>> welcome to the program. i'm jeff greenfield filling in for charlie rose. tonight a look at the growing divide within the republican party over healthcare. the first big legislative task on the trump administration's agenda. and whether the divide posts a long term threat to the republicans and the president. we talked to bret stephens of the wall street journal and -- >> had bill clinton passed welfare reform before he moved on to health reform it's quite possible you wpbt have had the republican revolution of 1994 if george w. bush tried doing something about the woes of middle class folks troubled by their gen rule health insurance before massing a big task cut the bush years would have been different too. trump has an opportunity to get

this right by cutting ryan loose. >> we look at march madness the ncaa basketball tournament and a larger conversation about the ncaa. john feinstein, joe nocera and william rhoden. >> whether it's football or basketball does not care. if you go to a football game and you start to ask people about the exploitation of athletes, they'll laugh at you. if you go to an ncaa game they'll laugh at you. there's a segment of this society that has come to view this as a problem. i'm among those people, something wrong is happening here in the way they're treated both this terms of financial he can ploitation and academic exploitation. but most people don't care. >> politics and march madness when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the

following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> good evening, i'm jeff greenfield filling in for charlie rose. donald trump was not exactly the consensus choice of the republican party, roughly one in five gop senators refused to endorse him. so did four of the last republican presidential nominees. but with his election and with the party controlling both houses of congress, republicans of almost all stripes saw a chance to finally enact some of their most significant goals

from tax cuts to the environment to regulation. now the first big test, repealing replacing obamacare has set something of a wall of opposition within republican ranks, the house freedom caucus and the others on the right say this is obamacare-like. republican governors and senators say the plans changes in medicaid leave those without protection. some of trump's supporters appear to be urging trump to break with house speaker paul ryan and forge his own path. so how big a threat is the healthcare fight to the long term hopes of the party and the president. joining me are two journalists on the right, bret stephens foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor at the wall street journal and rya salam executive editor of national view, i'm pleased to welcome you both to the table. let's start with you, ryan. this can't be what the whitehouse and the republican leadership had hoped to find when they put the healthcare

bill out. >> well the truth is that this isn't really president trump's healthcare proposal, this is a proposal that's been knocking around that's been evolving over a long period of time in the mind of house speaker paul ryan and it reflects paul ryan's priorities. and the trump administration has decided to put its muscle behind this legislative proposal. it's not obvious that that's a very sensible thing of the trump administration to be doing. and the problem for ryan and his allies is that the goals that republicans have articulated on healthcare are really pretty contradictory and irreconcilable. they both have to solve a political problem of not completely unraveling this new healthcare system that's been created in this country over the past few years. on the other hand they want to deliver smaller government to their most ardent ideologic supporters. and that's a very tough circle to square. and the trump administration, the truth is that i don't think the president thought all that deeply about these questions. what he did do, how he

differentiated himself when he ran for the republican nomination was by presenting himself as a defender of the safety net. low and bow hold he found that many republican primary voters responded rather strongly to that message. and that's going to be a big problem for him. >> so you have this i don't know fits a paradox but you have this odd situation where the people who most want an unalloyed appeal people in the house freedom caucus. they seem to be the ones who are most urging trump to break with speaker ryan even though trump's instincts seem to be toward as you say preserving the safety net. far from a free market system. >> this plan comes from two very seemingly directions. it comes from people styling themselves as ideologic purists who also funny enough in many

cases represent rural sees and it also comes from republican senators in particular who represent more diverse swing constituencies. so you both have opposition from what you might describe the left of the party and the right of the party and yet the kind of base for both of those are quite similar. >> look, this is the problem. you have a congress that, whether on one side or the other among the republicans, in the process of making what amounts to ideological calculations. does the ryan bill go far enough or not. i think the president is making a political calculation which is does he want this republican party on his arm or not. to him, the congressional republicans are like a girlfriend who might or might not be interesting to him, maybe

that's too colorful. >> it's a late night show. >> in other words, for trump, he used the republicans in this iteration of the republican party basically disposable. and that's what i don't think the republicans in congress or really the republican base that got behind donald trump ever really understood. he would be somewhat, reminds me actually in his own way ironically of arnold -- that's what i don't think the republicans understand. >> you said something that resonates bret when you talked how he's treating republicans as disposable. i think there's another way of looking at it. for a lot of republican primary voters they feel as though tradition al republicans were treating them as disposable and donald trump came along and actually spoke to them, spoke up for their interests and pledged to defend them. i think that's a big problem because paul ryan has an

imperative that's an intra republican imperative. how does he divide the constituencies, and satisfy their zeal -- >> -- did a focus group with 35 trump voters. they are staying with him but they are very angry with the republican congress, you know. they thought that trump had gotten their votes in part because he was not one of them. so the question is when you move from that kind of political arena to the legislative process, how does trump satisfy his voters who heard a positive message and get anything through congress. >> the thing is if we find out in the next week or so that this bill is not going to make its way through congress, that it doesn't lack the support. trump is simply going to turn on the republicans on ryan, and you already see rumbling of this

through his media operations or associate media operations to say this is the point i was making at the get-go. you can't trust these republicans because trump of course was never a member of the, never an actual republican, never part of the party identify logically. barely a part of the party in terms of his formal party affiliation. >> i don't think it would necessarily hurt trump with his movement because the republican, to switch metaphors the horse he was riding on his way to the presidency. a vehicle convenience, once your horse is exhausted and collapses under you, you get on another horse. the trump base that relates to his anger, his nativism, the emotional appeal that he projects to a certain type of voter is thought going to abandon him so easily. the people who are going to find

themselves disappointed are those movement conservatives who made a bargain with the devil thinking trump is a guy we can control, we can inform. he is the jar into which we will pour the sweet wine of paul ryan's agenda. didn't quite work out that way. >> jeff, if i may. think back to george w. bush, re-elected in 2004 in large part because in the state of ohio he managed to win the vote of large numbers of lower middle income folks many of them women. he did surprisingly with african american voters in that state. he won them over because george w. bush to them seemed like somebody who was going to defend america's interest, and look out for people like them. working for middle class voters in these states. then shortly after he was inaugurated, what did he press forward with. social security reform at a time by the way when the benefit pensions were going away. when a lot of people are anxious about wage stagnation and else and also a vast guest worker

program. not to mention that he was going to spread democracy around the world. so that was his program. despite having won on the strength again of these working and middle income voters. so for donald trump right now to abandon ryan-care, whatever the con servives wants is abandon thing. for trump to abandon this now would in my view be a very astute reading of actual flush and blood republican voters. >> but then you have this other little, i don't know if it's an 800 pound gorilla or elephant. if you want to repeal obamacare this is all you have. frankly it sort of remind me of a story. guy's in a bull fight sees a vunder hot meat pies, ten pesos. it's doughy and no meat.

the vendor says no hot meat pie, that's the name of the pie. are we at a point the republicans are so desperate to say we repealed obamacare that they're going to argue don't even worry about what's in it, if we don't repeal obamacare we're going to disappoint all the people who have been waiting eight years for this. >> look, that's a perfectly fair point. if they don't get this bill through, then this republican congress is a failure. you are just, you are setting up a democratic majority or super majority in 2018 just as surely as the failure of hillary-care back in 1993 set up the republicans for the newt gingrich ascendancy a year later. i think that may be the kind of thought that at the bottom is going to win over both freedom caucus types and you know waiverring moderates to say well we have to get behind this or

else there won't be a republican party. there's not going to be a tax cutting agenda or any part of the republican, the platform that they want to enact, this presidency will be dead or i should say this congress will be dead on arrival. >> kind of a bizarre fantasy of republicans and what they want. rand corrosion conducted a study of primary republican voters and he found something that's going to shock you, jeff. they found that 51% of republican primary voters favored increasing taxes on people who you were more than $200,000. if you look at the universal republicans that number would be higher because -- >> let me ask you something. why in the healthcare bill are the tax credits skewed so dramatically toward the more affluent. >> thank you very much, jeff, well done. you got right on to this. so in this legislation if you had a bit more revenue, the hard thing in obamacare would actually get this revenue, right. again you might want to have tax cuts down the line. you might want to have bigger

middle class tax cuts. that's what republicans would enthusiastically support but where was the grassroots furor for cutting taxes, for people earning millions and millions of dollars. if you're looking at cuts in taxes on investment income but that is really the chief accomplishment of ryan-care relative to all the other disruption and harm it may well cause. that sends a bad central. we're going to have a tax reform that will focus on the economy, corporate taxes that male week america more attractive destination for investments. that would have been a first great thing too but instead you have ryan acting as though there's some kind of time limit on obamacare. this is not the debt limit. this is not something that's going to blow up in your face if we don't do this right now. getting the sequence right matters a lot in politics. had bill clinton passed welfare reform before he moved on to health reform it's quite possible that you wouldn't have had the republican revolution of

1994. if george w. bush tried doing something about the woes of middle class folks troubled by -- vulnerable health insurance before passing a big tax cut the politics on of the bush years would have been different too. trump could get this right by cutting ryan loose. >> part of the problem h re is that the republicans are fact sizing they have an opportunity comparable to the one obama had in 2009. the difference is eight seats in the senate. that's a significant difference in that obama had just, and just if you remember the obamacare debate, just enough political capital in those two years from 09 to 010, to just push through something as big as obamacare. the real lesson, the presidency that succeed do it by taking small steps and winning every time rather than trying to reverse something as large as

this as your first order of business. >> let me put this on the table for both of you. let's say that president trump comes to the realization that do you know what, i won with a message that was essentially populist. half of my inaugural speech could have been given by bernie sanders. so i've been misled by the republican leadership. i'm going to refashion or i'm going to have my people refashion the healthcare bill that's align what i'm going to do with taxes that really is devoted to the middle class. as i said in the campaign i'm not really interested in helping those who already have so much. is that a plausible political road for him to take. >> yes, it is because i've always thought, and this is one of the reasons i'm a never trumper is that actually donald trump ideologically would be more comfortable in the democratic party than in the republican party. his emphasis on social

protection, his belief in infrastructure spending. all of these align at least with classic, the classic democratic economic agenda. he defined about a year ago before the election he was asked what the future of the republican party would be in five or ten years time. and he actually gave to my surprise a really coherent answer he said i see the republican party as a worker's party. not a party of plutocrats. whether they want protection from immigrants or illegal immigration. they want protection from what they see as a muslim horde that's invading us. they want a corporate state of a kind we have exampled from frankly juan peron's argentina.

this is came up under ronald reagan. >> it always seemed donald trump was a third party candidate and the only way a third party candidate could win the whitehouse was to take one of two parties and both parties are hollowed out in terms of institutional forces that could prevented that, that he did it. in that case if donald trump tried to redefine the republican party along populist lines how does that work given who the leadership is in the house and the senate. mitch mcconnel is populist, paul ryan is populist in the sense of changing the tax laws. that seems to me a pretty hard road. >> when you're thinking about the two parties, one way to think about them is purely through an ideologic lens. and another way to think about them is what is the coalition that parties represented. one way to think about it is that over the last 20 or so years the democratic party has evolved into more what you call a bar bell party. it's a party that represents large numbers of working class people, particularly working

class people of color and it also represents a larger number of upper educated and rich folks as well. barack obama out performed mitt romney earning more than $250,000 a year. that was since 1964. that's a pattern that's likely to keep persisting. the republican party is the party that represents the broad american middle. right now it's largely the white middle but it represents part of the country that are more egalitarian and less cosmopolitan and parts of the country that have been hard hit by social integration in various ways. to me that is a place, that should prompt republican politicians to think about how do i better represent the interests of this constituency. of course there are ideologic imperatives but i think that's a good starting point and i think donald trump's politics as imperfect as they are were a very good starting point for thinking about how do we actually take these parts of the country that's been left out of rise and prosperity and deliver

this message. we want to make sure that everyone in the country is progressing with global economic integration with automation, with rapid change and the republican party can be the party that ensures that everyone is making that the transition. right now it's not. >> you described yourself as a never trumper and your columns reflect that. is there anything, let me ask you not about him right away but about the broader republican party. is there anything in the republican party leadership in their agenda that fits with what ryan was just talking about in terms of where they want the tax cuts to go, how they want to protect workers. is there anything substantive that you can point to that says yeah. >> you know the republican party at its best is a party that represents aspiration, opportunity and inclusion. it's a party that says we can find, we are going to get government out of the way so that you can pull yourself up without being burdened by

regulation. greater opportunities for minorities as an example of that kind of party. in fact the classic ryan you sort of want to call it the ryan wing of the republican party, i don't think is anti-thetical to that although it doesn't do a fantastic job presenting itself in those clorlz. i think what is anti-thetical to that is the kind of nativism close your doors you know batten down the hatches republicanism represented by donald trump. but you're absolutely right in that this wing of the party has not had done a particularly good job of selling that vision of republicanism in part i would argue because it's so wholly has given itself over to trumpism, to working with donald trump rather than trying to make clear what the differences are between old fashion reagan scale

republicanism and the nativism represented by trump. >> two quick responses to that. the first is that when we talk about government getting out of the way. this is something republicans often talk about and i'm often sympathetic to it. the problem is that when you think about school choice. when you think about changing the healthcare system, you actually need to know how these institutions work. and when you take this reflexive anti-government view as attractive as it might be identify logically, that means you're often times bereft of the know how that's required to actually make these things happen. that's been a big problem for the republican party number one. numberwo bret has referred on a number of occasio to nativism and i just want to be very clear that there's a big difference between let's say contempt for immigrants. just a random distaste for them as they're somehow worse people and the believe that the united states like all other countries is a country that needs to be thoughtful about our immigration policies and want to be sure our immigration policies serve our national interest over the long term and the interest of

vulnerable americans including the children of immigrants who are often quite poor. and i think that our policies to date, and also policies among pro immigration republicans by the way take the view let's let in large numbers of impoverished people and deny them to medicare and snap and a plan me of other programs. trump came out and said that doesn't make sense and lo and behold most primary voters agreed with him. >> the immigration views represented in the trump administration are those of the iowa congressman mr. king. >> other people's babies. he perfectly captured in his way exactly what this wing of the republican party -- >> nobody on earth says we should no kind, we should have a completely irrational or open border system. >> we should have an open border

system. >> okay. on the extreme libertarian right perhaps you can fine that. everyone understands that you need a regulated immigration system. that's a -- >> what is the basis of regulation. should the basis be a national interest oriented policy or should it be what's in the interest of employers. >> i don't know about, i mean look. my mother arrived in this country with $7 to her name. thieves a refugee, all right. in the space of one generation her son is accused of being an elitist, great triumph of american democracy. >> when you look at the mississippi delta. these are folks we neglect. why do we? it's because we can. we've decided to replace one work force with another. that's not to say immigration isn't a wonderful thing that enriches our country but it mean having a more thoughtful policy is not crazy. having a policy that emphasizes skill, that's designed to enrich

the country or -- >> look you know perfectly well what threatens workers is not mexican or -- >> this is at the heart and soul of the republicans. but i wanted to ask perhaps a less lofty question which is this. clearly a lot of republicans made their peace with donald trump despite some significant questions about temperament and character because they thought it's a binary choice. we either get him or we lose the supreme court for a generation. my question is to what extent if there is legislative grid lock, if obama, if the obamacare repeal crashes and burns, if there are increasing tensions between 1600 pennsylvania avenue and the other end in congress, to what extent will the patients

of some republicans with donald trump more erratic behavior begin to wither? in other words do you expect that there will be people willing to step away from say no, don't take this seriously or literally because he's our guy. what do you think he risks a certain erosion within his own party if he can't legislatively do what the congressional wing is hoping he'll do. >> look, i can't really speak to that. my sense is if trump were to prevent republicans there doing something politically disastrous they may well be beholden to him. i'll say something else. congress is an independent and co-equal branch of government. it is the job of congress regardless of the party in charge to do its job of holding the executive branch accountable. you may well be right there's some political calculation going on here but my view is if there are serious questions, and i think there are about the trump administration, about its ties to foreign governments and what

have you, those should be investigated by congress. >> what i find stunning is the resilience of trump's supporters. i wrote about this just the other week. i mean, so far seven weeks of the trump administration just think how much political capital, how many political opportunities have been squandered in one stupid tweet after another that seems to consume all administration, all of the administration's energy. and you would think or i would think that this would make thoughtful trump supporters say this isn't quite what i signed up for. i signed up for a guy who knew how to drive a bulldozer and was going to drive it right through congress to accomplish a task. you mentioned the polling data out of michigan. that doesn't seem to be happening. trump is a cult personality figure. to understand the trump phenomena we have to look at

phenomena beyond the democratic experience which is why i mentioned someone like juan peron in argentina. why is it he has this emotional pull on these core supporters that can't be explained by results. >> that's where i think a lot of us missed the point going back a year and-a-half. it's one of the few things i think i've got right. from the very beginning. everything we thought and had been taught was a big was a feature. the very vulgarity proved that he was not a prisoner of the kind of establishment, the very fact that he was wanted to break the china. the fact he boasted of his money is a way of saying he's too rich to steal and he can't be bought. the resiliency he has now you can trace back to when a lot of us thought he'll never make it through the first insulting of john mccain. >> he has a strong attachment to a republican base and a republican pace that's skeptical of republicans who don't seem to

have their interests in mind. the truth is trump never would have happened if you had a republican party that was more responsive to the party. something like 7 or 8% of republicans want to increase immigration levels. who are the main heavy weight republicans, they were jeb bush and marco rubio who favored increasing immigration levels. this is sheer madness. if that hfnt been the case there's no way trump would have gotten this far and he understands it. my view is because trump takes the minority view within the republican party he actually needs to be much more disciplined. he needs to have an agenda with which he can, that he can impress upon the republican party and the problem is he doesn't. he doesn't have that discipline that he needs and that's a huge problem. >> i think it's a mistake to think of trump as an agenda phenomena like he was speaking about immigration or trade. he could completely flip his views on any number of these subjects over the next year or so and i don't think that would

necessarily alter his base's attachment to it. i get literally thousands of letters from my clomsz and they become a representative sample of a lot of trump support. the best letter i ever got was a guy who said we don't get it. we know he's vulgar, he's crass and he doesn't have a command of policy issues and at last we have a president on public television is a word that rhymes with cajones which is a spanish word. that's what they got. here is a politician that was not, who never backed down, who never apologized. the appeal went well beyond what trump was saying about immigration or any number of other subjects. it was a sense that here was a guy who at last didn't care what guys like me or guys like you think about. >> a question, if i may is, can that sustain, for instance, legislative defeats in which his

core supporters say well you promised you would deliver us something. or is this bond with trump so strong they will simply accept his version of reality, i was betrayed or the republicans were too weak. in other words, how resilient is the resilience that bret described, it really depends on his opposition, right. if his opposition , if you have democrats that say we ought to have an immigration policy based on legality or the national interest, trump will be in big trouble. if his opposition enables him by trying to marginalize some of these common sense views, then you know he may well get away with it. but i mean the fundamental issue is the reason why i emphasize the agenda part and you're right trump is not someone who is a programmatic policy thinker. but if you had another candidate who is more disciplined, restrained person who is running on a national interest agenda, who is running, much as reagan

did that yes we favor free trade but we are certainly going to punish those who violate the rules. if you had someone along those lines, that candidate would have won this election in a landslide. had you run the 2016 presidential election ten times, nine out of ten donald trump would have lost. the election would have been the skin of his teeth. if you had another republican who was aligned with the base and more meshed with dare i say cent -- centrist, they would have won overwhelmingly. >> that's a counterfactual. we're never going to know. but i come back to this, i think it's very important. i think what you are thinking about trump in terms of american, an ordinary, as another american politician in an american political tradition. and he simply isn't that. he's out, he landed as it were

on a comet so to speak. if you want to think of him in a global way. he is the most representative example of a waver of liberalism that's been sweeping the globe. you see it in the philippines, you can see it in france, you canee it with the pegdon movement. the ordinary political distonguions of liberal and conservative i think have washed away. the really distonguions are more between liberal and inremember lull. he represents a liberalism married to a cult personality. i don't think you're going to find a new republican party by sort of adjusting or erasing traditional republican beliefs in the virtues of free market and -- >> here's the problem, bret. you literally have a lot of conservative outlets who claim that the basic center right christian census that you have

in many other countries is socialistic. it's crazed lunacy and that's why you couldn't have a center-right republican party that recognizes that people depend on the safety net. by marginalizing and citigroup know tieing hey maybe we need child tax credits for parents for middle income parents to help raise their kids. by saying that is socialism you open the way to someone like donald trump. the idea that this is somehow ill liberalism that's driving this to me seems very silly. it's the failure on the part of mainstream republicans. >> i think it would be a fine idea charlie at the end of this legislative session has you both back and you can weigh, we'll play these comments and we'll see whether or not the next three to six months bear it out. but i will just say, this is one thing i think is kind on universal. this is the presidency unlike anything we've ever seen or even could have imagined. ryan, bret, thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> if you're having trouble reaching an office in the next few weeks it might be because the workers are too busy checking their brackets. seeing how their choices are doing as they make their way through three weeks of competition that will decide who wins the ncaa men's basketball title. march madness is one of america's biggest sports spec comes and the money at stake is also very big. cbs and turner sports are in the midst of a 20-year 19.6 billion dollar deal for broadcast rights. a single ad in the finals goes for $1.5 million and they will bet billion of dollars on the game. memorable moments like this game winning shot by ville no awe chris general kuntz at the buzzer last year there are scandals and trofersz, players kawlingsed through academic work, shady recruitment practices and whether those at least are exploited by the schools and the ncaa. joining me in new york, bill

rhoden a columnist and editor at large for espn's undefeated an author of 40 million dollar slaves. jonah sarah the inside story against the ncaa and from orlando john fine stein a columnist for the washington potion and an author of the book the legend's club. welcome. explain to the uninitiated what makes the march madness so compelling? >> well jeff i think it's two things. it's the one and out nature of the event. it's not best of seven teams. it can be the number one seed the number two seed whatever, they lose, they have a bad shooting night somebody's hurt at the wrong time they're done. but more than that, it's the true under dog aspect of the so called double-digit seed. those teams seeded ten and higher who have a real chance to win early round games. and in some cases actually get to the final four.

george mason got to the final four in 2006. vcu got to the final four in 2011 and butler now in a big time league but wasn't at the time got to the final four in 2010 and 2011 for the champion game in both cases. we root for the under dog and this gives you under dogs like no other sports event does. >> this is where princes are considered under dogs in life by taking points. is it also the nature of the competition that there are individuals that we're going to keep a special eye on. i'm thinking of a certain 17 year old from ucla for instance. >> yes. and the shame of it though, jeff, is that lon the zo will not be a sophomore or junior at ucla. he will be playing in the nba next year. that's one thing that's changed over the years because the nba passed a rule saying you must go to college for one year before you can go in the nba draft.

but after that you can. it used to be a great player like lebron james or kolby bryant might skip college altogether and go to the pros but most guys would stay at least three or four years and we got to know them. a kid like grant hill who stayed at duke for four years almost became part of people's families let's why he's so popular even now 23 years after he graduated. it's not the same but there's no doubt that somebody will emerge as a star at the end of this tournament. last year it was chris jenkins making that shot. by the way he is a senior at villanova. >> let's stay with the tournament itself. handicap this for us. too much on the spot. >> it's great because everybody knows i'm not on the spot. who knows, maybe john knows. >> i'm glad you got that question, bill. >> yeah, i know. the thing is, and john touched

of it. the beauty of this for me the most compelling part are these next two weeks when you got the so-called under dogs. we all know at the end of the two weeks it will end up with big money. duke or north carolina. if ucla make the final four it's kind of an upset because a they're in another time zone. so i would not be surprised if the final four is duke, i don't know if it could happen, duke, carolina, kansas and i would put in ucla just because it's a really good story. but this whole idea of the under dog. i mean, after these two weeks, to me it becomes very predictable. >> there's another aspect to this because you've written not just about the surface of sports but what's underneath it. to some extent when you watch this tournament is it a guilty pleasure. that is do you watch it knowing full well some of the less attractive aspects of this. >> not, not, not me.

i mean we all know where all the bodies are buried. if i'm tearing up it's not because i'm crying for the exploitation of the athletes, it's the make-up. we're all big guys now. and i tell kids from the age of 16 that you' either going to be or 14, you're either going to be the tool or the carpenter. you make the choice. when we see the competition, you got an opportunity to see the education. you make that call. more of the exploitation is this idea of making people have to ga year but it does turn things into a farce.

>> i don't think anyone who's written more critically about the ncaa institution and you. so despite that do you watch this tournament with one eye as a fan or the knowledge with what you see as a pretty -- >> i definitely watch it as a fan. i can enjoy it. i grew up in providence. i root for them. i watched college basketball my whole life. that hasn't really changed but i go in knowing that every aspect of this tournament is about maximizing revenue. every aspect. you can't walk in to your seat with a product that's not ncaa sponsored. they actually take them away from you as you walk in through the gate to take your seat. every aspect of this is commercial. they maximize the revenues. except for the labor force as i like to put it. the labor force does it for free. you know that. the players are enjoying it. but there's something wrong. there is something wrong. >> to what extent do you think the way that the fans get e

muraled in these two weeks, particularly the brackettology, the betting of an estimated $9 billion. to what extent do you think that that in a way shields this event and an institution like the ncaa from a more public accounting of what they've done. >> you don't need brackettology to shield the ncaa. the average college sports fan whether it's football or basketball does not care. if you go to an alabama football game and you start to ask people about the exploitation of athles they'll last at you. if you go to an ncaa final far game they'll laugh at you. there's a segment of this society that has come to view this as a problem. i'm among those people that something wrong is happening here in the way they're treated both in terms of financial exploitation a academic exploitation. but most people don't care. >> john, do you care?

should we care. >> i care and i watch the games. i enjoy these first and second round games that bill is referencing more than any because it does involve the smaller schools. it's not the big bucks. but it's not the brackettology that shields what's going on, jeff. it's television. television present the best of the ncaa tournament. we see the fantastic finishes. they do all these tceacly as television always calls them. they do these interviews with coaches and players in which they are all going to save the world when they get out of the college. there's a psa that runs every year during the tournament that says there are 470,000 student athletes in the ncaa who ill with never play in the nba or nfl and you got a kid who is a swimmer and plays the violin and has a 4.0gpa like he's a typical

student. they sell the tournament and the people playing in the tournament very well. but you can still acknowledge that the games are great, that the players are terrific at what they do and enjoy the competition while knowing as bill said a minute ago that there's something behind that door that they don't want you to see. >> and again, we've all been doing this for decades. i've been going almost 40 years, it's not that i've become jaded but we all have our passions about what's wrong. my passion t joe and i have been kind of on the other side of this. i'm not as concerned about exploitation of the athletes. i look at the media and what you're going to see tonight the media is 99% white. if you look at anything around it. production. everything around it is white. the only thing, the only role that black folks play are going to be these ten kids on the court maybe. but if you look at our industry, the media which continues to be

overwhelmingly white. to me that's more of a passion. how do we correct that. you could argue that the ncaa is trying at least to do things with gpa's and make sure we get rid of the $20 million coaches. but our industry and that's all i can deal with. our industry remains this sort of almost exclusionary industry that we will deal with these black guys on the floor but this terms of the coaches. there are few black coaches. when joe says something's wrong, now that something wrong that's four industry that's something we should be having as much passion with eradicating as about whether a kid gets a billion dollars after staying for one year. >> there are 65 schools in the power five conferences. nine of them have african american coaches. 70% of the players are african american and with all of this hammering about graduation rates there is reason to, your hands. i'm here at a golf tournament

right now. the golfers don't graduate at any better rate than basketball players do. very few of them that play on the fewer right now are college graduates but nobody worries about it. why? because they're not african american and everybody's concern had an african american without a college degree can't survive in society today but a white kid who is no smarter or better educated they think is going to be okay. i think he's right on it. >> i just think bill, if you got ten black kids on a field making all these white people rich, which they're doing and not being compensated for it, to me there's something wrong with that. >> the compensation, i hear what you've saying. but the compensation should be the degree. >> why do you get to decide that. >> i think anybody in civilized america think it's compensation. in our community education has always been about the key. it's always been the key. and i think all of a sudden to make this about money that well

we're getting paid. no the payment should be your degree. the payment should be education and i like the idea -- >> -- gave $200,000 from the olympics and she's allowed to swim as she is in college. why is that okay? why is there nothing wrong with that which the ncaa allows. but for a black kid to get $15 from a booster he has to be suspended. >> not just a black, anybody. we're talking about two things. we're talking about how each sport kinds of picks does chooses who it allows to make money. the idea, the fact is that, and what you're talking about the plantation system. basketball football, at the highest level supports everything. they are the two money-making revenue sports. >> just to be clear. the point here is that those big money sports you're saying support for instance women's athletes at the colleges. >> they support everything. >> everything. >> if these top 25 schools and these kids are doing the heavy

lifting, the football basketball players are doing the heavy lifting for the field hockey people, e swims, why shouldn't they be compensated. i'm saying sure, and football, yeah, i agree if you go to a bowl game and there's a $2 million payoff, i absolute e agree there should be some revenue sharing. maybe you get 10% that's into the escrow that when you graduate you have access to it. no problem with that. >> the point is somebody who you might expect not play big time college athletics. it does occur to me john, if i had a written a book and it was a big success and i wrote it while i was in college i would have made a lot of money doing that. i think the question that joe keeps raising is very valid is why is this the one group that is not permitted to profit when they are helping other parts of the university make a ton of money. >> well, and that's a very good and important point to make.

i've always said when i was a sophomore in college, if "the washington post" had come to me and said we think you are the next great sports writer and we're going to pay you a hundred thousand dollars a year right now which back then was like a million dollars there i never would have been a junior. i would have said this is something i really want to do, somebody will pay me to do why do i need my college degree. carl bernstein never graduated from college and he did okay. the point about paying the athlete. there are all sorts of issues. joe knows this better than i do. he's more expert in this area than i am. there are issues with taxes and scholarships and things like that. but bill's idea is headed in the right direction. create a trust fund for the athletes in football and men's basketball and say when you graduate -- lonzo ball won't need that money but most of the players on theeam could use 30, 35, $40,000 and have an incentive to graduate to get

that money and maybe more athletes would graduate then. and that would be good for everybody. and the other thing about it is people will say title 9. you can't do it because you have to compensate the women's athletes. no you don't. you write the bill to say any revenue sport, a sport that makes money for the school, whether it's men's or women's or soccer or whatever it might be that way title 9 isn't an issue. >> let me turn to gentlemen. do you think that there is movement toward athletes. >> yes. it will never happen. the only way it would happen if the athletes themselves went on strike and that's not going to happen. there's a lot of people who thought five years ago that the legal system was going to fix this and it's very very clear that that will not happen. the legal system has basically said and the court of appeals in

california that the ncaa, ncaa rules of amateurism violate america's anti-trust laws. but the courts are unwilling to take the next logical step and say therefore you got to get rid of the rule. instead the courts have basically said you can fiddle around with the rules but you can keep them. the fact is three no incentive on the part of anybody on the system to pay the players excet the payers. >> you work for television, espn which is in an odd position sometimes of celebrating the athletes, the promos alone are something out of a massive hollywood and also covering the darker side. so my question is and luckily for you espn is not broadcasting the ncaa. do you think north carolina takes the floor we'll hear about the allegations about academic bending of rules that have shadowed north carolina. >> i think you will.

you have to. espn and again i worked for the times for 5 years and that was a different kind of animal. espn butted heads with roger goodal. yes, you have to talk about the darker issues. i played football, i played at the university, i played for four years. and you know, was i exploited. yes, sure, i had a mentor who we played every year at yankee stadium and he stopped going because you guys are going exploiting. i was an english major. there were doctors and lawyers. what i'm saying to joe is yes, there are things that are definitely wrong with the system but this is one of the most

unique systems in the world where you can actually go to a university and be a runner or swimmer and get a degree and get a college degree. there's nothing wrong with that. i think that's a good thing. do we need to tweak things yes. but in terms of getting rid of, you're going to hurt more people, you're going to hurt more people by eliminating this then you're going to help. >> are you talking about eliminating this, you're not talking about canceling the ncaa tournament are you, or are you. >> absolutely not. look my thing is pretty simple. when you have an exploited labor force that's not getting its economic value and making everybody else rich you should change that system. that's what it really comes down to. i don't think a scholarship is nearly nervous specially as you just brought up north carolina had so much academic substandard. it's worth pointing out by the way north carolina was in the film four last year. the scandal came up. i won't say it was glossed over

but at a certain point there wasn't much to say and that's true this year because it still hadn't been settled. >> by the way roy william the north carolina coach has said he hopes it's settled before the end of his life because the ncaa is so good at dragging its feet. but to your point, joe, it's true. but to your point about, it will take the athletes doing something. there was a basketball player at duke in 1970 who actually tried to organize a boycott of the final four almost 20 years ago. the person he went to for help with it by the way was dean smith the coach at north carolina. dean smith was not against the idea because he felt his athletes and others were exploited. tragically he died of cancer and nobody has revived the idea since. i think some day the idea will be revised.

the football players refused to go play. it had nothing to do with payment, we have substandard, we're not going to play and guess what they shut it down. there was no homecoming. >> like joe's point, if the athletes don't do something. if the athletes don't organize themselves nothing's going to change. let me thank you sarah, let me thank you john feinstein and bill rhoden, pleasure to have you. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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