have come in before her precisely because she has had to be all those things because people used her race to downgrade and belittle and not think much of her simply because she is black. >> woodruff: what about that, david? >> you know, well, first of all, i probably agree with that. we'll see when the person's named. i've read some of the likely candidates and they do seem extremely impressive. i guess i think the history of

america is a history of racial essentialism. it's a history of judging people by what group they're part of and by what skin color and that's an ugly, awful history. i guess the question for me is how do we best overcome that history. it involves, a, recognizing race a real thing, that racial injustice is a real thing, but it also involves trying not to essentialize people or to reduce them to categories. to me, sometimes the way it's articulated during the campaign, as i said, it put that level of identity first. i think you would like to pick the best person and who wo woule a black person. when you put that first you put that forward in a culture that race essentializing in more and more ways, you're in danger of feeding into that. >> woodruff: jonathan. i disagree. as someone who is black, the idea you have a potential

president of the united states and now a president of the united states who says that he wants to put someone on the bencwho looks like you, to me says he's recognizing that i and we are a part of this country, an integral part of this country, that there have been millions of people who, because of their race, were denied even consideration for being on the bench, and, so, i am not going to criticize the president at all for saying the ho -- for sae wants to put a black woman on the bench because, one, it should have been done a long time ago, but, two, the person he does nominate we all know from jump that that person i more than qualified, is more than worthy, and is more t than able to sit on the bench and hopefully for more than 28 years. >> woodruff: so important to hear what both of you think

about this. jonathan capehart, david brooks, thank you both. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: one week from today, the winter olympics get underway in china. i talked about the upcoming games, and her new book, yesterday with lindsey vonn, the olympic gold medal-winning alpine skier. she holds four overall world cup titles, and is one of only six women to have won world cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing. she retired in 2019, and is out with a new memoir, "rise:y story," which focuses on her trailblazing career. lindsey vonn, welcome to the "newshour". congratulations on the book. so much of your story begins with your family, how they've

supported you throughout your career. you write so much about your father, how he encouraged you. he was a former serious skier himself. but i saw, in the beginning of the book, you dedicate this book to your mother and you say she was your inspiration. how so? >> well, my mother actually had stroke while giving birth to me and, you know, she's been so optimistic and positive my entire life, and i think that's where i've gotten that optimism from, you know, whenever i've faced adverse at this, especially physical injure in the course of my career, i've always looked to my mom for that level of optimism and positivity and also just a different perspective. you know, my mom had a limp froe and she was never able to bike or run or ski with me and, so, i just think, you know, i can come back from my injuries, and my mother cannot, so it's a

privilege for me to be able to work hard and come back and just, i don't know, having that perspective changed the way i approached injuries and the way i approached adverse at this and that's why i dedicated the book to my mother. >> woodruff: well, what also definitely comes through in this book is your drive, your determination to reach your goal. i mean, i know you have been asked this question so many times, but where does that come from? at seven years old you were saying you wanted to be a skier. when you were just nine, you said you were going to the olympics. where do you think it comes from? >> i've always been a very driven person, but i also think it comes from my environment, you know, my family, my passports, my grants, you know. my grandfather was a verytough, strong man who had an incredible work ethic, as was my grandmother, and i'm spending a lot of time as a kid around them

and, also, you know, again, my mother being extremely tough and my father, you know, really engraining in me work ethic and i think that that -- all of those people really shaped me, but a drive to want to be the best and to be a competitor, i don't know, that's something i've always had. >> woodruff: and lindsey vonn, you also write, you know, in detail about the physical injuries you've experienced over your career and how you powered through them and came back. you pushed yourself to the extreme, and as you think back on that, do you have any second thoughts about it? because some of these injuries might have been life-threatening. >> you know, i think, unfortunately, or fortunately, that's just the risk that we take in ski racing, and i've always known that risk. so i always thought it's been worth it. you know, i love ski racing, i

love the adrenaline and thrill and going down a mountain at 85 miles an hour, there's nothing quite like it. have i paid a heavy price for doing what i love? absolutely. you know, i'm in pain pretty much every day. my knees are always hurting me, my arm hurts and everything hurts but, you know what, i was happy that i was able to get as many years out of it as i did. i feel very lucky. >> woodruff: well, and in connection with that, you are also candid in the book about the emotional stresses that you have been under. you've talked for some years publicly about dealing with depression, but, you know, now we seem to be going through a period where more athletes are being more open to talk about their struggles. do you think we're turning a corner in that way or do you think it's still -- there's still just a lot of stigma associated with it? >> i still think there's a lot

of stigma. i started talking about it in 2012, and stigma was much greater then than now. i mean, it wasn't an easy thing for me to talk about at the and many people said it was going to ruin my career. but thankfully it didn't and, you know, i think we were continuing to have these conversations, and i think, you know, with people like simone biles and others, you know, athletes speaking out about mental health only can be positive because it sheds light on a topic that, again, you know, has a lot of stigma attached to it, and hopefully we can change that and empower each others to seek help and get the support that they need. >> woodruff: one other thing you write about is how women are treated differently from men in athletics. what needs to happen in your view for there to be a more even playing field? >> i can'tell you how many people said that i got sponsors or i got, you know, i got

certaiprivileges in my career because of my look instead of my wins. i think that's completely absurd. you know, i've won 82 world cups and i have many olympic and world championship medals and that's why i was able to get the things that i did, not because of the way i look, and that would never be even a remote point of conversation if i was a man. so i think just those generalizations and that type of conversation just needs to change, period. >> woodruff: a lot of work still to be done. i want to ask you about the olympics. this year, the winter games in china. as you know, a lot of conversation about whether they should even be being held there, given china's human rights record. the skier mikalah schifrin said she had given thought to whether she should go. do you think if you were still competing it would be giving you concern or pause? >> i mean, it definitely is

something that you need to think about as an athlete. i think once the decision is made to have the olympics at that venue, you can't say. no we've worked our entire lives for that moment and very few would turn that opportunity down. but going forward, the conversation needs to be on where -- how we select these venues, what's the reason and, you know, really making sure, you know, we don't come into situations where there's a lot of controversy. >> woodruff: there's a lot of conversations about how different these olympics are. there's covid to deal with, but there's also the growing conversation about climate change, they're having to make the snow for competition in beijing. you've started to speak out yourself about climate change, the effect on skiing, skiing's effect on climate change.

how do you look at that right now, and do you think it's something that there needs tbe more discussion about? >> i think a lot of athletes, especially winter athletes and skiers have been talking about climate change a long time. it hasn't been this dire until recently. but we've seen firsthand -- i mean, i've skid in austria since i have 9 and they've melted so much. in winter all the time, we see the changes and the inconsistencies, and it's raining instead of snowing and there's so much volatility in the climate right now that it's very apparent to us. i'm glad we're having these conversations and i hope that, you know, we can make enough change as a whole to be able to offset this climate change. >> woodruff: well, the book is, we are so delighted to talk to you about it, the book is

"rise: my story." lindsey graham, we thank you and we wish you -- lindsey vonn, we thank you and we wish you the best. >> thank you so much, take care. >> woodruff: in 2018, comedian bill cosby was convicted of sexual assault and given a three to ten-year prison sentence. last year, that conviction was overturned by the pennsylvania supreme court, which ruled that prosecutors had improperly used an earlier deposition by cosby, in which he admitted to drugging women. the pennsylvania supreme court said he had done so in a civil lawsuit, with an agreement that he would not face criminal charges. now a new documentary series looks at cosby, the allegations against him, and the larger backdrop of his role as a major figure in american cultural history. jeffrey brown has the story for our art and culture series, anvas."

>> we thought we knew cosby. we never knew cosby. >> brown: “we need to talk about cosby.” it's the name of a new four-part documentary series that premiered recently at sundance, and begins this weekend on showtime. and for director w. kamau bell, the title expresses the urgency and importance of the subject. >> for me, it's like, he was a transformative cultural icon. there's very few people on the planet who've ever gotten more famous than bill cosby. so he's a big figure, so i thi we can askome big questions. >> does it make you uncomfortable that i'm black? >> brown: as a standp comedian and host of the cnn series,“ united shades of america,” bell is used addressing race and other big issues in his work. >> bill cosby had been one of my heroes. i'm a black man, stand-up comic, i was born in the '70s. but this?

this was complicated. >> brown: in the new series, it's also personal for a 48-year-old who grew up watching "fat albert and the cosby kids," and then "the cosby show >> i was born into a world where bill cosby was a part of the wallpaper of black america. >> brown: you say in this, you were a "child of cosby." >> yes, that's the way i put it, because i was, like how do you describe the relationship? when i'd watch "the cosby show," i felt like i was right in there with the family. and because i don't remember a time in life before bill cosby, it feels like he was some sort of "uncle" presence in my life. so, yeah, for me, it was like, to have all that time where i was, like inspired bhim, and then to become a stand-up comedian in large part because of his inspiration, to try to do good in my career because i saw him doing good in his career, through philanthropy and his example-- i was just as confused as everybody else when all these stories came out. >> brown: in "we need to talk about cosby," bell gets people to do just that: try to make sense of cby's game-changing place in american popular culture as comedian, actor, educator, philanthropist, roleodel-- but all set against, at every point, the horrific acts,

detailed here. he interviews people who knew or worked with cosby: other comedians, sociologists, and writers on popular culture, experts on sexual violence... >> did you tell anyone this story? >> never told anybody. >> brown: ...and, at length, to women who tell their stories of betrayal and violation, with chilling similarity, often involving being unknowingly drugged. >> when i first started looking into this, i didn't know nearly enough about this. and i think that's another thing we're trying to do, is show people, like, you may think you know this story-- even if you are a supporter of him, or you are somebody who is a supporter of the survivors, you may think you know that story. but there's probably a lot you don't know. i didn't realize they went back so far into almost the early days-- not the beginning of his career, but like, very early in his career, that these allegations went back that far. >> brown: over time, some 60 women have came forward, though cosby only ever faced one criminal trial, that led to the 2018 conviction that was later overturned. cosby has consistently publicly denied all accusations. and this week, a spokesman denounced bell's documentary, saying in part,

"let's talk about bill cosby. mr. cosby has spent more than 50 years standing with the excluded, made it possible for some to be included, standing with the disenfranchised. mr. cosby vehemently denies all allegations waged against him. he wants our nation to be what it proclaims itself to be: a democracy." there are people, of course, who still support him, who still believe him. >> right. >> brown: you have no doubts? >> i have no doubts. and i'm hearing from those people on all my social media platrms. >> brown: and what do you say to them? >> i think i'm engaging with it, in saying-- talking to them through this project. i feel that a lot of people who are going to hate this, will never watch it, which i understand. but i think, if you watch it, you'll see that-- i think there's worry that i'm destroying his legacy. and i think this is the way you can actually approach the legacy of his good work, so you have the whole conversation. >> brown: bell makes clear this >> the reality is, is he needed to go to prison. he's a criminal. but, was i at home cheering? no. i was like, this is one of the worst-- this is just a sad day

in the history of black culture. >> brown: bell makes clear this is an especially fraught conversation in the black community. on the one hand, cosby, known “" america's dad,” waseloved. >> “america's dad.” not “black america's dad,” but“ america's dad.” but black people always knew we'd been down for this guy since before "the cosby show," so he's still ours. white people can enjoy it, but it's for black people. and the fact the show was aspirational? it didn't reflect the every black family, but as i say in the doc, i don't care. it was aspirational, so you felt like it was sort of helping you believe in a life that you might be able to get to. >> brown: but cosby also became a divisive figure beginning in 2004, when he began to speak out critically of what he saw as irresponsible behavior, including language, clothing, and a prevalence of single- parent families, in what many took as a moralizing tone. all of this, bell says, plus the history of racist, false accusations against black men, played into the story. >> the whole thing is like,

this is a third-rail conversation, maybe for every american who grew up with bill cosby in their life. but for black people, it's like, we keep adding more electrified rails to the conversation, because it's just-- there's so-- and there's also the thing about not wanting to tear down any black person in public, and not airing dirty laundry. and you know, even, “why didn't, you know, why don't i do this on a black network?" or these things, the questions of, like, "where it is appropriate?" so, it's just, it's a complicated, divisive conversation on its best day. >> brown: there's also a larger indictment here, of a society that bell sees as too often complicit in violence against women. >> we have to be able to learn something from this situation. and like i said, it's bigger than cosby. we need to create a country where survivors of sexual assault and rape not only feel like they can speak up, but they want to speak up, because they know that they live in a society that is supportive and will help heal them and help them seek justice. >> brown: the very first question in this is, “who is bill cosby now?” you're asking others.

what's your answer? >> the answer that makes the most sense to me is one that kierna mayo gives at the end. she was the ex-editor in chief of "ebony" magazine. something to the effect of, "bill cosby could be key in understanding america." and so, for me, that's why this is worth talking about. like, bill cosby is like a catalyst to understanding this american experiment in many ways, through the lens of racism, and through the lens of sexism, misogyny, rape culture. he is the key, could be the key to helping us see, diagnose and hopefully solve these problems. >> brown: that's asking a lot. >> for sure, for sure. but don't we have to ask a lot? aren't those problems big enough to ask a lot? >> brown: “we need to talk about cosby” begins sunday on showtime. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in new york. >> woodruff: and on the newshour

online, with space exploration rapidly changing, digital anchor nicole ellis caught up with former nasa astronaut robert satcher to discuss what new horizons await. that is on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here on monday evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> fidelity wealth management. >> consumer cellular. >> johnson & johnson. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their

solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> 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

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