PBS News Hour - Politics

The showdown between the White House and Congress over the Mueller report is escalating even further. House Democrats took initial steps to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt Wednesday, with House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler calling the decision "grave and momentous." Lisa Desjardins reports and joins Judy Woodruff and Yamiche Alcindor to discuss.

Iran said it plans to cease complying with portions of the nuclear deal it signed with Western powers in 2015, though it didn't withdraw from the agreement altogether. But the announcement increases already escalating tensions with the U.S. Nick Schifrin talks to Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, about why Iran made the decision now and whether it can trust President Trump.

A year after the Trump administration withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Iran itself warned that it will stop complying with the agreement unless it receives promised economic benefits. Judy Woodruff talks to Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who served as lead U.S. negotiator for the nuclear agreement with Iran during the Obama administration, about the impact of recent U.S. policy toward Iran.

Congressional Democrats are expected to decide Thursday whether to go to court to obtain President Trump’s recent tax returns. Though there has long been curiosity over Trump’s taxes, which he declined to release in 2016, interest in them resurfaced after a New York Times investigation uncovered past tax records and large business losses. William Brangham talks to Times reporter Ross Buettner.

In our Tuesday news wrap, the Trump administration intensified its resistance to investigations by congressional Democrats, instructing former White House counsel Don McGahn to defy a subpoena. Meanwhile, uncertainty over U.S.-China trade negotiations sent Wall Street stocks plummeting. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its largest percentage decline since early January, falling 473 points.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., became a household name in 2016 when he ran a progressive campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and came close to securing it. He’s back in the 2020 race, but this time up against more than 20 other candidates. Sanders sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss trade with China, health care, student debt, Russian election interference and more.

The Mueller report continues to generate legal debate. Several hundred former federal prosecutors published a statement this week asserting that President Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice, were he not the sitting president. William Brangham talks to Paul Rosenzweig, who worked with independent counsel Kenneth Starr on the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton.

Chinese and Trump administration officials are supposed to meet later this week to hammer out a trade agreement, but the challenge may be more difficult now that Trump has threatened to impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods. NPR’s Laura Sullivan talks to Yamiche Alcindor about how Trump’s more hawkish advisers are influencing his policy to depart from that of previous administrations.

In our Monday news wrap, a bipartisan group of more than 370 federal prosecutors signed a statement contending that, based on details from the Mueller report, President Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice if he were not president. Also, Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen reported to federal prison in New York to begin a three-year sentence.