yorkom our studios in new this is charlie rose. joe biden is the 47th vice president of the united states. he has dedicated his life to public service. he was a united states senator from delaware for 36 years. he has a deep knowledge of as the policy and served chairman of the senate foreign relations committee twice. last fall he decided not to run for president in 2016. that decision followed intense deliberations with his advisors and his family. he has withstood tragedy in his life. he lost his wife and daughter in

a car accident in 1972. his son beau biden died last year from brain cancer. obama tasked him with the new moonshot initiative. he is spoken out about sexual assault on college campuses. he spoke at the center for new american security. trump andzed donald his approach to foreign policy. biden: his proposal to ban muslims from entering the united states. profiling muslim americans. slandering an entire religious community. question america's status as the greatest democracy. charlie rose: i sat down with joe biden for conversation. we have seen in orlando another

terrorist attack. the largest mass shooting in american history. it brings to the for once again gun control. are you any more optimistic about the voting today and tomorrow that at long last some changes may take place. joe biden: slightly. did anything we with assault weapons it was the biden legislation. it was contained in a much larger bill. everyone was worried about crime. in 1994 saidople they want the government to work on violence. today this 3%. it doesn't have the same valence. relating to

people on the terrorist watch list being able to purchase a possibly well as tighter background checks could pass the senate. showing was going to pass the house? joe biden: i don't know. to continue to try. it will eventually pass. this becausep on the public agrees with us. overwhelmingly. for them it is the single most important vote. you might agree with me on everything else but you don't agree with me on background checks and all vote against you. charlie rose: president obama

said newtown was the worst day of his presidency. joe biden: i have become friends with a number of those families. when something bad happens that it can be comfort to other people. i have lost children. i have gotten to know these families. that was the most tragic thing that's ever happened. the way in which these children were killed. thet with the state police of will need an emotional counseling. the crew submissive the killing. when i was chairman of the judiciary committee held hearings on this issue back in the 1990's.

surgeons chief trauma from 30 largest trauma hospitals in america, new york and philadelphia and chicago. they came and testified. the statistics of the time were that not many more people were being shot but many more people were dying. the doctor who was head of the i useddepartments said this slug outpull and save's lov their life. then she held up a nine millimeter bullet. this blows the long out of the body. out of the body.

it is so much more force that is injected. if someone didn't have the equivalent of an ar-15 a lot more people would be alive. shot.eople have been the reason why assault weapons and high-caliber weapons are so bad, i mean low caliber weapons are so bad. blows whenr fatal they strike someone. acrossould just get that some of the wisest and most experienced people in the country have not been able to get across. biden: the opposition is strong. put together a proposal for the president after newtown. we came very close to getting

extended background checks. me and hesenator call said even though my state, 70% of the people agree with me, their 200 protesters outside my office. which theensity with people who oppose and of the funding that comes from the nra and other gun groups are so well-organized. rose: do you think if someone is intent on doing violence they will find a gun? joe biden: let's assume that's true. with that they find the equivalent of an ar-15 or some other gun depends on how much damage they can do. difference. you give me a nine millimeter glock and you have a 38 caliber revolver i will kill more people

than you. the lethality of the weapon matters. though don't have a gun get a baseball bat or a knife. then they will not get to as many people. if you have multiple rounds and magazines that holds 19 shot and you could just go boom boom boom , as opposed to the old sick shooter they had in westerns. you have to work it. it matters, to the amount of carnage they can occur as a consequence of what type of weapon is being used. when we eliminated assault weapons in the biden bill, it didn't go down. the number of people being killed by these weapons went down. it's not the total answer. ofcould have thousands

people who were convicted felons and spousal abusers who were in fact able to go into a store and purchase a weapon. the fbi always needs more resources. in terms of personnel. .e could use a larger fbi that's a budgeting issue. i think it is approaching it in not violating the constitution and doing a good job. for example, if you've ever been on a no-fly list they can't buy a gun. you said that if we turn inward and undermine our most important relationships and seek soundbite

answers in a world governed by complexity, we will squander all of our hard-earned progress. most people who heard that thought you were talking about donald trump. joe biden: donald trump falls into that category but so do a lot of other people. thank god that the majority. it's a very small minority. it is a voice that is being heard around the world. that sentiment is being heard around the world. when you see people, this is backe reason if we pull and we squander the alliances that we have. it matters whether or not extremists traveling from france tobelgium and germany going the site with isis and being

trained and coming back it matters whether they get on the plane in brussels and flight of the united states. internally they have that access. only recently have we gotten to the point where now they are sharing the passenger list. we want to know who's on the plane. we have extensive intelligence to warn us that so-and-so is getting on a plane that is on the list. if we don't cooperate if we denigrate that if we talk about useful or competence. there are 1.5 billion muslims in the world. if we make the religion the enemy where the hell do you think are going to get the cooperation? charlie rose: is that what donald trump is doing in your estimate? joe biden: yes. charlie rose: if you were running against donald trump,

you like the battle of ideas. what would be your case against him? notbiden: obviously am running. i will be out campaigning for hillary. the case i will make on her behalf and why she should be factdent is that if you in conclude that we don't need alliances. let me back up. it is a different world charlie. we have to continue to be worried about major regional actors. what people are most worried about are the stateless actors. those elements from failed states that are generating extremist ideologies and organizations. that is not met with a standing

army that is nats with an intensive interlocking of intelligence organizations. the willingness to train those governments in those countries. with the capacity to deal internally with these extremist elements that all requires cooperation. that requires you to have a relationship. fallujad does it do if is freed and ramadi is cleared but the devastation left behind , anothersunni towns extremist group will pop up. we can't pay for all about ourselves. to convince the and others to help rebuild the stands. forces in iraq

and other places to be able to deal with this kind of extremism. friedman was a good friend wrote a long time ago that if you don't visit the bad neighborhood it will eventually visit you. rose: john brennan testified before congress. it's not a rosy picture. strong and the gains have a long long way to go. biden: johnson two things. said two things. are we making progress against the caliphate? he said yes we are but still have a big problem.

metastasizes testi around the world. the difference between isis and al qaeda, al qaeda never was in a position where they occupy large slots of territory. literally threatening the stability of countries. i want you all the time. i'm not trying to be solicitous. guysalking about how these mosul?e mult if they are able to consolidate land and power why did the saudi's start page tension? they realized their kingdom was in trouble. they could take down the government. occupied atlanta territory. across a state able to topple entire states was

something everybody was concerned about. that is not that within the power of isil to do now. but they can have a cell with 17 people were four people with $3 planning a program with a find two suicide bombers were going to figure out how to smuggle into the united states or into europe to blow themselves up and cause chaos and havelock. havoc. to that isswer intensified intelligence and continued vigilance on homeland security. and cooperation with allies. i get along well with everyone in congress.

a lot of my friends at their are up there are talking about how we are less safe. but no boots on the ground. if you have no boots on the ground you not to put another hundred 50,000 people in their. we change the situation on the ground but be there for a decade. does it make sense? it gets down to equipment and training and alliances. significant increases in intelligence. a laser focus on homeland security. ♪

charlie rose: was a mistake not to leave troops there? would he not have seen the rise of isis? biden: i was hailing the policy of the time. we worked closely with maliki at the time. to be abletrenuously to keep 5000 to 7000 special

forces there who would have been able to work with and continue to train and bolster the iraqi troops. not a single solitary person in the government even those who said they wanted to stay was willing to go to the core of the congress and get an amendment saying that those troops would be protected under a status of forces agreement. unlessingle person said we have that protection we can put those troops there. it's the responsible. wasn't for lack of trying. we tried like hell. view by theming was that vote came around

that america was an occupying .orce we could not get any consensus. to stay. happily stayed? stayed, it would a fundamentally alter the outcome. it was the dislocation caused by sectarian divisions that allowed this all to come back. charlie rose: used to argue for partition. ie biden: leslie gelb and argued for a federal system.

a capital call to baghdad with control over the borders and foreign policy. but each of the regions, a sunni and thea kurdish region them should each of have the same kind of autonomy that california has. california has the state police patrol. it's not federal police. delaware has state police. the kurds ares never going to allow a shia national police force to occupied kurdistan. you could just go down the line. army madenational sense. but to allow more autonomy in the regions. it still makes sense. charlie rose: the prime minister mosul.to march towards ba

it within the six months that this in administration has? joe biden: it depends on a number of things. i talked to the prime minister all the time. i am his phone pal. he is solid. he believes in a more federated system. he tried to set up national and elsewhere. he understands the need for autonomy. out. reaching he wants us to equip the sunni tribes to help. coming from the shia militia that i want any part of it. it would take two things to sul.ke mo

we have to get our allies involved. we can't leave chaos behind. and to non-governance and a great exodus. tikrit.e id ino there has to be a modus vivendi between the kurds and baghdad. that is being worked on. here is what has to happen. pmf which isthe the shia militia. they can be part of it as long

as they don't go into the cities. they are doing a lot of the fighting. the real force is the iraqi special forces. they are the ones who are taking the brunt of it. supported by americans. anbarow the andy barr tried tribesmen. mosul.ould get which still working on the agreement. we've got to get across the and get the area south of to cut off the ability

for reinforcements to flow back and forth. it would be a significant victory for iraq. the rest of the world has to be .eady to back fill yesterday in return the water on. yesterday the lights work. you have to be able to turn the water on. you have to be able to turn the lights on. the uae and the saudis have to be involved. you go ahead and treaties and freebies and our free these anbar towns

they have to have bridges and schools. the conventional wisdom is that the saudi's were very upset about the iranian deal. they view the iranians as their enemy. the race questions about how much they trusted us. so therefore they are reluctant warriors. joe biden: let's be blunt. they've never been what you'd call non-reluctant warriors. i find it interesting that the whole world was ready to hold our coach and say go get them america. while we do whatever needs to be done. the fighting of the negotiating. or the negotiating. is having a bit of an

epiphany. not in saudiis arabia's interest to look at the agreement with iran as a zero-sum game. you begin to see changes of policy in yemen. a recognition that there is space. that the surprised saudi's assigned video -- we moved forward and put in some man in that iraq reactor. doing things they were never going to do. it is a bit of a generational shift to going on in saudi arabia. but they don't show me. show me. it makes sense not to push the

envelope too far. but the united states, are you willing to continue to keep the second piece of this agreement which is if you sponsor terrorism we're going to go after you. you prepared are to come down hard on iranian behavior? joe biden: the answer is we are. the evidence is all the work we are doing to intercept arms shipments. we put the naval blockade when the iranians are going to send equipment into yemen. we said come on. we risked starting a war. keeping the united nations commitment that nobody could send in arms. where we find that we respond. this is a process. improving. is you hear from various quarters.

i meet frequently with the turkish leadership. they asked why aren't you going in and establishing a no-fly said you are a nato force. you're right there on the border. you have all this fancy aircraft. when you use them? silence. you don't want to own it. two reasons. ,he expenditure of resources in thesident has said situation room to our generals, give me every single option including the use of force. whatever you think would work, tell me. and they say no-fly zone is a big mistake.

or talking about is we are going in and peace pipe he trying to piece by piece trying to eliminate isil which is the greatest threat to peace. getting saddam out of power. try rose: assad. joe biden: right. freudian slip. would we have been better off if some of these dictators had stayed in power? saddam? qaddafi? mubarak,? biden: tell you what happens

when he's gone. doesn't the country disintegrate? does it become a place where becomes a petri dish for the growth of extremism? tell me what we're going to do. and it has. i don't think we should use force unless it meets certain basic criteria. is it in the national security interest of the united states? our u.s. interests directly threatened? can we use it efficaciously? will it work? and three, can be sustained? it's a be sustained?

is be sustained? be sustained? used to say if everything is equally important than nothing is important. whether or not north korea decides to use nuclear weapons. whether or not china decides to become rogue. continues not russia to challenge borders in europe. these are x essential concerns. is it a concern that there is a bad guy in africa or in the middle east? yes. it is a concern. what is within our wheelhouse to do and can we solve every problem around the world? i think we don't often ask enough and we didn't ask enough , i knoweginning about

it the first step is that what is the third and the fourth step? if you take out a you don't know what will follow. joe biden: to take him out now you are taking on russia and iran. russia has imposed a radar system that covers a significant portion of the country. you are going to go in and take out the russian facilities? take on russian aircraft? we could do it. but is it worth it? charlie rose: is that a victory for vladimir putin? biden: when we went to see use of force what happened? republican was against it.

flat amir putin is in real trouble in syria. he is trying to get out of syria. he has the great problem in ukraine and europe now his economy is in almost free fall. this is a guy who is not winning anything. charlie rose: but he is a player in the world. joe biden: he is a player in the sense that he is engaged practically as a practical a dictatororting who's killing tens of thousands of his people. if you call that a player. rose: with respect to russia, you don't want your

european allies to think that you are abandoning them in any kind of relationship with russia. but you also have to conversation because of the change in technology and the nature of warfare. joe biden: exactly. for us tolot of sense be resisting russia in its the stans and ukraine and at the same time signing arms-control agreement with them. it made sense to do that. can we cooperate where there is a mutual interest and we are in no way undercutting any one of our allies or our own interests? there will be cases where we are able to do that. for a while it looked like at it is still possible but i'm not very optimistic that the cessation of hostilities in in syria.

at the beginning there was some movement. there were fewer people dying. there was a cessation of hostilities. such a complicated circumstance there that the russians now we believe are doing damage to the syrian free forces and the people who support them. they just attack them again. what we did was, a terrorist organization is cooperating with some of the people that we have trained because they are going after saddam. the excuse they are using is that we are attacking that organization. peoplelateral damage to supporting us israel. what we done in iraq? focused on the one thing that can have an immediate impact on immediate self-interest and that

is getting rid of or doing great damage to isis, i sold. isil. we having significant success. we having success in damascus? the answer is no were not. it is a very complicated situation. all of the proposals that have been put forward have been scrubbed by the intelligence community, by the military, by the foreign policy community. this is managing a bad situation. rose: what did you think of is 51 diplomats and the state department who said we need to be more all? joe biden: let me say two things. the president and i and previous presidents support the right of any diplomat to have a secure channel to voice a different view. i'm not going to comment because

it is supposed to be off the record. there is not a single solitary recommendation that i saw that attached to how to do what they are talking about. everyone one of them that i am has been the president fastidious. he calls the joint chiefs of staff, the intelligence ,ommunity, director of the cia etc.. he says tell me what will work. will this work? the answer has repeatedly been no. ending the cas on liphate that isil's attempted to establish in iraq. we should continue to work with our allies in the region like the turks of the saudi's and the

emirates to the be able to put together humpty dumpty when this is over. country that is sunni majority without any sunni leadership. rose: you're talking about iraq? joe biden: but not enough. ♪

charlie rose: you have sony people who want you to do something about assad. when you press the elected officials and you say what he wants to do about assad? take him out? how are we going to do that. ? you want us to declare war? another hundred thousand troops there. tell me how this ends. if your senator charlie rose. me whengoing to be with i say we have to move more troops and? in? we are investing significantly

in humanitarian relief. like hell every angle we possibly can for the unlikely prospect that we move toward a negotiated settlements for a new government. we are doing everything we can to defeat isil in the region. charlie rose: you think this administration will get baghdadi? got every major player, including the head of the taliban. i think it is just a matter of time. i can't put a number on it. charlie rose: you do have a lot of information as to his whereabouts. joe biden: we are doing everything within our power to locate and identify and find a

means to take out people who were significant impediments to anything remotely approaching peaceful settlements. charlie rose: characterize the relationship with china today. joe biden: it is one of competition that is real. an attempt to work as to howivendi china remains responsible actor on the world stage. it is difficult. there is a growing sense of nationalism among the young generation in china. it is real. troy rose: how does it manifest itself.

biden: it manifest itself in pressure being put on the government's two the more muscular and engaged with the rest of the world. you see it in the south china sea. china attempting to exert its influence over the region. their view is that this is our sphere of influence and you go home. but were not going home. rose: you said to the chinese that we are a pacific power. we have relationships with burma and the philippines and vietnam. joe biden: and it is very much in your interest, china, that we remain a pacific power. chinesethink the leadership is threatened by it. let me put it this way. look at the dilemma china faces

and north korea. in north korea. china has the single greatest ability to influence north korea. it also could cause the implosion of north korea and china worries about what the hell happens next. on their border. when i tell the president of a guy upt we have there north korea was talking about building weapons that could strike the united states. not just hawaii and alaska but the mainland. we're going to move up our defense systems. he says wait a minute. my military thinks you are going to try to encircle us. i said, what would you do? should we stand back and let this happen? what if we don't work out

something together on north korea? what happens if japan who .omorrow could go nuclear tomorrow. they have the capacity. trump it'sh donald not ok for us to continue to see the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. china is trying to work its way through its own serious dilemma in terms of how china has to provide tens of millions of new jobs a month. it not only doesn't have enough energy. it doesn't have enough water. it needs a growth rate that is excessive just to keep pace. it is very much in our interest to see china positively move forward and succeed. it is a very delicate balance as to how we manage that relationship. important that we set up basic rules of the road in terms of trade and commerce. if we pull out of that arena

within your physical mass and it will dictate outcomes. charlie rose: but neither hillary clinton or donald trump supports the treaty that you think is so important. joe biden: i believe in epiphanies. rose: what you think is possible? do you think is possible? biden: on cancer we are at an inflection point. we had disciplines working together in a way they never have before. immunotherapy for example.

extremely sophisticated changes in targeted radiation. in how the changes oncologists are working and what they are learning about how .ancer cells metastasize there is a lot of science out there. there are a lot of silos that are being built out there. every cancer researcher i've spoken to, and i have spoken to thousands. they always knowledge that if we had every cancer genome that was done and sent to a lab and determined what it was. types ofover 200

cancer. because of the computing capability we can do a thousand billion calculations per second. we could use that massive computer power with big data to find out patterns and what works and doesn't work. it cures. to doective is to be able in five years what would otherwise take 10 years. part of it is focusing more on prevention. that you beposition able to develop vaccines like you have for cervical cancer. incredible things on the horizon.

charlie rose: reviewing to continue this after you leave office? joe biden: yes it is a passion of mine. rose: tony but your friendship with president obama. he clearly relies on you. joe biden: he says that we make up for each other's shortcomings. our styles are very different. as well as our experience. hen he asked me to join him said i want you to help me govern. we did the recovery act. more than $800 billion had to be spent in 18 months. he said joe, do it. said that in the state of

union address. he never he never intervened. whoever the next president is should have somebody that in fact they trust, they know will have their back, they understand they are vice presidents and not president. and will be candid with him. i said i will not wear any funny hats and i'm not going to change my brand. we holler at each other in private meetings. just like two friends. we had an advantage. our families are close. granddaughters of the very best friends of his daughters. and my granddaughter maisie they vacation together. they live here in washington.

they are genuinely friends. when you get to know somebody, heelys kids me about it. i save all politics is personal. say all politics is personal. the othererstand man's hopes and aspirations and the devils he is dealing with. if his wife is dealing with breast cancer has mother has alzheimer's. or if a woman senator has a child that is addicted. them hard to not look at in terms of their persons. it is easier to reach agreement. we talked, we have lunch every week. families aut our

lot. he was there for my son. dying, he wass the only one that i was able to be completely candid with. i had to to let him know what is going on. he was genuinely moved. he said joe whatever you need you got it. i respect him. he has more backbone and more president ian any one person have dealt with and i dealt with eight of them. rose: your staff hates maybe as i take up so much of your time. joe biden: his was an actual conversation and i appreciate that. troy rose: thank you.

rose: thank you for your much. it very much. much. ♪ ♪

john: i'm john heilemann. mark: and i'm mark halperin. "with all due respect" to donald trump's ability as a salesman, you're not the only one that can sell a product. sec. clinton: trump suits. trump steaks. trump barware. i could go on and on. ♪ mark: good evening. after dismissing campaign manager cory lewandowski yesterday, t d