i am amna navaz. geoff: and i am geoff bennett. tonight, president trump suggests a complete overhaul of how the federal government responds to natural disasters. amna: the indigenous lumbee tribe of north carolina gets a presidential endorsement for its long-awaited federal

recognition. we speak with the group's tribal chairman. >> right now, we are pretty much treated as second-class natives, and with our full federal recognition, we will no longer be second-class natives. geoff: and the family of holocaust survivors search for answers 80 years after the liberation of the auschwitz concentration camp. >> this place has dominated my whole life. this place destroyed my family, and the echoes of this place continue to destroy my family. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by friends of the news hour, including jim and nancy builder and the robert and virginia schiller foundation, the coble or foundation, upholding freedom

at home and abroad. >> qnod is a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, they world awaits -- a world awaits, they world of leisure and british style, all with cu nard's service. >> the john son james all night foundation -- the john s and james l knight foundation. >> 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. geoff: welcome to the newshour. president donald trump set off for the first trip of his second administration today, touring multiple disaster zones. amna: the president is in california tonight, where he'll survey damage from the wildfires that are ravaging the los angeles area. but first, he stopped in north carolina, four months after hurricane helene, and threatened the future of fema. laura barron lopez begins our coverage. laura: this morning, president donald trump touching down in western north carolina, stop number one of a disaster tour. hurricane helene brought

catastrophic floods to the state november. four months later, trump again made the recovery political, questioning the need for a federal response.. >> they have a group of people that don't even know where they are going. i would like to see the states take care of disasters, the tornadoes and hurricanes. laura: trump said he would sign an executive order to gut fema. eliminating the agency would take an active congress. fema only assists in disaster response at the request of governors. >> you need your riverbanks fixed. you need a lot of roads fixed and we are going to get it done in rapid time. laura: all this in washington. >> we will stand proudly for

families and life. laura: the annual march for life, where trump made an appearance via prerecorded video, crowds of antiabortion protesters watching on. >> we believe every child has the right to life. laura: it featured a lineup of washington's new republican leadership, including vice president jd vance. on capitol hill, the senate is said to hold a final confirmation vote on trump's nomination for secretary of defense, pete hegseth. two republican senators voted against him in the procedural vote yesterday. hegseth can only afford to lose one more republican if all democrats vote no. before departing the white house this morning, trump says he has his eyes on the narrow margin. >> i don't know what's going to happen but pete is a good man and i hope he makes it.

i hope he makes it. i was surprised that collins and recount ski doing -- and murkowski doing that. laura: trump plans to visit southern california, areas affected by wildfires. the president repeated claims that california mismanaged water flow and falsely blamed a rare type of fish. >> everyone is trying to figure out why aren't they turning it back? they say it's a fish. laura: officials have refuted the claims, saying conservation efforts in northern california did not impact water availability in the southern part of the state. still, the president threatened to condition aid to california unless the state complies with his demands. >> i want to see two things in los angeles, voter id and i want to see the water be released.

amna: governor newsom's office responded to the demands on social media, saying “conditioning aid for american citizens is wrong” and that california does require identification to be registered to vote. amna? amna: tell us more about what we should understand about the conditions president trump is laying out and what experts are saying about the claims he's making to justify them. laura: this has been a long-running fight the president has picked with newsom in california -- and california, but in addition to the water provisions and voter id, he has mentioned the need to end conservation efforts for that fish, even though experts we spoke to all say that his attacks on newsom or california are either misleading or outright false, and say trump's proposed conditions are not necessarily rooted in science or recovery.

it's also inaccurate that water is somehow being withheld. the issue is more about how dense and herb in the city of los angeles is in the ability to fight the fire there and a number of california republicans in the house have said they believe aid should not be conditioned. amna: we should point out some forms of condition on disaster relief that are becoming more bipartisan and popular. laura: there's a growing consensus among emergency management experts and former fema officials that conditions could be needed as well as changing the federal relief system, that that is warranted, but they say the conditions have to be focused on infrastructure and recovery, like what kind of materials are used to make homes more resistant to fires and floods, there should be no vegetation near buildings, wider lanes are needed for evacuation,

asphalt resistant to heat. essentially where and how you build in the materials you build with our the conditions that should be used. a professor said opening the door to conditions that have nothing to do with recovery like voter id could end up also hurting red states. >> at the end of the day, red states and counties have more presidential declarations than democratic and blue states and this weaponization is -- weaponization, this anti-california bias in your policymaking, is only going to come back to hurt you when you begin to apply this to texas, to louisiana, to mississippi. laura: i spoke to officials who worked in donald trump's first administration who said he makes a decide to apply conditions to blue states like california and leave red states alone. amna: we should remind people that in his first time in office

he made several threats and delayed aid in office. laura: he delayed billions in aid to puerto rico after hurricane maria and his white house obstructed an investigation into why those billions were delayed and also diverted fema money from fema to deportation of migrants to mexico and former trump officials revealed that during his first term he withheld aid to california and did not change his decision until he was shown by staffers that where the wildfires had hit in or it county -- he was shown congressional maps and realized there were republican voters in those areas and decided to release the funds. i spoke to someone who served in homeland security during trump's first term and they say trump makes decisions like this based on whether the areas affected have voters and people that supported him. amna: if there were no federal

help for california or other states, if disaster relief or left other states -- relief were left to the states, what would be the consequence? laura: if they are left on their own to handle these disasters it would significantly hurt local economies. >> if the federal government pulls out, home prices go up, rents go up, the cost of living goes up, your taxes go up. it's a terrible situation in economic terms. laura: the experts i spoke to acknowledged that fema is stretched thin but to do away with fema entirely is unsustainable and would hurt a number of states because ultimately states need that recovery help from fema. it helps recovery go faster and

it's something they rely on significantly. amna: thank you. laura: thank you. ♪ geoff: the u.s. state department suspended all foreign assistance around the world for at least three months. it affects tens of billions of dollars for programs that extend from military assistance to ukraine and supporting police in mexico who are supposed to stop fentanyl from coming into the u.s. what does this direction do? >> it is contained in a memo that has not been made public. pbs news hour obtained the memo and it says the u.s. government "shall not provide foreign assistance funded by or through the department of usaid without the secretary of state's

authorization," and "for existing foreign assistance awards, grant officers should issue stop work orders." it says within 30 days the department will develop review standards and with an 85 will have a comprehensive review and with 180 -- within 180 days all foreign assistance will be aligned with donald trump's vision. every dollar being spent is being caused. there are a few examples -- few exceptions. emergency food assistance. geoff: what programs could this affect? nick: everything, including security assistance around the world. $40 billion is generally the total that is cited in terms of total foreign assistance. about half of that is military assistance, so this affects security assistance to ukraine, taiwan, jordan. these are key u.s. allies and partners around the world.

and it is not just weapons but things like training. so security assistance is police. there is $2 billion for policing around the world as you identified at the top. some of this is for mexican police who are supposed to go after the cartels that are supposed to interdict fentanyl that has affected many communities. so this goes far across the world so there are big questions about how long this will last, how the trump team will resume it. they say they simply don't have enough visibility into these programs and need to deposit to better understand it and align it with their vision. geoff: thanks to you as always. nick: thank you. ♪

geoff: the days other headlines begin in the middle east, where hamas announced the names of four israeli hostages it intends to release tomorrow as part of their ceasefire deal. daniela, karina, and others are all soldiers. they were kidnapped by hamas from an army base in southern israel during the october 7 attacks. the women are expected to be released in exchange for a group of palestinians held in israeli prisons. also today, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said israeli forces might not withdraw from lebanon by the deadline set in an agreement with hezbollah. the ceasefire deal reached in november requires israeli troops to leave southern lebanon by sunday, while hezbollah militants retreat north of the litani river. lebanese forces agreed to patrol the buffer zone betwen the two sides with u.n. peacekeepers. but the prime minister said in a statement today that lebanon hasn't "fully enforced" the agreement yet.

the white house said today that an extension to the ceasefire is "urgently needed." russia and ukraine traded drone strikes overnight as the war enters its fourth year next month. eyewitness video from russia's ryazan region, about 100 miles outside of moscow, shows people running from a burning oil refinery. russia's defence ministry says it shot down 121 ukrainian drones across the country, one of the largest such attacks of the war. in an interview, russian president vladimir putin said he's open for talks with the u.s. on the war in ukraine and on energy prices. >> we would better meet and have a calm conversation on all issues of interest to both the united states and russia based on today's realities. we are ready. geoff: meantime, ukraine says at least three people have died following a russian drone attack overnight that hit an apartment complex southwest of the capital, kyiv. several homes were also hit. such air attacks have become

more frequent in ukraine as russia launches dozens of drones almost every night. president trump has ended the government-funded protection detail for dr. anthony fauci. trump said today his former advisor during the covid-19 pandemic could hire his own security, adding that he wouldn't feel any responsibility if dr. fauci were ever harmed. fauci has received death threats for his public health guidance during the pandemic. he has reportedly hired his own private security team. this week, president trump also withdrew security protections for his former secretary of state, mike pompeo, and former national security advisor john bolton. they've both been critical of mr. trump since serving his first administration. a federal judge barred the leader of the far-right oath keepers group, stewart rhodes, from entering washington, d.c. without court approval. it comes days after president trump commuted his 18-year prison sentence for coordinating the capitol attack in 2021. rhodes visited the capitol earlier this week just after his release.

he met with at least one lawmaker and defended his actions. the judge's order also applies to seven other people convicted of charges related to january 6 and bars them all from entering the capitol building or grounds without the court's permission. the u.s. supreme court said today it would hear a case on whether to allow the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school to open in oklahoma. the case centers on a proposal by the catholic church in oklahoma to establish an online school that would incorporate religious teachings into its curriculum. it comes amid other efforts to insert religion in the public schools, including in louisiana a push to display the 10 commandments in classrooms. it will likely be argued in court this spring with the decision coming by summer. the world's largest annual migration of humanity is hitting its peak. it's the travel rush of china's lunar new year and, quite simply, many people are going home for the holidays.

>> of course i'm happy. after the whole year, the family is eager to get together and enjoy a good feast. geoff: hundreds of millions of people will be traveling by train, plane, and automobile in the run-up to wednesday, which marks the ofifical start of the -- marks the official start of the new year in the lunar calendar. china's government estimates that there will be 9 billion trips during the 40-day travel period, most of them by car. train trips will top 500 million and another 90 million people will be traveling by air. on wall street today, stocks slipped a bit after recent gains. the dow jones industrial average fell about 140 points on the day. the nasdaq lost nearly 100 points or 0.5% the s&p 500 stepped back from yesterrday's all-time high, losing 17 points. and it was -- forgive me -- "panda-monium" at the national zoo in washington, d.c. today. more than a year after the capital said farewell to its beloved pandas, zoo officials gave a grand welcome to a new panda pair.

♪ as you can see, there was a brass band, a panda suit mascot, and even a ceremonial countdown before their grand debut. the two new giant pandas, boww lee and ching boww, are on loan from china for the next ten years. they continue a tradition that goes back to the early 1970s, when pandas helped soften the political edges on the u.s.-china relationship. panda cam is also back, with 40 cameras capturing their daytime activities. still to come on the newshour, david brooks and jonathan capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines, one family searches for answers 80 years after the liberation of auschwitz, and a new winter basketball league founded by wnba players tips off. ♪ >> this is the pbs news hour from the david and rubenstein studio in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite

school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: the lumbee tribe of north carolina got a major boost this week in its decades-long fight to become a federally recognized tribe. president trump yesterday signed a presidential memo directing the secretary of the interior to submit a plan for full federal recognition of the tribe. that status would unleash hundreds of millions of dollars in support for the 60,000-member lumbee. their chairman, john lowery, joins us now. thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having me. geoff: how confident are you that this action will finally result in the recognition your tribe has sought for more than a century now? mr. lowery: we are confident. as you may know, we have been through the united states house multiple times over the past decade and have always seemed to come up short in the senate and we have never had this level of support directly from the white

house from the president himself so we feel like with him in, with him letting congress know that he would like to see us have more federal recognition, we feel like this will help us to finally cross the finish line and help us get this bill passed in both houses of congress and sent to his desk. geoff: why have previous efforts fallen short? mr. lowery: we have been on this for a long time. during the 1950's, the united states was trying to get out of what they call the indian business and terminating relationships with tribes. we got caught up in that. we have been in this legal limbo now. we have support from different congresspeople. so, you know, it's just a lot of work trying to get this past. geoff: how would federal recognition change the day-to-day lives of your 60,000 members? mr. lowery: we have a tribal government now that is set up and we have a budget of $40

million. we already get some funds from different programs like hud. so what we will be able to do is access initial programs -- access additional programs and services. we will be able to access programs within the indian health service and other departments, the usda, department of energy. we will be able to access those intake those programs. so we are looking forward to be able to access those programs, access the set-asides for tribes and put them to use. geoff: i want to ask you about the potential politics of this because just before he signed the order president trump had this to say. >> i love the lumbee tribe. they were with me all the way. geoff: do you have any concerns

about partisan politics potentially becoming mixed up with this quest for federal recognition? mr. lowery: our tribe as a whole, if you look at the vote statistics, i believe that our people did vote for president trump over vice president harris, but at the end of the day, i don't think partisan politics will play a role. our people have been politically active for years. we have voted for candidates from both parties. we had president obama sadie supported us, president biden, president trump, so we have had people on both sides of the aisle say they support us. geoff: what would for federal recognition mean to you? mr. lowery: we are a strong and resilient people in our ancestors were charges for us to be here today.

you know, we have stood the test of time. we have been through, you know, colonial times, sickness, war, the civil war, jim crow, and we continue to stand here and stand firm. there's nothing we cannot do as a tribal people so i'm proud of us and what our ancestors have been able to do it i will say this. right now, we are training -- we are treated as second-class natives and with full federal recognition we will no longer be second-class natives into me that is the biggest fight, that the u.s. government will finally recognize us as who we are and that is why we are still here fighting this fight to ensure

that not another lumbee passes away as a second-class native. geoff: john lowery, appreciate your time this evening. mr. lowery: appreciate you. ♪ amna: this coming monday marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the auschwitz-birkenau extermination camp. an estimated 1,100,000 people, mainly jews, were murdered there during the holocaust. one of the youngest survivors was an eight-year-old polish girl called rutka. she moved to canada after the war and took the name rachel hyams. decades later, she died by suicide. now, rachel's daughter has been retracing her mother's steps and allowed special correspondent malcolm brabant to come along on the emotional journey. >> take a deep breath.

>> this place has dominated my whole life. this place destroyed my family and the echoes of this place continue to destroy my family. >> audrey has spent a lifetime resisting the compulsion to come here. >> that station looks completely intact, no different than it did over 80 years ago. >> supported by her daughter, lindsay, audrey has traveled to toronto to find answers to two unresolved family mysteries. why was her grandfather killed during a fight in a cattle car on the way to auschwitz? more importantly, what drove her mother to suicide 63 years after she and her mother, regina, survived this, the worst of all nazi extermination camps. rachel was just eight years old

when she entered the gates of death. most people transported here from across occupied europe went straight to the gas chambers, but rachel and her mother did not. she told the show a foundation 28 years ago -- shoah foundation 28 years ago. >> i have this vision, a door to a crematorium. i know that our clothes were being taken away. >> this film shot a week after the camps were liberated shows child survivors. among them are eight-year-old rachel. >> it's been a journey. it's still not over. the issue is what do you do with the trauma? we are all prisoners of our past. >> rachel grew up to be a nurse in canada.

she married a doctor and became more prosperous, dressing in bright colors as a counterpoint to her dark past as she had children and grandchildren. during a jewish holiday more than 60 years after rachel escaped the gas chambers, the nazis finally triumphed. seen here a decade earlier with mother regina and husband, rachel was mentally unraveling. >> my father said in a quiet voice your mother doesn't want to be here anymore, and when i heard that, i didn't take it seriously because my mother had made these grand pronouncements all my life. >> later, with tragic symmetry, rachel shut herself in the garage and started the car. her husband was also a sophisticated -- was also is fixated, possibly accidentally. >> i'm trying to deal with survival guilt.

people who have made this type of decision are really at peace because they know that they are taking control and they are not going to be in pain and that's hard for me to live with. you know, what should i have done that i didn't do? so that really is much more present for me than the manner in which she decided to take her life. >> the search for answers gains traction in the archives south of warsaw, where the nazis crammed her family into a a ghetto, along with 15,000 other jews. this historian has won accolades for revealing its dark past. only five of the towns jewish children survived the holocaust.

one of them was rachel. >> so there were a few children. and they were all together. >> builders were at work erasing the last traces of the block's former jewish occupants. >> we know most of them were resettled here and it was about 16 people from that family and i think that about eight or nine in one flat. >> to know how many of them were packed in here is hard to wrap your head around. >> i talked about how i didn't think my mother and grandmother would want us to do this trip and i don't think they ever

could have imagined that i would be standing in this place where they were and it's hard. i don't know. i feel the ghosts. >> nearby saint wenceslas church was built after the war to exorcise ghosts. earlier, 14,000 jews from the ghetto were selected to be exterminated. scores were also massacred here. their bodies went into the churchyard. wooden church survived the war and went a short distance away. >> i don't want to absorb the energy of this place because it is so dark and i carry a lot with me. >> this church has borne witness to one of the most evil things that happen in the holocaust. a nazi officer sat in front of this building acting like a roman emperor, giving the thumbs

down to those jews who were sent to the line of death. they were transported to treblinka and gassed. to others he gave the thumbs up and they could survive. those people included audrey's family. because the germans had a use for audrey's grandfather. >> we have him here. >> this is the wages ledger that proves greenspan was a low ranking officer in the ghetto. jewish elders were ordered by the germans to establish police forces to make them accessories to nazi war crimes. sons of good families were recruited in a vain attempt to mitigate the german's actions. greenspan signed up on the same day as his best friend, grossman. >> the germans knew what they were planning, that the ghetto will be liquidating, and they knew they would need hands for

doing this. >> as the liquidation of the ghetto approached, the jewish police were given a pay raise. >> everyone needs to eat and be safe, so perhaps money -- it was not money but it was the way to survive. >> in the book of remembrance, greenspan's friend describes on how on those two terrible days nazis brutally beat jewish policeman as they shepherded their fellow jews to cattle cars. many of those forced to purchase a paid that's one of those forced to participate was henry -- one of those forced to participate was henry. >> we had to cooperate with the germans. they used us under the threat of shooting us. and we did.

we did have to do it. >> this rare account of life as a ghetto policeman is contained in the ghost had two written by his son, australian dr. tony bernard. >> in terms of you and me, if your grandfather policeman, youi would not be here. there were stacks of young people who all went to treblinka on those trains and didn't survive. he really had to have this get out of jail card. >> the question of our survival is something that i grapple with and will for the rest of my day. >> audrey and lindsay are retracing rachel's steps into crematorium three in the fall of 1944. >> there was an incident my mother could never explain when she was here, that they gathered all the children, had them undress and brought them into

the gas chamber, and then nothing happened, and after a little while, they took him back out and brought them back to the barracks. >> one possible explanation is that the children were saved by hitler's deputy heinrich himmler 's order the gas chambers cease operations in a futile attempt to cover up the war crimes before abandoning auschwitz. the germans blew up crematorium three. only crematorium one remains intact. >> oh god. mostly, i thought of children. my mother was a child survivor and i thought how many children were in here that did not survive like my mother? it's strange.

the gas chamber or whatever, it's just a space. you know that the stains of the walls, what the history of that is, but to turn the corner and see where they burned the bodies, that's been horrible. >> 80 years on, the third world seems closer than ever. >> with the right set of circumstances -- there's a lot of hate in this world -- and people are capable of doing horrible things and i don't think that we have passed that point in our humanity that this is an impossibility. >> we are here to honor them and if they can see us to say we came back here, don't be mad at me we remember you -- at me, we remember you. we continue to walk with the grief beside us just like my mother walks with the grief beside her. >> audrey and lindsay's

pilgrimage did not yield the definitive answers they were seeking but they left with greater understanding. >> it's painful to be here. it's good that i can but i never want to be back. >> for the pbs news hour, i malcolm bradman -- i am malcolm brabant in auschwitz-birkenau. ♪ geoff: well it has been a busy , first week for the trump administration. to delve into what president trump has prioritized since reentering the white house, we turn to the analysis of brooks and capehart. that is new york times columnist david brooks and jonathan capehart, associate editor for the washington post. president trump is acting on his campaign promises at the quickest pace in recent memory. what to the past few days suggest to you about how the next few years might go? jonathan: all the things he's

doing, from the pace to what he is specifically doing, he told us. he told us how these first few days are going to go so that is not what is surprising. what is surprising to me is the level of meanness in some parts, smallness in some parts, but also aggressiveness and other ways. i'm thinking about his moves on immigration, his moves of snatching security details from pompeo and bolton and dr. fauci. i mean, this is -- it is startling. but politically i understand why he is moving so quickly and broadly, because the clock is ticking. his term is four years on paper but the way politics runs in this town and in this country, he has maybe a year and a half, maybe two, if he wants to get over the finish line a lot of these things.

there are two specific promises he did not keep. he did not end the war on ukraine on day one and didn't lower prices on day one. geoff: you said you are not going to pre-panic. how are your nerves? david: i have not panic yet. i thought the fauci, bolton and pompeo, taking away of their security detail was small and vicious. the other things i liked. the reformed theirs they reformed -- they reformed nep a, regulations that restricted homebuilding, manufacturing. one of the reasons we have high housing prices is because it's very hard to build in a lot of places because of nepa and other things. trump did it and so we have much greater grounds for homebuilding

and hopefully housing can become affordable. that's a positive thing he did. on immigration, i obviously don't approve. he's doing when he said. i understand why people who are undocumented are scared. i totally understand that. but it should be said that the way politicians talk about immigration and the way policy experts talk about it is totally different. they can talk about mass deportation but we have, like, 750 immigration judges. some of them have backlogs of six years, eight years. who is going to pick up people? the military, national guard? so the changes that will come out are going to be slower and more drawn out. geoff: on the campaign trail, he has said we are going to go after violent undocumented immigrants or as he says illegal

aliens, but between the lincoln riley -- laiken riley act and other things, it has broadened to where immigrant families, the terror in those families is real. let's talk about the pardons, the january 6 pardons. it suggests that donald trump doesn't feel any real constraints. he's even considering inviting some of these hardened rioters to the white house. what's the impact of that sense of impunity? david: the proud boys -- one of the leaders who was supposed to be in prison until 2040. it's not some misdemeanor. these are serious violent criminals he pardoned and it's basically a middle finger to the capitol police, to law and order in general.

it's a big sign that i value steve bannon's opinion over the rule of law. geoff: one thing i have heard from trump allies, and you mentioned this too, jonathan, an argument and are is the president said he would do this, it's entirely transparent, and he also -- and you can also point to his decisive victory with the knowledge among the american people that he would do this, the whole thing. how do you quibble with that? jonathan: just because you can does not mean you should. he has absolute pardon power and is within his right to do that, but where i am enraged by this is i am tired of being jawboned by people talking about backing the blue and how they are so for law enforcement and how those of us who want some accountability for police when they get things wrong, that we are somehow anti-police, and yet there is

this guy who just pardoned people we watched with our own eyes on january 6, 2021 beat and savage law enforcement officials -- officers. five law enforcement officers died as a result of injuries and other things that happened on january 6 and he goes and pardons them? i don't want to be lectured by republicans and i think i speak for a lot of people who are centerleft and democrats. do not lecture us about your support for law enforcement when you back a president who just did what he did. geoff: do the pardons take that cultural issue off the table for the gop? david: you mean defending january 6? even the people i know who wo ae very pro-trump thought january 6 was a terrible atrocity so he is not only catering to his base but the edge of his base. it should be said that in our constitution -- we have a wonderful constitution -- but

the pardon power is in my top three bad things that are in there, because every president has abused their power, including joe biden. donald trump takes it to the next level. the crucial element of the trump presidency is his attempt to what i called monday an electoral monarchy. all power is personal. i don't have to follow the rules and norms of the constitution. geoff: you could argue that the swing state voters angry about high grocery prices, the high cost of living in the wrist, they are -- and the rest, they are still waiting to hear what donald trump will do on that. does that provide an opening for democrats? jonathan: sure, but we are only four or five days into the new term. let's see what next week holds. maybe he will do something then,

but if he doesn't move specifically on bringing down prices and addressing those economic concerns of the american people writ large but of his voters in particular, the democrats should jump out and point out the fact that he's cap -- he has kept a lot of promises but not the ones everyone says got him elected. geoff: he's been clear about trying to dismantle the u.s. led global order, telling the da vos elite this past week that you do what is in our interests and if you don't play ball you'll pay a price in the form of tariffs. >> playing a small violin for them. on foreign policy, one thing that's been undercover and has been truly terrible is the decimation of the national security staff, career people who serve every president.

they have expertise. a lot of people showed up and were asked to go home and we don't know if you're coming back. so who's going to run our foreign policy? people who don't know anything about intel? you cannot learn intel on a college campus. i am worried about the decimation of our human capacities. i have hopeful thoughts about the vibe of russia these days. they are winning gradually the war but at tremendous human costs and cost to the regime. you see vibes that maybe they will deal. that may be a hopeful glimmer. geoff: what do you think of donald trump's effort to dismantle and undermine organizations set up after world war ii to make the world safer democracies and promote prosperity? jonathan: set up after world war ii with whose driving force in

leadership? american leadership. we have had, largely, piece in the western hemisphere because of western institutions, because >> >> >> they understood that >> because they understood that a prosperous world has to be at peace. people should be free to vote for their leaders and there should be human rights and a free press, a free uninhibited press that holds those governments accountable and what is so dangerous about a second trump administration is he has shown through his actions in his first term and definitely now, five days in, that he's running completely counter to that so how does the world look at the

u.s. and those institutions now? can those institutions whole without american leadership and a president who cares about those institutions? geoff: thanks as always. have a good weekend. ♪ amna: women's basketball has seen an overdue surge in popularity in recent years. last year's wnba championship was the most-watched finals game in the league's 25-year history, with 3.3 milion viewers. now, a new professional, three-on-three league called unrivaled, launched last week in miami, is building on that success. games air on tnt and trutv and stream on max, part of a six-year deal worth $100,000,000. i spoke to wnba all star and cofounder of the unrivaled league, napheesa collier, earlier this week. napheesa collier, welcome to the

newshour. thanks so much for joining us. napheesa: thank you. amna: so this league was born from the joint force of you and your fellow wnba star breanna stuart. how is it that two wnba rivals came together to start this league? what was the void you were trying to fill? napheesa: yes, i think just we have both been in women's basketball for so long and the wnba and i think through that we just saw the holes of what kind of works and what doesn't. and for a long time, a lot of players had to play year-round basketball. they would play in the wnba, they would have maybe 10 days off and then they would have to go overseas. so not only is that really hard on your bodies where we were seeing really just terrible injuries. also, a lot of people don't realize that we make most of our money off the court and so brand building and being able to activate with those brands is really important for our livelihoods. and when you're overseas, you essentially go dark for six months out of the year, and you can't activate with those brands. it hurts us in that way.

thirdly, i think you just see the explosion that is happening in women's sports right now. it's growing at such a rapid pace, and it feels like everyone except for the people who are putting the products on the court or the field or wherever it may be, are the ones that are benefiting financially from that . and so we kind of wanted to uh put all that together and we came up with unrivaled where we can hold our basketball, hone -- we can hone our basketball skills. we have the best facilities. we have equity in the league. this is one of the first times ever that people who are playing in the actual league that they have that they're playing and have equity in it. and then also so heavy on content and brand building, which again is so crucial to um -- to how we make money. amna: tell me more about the financial piece of it because you guys are offering the highest average salary for professional women's athletes. right? some $220,000, higher even than the wnba's regular base salary plus equity, as you mentioned. where's the money coming from and how hard was it to bring investors in? napheesa: yeah, i mean the money is coming from those investors,

people who believe in the product and believe in the financial plan that we have for this, and i think, you know, that was something that we were really adamant about from the very beginning is that we wanted to offer really competitive, high salaries because we want to pay players what, you know, we deserve to be paid, and then that also goes with the equity t-square, you know, we are trying to create generational wealth here where people have equity in hopefully what is a very successful sustainable business. and so that was something that we really had to work through in the very beginning, it was something very important for us and so we went out and we got those brands who aligned with what we're thinking and i think even better than all of that, you know, for so long, the narrative was kind of support women's sports is the right thing to do. now, of course, it's the right thing to do, but it's also the smart thing to do financially, and i think our investors realized both of those parts of it. amna: ok, so for anyone who hasn't been able to see a game yet, walk us through it.

how is three on three different than five aside? what do you love about this game? napheesa: i love that first of all, there's 2 baskets still, so a lot of people don't realize it is not half-court. we still have that up and down game, but it's about 2/3 the size of a regular court, but you're taking two people off of each team and so it just really opens the court up so much where you get to use your skills and we have the best players in the world here. we want to see what they can do and so, you know, especially for me, for example, i love working in the post. in the wnba, it is balked down and crowded. here i'm allowed the freedom to work. in the post and you can see my skill set more and you can see everyone's skill set and so i think that's what makes it really fun. amna: i mean, the roster is incredible among the league's 36 players. in addition, of course, to you and stewie, you've got stars like brittney griner, angel reese, alyssa thomas, aaliyah edwards. your league investors include people like the legendary coach don staley and tennis star coco goff. your analysts include women like candice parker and lisa leslie.

. this is really a league built by women for women athletes. how does that sort of change how it's run, how the athletes are supported? napheesa: we have said from the very beginning, this is a players-led league. everyone who's playing this year has equity in the league, and so we are here for us. we're here for the players and so just working really closely about what that means and what that looks like, you know, what you guys need for recovery, what is gonna make this the best situation for you to grow as a player and to get better. and so i think you just see that where everyone has a vested interest literally in this business and so not only do we want to get better, but we want to do whatever we can to support the league as well. amna: napheesa collier, cofounder of the unrivaled league, thank you for joining us. good luck this season. napheesa: yes, thank you. amna: remember, there's a lot more online, including our digital weekly show, pbs newsweekly, that recaps president donald trump's first week in the white house. that's on our youtube page. geoff: and be sure to watch

washington week with the atlantic tonight on pbs. moderator jeffrey goldberg and his panel discuss the wave of executive actions president trump signed in his first days back in the white house. amna: and on pbs new weekend, an ai transcription tool used in hospitals has been found to make up words. the risks that could pose to patients. and that is the newshour. i'm amna nawaz -- i am amna navaz. geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. thanks for spending part of your evening with us and have a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by 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, 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. ♪

>>

♪ hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. it's barely been a week, and the trump presidency has already upended u.s. immigration policy and effectively shut the country to vulnerable and persecuted assumely seekers. david miliband joins me from davos, where trump declared he sent the military to the southern border to stop an