Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20160628

President ial election. And for an Important Supreme Court decision about abortion we turn to adam liptak of the New York Times. This really is the biggest abortion rights decision since 19d 92. It not only strikes down two parts of a restrictive texas law but it reaffirms a standard that will make it hard for many many states to pass many kinds of abortion restrictions so its a very good day for apportion rights act vises. We conclude this evening with the story of and music from tegan and sara quinn. So it was in 1995. We were reflecting a lot of the music we were listening to. So it was more grung and rock and punk pop and i think over the 17 years that weve been making music professionally, music has changed a lot but i think our ability to reflect the things we like and that we listen to, we have gotten better at that and our production has reflected our confidence and interest in music. Brexit, the Supreme Court on abortion, tegan and sara quinn when we return. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. We continue this evening with our coverage of britains exit from the European Union, thursdays referendum decision has set off a chain of financial and political consequences leaving the future of both britan and the eu in question. The pound has fallen 11 against the dollar in just two days and the s p has downgraded britains triple a credit rating. In the Financial Markets britains ftse100 closed down 2. 6 percent for the day while the dow fell another 1. 7 . Political unrest has also heightened. Britains Opposition Labour Party has split into warring camps and over half of labour leader Jeremy Corbyn shadow cabinet has at the signed. Bore is johnson lead campaigners attempted to provide reassurance for the telegraph newspaper and for the press. I think it is very good news that came out and said reassuring things to the market and its clear now that project fear is over. Theres not going to be an emergency budget, peoples pengses are safe, the pound is stable, the markets are stable and i think thats all very good news. Rose David Cameron plans to leave office in october said he would leave it to his successor to set in motion britains eu exit. Neither bore is johnson nor the prolead have demanded such a step leaving the possibility that a second referendum could take place however in an address to Parliament Today cameron said there must be no doubt about the result. Of course when gi to the European Council tomorrow i will report directly on the result and the decision of the british people, and no one should be in any doubt about that. But i think its important that we set off on this path of exiting from the European Union. Weve tried to build as much good will as possible on both sides. Rose in a joint Statement Today Angela Merkel, francois hold urged britain to mawk a swift exit from the eu. Joining me from london Lionel Barber the editor of the financial times, from washington david saninger of the New York Times and greg ip of the the wall street journal. Here in new york with me john cassidy of the new yorker. Im pleased to have all of them. Gi first to Lionel Barber in london. Tell me what happened today that we should take note of in this amazing story. Well, today you had the Financial Market reckoning. A further dive in the value of sterling against the dollar and the yen and euro. You also also a big selloff in equities. The banks being hammered. And then just right after market closed, the u. K. Loses its triple a sovereign top notch grade rating s p downgrades. This is the beginning and its what a lot of people predicted but im afraid many others who voted leave and campaigned for leave the European Union said the people are fed up with the experts. Rose is there any effort on the part of those in london that believe they can revote . Z. Theres lots. We have more than three Million People signed a petition saying they want a second referendum. We have some of the leading advocates who voted leave and campaigned for leave saying they have now got buyers remorse. But David Cameron in his statement to the house of commons made it clear there is not going to be a second referendum. Were out. Now we have to figure out what our relationship is going to be with the European Union. Rose david, beyond the economic aspects of this, and relationships among nations and relationships with the European Commission and the commissions relationship with everybody, what is the impact of this in terms of geo political struggle. There is the british relationship, of course, with the eu. But there are so many interlocking and interdepend ent other elements of britains relationship. Obviously its a member of nato. 22 members of the eu are. It is a key member of many other international groups. I think the big question thats being asked here in washington is to what degree does britains influence decline there, and how does that hurt the United States. Because of course in washington everything comes back to what does it mean for us, right . So the concern is that the relationship, the special relationship with britain is more than a phrase that goes back to roosevelt and churchill it also conotes the fact that britain was often the one that was the that intervened directly with other european nations. That moderated their trade demands. That nujed them along to contribute more militarily, not only to nato but to other efforts. And that activists, the informal coordinator of intelligence, something that as we have learned in the attacks in paris and brussels, europe is still having a hard time doing, sharing intelligence. So i think the larger question is, if britain loses influence, if it is distracted for the next few years by this remarkable bit of political chaos, is it going to be able to play that role. And is there anyone else who could step into it. And the answer that i heard over the weekend, charlie, was pretty much not. That the germans dont have the desire or constitutional capability to step up militarily. That the french are frequently, there is just too much sand if the gears between the way the u. S. Sees the world and the french do at times. And that others, italy is too broke. The netherlands is too small, the list goes on. Poland is not ready to step up to that role. So i think there are many in washington who are looking around trying to figure this out. Thats why john kerry is in both brussels and london today. Rose the interesting thing about what you just said david is i happened to be in europe and germany and interviewed the president after he left britain and had been there campaigning. His most important point was you will have more influence in the European Union. And will you do more for all of us if are you in the European Union, he hammered at that time after time. Thats right, and i was in london when he gave that remarkable News Conference with Prime Minister cameron. And you know, in my insulated way, i thought that he had made a pretty compelling case and probably had moved a fair number of votes within britain despite the criticism that you heard at the time, that he was intervening in british politics. And i guess the answer is that we were all listening to that in london, not in the rest of the country. Rose quick point with you. Why is Vladimir Putin cheering . Well, putin see this issue as one that divides the europeans and therefore helps him, i think, as he reasserts his power. He is sending, you know, bombers on bombing runs along the coast, sub marines out underneath, off the coast of many european countries. And i think he believes that a europe that is both divided and distracted is not going to be able to stand up to him as much. Rose thank you, david. Why did remain lose. For a number of reasons, they didnt run a Good Campaign to start with. It was all negatives. Project fear as it was called. Most people thought that would work. What happened was, it did work for a few ponts but in the last month and sort of campaigning the leave campaign managed to turn it into basically a referendum about immigration and the on flux of workers and syrians, et cetera. They used lot of very misleading arguments. They seem to have worked with the british public. I think it was just, there was a certain level of sort of complacency on the part of the establishment. Despite the fact that the polls showed it would be very close, some of the polls showed that leave was actually winning, i think most people and i fell into this trap myself. I would be interested to see if lionel agrees. Most people in the establishment thought that when it came down to it, risk aversion and sheer caution would persuade enough people to vote remain and leave, they get a lot of votes but they lose narrowly. Instead that just disn happen it seems a lot of remain people stayed at home. There was differ recommendation turnout, high in leave areas, low in remain areas and it all added up to a loss. Rose would you agree with that, lionel . I would just add that this was a howl against globalization. And its shocking in a country that is open, open trade, as david was saying. Weve been an american ally arguing for liberalization and were seen as reliable and stable. Verse, what this also tells you is that the metropolitan elite, people in the big cities are out of touch with the rest of the country, and the people who felt marginalized fear of immigration as opposed to real immigration because a lot of the Community Voted out, actually were not touched by immigration. But these constituencies, these people who felt out of touch in the voted leave. And that to my mind is the big message ahead of the november general election. I think there are a lot of people who just feel left behind by globalization. Weve tended to think, you know, people in the big cities, a city like london with its Financial Center where weve got lots, 500,000 french People Living in london, for goodness sake. Were comfortable with this. But there are other communities who feel neglected, marginalized, the middle is being squeezed, particularly after the financial crisis. This is a political lag influence after the financial crisis. And i do think in that respect, there are lessons for the candidates, particularly mr. Trump, ahead of the november president ial election. Speak to the Economic Impact to the Global Economy because of this. Well, the first term, the shortterm impact is pretty obvious. You have seen that in the decline of stock markets t will be a big hit to British Economic growth as businesses pulled back their horns, theyre not going to invest or hire. Weve already heard several Large Companies say they are going to move jobs out of britain because they are less useful there in a britain outside the European Union. Then there is going to be a spillover impact on the European Union. Its interesting that stock markets have actually fallen more in europe than they have in britain. Thats partly because of the fear of what i call political con tablingon, you saw leaders of the far right parties in both the netherlanders and france use the brexit vote as a rational for saying we should have those referenda too. Polls show that for instance in france the sentiments for leaving the eu is Even Stronger than Great Britain and if france leaves the eu it also destroyed the euro and you bring back the risk of a financial crisis like we have been working through in the last few years. The final point is the impact on the entire world. We will have worked through the Short Term Impact on sentiments, on the stock market but weve talked about how this is an Inflection Point and a move away from globalization. In the long run if we have higher barriers to the movement of goods and products, less free trade, higher barriers to capitol, that sult matily a slower growing world. And will that happen, though . In other words thats a very good question. And what i have found interesting about breaks sit it has been a roar shack test for those of news the punditry in that people tended to see it as an affirmation of whatever their pryers were, if you were a conservative you saw this as a vote against regulatory interns from brussels, if you were a liberal you saw it as against globalization and the power of inequality. I thought it was interesting that within hours of the vote you saw bore is johnson, the former mayor of london and one of the leaders of the leave movement saying oh, no, no, this was not at all a vote against immigration. Not at all. In fact we still think that britains and europeans should be free to work in each others countries, there is an interesting walking back from this. Whether this will, in fact, be the big turning point in globalization i think depends a lot on what happens over the next three or four months. What are the terms by which britain negotiates its separation from the rest of the your mean union. If it turns out that the leaders of the leave movement whoever replaces David Cameron tries to come back with something that is very similar to what they have now, we may look back on this and say perhaps it really wasnt at are coming in theelectionswht netherlanders and france and germany are going to respond to this event. Come back to that, you mentioned british politics. Is bore is johnson the next Prime Minister of Great Britain . I dont know. He is certainly a strong favorite at this stage. Watch out for someone called theresa may, soft spokeen, loyal to the Prime Minister, but a real hardliner on immigration. She was the one, shes been warning for a number of years that there were too many immigrants coming too the country, including from the European Union, and something had to be done. And you know, she aes been the one in closer political touch. I do, would say one thing about gregs argument. I think its important to not draw premature conclusions, but i think theres a big point here that this is not going to be resolved, this crisis, this brexit crisis in a matter of weeks or months. We dont know, we wont know what kind of british plan there is until maybe the next british Prime Minister is chosen in by september. And then its going to take at least two years to negotiate a deal with the European Union. Whether its 27 other countries that are going to have a say. Rose do you expect to see other countries take this. To be honest, im not even convinced britain will take this path. Youre not. Im not. I think the chances of brexit going through are not much more than 50 50 at this stage. There has been such a violent reaction in the markets and even on the leave side, you have seen some prominent leave people, calvin mckensie, the former editor of the sun, the big mass market antieu paper said he is having second thoughts and fearful of the future. I think if there was a referendum again this week it would go down quite heavily. David cameron said he doesnt want to be part of that. He is playing a strange game. It is sort of he is trying to generate maximum chaos as far as i can see. He was very clever to resign immediately, because that basically said well, were not going to invoke article 50. If he just wanted to pass through, make sure brexit took, did go through, he could have done what he promised he would do and respect the will of the people f there is a vote through, i will do what they say. He didnt do that. He didnt invoke article 50. He said i will resign in three months time. That threw the whole political system into chaos for three months and it gave people a chance to sort of think again, i think. So im not saying i know what is going to happen. Its complete chaos but it could easily be another general election, there could be a new labour leader in that general election running on a remain ticket, would get a lot of support from the liberal democrats, from the business community. I mean i just dont think this game is finished. Rose do you disagree . I do. I agree with you on so many things but on this not quite. There is method in this supposed madness. The reason that David Cameron did not invoke the article 50 of the lisbon treaty saying is because that would be irrevocable that would set in motion the chain, a chain of circumstances where we do withdraw. What he has done now is say right, im going to be Prime Minister for awhile but now were not going to have a second referendum. He cant say that. There would be people out in the streets. So what he has done is open up a gap. Listen Angela Merkel of germany. She said its okay. Its up to the brits to decide when they invoke article 50. What this is, is a period of reflection, period of time where we work out what kind of deal we want. And meanwhile, if the markets crash, if theres a recession in britain, maybe then, maybe then people will come to their senses and say we need to maybe have a general election, or Something Like that, where a new government comes up with a new plan where john may be right, that we actually ask for our membership back. There is a precedent for this. In the early 2,000 there was a vote in ireland about an expansion of the treaty that governs the European Union. In the first referendum the irish voted against it, there was a little renegotiation to satisfy some of the irish concerns and put it to a second vote and that time it passed. Something similar in denmark, so there is an aspect that they just will not take no for an answer that is one reason why you shouldnt leap to too many conclusions right now. I i agree with lionel there is no way to ignore the referendum there was a vote for it what i am saying is it is just unleashed such powerful forces that we really dont know where things are heading. Lets say that bore is johnson wins the election on september 1st. That and becomes the Prime Minister. Does he have a mandate now to take us out of the eu or take britan out of the eu without a further general election . I think a lot of people in parliament, not just labour and liberal democrats but proeu tories would say he needs to go to the country and get a mandate himself. The former deputy Prime Minister said that in Parliament Today. And David Cameron didnt knock him down. So i think there say real possibility of another general election here before we even invoke article 50. In which case, that would be a sort of referendum on the result of the referendum. Rose bore is johnson is a candidate, there would be a real question about his leadership that would be raised. Yeah, could he actually bring all the torie party with him. We will see how many votes he gets. Can he Bring Parliament with him. He would agree to a general election if he was up against Jeremy Corbyn, the current hard left leader of the labour party because coprobably beat him hands down. But if its a new labour leader maybe he wont want a general election. The one thing i can say, charlie, because i had the privilege so to say of working alongside bore is swron son when he was correspondent for the Daily Telegraph in brussels and the one adjective that comes to mind is elastic. Rose and what would be your definition of elastic in this case. Bore is johnson will do what he thinks is in his interest and when it comes to saying things one day and saying another, it would be very elastic. He will be very flexible. I mean hes already saying, distancing himself from statements made by the campaign in the election, greg or was it john eluded to this earlier. Hes now saying oh, this campaign wasnt about immigration. The vote wasnt about immigration. But this goes completely contrary to all the leaflets, all the sloganeering where it was deliberately playing on peoples fears about immigration. So one of the reasons that tories are actually saying that bore is johnson would be the best leader for the labour party is weve got ourselves in such a mess, David Cameron cause call this election, we know were going to have to move become and just drop and abandoned all the positions that weve had. So who can do that with the most he tonnian pu nash bore is johnson. Rose i saw a thing on the bbc, lionel, that suggested that at eaton and oxford bore is johnson was a bigger shining star than David Cameron. Well, he still hasnt got over he hasnt got over the fact that he only got a second class on his degree and David Cameron got a first class on his degree. At oxford. Rose yes. So the competition between these two goes back. Its got serious history. Theyve got form, both of them. And bore is johnson honestly thinks hes more capable than David Cameron. He is ambitious. I honestly believe having known and talked with him about his positions on europe, for a number of years, that hes not antieuropean. He in his words, and you can see both by what he says and what shape he is, he likes to have his cake and eat it. Rose greg, reflect more on terms of contagion here. Yeah, so i think one of the reasons you have seen people especially here in the United States looking at our fall election, have been so flum oxed by the result, is in trying to understand what it is in the pop liss that would drive him to this result. There were a lot of studies that were done that showed fairly clearly that brexit would leave the average brit poorer five to ten years from now and yet they voted for brexit anyway. And i think when it comes to our fall election, for example, its no exaggeration to say that a lead upon on both the left and right side believe that Donald Trumps policies would be bad for the country. For example, especially on trade. But i think that when you look at the british result, these same people have to say well, it appears to be that a lot of voters dont really care. Maybe these are the ones who never benefited from globalization and so they are certainly not going to, like, lose any sleep overcasting a vote for a candidate whos against globalization. And its interesting, you have seen trump playing exactly that note, after the vote on brexit, he was saying this is a my Campaign Like this campaign is a campaign against the elites. He gave a speech last week where he said globalization has destroyed the middle class. So i think that those sorts of emotional words can have an effect that can override the sort of, you know, traditional debates we tend to have about who is going to maked economy stronger or raise middle class wage further. Rose john in. One thing about trump. I take all the arguments about how globalization arguments play into his favor, the disa effected working class. He is certainly tapping into. Immigration. I think there is one big difference between the brexit vote and the u. S. Election. In the breaksity vote you vote leave or remain. In the u. S. Election you vote donald trump or hillary clinton. Its a much bigger ask to say will you vote for donald trump than will you vote for leave. Its a personalized election. And i think hes still got to get over that. Any momentum at all because of the notion that show, you know, that the people who have been supporting him represent sort of hidden voters who dont want to say theyre for done all trump in terms of polling in a sense but they have the same grieveances as the people against government who voapted to leave. Clearly donald trump is tapping into something. Hes had the most hellacious month of any politician i can remember. And he is still only five points behind in the wall street journal poll. Ten points behind him, 12 points behind the washington post. Lets take an average, say seven or eight points behind. Given to what has happened to him, thats pretty astonishing. Hes clearly got some support and is talking about issues in terms of trade, and in termings of wage stagnation and in terms of immigration which are not, dont go well in Polite Society but they resonate in working class and middle class areas. My point is, that gives him a platform but it doesnt give him the credibility to sort of jump over the platform. Rose what do you think theyre saying in the Hillry Clinton Campaign Today . I think ther sea saying you can see that from their message, they are saying we have to address the concerns hes raising. So every speech hillary gives, she talks about helping the middle classes. Rose who might lead the labour party if not the present leader. Well, we have an old exveteran from av tban stand called dan jar advice who many people wont be that familiar with, but is he somebody to look at, chooka imu na is a london mrk p, he did toy with the idea of running and abruptly pulled out. Hes somebody to watch. What you can say, though, charlie, is that the blairest crowd, the heirs of tony blair, its over for them. Its gone. Rose thank you, greg, thank you, lionel, thank you, john, and to david who had to leave early. Back in a moment, stay with us. Within the Supreme Court concludessed its term in a 53 decision. The justice invalidated provisions of a texas law that placed restrictions on abortion clinics. The court also unanimously vacated the corruption conviction of fompler governor of conviction bob mcdonald. Joining me from washington, adam liptak Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times an am pleased to have him once again. So were you surprised by there or not. Justice ken ksh ksh den de kennedy was its swing justice. I was a little surprised. Could you tell by doing a little bit of detective work about who was going write what, dik briar was the likely author, then you knew it would be a proabortion rights decision but i wasnt sure it would be quite so you will throated. This really is the biggest abortion rights decision since 1992. Did not only strikes down two parts of a restrictive texas law but it reaffirms the standard that will make it hard for many many states to pass many kinds of abortion restrictions. So its a very good day for abortion rights activists. Rose tell us about the restriction. The law did two basic things, both legislators said were to help womens health. But abortion Rights Groups said that was a ruse, they were really a way to shut down clinics. One of them required doctors in abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals which are hard to get and many medical associations say there is no point in that. Because abortion is very safe procedure. A second required abortion clinics to meet quite demanding standards of ambulatory surgical centers, basically turning them into mini hospitals. Costing millions of dollars to do and the net effect of all this, had the law been fully in place, would be to drive the number of clinics in texas which of course is enormous state down from about 40 to about 10. This decision mines were probably going to back at Something Like the 40 number fairly soon. And the dissented. The dissent, most of it was quite technical about how some procedural bars hadnt been met, and litigation shouldnt have gone through because of an earlier litigation that is mostly what chief justice robertsnd and alito wrote about. Justice thomas wrote that this decision was bad not only because it reaffirmed the 1992 decision planned parenthood against kacey, but because it also reimagined it. It made it even easier for courts to strike down abortion restrictions which Justice Clarence thomas thought was a bad thing. And the bob mcdonald case. The mcdonald case was surprising because it was unanimous. The chief justice said his corruption conviction had to go because it looked like he hadnt taken the kind of official aks that could be the basis of a corruption conviction. So there is no question but that he took all kinds of money and luxury goods from a businessman who hoped the governor would help his business. There is no question that the governor set up meetings for that benefactor. But the meetings alone werent good enough to chief justice rode. You needed to actually intend to or agree to take some official action. And that narrows the corruption laws substantially am but it also lets politicians engage in routine political papers for their constituents. So that was probably why eight justices thought they could sign on to that decision. Rose and there was always the involvement of his wife in the case if it went it to trial. Thats right. So this didnt directly involve mrs. Mcdonalds conviction but it will very likely also serve to vacate her conviction. Rose so what do you do now that the court has had a session . Well, i think i should probably write a wrapup of the term, try to make sense of the eight justice courted. Try to look forward to when and if we will finally have a ninth justice and maybe ill take a vacation. Rose i hope you will. And what will you say about the term that we just closed . I will say that for the most part the court mud eled through dead locked, not infrequently, agreed on very narrow grounds, sometimes in kriptic decisions in an effort to find consensus but in two big cases, affirmative action and abortion, the court delivered solid liberal victories swi not always what you expect from the roberts court. Rose its been a pleasure to you have on the show. Any time you are welcome here to help us understand. The law is so important as the candidate for the presidency constantly remind us, in terms of what is at stake between republicans and democrats. Thank you, charlie. Tegan ansara quinn are here, canadian identical twin sister duo have spent the last 17 years creating musicking to. Their u neen sound has shifted to include everything from alt folk to indy rock to pop punk. They have also been strong and open supporters of the lgbt community. Their latest will bum love you to death finds them laying complex lyrics over danceable 80s inspired synthetic pop tracks. The Los Angeles Times says like so much of the best pop from prince to madonna to lady gaga, tegan ansaras music balances universality and specificity. The songs are relatable to many but seem to reflect the personal experiences of one. Here they are performing the hit single boyfriend in our studio. Tell you that i love you, that i cant hold back. The feeling that you give me, wanta give it right back. I know you always win at this particular game. I need to know the rules if you want me to play. You treat me like your boyfriend. And trust me like a like a very best friend. You kiss me like your boyfriend. You call me up like you would your best friend snoatd you turn me on like you would your boyfriend. But i dont want to be your secret any more. I am trying to be honest cause i cant relax. O when i get around you i cant hide the facts. I let you take advantage cause it felt so good. I blame myself for thinking we both understood. You treat me like your boyfriend. And trust me like a like a very best friend. You kition me like your boyfriend. You call me up like you would your best friend. You turn me on like you would your boyfriend. But i dont want to be your secret any more. I dont want, dont wanta play the crying game. Do you feel the same . You feel the same. Dont want blanca dont wanta spin the bottle again. Do you feel the same . You feel the same. You treat me like your boyfriend. And trust me like a like a very best friend. You kiss me like your boyfriend. You call me up like you would your best friend. You turn me on like you would your boyfriend. But i dont want to be your secret any more. You treat me like your boyfriend. And trust me like a like a very best friend. You kiss me like your boyfriend. You call me up like you would your best friend. You turn me on like you would your boyfriend. But i dont want to be your secret any more. Rose im pleased to have tegan and sara at this table for the first time, welcome welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for having us. Rose i heard this wonderful thing which was very flattering to me. Im not sure it was you tegan or sara or both. Because of your parents watching my show, early on. Well, you know, we signed our first record deal in the late 90s. And we started touring in the United States. We grew up in canada. And one of the first things i remember doing is, you know, we share a hotel room and we would unit on the tv and watch you. Rose oh my gosh. And so you are. Rose took you a long while to get here. It took us a long time. Everything in time, its a marathon, not a sprint. Were excited. Rose indeed. But also in that time between that beginning have shifted in terms of the kind of music that you wanted to express yourself. Walk me through that. When he started playing music we were teenagers, 15, so it was in 1995. We were reflecting a lot of the music we were listening to so it was more grung and rock and punk popment i think over the 17 years that weve been making music professionally, music has changed a lot. But i think our able to reflect the things we like and that we listen to, weve gotten better at that. And i think our production has reflected our confidence and interest in music. So i think naturally over eight records weve turned more into like a pop band. But we always say were making pop music but were not pop stars. Rose you also say youre stepping up, not selling out. Thats true. I think the worst thing ever would be of artists, especially because of two of us would be for one of us to grow disinterested or not be as invested, because its a family band, i think we owe each other our best. And that has meant challenging ourselves which means changing our sound. And were very invested in trying to reach a broader audience and to diversify the mainstream. There is not a ton of queer women in the mainstream and were queer. We saw an opportunity well. Were getting a lot of support from mainstream artists and we thought man, maybe we should take this and run with it. Rose is queer a term you like. We like queer better than. Lesbian upsets is. Sara seems like lesbian makes us feel like we have an affliction. Whereas queer is. The truth is, when i was in 10th grade and i did High School Psychology class, there was like you could take that class. I remember really clearly being given these handouts, about mental illness. And one the one of the ones crossed out, like my teacher is not exactly was the most professional, was homosexuality. And lesbianism. You hadnt heard this. And i remember, like this s you knowk im in my im in the early years of me understanding that i was definitely different, you know, i knew my sexuality was different. And i remember being humiliated by reading, cuz its what just blacked outlining across, over the dont worry, it used to be a disease with you we changed our minds. I remember being really affected by that, and those words i think stayed with me. For me queer is more like a reclaiming of sexuality and gender and more of a broader identity. Rose it goes back generations where it was in common usage. Absolutely. We know we are sort of reclaiming a word that still to this day can sound really can sound really difficult for a lot of people, a word that is used against gay people. And for us, its just sorted of a way to talk more broadly, i guess about our identity. Rose how close are you . I mean is every instinct the same . Self ree sense of you know exactly what she is thinking, vice versa . Well, i dont know if it is as precise of like i can hear tegans thoughts or ssmg i think developmentally because we were having so many of the same things happen, you know. Rose its both genetically and environmentally. Sure. We. We always say, we say this only in Intelligent Company but we almost say sometimes our relationship is a bit like a marriage. When you have been married to someone for 35 years, you can read their thoughts. I feel like sometimes sara and i, music is like our child. Rose but do you like the same things. I think that we have a general area that we both fit in and i think we sit on either extreme. You know, like i like electronic music so sara likes really obscure electronic. I liked pop music and sara liked a very specific kind of pop music. Rose are you competitive with each other . I think that we have come to terms with what we would have described in our relationship, people wanted to define that as competition, which often made us feel like they were trying to. Rose divide you. So there was an instinct especially when we were younger to say no were not competitive at all. We love each other. We are protecting one another. I think we push each other. We do i know i do with it withing at thean a lott. Im one of the only people who request say to tegan like sing it this way or i dont like that word or i think you can do better with those lyrics. There are sara labors over lyric, we had a big song called back in your head in 2008 and sara said she spent 80 hours recording it again and again and again and laboring over every word. And we had a song our last record closer that did well, i wrote it in 22 minutes. Rose how did you write it in 22 minutes. I sent her three songs that were mostly guitar and i got zero comments back. And then like a response a couple days later, yeah, good, keep writing. I was like, so i pulled out my keyboard and i just, you know, was like whatever c, f, g be, and just started writing the hook and sent it to sara and she wrote me right back, i barely had it sent. She wrote back and was like finish it. Rose you did in 22 minutes and i was like okay, that means she likes it. A big hit. I feel like we balance each other. Rose do you write more than she does. Yeah. Yeah, because she spends too much time. If i spent 80 hours on a song, thats it, thats my opus. I was just going to sairks i enjoy the time too. I think tegan sometimes wants to complete t that gives her a lot of satisfaction, for me the satisfaction is actually in the process. Rose but you have had the good fortune to open for lots of good people. Oh yes. Rose cathy perry. We started our career opening for neil young thark set of tone. Rose hello. That was our very. Rose. Is he a genius, an informative eight weeks. Rose i imagine it would be. It was our first tour. Rose he is a good friend of mine and this table too. He has been a good friend us to. In that we wouldnt have the ka roor we did when his manager flew up to see us play in vancouver he said you have tooth paths, you can sign with a major label and there say great possibility will you put a record or two out but if it doesnt happen for you, that might be it. Im going to tell you right now are you great songwriters but you need time to develop. And he also said youre 20 years old. What do you know about love. You need to live and experience things. Rose someone once said you should never write a great novel like war peace unless you have lived life and understand something about history and relationships. And sadness and tragedy, and all of that. That is what is great about being 20 is you are so naive, you think you know, what do you mean, what do i know about love but here we are in our 30st. We chose this path. We chose the path of signing with an indy and going on tour with neil young an building our career and developing. Touring with neil young was, i mean you could really, the way that we have built our touring organization and our management and really the infrastructure of our career, we did that all based on what we saw neil young doing. I think everything about the way that we perceived his tour and the dynamics between, he had his family out on tour. Everything about it, really appealed to us. We thought we can build something, even a fraction of what he has, that is going to be this is the way to do it. Rose who taught you you have a relationship with your fans trk seems you go out of your way to connect. Definitely. Rose part of it is social media but part of it it is other things. What is funny is we grew up listening to Bruce Springsteen and one of our favorites is the live record where he tells the stories. Rose and also makes sure by the time he leaves the stage, you know if hes not flat on his back, he has done everything in that arena knows he has given everything he has. Absolutely. And that was, when we started playing music we had maybe eight or ten song, we will two hours, we were playing cough see shops or bars and we would talk, there was a pressure toant tain. In terms of the relationship to our audience we understood quickly that we had taken a slower path and we had chosen the path of development and that meant that we had to kroapt a relationship with our audience. And that you know, maybe our audience was small and there was only 50 people there that might but the next time we came through we needed to ensure those 50 people came. We were influenced by that. It seemed like something that also made us feel a bit less lonely. We were out on the road. Using the fans. They were our peers, during those years where people go to college or they are sort of like suddenly have this freedom from their parents and they are surrounded by people like them, we were a lone. We were taking the Greyhound Bus and playing shows late at night to strangers. So in a weird way it was like our college years. And we were trying to connect to these people. We wanted them to be our friends. We wanted them to, he with wanted them to be part of our innercircle. As we developed and as we got older, and as queer women our audience started to change. A lot of women and lgbt people being reflected back to us in our audience, hearing these incredible stories about how we inspired them and made them feel better about who they were and comfortable about coming out. At that point we became protectiveofour audience, that peeses people were very special and we need to keep that very, very, very safe some of we cant lose that connection. And so in every conversation about everything we do, our audience is like number one. Rose what percentage of your audience do you think comes from the lgbt, 20 . Its hard to say now because. It is too dark. Our eyesight is worse. We cant really tevment its changed. With radio, with radio play and with bigger tv stuff over the last lets call it five, ten years, we have seen the audience really diversify which is great. We love seeing all different types of people. But tegan is right, there is something that we really cherish about the kid was came from that community. So we really paid a lot of attention to them. But when we are looking out night to night we were just in london and i remember looking out thinking there is a lot of dudes in our audience, a lot of guys. Rose soment are older white men. There are always a lot of those around, arent there. There are a lot of men with beards right now. There was a guy with a big beard Standing Center stage in london and i thought, like, look at that guy. Look at his big beard it is so funny because for a lot of years, it was a lot of people who looked like us, girls. Rose when they talk about pep talks during the song they are talking about the kind of things, like what you learned from springsteen, have a conversation with your audience. Exactly. Its an opportunity, for us it is an opportunity to share about our lives and help develop a relationship with the audience but i think the audience it is an opportunity for them to get to know us better. This all started before social media but even with social media where you are presenting one image, its very one d, it feels like. And i think sara and i are very much about creating a 370 360 degree view of who they are. I want people to understand i put everything in our music. Im not up on stage to get rich and famous. Im up on stage because i feel, you have something to say. I feel intense purpose about being on stage. I feel passionate about music but i also feel passionate about traveling the world and understanding people. And you know, this is a family band so i feel passionate about creating a business with my sister. And i dont want to just get up on stage and be like whats up. Some people do that, thats fine, thats good, that works. I will never again hear that. Whats up. Whats up, whats up, come on. You know someone is said to me, some people cannot talk on stage, are you know are you just like. Dont say anything, dont say anything. It is so true. You know they have nothing to say, if they say whats up. We are not hurting for something to say. Sometimes tegan gets going, you foa we have to play songs though tonight as well, you understand that, there will be a musical part. Is either of you more political than the other. We are both politically active and very sensitive to making sure that we are a band, we are we write songs that are not necessarily political. Rose about love and tragedy. We keep each other in check. And we also want, tegan and i without being too judgemental, i dont want this to be teab is this is how everyone should make it, but we seal see it, we feel compelled to talk about the things we feel important to us or what we see going on in the world. Its more than just tweeting or saying something, we belong to a community thats active. We try to help people. We try to raise awareness about certain things. That gives us a lot of purpose it makes us feel really good. I get that a lot of bands dont want to do that. We try to keep it in balance. We keep each other in check. Were not politicians. We try not to be anyway. How many hits has boyfriend received. You know what, boyfriend is an interesting song, it has done very well for us, its done very well for us dreaming streaming. Like millions and millions. Just entered the top ten in canada which is very exciting, very progressive. Rose top ten. Feels very exciting. On radio. Streaming is so different because its just like, its hard to sometimes figure out is that someone listening to the song 400 times or is that actually 11 Million People trk is so confusing. My mother, probably my mom, just rehitting hit. She has a pen il just presses play on it over and over, helping us make money. Rose hey, darlings, ive got it up to. Were getting used to it like everyone else. Streaming, this is the first album where were trying to figure out what it really means. How many people are really we are really into socialnce. Media. We sort of came up as social medias with really blooming, we loved it because we couldnt get tv, radio, so for us social media was our way of having, we literally made our own tv shows and would put them out on the internet. We were after your job. We were, we had interview shows. Really. We were always creating contests for our audience. We were always, we were like. Rose you cannot have my baby. No, we dont want this. We were going to use other things, we wanted people to see us. And so the only way we knew how to do that was to make our own content. So we love social media. Within reason, sometimes it drives us quickly. Rose talk about these song, that girl. I wrote that song about when you hit that moment oh no, im that girl. Like i was very, i was making myself out to be the victim all the time in relationships but actually im the one always in control and i realized i had i had maybe other relationships for content, not think being those peoples feelings in all of it. And i was having a moment which felt like maybe like a bad guy. Do you need to control your relationships. Well, with my life is complicated. So i felt. That means yes. Yeah. But i dont feel that any morks you know. I needed to make room. I share everything with sara. You are not controlling any more. No, not any more. Everything was within the needy one who needs all the attention. Now she is is trying to get people off. Faint of heart. I wrote that one, you know, my hope is that people hear that and hear the voice of somebody saying that no matter who you love and no matter what your relationship is that you dont need to validate it for anybody else. Exactly write. Boyfriend. Pop song about trying to get somebody to nail it down. Have i been joking. You want somebody to say, this is shall it we are in an exclusive relationship, this all that song is about. I see. Dying to know. That is actually one of our first true collaborations. Yeah. And its basically its about getting broken up with, maybe having a broken heart. But in a way it is about social media. Dont compare it to social media. Where you go and you look at your ex and their pictures and you know, that is what dying to know is about. Not being able to move on. Whiteknuckles. About my relationship with tegan. Oh. That is where we should go. Sure, we can go there. I mean White Knuckles truly its about the time when i was in my early 20s and di side decided, we were living in vancouver and i decided to move to montreal. I might as well be moving to icelander it seemed really far. Did you come in and announce that. Yeah. At a particular moment. No i remember saying i was sober, very soash and i had this decided that i really wanted to move to montreal and i didnt want to break up the band but i knew if i didnt find some independence, if i didnt find my own life, my own stride i wasnt going to be in the band. Did it work . It did. Very good for our band. I need each of you to be a truth teller. We are like couples therpy where they look and say is that true. It was really good for us. Im skipping a couple. Hang on to the night. Is about anxiety, its about worrying about the world, my mid life crisis song. You had a crieses. I feel like im always having a crisis. 35. Jeez, is it the lighting here, am i aging by two years. Im 35, saras 35. This has just been released on june 3rd. Brand new. Brand new and brilliant. We think its pretty good. Were positive. It is our 8th record so we feel like we have a lot of things figured out. We feel like we are writing great songs. We will say it is the most critically positive reviewed record of our career. And we had really bad ve reviews. Have you had bass reviews. Horrible, terrible things. Sara keep saying something bad must be coming because everything has been so positive, it is insane. Look at where it got you. It got us on this show, finally. Thank you, thank you very much. Absolute pressure. Thank you so much. Much success with this. Thank you. Love to you death. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes vits us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Snoalt waiting on you to get your act in gear. You want to be so infected. I played it cool and then i overdressed it. You were there, i was tired of it. Nonsense where you pretended. Get me. Feel me. Want me. Like me. Love me knowed me. Tonight. You can stop this. Oh oh oh. Stop this fire. Oh i try. But what you do to my fire. You cant stop this. Oh. Stop this. In a minute ill be hoping that youre outside. Another second youll be walk on my wild side. You know im ready for anything to happen. The passion turn it into action. Get me. Feel me. Want me. Like me. Love me. Need me. Tonight. For my fire. You concern stop this. Oh oh oh. Stop this oh oh. I tried. But you for my fire. You cant stop this. Stop this. Right where i want you, back against the wall snoalt trust when i promise never let you fall snoalt right where i want you. Back against the wall. You can trust me. I never let you fall. Tonight. My fire. You can stop this. Oh. Stop this oh i have tried. But youre fuel to my fire. You cant stop this. Stop this love. Tonight. Youre fuel for my fire. You cant stop this fire. Oh stop this fire. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ music ] yes, check, please people. Its all about licking your plate. The food is just fabulous. I should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. I had a horrible experience. I dont even think we were at the same restaurant. Leslie and everybody, im sure, saved room for those desserts