>> tonight on kqed newsroom, the week's major politics, how california lawmakers react to the trump/putin summit. the bay wildfires, concerned about greed and lk 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 begin with litics. there's continuing confusion over what was said during president trum's private meeting with russian president vladimir putin on monday in helsiali. after ini saying he did not believe russia had interfered in american elections, president trump later told cbs news hen had firm with mr. putin about not putting up with such interferencehi theing statements from the president drew condemnation from

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

criticize trump b name. putin's a mess, all this stuff. that speaks to the power ofnd trumpis supporters. even in blue california. thes folks want to get elected and need that core of trump supporters to suppo them. i mean, we saw later in the week, because things move so quickly, you know, this indyictment of someb that the federal prosecutors say working as a russian agentna and ohr ba backer called it bogus and acknowleed he met her at some point. i think rorbacher is the only one dealing with this. a billboard mocrat to put up. i think that race is going to be interesting to watch around this russia issue. for a lot of people, this m be appalling and may be sort of crazy that we're having these benversations but it's probably not going to the number one issue going to the poll. >> republicans on theoe

intelligence committee essentially blastedmo the from the helsinki summit. usw much will these ongoing concerns aboutan meddling and also over president trump's handling of these worries mobilize democrats for the midterms? >> i think that's what democrats 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 y.n pa you want the democrats who didn't vote two years ago, four years ago,ut to the pol 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 some of these new democraticid caes. so, you know, i think that's really where democrats need to tcus. not oing to pull people over. >> and she 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 o? th >> well, look, as long as you're talking, not shooting, it's not

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

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

poof. so literally, this guy drives so my news things. >>y the base or firhind him despite this? >> i think the base is firm behind him. no offento you media people but i think in certain ways, when the media comes out so attacks him, that solidifies his base and other people just sayin it. >> what's different about this one, with the putin stuff is that he had thele fox news pe coming out against him which rarelyyhappens, v tepidly so say things like, it wasn't his bestday. >> even they seem to be in shock. >> buth if'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 do as a republican is say russia is good. they've historically been bad to s. they spy. they put different kind of

poisons with their own gnature on killing off people around the world. they'll put up with a lo they want the court to change the way it's been changing but they will not say that russia is good. it goes our fundamental dna. >> it just depends on what happens between now and election day. it depends on what i would argue, leading the news as balots are mailed out in california especially, but, you know, natiolly, and this roller coaster just keeps going. so i think t that's goibe the problem for democrats to try and rehash these things when it's been three months. >> people are still casting ballots. how does that summit ? maybe. they said in the fall, i don't think they set a date for it.l one thing iell you though. we're talking about republicans. let's not forget. you're only as your opponent and run 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 is not something the democrats want to be facing going into a fall election. >> on that issue, that getsback to what happened with the dianne feinste t situation wi democratic party, endorsed the rival and kevin deleonven though she campaigned hard not to have any endorsement at al 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 pele out of 2800 delegates. >> and millions of voters. >>illions of voters but feinstein won 25% of democratsi incl her opponent and his district. about $ million in theank and she's worth at least $55 million. he's got 10 cents. it's going to beard for him tocu even her. >> completely irrelevant for the

election and her reelection. it is relevant insofar as what's ing on in the belly of the beast in the democratic party. >> i don't think it's, i don't agree with you,sean, it's bad as you're saying. i think you can see a lot t wit t party and that's not been great for the republican party long-term but when it came to elections, that did excite , the righe 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're right. nancy pelosi and dianth feinstein're not happy about this but, you know, it could play well for some voter in the coming months. >> it may not change the u.s. senate race, like you said but what's interesting t here,ey symbolize these two factions. you have feinstein, old schoolp itics. she's 85. the oldest member of the senatet ann you have deleon who's the senator of immigrants.

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

dealings with the bush administration withi enhanced errogation techniques. going to love it and help her politically with theactivists. >> it was a sign. i think what you mentioned in new .yo people like dianne feinstein need to take these challenges seriously even if ty are way better funded. look. as joe said, you need money to get ontv. deleon doesn't have it. i think it would be a mistake for feinstein to not make take him seriously but got 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. saidn the recordo us at the chronicle, she will debate. >> some time before the election? who is she debating? we don't even know. >> fresno at 3:00 p.m. >> the real change could come after thef electionhe democrats win or lose especially with a big fight over leadership with the drection 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 california ballot measures that went down pretty much defeat 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 thee legislat before going to the voters. so is this the last we'll hear of it or do you think behind it will come back swingin t >> as long has money in the checkbook, he'll bring this back but let's look h at whys doing this. this speaks to concer 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 roblems here. this is like a very clumsy way to address it. but politicians should heed this as this is a rning sign. people are unhappy. >> we should all have

representatives. but you're right. the sderlyinges are important. as long as tim draper has money, he'll probably keep pushing that. siliconsomebody rich in valley throwing his money at something and not understanding he political intricacies of the policy? >> tim draperry is a very, bright guy and cares passionate about the stati hink he says that the state is out of control. we've got a housing crisis etre and you've got the same group that actually filed suit against him to stop asthis, environmental policies that stops housing from being built. you couldn't g a bike lane for three years built in berkeley because of these environmental laws, so he thinks it's out of control with the pet and smart enough like he is and rich enough like he , 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 thest inative report. this price tag is huge, $1.3 billion. the most expensive disaster clean-up. what was tis money spent on and how much did it come out to per parcel? >> so what happened is the army corps of engineers have these contracts in place before disaster strikesy o tan get going immediately and start removing debris and stuff like

that. the cpanies they brought in with debris removal but from hurricanes because that's what the army corps has donen the pasts 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 th task of hiring truck drivers and contractorsd all the subcontractors going to actually do the work on the ground and that came t ou about $280,000 per parcel. >> that's sive. 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 county that also devastated more 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 whh is just really ignificant. >> almost fourtimes. >> yeah. >> the army corps of engineers, meaning the taxpayers foot this bill. they were awarding actually incentivized destructive and unsafe work. how so? >> pobt of the pem 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 incentivize them to do it unsafely. so what i found in my reporting is that incentivized truck rivers overload their dump trucks and that can be dangerous and take materials that did not need to be tan.

kind of taking away concrete pads and taking away extra soil and loading. >> the drivewayhat they wanted to keep. >> yeah, yeah. so that led to a couple of pretty significant problems, you know, one of whichas serious accident that happened when truck driver lost his brakeson a steep hill in the fountain grove neighborhood and rested in a devastating 10 car crash. a woman who actually loster home in the wildfire was paralyzed in that accident. and then this ongoing issue of excavation, overexcavation where homeowners are coming home to see if they caneb ld and coming home to a hole basically. >> becaus so 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? against some of these mpanies?

so there are some related issues of prosecution that are being looked at. the district of sonoma county is looking closely at that t, accidethe ten car accident. theontractor license ford issued a citation to contractors not licensed by the sta of california to be doing this work anfthe army core engineers is also still investigating a very sious accident where man named ezequiel sumner was killed when, you know, osha determined it was tampered with and caused it to roll over. >> you loo into the history of some of the contractors they used. thermy corps of engineers used and some of them actually have prior records of legations of waste and fraud. what did you find? >> so yes, i found going back to

katrina that the government accountability office has taken this industr to task for ove overcharging taxpayers and load mixing, which is basically mixingcr in cte heavy metal things into tlheir loadsto, again, get the weight and result in overcharging and price gouging, things l 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 hurricane irma clean-up. >> how is it responding and do you anticipate they'll change the contracti methods in the future response to future disasters? >> i think there's a lot of high level conversations going on about that right no 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 goin to change but in talking to fema, they said basically, like, we have learned a lot of lessons and you're going to see those as nthese companies come to recompete for new contracts, new disaster clean-up contracts. you'll see those lessons reflected in the bidding process. >> all rig. suki louis, wonderful work here. thank you for being th us kqed criminal justice reporter, suki louis. we turn now to the fires that are currently burning. this year's fire season in california off to the worst start in a decade. and climate change may be playing a role. dry hot conditions with warmer nights making it harde to fig deadly blazes and the multistage route and they can spark fires burning quickly and out of control. and joining me now to discuss all of this is kqed science editor craig miller.

good to see you. cal fire responded to hundreds of firesthis year. why has the start of this fire season characterized as one of the worst in a decade? >> a lot of people you might have noticed said,it's one of the earliest. it's like, why is this starting so yosoon? know, it's not unusual to have wildfires in california in june, but i think this year, the size and the frocity were arresting for people. you had the county fire started up in yolo county and started spreading west and eventually burned more than 140 square miles, an area bigger than las vegas and moved very, very quickly. quad druping in size overnight and people generally alarmed by that. it was pretty close to home tool ash was fallie snow flur flurries in vallejo. why? you might want to ask. and the answer is last year, last winter, i should say, a littlesa ointing on the

precipitation side. s thinrted drying out quickly and i was talking with the guys who gout on the field who measure what they call fuel moisture. basically, the water content in the vegetation on the landscape and they weredi f moisture levels in june that they would normally see in august. so dried very quickly this year. >> also found another contributing factor that's nighttime temperatures. there? going on >> what isyo going on? know, this is really strange and also, a little 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 geneare rising but what they found is that the overnight lows, the nirettime temperatures rising faster. at a faster rate than the hiytime s. weird, huh? >> yeah. >> this has a lot of implications for agriculture and ildfires ffects because what it means is that

you used to get this reprieve at night. firefighters have been saying in recent years, fires aren't laying down the way they used to at night because you used to get a reprieve, temperatures would fall, humidity would go up. the vegetation could soaks up e of that moisture from the air but now you've got higher temperatures and lower hghidity at n and there isn't the moisture. >> the fires just keep burning. >> they keep going. >> and, you know, climate change pact to be having an here what do we know about the connection between global warming and fire season? >> you can never really say.t it'sl a dodgy proposition to say what this fire season i bad because of global warming, but we can say the fire seasons in general are getting worse because of global warming. they're getting longer and we're seeing more catastrophic fires as well and that's because, risin temperatures are things are driying out and othe factors as well. there's rising temperatures that enhances droughts, with e wildf how else does climate change

affect the environme r? >> sea leve is a big one. we've got cities suing over that an also, again, wildfires is another way that it's affecting it. >> what about air pollution? do all the wildfires affect air pollution in california as well >> yes, in fact, it's becoming a challenge for cities who are already ke not making their thresholds and their air quality so a lot of the smoke pollution for wildfires is set 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 nmal is there is no normal but weather events of all kinds, whether it's wet, dry, hot, all becoming more extreme. and theseme events are becoming more frequent and that's really i think the hallmar of climate change in california. >> and we can't talk about this without talking about e mixmiss.

what's going on? >> it depenwhere you're talking about. this is some of the good news involved. a week or so go, california th this gof rolling back greenhouse gas e moigsms to 1990 levels. it's already happening. >> we're aedad of sce. >> four years ahead of schedule, actually, because the latest 2016.from that's good. the bad news is california is 1% of global emissioit. so a little hard. >> the rest of the world to contend with it. >> it's good news and of the problem is that the federal government is moving in exactly the opposte direction promoting fossil fuels and in some cases, mundermining thatentum we had with clean renewable energy. >> and you alluded to this earlier that the fact some cities are taking this issue to thets co we have the cities of san francisco and oakland about a dozen cities nationwide suing oil companies for costsy ty associated with climate change because of the sea levels in their mmities.

how are the companies responding? >> the companies taking the onsition that number the courts are not the place to set climate policy and number two, look, if you wan to hold people accountable for, you're saying it's greenhouseases 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 that's been their position anyway and the courts have been a little bit friendly to that. the san francisco and oakland case was dismissed inrtederal cou but just before we sat down, baltimore, the city of baltimore sued 26 fossil fuel companies in the state of maryland. so there's a bit of a wave building here a i'm not sure. i am not trying to handicap but not sure they'll be able to fend this off. >> something else to watch. kqed sites. thk you so much for bei with us. >> that will do it for us. you ca find more coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thank you for ining us.

captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, july 22: ade latest on alleged ties between the trumnistration and russia. in our sigture segment, how the demand for h-2b visas is impacting the seafood supply in maryland. and allegations of abuse at the hands of immigration and customs enforcement. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual ofri