Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20140906

From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. President obama arrived in wales for a nato summit in more than 60 World Leaders have gathered in the city of newport. On the agenda ukraine, the rise of the islamic state, the future of afghanistan. Joining me is david sanger from the new york times. He has a piece today on the commitments on three fronts, as obamas foreignpolicy. Great to be back with you. Heres what you say, vowing in estonia to help for as long as necessary. President obama has now committed the United States to three major protections of its power. Asia, a more muscular presence than europe, and a new battle against islamist extremists that seems very likely to accelerate. Give me a sense of how these things impact the presidency at this time. Charlie, there are two or three ways that this will affect his presidency and his legacy as he enters the last two years of his term in office. The first is he had hoped and said repeatedly that the withdraw from iraq and afghanistan would allow for what he called was nationbuilding at home. We would free up resources that we could spend here. That was a theme of his 2008 and 2012 campaign. What we have discovered in the time he was getting ready to shrink the pentagon budget, he has three major adversaries he has to deal with, more in some ways. The rise of china has left him with no choice but to do the give it and it calls for moving forces to the abruptly 60,000 forces by around 2020. The new moves by Vladimir Putin which are unlikely to end with this incident in ukraine means that he needs a much more muscular move with nato along the russian border in those vulnerable nato states. Estonia, latvia, lithuania. Finally, the rise of isis means hes not only coming back in iraq but he also was likely to have to go take moves in syria that hes resisted for years. If you add all of these up, you end up with a very activist International Agenda that is likely to be costly. I have not heard anyone yet again to put this in the framework on how you remake the defenses or shrink the budget. The interesting thing, too, is it is a test of leadership. The white house does not like to hear it but the sense you get around the world im sure you hear this everywhere is the sense that the u. S. Is in a period of retrenchment. Statements like its time to do the nationbuilding at home. When you go to the middle east, you have people say, sometimes for reasons of their own agenda, we do not see america as involved as we need them to be. All of this discussion of the visit means we think about pivoting away from home. When does it start . We do not see a buildup here that matches the pace at which the chinese are moving into different territories to the degree of which they are challenging japan in the islands and the degree to which they are challenging vietnam, the philippines, and other states down in the south china sea. Hes working from behind the eight ball here to convince people that the u. S. Would be there for them. Theres also the fact the president has to do two things. He has to create confidence in his leadership because he wants to engage these threats and challenges to world order with the combination of forces. He does not want to go in alone. He has to convince of his commitment, stamina, understanding. At the same time, he has to convince americans this is not one more time where we are striding into a conflict that will take money, treasure, and lives over a long time. Theres a balance between how he handles this challenge to what he can do and his own objective. Thats part of the mismatch i was writing about the between the rhetoric and reality. In the middle east, one of the questions is why are many of the Arab League States and many of the sunni states not speaking out more strongly against these horrific acts conducted by isis . Not only the killing of the two american journalists which are horrific tragedies by themselves, but also the killing of so many muslims. In europe, i think the president is quite concerned that he cannot get out ahead too far ahead of the germans, the french, and others all of whom have economic ties we have discussed in previous shows with the russians. In asia, you have many countries deeply concerned but dont necessarily want to be the one to stand up to china. In each of these cases, the president feels very much like the u. S. Needs to be significantly involved. He wants to be able to show americans that we do not want to confront these issues more than the neighbors do. Why arent the neighbors not more concerned about this . In many cases they dont want to be the first to stand up and become a target. Certainly in asia, as many are concerned about the degree to which china can retaliate economically, look what happened when japan stood up to the chinese a few years ago when there was the arrest of a drunken chinese captain who had rammed a Japanese Coast Guard vessel. Immediately they cut off their supply of rare earth metals needed for electronics. It was a very raw power play. You also see this happen in the middle east increasingly where you have sunni states like the saudis who are quite concerned about speaking out to openly about isis which is, in fact, supported by many saudi individuals and charities. China are we surprised by the aggressiveness of xi jinping . I think everybody has been surprised to the degree which xi jinping, who most people thought was that his first years in office tending to the domestic, Economic Issues which are huge facing the chinese these days, and they are surprised that he has dressed many of these territorial issues. One reason may be to bolster his own credentials with the military, something his predecessor hu jintao never had. I think part of the challenge facing the United States right now is in china and russia, even dealing with terror groups like isis, we are facing problems of an entirely different nature. China is the management of a rising power and thats a very complex thing that we are not very good at and the british were not very good at when we were the rising power. In russia, we are dealing with the declining power, a shrinking population stabilized to some degree now but never really managed to join the knowledge economy. May be acting out right now in part to try to gain some degree of credibility they and unable to do with economic reform and immigration with the west. Interegration with the west. We are also facing a terror group of a certain kind trying to take territory and develop a new state which creates the possibility of Something Like afghanistan pre9 11. Any one of these challenges would be a very difficult thing to manage. Doing all three at a time seems to be overstretching the system. Theres always the ticking clock. In this case, when you have things like what happening in ukraine and isis, the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking on the other side of the world with leaders who know theyre going to be in office for some time. Xi jinping is in the beginning of his presidency. Vladimir putin could stay in office until 2024 if he could survive the many challenges he will have. We do not know if isis is a power that will burn out but there will be other forms of islamist extremism. For president obama, he can hand out clocks as president bush did that indicate exactly what the countdown is to the end of his administration. When you talk to people in the administration, many of them are exhausted. Theres a broad sense that his Top National Security team and his cabinet does not have some of the heft you saw sitting around the table in the first term where you had the likes of bob gates, hillary clinton, others who had independent ability to go argue with and talk to leaders around the world. I think secretary kerry has probably done the best job of anyone in the administration of setting out an agenda that way. He spent a lot of his first yearandahalf on the israelipalestinian issues to fairly little result while the rest of these issues were bubbling along. Now they are playing a bit of catchup. In no way do you diminish the skill, talents, energy, and abilities of all the people that hold power in america in various capacities, but there are you mentioned bob gates, hillary clinton, david petraeus, diplomats, military people, people who have over a period of years have had a variety of experiences and a variety of personal relationships where they can speak to people in confidence. If the president thought this would do any good he would do it. You wonder why he does not bring together a sort of solarium sort of in the tradition of George Mckinnon to make sure he had a take on where the world was and the demands of the moment were. No one who sits in new york in a Television Studio should ever suggest what the president might know or do, but you do hope in a moment of clear crisis, that he is getting the wisest counsel possible. And the broadest. Exactly. That takes into account those people who have relationships with a lot of people who wish us well but at the same time have a very difficult, hard, realistic view of where the world is and what the possibilities are, what the challenge is. I think thats right. One concern that people have about president obama is that hes very comfortable with a fairly small group of people hes known for a very long time. President bush was the same way bush 43 was the same way. At this late stage, its hard to bring people in the four this type of project because you have a lot of people interested that are thinking already about this so the timing is not ideal. On top of that, you have the fact that these issues are moving so much more quickly and playing out in public so much more vividly that it is much harder to imagine what American Power would look like. Finally you have a president and president obama who recognizes, and has said so at various moments, that the u. S. Will not be the kind of sole superpower that it was 20 or 30 years ago. You have simply too many other rising powers. China, india, brazil, and others. Hes comfortable with the concept of sharing power and sharing some burden and is frustrated by the fact that the chinese will not step up and say this is our problem and we will work towards a solution as well. He is sort of caught at this uncomfortable moment where the u. S. Recognizes the influence of others but cannot get them to act at least in ways we think would be consistent with our broader interest and perhaps their broader interest. David sanger, always good to have you. Great to be back with you. Maggie gyllenhaal is here. She stars in a new series on Sundance Television called the honorable woman. She finds herself at the crux of the israelipalestinian conflict. They say her character is unlike a modern woman we have seen before on any screen. It goes on to say that her performance all but the size description. Heres a look at the honorable woman. You know who i am. You know who i represent. Not quite the woman. Have you ever lied to me, nathaniel . No. She will never find out. You want to meet him. Is your secret safe . We cannot be compromised. We have already been. I know your secret. Youre going to tell me everything. We must be very careful. Tell no one. Whatever it is they want. She also stars alongside Michael Fassbender in frank, in independent theaters now. Im pleased to have Maggie Gyllenhaal back at the table. You said you are almost more pleased about this than anything youve ever done. Yeah, i think thats true. Because . A lot of it has to do with the experience of making it. On some level, just the scope of it, being eight hours long and ive never worked on anything like that that if me the opportunity to express so much. And fully develop a character. What does that mean . We are used to watching things that are two hours long and we think we have developed things pretty fully but in this case its almost like a novel. You can go off on a tangent, something thats happening in the emotional life of someone that you are playing but it does not have to necessarily be a huge part of the plot. It can just be something that gets explored and left alone. There are pieces of you that makes sense, pieces of you that dont. Its the less rational way of looking at it and really moved me for the way a work as an actress. Who was your character . On the most surface level, the daughter of a zionist gunrunner who was killed in front of her when she was a little girl. She inherent his company and subverts it. She lays communication cable between israel and palestine and works towards reconciliation. I think shes really trying to do something honorable, but what does that mean . Its a very complicated. I think shes also very broken and confused. Shes like all of us. Shes trying to do good and often does not know what that means. Have you looked at the middle east different because you were so deeply involved in this story about the israelipalestinian conflict . I knew as much about it as someone who does their best to read the newspaper. I have two little kids. I think its probably difficult for most people to watch whats happening and not feel emotional about it. The other thing its done is i feel a different kind of compassion. I never felt like i was on one side or the other. Peace does not take a side but lays out elements of the conflict. My compassion, i think has also deepened from having worked on it. Compassion for people caught up in the conflict . Both sides, the history, the inheritance, the people that make people act cruelly or violently. The baroness played by Maggie Gyllenhaal sitting with a woman named attica, a trusted and loyal employee of the stein family. Its ok, its ok. Can we get you something to drink . [crying] i cant do it. Yes, you can. We are strong, you and i. Theyll find theyll never find out. I promise. Never. Never. I was telling you during the break that it clearly did not reflect it there, but the notion that the casting of you by the director was he wanted someone to have a cool exterior, and intellectual presence. He saw that in you beyond your persona. Hugo said to me, i remember when i met him, it took a minute for us to understand each other. In the end, ive never had a more inspiring, Collaborative Experience with any director in my life. We had lunch and he talked to me about doing it. He said i know you can do the intellectual, powerful elements of her but i wonder about the emotional aspect of her. And i was thinking, i dont know. I just kind of took that in. There are moments, times in my life when i feel powerful. There are lots and lots of times when i dont. I dont know. I guess in the end, she and that in the most emotionally vulnerable character ive ever played in my life. Shes smart. Sometimes she feels totally aloft. Shes sexy then totally not sexy. Then very vulnerable. On one hand and then on the other its in different proportions, different ratios. I relate to having all of that, having somebody say to me before they know me, like hugo, i feel like you can take care of the intellectual elements of it. Sitting at the rehearsal table right now working on the real thing, thinking i cannot even begin am i an equal to have conversation with him at a rehearsal table . You can have so many feelings about yourself in the same year, week, day. Im sure hes looking for someone, i assume, is for someone to understand what hes written and understand and bring to the table and interpretation that hes probably excited to see. Its really interesting. This is all a part of this same hombre station but you go into a project like the honorable woman which is eight hours, superfast television, so many scenes every day. On some level you have to feel like you are an expert because you just have to get through. You cannot mess around. In order to have a real experience and really learn something, see what happens in the midst of the scene, you also have to go in not knowing at all whats going to happen. Its so interesting to me to have to work on this and then start rehearsal where you are totally allowed to be a beginner and not have any idea where you are finding each other. It is so hard to sit with people you a respect and say, i dont know yet what this scene is about. Do you like to choose things in which you know there is an element of risk for you . You know it is a growing of vehicle. If you are to go do a play with tom stoppard, you know that its going to be a challenge for you. You know because of his use of language, complexity of character. And its a play about love. Who knows anything about love . Sex, marriage, all of those things. I do. I think its more interesting to watch somebody actually learning something than to watch someone pretends that they are learning something. I am often attracted to things that require that i have to learn something order to do them well. Or maybe to do them at all. Just thinking about doing chekhov with my husband, we just did that in a tiny 200 seat theater, but sometimes you dont even know what the words mean, but the scenes are about at all. Some of them dont make any sense until you have learned something about yourself or the play. That was certainly true with the honorable woman. There were definitely places where we did not shoot them in order. Sometimes we would shoot parts of episode 1, 5, 7. At the very end, i think it was just luck or the stars aligning or something but i did not know at all what those scenes at the end were about until we shot them. I still could not tell you if this is what they are about and thats what it needs but i experienced them and i learned something making them that i do not think i would have been able to learn if we had shot them right upfront. Are there more roles for strong, interesting women . I dont know. Everyone asks me that but im not really the right person to ask. In some ways, if you like when i was younger i was focused on the roles that were for the sort of confused, growing, younger woman. I just get focused on the ones that are for me. Certainly i read some that dont feel like a reality and do not resonate with me out all. What resonates with you . When there is something in it that i dont understand you have to learn to pull it off. The real thing, there are all of these questions about love, what it means to be a woman my age, what it means to be married, what it means to be faithful, what is sex, what is love . Im interested in all of that. Im not saying im going to figure it out, but im in the territory. And add new dimension. And the best writing and this is true of the honorable woman let me put it this way bad writing or ok writing, there is one way through the scene and if i do not reach for that rung and jump over the obstacle we wont get through it and it will not make any sense. Thats a limiting. Its not an opportunity to express something also about yourself, your position in the world. Ive certainly done that. Every actor has done that. But when you are working on Something Like the honorable woman where there is not one way through it, there are 50 ways through it and you need your own self in order to get through it, to invest nessa with me, and its the same with tom stoppard and the real thing, it so good. There are more than one way through it. If you are basically in the river of it with other excellent actors, then there are so many ways to express it. Like i said, i am really a fan of his. I really feel humbled by being in the room with him. Did you say yes immediately . No, actually. [laughter] did it come to you or did you go after it . It came to me but that was the director who i have been wanting to work with her a long time. I wonder if i should say this you should. I was supposed to do another play with him. I was in london shooting the honorable woman and it was this really inspired couple of weeks. I dont know why. We shot some of the best stuff in the show in these couple of weeks. I was working with an actor in london and i went to go meet sam for a martini and i never drink. That will put you in the mood right there. He was working on the real thing, and he said offhand that id be great. I thought at the time that i wanted to do that. Are you asking me . What happened . I went home and i think i was inspired by the week i was having where i was just on fire some reason and i wrote them an email and i said, and did you mean it . If you didnt, i am going to reread the play. I hope im not monologuing about it. I took this class when i was 17 and i snuck into this senior seminar about theater and theory. The head of colombia at the time was teaching it and there was one class on the real thing that blew my mind. You are 17. Your mind is ready to be blown. It was the same thing. I have that memory of the play and then i reread it. Sam, i would love to do it if you would have me. He said yes. Then it took me a minute. Can i really do this . It took me a few minutes to just sit down. Did you think about calling him back and saying you were mistaken . Did you ever have that thought . You never got there. I always have that thought, especially at the beginning of rehearsal. This is not for me. When i was younger, more like how hugo saw me. Im powerful, i am fine. I can travel anywhere. Im cool. As ive gotten older, i have gotten much, much more vulnerable and aware of the ways in which i freak out. I remember starting the honorable woman and i had the same thoughts. I just got really terrified. I thought that i have never carried Something Like this before. Ive never done it with two kids. Can i manage it . I was crying in my trailer and trying not to mess up my makeup. And then i realized the problem, the thing that gets terrifying is thinking you have to be amazing at it. Just living it, getting through each scene, each day. Thats the way you find humanity but also the way you survive. I had the same feeling with the real thing the other day. Can i do this . I reminded myself again that it is just each day, learning something, stepbystep. I do think being scared about the future makes it more interesting . The honorable woman which i happened to see earlier in the year is extraordinary. Everyone is talking about maggies performance. It has Historical Context and background that we all read about every day. The honorable woman is now one episode six . Can i and the real thing starts . October. Thank you for coming. It was a pleasure. Rory kennedy is here. She is a documentary director. Here is her trailer for last days in vietnam. We, today, have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace and honor to vietnam. We have adopted a plan for the complete withdrawal of all u. S. Combat ground forces. We are finally bringing american men home. [gunshots] the american troops were gone. As a result, the house of cards began to collapse. We are dealing with an ambassador who was just convinced that somehow there would not have to be an evacuation therefore there would not have to be a concern about evacuating vietnamese. These were dead men walking. It was not an issue of legal or illegal. I drove into the air base. I told him when they heard three bumps, dont breathe. Dont talk. Dont make any noise. I was going to get them out. The final battle of saigon has begun. That morning, there must have been 10,000 people ringing the embassy. There was a sea of people wanting to get out. They looked up at the helicopters leaving and you could see it in their eyes. There are no words to describe what a ship looks like that holds 2000. We have no more helicopters. Thats it. I could see the group right where we had left them. It was just so serious and deep a betrayal. Who goes . Who gets left behind . Im pleased to have rory kennedy back at the table. Welcome. This is a story that needed to be told, first of all. Why did you decide it was a story you wanted to tell . I have always felt that vietnam is a seminal event in our history. We have a lot to learn about vietnam. I was interested in telling the story of the last days of vietnam in part because of the timeliness of it. In the midst of our withdrawal from iraq and afghanistan and questions that the film raises about our responsibilities to the people left behind. Protect those on our side and the have risked their lives for us. Exactly. As we were leaving iraq and afghanistan, looking back at this moment in history, there is a lot of parallels particularly with what we are seeing in iraq today. You cannot have more drama than you have here. Its an extraordinary story. They are familiar with the iconic image of the other. The desperation of people trying to get out. Very few people know the story beyond that or how we got to that point. This film really unfold in a quite dramatic manner showing the events during this final 24 hours. The film shows the final 24 hours . Largely. It sets you up as to where we are in vietnam at the time of the fall, 1975. Two years earlier we had signed the paris peace accord. There were no troops in the country by the time this takes place. The peace accord had been signed. The idea was that the north and south would live easily together. The north broke that peace, invaded the south. It felt like a house of cards. They thought it would take two years to get the saigon and it took four months. The u. S. Was unprepared. They said we were just going to get the u. S. Personnel out of the country. We do not have time to get the vietnamese. Many of them left on the ground said not so fast. We cannot leave our friends, family, children behind. The story ends up being a story about these extraordinary acts of courage and heroism on the part of both americans and vietnamese to see vietnam during these final hours. Tell me who captain Stuart Herrington is. He is the voice that largely narrates the clip that you just saw. He was a captain in the army there. He led part of the effort during the weeks leading up to the fall. There were a number of people who foresaw that the country was going to fall immediately but ambassador martin would not hear of it. He would not allow for any evacuation policy to be put into place. Stuart herrington started a block off operation to get vietnamese secretly out of the country under the radar of the ambassador. Here is u. S. Army captain Stuart Herrington talking about the beginning of the black ops. People like myself and others took the bull by the norms and organized an evacuation. In my case, that meant friends of mine who were Senior Officers in the south vietnamese military. As the north vietnamese came closer and closer to saigon, these people were dead men walking. I had arranged the signal with my Intelligence Community friends. If i say im having a barbecue, come to a certain predesignated place, bring your families, only bring one suitcase because we are going to have a party. The party meant i was going to get them out. There was more than one person like him are really understood the concept of what was going to happen. The stories leading up to the fall of saigon, our film pretty quickly gets into those last 24 hours. The airport gets bombed. Know where it says you have 24 hours to get out of here but theres a real desperation and panic in the city to get out. You may be familiar with those images of people trying to get into the embassy. That is where the level of desperation starts. They started to get them out on the helicopters and now thats the only place to leave. Ambassador martin, who kind of redeems himself over these moments and through the film dan says we will get as many vietnamese out as possible. They knew once all the americans were out of the country that they would stop the evacuations and stop sending the helicopters so they filled the helicopters with vietnamese. The first helicopter was for martin. He refused to get on the helicopter. Each helicopter they told him to get on and he refused, getting more and more vietnamese through. How many vietnamese did they get out . Over the course of the three weeks, there were 130,000 vietnamese who were able to get out of the country. About half of those, about 85,000, were evacuated through the events we document through the help of americans. Richard armitage, singlehandedly with the help of the vietnamese counterparty vietnamese counterpart got another 30,000 people out of vietnam. The story has not been fully told in great appreciation of his service. Now it is, i think, and this film. I think we have some really extraordinary footage that helps document his story of saving these 30,000 people which is really an amazing story. His mission in vietnam was to get the ships out so they did not fall into the hands of the north. He told the counterparts we had to get all of the ships off the island. His counterpart said it was fine but the sailors were going to need to man the ships and they were going to bring their families with them. There was dead silence on the phone. Armitage did not say yes or no so they had an agreement. They hastily got together. They went to the island around the corner and there were 30 ships and 30,000 people on the ships. Then he had to make the decision to bring them along. Did everybody know the story . I think very few people know that story. I got an email from his son two or three months ago saying, thank you for sharing this story. My dad never told me. Hes an amazingly humble man. This is a clip of south vietnamese and american trying to enter the embassy. People holding letters saying i work for the americans, please let me in. Journalists arriving counting on being recognized, being let in by the marines. There was a sea of people wanting to get out by helicopters, but they looked up at the helicopters leaving, and i could see their eyes. How could this have been avoided . Probably not going into vietnam would have been the best. Or withdrawing before the troops went there. For me, that is one of the big lessons in making this film. But ive learned is by the time we got to the point to see documented in this film, there were very few choices available. The nixon administration, did they make the trip possible . I dont know that there were many options that were available even at that point in 1973. At that point, we have basically lost the war. It was the best agreement from the losing position. Kissinger recognized that and understood it was limited in its scope and ability to be enforced but the best they could do at that point. Im quite serious about this and youve just been having a discussion about entering these wars with isis, syria, other places. Once that decision is made, these wars have a force of their own and you lose control over them. When you get to the point where you dont win and you arguably lose, there are very few choices. That moment you see there is a reminder of the human cost of war. In many ways, what im most proud of with this film and what it can contribute is a reminder of the humans that are on the front lines of this and the cost. These young vietnamese pilots would go to their homes and pick up their families and anybody else and head out to sea. We were one of the first ships they saw. It would only do one at a time landing. They were looking for another place to land. This is a big helicopter, thousands of pounds. We had to figure out how to get it over to the flight deck. You dont have time to think about what you did. You just do it. We open the flight deck and they began to land one right after the other. Some of them were shot at with holes in them. Most of the vietnamese who came out talk about the flight crews. They were heavily armed, some with m16 rifles. They had no idea what was going to happen so they came out ready for anything, really. We had to disarm them. None of them had ever landed on a ship before. About five minutes later, another one came in to land. We pushed that airplane to the side. That was the second and i helped to push that over, too. The third plane came in and we pushed it over the side. We pushed three helicopters in the water so far. This is incredible. Its all true. It is incredible and it is all true. Where did you get the film . The footage i got because i was talking to a friend who worked at the u. S. Navy. He worked at the Preservation Department and he was very familiar with the story of the u. S. Kirk. I said we wanted to include this in our film. I was at a party with him. I was talking to a guy on the kirk and he said he had gone up to his attic and come across a box of undeveloped super 8 footage on it that said u. S. S. Kirk 1975 if you had any interest in that. I said i had a lot of interest. I called the guys at 9 00 a. M. He was very protective of it. It is extraordinary footage, super 8, all of his footage we used 12 minutes in the film. A lot of the Richard Armitage story he filmed, the sections where you can see the boats overcrowded with people. The back cities are crowded into the airport. We are surrounded. I dont know how we are going to get out. We are racing down the runway leaving behind hundreds of people. Dozens are running along grabbing. We are pulling on as fast as we can. There is a sea of humanity jamming on. Its impossible to stop the crowd. We are pulling away, leaving them behind. People are falling off the air stairs. The plane is taking off. Wow. Incredible, is not it . Thank you. Its great to be here. I appreciate it. Last days in vietnam will be in theaters this friday, september 5, and on pbs. Live from pier three in san and new york, we are bloomberg west. The ecommerce giant is on track to be the largest ipo in u. S. History. They are hoping to raise 21. 1 billion. Investors will sell 320 million shares, giving alibaba a market value of 162 billion