tv Charlie Rose Bloomberg April 22, 2016 7:00pm-8:01pm EDT
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♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." jeff glor: good evening i am filling in for charlie rose, who is traveling this evening. legendary singer-songwriter prince died in his home it chanhassen, minnesota. no cause of death has been given. prince was a prodigy, a provocateur who forever changed the opposite landscape. he won seven grammy awards and had five number one songs. these include "little red cry,"te," and "when doves
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." he was a virtuoso on keyboard, drums, guitar, and a master of funk, rock, r&b, and pop. his music even blended genres. joining us to discuss the artist that shaped his career his way, from billboard magazine gail mitchell and cultural critic sasha for -- sasha frere-jones. let me start with you, gail. you spoke to prince, you talk to him and interviewed him. what did you learn about him? gail mitchell: i learned, this was three years ago, 2013, he was a regular guy. i think he enjoyed hiding a bit behind that mysteriousness. when he got the chance, everyone i would talk to, the first question i would ask is, does he talk? they say, he will talk your year off. he certainly did -- your ear
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off. he certainly did. he talked about business and things he wanted to doubt the road. -- do down the road. jeff glor: but he didn't want the interviews recorded. gail mitchell: i remember e-mailing his manager at time saying, can i please bring in my tape recorder, i will stay at the park, i will transcribe the interview there, he can burn after i do it. no. can i take notes? no. it was very intimidating knowing i am trying to do an interview and we are getting ready to honor him for the icon award in the billboard music awards, and i'm sitting there tries to think, how in the heck do i do this, try to get as much information as i can and still be able to relay it without being able to take a note or record him. and at the end, some unsaid, you should have taken your found and snuck a recording, but i figured
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the phone would go off and i would be in trouble. in the very end when he was leading me out of his conference room, he said, i need to double check, did you record this? and i was able to say honestly, i did not. jeff glor: was he the same prince that defined everywhere we read about him, or was that a different person? gail mitchell: in the beginning, it was the one you read about. the first thing he said before we started the interview, he said we have to talk for a few minutes to see if we get along before this interview will proceed. there with that element option. when sat down, he was very passionate at the time about black ownership in different arenas. he had learned what i was going to write, an essay about that, black radio ownership. i think that is what tipped to the scales in terms of us being able to interview him. he talked at length about ownership and taking control of your own destiny. gail mitchell: sasha, how to
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prince rogers nelson change music? sasha frere-jones: the changed in so many ways, i think. there are so many angles you can look at this from. growing up in new york, which seemed like a very free place, and it was in many ways before money really changed the city, we were all worshiping this guy. it occurred to me, he is for minneapolis. he is the freakiest of the freaky. we are following him maybe more than we are following anyone other than michael and hip hop at the time. which he famously did not get with at the moment, but then eventually embraced it. .e was the black rocker he was the funk guy who played stuff no one to figure out what to do with, and then purple rain kind of destroyed all of these boundaries. it was a huge album. and he kind of went for the entire spectrum. and then it got even bigger with
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things like sign of the times. i still think it is my favorite records. there is no way to really gauge -- you have to pull way back. everyone is waiting for his album, he writes a letter to prince. and then in the can you have o'connor doing her version of nothing compares to you, of song he wrote for the family. that her rendition of song, and those spirals go on and on through music. a lot of trial machine songs, 80's kids groups are doing now. they come straight out of 1999. it is sort of very hard to imitate what he did not influence. there are people from the last 30, 40 years what a big moment who have no significance now. prince matters still to everybody. jeff glor: more than ever. sasha frere-jones: i can't imagine anyone i know. i don't know what i did wrong,
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but he is everything. it is very hard for me to get my mind around this one. jeff glor: it was the music, the performance, the composition. he did everything, for every album. there are, when producers involved, there is everyone involved in every aspect of an album, he single-handedly created every aspect of nearly every album, correct? sasha frere-jones: that is correct. he was one of the first people to speak out against the structuring of major labels and major-label deals. that really was ahead of its time the way he dealt with his label, warner bros., in the 1990's, starting maybe in the 1980's. that is coming back around with discussions of streaming, which are really discussions about a company like spotify or whoever does which one, and their relationship to the rights owner. it is usually not the artist.
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he was telling people, don't sign to a label, do it all yourself. that has been right or a long time. he was one of the first people to fight back against it. he was definitely less commercially popular after he left warner, but i did not think that worried him much. gail, what did you learn about his thoughts on those rights holders? gail mitchell: he was very diy before it was fashionable, orore the real implosion explosion of the internet. he told me at the time he was in conversation with different companies. but it was all, he said, agreements being put forth to him were the basic kind of agreements he had at warner bros.. and he just wanted to control everything. he wanted to be the artist, be the businessman, and advocate for himself.
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instead, it was still kind of, everyone remembers the symbol. prince had on his face. jeff glor: he was so shy in person. when you watch him in televised interviews, yet he was larger than life on stage. sasha frere-jones: the amount of energy for prince you have to put into a performance like that, that is something you can not parade around every day. you would go crazy. vegas, iw him in las don't know how many years ago, maybe seven years ago? he was still at the peak that i had seen him 10 years before that and 10 years before that. he put everything to the dancing, even pulled back and let his band go. it takes amazing concentration and listening, also. he was always controlling the band in a subtle way, but also directing and playing and singing.
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i think he was multitasking long before there was computer and phone and then became a word for something else. he is constantly hearing things at once. it would save the energy for when he needed it. he knew how to do that very well. sasha, he had energy not only in writing the albums, but performing them, but in maintaining that output for a long, long time. 39 studio albums in 39 years? that is like clockwork, and it never tailed off. sasha frere-jones: no, and there is two things that come to mind. in the 1980's, there is a span fans,ir, i have talked to who is the best, who played the first album -- if you want to look for streak, the warriors breaking lots of records this year, steph curry and the golden state warriors, that brought to
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mind prince. he even mentioned steph curry recently. there was a part in the 1980's where he was so prolific, he had to write so many groups, invent groups to play his material. he had to invent an older you go cold madhouse, which was monthly him playing jazz fusion. invent an alter ego called madhouse, which was mostly him playing jazz fusion. is that why he gives a much music away to others, because he had too much of it? sasha frere-jones: i assume. he did not give away anything that went to the family, a spinoff group, and then she took it. that was an amazing move like aretha taking back from butch and never getting back. and then we also know there is a
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vault with oodles and oodles of videos and who knows what is in their. it could go in there -- it to go on forever. i hope we get to listen to that. jeff glor: gale, any idea how much is left that we have not heard that we may in the future? gail mitchell: i was going to bring up the vault when i was there and came back. one of my good friends who used to work with prince, he would take you down to the vault. i would say, what is the vault? i had no idea. i have no idea how much is in their. . he did jam sessions at paisley park that are tremendous and on tape. he opened the studio to a lot of different acts to record and do different things. i would love to be one of the ones to go in there and see exactly what is in there. probably lose myself. jeff glor: sasha, can i ask you about the famous super bowl show that came in this dreary game,
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it was raining. and i thinkd colts some had lost interest in the actual game itself, and then prince comesut -- out and light things up. a lot of people thought changed the super bowl halftime forever, and what it can be and what it can do in this awful weather environment, never mind -- what did you make of that and what interested you think it made? asha frere-jones: it made huge difference, and it was uncanny on his part because as much as anyone in the world would want to see him live up a bigthe end, he was not presence. he did a bunch of things during once in that performance. he did a catchy routine with the fireworks and his guitar and that phallic moment that was sort of goofy and funny. he also kind of went through his
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catalog and reminded everybody who he was and what he could do. i think it was sort of a reset for everybody who was maybe dialing in a little bit, here is a guy who has got 10 or 20 years on him, maybe 30 on you at that point, and he comes out and rips it. he reminds he what he has written, how he can play, how he can sing. and that, i think, made everyone raise their game. it was also an elder at that point in the community saying, in some ways, and member me, but also, come on. you can do better. people have done better. beyonce's show was fantastic. jeff glor: how frightening was the further artists when prince throws down the gauntlet? gail mitchell: i think as was just said, it made everybody step up. everybody likes a challenge, and that is what prince was doing.
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as know, it is time to stop, sasha said, dialing in, and the re-think he did, whether the chart or not, the whole of his career, you can say he did him. his lane, and he knew what he wanted to do in terms of exploring and being adventuresome and fearless. he was going to keep doing that. i think another aspect people don't look at a lot too, he was a mentor to a lot of different artists, up-and-coming artists. there is a new girl on atlantic records now, she talked to me. she was able to do a track with him, and in the girl band. she said she just wanted to lick the spit off of the microphone so she could him by the sum of his power -- so she could imbibe some of his power.
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and then another talent. i think he gets pushed. he wanted everybody, i think -- people have gotten lazy in the visa industry. it is very assembly-line, let's find the next this one, that one. individualism is what stands out. that is what stands out with friends, with michael, stevie kochan -- drake. bu and the best you. youl. ou and be the best jeff glor: they burst onto the scene in the 1970's. gail mitchell: their solo careers -- sasha frere-jones: their solo careers were quite close together. jeff glor: did they know each other, learn at all from each other? sasha frere-jones: there is a clip where michael jackson are
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on stage but also james brown. it is a pretty great clip. they are at their most sort of giving and happy -- they know who they are and what they can do. they were definitely competitive with each other. there is evidence of that. it was a pretty fruitful, as know, having to step up your game is a good thing. competition is a really good thing when you are a creative force and need someone to push up against, there is that band pushing you. and prince definitely made everyone step their game up. of course, nobody did that more than michael. they were definitely think about each other, and the music that they made concurrently was pretty amazing. you wish there were two forces going at it like that with that kind of, you know, real competitive but sort of affectionate power.
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you know they respect each other. there was no way they did not. jeff glor: there aren't? sasha frere-jones: i could think about it, but there might not be. i have to think about it really hard. there is minor wrap, but it is not the same thing. jeff glor: maybe sign of the times is a favorite album. you have another favorite song? sasha frere-jones: there was a moment when my band was making his first record, and we were in the studio and we had just anden "sign of the times," it was late and we lay down and listen to the whole record. and the ballad with dorothy parker really gripped me. it sounded so unusual because only half of the board's plug-in, susan rogers, longtime engineer, was in sully a new board. he got up and said, i have a new idea. she said, i am not fully powered up.
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he just started. there is a weird low five quality to it. -- lo-fi quality to it. it has got one of those sounds that only prince could make out. he wants to keep his pants on many takes a bath, and then he breaks into a joni ernst song. it is mostly a drum machine and boom noises. who in the world would put all of these elements together and make what some psych -- and make what sounds like this. if you asked me in five seconds, and then, how come you don't, anymore is one that kills me. they all tell me. -- all kill me. "how comeell: i love you don't call me anymore."
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but if i often heard at the party, i was running. every time i saw it, he would play a snippet. he would never play that particular song all the way through. the"diamonds and pearls," ballads and how he could just go from something like a house quake or 1999 and tie all the way down and be just as forceful. those of the two i particularly like. jeff glor: it was unpredictability. there was no standing still. gail mitchell: no, yeah. he did not want to be, when i asked him a question about icon, he said, i don't look back. there is no value in my looking back. i am looking forward. i can't answer that question for you. i think it says that all about prince. jeff glor: jeff glor: helping us look back on the legendary sasha frere-jones and
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♪ good evening, i am even bremmer. -- ian bremmer. saudient obama was in arabia today when he met with saudi arabia and leaders. his next to the nation tomorrow is great britain and what he will address the brexit. here to talk about the broader implications is a talk panel of experts. we have gideon rose of foreign affairs magazine. john micklethwait is the editor in chief of the bloomberg news. bret stephens, foreign affairs columnist in deputy editorial page editor at the wall street journal, and jane harman, former ranking member of the house intelligence committee and currently president of the woodrow wilson center. welcome all.
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obama in saudi arabia cannot have been the easiest trip of this administration. not a lot of specifics have come out, but one thing i have seen des said thisrho was an opportunity to clear the air. not something you usually say. bret, i will start with you. how is this, and is a really opportunity to do anything to fix the relationship? can stephens: i think you start by limiting the damage. the president doug himself a whole in a number of ways -- dug himself a whole in a number of ways. saturdays are disappointed and distressed by the iran deal. by there judgments president you can agree or disagree with. i think gratuitously, the president also seems to go out saudis.ay to diss the
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he talked with bloomberg about how they were free riders. " exchange he had with the prime minister of australia etc. and exchange he had with the prime minister of australia where he says they are not really allies. the saudis have pushed back very forcefully, particularly the prince of turkey publishing op ed, do announcing the president's policies. he has to ask himself, how much damage does he want to do to this relationship, and what our saudi options if they decide they no longer need the united states in their quarter as their ally and protector? ian bremmer: is this a mystery by obama on the fundamental importance of saudi arabia, or
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is it more in politics and we should, given the fact the countries are actually becoming much more distant in national interest? jane harman: a problem with this administration, which i support, is there is no overarching era to what they are trying to do in i was justeast -- going to add to some of the things that bret said, not admitting to this administration, but this disaster in iraq created a vacuum in which iran has failed. the saudis are paranoid about iran's adventurism. it was not adequately explained why we were not supporting the deal, so there is that. there was also the low oil prices, so let's understand to , saudient historically arabia wasn't ally because they had all the oil. now there are low oil prices and plentiful oil, that argument for a close relationship is
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still there. i think we need strong relationships in the gulf. he also met with the eua offices. that is more important to us at the moment than saudi is. ian bremmer: many travel to the egion of baj. every time he goes, people are saying he is happy we are over there, but we still see complaints it is deteriorating. >> i think the tension in the relationship is being greatly overblown. there are tensions, but there are strong bonds of national interest on both sides keeping the united states and saudi arabia together in a marriage of convenience. it is not a love match, there are great differences on principle and politics in a variety of things. on the priorities of different interests, whether it is a prose iran -- oppose iran, opposition ,o isis, try to topple assad they want things, but they want different ones first.
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the saudis don't have other options and security. united states does for stabilizing global oil. we don't depend on them for our oil. we want to avoid this emergency in general. obama's big problem is talking openly about negative things, dissing his allies in public, which is tacky. ian bremmer: so what would you say about the relationship? >> the relationship used to be more of a love match, and is possible that the love may be draining out of that on both sides. as israel itself changes a little bit, there are interests keeping it together. it is becoming more of a regular reliance than a pure love match. ian bremmer: jane is shaking her head. jane harman: i think it is still a love match. the people ofeen
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the united states and both parties in israel are rocksolid. that does not mean everything israel does is in its centers are ours -- or hours, but it is a different level in saudi arabia. ian bremmer: how much is saudi arabia feeling isolated? the deputy crown prince is try to reform saudi arabia and a way that is very difficult to grasp this, he was to move saudi arabia from oil economy. he wants to open up vast amounts of the economy. he was to change things, get rid of subsidies. many things are being announced next week. what is interesting is he is try to do all of these, and in the back of his brain, very obviously saying america is there, and how much they can rely on america. gideon is right. in the end, it is security is a binary thing. you either have it or you don't.
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and oil, you can get it somewhere else. the idea that america might not be there in the same weight does not matter. the studies cited his conversation themselves, right? -- saudi's starting this conversation right now. saudis inside the tent now. unlike israelis, who we do not share values with, there are no women's rights, gay rights like there are in israel. but we ask ourselves hard questions about what the saudi kingdom might do if they do not feel that they have a real alliance with united states. your argument, you can see that with the freelance policy in yemen, which we may not like. this also extends to bahrain and other places in the region. a kingdom that fuels -- feels afraid like it might go down, it is likely to be dangerous.
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we have an interest in making sure saudi arabia does not become the next syria. having always princes, various sort of religious currents, do we want to see saudi arabia implode? ian bremmer: let me ask another question. wanted judge obama's foreign policy over seven years, one way you can do it, to what extent our relationships but it or worse? it is clearly more difficult with relationships in the middle east. i want to ask you, how much of that can you honestly put on one person, on the obama administration? how much is the structural? -- simply structural? jane harman: he went to cairo and give a major speech at the start of his administration. some did not like it, but i did. he talked about a way forward for the middle east. they did nothing to be much follow-through.
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there is not an overarching narrative. we do this little move here. fromof it is retrenching bush's adventurism, don't do stupid stuff, it is not foreign policy. do something that conveys to people that are values of interest, they are wide across the middle east. i was going to say something mostly toit relates saudi arabia. we have not talked about wavism,, their extreme islam being exported around and the intellectual basis to the adventures for many of the terror movements. so saudi arabia made a very bad bet on that. isis and other groups are talking about backup being the headquarters if they can get the caliphate across the middle east. -- talking about mecca being the
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headquarters. obviously going through a deep period of toil. it is not obvious if the united states should have reacted dramatically differently or if it would have been accessible. authoritarianotic territories that were not providing goods for their citizens, and you have revolutions in a lot of these places. -- revolutionsns have not done well. they had a lot of turmoil. someone talked about the j curve, how things go down before they go up. that did notbia have this, had sclerotic territory, and so, nothing in the united states, whether invading iraqi buying, invading aid,ot occupying, giving ignoring the situation, they have all had the same outcome,
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turmoil and chaos on the ground. the obama administration is saying, we don't know how to deal with this, and we are going to wash our hands a little bit. >> nothing like the explosion of groups, other jihadist the collapse of four or five arab states. this is something really new. have always had turmoil in the middle east, but we have also had a system of alliances, balancing interests of being a blonder between bonding the saudi's to us, israel is. exactly has collapsed in the last four or five years, and the president has to be held accountable historically. gideon points out, yes, there are problems in terms of how much america wants to do, but you also have the reality that our economics are not what they used to be for these countries and the ability of popular to to make a mess. -- populations to make a mess.
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how much of the stuff you really blame on obama, and what would you have done differently if you could do one big thing, it would be what? when the president had set a redline -- gideon rose: when the president had set a redline, all of us would agree he retreated with visible consequences for the defense in saudi arabia and elsewhere that the united states was a reliable, the reliable ally, the president would do what he said. i think that failure was pivotal, not only in terms of our perceptions but is really perceptions about how good united states was. you can point to other things. john micklethwait: he had a harder task, but you can book him on the syria thing. security is binary. prospect, andst japan as well. you don't have america, someone that can help you, that makes a difference.
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in general, if you look at what obama did, you compare it with george bush at the end of the thatwar, you have a sense somebody tried to navigate through it. and whether you can blame so much on obama and so much on reality is all the different players in that region do not protect the america that is guiding these. [speaking simultaneously] the timing of the pivot to asia is problematic, throwing that under the bus -- ian bremmer: is it good money after bad? the region is in turmoil from its own internal screw ups, and we cannot fix it from the outside. gideon rose: obama is trying to bank the fires. jane harman: i don't think cauterized is an adequate
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strategy. partnering with the region and for ato find a new act very fragile government and the use of bold, where -- a youth get,, jobs are harder to oil is no longer the standard, we need to protect this. all of this mist exercised terror -- missed after sized -- sisized terror. the pivot to asia was not his purpose. it was like moving off the middle east. i do think making an investment, and economic investment in asia, toch is what tpp is supposed be, is the right move. i am worried that the residential campaign will never ,nd in our national lifetimes
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will not really talk about trade. ian bremmer: let me raise the economic populism question. we have seen bernie sanders, donald trump, even hillary clinton come out against tpp. there is obviously a very strong populist opposition to the supposedly benefits of globalization and u.s.-led trade. i am wondering what you think is a matter of proper messaging on the part of the u.s. president. what is actually a reality that the americans are not going to be able to cheerlead on free trade agreement. i didn't expect obama to be such a champion of the tpp. i'm delighted the administration has done it. i think they are doing, saying exactly the right thing. it is not a matter of prosperity.
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it is also strategic interests. we have to telegraph the american people there are going to be rules and terms of global trade. the question is, do we want to be the rule setters or allow the chinese to be the rule setters, because they are waiting in the wings to do this. when you hear someone like donald trump oppose tpp, or very sorry to say, hillary clinton, that is baiting the field for asia. john micklethwait: we spent 100 years trying to force free trade on the world. free trade has always been -- you look at history, it has always been difficult to push through on a popular level. the winners are much more broadly spread. obama has come through more recently than i expected. behind thetle bit scenes, which obama is not good
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at, going around and persuading other people. he does not do quite enough. but both in the united states and germany, they support the transatlantic trade partnership, and it has been a lot lower past few years. assuming we get tpp done, is it the last big unilateral deal we will see in a long time? john micklethwait: perhaps. it is totally different for contradictory reasons. one is that it is easy to find a coalition of people against it, or multiple reasons. ♪
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♪ ian bremmer: we get fantastic products from abroad, they cost us very little. the requires political leadership to explain. >> the argument is that they are turning up for bernie and donald, they don't understand. they have benefits, it has not been properly to them. they are doing much better than they think. ian bremmer: that is partly true. you talk to people who would drive a honda, have a samsung phone. they are beneficiaries, they go to mexican, cancun on vacation, they do not even know mexico has a peso because they are operating through seamless transaction.
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all of because of a free trading system. 22 years ago, al gore and ross perot had the famous debate on the larry king show, and al gore won the debate because americans still remember the poly terrorist. he pulled out the picture of smooth and holly. i'm not sure we do not good job in that post savvy at -- post-soviet era of explaining why that works, why that is good for average people. jane harman: we have done a bad job, and we is not just obama. that includes me, i voted for most of the trade agreements. some people are worse off. forget about the honda and the samsung. some people are seeing their own lives and their kids' lives as worse. but never existed before. we, meaning people who understand the values of protecting global order, have to
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do a better job of selling it. that includes obama, but not limited to him. i'm talking about the limited challenges and doing trade. we have questions about how much the u.s. wants to champion the free market. let's talk about the most important lines america has had, that was europeans, because obama is on his way to the u.k. britain has a special relationship, we document described much by the united states -- we do not hear it described as such much, but why would you ask you from the british perspective, to what extent do you think obama can make any difference in the outcome, and also, how tricky is it for an american president to tell the britts which way they should be voting? many peoplehwait: assume that obama going there was one of cameron's better cards. it was a reminder that on the american point of view, it is better for britain to stay.
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, on thewhere the whole whole, america wants britain to be. onre is political tenderness, jumped ahead quite early, did not wait for obama to come in. the main politician on the exit side. he came in and said, this is fine. obama is massively hypocritical. america has always been a place of individual sovereignty, this is all about sovereignty. and by doing that, he actually managed to fire something into obama before he arrives. and so the obama affect will be less. i never predicted this, but it will be less and previously thought. this is massively critical, america always makes the most of individual sovereignty. i don't agree with him, but he has done it well. ian bremmer: how do you think obama is doing on europe, on the transatlantic legendship, and how about this special
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relationship? >> i am not concerned about the special relationship either, because i do not think europe and britain in particular have any place to go. so that doesn't mean you take them for granted. it is not like [indiscernible] exactly. europe itself is obviously the the world inf crisis after the middle east. it is ironic to say that, partly in connection but not entirely. unfortunately again, it is not entirely clear what the united states can do to help europe solve its own problem. europe, the eu needs to get a new lease on life and a new sense of vision. talk about leaders who have not sold their peoples on the benefits of greater integration and ideas beyond the nation, it would be in europe rather than anywhere else. that project is one of its rock used periods.
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john micklethwait: i agree, it is more easy to absorb obama. things like syria, not intervening, that affected people like the baltics and estonia, like that. [speaking simultaneously] john micklethwait: europe has dug its own grave. jane harman: but the eu has structural problems. it does not have an adequate financing mechanism across the nation when they don't meet their obligations. it doesn't have good mechanisms to deal with migration and refugees as we are seeing. the poor thing is falling apart. it is also leadership crisis. angela merkel has been spectacular until there was this huge pushback against her moral position on refugees. she seems to have retreated. her voice is very much missed. ian bremmer: you said in the middle east, obama is absent
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leadership, should have done more, give examples. in europe, merkel clearly looking for leadership from the united states. obama said it is not our problem. is that a failure, not to step out and do more with american values? >> the bush administration failed when it did not do anything about the baltics. that was a problem solved by people like president putin and richard holbrooke. we should have shown the same leadership in syria. that failure to do so, which is a collective european failure, is now what is so damaging to europe. -- getting toel merkel, if i were a britain voting for her, i would vote to stay. it is not disreputable because they are asking hard questions about the future of europe. if britain votes to leave, one of the authors of that vote will be angela merkel. when you call the moral policy and the humanitarian policy is
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also a policy that is in many respects changing the nature of europe, changing the politics of europe, allowing very ugly lyrical forces to rise, particularly -- political forces to rise, particularly on the right. maybe we do want that channel after all. we want to be connected to the continent and projects that seems so troubled and willing to be going down the left side of the j curve. >> the rights of the general extremes, you can talk with syria and greece, something we are also seeing in the united states. americans are not seeing the same problems, but we had is all happening. how much of a threat is that to u.s. foreign-policy? jane harman: americans have always been able to absorb that. we are a country of immigrants. i don't know if any of you are native americans, but i am not. my appearance came from somewhere.
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-- parents came from somewhere. been a veryt has hard go, but we are making it. we don't have isolated communities. europe does, and britain does. britain has a huge number of pakistanis,, and over time they have faced terror challenges in britain. i would argue, and the far right governments are not related to just infected minorities. late semitism coming back in europe, and europe is not prepared for it. the eu experiment, which is a great idealistic experiment, was not built on a solid foundation of mechanisms to resolve problems of financial problems, refugee flows. the schengen system of open borders is beautiful, except when it isn't. john micklethwait: to me, i
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think there is one selection that is pretty much the same on both sides of the atlantic, and that is the general sense of frustration that jane was talking about earlier. pen inwaiting for le france and trump in america, left behind. they are not keen on the new global world which is happening. afteru are seeing poll poll that their children will not have as good a life as they do. and so there is a strong element on both sides of the atlantic of fairness. the u.k. and the european union, identical with obama. first issue is economy, second issue is some version of inequality. one people has gotten away with it, one group of people are the winners. it ties into globalization in one way fairly because by definition, if you have a global
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market, you will end up with people making more money than others. another it unfairly is picking on people, jews in one case, bankers, an element of looking for scapegoats, immigrants to one extent. that is on both sides. you can see it in polls and everything. and europe has had that thing of being run by the elite. it was always terrified by populism. european union was founded by people who deliberately tried to push democracy back because they associated anything like that with populism, which led to problems in the 1930's. ian bremmer: american parties are seeing that same trouble? john micklethwait: they are not all rapidly intolerant. a lot of people, as bret pointed out, who want to leave the european union, they have a sense of sovereignty, so they think europe is going in the wrong direction. they want to take back control of their lives again. >> there is this rise of
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populism, in some ways it is frighteningly similar to what happened in the 1920's and 30's -- 1930's. part in thehuge united states on a smaller scale, but in europe, the thick of the liberal democracy, parliamentary politics. they were looking for mark charismatic leaders -- more charismatic leaders. it is part of the bernie movement, donald movement, why you find marine le pen, the new government in poland. we are all happy in their own ways, but it is all happening at the same time. that is a historical reference point we need to take into account. ian bremmer: if in these two dort months we see the brits vote to leave the eu, despite is thisprotestation,
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the most significant hit to u.s. foreign-policy over the course of the obama administration? jane harman: i don't think about in terms of obama. i think about britain. he would be a catastrophic move for britain to do to itself and up and trading contracts and basically isolate itself. what he -- let's see does tomorrow. if he weighs in strongly in favor of no brexit, he will be embarrassed. as theon't see obama center of the world in that sense. tot i do see, and it relates all of this, global innovation, and the fact that 100 years ago, there wasn't globalization. currency did not move the way it did, does. terrorism does not move the way it does. cized global terrorism. this was the challenge obama,
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and in this doesn't get pushed back some, he will be judged quite harshly. john micklethwait: that is one of the interesting things about the british, when it comes to free trade, we are almost without exception of people who supported most fervently. there are problems on immigration, but anything to do with free trade, the british vote for enormous lay. -- enormously. you are right. if britain voted to come out, philosophically, it is a blow to that. but thinking about this the last few days, if britain does go out, it does hit america for a solvency -- american foreign-policy. so when you can rely on, there he goes. all of the consistency of the european union, everything around their, you see of bigger chance of the european union coming apart. ian bremmer: lot on the table and obama's trip. we will talk about that as he makes his way back to the states
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mark: i'm mark halperin. john: and i'm john hellmann. and "with all due respect" to the rnc, summer is coming. ♪ song]of thrones theme john: happy earth day, earthlings. we remember prince, but first, the republican party's spring meeting in hollywood, florida which wraps up today. the rnc chairman urged leaders to unite again with whoever would win
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