Looking like the moral core of the trump white house, that so many people watching his surprise appearance at the White House Briefing room to say that discussions about conversations between families of the fallen and the president should be sacred, and, of course, general kelly talking from very harsh personal experience, called his son the greatest man he knew, general kelly said, lost his son in combat, so he has experienced this, and, charlie, as your viewers saw in the most clinical terms, walking you through what happens when a soldier is lost. How is he brought back . I think he was trying to shock the public and the press into saying this is not a normal punching bag part of the sport. Charley but, beyond politics . Yes. But who started it . It was the president of the United States. It was the president of the United States who brought up the idea that, perhaps, general kelly when he lost his son had not been called by president obama, and, the press office said, so, was general kelly called when he lost his son . And the press office said he was not. And this is where the conversation began. And like from my readers at axios said, this is in unbelievably painful topic, and this is what general kelly was speaking to. We do not care who started it. This is causing tremendous pain, but general kelly, too, received criticism. He too had the start literally in his house. Charlie so the implications are what . Mike charlie, how many conversations have we had . Nine months to the day that President Trump took office. I kept telling you there is going to be a fight that he is going to regret picking, and i am wrong every single time. The last time, i thought that picking on the female mayor of san juan, puerto rico, when her island had just been wiped out, i thought he would regret that, but, no, he has tripled down on that, and the president said he has done great. The administrations response, in puerto rico, where 80 of the people remain without power one month on, you saw the president gave himself a 10 twice, so he gave himself a 20. Does not regret that. This fight over the families of fallen soldiers, the gold star family, general kelly, among the hats he wears, a former four star marine general, a gold star father, in the long run, they may regret picking that fight. It is too personal, and i think even for people who follow politics in the most casual way will say wow. Charlie they picked a fight or the congresswoman . Mike that is a fair point. The congresswoman from florida who questioned. Charlie and she was listening in. Mike she was in the car. Charlie also, i thought drew the anger of general kelly. Mike completely fair, and what i look at online, yes, that is true, a lot of people think that. Charley yesterday, president bush made a speech. President obama, on the campaign trail, began to talk about the mood in the country, not attacking specific policies, but attacking the sense of truth and what they thought was well, to just tell you what the president said. President bush said mike he said bigotry emboldened. Charlie that it provides a national tone. He did not mention trump by name. Mike he did not have to. It was completely obvious to everyone who he was talking to. The bushes was very much against a trump presidency, and it was based largely on trade. It was based on issues. Now, it is personal, and now, president bush who paid a big price in 2000 you will remember , that in 2000, remember, he talked about a different kind of republican, and he talked about republicans who would be compassionate conservative, and he paid a price for that in republican politics back in 2000, and now we are seeing that is where his heart is. Charlie and his father in 1988 talked about a kinder and gentler america. Here is what is interesting to me. Is it possible that we are moving to some kind of Real National dialogue about where we are, in terms of what is happening in the political dialogue in this country . That at some point, we will be coming together so you have a perfect storm . Mike i agree with you that all the markers are there. All the hinges and triggers are there, but a dialogue has to have both sides, and there is no sign that the president is going to engage in this. If he were going to, he would have played his cards different from the beginning. Imagine that after the president won the election, he was strong, and he surprised people and had won a big electoral victory he lost the popular vote, of won imagineafter he if he had gone to a mosque and decided to have this dialogue. There is no sign in the political math that that is what he is looking for. Charlie you have got steve bannon out there, looking at a primaries where republican members will be challenged. You have paul ryan saying this identity politics has gone way too far, and he also says that he thinks the president may be over weighing in his base, that he thinks that his base is further right than they are. Mike and he may think it is bigger. The catalyst of this white house is that in these times, and karl rove thought this in 2004 when he was running with the reelection of president bush, that you do not need 50 . You just need your voters. Is that 38 . It is not 28 though. And that is the danger for this president and that is why you saw him moving so fast on Something Like the highflying cabinet members. He said he was going to drain the swamp. That is the kind of thing that can soak in with trump voters. The feedback i am getting from trump voters today is they are not shaken by this. They do not see a Tipping Point in this National Conversation. The most clinical people will say to you, and these are some of my friends who voted for President Trump, they say, we did not vote for President Trump for moral leadership. They said, anybody who thinks we voted for President Trump for moral leadership misunderstands the election. They voted for him for much more clinical reasons, because they thought he would help the economy and because he was not Hillary Clinton and all of these other words. That is interesting, and could we have this twist that the low expectations for President Trump provide a certain insulation from him against the kind of National Conversation that you and i see brewing. Charlie what percentage do you think the far right are right now and i would include White Supremacists in that and nativists, what percentage are they of the trump constituency . Mike it is more than we thought. Charlie oh, really . More than 15 . Mike i cannot put a number on it because i do not know, but i can tell you that the night before the charlottesville rally, i missed the importance of that because there have always been fringes in the south. Like you and i have covered it for decades. You are from north carolina, and i went to school in western virginia. We know that fringe, but what we saw after charlottesville, it is a sizable enough part of the Trump Coalition that for whatever reason, he will not walk away from. Charlie in some sense whether these times do call for you to take a stand with respect to the current political discourse and the way the country is going and some sense of the disengagement from the liberal order, the United States leading the coalition of nations to help in terms of the marshall plan, and Building International organizations, like the united nations, the trade organizations like nato. Sense does the United States believe in those institutions . Does it support those institutions . Or is it turning back . It will be judged not only by the broadness of the political debate but where the country may have made a turn away from its traditional leadership role in the world. Mike sure, and you get people saying only half in jest that german chancellor Angela Merkel is the leader of the free world. You hear people saying that because she is engaged in those institutions. Just this week, you heard president xi of china, the wall street journal calling him the most powerful leader since mao. Charlie the economy is calling him the most powerful person in the world. More so than the president. Charlie china is saying, we want to lead. Regardless of the past, we want to lead. We want to lead, and we want to play a role, not just in the Pacific Region but in the world. Mike and, of course, that is a wolf in sheeps clothing, but it is appealing to many potential allies, former allies, and that is why president xi is strong and is engaging at the same time. Look at the South China Sea and other places. You dont want to sugarcoat what china is doing and i think it is very possible that the u. S. Is going to head into a confrontation on that. Charlie thank you. Mike happy weekend, charlie. 19th partyinas congress began this week. This marks the end of the first fiveyear term of xi jinping, and in his opening speech, he called for rejuvenation and declared a new era. His name and political theory will be inscribed in the constitution next week. This puts him at the ranks of mao zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Joining me is graham allison, from the harvard school. I am pleased to have him back. He was here earlier when we talked about china. It is good to welcome him. He has been looking closely at this 19th party congress. Everybody believes it is very, very important, so i begin with that. Why is this important . Mr. Allison we will see a defining moment that if he is more like those who went before him, hu jintao, and he is crowned, in effect, as the emperor with no time limit, not only for a second fiveyear term but without any obstacle to a third term. If the latter, we see that he has consolidated his power, to an extent that i think were going to see a surge of initiatives both at home, especially in the economic reform area, and also in toughening the authoritarian structure, which he has done, and abroad, as he has done. First, he actually has to settle for just being more of the same. I think we will find a china that is a little more cautious. Charlie we have seen someone who has accumulated power. Mr. Allison right. Charlie he had more power at the end of his five years than what hu jintao had at the end of his term. Mr. Allison yes. Nobody anticipated. He is cautiously moving the pieces and has had this anticorruption inquisition in effect run by his best buddy, which basically instills fear in everybody and has taken down even members of the Standing Committee. Charlie the might be opponents for him. Mr. Allison absolutely. Charlie were they guilty of corruption . Mr. Allison since Deng Xiaoping said rich is our power, almost everyone has gotten rich. The people who have been selected also had another attribute. Charlie accumulate more power. There is a twoterm limit and he could change that. Mr. Allison there is a twoterm limit, and he can change that. Plus there is a 68yearold retirement policy, so we will see a choice to either keep his buddy who runs the Anticorruption Campaign, who is now 69 he will either keep him on the Standing Committee, in which case he will erode this custom that you have to retire at 68, or he will have an opportunity. Secondly, in general, the custom, at this point, he anoints one or two possible successors, so they get a chance to try out and therefore he is not going to pick anybody, i believe. I think there will be visibly no putative successor. Charlie in some situations like the military or some political leader . Who is his competition . Mr. Allison his two predecessors, each of them represent factions, and they have members of their factions that are part of the current Standing Committee that are, in a collective leadership, accomplishing that, because it was not by accident that the group that covers Party Leadership shows collective leadership. All of these people thought having a single leader who turns out to be a madman and who caused deaths in each of these peoples families, that is why they were so careful in constructing the collective leadership. They will say he is not even the ceo. He is the coe, the chief of everything, and he has been trying to take, and quite effectively, and in taking other people down for corruption, and since in principle, everybody could be had, everybody is pretty nervous. Palace politics. Groups would form against him, and i think initially, many chinese experts thought he was going after so many people that there would be potential victims that would gather and get rid of him. Charlie there is this thing that i am fascinated by and which is articulated, which is xi jinpings thoughts on socialism, socialism with chinese characteristics, and that is his political philosophy for the country and for himself. Mr. Allison and that is very important. You picked up on exactly the right thing. The only person in the litany of china and the communist party have the thoughts of is mao. Remember that Little Red Book . The thoughts of mao. Even for Deng Xiaoping, that made the modern china, he said, i have got a theory. After that, no president of china was put there to put his name on anything, so they got the three ideas, so in saying i am putting out the thoughts of xi jinping, he is elevated to the level of mao. The idea of socialism with chinese characteristics is also fascinating. The first idea he is articulating is the china dream, and the china dream is the china that is restored to the center of the universe, the sun around which the other countries of asia orbit. Charlie is it just asia . Mr. Allison in the first instance. In that story, china is going to be bigger, stronger, richer, so that by 2021, the first centennial, the founding of the party, it is the lower rung of europeans, and by 2049, the second centennial, they will be richer than the americans. Per capita, both for 2021 and 2049, they are already bigger in total. Charlie macroeconomics. Right, right. So when you look at political reform, he is basically saying, dont expect us to. Mr. Allison he has political reform, but it is not the one you and i would like. So many western watchers have said china has got to become more like us. It has to become more democratic. A market economy. They have about 70 a market economy. It is a stateled market economy. He has actually moved recently to say we need to have a party member on the board of all of these companies, like alibaba and tencent, because we need to make sure they are in line with the party, so the party, in his version of political reform, it is restoring the party as the vanguard for the society of every whim, not the organization that we would imagine. Charlie going on in china today, that the party moves. Mr. Allison and if you look at that 3. 5 hours speech, on 20 different occasions, he says the party leads. Society in the next one, the party leads society. Charlie and he is the head of the party. Mr. Allison he is the head of the party, and he is rejuvenated. In his four revolutions, the most important one is to relegitimize the party, which had become quite corrupted. When you are richer than i am, you are running a fantastic company, or you are a military guy, so he is trying to relegitimize the party, and that is a pretty far stretch. The question is what should you allow me to rule when youre toning a big he is trying relegitimize the party as the authority. Charlie when you look at Popular Support, does he have a lot of Popular Support . Mr. Allison well, he does, and it is a fascinating thing. You can watch polls to get a good indicator. You do not have free polling like you have here, but pretty good. About 80 of the people think he is doing great and what do they think . About 6. 8 . Lowed to we are struggling for 2 . If somebody came around with 6. 8 , we would think we had gone to heaven. All you charlie partly because of the rising middle class. Mr. Allison millions have become middleclass, a fantastic consumerism. Secondly, you have people proud to be chinese. China is standing up and we are playing a bigger role. I would say that the Anticorruption Campaign has been very popular. Charlie what about international in terms he made note to praise what china had done in the South China Sea. We are going to continue to do that. Does china want to play a more increasing role globally . Say that is i would a good answer. The worlds best china watcher who you had on your show frequently, the founder of singapore, li chuan, i asked him, are people like xi and his buddies serious about replacing displacing the u. S. In the near future as the dominant power in asia . And he said, of course. Why not . Who could imagine otherwise . How could they not aspire to do that . Charlie theres also the question of where china is with the United States. How do they define the relationship today . Mr. Allison they would say seriously competitive. They try to dress it up a little bit, but when they wake up in the morning, and i describe this in my book, because i got from two extremely good sources, very close to the horses mouth, of people that want china carefully. What they think the u. S. Is doing to them, they think the u. S. Is trying to contain them and restrain their growth and their resumption of the great rejuvenation of the natural, strong, predominate china in the region. Charlie are we trying to do that . Mr. Allison i would say maybe in a halfhearted way. I say to my chinese friends, if we were seriously trying to do that, let me tell you the dozens of things we would be doing. You must think we are feckless, so feckless that we are doing the things we are doing, or else that does not make sense. I do not believe that is what we are trying to do. We have got to integrate them into the International System in the hope that if they are integrated, they will become more responsible, and over time, their market economy will become more democratic and they will then be a responsible stakeholder. At least, that has been our story. I think at this point, that story looks a little shaky. Charlie so what do you say to secretary tillerson, who says the u. S. China relationship has gotten out of whack in the South China Sea and that we should be paying more attention to india . India will have more population than china and has a democracy and has the capacity to become every bit as powerful as china. Mr. Allison as we talked the last time, the argument in my book is that with the rising power rattling the ruling power, we are going to go through a period of deep structural stress for a whole generation. The question of how we are going to manage it is the question we should be focused on now, and to that, i believe if we keep doing what we have recently been doing, it will turn out quite badly. I would say business as usual would likely produce history as usual and as i show history as usual is war, actually war, between the u. S. And china. I can imagine that happening. I can imagine god forbid, kim jongun pulling us into world war. For sure, nobody in china wants a war with the u. S. And nobody in china u. S. Once a war with china. Charlie and china does not what north korea to have nuclear weapons, nor have they done a lot to stop it. Mr. Allison and we have not sat down with them. In my view, im one is percent the, you were to build on it would probably be something the both of us dont like. They say, they will not have a unified korea. Say, we are not abandoning south korea. Everybody is thrilled. It is a democracy. Well, so what could we do between the two of us . I think there is some space there. We have never had people sitting down seriously talking about this subject. Charlie i find that stunning. It is dumbfounding. It did not happen in the obama administration. You have to have somebody who can go without constraints explore options guarantee you barack obama said we had that conversation with xi jinping, in california, and in other places. I would say they began that conversation, but my strong view transcriptsk at the and look at the conversations, the chinese were insistent that focusld have to shift our , which we had a military alliance with. A mechanism was discovered charlie the two china policy. We did recognize him in beijing is the capital of china. That was a bit of artful diplomacy. That degree of flexibility Charlie George bush 41 and jim baker never had that conversation . Clinton andng to others never had that conversation . Issue Korean Nuclear became an issue in the clinton administration. We were not talking to china about korea hardly at all. Tillersons whether trump isship with secure for such a discussion. Are wheregs he has with somebody for 45 minutes and you have your talking points. Kissinger and others sat around for 18 hours just talking. Didlie how much time donald trump xi jinping spend in florida . Trump said he ask him the history of china. He said to xi jinping you can solve this north korean problem. He said its complicated. He ask why is a complicated. He said let me tell you. So trump has not been a careful student of history. Charlie we talked about this idea of this trump visit. First week of november. Charlie xi jinping will know where he stands. Here is donald trump coming. He is stopping along the way to talk to everybody else before he gets here. This could be a momentous conversation. Absolutely. Charlie what should trump be asking . He shouldre in charge say to president xi jinping prospecta very real this will drag us into a war that neither of us want that would be catastrophic. North korea already did this once before in 1950. It was one year after the consolidation of power. That was the last thing he wanted was to fight superman. The u. S. Did not want to fight china. Lo and behold, we got dragged into this war and most of the americans killed were killed by chinese and most of the chinese killed in that war were killed by americans so this has happened before. Look and see what this guy is doing. Hes going to continue testing icbms, hes going to be threatening to us and then he is going to be provocative and one day the two of us are going to find ourselves where we dont want to go. Heres what i would say do. Im going to give you two people and you give me two people. They go off for three days all by themselves. Tell them no constraints. They can come back and talk to us and say anything. They can say i have to leave korea completely. They can say you have to take over the whole place. They can say you have to take over north korea and take responsibility for it, whatever. Im perfectly prepared to listen to anything. Tell them go off and find two or three ways that would be lousy, that im going to hate that would be better than the alternative. Charlie great to see you. Graham allison. Charlie zac brown is here. He is best known as the front man of the Zac Brown Band. The New York Times called the threetime Grammy Award Winning GroupCountry Musics favorite bar band. Their sixth studio album makes a return to what has made them one of the bestselling acts in Country Music. It is called, welcome home. Rolling stone is easy the album is steeped in everything that made Zac Brown Band famous. Here is zac performing the single my old man right here in our studio. He was a giant when i was just a kid was always trying to do everything he did i can still remember every me on he taught growing up learning how to be man my old he was a lion pride our fathers but i was defiant when he made me walk the line he knew how to lift me up and and when to let me fall looking back, he always had a plan man d man, my old feel the callous on his hands , and dusty overalls. Man, now i finally understand i have a lot to learn from my old man and now i am a giant i have got a son of my own hes he is always trying to go everywhere i go do the best i can to raise him up the right way hoping that he someday wants to man ke his old my old man, i know one day well eet again down, my oldking man i hope hes proud of who i am im trying to fill the boots of my old man, my old man charlie im pleased to have zac brown at this table for the first time. Welcome. Zac thank you, sir. Charlie you have this sense of understanding what makes the Country Music song work. Is it a formula, or is it what . Zac i think its just capturing a real emotion, you know. If you can take something that really makes you feel to me great art, whether its music or a painting or whatever it is, if it really makes you feel something then its working. Charlie how do you go about writing a song for you . What are you looking for to unlock that kind of emotional charge . Zac sometimes the ideas will hit in passing. Youll see something or hear somebody say something. It will kind of ring a bell. You hear something that you know youre going to believe in for a long time and that thats worthy of writing a song about. We did we did that on this new album, welcome home. This was the most personal album that weve written and we set it out to be that way. About our family and our lives and kind of the ups and downs. Charlie which of these songs do you think will surprise people the most coming from you . Zac the cover song we did is an hold john prine song. Every record we write all the songs but one. We pick one song to honor that not a lot of people may know. And we chose john prine. Charlie a song by another artist, living or dead . Give it a new zac thats right. New life, new breath. A song we think people should hear. Charlie what does it take for longevity . In other words if you want to be not just hot today, but you want to have a career, a life in music. Zac for me its really dedicating your life to music. Not wake up one day and decide i want to be a musician or figure out how to make money off the internet. This is a lifelong, i love music since i could talk, make a noise, saying. Sing. Charlie how long have you known you wanted to be a musician . Zac back then. I was singing and annoying all of my siblings and everyone else. Summer time i got to put the damn guitar down award. But i carried the guitar to school with me. It felt like home base wherever i was. If i had my guitar around i was entertained. Charlie what is your camp summer background . Zac my camp summer experience helped me. We are building a sleep away facility for kids. Kids of all different abilities, kids who may not have been in the woods before, inner city, who may have a disability. Mainstream kids who may have a poverty of spirit, kids who may grow up in a wealthy home and come up and play, box or their ipad every day and not have any perspective on how good they have it. You put them all on a equal Playing Field and teach them how to be from something outside a normal Authority Figure and you can really transform them and give them a new goal. Some of the kids that might come go back to an underprivileged area, they are aware they might be able to break a cycle. Charlie are you evolving in a particular way you might want to say through the music . Is it the same as it was 10 years ago . Zac no, i tend to be pretty free with how we do it. The last album before this one, it was a study in the range of the band. We did songs that edged up on the sirius sinatra channel. We did a rock tune and three songs go number one on the country chart. All of my band mates are very diverse and very studied in different things. Charlie whats the Common Element of all that, whether reggae, sinatra, or pop music sung by zac its either good or no. It either makes you feel something or it doesnt. Charlie sit talent youre born with or talent you learn . Zac i think its a little bit of both. Youre born to love something enough to sit behind closed doors and practice it. 20,000 hours but youre not just born able to come out and shred up a guitar. You are not born with that. Something drove you or motivated you to spend the time doing it. The word talent can be a little misused sometimes. Like wow, this guy is really talented, but i really think its the love and passion for it. The one thing i do think people are born with, they are born with hustle or theyre not and ive learned that by working with other artists. Artists that have the talents and the ability but they dont have the hustle. Theyre not willing to grind and spend the time doing it. And, like you are talking about, if someone is doing something they really love and the first person that comes along says oh, that is. You cant do that and they believe them. Thats it. For some people, the first time theyre courageous and puts themselves on a fence and open up their chest to someone and met with that kinds of you have to be stubborn enough to know what does it for you. Charlie did anybody ever tell you, or was your route different in the sense that early on somebody said youre really good at this . Zac yes, you definitely need some people who believe in you and recognize that you can do this. There are times where people say youre northwestern going to do this you need a plan be. You need to get a degree in this so if you fail youll have something to fall back on. But for me, that was a waste of energy because im not putting all my energy in making it work. I dont really believe in plan b even though i have created a bunch of stuff i love to do aside from playing music. But i definitely thing you have and holdbborn enough fast to the things you love to do. Charlie tell me about this picture. That was taken in nashville of the nights we were working in one the studio. Diego, the director of my film company took that picture. He is unbelievable. I found him on youtube. I found him on a video i saw on youtube and it was one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen. Charlie my old man, whered that come from . Zac dan foglesongs leader of the band was one of my favorite songs and that was my song for my dad. I wanted to write a song where i worthy to sing to my dad and i tried a bunch of times. Never hit it on the head. It was never good enough. Charlie for you . Zac for me to sing to my dad. I also inherited some parents along the way. My friends parents who took me in and ive always been kind of a pinball. Ive been living on my own basically since i could drive. Since i was 16. Charlie you mean supporting yourself . Zac i had some help financially , but i was living without any adult supervision from the time i turned 16. So the parents of my friend took me in one of those was a man named Rodney Shelton and i gave him the nickname a long time ago old man. He passed away a couple of years ago. He had a back surgery that went bad. He taught me a lot about making knives. He taught me a lot about working with my hands. The old lion line in there was for him and when he passed away, thats when that song came to be. Charlie his death inspired you to write the song . Zac it did, but its also that song that ive been waiting, its good enough to sing to my dad, and its for the dads who stepped in when they didnt have to be that and hopefully people will want to call or connect with their dad when they hear it , and thats the goal. Its definitely an emotional song. Charlie i would take you an interesting story that happened to me. I was on some red carpet and somebody came over to me and said who would you have most like to have interviewed but didnt . I said without thinking much but instinctively, my father. And for a month after that, men of all ages would come over to me. They would say what you said about your dad is exactly the way i feel about my dad. If i could have had one more conversation, it would be with my dad. Zac sure. And now that im a dad, i see it from that perspective too. My son is three years old, and thats a fullcircle thing. Hoping that he wants to be like me like i want to be like my dad. Charlie and we all want to please our dad too. You said this is a return to minimalism for you . Zac it is. Back to basics. This one got back to the first one we ever did called the foundation. All the songs were crafted for this album, written to be personal and written to get back to that album for this project. Charlie james taylor is an inspiration for you . Zac big time. When i was sixth, seventh grade, my mom had me listening to jim taylor, gordon lightfoot. Great music. Great guitar players, great lyricist. The james taylor greatest hits tape, i played two of them until they snapped. I was listening to them in seventh grade. Nirvana was out then. And there were a lot of other things that were out. Back then some of the kids made fun of me saying i was listening to rocking chair music. But it spoke to me, and james taylor is one of my top three all time. Charlies this album is the Zac Brown Band. Welcome home. Its great to have you here. A pleasure to have you on the program. Thank you, sir. Charlie keep it up. All right. I have seen the moon a million times and my heart knows a way back home when the wind sings that old familiar song cause ive been all around the world seen things that no one would believe thought i was living in a movie on that giant Silver Screen been, everywhere we have it kills me every time maybe id be satisfied if i could be two places at one time two places at one time how can i keep what i got when i dont know what im missing miss . Gone,y family when im and i am gone, gone, gone because ive been all around this world seen things that no one would believe never thought id move so many people that gave this life to me out of everywhere ive been what kills me every time if a man could just devise maybe id be satisfied if i could be two places at one time wo places at one time two places at one time alisa you are watching bloomberg technology. This is first word news. Trump and Joseph Dunford said that the families of the People Killed in niger deserve answers. President trump was with singapores Prime Minister for a contract with boeing was signed. The Prime Minister said that the relations between the countries are prospering. Trump meets with t