loss al tonight on kqednewsroom, how a small city has kicked off a wave of resistance to the state's sanctuarcity policies. and carl po lays out a vision for how every fern, city and business can fight climate change plus political analysis of governor brown's decision to deploy national guard troops at the border. hello and welcome to kqed newsroom, i'm thuy vu. we begin with immigration battles. this week the city of los alamedos in declared exempt from a state-wide law that's drawing criticism from president trump. that law sb-54, also known as the california values act prohibits state and local police agencies from helping federal

authorities with immration enforcement in many cases. since the los alamedos action, a wave of other counties have also voiced opposition to sb-54. they have voided to join the trump administration in suing california over laws aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants. andme joining now via skype to discuss all of this, troy edgar. mr. edgar, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. thanks for having me on. >> the vote was 4-1 in favor of exempting los alamedos from the state sanctuary lawsu you voted iort. why? l well, for me personally, it was a constitutiossue. as a u.s. navy veteran and city council member and mayor for the city over 12 years, i took an oath to support and defend the u.s. consrtution. and me, i just really felt this law basically i could not comply with and had a like-minded city council member and we put it on the agenda and we ended up voting 34-1 to

exempt ourselves from sb-54. >> your wife is an immigrant om iran. wh your personal stand on immigration policy? >> i think for me a littleit of a misnomer is it's absolutely not about immigration. my wife being from iran basically at 18, the shah was , overthrohe was a christian. there was a minority and really their family lost all of her prrpty. she ended up get going to parisf and waiti two years to get into the united states. you'll find that in a lot ofp sian community in the asyrian community is a lot of folks who went that way. i have a lot of hispanic friends, same type of thing. they waited their rn. from my perspective, when i say i love immigrants, i absolutely mean it. it's beuse my wife is an immigrant. if you look at our city council, probly 4/5 of our council are married to immigrants or immigrants themselves. again, this h nothing to d with that.

immigrants just have tdo with basically criminals that are illegally in this country and whether our city should be working with the ice authoties the federal governments to be able to take care of this issue >> according to the los alamedos police chief, there hasn't been a federal immigration raid in your city in over ten years, how many undocumented immigrants are there inme los as? >> i'm not too sure what sort of accounting of the illegal or undocumented in the city.are but this goes back to a bigger picture. our city is one of the safest cities in orange count half of our budget goes towards police. we'reiknown for very proactive and making sure that we make the right decisions to have the highest -- or the best sponse time for polic the lowest crime rate. so being proactive, you know,o when wehrough this process, we just want to make sure as policymakers to rr city, whett's the police chief or

anybody in this organization is from the top of our city, we want our folksi working u.s. federal officials when it comes to immigration. we don't know why there would be any other reason why the state would compel us to do otherwise> the american civil liberties union and several otherig immigrantss groups are basically suing and asking the courts to declare what you did, the new ordinance illegal. your reaction to that? >> well, obviously from being able to comment sa cifically on se, i can't, because it's pending litigation. but the reality is the aclu from the very beginning has been trying to bully us through the anocess. they sent is two d letters in, one before the first vote on march 19th. the second one for the aprilth vote just threatening us. from my perspective, i'm representinghe people of my community. half of our base is military -- or half of our city is a military base. and, you oknow, being a coarncilmember for 12 i feel like i fairly represent our community and t types of actions that we should be

taking. i'm unphased by the aclu lawsuit. i think over time we'll have to engage that more when we find out more about it. >> how do you feel about immigration communities who feel th could make los alamedos less safe to make imgrants feel less safe to come forward and re iort crimes? you talk to the police chief, that really is not the case. there would be cases of unintended consequen if somebody is a criminal and they're undocumented and they tually do get released out in the community, one of the biggest issues is those people go bk to the community where they victimize people in the past. if those people are people that arectually undocumented and the situation goes down around them, that is a chance that something like that could happehi but i for the most part, this is not about trying to put

a fear factor into people who are undocumented. i eell people themple is look, if to you have a party at your house and you invi people and some people come that are uninvited and they start doing bad stuff, you don't want them there, they and that really -- what we're trying to do, this is something that's a local issue. it's about local control for us. and it really is a u.s. constitutional issue o that we d not have to make a choice ior our police whether they have to work u.s. custom officials -- or immigration officials or whether they're going to work with the state. >> we have about 20 seconds reu ining. have tten calls from other california cities now interested in doing the same thing that los alamedos has done? t absolutely. since we' do first vote, we sent offver 500letters to mayors and councilmembers to every city in california. i spend two to three hours a day talking to mayors and councilmembers inte in moving this forward in our city.

and i get calls from active citizens and mmlks in the ity who want to try to figure out how to work withi tcity council to get this item on their agenda. you would be surprisedti in the up in northern california that are very interested in being a part of this. >> mayor troy edgar, we thank you for your time. >> thank you. appreciate it. staying with politics, this week governor jerry brown announced that up to 400 national guard troops will be sent to the u.s./mexico border. the governor says the troops will fight criminal gangs, human traffickers and drug and gun smugglers. they will not, however, help with immigration enforcement or building a new border wall. the i announcement sparked crip.cism from president tr he called the deployment, quote, a ash rcharade.ic republican pol consultant sean walsh and senior political

ryan jared garifoli. doctor, let me begin with you. we just got done talking to the mayor of los alamedos. it certainly isn't the only city to be going against e state sanctuary laws. we've seen orange county itself and san diego county have voted oin the federal lawsuit against the law. where do you see all of this going from her >> itotay go much farther than here because esrange count, cially in the south and san diego county are probably the hot bed of resistance to is this state sanctuary law. i do think it's a very big issue there. t's a mobilizing issue for republicans that could affect house races and turnout. it's attracted the attention of president trump i think you'll see other cities around the state and counties. but i thin this is the most significant area where this is going on. especially since this is wg re the buse races are in november. this could decide control o the

hou representatives. >> jody, do you agree with that? kristegaspar, a san diego supervisor who voted for this, some have accused her of exploiting the sanctuaryrs law controto help boost her profile in her race for darrel iss a'seat in san diego county. >> this issue gives republicans some voice. they found their voice call it the resistance to the resistance. i believe i came with that term. >> that's where i first heard it. >> i'm claiming credit for that. but what it does is it allows folks, republicans, sort of trbrace trump's agenda without embracing p. trump in california is toxic. they don't want to do this. but this is one of trump's core sues. this is something that appeals to the law and order suburban s.owd, which is the orange county distric they're largely that. and it also -- it allows republicans to sort of gin up and get out the vote.ot they'reoing to have a

senate candidate d they may not have a candidate on the ballot for governor. >> you're raising your eyebrows. >> i am. time aftetime, nancy pelosi anticipate some of the activists in the democratic partyun into walls. they think that their values and their approach is what the rest of the country shares. and i think almost 2,500 people demonstrate that it's not juo, san diit's not just orange county, it's not just los alamedos. but all over the state, people have very serious concerns about illegal immigration. it's an issue not just for republicans but it's also an issue for democrats. >> swing voters, too. >> the study that y just referred to, the haas study, you found that nearly half of the people surveyed support president eltrump's tr ban and more deportation of undocumented immigrants. but i kn that you have some concerns about how that study was conducted. >> oh, it's a good study. i guess my concerns areow it's portrayed. i made some calls to look at

some of the data. i don't think the study shows quite what sean is saying .i think it shows overwhelming support for more of aes prove position on immigration. ond then on some ambiguously worded questions things like the muslim ban and deportation that's gotten highlighted in the news coverage. one of them asked, how important is the goal of deporting undocumented sints. and that got support. then theext question gets over 70%. it's kind of hard to deport people and give them citizenship at the same time. i think it's a good survey, but i think it's getting a little overestimated. even though i do think shaup is right, there is a base of opposition on the democratic position on immigration. i don't think it's coming from democrats, though. >> i disagree. you're showing 50% of people in the bay area actually have these positions. i think there's the old saying there's a right way to come to the countryg and a wrway.

the country and particularly california embraces legal immigtion and legal immigrants. but they have a problem with people who have come here illegally. and they have a soft spot in their heart fordaca kids. that's completely understandable. but when you see mayor libb libby schaff who say we're going to alert people when they're trying to deport criminals in oakland and other parts of california, it makes people aninry. they t that's a wrong approach from the federal government. the it doesn't surprise me at all that this survey, you see the link between legal immigration and right versus wrong. >> talking to republican pollsters in southern california o are tabbed into these races, the intensity of these issues is off the charts. for republicans and to nonpartisan swing voters.in the subu this appeals to them, if you cast it -- if the republicans can cast it as supporting law enforcement. because that's what people in

the suburbs cano. relate they may not relate to an immigration issue, but if they're relating this to i'm supporting my local law enforcement officer, then the republicans might he some traction. the gas tax -- you know, the republicans had envisioned that as something totoet the voters ome out. it doesn't have the intensity, the emotional connection as this issue does. >> what about from a legal stand poi point? you talked about the emotional connection, joe. is this a case of the state overreaching? going back to the sanctuary laws. is it a case of overreach by the snat. >> i didn't go to law school. so i try to law off those. i'm a political scientist. just speaking politically, i think the state sanctuary law, while it was a very carefully designed law, it was certainly in a political realm, opened the door for local governments where republicans are strong, to become a resistance to a state law as opposed to just

another -- i do agree with joe that this is the animating issue in the republican party and it's the reason trump became president. just asemocrats sometimes dream that everybody agrees. i don't think the general public has that same feeling. what helps gin up repub turnout in these races will also gin up democratic turnout. the gas tax hasn't really gone anywhere. there's not enough republican candidates statewide. this is it, this is the one ke and midterm elections as all of our guests know are not abo persuasion, they're about motivation and mobilization. le, we have the deployment of the national guard troops. governor jerry brown said he

won't do it. but they won't be involved -- he will do it, but they won't be involved in immigration enforcement of wall construction. the federal government has agreed to pay for t staking inistration is some issue with that. >> trump said no, we're not going to do it. is then then the same day, i believe it was, the national guard said no, we just got pentagon funding to do this. ewe're talking about 400 troops. this is mostly both brown and the president appealing to their bases. you know, we're talking about - these aret major movements of troops. it's a political thing. and they're both appealing to their base. >> just further poisoning the relationship between california and washington? >> well, i think the if t itching for a fight with california. and not just the fact that this is going to effect those four seats that are targeted b the democrats in southern california. but this has national salience.

so this is an issue president trump in large part got elected based on his immigration ance. so i think, as he said, you need temotivation to get your out. strong motivation on the democratic side f the women's movement and the pink hat crowd. so now ' got something that makes people equally as passnate to come o on the other side. and a lot of these races are decided by a couple hundred votes in many areas. this could be a very, very important political noteth motivator. >> can i ju about governor brown for just a second? >> absolutely. go ahead. >> give some credit to what jerry brown did here. it was rather clever. every democratic candidate for oyvernor said absolutely no to the dent of the national rd gu republican governor said absolutely yes. and jerry brown in his philosophical way found a way to

sident trump in a bad spot. he said maybe, let's look at it. he said since i'm themm der of the national guard, unless you federalize it, they'rwhgoing to d i want to do. it was a reasonable proposal and the pentagon supported it. and the president goes to his base and overturns yet another cabinet secret previously it was nikki haley on russian sanctions, leaving them hanging.e but what brown did was not for his base. his base wanted him to say flat no. and i don't know any other dem rat who canke that kind of position with the creibility thaty brown can get away with. >> and meanwhile, making a speech tat inflammatory football that low-life politicians like to exploit. jerry brown gets away with saying stuff likeanthat. but i to move off immigration for a moment and also ask about this other item thatjust happened today. the democratic national committee filed a multimillionit

dollar lawagainst russia, the trump campaign, and also wikileaks, alleging there's a conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 residential election. what do you make of this? excan russia, fople, be sued? don't they have immunity? other nations have immunity from most u.s. lawsuits? >> might as well sue assad and syria for all the effects that will do. this is pure politics, nothing more and nothing less. i think there's some concern that mueller could wrap up his investigation early andld this co keep it going from thear prs into the election. speak of course lawsuits, there's better standing for bernie sanders to sue democratic national committee for colluding with hillary clinton. it's all politics. it doesn't have any standing. >> the democrats should be careful. don't pin your hopes on being anti-trump. you have to have a message along with being anti-trump.

the people who are anti-trump hare already there wyou. you have to get something else to get their voters to come out. traditionally, their voters have not come out in midter elections. they need to do something positive to get their voters out. or else you're not going to do it on baing trum that group is already with you. >> on that note we're going to have to end it her i want to thank all of you. thanks so much for being with us. sean walsh, republican strategist and also san francisco chronicle political writer jerry garafoli. thank you, gentlemen. >> turning now to climate change. we talk to the former head of the sierra club, carl hope. his newook is titled "climate of hope." he co-authored bloomberg.ichael pope lays out a vision for how individuals, businel es and locavernments can battle

climate change even when state andational governments won' and carl pope joins me now in the studio. eice to have you here. >> great tohere again. >> in your book you say it's time for new conversation about climate change. what do you ink is wrong with the way it's being discussed mao? >> we talked about climate change as this enormous problem which requires phenomenal sacrifice. and the conversation is, who's going to pay foril the that use used to be true. it' not true anymore. the question is,in who's gto take the lead? that's a different kind of sonversation. >> a lot of it taabout long-term consequences. not something that people can eare late to now. talking about how t make money, not sacrifices. and focusing on polar bears, not ahmatic children. >> that's exactly right. people don't realize many of the states who have the most to reduce their carbon footprint are states like oklaho and

texas which did it not because they havear governors who about climate change. they didn't. but because they had utility w customers wted cheaper power and wind is cheaper than coal. >> so it was a money-making incentive there. >> and it was immediate. the utility rates of texas have been coming down. rates in texas have been coming down significantly because we're retiring coal and replacing it with national gas, wind and solar. >> much of the climate change centers around do and gloom scenarios. you point out in the book that those sharing ta-- scaring tacts don't really work with people why not? >> if you're a rock climbing coach and trying to get somebody to do a pitch they've never done before, you don't doat by saying oh, my gosh, it's going to be really hard. i don'know if you can do it.

the person you're coaching, you say hey, this is like something you've before, and i know you can do it and you're going to have to stretch andg you're ng to have to work and be on. and that's what we need to tell people about climate e.cha not that it's a catastrophic awful thing.be the n are so bad. you say wait a minute, we got rid of a class of refrigeration chemical that was destroying the ozone layer. we know how to replace them with better stuff. we replaced the first set, wive can repce this set. >> so let's expand on that. you also write in the book the major contributors tbal warming are buildings, the electricity we use in our homes and offices. also transportation and the stuff we make, ste toys, furniture. there are so many complex layers here, so what can i, as an individual, do? what are the top two things i can do to help fight climate

change? >> it depends on whyou are. everybody has a different set of institutional connections. everybody is -- people are part of rtfamily, they're f communities, they vote for school boards, they work for companies. they may teatunts. and in all of those roles, you have an opportunity to focus the conversation on how can we simultaneously make tomorrow better and do better today? and everybody has tho opportunities. you just have to look around you and say where doi have connections to other people and how can i work with those other people to o speed up the ra progress towards better outcomes for the climate, which are tso goinbe better outcomes for makings healthy or unhealthier. >> we have several things going on right the american lung association report that came out this week that said out of the top t c u.ies with the most ozone pollution, 8 of them are in california, inclutding los

angeles, sacramento, and fresno. and at the same time, we have a federal government that is it rolling back a few provisions of the clean air act. what do you see the trump administration having ol fede policies regarding climate change. >> the trump administration is making federal policies horrible. it durns out, that doesn't have to matter that much. le's talk about air pollution in colorado. i've been work on this problem for 40 years. for 40 ears, california has been trying to clean up the internal combustion engine. a we've do remarkable job. and for most of those 40 years, washington was resistant. so most of the progress california made in cleanin up the car, which is now translated into nationalprogress, was made by california, not washington. we now recognize we can't do the job with power. we need to electrify vehicles. and that's how w re going to solve california's collusion

problem and california can take the lead and is taking on getting that done, even though donald trump wants to h pretend electric cars aren't better than internal combustion cars. thy are. >> must be some impact, right? tw do the administration's viewpoints affe way that is environmentalts are doing their work? >> what reallytt s is, is it affecting the way american electricity consumer behave? is it afbting the way american drivers behey? or american manufacturers not so much. they all look at the trump administration h and ss going to be there for a while, he's we're investing in the future. when trump announced i'm going to bring out coal. aun one of the consulting firms sas this changing in what you're investing in. 42 only one company out of said that it would change their

investment strategies. the rest said we're not for the next three years. we're investing for the next 20 years and the next 20 years is solar. >> just quickly, in terms of strategies, local governments, even colorado this week are now taki the strategy of suing oil and gas companies over the cost of climate change. good or bad strategy? >> that's a good strategy. that has now been joined by a conservativ libertarian think tank in washington. we're beginning to see people f coming inom the other side and saying well, if the government is not going to hold the oil industry accountable, individual citizens can. >> nice to have you here. >> nice to beere with you. that's going to do it for us. you can find more of our coverage on kqed/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thanks for joining us.

>> president trump confronts new memos from former f.b.i. director james comey. and he bri a trusted ally onto his legal team. i'm robert costa inside the latest on the russia probe. plus the loomige chall and opportunities in north korea. tonight on "washington week." >> there was no collusion and that's been ao found, you know, by the house intelligence committee. >>resident trumpxpresses confidence that special cbensel ro mueller's investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 election will not find collusion by the trump campaign. in a news conference with japanese primete minshinzo abe, trump contests reports that mueller and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein's jobs >> they've been saying i'm going to get rid of them for the last three months. four months. five months. and t