Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20240622

Thats what brings us here today. Now, not everyone here is a scientist. laughter but some of you are among the best scientists in the world, and what you and your colleagues have been showing us for years now is that human activities are changing the climate in dangerous ways. Levels of Carbon Dioxide which heats up our atmosphere are higher than they have been in 800,000 years. 2014 was the planets warmest year on record, and we have been setting a lot of records in terms of warmest years over the last decade. One year doesnt make a trend, but 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have falo fallen withe first 15 years of this century. Climate change is no longer just the future were predicting for your children and grandchildren, its about the reality were living with every day right now. The pentagon says the Climate Change poses immediate risks to our National Security. While we cant say any single weather event is entirely caused by Climate Change, weve seen stronger storms, deeper droughts, longer wildfire seasons. Charleston and miami now flood at high tide. Shrinking ice caps force National Geographic to make the biggest change in its at las since the soviet union broke apart. Over the past three decades, nationwide asthma rates have more than doubled, and Climate Change puts those americans at greater risk of landing in the hospital. As one of americas governors has said, we are the first generation to feel the impact of Climate Change and the last generation that can do something about it. And thats why i committed the United States to leading the world on this challenge. Because i believe there is such a thing as being too late. Rose with the big Republican Debate on thursday night, al hunt on the story with dr. Benjamin carson, a republican president ial candidate. If you look at the experience of everyone in congress today, it comes out to 9,000 years, yet where has that really gotten us . Its possible to gain experience from a lot of different areas. This country rose from nowhere to the pinnacle of the world very quickly, and it wasnt necessarily because we had a lot of experience with politicians rose we conclude with marc maron, comedian famous for podcast with president obama. It came down to where do i go. Brettman said, he wants to come to the garage. I said, thats ridiculous, hes coming to my house . They said, thats what he wants is the experience of it. He wants that. I was concerned with connecting with him personally. I knew i couldnt do a softball interview and it had to be somewhat in depth, and i was hoping to find out who he is as a person in a genuine way and thats what i ended up doing. Rose al hunt with dr. Ben carson and marc maron, when we continue. Ow rose has been provided by additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Hunt dr. Benjamin carson is one of the worlds preeminent pediatric neurosurgeons. At 33, he became director of pediatric nero surgery at johns hopkins. He is author of half a dozen best selling books, one of which was made into a Television Program about his life. Earlier this year he announced his candidacy for republican nomination of the president of the United States. One fact cited by critics and admirers alike, he has no political experience in political or public life. They disagree on whether thats a credential or liability. We are pleased to welcome dr. Benjamin solomon carson to the table. Welcome. Thank you. Hunt we know you are a great surgeon, and because you have operated on our son. America has not elected any president who totally lacked political experience. Why would ben carson be different and good . The collective political experience of everyone in Congress Comes out to 9,000 years and where has that gotten us . This country rose from nowhere to the pinnacle of the world quickly, and it wasnt necessarily because we have had experienced politicians. Hunt we have had as president s. Reagan and bush had political experience, roosevelt. But my point being you can get experience from lots of different areas. Hunt let me ask it this way, would it be different if you wanted to hire a Baltimore Ravens coach who didnt have any football background or take a really smart person with no medical background and say, we want you to do brain surgery. People have asked me that before and i always say, it requires an enormous amount of knowledge, for instance, to become a neurosurgeon, not the kind of knowledge that you can acquire in a year or two yearcnl now and open the lid on the engine, your Immediate Response is to shut it back down. Its so complex and corrupt and intricate. And i dont want to spend, you know, 15 years learning all the tintricacies of that engine, i can get plenty of people who know that. Hunt what have you learned about yourself and america that you didnt know about a couple of years ago . Well, what learned about america is there are a lot of people who are frightened, who are very, very unhappy about the direction, and they feel we are losing our country. A lot of people have even given up. What ive learned about myself is that i couldnt do what i wanted to, to sit back and relax, knowing this was going on, having spent hunt you knew you were never going to sit back and relax, dr. Carson. Well, i really was planning on it and my wife was planning on it, after decades of 12 to 16 hours a day, she said, i finally get my husband back. But, you know, knowing what could potentially happen to the next generation, it would be impossible to relax. Hunt in the early stages, you made a number of what i think could have been called gaffs. You said gay is a choice and talked about obama and parallels to the nazis. You pretty much ended that. Is that because of something you learned or you just had tough handlers that stopped you from doing it . No, i learned that when you use certain terms and phrases, people cant hear anything beyond that. So even though, for instance, take the nazi comment, my point was that, you know, most of those people in germany did not believe in what hitler but doing, but did they open their mouths . No. Did they say anything . Did they try to stop it . They did not. Therefore, you could have all the good intentions in the world, but the you dont do something, you may as well just sit down. Hunt that is interpreted as were in danger of moving the same way nazi germany did, and you dont believe that. Well, of course not, but my point being, you know, if people actually listened to what you were saying, they would have a completely different takeaway burks they wont do that when you use certain phrases, so i learned that. Hunt donald trump is dominating everything, seems, these tas. Hes pulled the head of everybody. Up until the donald, you were the only genuine outside, the only nonpolitician. So going back to our original question, what do you offer that donald trump doesnt offer . That will be something i really think should be defined by the voters themselves. Hunt you have to make your case. They should listen very carefully, but the case i will make is i have spent a great deal of time solving very complex problems, problems that no ones ever been able to solve before, and its not necessarily because im the smartest person that ever existed, its because you know how to put together the right kinds of resources to solve complex problems. Hunt wouldnt you say the same thing about build hog tells and golf courses and and let me continue. Hunt im sorry. And then there are very few people who are going to be on that stage who have spent more time in Corporate Board rooms than i have, figuring out how to make things run efficiently both in this country and internationally, and im not aware of anyone whos put together a nonprofit that, as you know, nine out of ten fail, and ours not only has succeed but has won Major National awards only given to one organization in the country. That requires a lot of organizational skill and knowhow. All of those things do. Hunt kind of hard to see the donald in the operating room. laughter he is your friend and neighbor. He is. Hunt in florida. I know that. Do you agree with him on most stuff . Most of the things weve talked about, yeah, i would say that there is harmony there. One of the nice things about the political process we have is that it is a marathon, not a sprint, so, over the course of time, people will have an opportunity to really hear our solutions for various things, not just myself and donald trump, but the entire gamut of everybody whos running. And over the course of time, as they get to really know who we are, not who other people have said we are, but they actually get a chance to see who we are, i think people will make the right decisions. Hunt lets get to the solutions. One final question about donald trump. You have been very forthright about criticizing democrats for political correct necessary and playing the race card on occasion. You have been very critical of that. Not just democrats, but anybody. Hunt let me ask you about donald trump. Donald trump was the one who started the monstrously false charge barack obama was not born in america. Its almost impossible to imagine him doing that against a white politician. Does that bother you he raised the birther issue in seemingly racial tones . I dont know that it was in racial tones. First of all, let me just put it out on the table, i dont believe that that is true, that he was born somewhere else. Hunt ettes been proven he wasnt. Right. But i can understand why somebody who specifically blocks a lot of his record would caw cause somebody to become suspicious. I understand that. Hunt there was a birth announcement in a hawaii newspaper. It wasnt just something that came out of the blue. Academic records, things of that. Hunt you dont think that was loony, the 9 11 truthers, the elvis is just around the corner . Heres my point why if youre running for public office, in particular president of the United States, why would you go through such lengths to hide important parts of your history . Hunt i dont think he really did. Who hid the academic records . Hunt no one says, you know, is joh was john kerry born america. Let me tell you why i bring that particular issue up. You know, having spent many years in academia, when somebody goes from a place like alcollege to columbia university, thats a pretty big jump, and it would be informative to find out how that occurred. When you hide Something Like that, it makes people suspicious. Hunt lets move on. Im not sure what was hidden, but lets move on to the issues you were talk about and lets start with the economy, because i understand your proposal is a 10 cut in spending across the board exempting the fence. Is that basically accurate . Well, whether its 10 or some other percentage, the point is that it needs to be across board because the reason that we have such difficulty getting things cut in washington is because everybody has their pet projects. Hunt the Social Security cut roughly 10 . I would cut all programs or things that are supporting parts of that program. Let me tell you about Social Security. The way its working right now, as you probably know, were going to run out of money sometime in the 20s, probably the late 2020s. We need to do something to stabilize it. Now, when we put that program into place, the average age of death was 63, and now were approaching 80, and we havent made the appropriate adjustments. Hunt the age is raised but would you also cut the again fits . I would offer people the ability to opt out of receiving the check in lieu of tax credit. Now, obviously, only certain people would be able to take advantage of that, but at least probably 20 of our population could take advantage of that. That would immediately alleviate a lot of the strain on the Social Security program, and then give you the possibility of enacting gradual raises for people under age 556789 over that age, i think we probably shouldnt touch it. Hunt would you cut medical research, n. I. H. Everything across the board. There is no other twie get it done, because of questions like that. Hunt but you said not defense, right . Well, what i would do with defense is you have to bring defense back to the appropriate level. When you get you must recognize that the Current Administration has cut nearly a trillion dollars out of defense. Hunt so when you have things like theyre going to build 2,443 f35s. A new long range bomber, new nuclear sub to replace the ohio class. Are you saying you might cut some and not others . Let me put this into perspective for you. Right now, our navy, the vessels are at the smallest level since 1917. In a recent testimony on capitol hill, the commandant of the marine corps said half of the nondeployed units are not combat ready. When you look at our air force, its in dismal shape, and you look at our Nuclear Arsenal, its archaic. At the same time, you look at what putin is doing with the russian arsenal, look at what the chinese are doing. And theyre building new aircraft carriers. Theyre trying to, you know, dominate space now. I mean, when you stop and you think about hunt would you increase spending for space . You think about the world that were living in right now, the hostilities that are going to be directed toward us, we can be very polyanish, stick our heads in the sand, yeah, everythings going to be okay, or we can look around, see whats going on and recognize if we dont get defense right, pretty much nothing else is going to matter. Hunt let me ask one or two more economic questions. On the tax side, i think you said that, really inspired by the bible, you favor a flat tax, somewhere between 10 and 15 . Would you do away with charitables and Home Mortgage deductions . Yeah, a proportional tax. I like to use 10 because its easy to do the math. So everybody pays. You make 10 billion a year, you pay a billion. You pay 10 a year, you pay one. You get rid of all the deductions, all the loopholes, because those are the things that make the system unfair. Hunt no charitable writeoffs. No charitable writeoffs. But some say, all charity will go away at that point. But is that really true . In 1913, when we enacted the federal income tax, were people not charitable before that . Of course they were, and they will continue to be charitable. Its part of who we are. Hunt would you do away with the earned income tax credit for the working poor . I would get rid of all deductions and all loopholes because, whenever you have them, people migrate toward them. They manipulate things to take advantage of them. We find much better ways to take care of people. And particularly when were talking about the poor, the indigent people in our society, for which i have great compassion, having lived that life, i recognize that they would appreciate much more than a pat on the head and say, there, there, you poor little thing, were going to take care of you. What they would really appreciate is us fixing the economy and providing the appropriate ladder for them to climb up and become part of the fabric of the success of this nation. Hunt one thing we dont know about dr. Carson is who he would turn to for economic advice because you havent been in the public arena. What top economic officials or former economists, give us a couple a president carson would turn to for advice. I like art lather and others. I have had an enormous number of interactions with people in the business world. Hunt was c. E. O. Really strike your fancy . When i look at people who have been able to accomplish amazing things, you look at someone like the founder of costco, even on a number of political things we dont necessarily agree, in terms of business and Business Savvy and economics, hes a genius. Hunt how about donald trump, would you put him in the carson cabinet . There is no one of the people who are running that i wouldnt consider as someone who could be extraordinarily helpful. Hunt let me ask you the same question about National Security and foreign policy. Who would be the two or three either former top officials or people that you talked to . Youve spent a lot of time talking to people over the last year that you would really turn to for advice on National Security and foreign policy. Again, until i get their permission to release, but the one whose permission i do have permission to release is general dees who has enormous experience, but ive talked to numerous generals you know as well as people in the c. I. A. And experts in foreign affairs. I think everyone will be hopefully delightfully surprised during the debates when we get to the part on foreign affairs. Starting thursday . Yes. Hunt whats the greatest National Security threat facing america . We have so many incredible National Security threats. Let me put it this way, on day one of a Carson Administration, i would be looking to do everything we can to quickly shore up our military, and im very concerned in the immediate term about jihadists, both here embedded and those who are abroad. In the longer term, im more concerned about putin and the chinese. But i think there are multiple threats. We also have to look at the fact that, you know, our grid is very vulnerable, is very old. All it would really take is an explosion of a Nuclear Weapon in our exoatmosphere. We dont have the backup systems necessary to protect us. Hunt Lindsey Graham said he would send at least 10,000 Ground Troops to take on i. S. I. S. In the middle east, and youve said you would be open to sending Ground Troops there. Does 10,000 sound sufficient, too few . Whats the carson doctrine on how many Ground Troops to send over there . The carson doctrine is we would have to understand why we would need Ground Troops. The jihadists want to establish a caliphate, requires land. Theyve already acquired about half of iraq and about a third of syria. Theyre getting foothold now in tunisia, nigeria and other parts of the world. This is one of the reasons they look victorious and run of the reasons theyre able to attract people. We need to stop that perception. In order to stop that perception, we have to be able to take the land from them. Hunt so what kind of force do you think that would require . In order to take the land from them, i would have to do that in consultation with generals but a i think its relatively foolish for me to just throw a number out. Hunt im not saying a number, 11,000 or 8,000, but does 10,000 sound ballparkish or do you need more . Some people may say we need 50,000. You might need more but one thing need to recognize, when we take the appropriate leadership role, the coalition wes talk about, they will begin to come because people like to get on a bandwagon when its winning. But when were just sort of hanging back, theyre not going out there. Hunt if putin invaded ukraine, what would the carson response be . I think hes already responsible for some of the things going down there. Hunt if he were to try to take over the whole country, what would the Carson Administration do. Bear in mind ukraine was a nuclear state. They banned their Nuclear Arsenal partially because we said we would protect them. Now, weve had eastern ukraine, you know, invaded and have we protected them . No, we have not. We wont even give them offensive weapons. So i would definitely support them with offensive weapons and, if that wasnt enough, other things as well because hunt do you mean potentially American Forces . If necessary. Hunt if necessary. We have to be people of our word. Everybody else is looking at what were doing. Theyre looking at what were doing with israel, with ukraine, and if our friends cant come, how are we going to develop friends . You get more of what you Pay Attention to and right now we seem to pay more attention of our enemies. Hunt let me ask you a final question. You are a man of deep faith and have been since you were a teenager. Do you believe god has called upon you to be president . Let me put it this way i have sought grad great wisdom nt only from other people but ive prayed a lot about it because it wasnt something i was gungho to do, and i just said, lord, if you really want me to do this, you need to open the doors, im not going to push them open. And, of course, all the pundits and experts said a neophyte, someone who has no connections, its impossible, dont even think about it. Yet, doors are opening. So i just said, lord, as long as you open the doors, i will walk through them, and if you close them, i will sit down. Hunt well, as you walk through those doors, save travels, dr. Carson, both on the campaign trail and debate stage and, thank you, dr. Carson, for joining us. Thank you, al, always wonderful to be with you. Hunt well be back in just a moment. Rose marc maron is here, comedian and host of wtf podcast. He had an interview with president obama and star of the loosely biographical series maron, concluding the thirdsine. In this scene, his character encounters trouble calling the internet company. Well he didnt fix it. He left two minutes ago and its doing the same thing as before. Do you have your repair number . Yes. 474 4328989. Nope, not coming up. Give you another one. Ready . A as in apropos,s as in shame, 4 as in for, 7, 8, l as in lama, o as in o orifice, 1. Im going to send one. Great. Because whatever is happening here is clearly not working. Hello, mr. Maron, how may i provide you with Excellent Service today . You can fix my internet. Very good. Let me apologize for the problems you have been experiencing. Whatever, lets just fix it. And im going to help you with that. My name is jeff. middle eastern accent all right, whats your real name . Jeffrey. I think we know whats happening here. If you could focus on your internet, would you turn on your modem . No, what if youre lying about who you are . Mr. Maron, im going to schedule a specialist to come to your home tomorrow between 8 00 a. M. And noon if its most convenient. Anything else, sir . Yes, except youre full of bleep , jeff. laughter i havent seen that in a while. Its funny. Rose you think of yourself i mean, watching that as an actor, a comedian or journalist . Certainly comedian first. Everything followed that. Comedy is what i wanted to be. I can calm myself and believe im a standup comic first and foremost. I know a lot of my success and attention came from talking to people burks im still wary of calling myself a journalist. Hunt because . Because i dont see that i do that. Hunt its not that you dont believe you have those qualities, its simply that the truth is youre most of all a comedian. Well, no, its because, when i interview people or i talk to people, like its my understanding that youre a journalist that, you know hunt oh, no, no, im a comedian. You came up with a journalist. Theres a method there, so i felt it would be wrong of me to assume i was that, you know, who, when, where, what, why, what are you looking for, being selfless or at least object nigh an interview, there are certain tenets of journal im i never learned and dont follow. Rose i wasnt trained as a journalist, you know, and i know a lot of journalists who were trained and brilliant journalists but not necessarily good interviewers or conversationalist and not question and answer people. Its a different kind of competency. For me, it was all driven by an emotional need. I think when i first got labeled the journalist is when i interviewed carlos mancias and i didnt ask the right questions and he sort of steam rolled me and i had to do a second interview because the one i got was not rose acceptable. Ight, so i had to go back and do almost a more interrogative, you know, conscious questioning. Hunt driven by your curiosity. By that and also the need to make sure we talked about what was important, what the issue was. Its not always its rarely there are issues to be talked about with my guests, necessarily. Hunt well, the president . Yes, thats the exception. Yes, there are some things that had to be addressed but i was not looking for a political interview, really. Hunt what were you looking for . Well, i was given the opportunity. The white house reached out, and i hunt what did they say when you reached out . I think they talked to my producer, brenlden mcdonald, about a year ago and said, you know, look, were thinking about doing something. It wasnt even clear. It was sort of, like, youre on our radar, some of us here like the show, i dont know whats going to happen but were just saying hi. Hunt yeah. And brendan told me that and im, like, thats crazy, im, like, im glad someone listens in the white house but this isnt going to happen. Then we stayed in touch and it became clear it might happen. And im, like, i can do it, im ready and honored. It came down to its happening. Then im where do i go . Brendan said, he wants you to come to the garage. I said thats ridiculous, hes coming to my little house . They said, he wants that experience. So what i was concerned with most is connecting with him personally and going from there. I knew i couldnt do a softball interview and i knew it had to be somewhat in depth but i was hoping to find who he was or is as a person, you know, in a genuine way. Thats sort of what i end up doing, but its a little trickier when youre dealing with rose whats the difference between a hard ball and softball interview, in your eyes, because i think people use those terms with abandon and ill fitting. I think we live in a culture where a lot of whats being called journalism is people finding a thing and saying, ooh, whats that story about. And i dont do that. Im very respectful. For me, i dont know what hard ball is. For me, a hard ball question is when i know i have to ask it and i know it might be uncomfortable and how am i going to gauge my question after that. Rose with respect to the president , what question would you think it would be hard ball because it would be uncomfortable wrchlts politicians, when they dont want to answer a question, they answer whatever one they want. You say, where are we . Rose and five minutes later you say, can we get back to my question. Right, and hold them to it. I asked him directly as my what is my own framing of what i see wrong with politics. Im more reactnary than research. When i said there is more things in the presidency that are middle management, and who does he really work for. I think he got that but didnt aired that directly. So, to me, i was nervous to ask that question because i thought it would be insultings in a way. He got it but didnt address where i wanted to go with it. Again, when you ever an hour with that guy and you know hes going to take some time if he wants to to answer a question, you know, i had to get a lot of stuff in. And the bigger issue with obama for me was that, you know, i just sat at home, spent a week and read the book he wrote before he was president , it was an exploration of his identity racially and personally, to see who he was, who he is, whats in there. Hunt about his phat. Rose about his father. Yeah. But i get home from hawaii wednesday, we already promoted the show a bit. Brendan my producer had flown to l. A. And meet with the secret service and get the thing going 4 t rju n÷ happens in charlest. So were sitting there 10 30 at night and knew the only thing that would stop this would be a horrible thing internationally and its happened and, you know, im sure hes going to have to stay and deal with this. We said to that, what are we going to do . Hes the president and it was a horrible thing. But we waited it out and the next morning they said he was coming and we still werent clear if he would come to my house but the white house said he is going to come. So then we had to address that because there was going to be three days before we put the interview out, and he was going to be addressing it somehow the following week and days, and it was the right thing to do. Rose absolutely. Of course. And i can handle it. So we had to aired some Supreme Court stuff and talk about charleston and we talked about it. It was an incredible change of tone. Because thee guys are professionals, you know that. So when he comes into my driveway which was tented with snipers on my neighbors roofs, which i asked them if we could do that. Rose the guy coming in with a gun laughter yeah, i said to my neighbor, can we put two snipers up there . Hes retired, hes thrilled, said this is the best thing. Rose can i join them . Secret service for a day. laughter yeah. So he walks in, voces a very overwhelming moment. Because to stay focused, it is a very solitaire there is no distractions here. Rose a reason for that. Yeah, its good. But my garage is cluttered for a reason as well, but the fact is i had 15, 20 secret Service People around, lapd, staff and all i was thinking was i have to connect with this guy, president barack obama. The point being, when he came up, a lot of people were coming up on the driveway, i was told to stand in front of the garage and all of a sudden i see the president say, marc pats me on the back and said, were going to have a good time, right . And i said, well, i dont know, a couple of bad things have happened in the past couple of days laughter but i think he was prepared to have a lighthearted, slightly candid conversation, and after a few minutes he called me a narcissist because there is a lot of artwork around my garage people do of me, and after five minutes we bring that up. I feel a shift and i dont think he knew thats what we were going to do. And out of that came a very focused and human response. But it was a powerful statement about race, and another very sort of powerful condemnation of guns and how theyre not regulated in this country, and he basically said that the n. R. A. Has a strong hold on congress that probably is not going to be shaken. So theres a little bit of real stuff about where he was standing rose but my point is, it was exactly the place to go, you knew exactly what to ask him. Whats going on in this country . There is one incident after another. This one is atrocious because it happened in a place of worship, it happened with people young people losing their life. But its not the first incident and its not the last incident and it continues to happen. Yeah, and i think he was very straight and plain about that. This doesnt happen in other places. Other places dont accommodate it. Rose i think you can do it because youre real and its not like im out to get you, im out to understand. Yeah. He said some beautiful stuff about fear les fearlessness whin a conversation about comedy and he said some interesting stuff about the nature of democracy and its pace, and i think that was in retrospect, what was the most interesting to me about my experience with him is that i did feel a real person and i did feel he was a thoughtful guy. You know, almost like more thoughtful than you would expect. You know, he didnt strike me as some president s where, you know, id like to have a beer with that guy. I imagine if you went to a party and saw obama, you would be, like, whats that guy thinking about . He acts like he has a lot on his mind, that guy. Rose seems preoccupied. Exactly. But at the time he did the show, he said the reason im doing this is to get people interested in politics, and it wasnt about rose get people interested in my politics. A bit, but hes discouraged with the distance. I noticed after the show, the response is whether youre on the right or left or whatever, after a first term and well into a second term you sort of detach from the president , hes just a guy who makes speeches sometimes, and i think the left had sort of decided that they were disappointed, as the right, and i think that he felt disconnected, and the response rose whats interesting to me, i think he thinks about those things more and better than most politicians and certainly president s because he wishes to dialogue and he believes in the dialogue. Everything you know about him, he believes in the dialogue. He believes in it internally as he makes decisions, he believes in it with respect the other countries and dealing with common problems, he believes it in conversations with iran. He sent his people to see if the iranians would want to have a discussion to get somewhere, and they got somewhere. Somewhere. Right. Rose but he believes in dialogue and he also thinks about why is it we cant have more dialogue . He said, i cant talk about certain things because they get so polarized. You know, if we talk about income inequality, people say its class warfare. Its not class warfare, were talking about issues we need to talk about, and we need to do that and i think he believes in that and thats the reason he reaches out to people like you because you ill let him talk. Rose because youre wise enough to have a real conversation. Youre not trying to score off the president. Right. Rose youre trying to get him to think out loud. Right, and i think what he said within the interview about the echo chamber and the reason dialogue is diminished is it becomes about you know, someone says class warfare, that gets traction, so there is no dialogue. It wasnt even use. He said the n word to make a point about using the n word in relation to progress in racial relations in this country. Then later talks about the echo chamber to be a diminishing force in the dialogue and it happened with that sound byte. Rose exactly right. You could walk out of there and know what the lead wit was. Rose right. The president used the n word. And there has been progress but you cant base it on trivial things. Rose i was so focused ton having a oneonone experience with him that all i wanted to do is connect with this guy and i would have flashes that, oh, my god, im talking to the frigging president , the president was at my house what kind of world do we live in . Its amazing its unbelievable. I could not believe it. Im told the secret service is all over. Im waiting, playing guitar, im in my house, trying to stay in a groove where i dont get overwhelmed, and the secret service said theyll give me a heads up when hes five minutes away. So the plan is he was going to take the car pool, whats it called, you know, all the cars rose right. We both have the same brain glitch. So the motorcade. Rose the motorcade. So take the motorcade from the Beverly Hills airport to the santa monica airport, get on a helicopter, fly to pasadena and park it in the parking lot and come to my house. We have a guy, five sets of headphones running in and out so people listen and were sitting on the deck and we see the ospreys and the secret service guy said, oh, hes coming. I dont even need a head up. Hes probably 15 minutes away, thats his vehicle right now. laughter it was pretty exciting. The neighborhood was quiet, not a car parked anywhere. People lined the street, had a weird tent. Rose whats the aftermath of all this . Do you hear from the president . Oh, we talk every day, charlie. Rose he had jon stewart down to the white house to advise him on foreign policy. Does he call you up and say, well, do you think im handling this deal okay . I wish i could tell you he texted me twice and i couldnt get back to him, enough, already laughter no, his relationship with stewart is specific. I think there is been no contact other than he left his togo cup in my house. They travel with a food person and he has his own togo cup with the president ial seal and the cocktail napkin with the president ial seal. Rose so he left it. Yeah, he left it. The fundamental difference between me and jon is jon has this outlet constantly in the dialogue and the daily show is an institution and he has a relationship with the president. Me, the guy leaves the cup and im, like, how do i frame that . I have a glass dome that sits in my garage, the president s cup and napkin. Rose look but dont touch. Ight, and thats what i got. I got the profound honor of being able to speak with a sitle president as candidly as we did. There was nobody in the room. A secret service guy behind me, no restrictions or management on me. Rose but you had time. I did a 45minute interview with him, and just called and said, hey, what are you doing sunday, and we went down and had this conversation. He could only do 45 because he was flying off to a recital by one of his kids. But the point is thats a lengthy interview for this president. Yeah. Rose and, you know, it is those times that you really hope that you can get to see the guy more so than you do did you feel like you did . Rose i did. And then its weird, when youre jaded and you have been doing this long enough, you walk out and go, was that really him . I felt like it was weird. He put me at ease fairly quickly and he planted himself in the environment because i have a lot of clutter and i could almost see him do it. When he sat around, looked, commented on it, brought it to me and hes, like, okay, hes in the room. Hes not thinking about the next thing, hes here, and that was a lot. Rose where does all this go from here . Well, where it goes is after all is said and done, i do a specific type of show, and i just got back to business. I was asked by somebody, like a fairly one person asked me this question as a journalist, and i wish i could remember the guys name. He goes, are you going to interview candidates now . Im, like, no, i dont want to get back into that. I interviewed the president of the United States of america. Were not talking candidates. Hes the president. Im not getting involved in politics again, are you crazy . Rose the phenomenon of whats happened to you in terms of podcast and all that, tell me more about where you think they are and what it is that makes them sort of giving people who might not have had access to the mainstream a chance to be part of the National Dialogue so much so that the president wants to come talk to you . The freedom to do and be your own boss and i think well, for me, you know, my podcast is sort of born out of a certain desperation. I had done a little wad radio ad comedy for a long time but it wasnt really happening. I knew this medium existed, there were several people who had been around for a while and i asked the guy who produce mid radio, i said, brendan, do you think we can do this . He said, sure. We committed to a new show monday and thursday no matter what. He had done radio and i did a little, and he knew to build an audience we would have to have regulator. Rose they would have to know where to find you. Right. What happened, is, over several interviews, who knows what makes someone compelling in that format. A lot of people do radio and anyone can do a podcast. Why did it take off . A mixture of guests and the medium is new. The medium grew around the same arc of mine in it. I knew i helped the medium but it became visible because of the guest i had and the way i was doing it. So i think whats happening in terms of the paradigm shifting out of terrestrial radio a bit, and more people are seeking the stuff out, the ability to listen on your time schedule and build a relationship with talents now in this medium, there are thousands of people doing it. Whos going to transcend . I dont know. Its an open marketplace. Rose it is. Its hard to say how. Its a bit like what stewart said, when you hear it, you know there is some x factor at work that makes it distinct and different and compelling. Im just glad i have that. Rose well, its better you say, yes, i know what it is, this is the formula and it worked for me. But you cant have a formula. You have to be who you. Are im doing speaking now and you want to be encouraging but you have to preface that with its probably not going to work out. Theres a mixture of desperation and talent and, you know, a certain amount of skill. Rose the other thing about it, and we do some of similar kinds of things, is that everybody in the world thinks, hey, id love to do that and, boy, could i do it well. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rose of course, i can talk. Give me a mic, ready to go rose exactly. And in the seventh minute, theyre saying, oh, my, where do i go from here . Thats a bad feeling. I make notes as i go along and i like to talk to people, but i have been in a couple of situations where i rely so much on a conversation happening, and there were a couple of situations where the guy i was talking to was not into conversation because he was waiting for questions. Rose right. And it was rough for me. It was harry stanton. I had actually gone to his home. I dont think he knew me, the show was set up through a publicist. I had just watched a document rion him. Rose great actor. Yeah, great actor. I had been through a lot of hollywood history. I watched the documentary about him that spanned a few years and they could barely get him to talk and it took years to make it. The arrogance of me, i watched it and thought, im going to get them, a stranger, im going up there. Rose and . He was tough. He was doing his cross word and smoking rose did he know it was tough . No. Rose he was depending on you. He was. But i made the mistake. Ive only done this twice in all 600 shows where i felt i had to somehow explain myself like, you know, i had a hard time and didnt get through. I did it and eventually what we ended up doing is including the filmmaker of the documentary on the broadcast, we interviewed her as well. But people said, hes in his 80s. Hes like my grandfather. What do you think hes going to give you . Rose thats right, but Clint Eastwood would be different. Hes an interesting guy, a buddhist kind of dude and he literally said he didnt remember the movies he was in. I know he did. There was this part of him i think i may have put him off a little bit when i questioned his continuing to smoke into his 80s. Rose when he was at this table, i think he smoked. How did you do it . Rose i dont remember it being desperate. All right. laughter rose great to have you here. Thanks for having me, charlie. Appreciate it. Rose thanks for joining us. For this and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose on the next pbs newshour, a report from hungary on the wave of migrants fleeing war and poverty for a better life in europe. Announcer the following kqed production was produced in high definition. Must have soup the pancake is to die for it was a gutbomb, but i liked it. I actually fantasized in private moments about the food i had. I didnt like it. You didnt like it . Dining here makes me feel rich. And what about dessert . Pecan pie . Sweet potato pie