♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with the fbi director james comey's testimony today before the senate judiciary committee. comey defended his decision to inform congress he was clintonng the hillary controversy before last november's election. concealed information, he said, would be the death of the fbi. he stood by his actions, comey said it made him mildly nauseous to think we would have had some impact on the election. he also answered questions about russia, wikileaks, and president trump's claim that the obama administration had wiretapped trump tower.

my guest is a national security and federal law correspondent for "the new york times." let me begin with you, mike. tell me that headline out of the fbi director's testimony today. >> what comey said was if he could do it again, he would do it the same way he had, that he thinks he had no choice but to tell congress and if he didn't do that, he would've been concealing something from them. and that would have been disastrous for him and the fbi's reputation. what his critics would say is that it was not a question of concealment or disclosure. why didn't you just take time to look at the emails, figure out what they were, and then inform congress? you saw a lid -- a bit of a different jim comey today. comey is usually a cool cat, on

an even keel. today he was much more animated, his voice was louder, he used his hands, used more expression, and he seemed frustrated. he said at one point he's almost nauseous to think he had some impact in the election. charlie: was he defensive? >> he was the most offensive we have ever seen him. jim comey came to the forefront of washington almost 13 years ago when he testified about an incident where he stood up to the bush administration to not authorize a wiretapping program and in that he told a very interesting story about how there was a hospital room scene with john ashcroft and the white house chief of staff and he said, we are not going to authorize this. he became a hero that would stand up and blow the whistle. someone once told me, whenever you are explaining, you're losing. and he was doing a lot of explaining today. charlie: what would you add to this idea that he thought to have concealed would have been

catastrophic for the fbi? >> not everybody on the panel bought it. he phrased it basically as he two choices and concealing would have been the worst option. concealing something would've been the less bad option. many democrats on the panel thought there was a door number three. which was, as mike said, take some time and look at those emails and don't talk about this if there's nothing there so shortly before an election. and even comey was acknowledging that he knew by speaking up he would have some likely effect in the election. he was trying to parcel that often his brain and not pay attention to it. by doing that, he had a pretty significant effect, at least on the political discourse surrounding the election. so, you don't necessarily have democrats on that panel saying they didn't believe comey, they were saying they certainly believe that he believes he did the right thing. but that doesn't really matter given this did not happen in a

vacuum. he may try to make decisions in a vacuum based on perceived her, -- the siege or, based on roles that he conducts himself by in his own head. this rocked emotions surrounding the election. although we will never really know, because you cannot trace it happened -- what he said to individual votes that happened in november. charlie: she thought she had the momentum going in and this upset her momentum in the final weeks of the campaign. the interesting thing to me is the idea that anthony weiner was receiving classified information or emails that contained classified information. how was that true how did that , work? >> we got more information about that today. apparently whom aberdeen -- huma abadeen was forwarding these emails to her husband anthony , weiner, who was printing them out. comey was saying even though that's wrong, it did not seem like their probe of that

activity that they realized what they were doing was actually wrong and potentially criminal, so they decided since -- the fbi decided since they didn't seem to have a cognizance that that was not a thing they were not supposed to be doing, they would not prosecute them for that. that brought blowback from the republicans on the panel. does it matter if they were dealing with classified information without the clearance? why was he getting his hands on this at all? we are not buying that proximity to a printer is a valid excuse. it is adding color to the story and there is a connection between anthony weiner and clinton. it seems logical it was through his wife, the reasons comey gave were to facilitate the emails turning up on paper that could be given to clinton. it made people throw up their hands.

forhis a valid excuse dealing with classified information that should be regulated and only visible to people who have the clearance to to be doing it? saidie: dianne feinstein secretary clinton was treated differently than donald trump. mike, did that have a residence -- resonance there? mike: the issue on trump is in july after the fbi closes the email investigation, comey opens another investigation into the trump associates and of their links to the russians. the questions the democrats, why did comey not disclose that investigation before the election? he did disclose it in march. to theid voters went booth thinking hillary clinton was under investigation, when donald trump's folks were actually under investigation. say is that would at that point did they did not know a lot and it was unclear where it was going.

they try and avoid any action whatsoever around an election. nevertheless, it really raises the question of the double standard here, and why is that? even late today, senator richard blumenthal of connecticut was saying, why is it that comey can continue to oversee the trump investigation? if he doesn't find charges, are we going to believe him, because of the decisions he made on the clinton case? there seems to be political blowback by the end of today on comey, and questions going forward. i don't think there will be a special prosecutor. i find it hard to believe that comey would be taken away from the trump investigation. it showed that by the end of the day comey did not assuage the concerns of democrats. comey may never do that. democrats may hold comey accountable for this for the rest of his life and say he's the reason that hillary clinton did not get elected. charlie: clearly she believes he was part of the reason she did not get elected. mike: she said that yesterday when she said if the election had been held on october 27, the

day before mr. comey sent a letter, that she would have been elected. she did say she had some responsibility for losing, but that and the russian wikileaks really played a factor in that. charlie: what did we discover about leaks that people believe may have come from the fbi? karoun: there was some discussion about that. he was asked specifically about statements that giuliani made during the campaign that he had some advance notice from former members of the fbi. --least that there would be about the clinton investigation. he was grilled by patrick leahy. they were looking into it and if they found any links that were made from the sba -- fbi, either journalists or individuals like giuliani, there would be consequences for that. he didn't specify specifically -- he did not substantiate any of those allegations to a specific person we've heard about, but he did pretty much

corroborate that they are looking into those weeks that -- leaks that were bragged about to an extent by trump's surrogates, like giuliani. charlie: how long can he stay? is it a 10 year term? karoun: yes, i believe he has fivein for a little over of those, if i am not mistaken. right now there's not really people calling for his head, so it would be an extraordinary move to actually remove him. like mike said, the jury is still out on what the ultimate verdict on the comey will be at least among democrats. we haven't seen yet what the trump investigation will yield because lately they have been rather pleased with the moves that comey is making to say on the record that he's investigating trump. although they would have preferred if he had spoken up eight months before he did. charlie: certainly the second time, high-level justice department officials were telling him not to do it. do not speak out, knowing what he had and what he intended to do.

his rationale again was that he thought it would be catastrophic for the fbi if he didn't do it. correct? karoun: right. the question is really, the reality in which everyone is operating. comey's assessment was that in terms of maintaining his own integrity, in terms of maintaining the integrity of his agency, he could not take the particulars of what was happening in that electoral space into consideration. he boiled it down to what he considers his rules, which is that you talk about an investigation that is closed. he told congress the clinton investigation was closed. he then got information that there was something in the information that would him -- implement clinton. he felt he had to talk about the investigation he had said was closed. the trump investigation was

ongoing and he does not talk about ongoing investigations so , it is very cut and dry in his head. charlie: what can we expect from russia in future elections and what can we expect from russia with regards to other countries where there are elections coming up? mike: what comey said is that russia -- he wouldn't disclose anything about the russian investigation but what he did say was that russia was still trying to influence american politics. he didn't explain what he meant by that, and it was curious. does that mean russia is trying to influence the trump administration in some way, the media, is there a hacking campaign still going on? we know the hacking campaign that the dnc was caught up in had been going for two years. comey did say russia was one of the biggest threats to the united states because they had the willingness and the capability to try and come back. and what do you say in response to graham was if the united states didn't do anything, that

the russians would be back by the next election. this raises the question, the fbi is doing a criminal investigation here, trying to get to the bottom of whether any to graham was if the united states didn't do anything, that the russians would be back by the next election. laws were broken. there is not a larger look going on inside the government about how to prevent something like this in the future, how to deal with this information and hacking campaign. the senate and intel committees are investigating. both of those are seen as partisan. what some folks on capitol hill would say is that it needs an independent commission, like there was after 9/11, to look into these allegations and what russians were doing before the election to come up with best practices, going forward. that's not really something the fbi does. the fbi just tells you whether you broke the law or not. charlie: with that, i have to close with that. we'll be right back. ♪

charlie: hillary clinton's loss to donald trump stunned the nation. in the more than five months since, there is much speculation about the factors responsible for her defeat. in the new book, "shattered," asserts that clinton herself was the core problem. the author joins me now. amy is the senior white house correspondent for "the hill." i'm pleased to have them both at the table. welcome. first of all, tell me when the idea of doing this came about, and how the two of you got together to do it.

>> we wrote our previous book, hrc, secretary clinton's time at the state department, and we asked questions. we wanted to know if she had learned her lessons. aidsw her talk to a lot of post campaign to find out what happens. we wanted to answer those questions in this book. there are very different books. one is focused on policy and what she was doing and governance. and this one is a political book. charlie: you have a history of writing together, so this was already done. there is so much to cover about it. did you assume, as you were writing this book and doing all those inside interviews during the campaign, that she was going to be president? >> i think we both believed on election night that she was going to win, much as she did in most -- much as the country did. one of the keys for us is in the reporting and writing of this, we had been reporting it back

since the end of 2014 even before she got in. the key for us was that we try to report it and write it as though we didn't have any prediction of what was going to go on. as a result of that we did not have to go back and care anything us or reworked chapters that were built for her to win. we had done the reporting and stay true to that. in october before the election our editor called us and said, i do not understand what is going on here come you guys have this book the details these problems and all of the clashes on substance and style within her campaign, the inability to come up with a message that resonated with the voters. and she is about to win. they said, this is a problem for your book. we said, this is the reporting we have done, this is what we got. she struggles to

understand or articulate her motivation for running. amie: right, that is chapter one. right from the start, from her roosevelt island speech in new york, she brought in advisers to help craft the speech. and there wasn't a core message. a lot of people were struggling. she brought in john five row, president obama's chief speechwriter. end he was exasperated. at the end he threw up his hands, he was used to working strictly with the president and maybe one advisor. charlie: go in and talk to the president, the president would say this is what i want to talk about. he would go back into the first draft and the two of them would edit it after that. amie: there were too many cooks in the kitchen and he was frustrated by that. he wasn't the only one. a lot of people were frustrated. they were not sure why she was running, and i was problematic at the time. charlie: they say you have to have a big idea, like it's the economy, stupid. jonathan: absolutely, it is one of the lessons in this book.

anyone who is interested in politics the people who are , practitioners of politics, this book has a ton of lessons. clinton was for a lot of different things. but it was difficult for a lot of voters to figure out what with her priorities she would take into the presidency? what would you do with that awesome power? donald trump, despite saying things that were untrue, it was clear what he wanted to do with that power. a nationalist move and things fit into that basket. charlie: and create jobs. jonathan: and bernie sanders on the other side, he similarly wanted to redistribute the wealth and power in this country and everything he did fit into that basket. for clinton, she built from the ground up with all these different policy ideas. it was hard to fit them under an umbrella of an easy to understand vision for voters. charlie: there was also this conflict between data and the argument that someone made yesterday is important, that you've got to have something else. amie: you have to have the feel

which president clinton had on , the ground. there was something amiss, he thought. he was sounding the alarm to brooklyn. charlie: that is where the headquarters were. amie: exactly. he is saying, there are problems on the ground. i'm getting a different feel than what you are reporting back to me. at the same time -- charlie: saying that to the chairman? amie: right, he is basically telegraphing this to podesta and other people. there were other problems on the ground, when you talk to state directors, they were saying, they are sending us into battle without armor. we are not prepared. there was a lack of lawn signs on the ground. there was something missing. charlie: so bill, she had to choose between her husband, one of the most successful politicians of his time, and a campaign run by people she hardly knew before, and she chose them rather than her husband. jonathan: she did.

we think this because we talk to people, this largely results from her experience in 2008 when she ran against barack obama. he ran circles around her on some things, technology. and the modern campaigning. people told her she was running an old-style political machine. bill clinton had gone out there and said things he got in trouble for. he took a lot of the blame for the loss. she was looking at 2016, thinking how do i do more like obama did, and the data guys were part of that. they got a ton of credit for helping obama win. maybe too much. barack obama being a different product than hillary clinton. charlie: you document so many conversations. if in fact she had won, i'm starting to be writing a book about what a genius, the people she had behind her. i'm not sure.

somebody would be writing that book. this is why we wouldn't have written that book. before the election as we are we had this discussion talking to our editor about the fact that we had identified a lot o'. somebody would be writing that book. this is why we wouldn't have problems, even though it looked like she was going to win. there were serious fundamental management problems that we would have looked at as going forward into. what are the struggles in this administration going to be? how will the things she has trouble with on the campaign trail extrapolate to what the administration would look like? will she be able to go out to the people and get them behind her policies? we are watching donald trump struggle with that right now. he's not able to move the legislature because he's not moving the people beyond the base he has. if you look at some of the infighting, some of the backstabbing that went on, and the lack of a central clear leadership, these are problems that would have followed her into the white house. charlie: what was the difference in 2016 and 2008? amie: a big problem was the

leaks in the press. this time -- i think they kind of overlearned their lesson and tried to gloss over everything, and tried to make the campaign seem as if it were more joyful, a better run campaign. i mean, in some ways it was and i think we talk about that in the book. but i think there were flaws along the way. and there promotions ions.ns -- demot we talk about this in the book, there was a creation of a super six, never was reported during the campaign. it was jake sullivan and others. charlie: that was a kind of strategic board that ran the campaign. amie: exactly. jake sullivan was her chief strategist, her policy guide. the kind of became elevated.

he kept to his analytics and strengths and that turned out to be a weakness in the end. jonathan: when they decided they were having trouble internally because they ran things very differently, and people couldn't get -- people below them couldn't figure out who they were supposed to respond to. the answer wasn't to streamline and put one person in charge, it was to put six in charge. even then, some people said it operated better after that. it is an unusual structure to be sure in a campaign. charlie: did she ask for the emails of her staff to try to determine who was what? jonathan: some of the revelations in this book is after 2008, she was doing an autopsy on the campaign and wanted to find out what had gone wrong. she believed some of the leaking and backstabbing which are probably symptomatic of other problems rather than the cause of the defeat of the candidacy, i think she believed those things had really cost her and so she asked one of her aides to download the messages of her senior staff so she could look

through them and see what had gone on at campaign headquarters. charlie: communication between them so she could figure out if , she could, what went wrong. jonathan: right, that is what our court -- sources told us. amie: she had a pretty good roadmap. that's what was so fascinating about it, she had done her homework and she figured everything out. and people actually talked about that. she had it all laid out and figured out, and she knew what went wrong. after speaking to a lot of people as well. charlie: why was she -- i think she asked herself this question, others who liked her very much ask this question. very popular as secretary of state, correct? but not popular as a candidate. jonathan: it is something with her -- i think she has shown herself to be competent at governance first of all, but second of all when she's in government, she is a less political figure naturally. particularly as secretary of state, the nation's top diplomat. she was warned in 2011 by a good friend of hers, who is an

undersecretary of state and former congresswoman, when hillary clinton's numbers rose to about 2/3 approval with the public, she was really happy about that. she said to her, the second you get back into the political realm, your numbers are going to go from 64 to 34. it was something that i think was understood by people around her, that she was a polarizing figure. we watched her in public office, as first lady, the candidate's wife in all these different venues. she has been polarizing over that time. it's not a value judgment, it is an analysis of why her numbers go down when she is on the political campaign trail. charlie: how has she taken defeat? amie: in the beginning she didn't take it very well, and that's when we saw her taking a lot of walks in the woods. she was talking to friends, trying to figure out what went wrong. charlie: the woods behind her house? amie: exactly.

she was taking a lot of walks, with her husband as well. i think she was trying to come to terms with it. she never expected to have that happen that night and she never thought she would be saying, congratulations, donald. as we reported in the book. she thought it would be a much different outcome. it took for a few months to wrap her mind -- charlie: she called the president to say sorry. amie: the president called her. it's a very dramatic moment we reported in the book where her aide comes in holding a cell phone and she says, it's the president. she gets up out of her chair and she winces. she doesn't want to take the call. you can tell what a weighty moment that was for her. charlie: she steps into a private room. amie: she steps into a private room. she was in a hotel suite at the peninsula hotel. she steps into her private room and her aides can hear her saying, i'm sorry, mr. president. and then they carried on a conversation.

it was a tough moment for all of them in that room. charlie: does she believe now that she got all the support she needed from him? jonathan: one thing that she was unhappy about was after the election, more and more came out about these questions of potential russian collusion with people on the trump campaign, and she was upset that president obama didn't do more to make that public. there were things -- charlie: would you say it was an outrage? -- outrage that a foreign government would affect an american election? jonathan: right. she made that case herself during one of the debates, calling trump a russian puppet and talking about the 17 u.s. intelligence agencies that had found the russians were trying to interfere with the election. she believed there was more information the president and administration had that should have been out there for the public before the election. charlie: is she upset about james comey?

jonathan: absolutely. charlie: does she think he caused it or was a significant contributor? jonathan: i think significant contributor at the very least. she expressed this to one friend. she basically said she felt like she lost cousin of the kgb, fbi, and kkk. the last being a reference to the people who are supporters of trump who she referred to as deplorables, that now infamous moment in september 2016. charlie: she could never really apologize in a way that got through. amie: no, and that haunted her from even before she announced she was running, she had this press conference at the u.n. she had to talk about it even back then and fast forward to the summer, she's frustrated because her message isn't getting through, and she's basically making that known. she's asking her aides, and in one moment her husband is just as frustrated and he's making that known, why isn't our message getting through?

they kind of want them to get out in front of it, and they are reluctant to do so initially. both of them, because they feel they've done nothing wrong. they thought it was totally above level. they didn't think it would be as big a story. they were telling their surrogates as much at the time, this will blow over. it is not going to be that big a deal. charlie: you suggested, if she had apologized in a way that served, made it clear she was sorry, that would have gone a long way to sort of eliminate or reduce the impact of the trust issue. jonathan: i think the trust issue really took hold of her campaign for months and months. you think about it, it's not just that it took her a long time to apologize. it's every day, there was no apology, and people think she did something wrong. some people think she did something illegal. james comey decided she did not

do anything criminally prosecutable. but he did have to investigate once it was clear classified information was outside the classified system. most people thought she at least it's something politically foolhardy in setting up the system. and there was nothing forthcoming for months and months and months. charlie: do you guys believe that if comey had never said anything, that she would have won? jonathan: i think it is hard to replay that. it was such a close election. 70,000, 80,000 folks in three states. you could point to any factor. charlie: there was momentum. he then said at the end of the campaign because he said , something early in the campaign. jonathan: correct. it's difficult to account for what james comey did. charlie: they tried to explain it in a new york times piece. jonathan: a very good "the new york times" piece, i think it's good for a pulitzer. she left her fate in the hands of the justice department and fbi. that is not the kind of behavior you would expect from a public

servant, to sort of leave those things to fate. charlie: much has been made of not going into michigan. why didn't they go into michigan? amie: it is a big mystery. you have people like congresswomen saying, come in. for whatever reason, they didn't take it seriously. there's this great moment of frustration where she's getting ready for a debate and it's the night after the michigan primary. it is one of the big blowups of the campaign where she is letting her aides have it. she is saying, why isn't our message getting through? it is a moment of frustration i , think. and it came back to haunt her. they never quite fixed that problem in the general election. that was one of the states that ultimately led to her defeat. charlie: bill clinton thought the campaign, and especially some of the campaign management, did a terrible job.

jonathan: i think he believed they were misguided. charlie: misguided would be a better way to put it. jonathan: i don't want to put words in president clinton's mouth. i think he believed they were so focused on data and science to the exclusion of what bill clinton was so good at, which is the art of persuasion, and he couldn't understand why they wouldn't let him go out and talk to people who were not already on board with hillary clinton. they wanted him to talk to people who agreed with her and wanted to turn them out. charlie: what's the relationship between former president obama and former president clinton? jonathan: it has gotten better over the years. it they detested each other in bill clinton stepped up and gave 2008. the best speech at that convention for barack obama to validate her on the economy, tore apart the mitt romney-paul ryan view of the economy. it brought them together. i do not think they will ever be close pals. barack obama has done enough for bill clinton and his family now, and bill clinton has done enough for barack obama and his family

that i think they get along even , though they have vastly different personal and political stuff. charlie: what happened to hillary clinton? it was a combination of message, mismanagement. there were so many factors here. we don't want to downgrade russia and comey, because those were obviously factors. as john and i were reporting this book, we started noticing these flaws in the campaign. i think all of them kind of contributed to it. she became the inevitable candidate again and that was a problem for her. there was a great sense of frustration among bernie sanders reporters. some of them voted for her and kind of held their breath and voted for her, and even now they don't quite understand why they did it. they did it because she wasn't trump, but she didn't have that energy behind her. i think all of these factors kind of played into that. charlie: did she get the young vote? amie: not all of it. charlie: not as much as bernie

sanders got in the primary. amie: exactly. when you compare it to president obama and what he was able to do in 2008. charlie: what's happening to her now? what is her future? amie: from what i understand, she is not going to be a part of her family foundation. she is stepping away from it. she wants to do something different. she's still trying to figure that out, from what i'm hearing. charlie: could she become a university president? amie: she could do anything. she will always be the smartest woman in the room, i think. charlie: what access did you have to her? jonathan: we do not talk about our sources, charlie. sorry. charlie: she's the candidate. did you publicly interview her? jonathan: we did not publicly interview her. charlie: if you had an interview with her that you could publish -- jonathan: correct. charlie: the book is getting a lot of attention, it is called

"shattered: inside hillary clinton's doomed campaign." thank you so much. back in a moment. ♪

charlie: on october 29, the stavros niarchos foundation announced its intention to build a new cultural center in athens, greece. it would include a national library and opera house and 40 acre landscape park.

renzo piano built a workshop and was selected for the project in after five years of construction 2008. and a cost of more than $842 million, the center opened last june. it was officially handed over to the greek state earlier this year. the historian's new book "chaos and culture," tells the story. -- story of the center's design and construction. i am pleased to have both of them back on this program. welcome. we will come to you any minute. but what three drew you to this and what story do you want to tell? to this: what your me was my last book before this, about concert halls and opera houses. doing research for that and writing the book i realized how incredibly complex it is to build a cultural venue. the acoustics in auditoriums, i think the whole problem of building for music, and

especially classical music, is much more complex than museums. charlie: because of sound. victoria: yes. it occurred to me that when institutions make the decision to build, they often do it without knowing what they are getting into. i wrote this book primarily to raise awareness of what is involved when you take on this kind of project. charlie: you came to the project in 2008. how did that happen? it was a conversation. we found immediately very close, my affinity. then it was a competition. it was a selection. i knew the place. i'm a sailor. that's my job.

i had been sailing from there. i knew the place. i sketched quite immediately the idea. that part of athens is called the beautiful view. but there was a motorway crossing. the idea to go up, just 30 meter up. then we discover the sea. charlie: we will show a lot of photographs and slides. there it is, you can see it where my hand is, looking out. it has magnificent views. how far is it from the acropolis? renzo: it is quite far, five kilometers, three miles. athens is a very low city. 100 feet up in the air, you see everything. charlie: was that the idea? renzo: the idea was to make a big park, and to make a big park if you have to build, and a library, you take the entire piece of land.

the idea was to lift up the land and put the opera house and the library underneath that. by doing this, you go up. without really understanding, you are going up. it is very slow. you go up. and then when you find yourself up there, you realize you have been going up. you discover the city on one side, and you see the sea on the other side. charlie: victoria, you said the process of constructing the center was to be a model for government to emulate a microcosm of the country if and when the country changes. victoria: yes, that's correct. andreas is an idealist as renzo is himself.

dracopoulos was convinced if he could build this cultural center with great transparency, informing the public every step of the way, honestly, with no graft no corruption, and on and , on and on, with all good intentions, to be able to do something like that in a country like greece where corruption is so rampant, and where it is so terribly difficult because of the heavy bureaucracy there, to accomplish anything in a practical manner, he was convinced if he could pull this off, it would be in fact a model for the country. i think renzo had his complete confidence, and believed also this could happen. charlie: renzo, you talked about the redemptive power of beauty. renzo: beauty is a beautiful idea, it's a great idea that people believe is romantic. but it's not romantic. beauty is very profound. this word has been stolen by the gurus of publicity. when you think of beauty, you

think about aesthetics, cosmetics. but it is not true. beauty is one of the most important emotions in life. the only one that can compete with much worse emotion, like power, money. you know, beauty, especially talking about greece, beauty is never just beautiful. it is always beautiful and good together. charlie: people need beauty and hope. renzo: of course. when you apply beauty to a place, it is this kind of beauty. it's more -- it's about knowledge, understanding about the beauty. it is about staying together. and you start to believe one thing. it's one of those things that can save the world. charlie: you believe that? renzo: i believe that. it is one person at a time that will do that.

it's a kind of idea, that one. it must be considered with more attention. charlie: the foundation said he would pay for the building and all that. at some point, the government would take over the responsibility of maintaining it. between the time of that contract and whatever the arrangement was, was written, and the time the building was finished, you went through about greek governments. seven victoria: seven governments. the government approach to the stavros niarchos foundation because they desperately needed a new library building and felt athens should have a proper opera house. the opera was performing in an old movie theater. charlie: the greek government said technically we will take over later -- over, and later the government -- victoria: it has been given over to the government, it happened in of this year. february the deal, the contract stipulated that when that happened, the government would

have to pick up the tab for maintaining the cultural center and for running it. but obviously that is not possible. the government has no money whatsoever, they are deeply in debt and constantly borrowing more. to foundation stepped in help them out the next five years. there is something ironic about the situation. so many cultural venues in the united states, for example, and europe also, have enormous trouble raising the money to build a building. when it is built they manage in europe to maintain it. that this building was built with absolutely no problem in funding because this wealthy foundation was behind it. now that it is finished it is in more or less the same situation as so many other cultural venues that do not have the money to maintain it. charlie: it wouldn't happen

without andreas dracopoulos. victoria: no. he was the mover and shaker. charlie: his vision was that greece needed this. victoria: the government informed him they needed it. they wanted to do something revolutionary. the national library, which had been only for scholars, they wanted to make it into a public library, which is something almost unknown. there is no tradition of public library use. so i really felt that in many ways, not only is a model to be followed in terms of honesty and transparency, but also to open the greek public to the use of a public library. and this library is incredible, what renzo has designed. charlie: this is slide number image number one. one, anything you can tell me about that? renzo: this is very simple, it

is almost a childish and drawing. it is showing that when you go 4%,n that slope, it is only you do not even notice. up, this is where the library and reading room is. then you turn back and you see it. when you look down, you see the sea that has been lost a long time. charlie: number two, public protests during the construction of the center. explain this to me. victoria: there were constant protest during the production of the center because the government had agreed to the most draconian austerity

measures in order to be eligible for the enormous loans. loansad three enormous from a group of bankers in europe. one thing that should be considered in addition to the beauty of the cultural center is the extraordinary opportunity to work there. over 2000 people worked on this project. now that it is completed there will be many thousands working there to run it. ais has been looked upon as godsend to athens. the next thing is in aerial view of this. take a look. victoria: the great thing about the picture is that you can see both the sea on one side, the harbor, and the acropolis in the background. and those are the views you have when you're at the cultural center. renzo: i want to make a note on that. you see that kind of flying carpet up there?

those are 10,000 square meters of solar panel. and, they make 2.5 megawatts of energy. athens is actually more sunny than the rest of europe. this building -- we need this special moment when the opera goes on that is very close to me. and this building was made platinum in the system. the system is measuring the sustainability of a building. being platinum for a public building is quite unusual. charlie: this is a view of the building from the 40 acre park created by landscape designer nevins. look at it. victoria: you see the canopy again from this year. one of the fascinating things

about that canopy is how advanced it is, and experimental and adventurous. it was made by men on their hands and knees, knitting together the wire mesh that holds it together, which i think is just a fascinating paradox. renzo: the date -- the day you came you were surprised. 200 people there doing that job. the other thing you see is that. if you know greece, the first thing you know is that you need the shadow in the summer. and, this the reason why we put that there. charlie: because you need shade in the summer. renzo: shade in the summer, and we need the opportunity to catch the energy from the sun. charlie: for all those solar panels. the next thing is a close-up of the view from the park. another view. you see it from below, from underneath.

>> you see from below, from underneath. yes, i love the idea of exploring. this will be there forever. it is not like metal that can rust. it is something that will be there forever. the finish underneath is brilliant. so when people move around, they reflect themselves there. it's kind of funny. you see that antenna is showing where the fresh breeze comes from, it is made of carbon fibers. and it is flexible. when the wind blows from one direction to another, it shows were the breeze comes from. victoria: when you are up on the

breeze is sublime. charlie: the next thing is a view of renzo at work. victoria: renzo at work was like a popstar going through a city. he was followed by everybody who was allowed on the site, with flashing cell phone cameras and -- in that case i was showing something wrong in the drawing. of astill them son builder. i grew up on the site. this is my place. i go around and make a pain to everybody. victoria: not a pain. i think you are greatly respected for your attention to detail. charlie: obsessive-compulsive. victoria: yes. charlie: next is the view from the terrace above the opera house. renzo: looking at the acropolis nobody can compete. , the idea is to make the place in the shade, but you don't have

a glare, so you can see easily everything. charlie: take a look at the next slide, an aerial view. put it in context right there. renzo: you see how close we are to the water, to the sea. we are divided from the sea by the motorway there. the only way to find again was to move on those on the feet, and that is what we did. charlie: the next scene we will see a nice view of the opera house and library. the next is the opera house. to know greece has a national opera house straight in the a -- upper house and library house. and finally, there is a library interior. renzo: did you know biblioteque , comes from greece. from greece.

everything comes from greece. charlie: what do you want readers to take away from this book, and this project? victoria: i would like them to be aware of the political and economic conditions in greece over this period, between the time that the deal was made for the cultural center to be built, which was as early as 2006. and 10 years later, it's completion. an awful lot happened in that time. you mention seven governments. they had this crazy finance minister. you remember him? and the current prime minister who promised one thing one day that he would do away with, the austerity conditions. and then a couple of months later, maybe weeks later, he reversed himself and said sorry

folks, we are not going to do away with it. it was a very dramatic time, and it was heartbreaking in terms of what the greek people were going through. i really would like -- i tried to write the book, and position, the cultural center as a symbol of hope, a beacon of light in this adversity. i think it is. everybody i ever talk to when i have been visiting athens has been positive and just think it is the most wonderful thing. it shows how important people can still have faith in the great nation. charlie: thank you for coming. victoria: thank you. charlie: the book is called "chaos and culture: renzo piano building workshop and the stavros niarchos foundation cultural center in athens." great to have you. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ >> i am alisa parenti and you

are watching bloomberg technology. after a tight vote and no democratic support, republicans advanced their health care bill through the house. they addressed a longtime pledge to erase the affordable care act. the measure has to the senate, where it is not expected to come to a vote in its current form. the u.s. senate avoided a 7overnment shutdown with a $1.1 trillion bill for -- with no provision for trump's priorities such as a border wall. trump is expected to sign the bill, which funds the government through september 30. the president says he will make good on