Reporter for axios. Lets talk about the daca decision, or nondecision. Put that into context. He did not do what the republicans wanted him to do. He threw it back to congress. The decision may now come sometime next year and could be a continuing controversy which republicans fear could hurt their reelection in 2018. Speak to that for me. Jonathan i had a conversation with a source who had spoken to trump on friday of last week. This is todays two days before it was written his decision was made on daca, he was going to rescind the program but giving the sixmonth window for congress to act. This source came away from the conversation the president convinced his mind was not made up. Daca has been something, i cannot speak to whether he generally feels for these kids brought to america through no fault of their own by their parents and shielded temporarily by the Obama Administration or whether he understands the politics and media, the images of him getting rid of this program will be so bad. For one or other reason, he has grappled with this in a way he has not grappled with any other policy decision throughout the first eight months of his administration. He has been very reluctant to rescind daca. I think it is an open question what happens in six months. I think there is little chance congress will deal with this because congress cannot do with anything. If trump has to revisit it in six months time, who knows what he will do . We shouldnt assume he will rescind the program just because he has said he would. Charlie why is he hesitant . Jonathan in what sense . Charlie to rescind it. Jonathan i think its very clear. He is surrounded by people telling him there was a tweet from ivanka before he ran for president celebrating the story of an undocumented immigrant. Some of the people he is closest two in the world are telling him about the stories of these young children, please protect these children. Trump often talks about what he can and cannot sell. He knows this is a decision that will appeal to his base. But he also knows the news cameras and cable news 24 7 will be rolling on images of Young Americans who have committed no crime being rounded up and sent out of the country. The most heartrending stories will be put on the newspapers he reads every morning. He is aware this is what is inevitable if he does this. He ideally wants to kick this to congress so he does not have to take responsibility for this. It may well end up on his desk in six months time. Charlie who is urging him to go ahead and rescind it now . Jonathan jeff sessions, the attorney general. Their relationship will never be what it was, but it effectively died about four months ago or whenever it was that sessions recused himself from overseeing the investigation into the collusion between russia and the trump administration. Sessions has been in the icebox. They have not been talking oneonone. If you saw his face, all you have to do to understand, look at the picture of his face before he did the press conference. He has this boyish grin on his face. Sessions has lived for this. Stephen miller, a senior white house aide, has lived for this. He worked for jeff sessions. When they worked in the Senate Working tohill, undermine the bipartisan immigration reform, they were in a working group with breitbart , where steve bannon was running the place, they were basically working together to push stories about illegal immigrant crime. They did whatever they could to kill the legislation. Now it has come full circle. This is why sessions took that job, to do things like rescind daca. Charlie we will have to wait six months and see what congress does . Jonathan yeah. I think it is highly Unlikely Congress the democrats now have a lot more leverage going into december because donald trump has handed everything they want with the threemonth debt ceiling. I assume the democrats will use daca as leverage in negotiations over the debt ceiling or government funding. It remains to be seen whether they will accept the tough order and Border Protection measures republicans will demand an exchange for what they regard as amnesty. I still think it is a very heavy lift. Charlie where are mcconnell and ryan on this . Jonathan ryan particularly has been quite dedicated to immigration reform. He would like to see this codified into law in some way. Again, they will not let anything pass without tough enforcement measures, border security, everify, things of that nature. Charlie let me turn to the debt deal, are you surprised . Jonathan yes and no. Not only was i surprised, but all of trumps team was surprised. They had gamed this out before hand. They were under the impression trump and the administration were moving towards a deal of some description with Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan. That is what you do when you are a republican president. You deal with your Republican Leaders on capitol hill. Charlie especially when they are in the majority. Jonathan they are in the majority. But as it has been described to me by multiple people, inside the room, in the oval office, donald trump had a burst of inspiration. Theres a lot that has laid the groundwork for this. On a personal level, he cannot stand Mitch Mcconnell. He is fed up with him. He views him as a failed leader, low energy, thinks he is past his prime. On a personal level, he cannot stand him. Trump has never liked paul ryan. He has viewed him as dorky and he cameal, presented out against him after the access Hollywood Tape during the campaign. They had a thawing of the relationship earlier in the year, but it was never genuine. What people said today and yesterday, trump has been gloating, giddy almost about how he has made ryan and mcconnell squirm. He is rubbing it in their faces. He is talking about this deal with chuck and nancy, sort of parading around this deal he struck with the two Democratic Leaders on capitol hill. As far as i can establish, and this is from multiple conversations with people around the president , this was not preplanned. This was something he saw in the room. He was frustrated with mcconnell. Schumer was playing ball saying how about we do this . Steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, gave a pitch. Trump cut him off and sided with chuck schumer. Charlie now you have the reaction from the pundits. Some say trump loves the fact a lot of people like the fact he did this. He wants to be loved and he likes this response and it may open the way to the beginning of something new. He has even suggested that. Jonathan im always reticent to herald new eras in trump. I have covered him for two years now. He is a daytoday player. He is governed by his impulses and what is required to get him through the next day. What is expedient at that moment. There is not a lot of longrange, Strategic Thinking. Im not aware of longrange, Strategic Thinking for a lot of his moves. However, one thing that has been consistent for 30 years is he adores, needs, has insatiable need for media and positive media attention. He does not mind negative media attention. He just needs attention. But better if it is positive. We know he reads the New York Times and the New York Post every morning. He was getting some really rough coverage after charlotte stone, rightly so, for saying there fine peopleople among the White Supremacists marching with tiki torches. Yes, people are mocking him for giving away the house to democrats. There is trump paving the path to bipartisanship. He gets to look like the big National Leader at a time of National Crisis with the hurricane. He gets to look above politics. And he has never identified with the republican party. He never felt like a republican. I went back and looked at his inaugural address today. He explicitly is presenting himself as an enemy of congress, running as the antidote to what is here on capitol hill. Charlie thank you so much. A pleasure to have you on the program. We will be right back. Stay with us. Charlie the deuce is a new hbo series. The series chronicles the lives of the prostitutes, pimps, and Police Officers working around times square in 1971. Here is the trailer. Scary world out here. We could own this street. I dont need you or anybody else. Frankie deals everybody in new york city. We are going to get it and deliver. No late payments. Understood. Everyone against the van. If i was you, i would take any offer that moved your ladies off the pavement. Been running women off the streets for a while now. The parlors are all paying us. This is not news. We have called out city corruption before. There has been a change. Its in the law. Something about Community Standards. What about Community Standards . Apparently, new york has none. Pure innovation. We can turn a dime into a dollar just like that. I want to learn how to make movies. If they can sell it in europe, we can make and sell it here. How do you know . This is america, right . Theres going to be an opportunity coming your way. What am i looking at . The future. When do we start . Charlie joining me now are the creators and executive producers, david simon and george pelecanos. And the star maggie gyllenhaal. , james franco will join us in later in progress, we hope. [laughter] i am pleased to have all of them here at the table. Where did this idea come from . We back into it. George and i were working on the show treme, in new orleans. A guy on the crew had been researching this time in new york and had made contact with a guy who was a mob front on 42nd street, a barman who ran nightclubs and became involved in the massage parlors and other stuff including early pornographic film. As soon as we heard it, we were like, this sounds gratuitous, i am not sure i want to get involved. But mark was persistent and asked us to meet with the fellow. We did. After about three hours, george and i walked out of that meeting. We pretended to go smoke a cigarette even though neither one of us smoked. We looked at each other and said , my god, we are going to end up doing a show about the rise of pornography. Charlie is that how you saw it . Yeah, the characters were so rich, we just really couldnt ignore it. It fit into a lot of things we are interested in like labor and gender politics. The labor aspect of it is in this story. The people doing all the work, as is typically true, get the least out of it. They are not working in a factory this time, but selling their own flesh. That was interesting to us and touched on different themes. Charlie im sure maggie has things she wants to make sure it does and does not do. Yes. I think that was a part of every conversation we had from the first time we met. For me, it was interesting because i have never been involved in anything ready where the script was not written before we began. We had three out of eight, and they were incredibly wellwritten. When you are an actor and read a bunch of scripts, even then, they are sorted through and youre getting the best ones. All of a sudden, you read Something Like this, and it is like, this is exceptional. I had the impression we all wanted to say the same thing. But i did not know it for sure. Charlie what did you want to say . Here is what i will say. I did not know exactly what i wanted to say going in. I knew i was interested on an instinctive level. This woman called to me, and the writing called to me. I also thought, arent i just going right to the center of things playing a sex worker and exploring misogyny . You can explore misogyny from any place. But to play a sex worker who gets involved in porn, and just in general being a woman in relation to sex, to making money, to art, to your own mind, playing a prostitute is an interesting way in. I guess i was a little nervous about it. In 2017, playing a sex worker is a very delicate thing. And we did not know each other. Charlie did you say if this becomes titillating, maybe i failed . Exactly. If that is all it is doing and if it is doing it to any point of gratuity. I was worried about it slipping off on either side. If it becomes puritan and victorian and preachy and we can only allude to what pornography and prostitution are, we dont make it plain and blunt, then we are leaning into pretty woman country of mythologizing and not being direct about what is being sold. On the other hand, if the camera lingers too long or if the point of view is skewed towards gratuity, you have fallen off the other side of the fence. Landing it was important. Maggie made a point. When she did it, i realized something. She came out with this and i thought that is smart. She saw it, not us. I think george and i were most concerned about not getting caught up in making porn. We saw that is the real criticism of the show we wanted to address and avoid the premise of that. Maggie said something, i should probably let you say it, you basically noticed if somebody starts to become titillated by anything onscreen, and these have become real people, these characters are now fundamentally real and human, and you are now engaged in that dynamic of the acquisition of commoditized flesh. That is a point of self reflection for a viewer. Then you are viscerally involved if you are turned on. Why not . Who is not turned on by sex and sexuality . That is fair enough. If you are turned on and have to go home with that person and see them take care of their kids, see what their apartment looks like, see the consequences for that person of the work they do, all of a sudden, you have to take responsibility for what just turned you on. Then you are really involved in the show. Charlie this is also about economics. Absolutely. When this fellow started telling us the stories, the one thing i heard, as george just put it, labor is the product. You have this industry that had suddenly become street legal, pornography. The laborers are the product. To this day, there is no regulation of sex work. You have this moment where this industry springs rapidly into being and these people are pioneers. The opportunity to make an allegory about unencumbered capitalism to me was really special. Charlie take a look at this. This is a clip in which maggies character candy is telling a pimp that she does not need his support. Here it is. I take care of my own self. As well you should. Are you looking for a date . I aint been nothing but good to her. Where you going, baby . Scary world out here, baby. A girl could get her arm broke, or she could get cut. This one girl i knew thought she could handle it herself. Got served a drano cocktail. Are you threatening me . No. Just the opposite. Im threatening anyone who ever threatened you. Nobody makes money off but me. Im going to keep what i earn. I dont need you. I dont need anybody else. Let me do my thing. Save money for me again. Money, money, money, money. Yes, maam. Charlie we welcome james franco. Welcome. We started talking about what the series would be. What brought you to it and tell me about the characters you play. I have a long story about how i was brought to it. I was on broadway in of mice and men about three and a half years ago. I met with david about a different project that i ultimately could not do, but i said i am your biggest fan. I love the wire. It is my favorite show. Is there anything else in the pipeline . He said he had this show about new york in the 1970s, the rise of pornography. And then he said, but everybody wants to do a show about pornography, and they are going to expect sex, you know, gratuitous nudity, all the stuff. I am not going to give it to them. I thought, true. Knowing david, he and george are some of the absolute Perfect People to do this show because they are uninterested in pornography in and of itself. I like to say davids pornography is exposing political corruption. That is like what gets him off. [laughter] it takes me a long time. 10 or 12 hours of television. [laughter] and i thought, ok, that is great. But what is so great about all of the shows they have done is that they show every different stratum intertwined in whatever subject they are focused on. Charlie always authentic and real. Right. Despite not wanting to get into the grittiness of pornography itself, it would have to be part of the show. And i thought as a fan of gritty television and film that would balance out all of the political corruption. It would be a little entertaining along with the [laughter] charlie television is a good place to go for both of you. Maggie yeah, television is where it is at. Television is where the interesting content is. You cant make an independent movie i mean, you can. I made one this summer and we had nothing. I was literally changing my clothing on the Staten Island ferry. We had nothing. Here you have what you need. You can tell really interesting stories. Charlie you are not confined to an hour and a half. Maggie thats true. I dont think candys story would work in an hour and a half. You would be using shorthand for everything. Now the characters, the arc of the brothers, there is no character that cannot be made more human with time. Charlie wider and deeper. Yeah, wider and deeper. James the other thing that excited me about this is it was on television. There was a book called difficult men, where they laid out what has been called the third golden age of television starting with the sopranos and , i guess starting with the sopranos and the wire and shows like that. It became so clear to me. As soon as they started doing fewer episodes because they are on cable or streaming networks, you could spend more money on episodes. The writers were then able to arc a whole season because they were not encumbered with 20 plus episodes a season. They did not have to go episodically. They could plan everything out a season advance or a series in advance as they have done for this series. Maggie although the other , incredible thing which i had never experienced before, we had three scripts, we started to shoot, i know you had lots of ideas of how you wanted to tell the story. I also felt you guys responding to me. It changed. The ideas changed. Who candy was changed. We were having a dialogue and relationship. Charlie is that rare . Maggie i dont know. I felt it really strongly. I have never done that before. I did honorable woman. But that was completely different, all written and directed by the same person. We shot it like it was a big movie. We would sometimes shoot episode one episode eight in the same day. It was entirely completed before we started. But this, i felt we were in conversation all the time. Not explicit