Skip to main content

tv   Charlie Rose  Bloomberg  April 24, 2016 7:00am-8:01am EDT

7:00 am
♪ 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 icon prince died in his home in 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 and99," "kiss,"
7:01 am
"when doves cry." 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 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 you got the chance, everyone i would talk to, the first question i would ask is, does he talk? they say, he will talk your ear
7:02 am
off. he certainly did. he talked about business and things he wanted 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 trying to think, how in the heck do i do this, try to get as much
7:03 am
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, someone said, you should have taken your found and snuck a recording, but i figured 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 of him. 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.
7:04 am
gail mitchell: sasha, how to prince rogers nelson change music? sasha frere-jones: he changed it 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 -- from 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. he 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.
7:05 am
movie, it was a huge album. and he kind of went for the entire spectrum. and then it got even bigger with 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 sinead o'connor doing her version of "nothing compares to you," a song he wrote for the family. doing her rendition of that song, and those spirals go on and on through music. a lot of trial machine songs, 1980's kids groups are doing groups kind of kitsch 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
7:06 am
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, 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. these days, when there are 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. 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.
7:07 am
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, before the real implosion or 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
7:08 am
for himself. 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. when i saw him in las vegas, i 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. i think he was multitasking long
7:09 am
before there was computer and phone and then became a word for something else. was constantly hearing things at once. it would save the energy for when he needed it. he knew how to do that very well. jeff glor: 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 in their, i have talked to fans, 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 mind prince. he even mentioned steph curry recently.
7:10 am
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 alter ego called madhouse, which was mostly him playing jazz fusion. jeff glor: 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 it back form otis
7:11 am
and never giving it back. and then we also know there is a vault with oodles and oodles of videos and who knows what is in there. it could 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 there. he did jam sessions at paisley park that i'm told 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, it was raining.
7:12 am
the bears and colts and i think some had lost interest in the actual game itself, and then prince comes out and lights things up. i think a lot of people thought it 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 impact do you think it made? sasha frere-jones: it made a huge difference, and it was move on hise canny part because as much as anyone in the world would want to see him live up until the end, he was not a big presence. he did a bunch of things during once in that performance.
7:13 am
he did sort of a kitschy 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 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 you 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, remember me, but also, come on. you can do better. people have done better. beyonce's show was fantastic. jeff glor: how frightening was artists, when prince throws down the gauntlet?
7:14 am
gail mitchell: i think as was just said, it made everybody step up. everybody likes a challenge, and that is what prince was doing. you know, it is time to stop, as 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. he knew 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. liz o. 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 imbibe some of his power. jenelle.'s andy and
7:15 am
and then another talent. i think he gets pushed. he wanted everybody, i think -- people have gotten lazy in the music 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 withe, with michael, stevie wonder, frank ocean, drake. just be the best you. jeff glor: they burst onto the scene in the 1970's. 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
7:16 am
michaelre not only are butson and prince on stage, 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 gail said, you 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. were know that they definitely thinking about each other, and the music that they made concurrently was pretty
7:17 am
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. 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 are minor rap beefs, 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 its first record, and we were in the studio and we had just gotten "sign of the times," and 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 installing a new board. he got up and said, i have a new idea. she said, i am not fully powered up. he just started. there is a weird lo-fi quality to it. it has got one of those sounds
7:18 am
that only prince could make out. -- make up. he wants to keep his pants on when he 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 sounds like this. think,ime i hear it i there's only one person in the world that could have made that song. if you asked me in five seconds, "hot thing," and then, how come you don't, anymore is one that -- "how come you dont call me anymore" is one that kills me. they all kill me.
7:19 am
mine. quake" was one of gail mitchell: i love "how come you don't call me anymore." 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. and "diamonds and pearls," the 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: helping us look back on the legendary career, sasha frere-jones and gail mitchell, thank you very much.
7:20 am
>> ♪ dearly beloved we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life electric word life it means forever and that's a mighty long time but i'm here to tell you there's something else the afterworld a world of never ending happiness you can always see the sun, day or night ♪ ♪
7:21 am
7:22 am
7:23 am
>> good evening, i am ian bremmer of eurasia group filling in for charlie rose who is on vacation today. president obama was in saudi 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. obama in saudi arabia cannot
7:24 am
have been the easiest trip of this administration. not a lot of specifics have come out, but one thing i have seen already, ben rhodes said this was an opportunity to clear the air. not something you usually say. bret, i will start with you. how is this, and is there really opportunity to do anything to fix the relationship? bret stephens: i think you can start by limiting the damage. the president dug himself a hole in a number of ways. saudis are disappointed and distressed by the iran deal. those are judgments by the president you can agree or disagree with. i think gratuitously, the
7:25 am
president also seems to go out of his way to diss the saudis. he talked with bloomberg about how saudies were free riders. there is a quote exchange he had with the prime minister of australia and you where he says they are and you will not really allies. the saudis have pushed back very forcefully, particularly the prince of turkey publishing op-eds deannouncing 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 corner as their ally and protector? ian bremmer: is this a mystery by obama on the fundamental importance of saudi arabia, or is it more in politics and we
7:26 am
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 overarching narrative to int they are trying to do the middle east. i was just 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 the extent historically, saudi arabia wasn't ally because they an ally arabia was
7:27 am
because they had all the oil. now there are low oil prices and plentiful oil, that argument for a close relationship is 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 region 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 oppose iran, opposition to isis, try to topple assad, they want things, but they want different ones first.
7:28 am
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 links between the people of the united states and both parties in israel are rocksolid.
7:29 am
that does not mean everything israel does is in its centers 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 trying 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. and oil, you can get it somewhere else.
7:30 am
the idea that america might not be there in the same weight does not matter. might idea that america not be there in the same way matters. >> the saudis starting this conversation right now. >> we want 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 feels afraid like it might go down, it is likely to be dangerous. 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. he wanted judge obama's foreign policy over seven years, one way
7:31 am
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 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. there is not an overarching narrative. we do this little move here. part of it is retrenching from 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 else, and it relates mostly to saudi arabia. we have not talked about
7:32 am
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 mecca being the headquarters if they can get the caliphate across the middle east. ian bremmer: 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.
7:33 am
you have sclerotic authoritarian territories that were not providing goods for their citizens, and you have revolutions in a lot of these places. those revolutions have not done well. they had a lot of turmoil. someone talked about the j curve, how things go down before they go up. and saudi arabia that did not have this, had sclerotic territory, and so, nothing in the united states, whether invading iraqi buying, invading but not occupying, giving aid, ignoring the situation, they have all had the same outcome, turmoil and chaos on the ground. the obama administration is
7:34 am
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 isis and other jihadist groups, the collapse of four or five arab states. this is something really new. we 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. it has collapsed in the last four or five years, and the president has to be held accountable historically. ian bremmer: 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 populations to make a mess. 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?
7:35 am
>> 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 arab 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. so the slightest prospect, and japan as well.
7:36 am
you don't have america, someone that can help you, that makes a difference. in general, if you look at what obama did, you compare it with george bush at the end of the cold war, you have a sense that 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. >> obama is trying to bank the fires. jane harman: i don't think cauterized is an adequate strategy. partnering with the region and
7:37 am
world to find a new act for a very fragile government and the use of bold, where -- a youth bulge, jobs are harder to get, oil is no longer the standard, we need to protect this. all of this metastasized 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, which is what tpp is supposed to be, is the right move. i am worried that the residential campaign will never end in our national lifetimes, 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.
7:38 am
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. it is also strategic interests. we have to telegraph the american people there are going to be rules in 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 feeding 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. it is a little bit behind the scenes, which obama is not good at, going around and persuading other people. he does not do quite enough.
7:39 am
>> 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
7:40 am
coalition of people against it, for multiple reasons. ♪
7:41 am
7:42 am
7:43 am
♪ 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 explained 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
7:44 am
transaction. all of that is a huge benefit of a trading system. 22 years ago, al gore and ross perot had that name is debate on the larry king show, and al gore won the debate as 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-soviet era of explaining why that works, why that is good for average people. jane harman: we have done a bad job of explaining it, and "we" is not just obama. me, i voted for most of his trade agreements. some people are worse off. forget about honda and samsung. some people are seeing their own lives and their children's lives are worse.
7:45 am
that never existed before. whomeaning people understand the values of protecting global order, have got to do a better job of telling it. obama but isludes 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 do not hear it described as such by the united states or by britain, anymore. i would like to 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? john micklethwait: many people assume that obama going there was one of cameron's better cards. it was a reminder that, look, from the american point of view
7:46 am
it is better for britain to state. whole, where on the america wants britain to be. there is political on 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 and this is all about sovereignty. 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
7:47 am
, broadly speaking, obama is doing in europe, on the transatlantic partnership, and how about this special 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 second area of the world in crisis after the middle east. that, partlyto say 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
7:48 am
-- that project is now and one it's rocky's -- periods. rockiest periods. 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. but, there is also a leadership crisis. think angela merkel was spectacular until there was a huge push back against her moral and,ion on refugees for she seems to have retreated and i think her voice is very much
7:49 am
missed. ian bremmer: you said in the middle east, obama is absent leadership, should have done more, give examples. in europe, merkel clearly looking for leadership from the united states. she is prepared to take all of these refugees, and obama says, look -- 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 to merkel, if i were a britain voting for her, i would vote to stay. but the brexit campaign is not an disreputable campaign, because they are asking hard questions about the future of europe. in britain votes to leave, one of the authors of that road i
7:50 am
think will be angela merkel. 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 also a policy that is in many respects changing the nature of europe, changing the politics of europe, allowing very ugly political forces to rise, particularly on the right. and causing britts to ask themselves, you know, 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. >> that the rise of the far right to and the rise of just you can talkams, 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 parents came from somewhere. and inserting yours. without itseen
7:51 am
bumps. especially observing, as we are african-american, ex slaves, it has been a very 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 disaffected minorities. there is 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 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. people waiting for le pen in france and trump in america, left behind. they are not keen on the new global world which is happening. and you are seeing poll after poll that their children will not have as good a life as they do. and so there is a strong element
7:52 am
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 market, you will end up with people making more money than others. another way, unfairly it tends
7:53 am
to pick on people. bankers, andase, elements of looking for scapegoats. immigrants to some extent. and 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. there are a lot of people, as brett 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 populism, in some ways it is
7:54 am
frighteningly similar to what happened in the 1920's and 1930's. human elong get in america on a smaller scale there was a huey huey lon gexperience in america on a smaller scale. there was a huge part in the united states on a smaller scale, but in europe, the thick of the liberal democracy, parliamentary politics. they were looking for more charismatic leaders. it is part of the bernie movement, donald movement, where 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.
7:55 am
ian bremmer: if in these two short months we see the brits do vote to leave the eu, despite obama's protestation, is this 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. if obama -- let's see what he does tomorrow. if he weighs in strongly in favor of no brexit, he will be embarrassed. but i don't see obama as the center of the world in that sense. what i do see, and it relates to 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. this metasicized global terrorism. this was the challenge obama, and in this doesn't get pushed back some, he will be judged quite harshly.
7:56 am
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 support it most fervently. there are problems on immigration, but anything to do with free trade, the british vote for 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 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 therein thank you for joining us, bret, john, gideon, jane.
7:57 am
7:58 am
7:59 am
8:00 am
carol: ahead on bloomberg businessweek. there is a great article this week about controlling the cost of borders. ellen it: i

70 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on