Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20141007

From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Init is the first monday october and the u. S. Supreme court opened its 20142015 term it declined to rule on the issue of gay marriage. Five states banned samesex marriage. It also announced they would be hearing some other important cases. Joining me from washington is jeffrey toobin. Tell me about the new Supreme Court term on the first monday in october. What we know is what it will not include. Final climactic battle over whether there is a constitutional right to samesex marriage. In a surprise to many people, including me, the Supreme Court today denied or refused to hear five cases where Circuits Court of appeals held that there is a constitutional right to samesex marriage. In fact, the decision today brings to 30 the number of states that will have samesex marriage. What it does not issue a ruling for all 50 states about whether there is a right to samesex marriage. So they are kicking the can down the road a little farther. But the direction seems to be clear. Are they looking for the perfect case here . Not think that is it so much as they are looking to see, first of all, is there a conflict between Appellate Court rulings on this issue . So far, every Appellate Court that has decided this case has decided it the same way. That there is a constitutional right to samesex marriage. The interesting question, there are a couple of more conservative circuits, including based inircuit, cincinnati, where those panels may say there is not a right to samesex marriage. So it could come back to the Supreme Court as early as this term to address this question. But it seems to me the justices want to let this percolate for little while longer before they address it. About this is a rap music case. It is such a bizarre case. It is yet another example of how Technology Changes the law. There is a couple that was romantically involved and the man they had a big fight and the man posted a bunch of really terrible things on facebook that were, at the very least, malevolent and offensive and possibly threatening. He was prosecuted for making terrorists threats, including citing some rap music. The question is, are those statements on facebook protected by the First Amendment . The other case is hope versus , deciding whether a muslim prison inmate may grow a halfinch beard, which is against regulations. Right. There have been related cases involving religious accommodation of prisoners. How much do you have to accommodate . Is there a right to kosher or food . All food or hilal there are related cases in the military. Not to force someone wear a yarmulke because it is not military regulations . But this case poses the interest in prison discipline and security versus religious expression. It seems to me the beard is a pretty easy case, that they will allow the beard to be worn. Likely to year significantly define the legacy of chief Justice Roberts . Well, i think it is a little early to say that. There are two things to keep an eye on here that are related. One is race discrimination. Court the conservative majority, and Anthony Kennedy is very much with this, really has a great this taste for any sort of ,onsideration of race affirmative action, racial preferences and admissions. And there is a case involving housing discrimination, which gives them another opportunity to say we are not going to recognize anything other than direct discrimination. I do not hire you. I am not allowing you to read a house because you are black. Any sort of statistical proof, they do not like. In a similar way on Voting Rights. Any sort of consideration of race in Voting Rights is something that is clearly distasteful. There is a case out of alabama that i think the conservatives will use to further narrow the traditional civil rights agendas. Very much worth keeping an ion. Thank you for joining us. We will be right back. There is more high legal drama in washington. Concernsthat the about the government 2008 bailout of aig. They were rescued at the height of the economic crisis. Since 2011, they have taken aggressive aim at the terms of that rescue. His lawsuit argues that the government cheated shareholders out of 40 billion. Trial began last week and continues this week. A list of star witnesses include an bernanke, hank paulson, tim geithner. Im joined by Aaron Kessler of the New York Times and leslie scism of the wall street journal. Give me the significance of this suit, which ise to recover some money. The case is significant because it really challenges what the government was doing. Since then, they have put in place measures for how you would result companies result resolve companies if they get in financial trouble. This would be a big smack in the face of the federal government. Not having this carried out, this particular refuge. And this is the first these guys have been under oath to , and by aeir actions very good trial lawyer, who has not only read their book, but got information about the writing of their books and what they have said, every possible note or utterance they have made about this case. Recites lee. Precisely. They have testified extensively in congress. So they are used to getting testimony. But they may not be used to the bulldog approach that they are going to face with david here. What do you think . I think you are correct. You have a situation where the government bailed out aig and then they come back years later and say it was not enough. It is one of those things where the government believes if aig had the ability to dictate the terms of their own bailout, that sets a dangerous president for any other Company Going forward. Precedent for any other Company Going forward. I want to add to that. The company run by Hank Greenberg maintains that the government wrongly applied , wronglyterms penalized it. The government said we were not so much being punitive as we were concerned about moral hazard. We felt we had to put together we did not want to encourage other companies to be reckless and think they could come to us and think they could get a better deal than they could from the private sector. Will david moyes be able to make the case that, somehow, the terms in this situation were different from the terms with other banks and, therefore, they went beyond the law in the collateral they demanded as well as the Interest Rates they imposed . Certainly, they have already raised that at the trial, just the first week. The memos have the government officials admitting that was the case, that it was a harsher penalty for aig. The government has said, look, we are justified to do that. We have reasons we felt it was necessary and legal. In terms of the basic tenets of whether or not aig was treated differently, it is almost like that has already been decided. Exactly. Testifiedon, today, under oath that it was apples to oranges, some of these comparisons that david moyes was bringing up about proper treatment for aig versus other companies. He said, we were acting based on the circumstances in this case. It will be interesting to see matter judge does it that one got a different set of conditions than many others did . Questionas the hardest for hank paulson today . He struggled a little bit on a question about china. He seemed to take issue with the Chinese Government coming in to save the day for aig. He was skeptical that that would happen. Mr. Moyes tried to press him on that. Whether he was open to the idea of a chinese rescue, and hank paulson pushed back the hardest he did all day on that idea. , from timnanke geithner, these were three people at the center of the financial crisis. How difficult a road is this for david to climb . He has several challenges. He has to prove that the government went beyond the reaches of the Federal Reserve statute. On top of that, he may have to prove damages and Economic Loss to aig. Judgef he convinces the that the government did something wrong here, the government may still be able to say, where is the harm . They cannot prove that they were hurt by anything we did. It seems like david does have a pretty hard case, but he has gotten a lot of money. Mr. Greenberg has been paying the legal bills and there has been a lot of money coming in. They have been able to build as good a case as they could possibly build. And he has been successful defending mr. Greenberg. The government has fought to get this case thrown out a couple of times. Court ande we are in a couple of claims are made. So david has had some success so far. There was also a case a couple of years ago where hank. Reenberg sued aig he represented mr. Greenberg and able to show, was that Hank Greenberg was the controlling interest of star. A couple of years later, here we are in court and there is no one from aig on mr. Greenbergs side. A few old friends from the company and whatnot, but aig is self is not a party to this suit and they do not agree with what he is doing. You have this strange triangle. You come back to what mr. Dempster said, he said, it is yes to the life boats but they are just not comfortable, in some sense. A story in the wall street journal, there were some indemnification provisions for the facility at the heart of this case. Case. Greenberg wins this and there is some big award, the government could turn to aig and say, we would like your help paying for this. There are good reasons why aig could get out of that indemnification agreement, but it is an interesting twist. How is aig doing now . It is doing ok. That is part of what the government has been saying. Where are the damages here . The aig shareholders might have taken a certain haircut at the time in terms of the shares, but they ultimately made money. The government is saying, look, the shareholders in this case wound up making money. Remarkably, aig is doing ok. What interests me about this is the dynamic of this courtroom with the shares as big as they are and the money as large as it is and the personalities who are in there as witnesses and the star quality of david, certainly one of the great trial lawyers. His style, he has this conversational style in the way he deals with businesses. Veryaulson, today, was straightforward, if you will. It might not be the best word, but he answered questions very frankly and moved through very quickly. Week, the fed general counsel was on the stand and seemed to contest every little point. Arguing over words like what for the bondsan were downgraded. It will be interesting to see if mr. Geithner and ben bernanke learn from what hank paulson did today. Thanks. In full disclosure, and many years ago, the star foundation, like many other foundations, was one of the underwriters of this show and david has been a longtime personal friend of mine. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Gillian flynn wrote a 2012 thriller called gone girl that has sold 8 million copies worldwide. It involves nick and amy dunne. When amy goes missing on their anniversary, nick becomes a prime suspect in the investigation of her possible murder. It is now filmed right david fincher. Here is the trailer for gone girl. , probably the most hated man in america right now. Did you kill your wife, nick . Us,veryone told us and told marriage is hard work. Not for me and nick. As you all know, my wife disappeared three days ago. I had nothing to do with the disappearance of my wife. I have nothing to hide. She talked to . Not really. You do not know she has friends, you do not know what she does all day, and you do not know her blood type. You really do not like him, do you . I am trying to be nice to the people who are volunteering to help find amy. My husband loves me. But i could be wrong. Amy is the kind of girl who attracts admirers. I am hoping you can tell me what this means. Do you see this girl right here . Yes, i remember her. What did she want . She wanted a gun. We are all scared, but we are all here now. I feel like i could disappeared. The hallmark of a sociopath is a lack of empathy. Why would they mop up the blood if they were trying to stage a crime scene . I finally realized i am frightened of my own husband. A trained monkey. You insulted her. Her. Never touched the disappearance of our daughter without a body, all we can hope is for someone to confess. You asked me if i killed my wife . What about my son . This man may kill me. You ever hear the expression, the simplest answer is always the best one . Actually, i have found that not to be true. We are here with the director, the writer, and two of the films stars. Thank you very much. Explain the popularity of the book first. Explain yourself. I think it was the relationship that is at the heart of the story. There are a lot of different thrillers that have a whodunit element. It was one of those things, women wanted to talk about it, men wanted to talk about it, people would finish reading it and hand it to someone else. Because it is about relationships at its core. There are a lot of entry points to it. There is the gender stuff, the media and what that does to society, relationship stuff. There is a lot of ways into the book. That, based on smile. I never dreamed that he would be available. At the time when we were crewing up to make the movie, we were shocking because a lot we were jockeying because a lot it was at stake. It was obviously, everyone that was discussing it, the studio why would they say that . Because it is just too perfect. You need someone who has great wit about the situation. You do not want somebody who has you know, he needed to be somebody who could understand ,he global aspect of the film the impression that he is making over the course of the 2. 5 hours as opposed to finding you in a situation that is particularly embarrassing at any given moment. Tell me how you saw nick. You said this was the trickiest role. It is really the role that the movie hinges on. There is so much subtlety to it. There are so many different nuances to it. We cannot really know that there are nuances being played. Ben,tor like then like i thought of him immediately once i started writing the screenplay. Hollywoodland that he was in, i knew he had the great acting ability to pull off making us wonder what this guy was thinking without saying too much. Time, this real ability. You do not want the audience to turn completely off on him immediately. What was the challenge for you here, both of you . How fresh you are from a morallysuspect carrier character. [laughter] the truth is, what is really and ing for me is am not the only actor who has been through the tabloid experiences and has photographers outside their home and that sort of in, but it is something that i have sort of made peace with. There is a particular quality to that experience in my life that is parallel, in some ways, to not have to i did spend a lot of time researching that. There is also no hindsight resentment. Wellbalanced. Yeah. You do not have any say in it. It is not about you. It is beyond you. And that is the effortlessness that you are able to bring to it. What these guys put together is an interesting challenge and an interesting antagonist. Hollywood has this obsession with likability. The guy is not likable enough. To make somebody likable, the you have to like six or seven articles of behavior. This book and movie seem to want to abandon that. Sometimes, he makes choices that sometimes you cannot empathize with. I am not sure i would do that exactly. And he is sometimes into them. In tune. The audience is forced to project themselves onto a more honest protagonist than one that is conveniently manufactured to reassure us of our own virtue. How did you know about this film . Likability is not important, which is a big relief. I heard about it is this a role that you went after you cannot go after something when he is directing it. He has a very single process. I think that is the point. Now enough about directors i do not think you can pitch your way to a director. I do not think that is how it works. Is that true, you think . Suppose there is someone that you really have to get that somebody. You have to convince them and then you do convince them. The time taken to do that is obviously very strong. To do that ision obviously very strong. To see thatealing someone has a tremendous amount of commitment, which she did. You she did everything you could possibly do for this movie. Other than that, sometimes actors during the movie, not getting the part. Doing the movie. To accomplish that kind of part. This is something actors do, when they are playing the war hero. I actually was a heroine too. Out,ember when i started they asked if i could play tennis. The whole scene was pretty good. There is a thing that goes on and it is hard to tell. What is easy to see is commitment. You certainly saw what she did with the part. Fincher wants to meet you, you want to try to show him the truth. He is not a guy that is going to take whatever has been packaged already. When he talks to you, he is going to scan the substrata and find out what you really are. There forot to go in hours and hours and it is interesting. I read this book and thought, i know i have got this in me somewhere. You had amy in you . This is what you said about her. You needed an only child, and orchid, and a hothouse flower. [laughter] what i said was, when i met her, i had seen rosalynn ros alunds work. I had seen a lot of it. Andd seen two years later another movie. I watch actors all day long. It is what i do. I think you develop a radar for their how many arrows they have in their quiver. And i never got a bead on rosa lund, which is different for me. We started talking and i was like, i do not have a full impression of her, which is weird. And then i met her and realized ande was a sort of opacity a resistance to being pinned down. As we started talking, i was drawn to her and curious about her. She revealed that she was an only child and it suddenly occurred to me that amy is an only child. All of a sudden, it made sense. Why i could not quite grasp your instincts. Yeah, something was off or different or special. It . Is all of a sudden, i realized. What do we think about marriage . You know, i started the story how honest aref we in our relationships . It is the idea that we are emotional con artists when we start any sort of meeting that works are so forward ourself forward. To solve the murder, you have to solve the merit the marriage and find out who these two people really were. The idea, in this media saturated world, how much are we ever our true selves . The media is almost like the third character in this film. This idea of what are they thinking. Exactly. Do you ever really know what the person is thinking . Just because they tell you what they are thinking, are they truth telling . We all know the ending from reading the book. Does it bother you at all . Everybody who has read the book knows. But you have to create industry. A mystery. Moreis arena, it means than 2 million, 3 Million People handed it to somebody and say, you have got to read this. This is a story that works. Have painted this painting over a long time. Stuff, was itat think of athat said playwright as trying to break into the mind of an audience . The plot is like the guard dogs to distract them while you get to the subconscious. To me, that is what is going on here. This plot, not that it is discarded, but it occupies the conscious frontline of the brain. Lying . H of marriage is which i think is sort of scary. By the same token, there is the dance of, how do i present myself . What questions do we find it marriage that there is an element of line . I think it depends on the marriage. Given this sense of this couple that has shifted their true selves with who they would like to perceived to be perceived to be by the other person. It is at the root of marriage, along with the love and the purity and all of that stuff. There is this underbelly that can potentially be quite toxic. Let me go back to the casting. How did you approach each of them . Like tyler perry. Met tyler he plays a classic defense attorney. In the book, he is much more you know, he is a little more razzledazzle. Book, he is kind of a huckster. What i love, as we started to see the pace see the faces and get a look at the team, one of the things that i felt was we had so little screen time with tanner. He should not be this guy who is totally smooth. Maybe he should be a guy that is totally honest and puts you at ease. Bolthen you talk to tanner , introduced as a shyster, and he is like, you have got to take it on the chin. You have got to walk out there and take your lumps. This is the best way to do it. Show contrition. What i love is his voice and his manner. , he watches everything. He is so wrapped in it. Tyler perry. Yeah. He is like somebody who is going it you down you are going to film. What does it tell you, in the end, about the medium . Deliverye obsessed by and the fact that you bring a presence to it that is unreal. We are not talking about the media. We are talking about the tragedy of pampers him vampirism. I have trademarked it, but i do not know any other way to describe it. It is when you see these programs that are designed to obvious is such an you know, when it is nine times out of 10 that it is the husband and it is obvious that this is one of those times, that is what we are talking about. We are talking about that rush to judgment, the stoking of the lynch mob. Profiteeringertain in this movie. Inserting of oneself into a story. When it does nothing to be scandalous or korean enough nmk ient enoguh you know, it is appropriate to report on it, but then there are high certain lawyers there are huckster lawyers that show up and there are people that are doing this for the hysterical reportage around murder. This is what the demand is therefore, so that is what we give them. It is like what a craft dealer might say to you. People want the crack. You are obviously smoking. Like in mexico, why are you selling americans drugs . Because you guys want them. You wrote characters nick and amy. Was it easy for you to write one or the other . May be more interesting . It was easy for me to write nick. Nick has a lot of my biography. We both were popcultureobsessed and wrote about that. I have a very soft spot for everything that nick gets himself into. What is the easiest thing to do here . You know, i will smile and see where this goes instead of fighting it, which i think is a lot of nicks thing. With amy, i spent a lot of time trying to figure out who amy was. Collegelevel exercises, writing exercises to try to figure out who amy was. It took a little longer with that. That is why amy has such an elaborate back story. I was trying to figure out who she was. I was like, it has got to go back to the childhood. She hates it when she gets to the smalltown. What is the impact of her in terms of development . When i is what i thought was realizing i knew she came from money early on. I could not figure out what the family industry was for a wild. I thought a dating site was too obvious. It was kind of like this eharmony marriage site. [laughter] then i just realized that idea honor. Rned her parents were the one that created this famous alter ego for her. She did not do it. Constant sibling rivalry with this thing that did not really exist. Did that feel right to you . You talked about liberty earlier. I think that is the hardest, when you are in the media spotlight, something you did not earn from your own merits. Which is what amy had since she was a little girl. Fragile sense of self because you have this amazing amy character who excels everywhere, at every point the real amy failed or gave up. Yet she is meant to go out there and parade herself as the prototype. I think she is very inwardlooking because of that and has a sense of entitlement coupled with inferiority or inadequacy which makes a very unstable person. That little girl into an adult woman in new york on the dating scene. She has to keep reinventing herself. Your circle of friends can shift and she will just be whoever she needs to be to get the best out of that situation. Talk about fincher as a director. Was he difficult . We do not talk about this much [laughter] this is awkward. The studio felt as though they needed i do not want to say ghost director, but [laughter] grownup on the set. [laughter] it is not bad. That is not what im saying. Hopeless, confused. Those are the wrong words. A decisionmaker. Not a ghost director, but a decisionmaker. [laughter] let me see if i got it down. On the set, it was kind of wishywashy. He does not know what he wants. The firsty to take thing he sees and go with it. Have i got it . Good enough. Does not really care much obviously, Everybody Knows that i have seen good directors and bad directors. It is hard to tell sometimes because, stylistically, people are different. But davids movies speak for themselves. They are excellent and great. As an actor, you show up and say, i want somebody who i can trust. You lay yourself out there just as hard for a movie that works as one that does not. Just the physical aspect of getting banged against walls and thrown on the ground. You commit your stuff and wanted it to be hent wants the good stuff. He wants a smart movie. That is the appeal. , but he was like, look, it is not about the process for me. Hows what we do ultimately, we express this. We are not going to party or have fun. We are not doing this so we can get free drink after or something. This is about making something that we can be proud of. I like that idea a lot, a lot more than just, we have a good caterer. It is a lot of extra work for an actor sometimes, pushing them out of their comfort zone. In some cases, they are not getting paid as much as they would on another movie. I want them to be happy with the fact that we are able to do something singular, something unlike anything else in their or my filmography. Remarkably well said. It is true. Exactly right. Not only did he want you to be a system director, but and a compass for him an accomplice for him. You get to appoint, is this going to matter to me . Am i going to be proud of this . He is there before anybody and after everyone has gone home. That is the mark of a guy who says, look, we can succeed or fail, make good choices or bad, but i am going to be invested. Among guys whon have become really successful and been around the block. Some directors just go, i can direct a movie in two weeks. Drive than ae hungry director, never mind a guy who sat on a halt in santa barbara, you know . Hog in santa barbara, you know . [laughter] in any skilled or creative endeavor, the more time you are given, the better results you will get. David spends the budget on time, not a huge crew. Five hours a day. That is a lot of time on camera. Which is a luxury. Way to make an actor screw something up is say, we have got to get this in 20 minutes. Zerosum game. You have a certain amount of money and time. How do you spend that . Front of the in camera, shooting. For an actor, you can be making the movie, doing what is interesting, trying some things, which is boring and frustrating because it you are not there to do what you want to do. Of time shooting is higher than i have ever seen. It is really rewarding. It goes by and it feels like nothing. The philosophy that you have, do you know that look, i agree. I think actors want to act. I do not think they want to spend time i think they want to show up and have bites of the apple. I have a lot of friends who are actors who do live theater. Go backstage to see them and they go, that was the one. You do not want to do that with a movie. Here it is on bluray. By the way, here is all the best stuff. This is the best. And that is interesting. How many takes we do, the people who do not do multiple takes because you know you could make it better. All this money and the trucks and the drivers and the set, well, that seems good enough. I do not know. Pretty good. Where our nic and amy in 10 years . In 10re are nick and may years . Nowhere good. People say, when is the sequel coming . I did not set out to write anything that was going to go on. It that way because i like those openended endings i like the sense of unease that you have. I did not wanted neatly tied together. Absolutely not. I knew that would not be the most satisfying ending for some people, especially people who have been trained here comes the end of the movie and here is the explosion or the gunshot. Did you find the justice in this . People tell me all the time that people wait 30 minutes in line to get a book signed by me and slam it down in front of me and say, i hated the ending. I said, what do you want to happen . They said, i wanted justice. I said, what happened to make you believe there would be justice . What about love . There is no justice in love. 510 years,nk about are you intrigued about coming back to these characters . Certainly not for a while. I have had a fair amount of nick and amy. I have been in their brains for too long. , whenwould like to see the teen years, round what is interesting about this question is the paradigm shift. That the wholeis thing changes because there would be a child. The center of gravity is not nick or amy or nick and amy and their whole shtick together, but how they affect the life of this child. Now my responsibility is to this child and my own needs have to be completely subverted. I often admire people who i know who have made choices like that this is aid, consequence of some choice i made in love. Here i am and the child is here and i am going to invest in it over a lot of other stuff i would rather be doing. I think that is interesting and much more tragic than a bad marriage, horrible baggage that could be passed to children. Everyone knows how to do the classic have a baby to save the marriage thing. Children only expose any cracks and fissures that are already there. Seeing what that brings out in nick and amy, trying to mold or protect the child, would be fascinating. Are you intrigued . Absolutely. I am intrigued. Your brain continues with the characters long after. Aineed to have gillians br to figure it out. What was the hardest thing about nick for you . When i first sat down with david, he said, we have to let go of any vanity, any actory pretense of selfconsciousness, and worry about what people think. Doing things that people judge. This guy, nick, is a jerk. A lot of journalists say that. I have done enough movies to know and i have good friend directors to know. I know people who are not great people but were thought of as great people because they play great characters and vice versa. I have been in situations where people have made jurrjens made judgments about me. There is a role, first level soil, i amt level of going to do that. He do he or didnt something evil . The does things that are very a really hard is thing. Audiences go out of their way and i think actors go out of their way to be in a situation where you can avoid that. You have agreed on what the text is. The stumble and fall out of the equation. The character steps on a break and gets hit in the four head. He continually does this. He could comehat back in terms of recapturing what he had this was a guy who felt like he was operating behind the times. He reminded me of these rats that you see in glass cages. They just sit there, going like this. Wrong. On doing things how am i going to fix the last thing that happened . Us. Is us who it that is we are constantly shooting ourselves in the foot. I wanted to you know, i believe he was a guy who was playing catchup and it took the and tyler his sister and say, you down have made many mistakes. Now we are going to try to salvage what we can. And then he feels like, ok, i can do this, and starts to take control of his life. He has there are midwestern values that she talks about, that friendliness and honesty. Every one of those gets him into trouble. He does not become successful until he banished all of that stuff and says, ok, i am manipulative and k. G. And cagey. He is good at it. In the movie, we move into this where we areplace satirizing so much. Yet you feel a palpable shift in the audience as they start to see these two players playing each other in a totally different way. , fore the idea that amy nickurposes, has reignited. He is now performing. He is now reflecting. He is now, in her mind, worthy of her, because he is not playing video games. He is back to a public facade, performing, playing the husband incredible. Have never been part of a movie that has generally changed tones during the course of the movie. In the beginning, it is very realistic, matter of fact, wifes blood type, interrogated by the police, the issue holding the hostage, the shower and blood. The whole thing mushroomed into something totally different is using a broader rush to allow these themes to way. E in a really rich i never thought it would be possible to make this movie. I had no idea how you would do it. It is a really interesting trick that david and gillian told off. Thank you. Incredible. It really is. Thank you, david. Remarkable. I am john heilemann. I am mark halperin. We are doing this whole episode without any pine tar. Michelle obama is on the air, the senate is up for grabs, and bill clinton is hungry for some bacon. The race for the white house. The candidates are on the stump and the small screen. One of them is speaking spanish, one is hitting an easier target than shia labeouf, and one is preaching to the converted. [speaking spanish]