♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." with presidentin obama's final press conference of 2016, held this afternoon before departing for his annual family vacation to hawaii. here are excerpts. president obama: once we had clarity and certainty around what in fact had happened, we publicly announced that, in fact, russia had hacked into the dnc. at that time, we did not or anyte motives

interpretations of why they had done so. we did not discuss what the effects of it might be. we simply let people know, the public know, just as we let members of congress know that this had happened. youas a consequence, all of wrote a lot of stories about both what had happened and you interpreted white and happened -- why it happened and the effect on the election. we did not. wasreason we did not because in this hyper partisan atmosphere, at a time when my primary concern was making sure the integrity of the election process was not in any way damaged, at a time when anything that was said by me or anybody in the white house would

immediately be seen through a partisan lens, i wanted to make sure everybody understood we were playing the straight. we were not trying to advantage one side or the other, but we were trying to let people know, and with respect to syria, what i have done is taken the best to try to endcan alsoivil war while having to take into account the long-term national security interests of the united states. , basedout this process , if you of meetings itented up, days -- tallied up, days or weeks of meetings, where we went over every option in painful detail with maps and our military and our aid

agencies, and we had our diplomatic teams and sometimes we would bring in outsiders who were critics of hours. whenever we went through it, the challenge was that short of putting large numbers of u.s. uninvited,he ground without any international law mandate, without sufficient timert from congress at a when we still have troops in afghanistan and we still have troops in iraq and we had just gone through over a decade of war and spent trillions of dollars, and when the opposition on the ground was not cohesive enough to necessarily govern a country.

and you had a military superpower in russia prepared to do whatever it took to keep its client state involved. and you have a regional military power in iran that saw their own vital strategic interests at stake and were willing to send as many of their people were proxies to support the regime. i think all about foreign policy should be subject to fresh eyes. i have said this before, i'm very proud of the work i've done , i think i am a better president now than when i started, but if you're here for eight years in the bubble, you start seeing things a certain -- the you benefit democracy benefits, america benefits from some new perspectives. not justt should be

the prerogative but the obligation of a new president to examine everything that has been done and see what makes sense and what doesn't. that is what i did when i came in and i assume any new president will undertake the same exercises. of thehe importance relationship between the united states and china, given how much is at stake in terms of the world economy, national security, our presence in the asia-pacific, china's increasing role in international affairs, there is probably no lateral relationship that carries more , and there is also the potential if that relationship breaks down or goes into more of a conflict mode that everybody is worse off. i think it is fine for him to

take a look at. charlie: joining me, tom friedman. he is a columnist for "the new york times," and a full surprise recipient. new book is called "thank you for being late." -- let mein with your begin with your reaction to what the president said, and then specifics on russia and china and other issues. tom: but overall reaction is one of profound sadness and depression, because speaking just for myself as one citizen, i am going to so miss this man's decency, his integrity, the way he is reflective about issues. i do not always agree with him but he has been in so many ways, he has been, his family and his administration, the decency and

integrity in reflective way a of handle problems, i'm really going to miss and i am really bummed out. that is what i feel. charlie: from that, you hear him talking about the difference in campaigning and governing. he basically seems to be saying we have differences, the president elect and me, i've record stands there, you can see what i have done, and we have to wait and see what this president elect does in order to make the judgment. away that i take would urge everyone watching your show to either listen to that press conference or better yet read it, read the sections about two thirds of the way through where the president really talks about what is it that distinguishes america, it is the quality of our institutions.

if we start becoming sunnis and shiites, and we are well on her way to doing that, if our politics become so tribal lysed that it doesn't -- tribal ized, it doesn't matter what kind of life he tells, you just have to vote for him because he is part of your tribe, that will destroy the core of what makes america unique, our institutions. i think his wrists on that is onth everybody -- his riff that is worth everybody reading. charlie: let's talk about what he said about russia. the president seemed to have no doubt that russia did the hacking. the president-elect has not accepted that. clearly suggesting that vladimir

putin knew about it, but we are waiting for the american people to know more. based onve no doubt what the president said, the fbi has concurred with the cia that this was a vladimir putin directed hack of the credit party. -- democratic party. i think we have a real problem. i do not dispute that donald trump won the election on the basis of how the votes were counted in the electoral college, fair and square. he is the next president. any factors fed into his triumph. but it is absolutely indisputable that russia was involved in trying to tip the selection his way by spelling outthe emails -- spilling the emails of the democrats and then having russia's cap paul -- release themileaks

a little at a time. i think it is an attack on the core of our democracy. we only thing i disagree with obama about is that i wish that when they determined that in september and october, they would have taken some action. terms, aay in baseball high fastball right at vladimir putin's head to make them understand how serious that is. charlie: on aleppo. he said he thought about it every day and he looked for lots of ways, he asked every day was there a better approach, his military people and others. but he did not think he could change the situation without a massive input of american troops. we had other priorities, as well. sympathize with anyone who has to deal with the problem. i don't pretend to be any

smarter than anybody else. but i think there was a middle way that the president could have chosen and not. i think in retrospect it was a mistake. i was a real dog on syria but i began to change my view over a year ago as i saw -- we talked a long time ago, five years ago, i made the point that libya implants but serious explodes and it would explode around it, destabilizing jordan, iraq, turkey. most of all, from our point of view, it is destabilizing other centers of democratic free markets in the world, the european union because of the refugee flow. i don't think the choices were either take over and invade syria or do nothing. i think there was a third option, i think there could have been a nato response. it would not have to fall

entirely on us, that if we created a saison and a no-fly zone in western turkey where refugees can gather, it would not solve the problem but it would have given us leverage on the ground to actually forced the kind of diplomatic power-sharing that obama wants and has been trying to do over the last year and a half. and that john kerry has failed to do. diplomacy ining the middle east without leverage is like playing baseball without a bat. your hand really starts to hurt after a while. we were playing baseball without a bat in syria, and the russians knew it. i don't think we had to invade the country, that a nato operation, collective security, this was a threat to our nato partners, putting people on the ground, creating a no-fly zone in western syria could have given us the leverage to negotiate a wider power-sharing

agreement recently did not have. i think that was a mistake. charlie: on china and the idea of the reporter who asked question, said look at china with fresh eyes, and the president said that was a good question. because you want the president-elect to look at it with fresh eyes and you want him to explain the one china policy and why it was at the core of fs.nese belie tom: let me put that into a wider context. i think it is something that we should be concerned about with president-elect trump. it is totally legitimate, and president obama suggested that. look at the china policy with fresh eyes, maybe we should of been harder here or there. but what is illegitimate, what is it will spot -- irresponsible theo launch on undermining

40-year-old taiwan-china -america security agreement that has produced 40 years of peace and stability for the treaty partners and each -- east asia that has produced prosperity for these countries.

from what the president said and how he sees this incredible year ? john: so many things. -- vladimir putin's hee in the election, essentially said nothing happens at that level in russia without flat americans can -- vladimir putin's consent. he was careful about what he said, but there was a moment where he basically said, he scolded republicans for on the forhand, criticizing him

not being tough enough on vladimir putin but then throwing their lot in with a candidate who has been supportive and said nice things about vladimir putin. his point is we become so political that everything becomes about winning an election. amocrats will say, wait minute, you're talking about republican behavior, don't say this is a fault of our politics at the moment. keep the blame where they believe it should be and what the president believes it should be, which is among republicans. ronald reagan would be rolling over in his grave. and in a subtle way, he said weekend --a would be weakened. he did talk about some of the things the donald trump has done in his campaign like targeting the press. it was subtle him up a shot and he complained about the nature of american politics. the other thing was when he reflected on going to bed every

night thinking about what he is not done and could he do more in and that sense of regret. --n george w. bush used his had his last press conference, he used the word disappointed so many times. it is the end, 34 days until it is over. but then, clinging to the hope from his speech in 2004, he said that he still believes in the hope. he said he believes that is the route to greatness, to get rid of the partisanship. coming out in a sense the way that he can men -- going out in a sense, the way he came in. he was trying to summarize, he said that vladimir , and will be successful those who wish us no good will

be successful only if we forget our values. john: it was right after he had said that republicans had forgotten their values by supporting donald trump, and then supporting somebody who did things against our values. democrats want a cry from the heart from him about the hacking and what it has done to the election. they did not get that and never do because he is too temperate. he did go further, much further. oh, comeoint, he said, on. also seemed to want to start with the idea of the economy. that when he looks back at the eight years and looks at how bad the economy was and how good the economy is today, that seems to be something that is simply there.

you can only compare that to what might have been. to make a criticism. it felt like he and his administration are doing everything they can to pack sandbags against the inevitable assault. coming from the trumpet administration is considerable. they're going to dismantle as fast as possible his legislative achievement, the affordable care act. they are going to get people out of the restriction of dodd- frank. they're going get rid of a number of regulations, they will appoint people to cap and agencies, the epa, to basically dismantle those agencies. what it seemed like he was trying to do at the beginning of that press conference was at a few last grains of sand's to say, we build something here, there have been successes. he talked about handing off

something donald trump can build on as if that was his intent. donald trump's intent is not to build off of barack obama but to dismantle. charlie: we talked about the one china policy as it applies to the chinese, we talked about fresh eyes is probably an interesting process to take place. eyes onirley fresh everything is an interesting process, but as you point out, he repeated remarks in 2008 when he was the president-elect, he said there was only one resident at a time. he said the identical thing today. he said essentially whether it china and taiwan, donald trump has made decisions and offered opinions that are sending signals about u.s. policy. focal -- phone call in particular, the president was clear about why the one china

policy is the most important thing, as if to reeducate the president-elect about the importance of it, but also to say, stay in your lane until the 20th of january. happy new year, happy holidays, thank you so much. till 2017.'t wait charlie: >> president of save the children action network is here. he is a former maryland legislator. he is a former catholic. he was disillusioned with his entail the election of the current pope. he reflects on his own faith. mitch, thed over

search for the real pope francis. welcome. >> tell me why you decided to do this. >> i was born and raised a catholic. and shriver is a catholic? >> yeah, shriver is a catholic. the work we do, there is always a none or a priest in those communities. around the vatican scandals,al abuse comments about islam and women, all those things did not mesh with my understanding of the catholic church and the men and women i had admiration for. pope francis asked the folks to bless him before he blessed him. a couple of weeks later, he got on his knees and kiss the feet

of those children. toould never have the guts do that today, so i wanted to figure out who this guy was. the first jesuit pope ever appear the jesuits take a note that if another jesuit is aspiring to higher office, they are supposed to reporting. charlie: because ambition is a bad thing? >> the person who created that order believed in that humility. he did not want his followers angling for promotion. andlleague down there argentina told me that he had been offered the bishops job twice and turned it down both times and accepted it on the third time. how did the first jesuit he come pope? how did he have an incredible rise to power, then a huge crush in exile for two years. charlie: what happened?

you travel to argentina. yes, went to his neighborhood where he grow up, saw where he went to confessional and had a moment where he decided to become a priest. nestled in a working-class neighborhood, beautiful, but nothing ornate like in america. very working-class focus. the short answer to your question about what happened, he got a position as a provincial of argentina and paraguay. he ran the jets to its in those two countries. he was very authoritarian. ordid not collaborate consult others in his decision-making and he drove a jesuits who loved him and those who thought he was to disciplinarian and focused on authority. this is 10 years after vatican ii, liberation the war ailing

central and south america, a lot of folks thought that was communism and they were going to overthrow the established government. nicaragua, guatemala, a lot of turmoil and the beginning of the civil war and argentina. charlie: isn't latin america and africa the fastest-growing areas for the catholic church? >> it is, today. and he was in this position of authority and ends up splitting the order and half, and and a couple of years is sent into exile. you clean and feed old jesuits, and he listened to confessions. he went from being the most important just do it in those two countries, to taking care of dying jesuits. it was his own personal exile, and he came back different. he was the dark night of the soul, he went through a transformation and came out of that differently, and he grew

over the 1990's and when there was a used depression and argentina summer to our great depression, 25% unemployment. that made him more sensitive to the needs of the poor and the phone or ball, so the book is a collection of stories like rabbis who are friends with him, mothers who lost kids and fires, fathers who lost children, a dad who losses daughter in a jewish bombing. all of them have deep relationships with pope francis. reputation has this represent for being a pastoral pope. is different from scholars. the cardinals must have been looking for a more pastora approach. charlie: give me the politics of what happened? did benedict come in second? >> they don't tell you. they tell you, but they don't

tell you. i think he was getting ready to retire. he was up for retirement age and had started the process of moving out of his small room and when a series, and he goes -- , and it's growing in africa, and he had played a prominent role in the catholic church in central and south america, helping them understand how to deal with this preferential option for the poor , where the church was focused on poor people, which is very jesuit. saint ignatius said you have to accompany people on their life, and pope francis is a jesuit. that is his training. charlie: benedict says i am retiring? i'm not up to it anymore. does he win on the first ballot? mark: he does not win on the first ballot. he wins on the second day.

charlie: i was there for the conclave, i remember. we have vote. tok: and a pope of a tie-in send his grandmother was born and raised in italy, a peasant woman to move the family to argentina who stood up on a chair in the public square and denounced mussolini. so he speaks italian growing up. his grandmother is right around the corner. heavily at italian, and it is the paris of south america, a beautiful city, and he grows up in a very a tie in culture, and he becomes pope, but that journey, which is what the book is really about. i'm not interested in how he became pope as much as who he is. charlie: the idea of the politics of the vatican are interesting to me. it is interesting whether he will take on the existing power structure.

it is not easy. there are entrenched powers in the catholic church are like their power. a 2000-year-old worldwide institution, and not an american institution, an african cardinals are more conservative. you have to remember that it is a huge worldwide operation. the he actually asks that church study whether women become deacons, that is a big deal. i think we will see women deacons, women preaching and catholic services in our lifetime. charlie: you think he wants to change the church? there is a limit to what he will change. to aems to be open conversation. mark: absolutely. warlie: john paul ii sn't. mark: you see that not only in

his commission to look at t whether there should be women deacons. charlie: there is a tolerance. mark: there is. and nonjudgmental. at the end of this jubilee, he tells a story about choosing mercy or misery, and tells the story of a woman caught into adultery and they bring her to jesus and say, should we stone her? and jesus says, he who is without sin cast the first down. everybody leave. the woman says are you going to condemn me? jesus says i don't condemn you. go and sin no more. surely jesus knew the woman was going to send again. pope francis knows that, but he believes by showing mercy and forgiveness, you will change people's heart and behavior more than through strict law and interpretation of it, and that is challenging to a lot of people. he is challenging me. i am not a prototypical conservative catholic, but he is

challenging me. charlie: how are you changing? what has this pilgrimage done for you and your on theology? mark: this prostitute who had three young kids, and he gave food to the family, and she came up and said i am glad you got the food. thank you for the food. what i really want to thank you for issue always called me señora. i thought, do i treat people who are homeless or not big shots like you with the same dignity as i do a homeless person? you have the greater sense of the dignity of other people in the sense of treating everybody with the same respect indignity. what else did it do? mark: i meet this guy in buenos aires who is a garbage collector who picked up plastic and cardboard with a pope invited to sit in the front section when he becomes pope.

a garbage collector, a nun, and a teacher. thererbage collector is hugging the pope and i thought if i became governor of maryland or some other big shot job what i have the garbage collector there in front? would i be learning and listening to him like pope francis does? do ie head of an ngo, really listen to people that we are supposed to be serving, or do i want to go out and merge with other ngos and become a big shot and get a bigger budget? he says in the book, don't merge, stay close, serve the poor, serve with them, not just for them, and really learn. want toes me think i amass more power get more political juice, right? he is saying don't do that. my momaking everything and dad taught me and saying, wow.

my father had a unique ability to do that to come of it i lost touch with that because i'd rather be here with you in this unbelievable setting talking about stuff like this, but he is saying, don't go to the big shots. go out to the fringes. charlie: what do you want to do now with your life? mark: that's a great question. did my wife ask you? charlie: i'm just getting started here. i have five more. mark: i don't know, the answer is i want to make a difference for poor kids. early childhood education in this country, taking care of child health internationally is huge for save the children, and i still want to be in the political arena running this fiber 13 c4, so this guy pope francis -- 501(c)(3). he is challenging me. he's saying don't worry about he does not fit

in the conservative, progressive, democratic, or republican. charlie: you used all your connections to get an interview with the pope? mark: i did. charlie: what happened. mark: he turned me down. charlie: why did he turn you down? about hisoesn't care own public relations. i think he cares about his boss, and his boss is jesus, and i think he is focused on that. i think he looked at this and said the guys writing about me, has gone to argentina and talk to my friends, why do i need to talk to him? charlie: his great friend is the cardinal of boston. mark: cardinal o'malley. they all put in a good word. i went to rome and met with his press secretary, so i had a bunch of folks working on it, and the bottom line is he turned me down, and he should have. you had alreadylie:

met him? mark: i met him at a mass and i him, shake, meet hands with him, and it was weird because you spend two and a half years studying the guy and he is 10 feet away from you and you know friends of his family, his two, but you can't talk to him. charlie: there were several places in the book when you say who am i to judge? but a biographer is supposed to judge. mark: i am trying to learn from him. a quest biography, you mean you are trying to look at another person's life and learn for yourself? mark: yes. if you're interested in what happened economically in 2001 to cause the recession, this is not your book. if you want to hear about the

people impacted by the 2001 recession, who had their children baptize outdoors, this is the book for you, because that tells a different story. charlie: are you a different catholic now? mark:, a different catholic? words --in other mark: i think he has made me more sentences -- sensitive. i think about that homeless guy, and that makes me more aware of the guy who cleans out the garbage at the end of the day in the office. i talked to them. it helps me. it helps them. and it makes these ripples of hope that bobby kennedy used to talk about, but those little interactions, he goes home and maybe he treats his wife differently and kids differently because you were kind to him, and that it's a little ripple, and then his kids have an impact.

humility is not practice a lot in this country. mercy is not practice from our political leaders are religious leaders. that is what makes this story so good. charlie: the book is called pilgrimage, the search for the real pope francis. thank you. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

the founder and ceo of

the wearable technology company that helps athletes achieve peak performance. the wristband is equipped with sensors that collect data 100 times per second, measures and analyzes recovery, strain, and sleep. the company announced findings from the largest performance study ever conducted, 200 minor league baseball players dissipated over five months. among the conclusions was evidence that suggested between a positive relationship between recovery levels and velocity and speed of the bat. welcome. >> thank you. charlie: tell me how you came to create this device. hop, our mission is to unlock human performance. i got into the space because i was interested in performance, in sports and exercise. i was playing squash while at

harvard, and i was surrounded by athletes to did not know what they were doing to their bodies, overtraining, under training, misinterpreting fitness peaks, not understanding the importance of recovery or sleep. for me, i wanted to better understand the human body. i did a lot of physiology study, met with cardiologist and physiologists and reading medical papers i came up with a thesis around how i thought you could better understand the body. charlie: what did you learn about what the body tells you about performance? >> i learned that there are secrets that your body is trying to tell you that can help you train, help you with optimizing performance, but the fact of the matter, and this was six years ago when i was first doing this research is that they could not be monitored. there was nothing in the space able to do this kind of data collection, so i was able to , cto.r with my cofounders

his father is a professor of exercise physiology. we had this overlap with theiology and he had technical chops to implement some things from an engineering standpoint. reallyird cofounder understood mechanical we wereing, so prototyping things at the harvard innovation lab and we were off to the races. charlie: let's talk about the sensors. they measure heart rate. what does that tell you? will: by looking at heart rate over the course of the day, and elevations relative to your baseline, you can understand cardiovascular strain throughout the day. our focus is understanding the relationship between strain in recovery. if your body is run down and you

have a lower recovery, we think you should take on less strain. a higherody has recovery, you should take on more strain. when there is an imbalance, your body is run down and there is strain -- the five looking up different metrics we are measuring, heart rate, variability, ambient temperature, touched. andlie: motion and movement -- we have five, heart rate, on beingty, be on the temperature, motion and movement, and touch. what kind of cardiovascular strain have you put on your body? as a result, what does your body need to do to recover properly? charlie: i assume it is rest. mark: yes, and that is the

missing ingredient can we designed whoop to be a step ahead of an individual or team. recovery,p with a that recovery telling you how capable your body is of taking on strain. day, you accumulate strain as exercise, stress, or activity, and we look at the strain accumulated on your body and we say this is how much sleep you need tonight in order to recover for tomorrow. charlie: who is the target audience? with whoop has worked professional athletes, could be just athletes -- collegiate athletes, and the military. we have recently released whoop to the public. there is a correlation between professional athletes and step counters of the world who want to understand performance. to better understand

performance and perform at a higher level. you think about high school aspiring to be collegiate, professional athletes, people who work out every day, or even your endurance competitors, runners, areists, triathletes, these people held together by some strong degree of competitiveness . i don't think there has been a technology or brand for that matter that has spoken to that audience. charlie: what was the major league baseball study? for theey were looking best technology to understand player health. season, a lot of games, it is important to be able to categorize which are athletes are doing to their bodies, and so major league baseball approached us, deemed we had technology capable of monitoring performance, and we started with a couple of teams. it snowballed because there was so much interests, so nine

different organizations, 28 teams within the minor leagues, 230 athletes, so it ended up being the largest performance study ever conducted in professional sports. charlie: you could measure the body and figure out how to reduce strain and therefore add something to a fastball or the release of a bat. will: we found a direct correlation between how recovered baseball players were and how fast they were pitching. we saw how recovered based on baseball players were and the eggs of velocity of the bat. we saw the athletes who are games were onaway average spending an hour less time sleeping than the athletes at home, and as a result, the home teams were on average 10% to recovered, so conventional wisdom says the home team wins because they have the fans behind them or they are in the stadium.

charlie: how do you add more sleep to travelers? will: one of the powerful things we have seen is by monitoring their bodies. athletes are able to understand how much sleep they need. they think of themselves as athletes 24/7, and i think that is something that athletes like lebron james, tom brady, or other top performers, when you read about their sleep patterns, it is so special. it is easy to wear, lightweight. here is the sensor itself. here is the sensor itself. sensorsmeasuring five 100 times a second, and which you can see is that it is largely material, so lightweight and easy to wear, and what we also did is invented a modular charger, so we wanted this to be something that you never need to take off. there is so much value in

continuous data, so we invented this modular charger, and you slide this on to the whoop strap, and by wearing it for 60 minutes you charge it. ♪

♪ >> terror in turkey, russia's ambassador murdered a killer claiming revenge for aleppo. donald trump the world must change tactics. >> shoppers die as a truck hits a christmas market in berlin. christine lagarde is convicted of negligence in france. the imf says it still has full confidence in her. >> alibaba shines a light on the dark world of counterfeirs