>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin with politics. house speaker paul ryan ruled out a presidential bid at a press conference today. the announcement comes after weeks of speculation he would accept the nomination at a contested convention. addressing the republican national committee, speaker ryan said delegates should choose someone that participated in the primaries. >> count me out. if youy believe that, want to be the nominee for our party, to be the president, you

should actually run for it. i chose not to do this. therefore, i should not be considered. word purred. and of story -- period. end of story. al, i go with this one question. why did he say that today? does he mean it? if the republican party came to him and said, you have to do this for the sake of the party and for the sake of the country? guest: he does mean it. he did it today not as news but as a confirmation of what he believes is a reality. if it is getting to the point where it was -- the speculation was becoming injurious because here is this big in washington that would steal from a nation

-- the nomination from someone, i think paul ryan is absolutely right. it is virtually impossible for someone who did not run to be nominated. four,k it could go to five, six ballots. i think the nominee will be one of those three. i think it was quite sincere today. i think the chances of a convention are nil. charlie: is that what i hear him saying? guest: i sound like i am evading the question. charlie: you are. i will not run if elected. i will not serve. it is easy. guest: cannot get more sherman than that. charlie: you know this guy. he said he was not running to be

speaker of the house. then he took it. he is a man of ambition, a man of politics, and a man of policy. tell me what you know about how he approached this and what he means. careerif you look at his , he has been a successful player at the elite level of republican politics. he is a grassroots guy. that is very much where he is from. he is connected to that political community. he has an amazing support network in gainesville. he believes the process matters, volunteers matter. i talked to him about this over the past few weeks. 17 candidates run for president. of thousandstens of volunteers involved with those campaigns across the country. ends just not right, at the of this process, that we say, all your work -- the candidates,

the donors, the activists, all of it is being muted. we will parachute in a new candidate. he thought there was something fundamentally wrong with that. he thinks this political environment is incredibly volatile. he is concerned that house republicans could be collateral damage in this environment. is last thing he wants to do inject more volatility into the environment by leaving open the option that he or someone else could parachute in at the 11th hour. charlie: i know a lot of republicans of several minds. one is that the party must be saved. they are prepared to lose the election to save the party. guest: meaning let the thing burned down? one of thet candidates most likely to be the nominee, donald trump or ted cruz, ron and likely lose.

guest: that is definitely the case with trump. charlie: if cruz, you will likely lose? guest: it is not as responsive as if trump is the nominee. if he is the nominee, say goodbye to kelly ayotte, ron johnson. if he is the nominee, the map for democrats in the senate could expand. richard burr could be in trouble in north carolina. it could be a down ballot disaster and we could lose seats. here is paul ryan. tosaid, when he agreed become speaker, he would build a policy program, communications program, raise a lot of money.

he has raised far more money for house republicans than anyone expected. he has built infrastructure, policy.g polity -- he wants to make sure republicans hang on to the majority. charlie: what was his specific language? guest: he said he would definitely not do it. here was the key point. he said today it was a message to the delegates. , i willot only saying not do this, he was also saying you should not select someone who did not run. he is not only taking himself out of it, he is being so declarative that he is taking all the white knight scenarios out of it. charlie: john kasich, ted cruz, and donald trump. guest: or, in a multi-ballot situation. say donald trump cannot get 1237. it goes to the second ballot. fifth, sixth, seventh ballot.

you could see candidates that ran and pulled out reemerging. scott walker. someone who is liked by the ,rassroots, by conservatives who has had a good moment recently. scott walker is seen as key in helping ted cruz win wisconsin. could be marco rubio. charlie: you supported him. guest: i supported rubio. ryan's point was it cannot be someone who does not have skin in the game. charlie: what do you think of that, albert? guest: he made another subtle point when he said that, if no candidate wins on the first ballot, it ought to go to someone who has run. that is not the donald trump view. , if inald trump view is finish ahead of anyone else, it should go to me. when you talk about the future of the party, there is a schism that is so profound between the

rank-and-file voters this year, ruz,voted for trump and c and paul ryan's brand of conservativism on trade. charlie: the war on poverty. guest: ryan has more in common with obama than trump. guest: after the 2012 election, he spent an inordinate a lot of time and resources on a re-think , reform program on how we can turn around the war on poverty programs and dedicated enormous efforts. that is what he wants to be talking about. he wants to be talking about the issues he thinks should be about the future of the republican party. it has been a real struggle for him, watching the chaos. and watching these ideas that he cares about being subordinated to madness. one challenge he has is,

for two or three years, paul ryan has promised an alternative to obamacare. he has not delivered on it. the goal post keeps moving. if he really wants to talk about an alternative republican agenda, he has to start their -- there. for being credit sincere, but at some point, you have to deliver on specifics. he has not done that on obamacare. charlie: why not? guest: he is committed to specifics on policy. the medicare reform proposal, if nothing else, it was specific. some critics would argue, specific to a fault. on poverty, he is very specific. leaderacare, he is the in the house. mitch mcconnell is the leader in the senate.

he feels more strongly that republicans need to put forward an alternative to obamacare th an most. he has been working on it. he has a lot of views on how to reform. think, depending on who our nominee is, you will see something. guest: dan, wait a second. obamacare past six years ago. how long, oh, lord, how long? six years without an alternative is an awfully long time. guest: he has put forward many reforms on health care. he has been done this long before obamacare and he has done them since. your point is, why isn't there a comprehensive alternative? he has not been in charge of the house. he has not been the leader of the house until a few months ago.

proposal, butth he did not have control of the senate. he is in a position to advance ideas he has been talking about. guest: he was the chairman of the house committee on ways and means. he has been in a position to do that for years. i like paul ryan. boehner,ntor and john mccarthy, people who i respect who were not as passionate about this issue, he was proactive in putting forward a republican alternative. charlie: suppose, going into a contested republican convention, ,onald trump has less than 1237 and the nomination goes to ted cruz or john kasich. does kasich have a chance? isst: his whole rationale electability. it is hard to make the case for electability when you have not won anywhere.

he has won his own state and not anywhere else. he has no organization. he has no real national media strategy. where is he? i like kasich. he is a very accomplished man. it is hard to make the case that i'm the only guy that can beat hillary clinton. but i cannot win anything in my own primary over 11 months. charlie: there were some cases, historically, one, as jack kennedy said, if nelson rockefeller got the nomination, kennedy said, i could have beaten him. elections even if they are not the favorite of the party because conventions are controlled by extremes within the party. guest: generally speaking. his case for electability is

weak. the case, generally, for electability, does not have much purchase. most people who vote in primaries are motivated by issues, ideas, philosophical principles. they are not motivated by strategy. they do not sit there with a chessboard and say, i disagree with this, but he can do that. they are motivated by leadership. you cannot just sit there, laying up a map, if there is no real excitement. charlie: let's assume that someone had to have been in the race. if the nomination goes to somebody else, what is donald trump likely to do? guest: create as much trouble as he can. donald trump does not care about the republican party. donald trump cares about one thing, donald trump. he will create all kinds of chaos.

the nominee will be donald trump or ted cruz. in the unlikely event they were to turn to someone else, john kasich's case is stronger than marco rubio or scott walker. he has contested throughout. are 98% or 99% it will be trump or cruz. cruz, nomination goes to i do not think donald trump will be a lofty loser. guest: i do not think marco rubio will get back in the race, but he has more delegates than kasich and has been out for several months. guest: that will change. yeah, but it has taken a long time to change. kasich losing over a long time and saying, i will hang around

is probably not going to work. the growing frustration with kasich as a spoiler is a problem for him. look at any congressional district or state that has a winner take all delegate allotment system. cruz splitting vote, it allows donald trump to win these states with 39% of the vote. vote could-trump consolidate, he would not win these places. california, every congressional district in the state a lot to delegateon winner take all. trump could start winning with 30 plus percent. guest: if john kasich dropped out, donald trump get 95 votes in new york. york,ld sweep new everything, every cd. collude.d cruz should

guest: new york is a unique animal. guest: the same thing is true in connecticut, maryland. cruz and, the goal of kasich has to be to stop trump from gaining 1237. at some point, cruz wants to go head to head, but not now. guest: i agree that increasing the denominator is important. i am all for that. but i also believe, and i have 2-1 plenty of polling, by a margin, kasich voters go to cruz because they are freaked out by donald trump. head with tru to

mp, could be a good dynamic. guest: new jersey, who would be a better pick? kasich or cruz? guest: kasich probably has a better chance. but i think you have consolidation behind cruz that gives him a fighting shot or keeps trump in a position to not underperform. he has underperformed in poland just about anywhere, typically five to eight points. if the chunk of kasich voters go to cruz, i think he performs in a lot of these places. could windia, cruz up winning a lot of these. hillary's margin has grown a little bit. bernie sanders in

new york as expected, what does that do to the sender's campaign? anyt: it takes away argument they had that they had a shot at turning this around. the case was not compelling to begin with. her onpe they can beat home turf like gettysburg in 1863, but the result will be the same. i do not think bernie sanders will go away. his people do not want him to. he has run a strong campaign. he wants to have a platform at the convention. he wants to keep pushing her to the left. i do not think there is any question in how the contest will end. decide it, new york would take away any credibility bernie would have. should stay in this thing because he is winning in many places.

there is a segment in the democratic party that feels -- today thatsaw a poll 25%, 30%, say they could not support hillary. guest: what does remind you is how weak a candidate hillary clinton is. she dodged a bullet with her primary opponent being bernie sanders. there are several leading democrats i could have beaten hillary. charlie: joe biden. guest: elizabeth warren. bernie, not beating hillary. elizabeth wharton? the energy on the left, the gender enthusiasm. she is a charismatic performer. she is the perfect contrast to hillary clinton. we are reminded now that hillary is a fundamentally weak candidate.

her unfavorable numbers are not much better than donald trump's. she would probably lose to just about any republican running who ran the cycle, with the exception of the two still in. charlie: what do you think, al? guest: she is not a strong candidate. to say she would lose to any republican who cannot get the nomination. the republican party has deep problems. i do not think there is a magical candidate that can beat hillary clinton. the republican party right now is in the worst shape in the national contest than it has been since barry goldwater. it is ironic. in many cases, at the state level, republicans are very strong. guest: the democrats i speak to as they are to

watch the republican party falling apart, they think the democratic party -- charlie: i will come to his defense. you are doing this as an analyst. guest: when you are talking about donald trump's debacle -- of the professional democrats have said to me that the democratic party is just a few years behind. obama is holding things together for the democratic party. there is something about having control of the executive branch that gives you tremendous control over the party. obama is gone, this is a coming attraction to what is coming to our side. once obama is not holding the thing together a few years from now, if the democrats are out of the white house, you could see the same did -- chaos in the democratic party. charlie: we have to leave it there. we will be right back. ♪

charlie: anderson cooper and gloria vanderbilt are here. although they are public figures, they have long kept much of their private lives quiet. they have written a memoir that explores their relationship and the love and loss that they have endured. it is called "the rainbow comes and goes." the new york times calls their collaboration a remarkably frank

and tender undertaking. they also star in a documentary on the same subject. here is the trailer for "nothing left unsaid." anderson: i always remember my mom having this look behind her eyes. it was almost a faraway look. it is very sad to me that, of all the things she sort of wanted, they are always so simple. growing up, it didn't have any reality for me, the whole vanderbilt side of the family. my mom has lived many different lives and inhabited different skins. she has this public face, but the reality is so much different from what the public face is. gloria: these will be fascinating to read -- all our secrets. anderson: this is what he looked like when you first met him? gloria: i knew him for a week and married three weeks later. anderson: really?

how old were you? gloria: 20. anderson: did your friends think it was weird? gloria: i do not know. anderson: here is your dad and your mom. gloria: with my mother. people were so fascinated with this family that apparently had everything. i never felt i belonged. i felt i was an imposter. when he died, i went to bed for about three weeks. all i did was cry. i have not cried since. it's like there's not a tear left. charlie: i am pleased to have anderson cooper and gloria vanderbilt back at the table. never together. anderson: never together. gloria: never together. anderson: i didn't want people to know she was my mom for a long time. gloria: i wanted people to know you were my son. charlie: because? anderson: the name "vanderbilt" has baggage and assumptions about what her life must be like, which are wrong and

different from what it is. especially when i was starting out, i was glad i had the last name "cooper." it is a nice thing. my dad is from mississippi. now, i feel i am established in my career. she called me up a couple years ago and said, someone referred to me as anderson cooper's mother. charlie: the title, "the rainbow comes and goes," where does that come from? gloria: from a poem by wordsworth. i am fascinated by anderson's interpretation. the rainbow comes and goes, he thinks it goes and that is the end. my interpretation is the rainbow comes and goes and comes back. anderson: my mom is an optimist. at 92, she believes love is

around the corner. she believes you may enter dark days, but it will come back and be great again. i believe that may be the rainbow will come back, but how do you know you will be there when it does? i prepare for the darkness. like "game of thrones." winter is coming. i believe winter is always coming. charlie: it is a bleak one. anderson: it is a bleak one. i want to prepare for the long haul. charlie: whose idea to put this together? anderson: it started when my mom turned 91. on her 91st birthday, she sent me an e-mail. it was funny, just an interesting e-mail. that got me thinking, when my dad died when i was 10, i had a fantasy he left me a letter and it would show up when i turned 18 or 21 and it would tell me everything about him that i did not know. it would tell me everything about his life. it turned out my mom had the same fantasy about her father that died when she was an infant. i did not want that to be the case for my mom. when she dies, i did not want there to be anything left unsaid

or anything she did not know about me. we started an e-mail conversation. we did it over e-mail because it was easier and because i travel so much. i wanted to change the conversation between us and get to know each other as adults in a whole new way. it has really changed not only our relationship, but my understanding of myself. it is something i hope the book encourages other people to do. charlie: what were the natures of the e-mails? what would you e-mail him? gloria: really, i think it started off with -- i said something like, my aunt gertrude said to me on my 17th birthday, today, you are 17 whole years old, and i wrote to anderson, today, i am 91 whole years old. that is where we kind of started back and forth. charlie: just anything that occurred to you?

anderson: i would e-mail questions about, you know, when i was a kid, when we were watching robin hood with errol flynn, i remember turning to my mom and saying, do you know errol flynn? she would be like, yes, and her voice would trail off. i knew there was more. i started with simple questions i did not know the answer to. what happened to your mom? how was your relationship? you know, it started off just occasionally -- it was putting a message in a bottle. the bottle would return sometimes within minutes. sometimes within hours or days. charlie: i have often said on this program and everywhere i go, especially because of what you do and i do, and the technology that exists, that every kid ought to interview their parents. talk about their life. gloria: absolutely. charlie: understand what they have done. i talked to my father, but not

nearly as much as i wanted to about world war ii, the worst of the war. the battle of the bulge. anderson: my mom never really had a conversation with her mother her entire life. charlie: did you try? gloria: it just was not appropriate. you know? same thing with aunt gertrude. i knew little about my mother and gertrude. anderson: we all repeat the patterns of the past, the things our parents have done. the things we say we are not going to repeat, we end up repeatin there is tremendous power in seeing the patterns my mother has lived through and what she has done. it has been a revelation. the fact that we both had the same fantasy of this letter that would come from our fathers. that was something i had not realized. charlie: was there a letter? anderson: there was no letter. gloria: i received a letter from my father. charlie: from your father?

gloria: yes. anderson: she is getting. -- kidding. she said the same thing to me. charlie: when he asked about her, you said, sure. when he asked about howard hughes? gloria: i said only the greatest things about howard hughes. charlie: you had a lot of lovers. gloria: yes, i did. i went to hollywood when i was 17. i had been living with my and gertrude and heavily sheltered. she sent me out for two weeks with a chaperone called constance. when constance arrived, she said, there is no room for you. you have to stay in a hotel. two days later, constance went home.

my mother literally let me do everything i wanted. charlie: what was it you wanted? gloria: what i wanted was to be grown-up. to go out with movie stars. anderson: it was howard hughes you had the real relationship with. gloria: the one i had a real relationship with. charlie: did you think about marrying him? gloria: i certainly would have. charlie: he never asked? gloria: what happened was, i went back to new york, and he sent pat dicicco, who was working for him, so we could see each other. dicicco had a hold on me in a strange way. anderson: she ended up dating this gofer for howard hughes, who was a total thug, who may have murdered his former wife. which my mom thought was oddly romantic. gloria: he was associated with lucky luciano. she ended up marrying

him instead of howard hughes. i was like, mom, worst choices. charlie: you married him because you loved him? gloria: well, because my mother sort of -- i do not know. suddenly, she announced the engagement and it happened quickly. we were in new york, and dicicco followed me there. i was terribly confused. anderson: it is hard for me to understand the choices. in the book, she obviously goes into detail. it is interesting to see. she describes in the book being this young 17-year-old, never exposed to the world at all, essentially playing blind man's bluff in the forest. every road she would go down, she was a completely different person. charlie: stunningly beautiful. anderson: how old were you? gloria: 15. charlie: two years before you

head out. what was the hardest thing to write about, to talk about? was it death? anderson: i think we both experienced losses throughout our lives. my dad died when i was 10. my brother committed suicide when i was 21 in front of my mom. loss is something that -- i think we both speak the language of loss. it is something we are comfortable talking about. i probably have a harder time talking about it then my mom does, but i do not think there was anything particularly hard. gloria: after carter died, all i wanted to do was talk about it. go over it again and again. i remember once, a whole group of his friends and your friends from school came. you were there. suddenly, you left. i thought, why did you go? then i realized it was because

you were sort of hearing this thing over and over again. you did not talk about it really at all. anderson: i deal with tragedy in a different way. i have become much more quiet and introspective and working out of my head more. there was something about doing this on e-mail that really made it easy to put aside the old, you know, embarrassment or awkwardness or whatever the emotions were and have this conversation. gloria: the thing about e-mail is you do it and it is quick. you press it and it is gone. you cannot get it back. it is sort of freeing, in a way, because you know you cannot get it back. anderson: it sounds like a line but we really hope this encourages people to sit down -- whether it is an aging parent or a child or whatever, just start

a new conversation with somebody in your life. gloria: and really be able to talk without getting sidetracked about things that are painful to go into. charlie: you have been through so much. yet you have this enduring optimism. gloria: i think it is in my nature, i really do. i just can't not. i just can't not. charlie: you do not accept any alternative other than optimism? gloria: i do not know. i just think it is going to turn out all right, the way it was meant to be. charlie: when you look at your life, has it been that way? it turned out ok? gloria: yes. i feel that. charlie: you have been able to survive because she is tough? anderson: actually, i write in the book that she is not tough. she is a survivor, but that term often applies as kind of brass

toughness. she is strong. what i think is amazing about what you have done is you decided to survive and make it through things but remain vulnerable. you are the most vulnerable person i know. gloria: when the custody trial happened when i was 10 years old -- anderson: she was taken away from her mother and given to her aunt. gloria: who i had no idea existed, or the vanderbilt family in that way. the publicity was kept from me as much as it could be. anderson: there were 100 reporters in the courtroom. gloria: part of it leaked out. we are talking about 1933. when it came out that my mother had had a lesbian relationship

with milford haven, the court was closed because it was so terrible. it was like it was some kind of crime. first of all, i had no idea what it meant. i thought, maybe it is something i have inherited. maybe i am a lesbian. it would be something terrible. so i kind of put a shield around myself. i rarely, to this day, read anything about myself. if i see my name in a newspaper, i sort of turned quickly. if it is a nice photograph, i look at it. ♪

anderson, you said, you lose a parent, and the world seems like a scarier place. it makes sense to me i took survival classes as a teenager and went to war zones as a reporter. i did not want to take it vantage of and wanted to be able to take care of those around me. anderson: there is a quote from harry gordon the writer, about girls. alltherless girl thinks things are possible and nothing is safe. parent early on, boy or girl, the world of possibility opens up. terrible things can happen, but

also extraordinary things. nothing feels safe. my reaction has been very rational. when nothing feels safe, i want to prepare for living in a place where there is not any why, where some questions do not have answers, where i want to know i can survive in any situation. my mom has chosen not to be so organized but has chosen to sort of embrace the chaos. she is comfortable with that chaos. we are very different in that way, but we have a sort of relentless drive, a rage, that theels us forward and makes fantasy of having a house, the white picket fence, difficult to sustain. charlie: the rage that drug to forward is the rage over loss? anderson: we have different rage. i never knew she had any rage at all.

i never told anybody about the rage i felt. that is one of the thingshat came out of this conversation. with my mom, it was a rage to live. charlie: john o'hara, the writer? of then: mine is sort rage of the unfairness of losing a parent early on, losing my brother, the unfairness of becoming a different person at the age of 10 and feeling like i needed to take care of myself. that sense of unfairness, even as a reporter, fills me with rage. when i see people's voices being silenced, people in situations not of their make suffering, i feel that rage. charlie: are you more of a risk taker because of the life experiences? anderson: i started going to war zones by myself with a fake press pass and a borrowed camera until i became a reporter. i have been to bosnia, rwanda, all these places.

as i have gotten older, you see how easy it is to get killed. we have all lost friends in the field. so i do not take risks in my own life. i do not go skydiving on weekends. for a story, there are very few places i would not go. i take calculated risks, i think. charlie: do you see yourself in your son? gloria: i do think i am a risk-taker. in working together on this book , i think you discovered things that you thought were similar. anderson: i had no idea how much i am like my mom. i thought i was like my dad. i look like my dad. gloria: the spitting image. anderson: but this drive, this relentlessness, this inability to enjoy the present, i am

completely focused on the future. i am thinking about what is coming down the pike, preparing for it. focused onery much the past, reliving scenes from her past. result is kind of a lack of inability to enjoy what we currently have. charlie: i am like him. me,rson: your schedule to when i think i'm working hard, i think, charlie rose is doing, like, five shows today. charlie: it is this relentless thrust forward. people think, he just wants to be on television. no, you do not. you want to do this stuff that is interesting and explore the future. inerson: we are both blessed that what we are doing is fascinating stuff. you are talking to incredible people.

we are learning new stuff every single day. it is more interesting than taking a vacation on a beach somewhere. i would rather shoot a story. to goe: it enables you the way of the world. , there is often the possibility to do things in every country you could not otherwise do. anderson: you see the country -- you are sort of smelling the smells. it is more vibrant. it is going to a place and being of the place, getting the essence of the place, as opposed to staying in a hotel and dabbling. charlie: you learned to see your self and your mother. what else? anderson: we are different. her total comfort in chaos. dorothy parker said those born in the storm find the calm very boring. gloria: i am much more comfortable and able to cope. anderson: when i call her, i

steel myself for what chaotic thing has just occurred. gloria: oh, darling. anderson: i will be like, get ready. what is coming down the pike? but i stability and calm, create chaos. thieu said tor mat his wife about me, she is never satisfied. it is the wrong word. charlie: that is why you are similar. you are never satisfied. his sense is the thrill of the next exploration. anderson: it is exhausting to be around her. she is constantly redecorating. she wants her environment -- she is constantly changing it. this table would not have lasted 20 years in my mom's apartment. at the end ofu,

this, feel proud to be a vanderbilt? anderson: it just has no impact. it does not help me in anyway. charlie: it is in your blood. anderson: i guess. i feel much more a cooper. i go to the cooper family reunions. that feels like a family to me. i know that history. i started to read about the vanderbilt history. look,ents early onset, you are on your own after college. that is the way it should be. i am fine with it. i started working when i was 11 to earn my own money. i want to take care of myself. i never felt really connected. my mom did not feel connected to that at all. gloria: i never felt connected at all.

i knew my name was vanderbilt, but we were living in paris. my mother never spoke about my father or the vanderbilt family. anderson: even when she was living with her aunt gertrude, she felt like an imposter. gloria: i felt like an imposter because i was really sort of treated like one. i was not welcomed. i never felt i belonged, you know? anderson: it was one of the reasons i wanted the book and the film. life isity of my mom's so much more interesting than the name implies. i think people think she is a lady that has logic goes to social events all the times. but she has written numerous books. i just am happy that people are seeing her as she is. charlie: what do you wish for him? anything you do not see clearly that he has or will have? gloria: i want you to have a

family. anderson: thank you for always bringing this up as if this is not ongoing. gloria: i want to be alive when you do. [laughter] gloria: and i want to -- i just, you know -- anderson: she called me up a couple years ago. she had a conversation with a doctor. she was telling me about fertility clinics. i was like, mom, i know about that. it is not a lack of information. i got it. i am working three jobs. but i think about it a lot. i am 48. make the mostuld wonderful father. anderson: i do love kids. i am good with kids. i do not know. i love what i do, and i would

have to change it radically. i totally would. i never wanted to be the kind of father my father was. charlie: that is often what they say. i just talked to richard engel. he does not take the same kinds of assignments because he has children. he has to think about someone else other than himself. the same sorts of risks. anderson: i would not go to a lot of the places that i go. charlie: do you think he is looking for a reason not to do this? what is it? gloria: you used to be very encouraging about it. anderson: i used to be very convinced. charlie: convinced about what? look, in the writing of this book, i think we are alike. that drive we both have makes it difficult to sort of have a family and -- i do not know.

i just think it is -- i do not know. i would want to make a big change in my career. we will see. i do not know. charlie: he wants you to have another great love affair. [laughter] i absolutely believe the phone can ring and your life could change. this is a fact. anderson: i said, you think there is a guy in a boat off the coast of france waiting to whisk you away. she said, a yacht. i would rather work hard, earn enough money, and build a boat of my own. charlie: he seems to like nice things to me, gloria. gloria: he does. "taste,"that word, which is what a person likes. something could be terrible, you would think.

my mom was always encouraging of any expenditure of money on things. shopping as athes little kid. she would say, it is something you will have forever. i was like, i will grow out of this in a year. thelie: you changed clothes way she changes rooms. did you cancel with her in terms of when you would make public -- anderson: it is funny. i didn't. to my friends in high school and told her out of college, but i did not tell her i was going to make a public announcement. i had planned to call her because of going back africa for a story in botswana. i spent three days in a remote camp. i wanted to be away when the story came out. i wrote a story to a website.

mom theanned to call my day before and have a conversation with her to give her a heads-up. i wrote this story that may get picked up. charlie: may? to wasn: the camp i went so remote, there was no service to get a message out. i would have had to travel 24 hours to another area. anyway, i did not have time to tell her. i got back two days later and got cell service and called her up, and she said, you should have mentioned this was going to pop up in the new york times. she was like, i see you said something. i was like, i forgot to tell you. charlie: you were happy he did it? gloria: of course. joyful. charlie: seems to be the nature of the relationship, joyful. gloria: love is love.

i had huge problems with my lesbian,being a thinking i would be. it was considered something evil and terrible. --it took me a long time to my intelligence, work it out. came to the conclusion that love between a woman and a woman is love and a man and a man is love, and a woman and a man is love. there is no difference at all. it is exactly the same. and i figured that out anderson found someone he loves, i am thrilled. i like him a lot too. i approve. mom approves. charlie: the book is called "the rainbow comes and goes: a mother and son on life, love, and loss." there is also a film. anderson: it will be on cnn

april 29. charlie: thank you. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

john: i'm john heilemann. mark: and i'm mark halperin. with all due respect to verizon, i'm pretty sure you can hear bernie now. ♪ mark: on the show tonight a trump family sitcom. but first, some action and drama, with less than a week to go to the new york binary. the front-runners in both parties, hillary clinton and