Passing house bill 2, the super Majority Republican Legislature and my predecessor the republican governor signed this horrible bill into law that discriminates against Lgbt Community and has hurt our state, its put a stain on our reputation. The first thing we have done is to repeal house bill 2. Rose for a look at how there is a steppedup engagement by American Forces in syria and iraq, we talk to Michael Gordon of the New York Times. The sustainable political outcome is something that goes beyond the capabilities of the military. This is something that has to involve the state department, has to involve allies, it has to involve maybe treasury, some degree of economic support from the International Community if not from the United States. It has to be what the military likes to call a whole of government approach. Thats missing at this point in time. If there is a strategy, they havent shared it with anybody. Rose and a conversation with our friend jay bilas about the final four. I would not be surprised. I think gonzaga will beat South Carolina, thats how good i think this team is. I wouldnt be surprised if they won the whole thing, but i still think North Carolina is a little bit better. This is a different gonzaga team weve seen in the past. Rose dan balz, mike allen, Michael Gordon, roy cooper and jay bilas, when we rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following captioning sponsored by Rose Communications 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 it has been another chaotic and surprising week in washington. Michael flynn, President Trumps former National Security advisor, is now seeking immunity, and the congressional committees probing russias influence on the elections are considering that. Meanwhile the president is at odds with congressional members of his own party notably conservatives of the House Freedom caucus. Joining me from washington, dan balz, chief correspondent of the Washington Post. Here in new york mike allen cofounder to have the news site axios. I begin with dan balz, dan, where are we almost 70 days into the trump presidency. The economist and the new yorker have covers of donald trump one in the sand trap and the other having knocked out almost every window in the white house from the south lawn with his driver. I think that tell us a lot about the perceptions of where they are, theyve had almost from day one a chaotic start, they are struggling to find their sea legs in the white house. They have yet to rack up one significant victory. The closest theyve come is the nomination of judge gorsuch to the supreme court, which looks like its still on track to go through but hasnt quite yet, and they are having this cloud of the russia investigation hang over them and now as a result of things that have happened over the last ten days, many, many questions about exactly what white house officials have done as part of that investigation. Rose i want to come back to that, but whats the problem . Well, i think the problem is it goes to the president himself. The president came into this Office Without any particular experience in either politics or government, and i think that it has shown up. I think that they have not developed a Clear Strategy. I think that, in many ways, the governing approach to what theyre doing went offtrack during the transition and they have never been able to get control of that. Its not clear what their strategy was supposed to be on health care. Its not clear what their next priority is. He has signed a lot of executive orders. Hes begun to undo some things that occurred during president obamas presidency, but those are not yet in place. So i think its a white house that has multiple power centers, conflicting power centers, and a president who is seemingly easily distracted and, as we saw on the health care debate, not particularly at all a detail person and, therefore, was at a handicap in trying to make his persuasive case to the reluctant Freedom Caucus members and others. Rose what would you add to that, mike . Well, charlie, agreeing is hundred . This is the second terrible, horrible, very bad, nogood week in a row for the Trump White House and i can tell you the republicans are really worried about it because, as dan points out, not only no wins, but no prospects of wins. Charlie, they have not changed the math in any way that could guarantee them a win and, in fact, its worse because, now, President Trump, by taking on the Freedom Caucus, the furthest right part of the Republican Party, hes unified them, and several people who have worked, the House Republicans for a long time, said he has taken a group that you can sort of split up five by five and put them essentially in control of the government, made them the swing group and, now, what everybody is worried about is a government showdown. April 28th, funding runs out. April 29th, day 100 of the trump presidency, we could have a government showdown, a Republican Congress failing to fund a republican government. Rose is that likely . So i was told it was more likely than not, and that was based on the idea that the math hasnt changed. They just cant get the votes together. What theyre going to have to do and this will be very unpleasant for the speaker, very unpleasant for the president , but theyre going to have to do it with democratic votes, which is just going to make republicans even more unhappy with this white house, even less likely to come to the rescue on tax ereform or Something Else that he needs and wants. Rose should the president have started with tax reform and not health care, dan . With well, charlie, i dont quite know that i can answer that correctly. I think that they had to start with obamacare because it was the signature pledge not only that donald trump used throughout the campaign but that the Republican Party has used since the Affordable Care act was passed. I think that they had had ample time and opportunity to put together a strategy to do that, and i think that it was in many ways, should have been the the easiest approach, had they done their homework and had there been some coordination between the campaign and the congress. But they didnt do that. Tax reform is you know, is by no stretch of the imagination any easier than trying to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act. Both are extraordinarily complex. So, you know, others have said maybe he should have started with an infrastructure package and been able to corral the democrats into some kind of cooperative arrangement that would have spoken, in a sense, to his uh unique constituency and the appeal that he was able to project during the campaign. But i think that, you know, if youre a republican president with a newlyempowered Republican Congress, youre pretty mucho blind to start with something thats high on the list of the Republican Partys agenda. So i think that, for all those reasons, i think, inevitably, they had to start with obamacare and, obviously, nobody thought it would collapse before it even came to a vote in the house. Rose was it inevitable because they had to bring together so many warring factions, moderates, Freedom Caucus, saying nothings getting past us . Charlie, he feels illserved by some of the people around him who are supposed to know House Republicans, and they had supreme confidence or at least projected supreme confidence that in the end he would be the closer and pull this off, so i think he is surprised and irstated and the staff now is embarrassed. We are told, at night, the president is consulting with a lot of the friends hes had 30, 40 years, some of his billionaire friends, asking what went wrong. Were told the president is brooding and baffled by whats happened. Dan mentioned at the top the competing and conflicting power centers, charlie, as you know and dan knows from covering, this trump team has been very proud from the beginning that they ran their campaign, ran their convention, transition and the white house, the way he han his business and that is with these Different Centers of gravity, empowering family members without transparency and with a very lean style. Rose and an element of chaos always. Improvisation, and now theyre paying a check for that. Theyre now in a place where you are accountable in the post public possible way and its not working and the president hasnt exactly figured out why. Rose turn to the russians and what happened. Chairman nunes goes to the white house, meets with at least two people that we know about. Explain to me what happened. laughter charlie, its so hard to explain. Every time we go through the sequencing, it becomes more mysterious. He went to the white house to view some sensitive intelligence, which he concluded showed that there had been some form of surveillance in which Trump Officials had been caught up incidentally in that and, in some form or another, identifiable or unmasked. He then sought a meeting with the president of the United States to brief him on that. At that time, or a day after, sean spicer was asked at the briefing, is it possible that the information that the chairman received came from the white house . And sean spicer said, that doesnt pass the smell test, why would he brief the president on something he got from us . It now turns out white house people were, in fact, involved in that and, so, in a sense, the question is even is even larger and more urgent white this done . As an adam schiff, ranking membr to have the the house intelligence said yesterday, why all the cloak and dagger stuff if this was information that the white house says was picked up through the normal course of business and, in some form or fashion, went up the line to people in the White House Councils office, the way the times and we reported today, why that then had to go to chairman nunes to go to the president. So nothing of this makes particular sense other than there was an effort to common rate the president for the tweet that the president said president Obama Wiretapped the tower, whether it was an attempt to muddy that and add to the diversion created by the president s tweets. Rose when you look at this, do we expect that the Senate Intelligence committee will be able to do an effective job, because there is evidence of respect between the republican chairman and the democratic minority leader . I think that thats right, but their findings are always going to be questioned because as you and dan point out, there is overlay. Like everything weve talked about from the beginning of this conversation, almost all of it is selfinflicted. The other momentous development this week, michael flynn, the president s former National Security advisor, asking for immunity from prosecution to tell his story. The reason this is a Grave Development is someone explained to me that, yes, a smart lawyer is going to ask for that, but, separately, you asked for immunity because you think you have something to sell, you think you have a story to tell that prosecutors want, and thats such bad news for the Trump White House. Already, as you point out, people are worried because of this open f. B. I. Investigation. The f. B. I. Director in front of congress not willing to say who might be in the crosshairs, which means everybody in the west wing is. Charlie, youve covered these forever. You know the one rule about investigations f. B. I. Investigations is they never finish where they started. So creating so much worry and chaos. I talked to somebody who was in the west wing, and they said you can see it in their faces. People redfaced, exhausted, people running around with papers. In fact, they had a memorable description, charlie, as you know, people always said about the tv show west wing that it was a lot more chaotic and dramatic than the actual west wing which under president bush 43 and president obama was pretty stayed. Well, people who go there now tell me now the west wing is like the tv. They said the president is almost like playing a president in real life rose so the investigation will continue. What might we hear things from sally yates . Charlie, mikes absolutely right that once an investigation starts on any of these kinds of issues, it goes in directions you cant anticipate, you know, its peeling back the layers of the onion and, certainly, sally yates will have some interesting testimony about general flynn. The other thing we just dont know is all the aspects of the various people that theyve already identified who are going to come in to testify, many of whom have said they want to testify voluntarily, we dont know what those private interviews will be like and what those will reveal and therefore what will come out in public. Things will be known force weeks if not months before they become out in a public session. So were in for a very, very long a very, very long time before we really get anywhere close to answering most of these questions. The issue of immunity for general flynn seems to, i think, everybody, to be way premature given where these investigations are. Neither the senate nor the House Committee is going to provide him immunity at this stage of the investigation. There is just so much more they need to know. Obviously, i think the house investigation, the Intelligence Committee has been compromised by the partisanship thats gone back and forth and what the chairman has done in recent weeks. There is hope the senat Senate Committee can rise above that but i believe there are still people who believe this is still lead to an independent commission which would set it back months and months but might retain more credibility than either the house or the Senate Committee might be able to do. Rose the president , as i said, on masters weekend at maralago is meeting with the president of china. To have an effective relationship with china is essential, a, because the greatest National Security threat right now, many people believe, is north korea, both because of their leader and because of their potential with nuclear war he does. Its hugely important, and i think whats interesting is whats been the sort of table setting of this, we all remember that, during the transition, President Trump seemed to signal a change in the one china policy. Then once he was in office and had a conversation with the president of china, he backed away from that and reaffirmed that the United States was not changing course on that. So that was seen as a victory for the chinese, that they got the president to back away from that. Sean spicer was asked at the briefing today, the president had said during the campaign that on day one he was going to label china a currency manipulator. That hasnt happened. Why hasnt it happened . Spicers response was, well, everything is kind of in abeyance until we have the meeting at maralago. The stakes are enormous, the issues very important, and as mike says, these are both leaders who probably think they have something they need to get out of it, and the question is whether they can do that in a constructive way or whether they will end up in a debilitating conversation that satisfies neither side. Rose well, there is this caveat, too it is said that the chinese president would not take after the one china policy remarks by President Trump, that the chinese president would not take his call, and he tried to call him a number of times, and didnt take his call, and that sent a message to thats right, and thats why president xi thinks he has the upper hand. He saw that engaging with President Trump, he was able to get something out of him. Thats why hes going to maralago. The president of the United States, by having him on his own personal turf, thinks he senses his own advantage. We saw in his tweets this week that hes going to have a tough posture, but this president , again and again, hes a salesperson. When hes this person, his inclination is to be the great host. So thats going to be fun to watch. Rose right. There was another story that intrigued me in the the Washington Post today, it was about the secretary of state. I mean, really an interesting piece, dan, that suggested, you know, hes spending most of his time alone, takes his elevator, goes to his luxurious offers on the sixth or seventh floor at the state department and spends a lot of time primarily primarily with his close advisors, rarely seeing some of the distinguished diplomats that are part of the state department. It was a very interesting piece and i think a worrisome piece. Rex tillerson came into this administration with a very good reputation as a chief executive. There were obviously questions a