Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose The Week 20160109

Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications rose and so you began how . We dont need a panic yet. Rose is it luck at all or something else. Connect us with the real people. Rose whats the object lesson here . I wanted to go to the world. Rose tell ne me the significance of the moment. Rose this was the week the saudiiron crisis threatened the fight against i. S. I. S. President obama took steps to tighten the gun show loophole. And Downton Abbey returned to the pbs for the sixth and final season. Here the sights an sounds of the past seven days. Saudi arabia cuts ties with iran. Saudi arabia has cut off diplomatic relations are a mexican mayor murdered. Hshe was sworn in on nears day and gunned down in her home the next morning. Rose the Mexican Cartel leader el chapo recaptured. Every time i think about the kids, gets me mad. President obama announces executive orders tightening sales of firearms. Reps quick to respond. Were safer because we have law abiding citizens that are packing. A shock wave for she polt lay. The restaurant chain was subpoenaed after e coli. Des pratto a militia has taken over in oregon. You have a bunch of guys held up in a Federal Building in the middle of nowhere, no one is coming out. Isnt that what prison already is . Nobody can drag me down uncertainty over iran and saudi arabia and a plunge in chinese stocks send markets down. Rose north Korea Nuclear mystery. They say it was a Hydrogen Bomb. Casting doubts on north koreas claim of a Hydrogen Bomb test. Initial analysis of the event is not consistent with north korean claims. Rose this was the week that saw increasing tension tweens saudi arabia and iran. One is a sunni nation, the other a shia nation. We want to talk about this tension and its impact on the search for peace in syria and the fight against i. S. I. L with mike morrell, former director of the c. I. A. And twice as acting director. One of his tasks at the c. I. A. Was to brief the president. Lets talk about the shia cleric executed that created this issue, right . So what exactly this person did is not clear. They spoke out publicly against the regime. They called for regime change. They had some pretty horrible things to say about some senior saudi royals but he never called for violent overthrow. More important than all the facts surrounding him is he was a symbol for both iran and saudi arabia. For the iranians, he was a symbol of saudi repression of the shias who live in saudi arabia. For saudi arabi, he was a symbol of iranian meddling inside saudi arabia, iranian encouragement of the saudi shia to rise up and overthrow the saudi government. He was a symbol. Thats why the iranian public reacted the way it did when he was executed and thats what created this whole problem. Rose there is also this it is said the United States urged them not to do it, and they went ahead and did it, and by that they were sending a message to the United States because the saudis are not happy about the relationship, and you know a lot about this. So i think they were sending a message to the United States, absolutely. Rose what was the message to the United States . The gulf arab states saudi arabia in particular deeply frustrated with the United States over a number of issues. Rose but think what those issues were one, the red line in syria, two, the nuclear deal. Yeah, we were conducting secret negotiations with the iranians and we didnt tell the gulf arab states. They were deeply hurt by that. They would say if they were here, they would say, you were having secret negotiations with our principal enemy and didnt tell us . The second piece on the iranian side is when i look at the the next generation of iranian leadership, what i see is that leadership coming from the iraniraq war generation. Rose shaped by the iraniraq war and they know we supported iraq. And they hate us for it. Rose the worlds economy also took a hit this week as turmoil in the Chinese Markets at wall street off to its worst start in years. Gillian tett and henry mcvey are here. Its not a good start to a happy new year at all. The issue is not just the fact china is slowing down or rather the pace of growth is slowing down thats worrying people. Whats really worrying people is politics and policy uncertainty. Were seeing the Chinese Government do some pretty unpredictable things, whether having another billionaire disappear, whether essentially coming into the markets and coming out. And theres a real sense of actually a country that we thought was a bedrock of the Global Economy and whose leadership was really well in control of events is losing control. To me, its about the currency. If you think about the chinese currency, it typically had an annualized volatility of 2 , which is nothing, and right now its four times that. We never as investors dealt with that type of volatility in the capital market. So to me whats going on is china is going and trying to liberalize but as they go forward theyre also taking steps back. Its hard to liberalize your interest rates, liberalize your currencies and flows all in one fell swoop and, so, theyre trying to manage that process, as gillian said, its going to come with volatility. Youre right in saying but its not just about the chinese currencies. The emerging market currency is executing chinese currency and lower than when rates were not raised because of Global Economic turmoil. So were seeing an untable situation as a tectonic plate to the Global Economy shift. Rose some say this is only about the markets. Thats what people are saying. Its important to remember the chinese economy is growing. A country still growing at 5 , 6 is actually doing in many ways quite well on the global stage. The issue is, though, that what were seeing from these dramatic market swings is potentially a loss of confidence and that could be very damaging not just in china but worldwide as well. Most of our businesses are actually doing quite fine in china, so i think what youre seeing now is more of a Capital Markets phenomenon than an economic phenomenon. So right now you have a command and control economy facing off against capitalism, and its the intersection of those two that are creating the volatility. Rose george saurus said it reminds him of 2008 that china has a crisis and will challenge financial markets. Chinas economy has been slowing for some time. If you look right now, fixed investment growth, which was 50 of the economy, was growing 35 . Today its growing 10 and stabilizing. Thats not new news. Whats new news is this move towards the liberalization of the currency in the capital market. So i think you have to separate Economic Growth from Capital Markets. We have been in a period with all this quantitative easing around the world where Central Banks have essentially created a great environment for wall street but it hasnt been great for main street. Whats shifting is were probably going to see an okay environment for main street but its going to be tougher for wall street. Rose we turn to our white house watch. Gun control was very much on the present agenda this week both in a town hall on cnn and in an earlier speech at the white house announcing new measures to tighten the gun show loophole. Every time i think about those kids, it gets me mad. And by the way, it happens on the streets of chicago every day. Rose that all comes as the president prepares to deliver his final state of the Union Address tuesday and the 2016 president ial candidates have been quick to respond. Mike allen has more on politics this week. He is the editor of the play book blog and politicos chief white house correspondent. Less than a month away well see the iowa caucus. Tell me what the story is in the Republican Party today. Oh, charlie, the story is yeaios, pa chaos, panic worrya republican. On capitol hill the story is trump. Charlie, since mid july, donald trump has led the national polls. He has doubled his margin in those polls since then. Wha rose what could stop him . Charlie, theres two things. One is if his people werent to turn out to vote, you and i talked about this, the second way would be if someone else were to catch fire. I think at this point its too late for any single thing that donald trump says to do him in. Its not going to happen that way. Rose so, therefore, how would donald trump do if he gets the nomination, looking at it today, against Hillary Clinton . Charlie, im going to surprise you, and for so long, so many republicans said that, against Hillary Clinton, it would be cat clizzum for their party, that it would be goldwater in 64 where the party would start to get wiped out. Now what were seeing is a broader, were seeing a lot of republicans not for ted cruz and were seeing the old democratic base. You have this rust belt, working class, Blue Collar Coalition starting to add up and look bigger than any of us thought a couple of weeks ago. Let me move to the president. Clearly, he is emotional now and was this week in that speech. About what happened at newtown and those very young kids who were killed. He wants to do something through executive action. He went on cnn with Anderson Cooper and talked about gun control and where was the n. R. A. Tell me where you think the president s mind is as he approaches a state of the union where he will lay out his final agenda. Charlie, as the president looks ahead to this last state of the Union Address for him on tuesday night, he said in a video h he put out this week that he wants to talk about big things, but its a little late to do big things. Charlie, its mostly going to be about what he has done. So this is the beginning, charlie, of president obamas Closing Argument for h himself. Rose billions is showtimes new drama about the worlds new power politics and high finance. Draws story lines from financial crisis and National Debates of wall street regulation and income inequality. Stars damian lewis and paul giamatti. The idea these were kingdoms in a way, ambition and power, themes, likely attractive to us. When andrew came walking in, we realized his point of view, expertise and ability to connect with real people would let us do it in a way we couldnt otherwise do it. Rose tell me what you learned that made the character of axlerod. Bobby axlerod is a fictional character. Rose you draw on realize ideas, experiences of people for the character. Of course. To a person, i found they had a stillness, listening quality, an analytical quality. I found that, to a man, they were all risk averse. Rose risk averse . Isk averse, despite dealing with these enormous sums, they didnt like risk, they ran from it. And really, where they backed themselves is their research, their analysis is greater than anyone elses is deeper and more profound, and when they think they have a sure bet, they make it, but they dont like to do it until that point. Rose what about the prosecutors side . They were extraordinarily intelligent guys, super brains, faster than mine could ever work. Extraordinarily dedicated guys. I mean, and extraordinarily, the level of confidence, i mean, it somehow parallels this risk averse idea, this level of confidence thats almost terrifying. Rose as someone who went to law school, i thought people were born to be prosecutors or defenders. Prosecutors have the idea of wanting to be a predator. Yes, it has that definitely predatory feeling. They feel like killers in a way. Rose and they feel theyre doing good. Theres no question theyre doing good. Rose how do you make a show both attractive to the layman and the broad Television Audience and, yet, at the same time, be watched and loved by people who actually inhabit that world . Its about money, some degree. But the tag line of the show is, you know, its not about the money. And whats so interesting about that is, in a way, the money is almost just the scorecard for the power and the pride, so thats, i think, where we took it. And also you get inside these peoples lives in a way thats very relatable. Rose youre going to deal with big social issues as well in terms of income inequality, in terms of regulation, libertarianism and all that. Certainly by the end of the season, these two guys are going to get into those questions in a pretty heavy way. We were interested in what makes if were all fascinated by the way money works in this country, one of the questions we have is why. Why cant somebody stop at 10 million . We were sitting with a prosecutor once who had turned down a job for 3 million a year, and we asked this person why they stayed in the job. It was quiet. It was off the record. They looked us in the eye and said, the power. Rose samuel l. Jacksons newest film is a western, the Hateful Eight is his sixth collaboration with director quintin tarantino. Tarantino has called him one of the greatest actors to ever say my dialogue. At one point quintin had envisioned him as more of a mountain man, so he had on a different coat and he had leggings on that were made of fur and all this other stuff. In my mind, i had seen him as van cleef for a very long time. When he got to the livan chief thing, i thought, were finally on the same page, the black suit, white shirt, red tie, under the old army coat that was his that he had worn during the war with his black calvar cavals still on. Rose tell me about the the letter from lincoln. Were five or six years after the war, and to have an interesting item like that can either be a cause for conversation or a cause for a fight, and especially for a person rose in the south, its a cause for a fight. Especially for a person like me to have it and considering my history with the confederacy. So having that letter rose your character fought the confederacy. Yes, and have a bounty placed on my head by the confederacy because of my proclivity for killing. Rose yes. Thats always a funny thing. So to have a letter and to run it to the right person of the dominant culture was an entreee for me to meet those people and have them look at me a different way. Rose everybody you met who knew about the letter thought about the letter. Yes. Rose talked about the letter. Yes. Rose wanted to see the letter. Yes. Rose what is it about you and quintin . This is one of those things that works, you know. Its like de niro and sca and s. Yes, like that comparison. Rose but its true. Very much so. Rose what is it . We have a similar respect and love for the cinema. Rose yeah. And cinema played a big part of both of our young lives, our childhood lives. He spent a lot of time in the movies, i spent a lot of time in the movies or watching television, entertaining myself. Were both only children. I dont know that he read as much as i did, but i read a lot. I had rose he was watching videos. Yeah, when he finally got to that place. But i had a great desire to get out of the place i was in into a place that it thought was better in the world, that i knew there were places in the world that were better than chattanooga, tennessee, that were different that i wanted to see and explore and i read about them. Rose a better place for you to stand to find your dream. Of course, definitely. There was nothing in chattanooga, tennessee, that was going to allow me to grow in the way that i knew i wanted to grow, or that wasnt going to get me killed if i expressed that idea. Rose yeah. Rose the lesbian daughter of a closeted gay undertake around the woman who stayed married to him until his apparent suicide. While that may not seem like the makings of a hit musical, fun home now on broadway is a fivetime tony award winner. The autobiographical story based on the memoir of the same name was written by cartoonist alison bechdel. The bringer spoke with the producer and photographer about her parents relationship and her life and how it became a musical. In some ways, that book was my own process of grieving for my father which i hadnt done in real time, really, just because one side effect of growing up in my family is people learned to not have their feelings. Plaster. Sagging roof missing stairs a buckled wall im fired up to do this but on my own oh, so much damage the year that the book came out, i got this offer to turn the book into a musical, and i sense it was just completely insane. Names judy kuhn and and i py helen. Alison drew her mother in a specific way. There was something about the way she held herself in all those drawings. She was always sort of like this. To me, that was a very interesting thing as an actor trying to embody her. Im Michael Cerveris and apply bruce bechdel. My own story is precisely the mystery we are to each other and especially as family members. You have the illusion you know everything about each other so you should know each other thoroughly, and we all have revealed to us in different ways throughout our lives that thats not true at all probably. As a child, i didnt realize how much strain was going on. But my father would go for weeks without speaking to my mother. They had a deep love, but i dont quite have access to. There was certainly a powerful force keeping them together, but i wouldnt say it made either of them very happy. I think its something everyone can relate to, to a certain extent, whether your life is a happy one or a tragic one, that idea of how life goes by in those days and what you do each of your days. Days and days and days made of lunches and car rides and shirts and socks and grades and piano and no one clocks the day you disappear lisa and jeanine had to flush out my mother more in a way she wasnt in the book. And that was a place where they took, you know, just little tiny seeds of things from the book and made them into something bigger, somehow they captured her, and judy does such an incredible job. Trying to unlock the mystery of your own family, the people we know the best, the longest and, yet, often, theyre the most mysterious people to us. So i think that the journey that alison takes of trying to unlock the mysteries of her family are really profound, and i think everybody can can relate to that. Rose heres a look at the week ahead. Sunday is the final round of the n. F. L. s wildcard playoffs. Monday is the day clemson plays alabama for College Footballs national championship. Tuesday is president obamas final state of the Union Address. Wednesday is the day the annual prince to architecture prize is awarded. Thursday is the day the Oscar Nominations are announced. Friday is the 15th anniversary of wikipedia. Saturday is the opening of the north American International auto show in detroit. And here is whats new for your weekend. Recky jee gervais hosts the goln globe awards on nbc. No one wants to see me with you rich, privileged celebrities. Rose david bowie has a new album out, black star. Every moment stands a solitaire candle rose and Leonardo Dicaprio and tom hard arey in theaters nationwide with the revenant. Im not afraid to die. Ive done it already. Rose thats charlie rose the week for this week. On behalf of all of us here, thank you for watching. Im charlie rose. We will see you next time. Captioning sponsored by rose communicati captioning sponsored by [ midtempo music plays ] steves riding this gondola, you soar, landing in the sleepy, unpromoted village of gimmelwald. In 30 years of researching guidebooks, ive found hidden gems like this in every country. Gimmelwald would have been developed to the hilt, like neighboring towns, but the village had its real estate declared an avalanche zone, so no one could get new building permits. The result . A real Mountain Community families, farms, and traditional ways. Choosing places like gimmelwald and then meeting the people, you become part of the party rather than just part of the economy. This is a realistic goal for any good traveler. Eins, zwei, drei. Man [ chuckles ] steves take a moment to appreciate the alpine cheese. So, older is better . Man oh, yes. Woman i dont know. Man oh, yes. Woman for me, its the younger one. Steves once youre off the tourist track, make a point to connect with the living culture. Pitch in, even if that means getting dirty. Here, farmer peter is making hay while the sun shines. Rose welcome to the program. We begin this evening with a conversation with mike morell, former Deputy Director of the c. I. A. And a consultant to cbs news. When i look at the Iranian Nuclear deal all by itself, when i actually read through it the first time, i was amazed at what the iranians had given up. I mean shocked. The nuclear deal on its own is a very good deal. It sets them back 10 to 15 years on their Nuclear Weapons program. It pushes the breakout time from a couple months to well over a year and it makes it much more difficult for them to cheat and develop a weapon in secret. So the nuclear deal all by itself is in my view a very good deal. The problem comes with the rest of iranian behavior. The difference between the way we