Political base. Rose also this evening, Virtual Reality with Brendan Iribe, the c. E. O. Of oculus. Were right at the beginning. I usually call it the apple 2 moment of v. R. And if you think about where we went from apple 2 with only a big keyboard and monitor on your desk, and now we have a supercomputer in everybodys hand all day long, every day, thats hundreds times smaller, thousands of times faster. If you look at where we are with v. R. , well advance very quickly. Well take a number of huge leaps to get down to just a pair of glasses that should be no bigger, weigh no more than regular glasses. It really should be invisible in your glasses eventually and it just will become a part of everyday life. Rose we conclude with Viet Thanh Nguyen. His book, the sympathizer, won the Pulitzer Prize. Its part of my history. The vietnamese and American Experiences, because i grew up with both, and i wanted the novel to be about how the vietnamese and americans were remembering the history. Rose when we continue. 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 Fareed Zakaria is here. He is, as you know, a columnist for the washington post. He also hosts cnns International Affairs program Fareed Zakaria g. P. S. In a new primetime special he explores the legacy of barack obama premiers december 7 on cnn. Barack Obamas America was born with hope, people were crying in the street. So help you god. With history and with crisis. Fragile Financial System to get worse before it gets better. Financial. Hanging on the edge of a cliff. Healthcare. Why dont they take the healthcare being forced down our throats . Two wars, mass shooting. A gunman opened fire with bullets blocked by the killer. Racial. If i had a son, he would look like treyvon. This guy is a racist. But barack obama made big bets that paid off. Welcome home troops game home. Gays got married. Americans lived up to the promise of liberty and justice for all. Enemies were vanquished. Justice has been done. Millions sought healthcare chanting amazing and sometimes tragedy gives way to hope. When he sang amazing grace, he channeled that as a president , and that was a profoundly important moment. But as a new era begins. Your moment of liberation is at hand. What will remain. The president just smiled, said im a black guy named barack obama and im president of the United States, and i feel lucky every day. What is the legacy of barack obama . Rose fareed also wrote an essay in the november issue of Foreign Affairs dedicated to the power of populism, called populism on the march, why the west is in trouble. Pleased to have him back on this program. Welcome. Pleasure as always. Rose lets begin with barack obama. What is his legacy . I think his legacy, as an individual, he tried to be probably the most consequential president since Lyndon Johnson. If you look at the ambition of obamas agenda, the reshaping of healthcare policy, the reshaping of energy policy, the regulation of the financial sector, greatest reregulation since the 30s, the bailout of the auto industry, the shift in american policy which was more than tactical, it was a strategic one. The question is, he pushed for all of those things as president , but in order to have a truly lasting legsy, you also need to build a Political Coalition under you. So if you look at the two really consequential president s, Lyndon Johnson, f. D. R. And reagan, to a certain extent, they ended up with congressional majorities that lasted, and particularly in johnson and f. D. R. s case. Obama was not able to do that. In fact, what happened overall, obamas watch as the Democratic Party lost heavily at almost every level other than the presidency. Rose how responsible is he for that . A very good question. Some people say its because he was not skilled as a politician in the way that Lyndon Johnson was, that johnson had a way of being able to, you know, to extend his power through congress. I think there is probably some of that, that he was personally a very charismatic politician but not as good a party builder. But i think the bigger issue is america has changed a lot over the last 15 years, and it has changed in ways that have been propelled by globalization and immigration and multiculturalism. There was a backlash to that, and the democrats have paid a price, you know, have been on the receiving end of that backlash. I think that force, that backlash was very strong. It also was a backlash, lets be honest, to an africanamerican as president , and you can see this backlash across the western world. So it makes me think that force was probably too strong for any one president to be able to break, but for a truly consequential legacy that would last, you probably needed that political base. Rose where is america in terms of its relationship to the world, the roll it wants to play . I think that, under obama, it was actually clearer. I think there were just people who disagreed wit. But he said very clearly at the start that he wanted he felt that the United States was overinvested in the middle east, the crisisprone area where investments would not pay off, and it was overly invested militarily in trying to, in some way, nation build in those areas or try to settle disputes between sunnis and shias and things, and, so, he wants to draw down from the middle east, build up, pivot to where the United States rose whats is the relationship with china today and how has it improved because of it . I would argue there is no question, when he came in, there were 200,000 troops american troops in afghanistan and iraq. I think were down to about 14,000 or Something Like that. So there has been a massive scaling back. While we have been able to decimate al quaida and i think were squeezing i. S. I. S. To the point that there is a wonderful article in the New York Times saying i. S. I. S. Essentially crumbled. Rose were beginning to ask whats the next i. S. I. S. And thats the world were in, small groups of people can make big damage. In asia, what theyve done is i think generally quite wise which is a strategic relationship and dialogue with china but importantly building up alliances and shoring up with japan where ten years ago the big debate in japan was should we ask the americans to leave, now theyre asking us to build south korea, the fill phones which had a the philippines which had a setback but is moving in the right direction, australia we have bases. That was sort of a parring down of the international role. With trump, we have for the first time really since the f. D. R. And harry truman world, somebody who fundamentally, you know, dissent or seems to dissent from america as the upholder of the liberal International Order that the United States created in 1945, a guy who says, you know, our allies rip us off, why are we engaged in this, why doesnt japan just get Nuclear Weapons and defend itself . That and those are much bigger and more fundamental questions. Rose but do we know that that is in fact where he is in his own h head because people are beginning to talk to him and they get a different impression that that partly was disrupted Campaign Rhetoric . Trump as you know, were all mind reading because we dont know. He doesnt have considered views, long articles or speeches hes ever given about any of these things, so youre trying to judge on the basis of instinct where he will go, but the instinct seem to have been pretty consistent in this regard. If you go to the 80s, trump was a protectionist, taking out fullpage ads in the New York Times saying the japanese are ripping us off. He thinks the world is ripping us off. I think the american created order has been great for america. Rose since 1945. From 5 of the worlds population, we dominate the world. I think for the most to have the rest of the world, what they look at is the extraordinary imbalance in power that america has. But trump sees it and thinks were getting ripped off. You know, nobody else pays their fair share, and that feeling seems to run pretty deep. But youre right, he may change his mind. But his statements to date constitute the most significant departure from american rose but the world view. It would be a kind of jacks jacksonism. Rose america first. The world tries to rip us off and if anyone messes with us well bomb it. Well stay in our fortress and bomb the hell out of somebody and come back. Rose that brings the novemberdecember 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine talking about why the west is in trouble not just the United States. The phenomenon is happening across the western world, almost every western country, and you ask yourself, what is it . A lot of people say its all about economics, but its happening in places like sweden, denmark and holland which are doing well economically. People say its the loss of manufacturing jobs. Its happening in germany which maintained a Strong Manufacturing sector. People say its because we left these people, abandoned them. The french provide enormous protections for their workers. So the one common theme that you notice in every one of these countries is migration, immigration and the backlash and the response to it, and one counterfact chiewl to look at, the way to make this point is the one country you dont see populism which is an advanced industrial country that is going through very tough Economic Times and has for the last two decade is japan. What is the one thing japan doesnt have . No immigrants. So even if you go through tough times economically, at least if gether, that there is somen it coherence, it works. Once you start seeing what i call the globalization of people, these people who look different, sound different, worship different gods, now theyre in your town, that creates the unease. Rose lets talk about that in terms of europe because, in the far right in europe, germany, france, rising now in all those countries, in some cases its been a presence there for a while, the essential idea was for them was a kind of far right nationalism, a rejection of all things foreign. Now thats been combined with a connection, i think youre saying, with the loss of jobs, with globalization, with all of those factors that have come together to represent one single grievance. In a sense what is happening is a backlash against globalization, but the globalization, the way i think about it in that point in the article, its gone through four phases. Youve had the globalization of goods, of services, of capital, and this is the fourth wave of globalization, of people. And it turned out, we were able to digest better or worse the first three waves because its all abstract and difficult to blame somebody. But then you get the globalization of people. And now you have someone to blame. So if you look at Donald Trumps campaign. The genius of donald trump was that he realized the Republican Voters out there, Many Democrats out there were not that interested in the republican partys core ideology of tax cuts, deregulation, entitlement reform, expansionennist foreign policy. They wanted to hear about mexicans, muslims and chinese people. The mexicans were taking their jobs, the chinese were taking their factories and the muslims were endangering their security and, on those issues, he was very consistent, and once you have someone you can blame, you know, the ideology, in a sense, gets a certain charge that it hasnt had before. Rose so how will this play itself out in the Trump Administration . Well have to see how serious he is on those elements of it because, if he is serious about them, i think we all know that donald trump is going to build a large enough wall that he can do a beautiful photo op in front of it and say i built it. Rose your sense down the road there will be a wall that he will be photographed in front of. The question is will he really deport millions of people . If you do that the agriculture and industrial sectors will go into recession. Will you slap 35, 40 tariffs on countries that take their business abroad . Rose lets take one simple small thing, torture. So heres a guy who we talk about, look, waterboarding and worse. He has one conversation with his new secretary of defense who tells them you will get more out of people with a pack of l the torture i can recommend. All of a sudden, he said, i listened to this and ive rethought torture. I mean, were looking at somebody who has begun to understand the significance of the power he has, as obama had a long conversation with him about, and obama came out saying hes very pragmatic, was the Central Point that the president made about him. Is he now going to be look at the problems that he faces and be a different person than he was as a candidate, although, in order to have some credibility with his base, hes got to make sure that he communicates to them why hes doing it and he hasnt forgotten his promises . I think the only honest answer i can give you is i hope so. I dont know, i dont think any of us really know, but there is a debate among people who staunchly oppose donald trump on how to handle a trump presidency. In my view, its very much you have to hope that he will flipflop on these issues, that he will be educated by people like mattis, that he will learn more about, you know, whether its Climate Change or the realities of immigration because we dont want him to fail. If he fails, the United States fails, and you dont want to run some kind of experiment of having him do all these terrible things only to realize theyre wrong. You know, so if he were to try and deport 11 million people, it would be a disaster, and the result is he would become unpopular and learn through that better example, but you would have screwed up 11 million peoples lives, you would have screwed up the economy of the United States. Thats a more expensive experiment than im willing to pay. I would rather he flipflop on the issue. Rose Henry Kissinger says he thinks of himself as a unique phenomenon with unique capacity. Is that part of your own judgment of him . I think obama has a very healthy ego and very smart but i think henry overstates it. When you see obama interacting with real experts on subjects, what i am struck by is obama is always asking questions. Hes always asking questions that he genuinely wants to hear the answer to. One of the things that i notice about most politicians is when most politicians ask you a question, they simply wait for you to stop talking and they will provide the answer. They will then say, well, what i think, and then will answer their own question. Obama asked questions that are genuinely designed to elicit information, what he wants to learn from. So i think hes very confident. You know, maybe even cocky. Maybe even arrogant. But he has a very healthy appreciation for other peoples intelligence and talents. I think that where he seems to have a problem is he always feels like he knows what the best deal is for you and me, so he offers it and hes frustrated if you dont feel the same. Rose at the same time im remind of the fact he also said dont do stupid stuff. That was one of the most cardinal expressions as what he lived by as the leader to have the United States as the leader of the United States. He understood you could cause huge repercussions if you mess up. Right. Rose so his first obligation was to not screw it up. I think thats exactly right. I think he says it takes a lot of discipline to say no. When people come to you and say, the United States, we have this incredible military, lets send it off to do this. The ability to say no, to be disciplined, and i think it is partly remember for instance always react to the president that they succeeded. So he looked at bush, and i think he saw in bush somebody who couldnt say no to cheney and to rumsfeld, who couldnt exercise the discipline of recognizing that sometimes you can overinvest in places, you can overdo it militarily. There is always a certain, you know, ying and yang. Trump is the idea that the United States can elect barack obama and then donald trump is you know, there could not be two greater opposites. Rose its a great country. Your special is on tomorrow night, wednesday night on cnn at 9 00. 9 00. Im sure youre going to be rev rev rivetted. We spend a lot of time with obama, everyone involved in the administration, to have them recreate, particularly that feeling that started, remember when we were in a worse economic crisis than any point since the great depression. Rose and i think that is probably his single achievement, even though he looks at obamacare and can look at bringing the troops home, in the end, thats probably what he, when the country was tottering, when he took power in 2009, the crisis had been in 2008, you know, the system in terms of rescuing the system, that single idea prevailed. I think we were very lucky because in six months they have to make a series of hugely consequential decisions and, if you look now compared to others, the United States has in the last eight years created more jobs than europe, japan, south korea put together. It doesnt feel like that to some americans, but when you compare us to the rest