♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin with republican presidential candidate donald trump'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. mr. trump: donald j trump is calling for a complete and total shutdown of muslims entering the united states until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. [cheers] charlie: democrats and republicans strongly condemn the

republican front-runner, including speaker of the house paul ryan. >> freedom of religion is a constitutional founding principle of this country. normally i do not comment on 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 evan osnos, bob costa, michael crowley. also in washington 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. everybody is talking about this and condemning donald trump, but the question is, is what he recommends constitutional? >> there is no case that has ever been before the supreme court that considers a religious 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.

i think if the tests were to come forward, it would be struck down as unconstitutional. charlie: let it come back to that. next, john and mark. first of all, explain trump to me. [applause] [laughter] mark: he's a very smart politician for a first-time candidate. he has a great fingertip 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. charlie: he does say temporarily, does he not? mark: he does say temporarily. 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

things, even as close to the iowa caucuses, that no other politician could get away with. you think for the front runner, he's in four corners, he's got a big lead. slow it down. that asomething conventional politician, no other front-runner would do such a thing. john: there has not been a politician since richard nixon who has had this particular kind of appeal 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 in trump's america. if you could call it that. the group of people who

supported him support him very intensely. 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. charlie: enough to win the republican nomination? john: the question is, at the outset of this race, there could be still 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. can you win iowa in a field of yeah.h 30? you can win new hampshire and south carolina. this really matters because if donald trump wins iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina, it would be unprecedented for him to not be the republican

nominee. it might be that 70% of the 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. charlie: bob costas, tell me what you think is going on. do interviewed him a couple days ago. -- you interviewed him a couple days ago. 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. he looked up at the television reporting on what happened in california, and he said there is something happening with the muslim people. there is just something happening. 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 in the summer where i pointed out a few days after trump announced his candidacy, it 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.

i think 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 losing people who are not interested fundamentally and the image of america he is now endorsing. charlie: michael? michael: the concern here is that from a national security perspective, which is what i focus on, i think a risk for him 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 neighbors. the vast majority of muslims in this country are peaceful.

they are our friends and neighbors. but the way we can make this problem worse is if we start discriminating and retaliating, vandalizing their mosques. the more 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 -- crowd denouncing a muslim who was proposing a mosque, saying we don't want your evil cult in our town. you breed that kind 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.

charlie: 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? whether it was questioning the patriotism of john mccain, or whatever it might be. can we believe that this may somehow be the catalyst for republicans who say, if this continues, he is going to get the nomination and doom our party? mark: 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? mark: i don't think they can do it fast enough. i think it would backfire to some extent. 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, , so 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. charlie: meeting somebody in the field? mark: no, somebody 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 where 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 try and stop him. i'm just not sure they will do it in time. john: you have to keep putting 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 don't exist anymore. the chairs of the parties are powerless. there are some elected officials who have concerns about their own reelection in their party, but they are largely powerless over the process. i think what stops trump now is that 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. 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: to me the most plausible thing is that ted cruz, most likely, became in people's. -- became in the polls. charlie: we will go back to washington, first to bob. does trump talk about the possibility that the party and leadership 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 resisted anti-trump efforts. at this point, you had the romney super pac going after newt gingrich.

no one is doing it on the airwaves now. jeb bush has an ad, john kasich super pac has done something, but there is not a concerted effort. trump believes that if he is not treated fairly, he dangles that independent out there. that is up to his interpretation what "fair" means. peter: of 40% of the people who will vote next november, only about 30% say they will support donald trump. we're talking about 12% overall who will be voting for him for president. think it is useful to remind ourselves that we are in a stage now where there is a lot that can happen. as john said, trump may be the candidate with a glass jaw. if you loses in iowa, he may have a lot more attractive options.

whether trump goes much further than the beginning of this primary, he has had an 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. we will be picking up the pieces for a long time to come. 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 people condemning the singling 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 one of the great blemishes on this society, and you hear that described with nobody condemning that. in other examples, trump has talked about how eisenhower deported immigrants.

that is one of the most horrible periods of american immigration history, what was called operation wetback, a process in which many u.s. citizens of mexican background were deported to mexico. a very ugly period in the country's past. you don't see that discourse being questioned. people are now condemning the religion aspect, which i think is the thing most unprecedented on legal grounds. but the hateful discourse is really scary, and i don't think it is being sufficiently 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] mark: 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 stuff trump is surviving and even thriving under. charlie: but he has this hard core that evan has read about? mark: he has matched the mood of 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. some of it is updated for the changing circumstances. 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 that he talks about it. >> 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 has updated it with new vocabulary. 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 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 the biggest trojan horse in history. in some ways, you could argue that a registry is creepier than closing the borders entirely. the final thing i am saying, we are really talking about 12% of americans here, that is not how it looks abroad. that is another unfortunate consequence. 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, that can have dangerous consequences for our security. mark: that's part of why the speaker of the house spoke out about. this is now 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 all of the country that dwarf any other candidate. hillary clinton, one of the best-known people in the world, she hasn't drawn 30,000 people to a single event. there was the famous event down in mobile, alabama he filled a , football stadium, but he regularly draws multi-thousands. on many occasions, he draws 5000, 6000, 7000. charlie: 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 spokeswoman, this whole campaign is one person coming up with a strategy, coming up with speeches, the message, the policy. i don't think we have seen anything like this in presidential politics, one person just figuring things out as they go. >> a few years ago when you talk to voters about what they wanted, they always complained candidates are too similar. what does it matter whether i vote democrat or republican? 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 for is somebody who can find 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. mark: he is the best television performer to probably ever run for president. bill clinton is a good television performer too. trump understands the medium. that allows him to have no staff, no people he goes to and says, and i doing this wrong or right? let trump be trump on television is a winning formula and it's making a mockery of these of the campaigns with their technological wizards and their pollsters. charlie: 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. those are the three people. they have a roughly equal

chance. charlie: who is the third person, marco rubio? mark: you would say it is rubio, but i think he has had trouble. he will have trouble winning an early state. when trump and rubio go at it full-blown, it will 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? rubiof kasich, christie, are all punching each other, trump could coast into super tuesday and remain the likeliest nominee. charlie: evan? evan: keep this interesting, i will say that you don't think this is. 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 experienced and stability. charlie: michael? michael: i find it interesting that trump tweeted today that something like 2/3 of his voters would vote for him today if he ran as an independent. he made a point of sharing athat

poll. he said he won't do that. recently he has not been definitive about it. when he says something we party -- the party establishment finds to be wild, they may be hearing his words in their ears, his comment that as long as he is treated fairly, he will not leave the party and run as an independent. 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 professor, not expected from what you read and see that donald trump is a good chance to be the republican nominee. nancy: it is frightening because 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. 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 clarifying moment today, the

notion that the establishment would not support his nomination. the idea that everyone we know in politics thinks a contested convention is more likely than ever for that reason. the likelihood that trump would be the nominee, but the most delegates, that there would be an organized effort to stop him is quite high at this point. republicans,f most he would be a disaster. he would not only lose the 45-48 states, but would dry down and lose the senate for the 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

and the certainty than losing both houses of congress. 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 delegates. there are also a lot of insider republican lot of insider republicans looking at that fact and saying, worst-case for us, trump 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. charlie: are you serious? mark: 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. [laughter] charlie: thank you mark, john, nancy, bob, evan, and michael. i have learned a lot. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

charlie: 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 california, and the italian first american to lead her party. we are pleased to have you here. rep. pelosi: my pleasure.

the omnibusart with spending bill. what is the status? 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. but a spending bill like this, democratic president, republican congress, there are a large number of democrats in the house to sustain the president's veto of such a bill, it puts us all at the table. right now, the bill is problematic because republicans , some of the republicans are putting every wish list, i collect that he party wish list -- that he party wish list. we respect the fact that a republican majority would want some riders in the bill, but it is like a rider bill with an appropriation attached rather than the other way around. al: democrats accept some

riders. what is unacceptable? is it a poison pill to you and the democrats? rep. pelosi: it depends on the balance that is there. right 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? it is about their denial of climate change. and so many riders link to negating everything the president does or says on , or trying to negate, on climate. and on the environment. al: all of that is unacceptable? rep. pelosi: it depends on what they want. they want export of foreign oil. this is a new item that has come up in the last few days. 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

the riders on negating climate, are you willing to do a solar tax credit, expand a land and water tax fund, a tax credit for solar that really advances -- al: if you answer yes to some of that, you might agree to foreign oil. rep. pelosi: it is not excluded. depending on what they would be willing to do. al: what about syrian refugees? they want to clamp down on that and implement something that limits the amount of money spent on refugees. is any of that negotiable? rep. pelosi: 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. it's not that it meets everyone's approval, but 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 us, but these people are from those countries and may have visited some unfriendly territory -- al: you will go along with that, but you will not go along with any hang the cracks down, any 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 be that we have a watchlist, a terrorist no-fly list and they can still be on the fbi watchlist and still buy a gun? years, 91% ofw the time, a person on the fbi terrorist watch list has been able to go in, 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 than to come in as a refugee. al: so anything on syrian refugees is not on the table and not negotiable in this bill? rep. pelosi: it depends. depends on what it is. the bill they passed, we did not, most of us did not support the president. that particular bill has no place here. it is not even about what we are doing. we are trying to keep government open. we are trying to pass appropriation bills. why should we bring something in, a controversial bill that thing, andhe wrong is not about who we are as americans? it is like turning the statue of liberty around. having said that, let's see

how they would word aunt and where it would 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 be kept open, that is an equity that has to be waived. from my standpoint, it would be a nonstarter. but i am not the president. al: do you think it will be done on 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. three days, posted monday, tuesday, wednesday, voted on wednesday and finished by that thursday. could happen. because what these negotiations do is narrow the difference. al: are you negotiating with paul ryan directly? rep. pelosi: no, right now it is at the staff level. al: do you think you will

have to negotiate with the speaker before this is over? rep. pelosi: if this is not resolved, it will go to the floor leaders and leaders in the house, that two leaders in the senate and of course, the , president signatures, so his participation will be important. but the more that can be done at this staff level. when i say staff level, first it was a subcommittee, then the full committee stapley -- staff level. now the leadership staff level. al: you have had six weeks now to deal with the new speaker. you said you wanted to wait and see. give me your take. how have you assessed him so far as speaker, and how is he different for you to deal with than john boehner? rep. pelosi: paul ryan is an articulate spokesperson for his point of view.

his point of view is one where we have very severe differences. the ryan budget could damage the future. he is proud of it. it's not as if we are criticizing him in a way he would say, that's not fair. he would say, that is what i believe. that is my philosophy. al: an issue you feel passionate about is gun control. the terrible san bernardino killings. yet, i know you want action, yet all those guns in san bernardino were bought legally. in your state, which has one of the tougher gun-control laws in the country. rep. pelosi: that's why we need to have a national gun law, so thought that no even though one state may have good laws, you can buy guns in other places. the bigger issue, overwhelmingly the american people support

sensible background check legislation, explaining the -- expanding the brady bill to include online purchases. you can, youfy, can buy it and sell it to me. and gun shows. overwhelmingly, it is a republican bill. peter king, mike thompson, it is a bipartisan bill. if it came to the floor, it would pass. just give us a vote. the most egregious and the one the american people understand clearly is that if you are on the fbi no-fly watchlist, it doesn't disqualify you, prevent you from buying a gun. the nra does not allow this congress to take a vote on that. no-fly, fbia watchlist. so in both of those bills, it is about the nra intervening when

actually, the american people should call the shots. that is what we have told them. we have bipartisan agreement, give us a vote. the assault weapons ban, i don't know what the republican support might be for that. assault weapons are a bad thing. my senator, senator feinstein has been a champion on this , issue. but i think if you look at not the high-profile shootings, which are terrible and break our hearts and challenge our conscience, but when you look at the fact that many people are killed throughout our country, most of them not with an assault weapon, if you are going to reduce gun violence in our country, the background check has much more reach than assault weapons bans. my colleague, my colleagues may introduce an assault weapon ban this week as well. al: do you think president obama , including his sunday night

speech has been sufficiently , forceful in his response to isil? rep. pelosi: yes. i think the president has been so. i think the things he suggested in his speech are things that we in congress could do, including what we talked about, the visa waiver, and we talked about the fbi no-fly list people being able to buy guns, i think we are so long overdue in debating and passing an authorization to use , for use of military force. al: shouldn't you do that before congress goes home for the holidays? there has been foot dragging going on for a couple of years. rep. pelosi: since before the last election. well into -- 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. just so you understand, there was always the authorization of congress to use military force, which is how we give the president authority. authorization. people complain that he is doing this and that, congress has an -- hasn't authorized it, then do the authorization. first they said, later. 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 his proposal, not past this, but act upon this. congress will, as well, which talked about the scope of what that authorization would be, the timeframe of which it would last, and the geography it would cover. they had their disagreements, but we said, make another suggestion in terms of it.

what is the scope? what can we do, for how long does this last? what geographic area does it cover? they have not done that over 15 months. al: you have been the leader of the democratic party in the house for 13 years. you have had a good year this year. your most enjoyable years were probably when you were leading a majority and were the speaker of the house. if you get there this time, people like debbie wasserman, the 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 people, we won in 2006 right after the republicans had stolen seven seats in texas. you recall. al: 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? rep. pelosi: it is up to them to select whoever they think will -- al: but there was laughter and silence at that question. rep. pelosi: it is up to the republicans to choose their nominee. we have three great candidates. any one of them 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] al: nancy pelosi, thank you for being with us. we will be back in a moment. ♪

charlie: lisa randall is here, a professor of science at harvard. her specialty is physics. her research connects theoretical insights to help us better understand the properties and interactions of matter. her books include "worked passages and "knocking on heaven's door." her latest is called "dark matter and the dinosaurs." welcome. lisa: thank you for having me. charlie: we talked about dimensions, which i understand very little, and i talked about dark matter, which i understand even less. what is it? lisa: one of the pleasures of

this book is being able to connect the theoretical work i do two things that are more concrete. charlie: like dinosaurs? lisa: and the universe. charlie: 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. it's not spread uniformly. it acts with gravity. but why do we call it dark matter? because it does not interact with light. light passes through. we should call it transparent matter, because this stuff has light passing through. billions of dark matter particles are probably passing through you every second. but we don't know about it. we don't know about it, but it

is not interacting, via the other forces. it interacts due to gravity, and we know about it because an enormous amount of dark matter has a gravitational influence that we can measure, but individual dark matter particles act insignificantly. 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. one of the reasons i wrote this book is because i learned a lot when i was doing the research. i wanted to really 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. in 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. in the lifetime of the universe. it would not have happened

otherwise. dark matter, we don't see it, but it is essential to where we are today. charlie: 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. why should it be just one particle? we have talked about the standard model of particles we know, and there are all sorts of particles. all sorts of stuff. 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 light we don't experience, but that dark matter experiences. the reason that is important is because dark matter, like ordinary matter, can radiate and cool down. most people don't know this, but our galaxy is surrounded by a spherical halo of dark matter. but we all know about the milky way, which is ordinary matter. the reason that formed is

because ordinary matter radiates and cools down, collapsing into a disk. samerk matter did the thing, as the solar system goes around the galaxy, it bobs 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 oort cloud.lled the i was learning all about comets and asteroids and things that might hit the earth. charlie: back to 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 doesn't fall into a disk is that it has velocity. it is moving around. but if it cools down, it collapses, loses energy, and doesn't travel as far.

ordinary matter, such as the milky way, it is gas and stars. we suggest that maybe the same for dark matter. dark matter has its own life. it doesn't -- interact with our life, but 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 240 million years. not that often. as it does so, it bobs up and down slightly. the milky way galaxy, the one we live in. there could be dark disks elsewhere, but let's think about our own galaxy. as the sun goes around, it can go up and down the milky way. if there is a dark disk in the mid-plains, it would be really dense.

it would actually exert this extra- 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 comets and the extinction of dinosaurs. charlie: this is what you said. perhaps not so hidden agenda is to help us better understand the amazing story of how we got here, how we got here and encourage us to use the knowledge wisely. tell me what this quote means. lots right now, there is of talk about what we are doing to the planet. we are changing the face of the planet very rapidly. biodiversity is changing very rapidly. i really do think it gives you a different perspective when you think about the billions of years of cosmological history. even the millions of years of life. sosalanet developing, the -- the solar system developing.

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. we have to be protected from some things. we need water and carbon and amino acids. understanding just how 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 affecting 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 primary academic research, are 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 what seem like smaller prompts

along the way that gives insight to these bigger ideas. if i sat here and said, i would like to solve the meaning of the universe, that doesn't mean anything. second of all you would make no , progress. what i like about dark matter, it is something we know is there, but we have questions . we know there are measurements going on to find out about it, gravitationally and otherwise. 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 introduced me to more astronomy, paleontology, other areas of science. that's what i like. you have questions on your mind matter?what is dark those lead you down a dark road where you understand details about the universe and our local environment that we would not have understood. charlie: i saw something the other day, a story about stephen hawking. he is off on some, constantly, we know from the movie as well

as so much 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. i don't even think, yes, even if you had a theory, 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, what are the relationships? if we try to understand like, we will not understand that by having a 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 -- more than we do already,

because then i know we are making progress. charlie: where are we in terms of the higgs boson? lisa: it is there and it is normal. nobody believes that the higgs boson is all it is. we are still trying to understand the underlying theory. people are out there measuring the property in detail, and so far it looks boring. it looks normal. it took 50 years to verify the theory, which is an astounding accomplishment of humanity. 50 years later, they found the particle you predicted. 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.

certain properties. 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. these are 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. ♪

angie: the australian dollar surged as job data smashed expectations. 71,000 people found work lowering the unemployment rate to 5.8%. 130,000 jobs added in two months, although some analysts doubt the data. fed cut the cash rate of her record low to two and a half percent. it is the fourth cut this year. governor wheeler signaled it should be enough to return inflation to its 2% target. the kiwi surged.