hello and welcome to kqed "newsroom." he's been a political cartoonist for more than two decades, now a pulitzer prize winner. jack ohman will join us. leading california gop candidates sit with senior political editor scott shafer to share their vision. first, bay area based tesla is expected to build what's supposed to be the largest manufacturer of lithium ion batteries, rising from a nevada desert near reno and touted as a potential game-changer in the efforts to reduce greenhouse

gases. the manufacturer is not only manufacturing batteries, but also producing a new generation of battery for the home. lauren summer got a rare look inside the factory and joins us now. hi, lauren. >> hi. >> how big is this factory. >> when i went to visit, it's just a small peace piece of it, but it's 800,000 feet already. when it's done, it will be 5.8 million square feet. that's 100 football fields. this is one building, one massive building where one wall is 3/4 mile. scale is what we're going for. the whole idea is ramp up production of batteries and cars. >> why is it so important for them to have their own production? >> batteries have been expensive for the most part. it's a big part of the sticker price for one of those cars, $10,000 or more for the battery packs that power them.

they're betting with a massive factory this is going to double the capacity to make lithium ion batteries in the world. the with their own factory, they can drive down the price 30% or more which will make cars more after fortable for average people. >> i heard once this is completed this will be bigger than all the current lithium ion batteries combined in the world. >> it gives just the sense of the bet they're maketion, they're going all anywhere they're expecting average people to want electric cars, to drive electric cars, and this factory is the embodiment of that gamble. >> you got such rare access inside the factory. what did you see? >> they're moving in as soon as each room is done. part of the factory, you could already see the production line humming, batteries rolling off the line. the rest is the most massive construction site, trucks, people, tons of noise. just room after room after room. it's a lot of equipment as you

might imagine. it's almost like a baktry except they're taking the raw inseed yent for batteries, bake them in these big ovens, mix them. it's massive amounts of equipment. >> they're often very secretive. were there many areas that were off limits? >> we got to walk around a lot of it. no pictures in some places because this is proprietary equipment in many places. working with panasonic to develop this giga factory. they're secret as a company. they want to cultivate this exclusive kind of exciting company to get their cars. >> the factory isn't producing electric car batteries just yet but has started making another kind of battery that allows surfless solar energy to be stored at home. >> it's a battery for your house, something you would put on the wall of your garage. if you have solar panels, the extra solar energy you make during the day would get stored

in the battery so you could use your solar energy at night. people like this idea, right? the idea that your house could run on solar energy well into the evening and you wouldn't have to bialek trisity. >> it's about $3,000 for one of these things. >> it's not cheap. here in california there's another wring curveball. if you have solar energy on your house, you can sell the extra back to pge. if you don't use it, they will pay full retail price for electricity. that makes it kind of maybe not the best financial choice to store your own electricity. you're getting that price for your utility. there's going to be early adopters that will like storing their own electricity from their own battery. but financially you don't recoup the $3,000 very fast. >> taking a look inside the future, tesla unveiled the new car, model 3. nearly 400,000 people have put

$1,000 down payment to reserve this car for something that hasn't even gone into production yet. why is there so much pipe around this car? >> i think there's a couple reasons. one, this is their first mass market car. it has a range of more than 200 miles which is good compared to the other cars that are out there. people like that. part of it is maybe the ethos of tesla, the mystique. they've cultivated the luxury brand. the car now, $75,000 before some of the tax incentives. to have a car for $28,000 after the tax credit, that's a big draw for people that may be waiting to get into the electric car market and saw this as an opportunity to do that. >> i have to ask you this real quickly. this week the san francisco board of supervisors approved a bill requiring solar panels on new buildings. >> this is for buildings ten stories or less. this isn't skyscrapers. starting next year, if you build

a new building in san francisco, you have to put solar on it. it's a big sign from the city they're very serious about clean energy and they want the buildings to play a part of that. >> much news in the world of green power and solar energy. thanks so much, lauren. the presidential election is casting a huge shadow over the race for a new u.s. senator to represent california. voters have a big decision to make about who will follow retiring democrat barbara boxer. kqed government editor scott shafer talks with three republicans hoping to replace her. >> the three leading republican can't candidates for u.s. set are tom delbacara chair of the republican party from 2011 to 2015. also sund hiem who served in the capacity when governor gray davis was recalled through the early years of arnold swartsz

neg ger and entrepreneur ron uns who authored prop 227 which effectively ended bilingual education in california. this is not a debate, it's a conversation. first, each of you, tell me something that is prchl and might surprise us about you? >> i spent most of my time serving in east palo alto, east san jose. what i've seen is the economic earthquake we've sofrd in this country. i can be spending in the morning one of the greatest accumulations of wealth in the history of civilization and spend the afternoon with people under the poverty line. >> who is ron unz? >> i have lots of friends over the ideological spectrum involved in politics. one of the surprising thing is a lot of left rinders and right wingers agree on a lot of things, sometimes more than the

mainstream of either party. >> tom, something personal? >> i'm the sixth of eighth child. when you're the sixth child, they don't tell you when hide and seek is over. as a family growing up, we had a lot of great conversations around the dinner table and i learned to argue with my older brothers. i became a business attorney and i've been a small business attorney now for the last 28 years. >> you grew up in long island? >> in long island, new york, now i'm here. >> you're all running for u.s. senate. let's say you win. what would you like to be the first vote you cast? ron? >> for me i think our economic situation is disastrous. i think it's important that we raise the minimum wage. i helped to move it to the center of the national stage. for a republican senator to be a very strong advocate of a $12.00 minimum wage might make a difference. >> we'll come back to that issue. tom, first vote?

>> no question about it, we need to have the economy growing far faster than it is today. i'm a candidate with a specific flat tax proposal. our first vote should be to reform the tax code with a flat tax that will get the economy moving, weak weaken the irs and put it back in the box. >> why haven't the republicans backed that? >> i think that's wrong. we should be the party of tax reform. we don't need government growing more. the current code is the playground of special interests, lobbyists and big corporations. i'm against corporate welfare. we need to simplify the code, make it easier for small business and let the economy grow. we tried the big government way. now let's try the american way. >> duf, what about you? >> to pick up on that issue. the flat tax was made in reagan's era and he rejected.

we should focus on small business. they're the engine of economic growth. we have a plan to reinvigorate the community banks, lower the tax rate for individuals and corporations and reduce the regulations. now it sometimes takes people longer to get a building permit than it took the allieds to beat the germans. >> i hard you say your first vote would be to kill high-speed rail. >> absolutely. take that money and put it in water projects, strategic use of desalization. >> let's talk more about the economy, income inequality which is a big issue. california has one of the worst income inequality issues here of all states in united states. how did it get that way? >>? part because we haven't had strong economic growth. if you look at the last 15 years, median income has been flat. the proposals or policies out of the white house has been geared

toward wall street which is inefficieective for main street. the key is economic growth. between 1950 and 2000, 3.5% growth. today because growth is below 2%, it's going up much slower. >> but going up fast for the top -- >> that's great. 62% of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. what's key is proud economic growth. that's what we need. the only way we do that is shrink the regulations and the tax code which i'm the only person with a specific tax proposal. >> duf? >> i spoke with tesla. tesla was the marriage of engineering and out! . talked with the people at toyota that left. talked with the people at boeing that left. it's the high cost of living in california. housing, 240% the national average. energy, 50% higher.

gas, $1.00 more. >> what can you about that as a senator? >> a great deal. if we solve the water crisis -- >> that's a big if. >> to be honest with you, of all the problems we face, i think from a technological perspective, water is the easiest. you create the greater above and below ground storage, provide for the decycling of the plants. if you have more water, you can build more housing. if you build more housing, you create new construction jobs and lower the cost of housing. >> california, governor brown signed a bill to take minimum wage up to $15.00 by 2022. is it right for the state to do itality loan or do you need a national increase? gentlemen, should we not do that at all? >> i do support that governor bill signed the bill. personally i think $15 is too high on a state-wide basis. it's fine for san francisco, l.a., silicon valley. i think something like $13 or

$14 would work better in the central valley. part of the problem is it isn't clear governor brown understood the issue. at the same time he signed the bill, he also said there was no economic case case for raising minimum wage. >> this is actually wrong. for years, not long ago survey showed 90% of economists said raising the minimum wage results in unemployment. 80% of canadian economists think that. what's going to happen in california, in a place where the cost of living compared to san francisco is about $6.50 to the minimum wage to what it would be in 16. you know why that bill was signed? it's a $3.5 billion increase for republican employee unions and means unemployment for those in the central valley who are vulnerable. >> you're going to the u.s. senate if you win. should there be an increase

nationwide? >> because of the issues, and i think ron and tom make good points. economies are so different between bakersfield and san francisco, i think the federal level should be at the lowest common denominator. what i think is much more effective, and even the obama administration has said this, is the earned income tax credit. my goal is anybody working full time shouldn't be living in poverty. i don't think we'll get there by increasing minimum wage. >> let's talk about health care. the republican line in congress has been repeal obama care, replace it with something else. first of all, do you agree with that? >> well, understand the insurance industry and health care industry has become a model that's tied in with government. a lot of corporate welfare with regard to that. the idea you just repeal it would cause a lot of economic dislocation. the republicans long ago should have had a replacement policy. what they'll need to do is announce it on january 1st and then say six months from now this is the way the new system

will work which includes selling overstate lines, includes greater access -- just having insurance doesn't mean you're getting health care. we have to encourage additional doctors and things of that nature. >> we were talking about income inequality. a study "the new york times" did this past week looking at who has gotten health insurance. it is the low income people, immigrants here legally, working class people. isn't that a good thing? >> we missed a historic opportunity because we confused health insurance with health care. now all the additional people that are receiving medi-cal insurance, it's improved. we have to make sure people have have access to quality health care at an affordable price. >> let me transition into immigration because there's a lot of overlap here. california has some two to three million undocumented immigrants. i don't want to get into we've

got to secure the borders. let's all agree the borders need to be secure. here in california the emphasis has been on kind of normalizing life for people who are here, especially children, driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants. is that the right way to go? >> i think we can pass all the laws that we want, but until we have that conversation, the people that have moved to this country that don't feel welcome, people who have been here forever listen to those concerns. the people that have been here forever, the immigrants feel like not only is their present and future being adversely affected because their taxes are going up, access to education and health care is going down. i'm a federal court mediator. i want us to have that conversation. whatever laws we pass, just like with abortion, unless you deal with the underlying emotions, you're not really solving the problem. >> here is the problem. immigration, whatever you thought before 9/11 or san

bernardino is now a national security issue. we meade to address that immediately. you know what? you can build a consensus nationally around national security. the san bernardino woman took advantage of our visa system. the 9/11 conspirators took advantage of that. instead of litigation and a long discussion which duf wants -- we're very different on this issue -- we need to build a national consensus. do you know there's just an indictment showing isis is coming over the border. we need to refocus immigration away from just who is coming here to get jobs, to national security. >> donald trump has made a big issue out of -- especially early on about undocumented -- people coming here, he wants to build a wall and make mexico pay for it. in terms of those issues, that security, how is that conversation affecting your party, your image and the chances of really dealing with a very complicated issue. >> donald trump is framing the

issue the wrong way. the truth is, i don't think there are very many people in california that have stronger pro immigrant credentials than i do over the last 20 years. immigration levels are too high. it's caused so many problems, especially economic problems. when you have a fuj influx of workers, it drives down the wages of american workers including existing immigrants. therefore, that's why there's a big hike in the minimum wage nationally, the $12 would be so beneficial. it basically means that the magnetic pull drawing in desperate workers to take any jobs available, any wages, is eliminated. >> back to the presidential race, how do you think it's affecting you guys as candidates with an r next to your name and the party in general? >> clearly has put people on either side of the line. my whole purpose is to bring us together to find that common consensus. i think we do have a very strong national security issue that needs to be addressed here, but

frankly, i find 80, 85% of the people i talk to agree with taking the steps we need to take in terms of securing the border and making sure people that mean to do us harm don't come in. >> will you support the nominee for president no matter who it is? >> right now i would imagine i would. but i'll make that decision at the time we cast the vote. >> tom? >> i will support him. we have to change the immigration debate away from a path to gridlock. duf prefers providing status to illegal immigrants that are here. that's the path to gridlock. we have to get away from comprehensive legislation, and what we need to do is refocus this issue on national security to which all americans with support, and you do that through a step process, visa reform -- >> what about the people here now illegally? >> you know what? we need to separate out this discussion and stop lumping them altogether. almost half of them are here on

visa overstays. >> that's the thing -- >> so start this process and not blaming who came across the southern border for all the problems. that's causing division. >> i think people that came here illegally and have committed crimes should be deported. tom has a different point of view. >> that's actually not true, d ufrmgtsf. you say that a lot. it's interesting -- >> it's not part of your plan. i read your plan. all you talk about in your plan is the people that came here on visas. >> which is false. duf continues to say that. here is the reality. we should enforce existing law for people who come here illegally and i think we need to do a stepped process. >> prince died this past week, big impact on a lot of people. one musician that had a lot of impact on your life. >> frank sinatra, i learned to dance with my mom in the kitchen. >> tom? >> led zeppelin and elton john.

>> ron? >> i like bruce springsteen. >> on that we'll be banned to run. tom del beck caro, duf sundheim, ron unz, thank you. the prize goes to jack ohman of "the sacramento bee." >> it's been quite a week for political cartoonist jack ohman. he joined the bee three years ago but has been creating political cartoons since he was a teenager. at age 19 with the youngest cartoonist ever to be nationally syndicated. he was praised as rye perspective through sophisticated style that combines bold line work with subtle colors and textures. jack ohman joins us now. congratulations. >> thank you so much. >> quite a kplen tear on your work from the pulitzer jurors. you were actually a finalist four years ago when you were

working in portland. was this a true surprise or did you have a sense it might be coming? >> it was a true surprise. it's like hitting the powerball in journalism. there's a jury level and that's five people and then there's the board, and i think there's nine, so you have 14 minds to change. >> we saw you shedding some tears. it must have been an emotional moment. >> imagine being a 55-year-old guy and you've been working towards something for 38 years. one of the funny things about being in the cartooning business, it's a very small business. if you're good, then i've had people since i was 20 years old say when are you going to win the pulitzer prize, do you think you can win the pulitzer prize? this has gone on for decades. my main reaction was elation followed by extreme relief followed by my strong desire to come on this program.

>> we hear you're a big kqed fan, so we're grateful for that. >> absolutely. >> i want to get a window into your creative process. how do you know the topic will resonate with your audience? >> former senator howard baker said what did the president know and when did he know it? i have to think what does the reader know and when did they know it? it's a complicated process. there are more sources of information now. so you're trying to think what is it that people are talking about. that's my main problem. >> so your job as a political cartoonist is to push the envelope, to provoke sides. >> my job is to draw on the envelope. >> you do it very well apparently. >> how hardest to find just the right tone? it depends on the subject. we were talking about charlie hebdo earlier, and also the year i won the pulitzer, i was

president of the association of american editorial cartoons. we had never had an event like this before. we were afraid of this for years. in fact, there's never been any sort of violence against a cartoonist in the united states, nor has there been any violent acts against radio or television people. >> did that send a chill through you or did it just give you greater resolve to keep on what you're doing, keep on doing it. the next day i drew muhammed in a cartoon. we don't let the terrorists win. i think that was the strongest statement i could have made. >> how would you describe your style? >> i would say i have a flexible style. i can do a lot of different things in different ways. every cartoonist appears to be whimsical. i like doing those types of cartoons. if something, a terrorist act, a shooting or a war or whatever it is that comes up, you have to be able to react flexibly. i pride myself on being able to

do that. >> what did you want to be when you grow up, when you were little? you grew up in minnesota. >> i wanted to be john f. kennedy. i wanted to go into politics. i was born in 1960. my parents were named john and jackie. they named me jack -- this is true -- and they voted of nixon. >> speaking of nixon -- >> i'm not doing that yet. i haven't finished my anecdote. i wanted to be governor of minnesota. little did i realize how easy it would be to become governor of minnesota. there was a girl in my seventh grade class who moved out to arizona at the same time i did, she's the governor of oregon. i'm a khan toonist. >> how did you decide you wanted to become a cartoonist, from minnesota governor to cartoonist?

>> i kind of backed into it. so many people back into their jobs. i was on a political track. i had been a political aide in 1978. the only thing i learned was how to drive a stick shift which he taught me. but i love journalism. the movie "all the president's men" had come out. >> this combines your love of journalism and your love of politics. jack ohman, thanks for being here. >> thanks so much. the bay area arou along wit the rest of the nation is mourning the death of musical icon prince. last night san francisco city hall was a wash in purple lighting in the artist's memory. his work is tightly move venn into the memory of their younger years and words from his death came as a huge shock. prince is 57 years old. we leave you now with one of his many hits. thanks so much for watching, for more coverage go to kqed.org.

♪ i never meant to cause you any sorrow ♪ ♪ i never meant to cause you any pain ♪ ♪ i only want to see you laughing in the purple rain ♪ ♪ purple rain, purple rain ♪ purple rain, purple rain

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