Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20151209

Useful than going to the refugees. There is no more stringent process for people coming in to the country than as a refugee. Rose we conclude this evening with lisa randall, her book is called dark matter and the dinosaurs. She is a physics professor at harvard. I want to write one book where you can talk about the evolution of the universe, the evolution of our solar system and even life on the planet in one place, where you can see why these things are all connected. So what i wanted to do was go from dark matter i mean, dark matter was critical to the formation of galaxies and structure in our universe in the lifetime of the universe. It wouldnt have happened otherwise. Rose all about trump, nancy pelosi and lisa randall, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding 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. Rose we begin this evening with republican president ial candidate Donald Trumps controversial statement, a news release by his campaign stated all muslims should be barred from entering the United States. He repeated the statement on monday evening in a rally in South Carolina. Donald j. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. cheers and applause rose democrats and republicans strongly condemn the republican president ial frontrunner, including speaker of the house paul ryan. Freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional principle. Its a founding principle of this country. Normally, i do not comment on whats going on in the president ial election. I will take an exception today. This is not conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, its not what this country stands for. Rose foreign leaders who condemn trumps comment include british Prime Minister David Cameron who said they were divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong. Joining nee from washington is evan osnos, staff writer for the new yorker magazine and bob costa, a National Political reporter at the washington post, and michael crowley, senior Foreign Policy reporter at politico, and nancy morawetz, professor of law at new york university. Also im pleased to have my colleague from bloomberg politics, John Heilemann and mark halperin. First, i want to talk about the constitutional law ail suspects and go to the it mr. Kale suspects. Everybody is talking about this from dick cheney to people on the heft and condemning donald trump. But the question is, is what he recommends constitutional . There is no case thats ever been before the Supreme Court that allows that considers a religious test to immigration and i think there is no such case because, you know, its unprecedented for anybody to think that there could be such a test. Rose that you could stop people on the basis of their religion. On the basis of their religion. There have been precedents targeted at particularly nationalities, theyre from really deplorable parts of our history. There is the chinese exclusion cases in the late 19t 19th century, sort of the dred scott of the immigration law. Most people think those cases will not be decided the same way today. I think if the case were to come forward as a blatant test for reling it would be struck down as unconstitutional. Rose first of all, explain trump to me. Hes a very smart politician for a firsttime candidate. He has a great finishing tip feel for what his supporters want to hear. I believe he was not reacting to polls showing one poll in iowa showing him down. I think he feels he wants to give voice to the anxiety the country is feeling about what happened in california. That he wants the country to be safe and his visceral reaction and the visceral reaction of the supporters is lets shut things down. Rose he did say temporarily. Yes, and thats a little bit of a walkback. He has to figure out after an initial thing how to calibrate sometimes. I think he right now is able to do things even this close to the Iowa Caucuses that no other politician would try to get away with. You think of the frontrunner, ill go to North Carolina metaphors in sports, four corners, got a big lead, slow it down, yet he did something yet which a conventional politician would be denounced for. No other frontrunner would do such a thing. Clearly, there is not been such a politician since Richard Nixon whos had this kind of particular appeal to the anxieties, the fears, the kind of darker the grievances of, you know, when nixon called them the silent majority, a lot of people who were nixons silent majority would identify themselves the same way in trumps america fiewrksd call it that, in the group of people that support him and they support him intensely. We have been watching this since the beginning when trump came on the scene. Weve done and done gone and done focus groups around the country and in New Hampshire. The people who support him love him. There is nothing that will shake their support for him, they are intense and i think mark is right rose he could win the nomination if everybody else is getting the question is, at the outset of the race, there could be 14, 15, 16 candidates. Donald trump has not been below in the polls for months. We think he has a relatively high floor and appeals this fragmented. Also maybe rale tifl low ceiling. So can you win iowa in a field of 15 with 30 . Yeah, you can win iowa with 30. You can win New Hampshire with a field of 12 with 30. You can win South Carolina in a field of 10 with 30. Well, but this likely matters because donald trump wins iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina it would be unprecedented for him not to be the nominee. It might be that 70 of the Republican Party doesnt want to vote for him but by the time they consolidate behind another candidate it could be too late. Rose bob costa, tell me what you think is going on. I asked you this earlier is he doing this because he has strong and deep feelings about National Security or doing it because of political reasons and being a political candidate that he has been in this primary run . When i asked trump about it, my sense was with it came from a very personal place , his views on muslims and whats happening in the country. He looked up at the television reporting on what happened in california and he said, there is something happening with the muslim people. There is just something happening. I said, what . I said, are you going to try to appeal to reach out to them more . He shrugged and said, maybe, well see. No definitive answer. Whats happening with trump on the immigration in the summer, he appeals to people whether economic reasons or others thats the core of his base. Rose you wrote about the core of his base. What do you make of this and what do you see from his base that you interviewed and what hes become thats a candidate . Trump has been heading down this path for months. Charlie, you and i had a conversation, it was still in the summer, in which i pointed out a few days after trump announced his candiesy, his candidacy was ep dorised by the neonazis in the United States. They recognized something in his language about mexicans about that they were rapists and criminals that they havent heard in a long time in main stream politics and now someone is doing it. Hes appealed to people afraid of the outside world and immigration but now through terrorism and also people who are completely infuriated by whats going on in washington. He does risk losing people who says im interested in trump as a change agent, shaking things up, but not interested fundamentally in the image of america hes now endorsing. Rose michael . Well, charlie, i think the concern here which speaks of that last point is that from a National Security perspective which is what i focus on, you have the possibility here of a vicious cycle and i think a risk for him, his voters will understand that, you know, the point president obama made in his speech the other night was, you know, stay calm, dont lash out against your neighbors. The last number of muslims in this country are peaceful and are our friends and neighbors, but the way we can make this problem worse is if we discriminate and retaliate against them, if we vandalize their mosques. The more trumps rhetoric escalates, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence it stirs up behavior like that. There is a very ugly video going around on the internet of a crowd denounce ago muslim proposing a mosque i think somewhere in the south and saying we dont want your evil cult in our town. You breed that kind of atmosphere, you have the possibility of these kind of vandalisms, these attacks on muslims and that could stir up retaliation, more radicalization, more attacks like San Bernardino and then youre in this very scary, vicious cycle which i suppose plays into trumps hands, but i think when you have people like dick cheney and a bunch of other Republican Leaders as you noted trying to point this out, i have to believe it was going to drive away some of his support. Rose the idea that paul ryan said what he said, that dick cheney said what he said, could this be the straw that broke the camels back even though weve said that before about trump, whether questioning the patriotism of john mccain or whatever it might be, could this somehow be the catalyst for republicans who say, if this continues, h hes going to get the nomination and doom our party . I think it does not probably hurt him to get the nomination. I think it hurts him in the general election. Rose the Republican Party units against him, they cant stop him . I dont think they can do it fast enough as john said before and i think it would backfire to some extent. The only entity that can beat trump and stop him is one of the candidates. I think if dick cheney and paul ryan and Mitch Mcconnell said were going to devote everything to stopping trump, i think it will backfire. Trump supporters are saying we want anything but the same old same old. Rose i dont think this is about trump supporters. But those are the ones who will vote and win him delegate. The anger of the establishment will lead to someone running, if trump is the nominee, so the Establishment Republicans will have somebody to vote for. What changed with this incident, trumps walkback, the establishment will fight him to the end including the convention if they need to and i think they will run somebody else if he becomes the nominee. Rose somebody in the field . No, someone like mitt romney or mitch daniel to say we have to have someone to step forward because we cannot be the party of trump. Rose do you think thats moderate to conservative wing of the party . If trump wins early, it will focus their mind to say rube you, bush, christie, kasich, which one of the four do we rush to, they will quickly trush to one to stop him. Im not sure they will keep doing it in time. You have to quit putting quotes around the establishment. Because it doesnt exist anymore. Were seeing the erosion, the weakening of both parties as organized entities. We have largely privatized elections in which the party bosses dont exist anymore, the chairs of the parties are powerless. There are some elected officials who have concerns about their own reelections in their party, but they are largely powerless over their president ial process. I think weve learned in six months and the next two months about trump is media controversies, denunsiations by the establish mesht, by anybody and everybody, will do almost nothing to dent trump. The thing that will dent trump is losing an election. So donald trump loses in iowa to ted cruz, i dont know what happens after that, but i know the dynamics of the race trumps psychology. Everything will change if hes been the frontrunner seven or eight months in every state and nationally and loses the first election hes ever stood for. That will be the thing that will turn the race into a totally different thing than weve seen in the last six months. Rose in one poll cruz is already ahead in iowa. To me, the most plausible thing is someone, ted cruz is most likely, actually beats him at the polls. Rose lets go to washington to bob. Does trump talk about the possibility that the party and the leading likes in the party gang up against him . Hes very sensitive to it. I think his campaign has been surprised at the big money within the Republican Party has resisted antitrump efforts. In this point in 2011 you had the romney super pac going after Newt Gingrich taking him out. There is no one doing that on the airways. Jeb bush, john kasich supercakes have done something, but there is not a concerted effort. Trump is putting the pressure on ryan, priebus and the party and others. Were talking about republicans in America Constitute 40 of voting age americans. That means of 40 of people who will vote next november, of that only about 30 say they support donald trump. Were talking about 12 of the people who will be voting for president. I think its useful to remind ourselves at we withre at a stage where there is a lot that can happen. As john said, trump may be a candidate with a glass jaw, never run for an election before. If he loses in iowa, he may find a whole set more of attractive pomtions than run his candidacy into the ground. But he has had an effect on american politics, opened up a new realm, a discourse of heart that didnt exist in the main stage of american politics and were going to be picking up the pieces for a long time to come. Rose when you listen to all this, youre a professor of law, not a political journalist. I think the discourse issue is really important because what you hear is people condemning the singling out of religion, but you dont hear people condemning other things trump is doing about the history of American Immigration law. So you dont hear condemnation of using internment that could be a positive example. The history of internment is one of the great blemishes on this society and you hear that described and nobody condemning that. In other examples, trump has talked about how eisenhower deported immigrants and, you know, has given as a positive example one of the most horrible periods of American Immigration history, what was called operation wetback, a process in which many u. S. Citizens of mexican background were deported to mexico and it was a really ugly period in the countrys past and you dont see that discourse being questioned and people are condemning the freedom of religion aspect which on legal grounders is the thing thats most unprecedented. But the hateful discourse is really scary and i dont think its being sufficiently checked. Rose is there any level hes too embarrass bid any of this that would make him realize hed gone too far . Ill pause and let you withdraw the question. laughter hes unlike anyone else we ever covered in or out of politics, and he has done 101 things a month since he got in the race that no other candidate would survive. I dont think bill clinton would survive all the stuff trump is surviving and even thriving under. Rose because he has this hard core evan has written about . That he matched the mood of not a majority of americans or the Republican Party but a healthy plurality of the republican electorate rose is he just using them. Hes been saying this since the 1970s. Rose you say he believes this . Yes. America being strong, the role of the government rose 50 candidates will talk about america being strong. Not the way he does. Rose lots of candidates go down that road. In the late 80s he talked about japan victimizing the United States and talked about young criminals running wild in the United States. Hes updated with new vocabulary but the core has not changed. He figured out he could sell the same kind of politics with the same mastery he brings to selling casinos and hotels. There are a group of people out there who will always be happy to guy bye what hes selling and he sells the latest product now. Rose michael. Earlier in the campaign lets not forget this statement he made yesterday doesnt come out of the blue. He entertain a registry of muslims in the country and talked about Syrian Refugees coming into the United States as the biggest trojan horse in history and hes talked about it being misleading how many president obama will let in and talks about closing the borders. To evans point were talking about 12 of americans here, thats not how it looks abroad. These comments are resonating in the arab media and around the world, and i think there is a dangerous perception that drmp speaks for the majority of americans and that could have dangerous consequence force our security. Rose which is part of the reason the speaker of the house spoke out today, im confident. Rose because he heard from people around the world . This is the person who most identified with the republican brand in the United States and around the world espousing something dick cheney and barack obama would say is against american values. And you can see him on tv every night drawing crowds all over the country that dwarf any other candidate. Hillary clinton, one of the best known people in the world, she hasnt drawn thousands of people to a single event. In alabama he filled a football stadium. But hes regularly drawing multiple thousands rose he doesnt draw 30,000. He did once. He draws 5, 6, 7, 3, 10,000. 10,000. The image of republicans that now. I ask trump, at this moment, hes been leading the polls for so many months, who is he actually speaking to and talking to . The answer is no one he felt has a Campaign Manager who does access for him, and one person comes up with the strategy, the speeches, the message, the policy. I dont think weve seen anything like this in president ial politics, one person figuring it out as they go at this level. One thing im struck by, a few years ago when you talked to voters about what they wanted in politics they would complain the candidates are too similar, what does it matter, republican, democrat. One of the things thats interesting about this race is its drawn sharp lines about american identity saying what are we as a country and what are we going to fight for and what are our politics going to express because in tend people dont want to vote for somebody who is a mirror image of themselves. They vote for somebody who can find within that message they want to hear, they look for somebody who can lead them toward something brighter. At the moment, trump is selling a message that is very grim and dark and im not entirely sure that carries him to the finish lion. Our president ial elections is Television Events and hes the best television performer to ever run. Bill clinton is, too, but trump understands the medium and that allows him almost to have no staff, to have no people he goes to and say guys am i doing this wrong or right. Let trump be trump on television is a winning formula and making a mockery of the campaigns with their technological wizards and performers. Rose my assumption is both of you believe he is the nominee . I believe he has as good a chance as ted cruz and whoever the establishment settles on. Rose is the third person likely marco rubio. Today you would say its marco rubio, but i believe rubio is having trouble raising money and will have trouble winning an early state and i believe when trump and rubio go at it full bore, it will be interesting to see if rubio withstands that. I doni think he is the liket nominee. Rose do you think so, bob . If kasich, christie, rubio and bush punch for New Hampshire, trump could coast into supertuesday and remains the likeliest nominee. Rose evan . To keep it interesting, i dont think he is. I think you have a lot of undecided in iowa and New Hampshire and when it comes time to buy i think they will go for somebody with more experience and frankly more stability. Rose michael. I was struck by the fact trump tweeted a u. S. A. Today poll today showing that twothirds of his voters would ran for him if he han as an independent. He made a point of sharing that poll. He said a while ago he wont do that and more recently hasnt been definitive about it. One thing, when he pops off and says something the party establish meant finds to be wild, they may be hearing his words in their ears that as long as hes treated fairly, he wont leave the party and run as an independent. What does he consider fair treatment and how careful do Republican Leaders have to be about making sure he feels hes treated fairly . But obviously this topic is still on his mind so that is another scenario here. Rose watching the trump phenomenon, you who are a law professor, not a political journalist, what do you expect from what you read and see that donald trump has a good chance to be the republican nominee for president . Its frightening because to have the the discourse, as i said before. I think whatever happens with the republican nomination, its clear that hes driving that party in a way that excludes more and more americans. Hes made it very, very clear if hes the nominee that nobody who is asianamerican or latinoamerican or who in any other way thinks of themselves as a minority in this country should feel safe with him as president , and, you know, so i think that is a piece of the thing if hes a nominee and if hes not what hes done with the rest of the candidates has shown the republican to not be very friendly to many americans. Rose the one question i had left out is was the possibility that he marches to the nomination with all hes said and done and believed in and with all the criticism of what hes tearing apart will have lead to new entrance into the general election with someone like Mike Bloomberg or Something Like that . For some of the reasons mark was talking about, the clarifying moment of the day is the story that the notion of the establishment of the party, whatever that means, would not support his nomination. I think, you know, the idea that everyone we know in politics thinks that a contested convention is more likely than its ever been in our lifetime for that reason and the likelihood that the reps will gather in cleveland and there will be some kind of attempt if trump is the nominee or has not quite the number he needs for nomination but most that there will be an organized effort to stop him is quite high because he would be in the view of most republicans a disaster for that he would not only lose 45 or 48 states but he would drag down and lose the senate for the republicans and might even lose the house for the republicans and a lot of republicans who will look at the certainty of that outcome in their view versus the risk that if they took the nomination away from trump and he ran as an independent candidate, theyll say id rather they can that gamble than the certainty well lose 45 states, and both houses of congress. Under the rules of the way delegates are allocated, if three or more candidates are winning significant amount of del gas into march no one can get a majority. The other thing, a lot of insider rrps are looking and saying worst case for us, trump has the most delegates but not a majority, how can we manipulate the rules, manipulate how delegates are supposed to vote to stop him from being the nominee. Kipp an eye on mitt romney. Romneyryan is the way the party would go, i think, and say, america, youre on, were giving you a second chance. Rose thank you all. For joining us this evening. Ive learned a lot. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Hunt our guest is nancy pelosi, the congresswoman from the 12th Congressional District of california and democratic leader of the house of representatives. She has been the democratic leader the past 13 years, the first woman, first californian and first Italian American to lead her party. Pleased to have you here congresswoman pelosi. My pleasure. Rose lets start with the omnibus spending bill supposed to be completed by the end of the week. Whats the status . Were ever hopeful we can reach a compromise but right now were at a place where there is ch more work to be done. But a spending bill like this, democratic president , republican congress, large number of democrats in the house to sustain the president s veto of such a bill gives us all place at the table. Right now, the bill thats problematic because some of the republicans are putting every wish list of riders. We respect the fact that the republican majority would want some riders in the bill but its like a rider bill with an appropriation quill bill attached wrath than appropriation bill with some riders attached. Hunt democrats accept some riders like the visa waivers. What is unacceptable . What are they demanding thats a poison pill to you and the democrats . Well, in other words, everything is what the package is, the balance that is there. Right now, again, weve extended the hand of friendship and hoping to find a solution, but there is a philosophical difference, apart from the fact there are so many riders, it is about denial of that Climate Change and so many riders relate to negating anything the president would do or say or trying to negate on claimant ann climate and the environment. Hunt is that acceptable . Depends. They want to export foreign oil which is not shall we say favorably received in the environmental community. Were saying, well, if you want to do that, are you willing to give up the riders negating climate . Are you willing to expand the land and Water Conservation fund . Are you willing to do tax credits for solar that really advance that rose if its yes to some of that you might agree to foreign oil . Its not excluded, depending on what they would be willing to do. Rose what about Syrian Refugees . They also want to clamp down on that and put something in that limits the amount of money spent on refugees. Is any of that negotiable . Well, what we think would be much more useful is to have the visa waiver provisions revisited. We have a bipartisan bill weve agreed to. Some people think one thing or another about it, but thats a compromise. Not that it meets ive with ones approval, but i support it because it does the job. There are 20 Million People come into this country with a visa waiver from countries that are friendly to us, but these people may and are from those countries but they may have visited some unfriendly territory. Territory. Hunt but you would not go along with the crackdowns on the number of Syrian Refugees coming in here . First of all, they may just go to one other place, the visa waiver and as the president has said in his remarks, how could it be that we have a watch list, a terrorist watch list where a person could be on the terrorist f. B. I. Watch list terrorist watch list and they could still go in and buy a gun . 90 91 of the time in the last few years, a person on the terrorist watch list of the f. B. I. , 91 of the time has been able to go in, buy a gun of his or her choice and walk out of that store with a gun. So that would also be more useful than going to the refugees. There is no more stringent process for people coming into the country than to come in as a refugee. Refugee. Hunt is that as far as you and the Democratic Party is concerned, anything concerning the Syrian Refugees is not negotiable on the bill . Depends on what it is. The bill they passed most of us did not support, the president opposed. That particular bill has no place here. It isnt even about what were doing. Were trying to keep government open. Were trying to pass our appropriations bills. Why should we bring in a very controversial bill that really is the wrong thing, is not about who we are as americans. Its like turning the statue of liberty around. But having said that, lets see how theyd word it and where we would go. From my i want to, i would from my standpoint, i would not vote for the bill. From the standpoint of the president of the United States, thats the only objection, and they do all these other things, and government can be kept open, well thats an equity that has s to be weighed. From my standpoint, it would be a nonstarter. Rose do yononstarter. Hunt do you think it will be done by friday . We were hoping we would have an agreement by sunday and that today we could post a bill, so it would be three days in advance well, its not quite three days, but for three days is posted, monday, tuesday, wednesday, voted on wednesday, finished by thursday, and it all could happen because what these negotiations do is narrow the differences. Hunt are you negotiating with paul ryan directly . No. Right now its at the staff level. Hunt do you think you will have to negotiate with the speaker before this is over . If the differences are not resolved, then it would go to the four leaders the leader in the house, the two leaders in the senate and, of course, the president s significan signature has to sign the bill, his participation would be important. The more that can be done at staff level first the subcommittee then full committee and now leadership staff level. Hunt youve had six weeks to take the measure of the new speaker and you said you wanted to wait and see, youve dealt with him some, had several meetings. Give me your take. How do you assess him so far as speaker and how is he different for you to deal with than john boehner . Well, six weeks is not a very long time. Paul ryan is a respected person. He is an articulate spokesperson for his point of view, and his point of view is one where we have very severe differences. The rhine budge the ryan budn our view when it first came out a road to ruin for how it damaged the future. And hes proud of it. So it isnt as if we are criticizing in a way that he would say, thats not fair. He would say, thats what i believe in. Thats my philosophy. Hunt an issue you feel apparently about passionately about, guns, gun control, the terrible San Bernardino killings, and you want action and yet all those guns in San Bernardino, a terrible tragedy, were bought legally in your state which has one of the tougher gun control laws in the country. Well, it is, and the fact is thats why we need a national gun law so that there is no thought that even though one state may have good laws you can buy guns in another place. These, use said, were bought in california. But its the bigger issue is as follows overwhelmingly, the American People support sensible background check legislation, expanding the brady bill to include online purchases, straw purchases, i cant qualify, you can, you buy it and sell it to me, and gun shows. Overwhelmingly, its a republican bill. Peter king, mike thompson, its a bipartisan bill. If it came to the floor, it would pass. Just give us a vote. The most egregious and the one the American People understand clearly is that if you are on the f. B. I. No fly watch list, it doesnt disqualify you or prevent you from buying a gun. And the n. R. A. Does not allow this congress to take a vote on that. The n. R. A. On a no fly nib watcf. B. I. Watch list. Its about the American People intervening when the American People should call the shots. We have bipartisan agreement. Give us a vote. Hunt assault weapons ban . Assault weapons ban left i dont know what the republican support coul would be for that,y senator, senator feinstein has been the champion on this issue. But i think if you look at not the high profile shootings which are terrible and break our hearts and challenge our conscience, but look at the fact every night many people are killed throughout our country, most of them not with an assault weapon. So if youre going to reduce gun violence in our country, the background check has much more reach than assault weapon ban, although my colleagues may introduce an assault weapon ban this week as well. Rose do you think president obama including his sunday night speech has been sufficiently forceful in his response to i. S. I. L . Yes. Hunt you do . Yes. I think the president has been so. I think there are things that he suggested in his speech that we in congress could do, including the visa waiver and we talk about the no fly f. B. I. Terrorist list person being able to buy a gun, those who make the guns and people coming into the country from a security overseas standpoint, i think were so long overdue in passing debating and passing an authorization for use of military force. Hunt shouldnt you do that before Congress Goes home for the holidays . There has been foot dragging going on for a couple of years. A couple of years. We asked the speaker before the last election, you know, well into hunt you dont see any chance of congress doing that . No, i dont, but i would be hopeful that we could. Just so you understand, there was always the responsibility for congress to do an authorization of use of military force which is how we give the president authority, authorization. The people complain while hes doing this and that and congress hasnt authorized it. Well, do the authorization. So at first they said, later. Then they said, well, we want the president to put something on the table. This is more than a year ago, 15 months ago or so, the president put on the table his proposal. Not past this but act upon this, Congress Works its will, which talked about the scope of what that authorization would be, the time frame in which it would last and the geography which it would cover. They had their disagreements here or there, but we said, well, then, make another suggestion in terms of what is the scope, what can we do for how long does this last and what Geographic Area does it cover . But they havent done that over 15 months. Hunt you have been a supporter of janet yellen. Shes given every signal shes about to raise Interest Rates. Does that seem appropriate to you right now . One thing i know for sure, congress had nothing to do with monetary policy. Hunt cant comment . Well, my colleagues want to take the authority away from the feds and the congress to determine what our Interest Rates will be and what the timing of it is. That would be such a bad idea. There is so much stiff competition for the worst idea. Hunt how about the idea of raising Interest Rates now . That affects the economy. The economy looks pretty good. Does that seem like an appropriate action at this time . If, in fact, that is the determination they have made on the basis of the data they see and project, then that would but, again, congress is not the fed and i think thats really important. Hunt we noted in the beginning of the show that you have been the leader of the Democratic Party of the house for 13 years. I suspect you know, youre had a good year some say but the mort enjoyable years were probably when you were leading the house. The Cook Political Report says the democrats will not have to win the majority of the vote to pick up the 30 seats you need to get back in majority, they would have to win as much as 55 of the vote. It depends on what happens on the president ial, too. I keep reminding people, because they keep saying, well, without redistricting, no, the republicans we won this 2006 right after the republicans had stolen seven seats in texas, you recall. Hunt you think they kept back this time, it will depend on the president ial race somewhat. Hunt would you like to run against trump . laughter its up to them to select whomever they think hunt we know there was laughter and silence at that question. Its up to the republicans to choose their nominee. We have three great candidates. Any one of them would walk into that oval office with all the values of our country, we would be very proud of them. Whoever she may be. Hunt nancy pelosi, thank you very much for being with us. Well be back in just a moment. Rose lisa randall is here. She is a professor of science at laferred. Her specialty is physics. Her research connects theoretical insights to help us better understand the properties and interactions of matter. Her previous books include warped passages and knocking on heavens door. Her latest is called dark matter and the dinosaurs. I am pleased to have lisa randall back at this table. Welcome. Thank you for having me here. Rose so lets talk about weve tabled about dimensions, which i understand very little, and then dark matter which i understand evend3 less. Right. Rose so what is it . First, let me say one of the pleasures of h this book is being able to connect this really theoretical work that i do to things that are more concrete and well get to that. Rose like dinosaurs . Like dinosaurs and the university and the galaxy. Rose astounding interconnectedness of the universe. And thats an important part of it, but i will start by saying what dark matter is. People think its such a complicated idea and sounds so exotic. But what does matter is its matter. What do we mean by matter . Stuff that interacts with gravity like matter. Iit clumps into stuff and interacts with gravity but doesnt interact with light. We should have called it transparent matter. Dark absorbs light but this stuff light passes through. Billions of dark matter particles are probably passing through you every second but we dont know about it because its not interacting via the other forces. Its interacting via gravity and we know about it because an enormous amount of dark matter has a gravitational influence we can measure, but individual dark matter particles act insignificantly. Hunt all right. How does it connect . I mean, when you set out to write is this, what did you want to explain to us. Thats a great question. One of the reasons i wrote the book is i learned a lot during the research i described and i wanted to present some of these astounding connections and i wanted to write one book where you can talk about the evolution of the universe, the evolution of our solar system and even life on the planet in one place where you can see why these things are all connected. So what i wanted to do was go from dark matter i mean, dark matter was critical to the formation of galaxies and structure in the lifetime of the universe, it wouldnt have happened otherwise. Dark matter, we dont see it, but it was essential to where we are today. Hunt and set off the chain of events that led to the extension. This is the more speculative thing. We dont know if this is true. According to our hypothesis, dark matter might not just be one particle. In fact whierved it be . We talked about the standard of the matter we know. We suggest that maybe dark matter, maybe its not all the same. Maybe there is a small fraction of dark matter that interacts via its own light, call it dark light, if you will, light that we dont experience but dark matter experiences, and the reason thats important is because then dark matter, like ordinary matter, can radiate and cool down. So most people dont know this, but our galaxy is surrounded by this enormous approximately spherical of dark matter but we know about the milky way disk which is ordinary matter. Ordinary matter cools down and collapses into a disk. If dark matter did the same thing, then as the solar system goes around the galaxy, turns out it bobs up and down slightly, so every wince in a while it would pass through a disk of dark matter. The reason its important for this story is far away in the solar system, thousands of times farther from the sun to the earth is something called the orq cloud. This was fun in learning about the asteroids and comets that might hit the earth. Rose back to dinosaurs, how did it become compacted into a disk . The reason its compacted into a disk possibly, this is our hypothesis is that it cools down so the reason it keeps moving is it just is moving around, but as it cools down it collapses. It loses energy and doesnt travel as far. Ordinary matter, for example, is in this disk of the milky way we see which is gas and stars, and we suggest maybe thats true for dark matter, too, in the sense that dark matter has its own light, it clearly doesnt interact with our light as we m, but maybe there is a light only dark matter sees that we dont see. So, in other words, dark matter is more like us than we think. Rose whats the relationship to the sun. The sun orbits the galaxy about every 240 million years. As it does so, it bobs up and down slightly. Rose a galaxy . The Milky Way Galaxy that we live in. Lets think about our own galaxy. As the sun goes around, it can go up and down through the plane of the milky way. If there is a dark disk in the plain, imagine there is a milky way and a dark disk of dark matter, it would be really dense, and it will actually exert the Gravitational Force every time we went through. Rose pay attention, well grade you at the end. Its a lot of stuff. Its exciting because you get to talk about things like comets hitting the earth and extinction of the dinosaurs. Rose you said perhaps the not so hidden agenda of the book is to help us better understand the amazing story of how we got here and to encourage us to use the knowledge wisely. Tell me what that means. Well, you know, right now, there is a lot of talk about what were doing to the planet, and we are changing the face of the plan et very rapidly and our diversity is changing very rapidly. I really do think it gives you a very different perspective when you think about the billions of years of cosmological history. The solar system developing, the planet developing and what it took to get life. I mean, we dont know what it took to get life but there is an interesting reaction between our solar and cosmic environment. Some things obviously benefit we need water, carbon, amino acids so understanding just how complicated this system is i think gives you a different perspective when you think about what youre doing when you change it. So its not directly affecting any particular thing we do, but just like anything else, it helps to know how you got there. So this tells the big story of how we got to where we are today. Rose are you working on something i mean, you write these books like warp passages and dark matter and the dinosaurs, but in your own sort of primary academic research, are you in search of some great answer to you know, its funny, i think we all sort of have Big Questions in the back of our heads that we would like to answer, but i like the fact that we can answer what seem like smaller problems along the way that sometimes give rise to these big insights. If i sat here and said i would like to solve the meaning of the universe. First of all, that doesnt actually mean anything but, second of all, you would make no progress. What i like at Something Like dark matter is its something we know is there but we know there are these real questions about, we know there is measurements going on to find out about it both gravitationally and otherwise, and there is also a lot of ideas that havent been explored. So its a place i know we can make progress. In the process of doing that, wow, it introduced me to more astronomy, to paleontology, to other areas of science. So thats what i like. I like the fact we have these questions, like whats the makeup of the universe and dark matter, but it leads you down the road where you actually understand details about the universe or even our local environment that we havent understood. Rose i saw something the other day, a story about stephen hawking. We know him from the movie as well as from so much attention to him and his remarkable life, you know, that he, in a sense, was transfixed by the idea of a theory of everything. Right. Thats not what drives me, i would say. I think its not even that concept. I mean, yes, even if you had a theory, even if you had equation that would tell you what the fundamental nature of everything is, think of all the phenomenon of our universe that you would still have to explain and you wont be able to explain it from what we call first principles. You will still have to understand what are the relationships. If we try towns life, were not understanding it by having to fundamental cheer r theory of everything. We have to understand the process and an effective theory level where you see what are the relevant parameters for the question at hand. I mean, its very nice to think you can get the ultimate equation but im very happy just to make progress and understand more than we do already because then at least i know were making progress. Rose one physicist said about this wok, a worldrenowned physicist lisa randall brings a fresh twist to one of the worlds oldest murder mysteries, the death of the dinosaurs with wonderful writing and accessible explanation she now convinces and implicates a new suspect is ultimately responsible for that hit in novel kind of dark matter. I wont comment on that because we asked that question earlier, but where are we in terms of the higbosum . We know its there and amazingly boringly normal. Its in a mass range that actually doesnt tell us what the theory is that encompasses it. No one with believes that the higgs boson is all there is. Everyone the thinks its a larger model. People are out there measuring the properties and details and so far it looks boring a and normal, exactly what would you expect. It took 50 years to verify the theory which is an astounding accomplishment that you could predict this and 50 years later they find the particle. But were trying to understand is there a richer structure that surrounds it. Rose how many levels of dimension are there . Good question. We still do not know the answer to that. Its important to realize that, you know, only certain kinds of dimensions will be tested, only certain properties. I mean, one of the challenges, we try to say what could be out there in the universe, and one of the challenges is to come up with as many ideas that could be tested. These are big, difficult experiments that you know too well. So ewe want to make sure youre testing everything you can. So thats the road we take to try to figure out what could be tested. Rose thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. Rose lisa randall, dark matter and the dinosaurs. That will get your attention. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program 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 tuv. This is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and sue herara. Commodity crush. Its not just oil. Iron ore, aluminum, steel, also getting slammed as the decline in prices takes a toll on companies and markets worldwide. In jeopardy, late reports tonight that yahoo may not go forward with its spinoff of alibaba raising questions about the future of its ceo, marissa mayer. And dangerous habit. The one thing thats becoming a bigger risk on the road than texting while driving. All that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for tuesday it, december 8. Good evening, everyone. A triple digit loss in the market today. Late developments tonight on one of the worlds biggest internet companies. Yahoo . It seems one of its core