Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20160821

From his role as the chair of conservative website brietbart. Com. He covers the election for the New York Times and he hosted the papers new podcast the runoff. Bob costa, tell me about this change. Why did it come about, how did it come about, and what difference will it make . Bob Donald Trumps former Campaign Manager was fired and trump began to move in a more disciplined direction under the guidance of Paul Manafort, who came onto the campaign earlier in the spring. Mannafort had tried to keep trump more disciplined. To give more scripted remarks. But trump has grown agitated in recent weeks and it came to a head over the weekend. He decided to move in a different direction. He decided to follow Stephen Bannons advice. He had been giving informal advice to let donald trump e donald trump. To let donald trump be donald trump. He made the shift, keeping mannafort on with his title and his role, but having Kellyanne Conway with the pollsters. And bannon who had been running the hard right website to be the chief executive. Charlie how will trump be different . What we are seeing from trump is someone who, in one way, is trying to appeal more to women, have a presentation as a president. He had a meeting earlier this in the week in new york. It looked like a cabinet meeting. Trump at trump tower. What we are going to see from trump is more rallies, much more of trump being aggressive and going after the clintons. Bannon is behind the clinton cash project that went after the Clinton Foundation. And other clinton and evers. It is a pugilistic trump. Its a trump who is of the Republican Base more than of the republican establishment. Listening to party leaders. Charlie does it sound like a winning thing to you, michael . Michael there is only one thing trump needs to do, and that is broad and appeal beyond the one area of the country he has found his message is resonating in. That is generally in White High School graduates. That is the trump base. If he sticks to that, he is going to lose, every poll shows it. It does not seem possible to ride that to the white house. Charlie what do we know about Paul Manafort . He wanted the message to get out. He thought it would get in the way of the message and trump was talking about that. Poll after poll has shown that the message of change is a winning message. In american politics this year, correct . Michael absolutely. Hillary clinton is by no means a credible candidate for change. So one way to think about how they might pull this off is use these two new advisors to present the change against the status quo hillary clinton. But if he insists on the kind of very careless rhetoric that is so provocative and problematic, it is hard for people to focus on the change. They focus on the gap. Paul manafort was brought in to polish these rough edges, to sand them down and make him more predictable. Capable. That is why the teleprompter. If Paul Manaforts idea is to let trump be the old trump, i dont see how that is consistent with this idea of turning into a classic change candidate. Charlie how do they see that and how do you see that . Bob democrats have seized on hireized on bannons particular. They see bannon and the idea that the republicans are veering toward the base. When i talked to the Trump Campaign, they have an unconventional view. It is not a view that may pan out. The way i see this is trump has to arouse workingclass voters belong nonpartisan lines. In bannon you have someone who doesnt have party relationships, not even of the gop base. He is someone who is ideological in the anticorporatist sense. The antiglobalist sense. And he has this line whether you read his articles or listen to his radio shows. I have spoken to him many times in the past nine years, where he thinks this populist Movement Goes beyond the gop. He connects it with bernie sanders, he connected with trump, he talks about brexit. He thinks that is what trump has to capture. Charlie redefine himself as a true populist . Bob as an outsider from the arporate establishment and populist who is going to meet people and have these raucous rallies. Michael that concept is that the aggrieved in this country are not just workingclass whites. There is a much broader unrest. Ians disaffection and disillusionment and that donald trump could turn that into a dish into an electoral victory. Did washe things bannon he championed a gay conservative, who has become a sensation in the conservative world, who argues you can be gay and be a conservative and you can hate all the liberal institutions that seem to champion gays and have for decades. That is one example of the way of thinking, a different version of an angry person. Charlie that is what trump tries to do in talking about urban blacks. Basically saying, you have lived in cities that have been run by Traditional Democratic administrations and it has not done for you in terms of the policies that are part of those governments what you might have achieved. Is that correct . You know the trump thinking. Bob that is correct. The Trump Campaign tried talking about law and order and crime and trying to reach out to urban communities that may feel disaffected by democratic policies in their cities and states. As much as the mannafort model of having prepared remarks and speeches. Trump has limited in doing that. He needs a bare knuckles message that is pure change on the pure change, pure outsider. Charlie is that what he is . Pure change . Outsider . He is projecting himself to be that. But he is someone who has been involved in the democratic party, the Republican Party, he has been a megadonor. He has been a participant. He thought about running for the reform nomination. I think he has assumed the mantle of a movement that has been simmering out there. And he is taking hold of it, but is he that . I think hes more of a political figure immersed in that movement. Michael the question about donald trump and the question about this gentleman i profiled this morning, stephen bannon, are they fraudulent populists . Bannon is a Goldman Sachs, harvardeducated guy who woke up one morning thinking he wanted the most provocative kind of conservatism and donald trump was something was a member of the democratic party, lives in manhattan, is a wealthy realtor who woke up one morning. He decides hes going to champion white workingclass voters. So, together they make for in unusual team and i think you have to ask the person of how credible are they in the eyes of most people around the country as real messengers for their anger . Bob we have seen this before. You think about Franklin Delano roosevelt, a trade word to his class and all this kind of messaging. Is trump is different in the way romney was portrayed by democrats in 2012 as this corporate businessman . He is an isolated figure, doesnt have many friends on wall street. His friends are people like tom barrick. It is the real estate elite world that he is friends with into this really his own company and family. Charlie who was the first two introduced him to the idea of populist as a winning political message . Bob his father. One thing i always take away from my interviews with donald trump, he has picture frames, hundreds of them of him on magazine covers. But the biggest picture frame is an old frame, a thick frame of his father and his parents. He always thinks about his father the way his father talked to him about trade and the economy in the 1970s. When people say trump has been saying this for years, it is true. He is really heavily influenced by the way his father thought of the country as a businessman navigating the upper realm in the late 60s and early 70s. Charlie tell me about how you found out about this piece. Bannon. A Goldman Sachs guy. A tenor of the Campaign Comes from the brexit. Is the new word antiglobalist . Goldman sachs is very globalist. They introduced this idea. Didnt you, bob . That we are getting some currency in these circles. Michael david brooks picked up on this in an interview with you. What we are seeing are seeing blurring of political, partisan lines as people become more frustrated with the economy. Their target is not so much the elite as it is in the united states. It is this idea of global elites and institutions that are not working for them, that are distance. That is where you see much of this fury directed. It is toward the elite but it is global america sphere of media outlets, companies, trade organizations that are aligned in their view against working americans. Michael he describes to friends the story of being in shanghai when the financial crisis started in 2008 and being so upset about the fellow bankers and financial elite and political elite that have allowed the system to become so overburdened with debt. So corrupt. He tells the story of his father, who was a telephone worker for one of the small Bell Companies in virginia, who spent his life working there and amassing at t stock. It was going to be his retirement. It was losing money and he had to sell it to end there was a crisis in the family. He didnt want to sell it but there was a crisis in the family and he felt like that was so emblematic of a country and a world where global elites feel comfortable around each other and make decisions that destroy the value of regular americans. The industrial jobs they had. And he viewed that as a turning point in his life. And of course he made lots of , money from the companies that helped trigger the financial crisis, but it was a never looking back moment for stephen bannon. In which he then committed himself very powerfully and very compellingly to the populist decisions. He felt Global Leaders had taken them for granted and that is the message he has brought to the right barred, to all of his documentaries, and now to the Trump Campaign. Charlie and the idea of antivilla berg, that there are men and women meeting around the world to control the world. Michael there are a very few number of people in the world, you can see in the statistics where wealth is amassed. Charlie exactly. Look how much of the world is controlled by a few people. Michael there is an element of that that has agitated republicans on capitol hill and people in the conservative movement. The bill buckley wing of the conservative right, they try to wash out the john birch element, this antiglobalist element that seems to have reared its head again. Not necessarily directly because of trump, but it is part of this insurgenceents in american conservatism. If you look at all the outlets that have been around for a long time, they are uncomfortable with what is happening with publications on the far side of the gop. They never stop criticizing the elite and the powerful. Just because they are republican. They are conservatives, but they look at the paul ryans and said you are actually part of the problem. No one is sacred, no one is going to be protected. That is what made breitbart a hero in the conservative world. He didnt care if you happen to be a member of his etiology or party. If you sell somebody out then you are a target. That is why you saw steve venoco after eric cantor, who was very close to wall street, when he stevet is why you saw go after eric cantor, who was very close to wall street, when he went up for reelection to nobody thought the majority could ever lose his reelection in a local district. Charlie he lost his election in a primary to hillary clinton. What do we know, what have we learned about the fbi notes . What is the next term that will provide fodder for the campaign of donald trump . It is not within an fbi report did it is within these leaks that we believe that began abroad might have held back. It is what Julian Assange mayor may not have. May or may not have. Charlie is there some connection with the Clinton Foundation or more than that . Michael there are some familiar lines of thinking about where the next scandal could be. Was there a paytoplay that led over into the Clinton Foundation in the state department. Which would be an extraordinary breach. That would be super problematic. An email in which she contradicted something very important she said about diplomacy or benghazi. That has become the last hope of some in the Republican Party and may ultimately be a fantasy. Charlie is that an operative thesis, the fact that they were able to delete all those and so quick, is that they feared that or they knew that Something Like that was in the emails. I dont know why you delete an email or why i delete a in email but i delete it because i dont want it around. Otherwise it has plenty of space for us to keep it. You are correct in assuming they deleted these for a reason. They thought they were either too personal or in conflict with running for the white house. Bob, great to see you as always. Charlie michael, great to have you. In a moment. Stay with us. Charlie dont think twice is the new film of writer and director it tells the story of an improv group that struggles with the success of one of its members. David edelstein says it is funny and inspiring and harsh and depressing. All of that. Here is a trailer for the film. [video clip] five minutes. Why am i japanese . Or when i told you or remember when you told me, please help me when im racist . Welcome to the commune. Improv is an art form unto itself. The important thing is, dont think. Drags you dont think. You do not memorize. You dont get paid. Are you working right now . Are you applying for anything . No. Hummus and chips . Thing thatfirst comes here mine. You are fat. This game hurts my feelings. You should not said that in your addition. Ey jack you always do that. The new program we are working on right now is called is once to call it obamacare. Ok, we will be there. We are auditioning on thursday for weekend live. I auditioned for the show in 2003. I cannot take it anymore. I have to focus on me. I have to get the job. Your up. Ive got none. I regret that is improv. Hugs i like my life hell it is right now. It cant be like that forever, ok . It will end. You cant do improv forever, it ends. Your 20s are all about hope, and your 30s are all about realizing how dumb it was to hope. Im 40. I just turned 36. We all said we would wear the same outfit. Everybody agreed. Being a professional. Got a go. [end video clip] charlie im pleased to have the writer and producer and director here at this table. How did you get involved . Guest we have worked on stories for the radio show and outcome i came in as an editor for he wasmerican life. Writing scripts and showing them to me and i kind of got dragged in. Charlie dragged into making a movie . Reluctant or not reluctant . Guest i was very reluctant. Charlie but you signed on because you thought it was that good. Or could be that good. Guest there are a lot of movies about im going to be a star and im going to make it, but there are things that are uncommon like, i dont know if i have enough talent and it is a bunch of people when one rises, the rest have to decide, should i give up on my dream . It is a movie about, should i . Ive up on my dream which i think is something that a lot of us in our 20s and 30s went through. Theyie it happens and have to go get a regular job. Guest some of these deadlines are based on factors out of our control. I was just thinking of this the other day. I have been doing these q as all over the country and someone asked, when did you know the script was finished . I said when my daughter was born i said i guess im done. Then we shot the film that summer. Charlie that is what he said it is about. S about looking at it is about looking at what is important in life and saying what am i doing and why my doing this . And sometimes saying, maybe i should point. I think that is what is exciting about making the movie. I feel like the American Dream is based on this idea, we are fed this idea that successes this one thing. I think it can be on a spectrum, this could be a whole number of things. For me the joke about realizing how dumb it was to hope, for me my 20s were all about me and my friends thinking we are going to get the same dream. We are all going to write for conan or the daily show or letterman. In your 30s, you realize, we cannot all have the same dream. Then you start to realize how your dream relates to who you are specifically. I think that is an important discovery to have. Remember one of the things you did was you were interested in this oldfashioned kind of movie where you would have six characters. That was another thing for you when you were writing it. You would have the six characters who were all equal in their, mixing it up. You almost have to hang it on an event. So that there is these crazy seismic repercussions. For the other characters. And something that you just said that i hadnt heard you characterize it, but you said it is like what those dreams are in your 30s, you realize what kind of person is having these dreams. Charlie you live with this idea that never say never, never say no, dont let anybody change you from the pursuit of your goal. Then on the other hand you have these people who say you have to really be real about this. You really do. You will ruin your life if you are in pursuit of something that will never happen. You have the find your way between those two things. We have this in common. I do not know if you have this in common with us, what both of us have parents who are like, what are you doing when we started. I tried to be a standup comedian in my 20s and 30s and my parents were like, dont do that. I mean, it was horrible. Did your Family Support you . They did support me that also remember my parents were therapists. Trying to discover what it is you enjoy. But they did not hide their feelings. They were like, im sorry, what was the minor . Psychology. By all means. Please minor in psychology. My mom was a therapist. That is the way of being a modern parent. O like, to let your kid you try to support your kid in what they do, but you have a voice that says i dont agree with what they are doing. I was 41 before my mom stop saying you should get your ball back degree. Charlie there has to always be something else. A fallback position. Get that College Degree and see if it doesnt work. Get that College Degree in case it doesnt work. Even if you are in a different level about show business, i am not penniless. I am fulfilled. And we have characters in the film, there is a hopeful up spec aspect of the film people do not talk about. Charlie the dynamic of what you can risk. Correct. And we have been traveling around the country with this woman who coached our improv team. She is wonderful. And one of the things we talk about with these improv groups around the country is that in phoenix or dallas or San Francisco or chicago or anywhere, as an improviser you can create the best, most provocative, timely, bestperform theater in the world on any given night. It does not have to happen in new york or los angeles. I think that is very important. Charlie the other interesting thing to me about this, is this the age of improv . I think so. I know that all three of us all very much agree with that assertion, because you are seeing it reap dividends in cinema. Where a person it is not that bento started it, but but whenow started it you see judd apatow give so much credence to improvisation, and definitely adam, it has permeated the cinema in a way it it hasnt in the past. It has always been there. I think it is here to stay. There is a huge boom in improv all over the country. When you went out to promote the film, we didnt know there were improv theaters in so many cities. Eisen on facebook, hey does improvone a free workshop in there were 120 theaters. When i got out of college in 2000, there were like 20. It is that much bigger. Here in new york, there are several theaters and they have schools. They have schools and many people think it is there to get into show business. Charlie you can go uptown in North Carolina and find improv. The skill set you are learning can simultaneously make you a better performer and writer. That is part of the attraction. You can be both of those things simultaneously. Sometimes the movie gets pigeonholed into a performance. It is really a movie about life. The rules of improv say yes and it is all about the group and dont think. These are really good life principles, which is why all this training, it is not that. Not bad. Im a standup, but i would say dont go to a standup class, go to an improv class. Like it is good regardless or , not if you pursue it. Charlie dont go to standup class, but go to improv class because because the principles of it apply to everything. Charlie you said that art is socialism, but in life it is capitalism. That was something i wrote on my wall when i was writing the film. Nobody ever said it in the movie but it kind of informs all of the scenes. Charlie why wouldnt you put that in as a line for someone to say . We talked about it. It felt like it was to exactly on the nose. Theimprov group is called commune, however. [laughter] wonderful. The observation that my wife had one night, who makes a lot of great observations, we were doing a show. I improvise there sometimes. It was chris and tammy who are in the movie then elie kemper and a bunch of people. And my wife goes, everyone is and funny, butd this person is getting buried tv star,is person is a this person is sleeping on an air matches in queens. And that is like a whole movie. Charlie it used to be a game for me and id go to comedians and say who do you know who is way funnier than you are who we dont know . Weve never heard of . Wow. In standup, hes become really he has a really big following but Doug Stanhope is phenomenal. Terrific. I think there is no one better. There is no one better you said. I think there is no one better than Doug Stanhope and Maria Banford who has recently become massive because of her series on netflix and doug has a huge following. I dont think there is anyone better than those two. In our world what is interesting is in our film is tammy sager and every single one every skill one could have as an improviser she possesses to the nines. Also id say in detroit, second city chicago, wrote for mad tv, wrote for girls, wrote for 30 rock. Wrote for broad city. Then also back home, t. J. , im saying these names that come to my mind. These people are transcendent. Charlie did people assemble for Comedy Central and assemble for the daily show come mostly from improv . Well, colbert. Second city. Riggle. Oh, yeah. There were a ton. Rob corddry. Yeah, yeah. A ton of them. Improv and sketch. Ed helm. Charlie what is the difference in sketch and improv . The thing with sketch is one could use improve sation as a improvisation as a tool to develop and generate ideas and then you polish those ideas and its written. So when you see a show like second city that as sketch show everything has been prepared as if youre watching a play or a review, whereas improvisation, you are doing instant playwriting. It is very of their aerial and improv is very a very real. It is very ethereal and temporary. It is happening only in the moment. As you said it is very epheferel. The show will be done after that day. Everything is made up as you watch improvisation. In second city, the sketches all started as improvs. The process was always we used it as a tool to write the sketches. Then when you watch the review said the shows were heavily scripted . They were in second city together in the 1990s and came back and worked in this realm in this round about way. When we talk about the film its emotional because it is semiautobiographical inadvertently to yours and tammys friendship. It is. Tammy and i, the movie is very special in that way to us because watching our careers theyre both going on a trajectory. But the passion and the love and i dont even know how to explain it. I cant have a word for it. There is a feeling of camaraderie that doesnt go away. It is like being in the comedic marine corps. It is. I say marine corps in particular because the moniker the motto semper fi del lis applies to improvisers. Because we are always faithful to the tenet. Charlie do you think of yourself as an actor . Yes. I am a trained actor. It is like i got two masters degrees. I got a masters degree in performance and practical classical theater and then another masters in comedy from second city. I think of myself as an actor but i have this amazing arrow in my quiver which is this skill set called improvisation. Charlie who is your character in the film . Jack mercer. The best way to describe him in every interview, there is a great stage direction mike wrote that says, jack mercer, parenthesis, still fully stealthily ambitious. Charlie he hides his ambition. When he is tweeting, always tweeting like come see the show tonight jack mercy and when he is given the opportunity to audition for weekend live this saturday night live type of show, pure coincidence, he is not he more than anyone sees the brass ring and how it gleems. He will not let a person get in his way from reaching the brass ring. No matter what it costs him in the court of Public Opinion he is not going to stop. Hes not going to stop. To him, his dream is this thing that theyre trying to achieve. I dont think that dream is ever altered. Hes probably had that dream since he was eightyearsold. And so there is a a nice guy. Trying to do right by his teammates. Charlie where does being a nice guy end though . Well, yeah. Exactly. [laughter] because he still looks out for number one. But it does end. Capitalism comes in. Come on, you guys. The premise. [laughter] capitalism. Life is capitalism although the bernie supporters will disagree. Charlie democratic socialism. Some people, like capitalism, people go no. It doesnt have to be. You have characters in the film who say id rather stay poor. That was my plan. But capitalism is cruel. Beause i dont want to cruel . Because they just want to do what they want. You have more power than anybody. A bit like it. Charlie it used to be somebody could write this. Somebody would hang out at the beach and earn a little money here and there but mainly want to hang out on the beach and surf versus the person who did all this stuff so he can make a lot of money so that he could buy a beach house on some beach so he could surf. Right. There are people especially in our industry who i know who will just, and i believe mike is one of them, one of these people like it just has to be this way. Charlie mike is just a capitalist. Do not finish a sentence like that . Incorrect finishing of a sentence. I will not allow this to happen on public television. Public television. [laughter] walk across the street to cbs. [laughter] charlie or Comedy Central. It is that i think you could live a wonderful, fulfilled life always pursuing this middle ground. Im completely comfortable with that. People always ask me arent you afraid of or did you ever audition for saturday night live because thats whats do what the characters do in this film. Ive been operating on such a low level of show business for so long i was never considered to be considered. Charlie this is about you. You told a Hollywood Reporter i think you have to have a difficult past to have the will to entertain especially to make people laugh. At this point ive listened to so many mark marin podcasts who has been on the show several times to just take it for granted that people who are super funny have to be at some point in their life a little screwed up. You believe that. I dont. Charlie you dont believe that . Exactly right. I dont excel. I mean, yeah. You could say, to run for president you have to be a little screwed up. I think you can be happy and funny. True. We know each other well. I you dont seem that screwed up. Charlie you were not beaten by your parents when you are fouryearsold. Well, not. Bring it out right now. This will be a new show for saturday night. Charlie come share your pain. I think there is a degree to which if you are an artist of any kind youre able to see world in this very open ended way to make observations. And you see extreme darkness and lightness and once you see it you cant unsee it. Youre awake to your feelings. Yeah. You are awake to your feeling. That may be more to the point is that you can be happy and also be the type of a person who is awake to your feelings. Charlie the question is are you awake to your feelings . As opposed to are you screwed up enough to do this work . Because some people are awake to duty and those are the people that become soldiers and firefighters and policemen. And some people are awake to their feelings and become artists and poets. I think it might be a personality type. Yeah. I think youre right about this and im wrong. I think actually. I renounce my previous case. Wow. Charlie what role did he play as producer . Thats what i want to know. Ira is the smartest person i know. Not the smartest person on earth. Smartest person i know. Charlie he is one of the smartest people on earth. Smartest person i know. Charlie so why is he doing a radio show . Why isnt he running the country . I dont know. I can answer that. I dont have a talent for running the country. I have a talent for making radio shows. I ran at the thing i was good at. Charlie isnt that the greatest thing in the world is to find out what you ought to be doing . That is the greatest thing you can do. That to me in a manner of speaking is better than falling in love. To have a sense of why youre here. There is a very large clock called earth and you are this cog and you realize, i am this cog. I got to where i ought to be. There is a great line in the Angela Duckworth column in the times recently where she said College Graduates shouldnt ask what do i want to be when i grow up. Its what world do i want to live in and how can i contribute to making that happen . Charlie what is her book called . She has this book. Basically argues its grit. Duckworth, yeah, yeah. But ira, in terms of he is my editor. We have this relationship started eight years ago which ira edits stories and im a comedian and i have a fascination with comedy. And he is a fascination with stories. So when we work on stuff i defer to him in issues of story and he defers to me in issues of comedy. Yeah. A lot of what working together is michael will have an idea for a story and ill be like these are the beats and hell go out and perform it. What about this . Maybe move a little quicker through here . Making the film was just an extension of that. That was my role. Charlie was there anything that both of you didnt want the film to be . So many things. Not a studio film. I mean, to be honest with you, i think that if this is a studio film i dont want to spoil anything. The couple ends up together and everybody is happy and successful in the exact same way. I dont know. It is like its not these guys. Its john crier and clair danes. These arent the actors. Its not chris and tammy sather. Its bigger stars. Super rio. That was in the script and then the cutting it got more real. We had sort of like more hollywoodish turns. When we shot, there is a whole plot line. Theyre trying to get a new theater for themselves and keep the group going. All the test audiences which showed the film twice a week when we were cutting it to public radio would actually have them come out and watch and people wanted to see about the characters and just got invested and wanted to see what happened. We wanted to make it less hollywood. We wanted to make the film feel more like life than a movie. Which i think is something that is a little bit lost in cinema right now which is to say the films i love are films like the big chill and hannah and her sisters and broadcast news and bob and carol and ted and alice and these films that just feel like life. And they dont make those movies as much in the studios system because they dont make 10 times the money. Charlie bob altman. Absolutely. And also the sense that it looks movie like the one. Thet the busker who meets irish girl. Of, is have this sense this a documentary or is this real . Absolutely. And also the sense that looking very it just feels like you said, it feels right. What was the example . Oh, the movie once about the irish busker and he meets the girl from the Czech Republic or whatever and youre kind of going, am i watching it has that real sense about it. My direction almost always to the actors was just imagine this is being watched 10 years from now in france with subtitles and we want people to go, we should go see the improv show. How are you promoting this . Right here. Thank god you asked. Im refusing all other interviews. This is a weird business problem. To be in any movie you dont have that much money for advertising and youve been trekking this thing around the country. We were talking about suicide squad. I have two beefs with suicide squad. I havent seen the movie but the rating on it was pg13. Ours is r. In suicide squad they spray people with machine guns. Like hundreds of people are killed. Every character has a bat with a nail in it. In our film no one is killed. We curse a handful of times. The adults smoke pot. Thats what it is. The adults smoke pot. Thats against the law in many states. In suicide squad they have like a 90 million ad budget and so, we do not have that. So it is just me traveling around the country and saying if you like movies like this go see it. Charlie dont think twice is the movie. Its opening in hundreds of theaters the next few weeks. Go find this movie. Dont think twice. Dont think twice. Com. Charlie dont think twice. Com. That will help you find this movie. Thank you, guys. It was a pleasure. It is actually dont think twice movie. Com. Think twicet movie. Com. Back in a moment. Stay with us. This is the season of the boys of summer, baseball. There are 30 Major League Teams half of which have a shot at the world series. But also in thousands of smaller cities, towns and hamlets, thousands of boys and girls are playing americas favorite past time. One of the most special is corinda, iowa, where young aspiring ball players have gone to pursue their dreams over the summer among them the great hall of famer ozzie smith. A New York Times washington editor has written a marvelous book the baseball whisperer about a legendary coach and the values and virtues of a small midwestern community. Michael thank you for being with , us. Thank you. What is unique about this town, about the team, population 5,000. Corinda is a place where they want to provide opportunity. Where they open their arms. They extend their families. They give opportunity to players. It is a place in the Southwest Corner of iowa two hours from anywhere. Two hours from omaha, kansas city, des moines. Youve never been there and it would be hard to find it yet it has attracted thousands of young men coming to pursue their dreams to play baseball. Most from college. Most from college. While the story is rooted in baseball its about more than baseball. Its about this place. This place where theres this sense of community and openness where they give of themselves. They give of their time. They give of their families and they dont expect anything in return. The coach who launched this was a legend and passed away while you were writing this book. Tell us about him. Fascinating character. He grew up in rural iowa during the depression. His parents got divorced which was unusual. He had a very tough youth. He dropped out of school. He started drinking. He had all sorts of problems and was living in omaha with his mother and she said you need to go back to clarinda to straighten yourself up. He did and the community opened up and took him in. He eventually met a coach who sort of redeemed him by challenging him. Because merrell wanted to be challenged. He wanted somebody to see in him the potential he knew he had. He finally found that in the coach and became a stand out athlete and he realized that coach had done Something Special for him so he dedicated his life to doing that. He wanted to give back. It yes. The town, 5,000, small. They took in these players. I am a little envious of you. I am not from the midwest. But there is Something Special about little midwestern towns. Isnt there . I would like to think so. Part of it is there is a calm. People have a slower pace. That is not a cliche. In this particular case it is the kind of place you think lives in myth. The town square has all local businesses. The county courthouse has been restored beautifully. Everybody knows everybody. And almost everybody is a participant in the clarinda as baseball. It is a book about that town and about that man but when we talk about the thousands of players who played there we have to start with the greatest of all, hall of famer ozzie smith. What was it like when ozzie smith got to clarinda . He was coming from l. A. . He grows up in South Central l. A. And goes to the corn fields of iowa. His coach puts him on the plane. He has never been to the midwest. The only word he can summon is corn. That is the only image he has of coming to the midwest. He lands there. He goes down to the practice field and merle thinks here this is skinny, 140pound kid. Hes never going to make it. So, he grabs a a bucket of balls. He hits them to ozzy. Hits them harder and harder one after another. Left to right. Ozzie doesnt miss a single one. He finally looks up and says coach dont you realize you cant get one past me . Thats when merle knew he had somebody really special. He really helped develop ozzie smith. Did ozzie do his flip when he was in clarinda . He actually did it. It became a signature move. One other thing about that about how he ingratiated himself in the community. All the players had to have jobs. So ozzie worked on a construction crew and his job was to run a jack hammer. This is a small man at that point. 140 pounds. And he said he used to go to the games and his arms were still shaking from running that jack hammer. In 1982 after ozzie was in the major leagues, hall of fame short stop, st. Louis cardinals were in the world series, and he invited the everlees from clarinda to be at his house as his guests. What happened before the game . He bought a card table and was trying to take it out of the box and one of the staples went right into his thumb. This is the world series. This is the short stop star. They really need this player. He is thinking oh, my gosh what am i going to do . Merle said ozzie do you have a lemon . He said, well yes i do. He goes well go get it. He cut the lemon in half. He said stick your thumb in there. It is going to sting. He did. It stung and all of a sudden his thumb was healed. And ozzie smith was ozzie smith the next day. Has he stayed in touch with the community . He has. I think that is a important part of this story because it shows what the program is all about. The everlees got to go to all the playoff games with him in st. Louis. When ozzie was inducted into the hall of fame he had two seats reserved for merle and pat everlee reserved in cooperstown and he goes back every winter to help raise money at their fundraising banquet. He stays in their home and is like a surrogate son. Thats great. Another ball player went to the majors and didnt quite have ozzies career. He came from a fabled family a man named Darryl Miller whose brother was reggie. Sister was sheryl. When he arrived in iowa he was a pretty fair player but things didnt start off so well for him did they . They really didnt. Merle was really hard on him and he wondered why is he so mean to me. He was tougher on catchers. He thought there might be a racial component to it. He thought at first wow is this guy a racist and then he realized he is not at all and ends up loving merle. One thing merle would do is have the catchers learn the position and would take a catchers mitt and put a piece of i would on top of it said the catcher would not catch the ball, but had to learn to block the ball. These guys liked to brag about what great basketball players they were and darryl looked down and said my little brother could school you and he said in fact my little sister could school you and i think he was probably right. No question about that. You got a number of really good reviews. St. Louis and des moines and mlb. Com. There was one exception, the wall street journal, which said this book was nice, sweet, but a naive trip down memory lane with the old saw that it was better in the old days. Well, i think what i got from reading that was the reviewer had a point that he wanted to make. His point was going to be, all these people who talk about nostalgia, thats wrong. In doing that in my own view i think he missed the point of the book which was to go way beyond baseball, way beyond any notion of nostalgia and rather to tell the story about a place. But on the other hand you take the good with the bad and you try to accept it. Thats for sure. He also said that you the book suffered under the illusion that baseball is supposed to be more about George Patton and john wayne who were two of merles idols, than about bryce harper and mike trout. Baseball today. More about john wayne and George Patton or more about bryce harper and mike trout . Bryce harper and mike trout no doubt about it. One of the reasons . Ask bryce harper about the history of the game and he can tell you a lot of things. He is very fluent. He studied ted williams batting habits even. Those guys, the trouts and the harpers we may not read about them as much and the trey turners our new phenom i have to say in washington but they engage in that kind of discipline and hard work and that Old Fashioned working, taking 500 swings and everything didnt they . I mean, thats not naive and Old Fashioned. Thats still current. Thats still hard work. You can argue they work out even harder than some of the other players because they know that is the way you separate yourself. How do you think the game has changed . How is it different from even when ozzie smith came up . In some ways its more about power now. The players are just physically bigger. You can see that. It is more about speed and pitching. There were pitchers like sandy koufax who could have pitched in any generation but now more guys throw 95 miles an hour and above and more people can hit the ball further than before. In a way it is more of a power game but power that can be neutralized because a power pitcher can sometimes neutralize a power hitter. Welcome to bloomberg businessweek. I am carol massar. Were inside the magazines headquarters in new york city. In this weeks issue, behind rising crime at walmart. Also, the dealmakers many love to hate. And uber is kicking into high gear when it comes to driverless cars. Its all ahead on bloomberg businessweek. Carol i am here with the editor of bloomberg businessweek. Ellen, in the opening remarks section, you guys write about hong kong and the growing independence movement, what is going on