Is quawld the american president from Teddy Roosevelt to bill clinton hes interviewed by my colleague jeff glor. I was asked by the annanberg foundation if i would write a history of the american presidency. And having written 14 books almost all of which dealt with the president , you were mentioned fdr, eight books on him, it seemed like a perfect invitation to write a capstone what i had been doing all my life. Rose politics and history when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with our continuing coverage of election 2016. Hillary clinton won four out of five democratic primaries on tuesday. Republican trump triumphed in all five. In a speech today he lay out his vision for Foreign Policy. I will view as president the world through the clear lens of american interests. I will be americas greatest defender and most loyal champion. We will not apologize for becoming successful again. But will instead embrace the unique heritage that makes us who we are. Rose also ted cruz announced that Carly Fiorina would be his running mate. This is a choice that you are telling the American People this is an individual who i trust. And even more importantly, this is an individual you can trust to lead this country no matter what might happen. Rose joining me now from washington, bob woodward. An associate editor of the Washington Post here in new york, Michael Barbaro of the new york times. Bob, let me go with you first and his Foreign Policy speech. Tell me what was it that you saw there, and what is the quality of trumps Foreign Policy vision . Well, first it was a plausible speech in a kind of standard piece through strength. I think part of the really, what was important about this speech is what was not there. He didnt talk about the wall with mexico that he has previously promised that hes going to build. He did not talk about excluded muslims from coming into the United States. I think he elevated deplom see and said very clearly its possible we can negotiate with russia and china. And he also very much elevated the idea of not telegraphing what were going to do. Being unpredictable. Rose well, thats one of his key strengths, people say, because they dont really know the unpredict ability adds some drama to the election if he is, in fact, the nominee. But i think the speech also had some weaknesses. For instance, he said about president obama, if president obama actually intended to weaken america, he couldnt do a better job. Now thats a gross overstatement. And you can criticize obama for things hes done in Foreign Policy and elsewhere, but to say that his intent is to weaken america makes no sense. I think also where he said trump referred to the faults false song of globalization, that it is only going to focus on american interests, well, we live in a world of globalization. You cant ignore it. Also in terms of isis, the islamic state, he said very directly he is going to do away with them very quickly. I think as soon as he gets Intelligence Briefings as a candidate, or president , hes going to realize as george w. Bush and barack obama could tell him these things would not go very quickly. Rose what did you think of the speech. I think the fact of the speech is what made it interesting. He does not give policy speeches. Rose the only one i knew of before is he is writing lobbyists. Thats right. This is the second time he gave a real speech of substance that was planned ahead as a presentation of agenda. I thought he looked a little uncomfortable in the role of a policy pronouncer. Notice that his mouth was really dry and he was stumbling over some of the words. But when it got around to delivering the message there were a number of of, you could diplomatically call them paradoxes, less politely call them contradictions such as were going to gept out of the business of nation building but build a stronger, safer world. Those two things are some what related as we found over the past few years and decades. He argued that there are too many weapons in the world and he later said i want to develop some newer weapons. And he talked about the need to be unpredictable while arguing that he was going to create stronger, more reliable alliances. One of the things that make alliances work that allow Foreign Countries to have confidence in the United States is predict ability. So there are some real issues for people in the Foreign Policy community who are sceptical of him to latch on to. Rose so what went into the speech. Do we know how he set about to make the speech. What his goal was. Was it simply sto appear president ial so that he would suggest to people that you can see me as a commander in chief. It coinsided with the arrival of paul manafor who is a new figure in his campaign who seems to be voferred in something of a tug of war with his original campaign manager. As they attempt to figure out what kind of presentation will be compelling to get him to be the nominee and of course to get him to be a serious contender. Rose how do those views differ. Since paul has arrived, there have been there was a speech he gave at the Republican National committee which he said this is something of an act. I think that you can draw a line from that to the need to give a serious policy speech. There seems to be an argument inside the campaign its time to become a more serious candidate. Rose more president ial. More traditional. Its not necessarily prevailing but you can see bits and pieces of it. Rose do you think paul has had a real impact on trump not only in terms of sort of tactics but also in terms of how he approaches the rest of the campaign and perhaps a general election campaign. Yes and no. Trump is still trump. And we heard last night where he was saying things about Hillary Clinton f she wasnt a woman, she would get five percent of the vote. I mean Something Like that. Should not be thought let alone said. Now what michael was saying about contradictions in this Foreign Policy speech, if you look at any president s Foreign Policy, reagans or either of the bushes or obamas, there are those contradictions all the time. So as this was something new. It was coherent and i want to go back to the point, he did not talk about the wall or excluding muslims. And thats been kind of a pilar of his campaign and he probably will say he hasnt changed his mind. But i think in this kind of blue print that hes laid out it is significant that didnt come up. Rose what about the decision by ted cruz to announce his running mate Carly Fiorina. Most likely it is going to be irrelevant. Not make any difference. I think its pretty much agreed that the republican nomination is over and as people say, and theyre not wild about talking about this, but whatever number trump gets to, to not give him the nomination, there has to be a very clear reason, rational for doing it. And i dont see it. And certainly the cruz campaign. Rose so whatever ted cruz does in terms of maybe telegraphing who his nominee would be, Vice President in order to do well in california where shes from, will have no impact because trumps got this. Yeah. I cant figure out what the real strategic benefit to it is. In the absence of it really changing his campaign, it is kind of a brilliant distracting ploi. And ted cruz has a reputation for being a pretty calculating and kunning political guy. And what he has done here is he said to the remaining primary states, if you have reservations about donald trump and youre willing to take me to the convention, and that messy process that could possibly result in a contested convention, this is what my nominee ticket would like like. And it would be a fairly gender balanced ticket with a figure who is wellknown. Karmy fiorina but who is also controversy. Rose do we know what is on the short list for donald trump. He suggested i think paul ryan, people like that his list was pretty much. I would be pretty shocked if paul ryan said that. Rose i would too. But trump suggests at one point the kind of people he would look for and they were pretty much washington establishment types. Yes. When we interviewed him. Rose you and bob costa. Yeah, he made it really clear hes going to go for somebody who is washington establishment. He specifically said somebody who has been around for 25 years can go to the senate and know nose senators, knows the players. Now if he sticks to that, as we know, he doesnt necessarily stick to things he says. So i suspect in his mind hes got a short list of one for who he would like to pick. As his running mate. And he may blurt it out some day or they may actually hold it close and they may actually go through a rigorous process. I suspect everything we know about trump, hes kind of instinctive, as george bush said about himself, hes a gut player and trump definitely is. Rose gut player. So therefore you think he has one person, a specific person or the idea of one person . Dont know. Obviously. But he you know, i think he thinks in personnel in terms of personalities, you were asking the question about him when you interview what struck both bob costa and myself is hes a master at measuring the reaction to himself. And in a very odd way he does, when you interview him he doesnt disagree with much cuz hes kind of looking for a path of some sort of agreement. And then as my, the person who transcribed the tape, my assistant evelyn duffy said, she listened to this and she said, you know, theres a tipoff. Hell Say Something and then hell say, by the way, and then hell give his real opinion. Rose bob, do you think hes going to be, if he is indeed the nominee a stronger candidate than we might imagine. That show because of unpredict ability and the fact that he did so well suggesting he has appeal within the republican party, that that might translate to some quote reagan democrats. Yeah, i think almost anything can happen here. And i think the debate is going to be will he do some of these things hes talked about. Or is he going to change. And one of the tipoffs to the possibility that he is going to be much more reasonable and sound reasonable is this speech today. No wall, no lus muslims. Michael, were you surprised . I thought for sure that was going to get dropped in. It was not. Yeah, i mean he cant of course erase those proposals for the wall and for the temporary ban. They will be used against him powerfully by a potential Hillary Clinton democratic nominee if she is the nominee as i think she will be. But im sure he left them out for the simple reason that he hopes people will start to forget about them and will put some distance between himself and those reasonable hurtful remarks to a growing population of general election voters. But then last night he made that comment about Hillary Clinton. I mean what an engraved invitation to pushback and say by the way, i am looking out for women. And this isnt a gender race. We debate this sometimes inside the new york times. There is a proclivity, there is a tendency towards selfsabotage with donald trump that is almost without equal in american politics. You can actually argue it goes back very far am his life to the way he conducted some of his personal life, to some of the decisions he made as a developer and especially since he entered the campaign it is as if the moment es a he on a kus paragraph of Real Progress in the campaign he fines a way to do something that will reignite an old debate or offend a group of people. Rose on the other hand you could flip it and say he has done things that everybody else thought would destroy a campaign and its did not destroy his campaign. Thats true, so far in a primary. But some. Selfinflicted wounds will have real power in a general election. And if you looked on tuesday at the polling that was done of people, exit polling, people who left the polls, one quarter of the republicans who were asked in maryland, connecticut and pennsylvania, one quarter of republicans said that they could not envision voting for donald trump as the nominee. Rose those numbers i saw were up to 40 . The comparative numbers for Hillary Clinton are significantly lower, that is really problematic. Rose bob. First of all i think those exit polls are interesting and kind of nifty but im not sure people tell the truth when theyre exiting the polls because they know, hey, you know, who is going to know about this. Charlie, last fall you gave you did that interryu with putin. Rose right. I i found astonishing when you asked him about the kgb. You were in the kgb, so there is a saying that once are you in the kgb youre always in the kgb. And his answer was something alonged lines, every stage of our life leads leaves a trace. Exactly. And i thought what an interesting way to say yes. And what an important point about every stage of your life leaves a trace. And trump, Hillary Clinton f it gets down our job is going to be sto excavate every stage of their life. Because as michael suggests, sometimes these things are connected to things in childhood or plane, many years earlier. Rose so what do you want to know about donald trump you dont know. Everything, i think the whole issue of money jeff bezos, the amazon c. E. O. Who bought the Washington Post a number of years ago, i was at one of his conferences talking about nixon. And he said could we have known about nixon before he became president. And i said i dont know. And then he said you know, now we have to make sure we do a full series and inquirery into who these people are. And this was raising the bar very high. So no one will go in to the polls in november and say gee, it wasnt available to me to find occupant every stage of these candidates life, what their values are, how they make decisions and you know, we know personality, character, his biography. Rose you and i have always bleeferred in that analysis of what motivates people and shaped by the influences of their life. Speak to the same point in terms of trump. I mean you have thought about this. You have thought about him as a candidate. I want to know everything and then some on donald trump too. And were going to put the same resources, hopefully a little bit more competitively. I would jokingly say, in to excavating who he is. And i want to know his relationship with his parents. I want to know what kind of a negotiator he. Rose i would ask the following question. You have been covering him for eight months. Why dont we know more about that you say i want to know. How much do we know and how much should we have known. And thats the test of jeff bezos question. We know a great deal. But theres a tremendous amount that we still dont know because theres a public tale that donald trump has told. And there is the tabloid story of donald trump that has been told. There say political story that has been told. There are still chapters of his life as there are with anybody in public life that remain unexamed. I dont know much about his childhood growing up, for example. And i dont really know what it was like to be in a room with him when he was, as he would say, brilliantly negotiating these deals. Rose you mean were they brilliant. Was he an ethical negotiator, an unethical negotiator. And the New York Military Academy years when he was in an allboys school and very much shaped by the severe culture around him. I dont want to give all my ideas away to bob woodward of all people but there are big and fascinating and meaty chapters of his life that are yet unexamed. Rose bob . And because hes a real estate developer, particularly in new york city, somebody said to me, its easier to find out whats going on in the cia than to really find out how these deals are done, how they are made and to use that famous line, follow the money. All of those deals inevitably are about money. And sometimes it is masked intentionally masked what people are you up to, so this is a hard and necessary target in so much of his life. In you think about it, in the case of Hillary Clinton and donald trump, you couldnt pick two people who have longer diographys that go back decades and decades. More time spent in the public eyewitnesses and in a meaningful and sometimes not in a public way. I mean there are all kinds of theres a lot of work to be done. And i think its important that it be competitive. And i think its important that every one sets their sights very high on this. Well, im sure boft you will. It was said by john dikerson on the Morning Program that he thinks its going to be a dirts ian mean campaign and a rush to the bottom. Crooked hiltry, for example, thats donald, we were all debating what the term would be. What the nickname would be. I think it would to some degree demand that she hover above this. And the way that the clintons have talked about the 1990st and what they believe they were sushted to, during his presidency, the partisanship, the nasdaqiness, the personal attacks, they have made such a cause of mall ianing that behavior and that conduct, and trying to stand apart from that in politics that i think youre going to see her try to make that case and attempt to keep this a substantive as possible. And that will no doubt guide her selection of a Vice President ial candidate or running mate because she will need someone who can operate at a different level, perhaps as an attack dog. By the way, that is one of the things carlry fiorina does skillfully. She was very creative and articulate in her krilt eke of Hillary Clinton, you remember one of her favorite lines was Hillary Clinton has evaded prosecution only more than el chapo. She was a dynamic presence on the debate stage. She has a