♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." jeff: the russian ministry of defense announced on friday that a russian airstrike may have killed the leader of isis, abubakar al-baghdadi. it is far from the first time the leader of the islamic state has been reported killed or wounded. the report remains unconfirmed. how likely is it baghdadi is dead, and if so, what would isis look like without him? michael weiss is an investigative reporter for cnn and the author of "isis: inside the army of terror." michael, good to see you. michael: thank you for having me. jeff: the big qualifier is we don't know whether this is actually accurate.

it was interesting because the ministry came out at first and said he is dead and then said we are looking into reports that he is dead. what do you make of all of this? michael: brought to you by the ministry of defense that said ukraine shot down mh-17 and a load of other imaginative tales. i take this very skeptically , principally because he would not be in raqqa at this time and senior leadership would not be having this high level meeting when the so-called caliphate is crumbling. all of raqqa is encircled by the democratic forces. it is true that russia occasionally bombs in the river valley but that is not a mainstay of their endeavors as we have seen. this has been more about them propping up assad against other rebel groups or opposition backed by the u.s. the areas that i have heard baghdadi travels in includes northwest iraq, which has been taken over by shi'a militia groups.

the key area, what i would refer to as the third capital of isis, in a town on the syrian iraqi isis has relocated all of its media propaganda from raqqa to this town. that would be a much more likely place for him to be hanging out. it has been the gateway for jihadis going from syria to iraq and vice versa for over 10 years. jeff: many interesting parts of this. whether he is dead or not, you talk about the isis propaganda and part of it is the russia propaganda. their involvement and their willingness to be involved here is big. michael: yes, a part of the russian military doctrine is they lie and they live very well. well sometimes not so well. , this would be what has been the russian strategy at the moment, particular with the donald trump presidency, which is to bring the united states into the russian orbit and the -- in their definition of the

so-called war on terror. in other words america stop with production and promotion, stop with regime change and let's link arms and go after the terrorists, namely islamic terrorists. for them to take credit for this and pound their chest is of a piece of that. you already mentioned they are , already walking back the road assessment. we may havead, to killed him. there was an actual russian airstrike in the area, but what they were hitting and who they were hitting, we have no idea. jeff: we think it was much smaller than what they were saying because the initial report was more than 300. as you mentioned baghdadi does , not travel in groups of 300. michael: no. he does not. there are only probably less than five people on the planet who know where he is at any given point, apart from whatever his own personal entourage, including his many wives and sex slaves that he is keeping. this is one of the most guarded men in the world. he does not talk on cell phones.

when the council met before in isis held territory, the objective was to always lock your mobile devices or electronic devices in lead boxes so they cannot be intercepted. russia does have human intelligence. the warlord president of chechnya has more than hinted that he has been dispatching spies into isis to join isis from chechnya to gather evidence and so on. isis has claimed they had executed some of these spies. one of whom was eulogized. again, sort of authenticating that view. isis is infiltrated by various intelligence agencies, but i don't think they have better detail or better information than what the coalition has got. the coalition exclusively is going after this group. jeff: how do baghdadi's travels

and secrecy differ from bin laden? michael: zarqawi was a little sloppier. you have to remember, the reason that america was able to get him was because the jordanians had been following him since he was wannabe jihadi who had gone to afghanistan in -- and came back. the u.s. was able to reverse engineer where he was by doing these opportunistic operations and gathering all this digital information. american special forces are doing the same thing right now, trying to find out where baghdadi and the inner sanctum of isis is. that's what i mean. america has more of a true presence in the caliphate than russia. in this information had come out from iran court that he am in -- , i wouldia groups

still treat it with a huge barrel of salt, but i would be more inclined to believe that version of events. jeff: we are coming up now on the third anniversary of the declaration of the caliphate from baghdadi. this strike would have happened exactly one month before, june 28. -- may 20. june 28, 2014 was the declaration. he is and they are in a much different spot than three years ago. michael: absolutely. they have lost most of the terrain they had one point held. i would argue that isis surprised and impressed itself in 2014. they were able to take huge swaths of territory. biting more than they could chew , which is one of the reasons that i think there collapse -- their collapse has been more precipitated. let's not confuse drinking experience in syria and iraq with diminished abilities for strikes in the west and to conduct terror operations. the former headquarters which is isis's foreign intelligence branch was overtaken by turkey. all the guys have relocated and

they have gone elsewhere, including outside of syria. one guy has wound up in europe, according to one of my sources. i cannot confirm that. this is what i'm getting from the people i talked to inside isis territory. just this week, it was reported that they are surging in afghanistan. they blew up a shia mosque in kabul in ramadan. essentially they have become , internationalized. they are not anticipating the collapse in syria and iraq and looking to establish elsewhere. jeff: after baghdadi was reportedly killed again after this may 28 date, there was this attack in kabul, tehran and london. it has continued unabated. michael: exactly. again, it is a misconception and

sometimes the media plays into this -- it has always been isis's strategy to do what they are doing now. to hit london, paris, the u.s. the difference was zarqawi never got that part off the ground. while it is true they are probably emphasizing or trying to accelerate foreign attacks as they continue to lose ground in syria and iraq, this was always part of the grand plan. they have made preparations when raqqa falls, the remaining in mosul and mos-- falls, to fan out. that is why you see them in afghanistan, that is why you see them in southeast asia and attacking iran had been unprecedented. they blamed bin laden and al qaeda for preventing sunni jihadis from attacking. jeff: did tehran surprise you? michael: it did not. it surprised me it took this

long. when isis and al qaeda broke ranks with each other, 2013, 2014, that signaled to me the safeguard or stopping mechanism that al qaeda h.q. was no more. namely, that safeguard was don't go after the iranians. why? there was a letter written by the former isis spokesman saying for years you have told , us to avoid hitting the great enemy, the hub of shia islam, because doing so would jeopardize the al qaeda networks and personnel stationed in iran. now all bets are off. they feel brazen enough to have the islamic republic at home. jeff: you mentioned places like mosul and they are prepared to move away but they are not giving these places up. michael: fight to the last man, but the last man defined by senior leadership. not everybody.

they are not doing human wave attacks. they are booby trapping these neighborhoods. they leave a garrison of hundreds of fighters to really bleed and cause the immense suffering of not just the civilian population, but incoming shia militia groups, iraqi army and any american troops. that's always been the breath ring for them, -- brass ring for them killing americans. , whilst doing this and plunging the country into a state of chaos and disarray, they are forward thinking. they are preparing for the future. in terms of territory in this part of the world, it is a return to the countryside. the euphrates river valley. that is where they were able to repair in 2009 when they had been strategically defeated in iraq. there was a joke amongst people living with them saying what , emirate? this is the emirate of the desert you created.

they were prepared to do that all over again and wait out the united states. jeff: in other words, you lose mosul, raqqa -- it is a shifting battle. michael: you have a map here. i wish we could zoom out. i could show you the enormous bad land area in syria and iraq where people do not really live. you had better when tribes -- bedouin tribes these are not , population sectors. these guys can hold up just like al qaeda has done in the mountains of afghanistan. jeff: the u.s. is putting a lot of focus right now on southwestern syria. why is that? michael: this is a very interesting state of affairs. it marks a bit of a departure in the way america is now involved itself in syria. senior white house officials say as such. we are now at a point in the war where our anti-isis strategy is colliding with iran's expansionist strategy. what do i mean by that? it has been reported in the

guardian, elsewhere, the israelis believe it and the brits believe it, and the americans are coming around to the idea it is true -- iran is looking to construct a land bridge or direct line of communication so they can literally drive men from tehran to the mediterranean coast. the original route for that had been more through northern syrian territory. they moved it southward because the americans are in the north. the american military footprint has deterred them from northern syria and now they are going to southern syria. again america does have an opposition force that it is backing. there are about 200 vetted syrian rebels to fight isis. three times, iranian-backed militias, these guys are trained and armed -- three times, they have provoked our forces. three times, the u.s. has struck them from the air.

the u.s. has made very clear that if they continue to attack our forces in the southwest, we will continue to strike back. jeff: i want to talk about what the islamic state would look like without baghdadi. he is 46 years old. what -- where would it go next and how capably would it be able to continue on doing what it has -- with what it has been doing now? michael: if anything we have learned in the last almost 15 years about this organization, it has evolved, but it has proven to be in credibly -- incredibly resilient. he would be in effect -- it depends on which counterterrorism geek you are talking to -- either the fourth or third man in charge to be bumped off. i would be very surprised if they didn't have somebody next in line or a series of candidates. the difficulty is with baghdadi, he claims he is dependent from

-- descendent from the profit mohammed. isis doesn't have many people like that. they can either rewrite their own covenants -- there is a pragmatic core to isis. when push comes to shove, they are happy to rewrite their own laws to accommodate reality. they can appoint somebody new. i'm less interested in who heads the organization than i am in the rank and file who are filling it out. the trend i have noticed in the last 18 months to two years, i call it the europeanization of isis. that's almost a misnomer. a lot of people from russian speaking territories, the former soviet republics coming in. because these guys have served in the military of their native countries, and they are pretty badass if you ask american soldiers who have seen them in action, they are the ones we have to be more worried about. isis is changing from a predominantly arab or arab

speaking terror organization to something that is more polygon. -- polyglot. a lot of russian speakers french , speakers, english speakers. jeff: at the same time, they remain far more capable to strike france or europe than they do the united states. michael: yes. jeff: geographically. michael: that, and also sociologically, culturally, the united states has had a better record of muslim integration. muslims in the u.s., they would not abide from one of the paris attackers putting chemical weapons in the apartment next door. whereas in europe i lived in , london for 2.5 years, i understand the difficulty of state multiculturalism. it is a little easier. there are populations that do not feel part of their own country, part of the room system , and essentially re-create their native land on european soil. isis is using those constituencies and communities

to recruit and radicalize. you don't have to go over to syria and get weapons training and make your way back. you can stay where you are and watch videos on youtube or link up with the brothers on twitter and get instructions on how to build a pipebomb or even go by a -- get a knife in the u k and go on a stabbing spree. here, it has proven to be more difficult, but it's not impossible. in the future, we have to be on guard for it. jeff: as they indoctrinate, what are they telling their fighters or their trainees about what is happening in europe and the u.s.? michael: they say this is a war against islam perpetrated by the forces in the united states. the conspiracy theory laid out by baghdadi not long after they declared their caliphate was today, all of the muslim community, but only sunnis, the

entire population is facing this international conspiracy headed by the united states, backed by russia and the jews, embedded by iran and the bigoted term jihad is used to describe all shia. in essence the groups that claim , now to be fighting isis, albeit isis, non-muslims, isis presents them as the mortal enemy of all muslims. if you are a kid who's angry at western foreign-policy, it is very easy to get access from this kind of information of propaganda. it's true twitter accounts get taken off-line, youtube videos get taken off-line, but these guys have gone to ground more than just physically. they are using whatsapp, they used telegrams encrypted , messaging. jeff: it is interesting when they try to confirm whether the something like this is true or not, they look to social media.

michael: of course. funnily enough, the russian ministry of defense, in the first few months of their intervention in syria, they produced videos that we hit isis in such and such location at such and such time. and then you had open source friends in groups debunk these videos, saying you provided evidence to produce what you just said. we located this video and this terrain and 100 miles away from this happened -- it didn't happen yesterday, it happened two tuesdays ago. again, this is why i'm reluctant with the mod and their statement. isf: and the response typically faster to confirm. it typically happens within days. michael: it depends. it can take much longer. the main way or the easiest way to confirm the death of a jihadi figure is when their own organization confirms it and

rights has a obituary. his obituary. we have not seen that with baghdadi yet. again, if he were dead and isis were driven into some kind of internal disarray, it could take months before they acknowledge the fact. i have seen no evidence to suggest he has been taken out. there was a good report in the guardian by my friend who is in iraq, in the one of the areas i think baghdadi was hanging about, where the incoming militia said we feel like he was just here. this has all the makings -- in terms of the infrastructure that was built, the statehouses, and that safe houses, it looks either place they top dog would have been hiding recently. jeff: we heard that with bin laden a lot too. michael: yes. i lost count the number of times the former leader of the main us wasency in the caucus

said to be killed. rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, never more so than the war on terror. jeff: michael weiss, we appreciate it. michael: sure. ♪

♪ charlie: oliver stone is here. he has used films such as "platoon," "jfk," and last year's "snowden," to challenge the prevailing narrative. for his latest project, stone charts another contrary course to let russian president vladimir putin to explain the world as he sees it. over the course of nearly two years, the two men sat down for a series of wide-ranging

conversations. stone's goal was to listen to putin and understand what he wants. here is a look at the putin interviews. >> ready? action. oliver: a lot of western people do not know much about you. we would like to know about your background and where you came from. your critics say that russia is a traditional authoritarian state. is the u.s. dominant? ♪ oliver: how are you? most americans think that russia is as bad as the u.s. when it comes to surveillance. ♪ oliver: fbi, cia, and nsa believe that russia hacked the election.

people say trump is in the kremlin's pocket. charlie: i'm pleased to have oliver stone back at this table. welcome. oliver: thank you. charlie: it is all over. tell me how you feel about it. oliver: i spent about 20 hours altogether with him over two years. four different visits. and it's a -- it was a massive amount of material to organize. it ended up being about four hours because i basically felt like -- it started in 2000 when he became president. quite a big history in there. where you pick up in 2000 with u.s. relations and it works its way forward up until the 2007 munich speech. it ends up of course with ukraine and syria. then a new crisis develops with the election. one thing after another. right now, another crisis i'm sure.

but right now, it is as pretty bleak in terms of temperature. charlie: who does he blame for that? oliver: he never badmouthed anybody. you would think hillary clinton and so forth. no, he has said kind things about her. that she was a dynamic woman that he respected her deeply. , i didn't feel that he was trying to lash out. i think he was trying to explain the russian position as best he could to a foreigner. charlie: how did you see your role there? oliver: he knows i'm a dramatist, a movie director. i approached him as such. i was working on the snowden film in germany and i was traveling to moscow to see edward snowden, who was giving me his point of view and helping us to make this movie. sometime in that period, i ran into mr. putin. i talked to him about the snowden affair. he told me his version of it

which is in the film. very interesting. different point of view. from that grew a warmer relationship. i think he knew my work of the untold history of the united states which was shown in russia. on their top 10 all. very successful. -- on their top channel. very successful. he knew some of my work as a filmmaker. we asked for a longer interview. it started like that. we never knew how to find it would be. -- we never knew how defined it would be. it was sort of a loosey-goosey arrangement. he liked it and wanted to continue, we would continue. charlie: there has been criticism, two of cbs, not challenging enough all of those , things. you must have a point of view on that because you chose a technique that you thought would be the most effective in accomplishing your goals. oliver: when you see somebody for 20 hours in front of a camera, you know, you do see character. you get the sense of the person. asking the questions i did over that time, you have to realize i am listening, i'm watching.

i was not arguing the issues with him. the issues he knows his way and the americans have their own viewpoint. i wanted to understand. i'm encouraging him to speak. i'm listening very closely. i'm try not to make a fool of myself. i think he was interested. he was challenged by my approach because it was dramatic at times. he felt interested. charlie: i find the more you challenge someone, the more revealing they are. in fact most people believe that , when they are challenged, the best of them comes out rather than being simply someone who is there to simply say tell me your story. oliver: i think you saw the questions. they were all over the place. i pressed him at times. i went into the future, the elections, the concept of

democracy, the concept of power itself. he has been there for 16 years, not always as president. what is he going to do in his fourth term? will he run for his fourth term? these are questions that come up. are you addicted to power? you have seen the last hour. i imagine you saw where it went. it does get touched. at times, i sensed it, he always controlled himself. always calm. a cultured man. articulate man. he thinks before he speaks. i think he is intrigued in the way he answers the questions. he certainly has a sense of humor. charlie: what does he think happened when the collapse of the soviet union came, and gorbachev made a basic decision on -- oliver: he describes gorbachev , and as an idealist and not a

practical man -- most of the soviet union fell apart. so many russians ended up outside of borders overnight , more than 20 million, outside the borders without -- this was a severe cutting. the united states encouraged completely wild capitalism at that time. we lent them some money, not much. we encouraged them to privatize everything. the 1990's was a terrible period. i don't think americans sometimes realize how bad it was. in the 1996 election, yeltsin was not popular. he would not have won it. it was american support. we sent him election teams, imf money. that kept yeltsin going. he was our guy. clinton loved him. nato expanded in 1999 and that was a big move because the bush , administration, the father,

and baker there was a promise , given to gorbachev that nato would end, it would not move one inch to the east of germany. >> gorbachev has repeated that over and over. charlie: putin and other russian leaders feared an invasion of their borders. they feared himmler. -- hitler. >> through their borders they have been invaded by germany twice in the century and then the french. there was a tremendous war in russia. 18 armies fought against the new regime in moscow. they invaded from all the areas. poland was one of their worst enemies. they went through a lot during world war ii, -- every five of six german soldiers killed in that war was on the eastern front. soviet casualties, 25 million to

27 million people disappeared during the period. it was a tremendous sacrifice. america should have been even more grateful, but because mr. roosevelt died and we went into that untold history, mr. truman did not have the same attitude toward the soviets as roosevelt. roosevelt saw a grand alliance. soviet union, britain, china, the united states. that grand alliance never materialized. he died in april 1945. although, i give him credit for trying things. i don't think he is a natural horseback rider, he became one. hockey, at the age of 61 or he 62, took it up for the first time. you know how skating is. he is no skater. i saw him in one of the scenes in the hockey ring. he formed an old man's league, they come together as retirees and they play. very popular in russia because

they love hockey. he is not very good, and we had a little fun with it, but he did score a couple of goals. i do not know if that is competitive, but it was fun to watch. he speaks impeccable german and he learned a little bit of this language, that language, a little piano. he is a man who, i saw him, not much social life at all. i think he works a lot. 16 years. 12 hours per day. he is pretty steady. he left sometimes at 1:00 in the morning and he would say he had another meeting to go to with the economic minister or the minister of defense. i found him to be highly disciplined. i was worried about him. there is a scene in the first chapter where i am talking about reagan, comparing him to reagan. sort of asking him if he can slow down and enjoy his life. 50 delegate authority like reagan did so he can relax more. charlie: what did he say?

oliver: he said his situation in russia was so dire when he came into office that there was no margin for error. charlie: i want to show some clips here. this is about nuclear arms and we can hear him. this is putin talking about the nuclear arms race. the cold war. similar dangers of not engaging in a dialogue today. vladimir putin, oliver stone. here it is. [video playing] >> [speaking in russian] >> referring to them as

partners. "our partners." you said that too much. charlie: he does not give up. oliver: he stays at the table. he will talk and try to make a peace. this is his nature. this raises the whole issue of nuclear parity which is important to all of us. he is saying that basically with the american abrogation of the abm treaty in 2001 under george bush, the nuclear balance is now starting to change because of the united dates -- >> the russians will have to meet that with more offense of weapons. oliver: they are putting the abms into poland and romania, and the reason given was that there is protection against iran, which he strips that reasoning away. charlie: they were not aiming towards russia. they were aiming towards iran. oliver: in another section, how

the abm can be converted into an offensive missile. the russians would not know what was in the air if it was coming to them. they would not know if it was defensive or an offensive missile. we try to show in the maps how they are surrounded on the northeast and west side. polarizes,siles, subs, oxides of bombers. elastic, you have all the way through the northern arctic, it is a noose around them. with the nato countries, the 13 countries which have joined the nato union, the russian border is worse than ever. the killer troops could not be closer. charlie: this is his version of russia? and you are there listening and recording, and that is basically

the kind of film you wanted to make? oliver: with other questions to explain the situation. charlie: you believe he told you the truth? you believe that what he said is what you believe to be history as well. oliver: the way he sees it is history. i know enough about history is that there are two sides to every story. i have heard the u.s. side. charlie: it is giving him the opportunity to tell his side of the story. i'm trying to get you to acknowledge -- >> i think it is his side of the story. charlie: and you basically agree with his side or agree that -- >> i did not say that. i'm listening to his side of the tory. i do not know everything. i do not claim to. i wanted to hear it. i have heard the u.s. version because we see it in our papers and media all the time, but i have not heard him -- i did not know much about the munich speech. i did not know what he was doing in munich until i studied it. i did not know the crimea speech he gives, too.

these are points that we do not here in the west. i have never seen an interpretation of his in the western media of the ukraine. ♪

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he denies it completely. charlie: end of story? oliver: in the film, yeah. he denies it. they do not meddle in domestic policies of other countries. charlie: but he does allow -- i think in his own press conferences, he allows the fact that some people from russia might have done it? oliver: he says that, but he does not know. charlie: independent hackers? oliver: this is a very confusing subject, charlie. hacking. charlie: there is a conversation in washington about something we call the russian probe. an investigation into whether the impact of russia's hacking -- attempting to hack the market election. -- had his the american election. most of the american intelligence agencies believe they did. the majority of american people in congress believe they did. now, he obviously says he did not, but it is a subject of conversation. oliver: yes. yes, we can talk about it, but we would be speculating, and all

i have seen is i have seen the speculation and i hear people saying it is a fact. the report does not read like that. it is an assessment given by basically the cia and nsa and fbi. given the history of our intelligence and our intelligence agencies, i would be very suspect of them and their motives. what is the director doing? you had me around your table with actors. as actor, i am very proud of the job he has done in the film. i want him to be good. i want him to do his best. that is not to say i'm going to leave the movie and i have the actor's friend. maybe just during the course of the movie. with mr. putin, i felt like i was keeping him interested. i was making him think about everything across the board. about what is going on in the world today. i think he said some very

pregnant things about the united states and about russia. he was always hopeful about bringing it back together again. we could be partners against terrorism. we could be partners in space. charlie: does he believe that? oliver: yes. in syria, he was most effective with his bombing campaign. it was short and brutal against isis. charlie: that is simply not -- oliver: obama had been bombing there for four years. charlie: oliver, it was short and brutal against the opponents of assad. he told me "i'm going in there to prop up the guy." we are supporting it was not short and brutal against isis. -- the guy we are supporting." it was not short and brutal against isis purity cannot work onisis, they did not turn isis until late in the game. he cannot walk away from committee without seeing how vladimir putin sees the world. make the point doesn't mean anything is wrong with it. that is my point with you. you know, you provide an

understanding of the world. that position should be challenged. your argument as to why you may or may not have challenged it is because we know that side. we know the opposition to putin. we know the people who believe -- who have argued that they have plenty of evidence that he tried to meddle in the u.s. elections. they have seen the hack and they know where the hacking came from. oliver: what i have read is different. it was a sloppy hack. there were footprints left behind. it was cyrillic lettering. every expert that i have read has said this is -- if the russians were going to do it, they would not do it this way. charlie: so you do not believe it was the russians who tried to hack the u.s. elections? oliver: i do not believe so. charlie: i have two more questions for you because we have had many good exchanges here. what is it i have not said or asked about this film that you think is important for you to say that the film says or that you want to say? oliver: i do not think you have seen vladimir putin speak and

say the things he has said here. i have not heard this. it tells you the world as he has seen it since 2000. it is pretty important. charlie: whether it is the truth or not, it is his view of the world, and that is important to know. a lot of people -- a lot of people spend time trying to understand what he thinks and what he believes. they will be looking at this and see some layers. charlie: secondly, there is also a sense that as president obama said, there is hardly anything that goes on in russia that vladimir putin does not know about -- bear with me -- have some impact over. there have been political assassinations. there have been the killing of journalists in russia. some of them -- and some people look at those events and they blame the man at the top. oliver: you know --

charlie: that either he knew about it or ordered it. did you ask him about that? oliver: no, i did not. but i have done a lot of research, and i have other conclusions. i did not think he would say in -- say anything in that regard. and i did not think it would get anywhere. any evidence i have read against -- that said he was guilty comes from internet type notes. it did not hold. i talked to experts on this. charlie: on the subject of political assassinations and opponents and the jailing of journalists, even as of yesterday, a political point being held for a while -- political opponent being held for a while, you simply believe it is not his responsibility and he had nothing to do with any of those? oliver: you make it sound as if

-- no. i do not know what political opposition candidate that was jailed yesterday. charlie: briefly. oliver: briefly, yes. permits for protest, it is very important, you realize. we had permits in the vietnam war to protest. permits for occupy wall street. sometimes, those permits do not come through and people do things. when you protest to overthrow a government, that is one thing. you have to realize there is a limit to what a government can put up with. some of these russian protests have been on the edge of saying overthrow the government. you have to be careful. the united states would not tolerate it for one second if you wanted to overthrow the u.s. government. i look at the murders as another issue completely. each one of these cases, it does not hold water. charlie: the book here is called " the putin interviews. " forward by robert scheer.

we should try to understand vladimir putin. that is exactly what i just said. thank you for coming. oliver: thank you, charlie. charlie: oliver stone. thank you. for more on the ideas and actions of vladimir putin, return to some excerpts to interviews with oliver stone. oliver: you realize how powerful your answer to be if you said you preferred x candidate. he would go like that tomorrow. if you say you did not like trump, or something, he would win. he would have that amount of power in the u.s.. >> [speaking in russian] >> you are credited with doing many things in your first term. you build up industries, electronic, engineering, petrochemical, agriculture. you raised the gdp, you raised the income, you reformed the army, you result the church in

war -- you result of the war. -- you resolved to the chechen war. of russia.eal son >> it is not exactly like that. >> [speaking in russian] oliver: let me ask you. i'm sure as an ex-kgb agent, you

what snowden did with every fiber of your being. >> [speaking in russian] oliver: do you agree with what he did? >> no. oliver: did he think the national security agency had gone too far in its eavesdropping? >> [speaking in russian] charlie: the putin interview is on showtime. on the next charlie rose, the comedian and actor aziz on the new series of netflix series "master of none." here is an excerpt of that.

episode, theirst episode about our parents, that one really took off and it came from a real place of alan and i being curious about the struggles of our parents and their journey and everything. charlie: what did you accomplish in season one? what did you want to accomplish in season one other than established character? >> in season one, we wanted to make a show we thought was good and met our own standards. what it ended up doing went far beyond our expectations. the show has got a lot of press and stuff for just the idea of someone that looks like me being a romantic lead and all this stuff. it was not stuff we thought about at all. people are like "oh my god, the show is so diverse." and i was like, when me and allen have lunch, that is diverse, but we do not think about that. that is what it is like when we have lunch. charlie: do you stay away from

that? when you think about sexually explicit stuff, you stay away from that? >> we write whatever is interesting to us. in the first season, there were scenes that were more sexually explicit. we had this episode called "mornings" about a long-term relationship. you kind of saw how the sex became boring for this couple and when they went have sex on a chair, at first it was exciting, and then it became kind of routine. it was fun to write. and we had to fill that, i was like, what have i written. this season there are no sexually explicit stuff the main , romantic arc is with this woman that my character meets in italy named francesca. it is more internal and emotional and kind of really inspired a lot by these antonioni films.

just trying to show more of an internal drama. charlie: that drives the second season? >> the second half of the second season, when it gets to my character, it is kind of about him exploring this relationship. in the beginning, he is kind of dating around and trying to find that connection, and we do an episode about him being on a dating app and he's going through the monotony of dating. this guy doing what many people are doing, just trying to find a connection with someone. charlie: he spent a month alone in italy? >> this small town where we ended up filming. i went there and did not know anybody. i took like three weeks of italian classes with the teacher in new york before i went. i was not very good. when you learn in those kind of situations, you end up speaking very formal and people make fun of you before you get there. i did not know anybody.

i had a couple of friends of friends, and they worked in the shop you see in the opening of -- i worked in the shop you see in the opening of the episode. and i just kind of learned how to make pasta, learn how to speak italian better. i really did it in the beginning for research for the show, but it ended up being something valuable for me as a person as well, just to live somewhere else besides new york or l.a. for a little while and be out of that environment. i realize how much time i spend in new york and l.a., very greedy places. -- a very crazy places. i realize how much time i spend in new york and l.a., very greedy places. it was nice to live somewhere small, where no one knew who i was. charlie: you can always funny cast of characters to play off of? >> the first episode, it was a bit of a challenge because we

are not bringing back any of the characters. it is in italy, not in new york, mostly italian. i feel like we pulled it off. the second one, my best friend in the show, arnold, comes to visit me. in real life, he is one of my best friends. he came to visit me. when he came to visit me, you know, i was like "just come and visit me for a week. i'm sure something will happen that we can put in the show." we went to sicily together, and we were driving around outside and we saw a small alley. he was like "i do not think we can do it." we saw a truck there'll -- brr l arrel through and we thought we will be fine. that was the scene we put in the show. >> all right. >> wait, do we take a left here? >> yeah, gps says take a left down the alley.

>> i don't know, it looks pretty tight. >> we will be fine. let's go. take it slow. looking good. slow, slow. this side. >> it is really tight over here, man. >> easy, easy. >> you've got room over there? >> yeah. keep going. >> i can't. we are stuck. >> you said we were good on the side. >> then i said wait. >> what do we do? >> man, we are really stuck. >> try to reverse. >> i am giving it gas. we are not moving anywhere. [car honking] >> this is my worst nightmare, man.

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alisa: i'm alisa parenti in the students that -- thed this afternoon u.s. strongly condemns today's terror attack at a london mosque. a van rammed into a group of ramadan worshipers last night the u.s. said it will provide any assistance to british officials should it be necessary. the driver is under arrest.