tonight on kqed newsrm, the new republican battle cry. and a new u.n. report warns of the devastating effects of climate change can be felt in two decades. and san franciscels hss epidemic. a local c supports a measure aimed at reducing homelessness. we begin with an emboldened gop and a surge in women candidates. at agathering in iowa this week president trump made it clear he will use the recent supreme court confirmation fight as a raying cry the president cited opposition

to justice brett kavanaugh saying tomocrats have become t dangerous and extreme. most polls show democrats will kely pick upeats in the house. an unprecedented number of women are running for office nationwide and that trend trlds for california, as well. here now to discuss all of this ar political senior writer, gop political consultant tim miller and government reporter katie orr. nice to have you back. tim, how much of it did the confirmation of brett kavanaugh give republicans? >> i think it wasreal. the intensity level on the left going into the hearings was already an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on the right, it was mid. i think thathe intensity of the dispute, the perceived i think grievance, the w the

media and some of the de mocrat in nate handled the appointment has absolutely fired up the republican base. i think what that has done al is it dove tails with what usually happens in the last moonh of the mid term elec maybe they for a little while pretend like they are going to vote for the other side. the hea of the campaign people naturally move home. hi i think thoses have given the republicans a little bit of a boost. >> i'm wonring if the high that the republicans got from the confirmation will be able ta su itself in the election. i know the anger factor having been out there on the campaign trail seems pretty high on the democrats' side. we had a poll that showed most americans were not in favor of the confirmation i think it was 47-40. and democrats are showing an advantage when it comes to the generic congressional polls, almost ten percent at this point. it los like the democrats are

hoping they can sustain. >> trump can turn this on to him. that's happened to the voters and the media. if you look at the 2016 election, the access hollywood tape happened three weeks out. it was only three weeks later at he was able to recover because of comey. there islostill a of time left for that kavanaugh effect to wear off. the president is seeming to turn tables forde crats. at a rally in iowa he stood out and accused them of the same things they levelled against them which is basically saying they were practicing the potics of anger, division and destruction. do you think that is gaining enough traction to slow down momentum of some democrats in. >> at that same rally there were chants of lock her up in regards to dianne feinstein in her role

in the kavanaugh confirmation. certainly there are movoters ou there that are angry. i think you can't underestimate the anger on the other side particularly among women. i cannot tell y how many women i know just from my own personal life who were saying that tey were surprised just by the emotions that that hearing brought up for them. eyi have people who said re not going to watch it because they just can't deal with it. and i think lot of women are taking that anger and are etermined to show their voice at the polls. as we have beeneeing since the presidential election, actually -- >> trump has trie to cast this n a way as kind of a me, too versus white men and says it is a scary moment for white men. i think it is an issue he has brought up inome of the rallies i think by referring to some of the women's groups as

mo mobs. that will only serve to energize nor women voters. i have seen it out there. g that ing to be a critical vote. >> some democrats are saying they want to turn up the heat. we had former attorney general eric holder saying in reference tohe republicans whe they go them. kick hillary clinton said you can't be civil with the current republican it seems that they are now taking a page from president trump's play book gettinge a l mgressive. will that play out well? >> voters are saying they are already getting tired ofba this and forth, this nastiness. at some point some ca going to be smarter, i think, to offer some other kind of agenda here that has less to do with beating each other up and more to do with actual policy when it comes to issues like health care. this the number one issue for

people out there right now. they are not talking about me too. are not talking about russia. they are really interested in health care and housing ssues, onomic issues, those are still the big ones. good hink karla raises a point. some of the congressional races that i have been covering, for instance, california courts district north of sacramento, republican being jessica morris. that race is still likely his. she has a big hill to climb. i just monitored a deate. the issues there are local. how are we going to manageur forest? those are the issues i think that voters at the end of th day really care about because that is what mostffects their lives. >> are you seeing that across

the board? i know youinave been d a series of reports on the record number of women running for officethis year. in california, how many are running for congress? >> in california there are -- i'm not sure exactly how many. i think the number total there was about 400 women that had ran for congress. i think about 200 something madt it he primaries. that's nationally. and that does not include likei lature and then like water board, school board. >> there is common themes to why they are running and whatthissus are running on? >> i think there are a lot of women who are running because of 2016. when you look at it it largely is a democratst women's ry. they are fired up and they want to sort of take back the country as they see it. but then when you talk, to them again, a lot of the themes they are going on are really cal. >> i talk to so many women who

say the 2016 election is the first time they got involved. many of those women who are involved in house races in southern california were -- gized by >> college educated women's story, it remains to be seen whether the energy exists in the blue collar districts that flipped for trump and whether the same cultural effects are happening there. er >> t are some gop women running for the first me, as well. we have kim and dia in orange county. have they been able to galvinize the same way democratic women have been able to do? >> the energy is certainly not on the republican side. i do think women candidates in d primaries well because

republican voters don't like this sort of coinersation s we are sexist. they want to prove that they are not. >> i want to look ahead to the census. this week we had a report come out on the census 2020 and the publlicy institute of california found that california is very v lnerable an under count. we could miss and we could lose a seat in congress in the house. we could lose out on billio of dollars in federal funding. >> iave seen so reporting that suggests that in the trump administration there were actual conversations about putting a citizenship question into the census perhaps for the effort. >> it is an important issue to them. it seems like a niche >> and what happens when you put

a citizenship question ina i lot of undocumented immigrants don't want to answer the door and won't be counted. if you are not counted then california perhaps could lose, they sgest, a congressional seat and a lot of services and funding. ere is a lot at stake with this question. that's why california is fighting it. >> let's say democrats win the house in november, how does that affect the ability? >> i think th would b one of nancy pelosi's things. the democrats here inlifornia have made it absolutely clear. this is a priority for themto get the question. >> unfortunately, the democrats are going to be able to bring the trump administration officials for review because they are not gong t get much past. >> thank you all.

>> thank you. moving on to the ir enment. devastating wild fires, droughts and more severe hurricanes are a few examples of severe weather events linked to climate change. a new united nations report finds things are much worse than previously thought and warns the most b severe effects cou felt as early as 2040. for many of us, that is during our lifetime. the carbon emissions would need to be slashed 25% by 2030. meeting this goal wouldrequire a global commitment to phase out coal and replace it with renewable energy. joining me now is uc berkeley professor. first i wanted to asku about the awful destruction caused by hurricane michael on the east c st. how much has climate change contributed to itsfurosity? >> it is still unleashing its

damagt the first scientific papers were already in on hurricane florce a few weeks ago on the carolinas. that storm was 50% warmer, 50% more damaging c because ofmate change and because of the extra heat in the ocean that we are seeing. g0% has caused a great deal of the surges, the da. we can expect similar results from michael. >> let's lk about the u.n. report, as well. it is kind of connected. it is very comprehensive, the new report involving 91 scientists all over the world who analyze more tha 6,000 scientific studies and looked at studies that you have. wh is your ta on their findings? >> if anything, i would say they have been conservative because they need to be. the ipcc which shared the nobel peaceze pthey only work from published paper. some of thes papom my group and others were utilized as

imput with the rapid effects happening day by dayom of the more recent results are more scary. they have beeny conservative design. they paint a very bleak piure. the chances of wildfires, sustained droughts, huge impacts on food production go up dramatically for every degree. to aim for 1.5 would avoid billions if not trillions of dollars of damage. >> it has toi do the prediction that if the atmosphere warms up by 2.7 degrees fahrenheit we will sta experiencing the devastating effects that you just mentioned. how close are we to hitting that mark? >> sadly, we are alrea close. we already d warmed by 1grees fahrenheit. we have very little head room le . with this report it really

highlights how much easiere'll make our jobs if we can keep it under this 1.5 degree celsius target, not going to two degrees celsius. >> this report lays out a number of strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emission emissio they want to see it go from 40%. howli ric is the goal given that itis also very cheap with countries like china and india? >> coal is no longer the eapest option. this is something that heads of state are coming to grips with. two days ago the hea of the world bank had a major announcementnc anng the world bank would no longer fund coal because lerenew are

cheaper. i would like them to go further and say we will get rid ofr coa ther reasons. it meant coal plants being plannedby china and other countries such as kenya, coal plants scheduled for pakistan, ey will all no longer receive world bank funding which makes it much harder launch them. this is really designed to be the first wave ofge efforts to coal out entirely. that seven percent was an upper limit. two percent is the goal that want to see it hit by 2050. we are really looking at zero coal. >> what about carbon taxes? california has a carbon pricing program. how many other b places haven asked to look at grants? > we need to go a lot farther. the good news is that california carbon program is going strong. the big new entrant is china. china isun ing its carbon

price after several years of experimenting city by city and province by province. we find they are effective but are only effective if we spread them and they really bomeart of the global economy. >> how is it working in china? ho much are they charging? >> china is just entering it right now. by the end of this year they will ha launched a larger version. their carbon price would be higher than the california price. california is $12 a ton. china is aiming more like0 or more a ton. under president obamahe u.s. e.p.a. has said the social cost of carbon should be more like $30 to $40 a ton. >> this u.n. report says heavy taxes on carbon dioxide emissions would be needed to help avoid catastrophe. is that politically feasible? >> $27,000 is not feasible. what it was highlighting is that

if your only tool is a carbon price it might ned to be not $50 or $100 a ton, but several hundred. places like california and europe have a number of other mechanisms. in california we have requirements for cle ectricity and buildings. we don't expre it. at it is saying is if you want to take away all the other rules you wouldceeed to p that high. so what they are saying is the other way around. what they are saying is a mixture of a reasonable carbon price and the carbon price that we some back to poor people, plus all of these targets, that is aha strategy t would get us on pace to meet this target. >> and it kind of gets to what some conservatives are proposing which is the idea that you tax carbon emission and then you give some of that money from the taxes back to the american public. is that a good idea?

>> i think this is a great idea. actually, former secretary of state james baker on the republican side has been a key author of this. the idea is exactly that, that you give back part of the taxes particularly to lower income americans and that really pushes a tax on pollution across the economy. and we use some of the moneys to invest in clean energy. >> in exchange some conservatives want the obama-era environmental regulations to be rolled back. is this a bait and switch, perhaps? >> so the politics is exactly bait and epitch. if thelican plan was to make it revenue neutral byle ing other taxes get reduced, fortxample ca gains taxes or employment taxes and keeping environmental regultions then we have a strategy like rolifornia where we have regulations thatct us and we start to crank up the tax because we knowltately we need to be subsidizing clean

energy and penalizing dirty energy. the republican politics are not as good a justhe element of the plan itself. >> always a pleasure to have on and give us this great explainer. >> thank you foravg me. we turn now sa n francisco's homeless crisis. on tuesday sales force and its ceo announced they would donate about $2 million to support a controversial ballot measure to help the homele. san francisco mayor is opposing the measure saying it doesn't contain any accountability for how the money is spent. joining me now are politics and government reporter guy and molly turner urban innovation lecturer. welcome to you both. so many people who live and wok

n francisco and many people who visit feel that homelessness is one of theobiggest ms in san francisco. what kinds of taxes would this impose on big businesses? >> this is a tax on money companies bringing in over $50 million. this is on the biggest companies in the city,a few hundred companies. it's raising their gross reived tax. it is really directed towards addressing the homelessness situation in san francisco, about half towards housing, rental subsidies anduding housing and the other half towards more immediate things, shelters, mental health treatment. i think you are seeing acknowledgment that these companies have done incredibly well. we all agree homelessness is probably the top city. n the it is time to look at the companies as a place to find a solution. you mentioned mark coming out in support of this. he put its a binary choice.

if you are with the homelessness you are with proposition c. >> despite the fact that it would ut a lot money into the city's coffers, youe h mayor opposing it and some state lawmakers opposing it. why are they not backing this iasure? >> they argue is not binary and before we invest in double the amount of money t city is spending on homelessness we should look at how th current money is being spent. they want to figure out an audie process to fiut where the money is going. there is also the politics of it. i think if proposition c passes voters will judge the results mayor and how her administration is ab to spend the money. t fre perspective, she wasn't crafting the measure. she will be accountable for whether this --

>> therefore she is not invested in it. what is your take on prop c? would this money make a big difference? >> it would almost double the budget tt the ci currently has to spend on homeless wservices. ld have a significant impact. and the city economist recently issued a report saying as much. he also said i that might have a small but significant impact on jobs and on the city's gdp estimating about 0.1% of jobs in the city could be lost from this by big businesses deciding to move outside ofci san fro because of the increased tax rate. but it's really hard to know what the impact of reducing our homelessness crisis on the streets would be on business in the city. we have already seen, for example, that some conventions are pulling out of theity fig citing the homelessness crisis as the reason. >> does the city even have a

good handle on how the money at it is currently spending is being spent? because san francisco's homeles population has pretty much stayed the same despite hundreds of llions of dollars poured into it. it has hovered around 7,000 or so every year. >> through theng budge process the city has allocated funding to the recently formed department of homelessness in support of housing oerr the past s years so the city has a good sense of how much it is spending. i believhe mayor is referring to the newly installed system whichs a database that essentially tracks how each inividual is being funneled through the system of services and how much money is being spent on each in tvidual. on system is up and running the city can have a much etter sense on h much is being spent on what kind of services and forhat demographic. >> we can agree it is an ongoin struggle. we can figure out who is

homeless by sending volunteers to do a point in time, not really a 21st century approach. the real issue is can you track from when you find someone is homeless to tracking how the services they are getting and how the services are doing. >> and other communities are doing a good job of that. i know youi a comprehensive report on homelessness for the san francisco bay area planning and research association where you looked at homelessness in une entire region. are there coies that are showing some success in how they tackle this problem ? >> certainly, in the south bay they created this system which isalled a coordinated entry system which san francisco called theone system to better track their spending on homeless services. already that is showing some results in helping them measure the impacts of theiren ng. further south in the state, los angeles passed a measure last year increasing thee mount that

ty and county funds homeless services. there is a lot of hope that that will result in extreme reduction in homelessness. >> and guy, san francisco isn't the only city obviously with housing and homelessness issues. onu have covered, also, other measures the november ballot specifically mountain view and east palo alto. they had their own measures to tax big companies, as well. is there a growing moment to hold companies accountable for the economic inequitie that we e seeing? >> i think there absolutely is. i think these measures are evidence of that. when you look at the trend of how cities have gotten money for things like housing and transportation, it used to bera the fegovernment would be putting money. corporations last year got huge corporate tax deduction from 35% to 21%. the corporationsre getting back money. i think with the cities in mountain vew it is measure p

and trying to direct money towards transportation and east palo alto they are looking at the companies and saying you have done very well with t federal government, with tax reform. it is time to spend some of that money locally. >> won't some of the cities, if they are saying that, don't they risk alienating companies that are already in the city or scouraging new companies from coming in? >> sure. the city economist report found that there is a risk that companies will pick up and leave the city of san francisco in search of lower tax rates. i would say that san francisco and the state of california have historilly had very high tax rates compared to the rest of the country. that doesn't seem to have deterred businesses from moving here and forming here. the cost of doing business in san francisco is tmely high. taxes aside, just the cost of living and its employees is very high. and so questioned the extent to which increased taxes will

impact location decisions for businesses. we'll leave it there. thanks to you both. h and will do it for us. as always, you can find more of our coverage at kqedthrg/newsroom. k you for joining us.

♪[music] >> a missing journalist up-ends the u.s.-saudi relationship in the middle east. i'm robert costa. how wl president trump and congress respond? plus, the midterm battle grows fierce. tonight on "washington week." >> this is a very serious situation andet it's sng we're taking very seriously in mounting questions surround the disappearance of journalist jamal khashoggi, forcing the trum administration to vestigate. despite new reports that the saudi government killed the washington postidolumnist, prt trump is so far resisting pressure from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, to pull out of a multibillion deal to sell weaponso the saudis. >> i would not be in favor of stopping a country frompeing $110 billion and letting russiat have toney and letting china