Transcripts For KQEH Charlie Rose 20170403

Passing house bill 2, the super Majority Republican Legislature and my predecessor the republican governor signed this horrible bill into law that discriminates against Lgbt Community and has hurt our state, its put a stain on our reputation. The first thing we have done is to repeal house bill 2. Rose for a look at how there is a steppedup engagement by American Forces in syria and iraq, we talk to Michael Gordon of the New York Times. The sustainable political outcome is something that goes beyond the capabilities of the military. This is something that has to involve the state department, has to involve allies, it has to involve maybe treasury, some degree of economic support from the International Community if not from the United States. It has to be what the military likes to call a whole of government approach. Thats missing at this point in time. If there is a strategy, they havent shared it with anybody. Rose and a conversation with our friend jay bilas about the final four. I would not be surprised. I think gonzaga will beat South Carolina, thats how good i think this team is. I wouldnt be surprised if they won the whole thing, but i still think North Carolina is a little bit better. This is a different gonzaga team weve seen in the past. Rose dan balz, mike allen, Michael Gordon, roy cooper and jay bilas, when we rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following captioning sponsored by Rose Communications 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 it has been another chaotic and surprising week in washington. Michael flynn, President Trumps former National Security advisor, is now seeking immunity, and the congressional committees probing russias influence on the elections are considering that. Meanwhile the president is at odds with congressional members of his own party notably conservatives of the House Freedom caucus. Joining me from washington, dan balz, chief correspondent of the Washington Post. Here in new york mike allen cofounder to have the news site axios. I begin with dan balz, dan, where are we almost 70 days into the trump presidency. The economist and the new yorker have covers of donald trump one in the sand trap and the other having knocked out almost every window in the white house from the south lawn with his driver. I think that tell us a lot about the perceptions of where they are, theyve had almost from day one a chaotic start, they are struggling to find their sea legs in the white house. They have yet to rack up one significant victory. The closest theyve come is the nomination of judge gorsuch to the supreme court, which looks like its still on track to go through but hasnt quite yet, and they are having this cloud of the russia investigation hang over them and now as a result of things that have happened over the last ten days, many, many questions about exactly what white house officials have done as part of that investigation. Rose i want to come back to that, but whats the problem . Well, i think the problem is it goes to the president himself. The president came into this Office Without any particular experience in either politics or government, and i think that it has shown up. I think that they have not developed a Clear Strategy. I think that, in many ways, the governing approach to what theyre doing went offtrack during the transition and they have never been able to get control of that. Its not clear what their strategy was supposed to be on health care. Its not clear what their next priority is. He has signed a lot of executive orders. Hes begun to undo some things that occurred during president obamas presidency, but those are not yet in place. So i think its a white house that has multiple power centers, conflicting power centers, and a president who is seemingly easily distracted and, as we saw on the health care debate, not particularly at all a detail person and, therefore, was at a handicap in trying to make his persuasive case to the reluctant Freedom Caucus members and others. Rose what would you add to that, mike . Well, charlie, agreeing is hundred . This is the second terrible, horrible, very bad, nogood week in a row for the Trump White House and i can tell you the republicans are really worried about it because, as dan points out, not only no wins, but no prospects of wins. Charlie, they have not changed the math in any way that could guarantee them a win and, in fact, its worse because, now, President Trump, by taking on the Freedom Caucus, the furthest right part of the Republican Party, hes unified them, and several people who have worked, the House Republicans for a long time, said he has taken a group that you can sort of split up five by five and put them essentially in control of the government, made them the swing group and, now, what everybody is worried about is a government showdown. April 28th, funding runs out. April 29th, day 100 of the trump presidency, we could have a government showdown, a Republican Congress failing to fund a republican government. Rose is that likely . So i was told it was more likely than not, and that was based on the idea that the math hasnt changed. They just cant get the votes together. What theyre going to have to do and this will be very unpleasant for the speaker, very unpleasant for the president , but theyre going to have to do it with democratic votes, which is just going to make republicans even more unhappy with this white house, even less likely to come to the rescue on tax ereform or Something Else that he needs and wants. Rose should the president have started with tax reform and not health care, dan . With well, charlie, i dont quite know that i can answer that correctly. I think that they had to start with obamacare because it was the signature pledge not only that donald trump used throughout the campaign but that the Republican Party has used since the Affordable Care act was passed. I think that they had had ample time and opportunity to put together a strategy to do that, and i think that it was in many ways, should have been the the easiest approach, had they done their homework and had there been some coordination between the campaign and the congress. But they didnt do that. Tax reform is you know, is by no stretch of the imagination any easier than trying to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act. Both are extraordinarily complex. So, you know, others have said maybe he should have started with an infrastructure package and been able to corral the democrats into some kind of cooperative arrangement that would have spoken, in a sense, to his uh unique constituency and the appeal that he was able to project during the campaign. But i think that, you know, if youre a republican president with a newlyempowered Republican Congress, youre pretty mucho blind to start with something thats high on the list of the Republican Partys agenda. So i think that, for all those reasons, i think, inevitably, they had to start with obamacare and, obviously, nobody thought it would collapse before it even came to a vote in the house. Rose was it inevitable because they had to bring together so many warring factions, moderates, Freedom Caucus, saying nothings getting past us . Charlie, he feels illserved by some of the people around him who are supposed to know House Republicans, and they had supreme confidence or at least projected supreme confidence that in the end he would be the closer and pull this off, so i think he is surprised and irstated and the staff now is embarrassed. We are told, at night, the president is consulting with a lot of the friends hes had 30, 40 years, some of his billionaire friends, asking what went wrong. Were told the president is brooding and baffled by whats happened. Dan mentioned at the top the competing and conflicting power centers, charlie, as you know and dan knows from covering, this trump team has been very proud from the beginning that they ran their campaign, ran their convention, transition and the white house, the way he han his business and that is with these Different Centers of gravity, empowering family members without transparency and with a very lean style. Rose and an element of chaos always. Improvisation, and now theyre paying a check for that. Theyre now in a place where you are accountable in the post public possible way and its not working and the president hasnt exactly figured out why. Rose turn to the russians and what happened. Chairman nunes goes to the white house, meets with at least two people that we know about. Explain to me what happened. laughter charlie, its so hard to explain. Every time we go through the sequencing, it becomes more mysterious. He went to the white house to view some sensitive intelligence, which he concluded showed that there had been some form of surveillance in which Trump Officials had been caught up incidentally in that and, in some form or another, identifiable or unmasked. He then sought a meeting with the president of the United States to brief him on that. At that time, or a day after, sean spicer was asked at the briefing, is it possible that the information that the chairman received came from the white house . And sean spicer said, that doesnt pass the smell test, why would he brief the president on something he got from us . It now turns out white house people were, in fact, involved in that and, so, in a sense, the question is even is even larger and more urgent white this done . As an adam schiff, ranking membr to have the the house intelligence said yesterday, why all the cloak and dagger stuff if this was information that the white house says was picked up through the normal course of business and, in some form or fashion, went up the line to people in the White House Councils office, the way the times and we reported today, why that then had to go to chairman nunes to go to the president. So nothing of this makes particular sense other than there was an effort to common rate the president for the tweet that the president said president Obama Wiretapped the tower, whether it was an attempt to muddy that and add to the diversion created by the president s tweets. Rose when you look at this, do we expect that the Senate Intelligence committee will be able to do an effective job, because there is evidence of respect between the republican chairman and the democratic minority leader . I think that thats right, but their findings are always going to be questioned because as you and dan point out, there is overlay. Like everything weve talked about from the beginning of this conversation, almost all of it is selfinflicted. The other momentous development this week, michael flynn, the president s former National Security advisor, asking for immunity from prosecution to tell his story. The reason this is a Grave Development is someone explained to me that, yes, a smart lawyer is going to ask for that, but, separately, you asked for immunity because you think you have something to sell, you think you have a story to tell that prosecutors want, and thats such bad news for the Trump White House. Already, as you point out, people are worried because of this open f. B. I. Investigation. The f. B. I. Director in front of congress not willing to say who might be in the crosshairs, which means everybody in the west wing is. Charlie, youve covered these forever. You know the one rule about investigations f. B. I. Investigations is they never finish where they started. So creating so much worry and chaos. I talked to somebody who was in the west wing, and they said you can see it in their faces. People redfaced, exhausted, people running around with papers. In fact, they had a memorable description, charlie, as you know, people always said about the tv show west wing that it was a lot more chaotic and dramatic than the actual west wing which under president bush 43 and president obama was pretty stayed. Well, people who go there now tell me now the west wing is like the tv. They said the president is almost like playing a president in real life rose so the investigation will continue. What might we hear things from sally yates . Charlie, mikes absolutely right that once an investigation starts on any of these kinds of issues, it goes in directions you cant anticipate, you know, its peeling back the layers of the onion and, certainly, sally yates will have some interesting testimony about general flynn. The other thing we just dont know is all the aspects of the various people that theyve already identified who are going to come in to testify, many of whom have said they want to testify voluntarily, we dont know what those private interviews will be like and what those will reveal and therefore what will come out in public. Things will be known force weeks if not months before they become out in a public session. So were in for a very, very long a very, very long time before we really get anywhere close to answering most of these questions. The issue of immunity for general flynn seems to, i think, everybody, to be way premature given where these investigations are. Neither the senate nor the House Committee is going to provide him immunity at this stage of the investigation. There is just so much more they need to know. Obviously, i think the house investigation, the Intelligence Committee has been compromised by the partisanship thats gone back and forth and what the chairman has done in recent weeks. There is hope the senat Senate Committee can rise above that but i believe there are still people who believe this is still lead to an independent commission which would set it back months and months but might retain more credibility than either the house or the Senate Committee might be able to do. Rose the president , as i said, on masters weekend at maralago is meeting with the president of china. To have an effective relationship with china is essential, a, because the greatest National Security threat right now, many people believe, is north korea, both because of their leader and because of their potential with nuclear war he does. Its hugely important, and i think whats interesting is whats been the sort of table setting of this, we all remember that, during the transition, President Trump seemed to signal a change in the one china policy. Then once he was in office and had a conversation with the president of china, he backed away from that and reaffirmed that the United States was not changing course on that. So that was seen as a victory for the chinese, that they got the president to back away from that. Sean spicer was asked at the briefing today, the president had said during the campaign that on day one he was going to label china a currency manipulator. That hasnt happened. Why hasnt it happened . Spicers response was, well, everything is kind of in abeyance until we have the meeting at maralago. The stakes are enormous, the issues very important, and as mike says, these are both leaders who probably think they have something they need to get out of it, and the question is whether they can do that in a constructive way or whether they will end up in a debilitating conversation that satisfies neither side. Rose well, there is this caveat, too it is said that the chinese president would not take after the one china policy remarks by President Trump, that the chinese president would not take his call, and he tried to call him a number of times, and didnt take his call, and that sent a message to thats right, and thats why president xi thinks he has the upper hand. He saw that engaging with President Trump, he was able to get something out of him. Thats why hes going to maralago. The president of the United States, by having him on his own personal turf, thinks he senses his own advantage. We saw in his tweets this week that hes going to have a tough posture, but this president , again and again, hes a salesperson. When hes this person, his inclination is to be the great host. So thats going to be fun to watch. Rose right. There was another story that intrigued me in the the Washington Post today, it was about the secretary of state. I mean, really an interesting piece, dan, that suggested, you know, hes spending most of his time alone, takes his elevator, goes to his luxurious offers on the sixth or seventh floor at the state department and spends a lot of time primarily primarily with his close advisors, rarely seeing some of the distinguished diplomats that are part of the state department. It was a very interesting piece and i think a worrisome piece. Rex tillerson came into this administration with a very good reputation as a chief executive. There were obviously questions about his relationship with putin and the russians, but, aside from that, he had sterling recommendations from the likes of bob gates and Condoleezza Rice and others. He has been a puzzle in his time in office. You know, he seems to have good access to the president and, presumably, they are building a relationship. He seems to have no lammings with the department that he is overseeing. Now, its not entirely unusual for a secretary of state to surround him or herself with close aides. John kerry did it, Hillary Clinton certainly did it. But there are also always links to the permanent bureaucracy and senior diplomats and institution. That doesnt seem to be the case. The state department is facing a 30 cut in its budget, in the new budget that the white house and o. M. B. Sent yo up a few wees ago, than enormous cut, and one that the secretary of state, presume bring, is trying to resist, but it is not clear that he is really doing that. So, you know, perhaps he is carefully and methodically preparing himself in ways we dont understand so that, when he is abroad, as he has been recently, hes ready to do what he need to do, but there is a public side to being secretary of state and, so far, he has done none of that, and i think that is whats raised all the questions about what his real stature is going to be not just inside the administration but as, you know, the leading face of american diplomacy. Rose mike allen, thank you so much. I thank you for the honor of being at your table. Rose dan balz, its great to see you. Charlie, thank you very much. Rose on thursday, lawmakers in North Carolina rollede states controversial bathroom bill, the law passed a little over a year ago that required transgender people to use the public bathroom of the gender that appears on their birth certificate. The backlash began almost immediately and has had economic and political ramifications. By one estimate, 3. 76 in lost business over a dozen years would have been what it cost the state. It led to the election of the democrat roy cooper. Roy cooper joins me from the state capital of raleigh. Its a pleasure to have you here. Thank you, charlie. I appreciate it. Rose help us understand this new bill. What was kept, what was kicked out, and why are some people complaining about its too much of a compromise . Well, first, we never should have been here in the first place. Passing house bill 2, the super Majority Republican Legislature and my predecessor the republican governor signed this horrible bill into law that discriminates against Lgbt Community and has hurt our state, its put a stain on our reputation. The first thing we have done is to repeal house bill 2. Weve gotten rid of this horrible requirement that you have to go to the restroom of your birth certificate. The second thing that weve done is weve opened up, immediately, the ability of local governments to put in and to have lgbt protections, and weve provided lgbt protections in the future for those local governments. It is not my preferred solution. It is not everything that i wanted, but it is progress moving forward and i believe strongly that we need to have statewide lgbt protections in North Carolina. My superMajority Republican Legislature wont let me do that yet but im going to keep fighting for that every single day. Rose i notice you said in your own statement you said consistently, we began, we began, we began, we began. You began to do what with this bill . Well, first, under house bill 2, local governments could not provide lgbt protections for their own employees. The with the bill i signed yesterday, they can. With house bill 2, local governments could not require protections for lgbt employees of companies they contracted with. Today, after the bill i signed, they can do that, and there are more protections that local governments can provide for lgbt residents in the future and, at that time, were sure to get those protections available for local governments. Some of those protections arent there yet, but will be at the end of this moratorium. I know that i wanted a clean repeal with nothing additional. We had to find a compromise that moved North Carolina forward. This does that, and we have to keep fighting for it in the future. But now with we do have some lgbt protections for local governments right now and open the door for it in the future. But weve still got a long way to go in North Carolina, and i want to make sure that i fight for those lgbt protections. Rose does it void antidiscrimination laws through 2020 . Well, under house bill 2, no local government couldass any lgbt law permanently. They were completely banned from doing that. What the legislation i signed allows them to provide some lgbt protections now and it allows them to provide some additional lgbt protections in 2020, and what we had was a permanent ban on lgbt protections, any kind of protections that local governments would be able to do. Thats what house bill 2 did, and if we didnt get house bill 2 repealed, we wouldnt have an opportunity to make progress. Thats what we have done with this legislation, weve made progress. Weve opened the door to more lgbt protections in the future, weve opened the door to lgbt protections now with local Government Employees and with contracting, but we still have a lot to do. But its progress, and its particularly progress with a super Majority Republican Legislature, many of whom liked house bill 2, wanted to keep house bill 2 in place. Rose as you know, many people have talked about over the last year or so the damage to North Carolinas reputation, and so have you, and also the financial impact. Did that have any impact on the republicans in the legislature . I think it had an impact on some of the republicans in the legislature. Others didnt want to repeal it at all. But we were able to get a coalition that included republicans and the republican leadership, and i do think that the economic effect of this. But the guiding principle, for me, is moving peoples rights forward. That should be paramount over sports or money, and what this does is move those rights forward. It doesnt move them as far forward as i want to move them. It doesnt move it as far forward as a lot of other people want to do it. A lot of people wanted clean repeal of house bill 2. A lot of people want statewide antidiscrimination ordinances in North Carolina, and i do, too. But the idea was to continue to suffer under house bill 2. Continue to have transgender kids, we have the requirement that they use the restroom thats on their birth certificate and keep them with that kind of message from North Carolina. Thats wrong. We need to go further in protection of transgender. All lgbt citizens. Im going to keep fighting for those. Clearly the Economic Impact on our state has been great. We have been boycotted by companies and by sporting events. Its because of their belief in peoples rights, too, as to why they have boycotted North Carolina. Were sending them a strong signal now theyre making progress, and we want them to come to North Carolina, we want them to come help us join this fight for lgbt rights. We want them t come back to put more money in the pockets of middle class North Carolinaians, and we want to be the kind of state that we know that we are but hasnt been shown to the nation and world over the last few years with the leadership that weve had. Things are changing now, and were going to continue to work for those changes. Some of those who did not want to see you compromise and simply wanted to see the bill repealed, period, seemed to say that things were going your way, theres going to be more and more pressure and, if you had not compromised, you would have the ability later to do what you wanted to do. Yeah. Well, they didnt they werent in the rooms with these republicans that i was dealing with. There was a hard opposition to changes in our law, there was a hard opposition to repeal of hb 2 at all, and you should have seen some of the things they wanted that i said absolutely not. They wanted rifra provisions that would allow people to use their religious believers or conscience to discriminate against other people. I said absolutely not, were not going to do that in North Carolina, were not going to trade one bad law for another bad law. What i want is something that moves to end discrimination. What i want was something that helped to bring our economy back, and what i wanted was something to help remove the stain open our on our reputation. And this crowd was not going to repeal house bill 2 without Something Else. This was the best deal we could get right now. Rose how much did this bill play in your election, in a very close election . It was certainly part of it. I was posed to house bill 2 on day one, had vowed to work to repeal it, but also the cuts to public education, the cuts to expanding medicaid, the cuts in Environmental Quality and the hr people to register, vote and passing voter restriction laws that the court said discriminated against africanamericans with surgical precision. Thats the kind of legislation and legislators that i ran against and a governor who signed all of that and promoted all of that. Thats the kind of leadership that i ran against, and its a combination of all those issues as to why we won even in a trump wave. As you know, North Carolina did vote for President Trump, and we were able to emerge from that election. So it was a combination of a lot of things that were going wrong in North Carolina and, in those areas, were going to have to fight to make incremental progress with this legislature, but im going to continue the fight in all those areas. Rose governor, thank you for joining us. Ates pleasure to have you on the program. Thank you, charlie. Rose the New York Times reports that under President Trump, the u. S. Is becoming increasingly involved in several complex wars with no end game. Diploma circumstances meanwhile, is taking backseat to a military first approach. Joining me from washington is michael morell, chief military correspondent for the New York Times and coawe for for u. S. War footprint grows with no end became game in sight. When did you come to this thesis and wanted to write about it . It was one of a people of reporters who contributed to the article. It wasnt just me and hubbard. But over the last few months tracking the the developments in the area. I was out in iraq and syria. Its clear that the pace of operations in the middle east is accelerating. A lot of this follows the trajectory that president obama set. There is not a dramatic departure in the strategy, but its sort of obama strategy pumped up a bit maybe by 20 and, at the same time, since i used to cover the state department, its rather striking that the administration is talking about slashing the state department budget, including the kind of programs that one might want to have in place to help consolidate a military gain in iraq or syria, and there is very little talk on the part of the administration about what happens after mosul and raqqa is taken back from the Islamic State. Rose what are the options as to what might happen when mosul and raqqa are taken back . Well, they are entirely Different Cases because, in the instance of iraq, we have an ally, the iraqi government, and we also have the kurds and Northern Iraq whom we work with. Mosul will be taken back. Its being taken back at enormous cost to the Iraqi Military and, unfortunately, to many of the civilians there and what i expect to happen is for American Forces to stay in iraq a, not at the current level of 5,000plus, but at some significant level to train the iraqi forces, to carry out Counterterrorism Missions against the remnants of i. S. I. S. , and there also has to be a program of political reconciliation in iraq. What happens in syria god knows. There is no clear syria strategy on the part of the Trump Administration. The Obama Administration had a strategy that it was not very effective at executing, which was to encourage a political transition away from assad. It had a strategy, really wasnt capable of implementing it. But the Trump Administration doesnt appear to have a serious ststrategy beyond taking raqqa back from i. S. I. S. Rose youve said this began under president obama, but the president is also well known for his fear of getting dragged back into, you know, a middle east conflict. Did he so where does that stand and where is that risk . For President Trump . Rose yes. Well, you know, during the campaign, when he was a candidate, mr. Trump talked a lot about how h he had a secret strategy to defeat i. S. I. S. Which he couldnt reveal, then he said he would launch a major review which he, in fact, has launched to come up with a new strategy to defeat i. S. I. S. While there doesnt appear to be a secret strategy, and the review has not yet led to any sort of announced departure in a significant way from what president obama did, so pretty much what President Trump has done is hes continued the old obama strategy, but hes delegated a lot of the decisions to secretary mattis and to his generals. So decisions are being made more quickly, things are happening faster on the battlefield, but it is basically happening within the contours of the strategy that president obama set. Rose but is there still the risk of getting dragged into sort of deeperinvolved conflicts in the middle east . Well, of course, but there are all Different Cases. So in the instance of iraq, were back in. I mean, president obama failed to negotiate a sofa agreement that would have allowed our forces to say it wasnt his fault alone. Maliki shared in that that. A vacuum occurred which allowed i. S. I. S. To occur. Inia, were in in syria, were in with maybe a thousand troops they havent indicated a Clear Strategy after raqqa is staken to take ton consolidate the gains. In yemen the administration stepped up the operations primarily against al quaida in the Arabian Peninsula and had a raid there which was less than a success and, again, al quaida in the Arabian Peninsula prospered there because there is a nasty civil war going on there that the saudis are a big part of, and no one has really come up with a good diplomatic solution for that. So stepping back, yes, the United States is getting in deeper militarily. Some of that cant be avoided. If you want to take raqqa and mosul, it takes a certain amount of american fire power to make it happen. Do we want to defeat the Islamic State or not . This is just what it takes. So its not so much were stepping up our military efforts alone, its there isnt a clear diplomatic strategy for what follows the taking back of those two cities. Rose is that because you wrote a big piece in the New York Times maybe two or three weeks ago basically about this president has this sort of, you know, huge respect for the military and to let the military do their thing . Well, i think the military to give the military its due, the military very well understands that once mosul is taken back by the iraqis, supported by american fire power and advisors, there has to be an iraqi political resolution, or else the conditions will continue in iraq that will allow i. S. I. S. Or son of i. S. I. S. To reemerge. I think the military understands that you have to consolidate your military gains with a political outcome and that any military outcome needs to be sustainable. The guy who really used to talk about that in his speeches and in his writings, until he became National Security advisor, was general h. R. Mcmaster. Rose right. He talked about the need for a sustainable political outcome. So the military understands that, but the sustainable political outcome is something that goes beyond the capabilities of the military. This is something that has to involve the state department, has to involve allies, it has to involve maybe treasury, some degree of economic support from the International Community if not from the United States. It has to be what the military likes to call a whole of government approach. Well, thats missing at this point in time. If there is a strategy, they havent shared it with anybody. Rose and why is it missing . Well, i have to tell you, the Obama Administration didnt have a good end game strategy either that i ever heard for what happened in mosul or what was to happen in raqqa, at least not one that was remotely realistic. But i do think, in this instance, its missing because the emphasis right now is on military action. Tillersons appears to be a bit slow to get his team together. Rose thats true. And get his strategy together and turn his attention to this. Then, at the very time when the state Department Efforts are most needed and when you might need programs to help pull together and consolidate a military victory, the Trump Administration has come in with a plan to slash the state department and foreign aid budget by 29 . Its a bit of a disconnect because some of those efforts are going to be needed to prop up whatevers achieved on the battlefield. It doesnt have to be the United States alone by any means, but the United States has to play some kind of role in doing that. Rose the couple of points that you make in this piece, too, which i found interesting number one, which is commanders in the field are given more power to make decisions on the spot which they didnt have and used to have to wait and have to go up the chain of command before they could take an action they wanted to take. The other point that interested me was the notion in supporting foreign troops and supporting iraqi troops or supporting troops in yemen or supporting troops in syria, thats putting americans closer and closer to the front lines. Correct . Yeah. I mean, there are two things going on here. One is the Trump Administration and the Trump White House has signaled that it does not want to be involved in managing military operations with the same degree of scrutiny that the Obama White House did and, frankly, the military used to complain quite a bit about the Obama White House that it took weeks and months to get decision made, like should we send three helicopters to syria, to take an actual example. So we went from basically a micromanagement style in the Obama White House to almost a handsoff approach in the Trump White House. There has to be kind of a happy medium. So thats one thing thats going on. But the other thing is, with these very nasty urban warfare battles that are going on now and i was in mosul in october and november when the thing began, and these are really difficult fights our commanders, namely general townsend, who is the commander of the americanled task force thats fighting i. S. I. S. And his superior, they decided to make urban warfare work, you had to empower the guy on the ground to call in airstrikes. That started to happen in december under president obama. So some of this, the centralization of authority to call in airstrikes really is not so much due to the Trump Administration, its really something that was put in place at the end of last year, and the reason it was done was because mosul and raqqa are such difficult fights, you just had to have the authority to call out airstrikes or the guy whos with the iraqi forces who are trying to move forward, you cant take the time to necessarily review every airstrike with the kind of centralized scrutiny that it was done before. I mean, this approach has come under criticism because some people say it may have been a factor in the march 17t 17th strike that led to the collapse to have the building in mosul that led to the death of scores if not hundreds of iraqis, and a review is being done now to see what really led to that. Thats a very complicated scenario. Maybe the americans had a role. Definitely americans had a role, but it may be also i. S. I. S. Had a role in that episode. Rose i. S. I. S. Is using that already in terms of how theyre trying to attack the United States for its participation. Well, its worse than that. According to the pentagon, i. S. I. S. Is trying to create future episodes like that by hurting people by herding people into buildings. This is an accusation. But today at the pentagon, officials are saying they have Video Evidence of i. S. I. S. Herding civilians at gunpoint into a building and, in fact, killing an individual who refused to go in, to keep them in that building, and then they were going to fire from that building, draw fire and let the civilians take the brunt of it. This is video that the pentagon did not release today but they promised to release it tomorrow or in the near future. It will be very interesting to see what sort of evidence the americans have on this. Rose michael, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. Rose the final four tips off tomorrow in phoenix, arizona. The evenings first Game Features South Carolina against gonzaga. The gamecocks havent won a n dray in 43 years before defeating power houses including duke and florida. North carolina takes on oregon in the night cap. It is ufcs 20th alltime performance. Joining me from phoenix is jay bilas, College Basketball analyst for espn and were pleads to have him back on this program for this final four. Welcome, my friend. Great to be with you, charlie, thanks for having me. Rose size it up so far as you look going into this final four weekend. Well, its been a great tournament. A lot of chalk has advanced. But we do have a team in South Carolina that i dont think anybody expected to be here. Its funny, oftentimes, people say about the ncaa tournament its all about matchups, but we knew what the matchups were and still nobody really thought that South Carolina could do this. Theyre a great defensive team, charlie, they are physical, they make it difficult to get a straightline drive, excellent help, they swarm to the ball and theyre a good rebounding team, but what really has carried them in this tournament has not just been in their defense, their offense of execution has been mop better in this tournament than all season. The rest of the season they scored 70 points in four straight games. The only time theyve done is in this tournament. Maybe the best player in the tournament has been stornwell of South Carolina. Hes been remarkable to watch. Rose theyre playing a tough team. They are. Gonzaga, i think a lot of people still consider gonzaga as a mid major team, sort of a cinderella, but they have been this good for 20plus years where theyve knocked on the door of the sweet 16, the elite 8, to crack a final four for long time. But i think this is mark fues best team at gonzaga. They have major conference talent, three giles that transferred in from major conference schools, big time players, and they have a great balance between really tbad guards and big guys. They can protect the rim. This is the best defensive team marks ever had. I think gonzaga will beat South Carolina. Thats how good i think this team is. I wouldnt be surprised if they won the but i still think North Carolina is a little bit better. But this is a different gonzaga team than weve seen in the past. Rose how about oregon . Oregons really good. I thought it was improbable for oregon to get this far because they lost a player whos a 611 senior, guy from canada who is the leading shot blocker in the pac 12 this year and a guy who could step away and knock down threes and draw a big guy away from the basket, lost him right before the ncaa tournament. You are thinking how can oregon overcome that . Theyve done wit bigtime play from two top scorers, Dillon Brooks and tiler dorsey. Tiler dorsey played on the Greek National team, hes from l. A. , averaging 24 points per game in the last seven games, shooting over 60 from two, over 60 from three, and especially in this tournament, hes been absolutely magnificent, but maybe the differencemaker of this team has been jordan bell, and the game against kansas, he had 11 points, 13 rebounds, blocked 8 shots. While boo shea was the leading shot blocker when he got hurt, jordan bell is the leading shot blocker in oregon. So they replaced one great shot blocker with another. I think the test for oregon is can they keep North Carolina off the offensive glass and get easy second clanlses because thats what carolina does better than anybody in the country. Rose as i remember, you predicted the final four would be before the season started. A duke, carolina . I had North Carolina in the final. I thought they were the best team when i saw them in november in maui. I think theyve proven that. They find always played their best. They have games where they have not been good on the offensive end. They didnt defend as good as theyre capable of going. Games where theyve allowed themselves to be slowed down, whether at georgia tech, miami, or virginia where they only scored 43 points, hard to imagine them doing that. In this tournament, they have been locked in. Kenny williams was injured, been lost for the years and a hobbled jouberty, point guard. North carolina is strong with four big guys, the two leading scorers are guards. Jackson averages 19 and berry, point beard, is having a great year. Its been a while, you would have to go back aways to find a North Carolina team led in scoring by two guards and now theyre back in the final four for the second year in a row with guards leading the way. Justin jacksons made over 100 threes this year. Thats a record. They will have to shoot well to beat oregon. Rose im allowed this one question, what happened to duke . You know, they had a year, charlie, where they were injured all year. I think duke was the most talented team coming into the year, they had the best personnel and most talented roster, but for a team who had nothing but injuries early on, never found continuity, never able to get that highlevel consistency throughout the year, i thought they found it in the acc tournament, won four games in four days, won the acc championship, no team in the acc ever won four games in four days, and i thought they would carry that forward in the ncaa fowrmt but they ran into a group of men in South Carolina and got man handled in the second half. I cant remember a duke team thats had 65 points scored on them in a half let alone the second half. Give South Carolina credit but didnt have enough in the continuity recommend to get something going toward the end of the season. They had a very nice year but not what they expected. Rose whats been your favorite game to have the entire march madness . Boy, watching kentucky and North Carolina. Rose me, too. Was just a tremendous basketball game. Two highlevel teams and especially that last minute. Charlie, i love games in which the players decided and even though the coaches had tremendous influence, after mamalik monk hit the second thre to tie the game, they had seven seconds to go and roy williams didnt call a time out and let his team go down against a defense that wasnt set, and i thought it was really interesting how luke may gets a shot that was of similar character to what kentucky had gotten on them, and the first game they played when malik monk got 47 points, a me winner, similar play to what villanova had last year towards North Carolina in the championship game. Its funny how what Goes Around Comes Around type of thing or i dont know if you call it parallel, but it was interesting to watch, and what a fun basketball game in the elite eight game. Rose he had a clear shot there, did he not . He did. Luke may made an intelligent decision to back up and get to the threepoint line. Pencen threw the ball and made a great pass. It was wonderful to see a player like luke may decide the game, in butler and kentucky, he had a great game and the hero is in class the next morning. Rose frank mason named player of the year by the ap. Is that a consensus choice. Is this yes, there were other players that were worthy of that honor but nobody had played as well as frank mason. Average over 20 points a game in the big 12, over five assists and shot near 50 from three, and he didnt tame a game or play off. That was one tough basketball player that was supposed to go to townsend after high school, winds up at kansas. An improbable story to wind up as player of the year but i cant think of anybody more deserving. Theres got to be a place in the n. B. A. For frank mason. Rose jay, thank you for joining us, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me, charlie. Great to be with you. Rose for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. And their buns are something i have yet to find anywhere else. cause im not inviting you to my house for dinner. Breaded and fried and gooey and lovely. In the words of arnold schwarzenegger, ill be back youve heard of connoisseur, im a commonsewer they knew i had to ward off some vampires or something. Lets talk desserts gentlemen, cause i se