hello, and welcome to kqed newsroom. coming up on tonight's program we hear from california assembly member david chou about the push to make housing more affordable. plus we talk to sophy cal about her exhibit in stran and her unusual connection to the bay area. >> but first donald trump friday replaced reince priebus with homeland secretary john kelly. meanwhile on the senate familiar, the latest effort to repeal and replace obamacare failed in the early morning hours in the senate. three republicans susan collins, lisa murkowski, and john mccain who was diagnosed with brain cancer last week cast the deciding vote against the

proposal. the plan would have left 15 million people without insurance and raised premiums according to the congressional budget office. also this week president trump took to twitter to announce transgender people can no longer serve in the military. a reversal from just a year ago with president obama allowed troops to serve publicly. joining me now john walsh, and lisa garcia. welcome to all of you. what are we possibly going to talk about today? shawn, let me begin with you. last night a very dramatic vote in the senate. john mccain coming back from a brain cancer vote against repealing and replacing obamacare, what did they call it a skinny repeal? was this a sort of pay back to

trump for things he said over the years? what's your read there? >> i think it's classic mccain. he's been a little bit counter culture. he's been doing this for now 20 years. plus there's ten other republican senators that don't want this repeal and replace to happen either. so the votes weren't there. >> so if he had not voted no, you think someone else would have? >> i do. when 22 million people had it before and then you say you could potentially take it away, very bad interest. >> so what does it leave the republican effort to repeal and replace or change or tweak the. >> when i say we're moving on, that's political speak for next. we're done here. >> i mean really done. >> no, they could come back and do it, but they've tried several different versions now. but it doesn't look good.

they just don't have the votes for it. >> is there going to be incentive for democrats to come back and work with them to tweak the system inthere's three dozen counties where there's no offering for headache. there's a thousand where there's only one provider. >> it seems like the only thing democrats can really do is reach out and say, hey, we'd like to help fix the problem. but are they really going to reach back, the republicans you think. >> i think it depends on the governors. because the governors are the ones actually feeling the pain of these problems. and i think spaelgsz interest the republican governors that didn't extend medicaid and said repeal was possible, i think they're thinking now we have to make it work for our state. i think if the governors put pressure on the republican, then i think the democrats really have the opportunity to address those issues and make it better.

it seems clear they're not going to be able to fulfill that promise. >> shawn, the republicans keep talking about the death spiral, which is really exaggerated. but the president can really accelerate that if he wants to. is that a good idea? >> i don't think actually the health care in the country is a death spiral. i think it's way to expensive. . and our economy has record low employment levels. california is doing great, but california right now at least maybe 4 billion upside-down on health care. and if it slows down, it'll be absolutely devastating. five republicans, five democrats came out earlier this week and said we think we should get together and do the reform. i think mcconnell and republicans in congress are completely playing this wrong. they shouldn't say we're moving on. they should with the space, with the governors come up with a

plan like i've said before systematically redo obamacare and that's the way to do it. not just say i'm walking away. >> this has been an issue for republicans for seven or eight years now. repeal it, repeal it. and yet they didn't have a workable plan to replace it with. does that suggest perhaps the republicans are better in opposition than they are at governoring? i mean they ran the table in november and they can't get it done. >> i think it reflects the fact there are deep fissures. the problem was over the last seven years they haven't worked as a caucus to actually figure out how to address those problems, and how to come to a middle of the road solution. and people weren't willing to give up. so if you absolutely say there can't be an individual mandate and you're saying there has to

be coverage for pre-existing conditions that's the problem right there. theydant have those conversations and because it was easier to just say we all hate it, i think they paid the price in the process. >> and as this is going on in the backdrop you've got the attorney at war with his toerj. jeff sessions tweeting against him and suggesting he should not have recused himself. time will tell he says if he's going to be around, the toerj. what does that send to republicans in the senate or anyone else about loyalty, putting your neck out for this president and what you get back if anything? >> you're spot on. by the way, this is the most dangerous president trump has entered into from a political perspective. jeff sessions is one of our guys, we like him, he's a very honorable man, and if you go

after him and mr. mueller, the gloves are off with us. you will have a miserable relationship with us, and we're not going to work with you. and that's a big, big problem for the president. >> ask and more than that he's starting to lose the conservative talk rid yo. they're starting to push back on him. rush limbau -- sessions is beloved. sessions was the guy -- he was with trump early. he said i will help you build the wall. he took a real risk in supporting trump early. and he's a favorite among the conservative base. and when he's pushing on sessions, he's getting the blow back. >> it's the loyalty issue. he was the first real legitimate elected member to come out and support him, and they gave a lot

of legitimacy to him. when you talk about loyalty, loyalty is a two-way street. it is a big problem for the president with republicans. >> and not just there but also the whole issue of leaking. part of this there's now speculation, accusations from the new communications director scaramucci that reince priebus is one of the big leakers. i'm sure many people in the justice department, fbi that are also leaking. isn't that also a reflection of the lack of loyalty? >> i think it's a reflection of the fact that trump's leadership style has not translated well from government to business. he lalikes to foster his staff, and maybe that's why people leak. that doesn't work in this context. also his tendency to be threatening and try to fire people, completely backfires with murkowski -- the senator from alaska, the fact the

secretary called her up to threaten her. she has a lot of power over him. it's not just loyalty doesn't pay, but they aren't able to carry out on their threats either. so i think all of it creates chaos and undermines the agend aa over all. >> and there's question on what he did about health care and what he didn't do. no tonhall, no major speech about it. and he didn't barnstorm. he didn't go to alaska, didn't go to maine, go to these places -- arizona. he didn't use leverage his personal relationship with the base, the personal relationship with the voters to push this bill. he was giving mixed signals. >> transitioning to the other issue this week, the transgender military personnel, this change in policy was announced via tweet. there was nothing else. there was nothing on paper. the joint chiefs were caught off, the secretary on vacation

when this happen. shawn, is this any way to run a railroad? >> it's not. in transition -- >> what transition? >> in the transition to this transgender issue, the president has a spectacular competent cabinet. they are terrific. maybe one of the best cabinets assembled in modern era. what they be no experience running a white house. they have an inexperienced white house staff. and what comes out-of-the president and the white house is discombobilated at best. and this issue i think you have 250 people applied to undergo the transgender process, psychological counseling surgery, et cetera and only 150 have actually gone under it. this was a problem created pie the president. there was no problem at all. this issue was done ask over and moving on. >> it really puts fear and anxiety among the active duty transgender folks. the numbers are a little

unclear, but as many as maybe 16,000. >> anywhere from 5 and 16,000. and number one you don't have the commander in chief backing up. all of a sudden you can't serve at all? that's crazy. but also it's bad decisions making by trump. again, he did it without the facts, without the facts that are on the table. he did it without consulting the military. and he did it kind of on a whim l almost. >> and no plan. >> and no plan. >> lisa, one thing he suggested to the president the midwest own this issue. if they're going to go out and defend transgender folks in the military, go right ahead, it's your issue. not suggesting this is an elite west coast and -- >> i think he miscalculated. the fact that people are serving, people are serving

honorably. it has not been an issue in the military. the military supports their personnel. that has not gone well. he's gotten negative feedback from republicans who aren't in favor of this policy. yes, so i think he misjudged the fact these are human beings that are in fact serving us and giving great sacrifice and doing so with honor. and to just do this with no plan and no acknowledgement of the service people in the military currently that are going to be affected in their leadership was just irresponsible. >> the department of justice weighed in unexpectedly in a case in employment. it didn't involve the government. but the doj filed a brief saying the anti-discrimination laws don't apply to employers or employees. it's kind of like in 2004 with

guy marriage. >> and it did. and it helped. and this is also trump breaking a campaign promise. it was really unusual when he was at the convention and he reached out to lgbtq, which is very unusual to mention the q at a republican convention and he says i'll have your back. and he got applause. the room warmed to that. but this decision, the justice department, this goes against that. he's a guy in new york. he's not uptight about guy issues. this is him playing politics and pandering to the right who may be leaving him. >> and maybe trying to throw attention off the russian investigation and health care? >> maybe. some people are saying he's doing these kinds of things from a media perspective to do that. i think he just woke up, had a thought and -- >> but how horrible is that? if you're making major policy decisions based on things like

that, i would just say this is the irony with him going after sessions. and he's being punished for it. >> with regards to the lgbtq community -- actually, president trump had, i think, a pretty positive record or at least relationship there. there had been some activists who had gone after him, and they'd been looking some way to hit him on it, and he just gave them a way to hit him on it. from a transgender perspective, most of the country has not seen anybody who's transgender. they're not walking down the street every day. it's a pretty small population. and what most people identify transgender with is katelyn jenner. what i'm saying, is actually that's a pretty positive role model to be introduced into the country from a transgender perspective. so there's not this hew and cry

this is real problem. >> how does this transition, so to speak, into the 2018 election? >> the democrats hope they can make it out of this where republican districts where hillary won -- it's going to be really tough. they might get one, maybe one. >> america's favorite reality show. thank you very much. >> thank you. skirocketing rents and housing prices are no longer confined to the bay area or los angeles. throughout the state homes aren't being built fast enough especially for middle and low income residents. but now governor brown and state legislator pledging to do something about it. here now to talk about the state's affordable housing crisis is california member david chou. >> thank you for having me on

the show. >> give us a sense of first of all the magnitude of the problem and why it's important for the state to do something about it. >> sure. when i first went to the legislator a year ago, san francisco was experiencing the most intense problem we've seen. californiarenes from the san diego border all the way up to oregon from the pacific ocean all the way up inland are truly suffering. very high evikds rates, 1.7 million californiaens don't have access to affordable housing. and while we are the sixth largest economy in the world, we have the highest poverty rate. >> they said it would take $200 billion or something -- and you're looking at a $300 billion

bond measure in sacramento. >> i think everyone appreciates there's no silver bullet method to the housing crisis. we do need to invest. we need to fund more. we lost almost $2 billion a year we used to invest in affordable housing before the great recession. this is why part of the solution has to be a significant investment in how we build affordable housing. but we also know we have to stream line the creation of housing as well. there's a recent report that showed that we are not building about 100,000 units a year that we need to keep up with population and demand. >> you're offering several bills that cleared the assembly and not in the senate. and it will give cities and counties more incentives to build more housing. why is there so much reluctance to build housing the. >> there's different ideas on how we address the housing crisis and the fact of the

matter is california is in the most intense crisis we've seen in history. but the difference is to stream line housing, make housing more affordable have been stymied by stakeholders who i think have been focused on short-term interest as opposed to long-term. >> last year i think the governor put $400 million on the table for affordable housing and said you can have it if you can stream line the environmental regulations to help stream line the permitting process. itdant happen. i know you wanted $400 million. but the opposition came from labor and environmentalist. how do you get around those kind of problems? >> last year the governor had put late in the legislative process a biright proposal. >> just explain what that is. >> so it says if you're a housing developmenter and your

proposal meet the requirements for the city, your proposal can essentially get stream lined through the process and you don't have to go through typical public approval processes to see your project built. it was a fairly blunt tool. it didn't allow for very much affordable housing to be built. it did not allow for the folks who actually built the projects to be able to live in their kmunlts. the environmental community was upset because it over road a number of environmental protections. the stream line proposals this year, though, have really tried to address those concerns, to ensure we are making it easier to build housing faster but also taking into account those factors. >> this is not an issue the governor is particularly passionate about. he did issue a statement a couple days ago, couple weeks ago now. why has it been hard to reel him in and make this a prierpt that environmental issues have been for him? >> i think it's taken a couple

of years to get the governor to focus on this. we did have big news from sacramento when governor brown and top leadership from both the senate and splaem came together and said they were not only prepared to support a comprehensive housing package but move it forward within the next couple of weeks. the governor has been thinking about this issue and vetoed a number of bills in prior years including some i had -- >> and he had also pushed to push redevelopment. >> and it really created a huge hole in funding that had been used to build a ton of affordable housing. >> is it that he really doesn't think this is a problem government can solve? >> he has said something to effect that the -- needs to focus on that. the market is never going to be able to build housing at the

lowest ends of the spectrum. and we need housing at every level of affordability to make this work. >> you're seeing some of theest rising rents in sacramento and theteral valley, modessa. does that change the politics of it? >> absolutely. it's been remarkable the stories we've heard from farm workers and the inland empire to homeless veterans in san diego to college students, the newest face of homelessness at this moment are college students who are sleeping on their friend's couches, in their carcs, taking shelter at the gym. >> is this something you can get funding for? >> we're working on it. it remains to be seen. there's plenty of overtures and discussion about how we can build a big tent around this.

but we'll see in the next couple of weeksch. >> it's going to be a sprint to the finish. i know this is going to be challenge for you. what's the biggest sprint you need to get this over the finish line? >> we are putting together a package of bills that would make a significance in funding, stream line housing as well as make counties that haven't been building make housing more affordable. we're going to need a super majority of legislators to support this. my hope and i'm optimistic we can get there, but we'll see. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for having me on. turning now to the artist. hosting an exhibition with a french artist. sophy cal an exceptional artist who got her start in california. many of her themes explore disappearance and loss. recently she made the unusual

move of buying herself a grave plot in this town of california. and we caught up with the artist among the gravestones. >> show me where your grave is. >> it's t-74. it starts here and ends here. >> sophy, you're from france. so what made you acquire a burial plot in california? >> i lived here for six months maybe, and i started to make photos because i rented a house of a foeltographer and she had a little dark room. so i started to use the dark room. and i came in the graveyard because i like grave yards. so my first photos that became my first work ever happened here in this graveyard. in the way the beginning of my professional life. so i thought it was a good

enough reason since the beginning, toened it here. >> why are you so interested in death, sophy? >> i don't know. you know, it's not death. it's about subject which are about absent, messing someone that goes, somebody that dies, what's taken away and what's left. when things go away, you don't take photos of your own happiness in a way. once in my life when i thought i hadn't been as happy, i took a photo of a spot where i was. and then i spoke with a photographer and he said actually you didn't suffer that much because you thought of taking the photo of where you were suffering. so you already put a distance between that suffering and you.

>> the project takes care of yourself also dealing with loss and also featured in this show at ft. mason in san francisco where you have 100 women -- >> 107. >> 107 women analyzing the breakup you had with your lover and interpreting it. so again like you taking a step back from your pain. >> yeah. >> so are you creating art as a form of therapy? >> i do it for artistic reasons. i do it because i want to put works of art on walls or in the page of a book. after there's a gift sharing. >> in your show at ft. mason there's a piece where you document the final moments of your mother's life. >> yeah. >> what inspired you to create this project? >> i was told when people die

they use the minute you step out of the womb to get something -- and me i was obsessed with your last breath, your last time of anything. and i wanted to be there whereshield just have her last breath. and was also afraidshield have something to tell me thatshield not tell me directly. my mother, she wanted to be always on stage. she understood when i put the camera, she was the main character of her death. >> do you think your mother was happy with the results? >> i am sure. i wouldn't have done it otherwise. >> you clearly love symmetry, sophy. anderantly you did one in brooklyn, new york where people came and told you your secrets. >> at the end the symmetry

offered me the grave. so at that point i have two graves in america and no new friends. i have one in brooklyn, beautiful spot and so my after life has been taken care of in america much better than in france. >> sophy cal's exhibition on view at the ft. mason center. entry is free. and that does it for us. you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. i'm scott shafer.

robert: a stunning staff shakeup at the white house. chief of staff reince priebus is out. : security chief john kelly steps in. i'm robert costa. we take you inside the west wing where power intentions are boiling over tonight on washington week. unplugged. incoming communications director anthony scaramucci launched a vulgar rant. that fight comes as the president slams the attorney general, calling jeff sessions beleaguered. president trump: i want the attorney general to be much tougher. robert: leaders are warning the president to back off. >> there will be hell t