♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on "the newshour" tonight... congressional leaders hit pause on negotiations to raise the debt limit, with time quickly running out to make a deal. geoff: president biden says the u.s. will help train ukrainians on f-16 fighter jets that allies plan to provide in the fight against russia. amna: and... syria is welcomed back to an alliance of arab nations after years of brutal civil war orchestrated by the assad regime. >> the message from these key arab countries to the american administration and is also to the european is you have followed your strategy of sanctions, of isolation of the regime. well, it hasn't worked. ♪

>> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of "the newshour." including jim and nancy goldman and kathy and paul anderson. >> actually, you d't need vision to do most things in life. yes, i am legally blind, and yes, i am responsible for the user interface. data visualization -- if i can see it and understand it quickly, anyone can. it's exciting to be part of a team driving the technology forward. i think that's the most rewarding thing. people who know, know bdo. >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. on the voyage with cunard, the world awaits.

a world of flavor, diverse destinations, and immersive experiences. a world of entertainment and british style. all with cunard's white star service. ♪ >> the john s. and james l. knight foundation, fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. ♪ >> and with ongoing support of these individuals and institutions -- and friends of "the newshour." ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you.

thank you. geoff: welcome to "the newshour." the high stakes debt ceiling talks in washington are now on hold, and it's unclear when they'll resume. house republicans called a halt today to negotiations with the white house, on raising the debt limit and curbing spending. amna: the republican speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy, said it's time for a pause. mccarthy told reporters there's been no movement by the white house on reining in spending. a white house official said further talks will be difficult. the deadline for preventing a possible national default is less than two weeks away. geoff: a national guardsman in massachusetts accused of leaking secret documents will stay in jail, awaiting trial. a federal magistrate judge today ordered jack teixeira to remain behind bars. prosecutors argued he is a flight risk. texeira is charged with sharing highly classified material in an online chat room. the president of ukraine, volodymr zelenskyy, made a

surprise trip to the middle east today to win support in the war against russia. he arrived in saudi arabia for the arab league summit and met with its leaders. later, he warned against turning a blind eye to russia's actions. pres. zelenskyy: i'm more than sure that none of you will agree to surrender a third of your country to the invaders and i'm more than sure none of you would watch without a fight how foreigners steal the children of your people. geoff: also today, moscow put a prosecutor for the international criminal court on a wanted list. karim khan had prepared an arrest warrant for russian president vladimir putin. it accuses him of war crimes. the u.s., british and french naval commanders in the middle east sailed into the persian gulf together today in a message to iran. they passed through the strait of hormuz on an american destroyer. iran seized two oil tankers there in recent weeks.

as the uss paul hamilton made its transit today, patrol boats from iran's revolutionary guard approached. they kept their distance and there was no confrontation. iran has executed three more men linked to last year's anti-government protests. they were accused of killing a police officer and two members of a paramilitary group. human rights groups said they were tortured. officially, iran has put to death a total of seven people over the protests -- but the real number could be higher. in pakistan, confusion reigned in the standoff between former prime minister imran khan and police. at one point, inspectors entered his residential compound in lahore, but there were conflicting accounts on whethe he allowed them to carry out a search. khan has denied harboring suspects linked to violent unrest. back in this country, a funeral was held for jordan neely -- the new york city man who was choked to death on a subway car. family and friends paid respects at a harlem church. the reverend al sharpton delivered the eulogy, and demanded help for people like

neely. rev. sharpton: we keep criminalizing people with mental illness. people keep criminalizing people that need help. they don't need abuse. they need help. geoff: daniel penny put neely in a chokehold after he'd been yelling at passengers, and is now charged with manslaughter. on wall street, new doubts about the debt ceiling talks dampened any momentum. the dow jones industrial average lost 109 points to close at 33,426. the nasdaq fell 31 points. the s&p 500 slipped 6. still to come on the newshour... a new book details how the u.s. supreme court's shadow docket shapes american law. the legacy of nfl legend and activist jim brown. david brooks and jonathan capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines. and actor michael j fox discusses a documentary on his career and his battle with parkinson's. >> this is "the pbs newshour"

from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: white house officials say the biden administration will approve european allies providing american made f-16 fighter jets to ukraine. the u.s. will also support a joint effort to train ukrainian pilots to operate them. ukraine has been asking for those f-16's since early in the war with russia. up until now, the u.s. has refused. for more on this policy reversal, and what these jets mean for the war, we turn to retired lieutenant general doug lute. he had a 35 year career in the army and served on the national security council for both george w bush and barack obama. he was also the u.s. ambassador to nato during the obama administration. as you know, previously it was said the f-16s could be productive -- provocative.

what changed? >> this has long been on the list of requirements from the ukrainian government to the coalition providing military support. but you are also right that we have not agreed to the requirement in part because we worry about provoking russia. but time and again russia has told us don't do something, it will be provocative and we will respond. we eventually do it, whether it is long-range rocket systems, tanks, and now f-16s, only to see that russia doesn't have the capability to do much good about it. amna: do you think the allies should have provided this earlier, wooded have made a different -- would it have made a different? lt. gen. lute: with hindsight,

these would have been useful the last year or so and frankly the ukrainians have been suffering. in man aircraft, the russians have a distinct advantage. so this really addresses that in balance. i think it's one of the last remaining imbalances. amna: what would this allow the ukrainians to do that they couldn't before? lt. gen. lute: it provides two key capabilities. on the offensive side, it can provide support to ground troops that is very important as ukrainians take the offensive this year into next year. the second thing on the offensive side, provide deep fire, well beyond the front lines into occupied ukraine, where ukraine can increasingly hit russian headquarters and logistic sites deep into

occupied territory, like crimea and the waters of the black sea. on the defensive side they are also important because they can take on the russian man aircraft but also very important, they can attack the russian cruise missiles that have been striking ukrainian civilian info structure. so the f-16 can really make a difference. amna: what about training ukrainian pilots? there was a report based on u.s. internal documents that the u.s. could probably train ukrainian pilots to fly f-16s in as little as four months. do you see that happening? lt. gen. lute: i will leave it to the experts that fly f-16s to make that declaration, but four to six months seems reasonable to me. we have been increasingly surprised time and again by the ability of ukrainians to adopt new systems thatre technically

very sophisticated, difficult to maintain, but they prove adept at excepting these new systems from the western coalition and making good use of them on the battlefield. amna: if these jets could potentially allow ukraine to claim back some of that territory by russia, donbass and crimea in particular, does that translate to ending the war on terms more acceptable to ukraine? lt. gen. lute: it moves us in that direction. to be clear, it will not happen this year. when you at the four to six months training, and remember it's not just the aircraft being delivered, it is the maintenance to keep them flying. it is unlikely this decision today will make a meaningful difference on the battlefield this year. amna: we've been anticipating a spring ukrainian counter offensive for a while. what can you tell us about that and why haven't we seen that launched yet? lt. gen. lute: we as americans

tend to be impatient. we want to see it in the next new cycle. ukrainian commanders are amassing forces, marshaling resources. they have created nine new maneuver brigades, 4000 to 5000 new troops, trained together and ready go on the offensive. now ukrainian commanders can pick the timing and location and method of attack all to their advantage. they are waiting for that moment. my confidence is in the ukrainians who have proved time and again that they understand this battlefield. it is, after all, ukraine, and it is a home-court advantage. they will pick the time and place that is most advantageous. amna: that is retired lieutenant general doug lute joining us tonight. thank you. ♪

geoff: ukrainian president zelenskyy's surprise visit to the arab league was not the only focus of that gathering today. there was another attendee, whose presence sparked outrage the world over. twelve years ago, the people of syria rose up against the regime of bashar al-assad, as the arab spring uprisings swept the middle east. assad proceeded to kill, bomb, starve, poison and brutalize his people, and does still. he became an international pariah. now, he is being welcomed back into the arab league, a group that suspended syria from its ranks in 2011. stephanie sy reports. stephanie: with a warm hug and kiss, the syrian president, and accused war criminal behind thousands of indiscriminate killings of his own people, strode back into the good graces of the arab league, hand-in-hand with the saudi crown prince. arab leaders posed with assad,

signaling the end of over 12 years of isolation in the region. assad called it a historic opportunity. >> we need to treat the >> that have emerged on the arab scene in the past decade. the arab league restore them, not even them. stephanie: but syrians and rebel held territories have not forgotten their wounds, and tens of thousands dead all under the direction of assad. they continue to protest and fight. 12 years ago, pro-democracy voices rose up against the dictatorial assad families rule. >> my father was a businessman but he was also very passionate about politics.

he would express his mind and say the current situation in syria is not good and needs to change. stephanie: her father is one of hundreds of syrians that have been forcibly disappeared by the assad regime. >> we don't know if he is alive or not, we don't know what he is accused of. where he is held or anything. stephanie: the family fled syria in 2013 and is split between germany and candidate. >> no justice, no accountability, no courthouses, no lawyers. no one can do anything. stephanie: omar alshogre can testify to that. now a human rights activist, he was jailed in 2012, in the early days of assad's crackdown on dissent. omar: they tortured me for years. i was forced to be imprisoned. i was forced to look at my

fingernails when they were pulling them out, i was forced to see my cousin dying in my arms. i was forced to beat my cousin. otherwise we both will be executed. stephanie: documented torture, chemical attacks, and incalculable destruction are the hallmarks of the assad regime. omar: how would you feel if a government kills your father? kills your brothers and destroys your hometown, your school, the places where you're supposed to have very beautiful memories? that's what the assad regime did to me. when the syrian regime is welcomed back, it's safe in the arab league. i feel like the entire world is betraying me. stephanie: that sentiment resounds across the syrian diaspora. mouaz: it only reminds me of, like the worst moments in our history. i mean, imagine a time where anyone was willing to no with someone like hitler or someone like milosevic. stephanie: mouaz mustafa is the founder of the syrian emergency task force, an organization that provides aid in northwest syria, which is rebel-held.

some of these regional powers that have decided to normalize, including uae, including saudi arabia, are u.s. allies. has how have you seen the u.s. use its leverage in any way in these negotiations? mouaz: they have not been nearly as vocal and not public in their condemnation of any efforts at normalization or reintegration of the assad regime. stephanie: last week, u.s. secretary of state antony blinken said the administration is against the re-admission of syria to the arab league. sec. blinken: they have to make their own decisions. our position is clear -- we are not going to be in the business of normalizing relations with assad and with that regime. stephanie: but mustafa says the biden administration is guilty of putting syria on the backburner, he is hopeful that the u.s. congress will act. his group helped author the assad anti-normalization act, which has bi-partisan support. mouaz: this legislation really holds responsible, some of these arab countries and will hold them accountable if they support the assad regime in its crimes as they normalize relations with them. stephanie: mustafa's

organization runs “tomorrow's dawn,” a women's center and school for syrians displaced by the war. rasha: there is no family in the liberated area -- or what used to be the liberated area -- that did not taste death or loss or fear for their children. stephanie: rasha alshahad is the center's director. she feels betrayed. rasha: they welcome him as though nothing has happened. the bigger blame is on the arab people who did not vehemently disagree with what was happening, allowing it to happen. stephanie: for their part, arab leaders have been on the path to normalization for years. but saudi arabia was the key to letting assad through the door. randa slim of the middle east institute says -- randa: the rapprochement with syria is very much a part of their detente with iran. stephanie: saudi arabia recently restored ties with iran after 7 years of estrangement, and slim says saudi arabia needs regional stability to meet its economic aims.

the move is also an acknowledgement that assad is not going anywhere and regional actors need him to address issues of refugees, counter-terrorism, and a drug trade sanctioned by damascus. randa: the message from these key arab countries is that too the american administration and is also to europe is you have followed your strategy of sanctions, of isolation of the regime. well, it hasn't worked. let us try our way. let us try to see if we can offer some carrots to assad to help on all these issues that concern you. stephanie: but slim says assad's comeback is limited. not all arab countries have welcomed the move. rhonda: -- randa: it's really not significant. you know, like having a seat in the arab league is really not that powerful after all. it's not a powerful organization. it's very much symbolic. stephanie: for others, including wafa mustafa, the re-admittance

of assad is significant. she now worries even more about her father's fate. wafa: such a step will only make things worse for syrian refugees in neighboring countries, but also for syrians inside syria. and most importantly, it's will can any hope for people like me that our loved ones might be freed one day. stephanie: this july will mark 10 years since she last saw her beloved father. for the pbs newshour i am stephanie sy. ♪ amna: a new book out this week explores the supreme court's growing influence on the country through a number of emergency actions on cases not on the official docket. john yang explains. john: many of us were taught in civics class that the supreme court is the court of last resort. that cases end up there when all other appeals have been exhausted. but for the last decade or so, the court has gotten involved in cases while the appeals

process is going on either , blocking or keeping in place policies on abortion, immigration and covid restrictions often setting new , principles without hearing arguments and without explaining their reasoning. it's part of what's become known as the shadow docket, which is the title of a new book by stephen vladeck, university of texas law professor. first off, i gave a very incomplete description of of one small part of the shadow docket. prof. vladeck: it's an umbrella term that basically describes everything that supreme court does other than the 60 or so big merits rulings. that is the ones that we're used to seeing big headlines about. it's only about 1% of what the court does. 99% of the dispositive rulings the supreme court hands down are these unsigned, unexplained orders. most of them are anodyne, but increasingly, a lot of them are not. john: you write that this began to take off in the 80's and 90's

with death penalty cases. obviously there is urgency there because executions are scheduled. but you also say that it really accelerated and changed under the trump administration. prof. vladeck: that's right. so the real sort of rise, what we think of as the modern flurry of this kind of emergency application where the court is being asked to intervene early in the case, and not as the court of last resort starts with the reinstitution of the death penalty in the late seventies, but it stays over there in the death penalty space for the better part of 35 years. you ask folks who clerked on the court in that period, and they'll say, yeah, we had death cases, but not these other ones. what really shifts in the mid -2010s, and president trump's justice department is a big part of the cause of this shift is the court taken approaches that had become normalized in the death penalty context. full court decisions without oral argument without a lot of briefing with no explanation, and now applying it to whether particular immigration policies

will be in effect or nothile the case was his way through the courts. whether state abortion bans will be in effect or not. whether covid vaccination mandates will be in effect or not. having all of these monumental impacts on us out in the world, far more so than was ever true in the death penalty context. john: what is the problem with it? prof. vladeck: so there's no problem in the abstract with the idea of the supreme court gets emergencies. any appellate court is going to have to have some mechanism for resolving those kinds of exigent cases. the problem we've seen in the last five or six years is the way the justice are intervening, intervening more often than ever before, with these broad impacts without any real explanation, and perhaps most significantly, in ways that actually aren't explainable by reference to any overarching, neutral legal principle. instead, way too often the best predictor of who's going to win a shadow docket application is the partisan valence of the dispute, where the justices seem to be siding with trump policies, but against biden policies.

with red states but against blue states, where the absence of any explanation deprives us of any reason to feel confident that there are neutral principles here at work and not just political actors acting politically. john: there was a recent newshour/npr maris poll that found that 62% of those questions said they had not very much or no confidence in the court. is this part of that that problem? prof. vladeck: i think it is. and indeed i think that these are both symptoms of the same disease, which is a court that is acting in lots of ways, whether it's with regard to emergency applications or ethics in ways that are just unchecked, , unexplained and not transparent. i think the most important part of that survey, that statistic, is that conservatives should be just as invested in public confidence in the supreme court as progressives who are critical of it. that's where i think this conversation needs to go. it's a big part of what i hope the book will accomplish. john: there have been a lot of calls for changes on the court legislation introduced there be

, a code of ethics, to expand the number of justices on the court, set an age limit. what does meaningful a meaningful solution to the problem is before the court. what does that look like? prof. vladeck: i think it all starts from the same place. and it starts from some kind of congressional effort to reassert even a modicum of institutional not control but responsibility for the court. for the 1st 200 years that we had a supreme court congress was actively involved in regulating the court and shaping its docket, in controlling its budget, in forcing the justices to go out on the road six months out of the year. until 1935, the court sat in the capital. and so there really was this, you know, synergy, this dynamic between congress and the court that has really fallen by the wayside. folks are going to have their own views on which reforms are the most important, but i think the story has to start and the book tries to start with a question of congress taking responsibility for what james madison said, ambition must be made to counteract ambition. there's not a lot of ambition on

the court right now that's being counteracted by congress. but there's certainly a lot of ambition among the justices. john: i want to ask you about a phrase in the sub title of your book. how is this undermining our republic? prof. vladeck: so i think the charge in the subtitle that some of these rulings are undermining the republic comes out most forcefully in chapter six, which talks about election cases, where we saw in 2022 just two rulings, one about congressional district maps in alabama and one about congressional district maps in louisiana, where the court through unsigned, unexplained orders allowed these states to use maps that lower courts have struck down. there's a pretty good argument that those two rulings by themselves might have been a critical part of how republicans took control of the house in the midterm elections. if you have the supreme court influencing elections that directly through rulings that are not principled, not explaining themselves, i think it's really hard to reconcile that with basic conceptions of how our republic is supposed to operate. john: thank you very much.

prof. vladeck: thank you. ♪ amna: one of the greatest legends of the nfl has died. hall-of-famer jim brown, running back for the cleveland browns from 1957 through the 1965 season, blazed an athletic path few have equaled. he left the game as its most-famous and best player to pursue a life in acting, and in activism; as the civil rights movement rolled through the 1960s. unstoppable as brown was on the field, off the field he led a complicated, at times brutal life. he was arrested half-a-dozen times, mostly for domestic abuse. he died yesterday in los angeles at age 87. with me now to discuss his life, and legacy is kevin blackistone, sportswriter and professor at the phillip merrill school of journalism at the university of maryland. as you know, jim brown was not

only one of the best to ever play the game, he was one of the nfl's first superstars. how did he become one of the greats? prof. blackistone: anytime you watch the old video of jim brown, you see people trying to bring him down and completely unsuccessful. he went through, over and around people. he was considered the greatest running back in the history of the nfl, even to this day. some of the records he set have yet to be broken. for example, he led the league in all-purpose yards, meaning catches and handoffs out of the backfield for five years in a row. in many of the records -- and many of the records stood for decades. he was that much of a power. not only that, just talking

about his athleticism in general, he was a four sport start in syracuse. many people consider him the greatest lacrosse player of all time. he played maybe 30 games, scored 77 goals and had 80 20, 30 assists. one of the greatest athletes we've ever seen. amna: he was still very much in his prime, only 30 years old, when he decided to walk away from football. what we know about why he made that decision? prof. blackistone: he got infatuated with hollywood and trying to become an actor. many of us may remember the movie "the dirty dozen." that pulled him into hollywood. he walked away from the cleveland browns to try his hand at acting. the owner at the time started to find him for not coming back and being ready and in shape to play

football. sooner or later, they parted ways. he was truly one of the first free agents, you could say, in professional sports. he became his own man and refused to do what the browns wanted him to do. jim brown would only do what he wanted to do. amna: he used his platform and voice to advance calls for equality during the civil rights movement. tell us about that part of his life. prof. blackistone: in a lot of ways when i think about jim brown, i think about him as this emperor of black masculinity. particularly in the 1960's. there are couple of things that really made him stand out. one is a famous photograph of jim brown with muhammad ali and a group of other very famous black athletes in the 1960's and was called the cleveland summit. it is a misinterpreted

photograph because a lot of people have said incorrectly to support muhammad ali's refusal to join the military and continue his boxing career, but the real reason for the meeting, those guys, including jim brown as the ringleader, wanted to get ali to drop his fight against the military and continue as an athlete. one of the reasons jim brown wanted to do that. at the end of the day, jim brown was a capitalist and he had a business deal for ali's next fight and wanted him out there. ali, to his credit, he stood down the most powerful black men in athletics and told them this is what i decided to do. they created a unified front with ali. that's one of the first times we saw jim brown as an activist on

the black front. the other time is when he started a black economic organization that is still around today to invest in homes and real estate and business opportunities in kansas city. he's had a great impact when it comes to black capitalism in this country. amna: jim brown came out in 2018 and had vocally supported than president trump, something he said at the time would make him "very unpopular" in the black community. did it? prof. blackistone: absolutely it did, i wrote about in the washington post and i was perplexed as to why jim brown would do this. at the end of the day, jim brown was very much a capitalist. i suspect that fit into the

reasons why he met with donald trump. he thought for whatever reasons that donald trump would do something for black america but donald trump wound up never doing. that's the complexity of talking about jim brown. he was dogged throughout his life, certainly as an adult man, of being a terror to the women in his life. a number of times, he was accused of battery against women. there is a famous story about a girlfriend that he threw off of a balcony. he was once arrested in the 1990's over domestic violence and convicted. he was a very complex person. he was not just a great athlete, not just this actor who played these often times single name

roles where he flexed his muscle. he was this black male power figure on the screen. there were some uncomfortable moments in his life. amna: a complicated life and legacy. kevin, thank you for joining us. prof. blackistone: thank you. ♪ geoff: it's friday. that means it's time for the analysis of brooks and capehart. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks and jonathan capehart, associate editor for "the washington post." good to see you both. here we are, another friday of late breaking news, this time on the debt ceiling. house speaker kevin mccs evgt ar esahouseiderarli republican nes will continue talks with the white house, after the talks fell apart today. the negotiators tasked by him to

deal with the white house said they would put the talks on hold because they weren't productive. jonathan, what is your read on what is happening? jonathan: we are getting down to the wire, what we think is the wire, with june 1 as the date identified by the treasury secretary. but also because both the house and senate will be out of session next week for the memorial day recess until may 29, the monday into june 1. talks did not fall apart, there was a short pause. we heard about it late this morning, early afternoon, and now they will be back together negotiating. part of me wonders if this is all posturing on the part of speaker mccarthy. we will see. i'm trying not to hyperventilate over every dot and tittle until

we get closer to june 1, but there are things you need to negotiate -- things they need to negotiate and let's hope they make progress. geoff: deadlines have a way of focusing the minds of the members of congress. we don't know what we don't know, but this had the hallmarks of a republican pressure plate. senate republican leader tweeted earlier today, it is past time for the white house to get serious, time is of the essence. david: i'm sure they both thought the other was not coming through. i'm glad they are back together, it's like they can't quit each other, like a taylor swift album. it is dangerous even to put a pause. while i'm sure both sides are negotiating in good faith, there are elements of both parties will take advantage of a pause and say let's not do a deal. the freedom caucus on the republican side is saying we passed our bill, take it or leave it. that's like we are going to govern by ourselves and the

democrats don't exist. there are a bunch of senators on the democratic side that say use the 14th amendment to ram through our version. that sounds ok legally but in my view it would be disastrous economically. if i didn't try to use the 14th amendment, it will go through the court system, every decision will create economic uncertainty. it will probably go to this supreme court that will probably overrule it. they have to do with each other. geoff: president biden said it would be impractical because it would take so much time. jonathan, let's talk more about democrats. progressives say they are concerned president biden might give away too much and this follows his comments about toughening standards for a social -- for social safety net programs like food stamps. how can he do deal with house republicans without alienating members of his party whose votes they need? jonathan: what we are talking about are things that he did 30

years ago. what impact that might have on negotiations in 2023, we just don't know. we take progressives as trying to fill the void and sending a message to the president, think really hard about what you are doing in the negotiating room. it's good they are getting together and talking. neither side is going to get everything they want. when it comes to work requirements, we have to see. i need to make a larger point -- speaker mccarthy is trying to do budgetary matters by holding the economy hostage by the debt ceiling. when the president submitted his budget on march 9, house republicans have yet to submit their own budget. that's where this discussion, if

speaker mccarthy had any confidence he could pass a budget through regular order, he would have submitted his own budget. instead he is using the debt ceiling as a way to ram through his own priorities, things he couldn't get through the house and certainly could not get through the senate on his own. geoff: how do you see it? david: this has happened dozens of times over the last many decades of the last 40 times we have the debt ceiling crisis, i think 28f those times a clear majority, it was attached to a spending bill. we probably shouldn't do budgeting this way but the fact we've been doing it, democrats have been doing it, republicans have been doing it, republicans doing it more. it focuses the mind. if -- both parties tend to blow through deficits in its the only mechanism we seem to have, crazy as it is, to break down spending. our average deficits

historically have been just over 3%. now over 6%. we can't run that much debt year on year. geoff: let's shift our attention to 2024, there are two major amounts -- announcements expected next week, ron desantis and tim scott. i think we could be forgiven by not mirroring that ron desantis is not already -- remembering that ron desantis is not already a candidate. jonathan: i'm going to put something my colleague said this morning and i believe he was quoting someone else in talking about governor desantis in that it seems as though the governor is trying to be a different version of donald trump, a competent version of donald trump, ramming through all of these cultural war laws. signing things into law. but it's like asking people to

choose between coke and new coke. when we went through that, people made it clear, when given the choice, they went for coke. the lane ron desantis is trying to occupy is not going to be successful because if people have to choose between trump and governor desantis, they are going to go for trump. the moment he makes it official and becomes a candidate, i think the scrutiny will be on how well will you do under the spotlight of a national presidential campaign and with donald trump knawing on his leg. geoff: governor desantis seems like someone who could carry the mantle of trumpism without the baggage, that his poll numbers have greater, there are questions about his electability should he make it to the general election. can he bounceback? david: he can, there's a reason

we have campaigns. right now, his campaign is a bit of a mess. even this week he had a bunch of conservative culture were type issues, then he goes to new hampshire and poses as a different kind of candidate, a more moderate, business type republican. you got to pick one. second, it was clearly a terrible mistake not to announce months ago and have been campaigning and hit back at donald trump. i can't think of a time, all my years covering politics, when one candidate was beating the daylights of the other candidate and the other guy did not hit back. it is not the way to win. there are fundamental structural issues in this campaign he needs to figure out. geoff: this week, desantis told donors and supporters in a conference call there were only three credible candidates in the race, joe biden, donald trump and himself. he said donald trump could not be joe biden again. is that an effective argument

given where he is in the polls right now against donald trump? jonathan: it sounds like wishful thinking. you're trying to separate people from their money in terms of donors, you got to give them a reason to believe. the governor can believe their only three people in the race and he's the only candidate who could beat president biden, sure, maybe he can win the republican nomination but he has signed a number of things into law in florida that will make him unpalatable to the general electorate, and just his signing, for example, the six week abortion ban in florida is not going to play well on the national stage. i don't see how his happy talk to donors is going to become reality. geoff: is there room for tim scott in this race? david: i think he's underestimated right now. he is a good person, a nice person, which sets him apart

from the other competitors. there may be a lane for that guy is a good man, let's go for that guy. he has a fair amount of money. i think there's a chance, and he is an effective legislature that something's across the line. they have and always worked out but he's been active in the senate. geoff: what do you think, jonathan, to go back to coke versus new coke analogy, is there room for attempt scott -- a tim scott that doesn't appear on the shelf? jonathan: sure, he would be pepsi. he would be the alternative to coke and new coke. the thing is you've got coke, new coke and pepsi, how many other brands of republicans are going to be in the race? donald trump was able to eke his way to the 2016 nomination because there were as we like to say fifty-eleven people on the

stage. if it is donald trump, nikki haley, asa hutchinson, tim scott, maybe one other person, maybe he has a chance, the more people who jump in the race, less likely it is that anybody on the stage not numbed -- not name donald trump will win the nomination. great to see -- geoff: great to see you both as always. ♪ amna: an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease -- that's the focus of a film about actor michael j. fox, called "still," out now on apple tv plus. i sat down with fox to discuss the documentary and his life's work for our arts and culture series, canvas. marty: are you telling me you built a time machine out of a

delorean? amna: in 1985, michael j. fox skyrocketed to stardom with a breakthrough big-screen role as marty mcfly in the year's number one film: back to the future. fox's face was on every teen magazine cover. by 24, he was hollywood's golden boy a world away from his humble , roots in canada. michael: i was still pretty fresh off being an 11th grade dropout. literally in three years, i go from being the kid stuffed in lockers to having a conversation with steven spielberg about doing his next movie. doesn't happen. amna: i spoke to fox about his full throttle career, his family, and 34 year marriage to tracy pollan, and his three decades living with parkinson's. a story he tells in his own words in the new documentary "still." michael: what i like about it is, it's not morose.

it's not a pity party. it's acerbic and funny, and grateful for hard earned wisdom. amna: fox first won over audiences with his charisma and comedic timing, stealing the spotlight as alex p. keaton on the tv show "family ties." alex: you ever hear of mighty mouse? amna: you've always had this superpower of being able to make people laugh, and you see it throughout the whole film. michael: and i can turn cheese into gold. amna: that's your other superpower. we'll talk about that later. you can do it any time, still. what is that like for you to have that kind of power? michael: my powers are diminishing. [laughter] nf andonts m i ay ayser ss, whytat's funny eva- this? like, what's something funny about it? as horrible as it is, time plus tragedy equals comedy. that's why it works.

my kids are funny, which is really good. and tracy is funny. and her humor is very deceptive because she seems so serious and she's so beautiful and she's so smart that you don't get that she's really taking the piss out of you. amna: you're asked in the movie to describe your wife. >> describes this human being to me. amna: you actually close your eyes and sit in silence for a little bit before you speak. that moment. and lots of marriages work for lots of different reasons. but i wanted to ask you, what makes your marriage work? michael: there's that old joke you can always say, we've been married 35 years and 25 were the best years of our lives. [laughter] it almost doesn't matter why we didn't get as much as we didn't get out. [laughter] i'm just so grateful.

grateful is a funny word to use, because grateful infers inequality. and there's no inequality. i'm not so much grateful to her as i'm grateful to the powers that be that we continue to have the answers to each other's questions. amna: among those questions -- what the future would hold after fox's 1991 diagnosis with parkinson's disease. he was just 29 years old. he went public seven-year slate or and became a champion for the eight and half million people worldwide battling the disease. michael: the changes in my life were profound -- amna: testifying before congress in 1999 about the need for research funding. michael: i heard from thousands of americans affected by parkinson's to offer encouragement and tell me about their experience. they spoke of pain, frustration, fear and hope. amna: fox continue to act

winning awards as the lead in , the tv show "spin city." and gaining ground in the fight against parkinson's, alongside tracy and their four kids, running the michael j fox foundation for more than 20 years. back in 2002, you said that you hope that a cure would get here in ten years. you've raised over 1.5 billion dollars for research. do you still think we're a few years away from a cure? 5, 10? michael: not a cure. we found a biomarker, which is consistent, which tells us if someone is going to have parkinson's. and having been armed with that knowledge, we can then encourage drug companies and scientists to pursue their patents, which we're really enthusiastic about doing. and then we can hopefully have a prophylactic drug. amna: in his advocacy, as with his acting career, fox is seemingly tireless. i noticed one thing over and over again. people say to you a lot in the movie -- slow down, slow down. what is it like for you to hear that right now? michael: i take it with a grain

of salt. even people who love me more than anyone in the world and the people that are there for me all the time don't have this. they don't know what it's like. and i don't want to undervalue that. there's a scene in the movie where i talk to my son, and i say, why are you so mad at me? and he tries to explain it to me. i don't feel 90 years old but you sometimes get mad at me, guy say be careful and i say i am being careful. i don't set out to not be careful. >> no one thinks you are not being careful, it's that maybe it is lower on the list of things than it is for us. [laughter] so i just have to make sure. [laughter] i would rather you not fall over. michael: i am working on it. slow me down with love. amna: four decades after he burst into the big time, fox

says simply starting each day can be a struggle. michael: i gotta figure out where i am, how i feel. what else do i have to do that day? how much do i have to do? how am i gonna try to take my meds to get through that? it's just a constant planning and negotiating and sorting out. amna: in the movie you talk about it all. you talk about the pain, you talk about falling, you talk about breaking bones, you talk about all of that. but you don't seem to want to dwell on it. is that fair? michael: yeah, i don't see the point. i'm through all that. whenever i'm in a moment where i'm feeling good, i just want to run with it. i just want to go with it and feel good, and enjoy myself. i always bombard my kids with all this stuff. i say, if you find yourself obsessing over the worst case scenario and it actually happens, you've lived it twice. amna: you know, there's a whole generation of fans, my kids among them, who are coming into contact with you and your work for the time, but who never knew you as alex p keaton or marty mcfly in the way that we did back then. they'll know you through this movie. they'll know you through the

work you do now. and i wonder what it is you hope that they know and understand about you? michael: i hope they understand that everything is possible. that effort brings reward and is deepest when it's not for you. and just that -- my mother passed away in september and my brothers and sisters asked me to write the obituary, and the last thing that i could think of to say was, she left the world a better place than she found it. and that's all i want to do. amna: you feel like you've done that? michael: well i haven't left yet. i can still screw it up. [laughter] amna: a signature michael j fox move -- to always leave them laughing. geoff: a fantastic interview, he is endlessly inspiring. amna: and endlessly inspiring to

this day. a lot of fun to talk to him. remember there is much more online, including a look at the senate watergate hearings that started 50 years ago this week. be sure to tune into washington week later tonight right here on pbs, moderated this evening by our very own john yang. geoff: and watch pbs news weekend for a look at how three native communities in louisiana are fighting to save their tribal lands from rising sea levels. and that is the newshour. i am geoff bennett. amna: i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us and have a great weekend. >> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by -- ♪

>> moving 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 foundation, working for solutions to protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at hewlett.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions -- ♪ and friends of "the newshour." ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

christiane: hello, everyone. and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. >> there is still much to be done. christiane: russia casts a long shadow at the g7. is it time to play peacemaker? we dive into this with president of the center for american progress, ambassador patrick gaspard. as well as the impact of the u.s. debt crisis. plus -- >> i'm not sure that the time for actual peace negotiations are at hand right now. christiane: former american ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch weighs in on what it will take to end russia's war. th -- >> please help us. humanitarian organizations. please help us. not for us, but for the sake of these children. christiane: desperation in sudan where the warlords compete for