PBS News Hour

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening.

I'm William Brangham.

Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett are away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Alexei Navalny's widow accuses the Kremlin of covering up the opposition leaders killing and vows to continue his fight for a free Russia.

Poland's foreign minister discusses the state of Ukraine's nearly two-year-long war with Russia, and the impact Congress stalling of U.S. support is having on the battlefield.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI, Polish Foreign Minister: Without the United States, we are behind the curve in making the stuff that Ukraine needs to defend itself.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And the conservative group behind allegations of illegal ballot stuffing in Georgia's 2020 election admits it has no evidence to support its claims.

(BREAK) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

Russia has cemented a substantial battlefield win in Eastern Ukraine.. four-month fight.

Moscow says its forces cleared the last Ukrainian defenders from Avdiivka, a bombed-out city in the Donetsk region.

Russian military footage showed attacks on a sprawling industrial site in Avdiivka.

Ukraine said its forces had to retreat because of a lack of ammunition.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned today that Russia is exploiting the delay of new American aid.

Twenty-six members of the European Union are calling for an immediate humanitarian pause in Gaza.

That came today as Hamas health officials reported the Gaza death toll has passed 29,000.

And Israel released security camera video purportedly showing a hostage and her two small boys wrapped in a sheet.

They were seen in Khan Yunis in Gaza just after being taken captive in October.

The U.N.'s top court has kicked off a six-day hearing into Israel's 57-year occupation of the land that Palestinians want for a state of their own.

Diplomats filed into the International Court of Justice at The Hague today.

The Palestinian foreign minister opened with accusations of Israeli apartheid.

RIYAD AL-MALIKI, Palestinian National Authori.. Israel, can be granted a perpetual veto over the rights of the people it occupies.

Successive Israeli governments have given the Palestinian people only three options, displacement, subjugation or death.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Israel submitted a written statement that alleged the hearing does not address Israeli rights and security concerns.

The court is due to issue a nonbinding opinion some months from now.

Houthi fighters in Yemen carried out new attacks on shipping vessels today in co.. for Israel's assault on Gaza.

The Iran-backed group says it again targeted ships in the Gulf of Aden.

That follows Sunday's attack on a ship in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

A missile caused severe damage, forcing the crew to abandon ship.

Back in this country, a Minneapolis suburb is in mourning after a Sunday shooting that killed two policemen and a firefighter.

They'd answered a domestic dispute call in Burnsville when a heavily-armed man opened fire.

He was later found dead and seven children in the house were unhurt.

Last night, the community gathered for a candlelit vigil.

They paid tribute to those killed and offered praise to the town's police force.

TERESE TREKELL, Burnsville, Minnesota, Resident: We need to find a way to really honor these three, and just all police officers.

You know that protect and serve is all over are our Burnsville police cars, and I just think they do.

They protect and they serve.

They're -- they run towards trouble to keep other people safe.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In a further tribute, flags were lowered to half-staff in Minnesota today.

The latest in a string of winter storms has moved into California, and it could bring new flooding and even tornadoes.

Forecasters called for five to 10 inches of rain in Central California before the storm moves south in coming days.

It's expected to be milder than the so-called atmospheric river earlier this month, in part because it's moving faster.

And on Australia's Christmas Island, the famous red crabs are scuttling behind schedule.

In typical years, more than 100 million crabs blanket the ground and block traffic as they scramble to the sea to mate, but wildlife officials say lack of rain has largely put this great migration on hold.

BRENDAN TIERNAN, Parks Australia: The last six to nine months of 2023 was exceptionally dry, so dry that, when the crabs would normally migrate in October and November, we had no rainfall, and they didn't migrate.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All told, this is already the latest crab migration since tracking began in the 1980s.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest political headlines; actor Paul Giamatti on his Oscar-nominated performance in "The Holdovers"; students and their teacher give their Brief But Spectacular take on building trust; plus much more.

Alexei Navalny's suspicious death Friday in a Russian arctic penal colony continues to reverberate around the globe.

World leaders, including President Biden, spoke today of stepped-up sanctions against Russia, as Navalny's widow picked up his fight against Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities said they would hold Navalny's remains for a further two weeks.

Heavy with equal parts grief and resolve, Yulia Navalnaya released this video today vowing to keep up her husband's fight.

YULIA NAVALNAYA, Widow of Alexei Navalny (through translator): By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul.

But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up.

I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny, continue to fight for our country.

I urge you to stand next to me, to share not only my grief and endless pain, but also to share the rage.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Navalny's cause of death .. Navalny's mother from the morgue where her son's body is believed to be held.

Across Russia, more than 50,000 people have now signed a petition demanding Navalny's body be released.

Today, his widow met with European Union ministers in Brussels as they weighed how to respond to the dissident's death.

MICHEAL MARTIN, Irish Foreign Minister (through translator): What has happened reminds us all of the repressive and oppressive nature of the regime in the Russian Federation and of how President Putin has ruthlessly put down any opposition and suppressed any dissent.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted Western leaders who have blamed Putin for Navalny's death.

DMITRY PESKOV, Spokesman for Vladimir Putin (through translator): An investigation is under way, and all necessary actions in this regard are being carried out.

But, so far, the results of this investigation have not been made public, and, in fact, they're unknown.

Therefore, in conditions when there is no valid information, we believe that it is absolutely inadmissible to make such, well, frankly, boorish statements.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Makeshift memorials have popped up across Russia, as mourners pay tribute to Navalny's legacy.

VARVARA, Russia (through translator): He was a ve.. is suffering because we lost such a hero.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In St. Petersburg, men clad in black removed flowers from a memorial, carrying them away in garbage bags.

But moments later, Navalny's supporters returned to replace them.

Other memorials have also been dismantled ac.. nearly 400 people for attending events commemorating Navalny's death.

With less than a month to go before Russia's national election, and with Putin's victory all but certain, Navalny's death further scatters and weakens an already thin opposition movement.

For the latest on Navalny's death and what it might mean for the future of Russia's opposition movement, we turn to Andrei Soldatov.

He's a Russian investigative journalist and a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Andrei, thank you so much for being here.

It has been four days since Navalny's death was announced.

Russian authorities have not allowed his family to see his body or take possession of his body.

What do we know about the circumstances surrounding his death?

ANDREI SOLDATOV, Russian Investigative Journalist: Well, to be honest, the circumstances are getting more and more mysterious.

The initial official version was that he died on the 16th, but now there are some reports from -- unofficial reports from his penal colony that probably he died the day before, because that's when there was a lot of unusual activities, lots of cars coming to this place.

And, apparently, it was somehow connected to his sudden death.

Why he died, we still do not know.

We have no clue.

The official reason is sudden death, whatever it means.

And, as you pointed out, the family does not have any access to his body.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Do you think that his famil.. ANDREI SOLDATOV: I very much hope so.

Of course, we have a very long record of political assassinations under mysterious circumstances over the last 20-plus years under Vladimir Putin.

And every time, it was extremely difficult to establish the cause.

And we have a number of poisonings and very few people we actually know what was used against them in several cases.

So, we -- even now, after 20 years, we do not know for instance what was used against famous Russian journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin in 2003 and what was used against Anna Politkovskaya.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: President Biden and many other leaders have squarely placed the blame for this death on Vladimir Putin.

Do you share that belief?

ANDREI SOLDATOV: Yes, absolutely.

I think what we have been seeing over the last three years was a deliberate systematic effort to kill Navalny, not just to isolate him, but to kill him.Moving him up north to more and more horrible conditions, and what happened before, I mean, his poisoning is a very clear sign that he was a target of a political assassination.

It just failed back then, but they didn't fail now.

We also know that Vladimir Putin, being a very practical man, made a political assassination part of his toolkit.

And now we can say that, well, we have the upcoming election.

Putin is extremely nervous.

Again, it makes a perfect practical sense for him.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Can you help me understand something, though?

Because after that poisoning that Navalny survived, he returned to Russia.

He had to know that he would be imprisoned, perhaps for the rest of his life.

Help us understand why he might have done that.

ANDREI SOLDATOV: First of all, Navalny didn't believe in his political future in exile.

He believed that he needed to get back and that he needed to conduct his political activity in the country.

He was a strong believer of this idea.

Of course, now the circumstances completely changed, but remember that it was before the full-scale invasion started.

And it appeared to some people, including Navalny, that there was still some room for legitimate political activity in the country.

He also built a very impressive network of supporters all over the co.. want to abandon them.

And he believed that, ethically, he needed to be with them in Russia.

Of course, he took his chances.

And it was extremely brave.

But, well, Vladimir Putin decided to imprison him and finally to kill him.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What does this do to the opposition movement in Russia?

I mean, that movement has been splintered and fractured and disparate for many, many years.

Now, with its ostensible leader gone, what does that do to that movement?

ANDREI SOLDATOV: Well, it's impossible to deny that it is a horrible blow, because, as you pointed out, yes, the movement was never cohesive, and there were always problems and arguments within the community of Russian activists and opposition politicians.

Navalny was the most popular politician.

And, of course, it is a blow.

At the same time, he and his organization made possible several things which political opposition believed was just impossible.

For instance, he organized protests in Russian regions.

And we always had this concept that Russian liberals live only in big cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Navalny changed that.

For that, he built an organization.

For that, he got his supporters and network of people.

These people are still there.

They are not going anywhere.

Some of them are still in the country.

Some of them left, but they are all very much active.

And they are determined to remain active politically.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Andrei Soldatov, thank you so much for joining us.

ANDREI SOLDATOV: Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Along NATO's eastern flank are several former Soviet satellite states, each with long and bitter memories of Russian dominance.

Those nations are among the strongest supporters of Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion and of American support for Europe more broadly.

One nation loudly making that argument is Poland.

Over the weekend, Nick Schifrin sat down wit..

They talked at the Munich Security Conference, which highlighted Europe's anxieties about Putin's invasion and about America's resolve.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Foreign Minister Sikorski, thank you very much.

Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

As of now, the U.S. House of Representatives has not approved vital military aid to Ukraine.

Already, as we know, Ukraine is rationing ammunition.

What impact is the debate in the U.S. having on American credibility?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI, Polish Foreign Minister: Well, first of all, remember that Europe has contributed financially more to the effort than the United States.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In total.

In total.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: When you count Brussels .. Secondly, remember that this is money for weapons to be manufactured in the United States.

Thirdly, the Ukrainians have already destroyed half of President Putin's army without the involvement of a single American soldier, and, lastly, that it's much cheaper to help Ukraine now than it will be if Putin conquers Ukraine and then has to be deterred.

So, we think this is good value for money and that this package is important.

We appeal to the House of Representatives, to Mike Johnson personally... NICK SCHIFRIN: Speaker of the House, yes.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: ... to please let it go .. NICK SCHIFRIN: Do you believe it is damaging U.S. credibility?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: Well, if Ukraine, having been encouraged to resist, the president of the United States having put his standard on the ground in Kyiv, the famous, historic visit, then doesn't deliver on assistance, that would send a message around the globe that you have to be careful, because the United States, for important, but regrettable reasons, might not be able to come through for you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Be careful, you mean trusting the United States in the future?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: And that would have important implications, not only in Eastern Europe, but around the globe, where there are other allies that feel exposed bordering on more powerful countries, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, others, Philippines, Australia even.

And so the world is watching.

This really is not only about Ukraine.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Can Europe make up the shortfall for Ukraine if the U.S. does not send military aid?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: We can make up financially.. capacity of shells and of equipment.

We are 20 times bigger than Russia economically, but Russia has gone on to a war footing.

It's producing ammo 24/7.

We haven't.

And without the United States, we are behind the curve in making the stuff that Ukraine needs to defend itself.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Many people here have admitted that Ukraine could lose without these weapons, but can Ukraine win with these weapons?

It has struggled to even match its own goals for the counteroffensive last year.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: Ukraine has recovered 50 percent of the territory that the Russians once occupied, and Ukraine has cleared the Russian navy from half of the Black Sea and is now exporting grain, not thanks to Putin's permission, but despite his best efforts.

We -- they just need the tools to do the job.

They are doing God's work on our behalf.

We just need to enable them, because they can't defend themselves with bare hands.

NICK SCHIFRIN: If Ukraine doesn't get these weapons, should it negotiate an end to the war?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: Well, then it will be U.S... for having allowed Putin to abolish a taboo that we established after two bloody World Wars, that you may not change borders by force.

It would then get noticed by dictators and aggressors around the world that, yes, the West will huff and puff, the America will -- America will encourage to fight, but when it comes -- when push comes to shove, you can get away with it.

And that would then be a very costly proposition.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I noticed, though, you don't say no.

Do you think Ukraine should negotiate an end to the war if it doesn't have enough weapons?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: Look, I have said it before.

There is never a shortage of pocket.. willing to trade other peoples' freedom or land for their own peace of mind.

If it were to come to pass, these should be Ukrainian judgments.

It's their people who are being conquered, who are being expelled, their children who are being stolen, not ours.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I know you're not going to want to talk about U.S. domestic politics, but I do have to ask about comments made by the former president recently in which he questioned whether NATO should defend countries that don't meet the 2 percent threshold of GDP spending in terms of defense spending.

Do you believe the damage has already been done in some ways, that the very questioning of Article 5, the idea that the U.S. would come to European defense no matter which European country was attacked inside of NATO, do you think that's already damaged Article 5?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: We heard Secretary-General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg reporting to the Munich Security Conference that, this year, 18 NATO allies will be spending at least 2 percent.

Poland, I think, is number one, actually.

.. meant was to energize us to accelerate the increase of defense budgets.

We prefer to remember that, under his administration, the U.S. sent anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Is 18 countries out of 31, presumably soon to be 32, is that enough countries meeting their 2 percent threshold?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: Some countries are behind the curve.

The flank count.. not by... NICK SCHIFRIN: Eastern flank.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: It is not by accident tha.. spending on defense.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In the past, Poland has resis.. making defense plans outside of NATO.

Are you reconsidering those worries that you have had in the past?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: A very high-ranking Pentagon official told me the U.S. now supports European defense.

They know that there may come circumstances in which, irrespective of who's president, you may be engaged in another part of the world, and you want to have the freedom, the knowledge that the Europeans can, at least to some extent, fend for themselves, provide their own security.

This means that we need to develop some capabilities.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Outside of NATO?

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: This should be done in strategic harmony with the United S.. and then I think it's actually helpful to the United States.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Foreign Minister Sikorski, thank you very much.

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI: Thanks.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the key groups spreading false allegations of a rigged 2020 presidential election recently admitted to a Georgia judge it has no evidence to support its claims.

The group is called True the Vote, and its accusations of widespread voter fraud became the basis for several conspiracies around the 2020 contest.

Those debunked claims continue to be repeated by former President Donald Trump and many leading Republicans in the lead-up to this year's election.

Laura Barron-Lopez has been following all of this.

And she joins us now.

Hi, Laura.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Hi.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, what were these claims.. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: True the Vote made repeated unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud in 2020.

Specifically, True the Vote had quite a few key claims, one, that a networ.. mules paid $10 per ballot to be stuffed into boxes, that they were contacted by an informant who took part in the alleged ballot scheme, that they had a team of -- quote -- "researchers and investigators" providing evidence of fraud, and that they received 117 hot line calls from Georgia residents about voting irregularities.

Now, the Georgia State Board of Elections filed a lawsuit against the group after they repeatedly tried to get information from them investigating these allegations of voter fraud.

True the Vote never handed that over.

So then, finally, a judge ordered True the Vote to respond with any inform.. may have to support their claims.

True the Vote responded in their recent legal filing with the same answer to each request for evidence, saying: "True the Vote has no such documents in its possession, custody or control."

And former President Donald Trump has repeated these concocted claims by True the Vote, not just around 2020, but even to today.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, such an unbelievable admission to say, we don't have the evidence.

Many of those allegations, though, did become the sort of backbone for a lot of these baseless conspiracy theories.

Can you sort of sketch out how that became so integral here?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes, Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election led to many in his orbit taking on the mantle.

And so True the Vote, founded by Catherine Engelbrecht, peddled conspiracies about election officials and voter fraud in Georgia and beyond.

True the Vote's allegations were then picked up and amplified by businessman Mike Lindell and Dinesh D'Souza, a Trump ally who made a film called "2000 Mules" about baseless claims of people traveling to multiple ballot boxes to vote.

Voter fraud allegations were also circulated by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, .. who were co-conspirators in Trump's attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, William.

I spoke to Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, who worked on the House's January 6 Committee that investigated the efforts of elections subversion, and he described this as an orchestrated network of lies.

FMR.

REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (I-VA): What it comes down to, True the Vote is just part of a massive sort of multiheaded monster of groups that want to monetize lies.

There's never been any proof.

And it's always the same people, Laura.

It's the same people pushing this.

It's a massive grift.

And I have said it before, I believe this could have been the largest grift .. history.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: True the Vote, as Denver.. that we highlighted, William, had ample airtime on FOX News to repeat those election lies.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as you were saying, the former president continues to perpetuate those lies and spread them.

How much of this is going to continue to be a part of the former president's campaign?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Since he launched his campaign, William, former President Donald Trump has repeated election lies, saying that a rigged system is persecuting him, and he has made vows to seek retribution.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020, and we're not goin.. them to rig the presidential election in 2024.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: You hear there, William, he's again laying the foundation, as he did in 2020, priming his supporters to believe that, if he loses this year, that 2024 will have been rigged.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So we heard former Republi.. back on some of this, but, as you know, he's out in the political wilderness, like Liz Cheney is.

Is perpetuating this election lie now requirement for being in the modern-day GOP?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, William, let's check the receipts.

Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, as well as Republican Senator J.D.

Vance of Ohio, were recently asked if they would have done what then-Vice President Mike Pence did in certifying the 2020 election results.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): I would not have done what Mike Pence did.

I don't think that was the right approach.

SEN. J.D.

VANCE (R-OH): If I had been vice .. Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican who campaigned against Donald Trump, has also refused to answer that question.

And all three of them, Tim Scott, J.D.

Vance, and Elise Stefanik, are potentially on the short list for Trump's vice presidential picks.

I spoke to Denver Riggleman about this as well, and he said that election denialism has become a litmus test for the modern GOP under Donald Trump.

FMR.

REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN: They're pushing..

There's no way that the election was stolen.

It's been proven over and over again.

And what they're doing is, they're just allowing the base to drive them where they need to go, so they can win reelection, or have some kind of favor if Trump were to win, to have some kind of favor in his administration.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Another example, William, of this loyalty paying off is.. President Donald Trump is pushing an election denier, Michael Whatley, to be the new chairman of the Republican National Committee.

He's also pushing for his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to be a co-chair to the committee.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, we saw what all of this misinformation and lies did to the country in the last election cycle.

If this keeps up, what do you imagine this means for 2024?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Former Congressman Denver Riggleman told me that he's concerned that voters are continuing to believe this, that when he talks to Republican voters in his rural area of Virginia, that they say that they already think that 2024 is being stolen by Democrats.

Election workers are preparing for potential continued threats of vio.. in preparation for the election this year.

And election denialism has become so baked into the GOP, William, but it's also something that Americans are starting to accept as a part of the Republican Party.

According to a poll conducted by CNN, the majority of voters surveyed said they didn't think Donald Trump would concede the 2024 election if he were to lose.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Really such troubling reporting.

Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you so much.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The presidential primary season could come closer to an effective end later this week after voters in South Carolina finished casting their votes on Saturday.

Meanwhile, there is no end in sight for former President Trump's legal troubles or for the debate on Capitol Hill over continuing funding for Ukraine's defense.

For more on all of this, we turn to our Politics Monday analysts, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Welcome to you both.

So nice to see you.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Thank you, William.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Thanks for being here on .. Tam, let's talk about South Carolina.

Trump has a commanding 30-point lead, if you believe all the polls, over former U.N.

Ambassador and former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley.

If she gets totally blown out of the water in her home state, how does she go forward?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: She just proceeds forward without a mandate to proceed, which has been her entire time in this primary.

She says, we have got it down to the race I want.

It's just me against Trump.

And guess what?

Republican primary voters seem to want Trump.

So she is saying that she's going to keep competing through Super Tuesday at least.

She's been out -- and that's in early March, March 5.

She's been out to several of those states to hold events.

She's also been holding a lot of events in South Carolina.

Trump has held very few, but he may not need to, it turns out.

So she can keep going as long as she has the money to keep going and as long as she's willing to sort of take whatever political damage comes from losing a lot.

AMY WALTER: That's the question.

Is it political damage, or is she positioning herself in a way that she can get something politically from doing this?

Everybody comes in... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Something like what?

AMY WALTER: Well, is she going to be a -- the.. voice of "I told you so" after the election?

She's been saying over and over again on the campaign trail, he can't win.

Every time Trump has been on the ballot, he's lost.

Our candidates have lost.

And so, if he does lose in 2024, people look to her and say, oh, right, she was the one who told us all along, and we will now look to her for other political advice going forward.

That may not happen, but that's certainly one pathway.

The other is, you're hearing from folks from the wing of the party, some known as the anti-Tr.. wing, others in the former establishment wing, the sort of Reagan wing of the party, that she will continue to carry that torch going forward, that there will always be this element in the Republican Party of a strong, interventionist, culturally, but mostly fiscally conservative party, and that, even though Trump is ascendant now, she will be the one carrying that piece of the party and their agenda forward in whatever form that takes.

Theoretically, you could go forward and amass a bunch of delegates and then have some leverage going into a party convention.

But the way that the process works -- South Carolina is one of these -- it's a winner-take-all system.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

AMY WALTER: So, even getting 40 percent of .. TAMARA KEITH: Nothing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

AMY WALTER: It's not like the Democrats.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Empty-handed.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Do you think that is her .. that -- I understand the theory that you're describing, but it seems that the GOP is not interested in having a principled, Republican-esque critic in its midst?

TAMARA KEITH: Certainly not.

And just look at who former President Trump wants to lead the Repu.. to get rid of an RNC chairwoman who has been pretty darn loyal to him and replace him... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is Ronna McDaniel.

TAMARA KEITH: And replace Ronna McDaniel wit.. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: His daughter-in-law.

TAMARA KEITH: ... his daughter-in-law... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

TAMARA KEITH: ... with his own -- with member.. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right, Lara Trump.

TAMARA KEITH: The longer Nikki Haley stays in this primary, it's not that it helps her with the delegate math, but the longer she stays in, the more Trump's challenges, legal challenges, financial challenges, all of these issues, the longer they have to come to light.

Now we know that there's a trial that will start in New York on March 25, as long as it sticks.

He's had this big ruling against him, huge fines and fees that he has to pay.

So she is able to more clearly make the argument she's been making all along, which is like whoa, whoa, whoa, is this really who we want to nominate?

But then it still comes back to the same problem.

In the Republican primary, the answer is yes.

AMY WALTER: It's still yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

The primary voters .. AMY WALTER: Yes.

Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Let's talk about that, the -- s.. bringing up, huge, multi -- multi -- hundreds of millions of dollars, which could be a potential dent on his ability to spend money going forward, but also the Stormy Daniels case, the January 6 case, potentially, maybe Georgia, maybe Mar-a-Lago in the classified documents.

I know you're always reluctant to say that this will have an impact or not.

But do you think that any of those cases could meaningfully change this election?

AMY WALTER: Yes, so it is a question that is going to get asked a lot throughout the entirety of this campaign.

Right now, it feels like, for so many voters, this is white noise.

Even these judgments against Donald Trump have not gotten any sort of traction.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

AMY WALTER: It hasn't changed the math in .. changed it in the general election.

So the question becomes, if there is a criminal -- if there's criminal .. guilty in one of these cases you mentioned, the documents case or January 6, is that going to change people's mind?

I think what's going to be fascinating to watch is, first of all, how this question gets asked voters.

Right now, it's very hypothetical.

And then, if something does happen, do voters opinions of it change over time, that the immediate reaction may be different from, as Tam pointed out, are we really going to do this, once we get to October and November, where you could see voters rallying behind Trump maybe.

You could also see them saying, no, I'm not going to vote for him, but then rally around him at the end.

This is also going to take an effort, I think, on the Biden campaign's part to make this part of the campaign, right?

It's not just this event is going to happen, and then organically voters are going to end up where they end up.

The job of the opposition campaign is to make that certainly a centerpiece.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Is Biden going to do that?

Because he's thus far been reluctant to touch Trump's legal woes.

When they have been obvious targets to shoot at, he has not.

TAMARA KEITH: Biden has been reluctant personally.

His campaign has also been extremely reluctant.

They feel like the legal challenges that Trump has get a lot of attention.

Just think about he had -- there were dueling court hearings last week, and he got to hold court outside of the courthouse both before the trial date was set and then afterwards.

He's getting a lot of attention about this.

For now, at least, they think it's getting enough attention.

They'd like voters to focus on what does this mean for them, rather than what does this mean for Donald Trump?

And they're struggling to get voters to actually focus on that.

They're struggling with that message, but they're trying to figure out how to do it.

I think that, for Trump, these first cases on the calendar, if you look at it, the civil cases that -- and penalties that he's faced in New York, the next case being the Stormy Daniels hush money/campaign finance violation and cooking the books, or -- that's not the right phrase -- but those cases are all in New York.

He's done a fairly good job of convincing definitely Republican voters, but even people who are not Republican voters, that these... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: These are New York City liberals who hate me.

(CROSSTALK) AMY WALTER: That's right.

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, these are New York City .. count against me.

This is a -- this, this is particularly a witch-hunt.

You don't necessarily get to a case where voters haven't had -- haven't been convinced of this, you don't get out of New York for quite some time in the calendar.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Let's shift across the Atlantic for a second.

The Munich Security Conference just wrapped up this weekend.

We just saw Nick's tremendous interview with the Polish foreign minister talking about this yearning for Europe to know where America stands.

Are we going to support Ukraine?

Are we not?

AMY WALTER: That's right.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, they just lost a .. because they ran out of ammunition.

What do you think comes out of that conference?

We saw very dueling views.

AMY WALTER: They did get dueling visions, quite clear dueling visions.

You have the vice president there saying, we are standing with Ukraine.

We do see this as a Central America's role here.

And then you saw somebody like J.D.

Vance, the senator from Ohio, who was there basically as a Trump surrogate, we could say, who said in his remarks that we -- yes, we like Europe, we like NATO, but don't see Putin as an existential threat to Europe, and that that is something, if you're a European, you probably do not like to hear that.

And he basically said, we will stay part of .. we do other places in the world, especially the fight with China.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lastly, Tam, do you see that the Republican move away from supporting Ukraine, which used to be they were in lockstep with the Democrats, and now they are not, does that hurt them in an election?

TAMARA KEITH: Generally speaking, foreign policy is not what decides elections.

Now, this could be the year where that changes, but it also could be the year where that doesn't change, where you continue the pattern where people think about their own lives.

They look inward.

They look to the United States, and they're not looking at foreign policy in that way.

AMY WALTER: And unless Putin, something real.. calculation.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Amy Walter and Tamara Keith.. (CROSSTALK) TAMARA KEITH: Great to see you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In whatever role he appears, in films or TV, as lead or as a character actor, Paul Giamatti makes an impression.

Last month, he won a Golden Globe Award for his performance in the film "The Holdovers."

And the role has now brought him his first best actor Oscar nomination.

He recently spoke with Jeffrey Brown for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

PAUL GIAMATTI, Actor: I can tell by your faces that many of you are shocked at the outcome.

JEFFREY BROWN: In "The Holdovers," Paul Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a crusty 1970s-era New England prep schoolteacher ever ready to quote Marcus Aurelius and take down his pampered charges.

ACTOR: I can't fail this class.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Oh, don't tell yourself short, Mr. .. ACTOR: I'm supposed to go to Cornell.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Unlikely.

JEFFREY BROWN: The setting was well-known to.. a prep school as a teenager and comes from a family of educators, including his father, Bartlett Giamatti, who served as president of Yale University.

but familiarity also presented an unfamiliar acting challenge.

PAUL GIAMATTI: It's one of the first times I have ever felt that sort of close to something, where there was that much available to me, consciously and unconsciously, which was a good thing.

I mean, and I was drawing on lots of -- on .. kind of uncomfortable.

I was like, wow, I'm not acting enough.

JEFFREY BROWN: What does that mean, "I'm not acting enough"?

PAUL GIAMATTI: This feels so familiar to me that I wonder if I'm doing -- am I doing enough?

Am I doing the job well?

I have never had the experience before of this.

It was a really peculiar, peculiar thing.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, how did you deal with it?..

PAUL GIAMATTI: I just kept doing it.

(LAUGHTER) PAUL GIAMATTI: The Germans have been reinfor.. JEFFREY BROWN: Giamatti has made his mark in small parts, "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998... PAUL GIAMATTI: When someone talks to you as though you are no consequence, you have two choices.

JEFFREY BROWN: ... and large, the showtime ..

He's been a primate in "Planet of the Apes" and a founding father in the HBO series "John Adams," for which he won an Emmy.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Now, either you are stark-raving mad, or I am!

Good day, sir.

JEFFREY BROWN: A breakthrough star turn came in 2004 with "Sideways," directed by Alexander Payne, with whom he's reunited for "The Holdovers."

PAUL GIAMATTI: Need I remind you that it is not my fault that you are stuck here?

JEFFREY BROWN: In which three wounded souls find themselves left behind during the Christmas break.

Giamatti's Hunham, a troubled student played.. manager, a grieving mother whose son died in Vietnam, played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph, herself a Golden Globe winner and best supporting actress nominee.

DA'VINE JOY RANDOLPH, Actress: Can we say its his birthday?

DOMINIC SESSA, Actor: It's my birthday.

JEFFREY BROWN: Its brilliant ensemble acting and, for Giamatti,.. profession.

PAUL GIAMATTI: It's interesting, the whole .. often ask actors, like, how is it that you find this chemistry?

And I actually just think it's -- at bottom, it's my job.

It's my job to get along with other people.

It's my job to engage.

JEFFREY BROWN: You mean in a staged or a thea.. PAUL GIAMATTI: Yes.

Yes, but it's my job to find something that I connect with.. and then can do it.

It really seems, at bottom, mostly what I do is to try to find chemistry.

And, sometimes, you have to fake it.

And it'll still -- if you're good at it, it'll still look like it works.

But then, most of the time, you have something like this, where we all just melded, and it was really nice, and we had that magical thing just happening anyway.

JEFFREY BROWN: He knows, your character, tha.. PAUL GIAMATTI: He kind of likes it that people can't stand him, to some extent.

JEFFREY BROWN: He also knows, though -- and this is where I think you -- you struck me as doing something very interesting -- he knows the holes in himself, that, somehow, you have to show us that.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Yes.

Well, he has a self-awareness... makes life harder for him.

Probably, if he was more oblivious, he would be better off.

And, hopefully, yes, you see these kinds of holes in him and his awareness of them, and that gives you some sympathy for him.

That blue-blooded prick's family had allies on the faculty.

I mean, their last name was on a library, for Christ's sake.

So he accused me in order to sanitize his treachery, and they threw me out.

JEFFREY BROWN: But how do you do that as an ..

I'm thinking of roles where you're talking a lot more and where you're emoting a lot more.

This character is a little calmer, a little quieter, for the most part.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Yes, for the most part.

Yes, that's interesting.

I start from the script.

I mean, I really do.

That's the basis and the foundation of the thing, and I'll discover more about the character the more I sort of investigate the script.

And the interesting thing with film is, so much of film really, really lives in the inarticulate moments, the wordless moments.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you like those moments?

PAUL GIAMATTI: I actually like those the most in things, where film acting, where it flowers, because you're expressing everything just through -- it's all just bodily expression.

And that's amazing, because it is the kind of exploration of consciousness and unconsciousness and things like that that makes film different from stage.

JEFFREY BROWN: Always, though, his decision to take a role begins with the script itself, a close reading to see if he wants to keep turning the pages.

PAUL GIAMATTI: I'm not being facetious when I say this, but to actually just keep reading the script, if that's what I get, is the script at first, which is usually what I want to see first even before I'll meet the director or something.

I want to see what the story is.

If the story compels me to keep reading it,.. be maybe the character and the director and who else is doing it.

I'm lucky to be able to choose like that.

JEFFREY BROWN: Wasn't always like that, I assume.

PAUL GIAMATTI: No.

No.

(LAUGHTER) PAUL GIAMATTI: It's not for most actors, no.

JEFFREY BROWN: Or even for you at some point,.. PAUL GIAMATTI: Oh, no, definitely, for a long time.

JEFFREY BROWN: Did you have doubts about whether it would all work?

PAUL GIAMATTI: Sure.

I don't think there's an actor alive who doesn't have doubts, who hasn't sort of encountered doubt at some point, if not all the time, sure.

You just don't know.

It's such a crazy gamble of a thing to do with yourself.

JEFFREY BROWN: You have any sense why it worked out?

(LAUGHTER) JEFFREY BROWN: What do you tell yourself?

(LAUGHTER) PAUL GIAMATTI: I don't know.

I -- you know, .. that I'd manage.

I would manage to find work.

I had this -- a funny kind of low-level confidence that I'd find stuff to do.

JEFFREY BROWN: Low level.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Yes, low level of confidence... to jinx things.

but I had a sense that doing, as you say, the kind of character actor work, I'd find stuff, I'd be OK.

But you go through rough patches where you're not sure.

And then I don't know.

I .. enjoying it, I kept loving it, so that kept me going.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the meantime, congratulations.

Paul Giamatti, thanks for talking to us.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Yes, my pleasure, man.

Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Online, hear more from Paul Giamatti, including what's his favorite holiday and why.

That's on our YouTube page.

In Nashville, Valor Collegiate Academy encourages students to share what's going on in their lives and to accept support from others.

Tonight, we hear from high school teacher Natalie Nikitas and some Valor students as they give their Brief But Spectacular take on building trust.

NATALIE NIKITAS, Teacher, Valor Collegiate Academy: When I go somewhere, the Uber driver is talking and inevitably they ask, well, what do you do?

I'm a teacher.

They go, oh, and they have their reaction.

And a lot of times, they are like, well, why?..

your favorite teacher?

Ninety-nine percent of the time, they're able to name the person.

And 99 percent of the time, they smile.

I don't -- yes, I don't know another profession, other than like being a superhero, I guess, that could -- that could do that.

I teach here at Valor College Prep.

I teach 11th grade A.P.

U.S. history.

At Valor, the focus is much more so on social and emotional learning, teaching students how to basically navigate the onslaught of emotions and feelings that they're experiencing every single day, along with traditional math, science, social studies.

JESTER, Student: Hi, my name is Jester (ph).

I'm feeling kind of nervous today.

Valor is, in a word, unique.

(LAUGHTER) JESTER: So, circle, the best way that I have.. a group therapy session and an AA meeting.

NATALIE NIKITAS: Circle basically is about like a 55-minute experience where students will sit together and basically take the time to share how they're feeling.

STUDENT: I'm feeling kind of worried today.

STUDENT: I'm feeling a little bit stressed, but mostly excited.

STUDENT: I am feeling a mix of, like, stress but as well kind of at peace.

JESTER: It's a moment for us to decompress and focus in on how we're doing emotionally and give us just that sort of safe space to just be a collective individually.

STUDENT: What if I don't get the scholarship I had before and I have to actually pull away a lot more?

Because I didn't study, and I regret it a lot, because I feel like I should have listened to my mom when she told me.

STUDENT: So I definitely understand that idea of procrastinating.

But I definitely feel like that same pressure you're under, wanting to do really well, so you can apply to college and get your scholarships and everything.

I also resonate with the fact of how your mom was saying making sure you study, also kind of did the same thing with mine.

NATALIE NIKITAS: On our best days, I truly have seen students look out for another and make connections that I think every teacher and member of a school hopes to see.

STUDENT: Expressing my worries about school and the stress and the overwhelming feelings that I usually have throughout the day in class, I think talking about those are pretty relieving, because you realize that almost everybody's feeling the exact same way.

STUDENT: I shared last year, my 10th grade year, it was my first time in front of everybody.

Like, I was nervous.

You just like getting put on spotlight basically.

You are just talking, and people are just listening to you and looking at you.

So I was telling my teacher like, I didn't want to do it.

NATALIE NIKITAS: You're supposed to have them share ou.. feelings, their emotions, their struggles.

A student isn't going to do that unless they trust you.

And to do that is a feat.

But if you do it well, the reward is astronomical.

STUDENT: I personally really disliked it as a middle schooler.

I just really didn't think sitting down, talking about my feelings was important.

But over time, throughout the years, I started to realize that it was actually something that was useful to me.

STUDENT: People know who I am today, like, at Valor.

They know what I went through and everything.

JESTER: The hardest part is being vulnerable.. in, vulnerability is always met with support.

STUDENT: I'm able to trust more with people that I love, like my friends.

NATALIE NIKITAS: Even if we don't understand what a teenager is going through, to say it is tough, your feelings are valid, for a student to hear that from a teacher, like they actually care about them as a human being, what I have seen happen is, students start to excel.

STUDENT: There's more to life than all this.

You know, there's a lot of stress in school.

And I realized I was trying to work myself to death.

This is my life.

No one can take that away from me.

So what I have been doing for the past coupl.. life that I have.

JESTER: So I want to appreciate Chris.

It's like, ho.. now?

You have just taken such an initiative and said, I'm not just going to sit here.

I'm going to do everything I can to be the person I want to be.

NATALIE NIKITAS: Once you see students open up, it's like, this is everything that we have been trying to do.

And for one brief magical moment, students get to feel, like, whole.

I think, without recognizing students as whol.. and obstacles, then we're truly missing out on half of a student.

JESTER: You all ready?

(LAUGHTER) NATALIE NIKITAS: My name is Natalie Nikitas,.. on building trust in a circle.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Tonight's Brief But Spectacular is part of a six-part collection on the future of education.

The entire series can be seen on our Web site, PBS.org/"NewsHour."

Later tonight on PBS, "Independent Lens" premieres a documentary about how a group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists banded together to launch the nonprofit newsroom The 19th.

"Breaking the News" airs at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Check your local listings.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm William Brangham.

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