>> rose: welcome to the program. i'm charlie rose. the program is "charlie rose: the week." just ahead, a turbulent week for the white house. behind the scenes with president trump. and cynthia nixon animates the stage in the broadway revival of the little foxes. >> ben hubbard wanted the cotton, and oscar hubbard married it for him. be nice to me then. he used to smile at me. he hadn't smiled at me since. everybody knew that's what he married me for. everybody but me. >> rose: we will have those stories and more on what happened and what might happen. >> 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 >> rose: and, so, you began how? >> changed the landscape. >> rose: is it luck or >> rose: tell me what the significance of the moment. >> rose: this was the week president trump fired the director of the f.b.i. the senate intelligence committee took testimony on russia's interference in the 2016 election. a 3-year-old named always dreaming finished first at the 143 running of the kentucky derby. here are the sights and sounds of the past seven days. >> violent protests rage on in venezuela. >> personal with national health service, 16 regional health authorities have been hit by massive cyberattack by unknown persons demanding money. >> detained another american citizen over hostile acts.

>> viva lefrance. >> rose: emmanuel macron wins france's presidential race. >> a suspect is under arrest in a serial killing spree that haunted phoenix. >> the president fires the director of the f.b.i. >> comey was not fired because of hillary. comey was fired because to have the russians. >> if he's gone, who's going to investigate russia's ties to -- oh! >> rose: betsy devos gets booed at a black university. >> your degrees will be mailed to you. >> the f.b.i. has been in turmoil, everybody knows that. >> the first tour event won in 13 years. >> he celebrated as only he could. ♪ >> look out for this hair raising moment for one ambitious animal. >> always dreaming, who's the 143rd winner of the kentucky

derby! >> their version of a healthcare bill to replace obamacare. >> did you read the entire bill plus all the amendments? >> i will fully admit -- well, i did not -- >> yes, i turned through every page. >> just lie! just lie! pretend you read it! none of us are going to read it! we wouldn't have known! >> rose: if president trump started week wanting to put the russian probe behind him, he failed. his decision to fire f.b.i. director james comey and the shifting contradictoriry explanations for it have dominated news and reenergized those calling for an independent investigation of russia's influence on 2016 election. and all week long, we have been gathering reaction and analysis to this unexpected and remarkable turn of events. >> the director got fired. we really don't know why.

we have the white house explanation he wasn't doing good job and it was about the hillary e-mails, but there is not a lot of people in washington who fully believe that, even some republicans who issued calls if not for an independent prosecutor or counsel at least a fuller explanation from the white house as to why the firing took place. >> rose: dan balz, are those the questions you're asking? >> yes, we're all asking those questions. the problem is administration is having is coming up with a consistent and coherent explanation of what led to the firing. was it the memorandum produced by the deputy attorney general which laid out the bill of particulars for how he believes comey mishandled the hillary clinton investigation? or was it, as the president said, he wasn't doing a good job, quote, unquote, to suggest there was something going on since the president came into office that has really concerned the president. so they have not been able to get a clear and straight explanation of what led to the

firing, and i think that's continued to keep the focus and the pressure on them to do so. >> rose: bob woodward, many people want to make comparisons to watergate and the saturday night massacre. no one better than you to compare them. >> well, it's the same. it's different. the investigator, the focus, the person doing the real investigation, f.b.i. director comey is out. he's gone. his replacement, whoever it is, will be somebody trump picks, somebody probably approved by the attorney general sessions, and they're now going to have much more control of where this investigation goes. they haven't ended it, but they have deluded it. >> i actually think in some ways what bob is saying underestimates, in large order,

the commitment of the men and women of the f.b.i. this is a 100-year-old organization. you've got the same agents working the russian investigation yesterday morning are working it this morning. they are career prosecutors who are issuing subpoenas. you betcha. in some respects, the firing, i don't want to underestimate the strength and power of james comey, but in some respects the firing of james comey puts greater fire in the belly of the career agents, the career prosecutors without fear or favor to follow this thing. >> it's doing damage to him on several fronts. it was in the white house. it's caused tumult. the staff, in some respects, felt unprepared for this. the president made a personal decision over the weekend with the attorney general and his white house counsel. but more broadly capitol hill feel like they were given a curve ball this week by this decision. they were not ready to talk through the president's decision

or defend him in an articulate way and then gives disruption to his entire agenda as he tries to pursue healthcare and taxes. now all everyone's talking about here in washington is russia and director comey or former director comey. >> rose: what's your impression to have the the senate intention committee investigation? >> so far yielded little. senator burr has been careful in the language he uses publicly to make sure he keeps his credibility. but there is tension about how far to lean in because democrats want a special prosecutor. >> rose: is there a sense the f.b.i. is having something, seen something, on its way to finding something? >> there's no smoking gun yet from what we can tell, but there's a real, sincere interest at the f.b.i. to continue these investigations, to continue to look at trump campaign associates, people from the president's circle and possibly interactions they've had with russian officials and look at the way russian intelligence

people have come after trump associates to try to build relationships and perhaps interfere in the election, and that has not abated. so you have a white house and a president hoping all this just fizzles away but the f.b.i. remain focused on this and that's what comey reiterated last week which perilled his whole career. >> rose: as chaotic as the week was, next week promises more of the same. james comey will testify in a closed hearing of the senate intelligence committee and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein has been invited to brief the full senate. all that threatens to overshadow president trump's departure for an overseas trip that includes a meeting with the pope and n.a.t.o. and g-7 summits. joining me from the white house is jonathan karl from abc news. what is it like to be at the white house on a day like this?

>> charlie, you have the sense that you have no idea what is going to happen next. the place is packed. i don't think i've eversseen the briefing roomñr quite as packeds it was for just the daily press briefing today. you have a sense at any given moment another major story can break and as you talk to senior officials here, get a feeling they don't know where all of this is going next. started out amazingly, charlie, with questions about whether or not the president has installed listening devices in the oval office, in the white house. whether or not the president is recording his conversations. echos of fred thompson questioning butterfield about the nixon administration's

recording devices in the oval office. it's just extraordinary. >> rose: h he went a tweet out saying james comey better hope there are no conversations -- tape of the conversations before he starts leaking to the press. that sounds like a threat. >> i don't know how you could interpret that but if someone at the briefing asks the press secretary why did he threaten comey, sean spicer. wait a minute, that was not a threat. i don't know how you can see it as anything but a threat. the other question i have, charlie, is if he's saying comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversation, if he's suggesting there may be tapes of the conversations, well, this was a meeting, a dinner at the white house. who would be recording that if it weren't the president?ñi you know, thisñr clearly suggess the president is taping his conversations. like you said, there's precedent for that, but we haven't seen that we know of, the white house

recordings of presidential conversations, routine recordings of the conversations since nixon. >> rose: just as the drama surrounding the dismissal of f.b.i. director james comey was beginning to play out monday, "time" magazine was in the white house for a tour and dinner with president trump. managing editor nancy gibbs was there and is here with me now to talk about that and this is the cover of "time magazine" out this week, the firing of james comey after hours in the white house. take me there. >> well, it was a remarkable evening. if you -- you know, you've had the experience when you are seeing the president at the white house, his time is so regimented. every minute accounted for. and i have never seen anything like this where, when we walk into the oval office, there are

a dozen people there, people are coming in and out, it is like a theater in the round. it is clearly a showplace. >> rose: let me back up one second, what's the purpose of this visit? >> we're looking to tell a different story which is about what the presidency is doing to you and what your life is like in this place, so we want to see something a little different. one thing that was remarkable was that from the oval office he took us next door to the private dining room, which he explained how he had had it gutted and completely renovated and the table is covered with, you know, newspapers and sharpies and spreadsheets so this is clearly where he works during the daytime when he's not entertaining people in the ceremonial spaces. he says, i want to show you something. and he has recorded scenes from the afternoon with sally yates

and james clapper that he tivoed, greatest invention, and there he is with the remote teeing up the clips about clapper talking about he had not seen evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and the rurptions saying, look, there's no collusion, there's no story. there's no story here. none of you guys are going to write that. the criticism of the wayñiçó thr russia story hpbçóçó beenñr covd was a through-line all through the evening. given what happened the next 24 hours, i won't say we should have seen that coming because it sounds like much of his own staff was surprised that it came when it did. and then with yates, in talking about him asking, he says, look, we were surveilled, we really were surveilled. he relate gates every charge, so the charge is about whether or not the obama administration had wiretapped him or whether or not there was collusion. he was showing us, you know, in

real time -- >> rose: this was right after he had met with the deputy attorneyú attorney general about the firing of james comey. >> yeah. and, so, the story he wants to be telling us, you know, these three journal it's from "time" is, you know, there is nothing to this russia story. and, you know, throughout the evening, i think, if there was a theme, it was honestly a certain bewilderment that -- of the criticism that he is getting and the coverage that he is getting. at one point he says, you know, all i want to do is give people great healthcare and cut their taxes and keep america safe. who doesn't want that? yet there is so much hatred, so much animosity, you know. and, you know, it's remarkable to hear a president where there are so many factors that go into the assessment of a presidency, and both the means and the end, that to him it comes down to if people are getting a good deal, why would they complain about

anything and the way i might operate. >> in 2014, filmmaker laura portress won an academy for her documentary about edward snowden. her new film propounds julian assange, wikileaks. >> he is brillient and willing to take risks for what he believes in. at his worst, he's -- he can be ven addictive, he can be vain -- vindictive, vain and a bit of a trickster. and in terms of his accomplish -- publishing, i guess are where my questions come in, or his decisions not to redact certain types of information.

so, for instance, if ewe look at the d.n.c. e-mails, you know, it was in a position h he received newsworthy information and claims he doesn't know the source. >> rose: everybody believes it came from the russians. >> yes. what comey says in this hearing where he told the public that he was investigating possible connections between trump and the russians, what he says is that the russian government used an intermediary, what they called a cutout to do is leak. so, for instance, you, tomorrow, could receive a manila envelope with trump's tax returns. >> rose: this has happened? what do you do? it's news, you verify it, so i think there is a double

standard. >> rose: is he verified? of course he does. he never released anything proven to be false. he has though not redacted things that are personal information for instance, that is not newsworthy, and in the case of the d.n.c., he published everything, and not everything was newsworthy. no doubt it was newsworthy. the "new york times" made the same argument if a journalist has information that will inform the public and they can verify it, it's true, then you should pub accomplis -- publish it. which doesn't negate the fact we need to look closely at what happened in the election. a state actor being the one who did the hack and deciding who to release to, i am disturbed by that. >> rose: does he have political views in terms of any traditional way that we know? >> julian is founded the organization.

he's very consistent. he's interested in publishing what he believes to be vital information from secretive institutions and organizations that control our lives and, so, that would be governments, that would be corporations, that would be intelligence agencies, and he's not interested in picking political sides. i would be very surprised if julian had a lot of information on trump and didn't release it. >> rose: cynthia nixon is an emmy, tony and grammy-award winning actress and nominated again for her starring role in her broadway "revival of the little foxes." what's unusual is she and access laura lenny regularly swap characters, alternating roles of regina and birdie for each performance. >> i love the play. i've always loved the idea of playing regina, but as laura

herself felt, birdie is a treasure albeit a smaller role. i worked with laura on television but never on stage so the chance to work with her on this play with dna sullivan and in this tremendous theatrical experiment which i think women don't get to do very often. men more. >> rose: part of it is a challenge. >> yes. >> rose: because the thing about you in college, did two plays at the same time. >> i did. but this -- i mean, i think even people who aren't intending to come twice, often they come see it one way, then they say, i have to come back now because the rules are so different, once you see us in the first way, it's sort of impossible to imagine us in the second way. and i think there are also -- because the play is so meaty and so many people don't know the play before they come, giving the audience a chance to hear it twice, i think they absorb a lot more of the nuances of it.

>> rose: which character do you identify with most? >> it's hard to identify with regina. >> rose: yeah, of course. you know, birdie is a much more empathetic and sympathetic character, albeit a sadder one. so i think birdie is easier to relate to, which is part of the reason laura came up with the idea in the first place. she said i understand birdie and can relate to her. regina is foreign territory to me. >> rose: how do they view each other? >> one of the disappointing things about our experiment is they don't deal with each other very much. we don't have a lot of scenes together. in effect, they don't really matter to each other. i think there are certain things that each admire about the other, but i think there are areas of disapproval of each other are greater than their areas of approval. >> did not have a letter from alexandra? what is so strange about people arriving late? >> rose: where did the voice come from?

where did you practice at the? how did you decide that's the right note for her? >> well, i mean, as the performances have gone on, because, of course, that's footage taken very early. >> rose: it has changed to what? >> it has changed -- well, i think virginia's gotten a lot deeper, and i think birdie's gotten a lot lighter, you know. i mean, i think this one person is very assured, and one person is so eager to please and so fearful that she won't. ♪ we can just go on like this ♪ say the word, we'll call it quits ♪ ♪ baby, you can go or you can stay ♪

♪ but i won't love you either way ♪ >> rose: chris stapleton has been called country music's reigning outlaw. his new alum recorded in the same studio hat houset such musical guests as elvis presley and dolly parton. it is called from a room, volume one. >> i knew we were going to have to make another record at some point. >> rose: at some point. ewe set aside a couple of months and went back into the rca room where we recorded traveler and kind of camped out. >> rose: that's a pretty important room there. >> very important room. there's not a lot of them, these kind of historic studios have either been torn down where a lot of great recordings have been made, important recordings. and so to get to feel the kind of ghosts in the walls that inform and elevate what you do

in those rooms. it's an important thing to get to feel. >> rose: it's a communion with all those people. >> a communion, absolutely, and you feel a responsibility to it in a way when you're in there. i think that really can push you along a little bit. >> rose: i read about all the conflicts in nashville about pop and country and authentic country and all that. you seem to be a guy that just said i'm making my music, that's what i'm doing. >> absolutely. you know, i don't like sushi but i don't try to get other people to not eat sushi. >> rose: why don't you like sushi. >> i just don't. never have. my wife loves it. it's not for me. i grew up land locked. >> rose: you have no reason not to like soichi, it's -- >> no, i don't feel ill will against people who like sushi. i don't want to keep using the metaphor, but that's how a lot of the kind of chatter around music feels to me when one kind

of music is right and another kind of music is wrong. you know, if music makes somebody feel good and they enjoy it, that's cool, that's great for them. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ you know, and if you don't like to listen to something, turn to something else that you do like and listen to music, you know, and have fun. it's okay. it doesn't mean you can't be friends with somebody who likes a different kind of music. that's so weird to me. >> rose: anything you're not doing you want very much to do? >> i have been given so many opportunities in music over my whole career but particularly over the last three years that i can't imagine that there is not anything i'm not getting to do that i want to do. it's amazing. i tell my mom, i literally have everything i want.

>> now here's a look at your weekend. john legend begins an american tour with concert dates in miami, clearwater and st. augustine, florida. ♪ i know it will kill me when it's over ♪ ♪ i don't want to think about it ♪ ♪ i want you to love me now >> goldie hawn and amy schumer are in theaters in the comedy snatch. >> go! i'm going to count down, i'm going to do it. 100. 99. >> and the shaky knees music festival runs all weekend at the olympic park in atlantic. ♪ i place my body above it >> and here's what's new for the week ahead. sunday is mother's day. monday is the day the house of representatives returns from recess. tuesday is the ascap scream

music awards. wednesday is the day president trump delivers the commentment address at the coast guard academy. thursday opening night at the filmum festival. friday the president leaves on an eight day trip to the middle east and europe. friday is the running of the preakness stakes. >> rose: that's "charlie rose: the week" for this week. from all of us here, thank you for watching. i'm charlie rose. we'll see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by:

>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with politics and our continuing coverage of the firing of former f.b.i. director james comey by president trump. we talk to jonathan karl, gillian tett and ed rollins. >> it's is prerogative to fire comey. could have fired him on january 20th and no one would have batted an eyelash. you can't beat him up. you say thank you for your 30 years of service. he had impeccable credentials. he had a difficult time and you may question his judgment on some of the things he did in the case but you can't batter him around. >> rose: we continue with a conversation with the c.e.o. o susan wojcicki. >> cheers people who have a global brand, a lot of times they have millions of subscribers, they're making a good living on