tonight on kqed newsroom, 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. nd san francisco's homeless epidemic. a local ceosupports a measure aimed at reducing homelessnes> e begin with an emboldened gop and a surge in women candidates. at a gathering in iowa this week president trump made it clear he will use the recent supreme court confirmation fight as a rallying cry. the president cited opposition

to justice brett kavanaugh sayi todemocrats have become too dangerous and extreme. most polls show democrats will likely pick up seats in the an unprecedented number of women are running for office nationwide and that trend holds true for california, as well. here now to discuss all of this are political senior writer, gop political consultant timamiller government reporter katie orr. nice to have you back. ti how much of it did the confirmation of brett kavanaugh give republicans? >> i think it was real. 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 that thete ity of the dispute, the perceived i think grievance, the way the

media and some of the democrats in the senate handl appointment has absolutely fired up the republican base. i think what that has done also is it dove tails with wh usually happens in the last month of the mid term election. aybe they for a little while pretend like they are going to vote for the other side. the heat of theampaign people naturally move home. those things have given the republicans a little bit of a boost. >> i'm wondering if the highpu that the icans got from the confirmation will be able to sustain itself in the election. i know the anger factor having been out there on the campaign trail seems etty high on the democrats' side. we had a poll that showed mosta icans 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 looks like the democrats are

hoping they can sust n. >> trumn turn this on to him. that's happened to the voters and the media. if you look at the 2016 election, the accessyw hood tape happened three weeks out. it was only three weeks later that he was able to recover because of comey. there is still a lot of time left for that kavanaugh effect to wear off. >> the president is seeming to turn tables for democrats. at a rally in iowae stood out and accused them of the same things they levelled against them which is basically saying they were practicing the politics of anger division and destruction. do you think that is gaining enough traction to slow down momentum of some de. crats >> 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 th are angry. i think you can't underestimate the anger on the other sidey particulamong women. i cannot tell you how many women personalst from my own life who were saying that they were surprised just by the ha emotions that hearing brought up for them. i have people whsaid they are ot going to watch it because they just can't deal with it. and i think a lot women are taking that anger and are determined t show their voice at the polls. as we have been seeing since the presidential election, actually -- >> trump has tried to cast this in a way as kind of a me, too versus white men and says it is aor scary moment white men. i think it is an issue he has brought up in some of the rallies i think by referring to some of the women's groups as

mo mobs. that will only serve to energize voters. n i have seen it out there. that is going to be a critical vote. >> democrats are saying they want to turn up the heat. we had former attorney general eric holder saying in reference to the republica when th go low we kick them. hillary clinton said you can't be civil with the current republican party. it seems that they are now taking a page from president trump's play book getting a lot will that play out well? >> voters are saying they are already getting tired of this back and forth, this nastiness. at some point some candidate is going to be smarter, i ink, to offer some other kind of agenda here that has less to do with beating each other up and more toal do with ac policy when it comes to issues like health care. this is the number one issue for

people out there right now. they are not talking about me too. they are not talking about russia. they are really interested in health care and housing issues, economic issues, those are still the big ones. k >> i thinkla raises a good point. some of the congressional races i have been covering, for instance, california courts district north of sacramento, republican being chas by jessica morris. that race is still likely his. she has a big hill to climb. i just monitored a debate. the issues there are local. ow are we going to manage our forest? those are the issues i think that voters at the endd of the really care about because that is what mostly effects their lives. >> are you seeing that across

the board? i know you have been doing a series of reports on the reofrd numberwomen running for office this year. in california, how many are running for congress? >> in california there are -- i'm not sure exactly how mai . ink the number total there was about 400 women tha had ran for congress. i think about 200 something made it past the primaries. that's nationally. and that does not include like legislature and then li water board, school board. >> there is ctomon themes why they are running and what issues they 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 democratic women's story. ey are fired up and they want to sortf 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 local. >> i talk to so many women who

say the 2016 election is the first time they got involved. many of thoen w who are ho involved inse races in southern california were energized by --le >> c 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. >> there are some gop women running for the first time, as well. we have kim andn diane orange county. have they been able to galvinize te same way democratic women have been ab do? >> the energy is certainly not on the republican side. i do think women candidates in primar bs did wellause

republican voters don't like this sort of conversation saying are sexist. they want to prove that they are not. >> i wan to loo ahead to the census. this week we had a report come out on the census 2020 and the public policyitute of california found that california is very vulnerable to a under count. we could miss andou we lose a seat in congress in the house. we could lose out on billions of dollars in federalfunding. >> i have seen some reporting that suggests that in the trump administration there were actual conversations aboututting a citizenship question into the census perhaps for the effort. >> it is an important issue to them. it seems like a niche thing. >> and what happens when you put

a citizenship question in is a lot of undocumented immigrants don't wan to answer the door and won't be counted. if you are not counted then california perhaps could lose, they suggest, a congressional seat and a lot of services and funding. ot there is a at stake with this question. that's why california is fighting it. >> let's say democrats win theh se in november, how does that affect the >> i think that would be one of nancy pelosi's things. the democrats herein california have made it absolutely clear. to is a priority for them get the question. >> unfortunately, the democrats are going to be able to bring the trump administration f officia review because they are not going to get much past. >> thank you all.

>> thank you. moving on to the environment. devastating wild fires, droughts and more severe a hurricane 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 severe eff ts could be felt as early as 2040. for many of us, that is during our lifetime. the carbon emissions would need to be slashed 25% 2030. meeting this goal would require a global commitmento phase out gyal and replace it with renewable en joining me now is uc berkeley professor. first i wanted to ask you about the awful destruction caused by hurricane michael on the east coast. ow much has climate change contributed to its furosity? >> it is still unleashing its

damage, but the first scientific papers were already in on hurricane florence a few weeks ago on the carolinas. that storm was 50% warmer, 50% of climateing because change and because of the extra heat in the ocean that we are seein 50% has caused a great deal of the surgesthe damages. we can expect similar results from michael. >> let's talk about the u.n. report, as well. it is kind o connected. it is very comprehensive, the neweport involving 91 scientists all over the world who analyze more than 6,000 scientific studies and looked at studies that you have. what is your take on their findings? >> if anything, i would say they have been conservative because they need to be. the ipcc which shared theel n peace prize, they only work from published paper. some of the papers from my group and others were utilized a

imput. with the rapid effects happening day by day somef the more recent results are more scary. they have been conseative by design. they paint a very bleak picture. the chances of wildfires, sustained droughts, huge impacts onooproduction go up dramatically for every degree. to aim for 1. would avoid billions if not trillions of dollars of damage. >> it has to do with the prediction that if the atmosphere warms up by 2.7 degrees fahrenheit we will start experiencing the devastating effects that you justmentioned. how close are we to hitting that mark? >> sadly, we are alreadyclose. we already warmeby 1.5 degrees fahrenheit. we have very little head room left. h this report it really

highlights how much easier we'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%. how realistic is the goal given that it is also very cheap with countries like china and india? >> coal isno longer the cheapest option. this is something that heads of state areoming to grips with. two days ago the head of theld w bank had a major announcement announcing the world bank would no longer fund coal because renewables are

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

price after several years of c experimentiy by city and province by province. we find they are effectivebut are only effective if we spread them and they really become part of the global economy. >> how is it working in china? how much are they charging? >> chist is j entering it right now. by the end of this year they will have launched larger version. their carbon price would be higher than the california price. california is $12 a ton. china is aiming moreike $20 or more a ton. under president obama the 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? >>7, 00 is not feasible. what it was highlighting is that

if your only tool is a carbon price it might need 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 clean electricity an buildings. we don't express it. what it is saying is if you want to take away all the other rules you would need to price that high. so what they are i sayingthe other way around. what they are saying is a mixture of a reason clebon price and the carbon price that we give some back to poor people, plus all of these targets, that is a strategy that would get us on pace to meet this target. >> and it kind of gets to what som conservatives are proposing which is the idea that you tax carbon ndissions then you give some of that money from the taxes back to the american public. is that a good idea?

>> i think thiss a great idea. actually, former secretary of state james baker on the republican side has been a key author of this. theidea 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 obama-eraives want the environmental regulations to be rolled back. is this a bait and tcsw perhaps? >> so the politics is exactly bait and switch. waif the republican plan to make it revenue neutral by letting other taxes get reduced, for example capital gains taxes or employment taxes and keeping environmental regulations then we have a strateg like alifornia where we have regulations that protect us and we start to crankhe up tax because we know ultimately we need to beng subsidiz clean

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

who visit feel that homelessness is one of the biggest problems in san francisco. what kinds of taxes would this impose on big businesses? >> this is a tax on money cbrpaniesging in over $50 million. this is on the biggest companies in the c y, aw hundred companies. it's raising theirro received tax. it is reallte dirtowards addressing the homelessness situation in san francisco, about half towards housing, rental subsidies and building 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 issue in the city. 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 it as a binary choice.

if you are with the homelessness ou are with proposition c. >> despite the fact that it would put a lot of mone into the city's coffers, you have mayor opposing it and some stato lawmakersosing it. why are they not backing this measure? >> they argue it is not binary and before invest inouble the amount of money the city is spending on homelessness should look at how the current spent. s being they want to figure out an audit to figure out where the money is going. there is also the politics of i think if proposition c passes voters will judge the relts on mayor and how her administration is able to spend the money. arom the perspective, she wasn't crafting the re. she will be accountable for whether this --

>> therefore she is not invested in it. what is yourke on prop c? ould this money make a big difference? >> it would almost double the budget that the city currently has to spend on homeless services. it would have a significant impact. and the city economist recently issued a report saying asmuch. he also said that it 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 lst from this by big businesses deciding to move outside of san francisco because of the increased tax rate. f t it's really hard to know what the impacteducing 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 the city fig citing the homelessness crisis as the reason. >> does the cityn eave a

good handle on how the money that it is currently spending is being spent? because san francisco's homeless population has pretty much stayed thepi same d hundreds of millions of dollars poured into it. it has vered around 7,000 or so every year. >> through the budgeting process the city has allocated funding to the recently formed department of homelessness in support of housing over the past several years so tty has a good sense of how much it is spending. i believe the mayor is referring to they ne installed system which is a database that essentlly tracks how each individual is being funneled through the system of services and how much money is being spent on each individual. once the syste up and running the city can have a much better sense on how much is being spent on what kind of services and for what demogra ic. >> we cagree it is an ongoing struggle. we can figure out who is

homeless by sending volunteers to do a point in time, not really a 21st centuryproach. the real issue is can you track from when you find someone isle ho to tracking how the services they are getting and how the services are doing. >> and other communities are doing a od job of that. i know you did a comprehensive report on homelessness for the san francisco bay area planning and research association where you looked homelessness in the entire region. are there communities that a showing some success in how they ckle this problem ? >> certainly, in the south bay they created this system which is called a coordinated entry system which san francisco called the one syem to better track their spending on homeless services. already that is showing some results in helpg them measur the impacts of their spending. further south in the state, los angeles passed a measure las year increasing the amount that

the city and county funds homeless services. there is a lot ofope thatthat will result in extreme reduction in homelessness. >> and guy, san francisco isn't the only city obviously with housing and homelessness issues. you have covered, also, other measurh on november ballot specifically mountain view and east palo alto. they had their own measures to tax big companies, as well. is there a growing movement to hold companiesco atable for the economic inequities that we are seeing? >> i think there absolutely is. i think these measures are evidence of that. when you look at therend of how cities have gotten money for things like housing and transportation, it used to be ldthe federal government we putting money. corporations last year got a huge corporate tax deduction from o 35%21%. the corporations are getting back money. i thi t wi cities in mountain view it is measure p

and trying to direct money towards transportation and east palo alto are looking at the companies and saying you have done very well federal government, with tax reform. it is time to spend some of that moneylocally. >> won't some of the cities, if they are saying that, don't they risk alienating companies that are already in the city or discouraging new companies from coming in?>> sure. the city economist report found hat 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 historically had very high tax rates compared to the rest of tr the co that doesn't seem to have deterred businesses from moving here nd forminghere. the cost of doing business in san francisco is extremely high. taxes aside, just the cost of living and transportationor its employees is very high. and so i t questione extent to which increased taxes will

impact location decisionsor businesses. >> we'll leave it there. thanks to you both. and that wi do it for us. as always, you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. thank you for joining us.

♪[music] >> a missing journalist up-ends the u.s.-saudi relationship in the middle east. i'm robert costa. how will president trump and congress respond? plus, the midterm battle grows fier. tonight on "washington week." >> this is a very serious situation and it's something we're taking very seriously in mounting questions surround the disappearance of journalist jamal khashoggi, forcing the trump administration to investigate. despite new reports that the saudi govnment killed the washington post columnist, president trump is so far resisting pressure from a bipartisan group ofma lrs, to pull out of a multibillion deal to sell weapons to the saudis. ofi would not be in favor stopping a country from spendin0 illion and letting russia have that money and letting china