>> rose: welcome to the program. i'm charlie rose. the program is "charlie rose: the week." just ahead, the birtha issue is back in the race for the white house. bill clinton speaks out about many things. and oliver stone's new move from about edward snowden comes to theaters. >> snowden has been charged with espionage. >> you have no idea what it's like to be accountable for other people's lives! >> are you going away? >> rose: we will have those stories and more about what happened and what might happen. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications >> rose: and so you began how? completely raw. >> rose: is it luck or something else? he made the world aware. what's the object lesson? >> it takes time to undo this. >> rose: tell me what what is the significance of the moment. >> rose: this was the week questions about the private foundations of both major presidential candidates was in the news. hillary clinton returned to the campaign trail, and stan wawrinka took top honors at the u.s. open. here are the sights and sounds of the past seven days. >> rose: syria. it may be the last chance to save a united syria. >> to be one over vehicle. he u.s.'s response to north korea's aggressive tbhainchts southeast china the

damage from the strongest storm of the year is coming into focus. >> rose: hillary clinton falls ill. >> it's clear that she tried to hide this and this is going to hurt her. >> rose: the new york attorney general opened an investigation of the trump foundation. >> it's not going to reveal anything before early voting starts and unlikely to reveal anything before actual voting on november 8. >> the ncaa, a state law against lgbt people. >> rose: colin powell's e-mails were hacked. >> no different from a large part of the electorate. >> have to watch out for a giant inflated moon. >> hillary clinton of course not feeling well. donald trump is being aice about it. >> he said i just hope she gets well and back on the trail. forget hillary. it's trump. i think he has a concussion. >> man standing. dethrones the world number one.

>> i don't know what's happening now. >> 15 years since the terror attacks on 9/11, the country paid tribute. >> rose: 9/11 remembered. together there is nothing we americans cannot overcome. ♪ and the home of the brave >> rose: we begin this evening with the presidential race. donald trump continues to gain ground on hillary clinton in the polls, even as he comes under fire for reigniting the controversy on president obama's birth certificate. joining me is bob costa of "the washington post." he interviewed trump wednesday aboard his plane and writes about that conversation in today's "the washington post." headline "trump bullish on race, as race tightens." i am pleased to have bob costa back on this program. tell me what was significant and why did he tell you he wasn't

going to speak out on the birther issue and then this morning he speaks out about it? >> trump is confident this moment. having covered him for quite some time, i've never seen him more bullish about his chances. spending ten hours on the campaign trail, i got the sense this is still donald trump, someone at the center of his campaign running on his instinct. when i heard kellyanne conway his campaign manager say about a week ago that donald trump now believes barack obama was born in the united states, i thought that's quite a change in position. i asked him in the course of a wide-ranging interview, what do you think of conway's statement, is it accurate, and we had a long exchange about it. he said he didn't want to engage on it. he said conway can say whatever she wants to say. this is indicative of a candidate who comes out to have the birther movement, a true outsider and doesn't follow the political rules. >> rose: do you likely believe he actually believed barack obama was not born in the united

states at anytime or was it simply a campaign device? >> i can't speak for what's in his heart or mind but i think as a reporter you've got to look at someone's actions. i covered him hovelly in 2011 and 2012 when he was mounting this birther crew said and this is someone who was consumed about the issue. >> rose: did he care or was it political? >> part, i'm sure it was a political, a publicity stunt. it animated him personally. he's not driven by ideology, but he was on this particular issue deeply interested, sending people to go investigate, looking into different things, conspiracy theories. >> rose: then why hi did he change his mind as he said today (he didn't have his mind changed as he said wednesday night speaking on the tarmac. he's under tremendous pressure from republicans and campaign aides, in the final weeks can he

appeal to skeptical voters, minority voters and college educated women. >> rose: a big deal. very big deal. >> rose: let's talk about the polls. i'll read you several things. this comes from rich lowery the national review, who did not like donald trump fair to say. >> not at all. >> rose: you used to work there. >> sure, movement conservatives, i covered them eight or nine years, they can't stand donald trump because they don't see an ideology there. >> rose: rich lowery, editor-in-chief, said if you aren't seriously contemplating the biggest black swan event in american electoral history you aren't paying attention. 15 months ago donald trump was an american reality television star with a spotty record and declaring he would run for president, now he h is a step ay from being elected president of the united states. he's rising, she's falling.

what happened? >> some of it has to do with secretary clinton and perhaps her comments about at the plocials, the handling of the -- the deporables and the handling of the health episode. >> rose: donald trump says it's the biggest mistake of the campaign. >> he sees his supporters as people disengaged from politics and thinks he can rouse them to the polls. as a total outsider, someone outside of partisan lines, when i was with him in canton and you see this crowd, it's electric and these are working class mostly white voters who are not bush or romney republicans but they're out for trump. >> rose: joining me is nick confessore who is covering the campaign for the "new york times." i am pleased to have him again in our studios but at a different table. welcome. >> hey, charlie, how are you. >> rose: donald trump gave a

press conference, we now spoke at lunchtime friday and talked about the birther issue. what did he say and why at this time. >> he finally said president obama was born in this country. he also said incorrectly, he lied and said hillary clinton had spread the rumor in the first place and he has got ton the bottom of it. so in his weird way he put it behind him without acknowledging his role of starting it in the first place. i think the reason he did it was to provide clarity on his position, he's been hounded by the press, his campaign wanted to put it behind him and he did it in a trumpian way, not admitter error or mistakes but saying words about president obama's birth place. >> rose: today he says something ain't after refusing to say anything about it to bob costa. why has he not clarified this before even after his campaign says he no longer believes it? >> i think there is an appetite for the conspiracy theory among

supporters. in his own mine i think he thinks it tweaks the president and the democrats. also he was the major proponent of it for five years. i think he had a hard time backing away from it and ac knocking an error. what we saw today was not acknowledging a mistake but stating the correct facts about the president's birth place. >> rose: is he in any way hostage to the early supporters who gave him his first substantial core support in this presidential race? >> he is 100% hostage to them because it is the core of his support. he's shown time and time again that instead of pivoting in some way, a general election on immigration h he does not want to lose the core supporters. they are the people who brought him from the primary and the 40% who back him in the general election. he can't lose them. >> rose: he is now neck and neck in national polls, respective polls within a point

of 2, even within important and decisive states. if it is just these core supporters, he obviously has gotten support somewhere else because a lot of people who are supporting him are not of the birther issue or some of the other issues that performed his early support on immigration and other issues. >> that's correct. i think we're seeing some tightening with regular republicans who had doubts about donald trump, were really against hillary clinton, and i think some of those republicans are now coming back home and voting for their party's nominee. i think the other part is slippage for hillary clinton. i think she has to figure out a way to energize the obama coalition. >> rose: i'm asking, he seems to have more enthusiasm than she does for his candidacy. two, he seems to poll better on the economic issues which in the end drive many elections. three, he seems to be, even though people are not necessarily happy about him, the beneficiary of a change election. >> absolutely. look, i think it's always hard

when you're running for essentially a third term for your party. she is running for obama's third term in a broad sense. that's always a hard sell for voters. it's hard to get the third term. >> rose: what does she have to do now? how does she confront a change election, as you said the third term of an obama presidency. >> i think she ought to go out and remind the voters of why they are behind her and care about her. let's remember, she had a bad week, out with pneumonia, off the trail a few days. being off the campaign trail for a few days at this point in the election does have an impact. if your support, are looking for a reason to get excited about you and to not feel a little disquieted about the handling of that announcement, you have to get out there. she is now getting out there. i think we'll see a turnaround of some of the polls in the coming days and weeks. it was a bad week for her and we're seeing some reflection of that. >> rose: when you look at her campaign, she has a former

president, her husband, campaigning for her. she has barack obama campaigning for her. she's got a lot of surrogates out there. are they making a difference? >> barack obama and joe biden are two very talented politicians. michelle obama has an extraordinary reservoir of credibility and trust with american voters. >> rose: especially after her speech. >> she is out there this week. i think we'll see movement. among the obama coalition, her challenge is to reassemble the coalition of millennial and black and brown voters, that is her key to win the election. it will make the difference to have the leader of that coalition come out and stump for her. >> rose: the clinton foundation announced it will make specific changes if hillary clinton is i elected president. both former president and former

secretary of state hope the move will put to rest a controversy of potential conflicts of interest and foreign donations. monday i sat down with former rpt clinton to talk about the foundation and its impact on his wife's candidacy. >> there has never been a foundation who has disclosed as much as i have. then why don't people feel trust? because of the way the disclosed information is selectively used. you know that as well as i do. if a martian dropped from outer space and watched our politics unfold, he would say, wow, they say they want disclosure. they don't really, except they do if you make the contributions -- the suggestion that anybody who droibtd my foundation obviously only did it so they would have some influence with hillary as secretary of state ignoring i first organized the foundation

in 1997 to prepare for my presidential center and library, that many of these contributions were made long before she was secretary of state by people who had been known to both of us for decades, and that's the sort of thing that, you know what, it makes me feel bad because the people who are serious about this -- that is, who use disclosure to make serious analysis -- are the major evaluators, like charity navigator or charity watch, of foundations. and i noticed on one of the networks the other night, the head of charity watch said that if it weren't for the pure politics of it, the clinton foundation would be viewed as one of the great humanitarian organizations of our time. you know, i bent over backwards to try to make sure there was no conflict of interest or appearance of conflict of interest. we reached an agreement with the white house before hillary became secretary of state about

how all donations would be handled and how the foundation would be run. i have been working ever since hillary -- for almost a year now, trying to determine what more we need to do. my wife said the other day, if she wins, i will resign from the foundation board, i won't raise any money, we won't take any foreign money, nor will we take any american corporate money. >> rose: i know you've said that. some people when they hear you say that say why not do it now? >> because there is nothing wrong with what i'm doing and because i've got to wind it down. because it takes time to undo this. we've got a lot of lives on the line. for example, the easiest thing for us to do, that we will do is make the help operations which gets the bulk of foreign government money from places like norway, ireland, canada,

the united kingdom, hardly enemies of the united states, to do work all over the world, but principally in africa. i will get off the board, and it will be totally independent. everybody will be satisfied with that. it will be fine. >> rose: this is if she's elected? >> yeah. and then the clinton global initiative, we've decided that we won't have it anymore, so unless someone else decides to pick up the idea, which i would help them do, because it can't run without the support of corporate sponsors and international contributors. that's how we've gotten 3500 commitments that have helped 430 million people in 180 countries. so we can't do that. so we said that. we said that i would resign from the board of my foundation and i would not raise money for that.

>> rose: amy schumer's comedy central series inside amy schumer won an emmy for outstanding sketch series and a peabody award last year. the show is now on hiatus and schumer turned to writing. her new book is called "the girl with the lower back tattoo." >> i have been working on this book for years. this wasn't a, you know, now's the time and i can make some money when we throw it together. >> rose: this is how you start. note to readers, hey, it's me amy. i've written a book. this is something i've wanted to do for a long time because i love making people laugh and feel better. this is nothing but the truth so help me god. but it isn't the whole truth. believe it or not, i don't tell you guys everything. you do tell us a lot, though. >> i do. >> rose: you say you didn't tell stories about anybody that you didn't first say to them, i'm going to tell this story.

>> right. nobody whose actual name is in the book. i checked with everybody and they read what was going to be written about them and they approved it? do you call these essays? >> i guess, yeah. >> rose: how you felt about things at a moment? >> yeah and just what happened. what's good about keeping journals is you have the record of what actually happened. >> rose: what's different between the book and standup to you? >> this is the most personal thing i've ever been a part of. it's just literally what happened and how i felt about it and there is still jokes in there because even at the time i found the humor in it. but, yeah, it's completely raw. there is no facade. with standup, it's still a little bit of a character, even though i feel like my standup is getting more and more personal, but this book is me and it's all true. >> rose: has this turned out like you anticipated? >> writing a book? >> rose: no, life.

yeah. >> rose: it was a dream? this surpassed my dreams. i always knew that i would perform in some capacity, but i wasn't sure how. but i always believed that things were going to work out. >> rose: did you have a comedic voice? >> always, yeah. >> rose: and you knew that early on. >> yeah, even as young as i can remember, i was making people laugh. hearing myself say that, i want to throw up, but -- >> rose: and that kind of defines you. you can do that. it separates you. >> yeah, it does. you either have it or you don't, and it's a little bit of a super power as a kid because you can get yourself out of some trouble or into a lot of trouble, but it does separate you. i always think of this thing chris rock said in a pbs documentary, make 'em laugh, he said, if ignorance is bliss,

then what's the opposite of that? so comedians, i feel like we observe so much that it kind of, like, is a living hell. it feels like this thing that you're kind of blessed with but it's also a curse. >> rose: "snowden" opens in theaters this weekend, the new film from oscar award winning director oliver stone, tells the story of edward "snowden" the man behind what's been called the most far reaching u.s. security breach in history. spoke with oliver stone. >> he addressed something we didn't know. he made the world aware that our government has deployed and

created and deployed a massive international spying system, surveillance system, without democratic consent, and he is the one who brought it out, and i believe he made it -- he did so out of conviction and love of country. >> this film portrays "snowden" ambiguously is good for country. >> it's human and you decide for yourself after you see it. you have to understand his side, how he felt and what his relationship was to shailene and zach. these are crucial and they help support what he's feeling and doing. the fill somecalled snowden, so for joe to immerse himself in that character is one thing. for me personally, it was important to know the function of the character which is to

contextualize the story, to capture the urgency and the vulnerability of these people at this time, their relationship to journalism, one another, to technology. >> a lot of it was creating a character that they had come to know but also replicating the human they had come to know but also just being really truthful in the character that i was playing because, above all else, i never played someone who was real before and apart from wanting to just give a good performance and be truthful and make sure that your director and actors feel they trust you with your performance, you want to make sure that you're honoring the integrity and protecting the integrity of who -- like, we're all here talking about this but ed and lindsey are in moscow at this time. he's still dealing with the repercussions of what happened. >> did you meet edward snowden?

to what degree with you trying to capture the physical of this guy. >> people talk about acting from the inside out and from the outside in, and some actors say they prefer one or the other and i've always found a mix of both is what works best for me. so i certainly studied as much as i could as far as what he said about why he did what he did and, you know, what was going through his head as he made the decision to act. but i also did get to mget him and, when i got to meet him, my focus was actually less on those sorts of politics and more just on him, which is funny because he's always trying to take the attention off himself personally and put the attention on the issues which he's bringing up, which i admire. >> rose: a look at the week ahead. sunday is the closing ceremonies of the rio paralympic games.

monday the start of the annual meeting of the clinton global initiative in new york city. tuesday is the day president obama co-hosts the leaders summit on refugees at the united nations. wednesday is the start of the women's wear shows at milan fashion week. thursday is the first day to have the zurich film festival in zurich, switzerland. friday is the day ramone samad and lucien celebrate their 104th birthday as the oldest living twins. >> and saturday opening day of national museum of african-american history and culture. for the weekend, the emmy awards are broadcast sunday night on abc. >> that's what we should say to the people who lose the emmy. >> you get what you get. jimmy kimmel hosts the emmy. usher releases his eighth

album "hard to love" (singing) >> rose: and director oliver stone, "snowden," starring joseph gordon-levitt opens in theaters nationwide. >> think of it as a google search instead of searching what they make public, we're also looking everything they don't. >> i know about your conversations. >> who is it. are they watching us? >> rose: and that's charlie rose the week for this week. we leave you tonight with another musical performance to commemorate our 25 years on public television. this one is from 1999. the performer is as relevant today as he was then. he's just wrapped a u.s. tour and is about to public an autobiography. here is bruce springsteen in our studio. ♪ he had a woman he loved in

saigon ♪ ♪ down the shadow of the penitentiary ♪ ♪ is the refinery ♪ ♪ ♪ >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

funding for arthur is provided by: when you encourage your children to learn, wonderful things can happen. abcmouse.com early learning academy-- proud sponsor of pbs kids and arthur. a cooperative agreement with the u.s. department of education's ready to learn grant, and by: ♪ every day when you're walking down the street ♪ ♪ everybody that you meet has an original point of view. ♪ ( laughs ) ♪ and i say hey! hey! ♪ what a wonderful kind of day ♪ if we could learn to work and play ♪ ♪ and get along with each other ♪ ♪ you got to listen to your heart ♪ ♪ listen to the beat