>> rose: welcome to the program, we begin this evening with david remnick, the editor of the "new yorker" magazine and his 17,000 word profile of president obama. >> i think he powerfully feels that the formative experience in his life in terms of foreign policy that is shaped all his thinking about his term in office is as recent as the iraq war. this is not somebody shaped by vietnam, not somebody shaped by bosnia or kosovo or rwanda. what's really shaping him is the notion of disastrous geopolitically and humanistally disastrous intervention in iraq makes him think not once but twice but many, many times over about getting involved in something like syria. >> rose: we conclude with a look

inside the navy seals with lieutenant commander rorke denver. his book is called "dam few: making the modern seal warrior." i think people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. i think they want to come neat a program that has a historic attrition rate of 80%. those types of odds, that sounds like the right odds to me. >> rose: so like two out every ten make it or two out of three. >> right. so it's just one of those elite brotherhoods and you feel like you get to participate and spend time with a very, very special group of folks and then focus on doing the nation's work at an intense level. >> rose: david remnick and rorke denver when we continue. captioning sponsored by rose communications

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we know that the intelligence services of other countries-- including some who feigned surprise over the snowden disclosures-- are constantly probing our government and private sect ornett works and accelerating pacts to listen to our conversations and compromise our systems. >> rose: david remnick is the editor of the "new yorker" magazine and author of several books including "the bridge: the life and rise of barack obama." he just wrote a 22-page profile of president obama that appears

in this week's issue of the magazine. it is called "going the distance: on and off the road with barack obama." the article is a result of hours of one-on-one interviews with the president in the oval office and on air force one. i am pleased to have david remnick back at this table. welcome. >> rose: thanks for having me. >> so here it is -- >> rose: you say 22 pages like it's a 500 pound weight. it's such an enticement to read. >> rose: 17,000 words? >> something like that. a little short of that. >> rose: how did this come about? >> well, you know, i wrote a book about him a few years ago and it's not a secret that the -- every white house complains about the short attention span of the press and politico and the wires and how oppressed they feel by it so i tried to use that to my advantage and say, look, let's set up something where depth is the goal. we report on the white house all the time, investigatively and members of the -- profiles of members of the administration but let's try to do a portrait of the president in a particular

time with on-the-record interviews. and it took some doing. but finally they acceded to it. they agreed. >> rose: do you feel that he feels like, you know, that the kind of media we have today, a, he's not necessarily suited for and that he wishes because of the way he thinks that he's better in long form and especially print? >> well, i think he knows in a way that he might have been better in the 19th century when the president's communication to the people was through printed speeches. after all, how did lincoln communicate? texts of speeches that were published in newspapers and people read them. there was no radio, no television and it was quite a different thing. i don't want to overestimate his writerly powers but he is -- that's the way he's -- and even

when he talks-- whether it's a television interview or more so for print-- he slows down and he's very deliberate and he is thinking two or three sentences ahead. you can see, with political anticipation but also to make sure that it comes out -- >> rose: and the command of language. >> yeah. some people find it annoying, some people find this the sign of a thoughtful temperament, but that's his personality. >> rose: you went on a trip with him to the west coast to raise money. >> yeah. this is what presidents do in the modern world. guy in and rattle the cup in the houses of the very, very wealthy. >> rose: and so what's the nature of the man? is he conversational? does he seem like he had a message? or he simply wanted you --. >> well, it's a moment in time. what's the moment in time is that the end of a disastrous years. >> rose: 2013 was a horrible year as you described it. >> terrible. and the biggest wound was the self-inflicted wound toward the

end of the years which the rollout of obamacare. and this is his greatest domestic achievement in his terms. the ability to put 31 million additional people on the health care rolls for all its flaws and all the arguments you can have about it, this certainly in his eyes was his biggest domestic achievement. no question about it and despite all the sniping from the right and from other quarters as well. and then it comes out and the web site doesn't work and -- it was a disaster. and he has to then go out and do what does not come naturally to him, which is to perform his anger about this. this is not a publicly emotional man in most -- certainly not for the media age. he's cool and collected. >> rose: he's almost above the scene. >>. >> well, i think if you're sympathetic you see it as a certain calm. if you're not sympathetic to him you see it as aloofness and

distance somehow. but he has to perform even for his supporters the idea of how annoyed he is and how quickly it will get fixed. just like social security was fixed after a bad rollout in 1937. >> rose: his is power of analysis of what he experienced in 2013 sharp and clear and precise and on the target? on the mark? >> well, one of the discussions we had was about the nature of politics now and when you hear -- especially what's call the acela corridor between boston and washington. what's the rap on obama outside of policy? well, that he's aloof, that he doesn't schmooze enough, that he doesn't have congress people over to dinner, whether they're his allies or his opposition. that he's somehow doesn't like the rough-and-tumble and warm embrace of clintonian retail politics and that because he doesn't like it, he loses.

you know, and so -- and the biggest comparison is to l.b.j. l.b.j. between the assassination of kennedy in 1966 pushes through a raft of domestic achievement the likes of which we have not seen me a seine century. and he pushes up against it and says, look, it's not about schmoozing, it's not about relationships. they might matter on the very margins, the difficulty that he's got with congress is that there's a very powerful and numerous far right that are is even dominating at times the rest of the republican caucus and it's very hard to get any legislation through. period. >> rose: here's what's interesting about your piece. it's like he loves the movie "the godfather" and make them an offer they can't refuse, he says. and that there's a segment of the republican party in the congress that can refuse. >> they'll refuse every offer.

and i think in reality he knows two things: one, as his own former chief of staff william daley said, after 2014 no one care what is barack obama does. now, this is a slight exaggeration, but you know what he means. it means the midterms are coming and after the midterm elections in the second term all the media air starts to go toward the succession process, the next election. and it's very, very difficult and he's not going to win the house, it's very unlikely he's going to win the house. he may even lose the senate. so what legislation, major legislation can he get through in 2014? maybe immigration. maybe. and immigration is in the best interest of the republicans politically whether they see it or not. but it is. >> rose: he suggested unless the republicans do something about who they appeal to in terms of hispanics and asians. >> they won't live the white house for half of forever.

>> rose: so you write this piece. what's the response at the white house? >> you know, i never want to know. >> rose: you don't care? you're not writing for them. >> i'm not writing for them. i'm writing for what i hope is a -- is an honest and deeper portrait of somebody we already know a hell of a lot about. >> rose: so you come away with what impressions that you didn't have necessarily before you went on this trip? what's new in terms of how david sees the president? >> yeah, i -- more than any one policy thing we can get to foreign policy in a second which was i think quite telling. and he's probably more -- he's very cagey about marijuana, we can also get to that. but just the sense of a president who's willing to talk about-- maybe at his peril-- the

limits of power, the limits of what he can get done, not only him but anybody can get done in a given period of time and to talk about it in these kind of emotional some will even find it fatalistic terms is very unusual in any politician because most politicians want to come off as a happy warrior. to be contemplative seems almost a feat, a fancy. dispirting to too much of your audience. he was not afraid to be this way at all, whether he was talking about the decision making process on drones where you know people are going to get killed and possibly innocents and hundreds of innocents and more have been killed in pakistan and yemen and so on. and the difficulty of knowing you're going to fail on a lot of your agenda. inevitably. the terms in which he spoke about that i found really interesting. >> rose: it is said that bill clinton wanted very much to be a great man and he felt like he

didn't have an opportunity for the kind of challenge that might have made him be perceived as a great man. >> and it was related to war which in a seasons is something -- not that clinton necessarily meant it that way but there's something unattractive -- >> rose: i never had a war so therefore i can't be a great man. >> but i think that goes to obama in a sense that and it goes the syria debate. i think he powerfully feels that the formative experience in his life in terms of foreign policy that is shaped all his thinking about his term in office is as recent as the iraq war. this is not somebody shaped by vietnam, not somebody shaped by bosnia or kosovo or rwanda. what's really shaping him is the notion of disastrous

geopolitically and humanistally disastrous intervention in iraq makes him think not once but twice and many, many times over about getting involved in something like syria. >> rose: yeah, but the chair you sit in now sitting in that chair was his former secretary of defense who for that same reason advised him not to go into libya and he decided to go. >> i know. and secretary gates advised him not to go to libya. >> rose: i meant libya. libya he made clear. advised him on syria as well. >> yes. and they had differences over osama bin laden as well. i find that -- that memoir curious. you asked about what question and answer -- it was interesting me. believe me, i asked about the gates memoir and let's just stay president was unenthusiastic about -- >> rose: about the book. >> no. about answering in anything that resembled detail. >> rose: so why? >> i think he -- any president

is aware that whatever they say about anything about this glass of water, about pro-football, about marijuana, it becomes a thing, a gigantic thing. so if he responds point by point to the gates memoir, there's nothing in it for him. so what i got was a kind of cloud of deflection. >> rose: marijuana. what does he say about marijuana? >> well, he says "it's a matter of public record" largely from his own book but elaborated by biographers like me that he let's just say didn't just inhale once. >> rose: inhaled -- >> early and often and with gusto. >> rose: right. >> and other drugs, too. he talks about that in his own book. he's been honest about that for a long time. but he's been very skittish about answering about marijuana. and during the campaign -- >> rose: it's a political issue.

>> you can't win! you can't win! but now he's won reelection and i think he's more relaxed about talking about it but even though he said he didn't think marijuana was more dangerous than alcohol and so on, he still -- he does this thing where he argues with himself. on the one hand he thinks the colorado experiment is a good thing, on the other hand there are problems with legalized marijuana. >> rose: and he thinks marijuana is no worse than alcohol. >> yeah. >> rose: but he also says he would not encourage anyone to do it, including his own daughters. >> he tells his daughters it's a bad idea. i said "what do they think?" he said "they have good sense and make their own decisions." >> rose: and he said about the n.f.l. if he had a son he wouldn't want him to play in the n.f.l. >> we were talking once -- he has an office in the forward part of air force one and he was

glancing at a miami dolphins game. >> they were playing the carolina panthers. >> rose: some disastrous game of ancient history. the dolphins were losing. >> they were kind of falling all over themselves. so i asked him do you feel at all-- as i do, even though i watched yesterday for six hours, pathetically -- >> rose: what was poe pathetic about it? >> six hours of watching pro-football is probably not the best thing to do if it's your last day on earth, but i did it with pleasure. just less often than i used to. and he said "no,". >> rose: it's worth watching peyton manning. >> it was amazing. >> rose: he said "no, i don't feel guilty about it. i wouldn't want my daughters or son to play pro ball". >> i think his worry is more about younger players but he used the phrase caveat emptor. >> rose: buyer beware that they know and people understand the consequences. >> he said "i'm not a purist."

>> rose: so back to my question about him. did you form any new impressions of him? any different impressions than you had from previous observation? >> yeah. i -- you know, i'm not an experienced white house reporter who's been around six white houses and in and out of those doors. that has never been my thing. but you do feel-- and i first met him when he was running for president, just deciding to run-- a that if there was any lightness of spirit, that is long, long gone. >> rose: lightness of spirit? >> of spirit. this is a heavy, heavy job. and you can feel in the a person. and the way he is in an interview now is so radically different. first time i ever interviewed him was in public. it was a magazine convention in phoenix and he was funny, he was

light, he was on that book tour that became the way of deciding whether to run for president. now when you talk to him-- and i think it's partly because it's for print-- he slows down. he's deeply flagrantly thoughtful and deliberate -- and certainly mindful of stepping on a rhetorical land mine that's going to somehow blow up in print the next day. >> rose: what do you think he'll do when he leaves office? write a memoir for sure. >> that, as david axelrod put it is the slam dunk of all time. >> rose: and you suggest the number may between somewhere between $15 million and $20 million. >> exactly. i know what both of us will get for our memoirs and that michelle obama has started work on hers and at this same age it was expected she'd get something like $12 million. as you know, presidential memoirs are -- it's premature to

talk about in the obama's case. they're pretty bad, usually. they feel like products rather than books with the exception of grant and a couple others. even clinton's was terrific for about the first third of the book. once it gets to the presidency. >> rose: it's like reading his diary for the day. >> it's like a desk calendar. then we net king of bhutan. >> rose: do you know where he'll live? >> no, chicago or some place. >> rose: what did he not want to talk about? >> chris christie. i had a follow-up call as we were closing the piece to go over a couple subjects that i wasn't able to talk about on the record that i wanted to talk about the record, one or two things about foreign policy. but, you know, i couldn't help myself and i asked about chris

christie and he just -- >> rose: do you believe he had a point that he wanted to make? >> why would he do this at all? >> rose: no, i mean for example he knows he had a bad year. did he want to add some perspective on that year? he wanted to look at it and think aloud about it and get his own thoughts? >> i think he wanted to think through in public what he can do in addition to pushing legislation which is a very hard road. and one of the big themes that was certainly announced in the second inaugural-- a year ago almost today, and what i expect to see at some length on -- at the state of the union address-- is what to do about the widening income gap and opportunity gap in this country which gets more and more horrendous all the time. i mean, we're at a point where c.e.o.s live a life that's so --

that this hyperdeluxe economy is so vastly different from people who are working that something has to be done. >> rose: and this is not only from his analytical brain but also from his sense of what the country ought to stand for. >> yeah. >> rose: and would he retreat from the idea of -- >> i think he thinks it's bad for the economy, too. there's so much that billionaires can spend. it's better for the economy. he's not suggesting a socialist agenda. contrary to that. >> rose: and republicans counter that-- as they will-- it's redistribution of wealth. does he recoil from that? >> well, this is the argument we've been having since the beginning of the republic about the nature of that and certainly reagan revolution was all about that but i think even conservatives now, even conservatives are starting to look at this radical gap in the opportunities for the middle-class, lower middle-class

and the poor, the poor is something we never see discussed in a campaign anymore in any serious way. and the opportunities for my children and yours. and it's horrendous. it's bad for the country. it's bad morally. it's bad economically and it has to be addressed. if it can't be addressed through legislation, he's determined to do it through the bully pulpit and through other means. >> rose: does he have the kind of -- >> at the same time, some of these things he's addressing while rattling the cup in the houses of the very wealthy who fund political campaigns. the hypocrisy of the system and the activity is not lost on anyone, including barack obama. >> you suggest how he has three points that have come out, first he'll try to show his gratitude for being there with some personal references, then he'll make the long-term argument as to in the end it's the long-term view that matters. >> which is hard to do. >> that's hard to do. this has been the rhetorical

mantra of the obama presidency from the start that we don't get caught up in the day to day, that somehow we're always in it for long game. that's the phrase. and to some that strikes them as tremendously and annoyingly high-minded but when it comes to say, foreign policy or the opportunity gap, the income gap that's what they're after. >> rose: he came to washington -- >> by the way, not to say in my mind there aren't tremendous faults to this administration and things that need to be argued at and as an editor investigated, whether it's on military policy, foreign policy, softness on wall street or -- >> rose: but does heing a nooj? does he have some sense of that? some sense that, yes, we made these mistakes. he clearly knows -- he even said to me in an interview that got a lot of attention that they had -- that they were so wrapped up in the policy-- and this is not

just a question of marketing-- they did not fully appreciate how important it was in the sense to connect the dots and communicate. there comes -- there's also the explanation about a convention where he described bill clinton as the great explainer. >> you know -- and yet it never got markedly better or different. he is who he is. bill clinton is who he is. l.b.j. was who he was. we now valorize l.b.j. and what he achieved and somehow what gets lost in that conversation is a disastrous decision to deepen our involvement in vietnam to the cost of tens and tens of thousands of lives. >> rose: and -- >> and the fault of bill clinton were manifest. we needn't go over them and over them. >> rose: he also talks about -- you talk about having friends over. he has a small group of friends. you make the comparison with john podesta who came in as head of the transition and when he did bill clinton there was a huge long list.

>> a lot of people needed jobs. >> it felt like their friendship was unique and they deserved a job! >> podesta came in and he was handling the transition and he called president obama and said who needs to be taken care of and the list was short. and podesta said to somebody he really travels light. >> rose: and he's maintained a kind of lightness in the white house in terms of friends. i mean, i think you get the impression -- >> real friends. >> rose: well, yes. >> chicago friends. >> rose: that's right. he's basically said we've made our friends before they got to the white house. >> real friends. like human being friends as opposed to transactional friends. >> rose: but i think it's possible to make new friends, myself, they don't have to be -- >> men are not particularly great at this after a certain age and i think a president knows he's in a highly -- the most highly political transactional atmosphere possible so he's wary of people's motives.

i think justifiably. >> rose: some of the quotes come out of this -- i mean, i just found i knew him much more because i read this piece. one of the things i've learned to appreciate more as president is you are essentially a relay swimmer in a river full of rapids and that river is history. >> yeah. >> rose: i like that language, too. >> and you get a brief shot at it. and he said something very interesting, charlie. we were talking about -- at one point i was interviewing ben rhodes who's an important part of the national security team. a young guy who does communications for national security. >> rose: at cbs we think of him as david rhodes' brother. >> (laughs) exactly right. and ben said barack obama does not believe in the great man theory of history. he believes in the great currents of history. >> rose: oh! >> and obama said "i'm not sure i agree with ben." >> rose: (laughs) he does believe in the great man theory, in part. >> again, up to a point. in other words, he can see from

his chair -- >> rose: man make history and history makes the man. >> there are things that a president or -- maybe not like a king but a president can do but it's limited. there are limitations in terms of time, in terms of opportunity. >> rose: does he feel he got cheated by the time in a sense because, one, he had this whole first year of his presidency had to be totally focused on economic recovery, number one. number two, some of the things he did produced the tea party which has produced a kind of resistance seldom seen in which people don't have a -- >> well, we do forget sometimes-- and maybe even barack obama forgets in a way that might be understandable that the opposition to bill clinton was also at times hysterical. there was a challenge not just to bill clinton's policies but to his very legitimacy as a president. >> rose: yeah. >> and obama has faced this but with an added factors which race

and he is so care informal this piece and wherever else when he mentions race and he can never be too careful. >> rose: on the other hand, he does point out, as you suggest, that he knows there's some people -- >> yup. >> rose: who somehow could not accept the fact that he was a black man as president of the united states. >> and then what does he say right after? and then he says "but i also know that there are some people who give me a break because i am black." that's the way -- that piece of rhetoric is a finely tuned piece of business that he's had in place from the very beginning. >> rose: and he'll say, for example, on the question of the federal system -- >> by the way, and the right wing -- sorry to interrupt, charlie. but a lot of the right wing media this morning on twitter and elsewhere, what do they do? they take the bit about -- as if obama is playing the race card and then ignoring the other bit. >> rose: and he does take -- >> as if race were an absolute neutral thing and there was never any history and there's

nobody in the tea party who ever gave a thought to race. that's a fantasy. a fantasy. i'm not suggesting for a second that everybody in the tea party is -- behaves the way they behave because of race. but there are some that do. >> rose: here's what i'm interested in, too, though. he seems to be able to-- and bill clinton can do this, too-- look at any issue from both sides. there's the question of let the states do it. this is a federalism argument. he can say while we need a national policy i understand how people think and he can play -- give lip service or at least speak to an understanding about why he thinks conservatives may be and have the vuthy do and his recognizing that and yet would like to explain why a national policy is essential in this case. >> i think that's the sign of a good mind. not just a lawyerly mind, but a good mind to understand the debate you're having and that the motives of your ideological

opponents may not all be malign. i think he understands that there are many, many rational conservatives who feel about the economy the way they do not because they're grinches. >> rose: there's also the issue of what you learn as president, because there's no real training for it. he clearly came to the white house believing that he was uniquely qualified to somehow bridge the gap. that was, as you suggest, the point he made in his -- the nominating speech for john kerry. you know, that we are one nation. not red, not blue -- >> he was disabused of that in one day! (laughs) >> rose: well, my point is does he still think that somehow it's possible or as he simply finally said "i was living in a dreamland. it's not possible." >> no, he would not say "i was living in a dreamland." presidents don't use that kind of language ant themselves and neither do most human beings.

no, reality intruded. as we now know, as we now know from other journalism, the first day of the new administration there were meetings on the hill between and among republican leaders who pledged to block the obama administration at every turn. so this is -- this is a sign of how different the political parties are now. go back to lyndon johnson. there used to be a republican party that was ideologically diverse. there were liberal republicans; there were centrist republicans; and there certainly were conservative and hard-line republicans. the democratic party was diverse. >> rose: but there was also wall street and mainstream republicans. >> i would suggest the republican party hardened to the right a lot more than the democratic party hardened to the left. >> rose: on the other hand you point out -- (laughs)

>> to adopt a certain way of talking. >> rose: you pointed out that when he won reelection he thought he would break the fever and that somehow now when he'd won reelection that he could roar into a second term and perhaps things would be different because he won. >> and what made the year so terrible, what made the year so terrible was not just the fact that he couldn't get even limited gun control through. i think he thought that was a lock. i mean, let's just pause uz for a second. 83% of the american people following newtown suddenly were for gun control of one kind or another. and i think the administration certainly thought that they would succeed in getting some limited gun krol. >> rose: there is this also. "i will measure myself at the end of my presidency in large part by whether i began the process of rebuilding the middle-class and the ladders into the middle-class and reversing the trend towards economic bifurcation in this

society." >> yeah. >> rose: that's what he wants to be his legacy? >> at least a good part of it domestically, sure. >> rose: "i will measure myself and the end of my president any large part." ma that's what he said. by how many people he brings into the middle-class. yes? >> well, he would say that -- >> rose: he did say! >> no, no, what i'm saying is that there have been 40 odd straight months of job creation with all the limitations that we know. but still, that doesn't solve everything. not nearly, as we know. nor would a bill on a minimum wage, which is going to be extremely difficult to get through congress. minimum wage would just be the very beginning of narrowing that gap. >> rose: okay. he just gave a speech on friday in which he talked about the n.s.a. and the balance between security and privacy. >> right. >> rose: where's his mind there?

because it's clearly a -- he said we've got to have a debate in this country about that balance. he seems to have pushed the debate -- he's stated his position with a real appreciation of a security aspect of it as a president should and has to do and then he kicked it to congress. hello? >> yeah, exactly. that's exactly what he did. and i think the first part of the speech, the rhetorical part, the thoughtful president part, the martin luther king was spied on and he was somebody that made it possible for me to be president was brilliant. but the actual policy changes are extremely slight, they're quite slight and on the snowden issue, you know, everybody's being a bit disingenuous here. this would not have come up without snowden. no matter who snowden is, no matter what his political beliefs are or were i now hear stuff about, you know, the influence of the russians. i wish congressmen would not

talk in those terms without proof. i think that's really wrong. i mean, you're going to accuse somebody of being in the hands of the russians and have no proof of it? that seems vile, actually. >> rose: mark rogers, was it? >> that's just wrong. >> rose: what does the president think of edward snowden? >> well, i asked him about amnesty. >> rose: i'm sure you did. >> he said -- it was very clever. he said "i can't give you a yes/no answer because it's an ongoing case." >> rose: okay, but you -- did you then come back with -- >> and then he says "and we can't let these things just be in the hands of any --" i'm quoting him now. "any 29-year-old who feels like dumping it --". >> rose: he's said that before. does he think he's a whistle-blower or traitor? >> he didn't use either one of those words. >> rose: how do you raid his mind? >> when he was in the illinois state senate he played poker

quite a lot. and he won. >> rose: did he? >> i think you can't read -- you cannot get him to say everything you want him to say. i came up short on that one. >> rose: in terms of even having a judgment that -- >> if you were to ask me do i think at the end of the term he will somehow give a pardon to edward snowden if edward snowden is living in -- i would really doubt that. i would really doubt that. but i've been wrong before. >> rose: and amnesty, he wouldn't go there? >> i don't think that's going to happen. >> rose: you say the following -- >> you have a whole intelligence community. it -- i doubt it. >> rose: we saw what he wants to do with respect to domestic programs. that's how he will measure the success of his presidency. on foreign policy you say at the core of obama's thinking is that american military involvement in the middle east cannot be the primary instrument to achieve the new equilibrium the region so desperately needs. what is it he thinks thereby new -- will produce the new quill lib sflupl >> if you're not using the blunt

force of your military as your primary instrument, what are you doing? well, diplomacy. so there are three big diplomatic initiatives that john kerry's running around the region doing. what are they? >> initiated by john kerry or by the president? >> secretaries state don't initiate anything. maybe henry kissinger might have but certainly not john kerry. and you have israel/palestine. you have iran nuclear issue. you have syria. >> rose: chemicals. >> and in all three of help the obama admit there is's a less than 50-50 chance of a real final resolution. >> rose: and so therefore he says that it was important to do -- >> you asked me what surprised me about him. it's surprising to hear a president admit to that. that despite the efforts of trying in all three, my chances of success are less than even. >> rose: i don't find that surprising at all because the alternative is what? >> i'm not saying the alternative -- i'm just saying the chances -- >> rose: he points out in that conversation with you that it's better to take a risk of failure than the consequence which may

very well-being having to take military action with all of the unintended consequences that might bring. >> if it all succeeds, the answer to your question then is simpler. if israel and palestine is somehow on at least the road toward being solved, the two-state solution is -- finds its resolution at long last, as it must, then the interests of israel and the sunni states start to align a lot more than they even are now-- and they are a lot when it comes to iran and syria. a denuclearized iran is a far different story than one with nuclear weapons in terms of the threat it poses in the region. >> rose: so he thinks it's less than 50-50 that he'll be able to achieve some kind of rapprochement with the iranians? >> well, a final deal. >> rose: you report that obama told doris kearns goodwin that he wanted to be big. >> i guess they all start out

wanting to be big. they don't want to be franklin pierce. >> rose: not just a name on a long list of president whose pictures are lined up on the wall. this is back to the clinton question. they all -- what's his definition of "big," and does he believe in a deep recess of his own mind that the chance of that has slipped away? >> no, i don't. i think he is -- his -- despite all his dramatic doubt, despite that tone of -- that kind of slightly autumnal tone to the -- especially end of this piece. >> rose: meaning he's in the fall of his presidency? >> getting there, sure. it's september. >> rose: yes, okay. >> that the facting that this country didn't fall into a depression, an economic depression which it could easily have done. the fact that we are out of iraq for all the problems in iraq. getting there in afghanistan. the auto industry saved.

gay rights more and more ensured. not without help from the president of the united states. the fact thereto that there's been no scandal, major scandal in this administration which is a rare thing in an administration. the fact that science is now discussed as science. the fact that climate change, however woefully inadequate the measures -- >> rose: this measures greatness for you? >> well, let's wait till to end. let's wait till the end. >> rose: but all those things have already happened. >> i think those achievements are huge, yes. >> rose: huge? >> yes. >> rose: this is what he said about lincoln who he obviously admires. what he liked about lincoln-- and some of this is seen in the movie-- was the messiness of lincoln. what does he mean? >> well, he means that politics, real politics, is a mess. >> rose: he likes that? >> this is the dilemma for me. >> rose: exactly! >> i'm not sure that he really does. he might like to see it played

out but there is that antipathy toward fund-raising, dinners, cajoling, punishing. >> rose: they say that nobody fears him. nobody fears him. >> they say this on the international stage as well. >> rose: exactly. >> they say this on the international stage as well and relationships with leaders abroad are not the way they were between reagan and gorbachev or clinton and helmut kohl or the rest. i don't think that can count as a positive for barack obama, no. >> rose: it's an interesting piece. "barack obama: going the distance." what you will find here in this piece, a lot of what we have talked about here but also a real understanding of how one man who sits in the white house sort of sees the world that he lives within and his own take on the circumstances of his presidency and his own take on

history and the long view and the short view and the demands and the push-and-pull of politics and also what it is and the burden of the office. as they say, nothing prepares you to be president. but we get right here very, very i think, inciteful look. the article is called "going the distance." thank you, david. >> rose: thank you, charlie. >> people think war is about hate and for us it's about love. it's about these things that are so special to us and so personal to us with our family, with those that we serve with and who we serve for. so it becomes very, very special and about much more than an enemy. >> rose: lieutenant commander rorke denver is here. he spent 14 years as a u.s. navy seal. five of those years he served as director of the seal training program. in twelve he started in an action film called "act of valor" and it featured active

duty navy seals. he has a book that takes us further inside that world, the book is called "damn few: making the modern seal warrior." i'm pleased to have him at this table. welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> rose: so let's just talk about what it means. you take young men -- all then? >> all men. currently. >> rose: currently. it might change? >> it might. >> rose: you take young men and they come -- why do you think they come? why do you think they want to be a seal? >> i think it's -- i think there's a mix. i do think people seek the program and seek the brotherhood for some different reasons. i think people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. i think they want to compete in a program that has a historic attrition rate of 70% to 80%. those type odds of people that don't make it through program, that sounds like the right odds to me. >> rose: so like two out of every ten make it. or two out of three. >> right. so it's just one of those elite

brotherhoods and you feel like you get to participate and spend time with a special group of folks and doing the nation's work on an intense level so i think that draws a certain type of young men. >> and when you look at those you have seen, what common characteristics do they seem to have. >> the funniest thing about being an instructor is the first class that goes through you think you can make out who will make it and throw that out. you'll have a young man sitting in the class that looks like michaelangelo, chiseled out of steel, all the background, he'll hit that cold water and quit. >> rose: that right? the cold water? >> he'll it that cold water and say "this is not for me. this is misery and i don't want to be part of it." >> rose: here's what i have a question about that because i hate cold water, too. and probably you do, too. >> i don't think many people enjoy it. i would think you would train for that. you would try to be ready some way for that knowing that might be the trip wire for you. >> rose: you know it's coming.

>> i've heard of guys hopping in the bathtub with ice water. i tell the young guys when they show up at training course, if you didn't bring it here, you ain't gonna find it here. you have come here with the alchemy of traits that will get you through this program or you most likely haven't. >> rose: and what are those? what are the alchemy of traits? >> resilience, tremendous mental toughness or physical toughness. everybody that shows up to seal training is in shape and fit. you can get through the program even if even get in the door. >> rose: so most people who show up have the physical -- >> no doubt about it. you have to pass the physical strength test to get in. pushups, situps, run swim. so we know you can make that physically. >> rose: and probably what you have to pass is for most people who come now is way above that. >> it's a challenge and most of those people have absolutely excelled. so it really is in here and what's in here. so, yeah, resilience, mental toughness. the ability to set a goal and see beyond the momentary discomfort and the suffering to get to something you want to

achieve. there was answer obstacle they're going to throw in front of me that i wasn't going to go over, under, around or through and that's what we do. we offer a young man a chance to quit. and a lot of chances. >> rose: and if somehow the water is too cold, what do you do? >> it's an all voluntary program. nobody gets assigned to seal training so you raise your hand, walk over to the instructor and say "this is not for me." there's a famous bell and you need to ring that bell three times. it's a line in the sand. we don't do it to embarrass a young man. it's an affirmation for them that this is not for them at that point. if you're enlisted you can come back and try again. officers only get one shot. it's particularly become -- >> rose: so you can fail one time and come back? >> as an enlisted guy you can come back. you have to go back to the fleet or another job and reapply. officers get one opportunity to go through which is the way i went throw it's a one-shot deal. but when that bell goes off it becomes like the sound track of seal training and if you're stay

it's almost an affirmation that you are tough enough and you can make it. so it becomes almost a tune that strikes you -- >> rose: can you design a test that would test -- tell you who's most likely to pass? >> a good friend of mine who is a psych dock has been connected to seal teams for many years. brilliant guy. the test he designed determines who can't make it. we haven't figured out how to determine who will make it but he can figure down the 90 plus percentile who has almost no chance of making it. which is valuable because we can vector young guys that might be in the navy program and say "i want to go seals dwots another -- especially because -- >> rose: you use that before training? >> before. before. >> rose: so this testing says you're not going to make it, you don't let them? >> for the most part we'll vector them to something new. they have an unbelievably bad chance of getting through. >> rose: but if they're determined beyond that, that

means they have something going? >> they might and that's the kind of x factor. that's the thing that's toughest. and that's the neat thing about the seal teams. off guy that went to oxford, is a rhodes scholar next a coal miner from massachusetts, block buster from texas and all those personalities and backgrounds the work for you or can't. >> rose: when you misjudge, why do you think you misjudge? >> i think early on you think you can see the physical gifts, the test scores they might have or the way they carry themselves and once they get thrown into the crucible that is seal training, lasts a long time then up into hell week which is the famous week. >> rose: tell us about hell week. >> hell week starts on a sunday night the fifth week of training. it's very early in our training. it starts on sunday night, ends on friday afternoon. you get two hours of sleep in between sunday night and friday afternoon and you're just wet, cold and miserable running with a boat on your head, paddling through the surf, lying down in the surf.

>> rose: two hours of sleep for five days? >> uh-huh. >> rose: what does that do to you? >> it puts you into another world. by about thursday people start hallucinating and -- >> rose: that's how you punish people. sleep deprivation. >> and what we want to do is offer up multiple and intense opportunities to find out if anyone has that quitting gene or that quitting ability. if you don't, if you're somebody we throw all that at you and you're not going to quit we have a special piece of clay to mold. >> rose: are you convinced once you this you are a -- you certainly are equipped to be a warrior i would assume? >> i think people -- a lot of the men that do well in the program were warriors and had that spirit. i think once you finish the program you realize that actual status. >> rose: how long do most people stay in as a navy seal once they pass the program and get -- what's the medal you give them a try accident in >> the seal trident is the

warfare insignia that we use to designate a young man a seal we have a very, very high retention rate. most of the guys that stay in, they'll stay in the seal community for their entire career. very rare for somebody to transitioning to another military discipline. i should know the average. probably ten years. >> rose: and then what happens? >> now that i've stepped off my active duty time and i'm in the real world i'll find guys coming up saying i don't know how to transition. i'm a sniper and i don't think that translates other than going to the hostage rescue team. i say i don't think you're looking at it the right way. you understand discipline, rank structure, you don't quit, you know how to focus on a task and trouble's no goal you can't achieve. i don't know a company or person on earth that doesn't want to hire that. focus on those skills >> are the success rates of these people high? >> they are. they are high. i think when guys transition it becomes subject to what that k

they sink their teeth into. >> rose: how does it affect your life in terms of who you are today? >> i think you're never out of the fight. i don't mean the p.t.s.d. unhealthy way but i live -- if a normal person lives where they're just unaware of threats in the world then orange and a red light where you have a gun up ready to fight, i probably live in orange. i'm aware of my surroundings. if i go in a restaurant i know where the exits are. >> rose: tell me about that. that's famous in spy movies. >> it's an actual thing. >> rose: these are c.i.a. types not so much navy seal bus the guy i was talking to, a recruit that said do you see that person who just came in? what color sweater did they have on? and what did they do right before? is that an awareness? >> i think particularly our generation does in the sense that we have been in sustained combat for such a big block of time that the gift in some ways

of the battlefield is that you reduce all that noise and extra in your life down to the singular. you're worried about your survival doing your job well and your teammates' survival. so so that never fully goes away. i don't live in a panic state but i'm aware. >> rose: teammate survival is the most important element? >> i the idea of the brotherhood. you failing a teammate would be far worse than in your mind failing at your own task. you want to hold up you're carrying the weight of the load of your brothers and to fail a teammate would be the worst. >> rose: marcus luttrell and author of the book "loan survivor" was on this program and here is some of what he said. >> as for mikey and ax and danny dying on the mountain that day, they died a warrior's death. they died the way -- a proud death. with their boots on fighting better than to come home and die of cancer or old age and in a

rest home. they died fighting and with their brothers doing what they love. we call it chasing the dragon. >> rose: chasing the dragon? >> yes, sir. seals spend their whole life -- some seals when there's not a war going on or something like that spend their whole career chasing that one -- that rush, that adrenaline, that opportunity to go out and employ their skill set. and those of us fortunate enough to do that it's a feeling that you can't suppress. >> rose: chasing the dragon. a phrase you know? >> a little bit. i know it from the boys talking about it. >> rose: you know when the boys talk about it? >> the guys. we talk about -- there's the officers in the seal teams, we're very close, then there's the sled dogs. >> rose: what are the sled dogs. >> the enlisted guys. that's the backbone. >> rose: he's an enlisted guy. >> they're the shooters, the gun fighters. our job is to manage the chaos. i've been in plenty of gun fights, but my job is to manage

the boys. i think -- i think a lot of men may be down at a very elemental level and most of your listeners -- and i can't say for women. i'll learn as i raise my little ones but look in the mirror and say what would i do in that deadly force against? somebody put a knife in my face. for some of us, it's not enough to have that unanswered. so seeking a brotherhood of warriors where you can go test they on the actual battlefield is a transformational and important part of our life. >> rose: do you feel like you have answered that? >> i've answered that. >> rose: the book is called "damn few: making the modern seal war war." rorke denver. thank you for coming. >> thanks for having me. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

the following kqed production was produced in high definition. and something that i have yet to find anywhere else. >> my house for dinner. >> breaded and fried and gooey and lovely. >> in the words of arnold schwarzenegger -- "i'll be back." >> you've heard of the connoisseur, i'm a common sewer. >> you might