tv Charlie Rose PBS March 24, 2016 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT
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. >> rose: welcome to the program. we begin with an update on the tragedy in brussels with alissa rubin of "the new york times." >> one of the big ones that i heard being discussed by a lot of local, the brussels television stations today was why wasn't the threat level higher. and senior officials, the interior minister said look, it was as high as we could make it it when we didn't have a specific threat. well, they seem to have had a lot of information that suggested that they were very close to that. and there wasn't some kind of broader clampdown. and i think people are frightened. you know, they are afraid there will be another attack. now they are at the highest threat level. but information still isn't coming out very quickly and i think people are really quite nervous. >> rose: and we talk about
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latino's contribution to america, the economy and the politics with sol trujillo, aida alvarez and hine ree cisneros. >> in the american tradition the latino community self-reliant focusing on improving education, health care and improving life in communities. we will not only make a contribution to our own community, but to the country as a whole. it's coming. it say big, big shall-- it's one of the mega trends of the future, without a doubt. >> rose:e conclude with swrai could be bern steen some of carl bernstein and nora ephron, his film about his mother called everything is copy, nora ephron scripted an unscripted. >> to her everything is copy was a means out of victimhood. the quote that i see on social media of her the most often is be the heroin of your life, not the victim. and i think that everything is copy was another version of that. you know that it was a way of saying as she said, when you
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slip on the banana peel people laugh at you. if you tell people you slip on the bana peel you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke. >> rose: an update on brusselsk a look at the impact of latinos in america and a new film about nora ephron, all of that when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: . >> from ou captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with our continuing coverage of the brussels attacks. authorities have begun identifying the suspects in
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yesterday's bombings. two of the assailants were brothers in belgian nationals. the third sue sigh-- suicide bomber has yet to be confirmed. police are searching for at least one additional suspect. joining me from brusselss is alissa rubin, the paris bureau chief of "the new york times." she has been reporting on the attacks. i'm pleased to have her back on this program, welcome. >> thank you. >> tell me where the investigation is as we speak. >> where it appears to be at this point is that they have at les figured out who one of the bombers was at the airport and one in the metro station, as you just said they are two brothers, they are from a, one of the districts of brussels that is heavily immigrant. they have a long history sort of armed robbers, armed thiefry of different kinds. and they got-- they were joined
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by other people. what we don't know yet is how many others. certainly there was a bomb maker. and the substance used in the bomb was tatp which is the same thing used in the paris attacks. they found about 32 pounds, 33 poundsk a little more than 30 pounds of it in an apartment which was the same apartment that the bombers left from to go to the airport this morning. they found a taxi driver who had actually driven the bombers there. so that looks like a fairly clear link. they had a lot more ingredients, so they could have made more bombs if they had been able to come back there. they seem to have left quite a bit of material behind. >> rose: what is the connection to the man who was arrested salah abdeslam was-- we believe, from everything, that he was sort of the deputy to abau d was on on the ground
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organizer of the paris attacks and salah abdeslam was kind of their lodgeistition, their advance man, he rented parms, rented cars, he organized a lot of logistics. and he was associated with the same people who left their fingerprints at this apartment nearby in brussels, which are associated, the parm is soacialghted both with this bombing and with the brussels bombing and with the paris attackers. >> rose: do they think there is any relationship between the arrest and the timing of the attacks in brussels? an des slam-- abdeslam. >> they haven't been explicit. but they did find a document that one of the bombers appears to have left on his computer. and they found the computer.
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and it suggested that he was feeling as if the police were closing in, and that he would be caught and that i had to do something. so it suggests that probably this attack which was quite complex was planned earlier, but that it-- its execution may have been sped up because of the capture of salah abdeslam because they were worried that he would talk, and would tell them-- the police about it. >> rose: there is the picture of the three from the airport security cameras. and there was a flurry today beginning this morning in new york time that they had captured the third man, and then they pulled back from that. and i guess the word today, this evening as we record this conversation is that they have not captured him. how-- how was that reporting wrong? >> well, i think it's a very
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confusing picture. because there seemed to be potentially four people involved, the bodies of the two brothers were found in two different places. one in the airport, one in the maelbeek metro station. and then you have two other people in that photograph that they circulated in the airport. and we don't-- we're not entirely sure where those-- and we know that two people died in the airport. so there is one dead person that's not identified and there's one person we believe to be alive who is not identified. so i think that is the deficit. and there's been a lot of confusion about which man they're talking about, and a lot of uncertainty about, you know, there has been a lot of talk about a bomb maker who is being very vig russly sowt because
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obviously a bomb maker can make the next set of bombs. >> rose: right. >> and that's najim laachraoui, there are so many different reports. we really need to see something definitive, i think, from senior people if the government to be certain. >> rose: there has been some criticism in europe of the belgian police and what they might have and should have known. does that resonate there? or is it simply considered an impossible task and they did the best they could. >> no, i think it resonates. i think there are many questions that people are raising about this. one of the big ones that i heard being discussed by a lot of local-- the brussels television stations today was why wasn't the threat level higher. and senior officials, the interior minister said look, it
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was as high as we could make it when we didn't have a specific threat. well, they seem to have had a lot of information that suggested that they were very close to that. and there wasn't some kind of broader clampdown. and i think people are frightened. you know, they are afraid there will be another attack. now they are at the highest thet level, but information still isn't coming out very quickly and i think people are really quite nervous. >> rose: clearly brussels is the headquarters of the european union and the european parliament is there. is there a sense that they chose brussels simply because that was an opportunity or did they want to deliver a megs age with these-- message with these attacks. >> i think it is always a iming of these things. because obviously brussels has a lot of people, the most in europe per capita who have gone to syria and fought there. and or had plans to go. they have a very large number
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proportionately to the population of foreign fighters. and so they have networks that are in place in fairly concentrated areas which are readily involved in sort of extremist activities. but it also is the head of the european union and i think that in general extremist groups don't miss a chance to make a point. and it does seem that that was certainly the message at the subbingway station, that this-- is he subway station that this is right, not quite in the middle but it's very close to, it's some place where many, many eu employees get on and off the train. depending on the time of day. and there is no question that that was selected for that reason. and it was people they were after all people from brussels who carried out the bombing am and they no doubt knew exactly what the crowds would look like
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at that time of day. >> rose: do we know what abdeslam is telling the belgian police intergators? >> well, i don't really think we know. and i think, you know, this attack suggested he certainly didn't tell them about it in enough detail that they could do anything ahead of time. whether he is given other information, the only thing that has been made public is that he said that he with had wanted to detonate his suicide vests at the soccer stadium in paris. but then backed out of it, show lost his nerve. and so he-- he seems to be a person who is perhaps some what ambivalent about the ultimate end of all these entanglements with the islamic state which i think for someone like him would be dying. and perhaps he doesn't entirely want to die. so he is a little bit on the fence. but at the same time this is his circle, this is who he has been
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enmeshed with. and hes had not yet seemed to have disentangled himself. >> rose: finally there is this, if you look at charlie hebdo and you look at what happened in paris later and you looked at what happened in brussels, is there an expectation on the part of people in the intelligence field, in europe and on the scene in brussels that this is what we can expect? because this is a new part of the isis strategy. >> yes, i-- all the intelligence and interior ministry police sorts of people that i have spoken to over the last really several months have been saying over and over and over, this is not going to end quickly. you know, isis has promised to, you know, make europe burn or, you know, destroy-- put all of europe under an emergency orders or you know, confine them to
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their houses. these-- this sort of language. and that is generally they try to make good on their threats. and i think the concern is that there could be a series of capitols or large cities that are targeted. and that really it's almost impossible to stop because of the large number of people who have gone to syria, to iraq, some cases to yemen, i think we'll probably be seeing more who go to libya soon. and who then return and who are, after all, european citizens. they're french citizens, they're belgian citizens, they're swedish citizens. and they come back and that is sort of their assignment. >> rose: they come back with passports. >> it's very difficult. they come back with passports, with their own passports or sometimes fraudulent passports. but in any case very hard to
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trace. and the police forces here simply do not have the numbers to track every single one of these cases. >> rose: alicia, it's near midnight, i thank you for going to do this with us. and we deeply preernt it. >> oh, no, thank you. i hope i was helpful. >> rose: you very much were. we'll be right back. stay with us. >> 13 million hispanics are expected to vote in the 2016 presidential election. but as we saw in the primaries, they won't all say the same thing. lumpinlatinos into one mono lithic voting bloc is one of the many myths perpetuated about them. the latino could lab rattive is a nonprofit that is strifing to provide an accurate portrayal of latinos and the important contributions they make in our society. joining me is sol trujillo, the organization's founder and chairman. is he a former c.e.o. of u s
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west, orange and tellstrks stra, aida alvarez, chair of the community latino foundation of san francisco and serves on the boards of wal-mart and hp, the first latino to hold a u.s. cabinet level position. and henry cisneros, the executive chairman of cityview and served as the 10th secretary of housing and urban development. i am pleased to have them here. this san important conversation. and i begin, sol, with a basic question. some people talk about hispanics. some people talk about latinos. what is the best way and give us a guide nermings of how we use what phrase to describe whom. >> well, i think they're interchangeable. i mean-- people are used to-- certain people are used to being called hispanics. some people like to use latino. but today most people are using a broader phrase yolg which is latino. but the most important thing is that the people that we're talking about are americans. or people here that are aspiring to be americans, that are part of our core economy. and the big story that we're
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here to talk about is essentially what i call the new mainstream economy. >> rose: all right. >> and that gets to this decision-- . >> rose: tell us what the latino done are could lab rattive is about about. >> it was actually cofounded by henry and i and it was looking at what was happening-- the conversation about latinos in the country. which tended to be negative, tended to be inaccurate, tended to be a lot of things that if you are a young latino and you're a parent of a young latino, you would say gee, i don't want to see that on tv. i don't want to hear that i don't want you exposed to the way people are characterizing you if your name is garcia, martinez, whatever. so what we did was we decided that we would form a nonpartisan group that was solely focused on what i call the brand, the latino brand. and also, you know, dealing with facts and data that might be relevant for people to really understand who the latinos in the united states of america really are. >> rose: so what do we think
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the myths are about latinos. >> well, one of the myths is that everybody in the community is undocumented. if you did surveys, and we have, and you asked people point blank what percentage of the latino population in the united states is undocumented. people answer oh, i think 50%, half. >> well, the truth is about 16%. so this is one of the myths is that these are not real americans but in fact, it's 55 million people plus now, growing to 100 million people, a population that is younger than the average, of americans. therefore, household formations yet to come. therefore homeowner, consumer purchases, it's 1.5 trillion dollars worth of spending in the american economy. and part of our function in being here with you is to at this moment-- at this moment in american life, when so many myths are perpetuated and so much division related to latino, we've suddenly become a major force in this presidential
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discussion, to tell the truth about this community. and its role in the american. >> rose: i want to get to the truth and a couple of myths. latinos are a drag on the economy. >> not at all. 1.5 trillion dollar purchasing power, buying power, that is what latinos represent. latinos, in fact, are the 11th, if you put them on the world scale, the 11th largest economy in the world. that is not a drag on the economy. latinos are creating businesses at a faster rate than any other group. just over the period from 2007 to 2012 which was the recession here, 47% of the new growth was coming from latinos whereas there was a decline by 2% of businesses by nonlatinos. >> rose: half of the net housing purchases. >> 51% of all new home mortgages taken out in the last decade were taken out by latino families. so that gets to this core of the economy, as which started to talk about it, and aida also
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mentioned the business fore maitions. if you look in the last half decade, charlie, 86% of all new business formations in the last half decade were created by latino entrepreneurs. another story that most people don't know. >> rose: is this exhibit a for why immigration has been good for the united states? >> absolutely. it's part of that story. and obviously when people come here they spend. whether they're with document or without document. they get jobs. sometimes with improper social security numbers. or they get access but they're being hired. they're paying taxes. they're paying into a system that they don't withdraw from. the other part is the amount of spend. we always forget about what is happening with spending. so this one and a half trillion dollars. >> rose: purchasing power. >> is a big deal. and i think, you know, michael bloomberg and rupert murdoch both testified before congress a few years back talking about another trillion and a half dollar opportunity in our economy. >> rose: what percentage of latinos if you can use that phrase were born in america.
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>> i don't know the number offhand, in terms of the percentage born in the country. but i think at this point the majority of latinos are born in the united states. and of course more are. we have a younger than average population. we may have issues in the future, but growth is not going to be one of them. america's going to increase by a hundred people million and the largest thrust in that hundred million is the latino population. >> right. >> and young latinos are the fastest growing secretarier in the workplace by 2020, 20% of the workers, 19% of all the workers will be latinos. >> rose: are they participating in the political process? >> increasingly. >> absolutely. >> increasingly. and in fact, several swing states in this election this year are going to be decided by latino votes. places like colorado, places like new mexico and arizona. even virginia and north carolina with large latino-- florida, for sure. large latino populations.
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not to mention the traditional voting blocs in california, texas and other places. so yes, increasingly important. let me just say, i think that what we are talking about here, because of the usefulness-- youthfulness of the population is indeed the spirit of the future in the united states. i use that word advisedly. the spirit of the future. not everybody-- . >> meaning america is always on the frontier. >> absolutely. some americans today have lost faith in that future. so we hear words like our best days are behind us. we are letting incompetently, we are awe all des tinned to be losers. build a wall, deport them, all of those phrases that are becoming common in the par lance, it becomes more important to be able to define a more optimistic future. and latzinos embody that both in reality-- . >> rose: does that come, we are obviously talking about the trump campaign in terms of responding and resonating with people who feel like america is not great. >> i think it's broader than the trump campaign. >> rose: and who are angry.
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>> it is broader than that. there are a lot of people who just haven't understood the realistic dynamic of what is occurring. >> so much has happened over the last couple of decades, right. we've had globalization where even more than the last couple of decades, where the automotive industry. where we had the entrance of japanese manufacturers and german manufacturers ang everybody that has come in and taken market share which lowered the amount of employed people in the united states, at least for a decade or two. then there was a resurgence that says well, some of those companies are putting plants in places, maybe not in the traditional places but in alabama, kentucky, wherever it might be. so people lost jobs. they're angry, they're frustrated because the jobs aren't where they used to be. and they want to see-- . >> rose: not in the sector that it used to be. >> it has nothing to do with immigration. this happened well before this notion of immigration or imgranteds are taking my jobs. 90, almost 93% of young latino
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youth every year are nationallive born, that are turning 18. so let me say that again. there almost a million latino young people that are turning 18 ef yee year. and 93% of them were native born. so this idea that says, you know, there is this thing about people coming from somewhere else. we know that the last four or five years, there's been net negative migration from mexico. >> rose: politically are the differences of latinos who come, those who immigrate to the united states, who come from mexico, who come from latin american countries or who come from the caribbean. >> there is some well established differences. cubans have tended to be more conservative and republican. >> rose: that is-ing, isn't it? >> it changing some. >> rose: i don't think that they have. >> look at what the president has done. >> still predominantly republican and conservative. mexican americans depending on where they live, in texas they are some what more conservative than california.
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but tend to be democrats. puerto ricans tend to be democrats where they are. but it's a real mix. and frankly, president reagan is the one who, i'm a democrat. i was mayor of san antonio when president reagan came to visit. and he said to me latinos are republicans, they just don't know it. because-- . >> rose: why would he say that. >> family values, church and faith, conservative business, entrepreneurial skills. these are mainstream american values. and frankly, the country ought to celebrate that it's got an immigrant population that is growing with these values. >> rose: okay. but i mean, has it happened? is reagan right? >> it's not that they are actually partisanly becoming republicans but they are certainly becoming part of the american core. >> rose: but are they becoming by values. >> their values are i think hlding very steady. they are a very hardworking people, of faith, of family. and the work ethic and now you know, the data on the 86% of all new companies formed in the last half decade, very
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entrepreneurial, right. which to me is part of the dna of being an american. i've lived around the world. i have competed around the world. and the one thing that is unique about our country is that we know how to innovate. we know how to do the things that create change, et cetera. and that's what is now most important in our economy. so one of the things here is that this is a megatrend within our country that the story hasn't been told. >> rose: the mega trend is the growth of the-- as a percentage of the population. >> as well as the economies. >> rose: as well as the economic contribution to the economy. >> exactly. >> rose: and creating businesses, which are therefore creating jobs. >> 55 million people today, growing to a hundred million people. >> rose: so if you believe these myths exist, why do they exist? >> is it because of media, is it because. >> sol touched on one which is because people are fearful and fear can be converted to anger, that's one thing. >> it is a zero sum gain, if latinos gain they lose. >> exactly. also there are strange faces and
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voices among us, right. people with different last names going to tennessee and going to georgia, and going to north carolina. >> rose: go ahead. >> if it's happening, it's happening in places where you don't expect. i had mentioned earlier when i was-- administrator i went to iowa to celebrate the creation of statewide hispanic chamber of commerce. the day i arrived there was a paid advertisement in the newspaper saying that these strangers, these people were coming here. they are criminals. they are disrupting our lives. it was a really negative demonizing the mexican americans who were there to fill the jobs that were not being-- there was an exodus of young people out of iowa who didn't want to do the farm work. >> it has always been a part of the american story. >> that goes back. that goes back. >> rose: that is part of the american. >> it is the. the american narrative on immigration. >> rose: that latinos will do jobs that other americans don't want to do. >> it continues today for latinos. >> in some way, but there are many things that are much different. and this is what the real story
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is. it is no longer just about immigration and what is happening there. it is what is powering our economy today. last quarter, .7gdp percentage growth. weak. some of us are used to 3 to 5%. >> rose: that is a global phenomenon too. >> it is also something that we in the united states could drive faster. the stanford latino entrepreneurship institute, we did a study. and basically what we saw was that the amount of disproportionate growth created by business formations. but the bigger story is it if these businesses were growing as fast as nonlatino businesses, there would be another trillion to trillion and a half dollar impact on the economy. so there are solutions that are not-- . >> rose: businesses meaning. >> latino created businesses. >> rose: was growing as fast as nonlatino businesses. >> yeah. because df-- . >> rose: why are they growing as fast as latino businesses. >> great question. which is access to capitol, which-- capital, which is a problem for any business start starting. but there are layers like angel networks, layers like access to
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venture capital, that they don't have the networks. and soar what we trying to do is bridge that gap as part of one of those elements, one of those insertions, it's not government, it's about private sector, looking to make money. but the big story is wal-mart. 90 plus percent of their year on year sales growth is tied to latinos. if you look at. >> if you look at their sales growth and let's assume their sales growth was a hundred. 90% of that was latinos. >> growth. >> and in other words difference between last year and this year. >> correct. >> bearing in mind that 217,000 of wal-mart's employees identify as latinos. and so that is a significant, probably it's probably the biggest private employer of latinos in the country. there are also the customers. but for wal-mart the latino customer is really an important customer that they're really seeking to continue to attract. it's already a big part of their customer base.
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they recognize that the bottomline is that this is where the growth is. >> rose: our point is basically americans need to stop and listen and think carefully. first there are some facts which we've tried to present a sense of. and then there is the intent on trying to integrate and to build together the american future. this is a much better future than the alternative future of people who are separated and who are den graded and who never achieve their full potential. this is the right thing for america. and in this election season, in this time period, it's wise to stop and take stock. and i think that is what we are askk for. >> doesn't it make you crazy that there is not much conversation about how to grow the american economy other than to be tougher. >> that's exactly the point here and there is one lever we have that is unique versus china. unique versus other places and that is this latino growth
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sector of our population. >> young, energetic, willing to, without, hardworking. >> it's one thing to have kind of myths with respect to latino community. but business has always supposed to have been able to understand what was in its best interest, and what could contribute to its bottomline. >> sure. >> rose: so there should be no discrimination, both in terms of understanding or in terms of. >> i think business people are understanding it. when automotive companies see that the growth of their business relies on latinos who are becoming driving age an when home builders see that in the housing field. when wal-mart sees it, business people are getting there. unfortunately drowned out by the political environment today. >> rose: i want to continue with that. tell me where you think the political is, will latinos vote massively against donald trump? >> i think they're very fearful today. just a simple statement of facts. i was in chicago last week talking with will theinos at the street level and consistently at every person that i visited,
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irrespective of who else they were for, democrat or republican, they are very fearful of donald trump today. they can't distinguish between a person who says he's going to deports 12 million people and a person who has to work within the american system. >> rose: some of the leaders on the republican side and paul ryan and others said we can't afford to be driving people away. >> but i think it's both sides, right. we have a current president that has deported more people than any of his pred desser-- predecessors. so people are reacting to that. you saw it in the mid term elections. and now in this election, we have this issue because the conversation has been so negative. >> rose: so is the latino vote up for grabs. >> yes, it's up for grabs. but there is one core threshhold issue about having been disrespected by being called rapists, killers, whatever the phrase yolg might be. >> rose: by donald trump. >> well, by him but also by other candidates as well. or people that have been silent and not standing up and saying these are-- these are
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contributing people to our economy. and so what is happening and i was in denver saturday night at an event with more than a thousand people. and everybody was talking about registering these young people are getting out. they're getting very active in addition to those who are already registered voters. so as we see with donald trump phenomenon, certain activation is occurring there. but there's also other activation of people that are concerned. and they want to make sure that we have a country that is united, not divided. we have a country that's growing and not, you know, disassembling. >> it is not in american's long-term future interest to make a wedge issue for the short run, for political gain out of this population. it's too important. too many people, too great a future. >> rose: for any poll tig to make it a wedge issue. >> it is not in the country's interest. >> rose: not in their long-term interest. >> and probably not in their long-term interests, you're
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right. >> absolutely not in their long-term interest. and i do think that latinos will be mobilized. >> no politician, no party, no interest, business or otherwise. >> rose: will me close with this, how are going to deal with the problem. you come here and you talk to me, and you have-- do you what, is-- this is simply a need for latinos to go out and explain the magnificent contribution of lat oin-- latinos to the american system and the american future. >> it's a start. >> rose: and the american-- culture. >> it's bringing the facts and data to the conversation. >> all right. >> for everybody. and secondly engaging in a conversation so that it's rational to the extent it can be. and it becomes very personalized. because we can personalize it, in terms of cities, states and people. >> rose: and it also, i would say, in the american tradition, the latino community increasingly self-demple ant and self-reliant focusing on improving education and
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improving health care and improving life in communities. we had not only make a contribution to our own community but to the country as a whole. it's coming. it is a big, big, it's one of the mega trends of the future, without a doubt. >> obviously this is just the beginning of a conversation. because it is so intricately tied into the feult of america and state programs like this ought to be talking more about it and it is just the beginning for us. thank you. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: great to see you. back in a moment. stay with us. >> nora ephron was a beloved filmmaker, essayist, novelist, playwright and journalist. she was more than that. she was also a dear friend to this program. she died at the age of 71 in 2012 after a very private battle with leukemia. her son jacob bernstein chronicals her life and work in a new domentary. everything is copy. nora ephron scripted and unscripted. it premiered this past monday on hbo and here is the trailer for
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the film. >> writers are can a bells. they-- cani bells and if you are friends with them and you say anything funny at dinner or if anything good happens to you, are you in big trouble. >> rose: you know from where you speak. >> she was a very smart filmmaker, writer, reporter, really true comic writing is impossibly hard. and she had it. >> i wanted to make her laugh. it was just like winning an oscar. >> i don't know that people think i'm an expert in relationships. but i definitely am. >> sometimes i wish my husband were dead. >> nora ephron's first nofer el heartburn has gossips an book critics alike asking nora, is this your life? >> it is the craziest divorce ever. >> she cried for six months. and wrote it funny in writing it funny. she won.
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>> you come home with some thing that you thought was the tragedy of your life, someone hadn't asked to you dance. my mothedder would say everything is copy. >> did my mom really believe this mantra of hers. >> everyone used his or her own life. >> do you have any idea that she was sick. >> no. >> no. >> not at all. >> why after being so open about everything else did she choose not to address the most significant crisis of her life? >> this is the most fascinating thing in the whole world to me. she achieved a private act. >> the story of my life, everything is copy. >> rose: everything is copy is now available on hrksz bo now, hbo go and hbo on demand. and i'm pleased to have jacob back at this table. welcome. >> pleased to be here. >> first of all, the title. explain the title. >> well,y grandmother was a screen writer. and the thing that she always said to my mother growing up whenever anything happened that wasn't so desirable, a boy
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hadn't asked her to dance or a teacher didn't think she was as brilliant as she was, her mother would say everything is copy. and the meaning is that the thing that is-- that trips you up today is a funny story tomorrow. and it was a kind of-- it was a kind of way of saying get over it. and figure out a way to use this. because your life has the ability to be a comedy rather than a tragedy. >> rose: why do i think show that this came to her in talking about her mother's death. >> well, i don't know. it was the thing that her mom had said, but when her mom died, when she was on her death bed she said to her take note. >> rose: that's the story. everything is copy. >> and she then wrote a piece called the ming code that i believe was in esquire. and it is in the notes of nora ephron now which is the anthology they put out a couple of years ago. and that's what she, you know, she really came to believe, for
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at least a very long time, that if you found a way to tell your story, you could control the narrative. and she had a very good sense that the experiences you have, you don't want to waste if you are a writer. that wasn't always so easy for the people around her though. >> rose: yeah. this was a film you had to make. >> yes, i-- i felt after she died that i wanted to write about her in some way. i always was self-aware enough to know that i wasn't going to do-- that i wasn't going to write a book about her that was better than any of the books that she had written about herself. and i had seen the bill kunningham documentary. i had seen. >> about bill kunningham. >> rose: for those who don't know bill kunningham is a photographer at the new york times and takes these really wonderful pictures and he is everywhere. and he has a way to capture stuff that appears every sunday.
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>> so there had been that and the joan rivers documentary which had been fantastic and the valg tino documentary. so there was this spait of great cultural documentaries coming out. and it seemed to me that we could make one of those. and that it would allow her to be the star of it. and i could kind of help nar rate her story. thenhe summer after she died, i was in the hamptons at our country house and i realized that the last two essay collections she wrote, i feel bad about my neck and i remember nothing, were both, that she had done the audiotapes of both. and i knew almost immediately that we could supplies pieces of them throughout the film and that she would be able to nar rate large portions of it herself. >> rose: so was this an opportunity to share your mother with the larger woferl or an opportunity for you in a sense to take all of us on a journey.
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>> i think both. you know, and i had some questions too about what it means to be a writer. i was 33 at that point and hi been doing magazine journalism and newspaper journalism for awhile at that point. i was, you know, i was still freelancing for "the new york times" where i now work. and so i was looking for something larger to do an i was interested in how the private and the public had met up for her. and then diverged from one another. i had also read, i had read tender is the night, sort of about six months before she died. and of course there was fitzgerald writing about the breakup of his marriage. and zelda fitzgerald's desent into madness. and it raised some interesting questions to me about sort of, you know, what happens when you
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decide to do that. and what is the reality of that for the people around you. and so it seemed to me that we could make the film both her life story and in a certain way an exploration of what it means to be a writer and to share stuff that other people don't always want shared. >> rose: how do you explain your mother. >> witty, funny, loving, and really tough. >> rose: on herself and everybody else. >> yes, i think that's right. i men she was-- she was fantastic at, i think, instilling in people both a little bit of fear in her and a desire to please her. she knew how to parse out praise in such a way as to make people, you know, to make people try to please her. and she certainly did that with
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me. >> rose: take a look at this. this is the clip of tom hanks and others talking about nora as a filmmaker. >> the kid that we spent all of this time auditioning and getting ready and we loved and he was so great, freezes when he sees tom hanks. he can't act. >> man, she came and told me, she didn't ask me what do you think if we replace so and so. she just said listen, we're making a change. it's not working out. i said you are going to fire the kid! >> she gave you that look and we called that look the red dot. your mother would look, if she got a double look, it was like you had to-- a laser from a gun on your forehead and were you about to get whacked. >> people got caught all the time. they wouldn't read a new draft and then were you done. if you talked about building a barn over here that was taken out two drafts ago, window or aisle. that's all can i tell you, you know? >> morning or afternoon flight. could i have a word with you. >> there is a whole series of clips from this show, at this
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table, of your mother talking. what did that add to it, and did you know that you would find this richness from her in the interviews. >> i don't think we knew much of anything when we started. you know, it was a kind of-- it was a somewhat haphazard process in some ways. i think in documentary film making you have an archivallist hopefully who helps you. and then i'm reading things of hers. and the old clips from "the new york post" and then the letterman clip that she did you know during the breakup of the marriage with my father and write after she had written heartburn. >> yeah, we just began to amass all of this stuff and kind of figured out how it pieced together. i moan it is also roughly a chronological film. so we had some base understanding of how the
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narrative was going to work. and we also knew that having written about the breakup of her marriage to my dad and her parents alcoholism and all of these things, that there was a question in the ether about why she had chosen to keep her illness as private she did. age that that would also be part of the framing device of the movie. >> well, in fact, that's what mesh ill streep spoke to as well. why did they keep it so private. it was stunning. all of us can remember. >> uh-huh. .> rose: you couldn't believe >> uh-huh. well, i think that there were considerations both pragmatic and philosophical. so the pragmatic ones were that she was a filmmaker at that point. and if you are writing a book, i think you can have a fatal illness and you don't leuses your book contract. but if you are trying to make a fim, you can't get insured if you have got something like that. and so that was part of it. then the other part of it, i think, was that to her everything is copy was a means
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out of victimhood. the quote that i see on social media of hers the most often is be the heroin of your life, not the victim. and i think that everything is copy was another version of that. you know that it was a way of saying, as she said, when you slip on the banana peel, people laugh at you. if you tell people you slip on the banana peel, you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke. and the problem with a fatal illness is how do you not-- how do you tell that story and not become the victim. how do you not become the person that everybody says, how are you? are you doing okay? they want to be voferred. they want to tell you what doctors to call. they want to tell you to get an aku puncturist. they want to tell you to do all of these things that she didn't want to be told to do. >> rose: she wanted to manage it herself. >> yeah. >> rose: when did she tell you. >> she told me about six years before, before she died.
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and you know, at the time-- . >> rose: how did she tell you is. >> i when over for dinner and we were sitting on, i believe that she was sitting on the sofa and i was sitting on a chair right by it in her living room at the place that she and my stepfather shared together. and we were scared but she said, you know, they've got me on these things that are working. and she was on these steroids for awhile that blew up her face a little bit and because she had written so much about aging people thought that she had sort of had a bad trip to the cosmetic dermatologist. and that was not the case. she was quite good actually at her cosmetic determine tolling and figuring out how to get a little tweak here or there without looking like-- . >> rose: like you got a little tweak her or there. >> that's right. >> rose: i'm going to show a couple of clips here from the show, some of which were in the
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documentary. the third is her talking about getting old, that you talked about, here it is, the third clip, one of the many appearances that nora made on this program at this. >> other than memories, anything else wrong with getting older. >> other than anything else wrong? is there anything right with getting older? >> rose: wisdom. >> oh, wisdom, when you can't remember anything? it is not quite there. >> rose: it's not that bad. >> having more time to read when you can't sea. >> rose: this is a comic toeder for you, it's not that bad. >> no, no, no-- i don't know, charlie. i don't think it's better to be older. i don't. >> rose: i don't think so either but i think that it doesn't have to be bad. >> no, it doesn't have to be bad. >> rose: and. >> and you have to know, but you have to know that at some point it will be. >> rose: oh, sure. >> and sooner rather than later. which is why it is very important to eat your last meal
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before it actually comes up. >> rose: tell that story as how you came to that conclusion. >> well. >> rose: i know what it was, your friend. >> my good friend who was dying. >> rose: no longer could eat a hot dog. >> well, she could no longer eat. and she said i condition even have my last meal. i mean that's what happens, i mean, but to be serious for a moment, as they say in the jokes. when you are actually going to have your last meal, you either will be too sick to have it, or you aren't going to know it's your last meal and you could scwawnder it on something like a tuna melt. and that would be ironic. so it's important, we all play these games at dinner with friends where we go around the table and we say this is what i would have for my last meal. and it's-- i feel it's important to have that last meal at least once-- . >> rose: today. >> today, tomorrow, soon. >> rose: so what would you have as your last meal. >> my last meal, my last meal
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really is a nate's hot dog. >> rose: see that, that's the magic, in part, is just having thought about everything. >> yeah. >> rose: having thought about everything. what is the best sandwich, what is the best place to buy, what is the best thing you order at this restaurant, all of that. >> yes. one of the things i think though that was hard about the movie was that she had done so much of that, i think there were a lot of people who thought this was going to be sort of a video tribute when they came in to be interviewed. and it got difficult for us about halfway in because we also needed people to go to deeper places. and i think that the same thing that made it easier to get people in the room also made it harder for them to talk frankly about her, it made it a little bit uncomfortable. and so part of the project was sort of figuring out how to kind of-- how to get those stories and then kind of try to move
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them into something more. >> how did you decide how much of your own self would be there? >> well, partly by putting in more than should be there and realizing that we were better off without it, you know? i think that. >> it's called editing yourself. >> yeah. i was smart enough to know that she was-- that she was the star of the movie. and my collaborators is never a sing that one person does. where we're also smart enough to know that. >> rose: did she find the perfect man for her? >> yes. >> rose: in nick. >> yeah, she did. you know, rob reiner says in the film that you know, here he was, writing about wise guys and people who whacked one another. and in real life he was soft and she was tough. you know, that she wrote these light romantic comedies, but she was a killer. and in fact, nick used to say she was a mafia hit woman. you know.
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that you know, one of the things that was the most surprising to me about doing this, i think, was to realize just how many people she whacked as a journalist in her early days and got away with it with. now if you write a couple of mean things about people, you don't play any more. you sort of lose your access. you know, i think it's one thing if you are covering national security or you're covering politics. but even then, it's very hard to get in the room with somebody that you have swiped in one way or another. and she did it at the new york post. she wrote the piece after she left about what a horrible newspaper it was. she wrote about clay fellker and gale shehy. and after she got back to esquire and they disappointed her by retracting a piece she wrote thing in moore, the journalism review about what a bunch of could wards they were. if you did that now, you would be like a version of alec bald win or kayne west, you know, you
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would be a person that everybody would just kind of go, no more. >> rose: i-- did she famously say about nick the thing you have to do, in your second marriage, is marry someone who has had an unhappy first marriage. >> yes, she did she also said that the secret to life is to marry an italian. >> rose: she said that too. >> yes, she said that too. catholic, lighter, not as neur otic, i think. >> rose: what was her impact on you in the end, other than having a blessed mother who represented a lot of things you could only admire. >> i think that she was-- i think she was fan tases particular at get-- fantastic at getting me to aspire to do more with myself than i might have naturally been inclined. >> rose: that is pure nora. >> yeah, you know. i mean people said was this scary. the answer was yes, it was why i
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knew that the movie needed to not suck, you know, it was why, like, why it better be good, you know. because you don't want to be the talentless child of so and so who doesn't kind of a-- a-- that deify's the parent without actually capturing the texture and the esence. >> rose: much success. everything is copy is now on hbo, hbo now, hbo go and hbo, everywhere hbo. we leave you with this last clip, this is nora on this program talking about her ability to quickly adapt to new situations. thank you for joining us. here's the clip. >> you seem to have this amazing ability to be able to adapt, to be able to find your way, to be able to whatever the time is, nora finds out where she fits. >> well, from your lips. but i do think that without being too-- i don't know what,
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philosophical, cuz god forbid i should ever be philosophical. but i do think one the lucky things about my life, and by the way, about-- a lot of women i know is that we've sort of been able to make changes take another path, you know, i always quote that great yogi berra line if you see a fork in the road, take it and everyone thinks it's-- it's, you know, oh, it's famous because it's so dumb. but the truth is it's very wise, especially when it comes to women. because i think you can kind of do that. you can sort of do two things at once or one thing and then the next thing and then the next thing. women seem to have a slightly easier time doing that then men. i don't know why. >> rose: you call it fluidity. >> well, i don't know what i call t but i do notice that a lot of the women who are older aren't doing what they did 20 or 30 years ago. and the men don't have quite the ability, partly because they're slightly more successful earlier
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and it's harder to get out of the success and the income or whatever, but women seem to have a way of, i think i'll try this. i think i'll try that. and i have been very lucky at it. but i also notice as i do it, that i probably am doing it a little bit on purpose. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online amount of pbs.org and charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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kacyra: it kind of was, like, the bang that set off the night. rogers: that is the funkiest restaurant. thomas: the honey-walnut prawns will make your insides smile. [ laughter ] klugman: more tortillas, please! khazar: what is comfort food if it isn't gluten and grease? braff: i love crème brûlée. sobel: the octopus should have been, like, quadripus, because it was really small. sbrocco: and you know that when you split something, all the calories evaporate, and then there's none. whalen: that's right.
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