Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20171018

Presidency as he talked about, the awesome power of responsibility of the presidency, that is when we could explore who he really was in that time of his life. Glor Forbes Magazine at 100 and lbj, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following 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. Glor Forbes Magazine was founded 100 years ago this september. Bc forbes, a scottish immigrant accomplished business journalist began the magazine to chronicle and celebrate the world of american business. Since then, forbes has become more than just a magazine growing into a media and Technology Company as well. To celebrate the magazines 710 yell forbes amassed a to z enpsychencyclopedia of the 100 t business finds which each penned an original essay for the occasion. Joining me to discuss the future of this iconic brand is steve forbes, he is editor in chief and chairman of forbes media. Mike federle is 43 and chief operating officer, randall lane is the current editor of Forbes Magazine. I am very pleased to have all of them at this table. Welcome, gentlemen. Steve let me start with you. What was forbes then and what is forbes now . I think in spirit forbes is the same today and i think it really was put in the fishes issue when we grandfathered it in 1917 when he said, business was originated for the purpose of producing happiness, not to pile up money, not the to pile up millions. He believed in what we now call entrepreneurial capitalism so he is like a drama critic, loved it when something is done right, hated it when things are done wrong. For example he went after henry ford for the way he treated his employees, so he wanted the best side of capitalism because he thought thats all how we got a chance to rise up as he did as a penally less, penniless immigrant. It showed his entrepreneurial spirit starting a great magazine in the year of the great war and the same year as the russian 0 revolution, we took pride at the end of the cold war my grandfathers creation, the capitalist tool survived lenins creation, the soviet union, so it beat come nig in, communism. Glor , communism. Glor there is a fascinating gorbachev story want to talk about. First the magazine got some traction to start. William Randolph Hurst offered to buy it. Yes. It was the only time he was a syndicated columnist for lawyers and he allows him to continue and my grandfather was the only person hurst allowed to have something on the side of the, that hurst didnt own. In 1928 he offered the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars to buy my grandfather out and my grandfather proudly turned it down. He was a staunch independent fellow, and a couple of years ys later he has reason to regret it because the depression came and the magazine was bankrupt in all but name. He had a, had to really scratch and couldnt cash his own paychecks for years and put them in a safe because there wasnt money in the bank. Glor how close was the magazine to going under. It almost did and thats why he had to rely on freelance writing. He had to scratch his savings, every penny he had and he also instituted what the employees called scott week, every fourth week you didnt get paid, it was equivalent of 25 percent pay cut, but people then in those desperate times were glad to have a job. And one of his proudest moments is years later being able to cash those checks that had piled up in the safe because there wasnt money in the bank at the time. Glor talk a little bit, steve, if you could about leadership and the transition and the the changes from bc, your grandfather, to malcolm, your father, to yourself. Well, this gets to something that peter drucker, management guru who died several years ago who is still in Business Schools today, businesses should always remind themselves what is your purpose . What are you trying to do . In our case in this belief in can entrepreneurial capitalism, i believe that spirit allowed us to survive when the internet rose up, shattered everything we did, even after world war 2, forbes was done by freelancers, my father made the transition to having it staff written which was the way to get good articles in a timely way then, so he made a huge transitions in the 40s and 50s, became very statistically oriented, grading mutual funds and the like and then in the nineties and the early 2,000s, when the web destroyed everything we thought we knew about the print industry, we were able to make the transition to the new age. Glor but even before the web came along you were constantly having to find new ways to get attention for the magazine, one of them was the richest list which started in 19. 1982. Glor 82. And this underscores too one of the things that always undermines businesses, you get comfortable doing what you are doing. My father came up with the idea of doing what he called the forbes 400 based on party of decades ago, the top 400 people in new york so thats how he picked the number. The Editorial Department resisted and said it is crazy, the information is not there. There, it is a waste of time, they did a quote study which they said it is impossible and my father said, okay, i will do it, i will hire the people, grade some of your people and do it. Okay, okay. We will do it. Huge success. Huge success. They told your dad there is no way we can do this, impossible. Impossible. They were resistant and had ernest conversations, i remember, oh, we cant do this. The information is not there. The problemmers and fund raisers are going to descend on these people and it turned out to be immensely popular because one it showed who was making the wealth and also how much the list has changed over the years. The first list had tons of dupont it is, rockefellers, none of those names are on it today. Glor new money. New money, a constant flux in the strength of the american economy. Things dont stay the same. People rise up. And so the names on today, i guarantee in 20 years half of them wont be there. Glor one of the disinteresting and honest parts i think of the hundredth anniversary you wrote, which is really interesting piece of history is how aggressively and lavishly forbes has always courted the advertisers. And you talk about the sailing in particular in this article. Thats right. Well, my father is always interested in boats and so being a good entrepreneur he figured out how to combine in this interest with marketing in a way that a normal company wouldnt even think of doing. So we got a series of yachts named the highlander, we had five of them over the years, and they people would think oh that is just extrav against no, it is my fathers scottish genes at work, how do you invest in a way that gives a big return so almost every night they would have advertisers, agency people, ceos and the type and my brothers and i and my sister when we were growing up we had, we attended many of these occasions and we always had to memorize who was on there, why they are on there. And we had to do our part to sell the magazine. My father always said you better know where your bread is buttered, you better help us out doing it. Glor the 75th Anniversary Party we talked about, this is with reagan after he leftovers. Right. Glor and gorbachev. Gorbachev as well. Glor what happened there . Well, we had the radio city music hall a couple of thousand people, and we thought it would be great to bring the man who brought down communism, Ronald Reagan, instrumental and the man who made it possible, a peaceful transition from communism, gorbachev, bring them together for an event each speaking and having a great time. Just before the event, gorbachev made demands, he wanted to go out alone, he said you are exploiting me. And by golly i thought, oh, my goll, this whole thing is going to collapse, how do i go out there and say the show is not on . Because all of this is superintendent negotiated beforehand . Yes question had gone over this a ton, many times with his people piece by piece by piece, timeline by timeline, just to make sure nothing went wrong. And it almost did. So reagan was gritting his teeth and nancy reagan was rolling her eyes and gorbachev was egging them on, i never forgave her for that and finally we god the feathers smooth and reagan gave a very good speech ashes lot of funny lines and 0 gorbachev gave a speech and said steve forbes tries to eckersley exploit me and everybody thought he was humorous and didnt know he meant it. You know. Glor it all worked out in the end. It did. My god. Glor talk a little bit as well about your brother, if you could. Because from you mentioned the online part of this. He played, has played a role in this. Yes. My brother tim, he recognized probably more than any of us what the web was going to do with, what the internet was going to do to print and we had to make adjustments. For example, in 20 years ago, when we went online, most publishers thought you put a printed page online, that was electronic publishing, which is like 120 years ago some people thought you filmed a stage play, and that was a feature film and movies were invented. No way. And so we had a separate building, separate staff, separate reporting lines and then we finally combined them after ten years, after the thing began robust, we most of our content was not from the magazine, most you could take most print websites today, most of it is already prepared in print there, 99 percent of ours isnt and my brother tim several years ago decided we were going to make the next move which is bringing o on this fellow lewis deboer kin as chief product officer and today our content, yes, we still print 1,000 articles a year, but online now we have over 1,700 contracted contributors, who will write in various areas of expertise so we virtually produce a magazine each day, and my brother glor you are terrible at selling the brand. You are good at it. My father brought me up well. He said sell, son, sell. Which brings us to the transition and the future as well, because randall you run the magazine now. Mike, you are president , so from your pe perspective what is fors and what do you want forbes to be . Yes. Well, forbes as steve said and i should start by telling anyone who is watching this, we no longer have scott week, so if you want to come work at forbes, there is no longer scotch week. There you go. We do have an occasional scotch but not a scotch week. But, no, forbes is this tremendous brand around the world. It is incredible, we have this mantra there to try to make our business as big it is a brand and people, including myself, dont recognize how incredibly wellknown around the world the brand is, and the potential there for growth. So that is how, you know, when you look at 100yearold, you know, the magazine and the history there which provides real journalism and gravitous, gravitas plus this new model of the Contributor Network which we are talking about which gives us this incredible sustainable scale, the combination of the two is really compelling. Yes, the magazine randall is still very important to we are actually at the highest print leadership in our 100 year history over the last few years so people are still reading the print magazine and the more we do great journalism in print, of course we are putting it right online and again through this incredible muscle through forbes. Com, i mean, we have last month we had 59 Million People according to com score, it is not a zero sum game which is the old media cliche you have a magazine or if you have a website it is going to take away, the the more success we have online the more success we are having in print, the more success we have in print the more online and translates to a lot of events, licensing, we have 38 foreign editions around the world it through shia global brand. Yo you are not shutting down Printing Presses . We again, we have 38 editions around the world and expanding Printing Presses if you look at the entire world but it is the forbes cover, it is funny because we have this 30 on 30 list which is kind of our new list, you know, the rich list, and if you ask a millennial and you, you know, first of all they all aspire to be on the cover of forbes one day and even if 0 you have someone participant and profile you they all ask the same question will it be in print . Because in an era where content is ubiquitous and universal, the fact that, you know, once a month there, once a month or so we take a step back and we put absolute great fact checked heavily researched, heavily edited journalism in a print magazine it still is very strong, a great window on our brand and again because of the frankly do great journalism. E people still want to see the cover and see their face on the cover. Something tangible. Of a magazine. They want something tangible. And we have probably more rap songs than any magazine in the world, and in some ways it plays off, forbes means success, and that is something that is universal and that is not a fad and it is not something that is just constrained to the united states, a and that is part of the strength we have right now. Steve, i find it interesting what mike said you are trying to make the company as big it is a brand. Yes. Tell us more about that. Well, we are in the media business, but in terms of the companies we often profile, multibillion dollars, zillion Dollar Companies we are not there yell, we are starting to move there, but one of the things around the world is because of the success of our brand, entrepreneurs feel that they we understand what they are trying to do, and so our task is now going into areas like education, natural we have a partnership now, we are going to be doing more of that, and in other areas, where they call it brand extension. But it is a natural. Glor so is forbes a Media Company, an education company, a tech company . What is it . It is primarily media in terms of information. We are providing you the tools to succeed in life by analyses, writing about others from whom you can learn, each force story tries to have a lesson, a little morality tale that you can take away, not just a piece of information but something, ah, that relating to something i am trying to do or want to do or did do, and so you feel you are getting something out of it more than just a piece of news or information. We say, again, from a business perspective, we are a global media, and branding company with technology at the center of what we do. That is kind of how, again, we approach the business, technology is driving distribution these days, these large audiences efficiencies in business plus other opportunities, but the Media Company plus the brand, which is quite unique to us, i think we have this incredible composition. And even 100th anniversary cover we have Warren Buffett the holding the original, the last remaining whole issue of Forbes Magazine, but we also have him coming off the cover in Artificial Intelligence and ai and have an information with Warren Buffett shooting off the cover so technology really being at the center, even of an old print magazine. I think this weeks issue has President Trump on the cover, right . Yes, inside trumps head. You talked to him. I did. How was that . 15 we shot that at the oval office at the resolute desk, jf confident, jfk and Ronald Reagan used, how is submit we have a forbes 400 as president now and someone we had a 35 years relationship with and again it shows the resonance of what we are covering, but, you know, he is making very interesting we have again a very long relationship with him and we were able to bring different perspectives i think. Who by your estimation is down in value. Yes, he is having a bad week, we have him down this week, forbes 400 came out and he with have him down 3. 7 to 3. 1 billion. New York Real Estate is down and also less people are going to his golf courses in part because people are voting with their pocketbook in terms of playing golf but we have a whole team, i mean, it is funny because people think, you know, where do these numbers come from and i did a year, on the forbes 400 we have a team of 20 people all they are doing is around the world, you know, getting under the hood and digging and hooking at records so this all had backup behind it. We have a cover here from 1990, which asks, how much is donald really worth . Yes. 27 years ago the question we are still asking the question. Who is being asked. Steve, how is it, these numbers are calculated . Whether it is donald trump or Something Else . Well, you at a first the public information, then you go into records, a lot of public records, a lot of competitors, banks off the record will tell you, if you dig, it is amazing what is out there, and then you two to the source themselves and say, sheer what we got, so we are in effect on to you, do you want to help us or do you want to hinder us . But we are going to do an estimate, and many people, most people end up cooperating. Now they are not always happy, we had several years ago we had a fellow call up hide dungeon berating us for it, he didnt dispute the estimate, he seemed we finally found out the reason he was in the middle of a divorce and his wife didnt know how much he was worth. True story. So people do have visceral reactions to these the numbers when they hear them, though . Yes, and even we find that even those we say oh i really dont want to be on it secretly see it as a badge of recognition. We, there are a lot of people who want to be higher, and there are people who want to be lower, and it is our job to check everybody, it seems like nobody is exactly happy about where they are which i guess is a metaphor for there is one way to get off the list we tell everyone because we all get it from time to time, how do i get off this list . And it is to five away your money. So if you dont have it it is irrelevant rec. Irrevocable. Well, you know what . It is not so bad to be on the list. How has that one of the things that this underscores is, wealth is not tangible stuff, it can change. A piece of equipment can be worth x today and zero tomorrow because of technology. And that is the amazing thing. It is really all about the mind. Not physical things. Glor but Technology Technology has changed this list dramatically over the years. Yes. The dynamism that steve talked about is so true we had over 35 years more than 1,600 people circle through the forbes 400, it is a met appear for what is great about america, which is this is not this is not we dont have an Economic System where a bunch of feudal families stay on top, a even over 35 years you have seen almost universal turnover, maybe 50 people left from that originalist, so that is why forbes works, because, you know, what is great about america is what is great about forbes, everybody has a shot. Everybody has a chance. And all you need is an idea and a lot of pluck and maybe some luck and you can be on the forbes 400. It sounds corny but one of the great things Warren Buffett said at the anniversary celebration he said of 1,600 on the 400 list the one thing they have in common, none were short sellers. What a great quote. From Warren Buffett there, the greatest of a long buyer of alltime. Mike, so where else do you want the brand to be besides the magazine . Well, as i said, globally, we have 38 licensees, which 26 languages, 68 or so countries, 26 websites. And as we create a network like that around the world, that opens up all sorts of opportunities, one, around, you know, what we are calling a Global Alliance of bringing people together in groups around the world and doing, you know, introductions with to one of the great things that forbes is able to do is convene the movers and shakers or the doers and doings of the world so there are opportunities like that, there is also, as steve mentioned education is one of the great growth areas for us. We have a full Degree Program in Forbes School of business. And we are now looking a lookine of a skills based program, which as you talk to educators that is more attune to what the current economy is, more so even than fouryear Degree Programs. And steve, so what is the forbes future the brand . In asia, for example . And, well, we have these local language editions, but all of them have a common thread, entrepreneurship, moving ahead, creating resources doing things that had. Been done before, opening up opportunities for people, and we think we are doing our part to make this i hate to use the word because it is now politically charged but global economy, and when another country when other people do well, we do well. The prosperity lifts us all up as the opportunity, has the opportunity to lift all of us up so we feel by writing about these people, discovering them, criticizing where they go wrong, we are doing, playing a key role in enabling other entrepreneurs to do in other parts of the world what entrepreneurs did in the united states. Since you went there, let me ask you, i mean, how does that global world then play into America First . Well, it is one thing to say you are proud of your country and you want the economy to do well because if we dont do well the rest of the world is in trouble but i think it also, though, we are part and parcel, we learned that in the 1930s when we did try to shut ourselves off from the world, first by trade wars and then sadly a world war, and we learned, we can be strong, we can be prideful of america, but we also have to deal with the rest of the world in a way in which we cooperate together and if they do well, we do well. Prosperous world is a food world for us. When the world isnt prosperous as we saw in the 1930s and sort of in the 1970s, bad for us. How do you think the president is doing . That well, i am glad what he is doing in deregulation but the key thing for all of the noise out there is he going to get at that big tax cut . If he he gets that in the past prosperity covers a multitude of sins. I am surprised you brought up taxings. Do you think it happens . I think it will. It is called the instinct of selfpreservation, Samuel Johnson a great fell flow in england 200 years ago wrote the first dictionary, modern English Dictionary once said the prospect of a hanging focuses a mans mind wonderfully, the spros expect prospect of a political hanging i think will focus republican minds, you better get a big tax cut, you are not going to change the whole code but you better get it done or some of you are going to become uber drivers after next years elections. Where do you want to see change most . The overall, the corporate side, but you have to do it on the personal side, after all, economies are people. Glor and flat taxes . I see this as a first step. In a long journey. Glor you want no get you still think that is a possibility some day . Yes. Because 40 countries around the world have done it in jurisdictions, it has worked extremely well so this isnt any longer a laboratory idea. It has worked in the real world. And i hope after this tax bill, just as Ronald Reagan, you have got a big tax cut in the first term, then a Major Overhaul in the second term, and i am hopig for a replay here and get a big tax cut here and get a series where we get to simplicity because just, if we adjusted taking all of the resources in the past 20 years, those tens of trillions of, trillions of dollars we spent two to 300 billions a year complying with in code, go back these years all of those 10s of billions of hours hit rally trillions of dollars could have been applied to new products and new services, new cures for diseases how much better off we would be, but the economist call an opportunity cost, as trump would say, huge. So it is a scandal we are waiversing this time on this idiot code instead of doing more trucks five things. Productive things. Glor thank you all very much. Steve forbes, mike federle and randall lane thank you much. Lbj is the new film from rob reiner, woody hairline a son portrays the boisterous texas politician as he advances from senator to Vice President to president in the 1960s. Variety calls the film a pro steakly engrossing buy open pick, here is the trailer for lbj. Convention fever grips los angeles, the Senate Majority leader Lyndon Johnson. Delegates are meeting with kennedy right now. Teddy. Christ this place is infested. In an surprising upset senator john kennedy has won the west. What . Hi, jack, do you mind if i ask you a question, lyndon . You are out of your damned mind, jack, all of the liberals hate it. We need southerners. Power in the vice presidency. Power is where power goes. I take it you dont do a lot of deer hunting. John kennedy has been elected president of the united states. I need to show a strong record on civil rights, and they might listen to us. What makes you think he is on our side . Kennedy must really hate you. The boys are not going to tell us how to run the state of georgia. You are going to lose the support of the people who always had your back. This train is leaving the station. You can hop on with me and try to slow the damn thing down. If i am going to make a run in 68, i am going to need people like me. Shut the door. How could anybody not like him . We have got Martin Luther king it is an embarrassment around the world. You submit this bill now it will never become law. What are we waiting for . A new leader has emerged. America has a southern president. He dont, you dont waste any time, lyndon. Excuse me . I would rather not have it than have it this way. Kennedy is a man of brave ideas. And this country needs a man who can deliver. There will be no compromise. This is about making president kennedys vision a reality. This will define your presidency. I can only hope. Glor joining me now director rob reiner and starwood difficult harrelson, welcome to both of you. Thank you for having us. Glor so, rob, this moves because you took a finite period of time here, the years just before j p. K. s assassination and immediately after, why did you decide to approach lbj in that way . Well, we wanted to look at lbj as a complete person, and if we were going to do a biopic of lbj you need 10 hours or 12 hours to go from his, you know, childhood in west texas and the hill country all the way through his legislative rise to power and becoming the Vice President and then president. What we wanted to do is just, if we could limit the, you know, it is like in greek, you know, drama terms you try to limit the time frame so that you can explore a character more fully, and that is what we tried to do with this. I personally hated Lyndon Johnson when i was young. I was of draft age during that time because of vietnam and he could have sent me to my death, but what i have discovered as time has gone by and i have worked in government, i have spent time with Public Policy and politics, i had a greater appreciation for what he was able to accomplish and i felt that that moment in his life when he assumes the presidency, as he talks about, the awesome power of responsibility of the presidency, that is when we could explore who he really was, and in that time of his life. Lbj seems to be having a bit of a moment here. I mean there has been a lot of talk recently, i mean, there are books which you have read and ad are fascinating but there has been these new approaches to his life, sympathetic looks at his life. On the other hand, the movie takes an unsympathetic look to folks who i think might be surprised by, including Bobby Kennedy, who comes off not looking good at all in this movie. I mean, in relationship to Lyndon Johnson, because all we are looking at is, we are looking at Lyndon Johnson, we e looking at how bobby felt out Lyndon Johnson and they were enemies, i mean they didnt like each other and antagonist antagonists so from that standpoint, yes, we dont get into Bobby Kennedys life story or Jack Kennedys life story, it is about how it relates to the Lyndon Johnson, so, yes, i mean, the thing about lip don johnson is, he was complex. I mean, this guy was like a shakespearean character, he, you know, had it not been for the vietnam war he would have gone down as one of the great president s of alltime but you cant overlook the vietnam war, it was there, and so he is, you know, it is a flawed character. It is a flawed character. And that is what makes it interesting and hopefully it sheds some new light on who he was as a person, because he wasnt just a bull in a china shop and a lot of times you see, you know, portrayals of him where, you know, he is arm twisting and she a bully and so on, but he had a very sensitive side and very insecure about who he was, fear of being loved, fear of the moving forward, and frightened to death of what might happen if he isnt loved about how he functions, so we wanted to have a full picture of him, thats why i wanted woody, because i dont think anybody could have played this part the way woody does. Glor so other than spending seven hours in the makeup chair. It wasnt seven. Glor what how long was it, by the way . Two hours in the morning and then an hour to take it off. Glor so what was it that drew you to tell me about his life. Well, you know, it is interesting because rob and i have very similar in th sense that i i didnt really like lbj. I was thinking to myself, this guy is such, you know, what he did in vietnam is really hard to forgive, you know, and another friend of mine, also named rob, had tried to convince me to play lbj movie and i Just Department think like i say, i dont like the guy i am not going to do it. He said wellread this book, i are a ted book it didnt change my mind but it softened my approach toward him. I cant remember which book it was now, but then not long after that, rob asked me and i was like, well, rob reiner wants me to do it, i might have to play this part. And then the more i read about him and learned about him i just couldnt qualify him as a bad guy, you know, i really think he did a lot of good, yeah, you cant overlook vietnam, but i definitely think he did a lot of good things. Glor i am interesting, why do you have to, why do you have to like a character or a person to play that role . I dont know. I think if you are going to invest yourself in someone, it was like with larry flynt, you know, it is like i will go meet larry flynt and i wanted to work with a similar thing, i will go neat larry flynt and if i dont like him i wont play him. And i dont know. And i ended up liking him, and we are still friends today. There are some things he does i dont love but i love his 10 million offer that he has going, that is kind of interesting. But you have to feel a persons humanity, you know, if he is going to be the devil, or he is going to be, you know, all evil, it is hard to play that, i mean you want to play you want to find where the humanity is in that guy and thats what you try to do, i mean reading door kiss goodwin concerns book is eye opening to me because i found a couple of things in there that changed the way i thought of Lyndon Johnson one is he had a recurring dream he was paralyzed, that he would dream about being paralyzed the other thing was he feared his mother didnt love him at times, and so those things i thought would be an interesting way of looking at him so he is not just, you know, twodimensional. I find that interesting so what else do you think it was about what doris saw that robert didnt focus on . I mean, when you are reading all of that, what i mean, doris worked with lbj, she worked in the lbj white house and she went down to the ranch in texas to do his biography, so she knew him personally and i think was able to get some personal things out of him, the robert car row is the ultimately biographer of lbj and anything you want to know about his life and what he did. Legislatively and also his political life and his rise to power you read robert carol and he will tell you but just from the personal standpoint, that always stuck out to me. Glor so where was lyndon the whole movie revolves around the civil rights bill, and lbjs progression on it and then instrumental role in eventually seeing it past. How did he evolve . Well, i think it is, again, very complex. If you look at him. He came from a very poor area of texas, west texas, the hill country, and he understood poverty, no question about it, he was raised in it, understood it, his Great Society was all about the war on poverty and trying to lift people out of poverty. So somewhere in there he knew that this was the right thing to be done. He also knew that he was a legislator, and he wanted to make sure he got things done. He viewed himself as a texan, as a werner, and yet people talked to him about as a southerner. So he was more than happy to take that mantle and use it to be able to bridge between the south and the north in passing the legislation. And i dont believe he felt he could get it done when kennedy was alive and thats why he argues, you will see he, it will never become law he knew it was didnt right time, but when kennedy was assassinated he saw an opportunity to do something historic and get it passed and he was a consummate legislator and politician. So, yes, was he did he evolve . I dont know. I think he always had a bit of that in him, but it never came out until he saw where it could be a legislative win. Glor there is some very crude talk and some crude scenes a in the movie, i mean these over the top scenes that are some of the most memorable parts about the movie, can you talk about those at all and between negotiating with the fellow legislator while also on the phone with his taylor a at the same time and people will have to see it to fully appreciate the language in there, there is the toilet scene as well, i mean, he didnt sort of hold back in terms of his language. Yeah, in in fact i think we kind of held back. He was a little more extreme than that. But, you know, as he was different as a statesman, you know, you have got some politicians who are just very vulgar in public, like this guy as a statesman was very conscientious of that, but, you know, in private, yeah he didnt he really let it go. And i like that scene, both of those scenes are well documented, you know, the one where he is on the toilet talking. There are recordings of it, there are. Oh, yes, yes, the scene where he is altering the pants. The most famous recording of him the one where he is ordering his pants. You cant repeat any of it here, no. And it was interesting because we screened this film at the lbj library, and lucy baines was there and we were nervous as heck, i mean we got out there, we were so nervous because the film was over, woody and i go up on the stage, and they are going to interview us, and there is a q and a and i am scared, i mean she is sifting there in the front row and all i care about is what does she think about this guy and the relationship to her mother . And i asked her, i said what did you think . And she stood up very formal, very petite and stood up, and said the man i saw on the screen tonight is the man i knew. And that was it. That was it. To me, thats all thats all we had to hear. Thats nice. Yeah ks yes. Glor so how did he approach you about doing this . I cant say you called me up. I called you up. Yes. And are you interested . Well, you know, i couldnt be 100 percent because i just had been telling my other friend how i would never play Lyndon Johnson and then of course i wanted to work with rob, and then i read the script, jerry heart stone wrote it and it is fantastic script, and then i just, you know, and then it just a all fell into place. And, you know, we met, we talked about it, and, you know, he expressed his doubts, he said, you know, i dont know about this guy. I mean, vietnam war, all of this. A over. And i said listen, i am the same way, the man could have sent me to my death i am worried about this guy, but take a look here, if we take a look maybe there is something more to this guy than what we know, and i think that is what welshes and also johnson is i think it is not like you had to work that hard. He is one of the greatest living filmmakers and it is just i wanted to work with rob. I am so psyched i got to work with him, and since then i did another movie with him. So listen this is the first time you have worked together . The first time. We acted in a movie together but i dont think we had any scenes. I had scenes with Matthew Mcconaughey but i didnt have any scenes with you, mtv. Yes. We never acted, never as a director and an actor. No, so is your process when you are saying yes to a role, is it typically very deliberative or is it instinctual . Is it different depending on the role . I mean, i do think, you know, the main things are, the script, is the script great . Is the story great . Is the sorry, does the story, does the story have heart to submit is there a trait director . And then the. Great director. And then the tissue area consideration is the other actors but the first to two are the most important thing, good story, good script, you know, good director. And i lucked out, i lushed out in a huge wear. Because i didnt think i could tell this story if we were just going to da i needed somebody who has some humanity that woody has, se from texas, and he also has sense of humor and i wanted to make a full rounded picture of lbj and i dont think i could have done it without him. I dont know who else i would have been able to cast and have all of those qualities, that has that that could display the vulnerability that lbj had at times. Glor i want to ask you about we talked about the some of the crude talk assistance and it is sort of like subtly evil and chilling scenes almost when lbj and Richard Russell and the very powerful senator from georgia are talking about civil rights and we talked about this before a little bit, one of the striking things about this scene is that it just sort of sneaks up on you because they are having this frank and offensive discussion about civil rights and they are being served by an africanamerican there, like without any recognition of what is taking right around them. Right. And i think that is the way a lot of people in that time period, especially from the south, viewed that, and when lbj was with Richard Russell, he acted differently than when he was with lets say the kennedys and he talks about it, and he says i am the only one who talks kennedy and southern, so he knew the things to talk about with Richard Russell but by that point th the scene you are talkg about, you see lbj start to make a little bit of a change and he is trying to push Richard Russell, if you notice early on, he is always trying to push Richard Russell a little bit further than he is willing to go, then Richard Russell is, is willing to go and we see the incredible negotiating gifts that lbj has in doing that. But that was the time, people, you know, of that ilk, they talked like that in front of africanamerican people. Glor but for lbj, what is the term, endless compromise. Right. Initially thats what he is thinking. She thinking, there is no way we are going to get the civil rights done. There is, it is just not going to be moved in congress. No way. So if i can just, you know, placate this one side, may indicate the other side, placate the other side, somehow i can survive and if i can survivor and get more power then maybe at some point i can achieve what i want. Glor and so how did you all shoot you didnt shoot it chronologically, how long did it take . Talk about the shooting process. Well, it took about 27, 28 days,. Glor fast . Fast. The toughest scene was the daily plaza and recreated the assassination in daily plaza and only had six hours. We did it in less than six hours but they only gave us six hours because they said you have to get off the streets, you blocking the street, they gave i it to us and we were able to do it and i am really proud of how we did that scene. That is an economy of motion right there, to be able to do that whole thing, because it really does play such a significant part in the way you had to keep building to that, building yes. Because the whole movie takes place literally within a twoweek period from the time kennedy lands at love field in dallas to the time Lyndon Johnson delivers the speech in front of the joint session of congress, and it plays off of the assassination. Glor . So as a director and writer yourself as well, what did you learn from him . Well, i mean, he is the true great consummate professional who really understands like, you know, he knows, okay, i will use this for i am just going to use this angle for that piece and i you know, he has it all kind of blocked out, like a puzzle in his head, you know, and so i love the way he, you know, he is able to shoot so effectively with so little i mean, most of the time we were done in like by lunch, you know we would go home at lunch, i mean you have the whole day . Are you sure. That scene at daily plaza, we had i had like four cameras there, and i had them go around like three times around the daily plaza so like three shots and 12 angles, basically but i had picked out all of those angles ahead of time, i knew exactly where i wanted the camera each time we went around, so and even one of them i gave a guy a camera and made him be abrahams and i stood the guy upton stanchion where he was and he had a copper camera and we used some of that footage you see the car come up from out behind the sign and all of that so glor . The other interesting part that does get a lot of attention is what happened immediately after, and then lbj being shuffled off to the hospital and the decision about when to make the announcement that kennedy was dead. Right, right. And you see the skills that lyndon john son has when he takes charge. And when he takes charges charge, you see a real president in action, there is a moment we have where they come in and say kennedy has died. And we cut to Lyndon Johnson and all of the people are staring at him and he is sitting in a corner, and he just stands up, it is just one shot, woody standing up as Lyndon Johnson and becomes the president at that point and he gives the directions over okay you are going to go here, you going to go here and this is what we are going to do and he takes charge and that is the confidence he had, and then he drifts back to being insecure and he has to be built back up again. So it is a really interesting dynamic of a guy who has all the confidence in the world and all of the insecurity in the world. While he continues to deal with the problems that bobby was presenting to him, and that is he didnt want the Office Cleared out that quickly, necessarily, he was he was grieving. Right. He was. I mean, he was devastated by the loss of his brother and i had conversations with Bobby Kennedy junior who is a friend of mine, and he said he was devastated for the period right after the assassination. He was, it was hard for him to even function. And it was hard for him so we tried to show that, a moment in the oval office when Bobby Kennedy is alone and he puts his hand and his head on jacks rocking chair and starts to cry, so i mean, we try to show that as well. But they were antagonist there is is no question about it, bobby and lyndon were antagonists. Glor do you like doing political stuff . Well, not necessarily. But i like doing this one. I really and i love how it turned out. I couldnt tell, you know, when we were shooting how it would turn out and then i went over to his office and we like, you know that was nerveracking. That was 0 so nerveracking. Well the two of us are just sitting there in the cutting room, because i wanted to show him the film. And we are eating and stuff, right . And finally it is like well do you want to see this thing . And now the two of us are just sitting there and i am thinking, you know, most actors, myself included, we dont like looking at ourselves on the screen you see all of the flaws and the problems and i am thinking, and i asked him, are you one of these actors that doesnt like anything . And he said, welshes i dont know, and i appositing and going, oh, god, please, please let him like this and then when it is over, he goes, it is really good, i really like it. I was like, whoa, i am so we were both relieved. Relieved. Yes. I was really quite blown aaway with it, i think you did an amazing job of it. Glor you do keep coming back to politics. Why . Well, it is part of, i guess it is part of my dna, you know, my parents were politically active, you know, and when i was young growing up, my mother was against the vietnam war, my father both, my father marched in a moratorium and my matter was a part of mothers for peace, they had the famous poster, war is unhealthy for children and other living things, and so she was a part of that and so i guess i not raised in it, and so it always has been a part of my life, yes. Glor and so when people e this, what would you like them to take away from it. Well a couple of things, one is this is the way government is supposed to work. This is the way a real president is supposed to conduct his job, thats number one, number 2, the issue of race, which stays with us and is bubbled back future the surface again because of what is going on with our president and how he is kind of giving, you know, a voice and a megaphone and we are still dealing with it. When we started making the movie, trump wasnt in office, and we were making another movie, you know, about a president , the issue of civil rights is at the center of it but a lot of movies have been made, good movies about the civil rights movement, about race relations, and so here is another one, but all of a sudden it takes on greater importance because of the atmosphere that we are living in right now. So hopefully they will take some of that away and again how government is supposed to function. Glor same question to you. Do you, what do you hope people will see . Well i never really have an opinion about this. I just, you know, i hope people see it. What they take away from it is their prerogative, but, you know, i do agree with you, like here was a guy who in some ways he has been wronged by history, you know, because you always associate, you associate him with vietnam and i do think that he accomplished a lot, what and by the way, it is ironic how much of what he accomplished is now being undone by trump, you know, whether it be the clean water act, clean air act, you know, anything, head start. Medicaid. Yes. So to just feel like, you know, maybe lbj wasnt all bad. Well we dont even get to that, the Great Society, we like i said we revolve around the civil rights bill. But we dont even see the passage of the civil rights bill. He gives that speech to congress and subsequently that gets passed plus the Voting Rights act which is, which also has been, you know, hampered by the courts. Glor what is next for you . Well, we did another movie, it is called shock and awe, which just premiered at the surf rich film fest central a couple of weeks ago and it is all about the runup to the war in iraq and about these four journal lists from night raider news service who got it all right, against against a lot of journalist whose, journalist whose got it wrong, and, you know, bought into the administrations thoughts about, you know, weapons of mass destruction, connection to al qaeda, and Saddam Hussein and these guys got it right, so woody plays one of the four journalists, i am in the movie, actually, this time, i am trying to be a better i am trying to act with these guys, with Tommy Lee Jones, you know, you get with good difficult and Tommy Lee Jones these are great actors so you are playing tennis with good they hit it to you so you can hit it back. Glor they hit it flush. They hit it flush, nice. Glor and 0 you got shock and awe, star wars. Yes. I did, you know, a movie just before the star wars one which i shot it it is something that happened in my life, it is called lost in london, and shot in realtime, and in 99 minutes, and live streamed it simultaneously into theaters while we shot it. And, into like 500 theaters here, this is back actually in january. And you keep talking about this but i didnt see it at the time and waynt to see it now. It is one of the great film accomplishments of alltime, i mean it is just astounding. No, no as a filmmaker and somebody who is a director to watch that he he was able to use 14 different locations, tons of actors, one camera, one shot, the whole thing, it is just astounding when you look at it, plus it is a great script and he acts in it and he directs it and there is owen wilson and Willie Nelson and woody harrelson. There are three sons. Son, son, and son. He, it just streamed that nice night but you are going to release it . Yes, i am going to release it, yeah, but now i have to get in and figure out how to do that, so i havent figured that part out yet. Glor it is a shame you guys dont like each other. No, listen i have said this before, if i can make every movie with him, i would be the happiest guy in the world, it is such a pleasure. I would be happy too about that. We will do more, we will do more. Good. Glor thank you guys for being here, rob reiner and woody harrelson, fun. Thanks for having us. Am a appreciate it. For more about this program and early episodes visit us online at pbs. Org an charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by bank of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. Announcer this is nightly business repor tyi ty and sue herera. Up, up, and away. The dow closes above 23,000 for the first time ever. And it is led by an unlikely stock ibm. Stepping down. Long time American Express ceo plans to retire early next year. And the stock initially falls. Housing headache. There arent enough houses. There arent enough workers to build them. And the problem appears to be getting worse. Those stories and more tonight on nightly Business Report for wednesday, october 18th. Good evening, everyone, and welcome. The wall street bull pushed its way through a big round number. For the first time ever, the dow closed above