♪ our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose p are cap -- charlie rose." al: welcome to the program. i'm al hunt filling in for charlie rose. we begin with a conversation about michael t flynn. he had served on the job for 25 days. agents interviewed him in the first days about a conversation he held in december with the russian ambassador regarding sanctions levied against russia by the obama administration. soon after the interview, acting attorney general sally yates told the white house she believed flynn had misled senior

administration officials about his communications with the russian ambassador, including misleading vice president mike pence. joining me now is margaret brennan, the foreign affairs and white house correspondent for cbs news and the man who first report on this, david ignatius from the "washington post care post.""washington a goodwishing charlie recovery. you will be off the bench in no time. it just doesn't stop. did mike flynn have to resign or was forced to resign because of what he said or because he became an embarrassment or both? david: i think it is both. the fact that there was a record, it and intercepted conversation that he had and the transcript would have surfaced

in a congressional investigation and now the fact that he was interviewed by the fbi and there was that evidence made this one that, in the end, the white house could not walk away from. i think they wanted to and tried to. al: because they've known for a couple of weeks now. david: they've known since january 26, soon after the inaugurated. there's every indication they were hoping to ride this out. in one of the stories several my colleagues wrote that roque the news that in fact, this phone ofl had involved discussion sanctions, which is the issue flynn had repeatedly denied both privately and publicly. i think at the moment that story broke, the white house had little choice but to move toward flynn's departure. al: the chaos continues because

and kellyanneicer conway were giving different versions. the story changes and develops by the moment, it seems. last night, we were told michael flynn decided it was his choice and he must resign. it was of his own volition, then kellyanne conway said president trump called and said you have to get out there and explain what happened and said this was a slightly different circumstance in this came down to misleading the vice president and the president by extension and it was a matter of a decision that was unsustainable as it was going. ,l: which doesn't really matter rather than it underscores the chaos and contradictions. spicer wantedsean to make clear it was the president in charge and the president himself who took

charge of the resignation. all timeline is something of us on the reporting site have been trying to piece together but the white house wants to send the message that it is not as chaotic as it looks. al: some of the capitol hill republicans, the lindsey graham's of the world have really seized on this and said we need an investigation into what mike flynn was talking about, did anyone order him to goit, how far back does this ? this highlights the ongoing investigation. legs, asthink this has we sometimes say in our business. there already was an investigation by the senate intelligence committee, a bipartisan investigation of russian hacking during the 2016 campaign and possible russian connections with individuals in the trump campaign manager benefited from the russian hacking attacks. that was underway and i'm told members of the intelligence

committee have asked the heads ,f our intelligence agencies top officials at the justice department for assurances that this investigation both in congress and in the agencies will not be diverted, that they will let it run where the evidence leads. that is important because this is explosive. the range of possibilities here through the campaign, through contact, we are going to be doing with this for months. people have to understand the russia investigation is just with an fbi investigation supplemented by our intelligence agencies and the information that they gather. it is powerful. as we saw, there is real evidence. there are transcripts of

conversations that were lawfully collected and those will power what congress and the fbi does. al: and the stories talk about these reports about a connection with some people associated with trump's and the russian and hacking, unverified but not frivolous stories, suggested there were surveillance tapes of some conversations also, which i think underscores your point that first of all, to call it a big deal is to understate the case. it has implications that are extraordinary and there's an awful lot we had to learn. more wordt to say one about this, i believe based on my reporting and others have reported the same, the fbi is continuing to investigate several associates of trump, most prominently paul manafort cu -- paul manafort, who for as andme was on his campaign the possible legal issues that arise -- that is ongoing.

probably takel many months because this is the kind of investigation you cannot do quickly. we all know how these law enforcement investigations work. you go step-by-step, you hit the lower guy and get the lower guy to tell you about the more senior person and more senior person, and that's what is going to be going on through much of this year. margaret: it may not have been a strategic decision by the president to appear to have gone to war with the intelligence agencies out of the gate. many would say michael flynn have 33 years of public service, some great respect because of it, but he had also made some enemies. this suggestion that you can lie public or deceive other officials and get away with it really hit some people the wrong way to say this is something is verifiable evidence of in terms of a transcript of an intercepted

phone call will stop you cannot stand at the white house podium or put the vice president out and try to prove something that is provably false. democrat,een told by formerly high justice department officials and the democrats who think james comey made a terrible's mistaken october and said they have no doubt he will be straight and rigorous in this investigation and if it leads to anything, something will happen. david: it was reported today that comey initially opposed the decision by the acting attorney general, sally yates, to inform the white house consul about the problem flynn had because he was afraid that would interfere with his ongoing fbi investigation of this broad set of issues will stop al: that is a pretty serious thing if there was hesitation. david: what it tells you is he's worried about this white house interfering with this investigation. don'te the fbi saying

tell the white house, it might interfere with this probe of the activities. michaelhey want to call flynn up to capitol hill, he cannot invoke executive privilege because he was not working for a president. : he was working for the transition team at the time. one of the other questions many on capitol hill want answered is either released the transcript or complete the rest of the sentence stop the white house tried to say this was not a legal issue. they disputed the case that those in the justice department made that there was something to be worried about and instead it just became an issue of trust. but when you're talking about not being able to trust your chief national security adviser on the most sensitive issues, yet allowing him to sit in the room with you leading up to the hour of the announcement.

maybe some of the discussion of the sanctions as they are spinning it to be, which is it was a conversation in passing and we moved on. to have deceived and been caught in a lie is a problem here. al: is there a sense of what the departure of michael flynn might mean for the national security decision-making in this administration? i'm hearing is for those said to be in the running to replace him that there is some real concern that one of the conditions of taking the job would have to include some understanding of what the reshuffling of the national security council that recently happened that when actually look like. does that mean anyone who takes this job would have to go head-to-head with steve bannon do they situation or get more of a voice and more of a guaranteed voice in terms of controlling the flow of

information, access to the president and being the one with the credentials to lead the direction on what gets to the president's desk as a national security issue? that's a challenge whether it is david petraeus whether he gets the job or vice admiral robert harwood's name there is a lot of buzz about right now. david: in terms of what the perceptions are overseas, this will be seen as a restart. not welllynn, it was known overseas, but there has been a lot of buzz, is he the right person for this? his views on russia, his u.s.-russiaor a rapprochement worried a lot of -- european allies will stop european allies. there may be some relief that there's sound or management with david petraeus -- i think he

would like to have another act in public life. i think if it was offered under terms he thought were appropriate, that he would take it. i know he has thought about it hard. i think the question is he's a person who brings a lot of independent stature. there is a white house there are so many competing centers of power. al: is there any strategy or agenda for this administration on foreign policy? i know it's only three and a half weeks old and things evolve, but these are pretty big things. david: they are learning on the job, as it were. parts of the agenda they have moved to carry out, in particular, domestically, i think it is unfortunate they have shredded the transpacific ownership which was the best thing the u.s. had going in asia . other than that, they have that asia policy on a sound footing. i thought the shinzo abe visit

over the weekend despite the embarrassing twitter shoot, national security huddle at mar-a-lago, i thought does a good visit and mattered to the japanese. primaries to be received in such a personal way is a big deal. doing that china relationship basicand back on the framework of the one china policy, those are important things. it wasn't clear trump was going that direction. so in a lot of ways, you'd say on the job he is learning and doing things i would judge as more sensible as he moves into the job. by mr. netanyahu will be here this weekend. do we expect anything? obviously it will be a more comfortable meeting than the meetings with barack obama, but will there be any policy implications? leader hethe world

feels closest to, jared kushner has known the israeli prime ministers since he was a child and has come to trump tower himself. we know jenna fischer is having dinner with rex tillerson tonight. what i have been hearing is they want it to be on iran and the discussion of moving the embassy, while it has not been taken off the table, moving it from tel aviv to jerusalem, it has been put on the back burner until donald trump, as president, not just as candidate , wants to assess the viability of some sort of deal in the middle east. the challenges while you have had all of this high level come a very warm contact with the israelis, there's been a none with the palestinians. if you want negotiations, you have to get both sides talking. david: but there has been a lot arabsitive contact with

countries. king abdullah came to washington and after he met with trump, trump changed his line on settlements. that was interesting. jared kushner is advertising his best friend in town is the ambassador from the uae. the saudi's are telling everyone in sight how much they like donald trump. think there is that. final thought is once you decide , oncent to be president you want to be commander-in-chief, you are no longer disruptor in chief. getting an interest in to the deal, getting to the framework in which you could israel.e something on it's fascinating to watch, such an inexperienced person and temperamentally unsuited. he's learning but i think in dealing with netanyahu, he will have his eye on the prize, which

for any american is a peace agreement. al: let's hope you are right. thank you both for the enlightened conversation. we will be right back with thomas friedman to talk about how the rest of the world views what is going on in washington. ♪

al: for a global perspective on the trump administration and the news of general flynn's resignation, we are joined by

tom friedman, foreign affairs columnist for the "new york times" and the author of the best selling book, "thank you for being late -- and optimists guide to survival in the age of acceleration.' who's going to benefit from it at what can we learn from it? 6 i'd -- thomas: i think we can all benefit from it. all of our political parties in america and europe whole industrial world are actually blowing up. the republican party a sickly lou up here. a garden and donald trump was an invasive species. we see the democratic party going through a similar split. we see it in europe. why is it going on? these parties are designed to answer questions of the new deal, the industrial revolution and civil rights and women's rights and racial rights stop i

think what parties are going to have to respond to our what i call in the book the age of acceleration -- the fact that are alle largest forces in this incredible acceleration. what politics is about is getting the most out of those and cushioning the worst. understanding those and taking advantage, which is a hard thing. thomas: it will require a hybrid blend of policies. the traditional left-right divisions are going to break down. or are there some countries societies that seem to grasp this better than others? canas: the one thing you point to are some are more authoritarian like singapore and the others are more scandinavian. norway thomas wheaton, denmark -- what they have in common is a pragmatic heterodox, hybrid approach, understanding there's

no simple answer. --t's part of the response there's no just cut taxes, just raise taxes. it's much more complicated if we are going to serve and expand a middle-class. let's playoff this latest flap in washington, first .5 days of the trump administration which looks chaotic. give me your sense -- no one travels the world as well as you do. let talk about some foreign capitals and what they might be thinking right now. let's start with beijing. thomas: i think really confused, there's something rather patient and i'm going to say adult about the chinese in this sense -- they've seen this play before. people running the campaign, when i get income i'm going to give it to them and then they get in and understand the real balance of power and they tend to roll back. 1.3 billion people, the world's second-largest

they havend for them, never seen this thing called trump, that phenomena. they are being patient as trump was playing around with taiwan and then he reverted back in terms of american policy, so i think the chinese are washing -- watching and waiting. al: what about the north koreans? thomas: i think they heard trump's saber rattling during the campaign, probably raise the temperature, but they were not afraid to test him with a missile test. al: while the japanese were here. thomas: that was a little hello. we've seen this before. our close allies in europe, berlin, london? thomas: i think they are more

unnerved, for two reasons. americaney depend on security umbrella for their own security and to galvanize the western alliance. but the other is america as an idea has always been very important to these countries. people love to make fun of our country -- those americans are so naive, they think every problem has a solution. cynical, these are more societies and they often in the hour idealism, our can do. if we go dark, they go dark. dark, it affects them in ways you don't always articulate stop i was just in london and people feel it. the middle east, try mr. netanyahu arrives this week, whether it's israel or tehran -- thomas: you have a wide range of reactions.

they knew general flynn left. with a mattis came in tough approach because he had been in iraq when iran was making the ied's that killed many of our marines. they know this group of national security people are on to the arabians and will take a tougher line. for israel, huge confusion because trump came in saying i'm moving the embassy from jerusalem to tel aviv and it didn't happen. i'm with you and then suddenly the settlements are not such a good idea. run with obama, he could count on all republicans defending him, but what happens if a republican administration is talking like obama? al: he does not want to go back

to the j -- to the days of jim baker. it is kind of handy for him to have a villain as far as domestic politics. thomas: he loves having obama because he could go to the cabinet and say to the people in his right eye would have expanded settlements but obama broke my arm. love to be with you. he's not going to have that. this comes out at a very important time. lawel just passed a legalizing wildcat settlements established in the west bank by settlers independently. it.state has now legalized the supreme court may strike it down or may not. we are getting very close to the end of the two state solution. as long as there was a two state solution on the table, the debate within the jewish community was left right.

a two statefrom solution to a one state solution, the debate is no longer left right, it is right or wrong. when that happens, you will see the jewish community in america, every jewish committee center, they are all going to fracture over this. al: that is something that over the long run is really dangerous because they are isolated to a large extent. all-out american sport, they are in a dicey situation. thomas: history is funny. my column is titled "can trump save the jews? only of trump comes out and says you are not going to erase the two state solution, i think this is heavy in a place where it will be a disaster.

trump may not be interested in jewish history now, but jewish history is interested in him. hopedople a while back netanyahu might hold back but he is a politician. he was always thought paddling in the rubicon. let me take you back to asia in the context of your book and what is happening now. the president next the transpacific act. i have a cousin who has lived here for years and he says it .orst thing that has happened everyone thought it was a counterbalance for china and china was probably pleased he did that. they have the asian infrastructure initiative and china is on the march. how are we going to respond and what are the parameters? thomas: it's an example of how nothing in trump's foreign

policy is thought out. to me, there was a series of tweets. trade, oneph on paragraph on this, one paragraph on that, but he never had a second paragraph. writing theis second paragraphs, he doesn't even have a second paragraph. second really had a paragraph and never had a topic sentence, which is one of the reasons she lost. tpp is a perfect example. do you know what the real story is? he fleeced the asians. they had access to our markets, we just did not have access to theirs. why did they live us so much? because they so much wanted to be in alliance with us. that's the real story. they couldn't say we fleeced these guys, but that is what they did.

i think i would have an 11 nation trading block with people who wanted to share my interest and rule of law. i might even call it the transpacific hardship. trump do? you know he never read this thing. he got rid of it. it's that kind of behavior that is so reckless and this is something that took so long to build. al: i remember when my wife and i went to vietnam and went to hanoi for the first time for a five years ago and we spent some time with foreign minister he spent the entire conversation talking about how important the americans were. it was almost a surreal experience if you talk to -- if you grew up during the vietnam war. he said we need you desperately as a counter to the chinese. it it does best -- thomas: goes back to this point where you may not like to much american power, but you will really not like world with two little american power.

if we go weak in the world, your kids in mind won't grow up in just a different america, they'll grow up in a and the mentally different world. trump is sewed death because he's never lived abroad. he's never really looked at america from the outside in a prolonged and deep way. he has no sense of what america in the mind of the world means, how much america as a source of optimism, a source of excellence , what it means for so many people out there. thomas friedman, if everyone wants to know how to get ahead, pick up his books. thank you for being with us. we will be right back. ♪

thomas: good evening. i'm thomas cale filling in for charlie rose. the director and screenwriter for "la la land" joins me. it's nominated for a record-tying 14 academy awards including best picture, best rector, and best original screenplay. >> two options. either follow my rules or follow my rules. ♪

>> you're fired. good luck in the new year. >> i just heard you play and i want -- ♪ it's strange we keep running into each other. >> maybe it means something. you doubt it will stop >> could just write your rules. something as interesting as you are. >> is that going to happen every time? ♪

are you going to be a revolutionary if you are such a traditionalist? you are holding on to the past but jazz is about the future. >> maybe i'm not good enough. >> yes you are. >> this is the dream. conflict and compromise. it's very, very exciting. ♪ have you'm pleased to at the table. i got a chance to see your movie

this fall and i've been thinking about ever sense. so selfishly, the opportunity to talk to you about the things you were thinking about is a delight. one of the things i have been backgroundut is your in making documentaries. one of the things you did so effectively was put captured moments, something that happened in the kitchen and a couple of moments later, we could be flying in a planetarium. with your experience, how did you find a way to documentaries and how to find a way into this? in a weird way, it happened at the same time. i'd always wanted to do movies, but i started doing documentaries in school and as you said, it was a lot of 16mm camera on my shoulder, filming not's there, observational,

direct involvement in what you are shooting. you shoot it and let it play. at the same time, i was watching a lot of old movies and i had been a movie buff and whole life that old hollywood musicals were not -- it wasn't what i turned to first. for some reason, around the same time, i started watching old musicals and re-watching stuff i had seen as a kid but had not connected to as much. these two things side-by-side, verite musicals, that was the eureka moment that led to all the work i've done. idea -- these are two things that should be opposites. how can they speak to each other? how can a musical feel realistic and grounded?

feel likedocumentary it has music in its bones? your relationship with your choreographer which is so essential, how did you meet and will is the process of finding the right person? mandy atid you know all? -- we spent a while trying to find a choreographer for the obvious reasons. it was a tough nut to crack because it had to be old and new at the same time. it had to have its own language. also had to embrace the tradition we wanted this movie to pull from and it had to adapt itself to performers who are not professional dancers because i the i did not want to go season, professional route for people who are ready to sing and

dance at the top of that. idea, not to that the one necessarily, but idea of keeping it like you or me, the royal you or me, breaking into song that comes later. that at its root and after may months of looking around, she, i happen to meet with her and she blew me away. that makess energy every problem seem surmountable and there were a lot of big could be problems and she had worked with actors that don't normally dance and groomed them. she's kind of this rare beast of a choreographer and instructor.

the choreographer had to be informed and the actors -- everything had to be organic. you are big on storyboards and then you get in there and allow the stuff that needs to happen on the day to happen. i'm sure you guys had something mapped out and you get somewhere, whether it is this or the wall that it and work, there's the improvisational feel in the way the camera was choreographed and it seemed very in sync. was that instinctive with the two of you? this movie had a lot of starts and stops, which became our best friend. that instinct was the result of months and years of just talking and flushing these numbers out, not physically but in words or diagrams or storyboards. a lot ofo

embarrassing, dance out moves that i wanted her to make real. that's how we spent a lot of our time, sitting around at a table talking through each number in the movie and visualizing it. she rolled with that and she would start to develop that into shape with her crew of dancers and i would go into rehearsals, but this was long before we had a cast. this was long before we were a go movie. by the time we had a cast that we were rehearsing for real, we spoke the same language in every sense of the term and she worked this davidy had done russell movie together where she was working some of the dance sequences for that and shot it. the two of them spoke the same

language and they sent me to a really incredible steady cam operator. it was easy and efficient to develop a family sense and all the pinging ideas off of each other. they become your friend as they bring them in. when you were making this with the composer, once you brought on the lyricist team, did you write scenes and say i think this is a song? did you leave gaps? what did you do when they came on board? damien: when they came on, we had, i forget how many years, three or four years up to that point of developing this movie, me, justin and my producers. i am not a lyricist.

the script was read like a normal script but every time a song would come, it would go into italics and just described, paraphrasing what the people would sing about and what the emotions would be. then we did some demos where i wrote some dummy lyrics just to have something other than instrumental demos. was tricky was insert themselves into what was like a real structure, it was a puzzle really they had to put the pieces just so in there and make it seem like those pieces had always been there and had just been the foundation that, again, time was our friend. continually falling apart was our best friend because we spent a couple of years going back-and-forth between new york and l.a. hashing out the songs.

multi-day sessions and they would go off on their own path and workshop stuff and send stuff back and it was back and forth for a while. at being so brilliant able to adapt words to justin possibilities. -- a lot of the influences were very french. people are singing a mile a minute -- we don't go that far. swung eights.f it's not the easiest stuff to put words in, so i can't give enough credit to these guys for this acrobatic they had to do, making it seem easy and effortless. music isou had the unlikely that song for the second act.

when did you have to say this is what the script this? damien: right at the beginning of me writing the script. just in the treatment phase where i was hashing out the story, justin was working out melodies. at first, he tried to figure out what the main score theme would be. we knew there would be this recurring theme that ryan gosling's character plays at the beginning and becomes their love theme. i wanted to find that before i go too deep into the script itself. then i agreed on that, was giving him scenes very early on and he would start writing songs, just piano demos. beginning, we had to be working concurrently and the stuff got baked in very early on. it was clear where the turns

would be and where you needed to song to complete the emotion i imagine if i look back at the earliest drafts, the structure of song to dialogue was relatively the same. aknow the thing that became big question as we got further in the process was there is a big stretch in the back half of the movie with no song. i felt strongly about that from the beginning that you needed the movie to stop being a , theal because the music musical is the language of the character's love. fade,he magic starts to you have to find yourself literally tumbling into reality. wishing you could get back up anticipationthat until in the final 20 minutes of the baby, you have two numbers to close out.

played around whether there would be a number or a hint of a think may be out of fear of having so long without one, knowing that's an unusual structure, but it just never felt right. that avenue was never pursued for that long. you use both music and theworld to let us know emotional life in a very full way. i want to look at the clip when sebastian is singing "city of stars." if this was just a film without music, he might just be walking. i would like to look at that clip. ♪ city of stars

are you shining just for me city of stars there's so much i can't see is this the start of something wonderful one more dream that i cannot make true ♪ of compromise,ea i was thinking about it -- was that in your brain as you moved out of music into filmmaking? damien: i think so. personal,oth bordering on autobiographical at times films and if anything, whiplash was my way of trying to

hash out my feelings about my time as a drummer which was mainly for me, high school years. teenager and was a -- it is itsntense own breed. feelings, ith those went into whiplash and then "la la land followed right after and i had an uneasy time adapting. everything about the physicality and just being in that position of the characters in the movie, going to a town with such purpose and you find yourself kind of stagnant and the ideas are so clear in your head. this movie was so clear in my and it getslong

very frustrating because you can't just make your thoughts reality, but you wish you could. makeat idea of trying to dreams a reality. musicals are at their core, at least musical movies about somewhat unhappy characters, that's the irony for such a joyful genre, characters who are frustrated and projecting an idealized vision on the world onto reality will stop they are changing reality by putting their emotions out there for that's why so many of the "a star issicals, rain"or "singing in the are such good portraits of or the kindsromise

of problems you go through as an artist or as a human being. these'm trying to say is are not the sugary fluff they sometimes get incorrectly areled as will stop they profoundly truthful movies about usehuman experience that their genre conventions to talk about emotions in a way that you can't do in another kind of movie. mentors on you have the filmmaking side that help guide you? the thing you feel you are equipped to do are asked to do -- i know you have collaborators but are there other folks who helped you? that's howid but, any door is open, just one person believing in me at this one juncture and another

believing in me add another juncture. know toize how much you people around you. wasn't one helping hand, it was a bunch of various critical moments. it was also the history of movies or artist that i would want to watch and sale want to do that or the kinds of directors i would read about. gives this push, lights this fire that sometimes i would lessy need on those season l.a. years were everything is staying the same and time seems

to go faster because you don't have to go through an east coast winter. it felt like suddenly a year had passed and i was in the same place. , sometimes its me would frustrate me but it would help to just be gorging on film history and watching a lot of stuff. writing and watching were the two things i didn't need money to do. movie,d money to make a at least a certain amount, but you can write anywhere. and these days come you can watch almost anywhere. "la la land" is about this idea of how we make space for ourselves and there are things that are possible. in the filmmaking itself, there is such love. thinking back to what you are saying about compromise, " is weird way, "la la land a movie i could not have made 10

.ears ago i had a slightly different vision of art act then that was more exclusionary. i used to be more like sebastian where this is right and this is wrong and there are battlelines drawn. maturing a little bit, but you your thoughts about these things change or get more complicated. "he thing i wanted "la la land to be was an embrace of that complexity and an embrace of compromise. it somewhat an odd thing to say because at the core of the movie, i intended it to be an anthem for the idea of going

after your dream no matter how unrealistic it seems. something -- but the thing the characters learn even when we leave them at the end of space foris there is different kinds of art, their space for different kinds of people and different kinds of relationship. not every relationship lasts forever and that doesn't mean it is a failure. not every kind of art form has to be in a closed box where just because you try to introduce another element, it corrupts it. sebastian goes through a journey where he has to learn to open his mind and also comes to who he is, that he is content to have his little sandbox and that's how i see him at the end of the movie -- he's

letting the world go by as he plows his little bit of terrain and there's a beauty to that. i think i wanted to say a little bit about how dreams and reality have to coexist and sometimes it's not the worst thing in the world. thomas: thank you for coming and spending time on your tour of saying things. i appreciate it and i'm humbled to get the chance to set this table. damien: same here. we will be kicked out together. ♪

3 3 >> a cautious start for asian trade. lowest quarterly profit in two years as revisions are bad loans almost double. investigatelligence the president russian ties. he says it's all nonsense. break australia's latest job numbers. we will be watching for signals on its best move -- next move. >>