♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: gloria steinem is here. she is a feminist icon, a writer and an inspiration to men and women. she has led an extraordinary life of activism and adventure and writing. her new book, "my life on the road," reflects on championing women's rights. in 2013 she received the presidential medal of freedom. i am pleased to have her back. welcome. gloria: thank you so much. charlie: is there any award you have not received?

gloria: oh tons, i'm sure. the presidential medal of freedom depends on the president you get it from. [laughter] charlie: yes. you might not have gotten it from another president. gloria: henry hyde, who has probably damaged more women's lives than any other. with the hyde amendment, right. he was given a medal of freedom. so, it meant a lot to me because it came from president obama. charlie: how do you think he's doing? gloria: well, you know, i have such respect and empathy for him. because he is dealing with an ultra-right-wing that if they had cancer and he had the cure, they would not accept it. i mean, i have never seen -- charlie: that is a nice turn of phrase. gloria: i believe that. i believe it.

the hatred is so huge that it is not the majority of the country at all -- it is maybe 20% tops -- but it has a lot of influence. i admire him because he is always trying to talk and reach out. some people would say too much, but that is the kind of thing he does. charlie: some people say not enough. some people say he did not use the office in that way of reaching out enough. gloria: that has to do with the social criticism that he is not a guy who drinks beer and plays poker. charlie: exactly. it plays off the notion that ronald reagan and tip o'neill would do battle all day and then at night have a scotch and try to talk about the world. gloria: they did? charlie: oh yes, that's true. gloria: i can imagine tip o'neill doing that but not ronald reagan.

just because he did not care that much. always reading off of his california behavioral institute cards. charlie: reagan has some interesting traits. he wrote a lot. he wrote a lot of things. he wrote a lot of those speeches. not butlike them or they were not written by someone else. give him some pride of authorship. gloria: you have resurrected an ancient memory. [laughter] ronald reagan as president of the united states actually called me in paris. charlie: as president? gloria: as president. i said, you can make up something better than that, but it turned out to be true. he was making calls that should not have been made by a secretary. he was making them himself to do -- to ask people to do

television ads about products from the space program that were important on their own. and so, he was asking me to do one with charlton heston. i did do it. it was terrible. i called jesse jackson and asked what should i do? charlie: so, ronald reagan reached out to gloria steinem. gloria: i kept trying to make them laugh on the phone about how unlikely it was that i was doing this. he was telling me about this fellow who made western movies. you will love him, stuff like that. it was a surrealistic experience. charlie: how long did the conversation last? four or five minutes? gloria: yes, it was a minor thing. the people in control were doing policy and he was making trivial phone calls.

charlie: but you are an important person. gloria: no, he was making all of the phone calls. to call you -- you are an important person. but secondly, you seem to say the purpose was legitimate. gloria: yes, it was legitimate, but it was extremely minor. charlie: yes, i understand. [laughter] let me talk about foreign policy. give me your thoughts on where we are. gloria: we are still considering foreign policy in a silo. the various other movements also in silos. what we are not recognizing is that in another book called "sex and world peace," the biggest indicator of whether the country will be violent inside itself or whether it will be you -- will

be willing to use military violence is actually not poverty or access to natural resources or religion or even a degree of democracy -- it is violence against females. that is absolutely demonstrated. charlie: the larger the level of violence against females the more likely the country is -- to be violent and every other way. -- in every other way. system in which we call them patriarchal. the system in which reproduction must be controlled and is often doubly controlled in order to maintain a particular religion, they must control the bodies of women. and that means in our earliest

whichwe see a system in it is assumed in which one group is born to dominate the other. violence, involves and it normalizes violence in other cases. it is the root cause of violence. we have always known this in smaller, older societies. the more polarized the gender roles, the more polarized society. charlie: where our gender roles least polarized? gloria: in older societies. in africa. charlie: there is less gender conflict in the oldest societies? why is that? gloria: yes, their languages do not even have he and she as gender pronouns. people are people. charlie: can you give me those countries? gloria: the relatives of all of

us, where we all come from. the native american, the cherokee for instance. their language does not have he and she. nor a word for nature because we are not separate from nature. in the original cultures in which reproduction was naturally controlled by women because it is our bodies and so on, there gender aside tasks in charge ofght be agriculture and men might hunt, but they were regarded as equal. we did not start with division. we saw other people. the paradigm was a circle, not a pyramid. and we saw human beings as linked rather than ranked. charlie: if you had to make one

last speech and the subject was look how far we've come and look how far we have to go, what would you say? gloria: well, to the first question, i would say we are not crazy. we know the system is crazy. this is big. [laughter] and to how far we have to go, i would say we have a long way to go because we need to stop dividing each other by label. charlie: do you mean in the culture generally? women among women? gloria: generally. that you and i share more as human beings than separates us because of sex or gender. way more. way more. so, why do we focus so much on

these adjectives that are used to divide us by gender, by race, by class? it is all about controlling reproduction in order to create and control and continue these hierarchical systems. charlie: so the answer to why we do this, it is to continue the hierarchical system. gloria: yes, right. you can see -- there is this wonderful book, "exterminate all the roots," which is the line from "heart of darkness." it translates the roots. the whole idea of racial separatism. in order to justify colonialism. where did that come from? i'm sure historians would go crazy with my overgeneralization, but it comes

from the institution of patriarchal systems in europe. it caused overpopulation and colonialism to go off and invade other people's lands. in order to justify that, you had to say these people are inferior. you are almost doing them a favor. they cannot adapt to the future. charlie: they can't govern themselves. gloria: there was all kinds of craziness that proved racial inferiority. they were 100% wrong. we have to undo that, and it is not easy because as the old cultures will tell us, it takes four generations to heal one act of violence. charlie: four generations to heal one act of violence? gloria: that is their cautionary note when they are choosing -- if they feel the have to be validated out of self-defense but you are way less likely to do it capriciously if you

understand if you will normalize it in one generation, you grow up. because we as human beings have a long history of dependency. because, what, 80% of our brains develop outside the mother's body in culture. so, the good news is we are adaptable. and the species survives. but the bad news is we are adaptable. we can come to believe that race is real, that gender is real and that hierarchy is real. charlie: that there are real divisions? gloria: that we need to conquer nature when in fact we are a part of nature. so, there is a long way to go. but at least we have a vision of it and we understand that the way we are currently organized only accounts for maybe 5% of human history at the most and is

not inevitable. charlie: where is the cutting edge of change? gloria: hopefully at this table. [laughter] charlie: we try mightily. gloria: it is a roundtable, it is a step forward. charlie: no squares are allowed. [laughter] no, i'm serious. where is the cutting edge of change? gloria: it depends what we are actually looking at. i mean, some people would say the web because it is a democratic network that skips over the divisions that we are accustomed to. charlie: and the gender is not identified. gloria: but we have to be cautious about the web because it is also divisive because of how many people are literate and how many people have electricity. it is polarizing. it can be polarizing. charlie: it is liberating

because brings knowledge to an extraordinary number of people. gloria: an extraordinary number of people. it is not that it is not great but we have to understand its limitations. and in addition to the fact that it leaves out millions upon millions of people and polarizes, to some extent, it also does not allow us to emphasize with each other. we can get information from it , and this is great, and we can find each other, and this is great, but to empathize you need to be present with all five senses, like at this table. to empathize. i asked my friendly neurologist about this. charlie: your neurologist or neuroscientist? gloria: both. to produce oxytocin, which is the hormone that allows us to not just know but to empathize.

charlie: oxytocin, it allows us to empathize and you feel? gloria: for instance, when we, male or female, hold a child we are flooded with oxytocin. it is what allows us to bond. it requires being present with all five senses. as much as i love books. and the printed page. you don't get it on the screen. i have a dream, here is my dream. charlie: i want to know. gloria: we should have a satellite with radio programs in every language that can be heard by somebody on the ground with a windup radio. you don't even need electricity. you need to be literate.

electricity, but you still need to be literate. that would be even more democratic means of communications. it is one of my many dreams. [laughter] charlie: tell me more. you've come to the right place to share your dreams. gloria: ok, here's another one. that all of the people talking about climate change and global warming, for which i'm very grateful. charlie: most of them are in paris as we sleep. gloria: -- as we speak. gloria: yes, i am very grateful. that they would remember the pressure of unwanted population is the first root of climate change. unfortunately the people in the old days, we used to talk about population control. overpopulation. charlie: right. overpopulation. gloria: overpopulation.

people pre-the women's movement who talked about population control unfortunately talked about it in a racist way that focused on other countries and made kind of racial assumptions. that has given a kind of third rail aspect. so now we don't talk about the fact that there are 8000 more people on earth every minute or so. then there are hundreds of millions of women who desperately want to be able to limit births but are suppressed by religion and culture and cannot do what an old cultures with herbs and abortions and so on.

charlie: this has to do with male female -- were you impressed with what mark zuckerberg has done taking time off for paternity leave? gloria: yes, that's great. charlie: someone is prominent and is young and wealthy as he is. people that worship the god of technology. gloria: it is great because how men get to be whole people with all of their human qualities is to raise children. whole people. because the qualities that are wrongly called feminine, but are just human, are empathy, tension to detail, patience, flexibility -- that is what you need to raise kids. men who are not raised in that way get to be hyper-masculine and some of them -- seriously -- because of the crime we have just seen in california -- some

of them create what i would call supremacy crimes. they have no gain. they are not going to gain money when they are domestically violent. they are not going to gain something when they are racist cops. they are not going to gain something when they go into a theater or a post office and a shoot random strangers. charlie: it is not add anything to their value. gloria: no, nothing. and in a lot of states of domestic abuse, they may kill their family and kill themselves. they are getting absolutely nothing out of it except they had become addicted to control. they are addicted to saying, powerfully, i can kill you. this is the ultimate proof of my control. and we should call them what they are which are supremacy crimes. charlie: i have control of your life. gloria: yes. and that is hyper-masculinity. more into this culture, they did not make it up. charlie: the interesting thing is today in san bernardino, we

have begun to see couples. gloria: i know, that is the very first time. up to now in this country at least, and i think in general, the people who commit these crazed crimes of killing strangers or their own families have been 98% -- well, 100% male up to now and white and not poor. they are exactly the people who are most likely to get hooked on the drug of control. that they are not real men, they are not real people unless they control others to the degree of going against -- right, right. charlie: back to nurturing and what it does for a male. do you regret not having children? gloria: no, not for a millisecond. charlie: not for a millisecond?

gloria: no, but i was raised to have children. so i am glad for that. charlie: how do i frame this question to understand why you say not for a millisecond? gloria: no, i understand. as a friend of mine once said, there is no more reason why any everybody with a wound should have children than white everybody with vocal cords should be an opera singer. it is a gift. we nurture in different ways. it is possible in my case that because my mother and i were reversed in our rolls to a certain extent, that i was looking after her as a young person. sometimes i was the parent and she was a child. that maybe that is why i feel like i did that. i have no idea, i am really not

sure. i just know i'm happy. things they of the say is all of a sudden you realize it is not all about you. especially not if you are a female because you are raised for self-sacrifice. if you say to me, what movie do i want to go to? i'm raised to say, i do not know, what movie do you want to go to? [laughter] charlie: i don't know if you do do that. gloria: i try not to. charlie: isn't that empathy? empathy in part is to say, i'm interested in where you want to go. gloria: to feel you shouldn't is unfeminine to voice your opinion. that is the problem. by and large -- the golden role was written by very smart guy. women need toge, reverse it. we need to treat ourselves as well as we treat other people. charlie: aren't we doing better

in that? gloria: we are. now at least we can say it. we know we are not crazy. charlie: why did it take you 18 years to write this? gloria: because i was doing it every summer and then going back on the road. [laughter] and actually it got much too long and two wonderful friends of mine, amy richards, took machetes and cut us down. because it was too long. charlie: it was 1000 pages and they cut it down to 300 or something? gloria: in these days thanks to the web you can put it out on the web. charlie: that's what you did? gloria: no, not yet. i will. charlie: here's a picture. look at this. gloria: that is a very difficult

paper. [laughter] gloria: there is a dedication. charlie: i am going to read it. this book is dedicated to dr. john sharp of london who, in 1957, a decade before doctors in england could legally perform an abortion for any reason and took the considerable risk of referring an abortion to a 22-year-old american on her way to india knowing only she is broken and engagement at home. you must promise me two things. first, you will not tell anyone my name. second, you will do what you want to do with your life. this is powerful. dear dr. sharp, i believe you. you knew the law was unjust. would not mind if i had said this so long after your death, i've done the best i could. gloria: with my life. charlie: with my life. gloria: this book is for you. charlie: this book is for you. good for you. gloria: i'm glad every day that

a dedicated it that way. charlie: nice to have you here. gloria: thank you. charlie: gloria steinem. the book is called "my life on the road." ♪

charlie: carol burnett is here. her comedy has inspired generations of comedians for over 60 years. she has received many awards including the kennedy center honors, the mark twain prize and the presidential medal of

freedom. the carol burnett show: the lost episodes is a new dvd box set. here is a look at some classic moments. carol: i am leaving this house and i am not coming back until the end of the football season! [laughter] in case you missed it, here is the instant replay. [laughter] [applause] that does it! i am leaving this house and i'm not coming back until the end of

the football season! [laughter] [applause] i wonder how grandfather is doing. gramps, how are you feeling? just as i thought. clinical falls, general hospital. yes i'll hold. this is marion, can you come right over? grandfather is very sick. thank you. just in case, would you pick up my black dress at the cleaners? bye-bye. at last. [laughter] thank you. [laughter]

[laughter] [laughter] charlie: so there we are, these lost episodes. why were they lost? carol: the first five years we were going to go into syndication and we could not use the first five years. there was some legal stuff going on.

we released the last six years. 6-11. it has now all been cleared up. here they are. charlie: we have them in a dvd box. carol: they have not been seen since they first aired. charlie: why do people love them so much? carol: funny is funny. i dare anyone to look at that sketch and not laugh. what we had were belly laughs. that is what we aim for. charlie: there is no political stuff in it. it is not dated. carol: we did that on purpose, not that we thought we would go into syndication. there were the smothers brothers and other shows. i'm a clown.

i was a clown on that show. and i was a clown on the gary moore show. i just liked the idea of the belly laugh. charlie: when did you have time to create it? carol: i got my chance on the gary moore show, doing sketches and different characters, i absolutely love doing it. i had signed a 10 year contract with cbs as i was leaving the gary moore show. there was a copy on were the first five years. something that might brilliant lawyer came up with that said within the first five years of the 10 year contract, if i wanted to push that button, they would have to put us on the air on friday shows.

30 play or pay variety shows. charlie: 30 one hours. carol: if they didn't take us up, they would have to pay us another way. they of course took the chance to put us on. they have forgotten because they didn't think i wanted to do it. i can't host a variety show. i never thought that i would. and when the five years was almost up, there was one week to go. my husband and i had just put a down payment on a house. i was not quite as in demand as i had been five years earlier. so we looked at each other. we had two children. maybe we have to push that button.

it was the week between christmas and new years. i called cbs in new york and got one of the vice presidents. high carol, merry christmas. they were calling to push that button. what? whta are you talking about? it was right over there. they said oh yeah, let me get back to you. i said this before. i am sure they got a lot of lawyers out of christmas parties and he called back the next day saying yes, i see that carol. friday is a man's game. game.iety is a man's it is jackie gleason and now dean martin. it is not for the gals. then he said, we have this great

sitcoms that we love you to do. it's called here's agnes. can you picture that? [laughter] i said no, i don't want to be the same person week after week. i want to be different characters. i want music and guest stars and costumes and dancing. company.rep a true comedy variety. they had to put us on the air. charlie: was it a hit from day one? carol: it was successful. they put us on a monday night first. valley.""big big show. we idd -- we did well.

we got renewed. they got the idea that they would move us to wednesday night. . din'dn't care for that we felt like we were a 10:00 show and it just wasn't our thing. we did not do well in that timeslot. then mr. paley moved us to the wonderful saturday night lineup , where it was all in the family with mary tyler moore and bob newhart and us. everyone thrived. sitcoms.30-minute carol: mash was an hour. all the others were sitcoms and we were of variety show. charlie: why did you pick tim and nicky and harvey? carol: i was smart.

we were putting together a company and we had seen him on the danny kaye show. danny was going off the air the same time we were going on the air. we kept saying we need harvey corman. why don't we get the harvey corman. i practically attacked him at the parking lot. we had called his agent but i jumped him. i said you have to be on our show. charlie: why comedy? were you always funny? carol: i don't know, i had a sense of humor but i didn't really explore day in school or anything. i was kind of a nerd and quiet.

i wanted to be a journalist. i wanted to write and so when i got to ucla i wanted to major in journalism but there was no school of journalism. i could take a course and joined the daily bruins. i looked at the catalogs and it said theater arts where are could take theater classes and still join the daily bruin. i didn't realize when you majored in theater arts english as a freshman you had to take acting and lighting and sound and costume. i had take an acting course. i was terrified.

i did is seen with a fellow student and they laughed. charlie: you knew you could make people laugh? carol: there was a good feeling. some seniors came up to me and said wow, you're funny. do you want to have lunch with us? all of a sudden, i was popular. charlie: take a look at this. this is a sketch piece of carol being visited in her cell by a priest. ♪ carol: o father, i am so glad you've come. i needed you. >> time is growing short, we only have a few more minutes. i want to give you some words of comfort. carol: i'm not afraid. >> to fry and the electric chair? [laughter]

carol: thank you for those words of comfort. >> is there something you'd like to tell me? carol: it's my secret and i will carry it with me. >> to your grave? well, you can tell me my child. i heard confessions of all kinds. carol: mine is depraved. >> those are the best kinds. [laughter] carol: that was a take on madam x. it. was a parody of formed to do long

sketches. the postman always rings twice. they would run 10-13 minutes. everything is one minute or two minutes long. are people going to say and watch it. charlie: aren't they trying to bring back a variety show? carol: neil patrick harris. he has the talent. it is all in the writing. he could do it. they couldn't do what we did because of the cost. we had 12 dancers. we had two guest stars. that can't be done today. ♪

charlie: peggy noonan is here and the author of nine books on politics in american culture. her new book is called 'the time of our lives', a collection of writing from her time at the white house. i am pleased to welcome mike colleague from cbs back to this table. peggy: thank you, charlie. charlie: what do we have here? by that title? peggy: it is derived from an observation that we have to

acknowledge each day we are living. you are a part of something big. you have to be part of it. charlie: have you put something together like this. do you look at themes or is it divided chronologically? peggy: this is what i decided to do. i wanted to collect the things i have written over 30 years. i used to write radio news for charlie osgood and doug edwards. i had all of my work in warehouses. i got it all together. i started going through everything i had written and i found it developed naturally.

charlie: is the different when you are writing for ronald reagan? you are writing in his voice. now you are writing for your voice. peggy: yes. with my essays and own commentary, it comes out of your heads and hearts and you sound like yourself coast you are yourself. it is a crucial ingredient. peggy: the wonderful columnist told me, did you have trouble finding your voice? i worried after working for reagan that i would have trouble getting it back to my own sound. then i immediately wrote my first book after working for reagan.

i inescapably sound like me. to the extent that i have a voice, it is just my voice. charlie: who edits you? peggy: a man named james toronto. charlie: what does he at? -- what does he add or subtract? peggy: he looks with the gimlet eye on my writing. charlie: it's content and style? peggy: it's primarily factual content. he is very much the person that will say it did not happen in the spring of 2012. he looks out for me. you can make mistakes of judgment that to you seem an honest point of view and james will sometimes say, really?

just james saying are you sure will make me? charlie: i've never seen someone that doesn't need a good editor. peggy: you won't have as much fun. charlie: let's talk about this column for the new york times. peggy: yes, a speechwriter for richard nixon. charlie: what did you learn from him? peggy: he was wonderful. when i went to washington in 1984, he took me under his wing. he was in advice person. did i say that the right way? he took me under his shoulder. he called me up one day and after a worked in the reagan white house, he had me write op-ed pieces and then in 2000, picks up the phone and calls me up saying, there is this new

thing called the internet, the journal is going to have internet columns. very lightheartedly i said yes. he offered me x dollars a month and i said could we add 10% to that? i feel like i drove a hard bargain. we shook hands over the phone. they are right. charlie: who is jane jane? peggy: she is my great aunt. i spent a great deal of time with her in the summers at a very quiet and lonely little home. i learned much about life. charlie: if i read all of your columns, what would i know about

peggy noonan? i know she's a good writer. i know she's passionate about politics. peggy: i love politics. i came to terms with that. i love politics. i saw my own love for the greatness over 30 years. you know i am a christian of the catholic variety and you probably know i am a woman living in new york. you would know i am a conservative. charlie: what kind of conservative are you? peggy: that is the subject of a column coming up. charlie: it is also an emerging question in this political debate that the republicans are having. peggy: let me jump.

something huge and fundamental is happening on the republicans died of politics. in 1976, ronald reagan went up against gerald ford asking will the republican party be conservative? 1980's landslide. it answered the question. the modern republican party will be conservative. this year, i think we are answering the question what does it -- conservatism mean what does it mean in the 21st century. conservatives have been having of brawl about it. charlie: do you see it as a responsibility? peggy: no, it is in part my

responsibility or my joy to share my thoughts about this or where it should be going but i do not feel any pressure of being a guide. charlie: because of mary goldwater and bill buckley and -- because of barry goldwater and ronald reagan, first, bill -- reaganmously said was called a neoconservative. does that still exist? peggy: even that is a bit fractured. one of the unlucky-lucky things about conservatism in america is that there were so few of them. they could agree on three or four essential items. taxes lower, regulations lower. yeah, you got it. it has gotten complicated in the

george w. bush era when things started to fall apart. why did they start to fall apart? there was a great argument in the party about the wars. charlie: he came to power saying he wanted to be a compassionate conservative. is conservatism compassionate? peggy: that is a wonderful question. it should be, it can be. it is not always look that way. conservatives can be pretty crappy folks especially when they debate what conservatism is. we have a party right now that can save the conservative way to look at entitlement spending is we made a deal with the people and you keep your deals. they have a moral right to everything to everything about those programs. another conservative said that

kids will carry the burden of our spending. it is uncompassionate to them to make them carry the load. all of these things are going to have to be adjudicated in this election cycle. may be also in the next election cycle. i don't know when it ends. immigration is a huge issue. it is now not going away. charlie: do you love writing? the idea of being able to. in the famous words of john kennedy, i am paraphrasing loosely.

he took the english language and took it to war. the idea of how words has such power and enhance if they are said in in inspiring and precise way. peggy: i never considered being anything but a writer. for a while, i wanted to be an actress. i wanted to be a nun, but a non-writer. a writer was always just what i was. i enjoyed reading which is how you come to love writing. you love reading. and you think, wow, does a person do this? it is part of the image for myself, kind of like being irish catholic. charlie: did mitt romney disappoint you greatly? you were there for him in a lot

of what you wrote. peggy: i was trying to be supportive of the conservative candidate. i cannot say he disappointed me because he did not strike me as a great political talent. part of me thought when we lost in 2012, we need some kind of political genius going on to succeed. we dodged a bullet. that was not a political genius. that was a man who is great at life. not at politics. charlie: with the great value and the right families. peggy: yeah, a great man. charlie: you think of ronald reagan and bill clinton when you think about political genius. peggy: political talent. charlie: who has it in the field on the republican side? peggy: i say large gifts are seen in retrospect. i can't tell you at the moment.

charlie: you can see emerging talent? they are being tested in debates. peggy: you want to cease year political talent? marco rubio has sheer political talent. ♪

nina: you are watching "bloomberg west." let's start with a first look at your first word news. polls show that the race for the white house is tightening. hillary clinton is leading donald trump 48-42, while a cnn survey has both pulling within the margin of error. today, donald trump took aim at obama administration policies at the veterans department. mr. trump: you have illegal immigrants that she wants and he once treated better than veterans. treated better than people in this room. let me tell you, folks.