♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. charlie: bob cheevers has been at cbs studios since 1969. he has covered the major beats and washington including the pentagon, white house, congress and state department. for 24 years he was the anchor of "face the nation." he retired in he has eight emmys 2015. and has been named a living legend by the library of congress. his latest book is called : finding the truth in news." deluge of i spoke with him last week in

new york. here is that conversation. [applause] bob: it is worth coming appeared just to get introduced by charlie. the first thing you notice, he does not have his boots on tonight, he has is purple socks. those are the colors of ptu. every morning he gets up and puts on purple socks. you know why? >> why? >> i did not plan at this way, but when tcu went to the rose bowl five years ago, it was a -- we had not been there since 1937, it was a big deal. i was trying to think of something to say that nobody else has said and i said, if you guys win, i will wear purple socks for the rest of my life. i had no idea they would win. [laughter] charlie: it is probably worth it for you. bob: so far. charlie: what is fascinating is

how you came to write this and withonversation you had someone who basically said, what is happening in journalism is an issue of national security. csis, theead of center for strategic and international study in washington, the leading in washington. but there are some other really good ones. but the doctor, who was deputy secretary of defense during the clinton administration and a ise intellectual, he respected by people on both sides and all sides of foreign-policy issues, we were having coffee with andrew schwartz, who was with me on this book. he is the chief of communications that csis. we were just talking about journalism and where it is today and with all of this fake news,

questions about, what can you believe and all that. the doctor said, this is a national security issue. andrew and i started a series of podcasts where we started calling a people in all sorts of journalism. the editor of "the washington post," reporters for "politico." more podcasts in the summer of 2016. we did 10 more of them and thought, it might make the usual washington report that the think -- think tanks put out. and i thought, if i am going to put out something like that, i want people to read it. we decided to make the book out of it and that is how this book came about. it was a fascinating process. and project. because what the book is about is that we are in the midst of a communications technology

revolution that is having a -- as profound affect on our culture and the people of our time as the invention of the printing press had on the people of that day. but the difference is, while the printing press improved literacy, it caused the counterreformation, it was also followed by 30 years of religious wars and it was literally 30 years, three decades before equilibrium was , reached in europe. we are at the very beginning of this communications revolution. it is having a profound effect on all of our institutions. but especially on the way we get our news. and also come on our politics. we are right in the middle of it right now. charlie: i assume the title "overload" means how much news is out there and how we respond to it.

you also quoted the president of npr -- the scarcest resource in journalism now his attention -- is attention span. we used to live in a world governed by the laws of physics and time and space. they were our key constraint. now, how long can you keep your , your followers, consuming the journalism you created? bob: that is right. this has come about for several reasons. number one, the decline of newspapers. thell know, because of advertising that used to be the lifeblood for our newspapers, newspapers as we have known them, are going away. we have lost 126 newspapers over the last 12 years. here's an interesting statistic. in 2004, one reporter in eight lived in

washington, new york, or los angeles. now, that number is down to one reporter in five lives in one of those three cities. so when you get out into the midwest and across the rust belt, it is not a question of whether people are getting biased news, they are getting no news from reliable sources. most of their news is coming from facebook and social media. charlie: 63%. 63% now get at least some of their news from facebook. which is fine -- it is a great way to have communication with your neighbors, and your relatives. but things that appear on , facebook have not gone through the editing process that you would be used to seeing on the front page of your newspaper in days gone by. for example, cbs and the new

york times or washington post are the good newspapers that are left. you can generally assume we do not broadcast or published something unless we have gone to some trouble to find out if it is true. that is not the standard being followed throughout social media. charlie: so many people can be their own publishers. personification of the media. what happened yesterday after this horrendous event happened in las vegas social , media was filled with all kinds of stories. the first one was at that, the shooter was an anti-trump liberal who liked rachel maddow. [laughter] bob: i am serious. that is what it was. it also said he had converted to islam and was associated with isis and al qaeda. all of those things -- those topics, are absolutely false.

and totally without foundation. when i actually called cbs yesterday something picked up on my phone that said he had converted to islam. i called one of the producers and said, is that right? he said no, it is totally wrong. so who can blame people when they say, who do i believe? who can i trust? ,here is so much out there bombarded from all sides 24/7 by this stuff. it is almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaffe. charlie: how do we figure out what is true and what is real? bob: i think the first thing we securityo -- joe nigh, expert in harvard and at other administration said, we will never defeat this by simply answering every knock.

you have to inoculate people beforehand, make them aware of what is going on and what they might expect. i think that is the best way to do it. there are going to have to be major reforms. time,ok and google, for a were saying, we're not a media company. we are a technology company and we cannot be responsible for what shows up on our website. now this is a company that 62% , of the american people are depending on it as their only source of news, and many, for some news. you have to take responsibility. charlie: i think they are beginning to realize that. bob: they are beginning to do that. and that is the most hopeful sign that has happened so far. but in the beginning this thing , got away from everybody before we really realized the significance of it. charlie: what would be the push back?

is it people becoming alarmed in terms of what they hear and see and not knowing what is true? after the printing press was invented, there was a push back. is it the credibility of news? bob: yes. let's make no mistake, the russians are playing a role in this. there's no question that they are. at csis they did a study called the kremlin playbook. she has looked through central europe at the behavior of the russians. the russians don't drive their tanks across borders anymore. they found out it is much cheaper to use cyber and adopt a soft power method. basically what they are doing is bribing local officials, making sweetheart deals with local businessmen in these countries, making loans to them, things of that nature.

doing everything they can to destabilize the press and raise questions about the credibility of the press in these countries. successe had remarkable with that. if any of this sounds familiar, it is what has been going on in this country over the last year. there is no question. all of our intelligence people agree with that assessment. the only people who questions it is the president. [laughter] charlie: and steve bannon. the question of newspapers, from the moment. you came from a great newspaper in fort worth, texas. the washington post pulled things around. it has helped to them understand how to use the electronic media. bob: they have. and the post is leading the way. we are focused on the bad news of what is happening with this

technology revolution, but there is very good news there. the washington post and the editor has found a way for newspapers to survive. and i think if newspapers do survive this, i think jeff bezos is going to deserve most of the credit. he may have single-handedly done it. what they have done, is they are no longer a newspaper company. i would add the new york times is doing very much the same thing now. these companies are no longer -- -- just companies that publish a newspaper. they have turned themselves into adia companies, producing product that goes out on a variety of platforms. they are digital platforms. they put out newsletters everyday. they are finding more and more ways to reach their viewers. the washington post now has a whereaddition -- edition

they put out videos to supplement their news coverage. in the old days, everybody went around 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. they went and covered their beats and talks to their sources and everybody got acted office at 5:30 and wrote for a 7:00 deadline and everybody went home and then came back the next day and did the next thing. now, all of these companies have completely changed their schedule. here's another thing. in those days which i called it -- the gatekeeper era of journalism, where you had three television stations in every town and everybody had a pretty good newspaper in their town, people generally based their opinions on the data they got from those sources. now, with the echo chamber channels we have, and so many of the social media channels out

there, if you get your news from this source over here, your -- you are also getting one set of facts. if you get it from one source over here, you are getting another set of facts. so, what has happened is we are basing our opinions on separate sets of facts. we no longer have common data that we are basing opinions on so is it any wonder there's a -- that the partisan divide grows deeper and wider? a senatorsu remember said, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. bob: we all come equipped with our own effects. contrast that to someone on national television is said, we have our own facts, we have alternative facts. dictionary,ord post-truth -- charlie: word of the year -- word of the year was

"post-truth can charlie: you said at one time it was sustained on everything -- every theme it touched. how is it different? bob: this is true. i said on television so many times last year, i have never seen anything like this. it became a drinking game among the viewers of cbs news. every time bob said i've never seen anything, down the hatch. [laughter] bob: sing god they had designated drivers. but no, i haven't. i don't know anybody who has. this was the most unusual election in the most unusual year that i think i ever saw.

there are so many things -- you just said did that really , happen? my favorite moment in 2016 was when the speaker, john boehner, called ted cruz lucifer in the flesh, and the devil worshiper society put out a press release and denied it. [laughter] bob: they did you can look it , up. that is how unusual it was. charlie: you were surprised that he won -- donald trump? bob: yes. i was not surprised that he got the nomination. i thought early on he would get the nomination. i was up at harvard doing a fellowship. isaid, i think donald trump going to get the nomination on the republican side. boy, there was a lot of coughing and eye rolling -- people cannot -- could not believe i came to that conclusion.

figured out early on -- he crafted a message. he knew they were people out there, especially across the rust belt, that fell they were not getting a fair deal. and the government was not doing anything. i think they just decided it is not going well. we need a change, and i will just take a fire on him. words,ght have different but i think that is a big part of it. he also ran a new kind of campaign. i think one of the things that hurt hillary clinton was, she ran a very old-fashioned kind of campaign. by that i mean, control the narrative never put your , candidate in a position where she might be asked a question she does not know the answer to -- control the narrative. so, she did not appear on many television programs. she was hardly on the sunday shows.

charlie: trump was much more accessible. bob: trump figured out early on if you call up a certain number of television programs, you'll get on them and if you say something outlandish, you will be invited on even more. he just overwhelmed her with exposure, in this sense. we took a lot of criticism by saying we gave him too much time and we did not push back. we did push back, but he was getting on television so much that you push back on this and he is out there talking about something else. so i think a lot of this campaign and the reason she lost on came down to tactics. there's a political consultant from australia and he worked in some of david cameron's campaigns in great britain. had a dead time, he

cat theory of politics. say you are having a dinner party. no matter what you're talking about if someone throws a dead , cat on the table, you will start talking about the dead cat. [laughter] bob: over and over donald trump , would throw a dead cat on the table. he would start the day saying something and if there was , something that happened yesterday he would say something , that had no relation to it whatsoever. before you know it, for the rest of the day the other candidates, , both republicans and democrats were responding to what he said. he was not a traditional politician in any sense of the word. but he did have some understanding of television. charlie: you bring this up in your book. country nominate two of the least popular politicians? [laughter] bob: i think there is a reason

for that and part of it has to do with this revolution in technology that is changed the way we campaign. think our electoral system, the way we select and elect our candidates is not completely broken down. shape thanin worse the roads and bridges in this country for a variety of , reasons. number one, the system has completely and totally been overwhelmed by money. redistricting, gerrymandering of districts, that has also had a lot to do with it. but the bottom line is, we have made running for office in this country so onerous, so awful that our best and brightest people are simply turning away him it and they want nothing to do with it. i had a young woman who worked for me for a while.

she started dating a congressman who is a very nice young man. she went home to tell her dad and it was like she had said, i just decided to go out with this bank robber. [laughter] did not care if he was democrat or republican, it was because he was a politician. ,t went through a while there and she stopped dating the guy. she was not that serious about him in the first place. but she got no encouragement from her parents for that. know, charlie when i was a , little boy, my grandmother thought i was going to be president of the united states when i grew up because that is what every grandmother thought about their grandson. charlie: my grandmother thought i would be a bank robber. [laughter] bob: but let me ask you this -- my grandmother and the others thought their grandsons would grow up to be president.

but how many people have you talked to lately that say, i sure hope my grandkid grows up to be a politician? can count them on your nose. people want nothing to do with it. we have to find some way to convince our best and brightest that public service is something that is honorable and is needed and what has made this country what it is today. because too many people just simply want nothing to do with it and i think that has something to do with, have you wind up with two candidates -- charlie is right, that the majority of voters neither liked or trusted. fromie: has trump turned campaigning to transition to the responsibility of government? his legislative goals have yet

to be realized. obamacare repeal and replace it did not happen. tax reform has been announced, we will see what happens. immigration, we have had travel bans challenged in the courts. he says he will build a wall. on national security, he talks about america first. there is some pushback on that. we don't know he is he will withdraw from the iran deal. he said he has made up his mind but will not say what he will do. you're smiling at me. you know what he is going to do? bob: no. [laughter] charlie: i don't, either. so how is he doing? i think if you would be a conservative you would say he has selected an honorable and well-qualified person to be on the supreme court. charlie: justice gorsuch. bob: and i think you have to give him credit for that.

but i do not see much else happening. the government seems without direction at this point. it seems more in chaos than in getting things done or governing. charlie: there is as much division between republicans as between republicans and democrats. bob: when people used to ask me, i covered congress for 15 years, and it was always my favorite eat. forvered the white house nearly six years, and that was fun, too. but people used to say, why do you like covering congress better? i said, because when you cover the white house, everybody at the white house works for the same person. when you are up at capitol hill, they are independent contractors. that is where you find news. to me, that was a great job. that no longer is apt because there are as many factions now inside the white house as there are up at capitol hill.

i talked to these reporters up there and i will say, if you want to talk to the kushners, at -- who do you go to? they have their own spokesperson. cohnu want to talk to gary and those folks, you go to somebody else. i've never witnessed a white house quite like this one and so much of it is not about policy. it is unfamiliarity with process. charlie: or unfamiliarity with governing. bob: you just need somebody that can say the men's room is down , this hall and the ladies room is over here in the cafeteria is back over there. [laughter] bob: it just helps to have somebody like that.

this is not important, but it is just an example of the disorganization. you will see press releases with misspelled words. and the names of people and their positions, misstated. you just wonder, how do they get through the day? charlie: they appointed a four-star general, john kelly, to bring order. and the tweets continue. bob: i think he is brought some order. charlie: to the president? bob: not necessarily order. [laughter] bob: he has become a gatekeeper for the oval office. charlie: who gets in? bob: who gets in. i was told people were wandering in and out. some people were on or five peopleur

would walk in, whisper something to the president. it is unlike anything any of us are familiar with. charlie: how much of a threat is the russian investigation to the president? i do not know whether the president has done anything wrong in connection to the russians. but every action he takes is the action of someone who appears to have something to hide. now, whatever it is i don't know and maybe i have totally misread that. but why is he so reluctant to discuss that? why is he so fearful to have people talk about it? ledgeie: he won't acknow the hacking took place. charlie: it comes back to the income tax. if people were accusing him of doing something in conjunction to the russians, i would guess

if he released his income tax and he were not, it would be reflected. [applause] thatie: don't you assume robert mueller has the power to look at his income tax? bob: yes. charlie: so he knows. bob: he may already know, we do not know that. i would think he would have the authority to do it. charlie: is there a consensus in washington that he will likely survive and be a viable candidate for reelection in 2020? bob: charlie -- it is a question i would ask you if i were doing this interview. [laughter] bob: i have no earthly idea. ♪

♪ isrlie: hari sreenivasan here, he is a correspondent for the pbs news hour. over the past two weeks, their teams have produced an 11 part series exploring the nation's opioid crisis. it is a big story that has become one of the biggest. in august, president trump declared the crisis a national emergency. he will be reporting a story from new mexico. in it, he explores the many ways the state is trying to curtail

supply and demand. here is a look. >> it just blocks the pain, numbs it. >> stories like hers explains why the national opioid epidemic has been so hard to beat back. in recent years, she turned to pills and cocaine to help block pain. the physical pain from a fall, and the anxiety of everyday life. prolonged stretches of time, she fights for sobriety. but they are always in her up by moments like this. before my dad and everybody showed up, the pain was so bad. i will self medicate with drugs. >> addiction continues to rage in this county, despite the small band of health providers and their many efforts. despite aggressive law enforcement action, and the county's recent drop in death rates. treatment can work wonders for individual patients, but the

county is filled with poverty, unemployment and trauma. pain in search of a painkiller. -- we enforcement said are not going to treat our way out of this problem. we want to stop it earlier, by not sit -- prescribing inappropriately. charlie: i am pleased to have hari sreenivasan back at this table. welcome. let's do a primer on this. what are we talking about? what is the opioid crisis? hari: 40,000 people a year die in car wrecks. opioidamericans died in overdoses. fore numbers are staggering any country. these have been staggering, the

numbers increasing. they might even go higher this year and next before it gets better. charlie: when you say overdose, overdose from what? hari: opioids. a lot of people started with prescription painkillers. they had severe back problems, injuries from car accidents. very legitimate sources of pain. and the prescriptions for painkillers was so high in the late 1990's -- charlie: and addictive? hari: yes. a lot of those people could not stop themselves from being addicted. as the supply of pills started to shrink, when people started to realize how many they were talking about, as the pills disappeared a lot of people were , turning to heroin. new mexico, virginia different , cities around the country are facing an absolute epidemic of proportions nobody in the public health sector, nobody in the criminal justice system, has ever seen before. there are entire towns and economies stunted by this. charlie: it is everywhere, not just rural or any particular

geography. hari: no 82% of the victims are , white, according to the cdc. this is a problem that is hitting all across america. it is certainly hitting places that are blue-collar towns like huntington, where it used to be coal country and backbreaking work. those are the people that got on those pills in the mid-1990's. charlie: your numbers, roughly 780 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone have been shipped to west virginia over a six-year period. that is more than 400 doses per resident. hari: there is a tiny town called kermit. this tiny town, population 392, over a two-year period one pharmacy had 9 million pills delivered to it. charlie: 9 million? hari: when you think about that

-- that is why there is significant concern that it is primarily a problem of over prescription that started this. they got these people look. when those pills started going away, they turned somewhere else. charlie: what are we doing about it? hari: there are all different types of treatments. there's a treatment in rhode island where people are -- who are recovering from this scourge are the ones on the front lines. they are talking to people in a way, they can empathize with someone who has a substance abuse disorder right now in a way they you and i can't. they can say i have been in this exact same emergency room bed. there was a piece about virtual reality and how it is used at the university of washington to ,ry to treat pain, acute pain say someone in a burn unit.

the kind of pain they are experiencing when they have to have their dressings changed decreases when they are playing a videogame. there is hypnosis and therapy and meditation. we are literally throwing the kitchen sink at trying to bring this down. charlie: this is something the government has to get involved in because of the scale. a commission, we have declared an emergency for the past three months. this is on a scale -- we're talking about bigger than the crisis in puerto rico, than any -- the crisis we face with these storms. this is a national problem that needs national solutions. when he to figure out what works and how to deploy it. charlie: what did you find in new mexico? hari: what is interesting about them, the health services community saw this problem 10 years ago. at that point, they figured it was already running for 10 years and so because they had that head start, they were able to get the practices at work and

see how they could stop this. has in new mexico, which needle exchange programs, they talk to their inmates as soon as they are getting out, because that is a time when you are likely to overdose the most, when you have been cold turkey a few weeks. they talk to kids at seventh-grade. they do everything possible. they are also at an intersection -- literally a crossroads, drugs come in from el paso to the united states and it is a most like a walmart redistribution of the drugs. it starts there in albuquerque and makes its way across the country. charlie: when pbs takes on a project like this, how do you make sure you don't come down and spend two weeks of broadcast focusing on the problem and then move on to other types of crisis? eye?o keep an ever present hari: it is a slow burn. we have talked about baby is opioids as these

they were born. we have had multiple stories about the opioid crisis. i suspect we will continue to do this, over and over again. this was a specific way for us to organize it. we do not expect everyone to watch whatever broadcast, all week long. anytime you tune in, you can say, this is part of something larger. charlie: thank you for coming. ♪

♪ charlie: mac demarco is here. the canadian songwriter was recently crowned the king of indie rock. he has garnered praise with a legion of fans. we visited his home for coffee. confronted the idea of growing old and growing up. it is called "this old dog." here is mac demarco performing the track "this old dog" here in our studio. ♪ >> sometimes my love may be put on hold sometimes my heart may seem awful cold

these times come and these times go as long as i live, all you need to know is this old dog ain't about to forget all we've had and all that's next 'long as my heart's beating in my chest this old dog ain't about to forget often a heart tends to change its mind

a new day decides on a new design a new day gets set on another way as long as i live, all i've got to say is this old dog ain't about to forget all we've had and all that's next 'long as my heart's beating in my chest

this old dog ain't about to forget ♪ charlie: i'm pleased to have mac demarco at this table for the very first time. how do you become the prince of indie rock? mac: i do not know. i am more curious about the transition out of being the prince. charlie: most singer-songwriters -- singer,m not much of a not much of a songwriter. may be con artist of both. i think it is funny to get labeled as something like that.

it holds some kind of weight or even being called an artist, i still feel weird about that. in reality to me, i was 18 making noise in my garage. it turns out after a bit of time, some people listened to it. it is cool. but it is weird to grapple with that label, i guess. i don't know. i like writing songs. that is a beautiful thing about it, i you never really know when it is going to work, why it is going to work, where it is going to work, or if it even works at all. charlie: you get up in the morning and say, "i need to write a song"? and you think about it? trial and error? mac: paul mccartney gets down to dokey.ano and says, okey-

for me, i think of it as i have a chunk of time and i want to create things that fit together in some way. the recording process, i do everything home alone. hopefully at some period in there i can hit a streak of writing the songs and they work out. when it does not work it becomes frustrating. charlie: are you interested in creating a stage persona? mac: i think in a way, maybe. i think i was trying to pretend to be jonathan richman for a lot of years. i think he does the greatest shows. charlie: what was so great about? mac: his whole vibe. he has been doing it for years, and years now.

it is like a friendly invitation, he is not trying to be too cool. it is engaging. he wants to make sure everyone is comfortable. very stripped-down. it feels special. charlie: what about people like ed sheran who play before huge audiences? mac: he seems like a nice guy. i haven't really seen him play. i don't know. he is probably playing in front of millions of people or something like that. charlie: big stadiums. mac: yeah, exactly. i could see that being very alienating, maybe. i don't know. -- as theps to try to say a couplegger,

shows at a smaller place, than trying to do the biggest one. that being said, it is say a coe shows at a smaller peanuts compared to mr. ed. it is always going and it is great. i always say this there is a up ond and there is us the stage. it is not an art gallery. we're all in the same room together. charlie: what is the real definition of indie rock? mac: i am not on a major label. that has something to do with it. i do it at my house, on my own. i think what is seemingly not -- got all the bells and whistles, a huge, giant major-label production. especially nowadays with the internet, a lot of the lines are blurred. i do not really know. nowadays, people would say, indie rock, kind of guitary.

musicalmost become a genre, rather than how it gets to the public you know what i , mean? charlie: you actually invite people to come to your home? mac: yes. in rockaway, new york. charlie: did they show up? mac: yes, a couple thousand kids, probably. kids, people, older people, younger people. charlie: did you just say, come in? mac: it was on the last record. come in, have a cup of coffee if you want. i had not lived there long. i figured one of the last stops, who in their right mind is going to come out here? when the sun comes out in the summertime it is a beach town and everyone is out every day. i was in a bit of trouble, but it was great. it is nothing i regret doing. i met a lot of really cool people.

charlie: let's talk about "this old dog." "my old man," is that attribute -- a tribute to your father? mac: yes, there are a couple songs about that. this album came out -- my dad got pretty sick earlier this year. anybody'sot really business. charlie: how does he feel about it? mac: i have not talked to him about it yet. still waiting to hear on that one. i have an almost nonexistent relationship with him. not trying to crucify, not trying to get him back for anything, but trying to understand what that relationship means. charlie: not that close? mac: never that close. just trying to figure it out. charlie: "this old dog" is the title. mac: one of the tracks on there.

i guess i am the dog. charlie: did you start with an idea, a lyric? mac: for that song? i don't know. i think i wanted to write something about an old dog for a couple of albums i don't know , why. maybe a metaphor or symbol, just a droopy basket -- bassett. just a shout out to my sister. just let her know i'm thinking of her. charlie: how about "one another"? mac: it is a carefree little love guy. i had another album called "another one." togetherit

said it better i want another ♪ "odd dreams from yesterday"? one.that is a bossa nova almost like talking to myself, in a way. that song is like, now people listen to your music, what are you going to do now? charlie: "one more love song"? mac: another little sad love song. charlie: "moonlight on the river"? mac: that was about a prophecy. about my dad. charlie: you have something to work out, don't you? mac: maybe. i think this is what working it out was. charlie: and "watching it fade away."

wolf who wears sheep's clothes." it has been great having you here, doing this number in our studio. ♪ in time she'll see that her and me were meant to be, together and time made pass it may go , fast but we'll still be together

and where i go she's at my side, half of my life, together it's easy love, fits like a glove from up above, together together together it is just not fair, i had my share that we should be together

but if its fine that i've done , let's walk the line together and when she's low, i'll always know we'll always go together it's easy love, fits like a glove from up above, together together together

together together ♪ alisa: i am a alisa parenti in

washington you are watching , "bloomberg technology." let's start with a check of "first word news." president trump has signed an executive order to start unwinding the health care law, making lower premium plans a widely available and allowing consumers to buy plans across state lines. it may not happen in time for 2019. his chief of staff john kelly says he is not leaving his job anytime soon. >> i am not quitting today. believe i do not think i , am being fired today. alisa: president trump has introduced his pick for homeland security secretary.