>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin tonight with sebastian thrun, c.e.o. and co-founder of udacity, previously he founded google x. >> if a human driver makes a mistake in driving, then he or she will learn from it and hopefully never make the mistakes again. in robotic driving, the car learns from it and so will all the other cars on the planet including all the unborn future self-driving cars, and that means, generically, the learning speed of the car outpasses the ability of the human to evolve. so no matter where you are in the evolution, the machines will eventually take over. >> rose: we conclude with al

hunt on the story who talks with the junior republican senator from colorado, goer goer. >> i believe marco rubio will become the next president of the united states. i got tired of answering this question, who do you think will win the nomination, and i will say everybody who understands the problems at the kitchen table and who is positive for the future and they say you're supporting marco rubio and i said, no, i haven't endorsed it's so obvious he is the person who can win and move the country forward. >> rose: sebastian thrun and al hunt with cory gardner next.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: sebastian thrun is here. he's co-founder and c.e.o. of udacity, an online education company. he is among the world's leading experts on robotics and artificial intelligence. he previously ran google x, a research lab that developed the driverless car and google glass. he taught computer science at stanford. last month udacity was valued at $1 billion, making ate unicorn. i am pleased to have sebastian back at the table. >> great to be back. >> rose: udacity, who is it for? >> people who want jobs and people who want to be in demand. we're trying to find a separate pipeline to educate people and get people jobs, and you can guarantee people jobs when they're done. >> rose: how do you do that? we have a lot of companies to work with from google and

engineers and they get a nanodegree which is a complete new kind of certificate. google or amazon or twitter build or content and vouch the content is leading edge, so when they come out, they're really, really strong engineers. >> rose: and this separates you from most online education courses? >> yes, there are a lot of problems and there is innovation and great companies. we focus on online job placement. we promise our students in various nanoprograms, you can get guaranteed job or tuition back. >> rose: and how long does it take. >> it takes typically six months, if you do it part time. if you're full time, it can take as little as two or three months. it's minimum of whatever it takes to get a new skill and most of the problem are projects. we just do things with your

hands, we build a portfolio. >> rose: let me talk about a current topical issue which is encryption. explain to my audience what the debate is between silicon valley and law enforcement. >> there is, of course, when we send messages and browse the web, almost all messages are encrypted which hopefully retains the privacy of the message being sent or accessed. there is a suspicion law enforcement has a back door into encryption and is able to recipher messages. it's unclear how much is being de-- deciphered. >> rose: some people say there are companies that are encrypted

and no back door. apple says, yes, we're encrypted and we can't get in ourselves. we can't do it. >> i think there are many open, important questions today, how much access should government have, and there are a lot of different opinions. i actually believe it's good for our current system to monitor activities and, when something is being found, to proactively prevent bad guys from doing something really bad, but there is an equally strong opinion that says private information is private and ought to stay private is that that's easy to say both, i understand that. but how are we going to work this out in. >> i think it's partly a legal, political issue, partly a washington issue. >> rose: we should make a law? yeah, because congress is paid, so to speak, to make decisions for the best of the people. >> rose: because you and i

know everybody sees both ends, i think. most people understand the need for privacy in this society. on the other hand, we live in a world in which we're worried about the spread of people who wish us ill. >> yeah. >> rose: and we want to, if we can, stop that. >> yes. and i think the future is going to be fundamentally different from the past. it's hard to think of past examples in terms of the future. there is an enormous cybersecurity threat. every year, cybersecurity is different from the previous year, the type of things happening. we haven't seen the top of the iceberg. there are companies that know they have been hacked and those who don't know they have been hacked. >> rose: you're either hacked or don't know it. >> yeah. we also see a time where terrorists are organizing differently from the past and use modern media to connect in different ways. we see unrest in cases like syria. and i think the type of security mechanisms we need in the future

are fundamentally different than the past. >> rose: i want to be careful about this, but this is what i think i read, that the law enforcement in paris has said that some of those terrorists, you know, who made those attacks in paris, killing all those people, used at least two apps that essentially were encrypted. >> yeah. >> rose: they talked about the app and telegram. >> that raises the question to what extent government has access. i think on september 11 which is now a long time ago, the data was available and not being found, and had it been found, it could have prevented the biggest terrorist attack this country ever experienced. i don't think it will be the last one. i think there will be new ones coming and we should be open to this. to me, it aids an important purpose for the country. >> rose: let me talk about artificial intelligence.

i'm doing a profile on our story on "60 minutes" about it. where are we? >> we are really far advanced. we have artificial intelligence systems that can beat and outperform humans in tasks that are much less mundane tasks but that are really highly intellectual tasks. >> rose: like what? for example, driving a car. >> rose: right. the google car now exceeds driving performance in what people can do. flying a plane. today in bad weather commercial pilots have to use auto pilot if available, they can't fly manually anymore if it's too bad. and we see in other areas. i mean, i don't think the step toward having an artificial intelligence lawyer or accountant is that far off. >> rose: because you can digitize all that? >> yes. there is a certain thing called deep learning. deep learning is perhaps the most fascinating work in artificial intelligence.

what it is is a model of the human brain. it's a neuronetwork, which is like our brain, trained with massive amounts of data. the technology itself is about 20 years ago. but 20 years ago we didn't have the data. now we have this amazing amount of data and amazing machines that can have hundreds of billions of -- >> rose: you mean data on everything? >> data on everything. every time you train something, the outcome is bert. i have two students at stanford whom i asked this spring to train a visual recognizer for skin cancer and they found about 100,000 images online that they could license or use and then they trained it to recognize skin cancer. you take a phone out and look at the skin and out comes the prediction. >> rose: they have such a database that they can say, yes, this is it.

>> yes. the computer has the advantage to have all the images. so we tested it. we asked the question, who is the best dermatologist, and they're still beating him in performance. >> rose: what does he say about that? does he say, wow, this is an important development in my field? >> yeah. >> rose: .it means we can bringd expertise dermatology to anybody in the world, even at home. many people with skin cancer don't consult doctors. in terms of a.i., with this amount of data, a machine can see so much more data man a human being. if the learning capability is unlimited, we will surpass human intelligence, and it's predictable to surpass human intelligence. >> rose: what's the time line

on that? >> in driving, this already happened in. driving, for many, many years -- in driving, if a human makes a mistake in driving he or she will learn from it but the rest of humanity will not learn in. probiotic driving, when a car makes a mistake, the car learns from the it and will not make the sakes mistake again and so will all the other cars on the planet including all the unborn future self-driving cars. and that means, generically, the learning speed of the machine, the ability of the machine to evolve outpasses the ability of the human to evolve. no matter where you are in the evolution, the machines will eventually take over. >> rose: and, therefore, should we be frightened or not? >> no, i think we'll find new jobs, new things to do. in the history of technology, we always used technology to

enhance us and give us new you purposes of life. there was a time hundreds of years ago when farming equipment took over, a time when most of us were farmers, and found new jobs that didn't exist back in that day. >> rose: when people like elon musk say it causes them great concern the extent of the development of artificial intelligence and they worry about it, what are they worried about? >> i think that's pessimism. for me, that's lack of imagination to see what could happen next. if we go back 100 years and there is a picture of a tractor and you and i are a farmer and we worry about it because this thing is taking away my job -- i mean, i see it as a great excitement to have machines that are infinitely intelligent. >> rose: who controls the machines? >> i assume the humans will be smart enough to keep control. >> rose: but is that the

ultimate rescue, though? "i assume human beings will keep control of the machines," you have to build that in dornghts you? >> yes. my dishwasher, if i bush the button, it works. if i don't push it it stops working. we build the machines to serve us. >> rose: if the machine develops the ability that you can't stop it, is that a problem? i'm trying to understand why at least so many prominent people in silicon valley want to say be careful, be careful. at the least, they're saying be careful. >> i don't quite see the negative scenario of machines taking over at all. we've had a long history of building amazing machines that replace compoanlts of what we do, like farming equipment, and we get to a point where we can enhance ourselves that hasn't

happened before. to me, i don't know what's going to happen because we don't know what jobs we can do, but i think it will be a better life. >> rose: is robotics and artificial intelligence the same thing because what you're talking about is the capacity to create a machine that can do things? >> yes. roberts are physical and as a result they have different economics. t the underlying key thing in both cases is the software, what makes the machine smart. >> rose: so the masters of the future world are software writers? >> yeah. i think so. at some point, when machines become smart enough, they can write their own software. >> rose: you know what's amazing to me, this may be you -- you're a parent? >> yes. >> rose: how old are you kids? eight years. >> rose: twins? no, just one. >> rose: oh, one eight-year-old. >> yeah. >> rose: have you taught him

to code? >> yes, he's just began coding last year. >> rose: eight years old. seven years old. >> rose: because i was in silicon valley recently and somebody was talking about sending their kids to camp to learn how to code. >> yeah. but coding now is kind of a second language. there is beautiful sites code-ec and others where coding becomes a visual game, instead of typing, you move the blocks around and they interact. >> rose: so you learn -- yeah, it's phenomenal. all the other stuff when i grew up where you had to compile the code and wait 20 minutes is all past. >> rose: are you teaching your child chinese? >> not chinese, no. i would think the language thing will go away. we're close to having speech translation as good as humans. we can go to google translate and talk a form of language.

>> rose: google translates that good now? >> i think they're 99% right now. quite an amazing percent. it's quite amazing. when accuracy surpasses 99% it's magical because almost every word is correct. >> rose: that's amazing. better than me. >> rose: yeah! but you go to anyplace in the world. >> yeah. >> rose: there is someone there and i can say, please tell me what's at the opera tonight, and the person who hears that will hear it in their language. >> it's phenomenal, you say, alexa, read me the news, what's the weather in new york tonight, and you get the answer. and the speech recognition quality is u -- is unbelievably high. as i said before, the google car

learns faster than i can drive and amazon and ecowill learn fast than people can learn. you don't like it yet, wait a year or two. >> rose: amazon ecois -- $180. >> rose: what do you use it it for? >> i love my apple watch. >> rose: why? i love the design. i like activity apps on it, i like reading the news and my text messages on it. >> rose: and you can use it as a phone as well. >> that's correct. >> rose: you think it's successful as a product? >> i don't know the statistics for apple. generally, i think -- >> rose: do you know why i think it's successful? because they have already started the next and the next generation. it's one of the things where it has a certain -- it makes sense and they'll figure out a way. >> the iphone is seven

generations. the first version was very, very thin. >> rose: first in terms of what it could do? >> what it could do. >> rose: right. people had to develop a notion that i really need this. >> right. it's a very visionary company and great quality. >> rose: is there a difference between apple today without steve jobs? steve has been dead four years. the same people that surrounded him, johnny being the first and tim cook second, his hand-picked successor, it's the same company. >> yes. >> rose: how can you make the case that steve jobs can never be replaced and, therefore, we don't have steve jobs but you have everybody who helped steve jobs find his vision.

>> steve jobs was a wonderful person, can't be replaced. i'm really impressed with tim cook's ability to drive this company forward. everybody says he's an operations guy, he has no product vision, and i think he proved the world wrong. it's quite amazing. >> reporter: is that generally the feeling in silicon valley. >> yeah, admiring him and admiring what he's doing. >> rose: and in your view, sort of of and with the smartest people in the valley? >> it's a great privilege to have a few friends that test my i.q., like my friend larry page, an it's humbling to be there to see the sheer intellect and product. i feel fortunate i get the chance to learn. trying to bring to bear what i learn from these leaders into a field called education.

>> rose: you said i have friends with twice my i.q. what are we talking about? you are one of the smartest people in the valley and you're saying larry is twice my i.q.? >> what i really admire -- elon musk is one, ladies and gentlemen of the jury page is one and a few others -- that can think logically about the future in a way tha that isn't bound by tradition. they say today we die of cancer. there is no reason why we should die of cancer tomorrow. elon musk says today we don't go to mars. tomorrow, we go to mars. when you do the math, you say, is it feasible, a lot of stuff is feasible. i believe 99% of things have not been invented yet, and people don't buy it because people don't have imagination to think of the future. but go back to the past. almost everything from this coffee cup to my food to the cameras, only last 50 years.

there is nothing over 150 years that we cherish today and love in terms of our daily life, almost nothing. so let's go another 150 years forward and take into consideration that the speed of invention is going up, i think we'll see flying cars, curing cancer and other things. >> rose: flying cars? yes. >> rose: i know we're close on curing cancer. i've done enough conversations with enough smart people. some of you saw at my conference this summer the leading experience who believe it's within their vision and they base that on what has already been accomplished in the last several years. immunotherapy is just one example of what they're learning and how -- and it's going beyond in terms of what they're doing with t cells and the like. it's going beyond being disease-specific. >> yeah. we look back at today and see the middle ages of medicine. >> rose: we will look back and say this is the middle ages of medicine? >> and it's not just treatment,

it's also detection. so take for example steve jobs died of pancreatic cancer and that cancer is nonsymptomatic which is you might or might not have it, you don't know. when finally a symptom appears, you have bone pain, it's way too late. but if we image people every day at home, we could detect them long before it grows really big. they have technology to find stuff this small in your tissue today. >> rose: here's what else is interesting, is it possible to develop sensors beyond just some visual thing, but smell and hearing and all the other senses that can look at a human being and see if, in fact, they might have some disease that they don't know about? >> i mentioned the example of finding skin cancer. >> rose: right. cameras cost a dollar apiece.

but for example, if i use my microphone on my cell phone and watch my speech patterns, i'm certain confident you could find certain dementia in alzheimer because one of the first things that hams in dementia is your speech pattern changes. i spent about half an hour a day on the phone. why can't my phone tell me just based on my personal speech pattern? that's something they could build tomorrow morning. >> rose: this is all fascinating to me. so you went from google x to udacity. >> yeah. >> rose: what's your next stop? >> everybody asks pethat same question -- asks me that same question. our next step is probably to go i.p.o. i will have 100 million students worldwide. there is a lot of stuff to do in that space. i actually believe the single

most important thing to do is education, because it's the gift that keeps on giving. if you educate something -- if you teach them to fish, they have food for the rest of their life. >> rose: but it's also amazingly powerful in underdeveloped countries. >> yes. >> rose: it's the only ticket. if you go to egypt, you have very little access. if you take india and china and the arab-speaking world, about half the world's population, you have about three universities in the top 100. >> rose: my question is not what's next for udacity, it's what's next for you. >> i'm ready to quit (laughter) >> rose: obviously there's a big payoff and you've done something you're enormously proud of and could be, learning and education is vitally important in how a society moves and proprogresses. but you've talked passionately about medicine. >> yes. >> rose: you have to think there are opportunities for both

someone who understands the velocity of change in technology, you know, and has great curiosity about the human being and what opportunities that offers all of us. >> i wish we could share all of that. i think this is probably a skill that's trained which is before i came to silicon valley, i was much less creative in thinking about the future. the examplessively giving you don't require new technology. all the existing technology can come off the shelf today. it's no magic in what i say. it's just saying, look, there are massive world problems that exist today and there is massive technology and in five or ten years, let's put these two things together and what you can learn is quite amazing. >> rose: this is what i want to do, and i want you to include yourself in this, although you should be there, i would love to do the following -- and it happened to different companies

i know -- i would love to be able to, every month, bring together five to ten men and women and sit down with them and have them deep think about what it is that they think we need to put a lot of i.q. on and meet with them every month and just really make sure -- because each of them -- i mean, you take larry, who understands better than anyone i know, you know, the role of the corporation and his own vision of the role of the corporation. >> yes. >> rose: he's got that deeply in terms -- >> and it's logical. >> rose: and he understands the resources that are there and the meeting every month and just see -- >> i mean, i have the great fortune to have really good access to larry page and we spend a lot of time on questions like these. i feel like a schoolboy, to be honest. it is so great to see how his

mind is just so fast. every time i talk to him, i'm really blown away by him. >> rose: bill gates is doing the same thing in his own way in terms of global health. >> and there are many people like that. >> rose: extraordinary world. i am absolutely game to join you every month and come to new york and learn. >> rose: well, i'm thinking about it. >> do it. >> rose: sit around this table, you know, and think about big ideas, just big, from around the world, not just silicon valley or new york or austin, texas, but around the world. >> that'in washington, d.c., wet think in regulatory terms, if we think of what is possible we can break all the past rules. if we don't take things for granted. coming from europe, from a country that is much older, the german thinking is by and large, okay, we had it for this many years, it ought to be perfect.

i talk about the university, udacity, it has to be the classroom, and then ask the question does it, really? maybe it does, but in most cases, it doesn't. in most cases what we have today is left over from a non-technological past. and we're going into a much more sophisticated. we have chips implanted in our brains and stuff like this. >> rose: how far off is that? not that far. we never started the project at google x because we felt it was a stretch to go to surgery to enjoy advanced google services. but technologies made advanced project and what one of the deficiencies we have is our input/output, our keyboard, our eyes, our nose, our mouth and ears are actually relatively slow. the body can never focus that

fast. so if you have a chip in the brain, you can accomplish everything. >> rose: tell me wholes should be at my table. holmes, admire what she's doing. uber. >> rose: are they still primarily somehow tethered to a university like stanford? >> i think society still thinks this way, and universities are such a big thing and such an important thing that it gives you identity, it gives people a life-long identity. if you graduate from harvard or yale, you will always be a harvard or yale graduate. the thing we address at udacity is the many people who can't get in there, the people who, later in life, or the people who grew up in india, china or asia, who have no chance, no access.

we never forget, we marvel about all great universities like m.i.t. and others, but 80 or% americans go into non-select universe who have a six-year graduation period and a low graduation percent. half of them don't graduate, come out with enormous college debt that lasts for a lifetime, more than 1 there does a -- more than $1 trillion a year. we charge 100 bucks a month for something that we give it all back if we don't find you a job. if you put our model and impose it on a regular university, tuition would never be more than $1,000 a year. i really believe it's working. they can critique us and we have many things to improve, we have many problem domains, but we've

graduated more than 1,000 people, found them jobs, they're really strong. and we have people with careers. if you come to us, afterwards, you're in demand. >> rose: you said, the question is what's the secret of silicon valley? there is only 4 million people and that's not 4 million technologists. and the usual answer you get is startups rights. so you get, you know, we have some talent, immigration and tech companies, tech universities, you throw them into a pot with venture capital, mix it up and here you go. the things is startups are a necessary component but the visible secret very few people talk about in silicon valley is that there's a whole skill set and talent network for how do you hit global scale fast and how do you build up the organization. >> yeah. i'm quoting, but if you take google and double the number of people you won't get twice as

many parts. but there is a law of diminishing and true tore every company. if you take startups and double the number of people in startups and have twice as many startups you will get twice as many products. >> rose: doubling the number of startups, not the number of people at a startup. >> no, doubling the startups, you start with 1,000, you get 2,000 products. there is a magic about linear scale that isn't replicated in big organizations. why is that? because in big organizations, most people spend most the time in meetings. i spent the last two days with a bank in meetings. in startups, five or ten people you can't have a meeting you barely have a meeting and put

all your productivity in products. and you don't talk to other startups. if you're in the same field, not coordinating makes you independent and go much faster. the moment you're in a big organization, fear takes over and it's much more easier to duck than get something done. i believe if we took big companies and chopped them up into smaller companies you increase productivity. and guess what google reorganized its alphabet in smaller sets. >> rose: you applaud what they did in terms of how they organize alphabet? >> absolutely. every company ends up having a large set of products like google ends up having a lot of coordination difficulties and any viewer here could probably attest, we're in a large company, at the top, it's complicated. so the more you can divide it into logical chunks and not talk

to each other, the better. >> rose: that's the way i solve problem. i put them in small chunks rather than trying to solve everything at one time. >> good people do that and do it really fast. >> rose: so let me go back to deep mind. exactly what is it?3 >> deep mind is a learning program that was able to learn by itself learning deep learning how the play video games. the interesting thing about playing video games is not just a recognition thing, leak english recognition, like i mentioned the example of screening skin cancer, it is an interactive thing, but you have to learn a policy and have to learn to act. so deep mind didn't just learn one, it learned many. it was amazing to see a learning engine could be smart enough to pick up video games the same as humans do, so google bought it because it's amazing.

another year or two years, it can do even more complicated things. >> rose: wow. great to see you. >> great to see you, charlie. >> rose: sebastian thrun, thank you. >> my pleasure. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us. hunt: senator cory gardner of colorado is one of the stars of the large republican class that entered the senate after the 2014 election. we spoke to him when he arrived in january about his expectations and hopes. we had another conversation midway through the year. now, as congress has adjourned, we conclude with the junior senator from colorado. senator, thank you for being with us. >> thanks for being brave enough to have me back on. >> rose: in january, you said your hope was republicans could prove they could govern responsibly and maturely. have you achieved that? >> i think we have. it hasn't necessarily all been pretty at times but the fact is there are a number of

achievements that have been put in place we haven't done for decades. a long-term highway build. first major overhaul of education reforms since 2002, the first time all appropriations bills have come out of communities. they have not to just get out of committee but get off the floor and out of the house and into the presence. >> we'll talk about the biggest bill in a moment. but what's been your biggest disappointment. >> i think there is sometimes a resistance in washington to simply drill down and get the people's work done because there is always a political moment or a rhetorical moment or a distraction that gets in the way of washington simply saying, you know what? enough's enough. let's buckle down and get the work done. whether that's the appropriations process or whether that's the disappointing time it took to pass a very common sense-bipartisan human trafficking bill, it didn't need to take as long as it did. >> hunt: the big omnibus bill you did at the end, the spending

tax bill, obviously, but what some observers say is democrats got the spending, republicans got the tax cuts, the budget be damned. people were not pleased with the results. >> i think if you look we passed a balanced budget for the first time since 2001, but the budget doesn't necessarily deck at a time whether there will be savings many years from now. so what congress and the senate and the house have to do is put in place a balanced budget amendment to focus on the debt and deficit. >> hunt: but how about this bill you just passed? if you're a grassroots republican and you know those people because that was the core of some of your support, you were going to recuse the deficit, cut tax rates, if you feel obamacare, -- repeal obamacare and stop other things -- >> wwe have reduced discretionay

spending back to 2008 levels prior to nancy pelosi becoming speaker of the house. we reduced the number of programs and put on the president's disk for the first time a repeal of the affordable care act. so we have been able to do those things. we have been be able to have some successes but i think it shows the importance of winning the white house in 2016. >> hunt: you didn't replace affordable care act. you said twice it's not enough just to be negative. >> yes. >> hunt: and you've yet to come up with an alternative. >> i actually disagree with that. >> hunt: do ya? if you look at king vs. burwell decision issued earlier this summer, there were a number of republicans who came forward with ideas to replace obamacare, whether some of the ideas ben had about creating a time frame to come up with a solution or the replacement ideas dr. bill cassidy -- >> hunt: well, there were a number of news, you're right and some things in this bill that you just passed that repeal some of th the tax measures, but nonf

the good stuff. so isn't it incumbent upon the party to say, here's our alternative, here's a republican alternative. >> i think they showed and talked about them. i would like to see votes on them, but they are there. these are bills you can read the -sponsored them, see who's onwho them, but they have been introduced. sure, we can vote on them and i think we should just like we voted to repeal the affordable care act, but over the next several years, hopefully with a different direction from the white house, we will be able to repeal the affordable care act and put in its place something that will actually work to decrease the cost of healthcare, increase the quality of healthcare. >> hunt: sometime after the next election. >> over the next ten months, next year, it will be very difficult to get that through. >> hunt: to wrap up the final bill, you think rush limbaugh has it wrong when he writes g.o.p. sells america down the river. >> i think when you look at the bill, the tax cuts to the

american people, certainty of business investment, this is an important step that will create economic growth and opportunity for the american people. now, i think there are things we've got to address over the next year and two years, particularly when we have a new leader in the white house who is committed to debt reduction, to working with congress on things like a balanced budget amendment that will actually do the job to end the spiral of debt. >> hunt: you're convinced secretary clinton is committed? >> i'm convinced we have a better opportunity than secretary clinton. >> hunt: you're on the farm relation -- foreign relations committee and proposed sweeping sanctions against the crazy north korean dictator. but most people, i think you agree with this, say, really, to tackle that we need to work with china. china has more influence. yet, i saw carly fiorina say in a debate the other day say let's hammer china on the south sea and all they're doing on the

cyberattacks, and that's justified, but you can't hammer them on everything and get them to work with you on north korea. >> you're exactly right. china has tremendous leverage overnorth korea and they haven't exercised that leverage. the bulk of north korea's economy is dependent on china. so there is far more they could be doing to step up against what i term the forgotten main yak of kim jung un's regime. i think if we come together as a strengthened alliance to work on north korea, to face north korea, to make it stand down its nuclear program and end human rights atrocities, i think the only way we can accomplish is through a strong alliance between the three countries but there are historical challenges.

>> hunt: you want china to be part of it? >> we believe through this alliance china can be further engaged. >> hunt: which means deal with china on other issues has to be in a more nuanced way perhaps? >> china has to realize as it rises in power and emerges as a global power is that it can't continue with behavior unbecoming of a great power. >> hunt: you have endorsed marco rubio. >> yes. >> hunt: i thought you were a jeb bush but you endorsed marco rubio several months ago. is that because you thought he was the most likely candidate to win in the general election? >> i think marco rubio will become the next president of the united states but i also got tired of answering this question -- somebody would say who do you think can win the nomination? and i would say somebody who understands the issues facing americans at the kitchen table and who is optimistic and has a plan for the future and they say you're supporting marco rubio

and i said, no, i haven't endorsed. i was tired of answering the question with the answer in front of me, he is the right person, he has what it takes to move this country forward whether foreign policy or foreign relations issues. the most important thing he can do is get elected. >> hunt: to stay in your foreign relations experience and marco rubio's, he proposes what he says is a much more robust policy to defeat i.s.i.s. but josh logan a conservative columnist says what he is proposing is only an intensification of what president obama is doing and hillary clinton proposes. >> i think if what you listen to what marco rubio is talking about, this administration is not clearly pursuig that. it's not intensification because that's just doubling down on policies that aren't enough in terms of what we're doing for airstrikes, streamlining this approval process that resulted in three-fifths of our armed

sorties not to even be able to deliver on a target, an that the up significantly from a couple of months ago so only in the past weeks have we seen an increase. we have been talking to congress, several of us sending letters to the white house about this idea of a safe zone, humanitarian zone. that's not something the president is considering. but if we are going to address this issue of refugees from syria, if we're going to really get to the bottom of that, it's not about how many millions of people the world will take in, it's about syria and ending this disastrous situation in syria, and that is going to take a new direction from this president, and i believe we are here in this mess because hillary clinton's foreign policy's also put us here, and i don't see how she can come up with a whole new direction from the president she served in this capacity. >> hunt: you believe assad has to go. >> yes. >> hunt: what lessons do we learn from iraq or libya where

we helped get rid of awful dictators and they're more chaotic and terrorist-driven today than they were before. >> i don't think that's a fair comparison, particularly if you look at iraq. what happened was a direction was made to really build up our success in iraq and then a political campaign occurred, a political promise of withdrawal was announced. that commitment was made to withdraw. when president obama made a commitment to pull out of iraq. >> hunt: that's the commitment push made. >> and went forward with the surge -- >> hunt: but committed to get out. >> president bush went forward with the surge and understood the importance of an agreement to allow us to continue to go forward with a presence necessary to provide the security and the protection and training in iraq. >> hunt: look at libya, i mean, it's a terrorist haven now. i think gadhafi was awful but i

guess the overallponent was post-assad, why do we think syria is going to look better than libya or iraq? >> assad is terrible, continues to bomb his own people, something the global community can't stand for. i.s.i.s. certainly can't over the leadership and that's why we have to defeat and destroy i.s.i.s. and that's why the direction of this president isn't working. >> hunt: would you want to have an american presence in syria post-assad? >> i think we need a global presence post-assad made up of the 65 nations and more represented. >> hunt: different than what happened in iraq post-saddam? >> i don't think you can withdraw on a political timetable. i think you have to have a commitment to end the civil war, that we don't allow assad or an add sad-like regime to kill its own people, and we have to make sure we provide the safety from, whether i.s.i.s. on the ground, or a regime from the air to the

syrian people so that they don't face constant threats of death. >> when we spoke in july, i tried very hard to pin you down on donald trump and the effect he was having on the republican party and you very artfully evaded that in many ways, so i want to ask you again because it's now no longer than a monthh or two. for six months he led the polls. the first debate poll came out the other day said he is about 20 points ahead of everybody else. he is going to stay for a while. how much is he hurting the party? >> i think some of his policies are absolutely dead wrong, and the idea that we would create some kind of religious test for entry into the country i think is absolutely wrong. in fact, i find it interesting there are some people who would agree with this that would allow president obama to create the religious test and to enforce it. i think they wouldn't really like that idea but that's what he's espousing. so i made that very clear. i think it's very clear more and

more, each and every day, that there are others who could do a better job of representing this country as president of the united states, and you see that in the numbers that others are experiencing. marco rubio's numbers rise, others -- >> hunt: but thrump doesn't drop. >> i think you will see trump starting to spread his supporters out through others in the race. >> hunt: is he hurting the party? >> i think anytime you present a message that's perceived or seen as hate, yeah, you're going to have a negative impact. and i think what the democratic party wants is someone with fresh views and new ideas, but the ideas can't make it look like you're a posed to good people. and blanket policies that are based on a bad policy like he's proposed can make it look like he's against people, and that the not good for any party.

>> hunt: you during your campaign in 2014 reached out a lot to latinos and talked to me about in january that we have to try to do something constructive on immigration. it looks like a whole environment i guess in part due the trump and due to other factors has changed, and we've talked about border security for a long time, and then something else, and that moment seems to have vanished. is that fair? >> i think it has changed dramatically, and it's changed in part because you have a presidential debate with rhetoric coming from different candidates on all different sides of this issue, but it has changed dramatically because of global developments, whether that's central america and the crisis of the children we faced over the past years and the inflow from central mark to -- central america to the united states -- >> hunt: there are fewer people coming across the border

with young kids than ever. >> there is -- we've seen a decrease in the migration from mexico or however you want to say that. i think the pew results show that. but it's also refugee concerns about who could be coming into the country without proper backgrounds tomake sure people are safe, whether questions about the waiver program. i think that changed the debate on immigration reform. right or wrong, i think what happens is it's getting lumped together and it's becoming an even more challenging thing to accomplish. >> hunt: senator, you worry about donald trump and the thing he may be having. what about ted cruz, do you worry about the effect he's having? >> i think trrk ted cruz is incredibly intelligent but i believe the best person to share the ideas of our party is marco

rubio. >> hunt: do you think it should be a trump or a cruz, knowing it should be marco rubio, but if temperatur trump s the standard fare, would that be an issue for the senate? >> i don't believe it will cost us the senate. there could be a number of issues that could give any one of them the lead. so it's far too early to say this person will have a draw. >> hunt: do you think you could support trump. >> i don't believe donald trump would be our nominee but our nominee will be far better than hillary clinton. >> hunt: i think that's as far as i'll get on that one. (laughter) in your home state of colorado, michael bennett, you can't get a candidate to run against him. >> i didn't announce until march. i didn't announce until march

so -- >> hunt: i've had colorado republicans tell me we don't have any cory gardner out there. >> that's probably a good thing. a lot of people taking a sigh of relief they don't have any more cory gardners out there. so i think the fact is we will have great candidates. we have a number of good candidates in the race. there are a couple talking about announcing in january who i think will make this again one of the nation's premier races. >> hunt: colorado is always such a swing state which brings me to sue rothenberg, a respected columnist and political analyst extraordinaire who floated the idea last month the perfect runningmate for marco rubio would be cory gardner. i know what you're going to say, i'm not interested, silly, we're both too young, and yet you think of a parallel, bill clinton and al gore in 1992, both in their 40s, young, from the same region. i mean wouldn't a rubio-gardner

ticket be exciting? >> i should have never offered to name my third child after rothenberger. the article said short list and what he meant to say is i'm the only person as short as marco rubio. had nothing to do with the short list. look, it's always been an incredible honor to be able to serve your country in any capacity and marco, i believe, will be a great president of the united states and i will support him and am supporting him throughout this effort and whatever i'm called upon to do, i will, but my first and foremost obligation is to the state of colorado and ensuring that marco rubio is elected as the president of the united states. >> hunt: you are convinced marco rubio will be the nominee? >> i am. and i think as the months unfold, whether new hampshire, iowa, the s.e.c. primaries we'll see, people gravitate toward

marco rubio. >> hunt: and a strong colorado candidate? >> he's witting colorado in the latest quinn p quinnipiac -- lat quinnipiac poll and is the strongest of the candidates. he's only one of two who can win nationwide and be the nominee to beat hillary clinton. >> hunt: when you were sworn in last january, your grandmother inadvertently told joe biden the vice president when he called her that she was too busy to talk, she was watching her grandson be sworn in. have your grandmother and joe biden had any conversations since then? >> that's so funny. i was telling people a month later the story. he called her again. they had a great conversation. i'm glad joe biden is not

running for president because i'm afraid my grandma might be a joe biden voter. >> hunt: happy holiday to you. thanks for joining us. it's been an interesting year. 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" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

narrator: sea otters are struggling in the wild... ♪ hold on to me as we go ♪ and across california's coast, 500 have required rescue. ♪ just know you're not alone ♪ this orphaned pup is the latest one. ♪ 'cause i'm going to make this place your home ♪ woman: pups are completely helpless. they can't groom, they can't forage for food. narrator: 501 must learn the skills to survive from a new mom. man: 501 really has to learn everything that she's gonna need to know to ultimately be released back out into the wild. narrator: it's an enormous endeavor. man: i'm not willing to ever take for granted that this is gonna work. narrator: fraught with obstacles. -woman: is that a shark bite? -man: massive.