amna: good evening and welcome. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. on the "newshour" tonight, we report from the frontlines in ukraine as russia launches new offensives ahead of the invasion's one year mark. amna: senator elizabeth warren weighs in on the economy, immigration, and her plan to shore up social security. >> that you're going to pay social security on all of your income even if you are a billionaire, we can extend the life of social security to 2095. geoff: and judy woodruff begins her series "america at a crossroads," looking at some of the country's political divisions. ♪

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contributions to yr pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: good evening and welcome to the newshour. president biden wrapped up his four-day trip to poland and ukraine, as we near the anniversary of russia's invasion. amna: mr. biden called russian president vladimir putin's decision to suspend participation in the nuclear arms control treaty a, quote, "big mistake." at a meeting with eastern european leaders in warsaw, the president reiterated u.s. support for ukraine and "nato" allies. pres. biden: it's even more important that we continue to stand together. you know better than anyone what's at stake in this conflict, not just for ukraine, but for the freedom of democracies throughout europe and around the world. amna: meanwhile in russia president putin attended a , patriotic rally and urged his country to support russian troops in ukraine.

he also held talks with china's top diplomat and russia's foreign minister in moscow to underscore deepening ties between the two nations. geoff: in the day's other headlines, a massive winter storm is bearing down on a huge swath of the western and northern u.s. it's threatening historic snowfall, strong winds, and bitter cold temperatures. today, it prompted the closure of hundreds of schools, and the cancellation of more than 1500 flights. john yang has our report. john: overnight in utah, drivers faced treacherous roads and a deluge of snow on their windshields. it's part of a powerful storm system cutting across much of the continental united states. this morning, more than 50 million americans were under winter weather advisories. in minnesota, the national guard geared up for what could be nearly two feet of snow. >> we are bracing for what is likely to be one of the largest snowstorms in minnesota history. john: saint paul mayor melvin carter warned residents to stay home and plan ahead. >> our ask to all residents is

that you prepare now. that means limiting non-essential travel and working from home whenever possible. it means making sure we have essential supplies including food and medicine for the week. john: the storm left its mark on california, winds ripping down trees and power lines, cutting electricity to more than 100,000 people. some are predicting record snowfall in the golden state, even at lower elevations. ucla climate scientist daniel swain. >> the widespread nature for the potential of sea level snow is unusual. it's almost a slam dunk. there'll probably be snowflakes at sea level and significant snow even up at 1000 feet. john: as the storm presses east, snow and ice are expected to hit new england tonight. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. geoff: prosecutors in california today charged the man suspected of killing a roman catholic

bishop with murder. auxiliary bishop david o'connell was shot to death saturday in his home, east of los angeles. the suspect -- carlos medina -- is the husband of o'connell's housekeeper. authorities say they're working to identify the motive. if convicted, medina could face life in prison. palestinian officials say a rare daytime israeli army raid killed at least 10 palestinians and wounded more than 100 others. it happened in nablus in the northern occupied west bank. the israeli military said the operation targeted three suspected militants wanted in several shootings. palestinians pulled bodies out from under a building that was reduced to rubble. it was one of the bloodiest days there in nearly a year. back in this country the supreme , court considered a second bid this week to hold social media companies accountable for what their users post online. the case raised questions about twitter's role in the 2017 "islamic state" attack on a turkish nighlub. justices appeared to side with twitter, casti doubt that the platform knowingly provided quote "substantial assistance"

to an act of terrorism. a daughter of civil rights leader malcolm x has filed notice that she intends to sue the fbi, the cia, and other government agencies for $100 million for the wrongful death of her father. shabazz says new information has come to light that alleges a conspiracy and a cover up in her father's assassination. >> for years, our family has fought for the truth to come to light concerning his murder. and we'd like our father to receive the justice that he deserves. geoff: the announcement came yesterday on the anniversary of malcolm x's 1965 assassination. a preview of the new broadway revival of the musical "parade" -- about a jewish man falsely accused of murder -- opened last night to antisemitic protests. the protesters held banners and harrassed theater-goers outside, ahead of the performance. in a statement, the producers of "parade" said -- quote -- "if

there is any remaining doubt out there about the urgency of telling this story in this moment in history, the vileness on display last night should put it to rest." and stocks were mixed on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average lost 84 ints to close at 33,045. the nasdaq rose 15 points. in the s&p 500 shed 6. still to come on the "newshour", a new poll gives insights into the political headwinds the 2024 presidential frontrunners could face. a political dissident freed from nicaragua discusses his country's slide toward authoritarianism. judy woodruff looks at the stark political divisions across the country. >> this is the pbs newshour from w eta studios in washington and in the west from the walt cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: with less than a year until the first primaries of the

2024 presidential contest, the battle lines are becoming clearer and so is the field of candidate. lisa desjardins takes stock of where the race stands. lisa: as president biden readies a reelection campaign, his would be a republican opponents are focusing on who can back them. the senior political editor and corresponded at npr is here to walk us through some of the results. great to see you again. >> good to be back, lisa. lisa: let's start with mr. biden who is considering his reelection campaign. what do these numbers say about him? lisa: everyone -- >> everyone expects biden will run for reelection and that has had a big effect on democrats and democratic leading independents, a majority saying that they feel like their best shot in 2024 is with biden and not with someone else. you can see biden's approval

rating is now up to 46%, up a bit from the state of the union address. he is up to 49% with registered voters. 46% is the highest he has been in a year. the 49% is the highest he has been since the afghan withdrawal so good mr. president biden as he is heading into what is going to be -- expected t be a campaign reelection. lisa: how is he doing with independents? >> that is his one big vulnerability. he has only got a 36% approval rating with independents. that is a problem mandating the white house is going to be targeting, looking at, and it is why that you heard a message that is so targeted seemingly to the center. lisa: let's talk about the other candidate. former president donald trump, who today was in east palestine, ohio, the side of the train to real men ocourse. they are making a pitch saying he was trying to help out the community, talking about his criticisms of the biden

administration. what do these numbers tell us about president trump? lisa: it's not as rosy -- >> it is not as rosy a picture for president trump. there are a lot of republicans who are likelyoing to try to stop him from getting that job and what this poll finds is there's actually an appetite for some other republicans to try to get in because you can see 52% of republicans said that they want someone else. they think someone else gives them the best chance to win. 42% say trump but that 52%, we are looking at -- people are looking at potentially someone like ron desantis. lisa: we are going to come back and talk about him in a minute. there are other people including last night, we had a new republican announce candidacy on fox news. yvette ramaswamy is a businessman and here's what he had to say. >> we have celebrated our diversity and differences for so long that we forgot all of the ways we are the same as

americans, bound by a common set of ideals that set this nation into motion 250 years ago. i'm proud to say tonight that i am running for united states president to revive those ideals in this country. lisa: ohio businessman, founded a pharmaceutical company and investment firms as well. he's running on anti-woke-ism. someone else at the top of this list is florida governor ron desantis. >> i think the biggest issue for trump, when you look inside these numbers of people saying that they don't want him or don't think that he is the best fit for 2024, he is really struggling with white-collar voters, people who make more than $50,000 a year, people who are college graduates, and these are all people who desantis is actually doing well with. when you look at trump's numbers and a santos's numbers, it is like they are mirror images of each other when you look inside their favorability ratings. you can see with voters without a college degree, trump does

better. voters with college degrees, desantis it does better. most and $50,000 a year, trump does better. more than $50,000 a year, desantis does better. and with republican leaning independents, that is where trump really struggles, 57 percent favorability with that group but really, the dislike of trump is what is so much higher than for desantis and desantis has a lot to prove. this is very early. we have to say that there is room for an anti-trump candidate who can appeal to those white-collar workers but the problem is how many of them are going to get in? if they fled the stone zone, a multi-candidate -- the zone, he does have a share of the pie. it seems like it is made of titanium. maybe the metal has melted a bit but he still has a sizable chunk of republicans and if a lot of other republicans flowed the zone, it can give trump an easy pass. lisa: senator tim scott of south

carolina was in iowa today. this poll does ask about someone who did announce which was nikki haley and someone who we presume is interested, mike pence. what do we say briefly about those two? >> nikki haley, the biggest issue is that 46% say they are unsure about her. mike pence, not as well as as desantis or trump and that includes with white evangelical christians who are supposed to be his face. lisa: more room to grow. thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. geoff: our thanks to lisa desjardins. we will have more results from our poll tomorrow including views on some of the biggest issues facing congress like debt limit and aid to ukraine and you can read more of the findings on our website, pbs.org/newshour. amna: as we approach the

one-year anniversary of russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine, a look at the ground war, and the frontlines. ukraine and the u.s. say russian forces have launched offensives in three areas of ukraine's eastern donbas region. with support from the pulitzer center, nick schifrin, and videographer eric o'connor visited all three parts of the front. starting at one of the most southern points on the frontline, novosilka. and a warning, some images in this story are disturbg. nick: the road to ukraine's first tank brigade frontline position is bumpy, and tense. we're escorted by a sergeant who tells us to stay low, and move >> let's go. nick: trees provide the best cover. our guide calls ahead our position, using codewords. they refer to us as "ants" . and so we go marching in, single file, on the same path ukrainian soldiers take, past the craters.

the russian line is only aile and a half. -- half away. stop, get down. we've just heard an explosion nearby, and are taking cover. we're trying to walk along the tree line so that we're not too visible. trying to get to these ukrainian trenches down the road here. dobra dein, how are you? trees may conceal, but don't protect from the incoming. the trench is the safest defense. ukraine's frontline is 700 miles long. this trench, just one small section, 1000 feet, eight feet high, where this unit has deployed for 3.5 months. ihor is the platoon commander. he joined the military in 2014 after the initial russian invasion.

he was recalled a year ago this week. >> they're trying to attack our direction, and to push through our defenses. and we are not letting them do that. we are holding our position. we're doing everything possible to not let this happen. nick: have they launched frontal assaults against these trenches? >> with small groups, three to four tanks, and infantry. they are attacking with artillery, as you can hear. their artillery is working. that's how they do it. nick: ukraine's infantry is tasked with the always vital, sometimes terrifying mission of holding the line. not all of them have made it. >> we've had wounded. we've had killed. it's a difficult subject. i don't want to talk about it. translate that. nick: you don't want to talk about it. >> it's difficult to talk about

. i don't want to talk about it. any other questions? nick: ihor lives where he fights. he tries his best to keep out the cold. everyone here seizes a qet moment when they can. he has faith ukraine can win. but he predicts it will take years. >> the world should know that while we're fighting the enemy here, the world is safe. and the whole world should help us with everything they can and provide us with weapons to ensure this doesn't happen in their countries. we're capable of stopping the enemy here. just give us the weapons. nick: tanks are this unit's primary weapon. the region is flat. for kyiv to have any chance to push through russian lines, it says it will need more modern tanks. but 26-year-old yehor's t-64 tank, was originally built in the 1970's. >> they are old, and because

they are old ty break all the time. you don't have confidence that your tank is going to work tomorrow. for us to advance, we need new weaponry. because these tanks are twice as old as i am. nick: until new weapons arrive, all this unit can do is use its armor like it uses its trenches-to hold the line against a larger russian force. >> in order to destroy the enemy and be more effective in our offensive, we need heavy weapons. without tanks, we're not doing anything right now. it's not easy to destroy a stationary firing position, even a machine gun. nick: and russia has a web of stationary positions. they still control 20% of ukraine. and they have spent months digging in. russian trenes, vehicle barriers, and tank traps fill ukraine's south and east. they run all the way up, to the northern part of the eastern front, where we visid next.

russia controlled this land a few months ago. so, to prevent a ukrainian counter-offensive, they mined the fields that we drove through. >> which direction is the russians? frof nick: the 103rd brigade's mortar unit positions itself as close as possible to russian troops, and as deep into a forest. the more isolated, the harder to target. the commander is a 46-year-old whose callsign is kalina, a berry on ukraine's coat of arms. the frontline here hasn't moved an inch since they arrived nine months ago. do you have the weapons you need to be able to fight effectively? >> no. we don't have enough weapons. we don't have a large enough caliber. the largest that we have is 82mm, and we need at least 120mm. we keep telling our commanders about this, but right now, no one is providing those to us. nick: they've been fighting for one year. but that doesn'mean it feels normal.

their patch is the lviv lion, kalina's hometown in the country's far west. >> did you think you'd still be here, one year later? >> no. i've never thought i would spend so much time here. i'm not young. i'm not fit for the army. i thought they would just train me, and let me go home. but it all happened in a different way. and now we're here. nick: they use drones to spot russian targets. andhe >> mira! nick: 20 rounds in about 3 minutes. they adjust the mortar back to the original target and repeat. but they admit they're limited, by the quantity and quality of their ammunition. and that mea the best this unit can do as well, is hold the line against the russian troops they continue to target. the next day, we headed to the outskirts of russia's primary goal-bakhmut. -- primary goal, bakhmut. u.s. officials downplay its importance, and have raised with ukraine falling back to higher ground to defend larger cities.

but ukraine calls bakhmut a symbol of resistance, and a gateway to the rest of donetsk province. driving into city the city has -- the city has been largely abandoned, or destroyed. and the fighting has been fierce, targeting russia's paramilitary wagner group. ♪ ♪ amna: consumer protection, launched her entrance into politics, and was a central plank in her 2020 run for president. in president biden's state of the union adddress earlier this month, he pledged to tackle something long on warren's issue list, junk fees. she joins me to discuss that effort and if these priorities can become policies in a divided congress. senator warren, thank you for joining us.

i want to ask you about news on the immigration front. yesterday, the biden administration propose a new rule that critics say is basically a revival of president trump so-called transit ban which would bar people from seeking asylum if they have come through another country before arriving at the southern border. as you know, you oppose that policy under president trump. you said it goes against america's laws and our moral commitment. do you feel the same way today? senator warren: i'm always concerned when we are not opening ourselves and staying in line both with federal law and with our moral responsibilities, but i also want to underscore the other part of this, that president and his administration are clearly looking for alternative ways to deal with people who want to come to the united states and who are looking for sanctuary here. this program is one way to try to do that, to make sure people

don't have to take a long, expensive, dangerous trip in order to ask for help. let's face it, the bottom line is congress needs to put in place comprehensive immigration reform. in the meantime, the president is trying to meet our responsibilities and to do it through administrative action. and i'm glad they are out there trying. i just want to make sure that we continue to live up to our moral responsibilities and international law. amna: to that point, critics would say this does not live up to the promise of a safe, orderly, inhumane practice, and in fact, these are the same versions of policies that mr. trump put into place. do you disagree with that? senator warren: no. this is why i said i am concerned. if the point is to bar people from being able to apply for help that international law says they can apply for, then that would be a terrible mistake for

our country. i want to see us meet our moral responsibilities and our responsibilities under international law but to try to do it in ways that do not force people to take long, dangerous, expensive trips where they put themselves and their children at risk and that is what the president i think is trying to find that line. it would be better if congress were willing to take that on but so far, the republicans have blocked us on that. amna: i want to ask you about junk fees which president biden raised in his state of the union address. there seems to be shared bipartisan frustration over things like families having to pay more to fly together, have ceased together, or paying too much for taylor swift concert tickets. is there a bill and can it get through a divided congress? senator warren: i'm going to push back on this. i'm not sure we need a bill for much of this. i want to applaud the agencies that are starting to step up in

this area. the consumer financial protection bureau has stepped up and said what do you mean, you are charging $30 for a late credit card fee -- credit card payment? there is not much additional risk associated with that. i think that should be down around eight dollars. how it is that the banking regulators are stepping up and pressure from congress, so that they are reducing the charges on check overdrafts, department of transportation. come on, step up on this idea of charging fees for families to be able to sit together. i want to start with the notion that a lot of these junk fees basically fit under the idea that there is one advertised price for the service or for the good. same thing with hotels, right? but because of the junk fees, it costs five dollars more,10 more, $25 more. amna: senator, you and bernie

sanders proposed a plan to shore up social security, raising the top rate of both income tax and capital gains tax for only people making more than $250,000 a year. there is another argument, people saying why not just raise the retirement age? people are living a lot longer than they used to. what do you make of that? senator warren: every time i hear people say just rai the retirement age, i think to myself, there is somebody who did not work instruction for all of their life, somebody who did not have to pick up little kids as a kindergarten teacher or preschool teacher. there is somebody who did not work as a nurse all their life, helping patients in and out of bed and roll people over. in other words, just because people are living longer does not mean that you can still do those hard jobs at 65, 70, 75. but also, think of it this way. if we simply said that you are going to pay social security on all of your income, even if you are a billionaire, we can extend

the life of social security to 2095 plus we can increase social security payments by $200 a month. i mean, look. bottom line, this is math and values. and the math is that if we simply bring out a little more revenue, we can actually make the social security system work on through the rest of this century but it's also about values, how we are going to do that. is it more important that we protect the wealthy and the well-connected so that they don't have to pay taxes on their million dollar incomes, multimillion dollar incomes? amna: senator, what about that eliminating the benefit for people of higher incomes? senator warren: why not just have people pay taxes? that is the notion of a tax system in the united states and that is, as your income goes up,

you pay more in taxes. believe me, they will still be earning a holland more but pay social security taxes on that as well. that way, we don't have to increase taxes on america's middle class, on america's working families, and we don't have to cut benefits. in fact, we can raise them. amna: the supreme court is going to hear arguments on president biden's student loan forgiveness plan, a plan you push to make happen but if it is struck down, millions of borrowers for the first time in three years may have to start repayments on those loans. is that something they should start preparing to do? senator warren: i have no doubt that the president has the legal authority to cancel this debt. my concern is whether the supreme court is going to apply the law or they are going to play politics. you know, when donald trump was president, heanceled billions and billions and billions of

dollars of interest rate payments that were due, canceled them, did not do for tm. and not one republican, not one court lifted a hand to say there's any problem. they said of course he is legally entitled to do this. the president of the united states now is also legally entitled under the law to cancel this debt. keep in mind, we now know that 90% of the people who are going to get help from this debt cancellation makes $75,000 or less. it means that if this goes through, half of all latinos are going to see all of their debt wiped out and about one third of african-americans, people who worked hard, who 40% of them did not end up with a college diploma but who got out there and tried. and the consequences of their having tried when they came from families that could not just afford to write a check in order to pay for college is that they

are getting crushed by this debt . the president designed a plan to help get people out from underneath that debt. the law lets him do that. i just hope the supreme court and the republicans stay out of the way. >> elizabeth warren of massachusetts joining us tonight. senator warren, thank you as always for your time. senator warren: thank you. amna: -- ♪ geoff: earlier this month nicaragua exiled hundreds of , political prisoners to the u.s. all of them, and dozens of other nicaraguans, were stripped of their citizenship by a government that has become increasingly authoritarian. at washington's dulles airport, a day of joy. d a moment of relief and reunion. juan sebastian chamorro is one of more than 200 nicaraguan political prisoners freed earlier this month, and flown to

the u.s. >> i was sentenced to 13 years in prison, without any proof. geoff: nicaragua has been under u.s. sanctions for decades, but officials say the release was a unilateral decision by president daniel ortega. >> we are not asking for anything in return. it is a matter of honor and for them to take their mercenaries away. geoff: the people he calls american mercenaries include students, human right defenders , and opposition leaders, who wererrested for challenging his rule. they were released, but forced into exile. the government revoked their citizenship, and that of 94 more nicaraguans who ortega calls quote, "traitors to the , motherland," including one of the country's best-known writers, sergio ramirez. >> this has no basis in any legal stdards, it violates them. but we've received infinite solidarity from around the world. geoff: once a close ally of president daniel ortega, ramirez was a prominent figure in the 1979 sandinista revolution that overthrew the somoza dictatorship.

he served as vice-president during the 1980's in the first sandinista goverent led by ortega, but broke with him in the 1990's over his excessive grip on power. >> what i remember is a shared leadership in the revolution, to create a common project for the country. that project can be judged either way today. but it was a project, and that's what nicaragua is missing now. geoff: nicaragua was at war with the contras, a u.s.-backed rebel group that fought to eradicate communism, when ortega came to power in 1984. he was then defeated in 1990 by opposition candidate violeta chamorro, another close ally who had defected from the sandinista party. >> use -- defections after defections. geoff: cynthia arnson is a distinguished fellow with the woodrow wilson center.

>> there were people who in the sandinista movement, who had embraced the anti-authoritarian, anti-repressive aspects of the sandinista movement and became gradually disaffected as sandinismo became much more associated with a personalistic dictatorship around daniel ortega. geoff: ortega was elected again in 2006, and vowed to never lose a future race. he abolished presidential term limits. at one point, he embraced the private sector and brought government growth. geoff: but then came a decade of what u.s. officials call sham elections, and crackdown on dissent then, more intimidation. more than 2000 ngo's and at 50 media outlets shut down. political opponents poised to run against him in the 2021 elections were arrested. >> even if you can believe

public opinion polls seem to desire a change,rtega is not going to allow that. and that is why he imprisoned so many people in advance of the november 2021 elections. geoff: but with their release, there's now renewed hope, however faint, for a return to democracy. i spoke recently with felix mara-diaga, a former nicaraguan presidential candidate and political prisoner, who is now exiled in the u.s. he spent nearly two years in captivity, and we spoke about his experience inside one of the country's most notorious prisons. >> for years even before i became a politician, i was a human rights defender, an academic. i focused most of my life in in post-conflict reconstruction, civil society. i met with other former political prisoners arnd the world. but having experienced that myself, it's even today something hard to to to -- something hard to describe. i was in a small cell of the first day -- to be exact, the first 84 days. i was officially disappeared in

the sense that the government did not allowed my family, my lawyers, or anyone to know about my whereabouts. geoff: how were you able to endure that? 84 days in solitary confinement, most of it spent in complete darkness? >> i used my faith as my source of strength, prayer and meditation. but mostly i was convinced that my wife had become a relentless advocate for my freedom and the freedom of all political prisoners, as we had agreed, because i knew that at some point i was going to be arrested. and also my convictions, my principles. i got into nicaraguan politics to pursue a basic human rights in nicaragua. geoff: on feuary 9, the ortega government released you and 221 other political prisoners. take us back to that moment. that moment you realized that you were free. >> they ask us to dress in civilian clothing, and then we were put on a bus, handcuffed with our heads looking down. so we did not know what was the

direction of the bus. suddenly, about 40 minutes later, we arrived at the managua airport and we were asked to sign a paper, basically a one liner saying that we voluntarily would leave the country towards the united states. and only then we learned that we had been expelled from the country and sent into exile. however, we did not know that we had been stripped from our nationality. we learned that upon landing in washington. but watching seen u.s. diplomats traveling from washington to managua to free us to welcome us into an airplane is something that i can only define as truly the shining city on the hill. file need -- i feel i need to thank the american people for welcoming us. geoff: what does your release signal or suggest about the stability of the ortega regime? does it signal weakness on their part? >> [00:13:40]absolutely.

-- >> absolutely. it signals that everything in his playbook has not worked so far. he tried, as he did with me and many others, to beat us. i was severely beaten in two occasions. he put us into prison and he did, as he did with hundreds of political prisoners prior to our release. and we continued to fight in a nonviolent way. so he used banishment as his last resort. geoff: what are conditions in nicaragua right now for for everyday citizens living under the ortega regime? >> from what i've learned, the situation is very hard in the sense that everyone who issues an opinion, everyone's to tweet or to even use private messaging to speak a private opinion is subject to arrest. the police has full control of nicaraguan information and the way which people exchange information. i think that it can only be compared to a sort of even

private companies are requested -- sort of tropical north korea. even private companies are requested to present a list of people have been involved in any type of opinion against the government. newspapers are shut down. university students are expelled out of universities because of their politicaideas. it is something unheard of in that america. and more recently, over 300 -- latin america. and more recently, over 300 people is stripped from their nationality, something that is against international law. geoff: the secretary of state, tony blinken, called the release of you and other prisoners. he says it's a constructive step towards addressing human rights abus in this country. president ortega has been in power for more than a decade. there's nothing to suggest that he's going anywhere anytime soon. what do you think comes next? >> well, as we've seen in other cases of latin america, there's there's always the possibility that dictators will remain there for a while. but i also know that there are many, many nicaraguans who are committed to the are nonviolent,

peaceful, democratic struggle for a new nicaragua, a new nicaragua, in which even sandinista supporters will be welcome to be part of a new of a new nation. nicaragua has had cycles of violence precisely because those whare former political prisoners, as ortega himself was a prisoner in the 1970's, once they are free, they become what they used to hate. in our case, we made it very clear that we want to break that cycle of violence. we want to establish freedom and democracy in our country. so we will go back and we will continue to work for that nicaraguthat we love. senator warren: -- geoff: felix, i think -- thank you so much for your time. we really appreciate it. >> thank you. amna: for the last several weeks, judy woodruff has been digging into one of the most pressing issues facing our nation, deep divisions and

distrustn some american communities. tonight, she begins with a look back at our recent history -- and some of her own -- to try to better understand the nature of the divides we face, and why this moment feels different. it's part of her new series, "america at a crossroads." >> what do we want? >> justice. judy: from fights over our rights to defining who we are, what we believe and what we teach our children. america is a house divided and in many ways, it always has been. >> would you agree that it is difficult to find qualified women? judy: i first came to washington in 1910 knee seven to come -- in 1977 to cover jimmy carter, a

peanut farmer i had followed as a local news reporter in georgia where i spent my teenage years. mr. president, how concerned are you? i stayed in washington after carter's landslide loss to ronald reagan in 1980. through six more administrations, trying to better understand how our government works, what motivates our leaders, and how their decisions affect hundreds of millions of americans across the country. what happened today is that a feud that has been simmering for weeks between democrats and a group of conservative republicans finally reached a boiling point. over that time, i have watched partisan disagreements grow increasingly hostile. >> always delighted. >> you deliberately stood on that before an empty house and challenged these people and you challenged their americanism and it is the lowest thing i have ever seen. in my 32 years in congress. >> the reforms i propose it -- i

am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> h stupid are our leaders? how stupid are these politicians? >> you are looking for a fair process, you came to the wrong town at the wrong time, my friend. pres. biden: congress does not vote -- i'm glad to see -- judy: to the point that today, there is an unwillingness to work with or often even talk to the other side to confront our shared challenges. >> the debt debate in washington heated up with the federal government set to hit its legal limit on borrowing in less than a week. judy: rising distrust by the public in our big institutions from the federal government and public health officials to journalists. >> you are a nation that no longer has a free and fair press, fake news is all you get. judy: we watched partisan battles that undermine our ability to deal with real problems. >> much of the federal

government was dark after congress failed to agree on a stopgap funding bill judy: shocking acts of violence directed at our political leaders. >> remains sedated three days after being shot in the head at point-blank range. judy: for at least five minutes, gunshots crackled across the northern baseball field where members of congress were practicing. >> nancy pelosi's husband, paul, was severelyeaten with a hammer this morning. judy: and even attempt to subvert the machinery of democracy itself. >> chaos erupted at the u.s. capitol today when pro-trump demonstrators breached barricades and pushed their way inside. judy: our current and former presidents of both parties acknowledge that something has changed over time. pres. biden: we did not have many people playing on the fears of the american people. it has gotten to mean -- too

mean, personal, devices. >> so much of our politics has become a naked appeal to fear, anger, resentment, and that leaves us worried about our nation and our future together. judy: i have long wanted to better understand what has been happening, the forces driving us apart, and what n be done to overcome them. that is what this series, america at a crossroads, will be about. to begin, i want to ask the most basic questions, how divided are the american people? and how different our divisions today from what we have seen before? hello, carol. how are you? to find out what survey data show, i visited the pew research center, the nonpartisan think tank in downtown washington that studied public opinion, demographics, and social issues for decades. carol doherty and jocelyn kiley design and analyze poles that

americans take online each year, revealing how people think and feel about a range of issues and how those feelings change over time. >> the country is more divided certainly along partisan lines. there have be divisions in the past along other lines but this is a moment where the divisions are deeper than ever and the intensity of dislike for the other side is probably deeper than ever as well. >> it is fair to say on virtually every domain you can think about, the gap between republicans and democrats is bigger than it was 20 or 30 years ago so when i say that, i mean on immigration, on abortion, ongoing policy, on size of government. they have always been partisan gaps on these issues but they are all wider than they used to be. judy: that is true not just of the american public but of its leaders as well. >> go back 30 years ago or so, there was a sizable share of democrats in congress who were

more conservative than the most liberal republican and vice versa, a sizable share of republicans who are more liberal than the most conservative democrat and that has not been the case for nearly 20 years. judy: it also shows up in presidential approval ratings which have fallen sharply since the 1950's for both parties. >> used to be that people would reserve their judgment about the new president. there would be a lot of i don't knows if you asked about a new president, and now, people go to their partisan corners a lot more quickly in terms of evaluating a new president so there is nots much of a honeymoon as we used to callt in the old days. judy: is that due to people feeling part of their party and their party is opposed so therefore, they are opposed? >> they are. exactly. for biden and trump, it's very -- people make their judgments very quickly again on the basis of their own partisanship. judy: there is another trend that really worries doherty and

kiley, the degree to which people from one side not only disagree with but actively dislike those on the other. >> it is not new that republicans have an unfavorable view of the democratic party and vice versa but these very unfavorable's is what we are focused on here and these are the sort of intensely negative and you see that tripling just about between 1994 and 2022 on the republican side and a huge spike on the democratic side as well so the shares of people who have this intent still thank -- intense dislike has grow >> we have asked for and while these questions about different traits and you can see in this graphic that, for instance, 72% of republicans say democrats are more dishonest than other americans and 64% of democrats say the same about republicans. judy: carol, it is striking. you look at the numbers.

immoral? in 2016, 35 percent of democrats that republicans were immoral. today, it is 63% and republicans, it has gone from 47% to 72%. >> it is quite striking. judy: from a polling point of view, from an academic point of view, what is striking about that? we are talking -- i don't know, less than 30 years that this has happened. jocelyn: one way to think about this is that people have internalized partisan identity may be in a way we did not really see three decades ago. so it is about issues. it's about emotions. and kind of feed on eachther, meaning, as you see the other party further apart on issues, you are less likely to socialize with them, less likely to have them in your prime groups. and therefore, maybe you are a little bit more likely to have negative stereotypes. judy: and that is what i wanted to ask you. who is pushing ts?

who is the instigator in all of this? is it washington pushing the american public or is it the american public push in washington? jocelyn: yes, it's both of those things. it really is both and you can think about the role of the media in this, too, over this time period. we started to see more fragmentation of media though people tend to be more likely to get eir news from places that show them the kind of news they are interested in, the rise in cable news and social media. i think it would be very difficult to say this is, you know, this is top-down or bottom-up. it is a mix of both of those. judy: add to that list a country that is rapidly changing demographically. extremely high levels of inequality and very low trust in government, regardless of who is in power. jocelyn: talk about the ways the two partisan coalitions are growing more demographically distinct and they are also

growing more distinct in terms of their issue positions and then also in terms of how they feel about one another and each one of those contributes to each other. >> is this pattern just going to continue? are we going to see this get more and more intense? partisan hostility. leading to perhaps negative consequences for the country. judy: and this is what i will be diving into over the next two years, trying to better understand the roots of our disagreements where policy difference end, and where you might call identity politics begin and asking americans from all walks of life how we can move forward towards solutions. >> decades ago, we disagreed over things like the role of government or the size of gornment or what we wanted the government to be doing and with those types of divisions, we can find a compromise. judy: you my next report, i will

speak with political scientist liliana mason to understand how identities and politics became so intertwined a what that means for our challenges ahead. >> what we are seeing today is the divide is much more about our feelings about each other. we are angry at one another. democrats and republicans don't trust one another. these types of feelings are not the kind of thing we can compromise with. judy: for the pbs newshour, i am judy woodruff in washington. amna: we will have judy's second installment of america at a crossroads next month right here on the newshour. ♪ geoff: ole kassow is a danish entrepreneur who started "cycling without age," a nonprofit that encourages volunteers to cycle with senior citizens in bike taxis as a way to help them get outdoors.

tonight, kassow shares his brief but spectacular take on the -- take. >> allhe wealth of knowledge that sits in our elderly citizens is lost because nobody's really taking an interest. but if y go for a bike ride with a person who has experience and lived life in a local community, they completely liven up. two people in the front seat, one person riding is like a magic bubble. and within that magic bubble, everything can happen and age does not matter. i do remember learning to ride a bike. it was something my dad did, and i think it was a bicycle that i got for my third birthday. when i was probably about three or four years old, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. and so within a couple of years , he was in a wheelchair. i guesi was a little young to understand exactly how that impacted mdad. he would have some mood changes, and i think part of that was because he was lonely. and i could see how much he missed the mobility.

particularly elderly people or people with handicaps very often have a hard time getting out of that circumstance themselves. and i definitely saw that with my dad. he needed other people around him to lift him out of that situation. cycling without age is a way to take elderly people out of their loneliness, and giving them back their mobility so they can once again become part of life. one of the first rides i took was with a woman named gertrude in copenhagen. she took me down her memory lane and it completely took me by surprise because i had heard that gertrude was not really talking anymore. and yet to me she was talking nonstop for one hour. i became her witness and it gave her an immense satisfaction that she was able to pass on those stories and they wouldn't be forgotten. cycling without age really just started in one location with just one bike and myself. but it has since inspired people around the world.

we're now in over 50 countries and i think we have chapters in nearly 3000 cities. we're all young at some point and we're all old at some point. young people, they can learn a lot from elderly people. and i think old people, they love to basically see the old mirror image of themselves in the young people. and a lot of wisdom is shared between the generations. we all grow old and we all have people in our lives of age. being able to put a smile on the face and listen to the story of an elderly person is something that is going to bring so much meaning to our own lives. my name is ole kassow and this is my brief but spectacular take on the right to relate. you can watch more brief but -- on the right to relate. geoff: you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. amna: the latest battleground over reproductive rights. geoff: thanks for being with us.

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular school has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no contract plans and our service team can find one that fits you. to learn more, visit consumer cellular.tv. >> and from the support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour including jim and nancy and kathy and paul anderson. >> actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it's exciting to be part of a team driving the technology forward. that is the most rewarding thing. >> people who know know bdo. >> the ford foundation, working with missionaries on the frontlines lines of social change worldwide. funding for america at a

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hehello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour and company." here is what is coming up. one year on,ne war but two very different speeches from president's biden and putin as eastern europe takes the spotlight. my exclusive interview with the president elect of the czech republic. then. >> the war in ukraine is not only an issue for europe. it's an issue for the whole world. >> my conversation with urshela and the fip nnished prime minis. they tell me about maintaining support for ukraine, getting the global south on board and about gender. also ahead. >> the volcanic romance at the heart of the oscar nominated