i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the newshour tonight, the defense department says it shot down another object that crossed into u.s. airspace. this time, over alaska. geoff: aid begins to reach remote regions in turkey and syria. and more survivors are rescued, offering glimpses of hope amid the earthquake's vast destruction. >> we started giving warnings like, is anyone there? is anyone hearing my voice? for a moment, i thought the voices of the survivors were coming from my mind. amna: former vice president mike pence is subpoenaed. plus, the fbi finds another classified document at his home. we explore the latest on the justice department investigations.

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earthquake in the turkish-syrian border region has claimed nearly 24,000 lives, and the count is still rising. will have a full report coming up. geoff: but first, there's been a new incursion by an identified object high above american territory, and the u.s. military has shot it down. it happened this afternoon off northeastern alaska, near the canadian border, as the object flew at 40,000 feet. national security council spokesman john kirby says it was the size of a small car. but what it was doing, and where it came from, are unclear. >> we do not know who owns it, whether it's state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned. we just don't know. and we don't understd the full purpose. we don't have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object. geoff: kirby says a debris recovery operation is now underway. nick schifrin has been following these developments. he joins us now.

what more isnown about the subject? nick: the u.s. does not know the origin or exactly what the object was doing, but it does know it was flying at 40,000 feet. that is the altitude civilian airplanes fly, and that was the crucial variable that led president biden today to order it shot down, and saw it as a threat to the civilian airliners. the pentagon says it dispatched fighter jets yesterday to observe the object, and they assessed it was unmanned. they say it has been shot down over frozen water, which could make the salvage operation a little bit easier than it has been for that chinese balloon. geoff: how does this incident compared to the fighter jet shooting down the spy balloon off the coast? nick: john kirby says the two objects versus balloons are different in terms of apples and anges. one is the size. the chinese balloon was 200 feet tall, had a payload the size of a jetlir.

and the object today was the size of a small car. not clear that the oect today was capable of any kind of surveillance like the u.s. assessed that spy balloon was for. but the response was dramatically different. the pentagon yesterday argued that it did not shoot down the chinese spy balloon over alaska because it was not going to be easy to salvage. and the director of operations and joint staff just yesterday argued that they did not want to be too quick to shoot down the spy balloon because they wanted to watch it as it flew over the united states and observe it and learn from the balloon. a very different response to this object from both the military and president biden, after bipartisan criticism of the president for not shooting down that spy balloon earlier. but again, officials stressed the main difference was the altitude, 40,000 feet. it was just too much of a threat

to civilian aircraft to allow it to keep flying. geoff: nick schifrin, things for that reporting. -- thanks for that reporting. ♪ amna: now to the earthquake that devastated southern turkiye and northern syria. the toll of the dead keeps climbing, but therhave also been dramatic moments today of people pulled alive from the ruins. jane ferguson reports from near the quake's epicenter in turkiye, where little is left standing. jane: it hardly seems possible, but five days after the earthquake, some people are still alive under the wreckage. the noises are growing quieter. these spanish and turkish workers heard what sounds like someone deep in debris banging against the rocks. reaching them is painstaking and dangerous. seems like this are increasingly rare, however.

at the neighbors house, the body of a newborn baby was born, its tiny frame wrapped in a blanket and placed on the sidewalk. a few streets over, a dead man's body is recovered in front of his family. >> people are being pulled out of the rubble stole, but many of them are not alive anymore. family members who have been waiting for a long time, watching tse efforts, finally have the devastating confirmation that their loved one are not under the rubble alive. kahranmanmaras city is close to the epicenter of the earthquake and the devastation is everywhere. we found this 19-year-old sitting on a bench next to a massive pile of rubble. underneath, his best friend and older brother lays dead. you are not able to personally dig through the rubble yourself, but you still sit here and wait. what does it mean to you personally to be this close?

>> i think my brother is under a main column and that is why we couldn't find him. i found my nephew's body and pulled it with my own hands. i have been here for fiv days. the desperation is killing people. it is killing me. you know they are in you cannot do any -- they are in there, but you cannot do anything. jane: and other moments of grace. a mother and her son were buried under ruins for over 100 hours. as they were carried to ambulances, rescuers took a brief moment to rejoice. >> it is an incredible moment. we started giving warnings like, is anybody there? is anybody hearing my voice? for a moment, i thought the voices of survivors were coming from my mind. jane: babies and young children are still being discovered alive, too. but as hours pass, hope dwindles for the thousands waiting for

rd of their missing loved ones. meanwhile, turkish president erdogan is continuing his tours of the area. he visited an eight hut swarming with people. >> i know very well words are not enough to describe the pain we are going through. jane: criticism over lax government assistance has been unceasing. the slow response leads to desperation in tenant cities like -- in tent cities like this one. >> when the aid car shows up, thousands of people rush to it. >> this notice from my eldest daughter who died. [crying] god help me, she's gone. my god. jane: across the border in syria, a father clutches the close of his dead children -- the clothes of his dead children.

three of his children were rescued, but he lost his wife and six other children. >> we are used to airstrikes, we are used to rockets, barrel bombs. this is normal to us. but an earthquake? it is a god act. this is the first time this happens with us. jane: for over a decade, syrians like him have suffered a brutal civil war. yesterday, the first u.n. convoy of 14 trucks made its way into idlib province. the director of relations at the border crossings have big u.n. had promised more aid -- said the u.n. had promised more aid. >> these trucks are just an initial response and will hopefully be followed by larger and more numerous loads of supplies. >> it is becoming increasingly clear the main challenge as far as the u.n. is concerned is the desire not to rock the boat in

damascus with the syrian regime. jane: charles lister is a senior fellow at a think tank. he says after the earthquake, syria was willing to see aid delivered only through damascus and not through the u.n. approved border crossing from turkiye. >> while the regime says it uld like and is happy to provide crossline assistance to all syrians, including opposition areas, it's track record of doing so is appalling. jane: back in kahranmanmaras, some look around and wonder why the destruction has been so widespread. morat believes the building his brother and nephew died in was unsafe for a quick zone. -- for aca quake zone. >> many buildings had cracks before anybody moved in. we are not a lick killed by the earthquake, we are killed a safety standards. jane: the number of new buildings that came down in the earthquake has raised questions

about the building standards. president erdogan's government has overseen a massive expansion in housing development and construction in recent years. questions over the quality of those buildings grow louder. >> we have a fault line through our country and experts giving warnings manning times, yet we did not have any building precautions. then this happens, causing so much despair. in the future, we must be thinking of the next disaster. our government and people should be more sensitive about this issue. jane: the rapidly rising death toll has shocked many here, as the country continues to reel from this catastrophe. many pray the numbers stop going. for the pbs newshour, i'm jane ferguson in kahranmanmaras, turkiye. ♪ na: in the day's other headlines, the fbi searched

former vice president mike pence's home in carmel, indiana, today for more classified material. a pence adviser said they found a single document marked "classified." the residence was blocked off during the five-hour search. pence lawyers agreed to it after finding a small amount of classified material last month. migrant crossings at the u.s.-mexico border have dropped sharply. the customs and border patrol reports encounters in january fell 40% from december. the total, a little over 156,000 , was the lowest in nearly two years. the agency says it's due to a new policy that limits migrants from cuba, haiti, nicaragua, and venezuela. russia launched a new wave of aerial attacks across ukraine today, targeting cities and power facilities with missiles, bombers, and drones. kyiv said it shot down most of the missiles. but in the southeast, the barrage struck residential areas, smashing houses to the ground and throwing a car onto a roof. survivors angrily condemned

russia's actions. >> they are not humans. i don't know what the russians are thinking about when they are doing this, when they press the buttons and shell civilians. they are very well aware that they are firing at civilians. they know it. amna: in another delopment, the white house confirmed that president biden will travel to poland next week, ahead of the war's first anniversary. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy insisted today that russian athletes be barred from next year's summer olympics paris. he told a virtual summit of sports officials that russians have no ace at the olympics while they are waging war on ukraine. the international olympic committee has said it wants to let russians compete under a neutral flag. in east jerusalem, a palestinian man drove a car into a crowded bus stop today, killing two people and injuring five, before he was shoand killed by police. medics say one of the dead was a 6-year-old boy. emergency ews rushed to the scene to ferry away the wounded.

this came amid a surge of violence in the israeli-annexed eastern part of the city and the occupied west bank. president biden welced brazilian president luiz inacio lula da silva to the white house today. it was their first meeting as presidents. they said they are united on the need to safeguard democracy and fight climate change. the visit came just over a month after right-wing rioters in brazil tried to oust lula. pennsylvania senator john fetterman has been released from a washington hospital. he was admitted wednesday night after feeling lightheaded. the freshman democrat suffered a serious stroke last year during his campaign, but the hospital says tests showed no signs of a second stroke. and on wall street, stocks searched for direction heading into the weekend. the dow jones industrial average gained 169 points to close at 33,869. the nasdaq fell 71 points. and the s&p 500 gained nine. still to come on the newshour,

two newspapers collaborate to finish the work of an investigative reporter who was murdered. we examine the efforts to crack down on sex trafficking ahead of the super bowl. david brooks and jonathan capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines. plus, much more. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshoufrom weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: former vice president mike pence is at the center of two doj investigations this week. the fbi found one additional classified document during a search of his indiana home today, after a small number were discovered last month. and yesterday, reports surfaced that pence was subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating former president trump's efforts to hold on to power. that makes the former vice president the highest-ranking official so far to be called on

for information about january 6. neal katyal served as the acting solicitor general in the obama administration. he joins us now. it is great to see you. question is this, with the special counsel jack smith take this extraordinary step of issuing a criminal subpoena to the former vice president unless he was very serious about prosecuting donald trump? neal: i don't think we could say it is about seriousness of prosecuting donald trump. it does show a seriousness in the investigation. so, it is a pretty rare thing to have a subpoena of a government official, let alone someone like the former vice president. i think there have been three subpoenas of presidents, thomas jefferson back in the early 1800s, richard nixon during watergate, then bill clinton during the whitewater investigation. i am not sure any subpoenas of vice presidents.

we don't know enough about why jack smith was subpoenaing pence. we can guess a good chunk of it has to do with the fact that pence was the kind of fulcrum point for the pressure donald trump and others exerted to try to throw out the election results culminating on january 6. geoff: mike pence could challenge this under executive privilege. so too could donald trump. how could those claims hold up under scrutiny, including for former vice president mike pence, who has written a book, given interviews, written a detailed op-ed for the wall street journal in november about the events around january 6? neal: any assertion of executive privilege to block telling the truth will fall on its face. it will not be successful. that is over a few reasons. one, there has already been waiver of executive privilege by former vice president pence because he has written and talked about this extensively. second, the u.s. preme court has said that executive

privilege really lies in the hands of the incumbent president. that is joe biden, not a former president. geoff: how does this special counsel navigate this sensitive political territory, given that donald trump is running for reelection and vice pence might announce he is running too? neal: i think the navigation on this is quite easy. it is the guiding principle that no person is above the law. that is what our country was founded on. it is like thomas payne's common sense. just because you are running for office, you don't get some sort of get out of jail free card. it is the case that the justice department has opined twice that if you are a sitting president you can't be indicted. i think that is wrong. but that only goes so far as a sitting president, and that is why donald trump skated on the molar investigation because bill barr decided you cannot indict a

sitting president. but it could be the law that you can indict somebody while there are president, and you can indict them after if they announce they are running again for office. geoff: as we mentioned, the fbi today discovered an additional classified document at mike pence's indiana home during a voluntary five hour search of the home. that is what an advisor told me earlier today. is this what we can expect moving forward, when the doj encounters high-ranking politicians, former officials who have classified documents where they shouldn't be? neal: correspondent: as someone who was the former national security advisor, i find it very dispiriting that anybody, whether it is vice president pence or president biden or donald trump, is bringing any classified information home. it is an obvious problem. but what pence did does not appear criminal in the same w as what donald trump is alleged to have done. with pence, it seems very inadvertent, and he right away cold the fbi through his lawyers and allowed them to search the

home. it took a while for that search to happen, but it does look like cooperation existed there. whereas with trump, he denied and lied about having those documents. geoff: thanks as always for your insights. we appreciate it. neal: thanks so much. ♪ amna: it's a microcosm of the larger debate about changing the nation's criminal justice system. this week, republicans in congress have taken steps to block a new criminal code in washington, d.c. the constitution gives congress oversight of d.c.'s local policies. and yesterday, the u.s. house of representatives voted to disapprove of d.c.'s new law, which lowers some maximum criminal penalties. the senate needs to weigh in next. lisa desjardins has more on the proposed changes. lisa: washington, d.c.'s new code, which passed the city cocil, erases some antiquated

laws and more clearly defines others. it also eliminates most mandatory minimum sentences and lowers maximum sentences for several crimes, including robbery and illegal possession of a firearm. to discuss this and the larger debate around crime and punishment. i am joined by amy fettig, executive director of the sentencing project, and zack smith, a fellow with the heritage foundation's edwin meese center for legal and judicial studies. thank you to you both. amy, d.c.'s new code has many assets. it increases some penalties, lowers others. i think that is what i want to focus on. on the sentencing part, what is the argument for lowering some of those maximum sentences? amy: d.c.'s criminal code was vastly outdated. it has not been updated in over a century. in contrast to many states that updated their criminal codes in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's, d.c. has never done that. so it was past time for an

overhaul to modernize the criminal code, to rationalize the criminal code in the district of columbia, and make it more proportional and fair. lisa: you see those maximum sentences that you believe were too high as outdated. amy: absolutely. in fact, a lot of the sentences in the new criminal code are still very harsh, and frankly far harsher than some of the sentences we see in other states like kentucky and georgia and tennessee. from my perspective, they could actually be less harsh, but right now what we've got in the update is the will of the people, and it was a product of 16 years of deliberations by prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and legal experts. lisa: this is a national conversation. d.c.'s situation is vy specific. but talking nationally, i know you believe lowering these sentences is a bad idea.

you hear from amy that they were overly harsh. why do you think it is a bad idea? zack: i disagree that the sentences were overly harsh. you look at specifics, it is very troubling. most mandatory minimum sentences were eliminated in this new criminal code. the only mandatory minimum that remained was for first-degree murder, and even that mandatory minimum was lowered. the other important point to remember is maximum sentences are rarely imposed. those are typically the sentences that community members feel are appropriate when the worst iteration of a crime is committed. but it is typically a much less harsh sentence that a judge imposes in most cases where a crime is committed. when you are lowering the maximum penalties, you are lowering the actual penalties that are imposed in many cases. with the surge in violent crime you are seeing not only in the district of columbia, but in cities around the country right now, this is not a good idea on many levels. lisa: there is an assumption

thathe judges will move. i know the idea that d.c. had was that they were trying to align the penalties more with what judges have been issuing. i have to ask, is there evidence that says higher maximum penalties for criminals actually reduces crime? zack: there's a lot of studies out there on this issue, and we do know that lengthier sentences do in fact reduce recidivism rates, the amount of times that an individual repeats an offense after their release from incarceration. the u.s. sentencing commission has released avril reports highlighting that fact. the most recent one from this summer where they found that lengthier terms of incarceration do lower recidivism rates. lisa: do hire maximum sentences reduce crime? amy: absolutely not. we know from 50 years of mass incarceration in this country that started in 1973 ■and now we have had 50 years in 2023, that

bringing more people into prisons and jails and keeping them there for longer periods of time does not make our community safer. more prisons and -- if more prisons and longer sentences made our cmunity safer, the united states would be the safest in the world because we incarcerate more people for harsher sentences than any other industrialized country in the world. the fact is, it doesn't work. decades of research have demonstrated that long sentences don't create safe communities. so what we are facing now is a choice. are we going to build more prisons? are we going to put more people behind bars? or are we going to invest in public safety, in the solutions we know work, like preventing violence? lisa: that is what i want to ask you about. this is an iortant discussion and we could spend a lot more time on it. but neither of you really thinks reducing maximum sentencess the best way to curb crime ultimately.

i want to ask you, what do you think is the best way? zack: i think the best way to reduce crime is put more officers on the street, empower them to do their jobs, to keep communities safe, and to prosecute offenders and seek justice for victims. i have to push back on one thing that amy said, this idea that we have a mass incarceration problem in our country. it is a myth. if you look at who is actually incarcerated in state and federal prisons, it is repeat violent offenders. it is people who have committed violent crimes like rape, robbery, or murder. one of the reasons we have a higher incarceration rate than other westernized countries is we have more violent crimes than other westernized countries. if you look at when the prison population began to increase, it was at the same time the violent crime rate in our country exploded by 350%.

amy: there is no question we have a mass incarceration problem in this country. this is not an urban-rural problem, this is an american issue. we are ready for something different. we have been locking up more people than anyone in history for longer periods of time. in most states, the fastest growing population of people are over 50. they don't need to be in prison now. but the fact that they are their means we are spending billions of dollars every single year on failed strategies when we could be investing in our communities. we could be investing in violence prevention programs. what does not build safe communities is more prisons. if that were the case, we would be the safest country in the world, and we aren't. lisa: something so many amerans are thinking about. thank you both for your time and continuing the conversation. zack: thank you. ♪

geoff: we turn now to a story from the world of journalism. it's an example of one newsroom helping another after a horrifying tragedy. john yang has more. john: last september, longtime "lasegas review-journal" reporter jeff german was stabbed to death outside his home. charged with his murder was robert telles, a clark county public administrator who german had investigated. the killing shocked the newspaper and the community, and left german's reporting unfinished. enter "the washington post," which worked with "the review-journal" to complete one of the stories that german started. the piece detaed a sweeping ponzi scheme that targeted mormon investors. gln cook is the executive editor of the "las vegas review-journal," and li j "washington post" reporter who went to nevada to finish the reporting that jeff german had

started. as difficult as it is for a newsroom to lose a colleague, i cannot fathom what it is like for a newsroom to lose a colleague the way that jeff's life was taken. how did this affect the newsroom? glenn: it is the worst thing a news organization could ever possibly deal with. there is shock, intense grief, anger. and for a lot of our employees, the kinds of conversations that they'd never had to have before with their partners, their spouses, their families about the risks of doing their jobs. i had to have a sit down conversation with my wife and my teenagers, who asked me pacifically, wouldomeone ever

-- who asked me specifically, would someone ever come to our house to harm you, and would they harm us? that was that was part of the trauma that we had to navigate as a news organization going forward after jeff's murder. and it goes without saying that we still miss him terribly, and that this community misses him and his work. john: lizzie, glenn was talking about the risks that come with this work. this is the same work you do. this enterprise investigative reporting. what was your reaction when you heard the news about jeff? lizzie: i mean, it's just -- it's awful. it's exactly what glenn saying. it's the kind of thing that you -- our jobs are getting harder in there're dangers there, but you never actually think that someone you see in the newsroom one day won't be there the next. john: glenn, tell me a little bit about how this collaboration began, how it came about. glenn: the day after robert

telles is arrested in connection with jeff's murder, i get any mail from craig timberg, who's "the washington post"'s head of collaborative inveigations. d the subject line of his email was "condolences from the washington post and an idea." it offered reporting help, specifically the idea of "the post" providing reporting help on stories that jeff might have been pursuing at the time of his muer. we came to an agreement fairly quickly that this story on this ponzi scheme that we already knew about, the man alleged to be the leader of this scheme was already arrested, in custody. there were a lot of documents that had already been filed in connection with this that jeff had pulled and had read, studied, highlighted, made notes from at the time of his murder.

and after some back and forth with his colleagues at "the post," you know, craig said, we're in. john: and then, lizzie, you went out to nevada. what did y do from there? lizzie: i landed in las vegas, and the newsroom was the first stop that i made. i went in and met jeff's colleagues and got to hear all about him and what he was like as a reporter. and then his editor handed me this stack of folders containing these court filings that glen n had mentioned he'd read and started thinking about. so that's where i picked up is . john: tell us a little bit about what you found, the scope of this ponzi scheme, and what you found as you reported about it. lizzie: so the alleged ponzi scheme was about $500 million, and it spread very quickly through the mormon church. there were people who had put in their life savings, their retirement accounts, who had taken out a second mortgage on their house.

they thought that they would get annualized returns of 50%, which seemed really great. and they were being sold on this by people that they trusted, people that they saw in church on sunday, whose kids had grown up with their kids, and they had no reason to distrust that the investment wasn't real. unfortunately, this is fairly typical of what is called an affinity fraud. and so in the aftermath, these people's lives were left in ruin. john: glenn, what do you te away from this experience about journalism, about the state of the industry, about collegiality in the industry? glenn: our industry is an incredibly competitive one. everyone's competing for readership, for audience. but at the same time, nothing brings our industry together like fighting for press freedoms, the first amendment, ensuring that important stories can be told everywhere, not just in certain places.

and it's unfortunate, obviously incredibly tragic, that the murder of a journalist really sends that collaboration into overdrive. the post's offer was incredibly important and meaningful to us because our limited resources were foced on telling jeff's story and on telles, his suspected killer. and i knew we just were not going to be able to get to this ponzi scheme story at any time in the near future. and "the post"'s willingness to step in and tell the story. you know, lizzie worked with our photographer, rachel aston, and together, i just thought they did a beautiful job. john: lizzie, what do you take

away from this experience? and are there any particular feelings about picking up the torch that jeff had been leading and finishing it for him? lizzie: from what i've heard about jeff, about how his colleagues and family described him to me, he seems like the kind of journalist that i've always wanted to be, someone who is really dedicated to his community, someone who shed light on dark places, someone who wanted to expose this tangled web of fraud and all of the people that were left in its wake. and so it felt really, really meaningful, probably the most meaningful thing that i've done in my career, to be able to tell this story for him in his honor, to let people know that just because he couldn't do it, you can't kill the story, that the story will live on. and i think jeff would have liked that. john: lizzie johnson of "the washington post" and glenn cook of "the lavegas review-journal." thank you both very, very much. ♪

amna: after his state of the union address, president biden is taking his message on the road, making stops in battleground states and outlining his plans for the upcoming political season. for analysis on this and more of the week's political news, it's time for brooks and capehart. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks, and jonathan capehart, associate editoror "the washington post." good to see you both. we spent some time together watching the state of the union on tuesday. we talked about this on the night as well. the president focused a lot on the economy,nd a lot of specifics. things like junk fees, credit card fees, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs. he is now working in a divided congress. he made a lot of pledges that night. how many can he see through? jonathan: that remains to be seen. we know why. speaker mccarthy and his caucus

are not terribly interested in accomplishments that will make the president look good. but what i think the president was doing by looking at all these seemingly narrow things was communicating to the american people, i see your pain, i know what you're going through. you are being nickeled and diamond, and i am on it. the other thing about the president focusing on the economy, he has a record. that last congress was successful for him. a lot of the things he passed will come to fruition, or at least start, this year and next year. he is setting things up to say, i will be breaking a lot of ground, cutting a lot of ribbons, and in your faces for the next two years to remind you of all the things that we, meaning the administration, have done for you. i think that is what the state of the union was all about. amna: he did carry out a real-time negotiation, which is

interesting to see. he drew out enough boos from republicans when he referred to the handful of republicans who discussed entitlement reform. the president seems to think he secured a pledge that no one will be touching social security or medicare. was it a defective? david: i think it was effective. i like mdemocratic friends to be happy. rick scott is the senator from florida who said we should sunset laws after five years, and that was seized on as they will cut your medicare and social security. maybe, maybe not. whatever he was selling, mitch mcconnell was not buying. there was no shot the republicans would be against or for cutting entlement spending. there is a sign. how much american politics has moved. 2012, you had a lot of republicans saying we need to root reform -- we need to reform entitlements. you had a lot of republicans and democrats who were pro-globalization. let's be partners with china.

on every sigel one of these issues, if you looked at that biden speech, it is clearly a post trump speech. biden, a democrat, speaking during a different manner than trp does, is secure the border, we are taking on china, no more off shoring. it is a bunch of trumpy issues done with more substance, frankly. but the whole focus of american politics has s shifted toward the working class and the heartland. and trump really is somewhat response will for that shift in attention. amna: you are almost describing america first, but with a biden lens. jonathan: with a heart and empathy for the people who have been left behind. i want to pick up on one other thing about this real-time negotiation that happened before our eyes. not bad for a kn 80-year-old

man. a lot of people worry about, he has lost his step, he is too old. that is the biggest platform he will have this year to talk to the american people, and in real-time the american people saw him corralled the republicans into a corner and make them applied something that they will soon regret. [applause] -- [laughter] david: i think it made them feel better about the campaign they are entering into. i have heard some disquiet, especially about sarah huckabee sanders's remarks. they mentioned two things, that the two things republicans should be proud of our donald trump -- she didn't mention his name -- and the second is abortion. like the big policy issue. if you can't talk abouyour two major successes, you are a party with some holes in your agenda. amna: let's talk abut that party

moving forward because i know you have some poll numbers. republican voters were asked about who they would support in the 2024 contest of former president. two names topped the field. florida governor ron desantis and former president donald trump. about one third of all folks named them. everyone else fell down in the 2% to 1% range. a quarter of people said they just didn't know. a huge caveat, this is february of 2023. there are several political lifetimes to go. but what do you take away from those numbers? jonathan: ron desantis is the shiny object. donald trump is dominating the scene, as he has since he came down that escalator in 2015. those numbers are going to fluctuate as more people actually get into the race, and they get on this national stage where it is a lot harder to run for president thait is to be speculated as someone who is

going to run for president, and you roared to reelection as ron desantis stated. but once a get on that national stage, his whole world changes, and i bet those poll numbers change as well. amna: nikki haley is going to iowa. tim scott is going to charleston, south carolina, for a g dinner. this field is going to get more credit? david: i think it will. i am a little surprised if you look back historically, that the polls this far out are not meaningless. but i think nikki haley is vastly undervalued, that the two grumpy guys, trump and desantis, will wrestle each other to the ground. i think there will be a lane for republicans short of trump but not all that chaos. with a different demeanor. nikki haley has a much more sunshiney demeanor. tim scott has a normal demeanor. governor kemp in georgia.

i've a feeling there is a lane for one of those people. i would say the non-culture war republican party itself in 2022. i think a lot of those people are looking for a candidate. some say it is desantis. i think it probably will not be desantis. amna: the crowded field last time benefited mr. trump. you don't think it will happen this time? david: if you look at the crowded field last time. the governor, chris christie, they were nines and tens. there were not too many twos. they had real support. the field really was divided. this time, it might two be the big guys and one other. once it begins, trump and some of the else, the pressure for everybody else will be immense. amna: we like to point out

bipartisanship whenever we can on the show. when it comes to china and the spy balloon, there was frustration from both democrats and republicans this week when they look at how president biden reacted, how the department of defense reacted. i am curious to get both of your takes on how you think this has been talked about, especially in light of this new incident today. we don't know the origin of this aircraft but we know they acted quickly to shoot down whatever it was over alaska. jonathan: i don't know much about this latest flying object that was blown out of the sky, but when it comes to the balloon, i understand the frustrations. particularly for the states where the balloon sailed over. but i also understand why the administration did what it did, by following the balloon, shooting it down over shallow waters off the south carolina coast, then collecting all the

material. we don't ow if the pentagon while the balloon was drifting over the continental u.s., were we pulling out information? were we jamming signals? what was the united states doing while that balloon was up there? i think time will tell if we actually got really good intelligence and information, not just about the balloon, but about what china is up to. amna: david, i will give you the last word. david: the new object is a toaster. [laughter] there are two ways to see this. i think both the chinese and americans are realizing how fraught the relationship has become, so i thought both sides, the biden administration, they said we are not taking this to the mat, we are trying to tone down the pressure. for their part, the chinese used state media and not let the nationalists whipped this up. both sides,. pulled us back relations are not what they

were. but i think we learned this week that en in the fraught relationship that exists between the two countries, there is still an instinct of let's not get carried away. i think we can take some peace from that. amna: you are not worried this will increase tensions? david: it totally could. but it didn't happen this week. amna: and for that we are grateful. david brooks, jonathan capehart, izzo is good to see both. thank you. ♪ geoff: more than 100 million viewers are expected to tune into the super bowl on sunday, being held in the phoenix metro area. the stadium is expected to be packed, with more than 70,000 people on hand to watch the kansas city chiefs and philadelphia eagles square off. but big sporting events also can have a darker side that isn't talked about much publicly -- a

notable rise in local sex trafficking. stephanie sy spoke about this with dominique roe sepowitz, an associate professoat arizona state university and the director of the university's office on sex trafficking intervention research. stephanie: dominique roe sepowitz, thank you so much for joining the newshour. we've all seen the ads in the airport bathrooms, heard the public announcements warning about sex trafficking with sex trafficking helplines. it seems like there's a lot of public awareness these days around this issue. is it true that sex trafficking actually does increase during the super bowl? dominique: what we found in arizona and in new york and in california when the super bowl has traveled is indeed there is a lot of sex trafficking. in our research, we ve found that the buyers that are looking for people to purchase for sex, whether they're children, adults

trafficked, not, are mostly local people. so the people that celebrate these big events and a bigger, broader market of victims being brought to town are actually local people. stephanie: and there are more of them around an event like the super bowl? dominique: it is hard to measure. this as an illicit business. like drug dealing, drug trafficking, sex trafficking is hard to measure. the things that we can measure it by are how many ads are online, how many people call to buy sex, how many people we see, homany cars are driving up and down the streets where prostitution is sold. and all of those are really weak metrics for a very serious problem. stephanie: what are we really talking about when we talk about sex trafficking? are we talking about paid sex with minors, or are we talking about also a greater demand for willing adult sex workers? dominique: the people who are being sold are often coerced and forced. many are under the age of 18, so they cannot consent to sell sex.

and those who are over 18 initially may have said it was okay. they fell in love with the person who was coercing them. they got talked into it so they could make some money for drugs. but almost always we find that people withdraw their consent, and that withdrawal is met with violence. one of the important pieces is, who does the trafficker target? who is being bought and sold? and the vulnerabilities that we see is very similar across the board. hey're mostly women. -- they are mostly women. from the research weave. they're mostly people whose families are disconnected. i can say to moms out there, watch your kids, be smart, look online, see what people are doing. but the chances of someone grabbing their child to prostitute them in our community during the super bowl is very, very low. stephanie: dominique, one of the criticisms i've heard is that it's a myth, that there is not increased sex trafficking during the super bowl.

and, in fact, what could end up happening is police ofcers criminalizing sex workers who might be in a position to choose that line of work and not be exploited. dominique: it's a really difficult paradox that we have. prostitution, selling sex is illegal in arizona. i think it's a balancing act, especially as a social worker. i believe at people should be able to do whatever they want with their body. but what we do know from the research in phoenix, those who are arrested for prostitution at some point during their engagement with the criminal justice system, identify as so if one out of 10 says i'm independent, i'm on my own, and nine out of ten say i'm in trouble, i need help, somebody give me a pathway out. it's a difficult decision, i think, for people to decide. and i can say that in the arizona community, we are really paying attention to the nine out of 10 who say i'm a victim of trafficking and i need someone to give me a pathway out. stephanie: given all the

mobilizations that you're talking about ahead of this weekend's super bowl, what do you expect will happen? dominique: i think that there will be a number of traffickers . i think the traffickers should pay attention and know that law enrcement is paying attention, that the community is activated, that we'reooking and helping. i really think we're going to see a pretty massive set of events that are arrest-based. what i would love to happen is for us to talk about this in our kitchen tables, while we are watching tv, on school buses, and our cars as we drive kids to school. really think about, what does trafficking mean to or communing, and how d we have an environment that allows it to happen here? what can we do to change that from ever happening again? stephanie: dominique roe sepowitz with arizona state university. thank you so much for joining us. dominique: thank you so much for having me. ♪

amna: as americans gather to watch the super bowl thi sunday, they will be watching an historic moment. it is the first time two black starting quarterbacks face off in the big game. tomorrow on pbs news weekend, doug williams, the first black quarterback to win a super bowl, reflects on the moment he realized history would be made. >> i got chills. i got emotional. i got tears in my eyes. it wasn't about the fact that at that moment we were going to have two young black quarterbacks going to the super bowl. it was really about the guys who were denied opportunities before me to get the chance to play and quarterback in the national football league. if they hadn't gotten that chance, would these two guys be the first black quarterbacks? amna: watch that interview tomorrow on pbs news weekend. geoff: and tune in to "washingtoweek" later tonight here on pbs for more analysis

the policy goals president biden laid out in this week's state of the union address. that is the newshour for tonight. and for this week. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, have a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ >> ming our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. ♪ and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour.

including kathy and paul anderson. and camilla and george smith. the walton family fouation. working for solutions to protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. the william and flora hewitt foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world, at hewlett.org. ♪ 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.

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