keep their homes protected, from 24/7 live recording video to control their home devices. learn more at xfinity.com/xfinityhome. ♪ tonight on "kqed newsroom," republican strategist matt schoop. plus our panel of political reporters dissects this week's news. and we take a stroll at the lovely land's end. coming to you from kqed headquarters in san francisco, this friday, september 17, 2021. hello and welcome to "kqed

newsroom." i'm your host, priya david clemens. let's jump in with our friday five. the eyes of the nation were on california on tuesday as good afternoon -- as gavin newsom swept the vote to remain governor of california. >> i want to focus on what we said yes to as a state. we said yes to science. we said yes to vaccines. we said yes to ending this pandemic. >> while president joe biden was in california the day before to rally support for governor k newsom, he received a briefing about the wildfires and surveyed the damage from the caldor fire. >> homes, precious memories destroyed, air quality degraded, local economy stopped in its tracks, and nearly 200 people in the area forced to live in shelters. >> despite mass layoffs caused by the pandemic, a new census report shows the number of

californians living in poverty has actually dropped by a couple of points to 15%, perhaps due to government stimulus support over the past year. however, we still have the highest poverty rate of any state in the nation. in better news, california has the lowest seven-day coronavirus case rate in america. the news comes as portions of the state strengthen vaccine requirements. los angeles county, for example, will begin requiring proof of vaccination for people visiting indoor bars, wineries, and nightclubs. and "jeopardy" has a two host, two of them, actually. this week the game show named previous winner ken jennings and actor may yam bialik as co-hosts for the season, following the passing of long-time host alex trebek last year. now time to talk about all things politics. it's back to business for california governor gavin newsom

this week now that the recall is behind him. that means turning to the bills that have landed on his desk since the legislature wrapped its regular session last friday. meanwhile, thousands of state employees and health care workers around california have already filed for exemptions from president biden's new vaccine mandate. to chew on these stories and more, i'm joined by kqed politics and government correspondent and politico's senior writer. hello and welcome to you both. >> good to be here. >> carla, we're going to get into recall politics in a few minutes but let's start with discussing some news that just came out. mayor london breed visited a nightclub this week and pictures have emerged showing her in close quarters to others, without a mask on, in violation of her own health orders. >> you're seeing the tabloids pick up on this big time, you're seeing the conservative media, n newsmax, breitbart, picking up on this.

the lesson here is public officials do not get a pass on vaccine and covid mandates. and london breed should know better than anyone. she had headlines come at her when she visited the french laundry after governor newsom and now again, this is just another problem. the rules for thee and not for me are the headlines today. i understand public officials have to have a private life but they don't have a private life in today's era of social media. she was caught on tape. it's yet another problem. >> so guy, how much do you think this is really going to impact her? in some ways the democrats seem a bit untouchable right now with governor newsom's victory. do you think this incident is going to stick, will it negatively impact mayor breed? >> i think given where we are in the course this pandemic, i don't think this approaches anything close to a french laundry 2.0. look, hypocrisy is always a vulnerability for politicians. you can see that even in

pre-election polling of the recall. berkeley looked at arguments supporting the recall of newsom. the one that got the highest support was that his own mandates and his own p proclamations about covid, that he didn't follow them. even given the mandate this election gives newsom and his policies on covid, there still is always this vulnerability of acting apart from the mandates that you've set forward. >> we'll see where this story goes, if anywhere. carla, governor newsom won by a bigger margin than when he won the governor's seat in 2018. does this seal of approval give him the ability to take on specific policies or programs or procedures that he didn't have before? >> i mean, it certainly gives him wind at his back. at this point, you know, we have about 9 million of the 13 million votes cast. two-thirds of them supported newsom staying in office. he's gotten very strong mandates, we're finding out, from latino voters. that was a bit worrisome.

younger voters coming forward. newsom will still have challenges, he's still going to have republicans out there hitting him on issues like the uptick in crime, like homelessness and affordability of housing. he has said i hear you to those who voted yes. he said, i'm listening to you. but the question is has he heard them, will he change his ways on mistakes that brought him this recall in the first place. he'll get pressure from the left as well as the right. the left wanting more health care, more affordable health care, more housing issues, more protection from eviction. he'll be pulled in both ways. but the fact is, looking at the republican party going forward, it doesn't look like he has to worry about any serious challenger coming up in 2022. latest poll back from the igs shows neither kevin faulconer, larry elder, any of the republican replacement

candidates have any kind of traction against newsom going into 2022. >> yet i bet we'll be hearing from some of them in the months to come. guy, we obviously know the result of this recall election. but officials have hundreds of thousands of ballots that they're still processing. what trends are you watching for as the vote continues? >> right, as of thursday night roughly 3 million votes left to i actually think this lead could grow for newsom, particularly in the central valley, there's room for him to grow this lead. it's worth restating the damage that former president donald trump has done here in california to the republican party when it comes to voting trends. the republican party here used to dominate early mail voting. that's gone, largely due to these unfounded claims the former president put forward about vote by mail. and it's really forced the gop to put all their eggs into this election day basket and so once again you're seeing the trends you saw in 2020, the early vote dominated by democrats,

republicans catching up a little bit on election day itself, and then now these later ballots turning leftward. >> for either of you, are there any pockets of information that we've learned from this vote that are a vulnerability, that republicans might want to exploit in the next election cycle or that democrats might want to pay attention to? >> i mean, i think one of the areas that democrats will want to pay attention to is the gender gap, the significant gender gap that developed in this contest with 66% of women saying they were going to vote against the recall in part because of larry elder, his comments on abortion, his comments on women in the workplace. if the republicans go forward and don't address this issue, i think downballot, they've got to be worried about the gender gap. and that's kind of a national trend too, when you talk about biden on the national scene, going into 2022 house races. so that's one thing to watch that came out of this recall, a

significant gender gap in newsom's favor. >> guy, anything you would like to add? >> yeah, on the newsom side, i'll call it organizational humility. the way they approached this campaign was not by saying we're going to build a no on the recall headquarters. they found organizations already on the ground getting the vote out. this is similar to how the democrats approached the 2020 election in georgia, which is let's find nonprofits that are already doing voter education, get out the vote work. this groundwork has been laid in 2021 and there's a lot of contact they've made with voters now going into another election year in 2022. >> let's turn the corner here a little bit and carla, talk about president biden, his mandates for vaccinations for federal employees and large employers, how is that mandate being received here in california? >> well, look. this is one area where governor newsom rode to success big time in the recall, based on covid. that was the two lessons that the newsom campaign said they

came out of this, identify the villain, that's covid, identify the stakes, life or death. that's how newsom played it and that's how joe biden is playing it, in some ways. we know that in california, voters strongly supported newsom's job approval going into this recall by about 18 points. two-thirds of them supported the vaccine and mask mandates that joe biden is calling for. that's why what happened in california could very well be a roadmap for biden, for nancy pelosi, and the democrats going into the 2022 and 2024 elections. >> carla, i want to stay with you for a minute. newsom has until october 10 to either sign or veto a slew of bills that were passed by the legislature. yesterday he signed several housing initiatives. tell us about the importance of the housing piece in particular. >> this is huge, priya, because this is the one issue he came into the governor's seat

promising, more affordable housing. it's an issue that affects every community in california. the governor got right into it by signing a pair of bills that initiate a major shift away from single family zoning. one allows duplexes and lot splits to enable up to four units on currently single home lots. that's a very big deal in california. another one removed barriers to local government rezoning for up to ten units. these are both effectively ending single family only zoning in much of the state. and a lot of people said this is a critical turning point in the housing, the ability of newsom to deliver some more affordable housing. some of these will be controversial. remember, sb 50 was a big and controversial effort, not in my backyard, a lot of people said. but right now these measures are gme changers, a lot of people say. >> guy, what other bills are you

going to be watching as they come to the governor's desk? >> coming out of this election i'll definitely have my eyes on a bill to make universal vote by mail permanent in california. we've had it the last couple of elections but there's an effort on newsom's desk to make it the default, keep sending every registered voter a ballot. it doesn't always increase turnout in all cases but it's something that californians have gotten used to these past two elections and we'll likely see it going forward. secondly, i think newsom has an opportunity to make his mark on police reform. we've seen him sign legislation i the past on use of force. there's a controversial bill on his desk dealing with officer decertification, identifying those officers who have done wrong in one community, not letting them go to another force. i think this is an area where the governor just in his first term can make another mark. >> carla, let's go back to the recall for one last question. democrats in the legislature are eyeing a handful of potential changes to california's recall process.

what are those changes and how likely are they to come to pass? >> with this recall costing $300 million, they're saying california has the lowest bar in the country, it's time to change that. they're suggesting perhaps increasing the number of signatures required to get on the ballot, more than 12%. ending paid signature gatherers. perhaps requiring the government be guilty of criminal misconduct or malfeasance before a recall is called. allowing for the governor to be on that replacement list of candidates. maybe the line of succession, having the lieutenant governor take over if the governor is recalled. california could unseat a very popular governor under the current system. >> thank you both for joining us. >> my pleasure. as the republican party is taking stock of the recall election, some are asking the

hard questions. like the ones in this tweet from a lead republican communications strategist. what will we change moving forward? how will we adapt? we cannot continue to do the same thing over and over and over again, hoping that maybe next time it will be different. we're not even fighting the last war. we're fighting the last century's war. joining us now is the author of that tweet, matt schoop, chair of the contra costa county republican party and a leading voice on the republican party in california. welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me today. >> when you say the republicans are fighting last century's war, you're talking about using old tactics. i'm hoping you can unpack that for us. what were those old strategies and why didn't they work? >> we're using old strategies and tactics, we're starting to adopt some of the newest ones like ballot harvesting and peer to peer texting but i don't think we're doing it fast

enough. there's a lot of other things, social media, social media influencers, ads through instagram and other things that are starting to be done but just not being done effectively, along with how we motivate people, how we get out the vote. one of the problems this year was there was a lot of concern about voter fraud and it suppressed our vote. that needs to stop, we need to make sure people feel secure in the election. there's a lot of things we need to do. how we communicate to voters and how we message and who those messengers are. building out a surrogate network. the network is as important as the messenger. i've come to believe the republicans and democrats are essentially two different cultures with two different vocabularies. we need to learn to speak that language and do it effectively which i think we're still struggling to do. >> when you say we speak different languages, what does that mean, and how would republicans start to speak more clearly or in way that is more

effective to the majority of voters in this state, who are not republicans, who are democrats? >> you see a lot of generic polling, what's the most important issue to you, they'll say infrastructure, jobs, the economy, crime. but you ask a bernie sanders supporter in san francisco who says, you know, their top issues is job in the economy and you ask a small business owner in fresno, jobs and the economy is their number one issue, but their policy preferences are wildly different. but to a campaign that just looks at these generic polling results, they go, wow, they're talking about jobs and the economy, and twhey don't know hw to adapt that. the bernie sanders supporter will want a higher minimum wage, the business owner will want different issues. same thing with infrastructure. republicans probably want more parking, bigger freeways, things

like that, whereas the democrat might want more bike lanes and light rail and high speed rail and things. the answers look the same but the real policy prescriptions are wildly different. >> this vote seemed to show that ideologically, most californians support the democratic agenda. so is it really just about having a different strategy, or does there need to be a shift in the message, in the ideology the republican candidates put forward? >> i actually don't think that's the case entirely. i think they support the democratic, you know, platform right now because the republicans have done a pretty bad job at offering their own. for the last ten, 20 years, we've been the party of no. we've really done a bad job, if not failed, in offering our own alternative, aspirational ideas on how to solve problems. one example is the wildfire. it's easy to come out there and criticize the government and the governor for the failings that have happened there but what we really should be doing is saying, here is the republican plan to avoid this, stop the

wildfires or prevent them, and sell that to californians. because right now californians are pretty much presented with a bad plan or no plan. and people i think would rather choose the bad one they know rather than the nonexistent one they don't know. that really falls on us. we need to become the party of ideas again, and aspirational accomplishment, and not just oppose everything the democrats do. >> matt, i mean, this is some very honest talk from you, so let me ask you another hard question. was the recall effort a mistake? the victory is so decisive, it seems to have only made governor newsom stronger, right, to have reinforced his decisions as governor. so was this a mistake to take it to the mat? >> i think afterwards, it's easy for pundits to say it was a mistake. but i don't have any regret in supporting it and i don't think it was a mistake. to be honest i thought it was ours to lose. i think gavin newsom had a chance of losing the recall several months ago. i think in the last couple of months, it became pretty clear

that he was going to win. so i think that we messed up the opportunity, but at the same time you also had massive advantages. a few things people aren't talking about is, the governor could actually raise unlimited amounts of funds, there was no campaign contribution limits. i thought that the opportunity was there and probably greater than, you know, there has been in 2018 and potentially in 2022. i think we have -- i think we have been to do a lot of in introspection and learn how to adapt and overcome this and look at our falters. failures. >> when you look at half the electorate is democratic, a quarter republican, a quarter independent, does there seem like there is a way for republican candidates to break through and get into leadership in government again? >> yeah, i think they need to be pragmatic and charismatic. i think people do want a check and balance in their governmen. right now the democrats are not just a majority, they're not even a super majority, they're a

mega majority. they have veto override in the state legislature. they have all constitutional offices. and i think there are a lot of californians that are just unhappy with the status quo and with the homelessness and the wildfires and a lot of these issues. but again, we need a candidate that can connect to people, that is charismatic, and has an actual aspirational policy plan that a majority of californians can rally behind. and i don't think we've really seen that yet. >> one of the issues that i've heard raised often in the last few days is that republicans generally like to speak against government waste and yet the party that doesn't want to waste money just spent $300 million, taxpayer dollars, on this recall effort that seemingly went nowhere. >> i think that's a really obnoxious line of attack. first of all, this is democracy. this is the minority being able to hold the majority accountable and in check. you know, getting 1.7 million signatures during a pandemic is no easy feat.

and so i think that democracy is good. that criticism is coming from the party that, you know, tried to impeach or impeached president trump twice, knowing he was not going to be removed. the one other thing is the policy the democrats enacted recently, vote by mail for every voter in california, raised the cost of that election as well. and also in contrast to the $30 billion in edb fraud and all the waste in high speed rail and everything, had we been able to recall the governor and put in a republican governor and stopped some of that bleeding of money, it actually would have been a hll of a deal. >> let's talk about those republican challengers to governor newsom. there were several career politicians, one of whom you worked as a communication consultant, kevin faulconer. but the one who really garnered support was radio host larry elder. i want to listen to his concession speech. >> ultimately i decided to run because i felt that i could do

something about the crime. i could do something about the homelessness. i could do something about the fact that california has now hit $800,000 average price of a home. that's 150% above the national average. outrageous, because of the strang stranglehold the environmentalists have had over gavin newsom and over sacramento. >> so tell us why those messages resonated so much with conservatives in the state. >> i like to draw a parallel with bernie sanders. democrats in california, bernie sanders won the presidential primary in california. but, you know, national democrats know that best is not electable nationally and that republicans would be able to raise a tremendous amount of money running against him and would be able to win the house and the senate and defeat him for the presidency but they really like what he would have to say. it's the same thing with larry elder, the base likes hearing what he has to say, he's going to solve crime, reduce the cost of housing, make a difference in

sacramento. it's easy for republicans to support that message. unfortunately it doesn't translate that well to california's independent and democratic voters. that's something our base needs to realize and move forward with. what the democrats have done, joe biden was nobody's first choice in the primary but he came through and people understood that he was electable and won because of it. there was criticism for joe biden, he wasn't going to the california democratic party convention in san francisco during the primary. i actually said that was smart for him because he's avoiding the more radical side of his party. it's the same thing for larry elder and the republicans. again, the base likes to hear what he has to say but when we're outnumbered two to one, we need to find a messenger and a message that appeals to as many californians as possible. >> speaking of unity, in his victory speech, governor newsom made some comments about californians coming together. let listen. >> i think we owe our kids a deeper sense of respect.

all of us as adults, responsibility to disregard this false separateness. we have so much more in common as a state and a nation that we give ourselves credit for. >> matt, unfortunately this will be the last answer, we just have a few more seconds together. what do you take from governor newsom's call to come together which is a typical sort of thing to say after you've won a political battle? >> i do agree that a lot of californians have a lot of things in common. we all love the state. i was born and raised here. people love california. however, i think that's kind of hypocritical of him because him and his campaign have been some of the most divisive political rhetoric in recent memory. his entire campaign was about going after republicans and saying how republicans were going to destroy the state. it's hard republicans to say, let's all come together and he likes us too. i have a couple of prescriptions he could do to start that process, end the state of emergency for the pandemic. our state has over 80% vaccination rate.

i don't think that we need the mandate. we're the only state that just dropped out of the cdc's highest spread rate. we're doing well on covid. we don't need these mandates. and we don't need this emergency order anymore. it would go a long way for him to end those. >> matt schoop, republican strategist in california, thanks for your time. >> thanks for having me, hope to be back. one of our favorite things to do is to connect with you, our viewers. tonight, we would like to introduce one member of our shared community, jordan wilson. talking with him sent us on a visit to land's end in san francisco. for tonight's edition of "something beautiful." >> hello. my name is jordan wilson and i'm a long time viewer and listener of kqed. my familiy has been in san francisco for five generations and we all love to visit land's end. my grandma would go and watch the golden gate bridge being built as a child and i still

love to visit today. i visit for the beauty, the scenery, and to escape from the outside world. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thank you, jordan.

and if you would like to share your favorite place with us too, please reach out. kqed newsroom is on twitter or facebook or email us. you can reach me on twitter. we would absolutely love to hear from you. and perhaps feature your story in the future. that's the end of our show for tonight. we'll see you right back here next friday night. have a great weekend.

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♪ yamiche: boosters, protest, and perilous times. >> everybody will be ready, more ready for them. yamiche: washington braces for a pro-trumpet rally in support of people charged with attacking the capital on january 6. a new book reveals that general mark millie took secret actions because he worried former president tru might start a war to hold onto power. >> science was on the ballot. the pandemic was on the ballot. yamiche: and political fights over covert disinformation and mandates deepen as an fda panel rejects pfizer's plan for widespread booster shots, but recommends them for americans 65 and older. plus -- >> he will not have my vote on 3.5 and chuck knows that. yamiche: democrats try to