California senator Kamala Harris. And in sacramento, its a mad scramble to get key bills onto the governors desk during this last week of the legislative session. Here to break it all down are kqed politics and government reporter marisa lagos and political consultant tim miller. Welcome to you both. So, marisa, what is the deal with the daca deal . What is the agreement between President Trump and Democratic Leaders Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi . Well, its sort of a deal to work on a deal. I mean i think at this point they have gotten a promise from the president that he wants to revisit this issue, that he may support standalone leths although it could be paired with something around border security. Weve heard sort of mixed messages about the border wall situation. But i think the idea is they got in a room. They agreed that, you know, on principle they would like to fix this problem. I think the question really now comes down to what Republican Leadership is willing to do and whether or not theyll even let a bill get to the floor. Theres a bill in committee. They could put it up in the next couple weeks. Republicans are saying they will not go along with democratic plans to actually pull that, you know, sort of over the wishes of the Republican Leadership. So the votes are there, but will this help like having trump on board when he is sort of feuding with republicans . I dont know. Tim, weigh in on that. Youre a republican strategist. This came as a big surprise to republican lawmakers. It really did because it went against what President Trump promised on the campaign trail with regards to daca. As far as im concerned as a jeb bush republican, i think its a good flipflop to a position i think is the right position. The question as marisa said is how does this get passed . Theres this old rule in Congress Called the Dennis Hastert rule where half of the Majority Party needs to support a bill for it to come up. Ip dont see half of republicans in Congress Supporting a clean daca deal without the wall or something to go with it. So the question is will President Trump put his thumb on the scale and actively campaign for this like he didnt on other obvious issues to get it done. Possibly i think its because hes liked the press coverage hes gotten out of this. Whats the likelihood this could get done . Congress goes to recess in early october. Nancy pelosi is saying its largely semantics. They like saying d. R. E. A. M. Ers. They dont want to say amnesty. Nobody wants to say amnesty. I mean to me the more interesting thing is what tim brought up, which is this question of like why is trump doing this. I think hes totally right, right . He loved the good press he got. He hated the bad press he got when he decided to rescind daca. He loves the good press he got when he made that first budget debt deal with the democrats, which is really a minor thing. You know, i think its an interesting political calculation if hes actually thinking through that far, which is his base hates this, right . The make America Great again base hates this. But on balance, daca is very popular. So is it worth losing, you know, that part of your base . It comes down to the details and whether they can jam it through. I think the fact they made a deal to have the budget cliff happen at the same time, at christmas, is it possible that, you know, theres enough political pressure to force it through then . Yes, i think so. Id be shocked if theres anything before that. Also lets talk about another issue thats making National Headlines this week, and thats Bernie Sanders latest proposal to expand medicare to cover all americans. Senator Kamala Harris has already signed on as a supporter. Marisa, any chance at all, though, that this will actually pass . Its been brought up many, many times. Now . No. I think this is party of sanders overall strategy. It is interesting. A couple years ago this was a hot potato that most mainstream democrats didnt want to touch. Now you have rising stars like harris and quite frankly almost every democrat who has been sort of whispered as a potential 2020 candidate is cosponsoring this legislation, not just supporting it. So, you know, could this move the needle . I mean clearly the Health Care Conversation has shifted dramatically since, you know, even a few months ago when it was all about an aca repeal. But with a Republican Congress and president , i mean theres no way. I have to put on my conservative hat here and say its insane how far the democrats have moved left on this so this is like an entrylevel position to be considered for 2020. Thats why you see harris supporting it. A video was unearthed this week by ntk network that had Bernie Sanders himself about 20 years ago saying medicaid for all would bankrupt the country. So bernie is a socialist at that time, thought this was too far lef left of a piece of legislation. Now its the mainstream view in the party. So what does that mean . When the democrats do take back over congress if theyre able to in fact, Anthony Rendon set aside a single payer bill not too long ago that was bashed by the nurses union because they didnt think it was enough funding. I want to talk about this being the last week of the legislative session. Theres a mad scramble on to try to push bills through. I know theres one targeting Prescription Drug costs. What would that one do . So, yeah. This is senate bill 17 by dr. Ed hernandez. He tried this last year, and it got gutted beyond recognition by democrats. But i think the conversation around health care has shifted, especially around Prescription Drugs. Like people were really angry about the epipen and some of these other drugs spiking. This bill would make it more transparent and give notification of when those prices go up. Right. Its not the whole apple is what i would say to folks who want sort of complete transparency from drug makers, but this is a move in that direction. It would require them to give more advance notice and more disclosure of why drug prices are the way they are. I think it will be interesting to see where the governor lands. Part of the reason its not the full apple is because its backed by the Insurance Industry so it doesnt include any transparency on the Insurance Industry side. A lot of times the drug costs come up because the Insurance Industry buys the generics and mark them up before they get to consumers. For transparency to work, it has to happen across the board in the health care system. What other closely watched bills are making their way to the legislature, hoping to get to the governors desk . The big one last night was the bill with regards to housing, sb2. They had to keep the vote open for a couple hours. I think it twas over was over get the votes they needed to get it pass. As a New California transplant, ive seen the problem for housing, but its particularly acute obviously for lower income folks. This is a package bill that would provide 4 billion in bonds that would go on the 2018 ballot. This was actually a real estate transaction fee, so if you refinance your house, there would be a 75 fee on that. Thats why it needs twothirds, but there are other ones that are seeking to lower regulations and force cities that arent willing to build under their own plans to do so. And i think that will be interesting. The lower regulations package will get support on the republican side, i think. The one with the increased, no go. No go. In ten seconds, sanctuary state bill. How is that doing . Is that going through . Probably because theres so many liberals here, but it should. Youve got the last word on that, mr. Republican. Thank you. Thank you, marisa lagos and tim miller. Hundreds of protesters gathered at uc berkeley last night to speak out against the appearance of conservative author and radio host ben shapiro. The former breitbart editor tackled issues including abortion and affirmative action in front of a sold out crowd. The event remained largely peaceful thanks to beefed up security. They said they spent 600,000 on security which included barricades, checkpoints and extra police officers. Shapiro is the latest in a chain of speak. Joining me is a member of the group who invited ben shapiro to campus. We thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Last nights event was largely peaceful. What was your groups objective in having ben shapiro speak, and did you think you achieved that . We did. Ben shapiro is a conservative commentator and our goal was to provide a perspective on campus thats usually not heard in uc berkeley classrooms. It was an alternative viewpoint and one not traditionally heard at uc berkeley. Theres definitely a conservative void at uc berkeley. Our last three events were canceled, so were happy this one went through and im glad the police took a stand against these left wing thugs. What do you mean . Last night was largely peaceful. There were still several arrests made that day and we saw them throwing items and objects at United States last night. Theyre still there but the police did a great job ensuring there was infrastructure in place to prevent them from storming campus. There concrete barriers, metal detector, a new policy for police to use pepper stray if needed if violence breaks out. It sounds like youre pleased with the way campus officials handled it. I was pleased by the police presence. I was not pleased by the way the administration handled our event. They first said there was no venue open for him. At the end of the day, there is a venue open. Throughout the planning, they were not great persons. There was bureaucratic stone walling. So it was a difficult fight to ensure mr. Shapiro had an opportunity to speak on campus. Funny enough, the last minute, the event had its seating slashed. Originally it was 1984, but the university slashed it to 1040 because of the instances in charlottesville. The first question is what does ben shapiro has to do with charlottesville or the berkeley rally. The question is did they slash seating in half when bill clinton spoke . In the end, they did allow the event to proceed and they spent 600,000, an estimated amount on security costs for your event. How much of that cost did your organization pick up . Our organization picked up about 10,000 for security fee. So the bulk of it, the university spent out of the university coffers. They provided protection within the building. Okay. Critics and even some republican students at cal have said that your group intentionally invites provocative speakers hoping to provoke leftwing extremists so you can get publicity, so you can amplify your message, and they cite the violence surrounding the Milo Yiannopoulos event back in february as an example. How do you respond to that . Just being conservative is considered controversial. Its considered being provocative and its simply not true. Every event we offer the students an opportunity to ask the speaker a question, debate the speaker. I always invite these leftwing groups to come to our events, to bait shapiro instead of protesting because its not productive. How many members does your group have . Initially back in 2016, we only had about 10 to 15 members. Weve grown substantially since thn. We have about 60 members on average coming to our meeting. So for you, what is it like to be a republican on a campus that is viewed as very liberal, has a strong tradition in that . Its incredibly difficult being a republican on campus. Students and professors in the Berkeley Community see me as a boogeyman. One time i walked down campus and there was flyers posted calling me a fascist and the posters had my face on it. Every day were constantly harassed and theres also video documented. Again, the University Never provides us adequate protection. But yet you invite people who put out very bigoted messages, very racist messages. Ann coulter, for example, you invited her. The event did not take place. This is a who has called islam a car burning cult with a predilection for violence. Those are the kinds of people youve invited. Can you see how there are those on campus and in the city of berkeley as well and throughout the bay area who feel like theres a lack of sensitivity there . Well, rioting is not the solution. The slutolution is more speech. If you have a problem with ann coulter, debate her. Her viewpoints are incredibly relevant under the trump administration. Her book resulted in direct policy platforms within the Republican Party that were adopted and as well were the backbone of Trumps Campaign policies regarding immigration. Thats what our event was focused on. Again, shes incredibly relevant under this administration. We know that free speech week is coming up. Your group is not involved in putting that on. A Different Group is. We will see more conservative speakers on campus if that event happens. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the opportunity. This sunday is the premiere of the national pbs series, the vietnam war, an 18 hour documentary directed by ken burns and lynn know vic. It tells the stories of soldiers and civilians on both side of the deeply divisive war that played out on the battlefield and here at home. Scott shafer spoke earlier with the filmmakers. Ken burns and lynn knowvic, welcome to kqed newsroom. Congratulations on completing this epic documentary. Its been more than 40 years now since saigon fell, the war ended. Ken, why now . Whats important about what happened back then to tell today in 2017 . You know, very simply weve now got the distance, the perspective that allows us to understand more clearly what had taken place, the passions have not cooled down. But youre able to, with new scholarship, with aging of the veteran population, with the aging also of the protest population, an opportunity to revisit this really, really difficult period. Lynn, i think youve said i read that the vietnam war has been poorly understood. What do you mean by that, and what are you hoping to clarify . Theres a lot happening in different places at the same time, and it took a long time for us to even understand how to tackle it. We went back to the beginning, which you have to go back to the 19th century to understand colonialism, world war ii, the cold war. Political dynamics here and what it was like for ordinary people in vietnam and here. And we felt it was important to see this not just from an American Perspective but also from a vietnamese perspective. We had wonderful connections, people who we could explain to them we want to tell the human story of the war. We found out that people wanted to talk. They wanted to share their stories in the way they dont ordinarily speak about this terrible tragedy that befell our country and also hear from us what it was like for americans who came there to fight. Between the winners and the losers theres a lot of reconciliation left to do. Its only been four decades. It shouldnt be surprising. But what is it thats left raw, thats still unresolved . We lost. Nobody, particularly americans, want to dwell with that. So the tendency is to bury those experiences, and that can be convenient in the short run. But in the long run, its toxic. The country was divided, passionately divided, violently divided by the vietnam war. And those angers and differences still kind of fester. You have soldiers who returned home unsure of their status, which had never happened to soldiers before in wars that we were people who fled the country. There were no parades. You also have a huge group of people who felt it necessary to leave the country. So you had all these different factions and all these different opinions. Lynn, whats an example of something that you heard from one of the people you interviewed or that you found out that really sort of like a light bulb went off, like i hadnt really thought of it that way . One of the things i think we investigated in a deep way is what does it mean to be a citizen, what does it mean to be a patriot, what does it mean to be brave. Over and over again we were challenged in our assumptions of what those things mean. There are several that come to mind where you have to think, okay, heres a guy, for example, who is drafted. And he wrestled with what to do because at the time this happened he had come to the conclusion the war was wrong. From a small town in the midwest, he felt that if he didnt go to the war and went to canada, his family would be os tra sized. The community would call him a coward. He went so far as to get his passport and think about deserting the army and going to canada, but he didnt. For him, that is the most painful part of this whole story. It was not going to vietnam and being in combat, seeing friends day. It was the decision to go to the war. How common was it for people in the military to have those kinds of conflicts . This is a central question for this war is it was so unsettled and so unsettling that basic ideas of what it means to be a brave soldier were challenged. You have to walk through a rice paddy, and you could get blown up at any minute, thats terrifying. Thats not what you go to war to think youre going to be brave to walk across a landscape. Youre going to do a brave act. And just a sense of sort of endurance and carrying on and putting one foot in front of the other is a profound act in that situation. You did talk to many then north vietnamese people who were in the military at the time. One of the things that struck me in the documentary in the segment i saw was how Little Information they had as the war was going on. Somebody used the analcy that for the north vietnamese, they were like frogs at 89 bottom of the well looking up and thinking that little circle was the whole sky. There was complete control of the narrative. In some ways that was an advantage. For the government. You know, because it made the premises of the revolution Pretty Simple and straightforward. When you have the messiness that a democracy, even at times a corrupt democracy at the south vietnamese were, somebody said they were filthy and free. 500 newspapers and magazines in saigon alone and protests and all this sort of stuff when they were permitted. But it was this simplistic message of the communityissts a the control they exerted over their followers made them much more adapted to winning than the other side, which was chaotic, at times corrupt. And that message did resonate with people in terms of veeietn being liberated and the language they used was very effective because it spoke to people from hundreds of years of a yearning to be their own country. You interviewed many more people than you could include in this documentary. Talk about what it took to find the right voices, especially in vietnam. So, you know, all of these projects, the end result, even at 10 episodes and 18 hours represents only a tiny fraction of the material that weve collected. And a lot of it is just accidental and ser endip tuesday. You meet somebody. You might read an unpublished memoir and talk to somebody, and say, im not sure theyd be good or even want to. Many people have and exhibit understandable reticence. I think memories are so close to the surface for the people who lived through them. That was the thing we took away most from getting to know people and hearing their stories was you didnt have to go very far into an interview before these feelings and memories are flooding back and kind of overtaking people in the moment. People would start a sentence not knowing that theyll be at a certain brandnew and sometimes extraordinarily painful or joyous emotional state at the end of that sentence. So that they begin to talk about something, and then suddenly their throat catches because what wells up in them is the significance of that memory in their lives. Thank you and congratulations again. We so very much look forward to seeing this. Thank you. Thank you very much. And now for a different, lighter take on history. What does a hip song say about our culture and times . Well, a daring cabaret show tackles American History through our most popular songs. The show, titled a 24decade history of popular music shines a light on everything from slavery to gay activism. It was created by stockton native taylor mac. The production also brings new meaning to the term period costumes as our editor found out. Here we are on the stage in san francisco. Im here with taylor mac, the creator of the show, the chief performer, and his cocreator. Thank you for being here. Its great to chat in the costume shop as all this stuff is going on. So your show tells the history of the United States of america in 246 songs. And it all begins with a smashing, ballbusting rendition of amazing grace. Why that song . I wanted to set up this kind of s of concept that were here to worship the act of creation, not the creator. So we take that song and talk about grace. And what is grace to me is the act of creation. And what inspired you to tell the history of this country through song . I wanted to use a form that best represented how you use kind of imperfection as a way to rally people. I think of Classical Music as youre reaching for the hem of god. Youre reaching for perfection. Youre striving for virt wosity. And a popular song is something that is reaching the people. Reaching them in order to rally them to a cause, to celebrate together, to mourn together. You guys also tell the history of this country through costumes. I like to look at what was happening at the time, what was you know, what was new at the time. What were people do something what was invented at the time . These are the opening shoes. And just turn those ideas and inventions into costumes. My favorite ribbon. As weird as it sounds, its redesigning backstage during the show. I always need to add to and change things. Now thats a shoe. One of my favorite costumes that ive made for taylor ever is the crazy jane costume. Crazy jane has a wig made out of champagne corks, and she lives in a barrel. When she takes the barrel off, its like she has everything in there. Her toiletries, her bedroom in there. So wearing a barrel, not to mention high heels for 24 hours. Sometimes women will say to me on the street, if im dressed up, wearing the high heels, women will say, how could you wear those heels . I could never wear heels like that. I always say, for you, its oppression. But for me, its liberation. I mean i get to wear the art. And its not just costuming. You know, theyre little art pieces. The fact that you get to bring your own personal art into somebody elses art and they get to commingle and make something bigger than both together is energizing. Have you ever had a wardrobe malfunction . It is the genius of performance. There is no failure. We dont call them malfunctions. We call them, you know, the opportunity. Not acts of god. The point is to incorporate calamity. In fact, the show was inspired by the very first aids walk in san francisco. To which you were which i went to when i was 14 years old, and it was the first time id ever seen an out hoe e homosexual and it was thousands of them at one time. It was the first time i ever saw a drag queen. That event is what makes me want to make theater. In making the show, i wanted to make a metaphor of the rentat n representation of that event. You can use your pillows as shields if you want to. Youre performing sixhour chunks of the show here in san francisco. Why are your performances so long . Well, sometimes it takes more than a 90minute intermissionless play to kick somebody out of their 40hour work week. You understand how it goes . Lets do it. I think theres real wonder in just making things go on longer than people expect, longer than they think theyre capable of handling something. So i really like to put people through it. Well, thank you very much, taylor mac, for joining me today. Thank you so much. Thank you. And the show is playing at san franciscos theater now through september 24th. That will do it for us. You can find more of our coverage at kqed. Org newsroom. Im thuy vu. Thank you for joining us. Captioning sponsored by wnet thompson on this edition for sunday, september 17 the florida keys reopen to residents forced from the their homes by hurricane irma. And later, big business and climate change. American companies change their ways, without government mandates. Next on pbs newshour weekend. Pbs newshour weekend is made possible by bernard and irene schwartz. The cheryl and Philip Milstein family. Dr. P. Roy vagelos and diana t. Vagelos. Sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. The j. B. P. Foundation. The Anderson Family fund. Rosalind p. Walter, in memory of abby m. Oneill. Barbara hope zuckerberg
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