>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with josh tyrangiel and paul ford. they take the entire issue of bloomberg businessweek magazine to explain to us why writing code for computers is so important. >> i actually think that there's the great swath of the white collar world right now is in a similarssimilar position to me where used to be software was something they'd engage in at home on their computer. now no matter what business you're in, you're surround bid software, so theware you use or are making for your customers. if you don't understand it, you're going to get left behind. >> rose: we conclude with al hunt on the story a conversation with presidential candidate bernie sanders. >> i think the american people are very disillusioned with

establishment, economics and politics working longer hours for lower wages seeing 99% of all income going to the top 1%, go desk levels of wealth inequality in this country people are worried about their kids. they understand we're the only country on earth without a national health program. they see koch brothers and people buying elections. people want change. >> rose: all about writing code for computers and a presidential candidate interviewed by al hunt, when we continue. >> 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. >> rose: everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer, because it teachous to think. that's what steve jobs said in 1995. today, there are an estimated 18 million people who code either professionally or as a hobby. but for the rest of us, computers are opaque, even as they power everything from our cars to our coffeemakers, many of us understand little about how they work. this week the editors of ben gurion magazine hope to change that. their cover is essay on code, explaining the workics of computers, apps and software and looking at the lives to have the programmers who build them. at 30,000 words, the essay takes up the entire issue of bloomberg businessweek. it is the longest article the magazine ever ran. joining me is josh tyrangiel,

the editor of bloomberg businessweek, and paul ford, journalist and programmer and the author of this piece. welcome. great to have you, my friend. great to have you back. >> thank you. >> rose: tell me how this came about. >> it came back through ignorance and a lunch, which is how many things come about. >> rose: right. i had been working on the web for about 12 years and to be charitable, i understood about 50% of what's going on in the software meetings when you talk about how to build a web site, what the architecture, is and i'm trying my best to follow it but it's hard. i come from a liberal arts background, so i find myself faking a lot, and that's not a great place to be. i mean, i still hope to have many decades left in my career, knowing that something that's so important is something i'm just barely getting by on is not a great place to be. so paul is a unicorn in our business in the sense that he is -- >> rose: a unicorn.

he is! >> rose: he doesn't look like one. >> he is. he's a great writer, beautiful writer, a funny writer and a programmer. this started around a couple of conversations. the first is about twitter and paul did a great cover on how complicated twitter is behind the scenes got a terrific reaction. i said, paul, we should do something on code. >> and this began to raise the stakes. i gave him 5,000 words and he said give me more and we landed it at 38,000 words, sort of almost a book. >> rose: yeah, so is this a book? >> it's awfully close. >> rose: yes, it is. and the reason we kept escalating is the fact it's complicated. one of the mistakes people have made with dealing with software and coding is to find one metaphor and hope it sticks. now that software is in your pocket, in your house in front of you every day, you know, imagine how socially acceptable

about software. imagine if that were medicine. take a pill! i don't know! >> rose: the george bernard quote about the laity. >> every trade is a conspiracy against the laity and coding is abselyolut -- and that's part of what we want to do is the anthropology, is who are these people, and paul can speak to that. >> rose: let me establish this point -- they are the people, if they don't run the world, they run the things that run the world. >> that's very true. i think what's happening is when people undertake to teach other people how to code, they teach them to make something move around on screen or a very simple thing, then try to go back for more to learn how things work and they get lost, because it's a hiewrnlg world. if you google around and try to find out how to solve a problem you will get lost in a moment. we're trying to do an

anthropological guide for a person who finds himself thrust into the world and wants to make sense of how the technology works together. >> rose: is this too simple in that what computers do in terms of mathematics is not that complicated. what they do is do it so fast that you can solve amazing problems. >> that is exactly right. and that's -- the reason you can move windows around on screen or watch a movie on your computer is because they're incredibly quick but they're really just flipping switches billions of times a second. so being able to manipulate time like that is what's given us this enormous industry. >> rose: who is this article aimed at? >> as you know, so much of what we do is aimed at me because -- >> rose: this program is about my curiosity. >> yes, and the magazine is to some degree about mine. but i actually through i think a great swath of the white-collar world is in a similar position to me. used to be software is something

they'd engage in at home on their computer. now no matter what business you're in, an accountant, small business person, you are surround bid software, software you use or are making for your customers. if you don't understand it, it's hard to get around. we're at a tipping point. you will be left behind. >> rose: if you don't understand it, you will be left behind. >> absolutely. >> rose: if jobs understood it, did he program it? >> he could write enough. he understood especially how it was working in the '70s when he was just getting started. he programmed a little bit at atari, actually, but as his career went on he continued to go levels and levels up and hired people to build these giant abstraction force him for other developers. >> one thing i think paul does well in the piece and fascinating about the anthropology is we think once a coder, always a coder. we were talking about why are so many programmers angry?

it gets to a fundamental issue because coding is not a synnacer, language and knowledge changes. your skills are a vapor. >> it's a nerve racking industry. you will go away a few months working on a project and all the systems changed just a little bit. six months is a good window. 18 months, it's a whole new set of languages and paradigms you need to pay attention to. >> rose: so what was the attraction for you way back when? >> i'm a funny hybrid. my father was a creative writing professor but enjoyed commodore pet computer when i was about six years old. >> rose: i remember commodore. commodore because wonderful company. he pointed to the patton and said programming is a little like poetry, you're trying to express as much as possible in as little space and as efficiently as you can. that stuck in my brain and i have been playing with it ever since. the idea that i might do one or the other, write or program, was

always a part of my life, and also a source of economic stability for a writer. >> rose: did you have any sense that i realized readers this is good for you, this is good medicine, but i don't think you're going to like it? >> no, i actually think that it's funny. i mean, look, we were talking about this -- >> rose: 8,000 words is a lot. 8,000 words is a lot. we do not shy away from excerpting lines of code in the piece. it's a serious piece. >> rose: it's a defining piece. >> it's a defining piece. that's what we're out to do. if you're going to learn and take the focus and, one time try to catch up try to get ahead, that's what we're here to try and do is to make that easy for you. ly say look, i joked with paul, we put lines of code in, in part, to show how serious we are. i sort of treat them like the names in the brothers -- (laughter)

you're in russia you don't always need to know which cousin is talking to whom. that's vawfnlt the people who are here to parse it, that's a sign of our seriousness in engaging in the top level. >> rose: how do you define code? >> there are many ways to define it but the way we define it is a set of instructions, usually, in a file and a computer takes the instructions, breaks them into tiny pieces kind of makes sense of them and turns that into code that the computer can execute. so code is what you write when you want to make an iphone app, code is what you write when you want to make a dynamic web site or when you want to create an online catalog. >> rose: has it changed significantly, as i would assume technology is moving at such a fast rate in 45 years? >> so the underlying systems get faster and faster, but the basic structure of the world of computer science is similar to how it was back then. >> rose: is it similar to what alan touring did way back when?

>> the level he was working at he is continually invoked because the turing machine is abstract that defiance any kind of computer, which makes him amazing. he pulled the idea of computation almost out of the eithertheether and said this is how we define this and what it is and not. there is a continuous thread from him to now. what's changed is computers are so powerful and can do so much more. there is some people in the industry. there are cultures, systems you might use or download from apple or microsoft, ways of organizing your time to get the software written, that changes rapidly. >> rose: how powerful is this? very powerful. that's the -- the rumor in the '80s could not have held a

computer that powerful. >> rose: a room could not have held something as powerful as this in the '80s. >> that's a tremendous piece of machinery in your pocket. >> rose: tell me the difference between java and html. >> paul can. i can do that with tremendous fluency, but that's sort of why this conversation started. why do people choose different languages. >> html is what you use to make a web page -- this is to describe, a headline a paragraph. so the web is fundamentally in the markup tags around the content. java is a straight-up programming language. you sit down you write code, you write instructions and it all compiles together. there's lots of languages like this. what makes java very interesting, one, it's very popular in the enterprise. it is a big language for building big systems.

>> rose: came from microsystems, didn't it? >> and well aligned with the goals of oracle. but what makes java so powerful is it has an enormous at of preexisting well organized code. >> rose: help me. a language -- java, html or whatever it might be, there are 1700 coding languages -- >> that's just the beginning. >> rose: okay, the beginning. what is a language? that's what i want to ask. >> it's really just a set of instructions. >> rose: that's what it is? yeah. it's guidelines. if you do these things and you do them in the way that we specify, we'll translate this into machine code and it will run on the computer. so apple is very big on two languages. objective c and swift if you learn the rules of those languages -- >> rose: you could build an app for apple? >> absolutely. nd there are lots of

language systems like we have renaissance and the romantic languages, some languages are built out of others with unique flourishes designed for a specific task. there are elements in which your own linguistic system can be applied swiftly to another task. >> rose: take me through the process. we're sitting here where the two of you -- actually one and a half code writers to use your own words -- >> yeah. >> rose: -- we want to write a new app for apple. >> first you go to apple and download an environment called x code. it's two gigs, half a d.v.d.'s worth of code you felt open that up and start to actually write code inside of there. you might actually drag a button and put it into a grid so that you start of wire up where the buttons are in your app, then you start to write code as to

what happens when someone clicks the button and all the pieces fit together but the actual process of testing the app there's a button that looks like a play button on a cassette machine you hit that, brings the code together, compiles it into machine language, runs the app and you can play with and test it there. you go back and repeat the process very likely a hundred or a thousand times. >> rose: and that's true with android where they're talking about apple or android. >> especially the big companies they deliver software development kits and give you a lot of the library and systems you need to make things look at behave a certain way. that the why on the iphone so many of the apps look and feel and have the same topography because apple defiance the rules and how they work. >> rose: what's the difference between sprints and standups and scrums? >> depends on which group of developers and project managers you're talking to because part

of my confusion is i'd go to meetings about different construction of web sites and -- >> rose: they were talking like a different language. >> i thought they were just torturing me but different sets of people have different sets of definitions for these kind of things. >> what you're talking about are different aspects of what comes under the agile methodology of software development, a set of principles and rules. standups mean we're all going to literally stand up and have a meeting at a given time as short as possible, and then there are rules for how the stand upped can be done. the idea is to force all these various programmers to work together in all their various pieces of code to work together so that you don't end up in these situations where you come in every morning and things are broken. so it's this continual form of communication. >> rose: this article says that the greatest commercial insight of the tech industry that if you can control

computing environment, you can move markets. >> yeah. >> rose: how does that play? think about what apple is today versus 15 years ago, right, and they just had the worldwide developer conference and unveiled a whole new set of protocols, all of which are designed to get people building things within the apple architecture. it's a very popular and well defined architecture. the more you build within that architecture the more you're attracting commerce, so i decide my app is going to be built on the apple infrastructure even though apple is smaller than android. if you're making things for people to interact with on the apple universe on my platform that ensure my indispensability to the customer. some of the smartest people in the world are running these companies and know a crowd attracts a crowd. that's why they put so much energy into building this new stk. it is to the entire generation

what release of the white album was to a different generation. it's a chance of expression, you can see the value. it's a big deal. >> it's possibility, right? you have x code at home and apple says hey you're going to be able to do these 150 new things. you're going to be able to access the watch in new ways, listen directly to the heart beats and so on, and people take that and go away and think what can i do? what can i create with that? >> rose: i go to the business schools at harvard, stanford et cetera across the country and find business school graduates, who those people coming out to become coders? >> it's too late, really. (laughter) >> rose: oh, but it's not too late for me. >> but you're unique, charlie. but it is like suzuki method or language skills. your brain is so pliable at a certain age that, in your late 20s and early 30s most people are actually

transitioning out of coding by that moment. >> rose: to what? to project management executive level jobs. you know, i think what we're trying to get to is for those students who are now heading out to the valley to try to run the businesses, they really need to understand not just who these people are who are making the thing that they're sell bug how they think. >> rose: i also communicate what you want and need to the coders. >> what you want and need, what's possible. and when someone says why something can't be done, there's no greater frustration. grau to your lawyer and your lawyer says, charlie, you can't do it that way and you feel like slamming the table and want to know why. obviously, there's reason, there is scholarship in the law. we're trying to open the window so that when somebody says, jeez, the code doesn't play that way, you can't just reach and get an off the shelf solution to this, you understand what that means. >> rose: and you can understand why. >> frankly, you can call the bluff sometimes. >> and you really can always

learn. there are people who are truly prodigies, but i didn't start coding seriously till my 20s and i've never been a great programmer. i talk about that in the piece. but i've always been able to do enough to get my own work done, to build things for people, and so on. so there are opportunities to pick it up. it takes some focus. >> rose: is there a common denominator among the best and most brilliant coders? >> you know, it's a kind of mathematical genius. i think for the deepest thinkers are very very deep mathematical thinkers, and if you're getting a piece in computer science at stanford you are a brilliant mathematician. >> i love in this piece where we talk about and address the sort of mid-level executive directly in a very funny way and just say those genius coders, they're not coming to work at your crappy company for the same reason that phil jackson is not coming to coach your basketball team. we forget because we interact

with google all the time. we think we'll just get one of those guys to come over -- no, these are rare, incredible high level. >> rose: people in silicon valley are paid to hire them away. >> that's why it's so expensive. >> rose: expensive because i want a piece of the action. >> and kept happy. some just want to go backpacking for six months and call in for a week. >> rose: and if you're good that's okay. >> mm-hmm. it's a tough market so they can set the skill level. some of what we've seen, too is there has been an inordinate sense of entitlement among some of the bad actors. >> rose: why are they so angry? they should be happy. >> imagine you're an encoder you've spent all this time becoming great in interviewing in the english language, and tomorrow we tell you charlie it's all about portuguese. you're constantly afraid. >> rose: i don't think i could learn portuguese.

>> you have to learn fast. 've got a week. (laughter) he speaks portuguese now. >> imagine the amount of focus it makes to build a set of instructions at work and stack them up is enormous, because one misplaced semicolin in the code, everything crashes down. so this is a very high-stress environment. >> rose: that's why they're angry. >> because of the stress because there's a ton of competition. >> rose: someone's gaining on you. >> someone's always gaining on you. and because the thing you think you know is changing still rapidly. there's that but that doesn't excuse some of the other things, including what we point out which is the sexism, the lack of diversity in the profession, these are real issues. >> rose: i've become enormously curious about the dramatic velocity of change in medicine, understanding cancer understanding the brain all those kinds of issues. the technology there is mind blowing. >> yes software and hardware

has utterly changed that industry in every way. this is one of the points in the piece is that code happens everywhere. it's not just people writing in microsoft word or apple. there's an unbelievable number of companies, a huge amount of work in medical services and you know, just the screen that works with the cat scan machine takes a team of, you know, 20 or 30, just to make that part work. >> rose: this always comes up in any conversation today about silicon vale. why so few women when steve jobs, as you guys point out had in an ridgel in photo some of the most important people around him. >> used to be many more. it became a masculine culture and women were repeatedly pushed out over the years. >> rose: pushed out? it really is that simple. if you talk to women who were programmers ten, twenty years ago, they just describe environments in which they felt -- >> rose: they weren't allowed in the room? >> they felt incredibly uncomfortable all the time. they were pa trough patronized.

they came in late because it wasn't a very feminine thing the do. >> rose: and sexual harassment. >> both. >> rose: somebody was just not -- >> i think this is a case of people drinking their own kool-aid as well. you're told you're a genius so all sorts of bad behavior gets tolerated and it's a results-based business like so many businesses but you're right, there are fewer women in technology executive positions than 20 years ago. >> rose: are there fewer women coming out of computer science graduate schools? >> far worse. >> rose: far worse. so they're not even attracted to go to graduate schools. >> no, it's less than one in five. >> rose: 20%. yeah, and that's as of a year or so ago. it's bad. >> obviously from a humanistic standpoint, it's terrible. this is also a terrible time for the business itself. there are few enough coders few enough top-level coders as it is. the businesses are struggling to attract great programming talent and we've eliminated half the

population. these are cultural products. it requires diversity in order to function for everyone. , so you know, yesterday i think it came out apple is finally going to support men menstruation in its health policies. >> rose: it's tim cook saying what do we want to represent in terms of what kind of company we want to be. >> there are a lot of people who through shaming have been forced to stand on stages and say yes we recognize we have a problem. the issue is it's a pipeline. to really become top level with all sorts of expertise you're talking about eight, ten, 12 years of development. we're not going to see a significant turnaround in this for at least another five years and then we can start grading to see who's serious. >> rose: what do you want

people to come out with this? in other words they make an attempt to read this -- >> and hopefully succeed. >> rose: yes yesy, e. what i really want them to get get the is this is a world that's ripe all around them but they have to make a consistent insnrement understanding it. parts of it are mystifying, no doubt, but that a significant portion of it is really quite understandable and they should feel empowered to explore it, to ask questions and to treat it as just as odd a profession as anything else. >> rose: and if you hang in there and give yourself enough time to develop some traction? >> yeah, and i would go further and say, look, you already know how to manipulate software. you're doing it all day. you have opinions about it. certain software works better than other software. just as you would watch a ballet and want to know, what was that move? you should look at something on your iphone and say okay, how did they do that? >> there is tremendous pleasure in that. it's fun to see how it works. it takes time and effort. >> rose: i can see it in you.

i love it. i like knowing how things got there. >> rose: thank you, paul. thank you. >> rose: thank you josh. back in a moment. stay with us. >> hunt: bernie sanders is the junior senator from vermont a socialist and independent, he caucuses with the democrats. a mayor of berlgton vermont and served 16 years in the house of representatives before winning election to the united states senate in 2006. this spring he announced cannedcy for the democratic presidential nomination calling for a massive redistribution of income to address inequalities, a crash effort on climate change and an end to the influence of special interest money in politics. he had been considered a challenger to the formidable frontrunner hillary clinton but is drawing huge crowds in new hampshire and iowa and last weekend came in a close second to ms. clinton in a straw poll at the wisconsin democratic state convention. bernie sanders, thank you for

joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: has this reaction the last couple of weeks the crowds, the wisconsin straw poll, that has that changed your thinking calculation that, hey i may win this thing? >> that's what i thought from the beginning. we're in this race to win. >> hunt: you think you can? i do. the american people are disillusioned. they're working longer for lower wages, they see 99% of income going to the top 1%. mass wealth inequality in the country. people are worried about their kids. they understand we're the only country on earth without a national health program. they look in the politics, they see koch brothers and other billionaires buying elections. people want real change. >> hunt: let me stay on politics for a second. you said you will win the new hampshire primary. do you think you will win iowa too? >> look, we're doing very well. there's no question but that today hillary clinton is clearly

a far and away the leader in the polls, but i think we have the momentum, and if you look at the polls, we're closing that gap a little bit. so i think if we stay on message, if we continue our organizing efforts for our web site, berniesanders.com, if we get around the states we'll run a very grassroots campaign. in iowa this week, five town meetings. that's what we do in new hampshire. i think that's what people want to see. if we continue, we have a good shot in both states. >> hunt: you're as confident in iowa as new hampshire. >> i'm not making predictions. we have a long way to go. we are the underdog. we'll be greatly outspent. secretary clinton has a formidable infrastructure but i feel good about it. >> hunt: some analysts say yes, you will do well in the states you mentioned they have issue-oriented white liberals, but when it moves to states with lots of african-americans and latinos, you will get clobbered

by hillary clinton. >> i don't think so. i come from a state with a small african-american population and a very small latino population, that's simply the truth, but i think the message we have, whether the need to create millions of decent paying jobs, look, i was literally on the floor yesterday talking about an horrendous national tragedy almost nobody is talking about and that is real unemployment for young african-americans in this country. do you know what it is? including those people who have given up looking for work almost 50%. a black male baby if we don't change the system, born today, has a 50% chance of ending up in jail. this sun speakable tragedy. john conyers and i have introduced a massive jobs program for young people around the country. i think the african-american and hispanic community will take note what we've done over the years and will propose in the

campaign. >> hunt: the other candidate is martin o'malley. he is against the trans-pacific trade pact, is attacking wall street, wants to tax the rich more. what's the difference between bernie sanders and martin o'malley. >> i met martin o'malley once in my life, he hosted the democratic senate, seemed to be a very nice guy. all i know is that, for the last 30 years and more, i have taken on every element of the establishment, okay. when i was mayor of the city of burlington, we transformed that city into one of the most livable cities of america. i invite everybody to come to vermont, burlington. we'll take them all on. we'll take on wall street and am holding for the breakup of the major financial -- >> hunt: and that's different than martin o'malley. >> people will judge. i'm not here to criticize

mr. o'malley. >> rose: but she an alternative. >> he'll present himself. >> rose: you differentiate yourself from secretary clinton. >> i know what i have done, i have been a liter in take on bigs money. i was the first american in congress to take americans over the canadian border to find cheaper prescription drugs. i have led the defending social security caucus to protect people from cuts in social security and believe in expanding social security. i'm glad mr. o'malley is against the tpt. i've bid against every trade agreement since i have been in congress. i'm helping to lead the effort under tpt. >> hunt: you mentioned big money several times and said you're going to get outspent, no super pacs for bernie sanders but you're doing well on small donors. give us an estimate on what -- >> here's the story. this is a huge issue. you asked why people are coming out to our meetings in large numbers.

there's profound disgust over the citizens united supreme court 5-4 decision which says to the koch brothers and other billionaires they can essentially buy elections and buy candidates, and very few people i know, including a lot of conservatives, think this is what american democracy is about. this is oligarchy and we have to be honest about it and the media has to be honest. it's not the way it is, billionaires shouldn't be able to buy elections. needless to say i'm not going to get a lot of support from billionaires. i don't want their support i don't need their support and i don't have a super pac. but to answer your question since we have been in this race all of five weeks, i think we have gotten close -- well, certainly over 150000 individual donations, and you know what they average? $40 apiece. now, the question is -- >> hunt: so quick math working for bloomberg, means you've raised more than $6 million already. >> yes. >> hunt: will you to 10- by

june 30? >> i think we will. this is the more important point. given citizens united supreme court decision, can any candidate representing the working class the middle class who is prepared to take on billionaires, can you win elections? can you win elections or is this country's political system so corrupt that it is only people holding the big money that can win? >> hunt: the only way to change that would appear to be a constitutional amendment and gosh, it's been, what, 25 years since we amended the constitution. >> this is a very difficult issue. what we could do certainly ifco sponsored legislation for a constitutional amendment. i believe right now what we can do is pass disclosure legislation which means if the koch brothers or any other billionaire wants to put. >> hunt: no mar dart money. yes and their faces will have to be on those ads. thirdly, if you want a dynamic democracy, you have to move to public funding of elections. this is a hugely important issue

impacting every other issue in america. >> hunt: what's the sanders doctrine on when to commit american military force? >> on this one i'm pretty conservative, i'll tell you that. a few weeks after i was elected to the congress in 1991, i cast a very difficult vote against thest gulf war when saddam hussein had invaded kuwait, and i helped lead the opposition to the war in iraq, because i just did not trust or believe what bush and cheney and don rumsfeld were saying. i believe i turned out to be right and if you look on youtube, much of what i said turned out to be true. so i'm pretty conservative. i think times there are obviously times when you go to war. >> hunt: is there criteria. i don't think it's based on every single instance of what's happening. >> hunt: president obama just sent 450 advisors to iraq for the fight against islamic state.

you said we have to lead the effort to defeat the islamic state. >> i said the muslim nations themselves in the area have got to be the leaders. you're luking at saudi arabia with the third largest military budget in the world, far more powerful than i.s.i.s., why aren't their troops on the ground? >> hunt: do you support what the president did this week? >> i want to think about it. i haven't reached a conclusion yet. but the president has been trying to thread a needle here walking the tight line. he does not want combat troops in that region, nor do i. on the other hand, he wants to play a supportive role. where the line is drawn,ip not sure. >> you're not sure whether he did the right thing or not this week? >> i don't know enough about it at this particular moment to give you a definitive answer. >> hunt: let's talk about another problem area which is russia and putin and you've said he's a bully and we have to stand up to him. but since he's intervened in ukraine and enacted tough sanctions

don't seem to have effect, is there a time you would escalate actions against putin. >> going to war? >> hunt: if he went into moldova or georgia, what would we do? >> i would hope this country learned a lesson from afghanistan and iraq. we were told these would be easy wars, our troops will come home. wars have consequences you cannot predict. so going to war against russia, no, you will do everything you possibly can to prevent that. i support what the president is trying to do in iran. i must tell you i get a little nervous when i hear some of my republican colleagues talking about sending troops here, sending troops there. you know, there comes a time when you learn a lesson that war is a last resort. what happened in iraq is a total disaster unintended consequences, massive destabilization. so if i hear even talk about going to war against russia

makes me very nervous. >> hunt: or sending military assistance. >> case by case, but talk of war is very dangerous, i don't think like that. >> hunt: let's talk about climate change. >> that's the war i support. >> hunt: pope francis is going to issue a sweeping doctrine on climate change is a moral issue a week from today it's an issue that's stalled in america basically and legislatively. do you think the pope's declaration will have an impact? >> i think i've talked more about the pope on the floor of the senate and facebook than any other member of congress. i think this pope is doing an extraordinary job. you think my views are progressive on economic issues? i don't come anywhere close. >> hunt: he's a real socialist. >> he is in terms of understanding the power of money, the gull vulgarity of money. hi used the word dispossessed,

pushed assayed, for the wok people and disenfranchised. this is a moral issue. let's not be nice guys. stalled? we're not stalled. koch brothers and big energy are telling the republican party if they come out and recognize the reality of climate change, if they attempt to do something about it, they won't get campaign funds. that's what it's about. let's be honest about it. you have the embarrassing situation of the major controlling party that controls the house and senate is rejecting what the overwhelming majority of scientists are saying, the pope and everybody is saying and republicans are saying we don't know if it's real. it's real, causing devastating problems, we have to lead the world in transforming the energy system whether the koch brothers like it or not. >> hunt: what do your instinct tell you that the impact if any of the pope's declaration next week? >> i think it's really possible. certainly among the hundreds of millions of peels around the

world who are catholics, but he has a statured over world and that are resonate. young people in the country are saying to the republicans are you nuts? of course climate change is real and we have to transform energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy and energy efficiency. >> hunt: on economics you call really for a massive redistribution of income from the very wealthy who made out very well in recent years to the middle class and as i read your web site and others in your speeches, chiefly through tax code, you want to close out the loophole such as that that allows people to evade tax bys going to the cayman islands burks what about rates? the top rate is 39-6 now. would you go over 50? >> i promise you i don't like to give policy off the too of my head. we are working now on a comprehensive tax package which i suspect will for the top marginal rates go over 50%. but here's the story you talk

about correctly my desire to see redistribution of wealth, and do you know why i believe that's important? because in the last 30 years, there has been a massive many trillions of dollars, being redistributed from the middle class to the top one tenth of one percent. and i think in a time when the middle class is disappearing, when you have millions of families who have virtually nothing in the bank they don't know how they're going to retire, people are working for 8 bucks an hour, i say it is time to redistribute money from working families in this country from the top one tenth of one percent and tax policies is one way. >> hunt: what are your instincts about corporate tax rate? should that rate also be increased. >> yeah. if you look at the collective percentage of revenue coming in from corporations today, it is significantly lower than it was

in the 1950s. i think about 10% today. buzz much, much higher then. >> hunt: that can't be changed by eliminating loopholes. >> loopholes are very important. >> hunt: but the rate has to be increased? >> i believe it does. >> hunt: you've spoken about the billionaire class and the influence they have and some of, in your view, the insidious influence they have. are there good billionaires? warren buffet -- do you think -- >> of course i'm sure there are good, decent human beings who have a whole lot of money. this is not an attack on the individual. it is an attack on a system which allows today a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires while the middle class is becoming poorer and poorer and which allows the billionaires to play a very ugly role in our campaign finance system such that they are now being able to buy elections. so somebody says to me, aren't

there liberal billionaires? there are. but you know what? i don't think any billionaires liberal, conservative moderate should be the dominating force in a political campaign. i come from a small state vermont. we have town meetings. do you know what they're about? one person one vote. you raise your hand on the school budget. that's my understanding of democracy. one person, one vote. not billionaires, no matter what the politics, buying elections. >> hunt: you also would like to increase the size and clout of labor unions in america? what's the best twie do nat? >> one way you do it is give the millions of working people in this country who want the opportunity to join the trade union to be able to do to and right now employers using many tricks to prevent that from happening. so i believe in supported legislation which says that a 50% plus one in an agency sign a card saying they want to belong to a union, they should belong

to a union. this is policy we had in the united states. it exists in other countries. if we give workers a chance, they will join. >> hunt: would you repeal the right to work section of hartley. >> i suspect i would. >> hunt: you were opposed to the ban on semi-automatic weapons when you first ran. >> no. >> hunt: in your '90 campaign. i'm opposed to the brady bill. >> hunt: but also to the ban on semi-automatic weapons, too. >> no. >> hunt: but you voted against the brady bill. >>bill. no. >> hunt: and voted for making gunmakers liability for actions. why are you different. >> i come from the a gun control state of vermont and we have one of the lower crime rates. that's the state i represent. so i think the people of vermont, and so i voted to ban certain types of assault weapons, i did.

in fact, you know what my voting grade i received from the nra? d minor is my lifetime voting record. >> you're not a pro gun zealot? no, but what we understand is that in states like vermont, guns are associated with hunting, with antique gun shows with target shooting. i understand that in los angeles and detroit and chicago guns are a very different thing. >> hunt: senator you want to break up the big banks so there's none too big to fail. >> that's correct. >>.>> hunt: can you quantify that. >> top six. of the top six, they have assets today of somewhere around $10 trillion about 60% of the gdp -- the equivalent of 60% of the gdp of america. they issue a huge amount of the credit cards in this country and the mortgages in this country and i think, very simply, that if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. >> hunt: is there a number to

put on that? is there assets? >> i don't know if i have an exact number in my head but certainly among the major six i would break them up. by the way al, if teddy roosevelt were alive today he would be doing the same thing. not a very radical idea. >> hunt: you've raised questions about hillary clinton and banks and wall street, but doesn'tt most of that date back to when her husband was president and she was an elected official? is there anything she's done more recently that makes you worried if she's a captive of wall street? >> i've known hillary clinton 25 years, i have a lot of respect for her and i intent to run this campaign not through personal attacks but on issues and hillary clinton and i disagree on a number of issues. the issue in the forefront right now is this trans-pacific partnership. i have helped lead the effort against that. i have been in opposition to all of these terrible trade agreements that have cost us millions of jobs. al, i frankly don't understand how you could be a major candidate for president of the

united states, hillary clinton or anybody else, and not have an opinion on the issue. you can be for it or against it. >> hunt: let me tell you she you, martin o'malley and hillary clinton appeared before the ask me executive board this past week, i think separately, and they asked all of you about it and i am told by very reliable sources that what hillary clinton responded was we don't know the details so i can't take a position until i know what the details are. >> first of all, there is some truth to that and that talks to why you should vote against it. if a major major bill which deals with 40% of the world's economy is coming toward the united states congress and members of congress don't know what's in it, do you think that might be a business to vote against it? >> hunt: you voted on fast-track. >> if that's passed the tpt will get passed. >> hunt: is her answer a copout in your view?

>> yes. the president is making a terrible mistake, he is for it. elizabeth warren, a majority of the democrats are against it every union, most of the environmental groups are against it. all right, i can respect if hillary clinton wants to come out for it come out for it. if you're against it, come out against it. but i think this is an issue you have to speak out on. >> hunt: let me go back to wall street and both you and hillary clinton, what is your sense of her view on banks and on wall street? you've watched her, you served with her in the senate, you listened carefully to what she said. >> hard to say. i mean, i think the issue is do you feel comfortable with the kind of power that wall street has economically and politically? i do not. that's why i want to break up the banks and i brought forth a lot of legislation to curb the outrageously high interest rates. hillaryhillary clinton, no great secret received a lot of money from wall street. we'll see what her views are. but i've not seen her at this

point, at least, speaking out in a way that i i think the american people want our candidates to be speaking out. >> hunt: and what are some of those specifics that you would like to see her speaking out? >> first of all, at the very least, spiegel has to be reestablished. i'm not blaming her for her husband, but everybody was saying this is so great we'll deregulate wall street. check out what i said, i did not think it was great. i led the opposition. sadly, much of what i predicted came to be true. in terms of iraq, hillary clinton voted for the war in iraq. i voted against the war in iraq. i think my vote turned out to be the right vote in. terms of the u.s.a. patriot act hillary clinton voted for it, i voted against the patriot act. i think my view is the right view because i think we can combat terrorism without undermining the constitution and our privacy rights.

on climate change, the key issue that's come up was the keystone pipeline which called for the excavation and transportation of some of the dirtiest oil in this world from canada to the gulf coast. i voted and helped lead the effort against it. what's hillary clinton's position on it? >> hunt: do you worry she's not sufficiently skeptical of the power of wall street? >> yeah, i think that's a fair statement. >> hunt: do you do you worry she's too interventionist prone in foreign affairs? >> i mean, i think the vote to go to war in iraq, which i think she has acknowledged, was a poor vote. maybe suggests that she wasn't as thoughtful as she should be in looking at the evidence. i myself did not believe what cheney was saying what don rumsfeld was saying what bush was saying. i did not believe that we had to invade that country. i certainly didn't believe it would be a quick and simple war.

she came to a different decision. >> hunt: do you believe what donald rumsfeld said the other day that maybe we shouldn't have occupied iraq? >> don't get me going. i was the chairman of the veterans committee. i talked to many veterans who came home severely wounded in the war. 500,000 came home with tbi and ptsd. we lost 6700 troops helped destabilize the region. i remember like yesterday rumsfeld and cheney telling us how easy it would be and what a tragedy that war was. >> hunt: you mentioned her vote on iraq. how about libya, she was a prime advocate of intervening in libya in 2010 and '11. was that wrong? >> i don't know enough to give you a definitive answer. >> hunt: if hillary clinton were to be present during the campaign, too, no one she listens to more than bill clinton.

is that good or bad? >> bill clinton is a very smart guy. >> hunt: you served eight years in the congress when he was president. is his counsel something you like or not like? >> bill clinton is clearly a very smart articulate guy and did many good things as president of the united states but he did many bad things as well, and if you remember, under the clinton administration, we moved forward on nafta the beginning of a disastrous set of trade policies which cost us millions of jobs, bill clinton was wrong. we've moved forward under bill clinton and robert ruben's leadership, secretary of treasury, to deregulate wall street so we could be more competitive in the global economy, blah, blah, blah, blah, that was a terrible disaster which are led, in my view, to the wall street crash and that horrendous impact it had on the economy. so i think there's a lot to be

said. clinton did a lot of good things but made very serious mistakes. >> ttp not withstanding, do you consider obama more aggressive than bill clinton? >> yes. >> hunt: and if hillary clinton happened to upset you and become the democratic nominee, apart from trairksd what are a couple of issues she should take that could reassure or clarify the sanders' base? >> well, it's not just a question of this issue or that issue. it's a question of tone. the the reason that the middle class is disappearing and we have 45 people living in poverty is because for the last 30, 40 years, there has been a very well' planned attack against the middle class. jobs abroad, not raising minimum-wage tax breaks for the

wealthiest people in the country, a variety of attacks on healthcare attacks on social security. what we need today is leadership which says to the american people, you have got to stand up. >> hunt: when critics or columnists like david brooks say, she's running too much of a far left campaign and mobilized as opposed to a persuasion campaign -- >> yeah, at the end of the day this is my view -- and i'm the only candidate that will tell you this -- the power of big money, of wreath corporate america, their lobbyists and campaign contributors i: so great that no president is going to be able to address the real needs of the american middle class unless there is a mass movement of people standing up and saying enough is enough and that, i think distinguishes my campaign from everybody's. i don't think i can do it alone. i can't do it alone. we need a mass movement of people to take on the billionaire class. >> hunt: are you having fun?

i am very gratified. fun is a big word. yes, i'm enjoying. i'm especially gratified at seeing the large crowds we're drawing. 5,000 people in minneapolis large crowds in new hampshire and iowa. i think people are ready for a message that calls for fundamental change in our economics and politics. >> hunt: senator bernie sanders, thank you so much for being with us and thank you for joining us. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for charlie rose is provided by american express. additional funding provided by --

announcer: a kqed television production. man: it's like holy mother of comfort food. kastner: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy. man: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man #2: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.