Hillary Swank, Age Old Question - in Politics and Health, Ukraine 2 years on

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Or go to Rakuten.com to start getting the most bang for your buck. That's R A K U T E N. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday Morning. It's an age-old question, one that's come to be front and center in this presidential campaign. And it's a question we'll all deal with at some point in our lives. Whether it's time to take the car keys from an aging parent, or when it's time for a construction worker or a teacher or a surgeon to call it quits. So with Joe Biden, age 81, facing off against Donald Trump, who's 77, for the most powerful office in the world, just how old is too old?

We've asked Dr. John Lepook and correspondent Robert Costa to tally things up. How do you know when someone is too old for the job? You hear a lot of people asking, how old is too old? And shouldn't it be how old is too old for what function?

Absolutely. I could not agree more, because it really varies. What also varies? How much voters and the press say age is an issue for candidates. It's easy to oversimplify and say, well, this campaign's all about age. Well, age is part of it, but it's not all about age. Coming up on Sunday morning, the science and politics of age in America. She's a two-time Oscar winner, but Hillary Swank's latest film might be the one closest to her heart, as Tracey Smith will explain.

You're going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable, because this ain't about you. It's about your little girl. Her new film's about helping a family get an organ transplant, a situation she knows all too well. But this serious actor is actually anything but. Do you think people perceive you as more serious than you are? Absolutely.

My mom said I should win an Academy Award for tricking everyone into thinking I'm a dramatic actress. The real Hillary Swank, later on Sunday morning. Hard to believe, but it's been two years since Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Inflicting untold damage and unimaginable horror on its neighbor to the west.

David Martin has a status report. Two years into the war, a film about what happened in the city of Mariupol has been nominated for an Oscar. The whole city was suffering.

So many people dying. You left on day 20. Mariupol fell on day 86? Yeah. Believe it or not, it became even worse.

20 days in Mariupol. Ahead on Sunday morning. On this weekend of President's Day, David Pogue is on Broadway with stage star LaChanze Sap Gooding, better known as LaChanze. Lee Cowan takes note of rising country star Ashley McBride. We'll have commentary from President Jimmy Carter's grandson, Jason. And more on this Sunday morning for the 18th of February, 2024.

We'll be right back. This byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. This is a proactive solution that wards off feeling miserable the next day instead of a reactive approach like drinking electrolytes or eating greasy food. Enhance your mornings with Zbiotics. Go to zbiotics.com slash CBS to get 15% off your first order when you use code CBS at checkout. Zbiotics is backed with a 100% money-back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash CBS and use the code CBS at checkout for 15% off.

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Visit audible.com slash wonderypod or text wonderypod to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days. Of all the issues in this year's presidential election, immigration, the economy, abortion, one seems to surpass all the others. Is Joe Biden, or Donald Trump for that matter, just too old to meet the demands of the job? We've asked Dr. John Lapook to help us answer the age-old question. There's an old saying among doctors, if you've seen one 80-year-old, you've seen one 80-year-old. Some will act like they're 60 or 70, while others seem a lot older. You hear a lot of people asking, how old is too old? And shouldn't it be how old is too old for what function? Absolutely.

I could not agree more. Is part of you just getting sick and tired of this discussion? No, I'm never tired of discussing aging. Dr. Louise Aronson is a geriatrician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Her bestselling book, Elderhood, is about redefining old age. I honestly think anybody who's lived past their 40s knows age matters, right? Your body changes, your brain changes.

What I would like to see is a conversation where we actually discuss the things that matter. It gets tricky, right? Because you have things like wisdom brushing up against decreasing cognitive function.

Right. I mean, there is a lot of variability. A healthy human brain has up to 100 billion nerve cells making trillions of connections with each other. Recent research suggests a normal part of aging involves forgetting less important memories to help make room for new ones. The problem comes when normal forgetting is coupled with an abnormal process causing dementia. I would say by far the biggest fear my patients have is that they're losing it. Right.

And very often it'll start with, I couldn't think of a name. I mean, it was somebody who I know so well. Right. How important is that? How worried should they be?

I would say they should not be worried. And what about misplacing objects? Sometimes it's a matter of attention. So what may be happening in situations where people said, I couldn't find my keys, is that they weren't paying enough attention to the keys. Maybe they were talking to someone when they put them down and consequently that memory isn't within their grasp in the way they would hope. But if you find the keys and you don't know what they do? Oh, that's a bigger problem.

Yes. That distinction between normal and abnormal aging is increasingly important as the number of older workers continues to grow. And in most cases, mandatory retirement at a certain age is illegal.

Congress today gave final approval to a bill that outlaws mandatory retirement for most workers at any age. But there are exceptions when public safety is at stake. For example, FBI agents must retire at 57, commercial airline pilots at 65. But there are no age limits for surgeons. When I lecture about this subject of older surgeons around the country, I ask my audience who in the audience has encountered a surgeon who should have stopped operating before he or she did and the majority of hands go up. Doctors think that they know best. Dr. Mark Katlick is a thoracic surgeon and chief of surgery for LifeBridge Health in Baltimore. Let's go. In 2014, he created the Aging Surgeon Program, a two-day physical and cognitive evaluation open to older surgeons from anywhere in the world, demonstrated here.

Kurt, you can stop. I was pulled together a team, a multidisciplinary team of doctors including geriatricians and neurologists and PTOT, physical occupational therapy people, ethicists, lawyers. We built this comprehensive, objective evaluation of a surgeon's physical and cognitive faculties. What was the initial response of the surgeons who were going to be potentially subjected to this? Almost everyone comes kicking and screaming and not wanting to come. And what precipitates them being sent there in the first place? Something has been identified as being problematic.

I want you to touch the block that I touch. Okay. Aside from evaluating surgeons flagged with a possible problem, LifeBridge is one of the few hospital systems in the country where all doctors and nurses over the age of 75 receive a neurocognitive assessment every two years. Our doctors are very open-minded about it. Dr. Katlick, 72, says tests like these actually help fight ageism by focusing on function rather than on chronological age. I think you can make a very strong case for anybody who's in a high-impact profession. Doctors, airline pilots, high government officials, they should have some sort of screening at some age.

In fact, I would take away the mandatory retirement for airline pilots and others. If you're okay, the test will show you're okay. We've added a couple of decades, essentially an entire generation onto our lives, and we haven't kind of socio-culturally figured out how to handle that. And I think it's important.

We need to discuss age. Figuring out how to handle that, says Dr. Aronson, might just mean embracing the realities of getting older while realizing the end of working doesn't have to mean the end of a meaningful life. We need ways of letting people work when they still can and of helping them to stop working when that's in their interests and the interests of the common good.

But the problem is that we really haven't figured out a way of giving people a gentle off-ramp to whatever it is that they're doing that preserves their dignity and their sense of who they are. Almost all of us will live to that phase of life, and so if nothing but the most selfish of reasons, we should be doing that right now. Quality sleep can help boost your reaction time, recovery time, and performance. That's why the Sleep Number Smart Bed is designed for your one-of-a-kind, ever-evolving sleep needs.

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That's J-U-V-E-D-E-R-M dot com. We've examined the medical implications of the question, how old is too old? Time to turn to politics and correspondent Robert Costa. Are you worried that sometimes issues like age can be dominant, but discussions about some of those other issues on policy just don't get the bandwidth they deserve? Yeah, I think that is a concern. It's easier to focus on age.

I mean, because everybody kind of gets that. It's harder to get people to understand the matrix of all of the legal cases that the former president is involved in. These are corrupt people.

These are people that shouldn't be allowed to do the things they do. Or the choices that President Biden is having to make in his dealings with the government of Israel and dealing with war in Ukraine. Some of these things, it's easy to oversimplify and say, well, this campaign is all about age.

Well, age is part of it, but it's not all about age. Dan Balz of The Washington Post is considered by many the dean of political reporters. Balz is 77 years old, the same age as former presidents Trump, Clinton, and Bush. He says the spotlight on President Biden's age is understandable and nothing new. Think back to 1984. Ronald Reagan running for reelection.

He's on the debate stage with Walter Mondale. He playfully uses his age as an asset. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. Well, I think the lesson would be that you have to confront the issue directly and you have to find a way to diffuse it and to get people to move past it.

You don't want people dwelling on it. What could President Biden do to push back against his own naysayers on that front? Well, he's tried to do it with humor. After all, I believe in the First Amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it. He's done some extraordinary things as president.

I mean, that trip to Ukraine that he took was a seriously taxing, physically taxing trip. We saw at the State of the Union last year in spontaneous moments him take on the Republicans over Social Security. As we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?

All right. We got unanimity. Some media watchdogs argue President Biden's age has been over covered, overstated and over analyzed, particularly when compared to former President Trump's. I think that one of the realities is that former President Trump makes many gaffes.

By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley. We know that he mixed up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, during the New Hampshire primary. Nikki Haley is in charge of security.

We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers. We hear a lot about age on the campaign trail. How much of the frustration about that issue is really a frustration about the candidates?

I don't know how you separate that people don't want a rematch from partly one of the reasons is that these are two elderly candidates. There is a sense that there is a kind of a cork in the bottle politically of an older generation, frankly, of my generation. But the baby boom generation doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Well, it is going somewhere, slowly. Generational tension is hardly limited to the White House. Since 2017, we've had the oldest Congress in history. With the silent generation and baby boomers still ensconced in power, Gen X, millennials and those younger are vying for more seats. I just turned 35, so I think about this a lot because in my normal life I am starting to feel quite old. Then I get to Congress and I feel young again, let alone use apps. California Democratic Representative Sarah Jacobs is one of the five youngest members of Congress. She's pushing the average age down a notch and pushing the concerns of young voters to the forefront. So often young people, let's say those under 40, get painted with a broad brush, they don't care about politics. Do you buy that? No.

That's total b****. I was in middle school when September 11th happened and I haven't known a day in my adult life that the United States has not been at war. The financial crisis happened right as I was graduating from college. As soon as millennials were hitting their stride, we had a global pandemic.

Gen Z has known nothing but school shootings and active shooter drills, a climate crisis that isn't being addressed with the urgency that it deserves. Like tens of millions of Americans, I've used apps to track my period. Jacobs has championed privacy legislation for reproductive health data, such as menstrual cycle tracking apps. The concern? Safeguarding information that could be used to prosecute those suspected of having an abortion in states where the procedure is banned. What's it like talking to an older male member of Congress about a period tracking app?

I've definitely had my fair share of making my colleagues a little bit uncomfortable. We should be talking about periods and birth control and the health care that millions of Americans need for our everyday lives. The fact of the matter is if we aren't talking about these issues, we certainly aren't making good policy about them. Policy for the people by the people.

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Look all around, nothing but blue skies LaChanze Sap Gooding, better known as LaChanze, has spent most of her life on stage. I started my career in this theater. The Booth Theater. Your first Broadway show? My first Broadway show as a leading actress was on this stage.

It was 1990 and the show was once on this island. Then came starring roles in Company, Ragtime, and The Color Purple. That one landed her a Tony Award. Oh my God, I won it.

I really won it. But behind the scenes, she's faced some tougher times. I dedicate this song to my late husband, Calvin Joseph Gooding. Amazing Grace In 2001, when she was pregnant with her second daughter, she got word of the 9-11 attacks. Her husband, Calvin Gooding, was a securities trader in the World Trade Center. She performed at the opening of the 9-11 Museum in 2014, but did not return to the World Trade Center site again until this past October, when she gave a one-night solo concert.

I want to claim this space as a place where I can be and not have the fear or the anxiety of stepping on someone's ashes. That the world will turn away from you, child. But along her 40-year Broadway journey, LaChanze had noticed something many of her shows had in common. A certain lack of diversity. People say, what do you mean Broadway isn't diverse? I've seen shows my whole life with black talent on stage.

And I say, exactly. You've seen black talent on stage, but you've not seen black talent behind the scenes. You've not seen black directors. You've not seen black choreographers. My entire career, the first time that I had a black director, was 2021 in Trouble in Mind. I've never had a black director on Broadway prior to that, as a lead actress. Let's see, so once on this island, black casts, but white writers? White writers, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who are amazing.

Love them. Color purple. White director. White writer.

Brag time, same thing. How does that happen? It happens because there are not enough people, black people or people of color, at the decision-making table. I like the way you look at life and think outside the box.

And so, after 40 years as a performer, LaChanze stepped off the Broadway stage to become a Broadway producer. It's important for people like myself, who have the access, who have the exposure, who have the relationships, to get in a position for young black people that want to come into my business. Some people will say, well, I don't know any black female lighting designers. As a black producer, I can say, let me show you where they are.

Who's here to do some space, huh? One who's here to never fade, huh? Her producing career is only two years old, but she seems to have the magic touch. Top Dog Underdog won a Tony for best revival of a play.

The musical Kimberly Akimbo won five Tonys. Oh yeah. So I'm looking for some streaks of color, maybe some extensions.

Oh, we have so many colors. And the limited engagement of the play she produced last fall, Jaja's African Hair Braiding, had to be extended. Twice. Oh my God, what are you doing?

That's too much oil. You want me to break out. And I grew up in braiding salons. I raised my daughters in braiding salons. So it's lovely to be able to see a part of my childhood and my culture that we're now bringing to Broadway audiences and audiences that have never even considered going into a hair salon. And producing isn't the end of her efforts to make Broadway more inclusive.

We stand on the shoulders of the incredible leaders and the artists who came before us. I am the president of Black Theatre United, which is an advocacy organization, and our mission is to protect Black talent, Black bodies, and Black lives on Broadway and across America. Thanks to the efforts of Black Theatre United, three theaters on the Great White Way are now named after Black theater artists, up from just one. And every major Broadway theater owner has agreed to a set of diversity principles, including... There will be no more all-white creative teams. They've all committed to that.

It all seems to be working. Last year, 29 percent of Broadway audiences were people of color, the greatest number ever recorded. If we don't start diversifying the stories that we bring to Broadway, we're not going to have any audience. She's producing another musical this spring, and she'll make her directing debut this year, too. Her only immediate plans for returning to performing are right now.

The song is from Kimberly Akimbo, the show she produced. Father time, slow down the day, don't let the dark come and steal it away, for goodness sake. One of the missions that I have is to tell stories that are human, not based in the fact that I am a Black woman, that I have survived 9-11. Oh, poor LaChanze. No. I need you to say, go, LaChanze. You did that. You are thriving. You are helping to make room for so many others, despite all of that. So I pray for another day. Father, hear my prayer. Father, hear my prayer.

That was fun! As you probably know, one of our former presidents, Jimmy Carter, has been in hospice care for some time. And yet, the 39th President of the United States lives on. Thoughts on that this morning from his grandson, Jason Carter.

My grandfather was born in 1924, had no running water, no electricity, and he grew up plowing fields behind a mule. He's lived to see both his life and this world transformed in so many ways. And through all of those changing times, he truly has clung to his unchanging principles.

Faith, respect for human dignity, equality, human rights, and the commandment that above all else, you should love your neighbor as yourself. The MRI showed that there was a cancer. Nearly a decade ago, he had five melanoma tumors in his brain and liver. And we quoted the old gospel song that says he's going to stay on the battlefield.

And he has. For his whole life, he's been on the battlefield for peace, for human rights, for democracy, for the alleviation of human suffering, putting his faith and love into action for others. He has lived to see the Carter Center deploy an army of health workers, human rights workers, and democracy workers who are fighting disease, waging peace, and building hope. After 77 years of marriage, he was there for my grandmother until the end. He has seen and felt the outpouring of love from around the world.

Last year, we collected nearly 20,000 birthday wishes from over 100 countries. And in tiny plains, Georgia, that brought tears to his eyes. He's seen that that same technology that knits the world together can also pull us apart.

And how many on your voters face here? He's seen democracy threatened at home and abroad. And he lived to see one of the most important projects of his life, peace for Israel and Palestine at the brink. Looking back, his efforts at Camp David remain one of the few foundations for hope in that long and intractable conflict. But he has stayed on the battlefield. After a year in hospice, on a daily basis, we have no expectations for his body.

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That's 10% off your first purchase at www.rebag.com with code REBAG10. Her role as a prizefighter in Million Dollar Baby earned Hillary Swank her second Oscar. Now the versatile actor is playing a hairdresser helping a family battle impossible odds. And for Hillary Swank, this time it's personal. Tracey Smith has our Sunday profile. In the most scenic corner of the Pacific Northwest, Hillary Swank is in her element. Do you have lots of memories walking around here? Yes. So this lake right here is what I considered my best friend because I spent every single sunny day in that lake.

These days, the two-time Oscar winner is staying on familiar ground in her life and in her work. Hi, Sharon. Yes, ma'am. I just wanted to come by and give you this. I just made dinner if you want to stay.

Love to. Her new film, Ordinary Angels, is the true story of a woman who moves mountains to help a little girl who needs a liver transplant. Thank you for helping save this girl. To the point of begging the hospital to erase the mounting medical debt. You're asking us to reduce the family's medical bills due to hardship. No, I'm asking you to erase them.

All of them. Was that funny? For Swank, whose own father was a transplant recipient, the story hits painfully close to home. My dad passed away October 1, 2021, and he had a lung transplant. And just shortly after he passed, I mean, I started filming five months later. And so it was like almost, I don't know, kismet, in a way, to be a part of it. Some bills are like wine.

They get better with age. The movie is about a woman who tries to do the impossible and keeps trying until it happens. The same could be said of Hillary Swank herself. Raised in Bellingham, Washington, she grew up on the proverbial wrong side of town. And some kids at her school were told not to hang out with the kid from the trailer park.

That would happen? Oh yeah. Because you lived in a trailer park?

I don't know. I know. It's stupid.

It's so silly. But it stayed with you? Well, it stayed with me because, obviously, I didn't understand it.

But it's interesting because some of those people now, being back in the hometown, are like, Oh, I always believed in you. Oh, really? I'm like, no, you didn't. I can't keep my mouth shut to that. Do you say something? I say, no, you didn't.

No, you didn't. Is Ben Stever here? And it seems she never forgot how tough it was to make it. For years, she took any part, no matter how small.

Hi, Luke. You might recognize another young actor here, Leonardo DiCaprio, who was on his way up, too. It happened, but it was nine years of really hitting the pavement and really, I mean, auditioning five times a day. And in the trunk of my car was all these different outfits that I would change and go in to be this different person in these auditions. And a lot of rejection, too, I would imagine. A lot of rejection. It's a really hard thing to be told all the time about your looks and why you might not have gotten this or that. And you start to think, Oh, do I need to change that about myself? And I think that was one of the reasons why I didn't realize consciously I was doing it, but I think I was looking for roles that weren't about appearance, that they were really about people.

And that turned out to be the key. Who are you? In 1999, she landed a role that changed everything, Boys Don't Cry, playing a real-life trans teenager. You gotta see shrinks, you gotta shoot hormones up your butt, and I mean, it cost a f***ing fortune. I'm gonna be, you know, an old man by the time I get that kind of money. And the Oscar goes to... And then, this happened. Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry. Hillary Swank was suddenly a name in Hollywood, with the fame, but not the fortune.

So, you've called Boys Don't Cry the little movie that could. You made it for a little bit of money. You got paid a very little bit of money. $3,000. And so you have an Oscar and no health insurance? At that time, you had to make $5,000 a year to have health insurance, and I didn't recognize that until I went in to try and get a prescription filled.

And they were like, that'll be $260. And I was like, oh, I don't think I need that prescription. Weren't you ever tempted to just whip out the Oscar and be like, but I have this.

I don't think that would get me what I needed. Seems she's had to fight for everything she's ever had. In the role of a boxer for Million Dollar Baby, director and co-star Clint Eastwood had her bulk up her tiny frame with a brutal training routine, and more food than she'd ever eaten before.

Million Dollar Baby. How many egg whites did you eat a day? 6-0.

6-D. How? I drank them. Oh my gosh. The movie also beefed up her reputation as a Hollywood heavyweight. Hillary Swank.

Million Dollar Baby. After her second Oscar, she continued to work. But in 2014, she put her career on hold to care for her father, recovering from a lung transplant. You took care of your dad for three years?

Yeah, it ended up being a little bit more, but I took three years off from my career. I know a lot of people were like, oh my gosh, how can you take that much time off of your career? Aren't you worried about... I'm like, worried about what? I'm only worried about my dad's health. You know, to think that, I don't know, your career could go away or something was the least of my concerns.

The absolute last thing. But it was just so, it was such a great time and we became even closer, obviously. And he's one of my favorite people in the whole world and I just miss him every day and I would have only regretted not being there. Sadly, her dad didn't get to meet his grandchildren. Swank and husband Phillip Schneider welcomed boy-girl twins last year.

She was a few months shy of her 49th birthday. And they just turned 10 months old and I've been with them every single day. Every day? Yeah. We are going to save this girl, you hear me?

We're going to need a lot of shovels. In case she couldn't tell from the title, Ordinary Angels is about how average folks can sometimes do miraculous things. Just look at the career of its star and it's tough to disagree. Do you believe in miracles? That's a good question. So much of it, I think, is rooted in the fact that I loved it so much, but I also said I'm going to go and do this. And I didn't question it. I never said, and if it doesn't work out, I'll do this, this, or this.

There was no backup plan. No. I just never said I wasn't going to do it.

You know, so can't was like a bad four-letter word in my house. And so, if that is a miraculous thing, then yes, I believe in miracles. Every day, our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then, there are moments that remind us to be more human. Thank you for calling Amica Insurance. Hey, I was just in an accident. Don't worry. We'll get you taken care of. At Amica, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking.

It's human. Amica. Empathy is our best policy. Catch every episode of 60 Minutes, America's most-watched newsmagazine show, as a podcast. Hear in-depth investigations across politics, news, and entertainment on your schedule.

Listen to 60 Minutes, ad-free, on Wondery Plus. For two years and counting, we've seen the unrelenting horror of the war in Ukraine playing out daily. Tens of thousands of lives lost, entire cities left in ruin. Is there an end in sight?

We've asked our David Martin to take stock. And I cannot get over the feeling that something terrible is going to happen to this city. Something terrible did happen to the city of Mariupol, and Mr. Slav Chernov of the Associated Press was there to witness it.

What I did not expect is that the bombardment will be so intensive. Chernov and his team spent the first 20 days of the Russian invasion inside Mariupol, sending out images that horrified the world and are now part of an Oscar-nominated documentary. Frantic efforts to save a four-year-old.

A doctor urging the camera to capture it all. The whole city was suffering. The whole city was starving. The whole city was without water. So many people dying.

The boy was playing soccer with his friends when shelling started. His legs were completely blown off. Another infant rushed in. But he is beyond saving. Kiril, 18 months old. Shock and grief beyond comprehension.

My brain will desperately want to forget all this. But the camera will not let it happen. The bombs started hitting schools and civilian buildings and eventually they hit the maternity hospital. The scene of a woman named Irina with her unborn child, neither of whom would live, was denounced by Russia as staged.

The women actresses. A preposterous claim in the face of Chernov's unblinking camera. But with power failing and communications dwindling. Bombs continued to rain down on the southern Ukrainian city of Maryupol, which was fully surrounded by Russian troops.

He could only transmit snippets of video to the outside world. Russian troops commit war crimes. Our family, our women, our children need help.

Our people need help from international society. Please help Maryupol. For the world to see what the Russians did in Maryupol, Chernov had to get his 30 hours of video out of the city.

Ukrainian troops went in to rescue him. Abandoning the doctors who have sheltered us. You left on day 20. Maryupol fell on day 86?

Yeah. Believe it or not, it became even worse. It seemed that it can't be worse.

Just can't. But it was, it was. That was the beginning of a war that has now gone on for two years. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have lost limbs.

And a tiny fraction have been brought to the United States to be fitted for advanced prosthetics. I'm Jedi. Jedi, yes.

Luke Skywalker. Before the war, Alexei Dernov was a martial arts enthusiast. Petro Kulik worked in construction. Yevhan Koluzny was a lumberjack.

Does he want to try bending the elbow? Serhei Volig repaired cars. They tell of being outgunned and outmanned by the Russians. How heavy was the Russian artillery fire? In ratio to our artillery, it's one to ten. Did the Russian soldiers outnumber you? I don't even know by how many times. But there's lots.

They come and come and come. The combat's so intense there was no quick evacuation from the front lines. How long before you got to a hospital? More than 24 hours.

To the hospital it took me around 20 hours. These soldiers were wounded in Ukraine's much-vaunted counter-offensive. Last year's drive to take back occupied territory. A drive that attempted to use American mine-clearing equipment and armored vehicles to break through Russian lines.

But faltered in the face of minefields and dug-in defenders. Now the American supply line, which sent Ukraine over three million artillery shells, is drying up. And funding for more military aid is trapped in the caustic politics of Congress. For Republicans in Congress who think they can oppose funding for Ukraine and not be held accountable, history is watching. When the history of this day is written, as it surely will be, do you really want to be recorded as being on the side of Vladimir Putin?

All those in favor of Putin say aye. Senator Angus King, who has traveled to Ukraine and met with its leader, says what happens next will be a turning point. If we walk away, it will be the greatest geopolitical mistake this country has made in generations and it will haunt this country for 50 years. King, who serves on both the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, paints a dark picture of what will happen to Ukraine without U.S. aid.

There will be one of two results. Russia will just take over and the Ukrainian people's desire for freedom and democracy is gone. The other option is that it turns into a sort of guerrilla war where Ukrainians are fighting from behind trees and buildings. Does that mean the front lines as we know them today just collapse and the Russians break through? I think that's the inevitable conclusion. How long can… I think it's six months.

So we could have the collapse of the front by this summer? I think that's a distinct possibility. In his documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol, Mr. Slav Chernov captures the battle for survival in one unforgettable scene, a wounded mother giving birth. They got the child out and the child was silent. There was this tension. I've never felt anything like that before. No one would be able to bear one more child's death. It's a defining moment of the whole horrifying 20 days.

One of the doctors told me that people were only dying in this room and this is the first time the human was born in this room. The little baby we saw born is coming up on her second birthday? Yes, almost second birthday, yeah.

The war is coming up on its second birthday too. More cities and towns have fallen since Mariupol and many more are under attack. So all of those cities, their story is represented by Mariupol. It's a symbol of all these cities. It's not the past, it's present. What do you get when they listen to the Late Show pod show?

Let's sell this thing. The extended moments for sure because we run out of time for broadcast but we have plenty of time on the podcast. It's kind of like being a live audience member of the show because you get things that no one else hears.

Listen to the Late Show pod show with Stephen Colbert wherever you get your podcasts. Many put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His company was worth half a billion dollars. His research promised groundbreaking treatments for HIV and cancer. Scientists, doctors, renowned experts were saying genius, genius, genius.

People that knew him were convinced that he saved their life. But the brilliant doctor was hiding a secret. Do not cross this line that was being messaged to us. Do not cross this line. A secret the doctor was desperate to keep. This was a person who was willing to cold-heartedly just lie to people's faces.

We're dealing with an international fugitive. From Wondery, the makers of Over My Dead Body and The Shrink Next Door comes a new season of Dr. Death, Bad Magic. You can listen to Dr. Death, Bad Magic ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. If you're a fan of country music, you've heard a lot about faith, partying and hard times. But just when you thought you've heard it all, along comes a singular talent with a different kind of message.

With Lee Cowan, we take note of singer Ashley McBride. The Rusty Nail. It's gospel night at the strip club.

I've been sleeping in my car. It's one of those Nashville bars where songwriters come to celebrate songwriters. Brandy singing back up. Lonnie tending bar. Country music is, after all, all about stories and Ashley McBride had notebooks full of hopefuls. When you're playing in places like this, you're trying to find out where you are in the pack.

She was good, unafraid to write lyrics that both struck a chord and maybe a few nerves. Jesus loves the drunkards and the whores and the queers. The people that that line crawls all over, that's why the line's in the song. The people that that just makes un-chic, has no business, yeah, that's why it's in there.

Just to tweak them. Oh, just because you know you're wrong. Suffice it to say, Ashley McBride isn't playing dive bars anymore. Her dark hair with a streak of silver stands out. In Nashville, so do her many tattoos. But it's her music that's turning heads. Here she is, the real deal, Ashley McBride. In 2019, she won the CMA Award for New Artist of the Year.

Last year, she won the Grammy for Best Country Duo with Carly Pearce. What makes it all the sweeter is that almost all of that success arrived after McBride took on one of her demons, alcohol. It was just such a part of my persona.

What do I even do? What does anybody do if they're not drinking? McBride had more than dipped her toe into the music scene. After all, drinking is to country music what whiskey is to Tennessee. She's now celebrating almost two years sober. Several times I have said, my God, if you told me how good things get pretty quickly, I would have stopped drinking a long time ago.

I had no idea that I was this far in my way. She grew up near Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, playing the trumpet and later the French horn. But she was always more comfortable with the guitar. She wrote her first song when she was just 12. It's about some, you know, terrible heartache and terrible torrid love affair.

Just being like, looking back on the way things used to be, which is literally the first line, and the way things used to be, you're 12. There was always a musical maturity about her. Fast forward to when she co-wrote this song about moms. And their late night advice given under the light in the kitchen. It hit big. Especially with her own mom. And you're going to stir it all up?

Martha was always one of her biggest supporters. When she first got your first real guitar that was yours, she came downstairs crying and she said, I can't play and sing at the same time. I said, neither could Randy Travis.

Go back and keep trying. And she did. McBride's dad, Bill, however, an ER doctor and a preacher, never really liked the idea of his daughter pursuing music professionally. He said, you know, I know you want to do this, but that's not going to happen.

How important though was his approval? I didn't really care. Even in school, when she expressed her dream to a teacher, she encountered brutal skepticism. She said, what do you plan on doing for a living?

And I said, I'm going to write songs and they'll be on the radio. And she said, that is stupid. She actually called it stupid. That is stupid.

That will never happen. And you'd better have a really good backup plan. She did have a backup plan. McBride went on to Arkansas State University where she studied music.

Taking classes during the day, but still playing for gas money in bars at night. And she was always writing, struggling to get some radio play. But to many, she was just too different. Sometimes they'll even look at me and say, man, we really love your records.

We just don't know what to do with you. Well, hello. But just before her 34th birthday, The Grand Ole Op invited McBride to perform. To stand in that iconic circle of wood, center stage. And I'm stepping to this circle with a Gibson in my hand. McBride sang a song she'd written just for that occasion.

And look around and I can't find an empty chair. Not bad for a girl going nowhere. We got it. Do you remember the first time you heard her on the radio?

I certainly do. That was awesome. I was asleep and I had my alarm set to come on to wake me up with music. And it was you.

I didn't know that. It was awesome. I love you. She's no longer a guest at the Grand Ole Opry. She's been inducted as a member. Whether she's playing for tens of thousands, or just for us and her golden retriever Opie. She's found her moment. Or maybe the moment finally found her. Either way, Ashley McBride has arrived.

As authentic a musician as she can be. Sometimes you are just getting punched in the face over and over. But if you can keep your head on your shoulders and stay on your feet, this is what it looks like. The lights go down and everybody applauds. And then the stage starts to glow and then music starts.

Yes. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.

You can catch yourself by completing a short survey at wonder.com slash survey. I'm Mo Rocca and I'm excited to announce season four of my podcast Mobituaries. I've got a whole new bunch of stories to share with you about the most fascinating people and things who are no longer with us.

From famous figures who died on the very same day to the things I wish would die, like buffets. Listen to Mobituaries with Mo Rocca on the I heart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst, certified financial planner and host of the Money Watch podcast. This is the show where your money is not scary. It is a show that's all about you. It's your questions that make it possible for me to provide unconventional and entertaining insights on your money and maybe more importantly, on your life. Follow Money Watch wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.