we heard margaret warner's report a few minutes ago, coming to washington, coming to speak to the congressay at the request of the man you've both been talking about speaker boehner. margaret talked about all the splits that happened in the american jewish community between the administration and israel. how big a division is there now between this administration and israel? how does it compare with previous splits? because we've seen tension in the past between the americans and the israelis. >> the most recently and probably memoriably was 1991, jim baker was secretary of state and george h.w. bush and the freeze on the settlements and the bush administration held back $10 million in guaranteed loans and aid to the israelis. but this is big, jude y. since the founding of the state of israel in 1948, the state had been bipartisan. i think this was a political move made by both the prime minister of israel and his supporters and the speaker of the house. the prime minister was pretty open in his support and endorsement of mitt romney against president obama. could be accused of having medd

government, and the international reaction, i'm joined by chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warnerwe just saw those amazing photographs from debaltseve. i wonder why that down is so important and how much of a setback is it that it was lost? >> it's very important because it's a little peninsula surrounded by rebel-controlled territory and it's such a crucial rail and highway hub that now that they control it, they can unit or cement all the links between donetsk and luhansk and they will have better political communication and control there. second, i have to a crucial, commercial link between the east and the west of ukraine through which a lot of industrial products went back and worth for exports, so even a lot of that's died down. anyway, it's going to make a hard effort to knit this country together. but the biggest disaster for the ukrainian government is just the morale disaster. here poroshenko insisted that the ukrainian military could withstand this, create these fortified positions and in the end it ended in a horrible defeat. so it is really a setback for both him and

are responding to its efforts to win support, i'm joined by chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner and newshour political editor lisa desjardins. welcome back to you both. so margaret, why, first of all, is the administration doing this? they've been conducting a campaign against the islamic state for months. >> absolutely judy. they've been doing it, one to fight al qaeda and number two, to justify the invasion of iraq. but the president has been thinking about this for a long time. he did a speech in may of 2014 in which he said this is too open ended and could be used by any future president to justify enhanced powers that he felt were inappropriate. so, one, it's sort of deeply felt by him, but two there are practical reasonsable he wants now bipartisan congressional buy-in for both domestic reasons for when he comes in with funding requests and for international reason, to send a message to allies and enemies alike that the american public is behind this. this isn't just the president going off and doing what he wants here and they're in for a listening fight. >> woodruff: wha

margaret warner, thank you. >> always my ples.o the fight over whether gay couples can marry. a federal court last month lifted alabama's ban on same-sex marriage passed overwhelmingly by voters in 2006. but, roy moore, the state supreme court's chief justice, ordered state judges to ignore the federal ruling. the state appealed to the u.s. supreme court to put a stay on the ban, effectively halting gay marriages there. but today a divided supreme court decided against alabama's appeal, allowing same-sex unions to begin. in their dissent justices clarence thomas and antonin scalia wrote that the court is showing, "an increasingly cavalier attitude toward the states." for the latest on all this, i spoke earlier with joseph smith a professor of politics and law at the university of alabama. professor joe smith, thank you for talking with us. you've had an unusually busy 24 hours in the alabama legal sivment yousystem. you have your state supreme court justice going one direction, the u.s. supreme court going in another. how are the

chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner explains. >> warner: since the 1970s, michael pillsburyocused on china as a pentagon official and consultant and now at the conservative hudson institute. over the years the mandarin speaker has grown ever more hard line in his views as is clear in his bestselling but controversial new book, "the hundred-year marathon: china's secret strategy to replace america as the global superpower"." he says it's based on chinese and american documents and books and conversations can chinese military officials and defectors. critics have shot back accusing him of sloppy use of evidence. i spoke with pillsbury last week. the very title of your book asserts america has been in denial, but china has a secret strategy to replace the united states. what is that strategy based on? >> the strategy is based on two things. first, china's historical role in what we would today call the leader of the world. they want to restore themselveses to the role they played for 2,000 years. the second part of the strategy is they know from their economists that they can't

his brother, ali, spoke yesterday with chief foreign affairs correspondent, margaret warner. >> thankhaving me. >> reporter: what kind of shape is your brother in now physically and mentally after six and a half months of detention. >> i think 'tissicle condition is better than before. his infections seem to be better. he's been treated for those in the last couple of months. mentally very difficult for him. he's been there long than any other western detainee. he knows that and is being deprived of his rights as an iranian in their court system and that's taken a toll. >> reporter: has he been interrogated mistreated tortured? his mother saw him in september and his wife this week, right? >> that's correct. his wife saw him earlier this week but hadn't seen him a month before that. my mother was able to see him twice when he was there at christmas. he made it clear to my mom when he spoke to her he hasn't been tortured or physically mistreated. >> reporter: what are they doing to him? >> when jason is interrogated they will take him for usually seven to ten hours a day five or six da

. >> margaret warner. your microphone. >> thank you. so, one, how do you assess putin's intentions toward the three baltic states? is nato absolutely committed to defending them and does nato have the military capability to do so, whether it would be a conventional type of aggression or as we've seen them do in crimea and provinces of ukraine this sur ep tissues from within. >> the baltic states, the answer is yes, period. with regard to the third part of the question, do we have the means to defend again, the answer is yes. one of the things we've been working on since this crisis erupted was to take very concrete steps not only to reassure our partners and allies but also to enhance capacity to deal with these kinds of challenges. i'm confident that if it came to that, the answer is yes. the first part of the question is a lot harder. i don't know. it's hard to read the intentions. i think one thing i take from what's happened in ukraine is to some extent there's been a lot of improvising by russia to deal with a fast changing situati