tonight on "kqed newsroom," san francisco has a new mayor. we'll hear from london breed and the first african-american to hold the post. also from the at&t mega trger fromime warner, a look ats week's developments in tech. plus newook on a fateful meeting convened by robert f. kennedy more than 50 years ho an that conversation continues today. hello and welcome to "kqed newsroom." i'm thuy vu. we begin elect london breed. san francisco waited as votes for counted in a tight race for mayor. either of the top two candidates promised to be a first for the city. mark leno would be the first

openly gay mayor.ee while london would be the first african-american woman to lead the city. finally on wednesday morning he eed.eded to b the new mayor elect grew up in the western addition neighborhood and was first ected to the board of officers in 2012. she sat down with editor scott schafer. >> thanks for coming in. >> of course. >> wh you walked through the doors of city hall and you said my name is london london breed, wh went through your mind? >> i couldn't believe it to tell you. the tru it almost felt like a dream. it's amazing and i'm excited to b d here. >> y a callout to your grandmother, ms. brown. >> yes, i'm sure she would have been t ppy. >> wd you learn from her? >> i learned from her that you take care of each other.e ook care of the community. we didn't have much, but it was important that, for example, my

grandmother would cook all the time. an people would come over and we wld feed other people i would ask why are we giving aoa away our food, you be quiet she would sa being part of a community is what you do. >> living in public housing, you must see and hear and experience all kinds of things most people don't. i'm wondering wharlohowu approach issues? >> the desire to make sure that even though have been the exception coming out of that environment and even going to college and doing well in life, i don't want -- i want this to be the norm. >> what was an example as mayor that you think you can do to make a difference? >> one of the things i want to do as mayor isrode paid internship opportunities for all

high school students. hat the city ly would pay for everything, but we have incredible companies here in the heaseth care tor, the tech sector,call these dible destroindustries right in the backyard. and i want them to be exposed to hat's possible in life at an nd part of that is paid internships because we're taling about young peoplho come from single family homes ere their grandmothers are raising them. i want to make sure they're able to generate a littt of money in the process so they stay out of trouble so that they don't do many of the things my family members did growing up breaking into cars, selling drugs, doing things that would ll, or u in juvenile things that were naturally a part of yr environment that were easy to do. >> homeigssness, a issue. voters told you. do you think the city is on the

right track right now? >> so i think that the city is somewhat on the right track. i think part of it is we have systems in place to help address the issue. but the problem that we have are people who struggle with mental illne t. and i thihat's really why that's gog to be my focus, is making changes to our laws and providing options for those who we can't get housed, those who we can't in some casesge we can them housed but we can't keep themhoused. >> one of the things you were clear about is housing. you said it again on wednesday afternoon. we don't build enough housing, it was very clear. there are things also that make it more expensive t build in san francisco. and you know what they are, the cost and time ofertting fees, what would you be willing to do to speed up the construction of homes and bng down t costs? >> i ultimately want to cut down

the time tolo dev any new housing in half, especially when you talk about 100% affordable housing. d it takes years to build. even when you have financing for a project it should not be the case, and i'm committed to analyzing the process and making significant changes so that there is a difference. otherwise we are not going to get anywhere with housi production in this city. >> being mayor is a big jou. it's a job. what do you feel like you need to learn in order to be successful as mayor? >> i think i need to learn patience to be successful as mayor bnfcausetunately it is a city, there's bureaucracies, there's process, there's layers. u but i thifortunately the city has more layers of process and bureauracy thane can stand. it is crippling us in our ability tbe an effective city to deliver for our residents. >> w do you think you're

impatient? >> it's a natural part of my personality. if i see a pothole, for example, i want the pothole fixed, like, now. and if ins fixed the next day, we havehallenges like that all over the city. it's just takingo timet to everything. it's a large city and there's at lot of wort needs to be done, but we always got to as far as i'm concerork at getting it done and making progress for our residents. >> one of the things you pushed for on the board was safe injection sites to get addicts off the street and get, sir -- needle off the street. >>, for example, now nonprofit organizations we work with that provide services around detox and needle chnge, they receive state and sometimes

federal funding and there are certain laws that come with that funding. and so we are working to try a figure out what could potentially work, a pop-up site ome way we can protect those organizations and still host a site of this nature for the purposes of addressing this is due. what we'ng now clearly isn't working. just cleaning it up and moving people arnd doesn't solve the problem. i think this could be a possible solution to that issue. >> one other thing that has ban tatewide issue, a national issue and it's related to the trump admini sanctuary city policies, sanctuary state policies. are you comfortle with the policy that san francisco has right now in terms of levels of cooperation between the sheriff and the jails and other law enforcement officials ara the fegovernment? are you comfortable with it? >> i'm comfortable with the laws we have now. and i think, you know, what we should do as a city is continue to protect all the residents who re a part of our city. so i think in terms of the way

that our lawsexist, the goal is immigrantur communities the same as if they are a real part of our community whether they are a citizen or not, and that's the whole point >> could you do what mayor lip libby shaff did, warning the community about that? ha i could, yes, and i've made that clear what i will do as mayor is "s" protect all of my residentsnd i would do exactly what mayor shaff did a ilaud her for her efforts. she's taken a lot of heat for that, and i just continue to be a supporter and an advocate for what is right as mayor of san francisco. >> one of the issues that's going to come before y before too long is these scooters. have you ever ridden one of those? >> i have and i like the scooters. i tnk they're a great alternative mode of transportation just like bicycles. the city is growing and

changeg, but i don't lhe fact people are riding their bicycles and scooters on the sidewalks. so we need definitely enforcement and we need to make sure when they roll out again thernss appropriate regulat so we all share the road in a fair and constructive way. >> mayor london breed, i think i speak for all san franciscans when i say goodluck. this week a federal judge approved an $85 billion mergere deal bet at&t and time warner. the case had been closely watched as a bully weather after dealther big corporate it owns directv. time warner owns cnn and hbo. the ruling was a blow to the justice department which has sued last novem ter block the merger saying it would hurt competition and lead to higher prices for consumers. also this week, electric car maker tesla cut its workforce by 9%, the ceo saidyo s would

help the company beor m profitable. joining me are market watch tech editor and bureau chief jeremy owens. chief technology correspondent ina freed. federal judge has cleared the way for the $85 billion purchase of time warner. >> there's a huge fight for content out there. netflix and all the originals content i making and all these places are trying to get more content and that is a huge expense for a place like at&t which owns directv and i paying for those channels they put on directv. when you look at comct which purchased nbc universal. to compe well it felt like i needed to get that same deal. >> programming that's very popular likegame of thrones," cnn, the harry potter movie

franchise. so this begs the question, and a lot of people are pointing to this, does this mean that we will now see a big wave of other similar corporate deals after this grelight from the judge. one day is it the at&tn decisi comcast announced an all cash offer for 21st century fox. >> that's the big obvious one, but this wil open the floodgates. basically the court gave its approval to this idea of horizontalmergers, to buy schls content as they want. thatwi ethos be applied more broadly. i think eryone from a drugstore can buy an insurance company. it will be veryoa in the tech area it's going to force consolidation, deals like this bidding war over fox, comcast said they ed to enter the fray, but had the at&t time warner ruling not gone its

way, comcast would have made a narrow bid. >> will the trump administration challenge any of these deals? thisis a huge blow. or do you think the justice department will shy away fromle ching any of these? >> i certainly learned not to totally predict what the trump administration will do. that said, the judge was careful to say this is a ruling about this deal andy very clea didn't want to say all such deals should get a rubber stamp. so there is room for the doj to come back with another deal and say this one isn't okay. i think they may be more cautious. certainly there's vertica deals, so sprint is trying to merge with t-mobile. will the doj or aet of the coion authorities step in there? >> i don't think they would go afte the cvs aetna deal, but something like sprint and

t-mobile where those arewo t companies where there are only four wirelessri cars and two of them are trying to merge. and they've already tried before and have been told no. that's the one that we'll see. did this make the trump administration think maybe we shouldn't go after these deals, that's the real test. >> i think sprint and t-mobile, their legal case got stronger because they're going to say we're barely competingwn eless and now our two big rivals are out there buying oodles of content. i ink in some ways we may just see another wave of >> that bundling is such a big thing because you can bundle your home intnet, cable, everything, and give you deals on the content. how does sprint and t-mobile as independent companwis compete that if they're able to bundle and charge less? >> will you get deals, though? or could it in the long run lead s higher prices for consumers?

>> the governmentp witness in this case was forced to admit it would probably lead to lower prices for at&tcustomers, at least in the short term. what they were saying is long term we may see this kind of come down to basically just at&t, comcast, and verizon competing against each other and eventually that could make prices rise if we get to that point. but they couldn't prove we would get to that>> point. i think it's also an issue of not just lower prices or higher pric in the shortnd long term, which are obviously all important issues, butlso content choice and the issue of is at&t going to give preference to the content that it owns. and then they said theea simplicity n for this merger is so they can serve up rtising. facebook and google already have targets ads but at leas they're giving me their service for free. i paying online to at&t or ve fzon my cell phone bill.

>> you just touched on something i want to ask, that isqu the stion over who controls content. the at&t decision came on the hes of the end of net neutral this weekend. those were the rules that required at&t to treat all web traffic equally and not prionttize their con over others. what does this landscape now mean? we ha the at&t merger approved and the end of net neutral. how does this all affect eonsumers? >>l have to see. if at&t chooses to prefer its own content, is going to against the ethos of net neu does that hurt netflix? but consumers still have the choice. f at&t funnels hbo really fast, a f netflix can just go to comcast. if we do end up with very few options and you can't hop as easily from company to company, locked into racts, that's where we run into an issue.

>> i agree, jeremy. i think the big issue is going to be fewer choices. these are a smallig number of companies, so your choice is going to be do you want to go withat&t, which is bundling and giving you the best deal on time waryor content, dwant to go with verizon that's pushing its bundle of content? netflix is likely to stay independent and disney is entering the fray. there are choices but there are certainly fewer. >> there's been so much concern from advocates in terms of this deal. but the flip could also happen that many times tech industry merger rs don't always take off. look at time warner and aol. >> that was another point we raised. that was a double whammy. one of my editor's points was they made this struggle just to integrate t deal.

these are tough deals and they talked about the culture challenge, a media company is ally different than a pipe company. at least at&t ceo is saying the right things, we're going to leave them alone, we get it's a different business. we'll see. certainly aol didn't leave the time warner people alone and it was big, ugly divorce. >> there's no telling what's h going topen when you try to merge two large companies. if disney ends up owning fox, they're going to have to bring in two very mifferentia companies and try to merge them. what's going to happen with that is it's impossible to say ahe of time. >> but it opens the door to a facebook or google acquiring other conies, message services, data companies, right? ig or even content companies. apple justd a deal with oprah winfrey tote provide c for them and they'll be looking for content. a lot of people tught they re going to go for the fox deal and now you have different

buyers. it's going to be a interesng thing to watch. if all content ends up being owned by the service providers as well. >> i want to talk quickly about t as well. news this week that it's laying off k90% of its workfor trying to get the model 3 out on time. will this be enough t company to profitability, and also get the model 3 out there on a timetablee that cons expect? >> i don't think it's going to help them get it out any faster. i don't know that it will have a huge negative impact in the mentioned, as you it's not the workers building them which is the bottle neck. it's growing pains. it's a sign of discipline they're looking to turn profitable, yes, that's a growth sign, but layoffs are rarely a panacea fo problems, so don't think so it's going to make it better in terms of getting shipments out the eor.

>> and elon musk today announcing a deal with chicago o'hare to have these underground people movers to take people from downtown chicago to o'hare in 12 minutes. doesn't tesla have enough on its platede >> yeah, itnitely does. elon has been known to o do romise the ability things. the model 3 suld be at 10,000 production rate right now and it's not. he said he could build this for under a billion we'll see if that's the case. >> he does mak a lot of promises. jeremy owens, thank you for being here. 15 years ago this month, then democratic candidate robert kennedy was killed in los angeles.

his thinking on race evolved after an intense meeting in 1963 with writer jamesi b including lina hornnd harry bell upon the tay. dyson writes about how more than 50 years later arica still struggles to have an honest conversation aut race. joining me is writer and georgetown university professor of sociology mark zbliecdyson. >> i want to ask you aboha what ened in san francisco. we have the the first african-american woman to be mayor of this city. she grew up in the housing projects, now has the city's top job. what is your reaction to that? >> it's .extraordina she lost her sister to drug blverdose, an incredi woman who feels the heartbeat of the people, who understand that there are tremendou odds against her, thinking about cleaning up the streets of san francisc talking about the homeless problems, talking about gentification.

speaking a dut theinishing numbers of people of color, especially african-american people in the city. but she is an iredible leader. she did a great job as a commissioner. she takes the helm of this city at a point of crisis aer the death of a beloved maor, but she has freshth thinking o city and joining differentth pa o city to overcome the problems. >> she's definitely rising. i want to take a step back in history and talk about the prem of your book, which is the 1963 meeting between then-u.. attorney general robert f. kennedy and james baldwin. it was supposed to be a friendly gathering but it became very bitter? >> initially they met over breakfast the daybe re. and because it was a rush meeting, baldwin's plane was late when he got to d.c. then

out to virginia. the attorney gl said tomorrow i'll be in new york, let's get together. they got together he said bring some of your friends. they also brought a student activistho was one of the most storied activist freedom writers. they got to the meeting. kennedy wanted to black people to be grateful for what he and i see brother were doing. and they weref having noneit. they said we're tied of this. the young man, jerome smith, said don't worry about it the voice of rage. beoncerned about me who's willing to take up a gun because i'm tired of all of this. he tried to pivot away, robert kennedy, to the responsible black people, but with they said the only person youeed t listen to is him. it got nasty and bitter.

kennedy was angry. at the end of the meeting he went back to his office and sicced the fbi to the people who were there. he eventually said if i were black, i would be angry too, saybe i should calm down and talk about race a moral issue the way they wanted me to and it changed his whole life. by the time he die he became as the most trusted white man inic ame for black people. >> that brought out the tension between the policy making and the moral center a how it evolved about race and that conversation isn't over. where does that conversation s>>nd today? when hillary clinton met up with black lives matter people d and they how has your heart changed about public policy?v if you no policy that changes we'll be here 20 years from now talking about the same thing. it's not what i fel, it' what we do in terms of policy. that's still a clash. she has a point.

kennedy had a point. but the point of baldwin and black lives matter is equally important. it's on the books that you shouldn't kill unarmed black people, but it kee happening. that's the way in which peoplef l about and think about the other. so we need both social witness and public policy together so that we can make things better in this society. > you write in your book that as bigotry resurfaces, you write the lie is putef to the bel that this is not american. this is not us. when indeed i truly is. hasn't a lot of progress been made, though, since 1963? >> s malcolm xd if you stick a knife in my back and pull it out six inches, that's not progress. you're still killing me. yes, there's been enormous bogress. firsck president, but look how he was treated. if he followed up with a bigot

like t president who makes no designations between bigots and people who are racists and those who challenge that. >> african-americans claim he's doing that and rising in the polls. >> the man who put the plunger up the behind was dating a black woman. sleeping back doesn't mean you know black. you try to talk about a systematic problem that creas injustice in the first place that puts black people in prison. thank god, i'm glad for that but that doesn't address systematic issues. >> you make a surprising comparison in the book between donald trump and bernie sanders. essentially saying they are mirror images of each other. an you explain that? >> i'm not suggesting that in any way that bernie sanders holds the offensive owedous views. th egregious views of donald trump. but they're both older white

guys who took a long time for them to understand about race.er e sanders was equally cantankerous. he was very fussy and bitter about it, he wasonlike, i need to learn anthing. it's a janet jackson world, what have you done for mla ly. both of them are mirror images of each other in the sense that they don't understand thli cent and necessity of race in such a progressive fashion. bernie sanders to his credit is grappling with that and grasping hold of that in ay w donald trump shows no indication that he's willing to do. >> we just have about 30 seconds remaining. you write tha t presidemp is treating the entire nation as black. >> that't right. >> w you mean by that? >> what black have said to white america about how unfortunate and tragic it is to be disrespected, to be talked about, this is what donald trump is doing to most of america now. every morning he rises to excrete the feces of his moral

drivety. he's calling people out my names, narcissistic, no matter what people, do he treats them the same way. that's what it feels like to be black in a racist and bigoted country. >> always interesting to have at conversationyou. your new book is "what truth sounds like" and you'll be we commonwealth kmub monday 6:30 in san francisco. >> that will do it for us. you can find more for our coverage at kqed.org/newhuoom. i'mvu. thank you for joining us.

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