we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. ♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." we began with republican presidential candidate donald's controversial statements. his campaign stated that all muslims should be barred from entering the united states. he repeated the statement on monday evening at a rally in south carolina. j trott isdonald calling for a complete and total shutdown of muslims entering the united states until our --ntries representatives country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. charlie: democrats and

republicans strongly condemn the republican front-runner, including speaker of the house paul ryan. mike's freedom of -- >> freedom of religion is a constitutional founding principle of this country. onmally i do not comment what is going on in the presidential election. i will take an exception today. this is not conservatism. what was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for, and more importantly it is not what this country stands for. charlie: foreign leaders who condemned the comments include british prime minister david cameron, who says they were divisive, unhelpful, and quite simply wrong. joining me is at an option is -- osnos, bob hope, and michael crowley. here in new york, nancy morawetz, a professor of law at new york university.

i am also pleased to have my colleagues in bloomberg politics, john heilemann and mark halperin. i want to talk about the constitutional aspects of this and then go to the political aspects. thisbody is talking about and condemning donald trump, but the question is, is what he recommends constitutional? case that has ever been before the supreme a religiousonsiders test to immigration. i think there is no such case because it is unprecedented for anybody to think there could be such a test. on the basis of their religion. there have been tests targeted at particular nationalities during deplorable parts of our history, such as the china exclusion cases in the 19th century, sort of the dred scott of immigration law. most believe those cases would

not be decided the same way today. tohink of those tests were come forward, it would be struck down as unconstitutional. let it come back to that. next, john and mark. first of all, explain trump to me. [applause] a very smart politician for a first-time candidate. he has a great feel for what his supporters want to hear. i believe he was not reacting to one poll in iowa showing him down, i think he feels he wants to give a voice to the anxiety the country is feeling about what happened in california. he wants the country to be safe, and the visceral reaction of his supporters is shutting things down. temporarily. and i think that is a little bit of a walk back. he has a good fingertip feel for figuring out how to calibrate. but i think he is able to do

, even as close to the iowa caucuses, that no other politician could get away with. got an four corners, he's big lead. nodid something yesterday other front runner would do. there has not been a politician since richard nixon who has had this particular kind to the anxieties, the fears, the kind of darker grievances of what nixon called the silent majority. a lot of those people who were the silent majority would identify themselves the same way and trump's america. people whof supported him support him very intensely.

we have seen this since the beginning. we have done focus groups in new hampshire and around the country. people who are supportive of him, there is nothing that will shake their support. i think mark is right. enough to win the republican nomination? at thehe question is, outset of this race, there could be 14, 15, 16 candidates. donald trump has not been below 20 in the polls for six months. he has not been much above 30%, so we have some idea that he has a relatively high floor in a field this fragmented, there also may be a relatively low ceiling. in a field ofwa 15 with 30%, yeah. you can win new hampshire and south carolina. ifs really matters because

donald trump wins iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina, it would be unprecedented for him to not be the republican nominee. 70% of the that republican party doesn't want to vote for him, but by the time they consolidate behind one or two other candidates, they could be too late. merlie: bob costas, tell what you think is going on. i asked him earlier, is he doing this because he has strong and deep feelings about national security, or is he doing it because of political reasons and being the political candidate that he has been in this primary run? bob: when i asked trump about it, my sense was it came from a very personal place, his views on muslims and what is happening in the country. at the television reporting on what happened in california, and he said there is something happening with the muslim people. i said, what? i said, are you going to try to

appeal more to them? he shrugged, said, maybe, we will see. no definitive answer. you also have to understand trump and the immigration issue during the summer. his base is concerned about people coming in, whether for economic or national security reasons. charlie: peter, you have written about the core of his base and a long, lengthy piece in the new yorker. what do you make of this, and what do you see from his base that you interviewed, and what has he become as a candidate? peter: trump has been headed down this path for months. you and i had a conversation where a few days after tropical announced his candidacy, his candidacy was endorsed by the leading neo-nazi website of the united states. they recognized something in his language about mexicans, in what she said they are rapists and criminals, that that was the

kind of politics that they have not heard for a long time. what is interesting now is that he has always appealed to two different kinds of people . one, people afraid of the outside world, whether it is through immigration or terrorism, and also people who are completely infuriated by what is going on in washington. in choosing to go as far as he has now, he does risk people -- risk losing people who are not interested fundamentally and the image of america he is now endorsing. charlie: michael? thatel: he concern here is from a national security perspective, which is what i hims on, i think a risk for is that voters will understand -- the point the president made in his speech the other night was stay calm, don't lash out against your neighbor's.

the vast majority of muslims in this country are peaceful. but the way we can make this problem worse is if we start discriminating and retaliating, vandalizing their mosques. the more trumps -- trump's rhetoric escalates, there does seem to be some kind of anecdotal evidence that it creates behavior like that. there is an ugly video on the internet of a crowd to announcing a muslim who was proposing a mosque, saying we don't want your evil colt in our town. you buried kind of atmosphere, you have the possibility -- you the that kind brea of atmosphere, that could stir up more radicalization, and you are in this scary cycle, which i suppose plays into trump's hands, but when you have dick cheney and other leaders trying to point this out, i have to

believe it is going to drive out some of his support. let me say, the idea that paul ryan said what he said, that dick cheney said what he said, could this be the straw that breaks the camel's back, even though we have said that before? that this may forhow be the catalyst republicans who say, if this continues, he is going to get the nomination and doom our party? i think it hurts him in the general election. people talk about him running as an independent. charlie: if the party doesn't unite behind him, they can't stop him? dok: i don't think they can it fast enough. the only entity that can defeat trump and stop him is one of the candidates. i think if cheney, ryan, and mcconnell said we will do everything we can to stop trump,

i think it will backfire. his supporters don't want anyone from the establishment. charlie: i don't think this is about trump supporters. mark: but they are the ones who are going to vote and win in delegates. the anger of the establishment i think will lead to someone running if trump is the nominee, the establishment now will not accept trump as the nominee. they will fight him to the end, including at the convention if they need to, and i think they will find someone else to be the nominee. someone like mitt romney, mitch daniels, someone else to step forward and say, we cannot be the party of trump. charlie: and you think that is --re the establishment moderate to conservative wing of the party is? mark: if trump wins early, they

will focus their mind to say rubio, bush, christie, kasich, which one of those will we rush to react out they will rush to one, i'm just not sure they will do it in time. keep puttinge to quotes around the establishment thing. the establishment doesn't really exist anymore. this is part of what we are seeing, the weakening of both parties as organized entities. we have had largely privatized elections in which party bosses are powerless. there are some elected officials who have concerns about their own free elections in their party, but they are largely powerless over the process. i think what stops trump now is ,hat media controversies denunciations by the establishment, by anybody and everybody, will do all of nothing to dent trump. the thing that will dent trump is losing an election. donald trump loses in iowa to

ted cruz, let's say that happens. i don't know what happens after that, but i know that the dynamics of the race, trump's psychology, everything will change if he has been a front runner for seven or eight months and then loses the first election he ever stood for, that will be the thing that will turn the race into a different thing that we have seen for the last six months. charlie: in one poll, cruz is already ahead in iowa. john: the most likely thing is that ted cruz beats him at the polls. back to we will go washington, first to bob. does trump talk about the possibility that the party and rship in the party going up against him? bob: he is sensitive to it. i think his campaign has been surprised that the big money in the party has persisted in anti-troppo efforts. at this point, you had the romney super pac going after

newt gingrich. bush has an ad, john kasich super pac has done something, but there is not a concerted effort. thinks he is really putting the pressure on wright's previous and others to treat them fairly, and it is up to his priebus and others to treat them fairly, and it is up to him to decide what that means. the people whof will vote next november, only about 30% say they will support donald trump. i think it is useful to remind ourselves that we are in a stage now where there is a lot that can happen. as john is said, trump may be job.andidate with a glass when he finds himself in iowa losing, -- i want to say one has had an, trump

effect on american politics. he has opened up a new realm, a discourse of hate that did not exist in the main stage of american politics, and we are going to be picking up the pieces for a long time. charlie: when you listen to all of this, you are a professor of law, not a political journalist. >> i think the discourse issue is important, because you hear the singlingning out of religion, but you don't hear people condemning other things that trump is doing about the history of american immigration. you don't hear condemnation of using internment as an example that could be a positive example . the history of internment is one of the great lunches on this society, and you hear that described with nobody condemning that. in other examples, trump has talked about how eisenhower immigrants.

that is one of the most horrible periods of american immigration history, what was called operation went back -- operation which manyprocess in citizens were deported to mexico. you don't see that discourse being questioned. people are now condemning the religion aspect, which i think the thing most unprecedented on legal grounds. but the hateful discourse is really scary, and i don't think it is being professionally checked. charlie: is there any level that he is too embarrassed by any of this that would make him realize he has gone too far? mark: i will pause and let you withdraw the question. [laughter] look, he is unlike anyone else we have ever covered, and he has done 101 things a month since he got into the race that

no other candidate would survive. i don't even think bill clinton would survive all the trump is surviving and even thriving under. charlie: but he has this hard core that evan has read about? ofk: he has matched the mood a healthy plurality of the republican electorate. charlie: does he believe it, or is he simply using them in a machiavellian way? do you think he believes in all of this? mark: oh, yeah. immigration, america being strong, a role of the government. charlie: i could tell you 50 candidates that will talk about america being strong. mark: not in the way -- if you go back and look at the way he was talking in the late 1980's, he talked about japan victimizing the united states, he talked about young

criminals running wild in new york city. in some ways, the core of his message is unchanged. he figured out a long time ago that he could sell a kind of politics with the same sort of mastery that he brings to selling casinos and two hotels. there are a group of people out there who will always be happy to buy what he is selling. he just happens to sell the latest products. charlie: go ahead, michael. michael: let's not forget that this statement he made yesterday does not come out of the blue. he entertained the idea of a muslim registry and talked about syrian refugees coming into the united states as a trojan horse. in some ways, you could argue that a registry is creepier than closing the borders entirely. we final thing i am saying, are really talking about 12% of americans here, that is not how it looks abroad. these are remarks that are resonating in arab media and the muslim world, and there is the danger of perception that

america is closing its borders, and this is where we are headed, and i can have dangerous consequences for our security. that's part of why the speaker of the house -- the person most identified with the republican brand around the world espouses something that dick cheney and barack obama would both say that is antithetical to american values. john: and you can see him on tv every night drawing crowds all over the country that towards any other candidate. , one of theton best-known people in the world, she hasn't drawn 30,000 people to a single event. mobile, alabama, he filled a football stadium, but he regularly draws multi-thousands. many occasions, he draws 5000, 6000, 7000.

was sanders doing the same thing? john: not anymore. the image of the republicans is that reality. michael: i asked trump, who is he actually speaking to? the answer is really no one. he has a campaign manager and a this'll campaign is one person coming up with a strategy, coming up with the speeches, the policy. i don't think we have seen anything like this in presidential politics, one person just figuring things out as they go. >> one of the interesting things about this race is that it has drawn sharp lines about an identity, an american identity. what are we as a country going to fight for, and what are our politics going to express? people do not want to vote for

somebody who is a mirror image of themselves, what they vote finds somebody who can within that message they want to hear, they look for somebody who can lead them to something brighter. at the moment, trump is selling a message that is very grim and dark, and i am not entirely sure that carries him to the finish line. television the best performer to probably ever run for president. trump understands the medium. staffllows him to have no , no people he goes to and says, and i doing this wrong or right. a mockery ofng these other campaigns with all their technological wizards and their polls. charlie: my sums and should be that both of you believe he is the nominee. -- my assumption should be that both of you believe he is the nominee. mark: i think he has as good of

a chance as ted cruz and an establishment candidate. charlie: who is the third person, marco rubio? mark: you would say it is rubio, but i think he has had trouble. i believe one trump and rubio go at it, it is going to be interesting to see if rubio withstands it. john: i don't think he is a better than 50-50 chance, but i think he is the likeliest nominee. charlie: bob, do you think he is likeliest? punchingveryone is each other for new hampshire, trump could coast into super tuesday and remain the likeliest nominee. charlie: evan? evan: i think you have a lot of undecided voters in iowa and new hampshire, and when it comes time to buy, i think they will come to somebody with more experience and ability. charlie: michael? michael: i find it interesting that trump tweeted today that something like 2/3 of his

for him todayote if he ran as an independent. thently, he is not definitive about whether he will do that. when he says something we party establishment finds to be wild, they may be hearing his words in , his comment that as long as he is treated fairly, he will not leave the party and run as an independent, so what does he consider fair treatment, and how careful to republican leaders have to be to make sure he is treated fairly, but this topic is still on his mind. charlie: watching the trump phenomenon -- you are not a political journalist, but a law fromssor, not expected thatyou read and see donald trump is a good chance to be the republican nominee. becauset is frightening of the discourse. i think whatever happens with the republican nomination, it is

clear that he is driving that party in a way that excludes more and more americans. he has made it clear if he is the nominee that nobody is asian american, latino american, or anybody who thinks of themselves as a minority in this country should feel faith with this president. , andis a piece of this what he has done what the rest of the candidates i think shows the republican party to not be friendly to many americans. charlie: one question i left out is the possibility that he marches to the nomination, with all he has said and done, and all the criticism of what he is tearing apart, will lead to new entrants into the general election like mike bloomberg. john: mark was talking

about the notion that the establishment would not support his nomination. the idea that everyone we know in politics thanks -- thanks a contested convention is likely is for that reason. he could come in without most of the delegates and people try to stop him. the chances are quite high. there is a possibility that he would not only lose 45 or 48 states, but he would lose the senate for republicans, he might even lose the house for republicans, and a lot of republicans look at the certainty of that outcome, in their view, versus the risk of taking the nomination away from trump and he runs as an independent candidate. they would rather take a gamble

route. a goldwater-like mark: under the rules of the way delegates are allocated, if three or more candidates are winning significant delegates into march, no one can get a majority of them. there is also a lot of insider republicans looking at that fact and saying, worst-case for us, trott has the most delegates but not a majority, how can we manipulate the rules to stop him from being the nominee? >> keep an eye on mitt romney. romney-ryan at the convention is the way the party would go. they would say america, you were wrong, we will give you a second chance. charlie: thank you mark, john, nancy, bob, evan, and michael. i have learned a lot. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

♪ our guest is nancy pelosi, the congresswoman from the 12th congressional district of california, and the democratic leader of the house of representatives. she has been the democratic leader for the past 13 years. she was the first woman in italian american to lead her party. we are pleased to have you here. rep. pelosi: my pleasure.

>> let's talk about the spending bill. what is going to happen? rep. pelosi: we are hopeful we can reach a compromise, but we are at a place where there is much more work to be done. what a spending bill like this -- but a spending bill like this, there are a large number of democrats in the house to veto such a bill, it puts us all at the table. right now, the bill is problematic because republicans listutting every wish of the tea party -- we respect the fact that a republican majority would want some riders in the bill, but it is like a bill withl -- rider

an appropriation attached rather than the other way around. al: with the visas, what is unacceptable? is it a poison pill to you and the democrats? rep. pelosi: it depends on the balance that is there. now, we have extended the hand of friendship and are hoping to find a solution, but is there a philosophical difference apart from the fact that there are so many riders? about their denial of climate change. and so many riders link to negating everything the president does or says on climate. and on the environment. al: all of that is unacceptable? rep. pelosi: it depends on what they want. itemgn oil, this is a new that has come up, they want to export foreign oil, which is not well received in the environmental community.

we are saying if you want to do that, are you willing to give up climate,s on negating are you willing to do a solar that asit that advances a -- al: if you answer yes to some of that, you might agree to foreign oil. rep. pelosi: it is not excluded. it depends on what they are willing to do. al: what about syrian refugees? they want to clamp down on that implement something that limits the amount of money spent on refugees. is that negotiable? rep. pelosi: what would we think -- what we think is more useful is to have the visa waiver provisions revisited. we have a bipartisan bill that we have agreed to. some people think one thing or another about it, but it is a compromise. i support it because it does the job. 20 million people come into this

country with a visa waiver from countries that are friendly to fromut these people are those countries and may have visited some unfriendly territory -- al: you will go along with that, but no prohibition of syrian refugees? rep. pelosi: first of all, let me go to one other place. as the president has said in his remarks, how can it the debt we that we have a and they no-fly list can still go in and buy a gun? of the terrorists on the fbi

watch list has been able to go in and buy a gun of his or her choice. that would be more useful than going to the refugee -- there is no more stringent process for people coming into the country band to come in as a refugee. so anything on syrian refugees is not on the table and not nonnegotiable in this bill? -- not negotiable in this bill? it depends. that particular bill has no place here. it is not even about what we are doing. governmentng to keep open. we are trying to pass operate. should the hills. -- we are trying to pass appropriation bills. why should we bring something and that is the wrong thing and not about who we are as americans? it is like turning the statue of liberty around.

having said that, let's see where we will go. from my standpoint, i will not vote for the bill. from the standpoint of the president, if that is the only objection, and they do all these other things, and government can equity open, that is an that has to be waived. from my standpoint, it would be a nonstarter. al: d you think it will be done by friday? rep. pelosi: we were hoping that we would have some agreement by sunday, and that today we could post a bill, so it would be a three days advance vote, but it is not quite three days. we could vote on wednesday and finish by thursday. that could happen. because what these negotiations do is narrow the difference. are you negotiating with

paul ryan directly? rep. pelosi: no, right now it is at the staff level. al: do you think you will eventually have to? rep. pelosi: if this is not resolved, it will go to the floor leaders and leaders in the senate, and of course, the president signatures, so his participation will be important. but the more they can be done at this staff level -- that can be done at this staff level. nowyou have had six weeks to deal with the new speaker. how have you assessed him so far as speaker, and how is he different for you to deal with van john boehner? john -- than john boehner? ryan is an: paul

articulate spokesperson for his point of view. his point of view is one where we have very severe differences. could damage the future, and he is proud of it. it's not that we are criticizing him for what we believe is not fair, he says that is his philosophy. al: an issue you feel passionate about is gun control. i know you want action, yet all those guns in san bernardino were not legally -- bought legally. your state has one of the tougher gun-control laws in the country. rep. pelosi: that's why we have a national -- we need to have a --ional gun law, so that ,t's the bigger issue

overwhelmingly the american people support sensible background check legislation, explaining the brady bill to include online purchases. and gun shows. overwhelmingly, it is a republican bill. mike thompson says it is a bipartisan bill, if it came to the floor, it would pass. just give us a vote. we just got another one, the most egregious and the one that the american people understand clearly, if you are on the fbi watch list, it does not disqualify you from buying a gun. the nra does not allow this congress to take a vote on that. so in both of those bills, it is about the nra intervening when

-- it actually should be the american people calling the shots. we have bipartisan agreement, give us a vote. , i don'tlt weapons ban know what the republican support might be for that. a bad thing.ns are senator feinstein has been a champion on this issue. that i think if you look at not the high-profile shootings, which are terrible and break our hearts and challenge our lookience, but when you at the people killed in our country without an assault weapon -- if you are going to prevent gun violence in our --ntry, the background check my colleagues may introduce an assault weapon ban this week as well. obama you think president

has been sufficiently forceful in his response to isil? rep. pelosi: yes. i think the president has been so. i think he thinks he suggested that we in congress could do, including what we talked about, the visa waiver, and we talked list people-fly , i thinke to buy guns we are so long overdue in debating and passing an authorization to use military force. do that beforeou congress goes home for the holidays? there has been for dragging going on for a couple of years. since before the last election. al: you don't see any chances of

congress doing that, do you? rep. pelosi: i don't, but i would be hopeful that we could. so you understand, there was always the authorization of congress to use military force, which is how we give the president authority. doing complain that he is this and that, congress has an authorized it, then do the authorization. then they said, we want the president to put something on the table. this was more than a year ago. the president put on the table , which talked about the scope of what that authorization would be, the timeframe of which it would last, and the geography it would cover. we had our disagreements, but we said make another suggestion in terms of the scope, what we can

do, how long does this last, and does thisaphic area cover, but they have not done that in over 15 months. al: you have been the leader of the democratic party in the house for 13 years. your most enjoyable years were probably when you were leading a majority. time, there this democrats will not have to win a majority of the votes to pick up those 30 seats you need, they would have to win as much as 55% of the vote. rep. pelosi: i keep reminding we won in 2006 right after the republicans had stolen seven seats in texas. but you think the take back

this time will depend on the presidential race? rep. pelosi: somewhat. al: would you like to run against donald trump? them toosi: it is up to select whoever they think will -- al: but there was laughter and silence at that question. it is up to the republicans to choose their nominee. we had three great candidates. will walk into the oval office with all the values of our country, we will be very proud of them, whoever she may be. [laughter] pelosi, thank you for being with us. we will be back in a moment. ♪

♪ here, a lisa randall is professor of silence at harvard. her specialty is physics. her research theoretical insights to help us better understand the interactions of matter. her books include "knocking on heaven's door." her latest is called \ -- "darktest is called matter and the dinosaurs." we talked about dimensions, which i understand very little, and i talked about dark matter,

which i understand even less. what is it? i connect the theoretical work i do to things that are more concrete, like dinosaurs. and the astounding interconnectedness of the universe. lisa: that is an important part. i will start with dark matter. people think it is complicated and exotic, but dark matter is matter. what do we mean by matter? stuff that interacts with gravity. it clumps into galaxies, for example. -- why do wee call call it dark matter? because it does not interact with light. we should call it transparent matter, because this stuff has light passing through. ilion's of dark matter particles are probably passing through you every second. -- billions of dark matter particles are probably passing

through you every second. but we don't know about it. it interacts the a gravity, and we know about it because an enormous amount of dark matter has a gravitational influence that we can measure, but individual dogmatic or -- dark matter particles act in significant way. charlie: how does it connect? when you signed up to write this, what did you want to explain to us non- -- lisa: that is a great question. i learned a lot doing the research. i wanted to present these astounding connections, write one book where you can talk about the evolution of the universe, of our solar system, and even life on the planet. one place where you can see why these things are connected. what i wanted to do is go from dark matter. dark matter was critical to the formation of galaxies and structure in our universe.

it would not have happened otherwise. dark matter, we don't see it, but it is essential to where we are today. and it set off a chain of events that led to the extinction. lisa: this is a more speculative thing. we don't know if this is true, but according to our hypothesis, dark matter might not just be one particle. we have talked about the standardarticle -- model of particles we know, and there are all sorts of particles. we suggested that may be dark matter is not all the same. maybe there is a small fraction of dark matter that interacts via its own light, call it dark light, if you will. the reason that is important is likese dark matter, ordinary matter, can radiate and cool down. most people don't know this, but our galaxy is surrounded by a halo of dark matter. the milky know about

way, which is ordinary matter. the reason that formed is because ordinary matter radiates and pulls down, collapsing into a disk. dark matter does the same thing. as the solar system goes around the galaxy, it bounces up and down slightly. every once in a while, it would pass through dark matter. the reason that is important for this story is because, really far away in the solar system, thousands of times farther from the sun than the earth, is something called the orc cloud. i was learning all about comets and asteroids and things that might hit the earth. act to: but the dinosaurs, how did it become compacted into a disk? lisa: the reason it is compacted into a disk is that it cools down, so the reason stuff is thatfall into a disk

it has velocity. but if it cools down, it collapses, loses energy, and doesn't travel as far. ordinary matter, such as the it is gas and stars. we suggest that maybe the same for dark matter. maybe there is its own light charged under a different force that only dark matter sees and we don't see. charlie: and what is the relationship to the sun? lisa: the sun goes around the galaxy about every two or 40 million years. years.million not that often. the milky way galaxy, the one we live in. owns just think about our galaxy. as the sun goes around, it can go up and down the milky way. inthere is a dark disk

between, it would be really dense. it would actually exert this gravitational force every time it went through. charlie: pay attention, i'm going to grade you at the end of this. lisa: i know, it's a lot of stuff. but it's really exciting, because you get to talk about comics and the extinction of dinosaurs. comets and the extension of dinosaurs. -- extinction of dinosaurs. charlie: tell me what this quote means. the faceare changing of the planet very rapidly. is changing very rapidly. it gives you a different perspective when you think about the billions of years of cosmological history. you think about the solar system

developing, the planet developing, and what it took to get life. we don't know what it took, but there is an interesting interaction with our cosmic environment. just howding complicated this system is gives you a different perspective when you think about what you are doing when you change it. it is not directly effecting any particular thing that we do, but it helps to know how you got there. this tells us the big story of how we got to where we are today. charlie: you write these books about dark matter and the dinosaurs, but in your own , arery academic research you in search of some great answer to -- lisa: it's funny. i think we all have questions in the back of our heads that we would like to answer, but i like the fact that we can answer

smaller prompts along the way to theses insight bigger ideas. just discoverto the meaning of the universe, you would make no progress. what i like about dark matter, it is something we know is there, but we have questions about it. there are also a lot of ideas that have not been explored, so i know it is a place where we can make progress. in the process of doing that, it exposed me to other areas of science. that's what i like. you have questions on your mind that lead you down this road where you actually understand details about the universe that we would not have understood. something the other day, a story about stephen hawking.

we know from the movie, and attention to him and his remarkable life, that he was transfixed to the idea about a theory of everything. lisa: right. that's not what drives me. theory,n if you had a equations that tell you what the fundamental nature of everything is, you would still have to explain it, and you are not going to explain it from first principles. you would have to understand the relationship. if you try to understand life, we would not understand it are the fundamental theory of everything. we would have to understand the processes involved. it is very nice to think that you can get the ultimate equation, but i am happy to make progress to understand what we

do already, because then i know we are making progress. where are we in terms of the -- lisa: it's there, it's normalw. and it is normal. nobody believes the photon is all it is. trying toll understand the underlying fear he. out there measuring the property in detail, and so far it looks boring. it took 50 years to verify the theory, which is an establishing -- an astounding a compliment of humanity. but we are trying to understand if there is a structure that surrounds it. charlie: how many levels of dimension are there? lisa: good question. we still do not know the answer.

it is important to realize that only certain kinds of dimensions will be tested. one of the challenges, we try to say what could be out there in the universe, and one of the challenges is to come up with as many ideas that can be tested. difficult experiences, as you know. when you do them, you want to make sure you are testing everything you can. that's the road we want to take. figure out what can be tested. charlie: thank you for coming. lisa: thank you for having me here. ♪

john: i'm john heilemann. mark: and i mark halperin. and with all due respect to "time magazine," nailed it. john: on our show tonight, trump and time magazine snubs trump. but first, the people for trump, and there are a lot of them. according to a new poll, is played to temporarily ban all muslims from entering the united