tv Charlie Rose PBS August 11, 2014 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT
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>> charlie: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with president obama's decision to use military force in iraq to stop what he calls the possibility of genocide. joining me dexter filkins and george packer of the "new yorker" magazine. >> i think the central question that always comes up when you make a decision like this is, look, there's catastrophes in every part of the world and why are we going into this one? and if we're going to ignore all these other places that are also imploding and where there are also catastrophes, why are we going back into iraq? there's a lot of reasons to go into iraq. the president used the word genocide and that's as good as any. >> charlie: also this evening dr. jim yong kim, president of the world bank on the ebola crisis. >> we just had a meeting in the united states where the africans
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demonstrated to the entire u.s. community that was present some of the most important business leaders in this country that they are making progress in governance, their debt to gdp ratios are under control, they have good fiscal management and want to do business with the united states. so it coul would be a shame that countries as far away as south africa would have to suffer because of our lack of ability to understand geography. this is three small countries in west africa not the whole of africa. >> charlie: we continue with golf with tim finchem, the commissioner of the pga tour. >> the united states has literally half of the golfers on the planet, and the majority of the top elite players. in 1960, to give you some frame of reference, in 1960 when arnold palmer went to augusta and was on cbs television, there
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were 5 million golfers in the united states. there are now 30 million golfers. and if you look at a trend line from 1960 when golf hit television with arnold palmer who is the perfect storm, it's a constant -- it's a constant disway. >> charlie: iraqi government, ebola and golf when we continue. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.
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>> charlie: we begin this evening with iraq. president obama authorized airstrikes targeting i.s.i.s. militants on thursday. they are the first direct u.s. military involvement in iraq since 2011. the president address concerns about renewed intervention. >> as commander-in-chief i will not allow the united states be dragged into fighting another war in iraq. even as we support iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, american combat troops will not be returning to fight in iraq because there is no american military solution to the larger crisis in iraq. >> charlie: i.s.i.s. have taken several cities and approaching in iraq, erbil, kyrgyzstan. john kerry said their actions are a wakeup call. >> i.s.i.s.'s campaign of terror against the innocents including the yazidis and the christian
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minorities and its go desk targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide. >> charlie: two writers from "new yorker" magazine with extensive knowledge of the region, dexter filkins and george packer. i am pleased to have both at this able at this time. dexter, what's the risk here? >> well, i guess it depends on where you stand, but i think the white house sees the ris risk of getting pulled in to something they can't get out of and i think that's why, last night, the president spent most of his discussion saying this is a very limited action, extremely limited, it's not going on forever, i'm not putting guys on the ground, we're not getting into another war in iraq. i guess that's the danger. i think the real danger is something larger than that. it's what the president is facing which is i.s.i.s. it's this growing,
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metastasizing, very strong, very virulent group which is now spanning two continues, occupying, you know, space wherever they go. they're extremely disciplined and really good at what they do and nobody's been able to stop them. that's why we're there. look, at some point, we have to deal with that. it's only because there are hundreds of fighters there who have american and european passports and they're going to be coming home some day. >> charlie: and they also have money and weapons, don't they? >> yeah, when they went into mosul, they looted the bank there, got tens of millions of dollars by most accounts, maybe even more. they grabbed all the american military equipment that we provided for the iraqi army. i mean, you know, tens of thousands of iraqi soldiers and police disappeared, deserted, they left everything behind. >> you can always ask at a moment like this -- should they have done something earlier? >> well, yeah. i mean, sure.
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but, you know, i think the central question that you're always -- that always comes up when you make a decision like this is, look, there's catastrophes in every part of the world and why are we going into this one? and if we're going to ignore all these other places that are also imploding and where there are also catastrophes, with why are we going back into iraq? there are a lot of reasons to go back into iraq. the president used the word genocide, and that's as good as any. i.s.i.s. has shown us what they're going to do and i think it's a good bet they'll make good on their promises and start killing a lot of yazidis if they get a chance. >> charlie: when you talk to american officials, they say they have no choice, they can make this a limited intervention, how far are they prepared to go? >> that's a good question. what they've done so far is a couple of airstrikes outside of erbil to stop i.s.i.s. from
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moving into the capital of the kurdish region which is practically an independent state. they haven't done any airstrikes yet against i.s.i.s. at the bottom of mt. sinjar which is where all the yazidis are. i asked a white house official today, are you just going leave them up there? they said, no, we're hoping by doing the airstrikes we'll give the kurdish army, the peshmerga, breathing space and they will start pushing back and doing this stuff on their eown. he said he also hoped the iraqi army would do the same but i think that's wishful thinking. they're not good enough and don't have the cohesion. >> charlie: what's it about the american attitude about the iranians that they want to help? >> they don't want to get complicated with the iranians. the problem is the iranian
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influence in the shiite part of iraq, maliki's government, has been so strong and -- >> charlie: it's partly responsible. >> absolutely. that's why we're here. you ask who do the sunnis really support, do they support i.s.i.s.? you know, where do they stand? their antipathy toward mallcally and the shiite government is so strong they're willing to support i.s.i.s. that's how they hate the baghdadi government. >> we held on to the central government in baghdad for much too long. >> charlie: they'd do more once they change the government. >> which could be when? we're waiting week after week and now potential genocide. so i think you could look back and say why didn't we cut our losses and start arming the kurds because they're the only force on the ground that can fight i.s.i.s. and instead we kept saying we're waiting for a new government, don't want to undermine maliki. meameanwhile, everyone
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underestimates i.s.i.s. maliki underestimated them and the kurds did, too. the kurds said, we have kirkuk, this is good for us. >> charlie: analysts are supposed to be able to assess. >> we don't have much intelligence. there is something about i.s.i.s. and groups like that, people don't have an immediate grasp of the depth of evil when confronted with a group of i.s.i.s. and their resolve and the willingness to go to the limit. >> charlie: assume people do have the assessment of the depth of evil, where is everybody snells. -- everybody else? >> why would the united states accused of being the world's policeman and doesn't want to be is once again the world's policeman? >> if not us, then who? >> charlie: that's the question.
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we have to make a decision and we did, the the president made the decision, reluctantly, everybody said, but understanding there was a possibility of genocide there and happening. where is europe and where is erbil. >> the threat to erbil seems to have been a key trigger. >> charlie: we can't allow this? >> we cannot let kurdistan be overrun by -- >> remember the libyan intervention, started out with france and the u.k. going out in front of the united states. they could don't it. you know, they don't have it. they don't have the stuff, you know. only we can do that. >> charlie: but they can support it. the president believes, if nothing, in a multi-lateral action that not just the united states, show the world we're doing this and we're leading and the question he quoted, you know, who will help? america will help. but america would like to help and have other people support its help. >> like turkey who has a major
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interest in this. the world has been riveted to gaza. this all happened as a sideshow. the yazidis, who are they? it was a nonevent for days when they were on the mountain and suddenly it burst into consciousness and to his credit the president realized he had to act immediately. >> well, honestly, it's iraq and everybody knows what happens when you intervene in iraq, it's a nightmare. nobody knows that better than president obama and you could see it in his body language last night, that i don't want to be here. >> charlie: where is the opposition to what the president is doing? >> i think there is some. 2003 haunts everybody, and anyone who was for the war in 2003 should be very humble about cheering on another, you know, military intervention in iraq and everyone who was against the war in 2003 is reluctant to band in that position now. so i think we're all stuck in a political paralysis. >> charlie: wouldn't they argue it's not the same --
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>> that's my argument. >> charlie: didn't face this situation in 2003 when you launched a war of choice. >> i think this has every element of that war -- genocide, a local force willing to fight the kurds, and the fact the airstrikes can actually do a lot. >> yeah, and i think it's true that we -- i think obama's made it very clear we're not going to do very much. >> charlie: i'm asking about the risk. >> why not do more? why not bomb i.s.i.s. at -- >> charlie: the military air power, is there risk? >> it's like iraq in 2003. when you tear something down, what's going to go in its place? or syria, the same. i mean, all this started in area, you know. the syrian war has been going on three and a half years. >> will the kurds, for example, really back up whatever we do to the extent of getting people back to sinjar and re-creating the conditions of life there? because we can't do that. so, yes, once you've taken out
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i.s.i.s.'s positions and allowed the kurds to get back into sinjar, what happens next and how involved do we get and what happens when civilians die because of air strikes? >> charlie: do you both think the will exists to stop i.s.i.l.? >> from what? >> charlie: from advancing to baghdad, from advancing to erbil, from advancing and creating a much larger caliphate for themselves? >> we may get to that point. my understanding is, for instance, i.s.i.s. has quietly and effectively moved in around baghdad, cut off a lot of the roads and close to the airport. what happens if they shoot a rocket at an airplane? that means no airplanes will land or take off there. what happens then? basically one highway going in and out of baghdad. they're very close to making that city unlivable. they're not there yet. >> they control the electricity of mosul, the water shy supply of most of iraq and can flood
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the major cities of iraq. if this isn't enough to spur us to at least realize this is no longer -- i think we told rated i.s.i.s. because they weren't attacking us. the war was going on there. feels like an army rather than an al quaida global jihad, but why do we imagine i.s.i.s., given their ambitions, will be satisfied with that land between there. >> charlie: troops on the ground -- >> on the other side of the border, we have been quiet, ramping that up. the the more moderate opposition numbers are getting more sophisticated weapons like anti-tank missiles. >> charlie: that's almost a group effort. u.s. are doing it and other countries are stepping in. >> they're trying to. part of the reason why i.s.i.s. is so strong is the people who were -- you know, for the first couple of years, all these
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countries were funding anybody who wanted to fight assad. it went to i.s.i.s. they got everything they needed. >> charlie: this is a bad situation. >> right. >> charlie: therefore, the president will have to make one decision after another. >> it's against every foreign policy instinct. you can sense how reluctant he is to do anything here. iraq was the country he was getting out of. we were going to pivot to asia, now we're pivoting to minimal province, we're pivoting to sinjar. >> charlie: basketball terminology here, pivoting back. >> and don't forget that right now as we speak, the lebanese army is fighting i.s.i.s. in lebanon. so this is something which stretches across the entire middle east. we've talked about this before and -- >> charlie: so before we leave, i want to know what the president's options are. >> i can tell you what the plan is. what they imagine, what they
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want to happen, is first, they want to get rid of maliki, want a new prime minister. >> charlie: this emergency has overtaken that. >> yes, but i think the dream and i think increasingly it's something receding on the horizon, but i think they can still hold the iraqi state together if they can get a leader to bring everybody together and that will kind of spur people to fight and rally around the government, but until they do that, we're -- >> mr. president, i would advise you, at least think about accelerating the timetable of kurdish independence because they are our only reliable friends and on the front lines with i.s.i.s. i think we have to fight them -- >> charlie: accelerate the recognition and the support. >> yeah, yeah. weapons now and independence faster than we might have wanted. >> to echo george's point, the
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kurdish region has the 600-mile border with i.s.i.s. they have about 16 miles with the iraqi army. that's the front line up and down. >> allow them to sell the oil, which we're not doing now. >> they're our best friends. >> charlie: thank you. i assume you guys will be there in the next week. back in a moment. stay with us. >> charlie: two american healthcare professionals who were working in africa contracted the ebola virus are now being treated with an experimental drug in atlanta, georgia, one never before used on humans. there's much we don't know about how to combat the disease and what resources needed to fight it. dr. jim kim joins me from washington to talk about that. he is currently president to have the world bank which just pledged $200 million to the fight. he's also a founder of partners in health, that nonprofit has an impressive track record of fighting infectious diseases.
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first of all, i want to talk about the world bank and the hat that you wear today. in fact, let me begin there. what do you hope to accomplish and tell me how you see containing the crisis at this moment. >> well, just this week, i have been talking with dr. margaret chan, director general of the world health organization, and she tells me things are getting better. now, the hope is that the worst part of the crisis can be brought under control in weeks, and we can extinguish it literally in 3:0 three to six months. we need now immediate input and moved quickly. out of the $200 million, $75 million will go to immediate needs. she told me many of the health workers are just leaving. firstly, they're not getting paid well and the governments don't have the funds. so this immediate infusion of cash from the world bank is going to help with the immediate response. you know, what she also told me was that, on the ground, they need everything. they need mobile laboratories,
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mobile clinics. they need protective gear. so there's been a lot of talk of helping, but what we hear from her and from others on the ground is that the countries that have pledged help need to step up and step up quickly. remember, charlie, this is something that we can get under control. this is not an airborne infectious disease like sars, for example. so we have to move it and move quickly, but if we do we think we can get it under control. >> charlie: but this is the worst example of ebola in history. >> it is. it is. you know, about is thousand cases, and it's spread from one country to another. it's gone to the capital cities. it's the worst epidemic in history, but, again, as an infectious disease doctor, i really want to stress, i've dealt with tuberculosis and airborne disease, i was at the world health organization and helping to run a transition to a new director general in 2003 at the end of the sars epidemic. this is different. if we move quickly, if we get
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all of the technology, the supportive care, medical doctor, nurses, if we get them in place, we can shut this down, but we have to move, and we have to move despite the fact that there's all this fear. there's a tremendous amount of fear, but the fear cannot slow us down. we can't -- we know what to do, if we have the equipment, we can make progress and we can make quick progress. >> charlie: and you think the organization, the collaboration and the coordination and the organizational effort including the world bank is in place to be able to move quickly? >> well, everyone has to understand that it's the leader. you know, you have three leaders of these countries who are well known for something champions of fighting corruption and champions of good governance. so we have good leadership in these countries. everyone has to go work with the world health organization. during the sars epidemic. w.h.o. played a critical role and they're ready and have to
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play a critical role this time as well. margaret chan is ready to do it. she was in charge of the spars response in hong kong. she knows exactly what to do. right now there's a little too much freelancing. we want everyone to follow the lead of the heads of state, of course, but the heads of state are following the lead of dr. chan. if we fall into order and get things in place this will be brought to an end much more quickly. >> charlie: margaret chan said the outbreak was moving faster than the efforts to control it. >> that's right, but part is because they don't have what they need on the ground. what she just told me was that promises of mobile clinics, promises of mobile laboratories, protective equipment, of, you know, basic materials like, for example, intravenous fluids to provide protective care for those who are sick, the ability to reach out and bring people into the clinics, those things have not been put into place, so it's less an indication of the speed of transmission than it is of the slowness of the globe
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response. we need to step up our response now. that's why we did what we did. >> charlie: how long will it take? >> weeks. we can slow the spread of this and really get things under control in weeks, and the hope is that we can extinguish it in three to six months. >> charlie: then there is the story of the two americans who have been airlifted to atlanta, and they are evidently being treated with a new experimental, some say serum. can you tell me about that? >> well, it's called zmapp and, you know, i don't have access to the data on efficacy. my understanding is that it's a set of three different monoclonal antibodies and they apparently have an effect on the cells of the body the virus attacks. there have been very anecdotal reports that the patients have gotten better. but, you know, the treatment for ebola now, the accepted
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treatment, the supportive treatment, the reason people with ebola die is because of multiple organ failure. >> charlie: right. what we've seen, even in africa, there's one hospital in guinea that's reported that when patients have come in very early and etche received report, the mortality rate is lower. in previous epidemics, we've seen when patients get to health services and are provided intravenous fluids and supportive therapy, they get better at a higher rate than the 90% rates of mortality reported from some areas and that's the key. the message we want to send out is if there's suspicion, people in those countries have to get to healthcare services as quickly as possible. their chances of survival are higher. in coming to the united states, of course, they're getting the best quality treatment. you know, for example, one of the organs that can fail in ebola is the kidney. so the fact that they have access, for example, to dialysis is very important in terms of
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overall survival. >> charlie: why do the organs fail? >> well, the virus itself attacks very specific cells, endothelial cells, for example, and what happened is, for example, if these cells are being attacked, if you're not getting enough fluids, just the slow down in the flow of blood to the organs can cause the organs to fail. this is a systemic disease. you're essentially having a situation of sepsis, which is a generalized, overwhelming infection. in conditions of sepsis, sometimes, if its due to bacteria for which we have antibiotic, what you do is you give antibiotics, fluids and other kinds oversupportive care. in this case, we don't have an antibiotic but quick do everything else, we can provide supportive gare -- we can give them fluids, blood, dialysis -- those are the things we need to do in this case where we don't have a proven, direct treatment
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for this particular virus. >> charlie: how is it that healthcare workers get it? i'm familiar with an operating room and i know there's a lot of blood, but what happens that healthcare workers become contaminated? >> well, you know, the key here is that you need to use full protective gear, and that means the gowns, that means, you know, the coverings of the face because you don't want a splash from the blood, for example, of a patient to get into your eye, which would put you at very, very high risk. and, so, my understanding is that these physicians and healthcare workers were heroically caring for these patients without effective protective gear and, so, you know, this is really a terrible shame that people are getting infected for lack of fairly simple technology. this is just the appropriate covering. so, you know, as long as you know that someone has ebola or you have a high suspicion for it
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and you wear the appropriate protective gear, we can really stop the transmission to healthcare workers. this is why it's so important for every country, every organization that has made promises to provide these kinds of materials have to do it right now, have to move right now because still we don't have enough equipment on the ground to respond. >> charlie: tell me what the dangers are as we look at it today and where the good news is. >> when there is an acute problem, our attention is brought to the issue, we see all these things that we have to improve and then, when the acute problem goes away, the interest goes away. so, for example, we were very focused on bird flu for a while and talked about things like building the capacity to make vaccines very quickly. then with the sort of, you know, evaporation of bird flu as an issue, we stopped talking about it. so here's the point, charlie, these kinds of episodes have to
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remind us what we need to do, and in the case of ebola we need to build functioning health systems on the ground. we're not talking act tertiary hospitals, we're talking about functioning healthcare systems. so half of the $100 million is going into building the public health systems that can do the basic public health diagnosis, that can do the communication and provide the protective gear so we stop these kinds of epidemics much earlier. if we had the functioning healthcare systems in these three countries, it wouldn't have happened. let me tell you, charlie, these three countries, it's terrible, because the economic impact the real and, you know, in liberia, fully 80% of the people of librariy are living in extreme poverty. in sierra leone 50%, in guinea 40%. sierra lone and liberia are emerging from civil wars so
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these are countries that can ill afford to have these kinds of crises and of all the things they're trying to build back, we didn't focus enough and i think all of us in the global health community share responsibility. we should have focused more because they have been asking us for help to build back all kinds of systems. we weren't quick enough and this is what happens. so now we need to take this opportunity to completely commit ourselves to building those systems, and we're taking -- we've take an major first step in doing that. >> charlie: with respect to the united states because many people have seen this broadcast from within the united states, there's always the question that arises, is it likely to come to the united states. they also raise the second point which is, even though you're infected, you don't immediately recognize it so you could get on a plane and go to another country before you became aware. >> you know, if this was an airborne infectious disease, we would have to put you into a
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room and make sure it's negative airflow and isolation. but in this case all we need to do is close the door and make sure the infectious precautions are put on the door, all the health workers going in and out have to glove and gown and all the other things you need to do and in isolating the case can prevent the spread. so in the united states, you know, there are so many very well functions systems, we would get it under control quickly. so, again, the concern i have, charlie, is that all of this panic about ebola is slowing down our ability to respond in these three countries. remember when you were here interviewing the heads of state, charlie, the point they were making, and i think this is an important one to repeat, that this is a humanitarian problem that happened to happen in africa. i want to make this point, this is three countries out of 54. we're hearing people are generalizing and saying all people in africa have ebola and
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we're seeing people canceling vacation plans to go to south africa. let's be very clear -- it's in these three countries. we're hoping it doesn't spread to others but we have to be hypervigilant to make sure that it doesn't spread, but the rest overafrica, not only is it open for business but we just had a meeting in the united states in which the africans demonstrated to the entire u.s. community that was present some of the most important business leaders in this country that they are making progress in governance, their get to gdp ratios are under control, they've had good fiscal management and want to do business with the united states and, so, it would be a shame that countries as far away as south africa would have to suffer because of our lack of ability to understand geography. this is three small countries in west africa, not the whole of africa. >> charlie: this is a time the world is looking at africa with promise and hope and believing
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what happened in washington could be a game changer in terms of perception as well as deed. >> i believe that, charlie. let's take one example. liberia has about 4 million people and on any given day has access to the amount of electricity that texas stadium uses for a dallas cowboys game. >> charlie: exactly. so you cannot build an economy with that kind of electrical supply. so all of sub saharan africa has 80 gigs of installed capacity which is about as much as spain has. so we've had over 5% growth in africa during the financial crisis period from 2008 to 2013, average growth in africa was over 5%. keeping global growth at near zero numbers because they had done things so correctly.
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i think problem doing something so unique -- i mean, this is the first time in history that all the african leaders have been invited to washington, and in participating in this meeting, i think what happened was that business leaders in the united states were extremely impressed at what they learned. you had over 5% growth while almost three-quarters of africans still don't have access to electricity. as one to have most successful africans said, this is 5.5% growth really without real access to energy. so we made a $5 billion commitment to support president obama's initiative so power africa, and something like 20-plus billion dollars were put on the table to increase the electrical supply. we hope interest in investing, interest in making partnerships will really grow as a result of this meeting because africa is going to be one of the most dynamic growth centers.
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six out of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in africa. >> charlie: the other point i think was made clearly to me is that it's also necessary to appreciate the security situation, and in order to achieve these kinds of goals, there needs to be a minimization of the threat to security. >> you know, charlie, the secretary general of the united nations and i have been traveling together and we have been traveling together specifically to the places where the conflict is most severe. we first went to the great lakes region, visited democratic republic of the congresso, rue wan dark, we went to mali where the conflict was just slowing down and soon to the horhorn of africa. we work in all the conflicts around the world, in the middle east, everywhere, and in africa, our strong sense is that a huge
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part of the lack of security, a huge part of the conflict is related to the lack of development, the lack of good jobs. so what the secretary general and i are trying to do is instead of waiting for the peace treaties to be signed and then going in afterwards to try to spur economic growth, we're going in together, and while he signs peace agreements, we're putting on the table literally billions of dollars for regional projects to try to make people understand that trade is going to be a lot more effective in decreasing on flood victim thang conflict than continuing to have what are high tariffs across the african countries. so we're making the case that investing in economic growth, investing in the facilitative trade across the region could have an impact on reducing conflict. we think in africa, specifically, these are more
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often conflict around access to basic resources. >> charlie: dr. kim, thank you so much, pleasure to have you on the program. >> thank you so much, charlie. >> charlie: dr. kim, president of world bank, former college of dartmouth college and a highly respected global world health expert. >> charlie: tim finchem is here, pga tour commissioner for years. he successfully navigated a treacherous period in professional golf when the economic recession and the absence of tiger woods happened at the same time. i am pleased to have him at this table for the first time. welcome. though you and i did a program in 1984, was it? >> yes. >> charlie: '84? 30 years ago, a debate in a cam can pai -- in a campaign si. >> charlie: people like to compare you to paul tagliabue,
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did a great job. the sports league seemed to have the great fortune of having somebody ready to step into the footsteps of somebody who really put the sport in great financial shape and great marketing situation. >> well, you know, i think the sports that have been most successful have a long tenure for the leader which allows maturity to develop in the rest of the team and gives you a lot of options for succession. relations are key in sports marketing, so you want somebody who can do it for a long time. looking at tagliabue and rozelle 20, 23 years, stern 30 years. they're a strong guy, built a strong organization, strong team, and when it was time to go, had a smooth transition. they don't hire a search firm, they have people who have been there 15, 20 years to step in.
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>> charlie: give me a snapshot of the pga today. >> the professional game is growing and been on a long, steady growth3curve now. if you go back the last 35 years, constant growth, almost without exception, even with the downturns, the recessions, the big financial crisis, and that's a result of growth of the game generally. more and more companies becoming aware of the uniqueness of our product from the standpoint of businesses, business opportunities, advertising, the strength of our audience and recently the international situation. more and more companies we deal with are global companies. the game is growing global. >> charlie: asia. asia leading the way, but also south america. eastern europe, places in africa. you know, candidly, if you look at all of the now olympic sports
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going into the '16 games, i would argue that there's only four or five that are truly global and professional at the same time and organized globally. >> charlie: of the sports going into the 2016 games. >> yeah, most of them are good on these two continents, pretty good on those two continents. but golf is one of those sports like soccer that's on every continent and growing on every continent. >> charlie: you had a lot to do getting golf this year in 2016. was that a hard sell or was it simply being included in other sports when you wanted? >> actually, it was the reverse. we had significant reluctance. >> charlie: they wanted you and you weren't sure you wanted them? >> back when sam ma ranch was running the olympics, he came after us. tennis was in the olympics, had
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major championships, weren't getting all the top players to play. what happened was we finally came to the recognition that growth outside the united states is really, really important, for the long term. more elite players need to come from other places in the world, these other tours need to get stronger. there's, like, 85 countries that invest money directly into sports but only if they're on the olympic program. so by -- so then we turned it around and went to the olympics and said, we'd like to become part of the olympics and we'll see how it works out. we've got a few challenges in rio. we're building the golf course. there's only two golf courses in rio. >> charlie: two courses in rio? >> two in rio. charlie, the olympics had two choices to vote on, chicago and rio. >> charlie: yeah. hicago has 200 courses, more golf courses than any city in
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the world, 30 or 40 which we could play by showing up the week before. >> charlie: yeah. now we have rio has two and neither works. so we have to build a golf course which we're doing. >> charlie: help me understand the health of the sport because you read stories that americans are not playing as much golf, golf courses are being built and being sold back to developers and things like that. >> and some of that's true, but like with anything in today's world, you see a story, you've got to get it in the right perspective. the united states has literally half of the golfers on the planet, and the majority of the top elite players. in 1960, to give you some frame of reference, in 1960 when arnold palmer went to augusta and was on cbs television -- >> charlie: right. -- there were 5 million golfers in the united states. there are now 30 million golfers. and if you look at a trend line
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from 1960 when golf hit television with arnold palmer who's the perfect storm, it's a constant this way, until we hit 2007, 2008, 2009, and the financial crisis. people are scare were scared abr future, so you had private clubs dealing with older members who weren't playing that much, didn't want to spend the dues anymore, so private clubs took a big hit in those years but largely have come back from that. in addition, the housing industry really screeched to almost a halt in this country. if you go back during the period 1960 to now, housing helped drive golf because so many housing developments were near a golf facility. >> charlie: right. and you've got to take the game to the folks. the folks aren't going to come find the game.
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the game has got to get out there to people. if you go back in the '70s, '80s, '90s, a lot of the facilities were being built in conjunction with housing. when housing took a dip, that kind of backed off. it's true -- most of what you read about has to do with rounds of golf played. it's true. i think the digital age, 24-7 work, people traveling all the time, people -- the business person, the employed person, the man or woman who's got a job is finding it tougher to take the time to play the game, so rounds have come down a little bit, but they seem to have steadied since 2009, 2010, now. and the other challenge that we all look at is youth. young people today -- and you see this in data related to obesity, you see it with regards to the number of kids who are
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moving their bodies, and they're in front of screens 7 1/2 to 8 hours a day, it's tougher to get their attention. having said all that, the good news is that we are continuing to see a pretty good influx of young people. the first tee program, for example. >> charlie: explain the first tee program. >> the first tee program was designed and started in 1997 to take golf to kids who historically hadn't had access to it. it was designed to bring a lot of kids into the game over time and also deal with the diversity problem we have. we have a tough time reaching minority kids because they don't have the accessible facilities that you've got to have to get into the game. it's been a tremendous -- >> charlie: an and other sports are accessible because they're street sports. >> street sports, small ball fields. a golf course costs -- even if it's a 9-hole golf course, even
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if it's a 3-holes and a driving range. so we set out to build those facilities. a couple of years later we added an adjunct program in schools where we take a golf program in a-5, that's in 8,000 schools. the two programs together reached 3.5 million kids. so we're seeing the kids respond to the ability. i'll never forget the visual in my head of -- we opened and the folks at pebble beach doubt a 9-hole facility in salinas, california, and made it a first tee facility. we went out, 350 kids in crisp, white t-shirts lined up to take an advantage of the first time hathey had an opportunity to get into golf. we know interest is there and the kids will take the time but youtill have to get the game to them.
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it's an ongoing problem but we feel good about that. >> charlie: here's a hypothetical -- masters sunday and you got in the final foursome tiger and phil. ratings will be up 50%? >> tiger being in the tournament drives the rating. if he's making the cut and there on the weekend, he's unique in the sport, he's like nicholas and palmer. people want to watch him no matter what. >> charlie: why? he's won 78 times. >> charlie: yeah, right. he's won 14 majors. he's knocking on the door of sam sneed's all-time record. through the years of doing that, which now is almost 20, people like watching tiger. he's mythical in the sport. >> charlie: yeah. so you start with that. now if he gets in the hunt on sunday, it increases.
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>> charlie: yeah. you remember when tiger won the open in 2000 in pebble by 15 shots, everybody said, it's a runaway. if pinier wins, he has a low rating. tiger wins by 15 shots, they don't care, people see perfection. i walked with him that day, it was perfection. >> charlie: it's the master class. >> it really was, he's in a different league. but with the current media and social media and watching players like bubba watson and ian coulter and these guy develop their cadre of fans, ricky fowler -- >> charlie: do you have a guess as to who will win? >> i think he's in great position to beat sneed's record. i worry a little bit about the 18, not that he's not going to
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be in a winning mode, but you only get four shots a year. he's 38. he wouldn't want to hear me say this, but -- so i worry about that. but he's got it in him because, you know, he beat five great fields last year, he just didn't happen to pull it off. he's at augusta and hits the stick -- >> charlie: right, exactly. and had he missed the stick, he probably wins the golf tournament. >> charlie: right. s>> so we'll see. >> charlie: marching on. when he started going down this path -- >> charlie: yeah. -- you know, wins the masters in '97, had four in a row in 2000 and 2001. so the media started really hyping the 18, and it was delightful. because to win 18 measurers, it takes a career. you can't do it in 15 years. and to beat sneed's record, it takes 20 years, so that's been
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great because that means the infatuation with him trying will go on for a long time. i told him one time that, you know, i thought he would break jack's record, but it would be just a few weeks before he turns 550. >> charlie: did he like that? (laughter) who's the best ball striker on the tour? >> well, you know, it's interesting. i hear and watch a lot of golf and i see the commentators talk about this guy's a good ball striker, that guy's a good ball striker. if you walk up and down the range at a pga tour, i defined you to find the difference. i think the key thing about a tour player and the thing that separates a tour player from a really good player who didn't make the tour is not their ability to do it, it's their ability to do it consistently. so the phenomenal thing about tiger woods is he could play at that level so many weeks to be in the hunt so many times, you go in 78 times, and you go from
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there down the list. but you take a guy like jim furyk, seven times in the last three years he's been in the league going into the last round and hasn't won. he's been in the top 25 as many times as phil in his career. he's won 16 times, phil's won 14 times. (cheering) it doesn't mean he's not as good a player. it's just something about golf that separates you. it's such a fine line in any given four rounds or even round that separates you from the pack. >> charlie: can you explain what it is? other than consistency, being able to do it every thursday, what it is that separates him? people talk about the edge. people talk about tiger's dad helped him get the mental
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toughness. if he was leading on saturday and sunday, he would likely win 15 out of 16 times at one point. >> well, i think i could answer it maybe, but i'll defer it to tiger because i heard tiger answer a kid's question at a function one time, do you see anybody coming up now that can, you know, beat you? and tiger said, i see a lot of guys coming up who are really, really good, but i don't see anybody coming up who had, at the time i was coming up, my level of confidence because i won so much when i was little, so much when i was in high school, so much when i was in college that i got to a confidence level that i knew i could beat the other guys. there was never any question in my mind and that, if you get that -- but the problem is the only way to get it is to win. >> charlie: the intriguing you ask in any sport, if jack was playing at his best today with
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today's equipment and emphasis on condition and all that, how good would he be? >> he would be pretty good because he was so smart the way he went around the golf course. >> charlie: that's right. i think he managed a golf course as good as anybody ever has. >> charlie: is that right? yeah. but i think that to argue that, on the other hand to argue like some do -- >> charlie: that the equipment is better -- >> the equipment is better and, you know, i think there is more competition for the guys today. when you've got 144 guys teeing it up, all of whom had the capability to shoot four rounds and win the golf tournament, that's a lot of competition. if you go back 40 years, there weren't -- there were 25, 30 guys winning and just wasn't as much competition. so i think from a competitive standpoint, but i think jack
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winning tournaments, sure. jack plays well now whenever he goes out. he can play. >> charlie: it's an interesting sport because you're playing the course. it's you versus the course. >> i thought it was interesting this year at augusta that two or three of the first-time players, jonas blake said it, i think a couple of the other young guys who had not played in a tournament there before, commented that want they learned a lot that week, that they learned, well, they thought they were supposed to hit it over here, they hit it over here and it didn't work out. it was interesting to me that here are guys who study these players all the way and you think they'd know by watching jack or tiger exactly where to hit it, but until you're on the property and you try a shot here or there, you don't get it. >> charlie: it's not just hitting or not hitting it.
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>> it's a fabulous game that challenges all of us. >> charlie: there are some who say nine holes is enough, thank you very much. >> no, we'll never move away from 18 holes. but for the recreational player to make nine holes mean something. we finished the legends on a par 3 course three weeks ago and the reason we did it is to get the word out that par 3 golf and 9 hole golf is great, it's real golf. a lot of people don't know if you are on a usga happened cap, double the score. i played alternate shot in scotland two weeks ago, two hours and 20 minutes of fabulous experience, and we got to figure out a way how to get foursome's
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over here. >> charlie: whoever had the shot the most distance, you would hit that shot -- >> no, you and i are partners. we designate which one is going to tee off, one, three, five, seven, nine, and you tee off and we hit alternately. but we're playing two other guys. one and myself will tee off on the first. while we're going there, you're going down the fairaway. by the time we get to the ball, you've already hit the second shot, and you play fast, so it's great. so things like that, we need to incorporate into the game. >> charlie: or play the way president bush 41 used to play. >> i played with him several times. i thought it was an aerobickingic experience, like sprints. >> charlie: thanks for coming. thanks for having me and your interest in the game. >> charlie: thank you for joining us. see you next time. >> charlie: visit us online at
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