. >> rose: welcome to the program, we continue with our series of conversations about president trump's first 100 days. joining me are mike murphy a political strategist and matthew dowd, a former political strategist, now a political consultant for abc news. >> if you look at these hundred days, i think there's a lot of thing the trump folks ought to be worried about. matthew and i both eluded to earlier, he's got bad numbers. the president has the toolbox. if you are popular you can pressure the congress. he doesn't have that. he's backed into one part of the republican party that loves him, but even that is not enough in a majority where you can see it in health care now between the freedom caucus on the right and moderates on the center trying to find a middle ground to change obama care which is a tough public policy program am but he is running out of tools. and that's a problem. >> rose: we continue with clarissa ward senior international correspondent for

cnn. >> having spent time in iraq an afghanistan and gazza i know and have seen first hand the horrors of war and all people from all different countries and all different war zones are, of course, victims and suffering enormously. but there is something unique to the syrian crisis to both the david and goliath kind of element to it. whereby you have a civilian population being bombarded from the skies, relentlessly. where the rebel fighters do not have anything like the same kind of firepower that the russians and the regime and the iranians and hezbollah have when put together. so and to see hospitals targeted, to see fruit markets targeted, to see schools targeted, there is a cynicism to the syrian war that really is particularly haunting to me. >> rose: and we conclude this evening with author and new yorker columnist calvin trillin.

>> i can't remember when pictures were introduced in "the new yorker" but a the lo of these store hees were written before there were photographs, and before there was a little description of what the story was about. so it is a good place to tell a story without being interrupted. the, you don't have somebody like a photo caption saying was he pushed or did he jump. and i might not tell you that there's been anything like that till the middle of the story. >> mike murphy, matthew dowd, clarissa ward, and calvin trillin. when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose is 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. >> rose: the counts down to 100 days we continue our coverage leading unto president trump's 100 days in office that comes on saturday, a day after the president revealed his tax plan, the white house faced questions about how the proposed tax cuts would be carried out without adding to the federal government's growing deficit. meanwhile republican members of congress worked to come up with a short term spending bill that what keep the government open for at least another week. house democrats have threatened to allow the government to shut down if republicans use the extension to vote on a new health-care bill. joining me from los angeles, mike fur fee, a gop strategist and the host of the podcast

radio free gop and from austin, texas, path u dowd, chief political analyst for abc news. i'm pleased to have them on this program. we've been talking about a hundred days. let me talk about it at the beginning from a political standpoint. assess donald trump and his political performance and future. mike? >> well, i would say on the plus side, we conservatives are happy with the supreme court outcome and he's continuing to set the agenda which is what a president has to do. on the minus side i think there are more things. he has not positioned himself in a place where he has any popularity or strength in the country other than the voters the core of the voters who voted for him. he is he unable to go around politics and rally much, just talk to the base with the same campaign rhetoric he used. on the ledge slailtive side, he is boxed himself out of working with democrats by becoming so

radioactive that if you are a democrat, you get a primary and on the republican side you are starting to see ideal logical tension. he has not done much to get things done which is what a president does. >> if is with grading his first hundred days i would give him an incomplete. he needs to turn his homework in and get it done. i don't think he's really done yet. donald trump's best day if you look at how the public perceives him was the moment he put his hand on the bible and took the oath of office. every day after that hasn't been a really good day for donald trump. and his approval ratings in the country have deter rated from that day onward. and he e as mike said, he has a majority of the country that is o pussed to him. what he is done is solidified both bases. he solidified a majority against him over the course of 98 days and solidified the group of voters that is probably 35, 36, 38% that are for him. and so while it's solid and he's got a solid level of support in nearly every single member of

the republican party and voter group he dun have a majority of country that he can communicate with. and president's rise or fall on their ability to connect with the country. that ability he has right now is very limited. >> rose: has he shown the ability to change? he want people that say i have this information, have i these principles but i will adopt it this way. what we don't know is what he has learned. when he is changed, he hadn't enunciated why he changed, what his principles are and what information that he came in contact with made him change. so yes, he's changed but i done know what he learned. >> rose: lets' take syria, really looking at him, not so much the strike itself, the

preparation for that seemed to me was handled well. >> i think it was a paper that was already written, right? the paper was in the desk. and he took the paper out and i think that plan was already-- and he handed that paper in and of course we would give him a grade on his paper that was done. i think what we really will looking for, yes, the implementation of a tactical action was done well, primarily obviously by the pentagon but he made the decision in that. we have no idea what the strategy involved in, what the end game is and what are the next steps. so he launches 15 tomahawk missiles, seem to hit where they were supposed to hit. great, that was done. we have no idea what the end result of this is going to be. >> has he made friends within the republican party, mike? >> well, it's a weird kind of marriage of convenience. because he's not a traditional republican, idea logically. and as matthew said, he's all tactics, no strat he gee. and will change his positions every day, but we don't know what the strategy is that is driving that. so republicans, the republicans

in d.c. particularly liked about him was he was quote a winner, he won the election. big surprise, we have the house, we have the senate. but now we're finding out we're not sure he is idea logically reliable. so there is fear growing in the caucus. and there is a lot of worry that he will go try ang late himself over into left field or right field or who knows what. and when you have a president who is kind of a chaos machine, it can be a negotiating advantage for the president. but also scares your allies a lot. because they don't know what to count on. so if he keeps, you know, if he starts having wins he will hold friends. if he try ang lates against the rs and ds because he they can't get anything done, then he's not going to have very many friends. if we lose the special election coming up in georgia, this runoff in a republican district where it's really a coin toss, then the real power will take over the congress. the fear of my own re-election, the golden rule, do thine own political career be true. and then the kal you can lus will change which is this guy was supposed to be the big win

wore got elected, is now an anchor around our necks and what are we going to do about it. >> the idea is nothing succeeds like winning, i assume. that's the-- in politics, that is the golden rule. >> yeah, and that's why if you look at these hundred days, i think there's a lot of things that the trump folks ought to be worried about. matthew and i both eluded to earlier, he's got bad numbers. the president has the toolbox. if you are popular pressure the congress. he doesn't have that. he's backed into one part of the republican party that loves him, but even that is not enough in a majority where you can see it in health care now between the freedom caucus on the right and moderates on the center trying to find a middle ground to change obamacare which is is a very tough public policy problem. so he is running out of tools. and that is a problem. >> but matt as you know, everybody says you know, everybody who supports him says well, you've said that all along. look what happened. he won the republican primaries. he got the nomination and he defeated hill rae clinton. >> well, that's totally true.

but es he's in an entirely different scenario, charlie. i said this ever since he took office. he succeeded by pushing up against somebody or something that were more unpopular or more, less acceptable than him. right now he's pushing up against himself. he stands on his own as president of the united states. he's flailed around trying to find an enemy to push up against, the press, democrats, whatever st-- whatever it is, he is president of the united states without an election campaign for another three years. so he succeeded, yes, he succeeded in the primaries against a group of weak candidates that didn't never take him seriously. he pushed against them, succeeded against hillary clinton, a person almost as unpopular as he was, can he succeed as a leader standing on his own. and now he's on a world stage that he can't sort of compete against, and get a rebound off of somebody else. he has to do it on his own. and that's where he found deficit. >> so mike, what does he have to do to become transform tiff. >> i think he has to understand the difference between a campaign which is a promise

auction and the reality of governing where you have to use these tools of amplification like the white house. i mean we have an essentially disfunctional staff in the white house, the administration is well understaffed. the only e semp shun is some of the national security team are quite excellent but a president needs to know how to play the big piano to use the assets of office. and instead he's kind of hunkered down in the bunker. if you look at the legislative agenda it's all been tactical, there is no strategy. so you know how he does get some winds in the reality of washington politics is what vexed them, will have to up his game tremendously or he will just be sitting in the white house angrily tweeting all day long. and that's a dead end for any president. >> i know they is about optics but what about having the centers to come in and brief them on north korea. what about having the security council come down to washington so he can try to flatter them. >> well look, i think it was a good tactic because we're trying to widen the sal yent of the north korean issue and that also sebds the message to the chinese and north koreans, most of the

foreign policy tactics have been pretty good. but those are tack take-- tactics. they get to you tomorrow, they are step-by-step, they are not a strategy to know a hundred days from now what are the wins. how do you get the numbers up. so you have the political power with both parties, really, to get something through. the stuff he wants to do is really hard. tax reform is easiest thing in politics to talk about in a campaign, it's one of the hardest things to do. like the bermuda triangle. you fly in smiling at 300 miles an hour, you're never seen again, it's all about sacrifice. so they're going to need to be a plus strategists to get to the kind of stuff you want to do. right now i give him a d. >> well, do he they need some magic bullet in the presence of one person that can come in and make the white house a different place? >> i don't think so because it's him, you know, that's part of it. trump doesn't change. he's the atomic clock of what it he is, his strength and weakness. >> matt. >> i don't think you can add anything that will change.

i totally agree with mike. this is fundamentally about donald trump. you can't add a series of people that are going to say i will feel better about donald trump t will be a different brand of leadership in this. donald trump if he wants to succeed has to understand his own weaknesses and liabilities and confront them and move through them and become a different kind of leader. it is on his shoulders to sort of become something different than he was in the campaign. >> what about his relationship with the media? >> well, it is sort of standard plarks especially by republicans to sort of lambaste the media and say the elite media and all of that. i think the media still loves to cover him. so he has a huge asset there. the media wants to cover him. they even want to cover anybody around him. so it's an asset and a lot of presidents don't have, the media et goes bored by things. they're not bored at all in this. the problem is he lost a level of trust. it's not only with the american public but is dramically level with the media. so every word that comes out of his mouth or on his keyboard or out of sean spicer's mouth or sb somebody else now is automatically questioned. there is not a level of trust.

that makes it very hard to reach any consensus to people that are covering you don't trust what you are saying. >> rose: matt, thank you for joining us. >> great to be here. >> rose: michael, let me go back to the issue of him. >> sure. >> rose: it really isn't a remarkable time, a hundred days, and our our entire fascination has been with donald trump and our entire fascination has been with his behavior. >> right, it is amazing. we've never seen anything like this. he is a very assymetrical character because he has the genius for holding the media spotlight. but one of the ways he holds the media spotlight is by breaking the china and doing incredibly outrageous thinks hurting his credibility with media so over time he discounts himself. it's like steroids. he's so steroidal he can grab the media and have all the power but he is he killing his political body with the tack takes he uses to do it. so he's got to change things up. but i don't know at 70, somebody

who has lived in kind of his bubble of success that he has created, if he's capable of changing that way. he makes the biggest mistake with the media you can ever make which every politician makes, he reads it. that's the problem. most success -- one of the most successful governor i worked for john engler of michigan never read k4reu7s. trumps knows how to drive the media but he reads it and reacts so he gets caught in his feedback loop and den doesn't help him move the big ball. >> rose: not only reacts but it seems to influence decisions he makes. >> totally. i'm in the advocacy business in. did krvment. when we are talking to cliepts we say here are the three cable shows to put an ad on to get right to the president. nobody knows how the staff works with the cardinals fighting each other. you go direct to him. it is a new territory here, because he's totally, to use the computer term, open source. >> rose: it is also education by tv. >> yeah, no, i mean, you know, you hear from people in that orbit that he is difficult to

brief because the president doesn't like to read things, even short decision memos which is often how a white house works. doesn't do that. so you have to verbally brief him, but when you try that he likes to tell the story about the conspiracy that denied him new hampshire or whatever it is. so it is difficult for the staff there to brief the president, in a two-way situation where he can gain information. and you know, that's a troubling thing to me. >> rose: mike murphy, political strategist, screen writer and whatever else out on the west coast, thank you for joining me. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us. serious civil war is widely considered the worst geo political and humanitarian crisis of the 2 1s century. the conflict has clawmed at least 470,000 lives in the six years since it erupted out of the arab spring protest. millions more have been displaced leading to a refugee crisis that has destabilized the neighboring region and fueled far right sentiments across europe.

joining me now is clarissa ward. she is a senior international correspondent for cnn, she spent the last six years reporting from syria, and it was announced yesterday that she was one of the recipients of the 2016 peabody award for her series undercover in syria. and here is a look at that. >> it was just an air strike here in the town of arija so we're driving very qukly. it's not clear yet what was hit but we are hearing that there are still plains in the sky. >> arriving on the scene our team found chaos and carnage. volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they tried to ferry out the wounded. for many it was too late. a woman lay dead on the ground, a jacket draped over her, an attempt to preserve her dignity. russia has repeatedly claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets. this strike hit a busy fruit market. >> this is just a civilian

market. this is not a military area. >> there are no military installations here or anything. it's a market. it's a market. a fruit market. is this what you want? >> >> rose: i'm pleased to have clarissa ward back at this table. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: you're in town to a, celebrate with your friends, and also receive another award. >> yes, indeed. >> rose: from the press club. >> yes, a very exciting one. always a tremendous honor to receive an award that is basically from your peers, if people without do the same type of work. it's a particularly exciting one to win. >> rose: when was you last in syria. >> i was last inside syria when i made that piece, or that series of pieces, undercover in syria. that was last march. i have been trying to go again, especially after the recent strikes, the u.s. strikes and also the chemical attack. but unfortunately now it really has become incredibly difficult to gain access. the guardian was able to get in

there briefly. but with the turkish referendum the turk irish thortds were a little reluctant to allow journalsts to go in to visit the scene of the chemical attacks and try to piece together what happened. >> rose: of all the places you've seen, you still say nothing, nothing compares to syria. >> it's true. and i really, i go through in my mind, and it's not to minimize the horrors of any war zone because having spent time in iraq and afghanistan and gazza i, i know and i have seen first hand the horrors of war. and all people from all different countries and all different war zones are, of course, victims and suffering enormously. but there is something unique to the syrian crisis, to the both the david and goliath kind of element to it, whereby you have a civilian population being bombarded from the skies relentlessly. where the rebel fighters did not have anything like the same kind of firepower that the russians and the regime and the iranians

an hezbollah have when put together. so and to see hospitals targeted, to see fruit markets targeted, to see schools targeted, there is a cynicism to the syrian war that really is particularly haunting to me. one of the other main differences i would underscore as a journalist is that normally when we go to war zones we have a hotel that we're able to go back to at the end. night. there is a kind of safe distance. there's a retreat mentally from the front lines and from everything that has been going on around you. maybe you even get to have a beer at the end of a long hard day of work, in syria you don't have that. not just because there isn't a lot of beer around but because you're staying with families. there aren't hotels in the places that i go to. you are living with these people not in damascus. >> well, if damascus of course you can go on a regime visa and stay at the four seasons am i have not had the pleasure of doing that, for a number of

reasons, primarily because i've been toll that i am on a black list and that it would not be safe over sensible for me to go. but the places that i go to, we live with families. we experience their lives. and in a sense, vy carious leigh live through them the horrors an atrocities, albeit for a liver sifer of time. >> rose: weigh for me the remaining players an how much strength each of them has. >> well, the strongest player in the syrian conflict if we are looking at the various syrian factions is absolutely the regime of bashar al-assad. that is primely-- primarily because its backers are 100 percent committed to making sure that assad says in power. and whether that is the iranians who are doing most of the fighting on the ground or the russians who are doing a lot of the fighting from the air, providing funding, providing technology, providing weaponry, whether it's hezbollah, the shia militia from lebanon that is

also doing an enormous amount of fighting on the ground, they have all shown a real unified commitment to propping up the regime of bashar al-assad. the same cannot be said of the various fighting forces that exries the rebellion or the opposition. >> rose: but how large are they? >> well, i mean, the problem is it's very difficult to measure because you have a group like isis, which is isolated from all other elements of the opposition. which at one time had a large swaths of territory across iraq and syria. which had more control or power than any other opposition group fighting on the ground. which has definitely been hit very hard in the last two years by the u.s.-led coalition but which still retains a significant footprint particularly in syria. then you have this sort of coalition of jihadist groups, prominently-- which used to

be-- which used to be all fill yaited to al-qaeda. >> rose: have the names clangs or are they changing. >> the names are changing. they are not changing in terms of their real colors and what their real objectives are. a group is still to have some kind of sharia law, islamic law implemented in the areas that it controls. and the other groups that are fighting along side it, has more of a muslim brotherhood islamist bent whereby it's still open to democratic processes like voting, but ultimately is islamist in color as well. then you have some free syrian army groups, so called moderate opposition. this he are largely fighting along side turkey as part of this operation you frayedees shield. and what you say when you look at the picture that is emerging, i mean syria was to a certain extent always a proxy war.

but now it is an all out proxy war. and whether you are looking at the turkish con tin againstee, iranian or russian con tin against hee or jordanan,s you can watt-- qatari, the u.s., everyone has some kind of a client or stake in the conflict. >> rose: this st a side point but the turks i guess in an air strike this week killed a lot of kurds who are on our side. >> well, and this is where things start to get very complicated, particularly for the u.s. we have heard a lot about this imminent attack on raqqa, right? raqqa is the seat of power for isis, their self-declared capital. >> first isis then raqqa. >> yes, everybody is waiting for this moment. and the people that we were hoping would be at the sort of forefront of this effort to take back raqqa were of course the kurds. >> rose: they were the boots on the ground. >> they were the boots on the ground. there was argument of whether they would enter the city

because the city is arab, they were kurdish. but they were certainly going to be responsible for leading the push, for paving the way. and the problem that you have, of course, is that turkey views these kurds with the wide pg as being terrorists. who threaten their national security, as being part of the pkk which is sort of the turkish side of the ypg. and they view them as a very serious national security threat. now how on earth do you begin to reconcile what turkee views as a terrorist. and the pkk is also listed as a terrorist organization by the u.s. with the u.s.' objectives and support. so i think with this particularly, this attack on the kurds that we saw from the turks, i think that is easier juan thumbing his nose at the u.s. a little bit and saying i won this referendum, i'm newly emboldened and i am no longer going to stand for you arming people that i consider to be terrorists, that i consider to be a threat to our national

security, in my backyard. >> rose: after the fall of aleppo, some people said this is the beginning of the end in terms of putting down the rebellion. robert ford was here, maybe the beginning of april and he said the following. the idea that show the united states could still go in and try to change the assad government or impose some kind of new government, i think, we're just long past that. aleppo was the final nail in that coffin. and he went on to say that essentially the civil war is over. >> uh-huh. >> and assad has won. >> i think that there is no question when you look at how the momentum has shifted. and the enormous significants of the fall of aleppo. we did see essentially not quite the end of the opposition, but i think now what you're seeing is the opposition turning too more of a gorilla style insurgency

than a sort of-- then two equals, well, they were never equals but two different fighting factions facing against each other on the battle field. the only province that the rebels are still in control of is i hadlib and if the events that we saw with the chemical attack are anything to go by, if there a harbinger of things to come, you can be sure that the assad regime is going to try perhaps in the near future, 2 remains to be seen, to push the rebels completely out of idlib province. and therefore regain control of that swath of territory across the north of the country. the problem for the regime becomes it's almost-- victory because you take back this territory but what is left there? there are no people living in eastern aleppo at the moment. all that you have are these skeletons of buildings and this almost apocalyptic moon scape where a bustling thriving city

once used to be. people aren't there. schools aren't starting there again. investment isn't going into these communities again. and that's because people don't want to live under bashar al-assad again. many of them. and so as long-- . >> rose: and none of the arab leaders, arab neighbors want him in power. >> very few of them. >> rose: not countries, i mean iran is the only country that i mow. >> iran is the only country that what want him to stay in power in the long-term. i think in the short-term there is a recognition among many people in the region and perhaps even further appealed. >> rose: you mean people like the saudis, emirates or jordanians. >> i'm thinking more of the jordanians, specifically, that he yes, probably assad can if the stay in the long-term, it doesn't make any sense. you can't have a man who has butchered his own people in such a way continue to live in a thriving and stable and secure country. at the same time, i do think there is a measured expectation as to the speed with which assad

would need to go. and the ways and mechanisms which would need to enforce his removal. >> rose: can you do that without the russians? >> no, i would argue based on what i have seen that it is not possible to come to any kind of a conclusion or peaceful resolution or even a path towards a peaceful resolution am with having the russians on board. at the same time, the russians from my experience living in russia and watching their behavior throughout the syrian conflict, the russians are not necessarily going to step up and behave as responsible actors unless the u.s. has some real leverage to come to them with. and we saw the obama administration again and again resort to this kind of guilt tactics, almost. we heard then u.n. ambassador samantha powers saying have you no shame, and how can you sleep at nightment you are on the wrong side of history. and the reality is that that

doesn't work with the russians. the russians are impervious. it doesn't work with the syrians either. because they're thinking in very cynical and strategic terms. and you need to be able to come to the table with the same tools, the same language and frankly, the same strategic cynicism as they are if you want to be able to have a place at the table. >> rose: and at the same time you have secretary tillerson saying, before the air strike, we want the syrian people to decide what they want. >> well, and i thought that comment from secretary tillerson, you know, was a little bit disingenuous to a certain extent. the reality is the syrian people unfortunately have no say in whether bashar al-assad stays or goes. williams of them have been trying to get him to go for years now. and they have paid dearly with their lives hundreds of thousands of them in that effort to try to get him to leave. and to no avail. so the reality is, that the vast

majority of syrian people don't really have a voice. they don't really have any formal structures that they can operate within to try to get the support this they would argue they need in order to facilitate the ouster of bashar al-assad. and the russians understand that they are on to a winning thing when it comes to rhetoric to say we have been invited here by a sovereign country. the argument you will hear from some is the strikes against the syrian air base, what was the legal basis for those? were those strikes illegal. and while many people felt strongly and understandably that they were absolutely legitimate in taking that step and in standing up to the assad regime. >> rose: because it goes beyond the pale. >> exactly. so i think that words like sovereignty almost cease to mean anything when you are talking about a regime that is engaged in potentially industrialized killing. >> rose: and in places that there were same kinds of issues,

we regret that we didn't go in. >> and we have this mantra that we hear again and again, never again, post rwanda, post s-- yet here we are again, here we are hamstrung, ringing our hands on the sideline, not sure of how to approach the situation rdz and no indication that the trump government wants to change thatment donald trump has said during the campaign and in the last 100 days, we have no desire. >> we have no desire and the last thing that anyone expected or certainly that i expected was to see president trump ended up being the one who would turn around and say no, this is actually a red line for us. and when i say something i mean it and i'm going to bomb your airfield, the use of chemical weapons. now that is a powerful statement. >> rose: i won fer it was color even gas and not sarin gas. >> i very much doubt it because color even gas has been used on a pretty much regular basis efft

the syrian strategy is going to be going forward, it is understandable that you used force and it may have given you leverage at the negotiating table. and it may have highlighted the weakness of the previous administration in not falling through on that red line. but now you are in a very crucial moment where you have to ask yourself okay, we have established that assad is really not a long ferm option. how do we impress upon the russians that they need to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. >> rose: the interesting thing is that the phrase not to act is to act it is this idea that in are consequences for acting, yes, which is what worried the

obama administration and i assume also concerns president trump, but not to act also has consequences. and they have to be weighed within the same intensity and rigor. >> it has enormous consequences. >> rose: right. >> and i don't think anyone imagined six years ago the extent to which inaction has consequences. you are talking about a situation now where ten million people have been displaced. half of the country is displaced. forgetting anything else, forgetting empathy or compassion for the humanitarian situation, when are you looking at issues of national global and global security, having ten million displaced people, four million refugees, these refugees are now uneducated, many of them. they are embittered, impoverished, they're angry. that is a real security threat when you're looking forward, ahead into the next generation. that potentially feeds into the creations of groups like isis which it drives me mad, charlie,

when people always talk about isis as if it is a separate entity to the rest of the syrian civil war. isis is a symptom and not a cause. and we have to understand that it works in concert, it operates in concert with the larger syrian conflict. >> rose: some have said no one creates more applicants for isis than assad. >> assad is the oxygen they need. >> rose: every barrel bomb that is gas, creates somebody who wants to go fight for isis. >> absolutely. and i've seen it. let me give you an example. i spent time with a young man in a village in northern syria. young man called mohammed, studied literature, english literature, loved to recite poetry with me, we would talk for hours about john keats. he was an incredible young man. he was impoverished though. and the bombing continued in his neighborhood, in his village. he lost his next door neighbor while i was there, a woman and her daughters were killed.

and one, and then i used to skype with him after i left. he got married. he had a baby. they were living on lives and bread. an one day i noticed that i hadn't heard from him in many months. and i kept sending him notes on skype. i never heard back, never heard back. and about a year later he finally replied to a message i sent him. and he said i'm in raqqa now. i said mohammed, what are you doing in raqqa, you don't bloong in raqqa, you like to read poetry and we would sit and talk all night about romance and ideas and literature. and he said to me, you don't know mohammed so good any more. and this is a story, charlie, that i have seen over and over again. when you lose everything, when you have nothing, you are so vulnerable to extremism. >> rose: that seemed like a missed opportunity that we made and the rest of the western world made is to provide opportunity. >> having a sense of purpose, having a sense that there is some order to your life, that there is some level of security,

because believe it or not, isis, as abhorrent as they are, they do provide security in the areas in which they hold territory. because they rule with an iron fist, so to speak. so there were a number of reasons. and a number of missed opportunities. i remember interviewing then secretary of state hillary clinton back in 2012. i asked her, if the international community is standing on the sidelines here, other nonstate actors are going to run into the vacuum and exploit the chaos. >> rose: that is exactly what that's exactly what happened. >> rose: what began as a civil war then began to have a lot of other characters with rushed in because they saw opportunity. >> and you know what frustrating me about it, charlie, is that anybody who was watching syria closely, they saw the writing on the wall and they knew on some level that was going to happen. and now we have the audacity to turn around and be like these people, they are extremists, they're terrorists. it seems a little disingenuous. >> rose: and the other point as you foa again better than i do, the call is not to come to

syria, the call is to do something for us. >> uh-huh. >> where you live. >> rose: and it's so easy. you don't have to be a member officially. you don't have to speak to any of us. just take your car, take a rock, a knife, whatever you have at your disposal, go out and kill as many people as you can. and then at the end say oh, we've done this in the name of sighs is. and we'll accept your pledge of allegiance remotely, essentially. and a la will accept your pledge of allegiance remotely and you'll be rewarded for your deeds. >> rose: the battle gensz terrorism is a battle of generations. >> i think it's a battle of generations. i think it's a battle of ideas. >> rose: i mean by generations, you can't do it overnight. >> no, certainly you can't do it overnight. it's going to take, it's not something that can only be solved militarily. there needs to be a military element, quite clearly. and it's important to try to take out isis and syria and iraq

because, of course, they are still the hub or the nuke lee us that is communicating with wood-be recruits across the world. i'm not trying to imply that that is not an important part of it. but what we're seeing in europe specifically now, an to a certain extent in other parts of the west as well, is the prolive raise and the spread of these ideas among a kind of disenchanted class of society that is potentially very dangerous and very difficult to combat. >> rose: congratulations again on the award. >> thank you. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: we love for to you stop by whenever are you in town. >> thank you. >> rose: clarissa ward now at cnn. we have missed her at cbs. back in a moment. calvin trillin is here, he what has been a regular contributor to "the new yorker" since 1963. between 1967 and 1982, he wrote a series of pieces from various

locations within the united states. he called it u.s. journal. he published a collection of true homicide store hees from the series in 1984. killings has now been reissued and expanded. i am pleased to have val kin tril inback at thisable. welcome, sir. >> thank you, charmie. >> rose: very good to see you. >> thank you. >> rose: you look like you're doing well. >> i'm upright. >> rose: but so tell me about the original book and what's different about this one? >> well, the original back, i think came about because i was doing a piece of ree three weeks from somewhere in the country for those 15 years. and at some point i realized about once a year i was at a murder, or a wrongful death, as the lawyers would call it, something like that. and so we published that in 1984 just after i got through doing a series. and then recently i ask added, i what say, four or five, some

what longer pieces but the same sort of story, plus a profile of edna beu canon who is the homicide fighter for the "miami herald." >> rose: oh yes, i know, i know. i mean is it, we now have a television series on cbs that just goes to murders every week. >> right. >> rose: popular theories. called 48 hours. >> right. >> rose: now what is it about murder? >> well, for mee, it is not the murder itself but what it sort of opens up in people's life, and the surrounding community and when there is a murder, the shades are drawn. the stones are over-- turned over and transkripts are made and my wife used to say i would go anywhere where there was a transcript. but-- . >> rose: but also you found the secrets that people have been hiding. >> yeah, yeah. and it is sort of outlooking into. so a lot of oasksz things. and then trials, reporters tend

to like trials because the person on the witness stand actually has to answer the question. and if he doesn't, the judge could say bailive, take this man away. he can't change the subject or tell you that he has got an important golf game or something. >> rose: but also it's about life-and-death. it's also about-- it's the drama of the court room and all that. >> and it's got a narrative. it's got a beginning and middle and certainly an end. and i don't always start at the middle or the beginning but it is there, so there is something to drive along. "the new yorker" was-- has been a good place, i condition remember when pictures were, introduced in "the new yorker" but a lot of these store rees were written before there were photographs. >> and before there was a little description of what the story was about. so it is a good place to tell a story without being interrupted.

the-- you don't have somebody like a photo caption saying was he pushed or did he jump. and i might not tell that you there's been anything like that till the middle of the store hee. and it doesn't have what the reporters call a nut graph. >> rose: a what? >> a nut graph, which nut graph is the-- if i had a nut graph in one of these pieces it might say this killing is symptomatic of nondescription people in miserable towns killing each other, a trend in the country, something lick that. it's basically a paragraph that tells you why it is porn enough for somebody like you to be there. "the new yorker" doesn't demand that. >> rose: there is the dedication, to "the new yorker" reporter who set the standard, joseph mitchell. i, if there is one person like you that thinks that, there are a thousand people like you that think that. >> i agree. and a lot of them are writers. >> rose: exactly. with was it about swroa

mitchell. >> one of the things i admired about him is he show managed to get the marks of writing off of the stories. they lack like they just appeared. and i don't know how he did it exactly. and the other thing is he looked at people straight on, there is an epigraph on one of his books, i think it is mcsorly's wonderful saloon. he says it has become fashionable to call some of the people like the people in this book little people. it's a repugnant phrase. they're as big as you are. something like that. he met people on their own terms. >> is there one murder that stands out for you? >> there's one about a farmer in iowa who got rich on paper, at least, and then started hanging around, this isn't a very conservative area where the ger mans had been farming for three

or four, got involved in a cocktail waitress. >> order your drinks and that's it quns and don't get involved with cocktail waitress. >> how many of these stories are about some love affair that creates jealousy, rage, murder. >> to get three or to do bad. some of them-- one of them is about an argue over a right-of-way road. a right ofway. >> i have a friend who is a surveyor, he says when he read it he said i'm surprised there aren't more murders having to do with right-of-way wars t is very irritating to have somebody else have the right to come through your place some of them are about money.

money and sex, and religion, maybe yeah, some, there is one, there is one about a scout master who turned out to be a pled ter, a voice and the church sort of protected him. almost the same thing as the roman catholic thing where the institution becomes more important then the people you are supposedly protecting, so almost, there are a lot of different reasons. >> who got killed in that one? >> the predator. >> yeah who did it? >> the kid he was abusing. >> it would be nice. >> yeah, that's what the town thought. >> how many books have you brian? written may be a strong verb for what i have done since some of them like this are collections. but i think, this is is a half a book. >> i think it's 31.

>> 31. >> i remember being once at an event he wrote the signs and other things, he had written at the time something like 540 books. and the woman next to me was a little charity luncheon. he said mr.-- seems very quiet. wile were you making small talk he wrote a novela. and i said that has to be some kind of reflection writing because you can't exactly justify it for any either monetary or any other satisfaction and i was saying that at the christmas party of king features. i said writing 560 books, that is kind of going crazy. the tbie next to me who i just met said i have written 175 i said oh, well, 175, sure. >> most people who have written a lot are genre writers or science fiction or westerns or

mysteries when you think about writing have the editors come and say this is what you have to do, are you the originator of most of these book ideas. >> yeah, yeah and i've done less, of that sort of reporting, lately. i think somebody told me after a few decades sitting on the hard bench, to see if he will talk, it loses his charm. i think that's true. >> but yeah, i can't blame the editors for any of these. these are all things. >> you said something about these are things about how people live rather than how they die. >> write. they're the violence is not part, not what interested me. and the actual detective work. >> how about the forencic work. no, sometimes. >> i mean like there is a story in there, about a lawyer named

harvey st. jean in miami who was killed. and what interested me originally was why this guy was a criminal defense lawyer, he knows a lot about bad people, about a quarter of the population could be under suspicion for killing him. and then he lived the kind of high life, in miami. he lived in a place where the manager told me that we say the average age here is 40. that say 60 year old guy and a 20 year old broad. >> and the-- so you can't write about that murder without writing about miami and the sort of tenuous hold it's always had on respectability and so yeah, it is really about-- they only succeed if they have some residents with a place.

>> how do harlan county which is in what, kentucky. >> i thought so. >> and brooklyn differ? >> well. >> kus you make a point of that. >> well, i talk about picking a jury. i once watched a lawyer pec a jury in brooklyn, he did it almost kind of like rough ethnic guesses. he was a wrongful death case so he decided he would, his typical his finist juror, the ideal would be a 06 year old jewish man who had put two kids through college because the death was of a college teacher or he didn't like people with thin lips. he said no, no. and harlan county, kentucky, daniel boone smith, the pictures, knowing everybody in the county just about, so he knew which witness had a border

dispute with the somebody else when he was connected with the defense, so it's much more grounded. and the way is with doing a story in west virginia where the minors went on strike over some school book issue. and it was in the 70st when things were kind of dangerous in new york walking down the street or something. an i gt to the airport and there was a taxi queue and guy was come up and sort of break the queue and say you want a taxi. and i thought that guy is okay okay in new york but in west virginia, someone would hit him up side the head with the number four cole shoveel because he's breaking the-- just different

ways you might get killed. >> and different customs. >> it always worried me that they knew exactly what number kohlhepp shove toll hit the guy with, number three wouldn't do it, and number five would kill him too fast. >> rose: i remember a show with you one night here and you probably remember it better than i do. but you you came to talk about books and ended up talking about politics. >> yeah, we talked about iraq. i came to talk about some eating book and it had been awhile. by that time i wasn't very interested in talking about it, you asked about politics and we started talking about iraq and then i think you replayed it. >> yes now what do you think of trump? >> well, people keep telling me he's good material. >> rose: all you have to do is look at the late nied comedians. >> yeah, and that sorted of thing i've managed to write a lot of-- you know, i write a verse for the nation

every-- every issue because the nation as i pointed out is published every other week in the summer. even though the down troden are oppressed every day of the year. but i-- i have written, what was last week's poem, it is about failing to close his first big deal. >> yeah, i said but how, his book he defines the art. reporters often cited. one sal yent fact they forget, he didn't really write it. >> tony sla warz. >> i'm sure he's write. >> question is did he read it? ness well, so he and the other thing is that i think. >> people read that book and say they want to look for an insight, maybe people would come to see him of some importance. and they all like the president of mexico, others, i think he was the president of mexico, oh, we wasn't ta read the dart art of the deal. >> so they get an insight into

tony schwarz. >> no tony schwarz wrote about donald trump, do you see any redeeming qualities? i always thought the most possible redeeming thing was that he doesn't really have a inn i politics. i mean so if there is reason to get applause for something, he might do it. because i think i think applause is his goal in life. >> snas' connected to when. >> when, yeah and i done know then i was wondering the other day what happens if all the stuff about russia turns out to be true? what then? >> great to see you, the book is called killings. expanded edition of the classic book on life-and-death in america. >> thank you, charlie. >> great to you have, always. >> thanks. >> thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more

about this program visit us online at pbs.org and charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

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