PBS NewsHour full episode, March 3, 2023

AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening and welcome. I am Amna Nawaz. Geoff Bennett is on a mission. On tonight's "NewsHour": Walgreens says it won't sell abortion pills in a handful of states where the drug is still legal, the latest blow to reproductive rights in the U.S. We talk to some of the tens of thousands of prisoners recruited by Russia will fight on the Ukrainian front. And one of the first black officers to lead a Special Forces unit receives the Medal of Honor nearly 60 years after he was first recommended for the prestigious award. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS (RET.), Medal of Honor: This medal means a lot.

It means a lot to America to see that we are all capable of doing good. (BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: We begin tonight with the war in Ukraine, where the besieged city of Bakhmut appears to be in its last stages. Russian artillery fire fell today on the last access roads to the eastern city. Ukraine's defenders also faced dozens of ground attacks. And the head of the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group claimed that the city is almost completely surrounded. YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN, Wagner Group (via translator): The clamps are getting tighter. If before the Ukrainian professional army fought against us, today we see more and more old people and children.

They fight, but their life under Bakhmut is short, one or two days. Let them leave the city. AMNA NAWAZ: A victory for Soy Bakhmut would mark Russia's first major victory in Ukraine in half a year. President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recommitted today to support Ukraine for as long as necessary. The leaders met at the White House and said they will continue to work in unison. The president also thanked Scholz for keeping pressure on Russia. Israeli troops today used stun grenades and tear gas to disrupt a demonstration by Israeli left-wing activists in the occupied West Bank.

It was meant to show solidarity with a Palestinian town that Jewish settlers had attacked on Sunday. Soldiers pushed protesters to the ground and also blocked buses

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of other people arriving from the area. The army said the city is now a closed military zone. In Belarus, a court sentenced a human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner to 10 years in prison. Ales Bialiatski was accused of helping finance huge anti-government protests in 2020. He has already spent 21 months in prison and appeared in court today in a closed room. An exiled opposition leader called the verdict atrocious. Back in this country, a South Carolina judge sentenced Alex Murdaugh to life in prison without parole for murdering his wife and son.

The once-prominent attorney's trial drew national attention, but the jury found him guilty in less than three hours Thursday. Today, Murdaugh insisted he was innocent. He admitted to stealing to feed his opioid addiction and lying about it. Judge Clifton Newman said he also lied about the murders. JUDGE CLIFTON NEWMAN, South Carolina Circuit Court: You have engaged in such deceptive conduct here in the courtroom, here on the witness stand. And the question is when will it end? When will it end? And it's over for the jury, because they concluded that you continued to lie and lie throughout your testimony.

AMNA NAWAZ: Murdaugh's defense attorneys said today that they plan to appeal. A winter storm system that affected several parts of California and snow has now reached the Upper Midwest and Northeast. It could bring 18 inches of snow and strong winds through Saturday. Overnight, the front spawned tornadoes in Texas and Louisiana, uprooting trees and knocking out power to thousands of customers. A tornado occurred near Pickton, Texas, north of Dallas. RAY WOODARSKI, Pickton, Texas, resident: Someone said, "Man, that train is loud." And I said, "That's not a train. The train is coming, the noise is coming from there." We looked up and there he was going through the day in the woods.

It seemed like Moses was parting the Red Sea. AMNA NAWAZ: No one was injured by the tornadoes, but strong winds were responsible for three deaths today in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. President Biden's doctor says a small lesion on the president's chest turned out to be cancerous, but not malignant. The lesion was removed last month. Dr. Kevin O'Connor said today that a biopsy showed basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. He said no further treatment is needed. And on Wall Street, stocks posted their best gains since January as interest rates fell in the bond market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 337 points or 1 percent to close at 33,391. The Nasdaq rose 2 percent. The S&P 500 added 1.6 percent. What remains to be seen on "NewsHour": One of the first black officers to lead a Special Forces unit finally received the Medal of Honor; what the annual Conservative Political Conference says about Republican priorities; David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines; and much more. The nation's second-largest pharmacy chain, Walgreens, said today that it will not dispense abortion pills in several states where the drug remains legal. The decision comes after nearly two dozen Republican attorneys general wrote to the company threatening legal action.

Sarah Varney is a senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News and she joins me now. Sara, it's good to see you. Let's start with a map, if we can. I want to show people the states we're talking about; 21 attorneys general of these states shown here have threatened legal action. In many of them, abortion is already illegal or severely restricted. But in four, in four shown here, Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Montana, Walgreens could still legally dispense those pills, but they say they still won't. So, Sarah, what kind of impact are we talking about in those four states and for whom?

SARAH VARNEY, Kaiser Health News: Well, I think the biggest impact right now is just showing that these legal threats work. So, at this time, abortion medications are not available in these pharmacies. You must get it from a doctor who has a specific registration with the government. Or you can get it through some telehealth medications or some telehealth pharmacies. So nothing will change on the ground at this point. But the idea was to really try to allow dispensing of mifepristone in these pharmacies in the communities, so that they would be more accessible to women in what is often a very delicate situation.

AMNA NAWAZ: So if you live in one of those states and you're looking for abortion services, what will your options be? SARAH VARNEY: Well, you could - depending on some of the telehealth restrictions in your state, you could schedule a telehealth appointment with someone out of state. You can order it from an online pharmacy, such as Honey Health, rather Honeybee Health. You can order it from Aid Access, which is an organization based in Austria that has been shipping mifepristone and misoprostol to the United States regardless of what is happening with the legality of abortion in your state.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should mention that those same Republican attorneys general have also written to other pharmacies, CVS, Albertsons, Rite Aid, Costco, Walmart and Kroger, demanding that they also refuse to dispense the medication. Do we know if they will? SARAH VARNEY: I haven't heard back from CVS yet. But Rite Aid said they would continue to monitor the latest federal and state legal developments and would continue to evaluate whether or not the company can dispense mifepristone in those states. AMNA NAWAZ: And if they act, if other pharmacies also decide to take similar measures, what does that tell you about access to these abortion pills?

SARAH VARNEY: Well, these attorneys general, I mean, particularly someone like Steve Marshall of Alabama, are attorneys general who are very aggressively opposed to abortion. In Alabama, for example, they suggested that if they couldn't prosecute women who had abortions for homicide, they could use the state's chemical hazard law to bring charges against the women. So these attorneys general are getting very creative in trying to figure out how to stop access to abortion, both in clinics, and stop the flow of pills into their state. And they haven't gone so far as to say that we have to check the mail, which, of course, is run by the federal government.

But they do say in their letter to these pharmacies that, under a different type of Department of Justice, the DOJ would have a different reading of what is called the Comstock Act, which was a 19th century law that is an anti-obscenity law that prevents the sending of abortifacient drugs by mail. The Biden administration says that no longer applies because, in these states where abortion is legal, that law does not apply. But in their letter, the attorneys general say that under a different type of Justice Department, there would be a different reading of that request. AMNA NAWAZ: Sarah, in the 30 seconds we have left, I know you've also been reporting on this possible ruling by a federal judge in Texas that could further limit access to the abortion pill there.

When you talk to abortion rights advocates, what do they tell you about this moment? SARAH VARNEY: They are very, very concerned. I mean, this judge in Amarillo, Texas, is a devout Christian. He is a devout anti-abortion activist. And I think they're very concerned that if he were to rule in favor of this Christian legal organization, mifepristone would disappear from the market in every state in the country. AMNA NAWAZ: Sarah Varney, senior health correspondent for Kaiser Health News, joins us tonight. Sara, it's good to see you. SARAH VARNEY: Thank you, Amna. AMNA NAWAZ: Russia has sent hundreds of thousands of troops to its war in Ukraine and has suffered immense casualties.

Some of that staff comes from Russian prisons, both officially and through a private military company called the Wagner Group. With support from the Pulitzer Center, special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky and cameraman Yegor Troyanovsky traveled to a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camp. They met with men who faced a stark choice: prison or the front. SIMON OSTROVSKY: I'm Artyom. Three months ago he was serving a nine-year sentence for murder in a Russian penal colony. He now calls his mother to tell her that he is no longer a prisoner. He is a prisoner of war. ARTYOM, Prisoner of War (through translator): Hello.

Mother. Hello WOMAN (through translator): Hello? ARTYOM (through translator): It's me. Listen, everything is fine. Don't worry. I'm fine. Basically, they captured me in Ukraine, you understand? WOMAN (through translator): But how? ARTYOM (through translator): It's war. That is what happens. WOMAN (through translator): Are they feeding you? ARTYOM (through translator): Everything is fine. There is food. WOMAN (through translator): Are they hurting you? ARTYOM (through translator): No. The surprising thing is that people in Ukraine are doing well. SIMON OSTROVSKY: You are not alone. Artyom, whose name we have changed, is one of tens of thousands of prisoners who have been taken from prisons in Russia since June and thrown into the meat grinder that is the front line of the war in Ukraine.

While he waited in line to use the phone, he told us that he had three years left in prison and that he was recruited with the promise of freedom and good pay. ARTYOM (via translator): These soldiers show up in

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uniform and say: This is how it is. You fight for half a year. If you are safe and sound, you will receive a full forgiveness - 100,000 rubles per month. Yes or no? I say yes. I guess I can fight for half a year. SIMON OSTROVSKY: Almost immediately, he was transported to an airfield on a prison bus and flown to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, where he received about a month of training.

They then ordered him to raid a village. ARTYOM (through translator): They point to some coordinates and tell the commander: Go there. Take positions and fight. That's all. So let's go. We arrived. They are shooting. Everything is brutal, like war, really brutal. SIMON OSTROVSKY: After securing a foothold in the village, the prisoners were ordered to retreat and were replaced by a different group of soldiers. Although we could not independently verify Artyom's account, it corresponds to assessments of how Russia is using convicts as expendable combatants thrown at the enemy in human waves. For many of the prisoners held here, the path from a Russian prison to a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camp is very short, because the Russian army uses prisoners as storm troops, and the casualty rate is very high, as than the capture rate.

This man was recruited from a prison in the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine and told he would simply be used to dig trenches and transport the wounded. MAN (via translator): Then when we arrived for our rotation, there weren't enough people and we were forced to form a wave. Our armored vehicle was hit. And we all jumped into the trenches and they just threw a bunch of grenades at us. I lost consciousness. I don't remember anything else. SIMON OSTROVSKY: When he came to, he no longer had a leg and was a prisoner of war. But the greatMost of the prisoners turned combatants have been recruited by this man, Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of Russia's main military contractor, the Wagner Group YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN, Wagner Group (through translator): We are very scrupulous about those who are condemned for sexual crimes.

But we understand that sometimes people make mistakes. Who do we want? We're just looking for assault troops. SIMON OSTROVSKY: Last summer, Prigozhin, who is also an ex-convict, began visiting prisons across Russia to offer convicts a chance at freedom if they joined his ranks, and he didn't mince his words. YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN (through translator): The greatest sin is desertion. There is no going back, not a step back. Nobody surrenders. In training, you will be informed about the two grenades to use when you are captured. MAN (through translator): Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to our prison and talk to the prisoners.

There were 560 people; He 220 agreed to sign a contract with the Wagner Group and participate in the special military operation. SIMON OSTROVSKY: This prisoner had eight years left on his sentence for trying to sell two kilograms of narcotics, when he signed a contract with the Wagner Group. After training for seven weeks, he fought only one battle. MAN (via translator): On January 2 we were given orders to advance 500 meters to the tree line. There were 10 of us. As we progressed, we were committed. We had only advanced about 70 meters. Eight of us were killed. The commander who was wounded called back to our lines and I ended up being captured.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Now his biggest fear is that he will be transferred to Russia and sent back into battle. MAN (through translator): Since I signed a contract, I still have two months left, according to the contract. SIMON OSTROVSKY: "NewsHour" had to agree not to show the guards' faces or reveal the location of the POW camp in order to gain access. The prison is regularly monitored by international observers and appears to operate as a model facility. The POWs we spoke to told us they were giving interviews of their own volition. And while we can't be sure they weren't under duress, some of their responses were even defiant.

MAN (via translator): When they came to see us, they said they were from a private military contractor. They said they could help us get out of prison early, wash away our guilt in blood, so to speak. I decided that not only my family needed me, but also my country. So whatever you order me to do, I'm sorry, but as a soldier, I must do it. A Russian must defend his country. Olga Romanova is the director of Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners' rights group with extensive sources in the Russian prison system. She told me that Wagner alone had recruited up to 50,000 prisoners to fight in Ukraine as of February of this year.

OLGA ROMANOVA, Director, Russia Behind Bars (via translator): Since February 1, the Ministry of Defense has begun recruiting in the same prisons as Wagner. They offer a full pardon after half a year, the same as Wagner: $140 per day, $50,000 for an injury that leaves a person disabled, and $80,000 in the event of death. SIMON OSTROVSKY: What is the social effect that this is having in Russia, given the fact that people are not, that prisoners are not serving their full sentences? How does that affect their victims or the families of the victims of those convicted? OLGA ROMANOVA (via translator): They could still easily recruit between 150,000 and 200,000 prisoners, in addition to the 50,000 they have already enrolled.

And how has Russian society reacted? Nobody regrets it. Everyone prefers them to be prisoners, rather than their own children and husbands, naturally. So this policy is very popular. SIMON OSTROVSKY: For former prisoners, life as a prisoner of war is not as big an adjustment as it is for ordinary soldiers, who are unfamiliar with the strict regime of a secure facility. ARTYOM (via translator): This is a correctional facility. If you don't break the rules, everything is fine. We got here yesterday and I haven't seen anything really bad yet. SIMON OSTROVSKY: The most important question for them is whether they will end up back in prison in Russia, or on the Ukrainian front, or as free men.

For now, the only thing they are sure of is that they have managed to survive until now. For "PBS NewsHour," I'm Simon Ostrovsky in Western Ukraine. AMNA NAWAZ: One of the first black military officers to lead an elite unit in combat received the nation's highest award today for his bravery on the battlefield, correcting what his defenders say was a decades-long injustice. . Geoff Bennett has the story and a conversation with retired Army Colonel Paris Davis. GEOFF BENNETT: Recognition almost 60 years late. (APPLAUSE) GEOFF BENNETT: President Biden today awards retired Army Colonel Paris Davis the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's most prestigious decoration, for Davis' acts of valor as a commander during the Vietnam War.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: Paris, you are everything this medal means, I mean everything this medal means. And look, you are everything our generation aspired to be. And you are everything our nation is at our best. GEOFF BENNETT: Davis, now 83, was one of the first black officers to lead a U.S. Special Forces team in combat. On June 18, 1965, Davis, then a captain, led his team, plus 95 South Vietnamese soldiers, on a predawn raid on a North Vietnamese army camp. When the raid began, a counterattack forced the group into a rice field without shelter. All of the Americans were wounded and some were stranded.

Davis, shot and hit by grenade shrapnel, ran back to rescue the team from him. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS (RET.), Medal of Honor: We were like immersed in the rice field, we had been shot twice in the same foot. GEOFF BENNETT: Davis first spoke about the battle in 1969 on the Phil Donahue show, sharing how he twice refused a commander's orders to retreat. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: Well, I said, "Sir, I'm just not going to leave. I still have an American out there." GEOFF BENNETT: The fight lasted 19 hours. All of his team survived. Immediately thereafter, Davis' commander submitted his name for the Medal of Honor.

But the military lost his documentation twice and no record of it was ever produced. Davis' team has long argued that race played a role. RON DEIS, former special forces soldier: He has been emotional, to say the least. GEOFF BENNETT: Ron Deis, 79, is the youngest survivor on the team. He is also part of the group of advocates who painstakingly recreated and resubmitted Davis' Medal of Honor documentation. What does Colonel Davis mean to you? RON DEIS: Over the past nine years, I've worked with the team to recreate all the documentation needed for a medal like this and I've become very fond of it.

I respected him immensely when I was under him. And that has never wavered. GEOFF BENNETT: We spoke with Colonel Davis the day before the Medal of Honor ceremony. In June 1965, Davis was 26 years old and a black officer leading an all-white unit. He remembered the day of the attack. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: I remember the first thing on my mind was getting going. When you are in a situation that is foreign to you, you take a moment and try to piece it together. In a war, that is not done. GEOFF BENNETT: And you were shooting your rifle with your little finger...

COL. PARIS DAVIS: That's right. GEOFF BENNETT: ...because your hand was destroyed by a grenade. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: That's right. Not only that. The grenade knocked out a couple of my teeth and a few other things. And he thinks about fighting, pulling the trigger with his little finger. It's slippery, there's blood everywhere, people dying, a barrage of Air Force bombs, artillery firing shells. And all this is happening, and you took down a couple of men. GEOFF BENNETT: And you twice disobeyed orders to retreat, to effectively abandon your men. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: Yeah. Well, it was really interesting, because I'm trying to make a decision about what and how we can actually handle the wounded.

I understand he was a general officer and he said, "Don't worry. Leave him there. And we'll get him." And I said, "We're not going to... we're not going to go." He probably prevented me from becoming a general officer because he had disobeyed an order. GEOFF BENNETT: Immediately after that, his commander submitted his name for the Medal of Honor. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: Yes. GEOFF BENNETT: But the paperwork inexplicably disappeared twice. And there was no record of the file. It seems to me that you didn't have to wonder much about the reason for that. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: What was interesting was that the soldiers were like, "What's going on here?" He brought to the fore racism and the different way whites and blacks are treated.

To my knowledge, at that time they had never lost a Medal of Honor citation that a white man had lost. But they did it with a black boy. And the soldiers knew it. And so it changed the whole aspect of war, especially when you're fighting with them and they know it's not right. And the other thing is, more important than that, is the fact that I stood guard. They thought that was what separated me from other officers, because, when other officers had equipment, they never stood guard, that their lives were at stake when they stood guard.

Why couldn't it? The other thing we did was the fact that all the NCOs went on patrols. I was on some of those patrols, not as a leader, but as a machine gunner. GEOFF BENNETT: President Biden called you to inform you that he would be receiving the Medal of Honor. What was that moment like? COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: I don't know if many people know the president. But in those five or six minutes (and he wanted to talk more) he was very cordial. Remember the balloons that were in the sky. I mean, that's when I got the phone call.

And we started talking. And he had read a lot of the stuff I was doing, good stuff, the battles and all that, and just a couple of them, not in detail, but it was enough for me to realize that he knew what was going on. And so, during the conversation, he would ask about family and about this and that. There was a time when he said something about lunch and I said, "Are you going to pay for it?" (LAUGHTER) COL. PARIS DAVIS: He said, "Why the hell would I have you there if I had to pay for it myself?" (LAUGHTER) COL.

PARIS DAVIS: And we talked about - we were talking about the White House. And we had a couple of three really nice jokes that aren't appropriate right now. But I will tell you that he has a sense of humor. GEOFF BENNETT: How do you think you'll feel when I put the Medal of Honor around your neck? COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: Well, the only thing I'm really afraid to do is cry. The medal means more to the black race than it does to me. We have long had a reputation for not being part of the United States. I think this medal could solve that.

And I think it's really important that something like this happens. Luckily it's happening to me. This medal means a lot. It means a lot to America to see that we are all capable of doing good. GEOFF BENNETT: What is it like to live 60 years knowing that you deserved recognition for what you were unfairly denied? COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: What bothered me the most is that the military, knowing that, didn't have the courage to call me to say, hey, we lost it and we can't find it, and then come back. and he said, "We understand that someone put up the second narrative and we didn't find it either." And I say, "Are you telling me you missed your summons twice?" And they said, "No, no, no, we just can't find it twice." And I said, "Right." It was something that doesn't happen.

You can name the number of people who have won the Medal of Honor. And losing... just losing that, that quote, really pissed me off. But when... when you discover it, silence is the word. Nobody calls. Nobody says anything for 50 years. GEOFF BENNETT: Well, everything is being done right now. So... COL. PARIS DAVIS: That's right. The other thing is, I'm happy as a pig because you already know what President Biden will be. GEOFF BENNETT: Well, Colonel Davis, congratulations, sir. It is a true honor to speak with you. And there are... there are many people who thank him for his sacrifice, his patience, his diligence, his tenacity, his service.

So thanks. COLUMN. PARIS DAVIS: No, thank you. I really appreciate it. AMNA NAWAZ: For nearly 50 years, grassroots activists have gathered to hear from Republican Party leaders at the Conservative Political Action Conference. As Republicans debate who is the best candidate to help them retake the White House next year, Laura Barrón-López reports on what is gaining ground on the party's right flank. MAN: Look at all the people who love you right here. Look at Don Jr., Don Jr. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: It was once a Republican primary season tradition... FMR. GOVERNMENT. SARAH PALIN (R-AK): They're socialists. MICHAEL LINDELL, CEO of MyPillow: Paper ballots counted by hand.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: ...speeches to party faithful at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference,better known as CPAC... REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Vote for Donald J. Trump! LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: ...is now a platform for white grievance politics, loyal acolytes of former President Donald Trump. REP. MATT GAETZ: Either we get this government back on our side or we defund it and disband, abolish the FBI, the CDC, the ATF, the Department of Justice, every last one of them! (Applause and applause) LAURA BARRON-LÓPEZ: And the election deniers. DONALD TRUMP JR., Son of Donald Trump: I'm the one willing to say these things because someone has to.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Tomorrow, Trump will deliver the keynote address to close the conference. But he is not alone. All of the GOP's declared presidential candidates are making their arguments today, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said. NIKKI HALEY (R), presidential candidate: I'm running for president to renew an America that is strong and proud, not weak and woke. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And businessman and activist Vivek Ramaswamy. VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), presidential candidate: I totally agree with the America First agenda. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Still, this year, several of the party's leaders, such as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, as well as many of the potential presidential candidates, They will not participate.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott are among those who will not speak, opting to attend a donor retreat in Florida for the conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth. . Haley is going to both events. AL CARDENAS, former president of the American Conservative Union: Well, CPAC and the American Conservative Union specifically were the geese that laid the golden eggs of the conservative Republican movement. LAURA BARRON-LÓPEZ: Al Cárdenas is a Republican strategist and former president of the American Conservative Union, the organization responsible for organizing CPAC. AL CARDENAS: I don't think most of the people who come are conservative.

I think they are populists. I think they are part of this cancel culture. I think they are deniers, deniers of the elections. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: CPAC and its current president, Matt Schlapp, are facing a new scandal. In January, Schlapp was accused of groping a Republican Party campaign aide during the midterm elections, allegations Schlapp denies. Cardenas says many 2020 hopefuls are skipping the conference for a different reason. AL CÁRDENAS: They don't come either by intention or because they don't want to participate in a spectacle that basically consists of putting a crown on Donald Trump's head. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: A recent "PBS NewsHour"/NPR/Marist poll found that more than half of Republicans say the party would be better off with a 2024 candidate other than Donald Trump.

But here at CPAC, with this Republican base group, it's clear that this is still Trump's party. ANN KATCEF, CPAC attendee: I think DeSantis is a possibility for the future, but not now. Trump deserves to finish what he started. And we need it. TROELLA TYZNIK, CPAC Attendee: President Trump is the best president this nation can have. Right now there is no one who can wear his loafers. JADEN HEARD, CPAC attendee: We know Trump was a good president, but we think DeSantis will be a good president. It is really difficult. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Trump has won the CPAC polls the last two years, and his influence was present again this year.

Some of his greatest allies, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, had privileged speaking spaces to promote a far-right agenda. REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I'm introducing my bill, the Children's Innocence Protection Act, which will make it a crime to do anything having to do with gender-affirming child care. (Applause and applause) LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: In recent weeks, some other potential candidates like DeSantis have targeted suburban voters, who recently left the Republican Party with a tough-on-crime message. But for the CPAC audience, what resonated most was the anti-LGBTQ, anti-transgender focus and the false belief that K-12 schools teach college-level racial and ethnic studies.

ALEX WALTON, CPAC attendee: There's been a lot of attention in recent years on some really important topics, like critical race theory and classrooms and the general content taught in schools. That is important. ANN KATCEF: I woke up. Wokeness is divisive and... LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: What is wokeness? ANN KATCEF: I woke up, that's where I have Critical Race Theory. You have all the awakening is wide. I mean, for me it's Critical Race Theory, the bathroom issue. LAURA BARRON-LÓPEZ: With months until the primary debates begin, Cárdenas says the Republican candidates are still refining their messages and finding their own path to the nomination.

AL CARDENAS: Either you're going to be a full-blooded, anti-woke, pro-culture wars candidate, or you're not. And I think candidates who decide to jump into the race have to wait until Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis fade away before they have a unique opportunity. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Although some have not yet officially joined the race, the majority of 2020 hopefuls will travel to the critical early state of Iowa in the coming weeks. For "PBS NewsHour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez in National Harbor, Maryland. AMNA NAWAZ: For insight into CPAC, the future of the Republican Party and the rest of the week's news, we turn to Brooks and Capehart's analysis.

They are New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor of the Washington Post. Welcome to both. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hello, Amna. AMNA NAWAZ: Good to see you. We will continue where Laura left off. David, I used to see it for a few years, the path to the Republican nomination was through CPAC. That doesn't seem to be true this year. When you look at who chose to go and who decided to stay away, what do you see? What does it say about the party? DAVID BROOKS: It's kind of a history of the party over the last 40 years.

Reagan was... he used to go to CPAC. But for the populists it was like a feint. He would go, but he wasn't really part of it. And then he became the party of Donald Trump. And now CPAC, partly because of Matt Schlapp's problems, but partly, has moved from centrist populism, which he was quite right, to eccentric populism. And because of that it has moved even further beyond what I would say is the mainstream of the party, becoming irrelevant. What was new is that a candidate used to be able to go to the Club for Growth, or CPAC, or the American Enterprise Institute, and these were all different wings of the party.

But now you have to go to one or the other. And then if you go to one, you are seen as an opponent of the other wing of the party. And that is a sign of the fissures in the party, that you are on the establishment team or the populist team, but you can't be on both teams, which is a problem for the party. AMNA NAWAZ: What does it say that Nikki Haley is going to both? DAVID BROOKS: Well, she's going to try. (LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: I think she'll end up on the established team. AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, we saw some of the people who chose to go there.

Among them, we will see Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. Mike Pence did not go. Ron DeSantis did not go. If you go to that room, who are you talking to? Is he still relevant to any part of the Republican base? Enough? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, yes, it is. There's a reason Donald Trump goes there. I mean, those are his people. That's your ride or die, if you, for lack of a better description. Therefore, it would be a waste of time for Mike Pence or Ron DeSantis or anyone who wanted to be a serious rival to Donald Trump to go there.

And look at the people we saw talking on camera about what they cared about, not foreign policy or economic policy. I could go back to when we were here on State of the Union night and you made the observation that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, in her response she didn't even talk about the economy. I mean, I remember the economy, inflation, jobs and crime were the big issues that Republicans addressed. I didn't hear anything like that there. So I think Laura perfectly pointed out that the conference is now all about white complaints and is aimed at trans kids and anyone who isn't like them.

AMNA NAWAZ: We saw that Steve Bannon was among those who spoke there. And today at CPAC he attacked FOX, saying they're not pro-Trump enough. But, just this week, we saw a big admission about it: the latest filings and the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, that admission from FOX president Rupert Murdoch. He admitted under oath that FOX anchors lied about the 2020 election and decided not to stop them. What are the implications of that? DAVID BROOKS: Well, let's think about how big this is. I remember Rupert Murdoch founded a newspaper called The Australian a long time ago.

He was a journalist, a real journalist. And now he's gotten to the point where you can lie on camera if... as long as your ratings are okay. And he didn't lie. They...those people who lied didn't lie about little things. They lied about the election results of a presidential election, a major deal of sorts. And now we know them all; As we all suspected, everyone knew what was happening. And Murdoch is sitting at the top of this organization blithely pretending that it's not really his problem. And that's why he can say it and today he has power over the corporation.

He is the owner. I could fire Tucker. I could fire all the people, all the people who were involved in this and whose journalistic integrity has been exposed as zero. And yet, he's still happily trying to get over it. That's why it's surprising that we have a major news organization being inaccurate about a presidential election. I mean, it's a surprising fact. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes. AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, what did you think of that? It was a big moment in the case that is still unfolding. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Oh, it's huge. And it was confirmation of something that people on the left and just people paying attention suspected, that FOX News, the news is in quotes, that they are blatantly telling lies.

But then seeing in black and white as part of this case that not only, yes, were they telling lies on television, but behind the scenes, they knew the truth. And what that tells me is that Rupert Murdoch and his presenters, those people who peddle lies, are insulated from the effect of the lies they tell. When you see someone say, oh, our ratings are going down and that's going to affect the stock price, so there's no worry... AMNA NAWAZ: You're talking about some of the private messages that were revealed. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Some of the private messages... yes, some of the private messages.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes. JONATHAN CAPEHART: That means you're more concerned about its results than the corrosive impact on our democracy and political discourse in this country. That, to me, was what was really disturbing. And what's even more disturbing is that FOX News isn't even covering this lawsuit, which means its audience, who should know what's being said about them and about programming for them, will never...may never know. . What is it... that what they are telling you is just a bunch of lies. AMNA NAWAZ: However, I return again to the impact, because its audience, which is in the millions, right...

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes. AMNA NAWAZ: ...if you are a loyal FOX watcher and prone to distrust any other source of information, does any of this have any impact? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, that's the point I was trying to make. As a result, we don't even know if they will find out about this case. And even if they find out, they may not trust it or maybe they just don't care. I don't know. AMNA NAWAZ: Do you agree? DAVID BROOKS: Yes. Well, they are losing some viewers to the right, the Bannons of the world. That's right, they are definitely losing viewers.

But my colleague David French made the central point about FOX. Whether you're in red America or rural America, FOX is not just a news organization. It is your community center. It's an organization that... that news organization that pays intense attention, that offers a lot of good news about police and soldiers. Many things happening in red America that don't get much coverage in the coastal media get a lot of attention on FOX. And so loyalty there is not just about politics, and it's not just about news coverage. It's simply about where people see themselves reflected. AMNA NAWAZ: It's another big week on several fronts for millions of Americans, kind of an interesting window for President Biden and the Democrats.

Just this week, we saw President Biden's student loan relief plan challenged in the Supreme Court, and will likely be overturned. That expansion of SNAP food stamp benefits, which also ended this week. There are many of these pandemic-era issues supported by President Biden and Democratsthat are being unraveled now and will affect millions of people. Are we hearing enough from the president or Democrats about what they can do to fill those gaps? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Personally, I haven't heard much about it. But I... let's change the frame here and the focus here. Yes, the president is in office and the Democrats have control of the Senate.

But Republicans have control of the House. And the president will announce his budget on March 9, that is, next week. I'm sure in that document, that multi-page document, we'll see all kinds of things about SNAP, maybe something about student loans, but we'll see what the president's financial priorities are for the nation and for specific communities. deserving communities. My question is: where is President McCarthy? Where are the House Republicans? Budgets start in the House. I can't tell you what their priorities are. I can't tell you what they want to do. Do you care if SNAP benefits are canceled?

They care? I think we do know that they don't care much about student loan forgiveness. But what are they going to do? What are your priorities regarding the real financial problems and suffering facing the American people? That's a question for President McCarthy. We will know President Biden's response next week. AMNA NAWAZ: David, we know the impact of some of these programs, right? When it comes to expanding the child tax credit, for example, millions of children were lifted out of poverty. When it ended, millions fell back below the poverty line. What do we think? What do you think you'll hear from... (CROSSTALK) DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think, of all the things Biden did, the child tax credit is the one I supported most fervently.

It really reduced... and actually reduced child poverty. And yet, I was surprised, but according to surveys, it is not a popular program. And then I saw a poll in which 60 percent of people simply said it's too expensive and we can't afford it, including 47 percent of Democrats. And so there's a general distrust in government, a distrust in government programs, a distrust in programs that seem to give people money for nothing, and then a sense that we spent all this money on COVID. What is happening to the national debt? And so, whether I like it or not, the political reality is that there is not as much political pressure as I would have thought to keep the expansion going.

As for student loans, I've supported the part of the program that was for Pell Grant kids, where I thought, absolutely, those people deserve their student loans. I didn't think we should give it to upper-middle class kids, but c'est la vie. I still think the Supreme Court should probably overturn it. I mean, the Constitution provides... as Jonathan said, the budget is supposed to start in the House. The president can't just create a $400 billion program by signing a piece of paper. That's just not how the system is supposed to work. So it's possible to believe in the program and think that the president probably should have gone through Congress if he wanted this to last.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, in the few seconds we have left. I know, we'll see the president's budget very soon. We also expect him to announce a re-election campaign at some point. There are some Democrats who think this should be the case: These kinds of issues should be a more central part of their next campaign. Do you agree with that? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Absolutely. And as we saw during the State of the Union, remember, his mantra at the State of the Union was, let's get the job done. And so winning: the child tax credit, the SNAP benefits, the student loan, that's all part of, let's finish the job.

And we'll see how you prioritize them when that budget comes out. AMNA NAWAZ: We'll see. We'll be back here talking about it very soon. (LAUGHTER) JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes. AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, it's always a pleasure to see you. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you. DAVID BROOKS: Good to see you. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Good to see you, Amna. AMNA NAWAZ: And we'll be back shortly. But first, take a moment to listen on your local PBS station. It's an opportunity to offer your support, which helps keep shows like this on the air. And for those of you staying with us, we take a second look at a very talented family.

Becoming poet laureate is a coveted role and a rare honour, made even rarer by having two laureates in the same house. That is the case of a mother and her son in Philadelphia. Jeffrey Brown traveled to the city to learn how the duo works to bring poetry to a wider audience. This encore story is part of our arts and culture series, Canvas. AIREA D. MATTHEWS, Poet Laureate of Philadelphia: You want movements between, up, down, or through the lineage. Desire is spacious. Desire is in the DNA. JEFFREY BROWN: Airea D. Matthews is Philadelphia's newest poet laureate. WES MATTHEWS, former youth poet laureate of Philadelphia: I saw her body disfigured, out of place, with barbed wire around her neck.

JEFFREY BROWN: Wes Matthews is the city's former youth poet laureate. They are mother and son, perhaps the first duo of their kind. We met recently at his family's house. AIREA D. MATTHEWS: When I first received the news last January that he was going to be poet laureate, we were returning from Florida. And I yelled at him in the car: "Oh, I have the poet award." And then he yelled at me and said, "Legacy." (LAUGHTER) JEFFREY BROWN: You conveyed it. WES MATTHEWS: He was being ironic. (LAUGHTER) JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, Wes was the first honoree in the family.

He is the second of four children of Airea and her husband. A boy who describes himself as shy, came to poetry early by watching videos of his mother on YouTube. And he became a place to express himself. WES MATTHEWS: Not everyone who has seen a cell bar knows how cold it is. JEFFREY BROWN: In 2018, at age 17, the Free Library of Philadelphia named you youth poet laureate. Last year, the library named Airea Philadelphia's sixth poet laureate. AIREA D. MATTHEWS: I encouraged you to apply. So you encouraged me to apply. WES MATTHEWS: Yeah. I think that's kind of symbolic of the kind of relationship we have in general, I mean, this constant encouragement.

JEFFREY BROWN: Airea grew up in a working-class family in Trenton, New Jersey. AIREA D. MATTHEWS: Poetry was not on the agenda or at the forefront of anyone's mind when it came to what are the possibilities of a career? What are the chances of sustaining you? JEFFREY BROWN: She earned degrees in economics and public administration, before adding poetry to the mix, first as part of the poetry scene in Detroit, and then earning an MFA at the University of Michigan. Her first poetry collection of 2016, “Simulacra,” was selected for the prestigious Yale Young Poets Series. She is now an associate professor and co-chair of the creative writing department at Bryn Mawr College.

AIREA D. MATTHEWS: I just try to hold space for many selves, you know, the Airea service, the Airea poet, trying to play many roles, the Airea teacher, all very different, but working towards the same goal. JEFFREY BROWN: Her commitment to service is what attracted her to the laureate position. Outside the main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, he talked about wanting to make poetry more available, give poets new platforms to reach audiences, and bring poetry to public places for people who don't normally have access to it. AIREA D. MATTHEWS: She may see a public screening.

You might see a poem scribbled on a sidewalk. The places I go in the city are places of anguish. It's a redirect. My hope is that those thoughts will be redirected and lead to a library, something where you can have a book in your hand. People may never come into contact with a printed copy of a text, but you can still interact with a text. He can still interact with you. And I can say that literature has changed my life, so I hope it has the power to do it for other people. WES MATTHEWS: I love Philly.

It is a beautiful city. I'm glad I had the opportunity to serve you. JEFFREY BROWN: Wes Matthews, now a senior at the University of Pennsylvania studying anthropology and religion, has also inherited a strong sense of service. WES MATTHEWS: To feel fulfilled, there needs to be something practical. There has to be something more concrete, where I feel that I can help, I can serve and I can be directly involved in the life paths of people and the community. JEFFREY BROWN: He writes and spends time at the Kelly Writers House on campus, editing recordings of readings and performances.

He also works with local students, something he began during his time as Youth Poet Laureate, teaching poetry and musical lyric writing workshops. WES MATTHEWS: It really feels like a full circle of poetry. For me it is like the fulfillment of the poetic impulse. Just as my mother's YouTube videos and her performances inspired me all those years ago, I still want to be a vector of that inspiration for other people when I can. AIREA D. MATTHEWS: It is possible to fall. WES MATTHEWS: Terribly in love with burning. AIREA D. MATTHEWS: In jet streams of bile. WES MATTHEWS: Double meters, soft gestures of Calinda Bomba's body towards the drummer.

JEFFREY BROWN: At an event at Kelly Writers House, Airea asked her son to join her in reading her poem "Rebel Fugue." Some people are concerned about how many young people today read or engage in poetry. Do you see? AIREA D. MATTHEWS: I see very young and brilliant writers who look at the world with a critical and artistic lens at the same time. I think I see this ability to see outside of yourself. We are in the age of technology where the world is no bigger than the screen 10 inches in front of your face. And I see these students who are able to interpret a world beyond a screen.

And that is very encouraging to me. WES MATTHEWS: There are many people who don't believe that poetry or music exists within themselves. They think... a lot of people think that a poet is an essential, discrete category, like you either have it or you don't. And I've never seen it that way. Writing poetry requires radical encouragement and commitment, because it is difficult. It requires observation and it requires you to process it in a certain way. But it is beautiful, satisfying and emotional. JEFFREY BROWN: Did you understand that? AIREA D. MATTHEWS: I did. JEFFREY BROWN: The radical stimulus.

AIREA D. MATTHEWS: A radical stimulus. JEFFREY BROWN: Among all their other roles, both Matthews continue to write on their own. Airea's next book of poetry, "Bread and Circuses," will be published in the spring. For "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Philadelphia. AMNA NAWAZ: Before we leave tonight, we want to send our congratulations to the winners of our first student journalism challenge competition. The top two winners in the video category were students from the Frederick V. Pankow Center in Michigan, who produced a story about how career technology education prepares students for life and success after high school, and students from Elizabethton High School in Tennessee for his story of exploration. why their school was built without windows.

You can view both articles online at Studentjournalismchallenge.org. Congratulations to both of you. Remember, there's plenty more online, including a quiz that will test whether you're a savvy shopper and give you some savings tips to help offset rising grocery prices. Also, be sure to tune in to "Washington Week" where you'll see a familiar face. My friend Geoff Bennett will be the host. That will be tonight here on PBS. And watch "PBS News Weekend" tomorrow to see efforts to safeguard the 99 percent of the world's oceans that currently lack legal protection. And that's tonight's "NewsHour." I am Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "NewsHour" team, thank you for joining us.