announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with the supreme court. president obama nominated merrick garland to take the seat of late incident justice scalia. he served on the federal court of appeals for the d c circuit. speaking from the rose garden, the president demanded a fair hearing. lawmakers reiterated their intent to block of that process.

jay michaelson of the deal he faced. he served as a law clerk to judge garland in 1998. i'm pleased to have both of them on this program. adam liptak, i begin with you. what is behind it. obviously a man requalified and a man who has a very powerful personal story. adam: it is a brilliant political strategy, but we should start talking about judge garland's he has impeccable credentials, he is very well regarded on all sides. in that way, president obama has made life a little harder for work republicans. he may have disappointed friends on the left who may have wanted to see someone more liberal, but it will be hard for republicans, many of whom have spoken in the past in favor of judge garland, to oppose him now. they have to rely on the abstract argument that no hearing should be held for any nominee ever in the last year of a president's term. it will be harder for them to

make a case about this man in particular. charlie: but to people that voted against the court of appeals, one was mitch mcconnell, the other was chuck grassley, chairman of the judiciary committee. adam: he was hardly confirmed by unanimous vote, but he has been on the court for 20 years. his work is truly highly regarded. it is not just is that thing you say about every prominent judge. he is held in regard by many supreme court justices as a charlie: and you know him, you clerks for him. tell me about him. jay: what was moving for me was about how merrick garland to the man appeared. he had a human face, and working for him, this is someone of superior integrity who is incredibly hard-working, not just as a law clerk in 1998. i was a young, budding lawyer

just out of law school, and what an honor to reason through the lot with a mind like judge garland. there were judges on the circuit who i once named, people felt like, they tell their clerks how they want the case to come out, and the clerks fill in the legal details. judge garland was never like that. it was really working through the law with him stage by stage. i had a very vicarious honor, i had the regulatory cases from the regulatory agency, it energy regulation. not a fun topic. the judges spent time with those cases. jay: if you look at his background, which he shared in the rose garden, coming from humble beginnings to great heights, to harvard law school and starving the justice department, i also think it was interesting -- and this is my experience working for him. not everybody prosecuting a case for terrorism meet the victims of families, tours the site, get involved. that was the case for him.

that humanism that is there, that will be a really potent factor in the next few months. charlie: adam, walk us through where he has placed himself on big issues facing the judicial process today. adam: you have to bear in mind the d.c. circuit is a very procedures court, but it is idiosyncratic with a lot of normal issues. it does not get into big issues. there is not much to look at on his record that is very interesting. opponents appointed to almost nothing except the vote to rehear a second amendment case as something that might tip you off. another thing to bear in mind is particularly with judge garland is it is an inferior court that has to so follow supreme court precedents, which he has done faithfully.

he was in the justice department for a number of years. clinton appointed him, i think. and while there, he did remarkable investigations, but often people in the justice department come down with a sense of understanding of the criminal process and support of it. adam: i think that is true in this case. if there is an area in which you might be more center-right than centerleft, it would be in criminal cases. he is open to prosecutors arguments. i was just reading and a sense of his from a case in which the majority had thought that a prosecutor committed misconduct in the way he offered his closing arguments.

and judge garland was quite sympathetic to that prosecutor. so that is an area where he might be a little more conservative. in general though, he is moderate, tilting slightly left, which means in isolation, he ought to be not very objectionable to many republicans who would have taken him in a heartbeat, i would say, if it was just as ginsburg who left the court instead of justice scalia. it is that what you look like in isolation, but in relation to the people on the court. who is left on the court are for liberals who will be glad to see him. we know he is substantial to the left of justice kennedy, currently the ideological center. charlie: could he be a swing judge? adam: i don't think so. he is in the middle. he would control the outcome of a lot of cases.

charlie: what have throughout the day of the dynamics of this nomination, so effectively laid out by the president and the nominee himself? jan: as the president made clear, he is a compromise pick. he is above politics in an effort to send a message to republicans and say, look, this is as good you are going to get from a democratic president. if you want to roll the dice and think you are going to get someone better than if hillary clinton or bernie sanders won the white house, you are mistaken. we have seen is a republican certainly on the hill saying they are still united, there will not be a hearing. we saw mitch mcconnell being very term, sorry, no go, no way. you are also seeing a few saying yes, they will meet with him even though they are not going to control how this process unfolds. i expect what we will see now, as judge garland comes up on capitol hill and begins meeting with democratic leaders and senators, the bottom line is, unless it looks like hillary

clinton or bernie sanders are going to win in november, i think i hearing is very unlikely. i think it could go on potentially at least until october. charlie: in terms of the republicans and being able to see him, are you saying only a few of them will see him? jan: a lot of the leadership has even said, we do not want to waste your time. we will talk with you on the phone, but we do not want to have a meeting much less a hearing. you'll see some republicans in blue states saying, ok, maybe your up for reelection. they will sit down with him and be polite to him, but the leadership is pretty firm right now. no hearings, so why waste this time and respected judge's time for coming up here for no reason? that is what they are putting out this afternoon.

charlie: do you see any surprises? jan: no, he is very respectable. he does not have a lot of social issues that have caused some of the nomination problems in the past. it you don't get a lot of abortion cases in the district of columbia or death cases, a very liberal area. they don't get a lot of challenges on this. his record reflects what everyone believes them to be, which is unassailable qualification, highly respected by both the all on both sides of the aisle. turn the supreme court for a generation i believe, to the left. that is why they are not going to budge even if garland was the nominee in every other year that the republican senate could hope for from a democratic president.

charlie: we talked about the family man, justice department. what else defines him and establishes him? jay: i think that will come out in the next few months, this is a nomination which is unlikely to succeed in the conventional way. we will get to see him as a deliberative figure and a human being. that is really compelling, particularly for some of the senators who are in close reelection matchups like senator grassley, who had not anticipated it. it is not just the principle, it is also the person. there is a human being who is being jerked around by this system, and i think that is really compelling. there are a couple of areas of his jurisprudence that a really interesting. one area is the d.c. -- you would expect him to be more on the government side, but he has been more on the claimant side more. we can have a conversation about what it is meant to be a centrist jurist in contemporary america, and i think he is the demise is that. it is unfortunate we cannot have that conversation.

charlie: dan, you believe the republicans resistance will hold? jan: i think it looks like the republican nominee, whoever that may be, will not win the white house in november. that seems this may drag on for quite a while, and you are going to see republicans pretty united is certainly among the leadership making these decisions. if we get to october and it looks like the republicans have lost, then you may have a hearing. that could change. you can see perhaps even in november. and then there are other political constellations, charlie. lunch time republicans actually lose the senate. a democratic senate in january could confirm judge garland. all of these things mean that this does not necessarily mean it is nonstarter. it is the climate, and who knows? we have seen anything in this campaign. october, november could be very pivotal for judge garland. charlie: when you look at the other choices, was there

somebody in terms of what you might have heard that the president wanted to, but with the political dimension of this, he had to choose someone that was unassailable from republican point of view? adam: there were other leading candidates for the left might have been much happier with, younger, more diverse with demographic diversity, and the president gave up merely 15 years on this court. judge garland is 63, which is quite old by historic standards. usually they are in their 50's.

those knocks are not going to work, and now we will see whether republicans are prepared to, and how much of a political price, as jan was suggesting, they may have to pay, to dig in their heels and not give merrick garland a hearing. charlie: that sums up where we are. thank you all. we will be right back. ♪ ♪

charlie: we turn now to the political campaign. donald trump and hillary clinton where the big winners in tuesday's primary. clinton beat sanders in four states, widening her lead in delegates. trump came away with three wins. donald trump: i just want to say we are going to go forward and we are going to win, but most importantly we are going to win for the country. marco rubio: while it is not god's plan i be president, today my campaign is suspended. >> no. marco rubio: the fact i have come this far is evidence of how special america truly is. charlie: john kasich got his first primary win in ohio, taking all of the delegates. john kasich: this is all i have got, and only can say is 90 from the bottom of my heart. i want you to know something. we are going to go all the way to cleveland and secure the republican nomination.

charlie: joining me in washington is al hunt, the political commentator for the bloomberg view, and susan glasser. she is from politico. we also have jon meacham, an author. in new york, nick confessore is a political reporter. tell me where we are, al, after the second super tuesday and what happened in florida and especially what happened in ohio? al: we are somewhat more settled, but not yet areas on the democratic side, it is almost impossible to envision bernie sanders beating hillary clinton. he will give her some problem. he could win wisconsin. he will not go away. hillary clinton is a most certainly going to be the nominee. i think it is a little less certain. trump has had a great day.

he rolled up a lot more delegates, had an impressive win with four out of five dates. it still may be a reach for him to get all the delegates he needs. if he comes in, 100 short, the establishment, the people in the party -- not just the establishment. the movement of conservatives are having a meeting in march to talk about third-party candidates. resistance to donald trump despite his victories is the greatest ever.

so the question is, if sanders fights on, to what extent is really living on the afterlife and the fumes of his candidacy? clinton is trying to give it to the general election. as far as the republican campaign goes, it does see that trump is a pretty strong trajectory. there is no mask for ted cruz or john kasich, if that makes sense, to come into the republican convention with a majority of delegates. john kasich would need to win 105% of the remaining delegates to become the nominee, so that is not going to happen. just how wounded and self-inflicted will the republican party be going into its convention in cleveland?

charlie: jon meacham. jon: i agree with susan and al. on public inside, in terms of modern history, we are in uncharted territory. the reagan battle was between two figures well known as political entities. a two-term governor of california who had made a brief run for president in 1968, and he felt like an insurgent, but if ronald reagan was insurgent, then it is hard to imagine what donald trump would be described as. i think to me the real question for the future health of the republican party is going to be, to what extent are they willing to abide by the primary voters' decision even if he doesn't get the majority of delegates and they go into the delicate hunting situation? if they take it away from him, is that seen as something that is irreparably splits the party?

nick: it is less about who leads these party event with a likely nominees are, donald trump and hillary clinton. in the democratic party, bernie sanders will be the first insurgent candidate who can keep raising money for as long as he wants despite losing delegate count. he is in a hunt to change his own party to achieve a policy position in the party to be able to rish shape it from the inside. donald trump is trying to reshape from the outside. there is no political analogy in the modern era where the top two candidates are as divisive and weak. and then you have, hillary

clinton and donald trump's resounding wins mask a strange reality that many americans still do not like him or her. both major parties must confirm the skepticism and distaste for their front runners, which would propound a shape a general election showdown between mr. trump and mrs. clinton. in the henry wallace, going back to 1948, or the strom thurmond mold, where you have someone in a established party that has moved out and end up running and a third party. this is the first recorded case of a hijacking of a plane being reported by the passengers in many cases. senator clinton is, to her credit, in the past 10 days or

so, talking about the fact that she is not a natural candidate. that kind of his interesting, it goes a long way to helping her. it is undoubtedly the case the electorate is as unhappy as a has-been and even more so since 1992, which we forget was a rough year. buchanan challenging george bush, per wrote 19%, bill clinton elected with 43% of the vote, which is what richard nixon got in 1968. so when you have a president coming in, the winner of a general election out of 43% number, it is a sign of a deeply unhappy republic.

charlie: and the indications for general election now? al: it is going to be a race to the bottom, a very negative campaign. the nbc, wall street journal poll had donald trump at 25% positive, 29% negative. pollsters that you need to go back to richard nixon's impeachment days to find that kind of gap. there is a difference in the unpopularity. trump is even more unpopular with the public. clinton is unpopular with voters. the party, they wished she were a better candidate, but they can live with her. that is different than the republican party. i might point out, i think susan is right, they might see trump as the nominee. one of the few advantages of old age is experienced. i covered that 1976 convention, and it is for them today. when you get to a convention that is open or unsettled going in, contested, it is a universe of itself.

you don't know what is going to happen. rulebooks get thrown out. let's assume donald trump loses and the candidate becomes someone else. what does that do to donald trump, what would he do, and what impact might that have on the general election? al: it would split the party. but these guys have been through this year, a year-and-a-half, and then some guy that lives in cleveland, we are going to canada to him, he would go over very poorly. if they turn to an outsider or someone who has not been in, it would be paul ryan. i can't think of anyone else.

the chances of that happening are very, very slim. it will be either donald trump or ted cruz if ted cruz manages to win a few more contests. if they don't in without it settled, it is so contested, it is going to be something like we have never seen. charlie: hillary clinton is someone suggested to have moved from eight clinton democrat to a sanders democrat. susan: the issues are very different in 1992 when her husband first one election. look at her pendant on free trade. that was a pivot that help to save her candidacy in the key midwestern states after being upset and michigan. she came away with victories in ohio and other states last night on tuesday that really would have killed her in many ways are led to a very bloody long-term domestic fight.

paul ryan's name already keeps coming up. a young speaker of the house. you had john boehner coming out today and say, we must have some ill will against paul ryan say he's might candidate to be the candidate and a contested convention. he said i do not want to be the nominee. i think there is something deeply ingrained, even if trump is a few votes short, where he is overwhelming leader in delegates going into that convention, it will be very, very hard to turn it over, no matter the makes nations and the rules. that is the default, the guy with the most votes is probably going to win.

if people are mad now, mad enough to vote for political novice and communications withered, a marketing genius that we have not seen since pt barnum, and this guy makes barnum look like a biker. what do we think is going to happen with those voters in terms of their anger and fury with the status quo and vested interest if they get him close to the 1237 and then the convention, which by its definition kind of establishment device, takes it away? it becomes a cataclysmic political event.

if trump comes in close, -- if he were to come in 100 and votes shy and ted cruz were close to him, and ted cruz would have won both missouri and north carolina last night if rubio had not been in. rubio is now out. i think jon is absolutely right. this guy looks like he is within a couple votes or a couple dozen votes of the nomination, they try to take it away, there will be blood in the streets. on the other hand, cruz is within striking distance, who knows. it is not just the establishment.

foreign policy people who believe this -- that trump does not have the skills to be a foreign-policy president. it is not what we consider the establishment. the concern, far beyond the republican party is really quite broad. charlie: notwithstanding what everybody has said, can you make a case that donald trump has surprised everybody at every stage and he might very well surprise people in a general election? jon: absolutely. i saw some polling that showed that the share of the white vote, the general election could allow trump to win eight states obama won in 2012 and give him a majority in the college.

that would possibly do it. the reason it would happen is because he is turning up working-class whites. he is training enthusiasm for them. the question is, is there an equal and opposite reaction to that trend? if you having these riots and these rallies and making people angry on the left, turning out young liberals, people with color, latinos and immigrants, there could be equal reaction and more turnout on the left to turn and help hillary clinton. some of those states in the industrial midwest, dying states where -- states where jobs have died out, he is very popular in those places. it is a last-ditch effort against forces they think have conspired against them. i consider that very powerful. charlie: rural america really. let's assume donald trump is the nominee. is this election season changing politics and presidential politics?

the best piece written about this besides anything written by nick, al, and susan, you never know. i think david von dreiling, who did a really really and peace in time to months ago on donald trump about the intermediation and the strength of it was, he connected the cultural and political, we live in it this intermediate in age, no one was to watch the news. they communicate and they live in a much more improvisational way, inter-and improvisational candidate. and there is a lot to be said for that. it is hard for me to see, but history is full of surprises.

that created a sort of primary system nominating system that came out, that was different from what we have seen before. you get momentum, you get people talking about you, and then good things happen. it is hard for me to see how that model reasserts is self next time. the means to the nomination that trump has shown something. there are unconventional paths to power. nick: i think trump is the first candidate to seize on the possibilities. the trump party does not need chambers of congress endorsement from senators, the county commissioner to endorse him. trump party lives on tv, twitter, among his millions of twitter followers. his town halls.

the power of it moves over and around party structures. he does not need them, and it is possible that there are other candidates, as those trends continue, who will not even as badly either. parties are not what they were. they are vehicles for fundraising and lists of voters and having meetings four times a year. they are not where the power is. the power doesn't reside in the parties anymore. charlie: al, how do you explain -- this is a huge question, but i know you can come to it in an easy paragraph. al: i am ready. charlie: how do you explain donald trump this year. it has to be more than voters were hungry for change, a plague on all your houses, and against the establishment. a lot of people have understood that narrative, but trump somehow early on includes with who he aligned himself with was able to gain traction from early on and watch it grow. al: charlie, i have been very consistent about trump, consistently wrong.

i thought he would be a viable general election candidate, that would be welcomed by donald trump. first of all, i think to some extent, the republican party created this. in the last several elections they said, if you send us to washington, we will repeal obama care and government regulation. and nothing changed. and trump has played on the perfectly, as has ted cruz. and secondly, jon said earlier he is a pt barnum. he is an incredible marketer. he is able, he has a great sense for that marketing technique that he so effectively. and thirdly, it is the media. there was a report out today that we have given him more of what they call free media, which is us, charlie, we have given him more than john mccain spent in his entire campaign in 2008. he has played it freely. he goes on sunday shows, does

telephone calls. that is easier. you put those three together, and with the mood of alienation and anger, it has been for him, the perfect formula. charlie: is he a man of personality but not conviction? susan: he seems to support that. he said the other day, he doesn't really mean it, wink wink, nod nod. he himself has cultivated the image of being somebody who is inflexible. on house point, i think very much it is important to look back and understand the trump. he did not create the crisis in the relative party. he certainly is the beneficiary of it, got himself the whole areas he has understood the crisis the party was already in. it was seeking to destroy the very hope it leads. and that is not a sustainable platform.

his issues are, i will stop illegal immigration, i will keep us out of foreign wars where sons and brothers are getting killed. i will disable security, i will not cut it. i will expand it. and trade deals that are making it impossible for you to find a job. those were his four issues that have been in the speech as he talked about trade all the time. those are the four issues the republican elite is really at odds with those in working-class white voters who have no problem with the trade deals, they think it is a bad deal. immigration is an issue of the artists and economic.

al: i think if you want to donald trump's deepest policy threats, you would not get your feet wet. he is not going to entitlements. you'll get the biggest tax cut we've ever had. susan: that is where the wink and nod act comes in, saying this on the campaign trail, once i'm in the white house, then we will sit down and roll up our sleeves and other really talk to you about what can work and what kind of deal we are going to negotiate. i think it is a pretty cynical pact with the voters there. i will tell you what i think you want to hear, and look, you are rewarding me for that. maybe that is what i really think, and maybe not. charlie: thank you. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ ♪

charlie: alec ross is here. he is a visiting fellow at johns hopkins university. he worked under secretary clinton and traveled around the globe to discover advances in technology and the web. he has written a book called "the change to calm." walter isaacson said that future is already having an effect, and ross shows how it can be

frightening. i'm pleased to have him here. alec: thank you for having me. charlie: you say that you wish your father and grandfather could have seen the impact of globalization, the impact that globalization would bring around the world. how would it have affected them? alec: growing up in western virginia when i did was to live in a world of constant economic decline. i thought that was happening around the world. i thought everyone was having to old on as tight as they could. when i was putting myself through college, i had to work on a beer truck and a midnight janitor to get through. and i think that if they had understood lunch time digitizer nation and globalization over the last 20 years, if somebody had lit a little path for them, they could've understood that where the areas of growth are going to come from. that is why i wrote "the industries of the future." i was thinking of people who had to work as janitors in college and say, here is what is coming next.

charlie: we talked about the changing dynamic of what sectors are most affected today. alec: that is right. the last trillion dollar industry was created out of computer code, and the next will be created out of genetic code. i have children 9, 11, and 13 years old, and i think the advances in personalized medicine, genomics, will make the medicine and health care that i and my wife are involved in right now look primitive by comparison. charlie: tell me about what kinds of medicine we are going to see. alec: two things, first in diagnostics. when i was working at johns hopkins, i learned about a liquid biopsy, where you can detect cancer cells at 1/100 the size you can see with an mri. you can find cancer. early in stage one as opposed to the stage three and four they are routinely found in charlie:. and these are being used every day at johns hopkins? alec: no, only the wealthy. it costs 3000 to $4000.

insurance cannot pay for it, so the people i know that get liquid biopsies don't blink about adding $4000 to their checkout. so the question is, when is $4000 $400, and at what point do insurance companies and start paying for it as part of the checkup? charlie: and what is the answer. alec: it will happen within 10 years. we will see answers of bioscience. it will add years of life expectancy to many of our lives, but it will start with the wealthy and ventricle down. and it will trickle down over a period of 10 years.

alec: the robotics of cartoons in the 1970's will be reality in 2020. for two reasons, first methane believe there is been a big breakthrough in 3-d and 2-d. if c-3po walked up to this desk and said, i'm sorry, and then walked off, there would be enormously powerful hardware and software in the gleaming gold body. in reality he will be a cloud connected device. if he wondered in here, he would ping the cloud, the club is that you just interrupted charlie rose. excuse yourself, excuse herself in english and get out of there. the implication on jobs is this. we don't have to build million-dollar robots that are complex and cognitive. they can be lower cost. we are going to see robots going from doing work that is manual and routine to cognitive and nonroutine. so is that of just replacing the jobs of men with strong shoulders in factories and mills, we will see this placement of what i would call low-level white-collar jobs. people stretch the job market.

charlie: the risk of statistic that that 65% of today's preschoolers will go into the workforce for jobs that do not exist. alec: i think about this as the father of a nine-year-old, 11-year-old, and 13-year-old, and if you not preparing words children for specific jobs, what do you do? the conclusion of my book is called the most important job you'll ever have. and that is to be a parent. i try to focus not being a parenting group myself, but talking to the people who have been successful in business and government and academia saying, what are the skills and attributes that kids entering a world where we don't even know what 65% of the jobs are, what are the adjectives they are going to need?

it was born in the fall of 2008 as a response to the crisis. it proved much more to be a speculative assets, something that went very up and then down. it is far less important than the piece of technology within

it, this block chain technology that we know see the big banks. goldman sachs just filed a patent in december that i read. charlie: tell us about hacking, and if we are all vulnerable. alec: i think this is a significant development. creating a nuclear armed requires access to the scarcest of scientific talent and trans uranium elements, where the transformation of very powerful malware to entry is as well. i have a very dark view of our security online. charlie: so what do we do? alec: a couple things. the first thing is elevated so it is on the agenda of every fortune 500 board of directors. about 15 years ago, it became a norm that if you didn't have somebody on your board of directors who was an audit expert and you got balance sheets claimed up, it was bad governance.

i wasn't the i.t. guy, obviously. i don't know how it was configured. having read the e-mails, and i get the glory and honor of reading them every month -- i see what you knows there were between us. i don't know there is any actionable intelligence. charlie: my point is not whether there was intelligence that might damage -- alec: whether it was hackable. yeah, i think so. charlie: knowing what you know about code and software, knowing what you know about the ability and intelligence of these people, who do it sometimes for fun, sometimes for money, sometimes for national security, it is -- i would assume, not to pick up on national security, but if they really wanted to hack into that server, they could have.

alec: that is a probability. it is also the case the state department official e-mail was hackable. i don't know it was any less hackable. charlie: so with the state department or other organizations. alec: john brennan got his e-mail hacked. charlie: in terms of code, applications, in terms of how we can do things with the internet, do they go hand-in-hand with promoting revolution and social change? alec: that is a great question. i think it does three things. the internet accelerates movement making. it would have taken years, now i can take place in days or weeks. the second thing is it enriches environment of information. it makes it very difficult to keep information from people, and that, in turn, has an impact on geopolitical power. and the third thing, this is both good and bad, it facilitates leaderlessness,

leaderless movements. one thing i think is good is that it makes things less rooted in a colts personality, but it is that if we look at the middle east. charlie: the best example. human revolutions were promoted by people that were technologically savvy, but there was no leader, and once there was revolution, and once there was the overthrow of the government, then they did not have a political structure.

think about south africa with nelson mandela. the problem is that there are neither institutions nor leaders who can bring the country together in a transition phase. in south africa you had nelson mandela, the anc. in poland you had the solitary movement. and now you have these internet propelled movements, and is vacuum. charlie: the book is called "the industries of the future." alec ross, who lives in baltimore, which shows he is intelligent, because he teaches at johns hopkins. ♪

federal appeals court judge merrick garland went to capitol hill. speaking to minority leader harry reid. garland also spoke with vermont's patrick leahy. summer publicans have expressed an openness to meeting with garland.