♪ ♪ >> tonight on kqed newsroom, the nation has a new class of state lawmakers ready to tackle housing and health care. plus wildfires and your health. a look at the effects of ldfires on your lungs, skin and heart long after the flames e ou and the rise of millennials in politics. berkeley voters just elected the youngest council member in city history, a 22-year-old cal grad. hello and welcome to stakqed. i'm thuy vu. jeff sessions will be remaced who resigned under pressure. barr served during the george w.h. bush administration. the nomination came during a week when the nion paid tribute to mr. bush at his funeral?

meanwhile in california, the slate legislature began the new session with the largest number of democrats in restory. they proposing a host of legislation, including far-reaching measures to tackle the housing crisis. joining me now to discuss all of this are sean walsh, a republican strategist with wilson walsh and kqed politics and government editor scott shafer and politics government producer and reporter, guys ati. good to have you hear. >> good to be here. during the served first bush presidency and william barr was there then. what can you tell u about him. >> it is inspired about president trump and he did something right. he's a tough law enforcement guy and he has the confidence of the law enforcement in doj and not pushed around, that said he wi not respond or react and try to firry favor of the president if hes a tweet storm at him0 at

3 the morning. >> there is controversy about him regarding a 1999 memo he wrote about the presidential power and the constitutional authority to act without congressional permission or in defiance of certain statutes. 't >> i think do think it is controversial at all. people believe the powers of presidency are very strong and the division between the three . branch you will see that memo and criticism that he helped support president bush duringn- iuldn't riran iran-contra but he will be co firmed. >> what about the fate of john kelly. the president might have another personal announcement tomorasw. >> therebnl talk that the president hasn't spoken to his chief of staff for quite h sometime as had a rough tenure in the last few months. he came in as the grown-up that will keep order and have the trains run on time and it is really difficult to do that in this white house. and it does make you wonder why anybody, including mr. barr,

uld want to come into this white house. i mean, you leave with a worse reputation th you enter, almost in every case with maybe one exception andou haveo put with all of this midnight tweeting. look at what happened to jeff sessions and now john kelly. he called rex tillerson his former secretary of state dumb and lazy today. >> d mb asrock. >> dumb as a rock. excuse me. which is good for an oil man, i. gue it is like you are drilling in the rock. okay. but the point is, why would you wantnto come this. really it is maybe because barr is at t end of his career, not looking to move on to something bigger and better. >> sometimes they just want to sorve. that was questioned when john kelly took the job and some said he did it out of sense of duty to country. >> that is exactly right. if you are aatriot and you feel the country is going over the sid of the cliff, would you try to help out and know a number of people have been asked whether they should join the trump administration and th say i don't want to put up with that stuff but the country needs

me. bu the country does need a guy like barr now. >> if your concerns about the norms of something like the department of justice, this is someone who headed the department of justice and he may have more respect from the rank and file and as a democratic process we're better off going through the hearing process in front of senate judiciary that this will instead of sticking with anap interiintment. es> this week a senior aide to kamala harrisned after it was revealed that the state paid to settle a sexual harassment and kamala headed the department t time. scott, given the me-toovement how damaging might this be for harris now that she's considering a runfor president in 2020. >> i think there is a question of credibility here. because m wallace worked for her back no to in san francisco and went with her to the department of justice when she was in a.j. and stayed

in sacramento when she won the sanate. this w claimed he demeaned her and made her awl under the desk to change paper in a printer that he had put there. in december of 2016, after the election, she filed this lawsuit and then after kamala harris goes to the senate, xavier becerra signed off on this $400,000 settlement. she claims she didn't know about the allegations or the lawsuit and the payout. i think she should have known. at some point in that process, she should h known. and so she didn't know, why didn't she know. whether or not it is a big deal for her, we'll see. re's about to announce whether she's going for president in 2020. could become an issue. >> and also this week, governor-elect gavin newsom was in mexico to attend the inauguration of the mexico new president. he also indicatedi that het pull california national guard ntoops from the border and he criticized presidrump's labelling of the migrant caravan

as a natial security emergency. can we expect newsom to stand up to the white house governor brown did on immigration policy in. >> i think it might be too early to see how he'll eal withe trump administration. i think i'm more interested within the state of california. one thing immigrant advocates to doush governor brown was expand medical and allow undocumentedadults to get into medical and he resisted that as part of the budget process and we'll see if newsom go as long withhat and that is the more concrete to look at, how he deals with policy >> and jerry brown, like most governors, i understand you need the federal government sometimes when there is a wildfire, allhquake and floods and kind of disasters and jerry brown is critical on c mate chand less so on immigration so maybe an adjustment in terms ofmaybe newsom will withdraw the national guard from the border. deploy them somewhere else. n'but i see a huge change.

not calling for the abolition of i.c.e. >> go ahead. k. >> i think that gavin newsom has one eye on white house and one eye on the state house and the problem with that is if your eyes are in two different directions you hit in the head. you had o $40 billio the first day of the legislative session put forward by the democrats in spending. number one, number two, i think he wants to bring a foil against the trump administrati and if ye a california governor, i don't care who you are, you are aeomatically considered to presidential contender. >> in the meantime he needs to state and now he's working with the state legislature, that is, that the democrats have a megaimagine ortd. three quarters of both houses areold by democrats. how do you think that will work between the governor and that democratic megamajority. >> i is fascinating to watch. this week i was making calls around housing legislation introduced andou heard from everybody how excited they are to work with governor newsom and follow up on his campaign pledges to spend on housing.

and if hdvusingates are hearing that, you know childcare dvocates are hearing that and higherucation advocates are hearing that. everyone sees the new governor as their meal ticket to the spending that they didn't get under governor brown. that being said when he talked about priorities on theraampaign l, he was talking about them on a four-year basis. i don't think he expected t get to al the priorities before spring training and so it is going to be interesting to s how works that push and pull and also he doesn't want to be seen comi after jerry brown and spending a lot of y money, he wanted to carry that fiscal astewardship forwa i'm skipt cal -- >> and we mentioned health care. he's promoted single payer which is $ a0 billion price tag. but the guy is right. he already this week was beginning to temper expectations with the legislature. the last thing he wants to do -- and jerry brown said don't screw it up. he's worked hard to bring some fiscal stability and i think newsom wl be loathe to mess that up. >> before we go, i do want to

mke aent to touch on president george h.w. bush. we saw many moving eulogies this week and for you it was personal, sean, you just returned this morning from texas where youhe attended burial. and as we mentioned, during pl bush's tenure,ouere a white house assistant press secretary and had some photos of youat fr era with the president. you were also a special assistant to the president. how would you describe his legacy? >> i think his legacy is a democratic europe. i think the european union is a direction result of him and not taking a victory lap after the war and not embarrassing gorbachev and doing the right thing when they arrested gorbachev and they had to fight back toiaake back rus and making sure he didn't mess up the berlin wall. and he did raise taxes. read my lips, no new taxes and people criticized him but whe t he did th economy at that time, believe it or not, needed

that. it needed it because with the tax increases came entitlement spending reform and you got right after he left office, bill clinton with a surplus in money and the country was stabilid. so here is man who did what was right, even though all of his polical aides and advisers said it is politically wrong. so it is quite a contrast from what we have in our politics today. >> speaking of bill clinton, he did leave that gracious note for bill clinton when he left office. but there were also elements of his record that some people don't remember so fondly, scott. >> sure.s and thatrue with any president. but i think this week during the tributes that were appropriate for presidt bush there were in s, activists and leaders the lgbt community remembering he was not a leadingn hiv/aids and a difference compared to the reagan administration and did he say things with more compassion than prnt reagan but that is one area that is a hole in

his record. but i don't think anybody can doubt that his -- he was a kind person, honest, integrity and all of t things that some people feel are lacking today. >> certainly very moving videoa this wee we're watching the burial and the funeral. thanks to all of you. scott shafer, guy maserati and sean walsh. it was only two weeks ago that the bay area was cloaked in thick smokeom fhe camp fire. doctors and air quality of cials urged people ay inside. medical experts say wildfire smoke is bad for your lungs and heart, especially for children, the elderly and people with cardiac and respiratory ailments. like secondhand tobacco smoke, the effects of wildfire smoke linger even after the flames die down. medical researchers are trying to determine just how serious the risks are and what can be done about it. joining me now to discuss this are erin glance, and from the center of investitive reporting and katherined hamm

from u.c. berkeley school of public health. welcome to you erin you've been talking to people in the bay area as far as m 00 miles away fe camp fire and still exposed to the smoke. what have they been t about the smoke and the health effects. >> people are explaining. they can't breathe. their schools were closed because it tas unsa breathe inside or outside. we wanted to know what is the health effect of all of this. so we start calling hospitals and found out early for hospitals to give you gooda dat. so what we decided to do was look back at last year's re, the tubbs fire. >> in the north bay. >> north bay. napa and sonoma hospitals and we looked at all hospitals three to fivereonths after the f to see what was happening to people. and what we found was a 20% increase of people going to the ency room for cardiac and respiratory issues, in other

words having trouble beating or with a heartbeat. three to five months after the flames were gone. so the air is clear and you look outside and it is a beautiful day. and yet there is still mo people going to the emergency room. >> and so professor hammond, what does that say to you. because you have lingering effts, three to five months afterward and we know about the damaging effects ofnd tobacco secondhand smoke and vehicle exhaust, how does smoke from wildfires cpare to that? >> well, it -- we -- this t- research is not complete. but, in fact, one could get as much exposure from the wildfires as if you smoked a few cigarettes on some of the that we've had in the bay area lately. >> really? >> yeah. and we kn that even smoking a few cigarettes could cause a serious healtht. eff i was just reading that linda johnson died two days after he smoked a a cigarett hadn't smoked for 14 years and had given up smoking so sometimes there is that delay that erin

talked about. >> how much --ong would you have to be outside breathing in this kind t of smokehave it comparable to smoking two or three cigarettes? >> t really o depends what you are doing. if you are walking for an hour, that might be comparable to taking in as many particle as if you had smoked two cigarettes. if you were running, that could be like half a pack. it depends on what you are doing. >> so if children are outside playing, they're going to be getting quite a bit more. >> and that is a scary thought. and i know that, erin, you're also still reporting on this. and you're asking the public and medical providers to share their stories about recent wildfires and how it is affected them and theirow health. can they reach you. >> we're asking peopleex to us, text the word "fire" to 35 63 that is "fire" to 63735. and the reason we set up this text line is because the research is raelly incomplete. not only about thi fire but about these fires in general.

and the reason is because we have never hadires like this before. camp fire i the worst fire in california history. the tubbs fire wasnly last year was at that time the worst fire in california history. five of the ten worst fires in california hiory are in the last two years. >> and with global warming, there are certainly concerns that we will face more of these fire they'll be even more fears. >> so when you talk about theki of peer review and scientific research coming out of he universitie might have to wait a few years to get that kind of quality data. in the mntime we need in the media need to get ahead of this and start asking questions and informing the debate and so we are leaning on the public to help us out. >> kathy, is there any data at all on the long-term effects of breathing smoke from fires? what happens 18 months longer afterward? >> there is none that i'm awareu of. what we can do is look again at particle exposure and i think erin is excellent that he is

doing this work and i think we need to go forward planning to do careful studies. but we can look at things like the fact that ithe central valley, the particle exposures there have sometimes been co'varable to what been experiencing in the bay. they get that every year for several days a year,. >> now, why is that. >> that is air and so that is an air pollution problem and i have a major sdy in fresno and the surrounding area and we're seeing increase rates not only of asthma and attacks but also more children have asthma there. we're seeing preterm births increase. >> because of smog and smoke. >> because of smog and smoke. and we certainly knowre these also the health effects one gets from secondhand smoke. and the levels that we see are over -- what we were seeing during the peak were over ten

times the highest level you are supposed to have in any day. >> how did you test about effects from wildfiremo. i read that researchers could perhaps collect hair samples because hair grows at a certain rate and you could go look at that strand of hair and kind of look at the period of time where the fire happened and when the fire happened and kind of determine things from there. >> well that doing the hair is an attempt to look at exposure andy to get the hist of the exposure and to see if particular toxic materials are in the hair -- more in the hair during the time of the fire.is so thathat -- but that would not tell you about the health effects. but the health effects could be studied, for instance, as erin is talking about, but looking at the emergency rooms data they collect it. but looking at that very carefuy and that -- as they collect it, it is not as clean as it will be oe it has been carefully vetted through the medical system. but that can be looked at -- we also look at preterm birth and will there be a spike we'll have to see.

we're seeing some effects from birth defects even. now those birth defects are very hard because they are rare enough it is hard to see that. but those studies could be done. i want to say, there is so much that we don't know about these fires because these fie s new. it is a new type ofollution. we had 150,000 acres of forest burn and 20,000 buildings, which are full of houseld cleaning products, so we're breathing draino that went up in smoke >> thinner. or -- >> or gas stations exploded. >> flameretardant. >> all of that went up into the acres of leaves and trees and it all went up and we're breathingt in and that is a new -- a special new mix for us. so sciensts who have been studying it, they try to build a tion in on to pol fresno, for example. but this is a new kind of pollution and so because as you

said, climate change is here,ir these could become more common, we have to get out aheas of ew mix of pollution which is now upon us. >> is there any data at all, kathy, on whether smoke from residential areas with the kind of material erin just mentioned is more toxic thane from a p forest fire. >> it is certainly true as erin said, ll of theterials that have gone up. we know in the mix we have all of the things that you would have in a forest fire with -- rom the trees burning, but in addition we havl of the toxic materials that have been n the home that now are volatile and people are now are breathing them. so that isefinitely true. but in terms of really knowing exactly what and how much, that is not known. that is to be determined. but because, as erin said, this isnew. this is a new world. when i want to stu something, i write a grant proposal and get it three years later. >> and smany people aretill

to this day talking about the smoke and things that -- and the ways tty thinks still affecting them. so a lot of people are focusing on this. erin glass with reveal, thank youry vuch and also professor katherine hammond with uc berkeley school of public healn . moving millennials in politics. seven months after vigil robinson graduated, he decide to put his political economy degree to use. he joined a surge of young people running for office in the midterm elections an won a seat on the berkeley city council. this saturday he'll be sworn in making him the youngest council member in city history. he joins meow. along with his campaign manager marsha -- good to see both of you. >> thank yo >> from one cal graduate to another, congratulations. go bears. not only are you the youngest city ouncil member i history, you have the unanimous backing of all of the city council members and the city mayor and unprecedented task.

how did you accomplish that and how are you feeling? >> it is a really unique -- and something the city has been waiting for for a long time. berkeley is an incredible really beautiful and magical place and close to my family for generations. but it is also a pivotal cross roads right now. it is a city that islt sieously it seems on the cutting-edge of progress and new ideas but also deeply stuck in the 60s at the same time and also a city that is the hos to the public university system in california. >> why did youecide to run? was it primarily because of that juxtaposition or werehere other factors. >> a third of the population of the city ofts berkeley is stud and it only takes one visit to a city council meeting to get a sense of just how mans neighb don't believe we need more student housing and don't believe that young peove should a voice in the city. we hear it time and time again that a given student is only in town for a w yea and so they shouldn't have a voice in city government. >> and you feel

underrepresented. >> exactly. the student population is permanenand it is growing and it has unique needs that need to be heard and represented in the city hall. >> and maha, you are 20 years old, a junior at cal and science in political and prior do to this did you have any experience working on political campaigns. >> i hxperience here and there. i had the good fortune o working for senator ron -- and turned on campaigns here and there but this is e first ti i sort of ran a campaign and had some real professional experience. so it was absolutely a learning curve. >> so going around during the campaign, what was the reaction yoerwere getting from long residents, your new and fresh faces but you look very young. did you have a lot of skepticism. >> we get a fair deal of that but we would generally find one knock on someone's door and gett half of t first -- you're only 22 and you want to represent me. we could talk to our neighbs about the issues affecting our neighborhoods, they were deeply

receptive. >> what were you telling them.e what were issues part of your platform. >> the defining issues of our time here iny, berke especially our housing and homelessness. you could ask any candidate running for city c uncil in any district and that would be their answer. but we ran on a very specific twist on it too. because with a third of the population beingst ents, there is a different angle there that needs to be represents and needs to be accounted for. based on the latest survey data from uc berkeley we find 10% of students will experience homelessness and housing insecurity at some point during their time at uc berkeley is unacceptable. we need to build more student housing now which is to the benefit of the students and the long-term residents and the neighbors. the more we could build densely and creatively next to -- nexts, tchristma to campus and limit the source of students livngurther and further from campus and pricing out otd rs. >> aou were active to fight

tuition fee hikes on campus and also another that has really created a lot of tension atberkeley is the issue of conservative speakers and should they be alled to speak and if so in what format. and this week uc berkeley reached a settlent on that issue. what are your thoughts, both of you, on how the university has been h-- been handling this andg should far speakers be allowed on campus. >> it is a challenging issue facing the campus community over the past few years. i've been a student since fall 16 so i've seen this arc play out. i think in terms of the legal precedent, i think it is clear where the la is on whether or not they can come to campus and speak. but the reality is that theseve instances heen deeply traumatic for our campus and our community.i' had to hop police barricades to come to class and be in class with helicopters over campus. that are experiences deeply disruptive for all of us who call berkeley home, not ju

students and staff and faculty but people living in berkeley that --des and we hope you can speak to this, but these are not the issues that students are worried y about -- we'reut d a housing and security and find a place to live in. upsetting omewhat that this has taken over the oxygen in our city. >> and so for you, vigil, you want to get past this issue, too d now that you're going to be sworn in tomorrow, what are the top things that you will address right away after taking office? >> housing will always be number and the virtue of the city one. is measured by how we take care of our mostvulnerable and in the south side neighborhood and in berkeley homelessne isn enormous issue in a city that isn't that big. we have about a thousand people estimated living on the streets and we need to address this from both directions. simultaneously working to serviceur most vulnerable on the streets but also building the infrastructure that we need to address the rootnot just

the symptoms of the problem and help get people off the stkets and binto homes and jobs of their own. it is an elegant proposal that the campus isorking on now to propose an installatio of a homeless resource center to provide over a hundred beds of housing f currently homeless people on the land that is people's park and we're happy to work with the city and the campusog to bringher town and gown in a productive way. >> and we have about 20 seconds remaining. ou're both part of a larger trend of young people getting involved i elections, we had the highest turnout in 25 years, and we have a great class of new house members who are tllennials. do you think therend is here to stay or reflective of the times we live in. go >> we're notng anywhere. >> we're not going anywhere. we're here to stay. >> young peopl all over t country are realizing that they are -- they are theirwn best advocates and recognizing the

power they have and i hope people are lisning. >>nd you are a role model for that for sure right now. roger robinson and also marsha. thank you both for being with us. >> thank you for having us. and that will find our coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu,johank you for ing us. ♪ ♪ ♪

robert: new clues in the mueller probe. is it winding down or up? i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." >> he was my first choice since day one. respected by republicans. and respected by democrats. robert: president trump nominates william barr, a formen at general under the late president bush for another stint at the department ofce j. and as robert muelle plows forward, the predent sps up his attack on the special council setting the stage for ti pol and legal war. but what do new court documents reveal about former trump associates? and what's the game plan forhe president's counterreport? plus, staff turbulence shakes up the president's circle.