April 3, 2022 - PBS News Weekend full episode

GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening, I'm Geoff Bennett.

Tonight on "PBS NewsHour Weekend," the toll of war.

Following shocking images of civilians killed in the streets outside Kyiv, Ukraine's Zelenskyy calls the attacks genocide.

Then we analyze the latest revelations from the January 6 Committee and look ahead as Democrats hope to wrap up Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation this week.

And our weekend spotlight with the music icon Daryl Hall, he's back on tour and showing no signs of slowing down.

DARYL HALL, Music Icon: When you're on stage for whatever time you're on there, that's -- that's when it gets good.

GEOFF BENNETT: All that and more on tonight's "PBS News Weekend."

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Ukrainian prosecutors investigating possible Russian war crimes say they found 410 bodies in the town surrounding Kyiv.

Meantime, Moscow continues to deny its military is targeting civilians, but as Russian troops pull back from those areas correspondent Ali Rogin reports they are scorching the earth behind them.

A warning some of the images in the story are disturbing.

ALI ROGIN: In the wake of Russia's withdrawal from the Kyiv suburbs, a trail of death.

In the town of Bucha, hundreds of bodies lay in mass graves and on the roads.

What Ukrainian officials say is evidence of war crimes.

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS News moderator: Is this genocide?

ALI ROGIN: This morning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was explicit.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President (through translator): Indeed, this is genocide.

ALI ROGIN: But Secretary of State Antony Blinken would not go as far.

DANA BASH, CNN Host: Do you see this as genocide?

ANTONY BLINKEN, Secretary of State: Look, we will look hard and document everything that we see.

Put it all together.

ALI ROGIN: As they returned to towns deserted but destroyed by Russia, Ukrainian forces received a warm welcome.

WOMAN (through translator): We prayed we asked God to give our warriors our defenders health and God's protection.

ALI ROGIN: Ukrainian and Western officials say Russia is shifting its forces and focus from the north and capital region to the south and east.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY (through translator): We think this is the redeployment in our opinion they're changing the tactics now.

ALI ROGIN: In the port city of Odessa today, residents woke up to a Russian attack on an oil facility.

VIKA, Odessa Resident: This is not a good morning for Odessa.

We woke up to powerful explosions near our home.

The impact was huge.

It was terrifying.

ALI ROGIN: Further along the coast, the city of Mariupol remains under siege.

On Sunday, the Red Cross tried for the third day in a row to bring aid in and get civilians out.

But the Russians have not honored their pledge to allow safe passage.

For "PBS News Weekend," I'm Ali Rogin.

GEOFF BENNETT: For more on the devastating situation in Bucha, I'm joined by special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky who was there earlier today.

Simon, give us a sense of what you've seen today.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Well, the devastation in Bucha is really difficult to describe.

It's so total the Russian troops pulled out just a few days ago, and what they left behind has really exposed the horrors that's the civilians living in Bucha in the area surrounding Kyiv live through during the Russian occupation that lasted more than a month.

What we saw were civilians' bodies littering the roads, some of them killed with shrapnel or from explosions.

But disturbingly, many of the people that we saw, who had just been left out in the streets to rot had actually seemingly been executed because they had gunshot wounds to the head.

We witnessed a scene of a group of volunteers behind a building, clearing a number of bodies, eight or nine bodies of men who had all seemingly been executed.

Several of them had their hands tied behind their backs.

And they were discarded behind this building with other ways that the Russian troops left behind, like MRE packets, food ration packets that came from Russia.

And so we spoke with the head of a funeral service in Bucha, who told us that over the last several days, they've actually collected and found around 300 civilians so far, who were killed and they're finding 30 or 40 every day and I think that the death toll is just going to continue to grow as the Ukrainian forces to continue to move north into the areas that the Russians have retreated from.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's a horrifying account.

Special correspondent, Simon Ostrovsky, appreciate you joining us.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: And a note our coverage of Ukraine is supported in part by the Pulitzer Center.

In today's headline, six people are dead and at least 12 others are injured some critically following a mass shooting early this morning in downtown Sacramento.

Police say a social media video appears to show an altercation preceding the shooting.

But no suspects are in custody and police are searching for at least one shooter.

Earlier today, family members of the victims arrived at the scene.

WOMAN: I have a child is laying out there.

And I want to -- I want some answers.

I just want some answers from somebody.

GEOFF BENNETT: Authority say a motive is still unclear as the shooting is under investigation.

In Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan has dissolved the country's parliament and called for new elections and an effort to block attempts to remove him from office.

The Prime Minister has accused his political opponents of working with the U.S. to oust him.

Now earlier today, Pakistani opposition lawmakers took a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister but Khan threw out the vote.

The opposition party scheduled a hearing with that country's Supreme Court tomorrow to challenge the move.

And in Hungary, polls have closed in the country's national election.

Voters there are choosing between a new coalition of opposition parties or a fourth term for nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Early partial results show Orban with the lead.

The war in Ukraine has cast a shadow over the campaign drawing attention to Orban's close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And the decade's long career of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski came to a bittersweet end last night as Duke lost to its rival North Carolina in the Final Four.

North Carolina fans spilled into the streets of Chapel Hill to celebrate that as quite a crowd.

The eighth seeded Tar Heels will now face the top seeded Kansas Jayhawks in Monday's national championship.

And tonight the South Carolina Gamecocks and the UConn Huskies face off in the women's national game.

Still to come on "PBS News Weekend," Democrats push to confirm a new Supreme Court Justice and the latest on the House committee's investigation of the January 6th Capital attack.

And a musical legend ready to take the stage once again.

(BREAK) A series of revelations about the involvement of President Trump's allies in the days leading up to January 6, is providing fresh evidence to the committee charged with investigating the attack as it gears up for public hearings.

And the U.S. Senate is advancing the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson with the goal of getting her confirmed by the end of the week.

We're discussing that and more on our Sunday briefing.

Joining me today is Margaret Russell.

She's an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.

Kyle Cheney is a Senior Legal Affairs reporter for Politico.

And Chuck Rosenberg is a former U.S. attorney and former senior FBI official.

A big welcome to the three of you.

And Kyle, we'll start with you because there have been a slew of developments in just the past week connected to January.

You've got Republican Congressman Mo Brooks.

He revealed that Donald Trump pressured him to intervene to unwind the 2020 election results.

Even after January 6, there was a federal judge who found it was, quote, more likely than not that Donald Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6.

And now there are new questions about the President's White House Call Logs on that day, whether or not they were complete.

How do all of these developments affect the committee's investigative work?

KYLE CHENEY, Senior Legal Affairs Reporter, POLITICO: So it all adds just more granularity to the picture that the committee is painting that more and more likely looks like there were crimes committed not just that, whatever Donald Trump was doing with some unethical attempt to overturn the election in the final weeks of his presidency, but may have violated the law in multiple ways.

The judge's ruling is the clearest example of that a federal judge out in California, says that more likely than not the president entered a criminal conspiracy with allies like Attorney John Eastman to try to overturn the results to violate the law to do that.

So it's a, you know, every piece you just mentioned, fits in that narrative and fits in that picture that the committee is putting together and it helps them move their case forward.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Chuck, there is real unrelenting pressure from Democrats to hold Donald Trump and his allies accountable for the violence that unfolded at the Capitol.

Is there any indication that federal prosecutors are close to charging the former president if it is, in fact warranted?

And what would the burden of proof be that they would have to meet in a criminal case?

CHUCK ROSENBERG, Former U.S. Attorney: Yes, and let me take the second question first, Geoff.

So Kyle just described a ruling by a federal judge in Los Angeles on an evidentiary matter, finding that it was more likely than not that Trump had entered into a criminal conspiracy.

That's fine, in that case, for that evidentiary matter.

But to your question, to hold anyone accountable in a criminal case, who would have to find proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

And you would need a unanimous jury.

So a very different standard.

I think Kyle's explanation of what that judge did is good and important.

But it's not evidence and certainly not sufficient to convict anyone of anything.

As to indications of what the Department of Justice is doing, and how fast they're doing it, hard to know.

Grand Jury investigations have to be secret.

The rules of evidence require that they be secret.

And so I'm not surprised that we don't have a lot of visibility into what the Department of Justice is doing.

Congress is running an investigation.

And that's all well and good.

And they'll make a report public one day.

The Department of Justice has a very different mission, which is to hold people criminally accountable, if the evidence and the law warrants it.

And so they need to take their time.

They need to do it right.

And they need to meet a much higher burden of proof.

Frankly, I'm glad they're doing it quietly and secretly.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Margaret, to that point, President Biden has been clear that he wanted to restore what he calls the integrity, the independence of the DOJ following what transpired during the Trump era.

What do you make of the argument from some Democrats that the Justice Department under Attorney General Garland might be overcorrecting that they're in fact too cautious?

MARGARET RUSSELL, Santa Clara University School Of Law: Democrats particularly on the January 6 Committee are starting to say things like to your job, so we can do ours.

And like the previous speaker, I would caution, any notion that Merrick Garland should be listening to them in terms of what he should be doing, it's a very different thing to say, you're not doing your job, you're not doing your job and to say, you're not doing the job, because you're not doing what I want you to do.

And the course correction has been very important, because the previous administration's Justice Department made a charade really made a mess in terms of using attempting to use the Justice Department as a partisan political tool, and I think in this case, I would give Merrick Garland a little bit more time before assuming that he is not doing his job.

GEOFF BENNETT: I want to shift our focus now to the Supreme Court because, Chuck, this week as you will know, a texts from Ginni Thomas to former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows surfaced showing how the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, urged the White House to find a way to keep former President Trump in office.

Justice Thomas so far has not recused himself from any case having to do with January 6.

And what we learned this past week, lay people like myself, I'm sure you already knew this is that unlike all other federal judges, the justices of the Supreme Court are not subject to a code of ethical conduct.

Why not?

And should that change?

CHUCK ROSENBERG: Well, they're not technically subjected to a code, but they do abide by ethical norms and ethical rules and justices when necessary recuse themselves from cases.

So, the typical recusal situation, Geoff, would be if a family members involved in litigation or you have a direct financial interest in litigation, you raise a really interesting question about whether or not Justice Thomas needs to step aside from cases coming down the Turnpike, because of what his wife wrote to White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows.

And the answer is maybe yes.

And so even though there's no technical code of ethics that directly applies to Supreme Court justices, not by the written rule, Supreme Court Justice, excuse me, Supreme Court justices do follow the same set of rules and look whether or not we ought to have a written code that memorializes that, sure, why not.

But our justices tend to follow those rules pretty carefully.

GEOFF BENNETT: And in the few minutes that remain.

Margaret, I want to come to you and ask about Senate Democrats, their goal of wrapping up the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson this week, she's on track for a narrow confirmation.

But her hearings to a lot of folks I think really illustrated an ongoing disintegration of the overall Supreme Court confirmation process that I've heard from senators, Democrat and Republican who fear that it will only get worse.

What's your view?

MARGARET RUSSELL: It means very likely that it will get worse and here's why.

The Senate constitutionally is empowered to make its own rules so they could change confirmation hearings, if they wanted.

Some proposals have been to sort of shorten the time period, tighten it up.

But I think the worst offenders really are those who use their platform to ask questions that are not germane, that are hectoring and that ultimately don't reveal anything about the nominee.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Kyle, give us a sense of the week ahead.

I know the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to have a hearing tomorrow and then we're to things late.

KYLE CHENEY: Yes, so we -- looks like we could get a confirmation by as you mentioned the end of the week, maybe by Friday in which, you know, again, will probably be a narrow confirmation, but there's a couple of key holdouts on the Republican side who may be interesting like Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, haven't yet said what they're going to do.

And so we may get a semblance more bipartisanship.

We already have a Republican Senator Susan Collins supporting this nomination if others join her.

It won't look, you know, quite as divisive as other recent nominees, but you know, as -- it does sort of cap a very disheartening process about this entire nomination.

GEOFF BENNETT: Kyle Cheney, Margaret Russell and Chuck Rosenberg, my thanks to the three of you for joining us on our first Sunday briefing here at "PBS News Weekend."

Appreciate it.

MARGARET RUSSELL: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Ahead of tonight's Grammy Awards, I sat down with a giant of the music industry who at 75 years old, is still trying to make his fans dreams come true.

Legendary singer songwriter Daryl Hall is back on stage preparing for a new tour.

Best known for being one half of the iconic rock and soul duo Hall and Oates.

His new album Before After is the first ever collection of his solo work, material found on five albums from 1980 Sacred Songs to 2011's Laughing Down Crying.

It also includes highlights from his long running online series live from Daryl's house, where he's collaborated with a range of artists including Sammy Hagar.

Sharon Jones, Smokey Robinson, and CeeLo Green.

We spoke with Daryl Hall in upstate New York, in between rehearsals.

So you're about to get back on the road.

DARYL HALL: I am.

GEOFF BENNETT: What have you miss the most about live performance?

DARYL HALL: The actual performance.

Everything else is terrible.

You know, it's just travel.

It's very military, you know, hurry up and wait, that kind of thing.

But when you're on stage for whatever time you're on there, that's when it gets good.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

DARYL HALL: You never know what's going to happen.

GEOFF BENNETT: How did you maintain your creative process during the pandemic?

DARYL HALL: I hibernated.

I didn't fight it.

I actually didn't even play my instruments.

I didn't write any songs.

I stayed in one place, which is totally weird because I've been traveling since I was a teenager all over the world.

GEOFF BENNETT: So where did the idea come from to do before after?

DARYL HALL: Part of it was that time of reflection, really.

I think a lot of people you know, you reevaluate things, you know, my whole life changed.

Everybody's life changed.

If not now, when you know, it's time to put some to show the world.

I've been doing with Darrell Sasse (ph), showing my sort of alternative side and my alternative career basically.

And I played a lot of those songs over the years on the Darrell Sasse (ph) show, but I never really released any compilation or paid that much attention to the recorded versions of all these albums I've made over the years.

And I thought now's the time to do it and the show, that's what I do.

I do stuff with John Oates.

I do stuff with other people.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

DARYL HALL: And let's put it all out there.

GEOFF BENNETT: Hall got his start in the Philadelphia music scene, as part of a group called the Temptones while studying at Temple University.

DARYL HALL: Was a vocal group, street corner group, you know, that was popular back then.

I made my first record with Kenny Gamble and Romeo's, you know, and a four-track studio, Virtue Studios in North Broad Street.

I was really involved with that whole world.

You know, it was the beginning of that what people know is the sound of Philadelphia.

And I was part of that.

GEOFF BENNETT: And then after college is when we met John Oates?

DARYL HALL: I met John.

He was sort of playing guitar in the Temptones for a while, you know, back and forth, but we decided to do something for real after we got out of school.

GEOFF BENNETT: Daryl Hall and John Oates released their first album together in 1972, eventually becoming the most successful duo in American pop history.

They've earned all kinds of accolades Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum inductees.

A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

All for their enduring hits such as Sarah Smile.

Private Eyes.

Rich Girl.

You Make My Dreams.

They topped Billboard's Hot 100 half a dozen times.

These days, their music is sampled by rappers and they continue to find new young fans online, like YouTube stars Tim and Fred Williams famous for their reaction videos.

TIM WILLIAMS, Youtuber: I love that little jazz for.

FRED WILLIAMS, Youtuber: Yes.

TIM WILLIAMS: The groove that blue blues and make you want to -- FRED WILLIAMS: For real.

GEOFF BENNETT: But Hall says despite the success, or because of it, at times, he found it hard to branch out creatively.

Since his solo work is more adventurous and less commercial than what he recorded with John Oates.

DARYL HALL: It's hard.

It's really a hard thing to do.

I didn't always succeed with it.

You know, a lot of -- there's a lot of frustration involved.

Because the business of music has a different agenda than the creation of music.

In my particular situation, I was sort of a victim of success, where I had to compete with myself.

And the record company was looking at the cash cow.

They were looking at what was going to make them the most money.

That was Daryl Hall and John Oates.

And my other stuff that I was doing, even though I was having success with it, is it -- when you balance it out, where are they going to do?

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

DARYL HALL: They're going to push the other side.

GEOFF BENNETT: In fact, RCA was it refused to put out one of your solo albums.

DARYL HALL: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: So you leaked it to these journalists.

DARYL HALL: Yes.

They just said it was so crazy.

I mean, I made this great album with Robert Fripp.

And it was really, really a groundbreaking album.

And, you know, it wasn't Rich Girl Jr. GEOFF BENNETT: How do you write songs that are timeless and enduring?

What's your process?

DARYL HALL: It comes in all different -- in many different ways.

Sometimes it'll be drum groove, you know, sometimes it'll be a chord progression.

Sometimes it'll be just a phrase that runs in my head.

Any combination of that is can make a song, you know, I don't really have a formula.

GEOFF BENNETT: Did you know that so many of your hits would be hits when you wrote them?

DARYL HALL: No, not.

I had -- I never think of.

I don't think of songs as like, this is I'm going to write a hit.

You know, this is good.

So occasionally, I'll think, well, this could be it.

But you never know.

You just never know.

Sometimes a song that I think is going to be hit is a hit.

GEOFF BENNETT: So what do you attribute your longevity in this business?

DARYL HALL: It's hard for me to say, you know.

I mean, I think I write songs that seem to, well, they obviously they cross generations, which is fantastic.

I love that.

I mean, it's so fulfilling.

I don't know there's some timeless quality is some universal thing that I know how to touch on.

It has to do with my personal experiences that I guess everybody else shares the best way I could put it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Timeless song sustaining Daryl Hall's towering 50-year career.

And that's "PBS News Weekend" for tonight.

On the "PBS NewsHour" tomorrow with Judy Woodruff, we'll get the latest from on the ground in Ukraine.

I'm Jeff Bennett.

Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.

For all of us at "PBS News Weekend," thanks for spending part of your Sunday with us.