♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: elizabeth warren is here. she is a senior senator from massachusetts, a former harvard law school professor. she is also a long time champion of working-class families and the middle class. in she was rebuked by the senate february for quoting coretta scott king. here is a clip from cbs sunday morning. >> republicans voted to silence warren for impugning the character of alabama senator jeff sessions. sen. mcconnell: she was warned. she was given an explanation. nevertheless, she persisted.

>> warren was reading a 1986 letter from the widow of martin luther king jr. that criticized sessions. once silenced, she kept right on reading outside the senate chamber. >> mr. sessions sought to punish older black civil rights activists. >> do you think there was some sexism? >> there is a problem with having jeff sessions as attorney general of the united states. all i can say, the next day, four men stood up and read the same letter and they all got to finish. charlie: "this fight is our fight, the battle to save america's middle class." i am pleased to have senator elizabeth warren at this table. is this book -- we see these come out within three or four years before a presidential election. president obama did it. secretary of state clinton did

it. is this a kind of campaign, this is what elizabeth warren believes? sen. warren: it is about what elizabeth warren believes, but it is not a campaign. this is my 11th book. books are part of how you fight. how you get in a fight and how you make an argument for what is it we need to change in this country, and how we are going to get together and how we're going to change it. that is what this book is about. charlie: "the battle to save america's middle class." for anyone that follows politics, that seems an essential argument that ought to be made. sen. warren: no kidding. charlie: republican, democrat, libertarian -- sen. warren: vegetarian. that really is the point of the book. the book has two things that weave all of the way through. c story. long ar it starts in 1935 and goes up to 2016 about how we built a

middle-class, and all of the things that took the legs out of underneath the middle class. it is a big economic argument about what has happened since 1935. charlie: i think this is an important conversation. tell me how we built the middle class. sen. warren: coming out of the great depression -- keep this in mind, gdp starts going up. it keeps going up all the way to 2016. there are bumps along the way. gross domestic product, america is getting richer. good news, right? i am going to divide this line into two parts, 1935 to 1980, and 1980 to 2016. what happens during that 1935 to 1980? gdp is going up. america has progressive taxation. it has firm regulation on big

financial institutions and pretty firmer regulations on the biggest corporations to that gives small businesses a chance to start up and make sure that banks are not cheating people. but most of all with progressive taxation, we are investing in opportunity. we are investing in public education, a g.i. bill, roads -- infrastructure, in roads and bridges and a national highway system. we are investing in research, in a giant pipeline of ideas that help us build a robust economy. here's the deal -- it worked. it so worked. it is the part that gives me goosebumps about what happened. 1935 to 1980, 90% of america -- everybody outside the top 10%, 90% of all of america, the upper-middle-class,

middle-class, working-class, the working poor, the poor poor -- that 90% of america got 70% of all of the wage growth created in this country. okay, the rich did better, but the pie got bigger. everyone was doing better. look, it wasn't perfect. african-americans were locked solidly at the bottom. but the idea of opportunity had taken hold. in the 1960's and 1970's, the black-white wealth gap, which has been with us as long as we have measured, it shrinks by 30%. we are not where we need to be, but we are on a good path. then we get hit, in 1980. trickle-down economics, ronald reagan. deregulating turned corporations , loose, less enforcement of antitrust laws, told the banks

to have a good time. and cut taxes for those at the top. once you cut taxes for those at the top, you start dialing back on investments in education, in infrastructure and in basic , research. in other words -- make government work for those at the top. the rich and powerful get richer -- charlie: there is an ideological argument in favor of national security. sen. warren: it certainly was. no, it was about letting those at the top keep more of their money. that is what tax breaks were sold on. and it would somehow trickle down to everyone else. yeah, let them eat more cake and there will be more crumbs for everyone else. that was the argument. 1980 to 2016, gdp is still going up, the country is still getting richer.

the 90%, what proportion did they get of all that income growth? the answer is zero, none. nearly 100% of the income growth from 1980 to 2016 goes to the top 10% income earners. charlie: you mean? sen. warren: i mean all of the new income that we create, all of the new stuff coming in. since 1980, the new growth in this country in income, people earning what they get, how much money they get has gone to the , top 10%. charlie: the top 10% don't make fromof their big money income growth, not from wages or salary. sen. warren: they do both. that is the point. it all moves to the top. the black-white wealth gap tripled during that time period. in other words, what is happened in these two time periods, is

government once worked, made its filter, its central middle of the target, how do we make america work better for the middle class? now they have switched it. from the 1980's forward, it is making it work from the top. charlie: now it is 2016, and all the things you have suggested, the argument you have made, let's assume some are essentially are true. sen. warren: plenty of documentation in the book. charlie: american growth went forward and people felt like there was huge income inequality. that word had lots of play before 1960 and before the campaign coming up. there was an election in 2016. and guess who won? why did donald trump win when the person you were campaigning for didn't win? because he somehow had the capacity to speak a language

that the people left behind responded to. agreed? sen. warren: yes. donald trump heard the anger. and people are right to the angry. angry that their kids can't get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt. angry that their wages haven't gone up for an entire generation. angry that after a lifetime of hard work, that they can't retire with any dignity or economic security. people are right to be angry. the difference was, what donald trump promised and what he has delivered have been night and today, exactly opposite directions. charlie: example? sen. warren: he starts out after after having carried on and on about goldman sachs. you remember that. charlie: and so did you.

sen. warren: he goes in and he hires an entire team of billionaires and bankers. he has got goldman sachs employees at the white house. they could open a branch bank there. charlie: gary cohn worked for goldman sachs, who is to say he is not the most qualified person that has the job that he has? sen. warren: i want to hear from someone that has experience seeing this economy from the other side. we have had enough people in republican and democratic administrations from the point of view of the billionaires. that is a problem we have had for a long time. charlie: suppose you are the president-elect. think about that for a moment. what are the main tenets of your economic agenda, beyond what you want to do in terms of reducing income inequality, beyond making sure that the middle class is not losing its place in the

american economic sphere. sen. warren: let me answer this in a personal way. this is what gets me up in the morning. charlie: you have said in this book that this is your life's work, fighting for the middle class. sen. warren: it is. i grew up in a family that was holding onto its spot in the middle class truly by our fingernails. a lot of ups, a lot of downs. my dad had a heart attack. in, weno money coming lost the family car we nearly , lost the family house. my mother got a job at sears at minimum wage. it saved our house and saved our family. i wanted one thing in my life. i just wanted one door to open, and that is that i wanted to be a teacher. i wanted to be a teacher from second grade on i talk about , this in the book. college is the only way you get to be a teacher.

charlie: education is the key. sen. warren: it is a long, shaggy dog story. but the bottom line is, the only way that could happen for me was a commuter college the cost $50 a semester. it opened one door, and from that one door, here a.m., the daughter of a maintenance man lawended up as a harvard professor and the united states senator. let me do a comparison straight out of the book. there is a young woman he was the same kind of dreams, same kind of ambitions. she wants to work in the computer field, she is sure she can do it. she is an practicing it since she is a little kid. she is ready to go. the difference is, she has her feet tangled up with a for-profit college. i pick her up in this book at 27 years old with no diploma and $100,000 of student loan debt she is trying to manage on a waitress' salary.

here's the part that twists the knife. the u.s. government is making a profit off of her loans. the difference between those two girls who had dreams, young women that set off for college, elizabeth grew up in an america that was opening doors for more and more of our kids. she grew up in an america where those opportunities are shrinking every day. that is fundamentally wrong. ♪

charlie: how is your constituency? those who have supported you and you believe in your ideas how , are those different from the donald trump constituency that essentially elected him? sen. warren: i don't know, charlie. charlie: the same issues? sen. warren: as i see it, these are issues that affect working families all across this country. charlie: you are appealing to a same group of people that have the same economic issues. the same issues about health care and education, about losing their pension. sen. warren: that is right.

jobs, opportunities, retirement you bet. , that is the heart of america. charlie: let me ask you this. everyone in the democratic party for consideration for president said, they would love to run against our unhinged misfit, to be -- that could be the republican nominee. they thought they could easily beat him. why didn't hillary clinton? sen. warren: charlie, come on. charlie: you are a politician. you don't need to be a pundit. you can't be where you are with understanding both the economy and the politics of it. sen. warren: i know what i fight for. charlie: you have said it was like watching a train wreck. in slow motion. sen. warren: it was. charlie: what was it you were seeing? sen. warren: the democrats didn't get out there and talk about what was wrong.

too much they said, happy days, stock market is up, gdp is up, unemployment is down -- all of which are good numbers. but the problem is those numbers , have giant blind spots in them. they hide the lived experience of much of america. charlie: was it necessary to run against the incumbent? president obama? sen. warren: i think it was necessary to touch the lived experience of most of america. charlie: would you be in favor of taking more out of the defense budget? sen. warren: i would be in favor of making a lot of changes. the defense budget right now has not been audited. how can it be that we audit on -- the other side of the ledger, not on the defense budget? that is a lot of money that we spend. charlie: when you look at this , "this fight is our fight,"

and think about your other book, "a fighting chance," these are arguments you have been making. it is not like you went in a log cabin and thought and thought about what was right about america and what was wrong. this has been a central theme of your political life. sen. warren: it has been a central theme of my work for 35 years. this is what i have been working on. and in my personal life. look charlie, this is my life. let me put it this way. i opened the book with this point. i told you this story about how my mom was a stay-at-home mom. my three older brothers were in the military. when my mom got that minimum wage job, that made all the difference in the world to my family. we kept our house. it saved our family. but here is the deal. it was a minimum-wage job at a time when congress had said, we've got to think about minimum wage in terms of what supports a family.

a minimum-wage job would support a family of three. it meant that my mom's minimum-wage job at sears could make a mortgage payment. she had a 40 hour a week job, not 30. if sears and a lot of business, she had 40 hours a week. if sears had no business, she still had 40 hours a week. rolled up forward to today's workers, the minimum wage is set today where a mom working 40 hours a week cannot support herself and a baby. she cannot afford a medium priced two-bedroom apartment in any city in america. charlie: what would you recommend? you have to give choices. sen. warren: i am in the fight for $15, no doubt about it. look at how congress looks at it. they looked at it a generation ago and said, what does it take to support a family?

they set the minimum wage hike gdp kept going up. , today there are so many folks in congress who hear from walmart about what the minimum wage will become a who hear from big corporations about what it should be, who ignore and plaster over data that says to raise the minimum wage. it won't have any impact on jobs. they are not thinking about working families, they are thinking about the top 10%. the profits they go to them. we can't continue to run the government like this. it matters to everybody's life. charlie: you have to get power in order to change the government. how are you going to do that? what is your prescription for the democratic party? sen. warren: that is why i ran for the u.s. senate. charlie: why didn't you run for president? why didn't you run for president? why didn't you run for president? a lot of people wanted you to run for president. you know that. sen. warren: i had just been elected to the senate. charlie: obama had just been elected to the senate. sen. warren: i thought i should

learn my job. and i have, and there are places where i do make a difference. and it matters. i am in this fight. i want to be in this fight. charlie: chuck schumer is giving you a leadership position in the senate, has he not? your voice is heard in the u.s. senate. sen. warren: yeah. charlie: what does the democratic party have to do? one thing that has happened is the women's march. why are you looking at me? sen. warren: i am smiling because this is where i draw the book to an end, talking about the women's march. charlie: what has happened and what is its potential? sen. warren: here is what we will -- here is what will happen when we write the history of this time period -- charlie: from 2016 forward? sen. warren: donald trump's election will be a big deal and occupy a lot of space. but the day after his inauguration will also be a big

deal. that is the day of the women's march. that is the day when women at boston common, in d.c. and north carolina and around the world changed democracy. they said, our voices will be heard. we will make sure that washington hears it now. and it matters. let me tell you how i know it matters. we get into fights. i get it, we are going to lose fights. look at what happened on health care. the republicans said 60 plus 65, times in the house of representatives they voted to repeal obamacare. donald trump said, how many zillion times while running for president, on day one we will repeal obamacare? the senate is ready to go. day one came and went and they did not repeal obamacare. charlie: they said they were going to repeal and replace.

sen. warren: no, they did not say that. i have to stop you there. what they started out with was repeal -- why did they change? because of the voices. because people across this country -- it was more than just democrats. people across this country protested. they went to town halls. charlie: don't take this away until you show me what you're going to do. sen. warren: even donald trump said repeal and replace. and then, when they had to replace, they had to show what they had on the table. they were going to take away health care coverage for 24 million americans, raise the cost for many middle-class families and do all that why? , to produce a tax break on a handful of millionaires and billionaires. americans across the country said no. i get it that at the end of the day, the reason that trumpcare failed is because for some

republicans, it was not brutal enough. but the key is the rest of the , republicans did not follow them over that cliff. charlie: and certain aspects of obamacare they did not want to give up. sen. warren: do not use that tired voice on me these are good , things. people said all across this country, they began to look at what it means to have health care coverage. they said in effect, health care is a basic human right. and we are going to stand up for health care. the number of votes that democrats had in the house and senate did not increase. what changed was democracy. that started with the women's movement. i think it started with the women's charlie: a direct march. connection between the women's march and what happened in the house? sen. warren: yes. that changes where we go next.

that is white it is so important to talk to people. charlie: has the democratic party turned left? explain it to me. where do you think the democratic party is going? it is a different democratic party then under president obama? sen. warren: i think it is a different party because i think the energy of the democratic party is about getting out and fighting for working people. charlie: is this different from the message of bernie sanders? sen. warren: i think bernie is a big part of that. i think he is part of the energy of the democratic party right now. bernie has been out on the front lines. there have been others out on the front lines. i think the key is that we must be there to fight for people. charlie: but also do you believe you must resist in addition to

fighting, or in addition to moving forward ideas, you must resist what donald trump is doing at every step? sen. warren: it depends on what he is doing. i will tell you what exactly i have supported. donald trump said during the campaign he was in favor of , breaking up the biggest financial institutions. i had a bill with john mccain, come cantwell, my view is, on president trump. you said you wanted to do this, i will round up some democrats, you roundup republicans, we will do this. you will restore glass-steagall, donald trump is for that and you are for that. sen. warren: and we were in a meeting a couple weeks ago.

with of the banking committee, a closed-door meeting. i said i want to ask you about glass-steagall. and he said i could get behind that. so let's do it. charlie: he is from goldman sachs. so you can deal with goldman sachs. sen. warren: no, i can deal with the glass-steagall. i mean a real one, not a fake one. meant bythis is what i labeling people just because they are from wall street or goldman sachs or from a nonprofit -- it is who the person is, where is their intelligence and what it is they want to do to change america. sen. warren: of course it is who they are. charlie: it is not necessarily paying them -- painting them with a broad brush, they are from wall street, therefore they have no humanitarian instincts. sen. warren: i will make two

points. it matters where you spend your time, when you have seen and what you have done. let me make a different point about a problem we have with goldman sachs and citibank ceos running our economy. when the next ceo of citibank or goldman sachs makes a call to the secretary of treasury. do you think they take it? do you think they listen carefully? charlie: they do. sen. warren: on every single point that comes up. do you think they take a call from my brother david in an oklahoma? i am guessing no. charlie: i don't think they would take a call from my cousin either. sen. warren: that is part of the point. the question is, what information do you get? what understanding of the world? charlie: they would take a call from ahead of a labor union. yes they would. sen. warren: i think i want to get a couple labor union guys in here to talk about that. charlie: we have seen the president talking to labor union guys. sen. warren: i'm sorry, did you

watch negotiations over the tpp? charlie: i did. sen. warren: did you see how actively involved the unions -- charlie: they can be opposed on which -- one issue and supportive on another. sen. warren: the labor unions were not actively considered in large parts of the negotiations. if we are going to do this on tpp, because this really matters -- charlie: of course it matters. sen. warren: where did the people come from that negotiated the trade deals? the answer is, about 85% of them were either ceos of major corporations or lobbyists for those corporations. they were the ones out. my point it was 85%. people have the point of view. charlie: we got here about talking about who would take who's phone calls. i said that leaders of labor

unions -- sen. warren: you said they had as much swing. so how much swing do they have? charlie: not as much. sen. warren: that is my question. 85%. 15% was left over for the environmentalists, the labor unions. charlie: in the same way that gary cohn was talking to you, united states senator, and became an advisor in the white house, it seems that the issue here is that the people who matter, are not listening to as many voices as they should. sen. warren: that was my charlie: that is my point too. point. but clearly they are not talking. they are shouting past each other. that is happening in american public life, is it not? sen. warren: it is, but -- charlie: and they are labeling each other. sen. warren: the point is that personnel is policy. part of personnel is what experiences you have, parties

who you know, and part is do you , have some demonstrated independence to be able to separate yourself from the people who have paid your checks? charlie: i totally agree that is important. sen. warren: my only point is, we've got to have people who have the keys to our economy. who really are driving the bus on the economy. we have to have people that have a range of experiences and have demonstrated independence. that does not mean they have never been to wall street, and that doesn't mean there aren't wall street guys that can do that. it isn't about labeling. but it is about saying that personnel matters. the experience of the people who get to help run our economy matters a bunch. charlie: i think it is fundamental. sen. warren: i think it is fundamental if it weren't for the fact that donald trump put

together a big team of billionaires and bankers that do not have much demonstrated experience of ever having worked in public interest, or some other way that says they can separate. does that mean i won't try to work with gary cohn? you bet i will. if he will step up on the glass-steagall -- charlie: if he will step up and agree with you -- sen. warren: no no, i'm there. donald trump said he is in favor of glass-steagall. i have written the bill and i am ready to go with them. charlie: i promised it would only take 15 to 25 minutes. it is 30 minutes now. sen. warren: i am having fun. charlie: do we always? sen. warren: yes. charlie: with respect to the democratic party and the election took place, you did not talk about when hillary clinton came to talk to you, did you talk about running on the ticket as vice president? sen. warren: yeah. charlie: were you open to that or not? sen. warren: she did not make the offer.

charlie: you can express interest or not. you could say look, i would like to help in any way that i can. if i could help as a running mate, i am here for you. did you say something like that? sen. warren: what i said is that, here's what i think is important. i said that before the vice presidential thing was on the table, and after it was off the table. here are the issues i hope you will talk about and here are the things i hope you will do if elected. charlie: there are things you said on the podium with her. sen. warren: i say the same things in private as i do in public. the democrats have connected this in some ways to tax reform -- will they be able

to, in some way, get donald trump to release his income tax? sen. warren: well, i don't know. here is what worries me, charlie about donald trump and his , taxes. he has already admitted and said, i don't pay taxes, that makes me smart. he got over what was an insurmountable hump for mitt romney. that is not what is hiding in his taxes. charlie: what is hiding in his taxes? sen. warren: exactly. he has already gotten over getting elected. what bothers me is, what is in his taxes? where has he borrowed money? that will show up on your taxes, who you owe money to. that is the scary thing. that is a question over who has leverage over you. charlie: there were rumors about it being a russian oligarch. sen. warren: where does your money come from?

where are you tied up where are , you exposed? those may be things that could affect his decisions as president of the united states. it is the ultimate conflict of interest. are you putting the interests of the american people first, or are you putting the interest of protecting your own fanny first? what is he hiding? charlie: what is your assessment of that? sen. warren: well, i can't see his taxes. it makes me very uneasy. it is important point to stay after. there needs to be an investigation about donald trump and his ties, his campaign ties, to the russians. charlie: there are two investigations. sen. warren: i mean an investigation with a special prosecutor and an independent commission. think about the facts that we know.

the intelligence community has made clear that the russians hacked into american systems in order to influence the outcome of the election. the fbi has an active and ongoing investigation into the relationship between the trump campaign and the russians, and major figures in the trump campaign had to resign in disgrace because of the connections with the russians. that is enough for investigation. i really want to be on this one nonpartisan, apolitical. whether you are a republican, democrat, libertarian, independent -- whatever you are, you should care about getting to the bottom about whether the russians finagled the electoral system. we need an independent investigation. we need it now and we need to get to the bottom of it. charlie: "the fight is our fight: the battle to save america's middle class."

elizabeth warren, democratic senator from massachusetts. sen. warren: thank you. charlie: back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ charlie: the armenian genocide

1923 occurred from 1915 to

claimed the lives of 1.3 million people. while many recognized the event, the u.s. and turkey have not. director terry george is one of the first feature films to depict the genocide. here is the trailer for "the promise." >> thank you. [shouting] ♪ >> the world is at your feet. >> you're going to become a doctor. >> yes, it is my passion. >> i am with the associated press. >> a toast to old friends and new.

>> bravo. >> [applause] >> she is a fine woman. >> you make me feel like i have come home. >> she was very fond of you, it is obvious. >> it is very dangerous for armenians right now. i want to get you out of here. >> if it is not safe for me, it is not safe for any of my people. >> what is the associated press doing here? >> reporting on the war. >> there is no war here. ♪ >> no one here is safe. >> i have to get us out of here. before there is no time left. >> i was told to organize an escape route. how can i help?

♪ >> dear love. ♪ >> chris? ♪ >> we will build a future together. charlie: joining me now is the film's writer and director, terry george as well as three of its stars, christian bale, oscar isaac, and angela sarafyan. i'm pleased to have them here at his table. this is historical. tell us what happened and why there is so much controversy, and why there has not been a film. terry: the background to the

genocide itself is that when the first world war broke out the , turkish government, the ottoman empire, there was no turkey, they made a decision to eliminate the armenian population. they used the cover of the war between the turks and the russians in the northern border to say that the armenians had risen up, and they had to be moved out of that war zone. what in fact happened was that the bulk of the population around the ottoman empire were herded into the desert and massacred in rivers, fields, cliffs, drowned at sea. this was not the first genocide of the 20th century, but a key moment in these catastrophes in that the word itself genocide came from this event. charlie: why has the united states refused to clearly call it a genocide?

terry: the fact that it hasn't been covered by film. and the reason is merged together in that turkey has enormous strategic influence, both during the cold war and now. the turkish government said about denying the event and suppressing the event in terms of filmmaking and reporting. twice, attempts were made to make a film about the siege. the turkish government leaned on both the state department and studios to have it squashed. it has been one of the great unknown catastrophes of the 20th century. charlie: and still being fought over. terry: before president obama was elected promised to , recognize the genocide, and reneged on that promise. charlie: did he say we would

study it? terry: his last comment was, my opinion of the event hasn't changed, but the g word could not be spoken. an ambassador, who was a friend, was unable to say the g-word either, even though she had written a book that won a pulitzer prize, highlighting the armenian genocide and the american governments response to these events. it is a very emotive topic. now the position that president erdogan has increased this week. i don't see a change in turkey's attitude or president trump's attitude toward it. charlie: this is also a love story too. tell me about that. it involves both your costars. angela: i play a traditional armenian woman.

it is in a small village. i believe that there are two different kinds of love in this love story. in the one here, i believe that she is in love with michael. he marries her for practical reasons, is betrothed for practical reasons. he goes on to become a medical student to pursue his dreams. to bring back of knowledge to the small village where they live. i was lucky enough to play this armenian traditional woman. being armenian myself, both my mother and grandmother are fine examples of what that is. this film, this story was very personal for me. i have heard the story from my ancestors brought down to my grandparents, who told us about how they survived.

it was very special to be part of the film. charlie: who is your character? christian: i play a member of the associated press. he is there to cover the event. he is there more for his love for a different armenian character in the film, who wants to return to her roots. he is more dissolute, very acerbic, arrogant, proud but , irritatingly correct about a number of things. ceasing to beelf an observer and becoming a participant in the event. he sees it up close. he sees these massacres. he sees the immediate impact of it. the brutality of it, that the information is being suppressed it was illegal to take photo , documentation and get it out of the country.

most of it that exists is from a german soldier. he just had a change in spirit. there are two lines, one where he says to my character it must , be so convenient to witness people's pain and report on it and then return to the comfort of your own home. it is a very valid chris' point. response is, yes, but without the press, no one would know anything about the armenian genocide. charlie: does he have deeper involvement? christian: yes, he participates trying to save the armenians. charlie: what do you hope people take away from this film? terry: i hope people recognize not only the atrocity of what happened, but make parallels to what is happening today in the same parts of the world, the

same types of attacks in this country on the press in the idea of refugees, that there is compassion that elicits sympathy. as the years go by, the 1.5 million number becomes abstract. it is easy to see it as a statistic. hopefully the movie helps humanize these events and gets closer to eliciting that empathy, to see this is the same thing going on now. i remember we were shooting scenes of us jumping in the water to save orphans that were fleeing from syria, the desert at the same time reports were , happening about refugees manning in the water, this trying to save his family, they all drowned. it was very impactful to know that the same thing was happening again. also that people can know that

100% of the proceeds of the film will go to charity. to humanitarian charities i , think that is unprecedented. terry: i have not heard of that. [laughter] christian: it goes to amnesty international, human rights watch -- all charities holding people accountable for human rights abuses and refugee crises. charlie: was john in any way involved in this? terry: no, he wasn't. with consultants and supporters, he is active in helping us keep the promise drive. charlie: this is a story that families passed on from generation to generation. angela: yes, just like my family did. it is interesting, if you see the film, the orphans in the movie are really my great great grandparents that survived. the funny through-line that brings everything full circle,

my great great grandparents left old armenia because they were old villages that left with old monuments where now kurds live in. these are the things that have existed before christ, and now they are the walls of homes of other people. they left old armenia and went to syria, aleppo for refuge. today people from syria leave and go to other countries for that same thing. they can go to spain or other places. it seems so pertinent for that reason, that 100 years later the same thing is happening. charlie: how much did you know? christian: almost nothing. it is embarrassing to say, but i knew almost nothing. it is stunning almost no one knows anything. that is just horrendous. 1.5 million people died. and i did not know anything

about that. you think of the lack of consequences provoked the other genocides we have had to witness in the centuries since. charlie: what is the definition of a genocide? terry: it is an attempt by a group, a government or group to exterminate either a nation, tribe, religious sect, or organization. a systematic attempt. charlie: how many have there been in the last -- namibiahere was one in committed by the germans in the first genocide of the 20th century. there were the armenians, then the holocaust. the slaughter of ukrainians, that was during stalin's war. cambodia, rwanda, and currently guatemala. they are pushing the situation

of the yazidis in northern iraq to be recognized as a genocide. charlie: are they christians? terry: the yazidi is a separate sect, but the christians were also persecuted. but that incident of the yazidi being trapped and the systematic slaughter by isis, they want that recognized. the purpose is beyond recognition. it is to identify the perpetrators and have them pursued and prosecuted for genocide. the word was established by a lawyer to describe what happened to the armenians, and subsequently what happened in the holocaust. the whole denial, the very word being denied by the turks is very ironic. christian: that denial, don't you think that is serious as well?

it is like a debate about climate change. people do a smokescreen to pretend there is no debate. there is climate change. charlie: lots of people make that argument now. al gore among others. this is your kind of story. terry: my kind of story is when ordinary people with weaknesses are confronted by monumental events and catastrophe and find the inner strength to carry on and triumph over evil. that is what i always look for. whether it is "hotel rwanda," or here with michael, i like the idea of ordinary people confronting these events in finding their inner strength. for me that is the greatest form , of storytelling to get a message out. charlie: did you choose this role because of the story, because of the script, the other

actors? oscar: there were a lot of reasons. it is that scene that he mentioned, finding a village, everyone slaughtered on the side of a river -- i could not read that without getting emotional. every time i try to consider other things, that scene was undeniable. above everything else it was that scene in the main me say i want to understand this or at least shed some light on it. charlie: thank you for coming. it is great to see. much success. the film is called "the promise" opening in theaters friday, april 21. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ alisa: i'm alisa parenti, and

you are watching "bloomberg technology." in france paris police say at , least one officer is dead and another wounded after an attack in the champs-elysees shopping district. the alleged attacker was also killed. he targeted police at a subway station. the assault comes three days before the first round of france's presidential election. calling the u.s. and italy vital allies president trump welcomed , the italian prime minister to the white house today. they also held a joint news conference at the white house. the president also says he wants congress to pass legislation scaling back obamacare and a spending bill to keep the u.s. government running next week. president trump an