jiang at the white house, thank you so much weijia.nts and the judicial branch have tangled before, that's not new, but what is new is the brio with which the president and his team have asserted the scope of executive power. this takes us back to the founders who were obsessed with carefully apportioning power among the three batches so none could gain too much power and trample the rights and liberties of citizens. to help us break down this turn in the presidential narrative, we turn to cbs legal computer jessica levinson. good to be with you as always. let's step back. there are 50 court cases at the very basic level, if you were teaching this in your class, what is this dispute about? >> reporter: this dispute is about the scope of executive authority and exactly as you said, john, the founders were obsessed with dispersing power. because we came from a monarchy. so we wanted to spread power out not just among three branches but among two levels of government. i think what many of these disputes -- and we really shouldn't lump the

weijia jiang has been tracking down the jobs being eliminated and weijia, what have you found?reporter: we found there is a group of more than half a million workers vulnerable to the administration's sweeping layoffs. and many serve in key positions across the federal government. for some who have already lost their jobs, they are now desperately looking for answers why. >> i'm really not sure what i'm going to do. >> reporter: katie sandlin is still living out of boxes after uprooting her life in carbon hill, alabama, last month, a town of 2,000, to work at the national institutes of health outside of washington, d.c. >> i wiped out my savings account. i maxed out my credit card. i had to take out a loan. >> reporter: but she called her job an opportunity of a lifetime, educating communities about nih research. >> people like me, where i'm from, rural alabama, these kind of jobs don't happen to people like me. >> reporter: three weeks later, sandlin became one of thousands of federal probationary workers to be fired. they had less than one or in some cases less than two years

weijia jiang will fill us in on the incomparable meeting and trump's new threat thomas. in our interview, author and journalist malcolm gladwell revisits his best seller, the tipping point, 20 years later with revenge of the tipping point. he tells us how he feels about being wrong. and our in-depth focus tonight, would you let computer drive you on the highway with all those trucks and the guy in the left lane? our kris van cleave takes a test drive with the machine driving. those stories and more right after our news headlines. ♪ ♪ speak of the economy is strong overall. >> john: jerome powell signals to congress an interest rate cut is not likely soon and addresses the trump administration's closing of the consumer financial protection bureau, saying no federal regulator remains to make sure banks aren't treating customers. snow and ice are falling from the central plains to the northeast. washington and philadelphia could get up to three to 6 inches tonight. the gold coast states their dose includes thunderstorms and damaging winds. in the west, another atmospheric r

weijia jiang is at the white house, and weijia, for a president elected largely on the domestic issuess his second major foreign policy move after his proposal to seize gaza. >> reporter: well, john, what is notable about this conversation and negotiations between trump and putin is that it upends three years of u.s. policy on the war in ukraine. president biden refused to speak to putin after russia invaded ukraine back in february 2022. now trump says the two leaders have agreed to work together very closely. an overnight missile attack sparked fires across kyiv and prompted ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy to declare putin is not preparing for peace. he continues to kill ukrainians and destroy cities. just hours later, president trump revealed he and russian president vladimir putin spoke by phone for over an hour and agreed to immediately start negotiations to end the war in ukraine. they also agreed to meet in person in saudi arabia. in the oval office, we learned who won't be there. it sounds like that would just be a meeting between you and putin and perhaps the crown pri

now that they are off, weijia, what did the president get after all that?reporter: well, maurice, president trump has called tariffs the most beautiful word in the dictionary because he thinks they have such a potent power in negotiating. and tonight, the white house is touting concessions from both mexico and canada. so the mexicans have agreed to send 10,000 soldiers to the border to stop fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigrants, but we should note that in our reporting it actually shows the vast majority of fentanyl seized at the u.s. southern border is smuggled in by american citizens and other legal travelers on vehicles. canada is also sending what they call 10,000 frontline personnel to the border and shelling out about a billion dollars for choppers and new technology to reinforce it. >> weijia, okay, these tariffs aren't happening. so what happens to all of that income that the president said the tariffs were going to be used for to pay all these wonderful things he said they were going to be used to pay for? >> reporter: and john, that is a ver

thank you so much, weijia jiang. from american allies meeting in munich trying to catch up to the elements coming out of washington ever since donald trump announced he is in talks with vladimir putin on ending the war in ukraine. samantha vinograd is a former homeland security official and a cbs news contributor. she is joining us from washington. sam, you have been on the phone with sources today trying to gauge the response for national security community to developments here. what are you hearing? >> well, i'm hearing broad-based concern from foreign counterparts as well as really a bipartisan set of stakeholders here the u.s. about both the choreography of trump's outrage outreach as well as the substance of what he is saying vis-a-vis the war in ukraine. president trump spoke first with president putin of russia, not president zelenskyy of ukraine, despite the fact that obviously president putin is the aggressor in the ongoing war, not to mention the fact that the united states has given about $175 billion wort

here's weijia jiang. >> reporter: this is what white house press secretary karoline leavitt pointed toen asked about the fraud that elon musk's team claims to have uncovered. >> this is a dei contract. $36,000 for u.s. citizenship and immigration services. this is a $3.4 million contract, a council for inclusive innovation at the u.s. patent and trademark office. oh, i love this one. 57,000 bucks for climate change in sri lanka. >> reporter: when pressed if those are simply things that don't align with president trump's policies, leavitt said... >> i would argue that all of these things are fraudulent. they are wasteful, and they are an abuse of the american taxpayer's dollar. >> reporter: last night, d.o.g.e. posted on its website what it called a wall of receipts to show its findings to date. so far, it has identified roughly $14 billion worth of federal program cuts, including at least 140 dei contracts and grants. but all the money allocated was approved by congress. and d.o.g.e. did not provide evidence of a single case of fraud or even alleged fraud. president trump and the white

weijia? >> reporter: next hostage releases come americans coming out today. >> secretary leavitt: it speaks to present trump steelmaking ability and we can confirm the safe release of one american and two individuals from belarus, one of whom worked for radio liberty. out of respect for the privacy of these individuals, they request we have no further details to announce on their identities but we can confirm that one american was released today, and it is a remarkable victory on the heels of marc fogel returning to america last night. >> reporter: who the u.s. might release -- >> secretary leavitt: i don't have details on that at this moment but i know the three individuals have been released under on their way home to their respective countries. weijia? >> reporter: can you explain how president trump envisions the war in russia and ukraine coming to an end? does he expect ukraine to hand over all the territory in question? >> secretary leavitt: again these negotiations are ongoing. i will