♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening again with politics, republicans reeling after election losses tuesday, gop growing increasingly divided over president trump's leadership of the party and many are concerned the white house is alienating voters. the risk comes as the gop works to overhaul the u.s. tax code. senate republicans unveiled their plan on thursday. joining me now is robert costa for the washington post and the moderator of washington week on pbs.

i am pleased to have him on this program. welcome. let me begin with tax reform and what the senate is proposing, the house bill, and how significant are they? robert: the key challenge for republicans is whether they want this tax cut legislation to be populist in nature or not. they know they want a corporate tax rate come bring down the rate from 35% to around 20%. at the same time, the debate between the senate version and the house version for republicans is about the top rate. should top earners see a tax cut or not? that will perhaps hold up the bill and coming weeks. charlie: what about other issues? they may delay the corporate reduction until 2019?

is that still under consideration? robert: that is exactly right. that comes back to the point about populism. all these republicans were elected during the george bush and obama era and trump has disrupted their party. as they pursue this signature tax legislation, they are grappling with the idea that the base is not begging for it. theyast that's what tell me privately. because of that feeling that the base does not want this and a corporate donors want it, they are seeing about delaying the tax cut for a year. the white house is open about not giving a tax cut to top earners or delaying the corporate tax cut 1-2 years because heading into 2018 they don't want to be seen as the typical wall street republican party. charlie: is every conversation, especially after tuesday about

what does this mean for 2018? robert: everything, charlie. tuesday with the defeat, that has alarmed republicans publicly and privately. they are saying every step they take politically and legislatively has to be about what it means if you are a moderate or conservative running in the suburbs. democrats did well not just in new jersey and virginia, but county races and local races, new yok, new york suburbs, philadelphia suburbs, northern virginia. that is why they are moving slowly on tax cuts. in part because they don't have consensus, but they are wary of the wipe potential. charlie: the president needs a victory badly, does he not? robert: there is debate about that in the white house. they want something more than the confirmation of judge gorsuch. they don't want to be painted

with the brush that they are hurting the middle class or helping the wealthy come so this is something they will have to navigate. charlie: looking forward to 2018, how much of the suburban vote was about trump the personality, and how much trumps policy? robert: that is something also under intense debate in gop circles. they look at 2016 and say the reason they won the presidency and kept control of congress is because they won in the suburbs in milwaukee, philadelphia, ohio, where you had college educated republicans and independents who voted for a change candidate. charlie: and women as well. robert: and women as well. now they look at this canary in the coal mine and are moving away. why is that? republican pollsters tell me because it is because of the

unorthodox, incendiary behavior, but also the policy, and in particular, pay attention to the health care. their efforts against medicaid expansion have had an impact. charlie: meaning people who receive medicaid don't want to give it up and believe the trump policies of the legislation that came out of a republican-controlled congress would eliminate some of the medicaid expansion they have come to need and appreciate? robert: and the view of obamacare is more nuanced than some republicans would like to admit. in the sense that criticism of the marketplace is in both parties come but you see a lot of people, independents, democrats, and some trump voters, they like the aspects of the law that have provided expanded coverage, so republicans going for a corporate tax cut, trying to go after medicaid expansion, the

byers who were tempted trumps change may still like disruptor,se he is a but don't like the republican party and its policies. charlie: if tax reform comes and tax cuts passed, it will only be with republican votes? robert: trump was certainly majority republican votes, of course, that you could see some moderate democrats up in 2018. you look at joe donnelly of indiana, low-key, respected in the u.s. senate. president trump won indiana. senator donnelly, i have spoken with senator casey from pennsylvania, a democrat, they still believe the republican party is separate from trump in the sense they can vote against the tax cut and still articulate trump-style positions on trade, a little more populist when it comes to taxes, and they don't feel the pressure to go with the republican tax bill.

charlie: what is the reaction to tuesday from people like steve bannon? robert: he is disappointed in gillespie. bannon offered to do a rally and the campaign said, no thanks. he was working with the grassroots in virginia, but it hurts steve bannon because he hoped the trump message would be resonant. even though gillespie didn't trump, he certainly played to the cultural issues, confederate history, illegal immigration, crime, gangs -- gillespie touched on those issues, taking those issues and trying to use them to win. it did not work because the suburban voter says that is not the kind of politics i'd like. charlie: roy moore was someone steve bannon supported. now he has been confronted by sexual charges. is he likely to step down?

robert: it is hard to say at this point, charlie. my colleagues here at the post broke that story, spoke to the women on the record, one of whom was 14 when she had an encounter. almost every republican through the post and newspapers said if these charges, allegations, are true, he should step down immediately. there is a lot of pressure from leader mcconnell to get out of there. at the same time, in alabama, there is defense for judge moore. this is seen as a media attack even though it is solid reporting from the washington post. it will be hard to see if judge moore is pressured to step down. ♪

♪ charlie: "three billboards outside ebbing, missouri" tells the story of a woman whose daughter was raped and murdered. after months with no developments, she rents three billboards to accuse the local police of neglect. it has been called a finely calibrated mixture of melancholy and quirk. here is the trailer. ♪ >> you aren't trying to make me believe in reincarnation are you? because you are pretty, but you aren't her.

she got killed. ♪ >> still no arrests. >> how come, i wonder? >> because there ain't no god. empty. wokle world is does it matter what we do to each other? >> i hope not. i don't know what the police are doing. i have not heard a word from them for month. at the you what, i've heard an awful lot since i put those billboards up. ♪ >> we are keeping her in the public eye. >> you can start getting involved. >> they've got nothing to arrest you for. ain't.yet you >> if i had some food, i would give it to you. all i have is some doritos.

they're pointy, they might kill you. charlie: this is so good. joining me now is the director and two actors. i am pleased to have all of them here. this was a script that have been around? >> i wrote it eight years ago. i wrote it -- charlie: you let it rest and marinate? >> it was identical to the one we started from a year and a half ago. i was doing a different project with sam. this one could have happened first. but because we set the ball rolling on that one, this was going to be the next one. after we finished that, i just traveled around and did nothing for a few years. charlie: just in that trailer, a fascinating woman. >> i think she is a fascinating woman. charlie: tell me more. >> you put martin's writing in a cocktail shaker and me in a cocktail shaker and other good folks from the theater world and mix it up and you are happy.

charlie: you saw it in the script? >> martin actually wrote it for me. he has seen not only my film work from but my theater work. workingew what he was with. i mean, i am 60, charlie. come on. i have some work and some stuff on my face to work with. charlie: you have some talent, too. >> i have worked hard. i was told in drama school i was not naturally talented, so i went at it. i'm going to change their minds. charlie: you went out to multiply that talent. >> i did not know how to do anything else. i wanted it. charlie: if it was not acting, you don't know what you would have done. >> housewife. >> i don't have a plan b either. pumping gas. >> it is good not to have a plan

b sometimes. whatie: i just lucked into i do. so, what was it about her having written this with her in mind? >> great actress, but integrity on and off screen. just reading about her and we bumped into each other a few times, but just the knowledge that off-camera, offscreen, she doesn't take any crap. that is a part of what mildred was too, so we can harness that. charlie: i will ask you, who is she? >> she is a mother, someone who has lost her daughter to a horrible murder seven months before the story started. that she has gotten through, the grief and the sadness and depression and she has come out

at the end of that with pure rage almost. at the beginning of the film, she is raging the police have not done enough to solve the crime. it is certainly a character i had never written before, a woman who is that strong and outrageous almost. but had a heart, but didn't have to wear that on her sleeve. >> i want to add to it. i don't think the grief will ever be over. that is part of mildred's tragedy and any parent who loses a child because it is a biological imperative to keep them alive, but after that seven months, she takes radical action, and that breaks the paralysis of the grief. knowing full well that there will be collateral damage, robbie, her son, people in town. charlie: he said an interesting thing. he created the character, but you have also created the

character. >> it became a collaboration. we had one major debate after i read the script, being so honored and so excited. you do not get a gift like this, even from your family members. i'm waiting for my family members to give me a gift like this, but you gave it to me three years ago. do the math. do the math. i was 57. [laughter] but i was concerned about the characters age because i am from a working-class background and feel like a lot of women from that socioeconomic world as mildred would not wait until they were 38 to have children, so i was concerned about playing the mother of younger children, 16 and 18, so i asked martin to make mildred their grandmother, knowing grandmothers do raise

their grandchildren. he was, and rightfully so, connected to the idea of her being a mother in the greek tradition of a mother's fight for -- charlie: revenge. >> justice. we never talk about revenge because it almost makes it -- justice is larger. justice is a larger goal. charlie: who is dixon? >> dixon is a complicated guy. he is a racist cop. he is a mama's boy. he is a lot of stuff. he takes a journey and transforms into something different. charlie: you prepare hard, don't you? >> i try. it comes out of a fear of sucking. i had time for this one. i was able to do a couple of things i would not normally be able to do. hang out with some cops and stuff like that. martin writes this great script and it is a roadmap of what to do.

charlie: that is where you start. what do you want your actors to do? >> bring the truth to the characters as we see it. as they see it or as we see it between us. in this particular, i would not call it rehearsal so much, just talking it through before hand and trying to get on the same page about who we think these characters are. and going forward together, me trying to get out of the way as much as possible. charlie: get out of the way? >> get out of the way of their choices in their performances. charlie: give them a sense, stimulate the senses of what this is about, and then get out of the way and let them find it.

>> pretty much. >> there's a point when it's a good production where we become the experts because we are living the interior lives of the characters as well as honoring the words on the page. that is not always the case. we are presented three quarters of the time with blueprints. there are huge holes in the story, plot lines, character developments, but with martin it is like play. you start inhabiting it from the minute you decide to do it, so thin you go to costume designers, hair and makeup, and we can help martin because we start living the interior life. did it take long you to want to do this? >> i immediately wanted to do

it. i would say -- it took me about a year-and-a-half -- charlie: because of time factors or what? >> just to develop and be able to produce it. that is the timeline. >> you how to play here it i had a play. the money fell through, then came back. >> in terms of the age question, my husband said, shut up and do it. i don't always listen to him when he says shut up, but in this case, i did. charlie: this is a clip in which the two of them are together at the police station. here it is. ♪ >> what? >> dixon when she comes in here calling you -- >> shut up. you get over here. >> no, you get over here. >> what? >> that is what i am doing. i am taking care of it in my own way actually. mrs. hayes, have a seat. what can i do for you today? >> where is denise watson? >> in jail. >> on what charge. >> possession.

>> two marijuana cigarettes, big ones. i can give her bail because of her previous marijuana violations, and the judge said sure. you not calling an officer of law a -- in his own station house? anywhere actually. your mama been coaching you? >> no my mama doesn't do that.

>> take him down. charlie: i want mildred on my side. >> both of them actually. you don't want either of them on the other side. charlie: do we see redemption for dixon? >> absolutely. i think so. i think there is definitely some redemption. he takes quite a journey, yeah, yeah. in that scene he has an achilles heel, which is his mother. anytime i try to stand up to mildred, that is his kryptonite. she uses that. when she brings up mama, it is over. charlie: and she knows it? >> she knows it. >> it is a small town. mama dixon is played by an extraordinary actress. what is wonderful about the way the chemistry between sam and sandy in the film is they are really like spores from the same tunnel. [laughter] >> but mildred and mama dixon are cut from the same cloth. they are women, missouri women cut from the same cloth. charlie: what kind of cloth? >> bar cloth, floral pattern

perhaps. right? so, kind of a -- charlie: working class. yeah. charlie: mildred is allowing her machismo to come forward. it is rushing out of her. >> that is part of the radical action she takes. charlie: you thought of john wayne as a model here? >> i did. in retrospect, i worked very hard for just such an occasion, to come up with a female iconic cinematic character are and the only one i could think of -- yes, sure. though it is interesting because i did not cast that far back.

we had the same balls, shall we say. i've always wanted to play cowboy. it is interesting. i had just read a biography about john wayne cover to cover, and i don't usually read biographies cover to cover, but it was well written. charlie: what do you do? --p halfway usually that interested in actors lives after a certain point, but there was something about the breadth of his life it was fascinating. had to work in b movies for so long before he did stagecoach. charlie: a casting home run? >> dreamland. charlie: how many people did you have in mind when you wrote the piece? >> these two and woody.

charlie: there were three of them in mind. >> woody is a theater guy. like, woody and me, we met at my place. he read all my stuff. we met in dublin at a bar and chatted for a few days, but we always wanted to work together for ages. first on the play and that didn't quite work out, and now this. he is almost the moral center to a degree of the whole film. he is that in life. there is something so lovable and decent about woody the man that as soon as he's on screen or on set -- >> you feel relaxed around him. he has a relaxation that makes you feel -- charlie: you are comfortable because you know he knows what he is doing. >> also, i feel like i'm related to woody. him, is something about

don't know. so, if you know you will be in a situation where you are laying it bare, he will take care of it. that comes from the top. same with martin. we were all tangling over the edge and felt like we were not safe because it is never fun to be safe, but we had a good harness. charlie: mildred's relationship with her son changes. >> yeah, i think the month of paralysis -- i am not a big one for backstories, but lucas and i talked about it. we talked about acting. he is a young actor and i am an older one, so we had fun with that. but i think what i offered him was the idea that for seven months she was playing around on the couch, comatose, not eating or drinking or speaking, so though her actions are not great for him or his life and not

completely understandable, at least she seems like herself again. charlie: you prefer actors who have had some expense on the -- experience on the stage? >> i wouldn't say i go out and seek it, but it naturally happens. charlie: what is that? >> i guess it is like a love of -- like a lack of love of movie stardom and a love of acting. there are probably more mean-spirited ways of saying it. they are all proper actors, and proper actors know they will have to do theater as well as movies. >> you have always said you have to go back-and-forth between the if you want the good parts. >> yeah, go back to the training ground.

none of us, yet -- if i catch you doing it -- we don't sell perfume, watches, cars. you know -- -- faces aren't >> you haven't done that yet? >> we will have to ask him. >> christopher walken. >> it is kind of hard -- >> it started in japan. >> it started in japan. when we weren't so global, that it was there and not -- but it is really difficult, i think. so you know, if we wanted to play a heroin addict living on the street it would be hard if someone had seen us in a magazine with diamonds dripping off our ears. me, yoully hard for -- t -- to go

with even people who whiten their teeth too much, and you go, i don't know about all that. so i think it really, it behooves an actor who wants to play a wide variety of characters -- >> stay real. >> get closer. it is still a movie after all. it's not like we are really living it. it is not a documentary, but on the other hand, the storytelling is so much easier. >> completely. >> for mildred, especially when it is a working-class character, it is hard to find actors who can play that convincingly without sentimental icing it or patronizing it. charlie: you guys practice this dynamic. we just saw that scene. did you rehearse that a lot? >> no. we knew what we had to do. we knew what we had to do and came loaded for bear. charlie: you are shaking your head. that is what a real actor does. comes ready. >> well i think there are a lot

of real actors who love rehearsal, but we were all cast properly. you put those dynamics in the same space and we know who we are playing. >> we are theater actors and there is the consistency to being a theater actor, but now you don't have the time or the luxury to do a million takes and we have to come in ready to go. you know, you have to know your stuff. charlie: you are a man from london, an irishman. missouri? >> making up a name. it isn't real. charlie: you had in mind, a sense of a town? >> probably as much from movies as traveling. i do like traveling around small-town america quite a lot. charlie: do you do that? >> ever since the beauty queen was on i have had money enough to get a train or bus and have time to explore america.

charlie: do you write while you are doing that? >> this was written in trains and in little towns across the country. charlie: you check into a little motel and -- >> in the daytime, go to a field or riverbank. i was on a mountain and a deer came along and made it into the scene. charlie: everything is fodder? >> yeah, and when you do that, everything becomes part of the script. as you are walking down the street, you would not notice it, but even a song becomes integral. charlie: what caused you to write this though? >> i saw something similar to what we see on the billboards at the start of the movie on a bus trip across the states about 17 years ago. charlie: you made a note. >> it was just a mental note. the rage and pain behind it and

the bravery i realized because it was calling the cops out for inactivity and that signage stayed with me and bothered me for 10 years. it felt almost too dark to tell a story about, but then when i imagined that person who put the signage up was a mother and a strong woman, everything fell into place. i did not even have to plot the film. mildred popped up and it was about following her through her adventures almost. charlie: some people see parallels with flannery. >> i love flannery and we have a nod of the head to one of her books in the film. we have catholic backgrounds. we like the darker side of life. charlie: congratulations. fantastic film. >> thank you very much. charlie: "three billboards outside ebbing, missouri" opens in limited release november 10 in select cities. ♪

♪ charlie: michael lewis is here. he has many best-selling books. moneyball, the big short. his latest book, "the undoing project," was just released in paperback. he has a new investigative story about the department of

agricultural in vanity fair. i am pleased to have michael lewis back at this table. welcome. how did you end up at the department of agriculture? michael: that is a good question. this is the idea. it is part of a series. charlie: you said it should be called the department of food. michael: maybe even the department of helping the little guy, because it is such an important part of the social safety net. people think it has to do with farming, but now less than 10% of the budget has to do with farming. there is a $200 billion bank inside that does nothing but subsidize rural america, and so on and so forth. i couldn't help but notice after trump was elected that there were these sporadic reports about how the transition was not going well, the trump administration was either thin on the ground were not there at

at variousnot there agencies. the obama administration, partly because there was a law passed during the obama administration requiring the president to prepare for the transition, but also because the bush administration had prepared well for the transition that obama was personally grateful to bush. they had people to prepare briefings, briefing books, so for the day after the election, whoever won it was assumed people would roll in and take over and they would either with -- be there with a nonidealogical briefing about what goes on inside this place. it is a very odd system of government, 2000 employees overseen by 4000 political people. the trump people did not show. there was this exquisite course on how the federal government

works and the student did not show up. i thought this is interesting on a number of levels, but interesting because these briefings didn't happen that i can go get, and that is what i have been doing. i have been getting the briefings that the trump administration did not get at all. charlie: you go to the department of agricultural and say my name is michael lewis and i am here for the briefing. whoael: i'd say find out briefings.ese they're usually not there, at their home in the woods or say -- oh myt they

god, i spent six months and would love to give it to somebody, but it is trying to understand how these enterprises work, but with a particular angle. that is what is vulnerable inside in and in ministration that is either ignorant, misinformed, or outright hostile. it didn't take the transition seriously. and to this day it has not really staffed up the place. the department of agricultural has 13 senate confirmed positions you are supposed to fill. charlie: how many? michael: only one had been filled by the time i finish the piece. one other guy had been nominated, but this is an example of the problem, one of the senate confirmed jobs is to be in charge of all the sites in the department of agriculture, $3 billion that gets doled out schoolsschools and ag to prepare for climate change and figure out how to grow crops and raise livestock. it is long research that the private industry is not going to do. the woman who occupied that job had spent 50 years preparing for it.

i mean, she was an agricultural scientist, had done original work connecting the american diet to american health and had run interesting parts of the government and was exquisitely prepared to oversee this thing. this is the one nominee made other than the secretary, a guy named sam clovis, a right-wing radio talk show host who was cochairman of his campaign and had no background in science, much less agricultural science, at all, so there is a sense that either trump himself for people in his orbit think the government runs itself, but if it willct it, maybe fall apart like we want it

to. it feels more like ineptitude rather than a plan. i hate to scare people away from what i have written, but this is an interesting way to deliver a civics lesson. i did not know it was in charge of policing conflicts between people and animals in the country or around the forest service. it is vast. it is 100,000 people. it is 100,000 people that is 200 million acres of land. when you see the federal government fighting wildfires, that is the department of agriculture. -- the anglewith a is, where are we vulnerable? what should we be worried about? the truth is not all of it. the farm subsidy programs are watched by the senate like a hawk. there are senators in farm states that will not let them screw with the farm subsidies,

them or not.ike but there are parts of the government where people paid no attention at all. charlie: how many departments? michael: five maybe. i think i will do a few more of these. charlie: like what. michael: i am open. charlie: i would suggest justice. michael: maybe. the broader question is where is the light not shine. energy and agricultural seemed like two places. where is it most useful for me to wander in and start asking questions, and it may be the justice department. justice, it is so reported on and watched that that may not be the point of vulnerability. charlie: knowing the relationship you had with barack obama, the seminal magazine

pieces you wrote about him for vanity fair, do you have no interest in trump himself? michael: i may get to that. charlie: ah. michael: you mean that maybe down the road. up as a -- making it i go along. so if you ask me, with obama when i went to write about obama, there were a bunch of things i wanted to do to get to know him, like play basketball with him, take me to the place in the white house where he writes at night when he is alone. there were things, with trump if i compile that list i want to see, the only thing is i want to be there late at night when he tweets. what turns you on. mood?e: what is your

what were you watching when you were pounding this thing in your phone. charlie: does he do it or talk to somebody who does it? michael: who knows. whoever is doing it, grammatical errors and spelling errors, you have to assume he is doing it himself. i would love to know what is going through his mind and what in that moment he thinks he is achieving. it is his mode of communication with the american people really. charlie: roosevelt's radio, kennedy was television, and he basically says social media is my medium. michael: i'm not arguing with that. i just want to understand what he thinks. what he thinks he achieves when he does whatever he is doing at the moment. "50 millionthinks followers."

>> it would be fun to take one tweet and take it apart. charlie: or does he accept the argument that it takes him so far off message that what he hopes to accomplish legislatively is delayed or impacted. michael: or does he think, what i am doing is an act of constantly distracting everybody from the fact i am not running federal government. it would also be fun to know. these are literary events. he has to write a sentence or something like a sentence. i would like to ask him, why did you put it that way rather than this way? charlie: how interesting is he to you? michael: obama was really interesting to me. trump is not that interesting to me.

he is interesting just because of the position he is in. if you had said you can write a profile donald trump when he was a real estate developer, no thank you. he does not strike me as that interesting of a person. charlie: someone who has not run for public office will become president of the united states, are you more interested now? michael: i would have been terrified. i am interested. because of the situation, i am interested. charlie: obama said after the election that it is no mean trick to win the presidency, so whatever he did, ladies and gentlemen, we need to know. neglecting himt intentionally. lately.t to him i will continue with the series. it is funny. the department of energy, i did not know what it did. i found out what it did and went, oh my god. a lot of people were very interesting, then i wondered how robust this conceit is. if i pick it because it seems like the most boring neglected department and went in, would it be interesting? i was riveted by the department of agriculture, in particular

the caliber of the person i was dealing with. they basically dispensed a trillion dollars worth of hunger aid over the course of eight years. nobody knows his name or why he was good at that job or why he cared so much about it. but he did. the bigger point for me was it sounds simple, but the motives of a person in the job really matter. why you are doing what you are doing, why you are president of the united states or why you want to be the deputy secretary for the science program in the department of agriculture, it did hates how you do your job. if your motive is i was just a trump supporter and this is

where they stuffed me, you get a completely different outcome. charlie: i got the impression that most people who have been successful, because of whatever reason, go into government, they come away with more admiration -- i am asking. this is my impression. more admiration for many of the people they work with than they imagined beforehand. michael: this is what i am finding. it is incredible. the person at the center of the piece i wrote at the department of energy made his fortune as an investor in the energy sector, and he thought he knew what the energy department was because he had invested in mainly alternative energies, but he thought, not that he could condescend to government employees, but he did not expect to think highly of the people working there when he came to work at the department of energy, and he was blown away

away.lutely blown first rate scientists wandering the halls, people who worked really hard. of course in every place there are people -- charlie: private sector too, by the way. michael: it is shocking for people who come from the outside the caliber of the people inside. if you think about it, it is almost at this point an act of bravery to go to work for the federal government. we have been dumping on it for 40 years in this country. we don't pay them that well. if you are therefore a real purpose, it takes courage to be there. charlie: if you talk to people like bill gates, who has a healthy respect for government and believes some of the money is to show government direction. only governments can do things i -- like conquer diseases. michael: there are things that only governments can do right. charlie: if you can be part of

the direction in the smartest possible application of that power or those resources, then that is a very good thing. michael: i totally agree. we have this dysfunctional relationship with our own government and the society. it is regarded as this other hostile force, this deep state. because, iizarre mean, i think if our government fails, and our society fails. charlie: the undoing project, i love the story and the friendship or romance that existed between the two of them, one now dead. you came to this because after writing "moneyball," you had mentioned the work they had done. michael: correct. this is the oddest book i have ever written because it has a 13

year history. normally i am in and out very quickly. "moneyball" was a story about the way the team figured out the market for baseball players is screwed up and baseball players were not being valued. when the book came out, richard thaler and his writing partner wrote a nice review, but it was a damming review that said "michael does not seem to understand the point of his own book," that this is all very interesting. it is a very interesting case study. charlie: and he doesn't mention them. michael: and he never mentions them. i never got to the place in moneyball where i was asking why are these baseball scouts making these mistakes. why are the best looking baseball players overvalued and the worst looking ones undervalued? why is a young player who reminds a scout of a player they saw 20 years ago overvalued?

seen,guy they have never undervalued. they did all the studies showing the way the mind makes decisions. charlie: what did they do? michael: broadly what they did is set out to study the way the mind works scientifically, and they did it by giving people paper and pencil tests to see where they got things wrong. having a hunch of where they might get things wrong in advance. so over the course of 10-12 years of working closely together, they are exploring human nature and the things the mind does. they turned up lots of startling insights. they turn up the fact that generally when people are deciding between things, there deciding between descriptions of

things, and if you change the description, you can get them to reverse their choice. they discovered that when people are making judgments, like gut decisions, they are way too influenced by what just happened or what they just heard. when you are driving down the road and are deciding how fast you will go, you are making a probability judgment about how likely you will be in an accident. you may not be thinking you think that way, but you are. needle on the- telling youis that. then you see an accident and all of a sudden you slow down to 55 along with everybody else. it is a weird thing to do. whatever it is, your sense of the probability of an accident

went up at the moment you are less likely to have an accident. they show the way how when we move through the world we has people are always making implicitly these probabilistic calculations, and how we are wrong. instead of actually doing statistics even when we can do statistics, we are answering by telling ourselves a story. we think in stereotypes when you can think in statistics and said, so we think the big players are better than the smaller players because we think bigger players are better than smaller players. they are on a journey. fact, one of the got the nobel prize for something called prospects theory. it is a complicated theory that has in bedded in it some startling insights. charlie: tell me about the personalities. they were dramatically different. michael: they were so different that nobody who knew them

could imagine why they would work together. one is dark, brooding, constantly doubting. in fact, his doubt becomes the engine of their collaboration. he doubts everything around, existing theories, everything, but basically an artistic increment. turned the dial a little bit on his personality and you get a novel. startling insights come out of him, constantly. the other is this totally self-assured, smartest man in the room wherever he goes, wearing it lightly almost all of the time. everybody who meets him says that is the most brilliant mind i have ever met. mind of athe logician. it is not a fertile, creative mind exactly. if you give him a startling,

fertile, interesting idea, he could figure out how to carve it up and present it to an audience where you can argue with it anymore. one was the life of the party, the of one was not at the party. charlie: great to have you here. michael lewis. the undoing project is now in paperback am i fastening story about science, friendship, and understanding humanity. thank you for joining us. ♪

carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. julia: and i'm julia chatterley. we are inside "bloomberg businessweek" magazine headquarters in new york. carol: the republican tax proposal. who gets what. julia: saudi arabia. what is at stake. carol: gifts for the holidays. [laughter] julia: all of that and more on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ carol: we are here with "bloomberg businessweek" editor-in-chief megan murphy. you have a big focus on tax