>> charlie: welcome to our program tonight the big budget showdown and the possibility of a government shut down. we talked to jonathan karl of abc news, gerald seib of the "wall street journal" and john heilemann of "new york" magazine. >> the budget though is really setting the republican agenda not just for the rest of the year but potentially for a generation. i mean he has put forward a plan that gets into not simply questions of government spending but of policy. i mean his efforts to basically remake the medicare program into a system that is government subsidized but private insurance. >> what paul ryan did this week starts a national conversation slash debate that runs all the way through the 2012 election. it is a conversation and debate that's not really about the budget, it is about what is the role of government in the 21st

century america and how much are you willing to pay to have that role fulfilled. >> if you think about gingrich, he had those revolutionaries behind him, his base, the further i was pea he pull on the right were his people the nancy pelosi is a good speaker. >> charlie: this evening the mayor of newark, new jersey, corey booker. >> people have to believe they can dumb there and be save there, lift up the burden of crime. you've got to create jobs and opportunities and create high quality of life especially for your kids. right now the big issue for governments is you've got to balance the budget and make it work. cities in our nation is being crushed by debt. >> charlie: intended to include in this evening's program an interview i did with bob diamond the ceo of barclay's bank. >> this is history which is what i'm really interested in. you get a call from bob steel,

he's deputy secretary of the treasury. >> yes. >> charlie: at that time. >> yes, formally goldman sachs and now former mayor of new york city. and he says to you what? >> he said it was about a month after the bear stearns bankruptcy. >> charlie: and the bailout by j.p. morgan has been guaranteed by the federal reserve. >> a month after that i got a call from bob. i had been staying in touch with bob regularly because we're in the midst of pretty wild time in the financial markets. he asked me two questions. he said this is unofficial and he's not, he's not proposing anything but he wants me to think through two questions. is there a price at which we've been interested in buying lehman. and if so, what will we need from the treasury. and i think what will we need from the treasury meaning wear a foreign-based ion substitution. >> charlie: at this time we're talking about buying the whole thing. >> at this time it was certainly bin of buying the whole thing. >> charlie: we'll show you that interview tomorrow night.

tonight the budget battle and corey booker. it's happening every day, all across america. every time a storefront opens. or the midnight oil is burned. or when someone chases a dream, not just a dollar. they are small business owners. so if you wanna root for a real hero, support small business. shop small. additional funding provided by these funders: captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> charlie: we're on washington today and the possibility of a government shut down. as the friday deadline loom, many question whether a compromise will be reached. this morning president obama met with congressional leaders but the two sides were unable to reach a deal. after a meaght the president made an appearance in the whitehouse briefing room. he pushed congress to come together on a plan to fund the government until september. he also urged republicans to accept that $33 billion in cuts already agreed to by the democrats. >> what we can't do is have my way or the highway approach to this problem. nobody gets 100% of what they want. and we have more than met the republican's halfway at this point. >> charlie: moments later, the senate majority leader harry

reid and john boehner speaker of the house made their own statements. >> we will continue to fight again for the largest steps possible. we're not going to allow the senate nor the whitehouse to put us in a box where we have to make a choice between two bad options. cutting a bad deal this week in order to keep the government open. or allow the government to shut down due to senate enaction. >> i'm going to do everything i can do and i hope the republicans do what the country needs, not what they believe the tea party wants. i think that the tea party was driving what goes on in the house of representatives. >> charlie: as the fight over current spending intensified, house republicans presented their own long-term budget plan

for next year crafted by congressman paul ryan, the proposal will cut roughly $6 trillion in spending over the next decade. >> our goal here is to leave our children and our grandchildren with a debt free nation. the president's recent budget proposal that he gave is worse than just the commitment to the status quo. the president actually accelerates our decent into a dead crises. >> charlie: joining me is john heil lawn of "new york" magazine and gerald seib of the "wall street journal" and jonathan karl of the abc news. i start with jonathan karl. where do you think we are. >> we are at a place how far a shut down until they try something in the really next 12 to 24 hours. the deal runs out by friday. they've got a deal to pass in the house and senate and right now all sides are digging in. speaker boehner is in a situation where whatever deal he ultimately strikes he still has to pass in the house and his

members are pushing in to push for further cuts and that's exactly what he is doing, not willing to accept what the white house and the democrats have put on the table so far. >> charlie: gerry, how do you think the president's handling it and what's the dilemma for the president. >> what's fascinating today, charlie when the president was talking he was standing above the night in a way. he was describing the democrat over there and the republicans over there and you guys need to get together not me and the other democrats and you guys the rowrkz. i think he's positioning himself as the adult in the room. that's almost the words that he used today. whether that works or not i don't know. but it's a different abrupt obama we would have seen last year in a similar night. >> charlie: and a wiser one. >> i think perhaps probably in terms of figuring how the what the country wants to see out of the president, probably so. whether it's more effective in getting a deal done, i don't know. the i have to admit i was wrong. i thought this was the day this debate would flatten out and we would begin the glide toward getting this thing resolved because nobody really wants the

government shut down. that's not what happened today. in fact to some extent the opposite occurred. >> charlie: you agree with john in that it's heading for a shut down. >> that's right. i was thank youing with some republicans this afternoon scratching their head saying why do i want to take a stand on this fight as your set up piece suggested. paul ryan put it on the table. let's not talk about the next six months but ten years. if you make a political stand, make other over something really big and important not over this. but that's not the prevailing view right now in the republican caucus in the house. >> charlie: so tell me first about barack obama and how he's handling it and what the options are for the democrats. >> first i think gerry is right in the sense this is a different obama than we saw in the first two years but not a different obama than we saw crucially in the lame duck session. he tried to put himself apart

from both meerts and above both parties saying he's the adult in the room the last man standing. the difference this is that deal he had the democrat base did not like renook the bush tax cuts but president obama could turn to the democrats and say there's more stimulus in here, a bunch of unemployment insurance and other goodies here. he's got nothing to turn to democrats and say is there any good in this. this is just more and more cuts to more and more programs that are valuable to democrats. that's his problem with trying to get a deal done. the republicans have a different deal which gerry and johnathan alluded this. boehner has very different circumstances. this is what i read in the column this week. he is not really unlike newt gingrich back in 1995. he is not the leader of the revolution that is fueling the republican party. he was the guy who happened to be in the office when the revolution happened. when you think about gingrich he had those revolutionaries behind him. the furthest people on the right

were his peoplement nancy pelosi, a good speaker had the left base with him. he does not have the base with him. he's looking at last week $33 billion in cuts that the democrats are now offering. that's a birch more than he boehner and the republican leadership wants more than two months ago and he's not free to make that deal. these a pretty good deal. you put 32 on the table and the other side comes back and says we'll give you 33 you would think that's a pretty good deal. but the tea party and the freshman in the house they do not want that deal and boehner cannot take that deal because the pressure he's get from those people in his caucus. he's got to be the most miserable man in washington right now because john boehner is a deal maker and his caucus will not let him cut the deal that's there to be made right now. >> charlie: how do the republican house members view the gingrich shut down that clinton so craftily used to sort of change the debate in

washington? do they have no fear of that analogy? >> well, it's interesting. you got a bit of a divide between those who are actually here during that last government shut down. like john boehner. john boehner has spoken consistently both publicly and privately about how he wanted to avoid a government shut down, to avoid where he is right now. but the new freshman class, and some of the other real fire breaker conservatives in the house conference were not here. the memory is not quite as vivid for them. the memory by the way, charlie, is also very vivid for the leaders in the democrat caucus in the senate. durbin was here in the house, shoeman was here, harry reid was here. they saw what happened the last time around there was a government shut down. and they saw how it was blamed on republicans and how craftily you said bill clinton used it to his advantage. frankly they've been, you know, in some ways angling for that, at least preparing for the fact if there is a government shut down, this is something that will show the republicans to be

in their view who they really are. out there on the extreme. but you know, for a lot of the rank and file, these new fire brand conservatives in the house, they were not here. they don't want a government shut down but they don't have that fear that you can almost hear when you talk to john boehner about it. >> >> charlie: also the cuts are cardinal principle for them in terms of whatever bonds they have for their constituents and the fact they believe this is the idea that they wrote to power on. >> this is the very principle that got them elected, that brought that republican majority. and you know, gerry mentioned this $6 trillion cut over the next several years. these that is a stubsive fight. for a lot of the republicans, if you give in on this, if you can't even get a few extra billions of dollars in cuts on this, are you really going to hold fast when you have the bigger tougher fights down the

road. >> charlie: so gerry tell me what might happen to bring closure to this. let's talk basic here. >> that's the short term more broad question. the issue here is can republicans convince freshman in the house cop cuss as johnathan was just suggest ug earlier we ought to hold our fire. we have a much bigger issue not just for the party or the house but for the country. if we neglect that we do so at our own peril. i think somehow that needs to be conveyed. at the end of the day barack obama has to get into the room and close the deal. you get the sense that john boehner wants to do this. you get the sense that harry reid wants to do this. they need help getting it done. that's what a president does in these situations. >> charlie: before the president gets in here, who has the credibility with the tea party group in the republican

house? to get them to come around. >> the person who is standing immediately to john boehner's right who last week put a lot of distance between himself and the speaker. >> charlie: and the conventional wis dumg he wants -- wisdom he wants to appeal to the tea party for the future. >> the mac villain view he thinks that boehner's speakership might not last that long and there might be an insurrection and he wants to be in a position to step in. but he is the guy who if boehner can bring canter over and boehner and cantor can be stepping together, he's the guy in the leadership who these greater credibility with those people who could sell it to them if need be. >> charlie: jonathan karl, could that happen. >> well it's not a group that really looks to a leader. i agree that cantor has to position himself. he had his whole program during the campaign of the young guns out there to transform the

republican party. it's certainly what he's tried to do. i'm not so sure many how far these freshmen that came in really look to cantor from leadership and really necessarily follow this lead on this. and also it's important to point out charlie that it's not really just this new freshman class, you know. the last time we were on the verge of a government shut down and they came to an agreement to extend for two weeks by cutting $2 billion for each of those two weeks, there were 54 no votes, the deal boehner had struck with the democrats. there were 54 no votes in the house among republicans. and most of those no votes were actually not the freshmen, only about 2 2 were freshmen. the rest were other fire brand conservatives who have been around for a while longer people like michelle bachman and mike pense and tom price. people who are associated with the kind of new write -- right in the house but not necessarily the fresh mean class. >> charlie: what happens if there's a shut down , what does

that mean. >> it means a lot of government shuts down. float a lot of concern whether the government can get its act together. the markets are not going to like this, business dispn like this because government contracts are not let, that interrupts the supply chain. things happen. hear not cataclysmic but they're convenient for everybody. everybody loses faith whether the government can get hoifts act together and deal with these bigger questions we're talking about. i was going to mention charlie one of the things i think happened here that's interesting and one of the reasons why i think a shut down seems a little more likely than i thought a few days ago is you've seen democrats, and we saw it in harry reid in that clip right at the beginning starting to demonize the tea party saying these people are extremists, they're in charge. as long as that's the case there won't be a deal, they can't close the deal on the house because the tea party extremists are in charge. that's a demonization of the tie party that's convinced democrats if this shut down occurs we're

not going to be blamed for it. the tea party has become an extreme symbol in america and that's going to be blamed for it and gets us off the hook. in a sense they have less to lose than before. >> that's the political immayorive, if you go back to 95, democrats then, clinton had a great someone to demonize, they had newt gingrich who behaved in ways that were easy for democrats to caricature that were unreasonable. they don't have that now. john boehner is not newt gingrich in a number of different levels. so they are looking for someone to start preemptively blame as gerry just said the tea party. trying to turn the tea party into a newt gingrich. as johnathan said not just the freshmen but people like mike pense on television was saying he thought planned parenthood was not going to be funding.

adding these riders, these social issues that people on the right have crept in. if we can't fund preplanned parenthood i can't fund the deal. that gives democrats more soft target. this isn't about money, this is about the cultural and right getting into the act and screwing up the possibility of a compromise. >> charlie: let me move to the idea of paul ryan and his proposal. what's the response in the house to it and what impact will it have? >> well, i think this is a far more far reaching than this squabble we're having now over government funding which i do believe will be resolved even if there is a shut down, it will be a short shut down. the paul ryan budget though is really setting the republican agenda not just for the rest of the year but potentially for a generation. i mean he has put forward a plan that gets into not simply questions of government spending but of policy. i mean his efforts to basically

remake the medicare program into a system that is government subsidized but private insurance. this is a far reaching plan. republicans i have to tell you, charlie, were fearful of this day. a lot of them did not want paul ryan to go forward with a plan like this until you first had democrats go out with something on entitlement reform. a lot of the leadership thought that if they did this, if they went forward, this could cost them their majority. because they would be so demonized by democrats. but now that it's gone out there, republicans have embraced it. because they have to. this is their plan. this is the plan that certainly has the energy of that new freshman class behind it. and democrats very predictably have demonized it from the moment it was released, in fact even before it was released saying what ryan is essentially doing is he is balancing the budget. in fact he doesn't actually balance charlie for almost 30 years. he has deep cuts but the budget deficit is so big he doesn't actually balance the budget until about the year 2040.

but you know, he's going forward with this and the republicans are saying they're going to be there. the democrats are saying he is doing this by balancing or getting towards balance by hitting the poor people, hitting the elderly and saving those tax cuts that were put in place by george bush. >> charlie: by doing this, does he change the debate? >> absolutely. he's changed the debate already. i think on that level he's going to get credit and praise because he did what president obama was not willing to do. he broke some barriers. he took on the sacred cows whether you like it or not he said we've got a problem here and got to stop dance around. didn't just say it, he did something about it. to that extent when people recognize that, they will give him and republicans some credit for it. i don't know whether we can know if this gamble is good or not is that the mood of the country has change. what's happened in the last three years have made people, not in washington but voters out

there change their views yes i get it you have to do some things i won't like that affect me and my family personally and i recognize that's the case and i'm willing to go on that ride with you. i don't know if that's true or not, nobody knows that but that's the underlying gamble behind what paul ryan has just done. >> charlie: the phenomena with time with he a paul like governor cristity of newark, looking for politicians who will say we have to make tough choices we have to participate in this and this is the reason otherwise the future is bleak. >> it's a great moment of truth because on a lot of these programs, medicare and medicaid, social security which ryan doesn't deal with but which is going to get dealt with and talked about in the months to come. this has been the third rails, cliches but the third rail of american politics for a long time and we don't know the answer right now. like gerry said whether we're at the moment of reckoning or the huge change that's about to

change the whole fiscal outlook for the country hasn't barely begun yet but will unfold in the next 30 years when the baby boom retires and moves into old age. that's an enormous change in the structure of american society and is that going to change our politics and is it going to change in this short term in a way that paul ryan and republicans are able to do some of the things they want to do. don't be confused about this. don't be the scope they're talking about what they're doing. i give paul ryan as gerry also said i give them a lot of credited. this is a serious proposal. he's taken some really courage to do what he's done. it is a very radical proposal and i mean that not like in a demonizing way i just mean he's about proposing to change the nature of the social safe a net in a way we have not seen arguably since the new deal. i mean to basically privatize medicare and to turn medicaid into a block grant that's turned that into eventual abolishes medicaid as we know it and awe ball shells medicare over time as we know it, those are huge

changes. and they set up an enormous political struggle. certainly not bigger than anything we've seen since the mid 90's and possibly for many generations previous. >> charlie: how would you expect the president to act and where do you think his head is on this other than 2012. >> other than 2012, don't put that caveat on there. 2012 is very much on his mind. i think the president understands because he's a smat person the need for democratic change and need for america to understand that as a matter of policy. he also understands that the politics of this are very tricky for republicans and there's a large part of him and the people around him who prefer i think to lay back and hope that republican infighting and the unpopularity of some of the things they put forward will allow the president to use that for re-election. that may be very good politics. it is not leadership however. that is one thing the president has not shown on this issue so

far. >> charlie: hasn't endorsed simpson. >> he has not but he might be doing the right thing going forward. >> charlie: what does the president expect on this somehow it will self destruct among republicans and therefore he will sit back and look at the rooms and say see there? >> well i'll tell you this charlie, the whitehouse came out with an official statement reaction of riej's budget within a few hours of its release saying paul ryan missed the mark criticizing him on similar rounds that they could get from the hill. the idea that the president would endorse or address our long term entitlement challenge. we've heard no specifics out of the whitehouse and with each passing week it gets less and less likely because we get closer to 2012 campaign season. now he is officially running for

re-election. you've got your republican candidates who as you get closer would oppose anything the president was going to propose even if he was embracing the full republican plan. so i think he gets less and less likely that we see something on his way. i think the expectation is you can use this, you can beat republicans up by it, you can score some points in the next election. maybe even win back the house and then try to do it. >> charlie: gerry explain the president here. is he sym me -- simply laying back and waiting to play his cards until he sees what's on the table. >> yes. i think what president obama probably thippedz -- thinks is what we all think is paul ryan started a conversation slash debate running through the 2012 conversation. it's not really about the budget, it's about what is the role of government in 21st century america and how much are you willing to pay to have that role fulfilled. that's a huge debate. it's notoing to be resolved this year, it's not going to be

resolved in the context of paul ryan's budget but that's the beginning sej of the 2012 campaign. i think barack obama believes he would do imhimself political good if there's some progress toward the deficit in the long run but that's not going to settle it. >> charlie: thank you very much gerry and johnathan. pleasure to have both of you on the program. you started to say something. >> you think back to the way bill clinton won re-election in 1986. a lot of people think about the bridge of the 21st isn't tree. he demo gog -- i covered that election. he was a very good demogog when he wanted to be. i think the temptation for barack obama is to do the same thing if he can win re-election

as johnathan said and maybe they can nguyen back the house and the senate numbers are tough there. he can do this on his terms again. i'm not saying i endorse and be free of politics in his second term. >> charlie: thank you. >> charlie: corey booker is here a native of suburban new jersey deciding to live in the city he serves as a law student in yale. he never left and became a councilman and chose to live in a housing project. now in his second term as mayor he's recognized for reducing crime, reforming public education and attracting business to newark. new york city mayor michael bloomberg a mentor once said mayors around the country could learn from corey booker and so perhaps can we. i am pleased to have him at this table for the first time. welcome. >> it's great to be here. >> charlie: tell me what you think you have done for newark because no one would argue that you are very candid about where

newark is and what it must to get where it ought to be. >> well change is never made by one person, you and i both understand that. and newark is a city that had this glorious history than for a set period of time when most americans through 50 years really took a turn for the worse. but spring is coming and it's blossoming again and my team in city hall is trying to accelerate that but cities have a purpose and cities have gravity. if good people from different sectors pull together, cities can't transform and come back. i think that's what we're seeing in newark right now. >> charlie: what did you do to make it come back. what are the elements of come back. >> the basics for cities are you've got to get public safety to a point where people have to come there and be safe there where residents feel the lift of the burden of crime. you've got to create job and economic opportunity, you've got to create high quality of life especially for your kids. right now the big issue for governments is you've got to

balance the budget and you've got to make it wks. cities like our nation have been crushed by debt right now. >> charlie: what are you going to do about that. >> each one of those problems we came in and said our goal to go make newark a testimony to the nation. short of a test for renovation and reform trying to meet our challenges. >> charlie: so newark becomes a laboratory for change. >> exactly. so we've been able, in every one of those categories we've been able to make some pretty impressive strides even in my own view because of bringing sectors together within our city and a lot of folks without our city coming together just creates some pretty special things. so whether it's dealing with crime and focusing on exo fenders who are coming home and breaking down those recidivism rates, finding young people and new solutions to empower their geniuses. whether it's looking at things that are innovative around education or healthcare. this is a place now why you have

local pushes with venture philanthropists with government partnering to do some incredible things. >> charlie: the debt issue with newark. we know the battle govern christy is making in your state. it is said hat sometimes mayors of decisions are made at the state level or they receive challenge. >> we have a broken dialogue in our country. there's always someone to blame ask someone doing the blaming. the reality of america is we've done this to ourselves and everybody, if you look at from consumer debt all the way to decisions that were made by governments. and we've got to stop pointing fingers and the reality is we've got to find ways to make our cities and our nations and our state strong begin. and so specifically toward us we've had to do some brutal thing. we've cut back 20 to 25% of government employees. we've realized that we've had to go to the table and have some tough negotiations because the costs that i can't control that i do need help from the state,

pension costs and healthcare costs are mushrooming out of control. so we've had to figure out ways to supplement our agenda with a lot of private -- >> charlie: is that principallably because of contracts made by previous mayors. >> again, you can say that, yes. so there's a lot of challenges from previous contracts. but what i'm trying to get people to understand, this is where i think the wisconsin debate has become so shallow is that there are nuances. it's not unions versus republicans, it's just not. the reality is new jersey, we have lots of laws that have put managers like myself with both hands tied behind our back. i'll give you an example of this. we came to or police budget and there's something in new jersey called binding arbitration. arbitrators have a set of rules making decisions based upon what's going on around the state. here i'm sitting at the stable saying i can't afford to give you a sizeable rate, worse economy in my lifetime,

difficult times, unions are taking zero in terms of raises. i need you to take it as well. no, we need to go to arbitration. the lawyers took me acid and said mayor you can't afford to go to arbitrate trairks. the town gave 5 or 4% increases and in binding arbitration you will be held by those standards. these are rules that are just not fair . >> charlie: what did you do. >> we ended up in a contract we couldn't afford. when wean got sort of the cutbacks from the state, we ended up having to do what was unconscionable to me, leave off police officers in our status. patterson, trenton. they're all going through the same thing. cities that historically seena lot of violence -- the reality is we were put in a position where we couldn't wind. this isn't blaming past administrations these are a set of rules that are evolving for public sector unions that need to be changed in my opinion. we don't need to get rid of collective bargaining. >> charlie: what needs to be

changed. >> in this case you need to change the collective bargaining agreement that's more fair. let's keep going. we have a reality where we're covering pension costs that are mushrooming. if you look at the actuarials, we cannot keep up. in fact our pension and healthcare costs are crowding out all other expenses in city hall. here i am as mayor and i can control how much we spend for street cleaning. i may not be able to control how much is snow removal when you have a bad year but these are costs i can upped find more efficient ways of doing them and the like. as long as that growth of tension costs continues to mushroom it often squeezes out. >> charlie: why is the cost perpetually growing is it cost of inflation or what. >> put them together. there are liabilities that everybody has. it's healthcare and pension. so healthcare costs are mushrooming because again, when you have systems where the

providers of that service and the consumers of that service have no conception of cost, you often are going to see costs drive up. we've done radical things with our public sector unions many of them asking them to make a 1% or 2% contribution to your healthcare costs which is in line with private sector unions as well as other sectors. but we have to go further on that and we have to start exploring a lot of other ideas. pension reform. we have to start looking at ways of extending retirement ages and all the sensible things that are not partisan to me that we've seen from recommendations of bipartisan committees to local folks you've got to start taking rational steps to control the mushrooming debt of our cities and states. >> charlie: leadership has been defined in one case as the ability to get people to do something they may not want to do and something that's uncomfortable for them. how do you do that? >> look. it is a challenge and i'll give

you specific examples. first of all you have to break through false debates. america's been torn apart by debates that have nothing to do with facts. let me give you one example. to be in america, you can pick one, guns in america. we have this frozen sort of bifurcated binary debate where it's either you're trying to take away my guns or you want to have everybody to have gun rights. heller decision in supreme court turned over washington dc's handgun ban. people are going to buy guns murder will go up more. i looked at that and said why is my side getting upset about that. i did an analysis of all of the shootings in my city i can only find one shooting in my four years as mayor was done by someone who bought a gun legally and that was a correctional officer who used a side arm to shoot at her boyfriend who probably deserved it. only one instance so why an i debating the right of legal law

abiding citizens to own guns. on the other side of the debate they're too rawfn of -- often get it wrong. most gun owners agree with and in fact we polled them and saw the republican pollster, 80 to 90% agree to changes in the law. you are charlie rose and have a restraining order out on you from a girlfriend you threatened to kill. you can go some place in america right now and get a gun, not only get a gun but fill your trunk up and sell those guns out of the back of your vehicle. majority of gun owners say we should change that loophole. here you have most americans not over here where we think nobody should have a gun. we're not over here where we think there should be sensible laws. most of us are right here in the middle and we all agree but yet

our policies don't affect us. >> charlie: the problem here is r.a. because they have a huge lobbying potential. >> you get the government you deserve. the only thing necessary for evil to be triumphant is -- violent action is the bad people but the appalling silence and enaction of the good people. >> charlie: martin luther king said that. >> king said that. there are interest gruence everywhere but if we start getting involved in those issues that make our lives better and don't let our debates be controlled by when i call the wing nuts on both sides and start getting america back to simple conversations, what's going to make us stronger economically. what's going to make education better for our kids. there are core things about what the quality of life is. >> charlie: here's what's interesting about this. here you are, you came to live in newark, you chose as i said to your father once, you could have gone to a fancy job on wall

street made a lot of money and i said to he went to live in a tent in newark but he later became mayor. >> newark has gifted me treasures of wimps come i -- wisdom i could never have made my own. when people say you have sacrificed, that's not true. this is a city that's done more for me than i ever tried to give back. >> charlie: you said your schooling was at newark. >> newark has schooled me many times over. but look. where we've made the biggest jumps in newark. we have a lot more work to do but have been those areas where we've come together with the willingness to do the things other people weren't doing in order to get the results that other people weren't getting. so take this issue we have in america that's ridiculous. we as a nation drag on our economy in ways that people don't even realize, billions of dollars in new jersey is spent, warehouses that we leased, the majority 60% come right back.

you want to talk about the biggest waste of government dollars. >> charlie: we're just simply warehousing without giving them the new skills. >> that's right. we take this as an issue. we brought people together from different parts of the political aisle. we brought the manhattan institute together on the right side of the political aisle, local activists on the left side of the political aisle joined together and we started creating models of innovation of this issue. we created a fatherhood center because we knew the kids most likely to go to prison in inner. forget about race and geography. we took dads coming home who often were not getting involved with those kids lives because they owe child support to the mother or couldn't find a job themselves. we created a fa turnity of men, alpha delta sigma dads. we're going to create an organization to make the best fathers. we got mentored dads. long story short now for that program running now years we have a 3% recidivism rate.

>> charlie: the moral of that story is. >> we in america have lost our sense that we are a nation of impossible dreams,here we can make anything happen. the biggest block to our nation going forward are those basic principles that are our hallmark, bringing people together to create strength. and having the sense not sense of toxic resignation where you are resigned to what is, or even worse what i call a state of sedentary agitation, we get upset, we yell at our tv, whether it's fox or nbc or whatever it is. forget who is to blame i'm responsible for the realities i'm dealing with in america, i need to get up and join with other people and take control of the destiny of this nation. where we do that, gray things happen. there's a guy that, i see this, there are guys who was a retired government worker who became one

of my favorite philanthropists in america. he was given a stimulus check. we went out and bought something, went to dinner or paid off a credit card. here's an elderly took his stimulus check, went to home depot and bought a a lawnmower. he went into his neighborhood and started cleaning it. day after day. >> charlie: his neighborhood. >> his neighborhood. eventually it was a beautiful lawn and eventually the drug dealers left the neighborhood. to me that a demonstration we have more power than we know. the reservoir's a strength we don't use. here's a guy that you they are is going to make a lecture. it's every day small acts of kindness and compassion and his aggregates make a difference. here's my challenge and frustration as the mayor of the city of newark. people ask me what's the biggest problem in your city, crime or budget problems. i say none of that. it's the ability for us as a community to come tobacco with

a -- together with a bold power and vision. this is why many ways we've broken through on specific issues because we have been able to manifest that unity of action. >> charlie: what's the greatest resistance to that unity on action. >> in the political system, i think there are things we've done hat have moved people away from the sensible center and to the far wings. what have we done? well we have primary systems that are to me anti-democratic. take the mayor election in washington d.c. -- he lost a primary where a significant number of the voters didn't get a chance to vote. so me and a number of other people said -- >> charlie: this is like senate -- >> we should have open primaries. we have a system that selects or extremes the waive we draw district lines. it's about two parties trying to protect their own power and let me draw the biksz the best i can so -- district the best i can. that means the votes often

represent extremes within their party as opposed to if you had more sensible districts you would have to repeal to the sensible. >> charlie: let me make this very clear then. suppose as a politician, and what you ought to do is talk about problem solving, you ought to be able to talk about common sensical solutions. if you looked at the deficit issue and the debt issue in newark and suppose you believed that it was essential to have revenue enhancement on one side of the balance sheet, would you be prepared even if you thought it was politically disadvantageous to go and say to the system of newark i've got to raise your taxes. >> look. before -- first of all i have raised taxes in the stead of newark. >> charlie: with a kind of taxes. >> i raised property taxes. >> charlie: that's what mayor bloomberg did too. >> i feel very uncomfortable when we have a broken system of government not addressing the long term problems elf thing people over and over again the

solution is taxes. as the mayor of a city with high unemployment and a lot of poverty the last thing i want to do is created a tax structure that's going to push businesses out of my city and not attract right now what we're doing in newark, from mansonic and lots of name braptdz coming -- >> charlie: why are they coming to newark. we come back to the taxes in a moment. >> we're a city that makes sense from an obvious way. if you looked at us from 10,000 feet, wait a minute you're ten miles from new york city. you sit on the best transportation super structure in the northeast, rail lines. when we came into newark -- >> charlie: a port too. >> rail lines, highways, you name it. we looked at our city and said wait a minute we have so much competitive advantage that we are not accessing or leveraging to attract businesses or jobs to expand on arts and entertainment, to expand on universities and colleges pause we're the biggest college town in the state of new jersey. we just knew we weren't leveraging these things well

enough. that's what i'm saying. the challenge charlie, is not that america's we're not smart enough or all of these complicated problems that we don't have a lot of ideas that worked. you're right. there are some people who don't stand up and say i want to raise the retirement age or when you can start collecting social security because that might have political detriment. there's some on that. i'm a believer we have all it takes in terms of ideas but we are lacking that collective sense of will to make the kind of changes. >> charlie: is that what leadership is about in the end. >> in the end, it is exactly what it's about. it's about -- there's an old yolk -- >> charlie: find the collective will. >> an old joke says mall particulars look out side the window and see which way is the crowd charging and run out in front and says this is the way. makes tough calls and tough decisions. but more importantly finds ways to compel people towards their higher angels and not towards their lesser angels. and we are a nation right now where eternal and i'm talking

about left wing cable news and right wing cable news where if you listen closely, forget the argument, you see the appeal is often to the lesser angels and not -- >> charlie: the triumph of fear. >> or demagoguery or bashing the other side that it's a zero one game where in america we don't have a republican or democrat destiny. we got one destiny. when you listen to the tv you think these enemies are trying to kill us and kill america so we've got to focus on them and not on progress. >> charlie: do you see government different than the president. >> i'm sure we have difference of views on a lot of different levels. one thing i see about government for it to work is there's never going to be one person that's going to be our savior. we are what car michael said, we are the leaders we've been looking for. we are the ones that have to change our communities and neighborhoods. frankly when we're in newark, new jersey, the president is part of the solution but he is not the solution. biggest challenges i have you were many of them are local

challenges. i here what you're saying but the expensation that we put upon the fred to transform our politics is again i remember when i was elected people were talking about we're now in post racial politics which is absolutely ridiculous. actually a place i never want to go that we were now going to have hope and change and the like and now we can just sit back and put our president down of washington d.c. and expect change. that's crazy. no great change happened in this country. analyze any movement you want to see from the anti-war movement to the civil rights movement, from the government down. it's always been from collective action within communities driving forward towards change. and i see it and i feel it. i hear republicans and democrats in the sensible centers talking about healthcare reform with the same language doing the same thing. i listen to brown or cuomo sound very similar to my governor crist christy in newark, new

jersey. >> charlie: is that the political wisdom of the time or simply you haven't looked at the problems and the reality of the challenge if found the same answers. is there political -- >> i think the thing about all of us, many of us who are in executive positions right now and i talk to a lot of fellow mayors all the time we don't have the luxury to engage in political debate. it's about problem solving every single day and they're going to look to us about the basics, right, every single day. for me, before i'm a democrat, i am an american and my country right now is in the serious peril. peril because we're in debt and faming to educate the biggest national security threat in america is to educate our children. and global knowledge-based economy, we will never have a league democracy if we have a lacking education system and that's what's happening right now. these major problems from debt to education to some of the other things, economic growth and development, we are all united and the answers are not

partisan. but they do taker a persistence a fortitude and a will that we're not evidencing right now that we as a populous which is graded in so many ways but we still have not shown a sense of purpose to drive our nation through these difficult times to where we need to go. i hope we'll get this but we have a lot of work to do. >> charlie: how important is the hundred million dollars that mark suckerberg gave to newark. >> it's small compared to what we spend every year, 7800 to $900 million in education. it was important because here you have this 26 year old who is a genius thinking to himself i want to be a chief provocateur to this information, to be a laboratory for innovation reform that could aggregate best practices from within and around the country. i want to throw some money,

throw some money down on the table and say i'm all in, who is going to be with me. because he believes as i believe that this is the unfinished business of our democracy. when our children stand up in oakland, california and newark and say those five words, liberty and justice for all. right now those words aren't true, they're just aspirational. for are our democracy to be real, a kid wherever you live is whatever zip code you should be able to go to a quality school. right now the destiny of millions children who are desperate for hope and help and children are often chained to meadocracy. >> charlie: has the debate about education in america been unfair to teachers? >> yes, i think in many so ways it has because there's been a cognitive laziness of sorts that has allowed commentary on union challenges and work rules to bleed into the teachers as a whole. and i'm very very worried about

that because we have a problem in our profession. we've so beaten down the teaching profession yeting the quality of -- >> charlie: because teachers no longer look at teaching as a noble profession. >> they don't look at it that way. the problem is as soon as you start trying to make teachers a problem, you will fail to give attention and white to all the other contributing factors to a poor education. they become a convenient scapegoat for the real realities. any of us who work in urban communities and go and visit schools on a regular basis as i to, you can is a these heroes in the most unconscionable environment in terms of support, in terms of training evaluation, mentorship that are, where they are in many ways set up to lose but still yet give so much of themselves and yet reaching into the pockets to try to get their kids edged. that's the problem we're all defending our turf around the

blame game. it's parents fault, it's teacher fault, it's politician fault in terms of realizing there's no quick fix to this and we look at a different solutions to these problems. stay loyal to what's working and begin to expand that in areas and this is what we're hoping to do in the city of newark. >> charlie: what are your dreams personally? >> well, i drew up in a many family that -- grew up in a family that my parents have a very, they have a love affair with this nation. but the weird thing for me was to grow up in a table that i would hear the darkest element of our country. i would hear my parents stories about encountering racism, even the house i grew up in my parents had to get a light couple to pose as them in order to purchase the home. i would hear these stories coming out but yet i would hear my mom and dad talk about america as if it were sacred soil, so much larger than ourselves. the idea of america, the dream

of this nation these carried this country so far but needs to go further. we are people you and i and all of us who drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that we did not dig. and those of us in our generation who are the inheritors of this legacy is struggle. my dream is moving an sertsz of america for is our generation will not, will prove worthy by pushing it forward. one of the most difficult experiences with my dad, a guy of great humor and just a delight to be around, you've met him, had a sober moment with me where he was born poor, he just says son, i was born po, p-o. he was born poor to a single mother in a segregated environment. mom couldn't take care of him. he was raised by his grandmother for a while and then taken by the community. he once said he worries for this nation that a child born under those circumstances in 1936

could have better life chances than a child born in those same circumstances segregated environment single mother couldn't take care of them and born poor. child born in is the 36 will have a better life outcome possibilities than a child born in 2006. so when you see the great strength of america, my dream for our country is that we focus on our unfinished business. this great experience, this heterogeneous nation, this coming together of such diverse corners of the globe, it was a country, first country really not formed in a monarchy or theocracy but form ideas, a vision that was larger than itself. my mom said we're a nation formed in perfect ideals but imperfect reality that this generation of americans my dream is that we can be a part of that constant march toward true freedom and true liberty which is not evidence right now. >> charlie: and if we do that our best years are ahead of us. >> more important i am a believe

in proflt awe like acid we should be a light unto nations and the greater progress this nation makes the more we can help the entire globe, you're part of a human family here that has a lot of larger challenges before us. and my hope is that america not only heals itself because we're hurting and wounding not only heals itself but finds the way of glory. >> charlie: thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me.

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