>> tonight on kqed newsroom, the week's major politic how california lawmakers react to the intru summit. the bay wildfires, concerned about greed and lack of oversight. how climate change is fueling this intense fire season and damaging california's environment. hello and welcome to kqed "newsroom." i'm thuy vu. we beginpo with tics. there's continuing confusion over what was said during president trump private meeting with russian president vladimir putin on monday in helsinkly after initisaying he did not believe russia had interfered in american s, electi president trump later told cbs news he had been firm with mr. putin about notpuing up with such interference. the shifting statements from the president drew condemnation from

top democrats and some republicans and then on thursday, the white house said president trump will invite vladimir putin for a second meeting in washington, dc thisl meanwhile, in california, the state democratic party snubbed senator dianne feinstein by endorsing her rival, kevin deleon. feinstein prekeres to ta a leading role over confirming supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. joining me now to discuss this, kqed litical reporter maurieso and political consultant sean walsh. thank you. >> good to be here. >> joe, there's been a lot of criticism over theelnki meeting and what president trump said afterwards. what's been thereaction from california republicans in races determine the house? >> reached out to all the republicans in all the hot house seats here. nine republicans. i said, what did you think of what the president initially said and none of them would

criticize trump by name. putin's a mess, all this stuff. that speaks to the power of trump and his supporters. even in blue california. these folks want to get elected and needth core of trump supporters to support them. >> i mean, we saw later in the week, because things move so quickly, you know, this indictment of somebody that the federal prosecuto as a russian agent and dana rohr baa backered it bogus and i knowledged he met her at some point. ink rorbacher is the on ne dealing with this. a billboard democrat to put up. i think that race is going to be interesting to watch around tais rusissue. for a lot of people, this may be appalling and may be sort of crazy thatre having these conversations but it's probably not going to behe number one issue going to the poll. >> republicans on theus h

intelligence committee essentially blastedve the from the helsinki summit. siw much will these ongoing concerns about r meddling and also over president trump's handling of these worries mobilize democrats for the midterms? >> i think that's what democts are hoping, right and i think that's the key with the congressional races. you're not talking about convincing hardcore republicans to vote against their ow part you want the democrats who didn't vote two years ago, four years ago, ot to the polls and i do think there's some indications that there could be some of that democratic excitement. we've seen some strong fund raising numbers from som these new democratic candidates. so, you know, i think that's really where democrats need to focus. not on trying to pull people over. >> and shin a lightamid all of this back peddling and back and forth statements. now says inviting president putin to the white house this fall. what do you make of this >> well, look, as long as you're talking, not shooting, it's not

a bad thing. n regards to joe, i'm not sure if it's the power of the trump voters but the closeness of this election cycle. theraces are going to be so close that if you peel off even a few percentage points with people, you lose. that why they're hesitant to go out and criticize president trump. with regard to thesubpoena, it's just ridiculous. it's a complete political stunt d executive privilege. it's never going to happen. that's just politicson the democrat's part. the real issue, which is interesting, is every morning, the republicans wake up like, oh my god, what is it going to be today? so in january, republicans were very disheartened. i think they thought they were going to lose the house by 52 votes. about a month ago to three weeks ago, they were in great shape and felt with the social democratic party, this election in new york and all the mayhem on the democraticside, they were feeling really good and woll numbers were trending their way. with russia, the poll

numbers have gone down. >> and immigration stuff at the border, you know, really a moment where you saw a lot of, even more moderate republicans, people like former first lad laura bush really come out swinging. >> i would say though the fact the banned ice movement actualle played against democrats. republicans were feeling great three weeks ago. it's like being on a roller coaster down at great america. like, whoayou're up and down. don't know what you're going to get. >> a number of critics said what president trump said after the meeting with putin amounted to treason. ck oruch of that will st is it just like teflon? >> there is so much, last week, okay. he goes to the nato meeting. basically says that our nato allies are opponents and angela merkel is not helping us out. i think he was right on the natural gas issues, but every single da he says something new. you have the epa secretary resign in disgrace.

poof. so literly, this guy drives so many news things. >> the base or firmly behind him despite this? >> i think the bse is firm behind him. no offense to you media people but i think in certa ways, when the media comes out so attacks him, that solidifies his base and other people just saying it. >> what's different about this n with the putin stuff is that he had the fox news people coming out against h which rarely happens, very tepidly so say ings like, it wasn't his best day. >> even they seem to ben shock. >> but if they're saying that, that's something unusual. foreign policy doesn't matter. it does matter. if you're a republican. the one thing you can't dos a republican is say russia is good.e they' historically been bad to us. they spy. they put different ki of

poisons with their own signature n it killing off people around the world. they'll put up with a lot. they want the court to change the way it's been changing but they will not say that rusa is good. it goes our fundamental dna. >> it just depends on what happens between now and election day. it depends on what argue, leading the news as ballots are mailed out in california especially,but, you know, nationally, and this roller coaster just keeps goin t so ink that's going to be the problem for democrats to try and rehash these things when it'sbeen three months. >> people are still casting ballots. how does that summit go? >> maybe. they said in the fall, i don't t think they date for it. thoughng i'll tell you we're talking about republicans. let's not forget. you're only good as your opponent and r as fast as the guy next to you and democrats are having a civil war with your party. socialist with an active

movement. anders out campaigning with these groups an that isnot something the democrats want to be facing going into a fall election. >> on that issue, that gets back to what happened with the dianne feinstein situation with the democratic party, ethorsed rival and kevin deleon even though she campainoed hard to have any endorsement at all, what does it suggest about the state of the democratic vote? >> for some context, that was the executive board of the party that was 300 people out of 2800 delegates. >> and millions of voters. >> millions of voters but feinstein won 25% of democrats including her opponent and his district. about $8 million in the bank and she's worth at least $55 million. he's got 10 cents. it's going to be hard for him to even cut her. for theetely irrelevant

election and her reelection. it is relevant insofar as what's going on in the belly of the party in the democratic >> i don't think it's, i don't agr with you, sean, it's bad as you're saying. think you can see a lot with not ea party and that's been great for the republican party long-term but when it came he elections, that did excite the right, base they needed to take back the house and i think for people who you talk to who were bernie delegates two years ago and just getting involved, they're happy to see this sort of movement happening. so you' ight. nancy pelosi and dianne feinstein, they're not happy about this oubut,now, it could play well for some voters in the coming months. >> it may not change the u.s. senate race, like you said but what's interestingeyhere, t symbolize these two factions. you have feinstein, old schoolit pos. she's 85. the oldest member of the senaten and t you have deleon who's the senator of immigrants.

he wants to abolish ice.ev be president trump should be impeached. and so how is that rift going to play out come november especially when democrats arery ng to retake control of the house? >> it could go an energizing thing but already, deleon as influenced feinstein on a couple of issues and suddenly against the death penalty and been against it for years. what she neglected to tell, immigration policies. she's been much mot vocal agaialling out trump. >> legalizing marijuana. >> that came out nowhere because she was hardcore against it for a long time and let's not fort, she's goi to have a primetime free tv spot for weeks when the supreme court hearing. >> you hit the nail on the ad. that's where she'll play to the left and the activist in the party andis hammer appointee, particularly on his writings and

dealings with the bush administration wither enhanced ogation techniques. going to love it and help her politically with the >>activist it was a sign. i think what you mentioned in new york. people like dianne feinstein need to take these challenges seriously even if they are way better fun look. as joe said, you need money to get on tv. eleon doesn't have it. i think it wou a mistake for feinstein to not make take him seriously but g plenty of money and get plenty of media. >> also, she's not yet agreed to a debate. she's agreed she will debate. but hasn't scheduled it yet. said on the record to us at the ehronicle she will debate. >> some timere the election? who is she debating? we don't even know. >> fresno at 3:00 p.m. >> the real change could come after thehe election if democrats win or lose especially with a big fight over leadership with the direion of the party and i think that's where that will really bubble to the surface. >> we're talking about divisions

but one thing that's undivided is the state of california. the three californ ballot measures that went down pretty mucheft in the week before but court basically said amounts to a change in the state constitution and in order for that to happen, it has to be decided by the legislature before going to the voters. so is this the last we'll hear of it or do you think behind it will come back swinging? >> as long as t has money in the checkbook, he'll bring this back but let's look at why he's doing is. this speaks to concerns that all sort of people have about california isn't working well. one out of five people live in poverty, you know? the health system doesn't work. there's a lot oflems here. this is like a very clumsy way to address it. but pians should heed this as this is a warning sign. people are unhappy. >> we should all have

representatives. but you're right. the underlying issues are important. as long as tim draper has money, he'll probablyeep pushing that. >> just somebody rich in silicon talley throwing his money at something and understanding the political intricacies of the policy? >> tim draper is a very, very bright guy and car passionate about the state. i think he says that the state is out ofcontrol. we've got a housing crisis here and yet you've got the same group that actually filed suit against him to stop this, has environmental policies that stops housiom being built. you couldn't get a bike lane for three years built in berkeley because of these environmental laws, so he think's out of control with the pet projects and smart enough like he is and rich enoughlike he is, your vote council big enough. >> all right. consultant with the

francisco chronicle, marie, kqed, always nice to have you on. >> thank you for having us. >> the deadly wildfire last october burned more than 240,000 acres and claims 43 lives. supervised the massive clean-up. kqed investigation found troubling flaws with how they're awarded and executed. who did the investigative report. this price tag is huge, $1.3 billion. the most expensi disaster clean-up. what was this money spent on and how much did it come out toer parcel? >> so what happened is the army corps of engineers have these contracts in place before disaster strikes so they can get going immediately and start removing debris and stuff like .

th the companies they i brought with debris removal but from hurricanes because that'sat the army corps has done in the past is hurricanes, floods, other kinds of disasters and this was actually the first wildfire clean-up that the army corps of engineers had done. and so that price tag then gets basically given to these contractors who are then given the task of hiring truck drivers andan contractors all the subcontractors going to actually do the work on the ground that came out to about $280,000 per parcel. si that's ma. how does it compare to prior disaster clean-ups? >> that's what really struck me and why i started looking into this. there was a big clean-up in 2015 after the valley fire in lake devastated moro than 1,000 homes and the

clean-up from that averaged about $77,000 to $80,000 per parcel. this is a jump of $280,000 per parcel which just really significant. >> almost four times. >> yeah. >> the army corps of engineers, meaning the taxpayers foot this bill. they were awarding actually incentivized destructive and unsafe work. how so? >> partem of the prob is they pay by the ton. so that incentivizes by ton of debris. exactly. so that incentivizes people to get the work done as quickly as possible which is a positive, but it also incentivizes them to do it feun. so what i found in my reporting is that incentivized truck drivers overload their dump trucks and that can be dangerous and take materials that did not need to be taken.

kind of taking away concrete pads and taking away extra soil and loading. >> the driveway that they wanted to keep. >> yeah, ah. that led to a couple of pretty significant problems, you know, one of which was a serious accident that happened when truck driver lost hison brakes a steep hill in the fountain grove neighborhood and resulte in a devastating 10 car crash. a woman who actuallyer lost home in the wildfire was paralyzed in that accident. nd then this ongoing issue of excavation, overexcavation where homeowners are coming home to see if they canld rebnd coming home to a hole basically. >> because much was dug out to basically have as much debris and as much tons of debris as possible. so are there any charges being filed? agaome of these companies?

>> so there are some related issues of prosecution that are eing looked at. the district of sonoma county is looking closely at that th accident, ten car accident. the conactor license ford issued a citation to contractors of licensed by the state california to be doing this work and the army core of engineerst is also investigating a very serious accident where a man named ezequiel sumner was killed when, you know, osha determined it was tampered with and caused it to roll over. >> you looked into the history of some of thers contrachey used. the army corps of engineers used and some t ofem actually have prior records of allegations of waste and fraud. what did you find? >> so yes, i found going back to

trina that thevernment taken ability office has this industry to task for ov overcharging taxpayers and load mixing,which is basicall metal in concrete heavy things into tlheir loads to, again, get the weight and result in overcharging and price gouging, things like that. the number of companies are under investigation by the florida district attorney or the florida attorney general, i'm sorry for price gouging related to hue irma clean-up. >> how is it responding and do you anticipate they'll change the contracting methods in the uture response to disasters? >> i think there's a lot of high level conversations going on about that right now. i've talked to fema officials and army corps officials. and the army corps has kind of

fairly been reticent about communicating how they're going to change but in talking to fema, they said basically, like, we have learned a lot of lessoni and you're to see those as these companies come in to n recompete f contracts, new disaster clean-up contracts. you'll see those lessons reflected in the bidding process. >> all right. suki louis, wonderful work here. thank you for being withus. kqed criminal justice reporter, suki louis. we turn now to the fires that are currently burning.y this r's fire season in california off to the worst start in a decade. and climate change may be playing a ndle. dry hot ions with warmer nights making it harder to fight deadly bzes and the multistage route and they can spark fires burning quickly and out of control. and joining me now to discuss all of thisqe is science editor craig miller.

good to see you. cal fire responded to hundreds of fires this year. why has the start os fire season characterized as one of the worst in a decade?>> lot of people you might have noticed said, it's one of the earliest. it's like why is this starting so soon? you know, it's not unusual twi havefires in california in june, but i think this year, the size and the ferocity were arresting for people. you had the countyire started up in yolo county and started spreading west and eventually burned more than 140 square miles, an area bigger than las vegas anded very, very quickly. quad druping in size overnight and people generally alarmed by that. it was pretty close to ho too. ash was falling like snow flu y flurries in vallejo. why? you might want to ask. and the answer isye last r, last winter, i should say, a little disappointing on the

precipitation side. things started drying out quickly and i w talkingth the guys who go out on the field who measure what they call fuel moisture. basically, the water the vegetation on the landscape and they were finding moisturei levels june that they would normally see in augsot. dried very quickly this year. >> also found another contatbuting factor nighttime temperatures. what's going on there? >> what is going on? you know, this is really strange and also, aittle unnerving. it's kind of the insidious side of climate change because it's happening when most of us are sleeping. you don't even notice it but temperatures in general are rising but what they foundat is the overnight lows, the nighttime temperatures are rising faster. a faster rate than the daytime highs. weird, huh? >> yeah. >> this has a lot of ulture andns for agr it also affects wildfires because what it mans is that

you used to get this reprieve at night. firefighters have been saying in recent years, fires owen't laying the way they used to at night because you used to get a reprieve, temperatures would fall, humidity would go up. the vegetation could soake up sf that moisture from the air but now you've got higher temperatures and lower humid at at nigh there isn't the moisture. >> the fires just keep bning. >> they keep going. >> and, you know, climate change seems to be having an impact here. what do we know about the b connectiween global warming and fire season? >> you can never really say.il it's s a dodgy proposition to say what this fire season is bad because of global warming, seasons n say the fire in general are getting worse because of global warming. they're getting longer ande're seeing more catastrophic fires as well and that's because, again, temperatures are rising. things are driying out and othe factors>> as well. here's rising temperatures that enhances droughts, with s. wildfir how else does climate change

affect the environmentis >> sea levelis a big one. we've got cities suing over that andalso, gain, wildfires is another way that it's affecting it. >> what about air pollution? do all theilires affect air pollution in california as well? >> yes, in fact, it's becoming a challenge for cities who are already li not making their thresholds and their air quality thresholds. so a lot of the smoke pollution for wildfires is setti on that but the big thing is extremes. you hear people talk about the new normal, a phrase my boss hates for good reason because the new normal is there is no normal but weather events of all kinds, whether it's wet, y, hot, all becoming more extreme. and these e events are becoming more frequent and that's really i think the hallmarkof climate change in california. >> and we can't talk about this without talking about e mixmiss.

hat's going on? >> it dependsere you're talking about. this is some of the good news involved. a week or so go, california with this goal of rolling back greenhouse gas e moigomis to 190 levels. it's already happening. >> we're aheul of sch >> four years ahead of schedule, actually, because the latest data from that's good. the bad news is california is 1% of global emissions's so a little hard. >> the rest of the world to contend withit. >> it's good news and of course, the problem is that the federal government n moving exactly the opposite direction promoting fossil fuels and in some cases, endermining thatm we had with clean renewable energy. >> and you alluded to this me lier that the fact s cities are taking this issue to the courts. we have the cities of san francisco andoakland about a dozen cities nationwide suing oil companies forosts they say associated with clite change because of the sea levels in their communities.

how are the companies responding t >> companies taking the position that number one, the courts are not the place to set climate policy and number two, look, if you want to hold people accountfor, you're saying it's greenhouse gases and it's fossil fuels behind all of this, you should be suing evebody who drives a car because all we do is produce a product that people buy and t been their position anyway and the courts have been a little bit friendly tot. th the san francisco and oakland case was dismissed in bederal cou just before we sat own, baltimore, the city of baltimore sued 26 fossil fuel companies in the state of eraryland. so s a bit of a wave building here and i'm not sure. i am not trying to handicap but not sure th t'll be able fend this off. >> something else to watch. kqed sites. thank you so much for being with us. >> that will do for us. you can find more coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thank you for joining us.

robert: isolated in his own party, at odds with advisers and as ever, defiant. prident trump ignites a political firestorm over russia. i'm robert costa, we dig into the latest reporting on the igump administration tonht on "washingtonk." president trump: i let him know we can't have this. we're not going to have it. and that's the way it's going to be. robert: under pressure from some republicans and democrats, president trump insists he did confront russian president vladimir putin about election interference. but earlier in the week, he mostly accepted putin's view. president trump: i have great confidence in my intelligence peop but iill tell you, that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.