>> rose: welcome to our program, a powerful and destructive tornado struck across the south. tonight brian williams of nbc news joins us from tuscaloosa with a look at the damage. >> this will be a good long time before tuscaloosa looks anything close to normal this has happened during a time when the recession has hit so hard here. where is this young couple going to get the money as newlyweds. you can throw all the fema grants and state farm insurance payouts all you want. but you know all the things of life to replace and get going, will their jobs be secure. and then multiply that by thousands of homes just in this neighborhood. >> we continue this evening with a photo journalist named lynsey addario, she had covered conflict in the middle east. she was in libya where she was captured and she tells us the story. >> it is a unique time in

our history where the united states was fighting two wars at once. we have troops on the ground. u.s. soldiers are getting maimed and kill kd. we need to see what is happening. why are we there. you know, i can't judge that but i can certainly provide a picture of what's happening on the ground. >> we conclude this evening with david leonhardt "the new york times" columnist who just receive ud a pulitzer prize for his coverage of economics. tonight a look at the economy with david leonhardt. >> if i were working in this administration, i would be terrified by the state of the economy right now. and likewise, if i were working in the republican campaign, i would be much more encouraged about my prospects than i was even two months ago. i think if this economy recovery disappears the way the recovery of 2010 did, i think the president is looking at a very difficult re-election campaign. >> rose: brian williams, lynsey addario, and david

leonhardt when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following: every story needs a hero we can all root for. who beats the odds and comes out on top. but this isn't just a hollywood storyline. 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 a small business owners. so if you wanna root for a real hero, or when someone chases a dream, not just a dollar. support small business. shop small.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: devastating tornadoes swept much of the south on wednesday. alabama was hardest hit reporting more than 220 storm related deaths and many, many more injured. in total the storms have killed over 300 people, the most from a tornado outbreak since 1932. president obama visited the tuscaloosa neighborhoods earlier today and spoke of the devastation. >> michelle and i want to express, first of all, our deepestcondolences to not just the city of tuscaloosa but to the stat of alabama and all the other states that have been aected by this unbelievable storm. we just took a tour and i

have got to say i've never seen devastation like this. >> rose: the president promised expedited federal aid to states affected by the tornadoes. brian williams joining me from tuscaloosa where he is covering can me covering this disaster, we ask him to tell us where he is at, what he is seeing and the impact from this incredible devastation. thank you. >> charlie, thank you for coming to us with that question. it is awfully difficult just this side of frustrating to be in the television business even with a big screen, high definition, if you are so lucky in your home. it will never, ever substitute for seeing something like this in all the kind of perverse, violence and virulenc kerx of this storm. a brief scene setter. we're in tuscaloosa. over here is the makeshift set we use to broadcast nbc nightly news tonight. you see the shards and

detritus of what used to be a neighborhood. over here, other side, same thing. trees stripped, very familiar scene in this area. the bottom of this funnel, the bottom of this tornado, the business end of it, charlie, was probably a half mile across. the scar it left as it went across tuscaloosa is on satellite photos tonight. absolutely massive, massive destruction machine. this is, this house, this wood frame house, very typical, emblematic of this neighborhood, working class neighborhood. of course we're motivated to say roll tide for all the alabama fans, this is a college town, 100,000 people, give or take. a lot of young folks starting out buy a house like this. this looks like it has been painted with a wagner power painter this mud brown. but this twister, and we're at one end of where the funnel passed through here,

just opened this place up. took out some items of furniture, deposited other things from other homes. they found a diary here, not from the adolescence of the young woman who lived here but from some other woman in another home. this happened to be the home of two newly weds. they survived. they lived because they were in here. this is the bathroom. they closed-- closed the door behind them. they lost the ceiling. they lost the window, eventually, but a lot of people are following their voice and going into bathrooms. also very common in a fire. in a tornado it's actually a good idea to head to a safe bathroom because the plumbing often anchors the structure when all else is lost and sucked up. this is the saddest thing i found today. again, home of these newlyweds, this was just lying here like this. bride and groom cookbook from williamson oma. everything they had, this

modest house where they were making a go of it, and starting off, is gone. this is beyond irrep arable, this will be condemned along with-- as far as the eye can ski. one last point, i will take whatever question you have. this storm was so bad that for the first time from this suburb you can see downtown tuscaloosa. and if we were in the right spot, that hasn't been true, charlie since 1860. it's true now because of vegetation and the buildings are gone. and it has opened up kind of perverse new vistas and views. in this region. >> so my first question then is what do we know about tornadoes. you talked to some people today who are experts in weather and tornadoes. and why there and what causes it and what is the force of it?

>> well, it's basically a violent collision of two weather systems. any summer night viewing of something like the weather channel will show you these two divergent systems come together and the air sweeping under and over excites itself. what happened here, we believe in the parlance of tornadoes was an f-5. they don't make them any bigger. and an f-5 tornado along with a hurricane like katrina that is the most energy nature produces on the planet ever. so these came through, every one in the country is saying the same thing t wasn't like this. didn't used to be this bad. what are we doing to our planet, to our country, to our weather. and yet meteorologists like jim who is here with us from the weather channel will tell you, you know, we've had terrible, violent, cyclical periods of very

severe weather. and this is just one of them. one more visual. everybody can identify with the thermostat, the thing we're not allowed to touch until we turn at least 18. just carved right off the wall by the force of this. i can't tell you, this feels like a fresco. it-- it is just painted on here, this mud. this house took an incredible beating. it's amazing this much is still standing. >> rose: give me a sense of the people there, facing this loss? >> yup, well, we're looking at a death toll as of our air time tonight, death toll was 308. we were in a neighborhood today where not to get overly graphic, but there was a lot of evidence in addition to very pungent natural gas, evidence they have undiscovered bodies yet in this wreckage. if you were in this half mile cone, and you survived what came through here, you

will be a survivor all your life now. will you have witnessed the closest thing to hell on earth, the most compact, focused energy earth can produce. and 308 souls and counting, sadly, did not. the wounded or injured, the list stops so far at around just north of 2000 people. but people improvise, charlie. some amazing story. a man was interviewed last night, put a football helmet on, put a mattress in the hallway, another mat res down on him. a lot of people went to the bathroom. a lot of people covered their children. in some cases, groups of people were then lost up through to this massive suction. we found a radio tower infrastructure today not from this neighborhood. we don't know where it's from. it was deposited here this was a fathersome thing. and remember it passed over-- fear some thing and it passed over a college campus. a lot of anxious parents.

this will be a good long time before tuscaloosa looks anything close to normal. this has happened during a time when the recession has hit so hard here. where is this young couple going to get the money as newlyweds. you can throw all the fema grants and state farm insurance payouts all you want but all the things of life will their jobs be secure and multiply that by thousands of loans just in this neighborhood. >> what is the response been like. how has the local and state and federal government responded? >> well, one point to make before i answer that, in katrina we could drive an hour north up baton rouge and beyond and still be in the storm zone. so people were without power, water, supplies. here when you cover a tornado, about three

quarters of a mile up the road, traffic lights are working. s they are's a k chart, a food store, an exxon station open. they've got ice. you know, a lot of the sections you would anticipate of stores are sold out. you can't buy a flashlight within a 30 minute drive of here. you can't find drinking water. a lot of it is being brought here by charities and given out. a trailer just went through this neighborhood, big bed sheet with a sign free drinking water. so this is also a test of the post katrina fema. the folks who came to fame for all the wrong reasons after katrina, bosching the response to that. but it isn't the kind of disaster where we are going to have ice trucks driving across the country to get here. obviously most of the state of alabama is up and running and functioning and thriving. western alabama and parts of six other states, however, are dealing with just an

earth-shaking tragedy. again, the worst outbreak of tornadoes since the era of the great depression in the united states. >> what is the likelihood of another wave of tornadoes coming? traditionally may is worse than april. we just said an all-time put it in the record books record for the month of april. and it all depends on and i'm not a meet loll gist and sometimes i wish i was. the steering currents, the jet stream as it passes over the united states. the temperature of the pacific this time of year. the temperature trend in the pas civic ocean. est coast storms, if depends on a lot but when you get that awful, awful batch, that awful mixture of air systems, we knew this storm system was coming across this part of the country for three days running. they had 24 minutes after the first siren. when the national weather service issues a warning, that means it's either

imminent, it's been spotted, it's been spotted on radar. so people knew. people had enough time f they were around any media, if they could hear the sirens, to take whatever precautions they could. one family we met today said we just thought we would have a little more time than that. they were watching local news and in an instant power went, storm's here and they got in the bathroom with their two dogs, huddled in the tub. they made it. a lot of other people didn't. >> brian, i thank you very much. i know it's been a long day four. and we thank you very much. you bring something special to understanding these kinds of tragedies. and we're deeply appreciative. >> thank you, charlie, thanks for having me. >> lynsey addario is here, a pulitzer prize winning photographer covered war zones in iraq, afghanistan, sudan and also libya. last month she was one of four "new york times" journalists captured by

qaddafi's forces in libya that were captured for six days. we will hear about that story this evening but i'm pleased to have her here not only to talk about that but also to talk about her experiences as a photographer, which draws her to the conflict and what she sees with her camera. so welcome. >> thank you very much. >> rose: let's go back to how you became a photographer. because to know your story, you're not somebody who all of a sudden said i think i will go to college and learn to be a photographer. >> no, i never studied photography. i was always interested in international relations. and photography for me was something that was a hobby. i never assumed, i never thought that there could be a profession that could take me around the world and cover international relations. so i graduated from the university of wisconsin in madison and shortly after i moved to argentina to study spanish. and after i got down there i went into the local newspaper. i don't know why i was just compelled to go in and started begs for a job. and they looked at me and said you've got no

experience. and i said but i promise i'll be good one day. and they said go learn spanish and come back. so i went and i learned spanish. and it didn't take very long because i spoke italian at the time. and i went back in and they said look, madonna is filming he vita, if you can sneak on the set and get a picture of madonna then we will give you a job for the year. and i of course had no idea-- i had this tiny little camera. >> rose: how much experience taking photographs did you have at that time? >> i had a little book that i carried around and a little nikon manual camera so it was trial and error. >> rose: how did you get inside. >> i begged the bouncer, like a new york fwhoirns argentina. i said look i promise you i will be famous one day if you let me on. i guess i must have looked really pathetic because he let me on but when i got on there was a press riser and it was about 300 meters from where madonna was filmingment and of course hi this tiny 50 millimeter lens. and i got on the riser and i

looked up and i said oh, and this guy one of the journalists, one of the photographers tapped me on the back and he said hey, kid, give me your camera back. and he put my camera back, he had like a hubble telescope. and i looked through his lens and there was madonna right there. and that was the first, hi the front page the next day and they gave me a job. >> rose: that's great. so how did you get interested in conflict? >>. >> rose: which is the way you describe it. >> i guess. i never wanted to be a conflict photographer. i think i'm always driven by the subjects and the stories. and then that takes me into conflict. i am really interested in humanitarian issues. human-rights abuses. the first time i went to afghanistan was when it was under taliban rule. and that was in 2000, march of 2000. and i saved my money. i was a freelancer. no one would send me in. i didn't have a reputation to be sent in. so i literally just sent a

bunch of e-mails to unhcr and some landmine organizations. and went in. i got a vista and i went and i start-- visa and i started photographing there. and it was the first time hi photographed women in afghanistan. and how difficult their lives were under the taliban. >> rose: the first photograph we're going to see an image. to give you a sense of remarkable work that she has done, is an afghan mother. just describe this. we will go through -- >> i-- this is from a series of photos i did for national geographic magazine on women in afghanistan. and i worked on the story over the course of about 18 months. i went back several times. and this particular day i was, i wanted to photograph maternal health issues in afghanistan. they have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. and this is-- hi been all throughout the province. and with unfpa actually was taking me around. and on the way back i saw these two women on the side of the road. and it's very rare in

afghanistan to see two women without a man, especially just standing on the side of the road. so i stopped the car and my translator was a woman who worked with the u.n.. and she was this incredible woman. and we ran up the hill. they were sort up on the hill and we ran up the hill and said what are you doing here. and she said well this woman's water just broke. and she's pregnant and she's about to give birth and the car broke down. and she lived in a village that was a very far drive from the hospital. and most women die in childbirth because they can't get to the hospital. and so we said well just get in the car. i'll take you to the hospital. and they said well our husband went to go look for another car and they can't go anywhere without the permission of the husband. so i sent my translator and driver to go find the husband. there's one road that goes back. they literally went and found the husband and piled the entire family in my car and drove them to the hospital. >> a successful childbirth. >> yeah. >> christie turlington was here last night. >> she's wonderful. >> wonderful.

>> amazing film telling the story you just-- here two nights in a row. so the next scene we will see is a cab you will wedding withness this is in kabul, he is the son of an afghan film director. and this is his bride. and what i wanted to do with this story on women in afghanistan is show the intimate scenes. you know, a lot of what we see out of afghanistan is just devastation. but life goes on, in fact. and women's lives are very hard to pen straight-- penetrate because of the society. it's a very closed society and women are generally remain indoors. as a female photographer i have access to a lot of the women. but that said, it's very difficult to get permission from the male relatives to photograph. >> without that permission they won't do it. >> no. >> and if you do try and do it you can actually get the woman killed because if her male relatives see that she has been photographed without their permission, she can get killed by the family. >> the next one is a youn young-- 11-year-old who set herself on fire.

>> it is a big problem in afghanistan. a lot of young women, generally they're married women. even if they are married at about 13, 14, they set themselves on fire because you can't get divorced in afghanistan very easily. if you want to leave your husband or if you want to escape an abusive home, there is no escape, really. there are very few shelters. there are a few but very few place you can go. so a lot of women burn themselves and set themselves on fire. and this young girl is only 11 years old. and she had learned about it. she said that she did it because she dreamed that a woman had told her to do it. but later i found out that she had been abused by her parents. and she set herself on fire. >> rose: because there was no other -- >> you know. >> rose: in her mind there was no other place to go. >> i think a lot of it just has to do with you do whatever people do. or maybe she had heard that a neighbor had done it and she just thought, you know, i'll do it but i don't think she was old enough to

realize. i think it was the influence of people around here. >> rose: the next photograph is an open attic in northern afghanistan. tell me about it. >> this woman was a widow and she started doing, she started smoking opium when she was picking opium when she was a young girl, about 11 she said. and she basically has just been smoking her entire life. and her neighbors come and take care of her. they don't even try and treat her at this point. i mean she literally sits around and smokes all day. op yuma diction is a huge problem in afghanistan. they are a big provider of the world's omium. >> the next one is the university graduates, under there, you describe it. >> one of the wonderful things about afghanistan since the fall of the taliban is the fact that women are in fact back in school. and this is a college graduation from kabul university. and it was such a beautiful scene to me because i first started going to afghanistan when it was under the

taliban. and no women were in school. there were secret girl schools but the education past the age of puberty was just not possible. and so this to me was quite a beautiful thing. >> rose: shouldn't all women therefore fear a return of the taliban or if the taliban should gain either part of the government, that they would be did --. >> they should fear, of course. i think that is one of the major fears. people talk about what happens when the u.s. pulls out or when nato pulls out. and one of the big fears is what will happen to women. >> these -- >> i entered benghazi around the 26th of february. i had been in bahrain before. and when i got in it was already there was a lot of momentum going on if benghazi. we, no one had really started accessing the front line. a lot of the images coming out of there were the celebrations. and this is actually the first day a rifed. the first afternoon i arrived. a rifed about noon and went directly to the courthouse.

>> will it require more from britain and france in order to, and perhaps more from the united states in order to break the will of qaddafi? >> i think so. i mean i think the rebels don't have what it takes to do it alone. i think a lot of the guys that you see on the front line are engineers and doctors and not professional fighters. they are shall for a long time they were no match to the government soldiers. when i was there there were air strikes coming in. there was a lot-- you know, we were getting hit by tank fire. >> you thought benghazi was falling. >> when i was taken we were at ajdabiyah. but wile we were in captivity, the no-fly zone was put in place. and that's when they were right almost at benghazi. >> rose: tell us about it,. >> i think it's very hard to describe those initial moments of terror there were four of us in the car, anthony shadid, tyler

hicks-- and our driver. and the fighting was going on to the best of ajdabiyah. and we were in the city at the hospital looking for civilian casualties, looking for people fleeing, families fleeing. and tyler hicks and hi spent quite a bit of time at the front line going actually past ajdabiyah to brega, rass lanuf, all those cities and photographed as they fell into government hands and out of government hands into rebel hands. and so when we were covering ajdabiyah we assumed it would be the same pattern. that the government would come in from the west side. they would hit with tank fire, mortars and air strikes. and it would take a few days before the rebels sort of fled the city and retreated to the east. so we were there on a particular morning when the fighting stopped, very heavy on the western gate. and we cover the western gate and then pull back. and when we made a decision to leave the city we were flanked by government troops.

that means they cut the road and caught us. and we saw the check point in the distance. and i knew immediately that it was qaddafi's troops because they had uniforms. and that's something that the rebels didn't have. and when you see something like that, you're making split second decisions that you-- that will either kill you or keep you alive. and basically we decided no the to turn around and flee because we assumed they would open fire on us. but when we actually got to the check point, they, i had been-- i had been kidnapped in fallujah in 2004. so my initial instinct was referring back to that moment. so i actually put my head in my lap and locked pie door. i was sitting behind the driver. so when they stopped our car and the troops came to the window, i i actually looked around at my colleagues all got ripped out of the car. and i was the last one sitting in the car. our driver jumped out and said we're journalists. we're journalists. and i was watching steve and

tyler and anthony get pulled out of the car. i then crawled out their side of the car because it seemed to me that the presence of government troops was heavier on the left. and as we jumped out, the rebels whom we had been with then opened fire on on that check point. and so we ended up in this hail of bullets where there were literally, we had qaddafi troops putting their guns on us and grabbing for me, my cameras and my bags. and bullets were passing, you know, going right past us and kicking up the dirt around us. it was this, there was no escape. you basically had to decide what do you do? do you risk getting shot by qaddafi's troops or do you get hit by one of the bullets. and so tyler hicks was the first person to make a run for it he has pretty of the most combat experience of any of us. and there was a structure, a small building off to the side of the road. and he ran around to take cover behind that building. and we all sort of followed him. and when we got around, they

were, it was adrenaline is running pretty high. and there is a lot of anger and hatred are. and they, you know, if you can imagine from their perspective, they had been told by qaddafi, you know, all these werners are spies and they are against you and you should kill them. and so of course that's all they know these will ignorant young guys. they see us and they have their guns on us and they say get on your knees and we all these these soldiers. and anthony is the only one who understands arabic. and there was a point on which we're all on our knees and they are saying get on your face. and each one of us just assumed that is when we would get executed. and, in fact, anthony said that he heard them say, shoot them. and another guy said you can't because they are american. and we eventually all ended up on our stomaches. and for me, at that point we sort of were each in our individual realm of like, you know, it depended on who was, who was in charge. for me i had a guy who immediately took my shoes off and started wrapping my

ankles. he started tying up my ankles and he put my arms behind my back and tied my wrists very tightly behind my back. and immediately he flipped me over and started just groping my entire, my chest and my entire body. and for me, i worked many years in the muslim world and i have never been assaulted like that. i have never been-- there's a real line between men and women in that part of the world. and men don't usually a cost women who are not their wives and who are not theirs. and that was pretty shocking it to me. i knew that that was sort of setting the tone for how the next six days would be. >> rose: and you worried, i assume, that if you scream they may, if there was a saddistic element in them, it would encourage them on. >> exactly. for me, you know, i-- i, the way i've gotten out, the way i've dealt with most harrowing situations that i've been through is to be very timid and to, in fact, say please, you're scaring me. are you hurting me and crying. not to scream and kick and

say, you know, i have a husband. i mean that is what i just kept saying. please, i have a husband, like i belong to someone else and that is all i can do. i mean we were powerless. i mean you have no power in that situation. you know, you are, your lives are dependent on the whims of whoever has the gun on you. >> rose: you have, it seems to me in terms of responses to interviews have been very, very reluctant, in a sense, to distinguish between men and women. >> yeah. >> pirro: because-- . >> rose: because if. >> because i think it's important to disting wish between men and women but i don't think it's fair to say one person's trauma was worse than anothers. you know, while i'm getting grouped i was listening to my colleagues get smashed on the back of the head with rifle butts. i mean that is traumatic. it doesn't matter if you are a man and you are supposed to be stronger. when you are tied up and blindfolded and you've got someone smashing you in the

back of the head, that's trauma. you know, and i think what has been sort of offensive to me or what has been troubling to me is that i couldn't figure out how someone could possibly say my trauma is worse than, for example, tylers or anthonies or steves. you know, it was terrifying for everybody. >> rose: what impact does it have on you. >> on me as a journalist. >> rose: on you as a human being, on you as a journalist. on you as, what are the lessons you learned from this if any? >> sure. i think a lot has happened in the last six months. we have a dear colleague who lost his life in afghanistan. this has happened to us. two friends were killed in libya last week and we are a pretty tight community. so we all know each other quite well. and i think a lot of us are asking ourselves why we do this. and how we can find the strength to go back and to keep doing it.

on an intellectual level we know why we do it. i know what drives me. i know that i think it is very important to be there and to show what's happening on the ground so that people back home can ski that. and so that our policymakers can see that and make decisions based on the reality on the ground. you know, libya is a place that unless you are there you have glod what is happening. you know, you can be sitting in benghazi but you don't know what is happening on the front line. you know, so you have to be in the middle of it and you have to risk your life. i think we've been lucky the last ten years. very few people have been killed in our community. and i think the last six months have made us all question. >> has the conflict changed and have the combatants changed? >> i think libya is particularly-- is a different than afghanistan and iraq or in terms of what my experiences were in those places. you know, i was in afghanistan.

i've been covering it for 11 years and when i go to cover combat i'm with the mar evens or the army and i'm with professional fighters. i mean the american military they know what they are doing on the ground. and you can choose to stay back or you can choose what patrols you want to go on. in libya it was wide open terrain. it was desert so it was flat. and there was no place to hide. so if you wanted to cover that fighting, there was artillery coming in, schrep nell, bullets. and it was hard-- and air strikes. you know there were jets flying over that would just drop two bombs 150 meters from you. i mean, so it was a hard war to navigate and to figure out where, where is a place i can cover this from and stay safe. >> rose: an is the response in terms of the people who are the cappers different? >> i mean there was a time we were loaded into an armour personnel carrier and blindfolded and bound. and i was sort of placed against the soldier who

petroleumed my body up against him and was very aggressively touching me and covering my mouth and saying don't speak. and i started crying very hard. and one of the soldiers next to me actually pulled me away from him. and i thought it was tyler but it didn't done on me that tyler's arms are bound and there is no way he can pull me away. this soldier actually bear hugged me and pulled me away. and then the soldier who was touching me pulled me back and started groping me again. and that soldier pulled me back again and kept his arms around me for the rest of the trip. so i do think that there is conflict amongst them, of how to treat journalists. how to treat foreigners, how to treat people that they know why we're there. but i think that you know, it's easy for them to say well you're all spies. we're just going to kill and abuse you. but i think obviously per's journalists. we have our cameras, our computers, we have gear. you know, we don't have weapons. >> rose: is the idea, though, because of "60 minutes" and

because of sexual aggression used against journalists, something that's becoming a big issue in your judgement? >> no. i think it's probably been an issue for a long time. >> rose: but didn't have attention or we all knew it as well? >> i don't know. i mean i think lara logan has to speak for herself. >> rose: and will on sunday night. >> and she will. and obviously what happened to her is a tragedy and not acceptable under any terms. but i think there have been a lot of instances of abuse over the years but probably journalists and women journalists don't talk about it so much. >> rose: because? >> because we don't want our gend tore get in the way of our coverage. you know, certainly i'm not going to call if i'm on assignment for "the new york times" i'm to the going to call my editor and say hey, i got my butt grabbed today, you know, it's just not important. you know, i don't want to not be sent somewhere because i'm a woman. you know, i want to be sent

to a place because i think i can give very good coverage and provide the picture on the ground. i don't want to be seen as a woman and therefore someone who is in danger of getting attacked while i'm on the ground. >> rose: but is there the reality there is more sexual aggression against women than the public has known? >> i don't think so. i think, you know, i think in av game stand that wasn't the case can. i don't know any colleagues who are abused or a costed in afghanistan. i think maybe with the uprisings in the middle east there is a whole sense of freedom that's going on. and with that they feel like well, you know, sometimes we become the target, you know. i'm not really sure but i do think that a lot of times female journalists probably don't go and report every little thing that happens to them because it's not life threatening or it's just not that important. >> you can take some time off or go back soon. >> i've actually taken about a month off and i will probably take another two

weeks and then go back midway. >> libya? >> no. i think my husband would divorce me. no, not back to libya. >> rose: afghanistan. >> yeah, i would go back to afghanistan. i feel very comfortable in afghanistan. i've been working there many years. >> rose: and dow this because? >> because i think people need to see what what's happening. and i do think that it is a unique time in our history where the united states is fighting two wars at once. we are have troops on the ground. u.s. soldiers are getting maimed and killed. we need to see what is happening. why are we there? you know, i can't judge that but i can certainly provide a picture of what's happening on the ground. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> thank you so much. >> rose: great to see you. >> thank you. >> we turn now to the week's economic news. on wednesday federal reserve chairman ben bernanke gave his first scheduled press conference in the central bank's history. it followed a two-day meeting on monetary policy.

the chairman's remarks about inflation were particularly watched. >> if inflation persists or if inflation expectations begin to move, then there is no substitute for action. we would have to respond. i think while it is very, very important for us to try to help the economy create jobs and to support the recovery, i think every central banker understands that keeping inflation low and stable is absolutely essential to a successful economy. and we will do what's necessary to ensure that that happens. >> bernanke reiterates that high undmiment-- unemployment and depressed housing market continue to hold back the economic recovery. also this week u.ment is gdp growth fell to 1.8% in the first quarter of this year. expecting a 2% growth rate. joining me now from washington david leonhardt of the "new york times". he writes the weekly column economic scene. this month he was awarded a pull itser prize in the commentary category. he was cited for quote his graceful penetration of america's complicated

economic questions from the federal budget deficit-- deficit to health-care reform. i'm pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: i want to turn first to the gdp numbers. is this seen as a temporary aberration or as a trend? >> the honest answer is no one knows. chairman bernanke described it essentially as a temporary aberration. and i go think that's the most likely explanation. but i don't think it's the only possible explanation. and so i think the odds that, in fact, we are in something more serious are really uncomfortably high right now. and bernanke talked about the weather. he talked about various one-time factors. and all those were factors. but the fact is that recoveries from financial crises are slow. they're uneven. they can often be ended or knocked aside by very minor things. and so i do think there's real serious reason to worry

right now about the state of the economy. >> rose: what's necessary to lesson the worry? >> what's necessary to get numbers back up? >> well, part of the answer is patience. carmen reinhard and ken-- have done this wonderful historical study of financial crises. i'm sure you are familiar with it. >> indeed. >> and they find that on average unemployment rises for six years after the start of a crisis. so our cries kiss they define as starting in 2007, the summer when we first saw the tremors in the mortgage-backed securities market. so that would take us to 2013. with unemployment rising that who time. now we're well ahead of that schedule thanks to aggressive action by the fed, aggressive action by the bush administration in its final months, and very aggressive action by the obama administration in its early months. so to some extent we need to have some patience. but it's not just patience. it seems clear that the best thing we could have right now is some additional tax cuts or some additional

spending. short term tax cuts or spending tied to long-term deficit reduction. we're not going to get that because congress has trouble spraingt the short term and the long-term. that really leaves the fed as the only player here. and i've been disappointed that the fed has not been more aggressive. when you look at the numbers on inflation and the numbers on unemployment, to me it seems like the fed still has significant room to be agress itch and the bigger worry now is not inflation but is, indeed, the risk that we may be seeing this recovery fall apart. >> rose: so what could the fed do. i mean interest rates are pretty low. >> right. well, so the important thing to keep in mind here is that benn bernanke has spent his life as a scholar of monetary policy. he gave some speeches early in his tenure as a fed governor, not as fed chairman. in which he was very clear about his belief that even when you get the benchmark short-term interest rate to zero, the fed has tools to use. so the important thing here to remember is you don't have to rely on me making the case that the fed can

snabling a difference. ben bernanke believes the fed can still make a difference. what could it do? it could announce that it was going to keep that benchmark rate as zero for even longer than people think. they could say the klee is weaker than we want. we're going to leave that rate here we think until the end of 2012. it could continue to do more to reduce long-term interest rates. this is what so-called qe-2 did which was modestly effective. so it has tools at its disposal. it is choosing not to use them because as bernanke said this week, it is essentially as worried about inflation as it is about unemployment. and so it is standing pat. neither tightening nor easing. >> rose: what is the biggest negative factor, having an impact on this economy? >> i think the biggest negative fact certificate still the crisis. i think the biggest negative fact certificate things that we can't do anything about. it's the fact that we have this terrible housing bubble. the fact that wall street became far too leveraged.

again, the site that they worked they take a really long time to get at them. consumers are wary about spending again. consumers are in indebted. baans are wary of lending, their balance sheets need repair. businesses are wary of hiring. they aren't sure how quickly things will come back. if you look at something like car sales you see we are nowhere near back to have recovered all the way in some really important markets. i mean car sales and housing sales have not come close to returning to their precrisis peak. and so these sorts of bubbles just take a long time to get over. now on top of that we've got someone-time factors, right. we've got the continued problems in europe it was greece and ireland before, now it's port began -- portugal. we've got issues in this country can. and so with the double dip in the housing market and all sorts of things. so we can point to small specific things. state and local government cutbacks. but really, i think, it's not some of the small things

as it is that those small things are really just kindling for this larger problem that we have. >> when someone comes to you and says, give me your most astute analysis of the difference between paul ryan's program to deal with the deficit and barack obama's program to deal with the deficit wa, do you say? >> i would say that obama believes that medicare as it currently is can can be saved with significant but ultimately noncentral changes. ryan-- . >> rose: you can kre form -- >> yeah, exactly. you can reform medicare. ryan believes that that is not true. that our ability to treat diseases has far outstripped and is far outstripping our ability to pay for those treatments. and as a result, we cannot

promise people any more, that hey, once you turn 65, the government will take care of your medical care. because we can do so many things that we can't afford to make that promise any more. i think that's the central change. we could then get into some other changes. ryan believes in cutting taxes for businesses. but to me the medicare one is the central one. >> and how would this debate be carried out. is this the tral central debate that we will decide in terms of what the economic attitude of government is? >> i view the release of ryan's plan as progress. because before that plan was released, we really had no republican plan to deal with the deficit that met the basic arithmetic test of does this even reduce the deficit. you had too much stuff from the republican side of we're going to cut taxes and we're going to do this to foreign aid and do this to the discretionary spending. and did not admit that the

basic problem is medicare and to a lesser extent social security, the military and taxes. ryan's plan admits that. it doesn't do as much to reduce the deficit as he claims it would. you may hate it because you may not share his vision of government. you may like it because you do. but i view ryan's plan as progress. and so now we are starting to have competing vision. neither one actually solves those problems. but they both would make a difference. and so i think now we can start to have a more honest debate about what kind of government we want to have, what size we want it to be, what kind of safety net we want to have. >> rose: and what will we do about the debt ceiling? >> well w if it were up to me we wouldn't get that mixed up in this whole question. the debt ceiling has the potential to do tremendous damage. i mean if we start defaulting on our obligations as a country t would only be a bad thing. i would not mix up the two but given that they are going to be mixed up, i think what you want to try to do is not start to make cuts in the short term

because when the government makes cuts and lays people off, it really does have an effect on the economy now. we're seeing that in england. england's economy is struggling terribly as they try to do the austerity too soon. and then i guess you want to sort of set up some frameworks with the debt ceiling. we are not going to solve our long-term budget program in the few months we have before the united states government runs out of the ability to pay for its operation. and i just don't think we should try. and that makes you understand why account politics of the deficit are so tough. you go out and ask you people, do you want the deficit to fall and they say yes, i want it to be a priority. you say to them, are you willing to pay more in tax, no. are you willing to have medicare changed, no, are you willing to have social security changed. >> no, well, if are you not willing -- >> dow want the services of government to discontinue, no. >> right, right. so basically you go to people and they say i want my taxes, no higher than they are now it i want my basic services unchanged. i want the deficit to fall.

well, you can't have all three of those things and foreign aid and discretionary spending just aren't enough to come close to dealing with our deficit program. problem. so politicians, i have a lot of empathy for what they are going through or at least sympathy which is they have to deal with these attitudes. and i think that is why you see some democrats saying they too want to attach some sort of deficit reduction plan to the debt ceiling. i mean to be clear, i think the deficit is a major problem. a major long-term problem facing this country. and so i am all for congress getting more serious about it than they have been. it just seems to me that the debt ceiling is just too serious and too looming. it's too near for us to try to connect these two. >> and help us understand how the dollar figures in all of this. >> well, the dollar's really tricky. because if you ask any federal official about it, they will say at is the treasury secretary's job to talk about it and b the united states policy is to favor a strong dollar.

>> right. >> bern ang says that this week, everyone says it t is nearly meaningless. in the long-term, we do want a strong dollar. you can think to some extent the dollar as a reflection of our economic strength, it is almost like the stock price for the united states of america. but a high dollar also has disadvantages. i mean if you go out and talk to any businessperson who is trying to export goods to other countries, a strong dollar makes their job very difficult. and so the fall in the dollar down about 18% since last summer is actually good for any businesses that are exporting. it is bad for importers. it raises the cost of their goods. right now i don't think as i said i don't think inflation is a huge deal, over the last year. it remains incredibly low. >> it's interesting as you say, because on the one hand every government says they are in favor of a long dollar. on the other hand this government has said, perhaps appropriately so, we need to be more of an exporting nation. >> yes.

>> and it is a declining color, a depreciate yating dollar that makes us more, makes our products more attractive overseas. >> absolutely. and you know if you look back to the mid 80s. if you look at the latter part of reagan's term as president, we had a huge fall in the dollar. and it does help exports. i mean that fall in the dollar help addlay some of those fears that we had that japan was going to come into the united states and essentially take over all the markets. so a fall in the dollar now will make life easier for all of our exporters. so it's-- i don't think the fall in the dollar so far has been a bad thing. i think the dollar's artificially high for a variety of reasons. relative to our economic position in the world. and so we want it coming more into balance. >> you mentioned the austerity program of david cameron's government in great britain. and that the economic consequences have been more severe than he had had hoped for f not expected. so what does that say? does that say anything about austerity other than it's a

pretty tough medicine when you take it? >> i think the historical record on austerity is really clear. when are you coming out of crises, it is a terrible idea. i mean that is the lesson of hoover, and of roose investment. i think it is the lesson of britain today. i think it is the lesson of various countries trying to emerge from the great depression. when you saw that ones that tried austerity, remaining on the gold standard, they struggled to come out of the depression much more than countries that didn't. the problem is that the political appeal of austerity in the wake of a bubble is so strong, right. i mean you think what did we do too much of. we did too much consuming, too much borrowing. what should we do less of, we should do less consuming and less borrowing but it really isn't the way you want to try to get out of the crisis. what you want to try to do is make the adjustments in the longer-term. and so i think the english example is yet another example of the real risks of listening to that siren song

of austerity too quickly. >> is the international economic opinion that the obama administration economic players have done a reasonable job. >> to me the diagnosis that rings the most true is that the bush administration didn't do a particularly good job managing the economy through most of its term, term. but did a very good job at the end in responding to this countrieses. ot bama administration likewise did a very good job in 2009 in aggressively respond fog this crisis. and the fed did a good job in both '08 and '09 responding to this crisis. i think the obama administration and the fed have done not nearly as good a job over the past year. i think they've been too eager to find reasons for optimism. they've been too eager to see green shoes. and as a result, we had this recovery at the beginning of 2010. and it looked like it was going to take hold. and then it didn't.

and by the time the fed and capitol hill and the administration got their act together to respond to this weakness, the recovery had already gone away. and they were behind. and my worry now is that given the political atmosphere both around the fed and in congress, is that if this recovery weakens, it is going to be very difficult for washington to do anything for the rest-of-this year to respond to it, and to try to help. >> and so what's the best way to see that it doesn't weaken. >> i think there are a lot of people who always want to worry about inflation, for example. no matter what inflation is actually doing. and i think when you try to be empirical about this and look at the numbers, influential, core inflation which is the better predictor of future inflation, core inflation remains near a 40 year low. unemployment remains far above where it normally is so when you combine these two things it, if we can ca void paying too much attention to inflation, we can avoid a situation in

which the fed either writion raises rates too quickly or if the economy starts to weaken is too slow off the mark trying to do more to help. >> rose: i guess the political question is what will the competent look like when american goes to the polls to re-elect or elect a new president. >> that's right. if pri working in this administration i would be terrified by the state of the economy right now. and likewise, if i were working in the republican campaign, i would be much more encourage kd about my pros rechts than i was even two months ago. i think if this recovery disappears the way the recovery of 2010 did, i think the president looking at a very difficult re-election campaign. >> rose: david leonhardt it is always great to have you on this program. i hope will you come back. congratulations again. as most of you know, earlier today there was a wedding in brit an, prince william wed

catherine middleton in a ceremony at historic westminster abbey. >> with this ring i thee wed. >> rose: the event was seen by an estimated 2 billion people worldwide. prime minister david cameron said of the event, it's not just about the handsome prince and the beautiful princess, it is about the monarchy and the public service they have given us over the years. we end tonight's broadcast with a look at some of the aim js-- images from this he haven't and this notion that we love history, we love tradition and we especially love romance.

>> funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. >> and american express. additiona funding provided by these funders. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.