Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20170124 : vimarsana.com

Tillerson for his nomination hearing. I said your administration is going to have to thread the needle, and figure out how on the one hand to push back against putins aggressiveness and meddling and interventionism. And at the same time stop a continuing downward spiral in the u. S. An relationship, that is potentially quite dangerous. But theyve got to do both sides of it. Rose and we conclude with a look at the Global Economy with sharmin moose aver rahmani of goldman sachs. You look at equity valuation, we actually have now just turned over into the tenth meaning markets. If people had gone out of equities in july of 1995, when equities were in the tenth decile, they would have never gotten a chance to get back in and would have left 500 returns on the table since 1995. So our key message is valuation alone is not a reason to go out of u. S. Equities, especially if you dont expect a recession. Rose politics, National Security and the Global Economy when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the 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 today was a much anticipated meeting between the Trump Administration and the working press, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held his First Official briefing this afternoon. He addressed a range of policy issues as well as new administrations relationship with the press and the Intelligence Community. The press conference comes two days after spicers widely criticized statement. On saturday in which he disparaged some Media Outlets on what he described as deliberately false reporting. Joining me now from washington, Philip Rucker Us White House bureau chief and Damian Paletta for the wall street journal and joining us later from the white house, Margaret Brennan, Foreign Affairs and White House Correspondent for cbs news and Jonathan Karl chief White House Correspondent for abc news. Im pleased to have all of them here it fill rucker, tell me about t how it played. There are basically two sean spicers. The sean spicer who gave that statement a couple of days ago on saturday was defiant and angry and basically yelling at the press and using falsehoods, telling things that were not true. Sean today was much more comfortable. He was taking questions left and right, stayed up there for well over an hour, talked fluently about a range of policy matters. An when he was asked about the mistruths he stated over the weekend about the inauguration crowd size, he effectively apologized. He said i always try to come here with truthful information and i will endeavor to do that in the future. And talked a little bit about how donald trump is really cheafing at what he sees as an unfair media narrative out to undermine his presidency. Rose damian, how did you see it . I thought the same way. We all sort of dealt with the good cop, bad cop situation as reporters. But it is rare to have it from the same person within three days. And so i think there was a lot of there is kind of a group exhale from the press. Rose but if, in fact, things were turned upside down over the weekend, theyve been turned back up in terms of at least an understanding that the press secretary and the press have a job to do and if you are not truthful with each other, then you have something significant to lose. Thats exactly right. And i remember in journalism school, we learned the saying you never pick a fight with people that by the barrel it is obviously different in this day and age but they realize that narrative will be hard to keep up for four years where they will putacts out there, what they see as facts and the media will quickly shoot tell down. What sean tried to do today was answer as many questions as he could, be as conciliatory as he could, and sort of, you know, io judgement every time. That is right. He did. He talked about President Trump watching the television and just becoming enrajed with what he sees as unfair punditry and commentary and a sense of people doubting his abilities to forge a consensus, people doubting whether his cabinet nominees are going to make it through Senate Confirmation and just feeling like there is always a hurdle. That the media is always counting him out. And trump wants everybody to really acknowledge his victory. But its important to point out, charlie, the victory is not that commanding. He won the electoral college, obviously, but he lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes to hillary clinton. A majority of people in this country disapprove of his performance as of today, according to the latest polls. And thats a challenge for trump. He wants to claim a mandate and have the authority of a big electoral victory, and its just not quite there. Rose Margaret Brennan joins now, my colleague at cbs. So margaret, what is your impression of what happened today, and is everything back on an even keel . Well, charlie, i think this is going to be an ongoing tus it el with the press. This is something that donald trump and his campaign have really said is one of their perceptions, that they show believe that they are treated unfairly and that the Trump White House continues to be treated unfairly. So that impression still hasnt been dispelled on their end. But today in the White House Press Briefing Room sean spicer, the white house spokesman definitely tried to hit the reset button, tried to hold it like a normal briefing in terms of allowing reporters to ask questions, allowing some reporters to have followup questions. But you know, included a broader group. The New York Post for instance got the first question rather than the associated press, which has long been tradition. So theyre trying to engage a bit more. Rose there have been a couple of questions have been raised in the past. One is about Pool Coverage and always allowing it. If the president decides to slip away in new york, or anywhere else or go do something for dinner. Secondly, the question as to where these press conferences will be held. Is there any coming to a meeting of the minds on those two things . That seems to be an ongoing negotiation. Today like i said there were small changes, moving around quickly, not allowing a lot of followup questions but allowing more reporters to act. As for when the next press conference could be. Friday we have theresa may, the new Prime Minister of the u. K. Coming. We dont know if were going to get a joint press conference as you often see with another head of state. And if so, where that would be held. That is an open question. A lot of this, charlie, we have to give room to run in terms of a new white house setting up and figuring out how they want to handle things staffing up, figuring that out. But the concern, the strong concern among white house reporters is that this public die tribe at times against the press and the media will hurt transparency. And particularly in regard to things that the white house is actually doing that affect americans. Rose Jonathan Karl from abc news joins us. Jonathan, i want you to listen to this exchange and just tell me how you approach this and how they responded. Here is an exchange between Jonathan Karl and sean spicer at this aforementioned briefing this afternoon. Here it is. Is it your intention to always tell the truth from that podium and will you pledge never to knowingly Say Something that is not factual. It is. Its an honor to do this. And yes, i believe that we have to be honest with the american people. I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts. There are certain things that we may we may not fully understand when we come out. But our intention is never to lie to you, jonathan. Rose john thank karl, do you call that a meeting of the minds. To a degree, it was really a rough start for the white house and sean spicer in particular, when he came out on saturday and held that, well, it wasnt really a briefing because he didnt take any questions. But when he came out and basically lambasted the press and you know, accused Media Organization of lying about the size of Donald Trumps inaugural crowd. Relatively tril trivial issue in a lot of this historic weekend that weve just witnessed. So he needed a bit of a reset. Sean on saturday did say several things that were wrong. These werent huge facts but he, you know, he misstated things like the metro ridership at the president s inauguration compared to obamas. He came in, and i thought it was a pretty good reset. I thought that was a pretty good answer. And i think that this has been an interesting day, charlie, for all of talk of shutting down the Briefing Room, there has been a buzz of activity here at the white house for the first full weekday for President Trump. The white house poll you mentioned, weve been brought in and the poll has gone into more than a half dozen events here at the white house. Almost everything the president has done, theyve been running and calling sometimes at the last minute, bring the cameras in, then meetings in its been something else. Rose let me ask this of all four of you, you are all very good reporters. Which means you have good sources within whatever beat you are covering, whatever administration you are covering. Do you have the same thing with the Trump Administration or does the fact that the president feels like the press has been unfair to him, which he has expressed in every forum that he has had opportunity to talk about the press, cast any kind of resistance to getting the kind of sources you need . Well, charlie, i will take a first stab at that. I actually find that you can you can get ahold of the you can get ahold of the senior advisors. They will talk to you even during moments of warfare between the you know, at the candidate trump, president elect trump, now President Trump, that they are willing to talk to you. Some of them and the biggest challenge though is that so much is directed by trump himself. And often with decisions made at the very last minute, its sometimes hard to get at actual, you know, real ground truth of what is going on because it can change so quickly, you know, with the president himself. But i dont find that they shut us out. They do engage the press. Rose damian. I would say one of the more challenging things here is that he has built this team that doesnt have a lot of history together, right. So if were giving signals from one part of the team t might not be consistent with signals from the rest of the team so the challenge as a report certificate to present readers with the most accurate, you know, complete package of information. So i think it takes a little more legwork on our end to try to uneverything down. But were more than happy to do it. The challenge is to get used to a team that doesnt have a tremendous amount of history together and figure out who has what agenda and kind of go from there. Rose phil, where do you think the relationship with the Intelligence Community stands today . You know, i dont know that it is great. President trump was over at the cia on saturday with his first visit, at president. And he spoke in front of that honor wall, that honors so many of the Intelligence Officers who i had do in the line of duty. He got loud applause from the assembled Intelligence Officers. But it was sort of a selfselected group. These were people who signed up to see him speak. I think in the broader Intelligence Community there was a great deal of unease with his visit here. There was a feeling that he used that kind of sacred back drop to give basically a political speech, to attack the media, to talk about himself. He talked about defending his intellect and talking about him as a vigorous young man. It was sort of disjointed and not the kind of presentation that theyre used to seeing at the cia. He has reached out and said look, im 100 percent behind you guys. I am going to back you more than any other president has ever backed the Intelligence Community. But the proof is really in the pudding and were just going to have to see where it goes from here. Rose margaret what did you learn about policy today. Well, there is a lot of politics, not a lot of policy that is being explained just yet for all the reasons you just heard in terms of things being closely held. What i did think was really interesting in terms of a policy a etch proach was sean spicer saying were not going to renegotiate any multilateral trade deals with the exception of nafta. This transpacific trade deal, we are not going to spieses it up and put the trump deal, everything will be oneonone country to country, i think that strategically, charlie, is maybe interesting on an economic front in terms of u. S. Trade and advantages. But it could more strategically complicate at least some would argue complicate policy making in a way that could as a bloc challenge chinas dominance rticularly in the asiapacific region. And we havent heard the Trump Administration really articulate how they plan to confront china. You heard a few things here and there in terms of Rex Tillersons views of potential secretary of states he has confirmed versus the white house views on South China Sea and territorial disputes in international waterways. Youve also heard candidate trump say he was really going to have almost a trade war with china. That language hasnt been articulated into a single singular view to explain how the United States is going to be positioning itself with arguably its biggest competitor economyically and militarily. Jonathan bharks about the Intelligence Community and some how who created what understanding about the riff between the Intelligence Community and this president. Well, we heard from the president that it was all a media creation, of course it was then president elect trump that want quite aggressively at the Intelligence Community, accused them of leaking that dossier that had all those unconfirmed reports about his alleged activities in moscow. He was the one that brought up the explosive kind of nazi comparison. But i think that that trip to the cia clearly there was controversy over how he handled what he said in front of that wall. But that was very deliberate move by President Trump, a very deliberate move to make his very first trip to an agency, any agency to be the Central Intelligence agency. The whole point of that was a message, was i dont want to see a rif here, i rift here, i am going to support the Intelligence Community, i will rely on the Intelligence Community. If you talk to the white house, they will say trump has very Serious Problems with the leadership. Clearly with now former cia director john brennan, perhaps also with dni clapper. These, this is the leaders of the Intelligence Community, politically appointed, appointed by barack obama. Hes going to have his own leadership in place. I think there will be still some mistrust but the message from this white house is i may have had problems with your leaders, i didnt have problems with you. Yeah. Finally, phil, is there going to be a Daily Briefing . Is that long tradition will continue to be. Adhered to . Ness with yeah, so it appears that there will be for now, but one of the things that sean spicer had been talking about during the transition phase as he got ready for the job was alternating between a daily on camera briefing, maybe doing a gagel which would be off camera. But still on the record with reporters, having different kinds of interaction. But one thing that he announced today was that they are going to actually have four seats in the Briefing Room assigned for skype which basically is any reporter out in the country who doesnt have a bureau in washington who represents like the local newspaper or a local television station or radio, would be able to pose questions to the White House Press secretary through skype. So there is clearly an effort to try to die lawsuit the influence of sort of the mainstream tv networks, newspapers and wires and go out to this Broader Media audience for the questioning. Rose guys, thank you so much. Thanks, charlie. Well be right back. Well talk to bob gates. Stay with us. Robert gaitle is here. Hes has had a long and distinguished career in National Security. He has