>> rose: welcome to the program, we begin this evening with the "new york times" cairo bureau chief david kirkpatrick. >> the new egyptian government established with the military takeover last year has shut down all of the unsympathetic media. media which was listening to or sympathetic to the muslim brotherhood so, now when you flip through the television dial you see private networks that are pro cc, state-owned networks pro cc and only one network broadcasting in arabic that is critical of the cc government and that is al jazeera. and the pro military or pro cc egyptians often speak of al jazeera like it is basically itself a terrorist organization with satellites. >> we conclude this evening with steve inskeep in a

conversation about national public radio. >> in radio you get an opportunity to hear what people say, what they think. you get a sense to follow their reasoning and you get a chance to tell a story. the other thing you get to do that i really love, charlie s that you can make it if you do it correctly, a visual medium by which i mean a little sound, a little sound from the streets of homs, syria, can put new that place, a little sound from libya can put new that place or in new orleans, the sound of someone's voice, the accent of your voice can put new that place. >> kirkpatrick and inskeep when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments.

and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> david kirkpatrick is here, the cairo bureau chief of "the new york times", closely followed the trial of three al jazeera journalists sentenced by an egyptian court last week charged with working with the muslim brotherhood to destabilize the country and

received lengthy prison sentences. earlier this year he wrote a detailed report on the benghazi attacks killing u.s. ambassador chris stevens in 2011. in the article he profiled an interview with ook med abu khatalla, one of the proposed leaders of attacks, he was captured two weeks ago by u.s. forces. i'm pleased to have david kirkpatrick back at this table. welcome. a bunch of things on the table. first the three defendants who have been convicted and sentenced it. what is the next stage in that legal process? >> well, they have some appeals left, within the egyptian system. we were all, i'm glad you start with their cases because it's a case close to the hearts of many of us who work as correspondents in egypt. these are three journalists with long experience working for international news organizations. these are not -- >> including the bbc. >> and "the new york times", one of them previously worked with us and with the "l.a. times" and cnn.

another one with the bbc. and so it's really had a chilling effect for all of us. some of us hoped, i won't say expected but some of us hoped that president sisi might seek to pardon them ono or commute their sentences, they've already been in jail for more than six months but instead they were convicted in a trial that can only be called farsical and sentenced them, all of them to seven years and one to an additional 3. the the additional 3 were for possession of a single spent bullet shell that he picked up as a souvenir after a protest. that was possession -- >> they added three years to his sentence. >> three years for that. so they could, the president sisi's office has said his view is they need to exhaust their appeals process before he would even contemplate a pardon. >> rose: dow take him at his word on that, that he is doing that for some particular political reason

of his own? >> i think it's some political reason of its ownment i don't think egypt has a particular-- let me put it this way. their problem is not an excess of the rule of law. i think they could find a way to get these gentlemen out of-- gentlemen out of jail if they felt that was the sensible thing to do. >> rose: what was amazing was the timing of it the john kerry had just met with him in egypt. >> yeah, john kerry came to egypt. and his main message was you know, we expect very soon to be releasing all of the military aid to egypt which of course had been suspended after the military takeover. so he come toes gipt and he says i've met with president sisi. i expect very soon to resume all of his aid. and it sounded from his presentation like sisi had told him we're going to get these guys out of jail. kerry made a lot of positive noises about president sisi's commitment to the free press and to reconsider some of the draconian egyptian laws. and the next day when instead they were sentenced to seven years in prison and

sisi was silent, query really seemed to sputter. he was if baghdad that day. and it sounded very much like he was shocked at the outcome, called-- . >> rose: called the the egyptian foreign minister right away. so i only wish i knew what went on in that conversation between sisi anchory. >> so we have no idea what sisi, what did occur or have reason, did the secretary of state have reason to expect something different? >> or was he simply sisi's silent on the matter in the meetings with the secretary saying something like what he said publicly, we have to let the process work its way. >> you'll have to ask secretary kerry and president sisi when you have them on your show. >> i'm trying. >> if we linger over this one more minute, i just want to underscore how ridiculous these charges are having followed the trial. these journalists are accused of conspiring with the muslim brotherhood to report false news about civil strife in egypt. first of all during the relative period it was easier to report than to fabricate evidence of civil strike because it was every

where. but second of all, not only has there been no evidence that these journalists printed anything or broadcast anything inaccurate, but they also have no ties what so ever to the muslim brotherhood. one of them even marched in demonstrations against president morsi and for president sisi. he is a liberal who spent much of his time growing up in the west. he said in court that he drinks and has no relationship with the muslim brotherhood whatsoever. so the charges are both unproven and wildly implausible. and yet seven years in prison. >> some speculate it's not about them at all. that they are victims of the egyptian government feeling about the qatar government. >> yeah, and in particular about al jazeera. >> rose: yes. they own al jazeera. >> that's right. the new egyptian government established with the military take over last year has shut down all of the unsympathetic media. the media which was listening to or sympathetic

to the muslim brotherhood, the former government. so now when you flip through the dial of the television dial in egypt you see private networks that are processi. state-owned networks processi and you see only one network broadcasting in arabic that is crit calf the sisi government and that is al jazeera. and the pro military or processi egyptians often speak of al jazeera now like it is basically itself a terrorist organization with satellites. >> the point has been made and you can misunderstand the point, but is made by them and others, they were reporting for the english language al jazeera not for the al jazeera what that has been so often at odds with the government. >> yeah. you know, i think there are some people who would say that the arabic language al jazeera is quite conspicuously sympathetic to the muslim brotherhood. the english language network less so but apparently that made no difference.

>> rose: less so or not so. >> i without say less so i think they're more likely to cover, you know, the victimization of, if you will, of protestors opposed to the sisi government. but in any case we're talking about words and images here, not bullets and guns. >> rose: the point is regardless of the coverage, that is no reason to put people in jail. >> correct. >> rose: i mean that is the ultimate point. >> yeah. >> rose: so tell me what your early, other than this, which is very clear, your early sense of sisi is now that he is president. >> well, you know, as he, it was a three week campaign so it was a very compressed presidential campaign. >> rose: and de well, didn't he. >> de very well, 97% of the vote, a decisive victory. >> rose: yes. >> as he revealed himself over that period he seemed very much kind of an old school paternalistic figure. i done know how to-- he was

talking about government solutions to egyptian problems. >> what's interesting about it, him to me, is that what did he say to morsi when morsi came to power. because i mean he was a man that morsi appointed, was he not? >> that's correct. >> rose: chief of staff who then became field marshal. >> who then became the defense minister under president morsi. >> yeah. >> rose: what sisi has said with increasing vehemence is that he now says he was advising president morsi to change president morsi's course, to be more conciliatory towards the opposition in various ways, modify and save himself. what's hard to reconcile is sisi says both i was trying to help morsi stay in power and giving the best advice i could, and he also said at the same time that he now believes the muslim brotherhood is a fundamentally a violent terrorist organization that is a threat to the egyptian

state. it's hard to reconcile both of those things. how he could be trying to help morsi stay in power and yet now believing the brotherhood is kind of a hostile entity. >> he certainly acted that way hasn't he in terms of how many people they have imprisoned and given life or death sentences to. >> yeah, he certainly has. >> yeah. >> where is morsi? >> morsi is in jail. he's brought out for trial periodically on several different charges. >> rose: yeah. and so he's not been convicted yet. >> he has not been convicted of anything yet and i think it will be-- it's conceivable that he might be tied up in legal proceedings until the end of his days. i don't think they necessarily will have to convict him. not that that will be a problem. i think with the current state of the egyptian judiciary they could convict anybody of anything. >> rose: how about the state of current popular opinion in egypt? >> well, you know, we don't have any accurate polling on that that we can rely on. i mean the best that we have, i should say, is a recent

pew study that finds sisi's popularity about 60%, right about where morsi's was in the spring of 2013 before he was deposed. >> uh-huh. >> so i think it's a very divided public, but those divisions are hidden because only one side, the processi side has access to the media and can speak freely. >> and the muslim brotherhood is outlawed? >> the muslim brotherhood is outlawed, that's right. >> they can't stand for election, they can't meet, they can't do anything. >> that is correct. membership in the muslim brotherhood is itself a crime. we'll see who is allowed to run for elections when they have parliamentary elections this fall. the muslim brotherhood was ostensibly outlawed under president mubarak-- money arek but over time they reached an a cometation and certain number of organizations were allowed

to run for parliament. >> rose: over time. >> yeah, over time. and i think, i think there are some people around the current government who foresee something similar. who understand that if you want to have stability you have to cut a deal and give them at least some seat at the table even if it is a minority one. the question is whether or not the muslim brotherhood and its supporters are ready to accept that any time soon after you've had the presidency. >> you also were in libya. let's go to libya. >> sure. >> we now see that they have, united states has and brought from libya to the united states abu khatalla ahmed abu khatalla. and he's peered in court. he has a public defender. he's pleaded not guilty. he says he understands the circumstances he's in. i think they are going to read some rights to him, the right of an attorney and other things, if they have not already. >> i believe they have already. >> rose: yeah, he has undergone expense-- extensive questioning. do we have any idea what he is saying because my

impression from reading "the new york times" is he hasn't really given them some things but not what they want. and they think he's not being fully, the u.s. government fully forthcoming about what he might know. >> yeah, i can only imagine that he told them what he told me. you know. >> rose: exactly. >> i have spoken to him on multiple occasions for hours. and he's quite chatty. >> rose: chatty. >> you know. >> rose: david, come on, over i would like to talk. >> come on over. he served me tea and cookies in his house. he's very eager to talk. and his-- i'll be honest. i'm not sure that he is completely mentally stable. >> rose: really, i've heard that too. >> yeah, just for starters, i think once the president of the united states has said i'm, you know, i'm going to catch and bring to justice the people who perpetrated this crime, if are you somebody who is seen by many witnesses perpetrating this crime, you are not going to sit down with the western media and

have long conversations and advertise your location. >> rose: where are you. >> yeah. >> rose: for a long time they wondered why they didn't snatch him because he was out talking to you and why they couldn't find him. >> yeah, well, benghazi is not an easy place to go or operate. i think it was probably the safest place in the world for him n a neighborhood of like-minded individuals, many of them well armed. i also wondered, and i still am curious about this, about the evidence. the u.s. has made clear from the start that they were not going to grab him as a sort of a hostile enemy at war. they were going to bring him to a court and try him under american standards of justice for murder. and you know, i can put together, i did put together a pretty good case by journalistic standards, you know, people saw him at the scene directing attackers. when i talked to him his message was basically i didn't do it. but i think was a really great idea and i'm glad the killing happened and have no regrets about the ambassador's death. in so many words. he's obviously hostile to the united states. he said everything but i did

it. so from a journalistic perspective that's an interesting pattern of facts. but would it stand up in a court of law? you know s it enough to convict somebody of murder. because i'm not sure they have him on camera pointing a gun at anybody or throwing a match at the building that burned down and killed the ambassador. so i'll be curious to see. i think they may have delayed their arrest of mr. abu khatalla because they were waiting to come up with the evidence they needed. i will be curious to see what that evidence is. >> rose: dow believe he was a quote mastermind of this or just one of a number of people who were there that night who had something to do with guns and killing. >> well, that's one of those, you don't know what you don't know questions. we can say affirmatively. >> rose: are you beginning to sound like done rumsfeld. >> he played a major role. and i think the people in law enforcement believe that. he was seen directing the attackers. i know i've talked to people and our reporters have talked to people who spoke

with him on the night of the attack. you know, he was-- he definitely played a major role and a kind of leading and directing role. were there others who also played similar roles like that? i don't know. >> if he is so talky and chatty, perhaps he would lead some insight on that. >> his account of the events that night is that he showed up at the american diplomatic mission. he was directing traffic, trying to break up a traffic jam. later on he says he was asked to help out by a local official and went inside the compound to try to rescue some libyan guards who he believed had been trapped there. then he kind of embellishes a story and says he found all sorts of sinister equipment like silencers and various dangerous things that is his side of the story and it doesn't really add up when you talk to other witnesses. >> because people, mike morell has been at this table and just talked about this with me. he was the cia officer who was in office at that time.

and he has said they fervently hope they will shed some light on this because all the questions that constantly that still are part of congressional investigations. i mean there is some hope that will-- you think he has the capacity to do that? >> yes, i think just being who he is should shed some light on the congressional investigation. i mean a lot of those investigations are quite broad. >> rose: right. >> they are still thinking was this an al qaeda attack or was it a local attack. what role did this inflammatory film about islam have. you know, who planned it. and when you meet the guy who clearly played a central role in the planning, a lot of that drifts away. when they drill down, they're going to find as the cia has already said is he is not somebody that has ties to al qaeda or any other international order. he is a purely local guy. >> does he want to be big -- >> he is grandios, sure. that's no surprise. somebody who would carry out this thing.

he's quite pleased to see himself at war with the united states of america. that doesn't necessarily mean that he is an o bam-- osama bin laden. >> there are a few figures, the head of isis may be becoming that. >> perhaps. >> but there are very few like that. but at the same time you can be-- you can have some leadership possibilities or be trying to be part of that. or you can be simply someone who has great illusions of their own. >> but he's somebody -- >> i've talked to a variety of islamists in benghazi, some of whom you know i'm more election oriented islamists. some who consider themselves jihadis. some of whom are militants of a similar variety to mr. abu khatalla himself. and many of them say they think he's mentally unstable. even people who are sort of his ideaological kin are mostly not inclined to rally around him as a leadership figure. >> rose: tell me exactly what you think happened. we talked about this before. but just in the context of this now, this new development. >> well, i can tell you the

things that i know happened. you know, chronologically there is a-- there is this on-line video that is very inflammatory, insulting is prot at the time mohammed. if is aimed primarily at an egyptian odd yenses it is half about the might of the egyptian christians and half about insulting prot at the time mohammed. so there is a scheduled protest, regular old street protest, sign, marches, chants, all that stuff outside the embassy in cairo. that protest gets out of hand. somebody breaches the wall and hauls up a black islamist flag, jihadi flag. that suddenly is all around the air world on al jazeera al arabiya, everybody is watching it. two hours later there is a sudden attack, not a street protest but a sudden attack beginning with the firing of weapons outside the u.s. diplomatic mission in benghazi. there's some evidence that the attacker-- . >> rose: suddenly because they have seen this video,

they attacked. >> they may have seen-- they may have seen what happened in cairo and this was, you know, they see it happen in cairo an they're inspired to do something similar, that is totally plausible. it's also possible that they knew about the video in advance because benghazi islamists watch egyptian islamist television. and egyptian islamist television was full of, you know, rallying against this hateful video all week. so there's some evidence that there was some surveillance of the diplomatic mission in benghazi by potential attackers that morning. the people inside the mission saw some folks outside taking pictures and stuff like that. so there may have been some planning even before the events in cairo, probably the same day or maybe a couple days, at most. once that attack is under way, then it becomes a sensation around benghazi. phones start ringing everywhere in benghazi. oh my goodness, they've attacked the diplomatic mission. what, i hear that the americans inside have shot

at the people outside. i hear some libyans are injured. these rumor-- s that ail false. but the rumor spreads like wildfire around benghazi and soon it's a mob scene and what began as an attack with perhaps a couple dozen people is a much more broader and more chaotic thing involving scores, hundreds of people running all over the compound and looting, really. you know, people running out of the mission with suits of clothes, with small appliances, you know, with anything they can get. and setting things on fire wily nilly. not with fuel they brought themselves but with some brand-new tanks of fuel for the generators that the americans had left conveniently just inside the gate wz. >> rose: wow. so do they believe that, i mean had there been warnings that jihadists might be preparing to attack the consullate at some point, not because of the film but just generally looking for an opportunity? and so they were prepared to

strike or they were trying to figure out when the right time to strike was or any of that kind of story line. >> i've never heard of any warnings of that specificity. it was well-known that there were anti-american or anti-western islamists around benghazi. benghazi was famous for that, and also well-known that everyone in benghazi had a gun and some of them had very big guns. in addition to those two underlying facts there is a set of-- there was a conversation with representative of the u.s. embassy, the mission where some local militia leaders say they tried to tell them it's no longer safe for you here. you guy its should get out. we told the british, they're not coming here noir. they only come for day-trips. americans should pull out, you know, his side of that story i think is a little bit different. he doesn't feel like he was worned with that specificity. but definitely the libyans on the other side of that conversation feel like they were trying to tell the americans it was getting too

hot for them. and even the sympathetic couldn't protect -- >> didn't the libyans early on say thises with a terrorist attack. didn't the government say. >> yeah, and so did president obama. what is and what isn't a terrorist attack that is kind of a sell an particular question. i mean they were-- semantic question, it was not a street protest. it was men with guns storming a building and burning it down. i mean it's a crime of one kind or another. >> let's move to iraq. "new york times" has beefed up its bureau there obviously according to the announcement by the times. this is a huge story. where do you-- where does-- tell me what interests you about it? >> well, two years ago i and many of us were reporting about the emergence of a new demand across the arab world for a kind of nonspectarrian citizenship, a modern

nonsectarian nation where individuals have come together as citizens and demand an account ability of a neutral government. and now instead of that vision we see a broad swathe of the region really torn apart, borders being erased along sectarian lines. it's tragic. and it's puzzling how things could have come undone so fast. >> and how did it? >> well, you know, i think we're all still trying to figure that out. a couple of culprits are some of the regional powers who cloth themselves in religious garb but are mainly interested in political power. i'm thinking of the saudi arabians. >> for dominance in the area. >> and each of them in their own way funds and promotes different sectarian animosity meaning sunni muslim versus shi'a muslim animosity. >> and the iranian -- >> it is also you know

people on the ground in iraq, i think quite resent this american idea that the sectarianism was lat ent and waiting to emerge as soon as the dictator was removed. i think what they feel is that this is not a problem of sectarianism as much as a problem of bad governness. when you have someone like maliki who tries to become a new strongman and ruled by favouring those closest to him in his little community and by penalizing those who threaten him or further away from him in this case. he is a shiite and most of his allies are shiite and penalize a sunni community, then you're going to get this kind of a dynamic as a by product of that. so the sectarianism is a form that this opposition to maliki's government takes rather than a cause of dysfunction to the maliki government. >> the piece are you writing now, the last piece before you go on vacation is. >> something along those

lines. i'm still trying to figure that out. >> but it's dramatic. what do we know about the guy who is leading isis? >> you know, it's-- he's not somebody who i am intimately familiar with. not somebody who i have studied. i think he certainly has aspirations to remake the muslim world. >> he wants to create a state though. >> he wants to create a state and you know, he's put -- >> he's putting together the territory. >> rose: he sure is. >> but it's a long way from amassing territory to holding it for long term or much less building a state. >> rose: i mean do we see, do you think that when we look at this and we see him moving so fast and capturing cities and emptying their banks and getting money to finance further exploration that and the president is basically saying it seems to me, is saying, and most people saying even though there are some calls for air strikes and you now have 300 and then another 200 -- or 300 coming in according to announcements in the last

couple of days, that where-- whose side is time on? is my question because how long will it take them to do a government, because you know, how long is sistani what is he prepared to do other than what he has already done saying we need to have a new government? >> i don't know the answer to that question but i think it's fair to say that there are-- there are dynamic elements on both sides, that is to say it's possible that the government of iraq now the maliki government might f8might try to become more or less inclusive. it's also-- under his leadership? >> i'm not-- who knows. and on the other side it's dynamic as well. because i think what we're seeing there is the folks at isis who are unquestionably extremist have formed a kind of alliance with other sunnies who may not like their brand of extremis extremist-- extremism but feel a sort of enemy of my enemy bond against the maliki government.

and so is that stable? probably not. you know, are those other sunnies who may identify themselves as arab nationalists or even of a more secular mind-set are they natural allies to the folks at isis? are they all jumping up and down at the idea of establishing a new chall i fate, no, probably not. so it will be-- it will be interesting to see how that situation develops as well. >> it's probably the most interesting time. you've been there since when? >> i started my job in january of 2011. >> right at the beginning of the arab spring. >> that's correct. >> it just gets more interesting, doesn't it. >> yes. although emotionally it goes up and down. >> meaning what? >> well, there's some moments that are more hopeful and this one is not particularly hopeful. >> this one is a down. >> no doubt about it. >> thank you, david. great to see you. steve inskeep sheer, host of npr's morning edition. it is, get this, the most widely heard radio news program in the united

states. his reporting has taken him everywhere from the streets of tehran and war-torn syria to a 2,428 road trip along the u.s. mexican border. he also interviewed president obama after his commencement address at west point. in may. i'm pleased to have him here at this table am welcome. >> an honor to be here. >> rose: for me and to know your voice, because doing a lot of things, you know, radio is one of those places where when i get up early, you know, i like to figure out what is going on. and one of the places i turn is morning edition. >> i appreciate that. >> rose: tell me about this, in a sense what is the joy of radio for you? >> oh, wow, it's the opportunity to listen to people which i'm sure are you familiar with this program. it's really smart television, actually, the way this is put together. i have thought a lot about it. but in radio you get an opportunity to hear what people say, what they think. you get a sense to follow their reasoning. and you get a chance to tell a story. the other thing you get to

do that i really love, charlie s that you can make it if you do it correctly, a visual medium by which i mean a little sound, a little sound from the street its of how manies syria can put you in that place, a little sound from libya can put new that place or in new orleans. the sound of someone's voice, the accent of your voice can put you in that place. and you're with them as they're telling a story. and if you just say what happened, and what happened next and what happened next t can be really exciting for people. it's certainly exciting for me t gets me up early in the morning. >> it doesment but radio for example in britain is very powerful. >> uh-huh. >> does it have the same power. we know about talk radio. >> uh-huh. >> but all news radio has the same power. >> well, i don't know if it has the same power as every other medium but i know that i hear back from the people we put on the program about what we broadcast. >> they got more response. >> well, i will just give you an example. not long ago i won't say the guest but we had a guest on

the program who had some very strong opinions am and he was on at 6:40 in the morning eastern time. and he told me later, he said before 7:00 i had received a call from the white house. late their morning i received a call from the senate majority leader. later that day i received a call from the state department. he want on to say that at that d-- he was a diplomat in washington. that day he was up on capitol hill talking to some people. he alleged that they had all heard the interview. not that they heard about it but that they had heard it. you have with morning edition, it's really exciting, a huge mass audience. dow have more than 13 million people listening in a week. but there's also a really influential audience within that. and that's an exciting thing to do. >> i don't know if you said this but it makes sense. you try to slow down the news. >> yes, i did say that. >> absolutely. we are focused as journalists on getting the very latest information. and that's important to me. but we also realize that the latest information is not necessarily the most significant.

and what is often more useful to people as citizens, is figuring out the story over time. what's happening here over time that matters. what has changed here that matters. how i do put the latest development into perspective. how do we even know that the latest development is true, during the boston marathon bombings and the aftermath of that, on a particular morning, a friday morning, i believe when they were chasing the suspects around the boston metropolitan area, we made a point of saying several times on the air, we are collecting dots, we're not connecting them. we have all these bits of information. >> rose: find out for example the suspect is from chechnya or are chechens or something. that is what we knew on that morning. so what does that mean. what connections with can draw from those. none today, let's gather the information, let's be honest with the audience about what we know and what we don't know. and also recognize there's going to be a show on monday, there's going to be a show next week and we'll figure

out by then what we know as well. >> rose: what is the training to do the job that you do. >> about the same as yours. by which i mean we're both in this profession which is awesome because there are, because of the constitution there were no qualifications what so ever for the job. >> rose: exactly. >> anybody can do this job. >> rose: all the degrees i have which are two didn't help me to get there. >> they're not necessary. anybody who can do this job can do this job. and it's a matter of building up credibility with your audience, people give you a chance. it might be one person reading your twitter feed thattive goes you a chance or people on the radio or television who give you a chance. but they get to know you over time. and either they trust are owe they don't. >> it's obviously the quality of mind and the quality of expression. but is it the quality of voice also? >> you know, i love voices. and i get to know them. and people sometimes when they meet me will say you look very different than i expected. i have the same experience sometimes. with people on the radio. when i meet them for the first time they may look very different than i

expected. on the radio because the voices all you have, people do listen, i think, in an intense and different way. >> they do, yeah. >> this is often said and i've said this on the interview, on this program before. i also report for "60 minutes" as you know. >> of course. >> and i work only with-- don hewitt had left but don hewitt would turn and listen the cut pieces before he would decide on them. >> the executive producer. >> rose: he wanted to hear, he wanted to hear how it sounded before he made decisions. then there's also the notion as often said of pictures worth a thousand words. do you respond to that by saying yes that's true but we create pictures too. >> we do create pictures to you're right. a picture is worth a thousand words but the picture can also overwhelm the words this is something i heard from a lot of people in television over the years. they can be frustrated by the image because the image may not exactly illustrate the story that they're trying to tell. you guy does an amazing job

at "60 minutes" of finding the images that will actually illustrate a story that's relevant but that takes alot of time. it takes alot of effort. and often the most important things that you need to know happenedhen a camera was not there. even in this era with cell phone cameras and everything elsewhere so much is captured on video. often the most important things happen when a camera isn't there. i think about egypt. i think about the arab spring. it was amazing to have live television coverage of the demonstrations that brought down an autocrat. >> in that rear square. >> it was-- tahrir square, it was unprecedented it was an amazing thing to see. but then after that, after the ca rams-- cameras went away, so many important things happened and have continued to happen. and sometimes they're in public. sometimes they're another demonstration in that square. sometimes the square is irrelevant. and the question is what is the government doing behind closed doors. what negotiations if any are going on. what kinds of laws are being passed. who is being put on trial or

not. and you can't always capture the perfect images for that. and so i'm aware that sometimes the image is a distraction. and i'm aware that i have an opportunity in the medium i'm in just to listen to people and to tell a story and also hear their story. >> how much of what you say on the radio is scripted? >> a fair amount but as my colleagues will know, i write a lot and i also change things at the last second. once of my broadcast heroes actually was peter jennings, the late peter jennings. >> rose: because? >> i grew up watching peter jennings. and on one level it's that simple. on another level he was just brilliant at what he did. and one of the things that i learned about peter jennings when i got a little older and met people that worked with him was that he would sometimes glance at the script, he's reading a script, on the tel tell-- teleprompter and decide that it wasn't right and wasn't going to say that and he would say something else. >> i think everybody does that, the good people do that this doesn't make sense, the haine gauge, sometimes you have to go with because of the time factor and you

can't change it because it might up set a whole series of things and everything would come tumbling down. but dow that the thing that i loved about peter jennings and the reason i asked the question is that he was so kur quus about everything. i really did not have, did not go to college i think and became a person who self-taught. and loved to read and travel the world. was interested in how the world worked. he would always take an interest in this program early on. he used to say this was his favorite program to do. because of the latitude that we had on this program. we have been on 25 years so and peter would call me up and say something like i can't believe you did that. it was like -- and i would say peter y? because he had some-- he thought the person was lying or because he had some great animosity to them and thought that they had a point of view that was camouflaged. the other thing we do is say look based on what i just saw last night, you deserved to do whatever you want to do. because it should give you

licence because of what happened and what you did. the present so he's someone who i was a great fan of as well. >> well, that's an interesting thing that you raise because often who you do in a long interview is listen to someone. let them lie. and that doesn't mean you don't call them on it of course you call them on it but let them tell their story and try to persuade the public. and the public is often pretty smart about that. >> rose: exactly right. i often say and frequently say, you know, questions have power. you know. even unanswered questions have power. and without questions, you won't find any answers. >> yeah. >> and so therefore you can ask the question and if you ask it, you know, simply and precisely, and with meaning, how they respond to it. they can make a judgement about whether that person is lying or not. >> absolutely. >> whether they have any real comprehension of the subtleties of the circumstances surrounding what might be an appropriate answer. >> and people notice when you don't answer the

question. >> yeah. >> even if you have been well trained to not answer questions, people do notice in the audience. >> how much dow get out of the studio. >> as much as i possibly can. >> that was actually part of my agreement in going to work on morning edition. you can learn a lot in a studio like this one. but as you know very well from your own reporting you can't learn everything. >> you sure can't. >> every excuse i guess, every year, it's difficult because i have a full-time job and i have a family but every year at least and sometimes several times a year i'm going overseas. i'm going iraq or syria or venezuela or along the mexican border. >> rose: tell me about that since i just reasoned from mexico and we had the president of mexico on the program last night. >> that was for me an amazing experience. we started in texas on the gulf of mexico. we drove to tijuana. crossing the border again and again. reporting from both sides of it with a number of npr correspondents and getting a sense of what we called the borderland, borderland which is just this place that is all its own. on both sides of the border.

and it gafs, i think, different perspectives on a lot of huge issues that get talked about often. but are not necessarily explored in that much depth or well understood. the word immigration gets tossed around a lot. i'm not sure that it gets explored always in that much depth. i don't mean there isn't great journalism. there has been on that topic but it's not always in public view in the way that it should be. and it was an opportunity for us to stand at the foot of a border wall as we did one day in march and simply be there and border patrol vehicles came by. and they said would you remain here for a moment because we're about to arrest someone about 200 feet up in the woods here. and they came out with about 14 people. all of whom were under 25. most of them were women. and a fair number of them were children, going down to a food eller. they had to go get a child safety seat for the toddler before they could drive this kid off in a border patrol vehicle.

and so you have this visceral opportunity to witness is what has turned out to be one of the huns news stories of this year, which is the flood of they are called unaccompanied minor, central america. >> rose: i asked the president about that because people are saying they are to the doing enough on their southern border. >> uh-huh. >> rose: and that there is some responsibility on the part of mexico to do and some evidence or some accusations that the mexican authorities are maybe corrupt and looking the other way. >> well, there's no doubt there are core superintendent-- corrupt officials in different parts of latin america without getting into too many positions that is an interesting question about mexican inable to defend its border, we found it difficult to defend our southern border, it is a challenge because human nature is what it is. and people have complicated lives. this is something i felt i learned in a way and depth i did not learn before from traveling the border there are so many people who have one foot in the united states and one foot in mexico or one foot in the

united states or one foot in another country. and life is very complicated. immigration law is very complicated. and one of the reasons you have so many people violating is not just because people violate laws, it's because the laws don't make sense. and this is something that republicans as well as democrats will say. it's a sound bite. they will say our immigration system is broken. i believe that's what the sound bite means. we have really complicated laws that are hard to follow correctly. and that is one of the reasons, not the only reason but one of the reasons that large numbers of people have violated them. >> is the immigration discussion at all race snis. >> -- racist? >> race is part of it. and i want to speak carefully about this. we made an of the to do this actually during this border trip to listen carefully to people, not do demonize people or listen for the little sound bite that makes them look bad. we interviewed a texas rancher doug cunningham and his wife and a friend of theirs who live right on the rio grand.

spectacular ranch overlooking the rio grand river. and they constantly have people coming through who cross the river. that they believe are doing drug deals or simply immigrating to the united states, migrating to the united states. he is a former border patrol agent. will actually go out and pick people up and turn them in. he suspects the border patrol is not doing enough in that regard. and that when they do act that they are sloppy that they mess up his property and so forth. at the end of our conversation, we were standing next to his american flag that he has posted outside of his house. >> rose: right. >> and he said i'm not sure it's always going to be an american flag flying here. that there is going to be some question of this country changing. that people's loyalties will be different. that people's loyalties will change. that's a really complicated thought it gets to sovereignty. it gets to national identity. it gets to race.

there are a lot of things wrapped up in there. and that anxiety is very real for a lot of america. >> rose: yeah, i mean the other thing to, in terms of the word immigration, i mean i know a lot of people that feel strongly about you know all that comes with the notion of people going across the border illegally. and they are not opposed to legal immigration, and they will constantly tell you that. it is the illegal immigration that bothers them. and yet at the same time what i can never get away from is that these are such human stories and you find that when you take the journey that you did, these are very human stories. and these are not people coming over to do drug deals, a lot of them. and certainly -- >> coming for work. >> never's coming for a better life. >> that's really true. although is also true that people who say they're concerned about the rule of law often are. that's a real thing, the

rule of law, but it gets back to that complexity that i mentioned that i think has been acknowledged by moth people on most sides of this debate. do the current laws make sense. maybe part of the reason we have 11 million illegal immigrants now or people described as illegal immigrants there are different terms we can use. we can call them unduted, many things, people who have migrated to the unit states and do not have the proper papers, maybe the reason there are 11 million such people in the united states, at least part of the reason may be that the laws that we've set up in recent decade does not quite fit our current economy, and our current reality. which doesn't mean that it's easy to fix them. but that is part of the problem. the debate has been about whether to legalize, give amnesty, whatever you want to say, the 11 million, i don't know the answer to this that question. but there is this other part which is do our current systems that are in place make sense. >> rose: i find about what your friend or the man you interviewed dawn, you know,

the idea of whether his america is moving beyond the america that he loved and envisioned, it's just hard to stop history. >> yes. and you realize that united states was made by a series of mass migrations. >> rose: yeah. >> nd you can go back. you can go back and look at the scotts irish who came into the appalachian and populated southern and central indiana where i grew up there have been wave after wave after wave of migrations in these united states. that's going to continue. you also realize though and the work of anthropologists suggests this, that something about the culture of a place persists even when new kinds of people arrive. you could lay out the hypothesis and some writers have, that as more and more latinos move into the south, the south will remain the south. they will add something to the south. they will change the south but they will also, or their children will be changed by the south. and actually that can be a

wonderous process. and it's been going on whether we like it or not since the start of country. >> you see that with the cuban population in florida. >> absolutely. >> rose: the grandchildren are very different, you know, than those that first came over escaping from castro. >> yeah. >> rose: because their americas is the america of everybody else's. >> i have a colleague david green who was just in cuba and then in miami and found that the politics in many way has evolved from what we assume it was or what it might have been 10 or 15 years ago. >> rose: you have interviewed president obama more than once. >> yes. >> tell me how you see him. because you said something that's interesting. and he says it himself, and i've been intrigued by it. it's almost like he will tell you what he doesn't want to do and what he fears, as much as he will lay out some grand vision of his own perception of where the world is going. >> he's speaking carefully. he's been criticized for that. in our interview i asked him about guantanamo prison which he said he wanted to close in his first year and it's still not closed. he's determined to close it before he leaves office but

their's years behind schedule and he used the phrase. >> they don't know what to to about it. >> it's hard to figure out. where are you going true tie people, how do you release everybody. the people you don't want to release from the united states who is going to accept them so they had think anybodial grand promise. it certainly hasn't been kept in any particular time frame and he said at one point in the interview, i believe, chipping away at it. and i've heard him say that about one or two. >> chipping away at it, one little bit at a time. >> he also said that thing that you put your oar in the water and have your time but in the great sweep of history it's a small time and you simply hand it off to someone else. >> that is where i'm going with this. he has sometimes been criticized. it's been described that this president had a grand vision of how he was going to change the world and has been forced to reign it in and reign it in. maybe that's happened a little bit. but i went back not long ago and was looking at, i believe it was his convention speech in 2008 when he first ran. and he talked about how this

could be a moment of great change. and there was a line which was much mocked about how this will be the moment when the growth of the oceans will start to slow. he was talk about global warming. >> right. >> and of course he's being mocked for saying he is will be the man that will change the level of the oceans how grandios you can get. he didn't actually say that he laid out actually a very difficult goal and exceedingly difficult goal but in its way a rather modest one. if you think about things line global warming maybe it force to you think really, really long-term. and he may be wrong rhetorically about that. he may be right rhetorically about that but it's not a terrible way to think. >> also with respect to war. he has said also he thinks about, it is the way he said it, what you need to do is just not screw it up. >> yeah. >> i don't know. >> different language he used. >> exactly. >> it must give you, it must give you a sense. i think this has happened to a lot of presidents. theodore roosevelt comes to mind. presidents who went out of

office advocating war, wanting to go to war against everybody all the time. but the office makes you think about the -- >> also it's a different makeup of people too. theodore roosevelt, you know, because of how he had been shaped, you know, someone who had been racked by illness and recovered and made himself sturdy and clearly wanted it to ride or stride history. >> but then he became president and got a nobel peace prize. >> yeah. >> there's something about that office i think that does make you think about the consequences and recognize that you're the one who may end up dealing with the unintended consequences. >> what do you think about the way george bush handled his post presidency. >> he's a good painter. rather interesting. >> he hasn't jump mood the debate and criticized at every turn in the same way that dic cheney has who was just here. >> and you have to respect that about former president bush. maybe someone typically would say it's the only choice he has because he was unpopular and who would listen him anyway. >> chaney made a different choice. chaney made a different choice. >> jimmy carter has clear

leigh made a different choice. >> jimmy carter has made a different choice over a long period of time. i don't recall that he was so vocal in 1982 or so. >> and so you have to respect the choice of former president bush to mostly stay out of the debate. and that actually was something that he was pretty good at as a president, or at least that was his strategy as a communicator was to say one thing to say the one thing and focus on the one goal and try to avoid talking about other things. >> you thy president obama is a good communicator. >> i think he's a careful communicator and he's very interesting it to talk with. the thing that is criticized about his style of communication is, i suspect but i don't know i suspect he believes it's a strength which is that asked a question will answer it at length. let me go back to the beginning. let me tell you how -- >> he will connect the scotts. >> let me go back to the beginning of this and lead up to where we are going on that. that can be frustrating to those of us in the news

medica-- media because we want to know, tell me something fresh. in many politician and he may from time to time be one of them, it's also a way to obscure what you're trying to say or obscure what you are trying to avoid saying. but i suspect having talked with him a few times that he thinks it's important to make his case to make his case in order. you can criticize him as being professorial but his pred certificate-- predecessor was criticized for saying one foration, you are with us or against us, there is power in that phrase, a powerful communication that resonated for more than a decade. and people remember it and they had an idea what he meant. even if it was a terribly wrong foreign policy. and that we can argue about that. and so now we have a president who communicates very differently. that is frustrating to some people. but it's interesting to listen. >> rose: what do you think of hillary so far? >> she has had an interesting start. she has already gotten -- >> she is a very careful,

she's very careful communicator, that's true. and she's already in a little bit of a silly sigh son of criticism. she has already made remarks. >> it is a silly season of criticism. but at the same time it is a silly season of criticism clearly to me. but at the same time, you wonder and i think she's beginning to do t i saw an interview she did out in aspen, last 24 hours. she-- i think she begins to understand that it is very important to show how you are thinking about the future. >> uh-huh. >> and not just speak to the past and not be perceived as of the past but more of the future. and to be perceived as someone who is taking experience simply to give you the tools to analyze and to direct a route to the future. and unless you have that narrative, that shows that, you know, you have put together a sense of where we are and where we need to go then are you less likely to be successful. >> that's the challenge. she has an opportunity to make history as the first woman president.

she could also be portrayed as someone from the 1990s. >> yeah. >> and you have hit the nail on it. which narrative is going to prevail. >> thank you for coming. >> that's an honor. >> pleasure to you have here, very much. >> thank you for joining us. see you next time captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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