♪ from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this week in washington. post" hasngton obtained the full transcripts of two of president trump's calls with foreign leaders shortly after taking office. the calls with the leaders of mexico and australia portray a new president more concerned with politics than policy. that comes as john kelly tries to bring order to the west wing. joining me from washington is dan balz, the chief correspondent for the "washington post." another incredible week. dan: absolutely.

this was to be the quiet week. there may be a little evidence of that at the white house under general kelly. these transcripts have exploded. we had so many readers of these transcripts this morning when they first broke. remarkable reporting by my colleague who has been a stalwart throughout the year as part of our national security team. the portrayal of the new unhappy, being concerned about his own image, talking at cross purposes with two leaders of allies of neighboring mexico and australia. they are remarkable documents of what the trump presidency started as and for so long has continued as. charlie: take me through what you found remarkable about these documents. dan: on the call with the mexican president, what was so fascinating was trump's notgnition his promise that

only rebuild the wall but mexico would pay for it with something that was never going to happen. what he was seeking was some accommodation with the mexican president to just quit talking about it, to quit saying we will never pay for your wall. he said one point, this may be the least important thing we are talking about but the most important politically. i think he was probably correct in that judgment about it. that called went on and on about that. desireas a lot about his to put a border tax on, his desire to be very tough on mexico on trade. but at its heart, it was in a sense pleading for an agreement to take the payment of the wall and who was going to underwrite the cost of the wall off the dialogue as quickly as possible. in some ways, he succeeded on that. there has been very little talk in recent times about mexico

paying for that while. and in fact, his big challenge right now it's getting congress to begin to pay for the wall, let alone mexico. charlie: they keep asking questions as to what appropriations will be used for what. dan: this will come up when everybody returns from the recess in september and they have to get the budget together. that is his big challenge. on the call with the australian prime minister, i think what was so fascinating was the way in which they were talking past one another. the australian prime minister was trying to explain to the new president the basis of the arrangement or agreement made with the obama administration to accept some of the refugees in detention camps in australia. and trump not wanting to have anything to do with it. the conversation went back and forth with assurances that you don't necessarily have to take any of these people, you can bet

them. we have vetted them. we know who they are. they are being kept in detention camps because they came by boat and we are trying to discourage smugglers from bringing refugees into our country. but the president was only concerned it would make him look weak as a new president, as somebody who instituted the travel ban. this conversation was this circular conversation in which the president became more and more frustrated. and clearly, the australian prime minister was more and more frustrated. it kind of ended abruptly with no agreement. charlie: here is what the president of the united states said to the prime minister of australia. "malcolm, why is this so important? i do not understand. this is going to kill me. i am the world's greatest person who does not want to let people into the country." we have never heard the

president talk like this in public and now we have it in private transcripts obtained. dan: one thing we should all recognize is the readouts all administrations gift of calls between a president and the head of government or head of state of another country are pretty well sanitized. we know that there are tougher conversations that go on that we only perhaps hear about but never see. here we have the actual documentary evidence. it is a remarkable inside view of what really goes on when these conversations are not friendly and cordial. to say these were candid and frank, which is the diplomatic tough, issay this was an understatement. they were candid and frank. to see the frustration of the new president of the united states with two from the

countries just tells you a lot about his own mindset as he was coming in, as to the way he saw the world and the way he saw what he the way he saw was believing he had to live up to as a result of the campaign. and he was getting no real accommodation from either of those two leaders. charlie: in fact, sometimes being mildly or gently corrected. more than mildly. dan: more than mildly and gently, certainly by the australian prime minister. he kept pushing back and pushing back. as i say, it was as it a if thent -- as president, president trump, was not absorbing what he was saying. he could never get to the point of saying i understand, we will take a look at this. happens, i will terrible, i can't do this.

this was a terrible agreement obama made, obama made lots of terrible agreements, and on and on. it was in a sense the donald trump we see in public sometimes were certainly we see through his tweets. but it is interesting and probably a little alarming it is that kind of conversation he has in a private conversation with a foreign leader. charlie: he endorses a dramatic reduction in legal immigration. dan: yes. planning saying he was to get an would get tough on illegal immigration, but not necessarily shrinking legal immigration. evidence thatal this legislation has significant support on capitol hill. we have heard in the aftermath of what the president did yesterday endorsing and embracing it is a lot of pushback from capitol hill.

on the other hand, it is the kind of signal president trump regularly and consistently sends to the people who voted for him, and particularly for people who voted for him on the america first agenda or the get tough on immigration agenda. whether this goes anywhere or not, it is a real embrace -- whombrace of the voters believe he is speaking for me because i am upset about the way the immigration process has worked, legal or illegal. charlie: for someone who is a nonpolitician, he seems to understand very well the idea that you always have to protect your base. dan: i think that is instinctive with him. it is one of the reasons he was far more successful as a candidate that a lot of traditional politicians and

observers and journalists ever expected. he tapped into something, as we know, almost from the start of his campaign two years ago. i think people did not appreciate it and certainly underestimated it. he has had that instinctive bond with a part of the country that remains very strong. those visceral feelings he has, he is able to express as president and continue to play to that base. there is some slippage in his approval ratings over the last few weeks. most approval ratings have gone down, even some of the supporters who form the base. there is a new quinnipiac poll in which he is down somewhat with non-college-educated voters. i think when he does this kind of thing, it does reinforce with

a lot of those voters that he is thinking of them and on their side. charlie: then there is the other legislation he looks at which is showing the conflicts he is having with congress on the russian sanctions. russia, iran, and one other. he said he signed it reluctantly in the name of national unity suggesting constitutional questions and that he had real disagreements with it. dan: we know he had disagreements with it. we know he had to sign it. it was passed so overwhelmingly by congress. and it was passed in essence as a way to tie his hands, and congress effectively did that and forced him to sign it. his signing statement made clear his disagreements with parts of it, suggesting parts of it are unconstitutional. pique he just the i showed in the personal statement

he made. canilt a great company, i make better deals than anybody, congress should not get in my way. what we saw in an early-morning tweet was him saying our relationship with russia is at an all-time low -- in congress is to blame for that. we have seen in the last couple suggestinge russians he has been overwhelmed and overrun by the political establishment in washington. isiously, all of that bothering him. it is eating away at him. what we saw yesterday in the signing of this was a signing with a great deal of dissatisfaction. i think it is one measure, one indicator that there is the beginning of some more concerted push back on the part not only

of democrats, put them aside at this point, but among republicans. republicans are in a variety of ways saying to donald trump, we will do what we think is best. we are the legislative branch, we are a co-equal branch, and we will express ourselves. sometimes it will be in disagreement with what you want to hear from us. health careo, in bill, the failure to repeal and replace. dan: his frustration with that is enormous. he has had a variety of things to say about it. most consistently, recently trying to get congress to come back and do something about it. wayave seen in a remarkable members of congress basically saying to the white house we will do the business we want to do. has no desireell

to come back and deal with this issue at this point. he tried and failed. he does not want to try and fail again. there's other important legislative business that will have to be done when they return from recess. the debt ceiling being one and getting a budget being another. those are two significant things that have to be done. the president eats away at this notion congress should deal with health care. we use this word again. it is kind of remarkable the degree to which he has yet to understand or accept the ways of the legislative process and how a president can constructively effect that. we have not been able, so far, to see him learn that lesson and turn himself into a more constructive force operating with members of his own party on the hill. and we are now seeing the reaction to that. charlie: robert lawler, special counsel -- robert mueller, special counsel, has impaneled

grand jury. they say it is aside his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase. dan: is obviously a very significant development. not that surprising considering the seriousness we believe he was bringing to the task. smart lawyers would recognize this means there is a broad investigation underway. this is an investigation that will require subpoenas and depositions from who knows how many people associated with the president or beyond. and that this is not going to be something that is going to be wrapped up by thanksgiving. the impoundment of a grand jury nelment of the grand jury suggests this will be a long process. we assume bob mueller wants to move it as expeditiously as

possible for the good of the president and the country to try to get this resolved as quickly as possible. but that is not necessarily possible given the various threads he seems to be looking at. again, we don't know everything he is looking at, but there have been enough hints in some of the information that has come out and some of the people he has hired, that he is looking at the russian hacking, that he is looking at possible coll usion or collaboration by members of the trump campaign or trump associates. perhaps is looking at the financial dealings of people around trump. we know he has been investigating general flynn. there are any number of things that will fall under the rubric of this grand jury. if you are the president of the united states who sees it all as

a witch hunt, this has to be a concern development. charlie: i think john kelly said the president would not fire jeff sessions after the president heard from a lot of republicans you better not do that. secondly, you had a lot of people in congress to say if he tried to fire him and appoint a new attorney general, that would be a very tough road. dan: he has clearly been put on notice that either of those steps would ring him nothing but grief from capitol hill. first with jeff sessions who has a lot of friends on capitol hill and rose to his defense when the president began to attack them in tweets and statements. the reaction was swift and very clear to the president, a clear warning, do not take that step. similarly with any effort to try to scuffle the in -- scuttle the investigation by bob mueller.

he is hearing from people that would be a very dangerous step for him. there is some legislation brewing on the hill that would tie his hands if he tried to do that. himink it is a signal to that he has to let this investigation run its course and accept the consequences. it may be that the final conclusions do not particularly do him any damage. we have to leave open the possibility. but every time he steps into something, it creates more questions about what he is worried about. charlie: dan balz, thank you so much. we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: as dan balz mentioned in my conversation with him, ofs is a extraordinary story access to conversations with the president of the united states and the prime minister of australia and also the president of mexico. the reporter who broke the story, joins me from washington. .t the table is dan senor i'm pleased to have both on the program. all, what was the

first reaction you had when you discovered these transcripts? when you realized you had access to them, and what they said? >> we had written stories earlier in the year about the calls. we had gotten word they were really chaotic and heated. we sort of knew that going in. to me the thing that jumped out right away was reading through what aico call and distance there was between what trump has said publicly about "i'm going to build a wall in mexico is going to pay for it," and what he was telling the mexican president in his first call. it went completely in the opposite direction. charlie: what did he say in the call to the president of mexico? attempt --nts to an

at one point in the call, he says this is probably the least important thing we are talking about but the most important thing politically. charlie: the transcripts of these calls, where they come from and how are the edited and prepared? who has access to them? >> when a president has a conversation with a foreign leader, he has his own white house staff listening and there are no takers -- notetakers. they are scribbling notes throughout the conversation. after, they produce a transcript of sorts. it is not verbatim the way a court reporter might put them together from a recording, but it is very close approximations. it is an accurate reflection of the play-by-play of that call. circulated toemos policy people throughout the white house. charlie: the white house has said the president is always

looking to make the best deals for the american people. in every conversation with foreign leaders, he is direct and forceful in his determination to put america and americans first. is this likely to lead to a different impression of president trump than most americans already had? >> i think it reinforces some of our impressions about that. you read through some of the language we use from an official familiar with the calls when they say he is always putting america first. i think you also read these transcripts of these conversations, and he is always putting donald trump first. he is referring to himself repeatedly throughout these calls. everything is viewed through the prism of, are you making me look good or bad? if it is the latter, and angry about it -- i am angry about it. charlie: what were your impressions? >> this is not the first time a president has spoken candidly

with a foreign leader and spoken in terms about policies different from what the president says in public. that is not shocking. the crassness and starkness of the way he does it is probably a little unnerving, but it is not shocking. what is worrisome to me, in addition to what it reveals about president trump and how committed he is to these policies and some of the things greg says, is this is unprecedented in terms of the leak. and the idea that foreign leaders around the world now know when they are having a and a conversation with the president, they could be reading not only in the front pages of "the washington post" that front pages of newspapers and their own countries about those conversations. these conversations in some respects reflect not well on the leaders to home trump was speaking to -- to whom trump

was speaking to. it looks like he is trying to push them around. if you are the president of mexico or any of , you do not want these conversations in your press. the u.s. president's relationship with these leaders is asymmetrical. what they say to our president and what they say about our president matters a lot less in our politics than what the u.s. president says about them or to them in their politics. i think having these conversations broadcast out like this will make a lot of these leaders around the world a lot more -- charlie: circumspect. >> uneasy about talking to the president candidly. that is a huge problem. >> this white house does have a problem with weeks, discipline generally. the attorney general is scheduled tomorrow to have some

sort of press conference or event in which he addresses the subject and talks about a crackdown. at the same time, this is an administration and president who lashes out in all directions all the time against his own subordinates. the badmouth his own attorney general on twitter. he accused congress of being responsible for the damaged relationship with moscow. he attacked the intelligence community. how does an executive like that expect to engender loyalty across the administration when he is constantly pointing fingers and putting blame and criticism in all directions? >> i agree as a practical matter it is sort of the inevitability of what you are describing, constant attacks including on the intelligence community which are damaging. it is inevitable this kind of thing will happen. it does not make it right that a public servant in the intelligence community or anywhere else takes this kind of

action in response. the president is allowed to criticize whoever he wants to criticize, including his own government. it does not make it ok for officials to release it. the long-term implications are extremely damaging. >> there is additional value for us at "the washington post" because when we published our story earlier in the year as characterizing the conversation with turnbull as acrimonious, trump the next date announced denounced the story as fake news. the president of mexico says he never made the call to praise the head of national security. >> this is a pattern that has surfaced in his claim about the boy scout leadership calling to credit him for the speech he gave. there is a credibility issue here. >> what is striking is i think

n, many bendans spi facts slightly. the speed and frequency with which this president lies on not necessarily big things but small things, the cumulative effect is huge and incredibly credibility damaging. charlie: how did the conversation with turnbull end? >> not well. turnbull is trying to turn things in a more productive direction. clearly, trump is upset about the refugee deal. turnbull says let's talk about syria, something else. trump wants no part of it and wants to get off the phone. he lashes out at the end, "thanks a lot, i'm getting you off the hook and you're putting me off the hook." turnbull is saying you can count on me, australia is your friend. trump brushes him off and says i

hope so, goodbye. charlie: are you finding as a reporter covering washington and he white house that become -- the tone is leading to more people wanting to tell their side of the story or wanting to make some point because they do not believe the general line of conversation coming out of the white house? >> i think i would be lying if i said otherwise. deeplyre people who care of thehe institution, intelligence agencies, congress, or other parts of the executive branch who believe in fundamental principles of democracy and what the united states stands for who feel trampled often. how they express and how they express that you will have great disagreement about. but it's real. you can't discount the fact that that is real.

>> i would add to that when i think when trump came into power, came into the office, there was the says he could steamroll in agenda through. what he completely underestimated, included his team, is the power in washington of the permanent bureaucracy, of congress, of the press and of , special justs com groups and how they work together. someone in the government working to get the story out. all four of those institutions are in overdrive, including republicans in congress. they are more restraint but all for four institutions now are working harder and more energetically to be a real check on this president, for the reason you stated because they just as greg said, they feel they story is not getting out. charlie: greg, thank you very much. thank you, dan.

we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: for the first time scientists have successfully humand a gene in embryos that causes a dangerous heart condition and would prevent the mutation from being passed out for future

generations. the achievement could be applied to 10,000 conditions caused by specific inherited mutations. the study was a collaboration between the salk institute and koreas institute for basic science. the development also raises ethical concerns regarding his potential to be exploited for non-therapeutic purposes. joining me from portland, oregon, is the study's senior author dr. shoukhrat mitalipov of oregon health and science university. from cambridge, massachusetts, richard hynes at mit. greely,o alto, hank director for the center and law and biosciences at stanford. whoew york, pam belluck wrote the story for "the new york times." this is a remarkable advance. we want to fully understand the potential and the -- being raise d. tell me the significance of this. >> this is really a big deal. this is the closest we have come

to being able to genetically modify a human embryo. and it was quite a successful experiment or series of experiments that the team did. that tells you that the ability to do that safely and to do that successfully is probably not all that far off. a number of years, for sure, maybe a decade. dr. mitalipov so, people withtalipov diseases that can be inherited, that issue can be eliminated? be able to,is to for couples who have mutations that they would pass on to their children that would be a specific cause of a disease, this, the idea is that you would be able to correct this, to repair the rotation,-- the mutation, to i basically get rid of it.

the genes were not only being not transferred to the child that would be a limited of from the family's line, for future generations. charlie: so, the question is, how did you do it? how long have you been working on it? give me a sense of your journey. dr. mitalipov: so, we've been actually monitoring how this new gene editing technology developed. as you know, there are several tools been developed that enable you to cut dna into very specific spots. so, the -- technology is called crisper, which allows you to direct the scissors to a very certain gene you tell it to cut. so, this was a pretty efficient way of basically mutating genes. but, of course, for humans, it was like -- turning mutated genes back into normals and that

is how we combined the cutting tool along with the mbembryo -- we basically cut, and used the self repair in an embryo. the cut -- took place and when an embryo repairs, and has some kind of request to read from a template. we call it, in this case it was another gene that comes from another parent. if you just tell embryos where the problem is, it can vary efficiently self repair this mutation. charlie: the self repair, it is amazing to me that a gene can do that. how was it able to do that? dr. mitalipov: every cell in our body has this self-- and most cells of the body repair it by making more errors.

it could be some pieces of dna missing. it appears to be that embryos have a very different system. so, they have some kind of proofreading activity that will always try to see some kind of blueprint it would require to rebuild. in this case, the blueprint is usually the second gene, which is the second gene always was normal for humans. greely, what would you add to this in terms of the significance and excitement in the medical community? >> i think one of the remarkable things about this study is they discovered something surprising. it didn't actually work quite the way everybody expected. and when the story first broke last week early, none of the early stories really talked about the most interesting finding which was the suffered pyramid can is him in the embryo. i think this is a really fascinating advance that might bring embryo editing to the

clinical little bit earlier but i think we are still a decade out. maybe now we are nine years and 10 months out. charlie: people have been trying to do this. i mentioned in china and in other places. this really was a breakthrough for this. >> right. basicallye thing that they are college three things, i think, three important things that the previously published ree previousth studies done by chinese researchers, and the big advance that this team was able to do, first of all, they were able to successfully get the change into a lot of embryos, dozens of embryos, not just a few. their success rate was pretty good, it was not 100%, it was about 72%, but that was pretty good. it tells you, you know, they are moving in the right direction. they did it with a relatively common gene mutation that causes

a very serious disease. they went for the kind of targeting we would want this kind of technology to be used for. and maybe even most importantly, really bigd two problems that had plagued the chinese efforts. they were able to get rid of a problem where the mutation would be copied in some cells of the embryo but not all of the cells. so, that creates, you know, kind of this patchwork of repaired cells and that's not safe in terms of producing an embryo. and, also, they appear to have done this without creating a bunch of unwanted mutations. and that had happened in the previous effort. so, we're talking about an effort that looks like they created appear only healthy embryos. that means this could conceivably be safe to do. charlie: what do you see as the opportunities here and the risks

? >> well, there are still some risks, and they point this out in the paper, that need to be result. we need to be able to do this on other genes. seems no reason why that should not be possible, but it needs to be shown. it would be interesting to know whether you could edit mistakes in the female in a similar fashion. again, that needs to be shown but it seems likely. so, i think this is, as others have said, several steps forward. but it's not there yet, because it has to be worked on further. there are lots of genes likes this where one bad copy can cause torouble. this opens the way to addressing o which could be there useful.

once these technical hurdles can be cleared which will take a few years, to put a number, but a few years before that will be technically feasible. then you asked, what will be the issues raised? there are a series of ethical, societal issues that will need to be addressed was it becomes technically possible, assuming it does. then we have to decide what should be allowed and what should not. there are many values to being able to correct genes like this. and there are also some risks and some societal consequences, having to do with things like going to bes -- an expensive technology. that is not specific to gene editing. it is true of lots of medical advances. it's a societal problem but it needs to be thought through. we now, the community, have this opportunity knowing this is likely coming to think that through, and engage a serious public discussion as to what things need to be fed into that

-- the committee of the academy said, laid down a set of stringent guidelines that would have to be met before one could move forward to clinical application. all have to be met and then maybe some more of that will develop between now and that time. charlie: what was the toughest thing to overcome? we may have -- and secondly, what is your next step? where does the research go? dr. mitalipov: so, the first question, i guess, it was the regulatory oversight. so, even though we have a guideline set that we can do, at least -- in vitro basic work, but still we needed to go through very extensive review and proof on different levels, in three different committees about why we're doing it, how we are going to do it and whether there are alternatives. so, this is probably the

toughest and longest part in the project. regarding what to do next, i think we discussed today there are so many other genes and this crisper technology has to be optimized for each one of them. i bet even the clinical application of even the, if we develop will retest it, still in each case, we would have to use this technology as part of diagnostics where we would biopsy if you cells from the embryo and do all these tests not only that the mutation is now corrected but make sure there are no off target effects. and i think this technology needs to be, you know, develops could actually proceed to clinical trial sometime in the future. charlie: do all of you feel like we are looking at a breakthrough moment in science and medicine,

that we will look back at this a few years and sa that was where we achieved the results that led to a remarkable future in the way we deal with inherited disease? >> to me, breakthrough is a little bit strong for this. i think it is great work and a wonderful paper. wasrestingly what exactly done here could also be done through a process that he already mentioned, pre-application genetic diagnosis where you select embryos and pick the embryos that do not have the bad copy of the gene. so, the precise method here is not that new. i do think, though, it is one more i important step toward a future where we could do this. as richard pointed out, the big question will be, should we and if so under what circumstances and how will we make it just and fair? >charlie: is it safe?

is safety a factor here? >> oh, safety is going to be the main factor. charlie: with what kind of consequences? >> well, for example, you know, mitalipov mentioned, the next kind of steps they are going to have to repeat this with this mutation and with many others. and they're basically going to have to figure out a way to get it more and more successful. 95% of want to have 90%, the time you want this to be successful, maybe 100% of the time if you can, right, obviously. and what you want to avoid is creating other problems in the embryo. to create otherwant mutations. you do not want to have a patchwork of cells. you want to be able to have a

healthy embryo so the child can be healthy. so, once they get the technology to the point where they have a very good success rate in the lab, in the dish, with the embryos, then u.s. law or some other country's law will have to change enough to allow there to be clinical trials where this can be tried in actual pregnancies. charlie: and we think that is for five years away? >> i think as the experts here have been saying, a decade sounds about right. but with signs, honestly, it is always very hard to predict and these developments are happening very quickly. there are other teams working on this kind of thing. and those clinical trials, the children who are born will need to be followed to make sure that they are healthy and there are not any unintended consequences. so, it's a ways out. how significant, and

this is for anyone, how significant is the idea that eliminating the mutation and the was able toing -- be passed on from generation to generation? that factor. was that to be expected or was that a breakthrough as well? >> no, that was to be expected. if you create something in the embryo, it is going to be inherited. in many cases. so, that would be expected. i would like to add something else, though, that i think sometimes gets lost in this discussion. these were in vitro experiments to work out the technology of how to make edits in an embryo. those have applications not only for what we have been talking about, gene line there be, and correcting mutations in yet to be born children, it is also very important to study these learns in vitro to things about why things go wrong during ivf.

things about fertility, things about implantation and miscarriages. so, the tools that they've advanced in this paper can be used to study those questions with no, quite apart from any metes toedit ga cure children of this disease. there is a lot of good medical benefits that will come from the basic science of which this is a good example. charlie: go ahead, somebody. >> the germ line issue you raise is going to be an importantone. people are already in different camps. some people think that change in the line and awful thing. others think it would be a great health. i think that will be a big argument we will have but the other bigger argument we will have is whether these kinds of things should only be used to prevent disease or whether they could be used for enhancement purposes. and that i predict is going to

be the big division in 10 years, 15 years, whenever it gets to the point where this is safe enough to consider. charlie: the division between those who approve of it or those who do not approve of it, or what division? >> used for preventing disease or used to make modifications to people. one aspect of this paper is it uses the gene from the other chromosome to correct the mutation. charlie: as of now the nih is prevented from performing genetic research. >> more importantly, the fda is prohibited from even considering any kind of application for a clinical trial in this country. charlie: is this a political argument or a medical argument? >> well, i think like a lot of things, it is both. i mean, i think there are, there are certainly people on

different sides politically here. and they probably fall along the same lines as many of these kinds of arguments and issues do, but there are medical questions. including, you know, not only just how well this could work, but what circumstances are really appropriate for this to be used. you know, ideally -- charlie: playing god is a phrase they use sometimes. >> some people would see it that way. the easiest goal for people to accept and, in fact, one could argue an almost ethical responsibility in a way, is if we have the ability to safely help people have healthy children when they, would have someher option, then

people would say there is an ethical argument for doing that, right? but the ethical concern is are we doing this when it's not necessary, and are we, would we t sort ofi preferentially available to people who have the resources to pay for it? charlie: are there other ways to achieve the results that are achieved by this gene editing, tois this it, if you want make sure that you can attack these kinds of inherited single gene diseases? >> it has only been mentored you can use pg -- to select the embryos that don't carry a mutation and discard them and use the others. that's a possibility. it isn't a possibility for everything, for every mutation. but one could think about changing but it is possible for many of them. >> the advantage of this technology in, is that it could

work alongside pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. if you have a couple with fertility issues, currently they are able to genetically test their embryos and pick the healthy ones and implant those. that happens today, but not every embryo is going to be healthy. and so, one of the sort of clearest arguments for using this gene editing technique is that you could repair the unhealthy embryos and the couple would then have more healthy embryos to choose from or to use in trying to conceive. only giveould, not them a better chance, but it could save women from going through multiple, arduous cycles of ivf. so there are some arguments for that. charlie: what is the most

important thing you learned in this successful experiment? dr. mitalipov: so, the most important thing is -- the ability of the embryo, germ line, to do self repair, because we actually tested this self repair in their own skin cells. we used cells direct from skin. we tested extensively. then monitored how cells would repair. we've actually never seen this kind of suffered. using the other allele. the first study was completely opposite. so, this was very surprising and that is how the whole study started. basically we needed to prove if this is just a one experiment and we have to repeat it with multiple different eggs, make sure this is kind of conserving -- mechanism. charlie: hank, this was on the

front page of all of the newspapers i read this morning and got a lot of attention in the television world as well. is it the kind of event, the kind of success, that will promote the kind of necessary study that we need to deal with what is a step forward in medical science? >> i hope so, but it might not. what we need is a long social discussion, both with ethicists, scientists, religious figures but also with ordinary people, with the regular citizens, about what we would want to do with this and what we would not want to do with it. what worries me a little bit about the intention this has gotten as it can lead to a panic. birth,olly the sheep's suddenly everyone was worried about armies of cloned warrior slaves. bunch of legislators asked silly in retrospect because people got caught up in a panic. panic legislation is almost

always bad legislation. we have got time. we should sit down, carefully think about it. the national academies report was a great start. but we need to carry on and continue to think hard about what this would mean, and what we would want for our families and for our societies. charlie: you have all been really wonderful to come in this evening. it is, i think, something that will get a lot of attention honestly because of the ramifications we have said today. we hope to revisit this. i thank you for being patient as we mounted this broadcast and i'm, weill be coming back to tak to you more. so, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. charlie: and thank you, pam. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ is this a phone?

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♪ anchor: welcome to "best of bloomberg markets: middle east." here are the major stories from this week. doyle halted gains as investors weighed rebounds against the sky and include -- oil halted gains as investors weigh rebounds declines. general manager about the latest in a spring of acquisitions for the dubai-based investment b