Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20161216

Those things you carry those things with you, do you know what i mean. And barack obama didnt really have that. He was shielded from most of that. Also this evening jim and tom story talk about their politics. There were overwhelming issues in the campaign that are obviously retrospective. One is that the majority of americans just feel as if their Economic Opportunity hasnt improved for as long as they can remember. And theyre worried about it and they dont think their kids are going to do better and they think thats not the american way. Weve got to shake that up. Thats the number one thing. Number two thing, they think that the political insiders dont care about that. That theres a reason why they havent done better for as long as they can remember and the reason is the game is against them. The rules are set up for the insiders. Rose Tanehisi Coates, and jim and tom story when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Tanehisi Coates is here hes an author in the atlantic where he writes about culture politics and social issues. His latest cover story is about president barack obama it is called my president was black, the first African American whitehouse and what came next. Im pleased to have Tanehisi Coates back at this table. Welcome. Thanks for having me, charlie. Rose its great to have you back in america. Its greet to be back in america. Rose congratulations on the National Book award. Thank you. Thank you. Rose how was paris. I cant lie. I loved it. Rose was it a part being somewhere different, was it the uniqueness of paris or something even more. No. I think it was, i mean it did things that may sound superficial that are very important to me like food. The food was great. The wine as great, all thats great. But i like the alienness of it. In this sense, it could have been anywhere. I liked that when i walked out on the street and people talked, i had to struggle to understand what was going on. I told my son once it felt like every day i was walking outside and i was on roller skates the whole time. I liked that, you know. Its the kind of fatal masochist thing because youre like off and you misunderstand people and you know, sometimes you just dont understand completely or you may understand one person in one moment and then hear somebody else in another moment and not. But the alienness of the language of the culture, i felt like i was learning every day, you know. Rose did you see from a distance america any different. Yeah, i did, i did, i did. Although im hesitant to like talk about it because i dont know how much of it was personal, do you understand what im saying, and how much was actually true, you know, based on real knowledge of the culture. There are a lot of impressions that i had, but not enough that has been baked with the actual many. Rose people who had not had your experience will talk about something thats part of your experience and will give you insight judicial the one big thing i am sure about is how the relative of handguns shaped the culture. Im pretty clear on that. Where my son would get on the subway as he would every day to go to school, the idea he would get shot or anything like that, just wasnt part of it. It just wasnt part of anything, you know. The police, and to be clear, france has issues between its minority population and the police. Rose absolutely. But theres no notion that the people or theres a considerably lesser notion, i want to speak in relatively considerably less notion the people theyre going to face are going to have h ndguns. Which as you see, that permeates everything when you talk about violence between the police and black communities. And just violence in general, you know. I have no idea whether this person is armed or not. That didnt exist in the same way. Rose when did you come back. I got back in june and i kind of went away again. I live here in new york so i kind, i want to ease my way back into new york. Rose how did this come about your idea, atlantics idea, Barack Obamas idea. A combination, i guess. I feel thats the culmination of really just eight years of writing about the president. I had written about him from afar, probably for the first four years or so. And then i was invited to a few off the record briefings to be in conversation with him there. And i think at least for the past three years or so we always had in our mind it would be great if the atlantic and especially given the atlantics heritage where it comes from starting on you as a german of abolition it would be great if we were able to take some consideration of the president in the magazine. Rose just start from the beginning because you and i talked about. You think he has been a great president. I do. I do, i do. And that does not mean that i am without criticism, it does not mean that everything he did was great but i think one of the things ive had to do, its funny because over the past eight years i feel in some ways ive been radicalized, i guess ive become more conservative. I had to when i wrote this piece, this is hard even to say now. I had to judge him against other president s. In other words i couldnt judge him solely against what, against an ideal of what should happen in the country. But i had to take consideration of what president has done throughout history. Rose so did he rise when he did that. He did. Its hard as a journalist and critic to say that. He did, i mean he d like lincoln is considered one of our greatest president s, and i certainly feel that way, do you know what i mean. I think about lincoln, i think about going from a log cabin and then having to become this kind of intellectual and at the very end youre basically embracing the abolitions point. But along the way there were also, i mean as late as 1863 or so lincoln is still embracing this idea that black people can be somehow shipped out and immigrate to somewhere else. But hes a great president , do you know what i mean. Like you can go through this with anybody who you think is great. And so i think its the same thing for obama. Rose well talk about how you think hes unique as well. Right. Rose because he sees white people different than you do. I think so. Yes, he does. Thats biography. Its biography. I mean i think he sees white people different than most black people. Rose and thats your point. Thats my point, yes, yes, yes. I think the wounds of racism fr the president are individual. There are incidences he can talk b when youre born into an African American community in the mainland like i was, like his wife was and most African Americans was and youre part of a deeply deeply segregated group the wounds is not individual its collective much in its in everyone you see around you. Its in your very heritage. At the end of this piece, i talk about my dads own history and his interactions if we want to call them that with the fbi. Those things, you carry those things with you, do you know what i mean. And barack obama didnt really have that. He was shielded for most of that. Rose because he was living outside the country in part or because he was living with weigh. Yes, the time he was in indonesia. Not just his mother being white but the fact his mother was white and living in hawaii so he was living far from the fulcrum of jim you can be by racial racial and born in chicago. I knew reracial people like this but he was born so far away it was like a distance experience. So he didnt have that trauma at a very very early able. Thats the way i think about this. I was as a child never by a white person called the n word. That just didnt happen to me, right. The first time it actually happened to me was two or three years ago i was in paris, believe it or not i was in france. Some crazy person addressed me in that way. It didnt wound me at all. I knew something bad had happened. I knew this person, it was an individual thing, do you understand. I didnt feel any sort of grand way about it. But had i been a black french person who had grown up in paris and had to deal with this on a regular base i probably would have felt a lot differently. I understood it as an offense but it didnt really shake me, didnt bother me too much. Rose this is from last night and not thinking about you and the piece. With a very very intelligent but enormously successful man, i said so eight years is about coming to an end t the he talked most about the dignity of the man, right. Rose thats what he talked about and his family and his children. Yeah. Rose there was no scandal. You could have policy differences but he rose above all that. Sense of a man with dignity. Yes, yeah. And i think there was part of me that would like that to not be important. Because i think even getting that discussion, i think there was a double standard there. Rose they said about him because they might have expected him not to be. No, no. Not the speaker. Im saying i think the obamas were aware there would be a double standard and thats part of what happened. Like they were rising to a certain level i think. I think that was part of it. Part of it is who they are but i think they also understood as the first black family to be in the whitehouse like they had to adhere. Same thing with jackie robinson, right. Jackie robinson could not be a great baseball player he had to come port himself in a certain way. Rose you think where barack obama and michelle yes. And i was hoping that wasnt true but that wasnt true this time out. Rose youve expressed the idea how he came from a different place so therefore he had a different attitude. Right. Rose assess his legacy beyond that. Yeah. I think hes significant. Theres a place in a piece where i talk about, and again this is the tension between assessing him as a president and assessing him where the president comes out two years ago and says were going to use the power of the federal government as much as we to roll back the impact on the ware on drugs. He announced there are 10,000 or so people in our federal prison system who they believe should be paroled and at the time i ws writing the article there was a thousand, im not clantd clemency and i think they had gotten to maybe a thousand which was 10 of the people they said should not able to get out. When you assess it, it sort of seems like a failure right but then you assess it as compared to every president whose come before him and particularly in the modern area. Its actually a great success. In fact the president had commuted sentences of more people than the past 11 president s combined. Thats a huge huge deal, you know. And thats the tension, do you know what i mean. You wish he had done more but when you compare it to what the actual reality of president ial power, i think it looks pretty good. You opened the article with a quote from f. Scott fitzgeralds greats gatsby. There are rotten crowd i scatter across the lawn, youre worth the whole damn bunch put together. I life the great gatsby. At the same time, as far as for me, it eludes to this notion of beginning twice as good which is the idea obama has put out for young African Americans to adhere to, and its an idea i have my own problems with but at the same time he really was, you know. I think that history will agree with that gatsby, with that fitzgerald quote, five, ten years. I think people will really begin to see. It doesnt man that the flaws will go away but i think we got a good eight years and thats going to become increasingly clear. Rose did it make it easier for another black man or black woman to become president. I think it will. Rose thats very significant. Like you said before this was a scandal plagued administration i think it would have made it significantly hard. Ill just be straight about this. I think had barack obama comported himself the way that current president elect comports himself. Well first of all i dont think he would have been president at all but i think its in office he comported himself that way, that would have made it significantly harder, you know. Lets talk about the sections of the essay. Love will make you do wrong. I love you asked me about that. Nobody asked me about the title. Me original actually was the pull from music all the way through but i couldnt come up with it enough. There should be and i wanted there to be a kind of angelic almost tragic mournful quality to the piece. And so i was looking for things that you know alluded to that. So actually the lyric is al greene he sang make you do right, hes talking about love, love will make you do right, thats the implication, love will make you do wrong where we focused on the wrong thing do you know what i mean because we want as much as i want literal information in that piece, i want it to feel a certain way. I want to conjure up certain emotion not just make a factual statements all the way through. I want people to feel something when they were done and music is a big part of that. Rose he walked on ice but never fell. Thats not a musical illusion to run dmc, i walked on ice and never fell is dmc years ago. The notion is that he was in this position and i think if anything theres not enough credit thats given to this. It must be insanely difficult to be an African American. And to at the same time be the pitch of the head of america itself with all of its policy and all of its mixed up sort of heritage and the way its comported himself towards African Americans to try to remain loyal to that sense of yourself. And at the same time be loyal to the American People and be a representative of the entirety of the American People. I think its deeply understated and maybe not even stated well enough in this article. How difficult, you know, that must be. And for me thats the walking on ice piece of it, man. Rose i just thought it would become part of the world, of that world. Of that world and that is pulled from the president s own autobiography dreams of my father and it talks about theres a point in that book where he goes to see the university of hawaii Basketball Team which his white grandfather took him to see. This is shortly after his father has left him with a gift and the gift was a basketball. He goes for the first time and its starting five African American players. Hes not just watching them play basketball hes watching them culturally how they interact with each other. He talks about the Little Things they do. So when he goes and starts playing basketball in the local area with the African American population thats there, hes learning culture as much as hes learning basketball. And one of my deep questions why the president who at that point had lived around the world was biracial, had a white mother. Why he moved towards like black identity, why did he describe himself that way, why did he do that. In some respects you dont get to choose about race. But in other respects if theres anybody who had a way out rose he had a choice. He wouldnt say that. When i asked him about that he did not feel like he had a choice. But i guess i felt like he could have lived in self denial. And what he said to me, the quote he actually used was i never want to look in the mirror and not like who i was. You know. But i guess i have throughout history known people who have tried to get away. People who have passed, i mean literally ad. Thats part of the african person experience trying to get away and thats not something he did. Rose that makes him positi. And it exerts a kind of pull on you that i think most folks feel. Rose you still got to go back to the hood. That was one of the hard wubles. I went down to North Carolina with the president and he sat with a group of young African American and latino boys and this was part of the mentoring he does. Each one of them just went through their own story how they had grown up from the hood, some of the bad things they had done and how they come back out of it. At the end of it the president said is there anything i should take back to washington, anything you guys want to say. Right on the beat one of the kids said, he said listen the big thing is we go through all this and we can do all we want, we can do all this work but we still have to go back to the hood and deal with all of the problems that are there. And they have a way of pulling you in and i thought that was just a good session to talk about how you deal not just individually with people but how you change the dynamic the folks are going back to. And how he changes it. And how he changes it so we went through quite a bit we talked about in that piece Justice Department issues and antidiscrimination, more classbased solutions and reparations in that section also. Rose they rode the tiger. I wanted to see david axal rod going the course of this piece and we sat for three hours and at that point he was very auntistic about Hillary Clinton winning. He deeply believed that the kind of campaign that donald trump was running would ultimately come back to bite him. He said to me they rode the tiger now the tiger is eating him. Didnt quite work out like that. Rose how disappointed, the argument was made at the time, your expression, the argument was made at the time that it killed him. High guess is that he believed he could have won because i know how he thinks about things like that. Right. Rose so he can see whats. Right. Rose he couldnt believe his campaign was taking place. Right, right. I think he definitely believed he could have won. I have to believe they were terribly disappointed. When i talked to him afterwards thats not what i got. Rose what did you get. I got optimism. I got trademark of barack obama optimism, thats what i got. I got obviously my preferred candidate did not win but i believe, and this is not quote for quote but this is basically the message i believe in the unity of the American People and the american institutions and rose he said some of that publicly. Yes. That was what i got. Which i had to tell you was hard to square with some of the Campaign Rhetoric that he himself had offered up in the months before. Rose that he had offered up about donald trump. Yes, yes. Which held that this was not just another republican candidate but this was a unique threat to those very institutions. Rose when you left you took all of me with you. Yes, that was personal for me. Every time i write i have music that i play. For some reason i was writing this i played a kind of marvin gaye. I think like i want to write ask make people feel things in a way that people feel this way. And even from when i started this, there was a public or private mourning that was happening in African American community probably started bat in 2015 with a realization this was coming to an end and people were sad. They had already begun to be sad so i pulled in marvin gaye for that. Rose what happens to barack obama for now. Hopefully gets some peace. Rose he says he needs to recharge. Hopefully hes going to do some of that. Rose hes a writer at heart. I expense him to write his memoirs. I expect that to be a fascinating fascinating book. I dont think hes going to be and i dont know, i dont know but i imagine that he will remain politically active. Rose i do too. I think thats going to happen. I think the defeat of Hillary Clinton make that even more. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Rose imperative. Like the clinton dynasty or whatevers happening to him. Yes. I dont think hell do what president bush did. Rose im done, im going back to texas and live a different life and paint. Which i respect by the way but i dont think hell do that, yeah. Rose it will be drawn to it because essentially thats all he want to do. Hes always been political so why would he stop now. Rose thats what he knows, thats what he does. Thats what he excelled at. Thats true. Rose can you explain one of the central issues of having to do with his presidency which is the idea and many people believe and i talked to him about this that there is this belief that somehow if he had been more outgoing somehow more i dont want to say more time trying to seduce the republicans he might have got more done. Is that because its ant thetical to his character or is it because he simply as you said to me didnt believe it paid off. Everybody thought he thought there would be some sort of compromise and i think the lesson he drew very very early on that they just wouldnt be. I mean i think healthcare was deeply deeply instructive. I think that feeling going to the wire like that it was probably deeply deeply instructive to him and at some point particularly after 2012, i shouldnt say early on but particularly after 2012 when he make the statement i think the fever has broken. Then it clearly doesnt. I think it drew a conclusion he doesnt have a working part thats one thing. But the other thing is, and again rose or that the Republican Party was held hostage to a small group probably. Right, right. But i think lets Something Else too theres people like say president clinton like who i say really like interacting with people, right. Like he really drew something from it. I dont know if president obama is like that, do you know what i mean. Rose you know much better than i do and ive done nearly, ive spent restricted time with him. Right. Mine was restricted too. I guarantee you it was. Rose watching the speaking, and he knew how to do it well. Right. Rose but he was almost floating above it. He was watching, it was almost like he was seeing rather than somebody who was caught up in every moment of it. He was caught up in moments to the extent that he knew how to do it in the as soon as that he had in his speech pattern rhythm. It was a skill almost. Rose it was a skill. But it was not a skill that sort of sucked him in. Thats right. Rose he knew how to employee the skill but he was not positive of that. I think thats true. Rose he was not caught up in that. He just saw it as an observer. He was a player which he a served. Right. And there was Something Else i was told repeatedly and that was it was very important for him to be president for his daughters. This whole thing like getting home when he was there for dinner with his daughters and his wife the this is like really tremendously important to him. And maybe that doesnt leave much time for making the cocktail circuit or whatever, you know. Rose whats next for you. I dont know. I honestly dont know. I mean i have been the, you know, i wont have another like this for a writer much this is a tremendous journey for me. You have to understand my biography was sort of unique, my own biographys unique in a sense i was raised in this deeply politically conscious home. Ive been asking questions about African American identity interaction with the broader country all my life in various forms and suddenly theres an African American president and i just so happen to be at the atlantic. So i brought all of those questions to bear in this particular moment. I am totally like just so grateful to have been here, do you know what i mean. I feel like i really figured quite a bit out over the past eight years. Rose about, about what. Your questions were about the legacy of slavery. Yes. Like why does my neighborhood look like my neighborhood. Just little stuff like that, why do i feel safer here but when i go over here im constantly looking over my shoulder, looking like this. Like why is the world the way the world is for African Americans in this country. And wisely i think because of the presence of barack obama, i was able to write a series of stories that allowed me to you know go through history. The reporting and academy and bring that to bear to answer my own questions about the world. This is a tremendous tremendous privilege. Rose are you writing about that answering your own questions. I think often its just as much as sort of prophecy and standing up on high end and delivering things for other people. Rose my president was black. Tanehisi coates on the meaning and unmaking of obamas whitehouse. Its a pleasure to have you. Charley thank you so much for having me. Rose good to see you. About a in a moment stay with us. Rose jim and tom story is here founder of Common Sense Media founded in 2003 the lawmpleg es nonprofit dedicated to childrens issue. Jims younger brother tom is an advocate in 2012. He retired from a multibillion Dollar Hedge Fund he started in 1986 in order to fax on Environmental Issues. Hes now president of next gen climate a nonprofit he found in 201 to stop Climate Change dedication to democratic causes theyve been dubbed the liberal answer to the koch brothers. Where were you. Standing by the phone waiting for an invite. Rose what do you think happened politically in 2016. I think that there were two overwhelming issues in the campaign that are obviously retrospective. One is that the majority of americans just feel as if their Economic Opportunity hasnt improved for as long as they can remember. And theyre worried about it and they dont think their kids are going to do better and they think thats not the american way. Weve got to shape that up. Thats thal one thing. Number two thing, they think that the political insiders dont care about that. That theres a reason why they havent done better for as long as they can remember and the reason is that the game is rigged against them. The rules are set up for the insiders. Rose this is the american public, you believe that, you believe that African Americans believe that you believe latino americans believe that, you believe that all americans believe what you just articulated. I think that its different in different parts of the population. But that overall, the economic insecurity part is something that i think people feel really strongly and i think if you look across society theres a sense that the insiders are not paying attention to everybody. That you know if you think of government for the people, thats not what were having. We do not have nearly a just enough society. I think people are angry as health. Rose that explains some of the voters. How is this election about the two candidates was it sum me those people you just described define donald trump for all of the controversy about him as a change agent. I think theres no question that people were aware, i think the American People are smart and i think theyre aware of all the issues about donald trump about his history and attitude and things he says, about his lack of policy. And decided enough people decided hes going to shake things up to give him a majority in the Electoral College. We have to remember that Hillary Clinton got over two andahalf minute more votes than donald trump. So the majority of americans did not buy that but in the Electoral College he was able to get by as just however u ntrustworthy, how much much you dont agree with him he is going to come in and be Something Different and we need Something Different now. Rose do you think joe biden would have made any ditches because joe biden has been part of the system, hes been a member of the Congress Since he was 29 years old. You can never tell, its impossible to tell. The two thing i said that americans havent had a raise, the bulk of americans havent had a raise for 35 yearses true. Rose youre a liberal democrat. Why didnt you recognize that and why didnt you use that influence with the candidate. Well, what we were doing in 2016 was going directly to voters to talk about issues to try and register voters. We registered over a million voters and to try to get as many people involved in the democratic process as possible. When you do that you tonight talk to the candidates, you act independently. So we did our own thing. We went directly to voters to try and inspire citizen to citizen conversation. We didnt really have the conversation. Rose Democratic Party has influence, whether a pack does anything you have influence because of how you have defined your life as of liberal democrat. Let me say this. You described do you know what the climate act is but actually the mission of our organization is to present climate disaster and to promote prosperity for every american. Weve known from the very first day that the only way that we will have a more just society including dealing with Environmental Issues is if every americans economic interest is considered in every decision. Rose do you agree with what he said. I think my brothers pretty smart. Ill tell you this. Rose youre an activist in your own. And weve done many things together, children, education and even in a lot that the nextgen does. I think what happened was that you had two very unpopular candidates. And for reasons that are fair or not anywhere and that toms right ultimately there was a certain number in the Electoral College that decided to throw a hand graw anyway into the system because they want an agent of change even they knew who donald trump was they just want to throw a hand grenade in. I think joe biden would have won. I think Hillary Clinton very unfairly was not a popular candidate and lost because of that. Because i dont think the mortsz of the Electoral College thing happened didnt like Hillary Clinton, didnt like donald trump but said if were going to vote going to vote for change. Rose do you think that had anything to do with that. Im a former prosecutor and a couple good friends were prosecutors in the Southern District of new york were tell me. I think what happened was that strong momentum at that point after the three debates which by most of the accounts if not all accounts she won. And then the email issue which to the public is just a corruption issue and inside the beltway washington stuff got raised ten days before the election and i think what happened was if you like how tiny the margin was in the states, i think it probably was a very significant factor in the ultimate decision and i would point out that what tom said is right. Remember we live in california which Hillary Clinton won two o one so we live in a different part of the country where people are just shaking their heads going how could this possibly happen but i do think that comby reinforced a lot of the negatives people didnt like Hillary Clinton in the clinton world. Rose do you think her laws means barack obama will have to play a more prominent role in the Democratic Party. I think that he will, i think hes going to have a prominent role. Im not sure about, he would have a very different role if she were president thats for darn sure absolutely. I think hell play a prominent role on the things he really cares about. I think lets a different question to be honest charlie. I think the question is where is the passion going to come from in the Democratic Party. Because i think when you look at this election, there are a lot of reasons why this election turned out the way it did and you have touched on a few of them. Whats also important is what the conclusions are about why this election happened. Thats almost as important as why the lookion happened so i think what were seek is theres going to be a fight for the soul of the American People. Theres going to be a fight for the soul of working people in the United States of america and some of thats going to take place in the context of the Democratic Party. And so i that thats going to be something thats going to be played out over the next two years is people talk about what are our deepest values, what are the things that we absolutely stand for that we need to stand up for ask that are being attacked. Rose i think one thing that Michelle Obama did so well that of anybody ive ever seen was to make the case for children and what an election means for children. It was phenomenal, i agree. And she became this incredibly popular and moving figure to so many people across the party lines in the country so she did a great job. Ive known Hillary Clinton for 27 years. Shes in phenomenal child advocate. The Hillary Clinton we know is deeply passionate, deeply knowledgeable about kids. Shes given her life to that and by the way thats what i think will happen with hillary. Shes go back and be the extraordinary child advocate but that didnt come across to the electorate. It was real and she knows her stuff. Charlie weve done many events together. Ive been running kids issues and Kids Organization across the country for 25 years. Shes more knowledgeable than i am. I always deferred to her but that did not come across. Who she really is did not come across. The other clinton i always mentioned since she was my student and teaching assistant in Research Assistant is chelsea. Thats how we really got to know the clintons. Shes a remarkable young woman. My heart goes out to them because its such a brutal loss and a painful thing but theyre a remarkable family. What my brother said theyve done a great thing. But as visionary and thoughtful as michelle own was during the pain which i love as a child advocate Hillary Clintons the real deal on that. I think what jims talking about is this real question what people used to say i feel your pain that was his mantra and people used to sort of joke about that. But the fact of the matter is bill clinton convinced working people in america that he cared about them that his heart with was them. That he knew what they were feeling and he empathized. Rose directly from the fact he had to run for governor in arkansas. Yes but my point is if you look at this campaign, if you look at 2016, i dont think that people dont under that hillary actually does care. It didnt come across. She came across and was pour trade portrayed as being an insider, not somebody who has a heart. Youre asking about joe biden who obviously who e motes. Rose especially with the working class people. Yes. Rose were you surprised to see al gore in trump tower. Whats that about. You know, i know that al is incredibly sincere on climate and i think that he will go to the ends of the earth to try and make a difference. And i think he went to the ends of the earth to try and make a difference. Rose and do you think it might help. Look, i think what were seeing, you know, from the Trump Administration, you know, president elect is a lot of conversations and a lot of tweets, but there are some facts out there. He is appointing people. He is, you know, relying on people on the epa transition. Theres talk that hes going, who hes going to appoint now for epa today. So there are some facts out there. If you believe that personal is policy personnel is policy were seeing personnel with history with the specific beliefs about energy and climate and that is in though way reassuring. So am i happy that after two years of hearing the Climate Changes bug if you had a conversation with a leading advocate of clean energy and taking care of Climate Change, you know. I absolutely think the proof is in the pudding and what were seeing in the pudding is terrible. Charlie, i say look we each have four children. You cannot blow the Climate Change issue for the next four years and have the same future. And i think the fact al gore is fine but the question is who does he awe point and what does he do about it. Does he roll back this stuff. There are certain thing that right now if we get wrong as a country, climate, rebuilding the economic infrastructure for the middle and working class who as my brother said correctly had felt left out. And they are failing to invest in kids and education. Were going to punish this country and put us in a very bad position. And so it is our job to speak out. And interesting were sitting here in a building with Mike Bloomberg a Business Leader is an extraordinary climate leader along with my brother. To me donald trump needs to listen to Business Community about climate because they understand the economics of it and the future of the countrys leadership on it. So i think its a very big issue right now. We were at the dinner last night we just issued a Business Group called Risky Business which was started by Mike Bloomberg and hank clausen and me. Issued a report. Were answering the question, can we afford to move to clean energy. We issued a report two years ago to show on you incredibly expensive it will be to america not to deal with climate. And the second question is well what if we do deal with climate. The fact of the matter is we study it four different ways to move to clean energy between now and 2050. In every case what you see is better employment, higher wages, lower costs for consumers and greater growth. So the whole idea that we cant afford to do it is completely false. The fact of the matter is we have the ability right now with existing technology to reduce our Greenhouse Gas emissions by 80 . All we have to do is decide to do it and invest. Rose there was a conflict there and also had a chance with the pope and a lot of what the pope is talking about is a connection between climate and poverty. In terms of the before he became pope. What the pope says and teamly believe is we have a responsibility to hand on a planet to take care of the planet that god gave us and to take care of each other, including the most vulnerable citizens. And what the pope says thats absolutely true if we dont deal with this issue, we will do neither of those things. What were saying is those are absolute e responsibility for our generation and we can do it and be richer for doing it. We can put more people to work at higher wages. Rose how would you characterize the resistance. Is it simply hanging on the basis of whether Climate Change is produced by the actions of men and women or is it Something Else. I think at this point people who are so resistant. I think at this point its not the American People. The American People including most republicans know the truth which is that its caused by people and its a thereto to the United States of america to our safety and to our prosperity. The fact of the matter is we have a system that is rigged and we are making decisions based on special corporate interests who make a ton of money the way things are and absolutely dont want us to move to a Clean Energy Economy and they are calling it in. Rose the primary thing what is your legislative goal if you had some influence with the congress. Would it be Carbon Pricing. I think the very broad based assumption from people on both sides of the aisle who are open minded is that you put some form of Carbon Pricing out there and you use government money in the Research Side of clean energy. That basically Government Investment in research has pushed incredible changes including the internet which really was founded in the department of defense but you can go back to world war ii and see all the things that have come out of government research. Rose today that i think google has said that for its data centers, in some year coming up, maybe two june 17th. Next year. Rose next year, will be totally fueled by alternative sources. Sun and wind. Is that right. Yes, it is. The businesses in the United States of america with the exception of fossil fuel businesses and a few utilities have moved on. They are in favor of clean energy, theyre pushing clean energy, they know that for the future. When is the last time that the United States policy was to go back to a technology that was you know dominant in the 1950s. How could that possibly be a Growth Strategy for the United States. That just seems laughable. Rose just one more question. Do you think that what happened in paris is vulnerable to this administration will refuse to accept that understanding. I dont know what theyll do but i know this. More countries agreed to that Paris Climate Accord than have agreed to anything in the history of the world. So if the United States wants to be the leader of the world, which we have been for a hundred years, i would not walk away from every other country and tell them youre on your own, we only think about our says because they will look for leadership. They are looking for leadership and it will be china, maybe it will be germany. But well be saying to the rest of the world were just negotiating for ourselves now and thats a tragic mistake. Rose what do you say. Im impress with my younger brother. Hes pretty smart. When you learn about Climate Change and also the business side of it which is my brother and Mike Bloomberg schooled me on over the years. Is misunderstanding in the way this election was carried out, the whole focus on coal miners. How many coal minors are there in the United States, 55,000. 60,000. There are 550 Clean Energy Jobs in california alone. So the idea that we were running an election around antiquated strategies and technology. By way that doesnt mean we dont believe in the Coal Mining Community and all those people who need jobs and good standards of living. But this issue has not been fairly characterized. And the truth is its a Smart Business strategy. Its Global Leadership strategy and im glad my brother articulates it pretty well. I am. Im proud of him seriously charlie. Charlie if you were in our dinner table you wouldnt get a word in edge wise. Rose i can tell. You need me there to ask the questions. Certainly our parents did that. I can assure you our parents were in there and our older brother talking to. Rose whats the agenda. In california we had some big victories. Its really invested in birth to five. Every child in this country no matter what their socioeconomic background or their status or what color they are need good health and nutrition and Early Childhood education birth to five. This is no brainer. Unsome nonwestern countries provide it. We did not. Its understanding second every kid deserves healthcare. One thing we should be nervous about in my opinion all the political writ rick of rolling back the aca and obamacare. Whats going to happen to kids. The losers always when you cut important Government Programs are children. Theyre awrlz the biggest loser because theyre the poorest american so i think you have to look at Early Childhood for every child quality stuff like the story kids act like we gave our children. You have to look at obviously and really investing in the education system. We argue about whats more important, climate or kids. And education. Those are you the two things that we spent our lives working on. And i think theyre both incredibly important. But you cannot have a prosperous america any time in the longer term if we do not invest in Early Childhood, healthcare, edge caution for kids and then finally the work force economy that middle and lower income americans deserve. Because kids lose when their parents are really poor. And the other stark factor i mention is the growing inequality in this country. You have one out of four kids live below the official poverty line. One in ten lives in extreme poverty which is 11,000 a year for a family of four. So these are investments that are just no brainers and we hope that a Trump Administration will do that but ultimately its statebased stuff too so were working heavily in california and elsewhere to do this. Charlie the other thing and this pertains to 2016. Traditionally the United States of america has been an Optimistic Society where we have a vision of how were going to have a justice and growing society for everybody. Somehow if you look at 2016 at that president ial race, 82 of americans said im dispirited by this, i did not hear that. What jim is talking about is what im talking about and what people back home in california believe is that is not off the table. Thats what were for. Were for a just society its growing where people look in order and say its going to be better. Thats absolutely within our reach. So to take that off the table to assume were going to have to go backwards its not going to be fair its a zero sum game with people pitted against each other i dont believe that for a single second. The fact of the matter is america has the ability to grow, it has the ability for peoples income to grow and people to do a lot better. When people start to get back to that well get away from this really negative vibe that was cannot stunt throughout 2016 and Start Talking about again and together what were going to do great. Rose whether the rhetoric will match their actions or their actions match their rhetoric. What you heard on the campaign was pitting one group against the other. That was what was so troubling to me. I have a Multicultural Family and we live in a very multicultural state but this countrys multicultural. If you pit groups against each other and zero sum rose the argument against the party is this identity grouping and identity politics looking at people as groups rather than united by issues and needs. And let me say this. If thats true, then what would you describe the way that the Trump Campaign described muslims. What would you think about the i think the campaign describes latinos. Rose campaigning against groups. Exactly. And my point is as a society, we have an ability to grow. And as long as were growing theres no sense of taking, that everything i get has to come from you and jim and everything that you get you have to take from me. The fact of the matter is we have great opportunities going forward. I really am baffled to understand why we wouldnt take them, why we wouldnt choose to have a Sustainable World where were richer and everybodys incomes going up. Why would we turn that down. Rose i close with this, tom friedman wrote a column today saying what yvonne cause the fact she went out of her way to set up a meeting with gore who did more to alert the world of Climate Change than anyone on the planet and gore described the meeting in a sincere search of areas of Common Ground to be continued. So we shall see. We will be helpful. We are helpful. Good to see you charlie, thank you for having us. Rose visit us on pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Rose on tomorrows pbs newshour break down of electo announcer a kqed television production. Its sort of like old fishermans wharf. It reminds me of old san francisco. And youd be a little bit like jean valjean, with the teeth, whatever. And worth the calories, the cholesterol, and the heart