tonight on "kqed newsroom." with the new democratic majority in the house. what a lies ahead for the russia investigation? we'll talk with adam schiff. the expected incoming chair of the house intelligence community. in beaut county firefighters are battling the esdead wild fire in state history. what's described as the newb normal and how feature fires can be prevented. former san francisco mayor george moscone on the 40 anniversary of the his death. a film honors his life an legacy. welcome to o "kqed newsroom." we begin with political investigatns and stand offs. after months of negotiatn, trump prepared his written answers to questions from robert mueller inis russia probe.

a bill to protect mueller from being fired is a stand off in t senate. democrats are intensifying their stance for whitaker to recuse himself from over seeing thess probe. california congressman adam schiff wrote if he tried to obstruct theinvestigation, quote he will be called to answer his actions will be exposed. schiff is in line to become chael of the house igence committee. in january. >> he joinsne . by skype. to talk about this. a otherlitical developments. nice to have you back. >> thank you. good to be with you. >> i want to ask you about the news conference that president trump held today. he has prepared his answers to special counsel robert mueller questions. what's your reacti >> well, i think what is really called for here is an in person interview. these maybe some of the questions that can be responded to in writing. when you get questions answered many writing from a witness,

it's reallymore of the lawyer testimony. than the witness testimony. and particularly on an issue of obstruction of justice. of theas not part subject matter of the questions. and whether the president intent is so important. whether he had a corr t intent as he said about the firing of james comey and wanted to influence the russia investigation. you need to does nse questi and ask the follow up questions in realtime. whh you can't do in writing. i hope mueller will persist and makesure ets the answers he needs and in person. >> all right. i want to askthou about sog else that is coming out today. that has to do with the justice department. apparently secretly filed or will file criminal charges against wikileakss founder. e-mails stolen from democrats and ed by russian intelligence official ins the 2016 presidential election here in this country. how d you think this will

effect special counsels investigation into election interference but the russians? >> it's hard to say.t because we do know the nature of the charges. we don't know if the report is accurate. whether that indictment involves the wikileaks actions in pushing out the russian stolenti inform or whether it involves the prior that wikileaks put out. or other information wikileaks put out that wa reported to be property of the intelligence community, it's hard to evaluate. but i will say this, i don't think asang is a reporter. and certainly if you look at home of the conduct during the pushing out ofstolen e-mails and communications with people associated with the trump campaign. he wasn't acting like a journalist. was a partisan. someone who wanted to help bring about one out come.of andourse the effect of what he did was designed to bring an

out come and tear down and harm the clinton campaign. >> regarding t justice department it issued a legal opinion that whitakers appointment is a acting attorney general is valid. other presidents in the past have been stalled. without senate approval. you disagree with that. why? >> there is a succession statutn directl place. designed for exactly this contingency. when someone at the top level is fired. ttorney general is fired ord pusut. they are relying on a general statute. d when there's a conflict between something specific and the general statute. the specific wins. and what's more when the plain language of the constitution is involved as it isre and says you must be senate confied if you're a principle officer. clear language of the tus

applies. >> you and other democrats have said mr. whitaker should recuse himself. what are you worried will happen if he doesn step a way from the investigation? >> thisis the ethics question. he auditioned for a role in the stice department. he acknowledged. by going on tv and basically slamming the mueller investigation. talking about how you can cripple it if you were of it.rge my fears are that he will follow through. with what he proposed and talking about this on tv. that is take actions outside the public view to scuttle the work. and he couldck serve as b channel to the president to provide confidential case specific information. to donald trump or his lawyers about the investigation. if bob mueller produces a report for congress the american people. he could try to bury that report stice department there's a number of actions he could take that would be to the

spres of justdee. >> thecrats have taken control of the house. you welcome the chair. set to become chair of he house intelligence committee in january. what steps will you takehe regardingrussia probe? >> the work we were able to do previously. the minority. and the avenues of investigation that the republicans shut down. because they consider concerned it would lead to nincriing investigation. the republicans wouldn't allow us to look into is whether the russians were laundering money through the trump organization and whether the russians have financial leverage over the president of the united states. that might explain the otherwise unexplainable conduct in helsinki. orenerally the president's pro-russia policies. there a any number of investigative threads we were not able to pursue. andn impormatters first. >> republican congressman newly elected house minor ity leader.

from the central vae lee. phow do youan to work with him? >> it could be a goodor opportunitycalifornia. in which the speaker of the house nancy pelosi is from california. and the minority leader is from california. i'm not sure we have had circumstance for any state in the past. not to mean with issues that are deeply imrtant to california. we are at a drivers seat. so when we have the president of the united states threatening to with hold funding to fight wi fires in the worst wild fire disaster in our state history. the congress will be well positionedo push back a make sure the state gets the resources it needs to meet the state disaster. >> do you think mcart. >> i hope tso, will depend on whether he puts the interest of

california a citizens above the often president of the united states. even during as we saw with the fires. yes, there will be times where because the president and his interests a so -- to us in lifornia. mcarthur will be in difficult position. the president wants to drill off the coast. california doesn't want that to happen. what's the minority leader going to do. i hope had e will sign with california and his constituents on that and issues important to the state. > all right. congressman adschiff. thank you for your time. >> thank you. we turn our attention to california deadly wild fires as of this morning the beaut county campfire has burned 10,000e hom destroying the mountain community of paradise. 60 people have died in the blaze. many were still in their homes as the flames raced into town.ai

600 people r missing. the campfire is the most destructive in state history and illows a seres of increasingly ferocious fires from the north bay last fall to the fire tornado in redding this past summer. emergey responders, publicre health scrambling to cope with what is called the new ab normal. ly the best t science is telling us, that dryness, warmth, drought all those things, they're going to intensify. >> pacific gas and electric is once again facing questions about whether t power lines might have sparked the fire. president trump plans to visit tomorrow. and here now with more on this, morning news ode editor andli ics and government editor. welcome to you bot ted, there's so many lives lost. so many homes destroyed and think one of the things that people want to know is what

caused this? you broke the story possible origin. for the fire. possibly connected to pg&e. and investigators say there's a possible second cause sf. >> the first clue was thursday afternoon pg&e filed an incident idreport. it on this major transmission line in the area of one ofhe small sort towns in beaut county. there was an outage. nd that tooklace a few minutes before the fire started. and then like you said, last night cal fire announced there might be a potential second origin of the fire. unclear if that second spot which is on con cal road. if you he been following the coverage it comes up a lot. people living there were pushed out and hurt. and also unclear to neh was a new fire that started there or somehow spot fires that were expanding from the major fire. so far in advance that was actually a new spot fire in cal

fire hasn't clarified that. they emphasize the cause of the fire is still under investigation. these are cles at this point. >> meanwhile the head of the commission, mir pick is saying he'll expand an existing probe into pg&e safety structure practices. at the same time he doesn't want the company to declare ankruptcy. so what does this mean? will pg&e be allowed to exist in its current form. >> that will take months maybe years to untangle. this is aasoller cer of a week for pg&e. when it comes to the stock market. the shares in half. since before the fire. up until midweek. and plummet on thursday. even further. hen michael picker the head made a comment on a call to investors saying on this private call we don't want pg&e to bankrupt. he followed up with the public ng atd nt about look their structure.

this speaks to the real riousness of the situation. that you have regulators actually even voicing this idea that w should have assessed sort of the heart of the company. i think that what ultimately picker is trying to do is shore up pg&e. nobody wants to see it go bankrupt. even the harshest critics don't want that to happen. >> is there an inherent conflict of the interest in you run the risk of having investors focussed on the bottom line than safety. >> that's been really a tension since 2010. when the neighborhood blew up. pg&e gas line was at fault. and we see this again blamed for 16 fires in2017. that is a question that critics have been asking for a while. this is unprecedented territory. i was talking to wall street analysts about that. theyenave never anything like it. pg&e has been in existence for

over 120s. ye they have been a private company. you're right. we get ourater in california in most cases from public utility. the sort of hybrid of a wall street traded company with the shareholders. and customers who ultimately have bourn the cost of the things it i an inherent conflict. >> this is fwoisgoing on ts unfolding. some residents think they who is to blame. they already filed a lawsuit arainst pg&e. whatthe grounds for the complaint? >> they're accusing pg&e of negligee. they said it and they actually have focussed on the fact they believe that pg&e has done a bad job of maintenance and making sure the structures are safe and sound and tot your po about whether or not it's appropriate to have a profit d ven company in charge of utilities, state senator hill ha told us that he's looking into possibility of legislation that will break up the company or turn it public.

so -- >> theon explo happened in hill district. >> indeed. > it's similar lawsuit to the 2017 fires. it's important to note we don't know if theysi are resple for the tubs fire. the bigst in 2017. they are around $13 billion.ss far than any one of the fires caused damage of. tgs an open question. >> ted, we have the fire is obviously still burning. what are the resources thetate bringing to bear on this and striing to put the fire >>out? we have heard the story several times in the last few years. californiarings in a huge amount of resources. not only are there thousandsc o fire firefighters but bring in firefighters from the u.s. vi forest see. from the state corrections department. about 1,400 inmates who are helping the fires. there's also a resources from out of state. this is the situation where you have thousands of thousands of people fighting these fires.

not just here. but obviously the big woolsey fire in suthern california. and who knows we could have another big fire. f the thomre took place in the winter. >> any idea on when this will be contained? >> it's 45% contained. and the estimated time it should be fully contained is at the enf the month. those dates i notice change from time to time. >> sometimes full containment is important. but it's not -- the question is are hom threatened where's the fire burning. t> what about air quality? we're seeing all over the bay area. schools are closed today. in reportsut onust how bad it is. it's ranking up there with the wost pol tionvels in the world. >> i was looking at the bay aret air qu on the site. they have classifications for how bad the air is. there's actually one near theti st on arkansas avenue. and that is one of the highest in the region. the air quality in places like san pab loware reaching into

hazardous levels. they haven't yet. we have never anything like this. we're seeing people with masks everywhere you go. in san francisco and oakland the city is trying to reach out and provide masks to people in the street. there's only so much you can do. i'm surprised we have talked tl county h officials and there's not af number people entering the emergency room. >> estimate on when the air levels will be get better? >> right now we're expecting the possibility of rainby midweek. next week. it's possible that thiscmoke ld push out by wednesday. i remember speaking to a meteorologist earlier this week and said it will be the next following day. these get extended. these are justpredictions. >> let's talk about who's going pay for the damage from all the fires we have the horrible human toll. so many people lost homes. and lives. earlier this year brown a sign law. that protects utilities from

aring full liability costs for wild fires they may have been caused by equipment. and allows a company to issue bonds and pass on the liability costs to rate payers. that law applies to 2017 fires. it doesn't apply to 2018. what does this mean for the fires in futu fires? >> again it's unclear. when the legislature convenes in january and the governor is seorn in we'll a better picture emerge. pickke pi indicated clean up egislation could extend it to 2018 we'll see if there's a political appetite. >> it sounds like a bail tout. t's what critics will see. about what is theuture of the utility broadly. they cannot afford the cost if u factor in this fire and last year. maybe this fire alone. hey have insurance up to $1.4 billion through next july.

that's a fraction of the destruction. we haven't tked about the housing crisis and what are the people going to do. there are not other options the way there were. for people who are displaced. >> and aside from the enormous economic toll. we'realking about. there's the environmental dilemma. if you have a comp&ey like and it's strapped for cash. stock market pricesplummet. it's only worth about $9 billion ssnow. way than it was before. ifthey are struggling for finances how will they help california of the renewable energy a continuing vegetation management? >> that's the key question. there's two issues here. which is the question of have they been done a good job of upkeeping their equipment. the he bigger question of climate change issue. weigh rs will have to that. and regulators.

>> okay. anks to you both. >> thank you. now a look at theft legacy a former san francisco mayor viewed by many as the champion of the people. george moscone. he was an early proponent of gay rights and wked to create city government that reflected diversity. 40 years ago this month he was shot and killed in city hall. by former supervisor dan white. his life and leadership are the subjectewof a n document tear. a legacy of the change. rere's a clip from the film. the truly modern mayor of san francisco, he pushed and inspired city government to become more inclusive. diverse a tolerant. his life was cuty short the assassin who murdered gay activist harvey milk. the darkest day in san francisco police cpolitical history. heeft a legacy that endured.

talk about y now to the film is producer andre or. and george moscones son. who is featured in the film. nice ve you here with us. >> thank you. >> over the years a lot has been written and said about that very awful dark time in 1978. when dan white shot and killed your father halong w harvey milk. this film covers those events really through the lens of your father's life. why was that so important? >> well, we know how the story ends. andhe story has been by the ending. what made my dad so powerful was not just his mark in history as someone who died for what he believed in. someone from a childhood of no privilege whatsoever. made it through the system. and changed a lot ofit. and had a lasting lasting effect. including his relationship with

milk. an amazing man himself and whose story hasn't been eclipsed because of the great moviek. m and we needed to tell georges story. >> like you said. harvey milk an icon. first openly gay elect official in california. do you feel that his iconic stat sort of over shadowed your fathers legacy? >> i think uninteionally it did. the gay community the time and still does, needs heros. and needs someone to push their identity and voice forward. that became an urgent cll to action. but that unintentionally left my dads story sort of over to the side. and so a lot of friends and family geally got ter and my dad led by my brother christopher, to change that. and bring my dads story back to theatcenter. >> the used the word hero.

milk was a hero to many. but moscone was a hero to many. he worked hard to make sure he was inclusive in w the he built city government in san francisco. he was a state senator before he became mayor. can youlk about his role as trail blazer? what set him apart from other politicians at that eva? >>al things. and as you said he had two functions in politics. he was a state senator for a long time. and mayor for three years. as a senator hisle was in passing legislation. very progressive legislation. and a lot of it. and that's an important part of the legacy. that we san franciscoen sometimes over look. cause he was the mayor. ann you see the mayor that's executive. > as senator he supported by lingual -- did important things.

>> one of the interns made a reference to this. she was doing research. on the legislation that george moscone had a hannin pas she was taken by something about mattress safety. it w an early bid of consumer part of a long list of things he was involved in in sacr hento. durin career. i would add when he became mayor, it was like a switch wase tu in the city the halls of power in the city hadly previoubeen white men. and within months of mayor moscone being inaugurated, power was dismoibuted people of all sorts. women, minority. gays. everything that reflected the diversity of the city of san francisco. it happened so quickly. that's what impressed me. where do you think that frame work for your father's believes and inclusiveness and diversity

came from? >> i don't know. that's a good question. i have an imaginative mind to guess what happened. he was raised b a single woman. he talked about how his mother really struggled very hard to make it and be respected for the work she did. be paid. he grew p on the streets. he was a basketball player. he knew the neighborhoods and a great level playing field. his father was a prison guard. and he just saw the d.wor and he was like sometimes you wonder how did shakespeare write everything. he was a creative person who saw the world and geuld ch it. he talked to people across the aisle and across the politic spectrum. and get them to really listen to what he had to said. he had p and built his good.ege and used it for >> as his son when you watch the film, what surpris you the

most? > there was a picture of us in hawaii. that surprised all of us. we forgot it existed. his voice. his voice such a great voice. he loved the way he walked down the street. w and justh his hands in his pocket. he talked with a gral, sexy voice. i don't understand where it came from. ixcept the 3,000 cigarettes a week. ust loved his swagger. i loved it. i know aboutim but i don't remember the swagger. seeing the film and seeing th ain brought it back. >> there were some interesting things in the filmth i hadn't known before i watched it. many actually. one of them w when former state assembly speaker and brown talked about how he met george moscone. when they a worked janitors at a college of law. what are some other interesting tidbits that are very little nown that the public should

know about him? >> it's hinted at. it wasn't a point of emphasis. i was fascinated about how he could be someone across the aisle. n the context of current politics a man who had friends in the republican party. who can make deals. who got ronald reagan the governor to sign an awful lot of the that were passed by legislature in the years. it showed a degree of sophistication. and honor. nd we had some footage that isn't all in there. there's a little bit from former governor. that talks abouthow they got together even when they were on opposite sides of hi. >> it's a wonderful film. he worked together with people. a legacy of change the will air next friday at 8:00 p.m. right here. and in the meantime, thanks to you both.

>> thank you. >> and that will do it for us. next week tune if for "kqed newsroom" special. featuring interviews wth dynamic, provocative authors. find more coverage online. thank you for joining us. nd have a wonderful thanksgiving.

>> robert mueller wants answers. and there's a leadership fight on capitol hill. i'm robertosta. welcome to "washington week." >> my lawyers are working on i'm working on it. i write the answers. >> the president says he has prepared answers for robert mueller as he escalates his attacks against the special cosel. >> no indication that the mueller investigation will not be allowed to finish. and it llould be aed to finish. >> and acting attorney general mattheou whitaker faces t questions. plus, house democrats confront a leadership tussle. >> i heverwhelming support in my caucus to be speaker of the house. >> sometimes you just need different voice. sometimes you just need a different kind of a vision. we discuss the president's looming decisions on the mueller probe. hiseam and t new congress. next.