>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charley: tom brokaw is here. since retiring, he continues to report. his latest book is called "a lucky life interrupted." in it, he describes his journey dealing with cancer in 2013. i'm very pleased to have him back at this table.

you are the only person there in the present. and with thank you from heaven. here is what is interesting. the first part -- the inside of the cover. tom brokaw has had a fortunate life, culminating in his 22 years as the anchor of the nbc news. you are living a glorious life. it could not be better. given where i started in life, a working-class family, we moved around a lot. and then we ended up with a construct of luck. i met meredith when we were 15. it took a while for us to get connected, but it was a match made in heaven, frankly. it has been going on for 53 years now. then i was able to work my way up to the various rungs of broadcast journalism.

i started when they were desperate for people. the network news blew up overnight. they had to get correspondence. i would briefly to atlanta, i was in the middle of the civil rights, working for a big station. charlie: local television. tom: i right there just in time for ronald reagan getting the nomination for republican governor of california. that is why i got in the business. i love it so much. california was a very dynamic place at that time. i left there to cover watergate. charlie: you went to the white house. tom: the biggest political story ever. i caught that golden ring. a lot of my friends -- i did the today show. i made a morning political

forum. i went down on a plane to wherever the primaries were going. i was very fortunate. charlie: and then you decided to retire. you knew it was a right time of being the anchor of the news? to im do not have a big game plan. : there were things i loved in life. things that i cannot leave to go do. fishing in south dakota, that kind of thing. i wanted to be relieved of 6:30 every night new york. it wasn't bad when you had cover the fall of the berlin wall. but every night, i felt strongly, it was the next generation's term. i wanted more time to write. charlie: in the meantime, you had best selling books. tom: i wrote the best

generation, and my friends encourage me to write. i was doing a lot of up ed, but i did have the confidence to do it. i did not want to kind of cheap and it in some way. my friends told me you can write, you should try this. the greatest generation gave me motivation. i want to write more. charlie: and you have. when did you know that you are not well? tom: i did not know i was not well into the diagnosis. it was 2013, i have been bicycling with a mutual friend across south america. then meredith and i went to africa, where she has a big project. i was covering nelson mandela. i was teaching in montana, and

his backache would not go away. i had it before, it could be relieved. there is a very well-known orthopedist here in new york and the mayo clinic. they did a conventional x-ray. i had a really smart internists they drew some blood and he did some test. they called me over. this was of the mayo clinic. i thought maybe i had a parasite from the african trip. maybe that was what it was. they brought in a very well-known hematologist, it sounded like an sat test to me. a spike in the protein cells. he said you have a malignancy, we have known people who died from this. frank reynolds has died geraldine ferraro -- the former candidate for vice president

area i always wondered how i would react to the kind of news. and he said it is incurable, but it is treatable. in a very called voice, and i was taking my temperature at the time, i said how long? he said, statistically, five years area but i think you can beat that because you're in good shape. we talked about what i was in for. but i do not ask the questions i should have. how is this going to affect my family, my ability to work and do other things? he said to me later, i had to be blunt with you, but we're on a short stick. i need you had a big fall planned. i want to get right to the case. the next day, i went in for more tests. and now i am pretty -- charlie: if you walk out of there thinking maybe they were wrong? tom: i walked out of there thinking i had cancer.

but i do not know what that meant. i divided the world into two parts, the people who know people with cancer. but you don't appreciate how invasive it is, how it takes over your life. until you get it or someone else gets it. i want to see how it would infect my life. i thought i would resume my life in central montana -- going fishing in montana was a stupid thing to do. i was paralyzed with pain. i could barely move. i got back to the ranch, and i cannot move out of my bed. meredith was calling the mayo clinic, they were throwing everything they had with painkillers. they met indi-vaced me out of there. that is when we went to war. here is what you're in for, as you live in new york.

it began his long trial. the parts that i was prepared for my family would be -- not just for emotional support, and became mine caregivers. she said you are not going to go that speech tonight. my daughter came from san francisco and join the team. i tried to, from the beginning, but i did not want to step in. sarah, the youngest, she just had a child. charlie: you had a life-threatening disease. tom: i was trying to deal with it in a calm fashion. i come from a stoic family. my father -- the last thing i want to do is draw attention. charlie: the doctors described you as though it. which is not affiliated thing. tom: that is where jennifer

would step in and say, he is not telling the truth here. he is in more pain than he lets on. we need to be able to deal with this. meredith said the same thing. one of the things i write in the book is that as a family, you have to manage your own cases. you have to go in and not treat a doctor as if he were the high priest of a mayan temple. you have to speak the same language. what i learned from this, and i have excellent care, the doctors need to be more candid about what you can expect. charlie: what you suggest, and it makes this point clear even though you are tom brokaw -- you are on the board of mayo, you can command anybody on the phone. you want them on your team. yet you, you saw some of the imperfections in the system. tom: when you live in a family with a doctors, and i had done documentary's on health care, i was still behind the curve so to speak.

and i did begin to catch up. i had a terrific oncologist at sloan a younger woman who is the guru in the field. i have been talking to them on the phone, and i said, can i get you to join the team. and become the coach and offensive coordinator? heather will be the quarterback. he said we should probably do that. he is had more success than anyone else. charlie: therefore, you put together the team. the imperfections in the system were what? tom: the imperfections in the system, cancer is not met. two points does not equal four. the greatest enemy the medicine has -- an a woman who was in the ken burns film cancer does not care if you're a mother or father.

it only cares about waging war on your body. part of what i have learned very quickly, you have to keep asking the questions. at one point, there was a determination i would have to have a stem cell transplant. i had friends going through this who said we are at an age where that takes time out of life. they're having great success with just drugs. i talked to the doctors at mayo clinic, they said we have to do something. ken anderson said we could beat this. charlie: you and i both know people with at work and not work. tom: that is something i learned that i tell folks now, there was a time when you would go on line and get this tsunami of information. now all of these sites cleveland clinic, johns hopkins

-- you can go on and say, here is what is going on and you can inform yourself. charlie: the emotional side knowing you, the last thing you wanted was to have someone say poor tom the cancer victim. tom: i didn't want to show up, tom brokaw cancer victim. charlie: it is an interesting phenomenon. as you know, while you were on your back, you wrote this lovely note because you and watchhad watched a fair amount of television. i was flattered, one of the most flattering things that ever seen. i called you up. brokaw, what is going on? that is when you told me. i then found out --

charlie: we were close enough, i thought you deserved to know. i did not want to be stung when you read about. we are all part of the nora ephron circle, she kept it very quiet. i said to one of our common friends, i am not nora. this is as far as i want to go right now. charlie: what is amazing to me, a lot of people knew. and it protected you. not one person -- tom: they do not go public. charlie: i was stunned. tom: that meant a lot to me. i was concentrating at home, i knew that the people i cared about were beginning to find out about it. and they had the right perspective on it. so that is why mostly cared about.

i did not want to put additional pressure on her, everyone calling saying how can i help? how are you feeling today? i developed this routine, get a doctor who can be on your team. also get one of those caring bridge sites you can let everyone know what is going on. and the last line should be now you know more, we will go to treatment. charlie: there is the pain, likely never seen before. what is it like? tom: i have never had pain like that. i had broken bones. but this pain was systemic. it raced through my whole system, concentrated in my spine. in the nervous system. i would wake up and not be able to move in bed. i was afraid of turning my knee over. what happened originally, our

daughter who i just given birth to a wonderful new grandson the first of the family -- he did me a kiss out montana. i was in convulsions. i got so i could walk a little bit. and if i needed to an house, i have a walker and a cane. but when i went out, i do not want to be in a walker. at most, i wanted a cane. and i wanted a restoration of my physical capacities. i was trying to keep it going. charlie: there are moments of humor. you rail at tom brady. tom: what happened on 79th street, there was a bus stop with an enormous poster of tom brady. you can seem staring down the street. i walked down to a coffee shop nearby, i was hunched over, and i would say -- it would give me a lift, frankly.

i'm fighting back, and i met him nine months later at the preakness. i told him iwatch before long time, i said you have been very helpful. he had a posse with him. and they exploded with laughter. tom was great. i liked it so much, i bet on him in the super bowl, and it worked out great. charlie: and he is in the news again. you were going down madison avenue, some street, and your hearing aid battery was dead. tom: i was doing some therapy to walk again. it was a cold blustery day. most of us in this business have hearing loss, because we have those things tucked up against us. smiley. against a falafel stand. the battery/

. here i am trying to change the battery, trying to walk again, and the guy at the falafel stand could not be more interested. ♪

charlie: what is the emotional toll? tom: i think that is the wrong word. what is the reconfiguration emotionally? it is the condensation of what you really care about. i look at those grandchildren -- i think, i'm what is been a lot more time with them. i'm not going to have a weekend where we just build a treehouse. they come to montana and they love to fish. i want more that quality time. another one said, how is your tolerance for jerks? the use of more colorful term. charlie: we have a mutual friend who said to me after he had cancer, he did everything. he said, i have no time for pettiness -- no time for pettiness. tom: that is how you feel. there's a certain momentum in my life, i don't want to give up

what i'm doing. i love journalism. i went to berlin for the 40th anniversary of normandy. i started out as a journalist. charlie: early on. tom: very early on. i had downtime at home. i thought that i ought to be doing something. i started keeping this journal, and i began to think, this can be helpful to other families might turn this into a book. did know whether i could or not but i was happy how it turned out. charlie: because what is required in a first-person story is authenticity. tom: and you want to do that in a way that is not bragging. charlie: look how great i am. tom: i commanded my editor, i do know a lot of people. i have been at this for a long

time. i have fishing guys, farmers, classmates -- was a mix of that and how they responded to it. i said i know a cancer victim who got on the same day a handwritten note from nancy reagan and e-mail from trials berkeley. charlie: i am delighted to hear about charles barkley. tom: president obama wrote me a great know, bush 41 wrote me one. that was very touching to me. i will say, a lot of my friends -- many you know. we have to keep you around for the stories, if nothing else. you're a storyteller. charlie: as we all know. there is this i found especially important. your daughter was angry because you thought you were going to leave.

tom: that was early on. she just had this baby. he said to her mother, meredith said dad has multiple myeloma. it occurred to me we might lose that. and the baby was just six months old. i want you to learn to teach him to fish. the prognosis is good. it still is treatable, but incurable. i know a number of people 13 years then, and their amount of chemotherapy maintenance -- i'm taking the same drug on a lower dosage. they're doing fine. charlie: how you feel western ? tom: getting my back back in

shape again, we are working on their pay. i have some arthritis creeping in. i was in the mayo clinic spinal unit last weekend. i don't think it is going to get worse, i just needed to get better. charlie: the word you used when we first heard about it to your friends, it is containable. you used the expression, we've got in a corner. tom: from the early stages on, they told me in september, you are going to have to do stem cell. by september, the primary care physician, he said we are not going to have to do that. you are doing so well on the drugs. he said you were going to step it up and go to war. in cooperation with heather at sloan, they added another drug. and we did go to war. charlie: here is the question. did someone who is not tom brokaw did this today?

and how we make that more real? tom: i was talking to health care people about it. i must say, the ceo of the mayo clinic -- and i'm on the board. i'm being candid about what people need to get there. medicare part d which is the unfunded are a prescription, you can get $500 a day for pills. but medicare part d, if you're not eligible for that, finding the money to get that done is very tricky. the other piece of it is it is pretty much a confined culture. there are variations on the treatment finite here at sloan. at the los angeles hospital and in arkansas, they don't bury

that much. some of them believe more strongly instance eln stem cells, you don't have that many different choices. you and i both have a close friend who has a brother that is not doing well. he has not responded. and it is maddening, friend. again, it is cancer doing what it does. if it decides to declare war on your body, it would do everything they can. charlie: a friend of mine who was very bright and a leader he came to me after visiting boston and some people of their and said, cancer may be curable. and there are varieties of it, some may have genetic factors. but maybe curable in 10 years. tom: is the most encouraging time in the treatment of cancer.

it is all about therapy modifying gene therapy. were they reengineer the cells from our body and reinsert them. that is as far as i can go because that is what i know. and those cells attack the cancer cells. there is universal excitement about this in the cancer community. and everybody is pushing hard to get this done. charlie: and making it accelerated. tom: i do hope so. we do have a problem with clinical trials and how long they take. charlie: it is faster in europe. tom: there is an astonishing story at mayo. there was a woman from minnesota and she was in remission three different times. she was not going to make it. they brought her to the clinic, they said we have an idea. the measles vaccine, it comes from your own system, we will try a megadose -- 10,000 times

of what you would get from measles. we think it may work with this. and she said, i'm out of hope -- try anything. they injected her, and she had tremors. she went into a terrible fever, kind of hallucinations. the next day, the cancer was gone. three years later, she is living cancer-free. that was a hail mary. but it is a thing that is going on. the mayo clinic was very responsible. they told her what she was in for, this is your last hope. you were going to learn something from this. she said i'm willing to be the person to do this too. charlie: they have had similar success with the poliovirus. you want to learn how to play chess? tom: i like to write a short story that gets published. i'm serious. i've always admired -- i used to

carry copies of chekhov with me. others as well that i really admired. out of this, i got to know donald hall -- the former poet laureate. his wife died of leukemia, he wrote a beautiful book about it. after that, i got to know and padgett who lives down in asheville. that was a wonderful bonus. i want more of those relationships. i don't have to chase the big story every day. tom: mike journalism future, i think it is perspective. adjusted to essays on the end of the war in vietnam, 40 years ago. i did one for the today show and

one for the nightly news. i will do meet the press with my friend chuck anytime he wants me there to offer some perspective. but i'm not going to go out there and have sharp elbows and get on the front line. i will do it when they want me to. i still pay attention, i'm still invigorated by what is going on. i think they work they are not as many competitors. the other good fortune for us was, we were all three reporters. that is what we cared about. we can jump on airplanes and get anywhere. cnn was the big cable competition. that has now changed a lot. obviously the screen is filled with all of these outlets. here is what i think anchors are always the most relevant. day-to-day anchors are competing with everyone else.

when the big event happens, a a 9/11, there still is actually -- thankfully, not just a tendency, but an instinct to turn to the anchors. the ones that they trust and head of big news organizations that is where they go. that was the most important part of my job. when it is really big -- dan peter and i were there, when we went to war. charlie: what is the best story when you look back? tom: two of them i think in my lifetime. 9/11 was the hardest single time i ever had. that was so traumatic. i think the story that will be there a thousand years from now was the collapse of the soviet union. and the retooling of china. those were seismic events.

charlie: our life have interconnected in a number of ways. i remember not long ago walking into mayor bloomberg's foundation headquarters, there was an event there. you were there. i saw meredith first. i had just found out that you are receiving that medal of freedom. she said, it wasn't public. and i went over and said to you, congratulations. i know this in ways i should -- shouldn't know, but i know this. and you said, it's the big one. it's the one that means so much to me. because it's about country? tom: yes, i think it rises above all the others. i think it is testimony.

stevie wonder was there, and and -- three young men killed in the civil rights movement in mississippi were represented. we all came from different places. we are all the embodiment of the american dream in one way or another. this is an acknowledgment of that. so i accepted it in my own mind. not just on behalf of my own nuclear family but my parents and my wife's parents. i was a little worried -- charlie: now the big decisions for nbc news in the next couple of weeks i suspect. what is your role and what is your advice? tom: i'm involved in the dialogue but i'm not making the big calls. i'm flattered they want to know what i think. i think it's fair to say a lot of people come to me. they are concerned about what will happen.

they tried to assure them however it turns out there will be an nbc news and they have to do their work every day. people will still have a high regard, and they can separate those stories from the kind of work they do. it has obviously been a very difficult time for everybody. brian williams and his family. but there is a very strong process in place. charlie: the question also is not so much brian, being sensitive and respectful of him, this has been unusually difficult for him. at the same time there are questions having to do with the nature of people who we look to for credibility. how do you make decisions like this? tom: that's a tough one. first of all, you have to get all the irrefutable evidence on the table. not just a rumor, but what was true and what wasn't.

then you make a judgment about what does that require of the people who run nbc and nbc news and how they deal with it. charlie: the book is called "a lucky like interrupted." it was indeed interrupted and indeed he continues as the -- as a force in our lives. thank you very much. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

♪ kes are huge. it is generating an intense battle in washington this week with white house and capitol hill. this however, with a new twist. president obama and congressional republicans are allies with most democratic senators and house members on the other side. the centerpiece of this fight is potentially the biggest trade deal ever. the trans-pacific partnership, binding the united states and 11 other pacific rim countries. will this deal be a job creator or a job killer? a leading advocate is penny pritzker, a former top corporate executive in chicago and now the u.s. commerce secretary. thank you for being with us. penny: thank you for having me.

al: the first issue that the congress is considering is the so-called trade promotion authority, which may be resolved in the next week or two. tell us why that is important and what that is. penny: let's step back and understand something. the global economic environment has changed. the fastest-growing economies in the world are in asia. the fastest-growing opportunities are outside the united states. 96% of customers are outside the united states. what the president understands is it is really important that our companies have access to this opportunity. al: why do you need what's called fast-track authority? that comes before you get to the transpacific. penny: what trade promotion legislation does is congress tells the administration, here are the parties we have that are

necessary for us to give you an up or down code on a trade deal. they lay out 150 objectives that have to be met by a trade deal. this is the bottom line. if you don't meet the bottom line we will not give you up or down vote. they lay out the rules for how the deal will then also get legislated once the president wants to sign it. al: what sandy levin, the ranking democrat on the house ways and means committee, says what this is all about really is the transpacific partnership. they say if you give us the details, show us what it is and then we can decide whether we give you fast-track authority. isn't that reasonable? penny: remember something, i spent years in the private sector. this is my first government job. it is tough to negotiate a deal when you don't have authority. the problem of course, is in negotiating the transpacific

partnership, which is 40% of the world gdp, we are nearing the end of what that deal will be. other countries are saying, i'm not going to put my last and best and final offer on the table unless i know that the administration and congress are standing together. al: so you need in order to get the tpp. penny: absolutely because why would you as the leader of another country, take risks. if you know that the head of the day the united states is going to be there. al: and you think the tpp would be a big job creator? secretary prtizker: i think it is really important for american competitiveness. as i said, first of all, you have the fastest growing markets in asia pacific. today, about 500 million customers in asia pacific. that is going to 3.2 billion over the next 15-20 years.

companies need to participate in that or they will get left behind. it is really important that our companies are there and have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. the other thing important about the transpacific partnership is for the first time, labor standards and environmental standards will be part of the agreement and enforceable via normal trade enforcement regimes. this has not been the case in the past. in other words, in the transpacific partnership, the terms will insist that country has a minimum wage. safe work standards, environmental protections, like not allowing overfishing or deforestation. all of this will help make the american worker more competitive. al: and create american jobs? penny: i think so, yes. al: but you know what the cynics say, that is what we heard in nafta 20 years ago. penny: i think you cannot

compare the two. this is what i keep emphasizing. the growth going on in the asia-pacific is something we have got to have access to. and today, we don't. for example, if you want to sell pork in asia, you can face a tariff of up to 100%. chemicals, tariff of 30%. if a foreign company wants to sell here in the united states, on average you face a tariff of 1.4%. we are at a real competitive disadvantage, not just with tariffs, but labor standards and environmental standards. if we don't participate in those, our workers will get left behind. al: are you saying this is different? secretary prtizker: this is different. i will not compare it to the past but i want to talk about

what is going on today. al: let's talk about provisions people have talked about a lot. one has caused a lot of furor, the investors state dispute settlement. elizabeth warren and critics say what this would do is allow multinationals, not labor unions or ordinary citizens, to go to a special court and possibly overturn domestic law. penny: first of all there have only been 17 investors state disputes brought in the united states. 13 have gone all the way through adjudication. the united states has won every single one of them. it is not a big threat. but it is is protection for our companies outside the united states. our constitution allows that the government takes some of your property, you have to be compensated for it. that is not true around the world. nor are the courts as fair as our courts are. investor-state dispute

resolutions outside the u.s. allows american companies to go to an internationally recognized court, with recognized processes, in order to solve challenges they face. al: but philip morris is going to court in australia and uruguay to overturn anti-smoking provisions. we don't want to encourage that. penny: we are not trying to encourage changing in regulations. there's nothing in this that would change american regulations. al: why couldn't someone come and bring a similar case against our anti-smoking provisions? secretary prtizker: because you are not going to face a different set of laws or rules. what you are going to face is it -- is a fair legal process in investor state dispute resolution. i'm not suggesting it is better than american courts. i'm suggesting it is important that both american and foreign companies get a fair hearing.

with the appropriate laws in place. the track record does not suggest any of our laws are at threat. al: final question. they say even -- this president is fine. we know he is not going to engage in those activities. let's say in two years there is a president cruz, and he negotiated deal with the europeans to make it easier to go to this tribunal and overturn something like that. why not just get rid of the provision if that's the case? secretary prtizker: again though back to the track record. there have only been 17 disputes brought to the united states. the u.s. has won all the ones that have gone through adjudication. for american companies in foreign courts, it is a protection for companies. al: so elizabeth warren is wrong. penny: i think she is. al: you said it.

is there any chance china could get into the tpp? penny: i think what is exciting about tpp is once the trade deal is finished, and once it is approved by congress, it is open architecture so that other countries that can meet the high standards for 21st century trade can join. obviously congress has to vote on each one of them. if they don't meet those high standards, it will come to congress for a vote. al: let's talk about politics. you know little bit about politics. you have been very involved in the democratic party in chicago for a long time. there is successful. i look at this vote and it is remarkable. a lot of republicans. you are going to lose three quarters of the senate democrats

and up to 90% of the house democrats. why are democrats so anti-trade and anti-president obama's priority? penny: trade has been historically a tough vote. it has never been one that is overwhelming in favor of trade for political reasons. i'm not worried about the fact that this is going to be close. i think the fact that today, there is a bipartisan support for trade legislation is something that shows we can get things done, hopefully here in washington. al: why are you losing so many democrats? not just a couple, but huge majorities are voting against this. it is not just the old left-wing democrats, chris van hollen in maryland is against it. tammy duckworth in your home state is against it. secretary pritzker: i think there is a lot of political pressure on democrats, particularly by labor unions to not support trade legislation. i just think that pressure is wrong. i think this is good for our

economy and good for the american worker. i keep coming back to the fact that there are labor standards in the trade agreement, and the trade promotion legislation insists we have labor standards. they are environmental standards, intellectual property protection. all of this improves competitiveness of the american worker. we live by those standards already. al: one of the other complaints is drug prices. they think basically it will allow pharmaceutical companies to keep patents longer. drugs will be less available and take longer for both americans and asians. is that a fair complaint? secretary pritzker: the question is finding the right balance. how long to protect the intellectual property for medications. that is in negotiations right now. i'm optimistic we will come out in a good place. al: when will the negotiations finish?

secretary pritzker: we need to get trade promotion legislation done. that is ripe on the hill right now. once that is completed there will be the last few rounds. i'm hoping the deal gets done and this is something we complete by the year end. al: and you can get through congress by then. staying on politics for a second, how about hillary clinton? she sounds very lukewarm to this deal. her husband was the architect of nafta, but everything she said has not been very supportive. have you talked to her or her husband or john podesta to persuade them? penny: i have not had conversations with the clintons about this. or podesta recently. but i do know that this is good for america and good for american jobs. i think that that is something that i know hillary in the end will come to recognize. al: so you think she will support this? secretary pritzker: i think in the end she recognizes how

important our relationship and presence in asia is. she was part of the rebalance to asia, she supported that. she knows the rebound is not -- the rebalance is not just military but economic. it is critical we play a part in leading. let me bring this to reality. there is a company called electric mirror. they manufacture 100% in the united states. there are following their customers in the hospitality industry. it is growing dramatically in asia. the customer says to them, please move your manufacturing to china, because then i won't have to pay a 35% tariff. ceo says to me, i don't want to do that. i'm not interested. i like manufacturing here in the united states and i employ several hundred people. i need these trade agreements so i'm on a level playing field with my chinese competitor.

that is why this is important. i can give you hundreds of examples. i talked to over 1000 ceos in the united states about trade agreements. all of them want to see them either because they want more access to 96% of customers outside of the u.s., the fast-growing market in asia. they want access. i'm not just talking about the fortune 50. small and medium-sized businesses. they're the ones who will benefit. they need to depend upon a law and rule of law and respect in the court system. they cannot go to the head of the government and make a special deal. they need the agreements in order to get access. take another group, world art group based in richmond, virginia. employees 25 people. 25% of their business today is in asia. they take original artwork and

make posters and sell them to offices and commercial spaces. their business is growing, but they also face tariffs and barriers into asia that the chinese competitors don't. and they say, we just hired three people because we want to grow more. we will hire more if we have greater access. this is possible all across the united states, but we need these trade agreements. al: you keep talking about china, but they are not in this. secretary pritzker: they have free trade agreements with 17 different countries in asia where there is no tariff. al: you think this will be a counter? secretary pritzker: i do. al: let me ask you about vietnam. state run, they don't allow labor unions. will it be adequate protection? secretary pritzker: part of the agreement in tpp rules they will have a minimum wage, safe

workplace, that they have protections against child labor. why is vietnam want that? they recognize that to enter the 21st century with their population, to have a growing income, they need to have different standards themselves. that they want to make sure they are not at a competitive disadvantage. al: and the president last week, we to ni. that was the source of controversy because critics say nike is a poster company for exporting jobs for cheap labor in asia. but you thought that that was a productive trip. secretary pritzker: well what did nike say? they will create 10,000 jobs here in america if the trade agreement is passed. that is not new. it is not new in the sense that they haven't created jobs, but they have been thinking about

how, if these agreements come into place, what contribution they can make that makes economic sense for them. they have been working on this. i think it is great, where you have large manufacturing organizations like nike that source from all over the world saying they will grow manufacturing here in the united state because of these agreements. that's fantastic. one of the things i'm responsible for is select usa, where foreign companies come into the united states and invest here. they are interested in us having trade agreements because they want to use north america as a manufacturing platform. we have both u.s. companies and foreign companies who want to use the united states as a platform to export around the world. al: you have talked how hard labor is working against this. and how beneficial this will be to so many companies. is the corporate community as active in advocating for this as labor is in opposing it. secretary pritzker: absolutely.

you see small, medium, and large businesses being active to advocate for this. al: and lawmakers in capitol hill? secretary pritzker: i think so. i hope so. i'm an optimist. al: it must have been frustrating to talk to some of your democratic colleagues and get the kind of reaction because you are very passionate about this. secretary pritzker: i fundamentally believe this is very good for the american worker and american business. al: i have a question about hillary clinton. next wednesday she will be in chicago. the fundraiser will be held by your brother. are you going to ask him as a matter of family pride, will you put in a good word for tpp? secretary pritzker: [laughter] jb has been a wonderful supporter of hillary clinton. i'm excited for him to host her at his home and i'm sure they will talk about whatever they talk about. but i will not insert our issues into that.

al: you said that very diplomatically. to recap, you believe that fast track will pass sometime before the summer and tpp will have -- will pass congress before the end of the year. secretary pritzker: that's my bet. ♪

♪ it is thursday held the 14th of may and this is "trending business." first, here's a look at what we are watching. game set and match. more than a billion dollars next to surging mobile demand. the leaders of china and india meet today. but will territorial issues overshadow the discussion?

and a $239 million profit. follow me on twitter @rishaadtv is my handle. don't forget #trendingbusiness. >> the asx 200 is one of the big losers this morning. mostly asian stocks falling, reversing yesterday's gains after week retail sales data in the u.s.. the shanghai composite extending yesterday's losses down 1/10 of a percent. now in new zealand, stocks are down 2/10 of a percent. we have some data out of the government this morning showing that