i would say, though, that there are a lot of people who are very concerned out there who voted for this administration, but you know, they wrote it all down in project 2025. i guess we should have paid a little closer attention to what was in that. i read the agriculture section. i know it better than i probably should, but it was there, it was all in writing. we probably should have paid closer attention to it. i'll just say this, i think it's time for this administration to recognize who put them into office, and also to understand that these people are hurting, and this only adds to the hurt that they're already dealing with. william: all right, nick lewandofski of the kansas farmers union, thank you so much, sir. appreciate your time. >> thank you, william. ♪

geoff: the presidents day holiday marks nearly one month into president donald trump's second term, during which expanding exective power has emerged as a top priority. for that and the other political headlines, we turn to our politics monday duo. that's amy walter of "the cook political report with amy walter" and tamara keith of npr. it is great to see you both. president trump's tweet, "he who saves his country doesn't violate any law," this wasn't a one off statement. it was emphasized by the white house twitter account. making clear that this is the official position of the administration, words that run counter to the way our system works and what our founders intended. what questions does this raise? >> it raises questions on, what guardrails are going to be standing when the president actually does something that is not ok? that is actually illegal? now, we know much of the pushback is coming in the form of lawsuit.

we have a ways to go before those make themselves clear. obviously, going to the supreme court more quickly, but i think at the end of the day, that looks like the most significant guard rail. the question about whether his own party is going to step up, that has not happened, and i think the story you ran before about the farmers, the pipeline from individuals to their members of congress is more important right now than ever. it has to come from members, not that they are getting pressure just from the white house but they are getting pressure from people at home to save these things are actually impacting us. this is having an impact on our communities. those calls coming in, that pressure is the only other, besides the courts, guard rail i can think of. geoff: you covered the white house.

it is worth reiterating how we got here and why donald trump enjoys such latitude among elected republicans. >> he really rose from the ashes. he is a phoenix who rose from the ashes and he survived two impeachments, an assassination, and he survived numerous criminal prosecutions that didn't ultimately go anywhere. except in one case, when the sentencing was put on hold. he comes in with the supreme court, a supreme court with a conservative super majority that he is credited with putting there, that has a more expansive view of presidential power than past courts. president trump and his administration, in trump two point oh, has a significantly more expansive view of executive power than they did the first time around. if the theme of the first trump administration was that trump was pushing against norms, this

time he is pushing up against laws and the constitution. like changing the 14th amendment, or saying you can use an executive order to do away with birthright citizenship. that is a dramatic escalation of things trump did the first time around. geoff: he clearly feels emboldened. >> absolutely. it is not just that they have seen republicans have seen this president survive things that none of them in their political lifetimes could have imagined being able to survive. he outperformed so many of them in the last election that they are thinking to themselves, he is more popular in my district than i am. he makes me question whether my political instincts are incorrect. let's go with where he is. the only way he believes he doesn't have a mandate would be

that either support for him among his own party starts to crater, support among the public gets lower. we are not at that point, not even close. geoff: the trump white house indefinitely banned the associated press from the oval office and air force one for refusing to accept the renaming the gulf of mexico to the gulf of america. the ap makes the point that other countries don't recognize the change. the associated press has customers all around the world so it uses the term gulf of mexico. i will draw on your experience, as former president of the white house correspondents foundation, because the associated press is foundational to white house coverage. unwrapped that for us and give us a sense of the implications. >> the ap is at the core of the pool, the group of reporters that have been following the president around wherever the president goes, going back to fdr. the white house, by going after

ap for an editorial choice, is going directly at the first amendment, going directly at the freedom of the press. it is not coincidental that they are going after ap. ap is influential. they are also kind of straight down the line. they are not a partisan news outlet in any way. they have the ap style guide that is used as a basis for news organizations all over the country and all over the world, to determine which words to capitalize, and whether to call it the gulf of mexico or the gulf of america, and in the case of the ap, they are saying gulf of mexico. but president trump change did to the gulf of america for americans. >> this is such an important point. outlining what it is the ap does, i don't think most people, even well-informed people, understand this role. what they may be hearing is somebody from some news organization can't get into the

white house briefing room. so what? there are 500 of them in there. why does that matter? you can get into fights with individual news outlets all the time. this is meant to send definitely a message and we have already seen a number of news organizations who trump has gone after legally, decide to settle or give over, in the case of cbs, the footage. so it goes back to your point, he is getting everything he wants. why would he do something different? geoff: why doesn't the press band together and boycott press availability and stick it to the white house and show them that the freedom of the press matters? >> maybe that could still happen, but right now with the -- if the press corps were to do that come with the white house would say thank you very much, we have people from mike lindell's network and oan and

from other sort of -- >> social media. >> we have 10,000 people who want in. the question is asked, they will not be the tough questions the people deserve. geoff: this is a fight the white house wants, paint the press as opponents rather than neutral observers. >> they want this fight, and they want the chilling effect. geoff: thanks as always. ♪ geoff: an investigation at an indian residential school in canada is the focus of the documentary, "sugarcane," named after a native reservation in british columbia. the film is up for an academy award, and has already made history. it's the first time an indigenous director from north america has been nominated for an oscar. senior arts correspondent jeffrey brown spoke to the filmmakers for our arts and

culture series, canvas. >> i felt dirty as an indian all my life. >> "sugarcane" tells a horrific history, the abuse of several generations of native children at st. joseph's mission in british columbia. in a deeply personal way, through individuals who experienced it and family members who've lived with the consequences. one of the latter, co-director julian brave noisecat. >> despite the fact that my own family attended saint joseph's mission and survived the indian residential schools, i actually knew very little about their experiences at them, in part because it was not something that we talked about. i think that the memories in particular from my grandmother, who attended st joseph's mission, she didn't speak about what happened at that school. so this film was, you know, in part an act of self-discovery for myself and even more so for my father, who was born at that school in circumstances that we

didn't really know about until we went about investigating that story through this documentary. >> noisecat's directing partner is filmmaker and journalist, emily kassie. >> this is the origin story of north america, how the land was taken, how six generations of indigenous children were separated from their families and forced into these assimilationist schools and abused. >> this film is a story of the past, but it's also a story of the present. native communities across north america are still suffering from the highest rates of suicide, addictions, and cycles of violence as a direct result of these schools. >> st. joseph's mission was just one of 139 canadian "residential" schools, most run by the catholic church, that operated officially from the 1880's until the 1990's. like boarding schools in the u.s., they separated native americans from their own families and cultures, an attempt to, quote, "get rid of the indian problem." >> they lost the right to parent

their own kids. they lost the right to speak their own languages and practice their own culture. so it was very important for us to tell a story of the living, of what it was to carry forward this trauma and this pain as these secrets begin to be unearthed and excavated. >> across canada, an estimated 150,000 students attended these schools. widespread abuse has been documented. the numbers of children who died from disease, neglect, and violence, or by suicide, continue to be tallied but are in the thousands. the film tells of sexual abuse by priests, babies born to native children and in some cases, infanticide. >> all of those principals were involved in some way, with the disappearance, with the death, with the babies being born. >> the greater story here is not just one of cultural genocide.

it's actually one of a people who, despite over a century of government effort to annihilate our culture, to separate us from our families and our identities, you know, remain connected to the places we come from, connected to our families and remain connected to our traditions and ways of being. >> capturing this on film meant embedding themselves in this community over the course of two and a half years. >> this is something that's been covered or looked at in government investigations. it's been covered on the news, including on our program. when you tackle it as a documentary filmmaker, what does that allow you to do? what new does that bring to this? >> we wanted to make a film that prioritized emotional truth at the same time that it uncovered journalistic truth, what it was to live with this pain and to say that native people are worthy of epic storytelling, are worthy of the big screen. and the cinematic language that we

created around sugarcane allows you to immerse yourself in this world, really live alongside our characters. >> in one harrowing scene, survivors recount what happened when they did try to report abuses. >> i went to the nun, she told me to tell the priest. i told the priest, he told me to tell the indian agent. i told the indian agent, he told me to tell the rcmp. i told the rcmp. he went and told my dad and my dad beat the -- out of me. that's when i said ok. i bought a bottle of wine and got drunk. >> the secrets that people have kept for decades, including those of noisecat's father and grandmother, are part of the generational trauma the film captures. >> i didn't leave you, son. >> yeah you did. >> what was i supposed to do? >> i had to move in with my dad

for two years to work on this film. we had enough time and develop deep enough relationships that you actually get to see real people grapple with a very deep and terrible history here, overcome it, and to change over the course of the film. and i think that that, you know, in nonfiction is quite rare. >> also notable, the stylistic choices they made. no formal interviews, scenes playing out almost like a dramatic feature. >> it meant picking up chief willie sellars' kids from hockey practice and spending, you know, nights watching american idol with rick gilbert. we decided to shoot on prime lenses, which meant we couldn't zoom, which meant we had to move our bodies to be that close, which required just a lot of trust built over time. >> being sorry something is just the first step. you have to take action. >> the film references apologies by both the church and the canadian government. but in recent years, efforts to right the wrongs of the boarding

schools have faced backlash. if canada's conservative party wins this year's election, there are fears funding to further investigate the atrocities will cut. >> our film, i think, should be seen as the beginning of correcting the historical record. and i think it's unfortunately going to go down as sort of a moment where we just started discovering more about what happened at these schools. and then, you know, for political reasons, our society's moved on from correcting the record. >> "sugarcane" is now streaming on hulu and disney +. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. geoff: that is the newshour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us. ♪ >> major funding has been provided by. >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, the world awaits.

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