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tv   Charlie Rose  Bloomberg  November 1, 2017 10:00pm-11:00pm EDT

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♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with politics. robert mueller's investigation into possible and should -- possible collusion between russia and the trump campaign permeated yesterday. there is growing concern inside the oval office. it was revealed yesterday that george papadopoulos, and unpaid on the policy adviser trump campaign, pleaded guilty to making false statements.
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the indictments of former campaign manager paul manafort and his deputy rick gates. news,cal analyst for nbc he cowrote today's paper. it is titled "upstairs at home with the tv on," i am pleased to have him back on this program. , the presidentts was up early in anticipation of these indictments coming down. whatibe for the viewers the day was like for president trump. you said, the day began early in the morning. the president knew, like all of us, but there was a strong likelihood the first indictments related to the mueller russia probe would come down on monday morning. the president turned on the tv did not havently
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any inside information about what was happening. he was waiting to see what would us.en with all of he got increasingly frustrated with what he was seeing. he didn't like the fact that paul manafort and rick gates were being so closely identified in the media as trump campaign officials, even though the allegednts spelled out misdeeds before they worked for trump's campaign. trump was on the phone, calling trying topeatedly, understand the legal analysis, what was at stake, what kind of exposure he might have had. attentively to commentary on cable news as he is want to do. he was late getting to work. he didn't show up in the oval office until after the allotted time his staff expected him. it became the subject of discussion among staffers. charlie: is the white house alarmed about this? strong word for
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the entire white house. i can tell you some people are concerned about this in part because they don't weather -- nowhere mueller is going to go next. special counsel has not really revealed very many clues here. figure no ones a in the administration expected separatep in a indictment on monday. they are just not sure what is going to happen next. there is a lot of concern about general flynn. charlie: do we know if there are any other closed indictments that have not been opened? of.ip: not that we know there may be, but not that we are able to report. charlie: when you look at yesterday, the white house is saying this was about 10 years ago, this had nothing to do with us. is that simply putting on a good game case? -- face? philip: it is. it is one thing to say the
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manafort and gates indictments had nothing to do with the campaign because they spelled out years of international business these men did advising different foreign governments and foreign politicians and political parties over the years. that predated the trump campaign. but george papadopoulos, that is directly pertaining to the campaign. the white house line from sarah sanders has been, look, this young man was basically a volunteer, foreign-policy advisor; he had only one meeting with the president. he was not a senior figure on the campaign and any activity he might have done to broker a channel with the russians, he did on his own. he did not do that on behalf of the campaign, but you have to look back at the history. it was at the "washington post" when then candidate trump listled papadopoulos on a of advisors for his foreign-policy team and during
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that trip to washington, trump was photographed in a meeting and otheropoulos advisors, as well as then senator, now attorney general jeff sessions. do not know him to be a major figure in the campaign, but he was involved in the campaign and a foreign-policy advisor by the candidates own announcement. charlie: the other question that comes up is where is the case about michael flynn stand, it is this willn of whether become so tough for the white house that they will reconsider firing bob mueller. philip: that is an interesting notion. i have not heard white house officials speculate about that in their conversations with me, but it is something to think about. there is a great deal of concern in the white house and around the broader trump political orbit about flynn. there was a sense of relief monday that the indictments were
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for manafort and not for flynn because there was a feeling indicting flynn would have been a heavier political blow for the president because he wasn't just a campaign adviser, he served in the government at a high level if only for the first month. charlie: and he was with trump a lot. throughoutrect, and everything from debate prep to the convention, general flynn was a key figure helping advise the president on who to hire for senior roles. charlie: what do we know about general kelly in the white house yesterday? generali can to you kelly is trying to keep things running when it comes to everything not pertaining to russia. that is the tax cut agenda, appearing for a very high-day trip to asia the president is going to be leaving on friday and kelly is preoccupied with
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that. he did an interview with fox news channel's laura ingram, one of his first media appearances and stumbled into a little controversy over his comments about the civil war. charlie: where are we going to end up? are we going to have the white house closing the wagons in a circle, understanding this is now warfare? philip: based on my reporting today, i can to you there is some disagreement within the president's broader political circle. some figures, including steve bannon, have been privately urging trump to take a much more combative approach to mueller, to discredit the special counsel, to point out a number of the lawyers working with mueller and investigators have contributed to democrats in the past and by the white house's account, partisan figures. to do everything they can to muddy the waters and what the president has been doing so far at the urging of his lawyers is cooperate with mueller, to try
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and not provoke him or be too toagonistic publicly, but provide the documents he is asked and do what he needs to do with the expectation or hope that this investigation comes to a close pretty soon. indications that this investigation is going to be over any time soon. by all accounts, mueller seems to be just getting started. seems to becobb arguing that we want to help them reach a rapid conclusion. think they are cooperating in full, certainly with the document production. they are hopeful for a rapid conclusion and sarah sanders at the white house podium said repeatedly that this white house expects the investigation to be over soon because they don't believe there is any collusion, but there is no indication from mueller and his team and the investigators that they are on
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the same time frame and this may well stretch into 2018, which i think would be a real headache for the white house. charlie: the general consensus is, so far no one has seen hard evidence of collusion? philip: that's right, there is a lot of smoke. there are a lot of different moments that we know mueller is investigating, including the meeting at trump tower in the summer of 2016 that donald trump jr. and jared kushner and paul manafort were party to with the russian lawyer, but as far as we know publicly, there does not appear to be any direct evidence of collusion. that is not to say it doesn't exist, not to say that mueller hasn't found something we don't know about. charlie: thank you so much, the article in this morning's ongoington post," the drama in washington. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪
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♪ korda is here.l he was the editor in chief of simon & schuster for years. a political author and historian, his latest book is britain, loan: churchill and dunkirk." it is a history of the evacuation of dunkirk in may 1940 and a memoir of his family's experience in wartime
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london. i'm pleased to have him. you are looking fine. why: thank you. sympathy for the loss of your wife. >> margaret suggested this book. i wrote a biography of robert e. a very long biography. she asked me if i would consider not writing another long biography. sure, actually i haven't got anybody in mind for a biography, but what will i do instead? you write a don't short book about something you know? it is three or four years of you coming in to every meal saying you'll never guess what wonderful letter i read and it gets boring after a year or two. i said, do you have an idea? she said yes, why don't you do a book about dunkirk. i thought, she is right.
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of course, dunkirk. i had no idea at the time anybody was going to make a movie about dunkirk. taylor: aim -- charlie: a movie you said good things about. mr. korda: i loved it. not only a good movie, but the best war movie i have ever seen. charlie: not just about world war ii or dunkirk, but the best war movie? mr. korda: a new way of making war movies. first of all, you see a lot of generals sitting around the explainingng around to the audience. it has no explanatory scenes. secondly, you see everything through the eyes of four people. they never meet each other, there is no connection between them and you see what is happening through their eyes. through the eyes of the fighter pilot, somebody on the sea, somebody on the beach. that is a revolutionary way of making a war film. theve to say that alone is
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opposite of this because what i do is try to explain what happened that led the british to a beach inmen dunkirk in the last week of may, and why they ended up there and how we got them off. the film, which is wonderful, is really the last section of my is annd the book explanation of how it came to pass. charlie: churchill. you have a quote from churchill speaking to the house of commons, june 4, 1940. on the completion of the evacuation of dunkirk, i have full confidence that we all do their duty. if nothing is neglected, shall prove ourselves once again be able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war and
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how to live the menace of tyranny. if necessary, for years. if necessary, alone. mr. korda: yes, that is where the title comes from. for years.ry, if necessary, alone." alone is the point. the british got the army off but as churchill said, we got the men, but they have to leave their luggage. most of them got off without their rifles. most of them without their boots. 200,000-manff the core of the british regular army without which we could not have possibly defended ourselves in 1940. be armed, giving new boots, but without them, we could not have possibly resisted the germans had they invaded. charlie: what is the significance of it? significance, i
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think. first of all, had we not gotten i think off, churchill's hold on the war cabinet and the house of commons and his own party -- which was very weak then, he had only been in office two weeks, might have faltered. might have slipped from his grasp. charlie: his ring was partly built on hope. mr. korda: lord halifax had already opened talks about mussolini inquiring of hitler's what the terms might be for peace, and in the book, there is theally -- which centerpiece of what i wanted to write about -- there is a moment when halifax reveals to the war that he isnine talking to the italian ambassador about what german terms would be. a british surrender.
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churchill is dubious, against it. but is not at that moment able to squash it and he goes down to a meeting of the larger cabinet of 30 people and in a room behind the house of commons, small room, he stands up on a desk and speaks to them and at ourend of it, he says if long island story is to end, let it end when each of us lies on the floor choking on his own blood. applauds,tire cabinet claps him on the back, cheers him and as he is returning to 10 downing street from the house of commons after this, a naval officer comes up to him to say, 17,000 men have been removed from the beach at dunkirk on that day. with these two pieces of news in goes back torchill
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the war cabinet and says to halifax that he must take off any negotiations with the italian ambassador. that we are never going to send her, that to start or inquire about german terms is to enter on a slippery slope. which thehe moment at decision is taken that whatever happens we shall fight on. charlie: we will fight on the beaches, and everywhere else. anyoneht he might say who could dare consider negotiating with the italians shall find themselves on the short end of a hangman's news. mr. korda: he would like to have at but he knew better than to go against -- too far with his own war cabinet. sent halifax to washington for the rest of the war, in the days before air conditioning.
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charlie: this is about dunkirk, but it is also about churchill, because you know this history. i also want to get to your own family. in your judgment, what was the genius of winston churchill? was it brilliance? t -- rhetoric? was it connecting dots? mr. korda: all of those things are, of course, important, but he had the one thing without which nothing great can be accomplished which is courage. is the basic core of his being. he was never afraid, even as a young man when he was in cuba. in the 19th century, and the cubans were fighting. said it is exhilarating to be shot at
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without result. the point is he always had -- although he had layers of phobias and problems beneath that, he had a fundamentally courageous outlook on life and politics, without which nothing can be accomplished. charlie: courageous and optimistic? mr. korda: courage gives you optimism, doesn't it? it is difficult to be optimistic if you are not courageous. quality.s the distinct an absolute lack of fear, and i that hecond to that, was wise. absolutely that the channel is wider than it looks and the germans would not have an easy time if we put together another army and army at. -- harm it. -- arm it. we just spoke to one of
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the family members of the men who headed the manhattan project, a letter basically saying mr. president, you have to develop an atomic weapon because if you don't, the germans will get it. mr. korda: history depends on these moments. --hink the moment in which first of all, the moment in which einstein wrote the letter is of extraordinary significance, but also is the fact that roosevelt took the time for somebody to explain to him that the letter was important and that he must read it and think about it, and he did. thechurchill, for all people who accused him of being bombastic, argumentative -- and he was all those things -- was capable of listening to advice, taking it, of changing his
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course when he needed to. he was a man born for the moment. , oflie: and so your family the theater? mr. korda: on my mother's side, yes. she was a significant stage actress, and my father was a very significant act or. he won and oscar for thief of baghdad in 1940, which i have on my desk. i have two things on my desk to give me inspiration, one is a bronze bust of winchendon -- winston churchill, and the other is my father's academy award for "the thief of baghdad." i say to myself if they can do what i did, i can do something. charlie: tell me about the family and how they evolved? mr. korda: they evolved because
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my father's elder brother, alex, born as jews in the austria-hungary and empire, michael alex made -- my uncle alex made his way to budapest and became a film critic at 17. he directed his first motion picture at the age of 21. he drew his brothers into his orbit, as it were, because my uncle went on to become a very famous director. he did "cry the beloved ,"untry," "the four feathers "the jungle book," and my father became an academy award-winning art director. the three brothers, when they , were a formidable team. charlie: he went to hungary at the time of the uprising? and given a great national
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medal? mr. korda: i was. charlie: is that on your desk too? mr. korda: that is on my desk, actually. it is a little flashy for daily wear, but every once in a while i like to look at it. charlie: this? mr. korda: that signifies i was in the royal air force. charlie: where you in the royal air force? mr. korda: i did my national service in england and served for two years. charlie: did you maintain your love of flying? were you a pilot? mr. korda: i was a wireless operator or radio operator on an aircraft. boy, hoped when i was a despite having poor eyesight, that i would have a lot to do inh airplanes and two years the royal air force not only filled that desire, but i have never looked at an airplane since without any feeling whatsoever then wanting to sit
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in first class and having a champagne. i would just as soon never going to the cockpit of one again. charlie: robert e. lee? monuments have been torn down. what should we know about arguing -- robert e. lee? the argument me -- being made is that robert e. lee rebelled against the country in order to save slavery. that is, i think, the unavoidable conclusion. i think it is certainly right for people to be talked to taught to condemn rebellion and be taught why that rebellion took place, how it grew to the size that it did, all of that is justifiable. own terms, we look to
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robert e. lee because he is arguably one of the greatest of american generals. he was a man of great dignity, great honor, great spirit, and his surrender in 1865 at appomattox court house is one of the great moments of american history. charlie: why is that? mr. korda: because both men carried it off with dignity that is truly amazing. lee hadhad signed -- walkedthe agreement and out onto the porch and was waiting for his horse to be brought up, grant raised his hat and all the union officers raced and began to lee fire a 100 gun salute to victory and grant turned to an aid and said with great annoyance, go tell them to stop that. we are all americans now. it is in that spirit that we have to view lee.
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chose not to command the american army, which he was offered in 1861 and said he could not raise his sword against his estate, his children or his neighbors. fought withly, he unbelievable skill for five bring but he managed to about the surrender which made it possible to join the two parts of the country together a gone, -- again, where we could have had guerrilla warfare going on for years. we did not. what is the biographers art? mr. korda: first of all, to tell the troop -- truth, which is always difficult to do. , you can't go into
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writing a blog -- biography about someone with your mind already made up about who they are on what they thought or what you think of them. you have to go into a biography and open yourself up as you would to a love affair, to the other person and learning who they are and what they are about. it, is one aspect of because without that, there is no suspense. you are discovering that other person. the abilitying is to get out of them what the of their lifet was. it very often isn't the big thing, necessarily. i think that it sometimes is, but there is no question having written a biography of eisenhower that for eisenhower, the nation -- major moment was not being elected to the president of the united states,
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it was normandy. the night before d-day was the most important moment of his life. charlie: when he had to make the decision to go or not to go. guest: despite the weather. that was the great moments of his life. think it is both a tragic mistake, the decision to fight at gettysburg. had stonewall jackson been would and not dead, lee have gone around meade's army and gotten to washington. stonewall jackson died at chancellorsville, and we made a great mistake, a costly one. charlie: is it fair to say that had stonewall jackson not been killed on his horse the way he was, the war might have ended differently? charlie: it was -- guest: it was shot riding his
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horse and died a few days later. i believe and lee believed that had stonewall jackson been within the day before gettysburg, he would have not attacked meade. he would have got around. charlie: you can correctly. stonewall jackson at the time the war began was not considered a great general. he was -- guest: it was taking artillery. -- teaching artillery. o was regarded as a great af. he was an enormously skilled general. charlie: general eisenhower. guest: general eisenhower comes in for a bad rep as a president and as a general. i think he was a very good president and a great general. he understood the germans were defeated by getting onto the
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continent of europe and pushing them back because we had more men and more weapons. not as good weapons as they had, but more of them. if we kept pushing, they would break. he was right. charlie: are the 10 things the germans might have done and won the war? guest: what is going to far. if d-day had failed, and we were not able to mount another invasion for another couple of years, it is not possible to imagine that stalin and hiller might have made a deal -- hitler might have made a deal that enabled nazi germany to survive in one form or another for a long time. we know that since we had the atomic bomb we might have used it on the germans, probably would have. that is the critical moment. the critical moment was the first day of d-day. charlie: then the breakthrough
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that took place. guest: absolutely. charlie: and the mistakes of romney. [laughter] charlie: rommel. guest: romney did make mistakes. charlie: they did not have to do with normandy. guest: it was not so much that he made mistakes but he was at home for his wife's birthday. had he gotten back or been there and hitler been willing to release to him is for cancer decisions, d-day could have been different. these little things that have huge consequences. charlie: let me finally talk about books. did i say 40 years? guest: 48 years. charlie: how many years as editor in chief? guest: close to 40. charlie: here we are, the amazon
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revolution. has the significant of books changed? guest: not in the least. charlie: the power of bucks no matter how they are red. my impression is will turn -- readingple turn back to books like these and not a box? -- e-books? guest: there is a certain tactile fascination with books like these. read a bookoing to , walterrdo da vinci isaacson's book, which is wonderful, it doesn't matter to you whether you read it on the screen, in a book, which is a handsome object, but the main thing is that you read it. the number of people who will
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read a book is not, i think, smaller than it ever was before. they are reading in a different way now, and they will read in different ways in the future. charlie: the same way you read your newspaper. guest: there was a time the book was thought to be a revolutionary object, and people said it is not nearly as nice as a scroll or as pretty as opening parchment. the book was seen as an ugly technological change the disassociated you from the pleasure of reading a scroll. now the book is becoming a rather outmoded object, although we are still fond of it. now, don'tions from you think the people who invented the apple phone will invent something that you take out of your pocket like a handkerchief and said it wherever you want, and read whatever you want, and the whole contents of the world's libraries will be contained.
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charlie: a glorious day. guest: yes. a glorious day. people will always want to read book. -- books. that does not mean they will need to read it in the form we are familiar with. megan: the sent story of dunkirk, how it was a powerful personal story of people -- magnificent story of dunkirk, how it was a powerful personal story of people who wanted to bring their bodies home. stay with us. who knew that phones would start doing everything?
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♪ charlie: nancy cain is here. she is a historian at harvard. her latest book examines five historical figures who triumphed after facing what seemed like insurmountable obstacles. i am pleased to have her here. welcome. guest: thank you for having me. charlie: forged in crisis, meaning crisis creates the opportunity. guest: crisis is a great classroom. it is an opportunity to get braver, find your moral courage, or get smaller, bitter, angry. charlie: how did you choose the
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people? guest: they chose me a little bit. i am a historian. we work inductively. i have a nose of doing this for a good story. part of that was this is a good story. i realized early on that i started with lincoln, and i was interested in how did he deal with this emotionally? i was the experience of living inside that 6'4" inch, calculating, ambitious, humorous frame like? i want to understand the experience of living in the perfect story. i did the documentation that could help me reconstruct the emotional experience of these people. lots of people i would like to write about, but i could not
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because i did not have that. last, i wanted five very different people. in the end, the insights of these stories are absolutely universal. i did not want to choose just political leaders or just american leaders from the 20th century. people and experiences that we could not deny as a way of finding our best selves. charlie: what questions are you asking? guest: how does the crisis make or break a leader? what do they learn about themselves in that moment that forges them, allows them to have significant, were the impact? this is about were the missions -- worthy missions, moving the boulder of goodness forward. how did their experiences and the lessons they learned in navigating help move a big mission possible in changing the
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world? how aret not least, these stories in history relevant now? the book took 15 years to write. charlie: why did it take 15 years? you are a busy person. that is why. guest: thank you for the graceful excuse. that is not what happened. i was in the midst of great crises when i started on lincoln. i got cancer a couple of times. my husband walked out on me. my father dropped dead. it took me a while to get back on my feet. i did not get a lot of work done for a while. i got lost in lincoln and decided in a moment of humility that the world did not need another book on lincoln. i went searching for other stories. each of these stories is a very different animal. to do this right and discover what was takes a while. charlie: how did you come out of your own crisis? guest: a combination of shaking
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my fist at the ceiling like scarlett o'hara. there was a lot of jovian rage, no question. why me? and with god is my witness, i am going to make something good out of this. charlie: the good that came out of your struggle with divorce, illness, loss. guest: losing all my money. let's put that in. charlie: how did you lose all of your money? guest: divorce. the good that came out of it was what i learned from these people and the fact -- charlie: what did you learn about yourself? guest: i learned that i am stronger than i know. i am too easily frightened. i have gotten a little braver, and these people have taught me something. i spent too much time asking why this is happening.
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way too much time with why. that is what i learned. charlie: secondly, any amount of time seeing yourself as a victim is wasted. guest: i feel like these people all failed many more times than they succeeded. part of the reason they could be so good at crises is because there is because that's a much mileage with failure. charlie: mileage with failure. that is great. guest: that is one part of the story of lincoln that is new in this book. as a result of all of those failures, you learn that being a victim, getting brittle and defined by a crisis does not serve you, and it certainly does not move the boulder of goodness forward. charlie: did they all have mental makeup, meaning not intelligence but emotional stability and emotional intelligence? guest: they did. they all had different mental makeup. they all had different degrees
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of emotional stability. what they had in common was an understanding relatively early in their lives that is today called emotional awareness that is an asset they could harness and get better at. the most important aspect of that awareness was decision in each of these people fueled early on, usually by narcissistic ambition to get better, not only of the things they were checking off on their ambition lists, but in terms of what they could make of themselves inside. lincoln developed these extraordinary powers of emotional discipline and forbearance as president. charlie: what gift did they have? bonhopper. this is a man who gave his life to help people survive nazis.
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charlie: that guest: i think his gift is a combination of building his muscles of grit and resilience. charlie: basically saying grit makes more sense than any other individual factors. guest: each of these people developed plenty of grit. charlie: they probably had it before this. guest: they probably had some, but they developed it. by the time he has been on the gestapo watchlist for five years, he has gotten much better at showing up and dealing with his life under watch, under the threat of arrest, and even in prison he grows exponentially in terms of his levels of courage and what is willing to face and right and do in a cell. to be able to keep evolving like
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that when the stakes are so high is a gift. they all have some of that. he has it in a way that is quite poignant because in the midst of trying to assassinate hitler, he never loses sight of the serious moral consequences of taking the life of even such a taranto man -- tyrannical man. he never shies away from both the moral consequences and also the ability to see life from all kinds of perspectives. great empathy is around of -- a roundabout way of answering your question. he was born to this privileged family. charlie: i'm interested also in the idea of courage, whether that is something you acquire by
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-- do you acquire courage because you are simply presented with the situation, and either you have it or don't, or do you learn how to be courageous? guest: it is a great question. i am in the latter camp. these people have inspired me, have taught me that you can get braver, just like grit or resilience muscles. resilience is a muscle you develop. courage is not so dissimilar. it is interesting with douglas. lincoln is pretty scared in the first month of august. he can hardly make a decision about four sumpter -- fort sumter. he gets braver by stepping into the sphere, just taking -- into his fear, just taking a step.
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douglas is an escaped slave. i argue that without douglas seeding the ground for the emancipation proclamation, lincoln never would have had the capital to do it. charlie: he was essential to the emancipation proclamation. guest: as essential as lincoln. we don't talk about it, but they are bookends. charlie: rachel carson is also in this. guest: she is my favorite. charlie: not because of gender. guest: partly because she had breast cancer, and it killed her. she is out running the clock. all of your listeners will not know that she had metastasizing breast cancer, and she discovered it midway through the writing of silent spring, and she was writing something very dangerous and very important. her bravery, the fact that she is this why it, shy, retiring
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person, and the fact that she changed the world in that book and did her research so carefully and did it with such oure and she shattered myths about leadership. she is an introvert. she is a writer. you could argue she is more powerful and influential than many presidents. i have a special place in my heart because i have a sense of how really difficult this was due. charlie: she informed you as much as lincoln or any prius. -- or anybody else. then there is shackleton. we know the story because there is documentary about him. guest: i start the book with shackleton because it is so dramatic. i want people to keep reading. i start with the most dramatic story. i want them to keep reading. you cannot stop once you start. charlie: you want to know what
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happened. guest: as well as i know the story, and i know it as well as i know the wrinkles in my face, it is still jaw-dropping. his ability to overcome so many obstacles for so long, and as you said at the top of the interview, against seemingly insurmountable odds speaks to our age, speaks to each of us to find our better selves and get to it. charlie: did all of them have doubts? guest: absolutely. that is something i did not expect to discover. they had crippling moments of doubt on many occasions. one of the things that fascinated me is these people get to the very edge of the chasm of doubt and are about to give up, which means the whole mission ends, but somehow by book or correct they step back
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crook they step back, and as frost would say, that has made all the difference. fascinated how they got back from the edge of the cliff of doubt over and over again. yes and yes and yes. charlie: where do we teach leadership best in america? is it military? guest: it is probably in the military. there may be some the elegy schools, schools of divinity where we are teaching leadership with moral purpose so that we train people to be ready for the obstacles of the world. was it oliver wendell holmes who said -- he was injured many times, our hearts were touched by fire. touchools of divinity we students with fire. we need leaders touched by fire
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and put others first. charlie: that is essential. are all of them narcissistic? guest: that was interesting. they all start off like my students and myself. it is about me. it is about this next thing, checking this off the list. somehow at different moments in each of their journeys, the i gives way to the thou. the larger purpose is about serving others. lincoln and carson and bonhopper and douglas and shackleton discover their own identity in serving others. hearts touched by fire. look for the you best definition of leadership, where did you find it? guest: i stumbled on this and david foster wallace. charlie: one of the favorite guests on this program. those i know
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interviews well exam such a student of david foster ross. he wrote an interesting article about the first john mccain presidential campaign, and he riffs on leadership. he writes this, real leaders are individuals who help us overcome the limitations of our own weaknesses and laziness and selfishness and fear and get us to do harder, better things than we can get ourselves to do on our own. that is good. aren't we launching as a longing at a citizenry for someone who can do that for us? charlie: where are our leaders? guest: we are not seeing enough of what we want and need when we think of courageous. in present times are
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passed, they have to have some to definee ability the problem so becomes a paramount concern. guest: think of the gettysburg address, it is about framing the states of the moment. it is about here is where we came from, here is what we are about, here is where we are now. here is what we have come to do, the job of the living, the great task before us is to keep -- the new our dedication -- renew our dedication. every courageous leader owes it to their followers to define that moment, to give us our role in it. what are we called to? what is at stake?
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what are the trade-offs we must make in the interest of moving through this moment to something better and important? that is the fundamental point at which we find yourselves now. guest: do you teach leadership at harvard? guest: i teach the history of leadership. charlie: the history of leadership is teaching leadership. guest: as a historian, that is as good as we get. charlie: nancy king, thank you. you.: bless charlie: thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪
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>> watching bloomberg technology. let's start with first word news. president trump is calling for a tougher immigration measure following tuesday's deadly terror attack. officials say the attackers was from quebec a stand and came to uzbekistanistan -- and came to the united states legally in 2010. >> we want a merit based program for people who come to our country based on merit. we went to get rid of chain migration. mark: officials ha

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