Book is called reductionism in art and Brain Science. In science, particularly Brain Science, we want to understand how the human mind works, what could be more central. And we want to understand how people respond to works of art, how the imagination works, how we can stimulate the imagination, what are the things that are pleasing to people. Those are really important questions. Rose ted koppel and eric kandel, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been 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 ted koppel is here. He served as anchor and managing editor of Abcs Nightline from 1980 to 2005, 25 years. Earlier this year, became a special contributor to cbs sunday morning. He has won eight George FosterPeabody Awards and 42 emmys. His recent books, lights out, a cyberattack a nation unprepared surviving the aftermath, is now in paperback. I am pleased to have him at this table. Welcome. Thank you. Rose great to have you. 25 years at night line. If we could get rid of the cameras, we could just do what we always do, sit and gossip. Rose someone said the other day, hes only two lights away from having a podcast. Cute, i like that. Rose this Political Campaign season, youve seen a lot of things. Yes. Rose does it signal that, somehow, all of politics is going to change, and this is an Inflection Point for the way we play american politics and the way we Cover American politics and the way the parties get along . I think it is, charlie, but less because of what is happening to the political system than what has happened to our business. We have totally democratized communication in this country, and that sounds like a wonderful thing. Everybody loves democracy. But the idea of a representational government is that you have congressmen and senators and people who spend their entire lives, theoretically, trying to do what is best for country. What you and i were meant to do as journalists was the same kind of thing. We were supposed to gather information and then process it, give people what was most important. Were way past that now. We are at a point donald trump told me, in Cleveland Rose this is an interview you did for sunday morning . Yes, but we were just talking after the interview and he said, you know, i dont need you guys anymore, he meant you and me. Rose right. Hes absolutely right. He said i have 20 million twitter and facebook followers and if i want to get a message out, i just do it through them. So anybody who thinks that this fiasco is going to be over on november 8 is just dreaming. This is going to go on. We have never had a situation like this where someone like mr. Trump who, you know, i dont believe ever thought he was going to get this far when he started, but who has developed something of a taste for this. Hes not going to go back to just, you know, selling real estate and steaks and water and college and whatever rose golf courses. Golf courses. Rose i agree, hes intoxicated by the process. He also thinks that he is a figure and he believes that he went to the head of the parade, that it was not something he created, but something that came together, and that hes intoxicated by it because he likes this notion of people who look to him, who believe in him, who stick with him and who they believe he reflects them when no one else does, and, so, that gives him, i think, a real sense of i want to be a part of this process, im here to stay. Well, and the fact that he infuriates so many people in the establishment, whether thats our establishment of journalism or the political establishment or the Business Establishment or the defense establishment, that just indears him all the more to many of his followers who just feel betrayed and that the establishment has let them down. So this guy who comes along and says, effect, all the things hes not supposed to say, thats part of his great charm. Rose but it also is a reflection of how a significant portion of the American Population feel. They dont feel anybody listens to them, they dont feel like they have any impact, they dont feel like their life is going to be better, and they dont believe that the system is fair. Hes sort of rose and its beyond their control. Yep. But donald trump is, in some respects, like a political lottery game. You put 5 bucks in the lottery on the offchance, maybe 10 million to one or 100 million to one, but you could win 100 million, right . And i think there are an awful lot of people out there who look on donald trump exactly the same way, is he really going to change things . Well, maybe not, but we know damn well the establishment hasnt done any of the things it said its going to do, so lets try that. Rose in watching and listening to the people who come to the campaign every day, there is a sense that we believe in change, he may not be the change we want, but we want to cast a protest vote. If you look in the polls, shes ahead. Different polls are saying Different Things. It may be a little bit tight than it was, and we dont really know, well find out tuesday, in november. But my sense is that Hillary Clinton, you know, recognizes that shes got a very difficult time ahead, not only because of whats in this campaign about emails and who she is, but shes going to have as difficult a time governing as anybodys had in a long time, if she wins. I think thats exactly right. The fact of the matter is that some of the republican congressmen are already making noises about the investigations. Really . Before the election is even over, weve got the investigations going . Well, yes. The fact of the matter is, as long as it was her or donald trump, a great many people in this country were prepared to say, all right, ill hold my nose and vote for hillary because i cant stand the idea of donald trump. Once donald trump is theoretically out of the picture, all of a sudden, the limelight falls entirely on Hillary Clinton. Rose and shes got pressure within her own party as well. Shes got pressure within her own party. Shes going to receive an awful lot of pressure from the left, and, you know, im not at all sure shes going to be a happy lady two weeks into her administration. Rose even if she has a Democratic Senate and well give her some power and some capacity not to have to fight some of the battles, but still shell need 60 votes to avoid. I was going to say, even if she has a Democratic Senate, it will be by a vote or two. Its not going to enable her to do that much. Its still going to be a largely divided. Rose what about journalism. Thats a real disasterrer. Rose why . First of all, in the years you and i have been around, charlie, there was a day when people in our end of the business im talking about broadcast journalism genuinely felt that we had a mission out there to give the American Public the news that it needed, and that has changed in some measure because of the technological inventions. We didnt have cable. We didnt have satellite. We didnt have the internet. You didnt have the blogssphere. It also changed because of the economic dynamics. 40 years ago, 50 years ago, the networks were making they were printing money down in the basement with all of the entertainment programs they were doing, and because there was a certain amount of government regulation, the f. C. C. Actually had some cloud in those days. So the deal was, go ahead, you make all the money you want to make on your entertainment, but make sure that you give the American Public operate in the public interest, necessity and convenience, those were the three catch words. And, so, we had a commitment to doing that. You and i were talking about it just before we went on the air. Abc, nbc, cbs, among the three of them, had more than 100 foreign correspondents 40 years ago. 100 based all around the world, gathering information. These days, i would be surprised if they have 20 among the three of them. Probably not even close to that. Rose but, at the same time, we are, on the other hand weve got some very brave correspondents covering the attack the effort to retake mosul. You see them every day. Let me just say my hats off, particularly to the women at what is now our network, cbs, Holly Williams and liz palmer doing an absolutely brilliant job. The quality is there but you dont have the quantity. Rose right. Which means that whole sections of the world are uncovered. If you list up, and i recommend to your audience im sure a lot of your audience does it anyway pick up npr at 9 00 in the morning and listen to the bbc for an hour and just take note of how many important events are taking place around the world that are never covered on american radio and television. Rose indeed. Back to this campaign. Here you have a campaign that has been based a lot on not on issues but on assaults, on character assaults. Have we given enough attention to the issues, or have we been distracted by this story that generates so many headlines, name calling . Well, sure. Of course we have. Let me tell you a story that seems to be unrelated that really isnt. Back at the time of the hostage taking in iran, i learned that a group of american diplomats and there may have been one or two intelligence people in the group, maybe five or six of them had escaped from the u. S. Embassy and taken up refuge in the residence of the canadian ambassador. Was turned into a movie, argo. I learned about that at the time, was going to go on the air with it, received a call from then secretary of state cyrus vance who said, ted, im not denying the story, its true, but im asking you as a serious journalist not to carry it because i think you can see that it would jeopardize the safety, possibly even the lives of those people. And its the only time in 50plus years of journalism that i killed a story. When the movie argo came out, all of a sudden the subject was hot again and i found myself talking to marvin kelb, my counterpart at cbs, and dick, didnt talk to him directly, found out both got a call. Rose had a call from the secretary of state. Got the same story, got a call from the secretary of state and agreed not to use it. Killed the story. My point being, in those days you only had the three networks. The fact that the three of us were prepared without having spoken to one another to kill the story meant that it was dead. The story didnt run. You could never do that today, charlie. There is no way, with the thousands of outlets, the thousands of blogs, the tweets, the facebook, the social media, the various channels on cable and satellite television, there is no way that you can kill a story. So the longwinded way of getting to your question which is how can one station, lets say, how can one network lets say cbs, for the sake of argument if it were to focus entirely on all the serious subjects that you and i, in principle, can agree rose and can cover on this program where we have the provision of being on Public Television and they give us that kind of freedom. Exactly, but if they were to do that, they would get their butts kicked in the ratings. Rose exactly. And pretty soon, someone out there in management would say, guys, this is not a private club you have here. Rose Something Like that happened this year in terms of anybody who refused to do a telephone interview with donald trump also found him doing a telephone interview on the other shows and they did better because they had trump on. Of course. Rose it was during the process where trump was so colorful, so much of a performance artist, that he was an entertainer and attracting attention. Which is the ultimate paradox of his complaint now that there is this terrible media conspiracy against him. To a certain degree, and we can talk about that if you want to, i even accept part of that as being a legitimate statement. I think the media, certainly the establishment media, has taken a position that comes dangerously close to saying, you know, we feel that donald trump is such a danger to the republic that were going to do things we have never done before. The New York Times, for example, putting the f word, spelling it out on the front page. Can you imagine that they would ever have done that in the past . However, for donald trump, who owes where he is today to the fact that he got the kind of unbelievable coverage on every television station rose he got that coverage because he was generating ratings. Exactly. Rose what did we if donald trump refuses to release his tax returns, as an example. Yep. Rose Hillary Clinton doesnt have press conference to talk about emails, what do we do with that responsibility . Thats a perfectly legitimate question and the answer is simply you try to cover it. Rose but you ask them, they dont say. You do whatever you can to find out. Rose but in the end, they find out somebody sent them a copy of an early tax return. Yeah, who did that . Rose they dont know. Theyre not telling us. The fact of the matter is journalism has always depended on someone with a conscience or a grudge, right . Saying, you know, im going to send this to the times. Rose uh do you miss not being a part of this every day . No. Rose not a at all . I really do not. Rose is it because you have a life that would get in the way of, or youve done that, been there . I must tell you, charlie, this campaign makes me very sad. Rose it does. You know, this is an extraordinary country. I mean, it really is. I came here as a young immigrant from england, and i love this place. I think its just remarkable. And you remember churchills great line, you know, the americans always end up doing the right thing but only after theyve exhausted every other possibility. Thats largely true. I mean, americans have always done things in their own sort of wild, chaotic fashion. Rose i was reading about you today. You were naturalized ten years after you came here. Yes, because i had married an American Woman and we had our first child, so i had an american child. I mean, there was no great pressure on me being a british citizen in this country is no hardship. Rose what do you regret . About . Rose this journalism career youve had. Oh, nothing. Rose are there missed opportunities . Roads you wish you had traveled . Roads is a little too poetic, charlie. Rose i like to quote poets when i can laughter there are stories i wish i had done differently, but as i look back, i cant imagine a more rewarding professional lifetime. You know, i used to sometimes when i would go to a college and get a give a speech, they would say, why do you want to be a journalist . Rose why wouldnt i want to be a journalist . Yeah my colleagues and i wake up in the morning, we get on the phone and we say, whats the most interesting going on in the world today . Who are the most interesting people . What are the most interesting places we can go to . And then somebody else pays for that for us to go there. Rose this is the most interesting of times, not necessarily the most hopeful, but i think it is, in the end. Let me talk about this and then well, lets talk about the book because that will lead us to somewhere which is i just interviewed James Clapper and we talked a lot about cybersecurity, we talked a lot about the power this book had come out in paperback called lights out a cyber attack of a nation unprepared surviving the alternative. Just lay out the threat of a cyber attack against this country and why it has not happened. Well, look at everything that has happened, and look at, in one respect, the most interesting thing about the cyber attack that, in effect, has created this awkward situation with Hillary Clinton and the democratic party. Rose right. And her campaign manager. And her campaign manager, right. And here are 17 intelligence agencies which are saying, in effect, the russians did it. And the russians say, no, prove it if you can. And Vice President biden comes out and says, were gonna get you guys. Were going to respond. And then Something Interesting happens rose and the question was, will putin know . He said, yes. They said, well, the rest of us know. H he said, i hope not. I hope not. Rose the point is they will do something that will be embarrassing to putin and hell know where it came from. Right. Rose and hell say, i better think twice before i order that done again. Thats the operative idea. Thats the operative idea. Something happened this last weekend. Do you remember what it was . There was a distributed denial of services on the internet. Rose oh, yes. And it knocked out thousands of operations, right, for hours. Now, my guess is and thats all it is that that was the russians. Rose let me just tell you, though, because i did an interview with clapper and that was one of the headlines that came out of that. It probably was a nonstate actor, he said. But a nonstate actor can still be working for the russians. Rose i think he was indicating someone else. Maybe, maybe not. Rose yeah. My point, is in the good old days of just the Nuclear Balance of terror, right, we always knew where the danger was coming from. If those rockets had been launched by the soviet union, there wouldnt have been any doubt in the president s mind as to who did it and against whom retribution should be taken. In the case of the cyberattack and this books premise is the russians and chinese are already inside our electric power grid and they have the capacity of taking down one or all three of our power grids. Rose when you say inside, what do you mean . What i mean is they have been mapping our power grid through their through using the internet to get into it gets kind of wonky, charlie, but its the skater system, the supervisory control and data acquisition. Its the system that controls the flow of electricity in this country. If you can get inside there, you can cause failure. Rose so, therefore, are you saying the reason theyre inside and could cause havoc. Right. Rose the reason they dont do it is they know we could do it and they are more vulne