announcer: building a better bay area -- moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. answers on abc seven. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and get answers for you in real time. today, the bay area is right next to the ocean, so why does the american lung association have our region on the list of most polluted cities? what can we do about it? the agency's director of clean-air advocacy will join us. also fired fox -- fired fox news host tucker carlsen's may polar opposites from many san franciscans, but he was born right here with his bohemian mom representing everything he hates. from our media partner, the san

francisco standard, we will explore after carlsen's surprising roots. but first, president biden made it official this morning, at 80 years old, he's ready for a second term. pres. biden: when i ran for president four years ago, i said we are in a battle for the soul of america. and we still are. the question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer? i know what i want the answer to be and i think you do too. this is not a time to be complacent. that is why i'm running for reelection. because i know america. kristen: joining us to discuss bidens campaign launch is rick line. thanks for having me on today. we've known furlough months this is likely coming, but what is the reaction so far to his announcement speech?

>> this is exactly anniversary that the president announced his campaign. anyone who is superstitious might circle the day on the calendar. it's kind of a ho-hum day. it hasn't shaken the world because no one expected have not to run and there are so many people, including democrats, who are skeptical. there are a lot of people lining up on the democratic side. it's an empty democratic field. you have some progressives saying let's member how to keep him telling things in our direction. you have lots of republicans saying he's a disaster as president and we can't wait to run against him. but it is an odd, business as usual day. vice-president gave a speech. it did not feel like much changed today in washington. kristen: that in itself is unusual, but any hints on what he will run on? you heard him talk about fighting for the soul of america. he talked about freedoms, more or less.

what does that tell you in terms of what the campaign themes are going to be? guest: i think you can say is running on his achievements and accomplishments and running against donald trump. you see the imagery around january 6 and abortion rights, those are two big things the president is framing up as examples of mega extremism, things he's trying to hold the line against. he sang a lot of think he talked about four years ago holds true. the soul of around crisis at the border, around foreign policy crises. the war in ukraine and the afghanistan pullout. lots of things about his own record that are out there. but maga extremism is probably the most potent thing that he has going for him and probably the most influential and important thing that he has overall in squaring up for this campaign is the existence of donald trump and the continued persistence of his political movement. right. right look, i want to address age. usually it's assumed a sitting president would run again. this

time it's a little different because of the fact that, you know, he was 78 when he was first elected, now 80. you know, he sold himself then the first time around as kind of a caretaker until the next generation of leaders could emerge. what happened to that next generation? well i think two things have happened. one is that the next generation really hasn't emerged. vice president harris is not a political brand right now that seems ready to take on the world. a lot of democrats in national circles are concerned about what it would mean to have her at the top of the ticket and in terms of the bench, there just aren't really a large number of democrats right now that seemed like they would be nationally electable. that relates to the second thing that's happened, which is that trump didn't go away. i think if trump had faded away or trumpism had faded away after january 6th in particular, you'd see more of a of a keen sense of need. anita move on or an ability to move on. but joe biden is now he's able to say he's the only political figure ever to have beaten donald trump. and that's a pretty potent argument. and there isn't

a lot of confidence that anyone else can do the same. so as long as trump remains the frontrunner, i think biden's position is in a weird way solidify. yeah. yeah, that is very true. but how do most americans feel based on the polls that you have seen the people you have talked to about this? biden and potentially trump rematch? yeah, they hate it. i mean, it's they dread the prospect of these two, you know, 70, 80 year old men running again. they are widely unpopular . they aren't viewed as the future of the party of either party or of the country. that said, you've got to be someone with someone else. and there doesn't seem to be a clear alternative to defeat donald trump on the republican side or to joe biden on the democratic side. you're stuck with the candidates that you vote for, right now, voters appear poised to hand both men the nominations . it'll be a lot harder on the republican side. we haven't seen debates begin. we haven't seen the full campaign in earnest. on the republican side, the democrats have lined up behind biden and the way that republicans truly can't find trump. but the polling is very

strong and would suggest that the likeliest scenario is that very one that people are telling us in polls and in anecdotes that they don't want to see. yeah. and look, the day biden releases this video that he's running again, trump, of course, having that civil case alleging that he committed rape that went to trial today. and of course, there's the hush money payments criminal case and potentially doj. january 6th, insurrection case still coming. so where does that put trump in terms of his ability to fight off the republican challengers? well, i think it is a big unknown right now as to how serious the legal challenges are going to be. we know about some of the stuff that's out there now, but are there more serious things? are there court appearances that he's going to have to pull himself off the campaign trail? we've never had a precedent for anything like that. so i think this is part of what makes this a unique moment in the persistence of trump. and trumpism only endures. and as much as he's able to get out there and continue to campaign, if his legal status or other other extraneous situations intervene and make it impossible, there are lots of republicans who have the ambition to take over right now, though there's nothing in law or

in circumstance that's keeping him from running even under these circumstances. as you know, biden last time around, certainly there were progressive members of his party who were not fully comfortable with him. has he won over more of that wing, given what he did in the last two and a half years? i mean, at least temporarily? i think he has been a pleasant surprise to many progressives. they feel like they've gotten more out of him than they anticipated. they were worried about him as kind of a tried and true moderate, someone that would triangulate against them. that hasn't been the case. he's he's delivered on some big victories. when you talk to people in the progressive movement, they might be pleasantly surprised, but they're also on guard and they're worried about him giving any kind of ground on environmental issues or education issues or a range of other big priorities around immigration, around taxes and the like. all of these things are big and potent issues that, you know, that republicans are going to hit hard and the biden and his instincts are going to be pushed in different directions. and even if they are lining up behind him, they're also going to be serving notice that they're there. remind the president of what his base is demanded. i want to circle back to age again as we mentioned, he

is 80. and the question, did emerge today, would he serve out a full second term? what's the answer to that? well the initial answer from the white house was a no comment, because they're trying to avoid a political pronouncements from the white house podium. but we heard from the white house press secretary and clarification that, yes, of course, he would serve a full term. that would be his intention. now look, you mentioned he's not getting any younger, quite obviously. and if there was some kind of a health issue that would change circumstances, that's an unknowable thing right now. but there's no scenario where someone is going to run for reelection and then immediately signaled they may not serve the entire four years. so, yes, the president is saying he would serve the whole time and that would put him at age 86 when he leaves office. i mean, nonetheless, under consideration for a lot of democrats is that, you know, they could get a president. harris possibly she's going to remain the running mate. and so how do people feel about that? democrats, frankly, the large and large part are a little bit scared about that prospect. they don't think that kamala harris, the vice president, would be a strong

general election candidate, that maybe based on false perceptions, it may be based on misconceptions, it may be based on unfair perceptions, even sexist perceptions. but it is the perception right now. i truly believe that if it was a different scenario and there was more political viability seen in vice president harris, you'd see more inclination on the part of the president to step aside. he would love to do, as he has said, be a bridge to a next generation and someone, as in the vice president, who's you know, full quarter century younger than him. but that isn't in the cards right now. and i think in part has to do with the perceptions around her own political standing and viability. yeah all right. so who are in this next generation, the next crop of democrats waiting to grab the spotlight, if not in 2020 for them? maybe 2028? i think you can look to the cabinet and look at if you look at gina raimondo, the commerce secretary, some people that ran last time around, like senator amy klobuchar or someone whose name still pops up. i'd also look to the governors. gretchen whitmer is one of the national co-chairs as the governor of michigan. jared polis, the governor of colorado,

just reelected widely in a purple state and also your governor, gavin newsom. i can't imagine a scenario where we're not talking about a candidate. newsom if anything happens to keep biden from from giving a full throated run, right. one quick question before we go, though. between the time that newsom would end his governorship, he would have two years, i guess, until 2028. is that too big of a gap or how would he stay? i guess very relevant. and right in there in the national spotlight. it's a little harder when you don't have the platform, but there's things that can be liberating about that. mitt romney left the governorship in massachusetts when he when he ran for president and it was able to put together a coalition despite not being in office at the current time. if you have the right kind of funding and the platform, then you can do it. and i think what governor newsom is doing now, even in traveling to some red states and keeping his national brand out there, is laying that kind of groundwork for a longer term. it depends on what kind of position you put yourself in is hard when you're not in the news cycle and you

don't have an ability to drive policy on a daily basis. but it certainly isn't impossible. rick klein, abc news political director, thank you so much. thanks, kristen. despite some of the most aggressive regulations to help cut air pollution, califf still has some of the worst air quality in the country. and we want to find out why. we'll talk with will barrett from the american lung association about the group's latest state of the air report. i'm jonathan lawson, here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial pen program. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's? the three, what are the three p's? what are the three? p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price and price and price at a price you can afford a price that can't increase and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54 and was a smoker, but quit. what's my price? you can get coverage for

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quality's failing grades. joining us live now is will barrett, the national senior director of clean air advocacy for the american lung association. well, thanks for your time. thank you. so a little counterintuitive, but the bay area actually did surprisingly poorly in your report card. so let's go ahead to show people right off the bat where we ranked right in terms of ozone, year round particle pollution, short term particle pollution and by any of those measures, we are not doing too well. walk us through this. sure well, the american lung association, state of the air report, this is our 24th annual report card on local air quality across the country. and unfortunately, the san francisco bay area does show up on each of our three most polluted cities list. that's for ozone or smog for short term particle pollution or annual particle pollution. so we're looking at two of the most widespread and harmful pollutants in facing americans today in ozone and

particle pollution and the bay area has some work to do. so can you talk about why that's bad for our health? sure. well, ozone is a colorless, odorless gas that can have kind of a corrosive effect, sort of like a skin burn or a sunburn on the skin, but on our lungs and airways, where particle pollution are fine, bits of ash, soot, diesel exhaust and wildfire smoke, for example, that can get deep into our lungs and actually cross over from the lungs into the bloodstream. so we're dealing with not only asthma attacks and lung cancer associated effects, but also heart attacks and strokes. and unfortunately, premature deaths associated with these pollutants . all right. so it's not good. but why is it because i thought our geography, topography, you know, made it pretty favorable for us in terms of clean air? well, that's especially true in terms of ozone pollution or what we call summertime smog. it tends to be lower on the coastal areas and higher in the inland inland areas. but particle pollution is a different story, and that's often increasingly, unfortunately, following major

wildfire events and smoke exposures. so we have some things working in our favor and in the bay area, but also some some challenges that we have to deal with that are on top of those. what are some other california cities with worse rankings? if you will? sure. well, the los angeles area ranks number one in the nation for unhealthy days of ozone pollution, whereas in vegas field they ranked number one for short term particles or days when particle pollution spikes to unhealthy levels and vacancy and visalia are tied for number one for the annual levels of particle pollution. so it's spread out across the state. unfortunately, about 98% of californians live in a community with at least one failing grade for air quality in this year's report. so how much of it is due to the wildfires? i mean, if we could just take that away with our air quality suddenly be one of the best. i mean, we have so many mitigating measures here and policies that we take here in california and in particular, the bay area to limit our

pollution. well, that's right. unfortunately, you know, we do have very strong programs in the bay area, things like the zero emission vehicle program for lower income households. we have the new appliance standards that are going to be leading on pollution controls. but you know, it'd be great if we could take away the wildfire challenges. but we know that there's no no smoke scenario for california. we're going to be dealing with wildfires. we're going to be dealing with smoke in the air and what we need to do is make sure that we're doing everything we can to invest the appropriate resources to make sure that our fire crews are clean air agencies are working together to reduce the potential for catastrophic, uncontrolled burns. but there are there are major improvements that we've seen in in terms of those local and state and federal programs under the clean air act, really driving down pollution. but we have to work harder now with the impacts of climate change. right? okay. so people shouldn't look at this and think that, hey, all those sacrifices we make, the things we do to clean

up our air, they're not working . it's not that it's absolutely not that the local programs are working. things like the wood stove change out programs have been incredibly helpful. a lot of programs to clean up the trucking fleet. in fact, the state of california will be adopting new standards for zero emission truck fleets and for locomotives that are going to be huge in their impact on improving health and reducing these harmful pollutants. how did you measure these numbers, by the way? what we do is we take a look at on a three year average, the most recent quality assured us epa data on air quality monitoring and we have about 900 counties in the us with air quality monitors and we calculate our report based on that. unfortunately, there's 2000 or so counties that don't have any air pollution monitoring. so in california we do have a robust network and we're able to take all of that into account. did you also uncover racial disparities regarding air pollution exposure ? absolutely. unfortunately that's a key message in the report. we see across the

country about 120 million americans living in a community with a failing grade for either ozone or particle pollution and more than half of those people are people of color. what we have also found is that a person of color in the united states is 64% more likely to live in a community with one failing grade and over 3.7 times more likely to live in a community with failing grades across the board. so we know that there are major disparities in who's being exposed to pollution, and we know that, again, that our policy interventions really have to target an equitable transition to cleaner technologies, making sure that all communities benefit, and especially those who are most impacted by pollution. today right? i mean, some of the biggest dents will be made by policy and regional actions, but what can we do as individuals to make the situation a little better? well i think one of the key things is speaking out, right, getting involved in local policy, state and federal policies to call on our leaders to you know, make clean air a top priority. one of the key things that the lung association

is asking for people to get involved in is calling on the biden administration to set and finish setting stronger standards for particle emissions , for ozone pollution and cars and trucks. so that's one key way. but then there's everyday things like looking at carpooling, taking transit, you know, using opportunities to walk or bike if those are accessible and if they're not accessible to get involved in calling for your community to be walking bike friendly. so there's a lot of different ways that we can either use our voice or, you know, make decisions on a daily basis that can cut harmful pollution from the things that we're trying to get done. well, barrett, national senior director of clean air advocacy for the american lung association, thank you so much. thank you very much for having me. some little known fact about ousted fox news commentator tucker carlson. his san francisco roots run deep. ahead will talk to the san francisco standard about that when we come back. if you are living with diabetes, this sound may save

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she's watching that video box. how does she still have cable when hulu plus live tv has over 85 live channels plus access to disney plus and espn plus two legged folks. i make no sense. switch to hulu plus live tv. it makes sense. hey you guys talking about me? can she hear us? after my car accident, i wondered what my case was worth. so i call the barns firm when that car hit my motorcycle insurance wasn't fair, so i called the barns firm. it was the best call i could have made at the barns firm. our injury attorneys work hard to get you the best result possible. call us now and find out what your case could be worth. you might be surprised the bondsman in injury attorneys call. 808 million. fox news commentator tucker carlson made headlines himself when fox news announced

yesterday they are cutting ties with him. carlson, known for his ultra right wing commentary, was actually born in san francisco, so and became the antithesis of his artistic, free spirited mother. the san francisco standard uncover carlson's bay area roots and examine how his mother became a stand in for everything he despises. joining us live now is standard reporter julie zegers, who wrote that article. and delve deeply into carlson's conventional family history. julie thanks for joining us. thanks for having me. i think a lot of people are unaware and shocked, maybe even that carlson was born here in san francisco, a place that seems to be a foil to him and everything that we represent here in terms of views, values he seems to espouse against on his show anyway, talk a little bit about his upbringing here. yeah. so he was born in may of 1969 in san francisco at children's hospital. he didn't spend much time here because the

family ended up moving to la jolla eventually. and he also went to boarding school in rhode island at the age of 14. so a lot of his formative years were not in san francisco. and part of the point i make in the article that it's more the absence of san francisco, both the city itself and his absent mother that create this sort of presence in his life of something to act out against. and despite these, because both san francisco and his mother represents so much of what tucker carlson hates, what was his mom's life like and who was she and what was her relationship to him that fomented so much? i guess, loathing? yeah yeah. so her name was lisa mcnair. lombardi and she was one of four children. she was in paris. she was born into the massive amounts of money, in part because of her relative george mcnear, who was referred to as the green king or

sometimes the wheat king is another way. he's referred to because of the massive grain of operation that he ran. he was the largest exporter of grain in the late 19th century and this money, this massive inheritance, flowed through the generations to lisa mcnair, lombardi and also to tucker carlson and she was very much a free spirit. she did not take well to motherhood and was not interested in being a mother. she ran away from the family when tucker carlson was just six years old and ended up eventually settling in france, where she lived a very bohemian lifestyle. she was a contemporary artist. she made lots of really vividly colored sculptures. there were rumors that she was bisexual. she was a , you know, a free thinker, but she was also withdrawn on and not so keen on being a mother.

and she never saw her two sons again after she left, the family when he was just six. so you can imagine the kind of antipathy that that would have created. yeah. your article also accounts or has detailed accounts of some drug use. and also she lost custody. so it was difficult to say the least. he what did he say about his family history in terms of things that he had been quoted on? well well, he used to say that he did not want to talk about his mother at all because she was not part of his family. and she, you know, really didn't play a role in his life as what he would say. but as time has gone on, there was sort of an interesting evolution in the way that he would speak about her and his family, where he started to talk more about the drug use , the cocaine, the alcohol, all the various drugs that she was abusing during the childhood, even going as far to say that she was using drugs in front of him as a little kid and trying to push drugs onto him. and, you

know, it really started to become this evolution of rather than not talking about her at all, really becoming her becoming the target of this intense hatred and, you know, seeing things about her and words that i cannot say on live television and, you know, really became sort of this, you know, abhorrent figure for him. and given that she represents san francisco, her family represents san francisco, they were a huge bay area family. it does put some things in focus. and julie, unfortunately, we're out of time. but folks can check out your article at sf standard. thanks so much. thank you. all right. as of standard. we'll be right back. singer. packing tape is like roadside assistance. quality matters. so join america's most recommended roadside service.

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seven. thank you so much for joining us for getting answers today. see you here tomorrow. tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. president biden launches his reelection campaign tonight. you'll hear his central argument and donald trump's response. also breaking tonight, the terrorists behind the attack that killed 13 american service members is dead. what we have just learned tonight, first, president biden officially running despite concerns over his age by now, arguing, let me finish the job. his team tonight citing his historic jobs numbers, historic climate legislation and his bipartisan infrastructure. donald trump responding tonight with trump, now the leader on the republican side. mary bruce, live at the white house. that breaking news, the terror mastermind responsible for the deadly bombing outside the kabul airport. 13 american service members, you'll remember, among those killed. what the us is now