>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight we begin with john dickerson of cbs news and host of "face the nation." >> well, that question of what is going on in the mind of the north korean leader is crucial, and you've hit on exactly the right thing because if they think he is a rational actor, then all of this bluster which has a long tradition in north korea is towards a short-term goal. now, if they evaluate him and say, the reason he wants to have a nuclear weapon is so he can reunite the pennsula and use it to black mail other countries, black mail the united states, then that is an argument for preemptive action. >> rose: we conclude with jessica williams, comedian, actor and producer behind the hod cast "2 dope queens" and the netflix film, "2 dop the increde

jessica james. >> sometimes i wonder how i got here when i woke up. i have to have trash to teach you about. i play a computer game where it's a bunch of little people and you can do a lot of world building but it's really fun. it is a nice way to feel control over an environment which i really enjoy. >> rose: john dickerson and jessica williams 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. >> rose: the news in washington this week is dominated by missiles, mcconnell and manafort. despite the crisis over north korea, president trump found time to call out mitch mcconnell over failure to pass health care an accuse robert mueller. joining me for perspective on all of this is the host of "face the nation," john dickerson of cbs news. welcome to the program. great to see you. >> great to be with you. >> rose: starting with north korea, the president seems to be dialing up this

confrontation with north korea. what d do we understand about i? >> one foot on the gas and the brake with this straismghts you have the president, as you say, dialing up, again, on thursday saying that maybe his remarks on tuesday weren't incendiary enough, where he threatened north korea and said if they threaten the united states again they will see fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen. an extraordinary thing to say on almost the 72nd anniversary to the day of the bombing in nagasaki. ( questions, inaudible ) >> north korea best not make any more threats to the united states. they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. he has been very threatening beyond a normal statement. and they will be met with fire

and fury and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before. thank you. >> rose:. so now the president said today maybe his rhetoric wasn't tough enough. when you talk to officials involved in the north korea question, they are going in the opposite direction. secretary of state tillerson said people can sleep soundly, not to pay attention to the rhetoric. source in the administration i was talking to today was basically acting as if the president had not said anything and was kind of continuing along a path with north korea which looks much more traditional which is to say you saw the u.n. sanctions over the weekend, put pressure on north korea with sanctions and then you saw secretary of state tillerson last week say to north korea look, we're not interested in regime change, we're not going to attack you, kind of dialing down the rhetoric. so that seems to be the message you get from everybody but the president. >> rose: how about the secretary of defense? >> well, the secretary of

defense mattis basically when asked about the president's remarks, mattis said to the north korean leader do not keep doing things that will endanger the future of your country. very broad. but when it comes from secretary mattis who has a lot of standing when he talks about following through on threats, it carried the weight of the military, but without boxing himself in. when president trump said if north korea offered any more threats and then, a couple of hours later, the north korea threatened gaum, they already crossed the red line that the president put before them. so mattis is tough and is sending that signal of toughness, but he's also working quite closely with the secretary of state, and because mattis and in our interview with him and in other instances has talked about how catastrophic any military enggement with north korea would be, he is thinking about all military options, but that

does not necessarily mean -- or i should say that does also include a kind of containment possibility. so he's not -- he's not just thinking about, you know, the most aggressive military options. >> rose: i assume the president believes he has to get the attention of the north korean leader and he has decided this is the only way to get his attention, using the kind of language that he uses and would understand. >> i think that's right. we've heard secretary of state tillerson essentially say a version of that. the question is to what end because the language either is meaningful and, therefore you follow up on the threat or, if you don't follow up on the threat, then what signal exactly are you sending. so we're in a kind of a because the president didn't follow up on his threat, we're in this kind of strange position at the moment where it's not clear, but i think your assessment of what his intent was is i think you're probably right. >> rose: the question is who

is he sending the signal to as well? >> that's right, sending it to china, to beijing as well as pyongyang. certainly from talking to administration officials, they feel china has not yet fully embraced its role here and fully embraced putting more pressure on north korea and that part of their task and what the people seem to be spending a great deal of time on is trying to figure out what the lever are to get china to keep putting pressure on north korea, do everything it can to put -- to keep north korea in the box a little bit. >> rose: and to determine the rationality of their leader as to whether he really intends to attack the united states or simply he wants to have a nuclear weapon because he believes the united states has evil intentions toward him, and this is the only way he can protect himself and save himself in ower. >> well, that question of what is going on in the mind of the north korean leader is crucial,

and you've hit on exactly the right thing because, if they think he is a rational actor, then all of this bluster, which has a long tradition in north korea, is towards a short-term goal. now, if they evaluate him and say the reason he wants to have a nuclear weapon is so then he can reunite the peninsula and use it to black mail other countries, black mail the united states, then that is an argument for preemptive action. but at least in talking to some members of the administration, they believe that kim jong un is a much more rational actor than the sort of crazy man theory would suggest, and if you buy into that idea, then, basically, even if he has a nuclear weapon, he wouldn't just go firing it off as some of the scenarios would suggest. so what you put your finger on is really crucial is the debate over what kind of rational actor he is and the problem is that the intelligence on this according to the u.s. officials is not -- you know, they don't feel as though it's completely

solid, and every day they're feeling a little more nervous because they're learning that the program is moving faster than maybe some of their original assessments suggested. >> rose: is the administration united on the rhetoric used by the president? >> no, not at all. not at all. and trying to get the administration officials to -- you know, was this strategic? you know, there certainly a history in american policy, i remember during george w. bush's presidency and the administration, they used to talk about it was good having dick cheney seem like, as one put it one time, he had a knife in his teeth, because it allowed people in the administration to talk to allies in the middle east and say, look, we don't want to let cheney loose, so it was good cop, bad cop, a traditional strategy in some places, but when i seek for strategic guidance here, mostly what i get back is this was improvisation by the president, an improvisation that has some scratching their heads. >> rose: especially the use of

the language he did. >> the use of the language and the red line drawing. i mean, there's no act of foreign policy that the president and his aides have criticized more than president obama's improvisational red line drawing when it came to syria and not following up on it was a squandering of u.s. prestige, so it seems curious the president would draw a red line that he wasn't really ready yet to foul row up on, at least he hasn't in response to the immediate threat from the north koreans to encircle guam in fire. >> rose: if you still want to get health care passed, why do you believe it's in your interest to criticize the one person most mile to -- most likely to help you get it passed, mitch mcconnell? >> well, i think -- no, there doesn't seem to be any strategic benefit to attacking mitch mcconnell. i mean, one explanation could be that the president -- and we've seen this in a number of

instances. the president has distanced himself from his own role in healthcare reform. remember, when he both ran as a candidate for office, he promised he alone because of his negotiating and marketing skills would be able to pass healthcare, that he alone could do it and that it was all on him and his skills. now that it hasn't passed, he's saying, well, it's all mitch mcconnell's fault. this is important because it's not only health care but it matters for tax reform and sets the stage for the 2018 campaign. is the president and aides, when they talk about draining the swamp, sometimes they're talking about mitch mcconnell. so is this going to be a campaign in 2018 where you have the president occasionally or maybe not so occasionally running against his own party in congress? that can create real ugliness in a campaign year where everybody wants to be playing on the psalm team. >> rose: as harry truman would

say, the do-nothing congress. >> well, that's right, although truman was running against republicans. in this case, you would have the president running against his own -- >> rose: but it was his idea of congress. >> absolutely. and the challenge here is mitch mcconnell just got reelected relatively recently, so he's not up in '18. so you put pressure on him. mitch mcconnell knows where a lot of the levers are that can bedevil the president. the president'ser are felt overly strained by congress and the courts. mitch mcconnell, you want him on your team. he can do lots of things. there are investigations going on in the senate, and he could do lots of things to help those investigations continue or keep them out of the limelight, and there's a lot that he can do, also, in the preparations process that would help or not help the president as he feels fit. >> rose: speaking of investigations, the mueller

investigation continues and we had this week at least notice of the fact, nfghtd of the fact that paul manafort's house was searched. what do you read into that? >> well, obviously, the notion of an early dawn raid without, you know, a so-called no-knock raid suggests they had serious enough information about whatever they were looking for that they had the judge give the okay for that. i don't know necessarily whether that means there is any evidence -- that even they have some, inc inkling of collusion. they may have sound something separate and apart from the campaign and he's going after crimes as he sees them, so there is not necessarily proof of something to their collusion. >> rose: but if you have the f.b.i. do a no-knock raid, you believe there is some likelihood you will not be able to have

handed over to you documents and information that you have either requested or are seeking. >> yeah, that's exactly right and, therefore, those documents you're looking for are charged enough or important enough that mr. man fort would not hand them over freely. and you get a judge and say, look, this is what we're looking for and that suggests there may very well have been a crime committed here, but we just don't know the nature of the actual crime. but if it is with respect to the election, it's not yet another piece of data, and you had a judge agree that there is enough here to really characterize this as a witch hunt. the other thing that interests me about paul manafort is the meeting with the russian lawyer that was sold to the pt's son has a meeting with the agent from the russian government who had information that would be harmful to hillary clinton. paul manafort's described by the president and don, jr. was so

disinterested in the meeting when he attended it, that he spent all his time on the phone. that's one version. now we've heard mr. manafort turned over his notes to that meeting both to the congressional committees that are investigating and i think that's in the documents that mueller's team collected which suggests there was something important enough about the meeting that notes were worth taking and, obviously, if those notes were in contradiction to the story of what that meeting was about, theant does a does put you at the center of the collusion question. >> rose: notes are one thing manafort may have made for his own reference. jared kushner may have left the meeting because nothing was going on, he was hearing nothing and it was boring. >> that's right. well, and so you have two possibilities -- i guess you have three possibilities. one, manafort's notes contain nothing interesting. two, they contain something interesting and jared kushner

was smart enough to leave. or three, they contain things that may be in contradiction with jared kushner and, for those who have forgotten, this meeting is so important because, before that, the administration and everybody connected with it said there were no contacts with russians seeking to influence the election and now we know there was at least this one meeting and it was sold specifically with the intent of handing over information collected by the russian government on hillary clinton, that's what it was sold as. we don't know what happened in the meeting, we only have the words of the participants there and seems mueller is trying to find out what contemporaneous notes or otherwise there were to fill out the picture so we don't have to take others' words for it. >> rose: do we understand mueller is or is not cooperating with the russia investigation? >> he is definitely cooperating with the congressional cometies handing over things. obviously he's not cooperating at some level or they wouldn't

knock when the sun came up. it's not clear. we know what his lawyer said. mueller and team have some idea he's not cooperating fool f you will or they wouldn't make the visit. >> rose: i saw an interesting piece this week talking about the generals and people who have influence in the new york crowds and the generals and people who have a different kind of influence. you referenced the divisions that might be about north korea. are they serious divisions within the administration and the white house about how to handle north korea or is it simply about the president's rhetoric? >> well, it's hard, at the moment it seems to be about the rhetoric, alhoe the rhetoric has some connection to the next move. i think, you know, it's not unlike on russia, charlie, where -- or at least -- and this is preliminary soundings here. i don't want to sound like i've got it all wrapped up. on russia you see on the one hand the vice president traveling to macedonia and

talking about the strength of n.a.t.o. and pushing back against russia. we have material moving into n.a.t.o. nations where u.s. is threatened. so money put where the mouth is with countries who feel threatened by russia. yoyou have the pentagon discussg arming ukrainians against the russians in ukraine. but then you have the president's remarks on russia which are at odds with all that kind of part of the administration. so here you have a similar thing and you talk to and you see the way in which they're working on the diplomatic track with north korea, you know, they're working at the u.n., and it seems to be sort of within the grooves of the normal foreign policy approach, and then you have the president's rhetoric. so the split there is it's hard to know whether it's a split between the president and his team or whether there's -- you know, whether there's more behind the president's remarks in terms of a strategy. >> where does tax reform stand?

ell, it's hard -- so tax reform is -- you know, paul ryan, house speaker, says tax reform is easier than healthcare. boy, having covered lots of tax reform and having spent a lot of time with, you know, dave camp who is the former chairman of the ways and means committee, worked five years on tax reform. the problem with tax reform, one, hard to pay for if you want to do it in the way the president wants to. the president is following the same pattern he did with healthcare which is promising the moon, huge tax reductions, massive growth and it would all add up. kind of what he did with health care -- costs less, everybody covered, get to see your doctor -- they weren't able to fulfill the promises. it's setting up in exactly the same way. there are swarms of lobbyists engaged in the tax question and will be trying to get their

pieces of the legislation put in there. so everybody wants to pass tax reform, it's just very, very hard to do, and if it can't be done at the levels the president wants in terms of cutting the corporate rates as much as he wants because it costs so much money. i mean, trillions of dollars more with the rates that he wants and you have to fill that up with tax cuts, and congress will not -- with spending cuts, and congress is not going to support those. so they will go for it but it is not going to be as easy as everybody is going around saying which breaks the rule that you're supposed to, you know, underpromise and overdeliver. >> rose: does this put the president against republican orthodoxy? >> it does if he says what he told the "wall street journal" which is he told that story in the "wall street journal" about how he was talking to a friend and bob kraft, the owner of the -- >> rose: a billionaire friend. ight, a billionaire friend, the owner of the patriots who said, look, we're taxed too much. don't worry about taxing the

rich. and the president said, you know, i agree with him. in other words, arguing tax rates maybe at the top should stay high, but that basically tax the rich to pay for the middle class to put it in blunt and clumsy terms. that's not traditional republican -- >> rose: that's not paul ryan's view of taxes. all., it's not paul ryan's view it would be one of those fascinating things the president might do in terms fascinating, the terms of breaking the traditional molds. but we don't know. he just said that in one interview, in that slightly offhanded way. so we'll see. obviously, if he were to continue down that road, that would be breaking with republican orthodoxy. >> rose: so far, can we tell whether john kelly has had any impact on doings at the white house? clearly, if you look at tweets, the answer is no. >> well, yes. so i like dan balz of "the washington post" looking at

this, managing up and managing down. on the managing down question, john kelly seems to have had some effect in the white house in terms of saying this is the way the place should operate. in terms of leaks, it's been quite leaky since reince priebus left and the leaks are in some respects about the crew said against mcmaster the national security advisor who has, according to some i've talked to, there is a sort of russia-tinged element to it, on social media, attacks against mcmaster that seem coordinated and have similarities to the coordinated attacks that took place before the election. you have that going on. the leaks of the transcript last week. so that's not ship-shape at the moment, but there is a sense inside the white house that things are moving more smoothly in terms of managing down in. terms of managing up, the president's twitter feed was more relaxed, now back on its normal course.

though in remarks thursday when the president was asked about special counsel mueller and the attorney general, he was pretty clipped, l laconi almost in ters of not being dramatic. he said he was fine about vladimir putin kicking 755 personnel out of russia, he said well, it will help us cut the te payroll. that's not true. they stay on the payroll. secondly, that was flip and off script, so maybe no drama in one place but dramatic in another place. >> rose: there's a story out of washington that steve bannon is trying to h.r. mcmasters fired. >> well, there is that rumor and you also see -- you see it basically because breitbart which he used to be the chairman of is going after mcmaster regularly and has taken on other people in the administration,

targeted reince priebus at one point. so that is the theory, in part, because three members who were aligned with bannon or previous national security advisor michael flynn had been removed from the national security staff. so i'm not clear what -- there is a lot of chatter about this, i'm not sure how much is real and how much is the constant chatter that surrounds this administration. the level of chatter and infighting rumor mongering is at a level i've never seen and hard to cut through all of that. but it is extraordinary. one thing we do know is if the people who track the movement in the internet and social media and track sort of russian affiliated twitter accounts, this mcmaster attack does have some association with that, and you would think that would be pretty alarming. jajeh johnson, former department of homeland security secretary said sunday it made him very

suspicious, that this sudden targeting of one person on the internet has russian fingerprints or feels very familiar to what they were doing before the election. >> rose: we thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us. >> well, carol and her husband are going to new york next month. >> cool. but we were hoping that you could recommend a show for them to see while they're there. >> yeah, definitely. what sort of shows are you into? >> um, well, we heard jersey boys is good. >> oh, yeah, but that's a musical. that's not really what i'm into. >> what type of you into? dial and drip dramas that explore the human condition. >> does that play next month? the great things are few and far between. theater is in a troubled state in america now. most things are trash. you would be surprised at who they allow to do shows on broadway. or i heard cats just opened and

it's supposed to be good. >> oh, i have heard good things about that one. oh, great, thanks. >> jessica studied theater -- >> rose: jessica williams is here, hired as a correspondent on" th "the daily show" with jon stewart. she created many topics ton program from 2012 to 2016. also the co-host or popular comedy podcast "2 dope queens" alongside phoebe robinson. this summer stars in the netflix film, "the incredible jessica james." he plays a struggling play writer trying to get over her ex-boyfriend. variety describes her performance as a force of nature and here is the trailer. >> i'm tall and pretty. i'm smart. i am a cocoa queen. obviously i have many great moves loves in my life. i don't know if i want to be

here right now. >> why would i be offended by that? >> i thought this would be good for me to get over this guy i was in love with but this is making me think of him more intensely. >> cool. i'm getting a vibe about your status. >> we're all queens. do you only have one vie briter? >> has one man ever fulfilled all your needs? >> the incredible jessica -- the incredible jessica james! ♪ ♪ >> i'm 25 and sort of in this weird transitional phase. damon? >> i need to tell you how i feel. >> fine, how do you feel? i -- i don't know. ♪ ♪ >> the abcs of subverting the patriarchal paradigm. >> it's never too soon to start questioning the system. >> what system? the system that we're all

prisoner to. >> i'm not prisoner to any system. >> you just pretended to eat poop out of a diaper, so... >> you're a very complicated person. >> i know. i'm sorry are. >> you never need to apologize for that. there are so many other things you could apologize for. ( laughter ) >> i didn't realize my feelings weren't as valid as yours. >> jessica, i really like you. of course you do. everybody does. i'm friggin' dope. >> what is your name? >> rose: so having seen that -- first of all, great to have you here. >> thank you very much. i'm very excited to be here. this is legendary for me. when i look back on my life, my end of days, i'm going to think about this. i'm going to be, like, oh, my gosh. thank you. >> rose: i booked you myself.

i said why not come over here? you said, where? >> we were backstage and i was already nervous about doing colbert and they said charlie wants to say hi. i said, why? so i really appreciate that. >> rose: you know j.k. rowling. your 28th birthday you go see j.k. rowling. >> yeah, i did. she and i have the same birth at a. i have been trying to do this thing where i go, can i come? my best friend and i have been doing it, it's really putting yourself out there and usually when you go, can i come? people will be, like, sure. so when i was hanging out a few weeks ago, she was, like, i'm celebrating my birthday with my family and she's, like, can i come? she was, like, sure. it was amazing. >> rose: did you bone up on her books? >> didn't need to be done. i have been reading her for so long, i really feel connected to her work, but i just like hanging out with her and the

feeling is mutual cal. >> rose: when you hang out, what do you do? >> talk. >> rose: go to bars, sit in her fancy home, go out to dinner, go on dates together? >> yes, the few times we've hung out we eat, have cocktails and we just talk. we just really enjoy talking to each other which is really nice. now i'm embarrassed talking about my friendship. >> rose: we don't want to embarrass you but as long as it's good for you. >> yeah. >> rose: but what's interesting about you, she's been at this table a couple of times, it is how much rejection she got before she got a best seller. i mean, how many people turned her down who look at themselves now and say am i an idiot? why didn't i see this? why couldn't i have recognized this talent? >> yeah. i mean, that's, to me, part of the reason why i find her so inspiring is because of everything she went through even before she started, you know, writing potter. she really is just a genuine

inspiration, and i think she is an amazing person to look at in this example, an amazing, like, woman and mom and wife and all those things. it's amazing how she sort of puts everything together. >> rose: she's beginning to express some of her political opinions, too. >> very active. >> rose: about what's in america. >> her and everybody else. >> rose: exactly. she got in line with this. >> yeah. >> rose: couldn't be better for you now, could it? >> no. >> rose: everything is on full blast. >> i don't think so. i'm really waiting for the other foot to drop, you know, but i really feel like with "the incredible jessica james" coming out, with "2 dope queens," we're doing a bunch of hbo specials i'm talking about. i feel my career is really starting to take off if a way that really i wasn't expecting and is sort of in my wildest dreams. it's cool. >> rose: when you were growing up, did you have a role model? did you have someone who said, gee, that's what i'd like to be? >> yeah, i added a few.

growing up, i think there's two different grandmas you can have. you can have a milk and cookies grandma, and then you can have a smoke cigarettes, wants to go to atlantic city grandma. mine was the latter. she loved late night and she loved s.n.l. and "mad tv" and adult swim and watched a lot of conan stuff. so i got to see that early on. she, later in life, became really obese and she was diabetic so she couldn't really move around so she watched tv just all day. i know for me i was, like, wow if this person is watching tv and that's something that makes her happy then this is a valid medium and laughter is something that can really help be a little less lonely. then i just figured out very early on that i really liked to be witty. >> rose: so you set out to be a comedian? >> yeah, i knew i wanted to be an actress and my bent was sort

of comedy just because i had seen so much of it in early ages. >> rose: so what did you do? i did -- i did like a lot of school plays when i was 14 or 15 because i grew up in l.a. i started auditioning, and i remember from one of my auditions i booked a tv show called "just for kicks" on nickelodeon, executive produced by whoopi goldberg and about four girls on a soccer team. so we shot one season of that, got canceled and i was devastated. i was 15 and a half. i was, like, my life is trash, i don't know what i'm doing, i should pack it up. so then i went back to school and i auditioned for my school's improv team. they had this thing called "comedy sports," it's short form competitive team improv, sort of like whose line is this.

i did one of the worst scenes ever. i think i was an astronaut who had an afro on the moon and my 'fro got cut off and i was, like, oh, hell no. it was a horrible scene but i was 16 and it was good for me. it felt right. >> rose: that happens to people. actors will say, in college, i thought i would just try out doing this because i wanted to meet young women, you know, and so they go and all of a sudden they're on stage and they say, oh, wow, i love this. or people find certain sports they love because they simply went out for it and all of a sudden you say, i'm for this, you know. and if you do it well, too, you want to do it even more. >> i think anytime i've had that sense of i want to try this because i want to meet hot dudes, it's always been a nightmare. it never works. it's, like, oh, no, this feels bad. >> rose: so what's the best

way to meet hot dudes? >> i don't know, it's so crazy now. >> rose: is it hard because of how famous you've become? >> yeah, i'm in a relaish, aka relationship right now. and that's fine but i think before that, i was really tell because i had -- it was really difficult because i had been on ""the daily show" a little bit. i would get goes thatd i love you on "the daily show," and i would say, i'm mortified. i think i was audit on tinder and i would delete it. i would be on it, delete it. be on it, delete it. >> rose: but when you arrived did you feel the first time you did comedy this feels natural, the same way improvisational comedy did that the first time,

"the daily show," this goes to my strength and skills? >> i got the daily "charlie rose" when i was 22. >> rose: when did you start acting? >> when i was 10 or 11. >> rose: so 12 years. yeah, totally. i was really, really into acting. i liked, like, disney and nickelodeon stars and i watched that show called all that which was a sketch comedy show for kids. i was, like, i want to do that. i convinced my parents to let me do acting classes when i was a kid. my parents are, like, are you going to keep your grades up? it's a deal. >> rose: you can act if you keep your grades up. >> totally. by the time i got to "the dailyy show," i threw myself into improv and comedy and tried to put sketches up as much as possible. whin got the job, i moved to new york and i was really

intimidated because i was 22, and i know how i auditioned for that show, i was just, like, you know what? what is it about me? i'm 22 years old, black, a woman, i have all this raw energy, i think i'm going to try to be the most of myself that i can possibly be. so i didn't look up any of the other amazing correspondents. i didn't look up samantha bee or oliver or wyatt. i really just tried to be myself. so i ended up -- >> rose: that's the best way to be. >> i think so. i think that's the hardest thing to do. i'm still learning it. >> rose: authenticity, you own who you are. >> yeah, i think people really respond to something that's truthful. i think sometimes your truth isn't the right fit for certain things, but i think once it finds its way, people really get into it. >> rose: most to have the skits we saw you do -- i'm not sure skits is the right word -- but most of the times you were doing something on location, was it created by you, was it your

idea or did it come from producers at "the daily show"? >> it was everything. i think "the daily show" is such a machine. a lot of times especially when i was there, producers would throw stuff out, pitch it. john would throw stuff out and that's what we would do. my whole catalog of work is a mixture of the amazing people who have worked on the show. >> rose: at this stage do you grow simply by doing it? you now have an opportunity to do everything. that's how you grow. you do it, listen to people with you, figure out every step, just by doing it and participating with a group of talented people, i'll come away better? >> yeah, that's the way to do it. that's like getting out there. that's the scariest thing, just going for it. reich right now i'm writing and spending a lot of my time reading about writing abu a lot of the advice is just do it, do the thing into because there's

nothing harder than looking at a blank page. >> yeah, really upsetting. but what you really have to do is put it together with the first sentence. that's the way you do it, right? do you want to write your own -- what kinds of things do you want to write? scripts for you or -- >> yeah, i want to write scripts for me. i want to write my own show, i want to write more things for women and more things that give sort of people of color a platform as well and members of the lgbtq community. i really want to, whatever i want to do, i want to make sure it's a platform also to help pull up, like, women and people of color. >> rose: do you feel you're a woman empowered because of your successes you've had and the opportunities you've had and people want you to create so you have power to do things for all the people you just said? >> sometimes. >> rose: that's great, though. yeah, sometimes i wake up and i feel the most dopest, powerful

woman on the planet. and then others i just stay home and play the sims. >> rose: the -- the sims. it's this computer game -- >> rose: i don't know what it is. >> it's incredible. >> rose: don't i have a lot to learn. >> i have so much trash to teach you about. it's this computer game where it's basically a bunch of little people and you can do a lot of world building. it's fun. it's a nice way to feel control over an environment which i really enjoy. but that being said, some days i just like to play the sims and stay in. but i think my relationship with power and my relationship with feeling empowered is it just ebbs and flows and i kind of respect where i am that day as opposed to seeing it as a finish line. >> rose: is it all fun? fun? >> just like everything, like life? >> rose: no, the success you've had and the opportunity to create and to do what you know you're damn good at? >> yeah, a lot of it is fun, but a lot of it is just really

stressful. >> rose: stressful? yeah, everything's on a deadline, everything comes together in the last minute, everything has a lot of moving parts. >> rose: everybody's watching you succeed or fail. >> totally and everybody has something to say. and there is always some dude who's making it weird somehow somewhere, and you're just, like, okay, this doesn't feel great, but then there are moments when the director goes, action, and you feel like, oh, that was fun. that was worth et. >> rose: yeah. so it comes and it goes. >> rose: how did "2 dope queens" start? >> "2 dope queens," one of my babies started when i was tape "the daily show" bit and phoebe was working on bit i was taping for "the daily show." i knew about her because she was a black woman. at the time she had a white bay. a white boyfriend.

>> rose: bay means a boyfriend? >> it could mean a momma's boy. >> rose: okay. she was a comedian, she had a white bay and did u.c.v. in new york and i just moved to new york for the "charli show. i internet stalked her and when i met her, she said, what have you wanted to do? i said standup. she said you should co-host my live show. i said, sure. we did a show at u.c.b. east and really just clicked on stage. it was fun. we both felt, like, whoarks this was incredible. so we kept doing that just because we love doing it and we were, like, you know we should make it a podcast, so we partnered with w.c.y.n. studios,

public radio station here, and we created a show called "2 dope queens." >> rose: who gave it the names? >> we both did. i think it maybe took us 15 minutes. it took us too short a time to come up with "2 dope queens." i don't know what the alternatives were. but we were, like, let's see, there's two of us and i'd say we're dope and queens. >> rose: dope means something? dope can mean multiple things. i know back in the day dope was, like, a drug, you know. >> rose: yeah, i know it's something else. what is the something else? >> it's just cool. >> rose: we're dope. would you say we're dope? >> yeah, we're dope. you're dope. >> rose: oh, i'm dope. i like the way you said it, too, you really owned it. >> rose: yeah. and "2 dope queens" was born. and "2 dope queens" is basically phoebe and i host ago bunch of standup story tellers and suppog

somebody else's narrative and so we really give people that we really think are talented an opportunity. >> rose: someone said success is doing good and well, doing good for other people and giving them a chance to do something, doing well, a sense of using and empowering, not just celebrity talent you have, that has brought you attention and using that attention to help people within your own community, whatever that community is. >> yeah, seems like lame not to do that. >> rose: yeah. it seems like a waste in a way. it's a part of making sure there is representation of different times of people. sometimes you have to take a chance, you have to pull people up with you. but it would be a shame to get an opportunity and platform and not use that to help other people. it just seems bananas to not do that. >> rose: at this stage in your life, do you feel more new york

or l.a.? >> oh, boy, i don't know. i go back and forth. i grew up in l.a. i grew up in the south bay. >> rose: went to college in l.a. >> i did. i have been here for about five years. >> rose: so? i don't know. i just came back -- >> rose: you don't have to be either one. you can do both. >> but it's also like lame not to choose a side. >> rose: so choose. i think i'll shoes new york. >> rose: it's where you are now. >> it's where i am now. i don't want to walk out and have people say why dent you say new york? but i think i really, like, when i was in l.a., people were, like, walking around me and they were walking, like, really slow and i just wanted to go, like, move! >> rose: and won't happen in new york. >> you could do that and it's fine. i've become a monster. >> rose: i've become a new yorker. >> yeah. >> rose: "2 dope queens," four, two-hour specials? >> yeah, we do it with w.y.n.c.

studios, they're podcasts. >> rose: hbo said they'd produce four specials of "2 dope queens." >> it's live as maybe an hour and a half ago but we are going to do four one-hour specials for hbo so we're really excited about that and those will be live taped. >> rose: of all the things you do, what's the most challenging and difficult for you? >> challenging -- oh, yum, i woul --oh, um, i would say doind pieces at "the daily show." >> rose: really. yeah. >> rose: even though you had producers and -- >> those pieces we would have one producer. we would travel probably the south and interview somebody in their living room or something like that which feels very intimate, and lot of times they would say things that were bananas, and, so, they have to, like, keep a straight face. >> rose: did they know they were bananas or simply said it in their own authentic way?

>> no, i think doing those interviews and how many they did, i don't think people thought they were nuts. i think a part of growing up for me and learning about other people is i think people have a justification for everything, and whether it makes sense to you or not, people do in their minds have sound reasoning, so it really -- it never came off that at a didn't -- that they thought what they were saying was crazy. >> rose: absolutely. and at the same time, they don't think that people -- in some cases they do -- are contemptuous of them for believing it. >> yeah, no, i think they don't -- they don't think that we -- they don't think that there's a world where we don't agree with them, and then, also, they think that they are going to prove us wrong in some way. but it never really worked out like that. but it was difficult because you're traveling to somebody's home and you're interviewing them and it's really intense and

you want to get a specific amount of information out of them and just interviewing is hard. i don't know if you know this, charlie, but interviewing is hard. >> rose: i've heard. i'm still learning. it's taking me a while to get it going. >> yeah, you're still in the learning phase. >> rose: what about something like "saturday night live"? is that something that would be of interest to you? or are you beyond that? >> i don't know. i don't think so. i would love to eventual will you my dream is to be able to host. >> rose: "saturday night live." >> absolutely, that's my dream. >> rose: why not now? because i want to work on my own show. >> rose: ownership is great. ownership is power, too. they're your mistakes. >> it's all on me. >> rose: it's control. i really want to put myself out there and do that. but that show's great. i just really want to do an my n show. >> rose: what things do you want to create now that you have the leverage to get partners and people to give you an opportunity whether hbo or

netflix? >> i think -- >> rose: did you create jessica? >> no, i dud not create jessica james. i worked on jessica james with the writer and director of the movie jim strauss who's amazing and we had done this movie people places things two years before and he said something really nice when we were done, i was the supporting character in that and he said, i can't wait till somebody writes you a movie because i really love working with you, and then he said, wait, i can write you a movie, so we met a bunch before we even pitched the idea of "the incredible jessica james." he said i'm thinking about the character being like this and the structure being like this, what do you think, what are your thoughts someso by the time we sold the movie and worked out a deal they had me on as executive producer so that was really exciting. so i got a lot of creative input and i think that's what's so fun about the movie is you can see a lot of things like she abbreviates words and she -- you

know, she feels very much like me. so i think that's -- >> rose: you were saying jessica feels very much like you. ssica williams, which is me.like >> rose: how did that work? when you.her together, all of a sudden you said, gee, this is me, or did you say this is me, so, therefore, i'll make her like me? >> i said i really want to create an authentic character and i wanted her to feel whole and full, so we pulled a lot of inspiration from things i say. but we're different. in the movie she's a lot more forthright than i am. >> you mentioned something earlier about wanting to bone? >> right. here on tinder we watched and i texted you hi and i said hi, what's up, and you said do you want to bone. >> i des i did. did you come here tonight expecting to bone? >> yeah. eth not going to happen. did i do something wrong? kind of, when i walked in,

you shook my hand. >> what should i have done? maybe grabbed me by the shoulders, whisper something sexy in my ear. >> like what? go in the bathroom, take off your papties, i want to smell them. >> and you would have done that? there's a huge chance i would have punched you in your ding aling, but i'm in this weird transitional phase that i don't know what i'll do next. >> rose: you don't think of yourself as forthright. >> i don't. >> rose: you seem honest with yourself and the world you're in. >> i go to therapy every week. >> rose: you do? yeah. it's the best. >> rose: why -- woody allen made it famous to go to therapy. >> he is a therapy guy. >> rose: and you're a therapy girl. >> that's me. >> rose: what's a session like? you go in and say this is what happened to me this week. >> yeah, kind of. well, i have a really cool

therapist. >> rose: yeah, there you go. her name's heather, she's great, but we just -- >> rose: do you call her heather or dr. something. >> i call her heather. i promise you, she's really cool. so, anyway, i just talk to her about my week and i talk to her about anything that's been kick kicking around like a nightmare i had a few days before and she says tell me more. she cares. >> rose: she can interpret it for you? >> totally. >> rose: how has it helped you. >> how? >> rose: yes. give me chance to try. let me try. >> okay. >> rose: it helps you understand yourself. your motivations and why you feel this way or that way about some experience in your life. is that part of it? >> yeah, absolutely. >> rose: yeah. it gives me -- >> rose: does it change you? sometimes, yeah. in small increments. i've never gone and regretted it. every time i go and i leave, i feel lighter than i did when i went in.

so i think it's got to be very positive. even when i don't feel like going which is half the time, ooh, i don't feel like talking today. when i leave her office, i'm, like, oh, man, i'm so happy i did that for myself. it's an investment to me. i can go out into the world and know a little bit more about myself and handle external situations outside of my control which really is the reason i go to therapy which is how do i handle things out of my control which is a big question. >> rose: it's cool. the whole sense of how do i handle life? part of it, if i can get some help, i think kris kristofferson said whatever gets you through the night, if you can find some way that somebody or some person or experience that helps you understand where you are, what you are, who you are, then that's a good day. >> yeah. it's pretty priceless. it's apaysing, yeah. >> rose: and so are you. thank you. >> rose: thank you for come.

are you kidding? this is amazing. thank you so much. >> rose: thank you. will you come back? >> yes, yes. let me see if my schedule -- yes, of course. thank you. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. >> oh -- are you going to invite me up? >> i was thinking maybe not. why? i already know your bathroom is gross a.f. >> first of all, i cleaned it thoroughly. >> good. and second of all, i think we should slow it down a little bit. >> i spent the night here the first night we hung out. >> yes. mm-hmm. and it was tremendous. you booty called me four days later. so it's fun. >> you're an excellent lover. well, what's the problem? i probably seem to you like i have my (bleep) together, but i just got out of a marriage eight months ago and i've this i think is just a bit (bleep). >> you so seem like you have it

together. i don't either. i just cot out of a relationship, too. >> well, all the more reason to say good night. >> really? boom! boom, boom, boom. >> i'm trying to be strong. a unicorn. oh. that's got to mean something. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by mea 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. >> you're watching pbs.

this is "nightly business report with tyler mathisen and sue herera. sizzler, stocks bounce back and have their best day of the summer. as last week's worries morph into a reheated hopefulness. ceo turns on trump. the head of merck resigns from the president's manufacturing council. creating a potential crack in the white house relation and wellness watch. will aetna give an apple watch to its millions of members? and if they do, would you set aside privacy concerns and wear those stories and more tonight on "nightly business report" for monday august 14th. good evening, everyone, and welcome. a hot august day turned into a hot august rally. stocks recorded their best