. >> rose: welcome to the program. it is the end of summer and as we prepare for the next season we bring you some of our favorite conversations here on charlie rose. tonight we talk about books with jd advance, author of hillbilly elegy. neil degrasse tyson uh-huh thor of as to physics for people in a hurry and with al franken. >> i didn't fesly think i was the guy who was going to beat norm coleman and as the campaign progressed, it became less and less about norm coleman and more and more about those who any cafe i would go to, small towns, anywhere, vf-w hall, american legion hall, you would see a sheet up there saying we're having spaghetti dinner for this

family cuz they've gone bankrupt because of a health care crisis. and elizabeth warren had been on my radio show telling me more than 50% of americans go bankrupt because of a health care crisis, related to a health care crisisment and i knew that, on my radio show. but it got personal, cuz it was personal with the people of minnesota. so it is a petty reason to run for the senate, to say someone's got to beat this guy. but what it became por anmore about was what paul said. paul said that politics isn't about winning for the sake of winning. it isn't about money. politics is about improving people's lives. >> rose: authors for the hour when we continue. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: bank of america, life better connected. >>

>> 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: jd vance is here, raised in the rust belt city of ohio and appalachan town of jackson, kentucky. after high school he joined the marines, he graduated from yale law school and went on to success in the financial community. his new book tells the story of his remarkable tra jectory. it offers an examination of white working class america. it's called hillbilly elegy, a memoir of a family and culture in crisis. david brooks calls it essential reading for this moment in history. i'm pleased to have jd vance at this table for the first time,

welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: you should have been here earlier so i thank god we've got you here. tell me what drove you to write this. >> yeah, so i started writing it when i was a third year student at yale law school. and i was sort of troubled by this question of why there weren't more people like me at yale law school. i was the only white working class person that i knew or at least was open about it. and it seemed to me not just that i was relatively low income relative to my peers but that i had this cultural outsider attitude that was very, very unique. that i was not just, like, sorry i was not just lower income but i actually felt like a cultural outsider. that is the first time i ever felt like that in my life. so i really started to wonder what was it that made me different and i decided to start writing to answer this question of why there weren't more kids like me. >> rose: did you feel like you were living in a world where people looked down on you or something, because you qualified to be where you were at every stage. >> absolutely. i never felt like people were looking down on me at yale law

school. i felt there was a general sense of disdain for the community i came from, maybe folk was call them rednecks but i never felt like it was personally drebilitied at me. >> rose: so you decided to write the book, you started to think about where you came from. it's called a memoir of a family and culture in crisis. what culture is in crisis? >> well, i think the culture is white working class americans, specifically white quork working class americans with connection to appalachan and the rust belt. so what i saw and what i started to research and realize is that a lot of the problems that existed in my family existed in the broader community at large in a very disproportionate way. >> rose: and what were those problems. >> increasing rates of family break down and divorce, increasing rates of opioid, a certain pes pism about the future that is really maybe a learned helplessness about people's future prospects. >> rose: a feeling of being a vic testimony. >> i think it is partially a failure of being a victim, i really think it comes down to the communities and

neighborhoods we are raised in and the attitudes we acquire. >> rose: you acquire them from the neighborhood. what is it you acquire from the neighborhoods. >> i think one of the things you acquire is a sense that your choices don't necessarily matter. so what happened obviously is the industrial economy has been very tough on these areas. so i don't think we should-- but approximate combination with ta really tough economic circumstances, peoe t to give up. they start to think that no matter what they do, they can't get ahead and that is a pretty self-destructive attitude. >> rose: do you think in this book we understand some of the feelings that are driving this presidential election? >> yeah, i think that is definitely true. one of the things that is really driving attraction to donald trump is not any special quality of donald trump himself but of the fact that folks feel very resentedful at the media establishment, the police kal establishment, the financial establishment and so forth. so one of the things that i really started to recognize as a teenager is that folks are very sin-- cynical, pessimistic and because of it alienated from the broader american commute, that is one of the things i wrote about. i didn't quite expect it took

the form it has taken but i'm not surprised. >> rose: they feel alienated because what? >> well, so it is a combination of the fact that their communities themselves aren't going especially well, so we talk about the addiction crisis, family breakdown and all these other social indicators that don't look very good. i think that breeds a certain frustration both at yourself and at people who you perceive don't really care about your problems. so you think your life isn't going especially well and your political elites the people who should care don't. not only do they not care, there is a sense that they condescend, they look down on people like you because of the way you live your life. >> rose: why didn't it affect snu. >> well, i think it actually did affect me in a lot of ways, if you look back at my life f you start when i was 14 years old you would have said based on my grades, on the drugs i was starting to get into that i would not is have had a successful life. the story is a exploration for what change changed in that life. >> rose: what changed. >> the first thing is that i started to spend a lot more time, i started to live full time with my grandma and pie grandma was a very classic

hardworking self-reliant woman who recognized that life was unfair but made very sure that i didn't think the deck was stacked against me even as i recognized some of the structural inequalities. >> rose: how did she do that. >> one, she prepared a very tough message, right. so i remember when i was a kid she bought me a really nice graphing calculator for one of my advanced math classes, she didn't have a lot of money herself she said look if i will a frord this calculate you you will bution your butt and work hard, that had a impact that this poor am who was able to do this for me, that meant that i had to study and work harder at school. she prepared a tough message. she wroad me, made sure i did my homework, made sure i took my studies seriously and she also knew that the culture around me had a sort of message that maybe my choices didn't matter and she fought against that. >> rose: you want from high school to the marines. >> yeah, right out of high school after we invaded iraq. >> rose: did you do that out of patriotism or for other reasons. >> a combination.

i was definitely a patriotic kid like a lot of kids who grew up in my neighborhood but also a recognition that i wasn't ready for life after high school. so i remember puzzling through the financial aid forms after i had gotten into ohio state where i vent allly went. hi no idea what to do and was sort of scared and i thought the marine corps might give me four years to shape up. >> rose: did it? >> yeah, it definitely did. yeah, the great thing about the marine corps is that they really force you to shape up. i like to describe it as a four-year character education. because they teach you not just, you know, how to iron a uniform but they teach you about financial management, they teach you how to make your bed, they teach you a lot of the skill sets that you need to be a successful adult. >> rose: part of the conventional wisdom about this, in terms of the commentary that leads people to be so excited about your book is you are giving them a key to understanding. and everything wants it because it is a dramatic political component in the presidential election of 2016. you know, and they're saying to people, you know, where is,

where is the dialogue between politicians, where is the dialogue between the establishment and the people we're talking about. because, because you know, everybody gets, when there is a comment, like hillary clinton made, about desperates, that offends people. >> sure. >> rose: you know, and when donald trump says something, that seems to have contempt for people, it offends them. >> uh-huh. >> rose: and i wonder well, how much dialogue is there really taking place in trying to, in a sense, listen and communicate, and not just use for political means. >> yeah, so i think there is precious little dialogue between these two big cultural segments of america. sort of middle america, fly over country, whatever you want to call it. donald trump has become their sort of representative and they

are very-- . >> rose. >> for saying that folks cling to their guns and religion. i think it was a well-intentioned comment. he mentioned that folks were struggling economicically and that was his explanation but it was sort of layered with a certain amount of con desession, adults that you respect don't cling to things. he might have said it a much different way and i don't think the comment would have had nearly the effect it did if he said it in a more compassionate way. >> rose: how do we change this? >> yeah, so that is a really tough question. i mean i continue to think that one of the big problems, one of the big sources of this cultural divide is the fact that people aren't spending a lot of time together. when my wife who is of indian desent was born in san diego, the firs time i brought her home i was terrified that she would think my family was a bunch of dumb hillbillies and my family that she was an out of touch elitist. the truth is they love each other. that is a small example. between people spend time with

each other there is contact theory they suggest when people from different groups spend time they empathize with each other in a greater extent it is a consequence of the fact that we have too much geographic segregation between the he leads and the rest of the country. at the end of the day if you are a policy maker in washington d.c. you know very little about the people in middle town ohio, not because are you a bad person but because you don't spend much time with them. >> rose: what impact do you think this election is having on this country? other than a sense of disdain for the tenor of it? >> i think that this election is really having a negative affect especially on the white working class. because i think a lot of these grieveances are legitimate. but what it is doing is giving people an excuse to point the finger at someone else, point the finger at mexican immigrants or chinese trade or the democratic elites or whatever else. and sometimes these villains are legit mass-- legitimate. i think it is fair to say the policy elites of the democratic party haven't been totally concerned about the white working class but at the same

time, fundamentally what is going on and what donald trump has done is changed the focus of the white working class from a sort of engaged and constructive politics to a politics of pointing the finger. >> rose: someone on this program jeff greenfield said that hillary clinton, he worked with bobby kennedy and others, and a yale law graduate by the way i think. >> okay. >> rose: said that when hillary clinton should do now, she should go to these working class communities and perhaps she is, but go to them and say i may not get your vote. but i want you to know i'm listening. and i want you to know that if i win and even don't get your vote i'm coming back, to give them some sense, to be able to believe that somebody heading for washington, if she is indeed heading for washington, has taken enough time to try to hear what the problems are. >> sure. i think that would be an extraordinarily constructive addition to our politics because at the end of the day if people

only focus on those who they think will vote for them we will have an increasingly polarized electorate, right. >> rose: yes. >> i think there could be a natural constituency in the white working class for hillary clinton, the white working class voted for bill clinton in overwhelming numbers. so it's not, to me, it's not so much an idea lj kal opposition to the democratic or rep cabbing-- republican elite t is the sense that they don't care about people like you. >> rose: exactly right. >> exactly. and that feeling, unfortunately, if you think about the political dialogue that we're already starting to have, you know, both on the left and the right, there is a movement to sort of gloat over the fact that the elites were right about donald trump. i'm a never trump guy. i never liked him. and i have, but i have noticed, this willingness from people who think a lot like i do, that look, we told you so to all these white working class voters. we told you so. we told you trump would be a terrible candidate. we told you that you were an i had item if you voted for him. the problem is if you take that

attitude as sort of gloating over trump's defeat, then you are playing into the very thing that gave rise to trump in the first place which is a feeling that the elite think that they are smarter than you and just think you are a bunch of idiots. >> rose: what impact has writing this book had on you. i mean other than the fact that it made you think deeply about where you came from. >> sure. >> rose: and what impact, and understanding of your own community might make. >> yeah, well, for the first time it exposed me to the wild world of internet trolls who criticize everything you do. >> rose: they follow you everywhere. >> absolutely. it's very interesting. the internet is a den of viepers as i like to say. no, i mean i think the biggest impact that it has had on my life, obviously, is that it sort of, you know, it sort of forced me to confront the fact that i sort of exist uneasily in the world of the elites an i exist uneasily in the world of the nonelites back home. i will always feel most

comfortable back in middle town ohio but i realize the media sort of asked me to be this spokesman for the white working class voter who is voting for trump. but as somebody without doesn't like trump myself, i sort of, i understand where trump's voters come from. but i also don't like trump himself and that made me realize that maybe i'm not quite clear part of either world totally. >> rose: neil degrasse tyson is here, dr. neil degrasse tyson. he'ses been described as the most powerful nerd in the universe and get this the sexiest astrophysicist alive. how many astrophysicists do you know. he is the director of the world renowned hayden planetarium at the museum of natural history and an evangelist for scientific curiosity and discovery. he hosts a popular radio and tv show called star talk. his latest book is called astrophysics for people in a hurry. it's perfect for me and i'm pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. >> thanks, by the way, that sex yis astra fises sis, that was 40

pounds ago, 17 years ago just to put that in context but all right. >> rose: so you were a young dude. >> yeah, yeah, another time. >> rose: who did you write this for, people in a hurry. >> people have jobs. people go to school. you have kids. but if you are still curious as an adult, is there anything that serves that busy lifestyle. and i wanted to take these headlines that i know you have seen, exoplanets, dark matter, multiverse, things about the universe, i know you have seen it. >> rose: you about you don't know what it means. >> i wanted to put them under one umbrella in a story arc so you can come out wile you are in a hurry, you can dip in, dip out and it can serve the needs of the curious busy individual. >> rose: bear with me for a couple definitions, astrophysics. >> yeah, so we care about everything that is outside of earth's atmosphere. so from to the edge of the universe, that's us.

>> rose: you go beyond gravity there. >> so it is black holes, we got planets, moons, as troids, come ets, stars, galaxies, the entire universe past present and future. and the interesting thing is that the laws of physics, it's not a given. it's not written in the sky that it had to be this way but the laws of physics we established in the laboratory, turns out they apply across the universe and across time. and i celebrate that in a chapter there called on earth as it is in the heavens. so, so when you apply the laws of physics discovered on earth to the yeufertion, you are an astrophysicist. >> rose: why are we so curious s it simply because. >> let me offer an untested hypothesis, okay. i want to possibly research this, i don't know how, speak to anthropologists but humans are one of the few mammals, maybe one of the few animals at all that is comfortable just sleeping on our back. you never have seen a horse asleep on its back, all right.

most mammals just do not sleep on their back. and we sleep at night. >> rose: with. >> wait, what happens. i am asleep on my back at night and then i wake up. >> rose: and are you looking up. >> i'm looking up, i look at the stars. and the moon was here last night but now it's there tonight. and there are other brighter ones. the planets and they moved. and you got to be curious. you have to be! and i bet this imbued our species with a sense of curiosity for what is above our head. that a beetle could never have because a beetle is only looking down. and birds only look down. if you take a bird an turn it upside down, it has no-- . >> rose: turtles only look down. >> they might try to do a head thing. but so maybe-- . >> rose: i have one exception, i have a dog calls hemmingway, a black lab, sleeps like this, with his legs in the air. >> in the air. >> rose: at night. >> okay.

i always thought that was a little crazy, now i think it's even more crazy because no other mammals do it. >> i don't know all mammals but the ones i know about. so ask the dog if he is thinking about the universe. >> rose: maybe that's where he ask headed. >> exactly. >> rose: you don't mind me mentioning i hope the fact that this book is opening at number one on "the new york times" best seller. >> thank you. yeah,. >> rose: witnessing the curiosity. >> i, so first i was like wow, that's great, look what i just did. but then i said no, that it has nothing to do with me, actually. it has to do with the fact that there is a real curiosity that i think had been undervalued by others in media. that people have this curiosity into adulthood, and maybe not everybody, but i'm privileged to be able to fan that ember, that might still be burning and maybe burst it into flames. and you say i got to know. because there is a lot of very competitive books on in list. you know, political books, connedi rice has a book on the

list, there are a lot of good books. david mckolov, a perennial on the list. and this kind of just floated into the top. and i say that is an affirmation that the public does care about science, that they care-- . >> rose: an affirmation of the fact that you tell it well. >> well sure but i could tell it well but it doesn't have to land on the list. >> rose: remember they used to talk about when stephen hawkings book and bless stephen hawking for all he has done. >> uh-huh. >> rose: they used to say how many people red it. >> hardly anybody. >> rose: that was the point. but this is a very readable book. >> i hope so, that is pie goal. by the way, it's not astrophysics for dummies, first of all, that title was already taken, but second, it is for, it's real astrophysics. if you open any page, you got to pay attention to that. i'm treating your intellect with respect. >> rose: right. >> and but there is a lot of fun things in there as well because i think information can be more resoundingly received if i attach it to some pop culture

things you might already know about. >> rose: i think that what reasonable success i have had in this media, is because i have maintained a childhood curiosity. >> listen, i think if a child is curious and keeps that curiosity into adulthood, that is all a scientist is. i am a kid that never lost curiosity. and i-- i say this often, you know, what is going on at home? we spend the first year teaching a kid to walk and talk. the rest of his life tell him to shut up and sit down. what's going on there. so somewhere in the school system we need to nurture curiosity on a level that can be sustained even when you graduate. cuz how many people do you know, they run down the steps of high school either at the end of the school year ornd of senior year, school's out. and i'm thinking you're celebrating the fact that you is no longer learn things. >> rose: but school should ignite your curiosity, by teaching you something to go an explore way beyond what they can do. >> exactly.

and you will spend many more years not in school than ever in school. so if you teach curiosity on top of the base knowledge, then you can turn us all into lifelong learners. and you will also, you will be equipped, you will be inoculated against people who are trying to exploit what might otherwise be your ignorance. you are curious and someone will tell you, i wonder if that's really true. you have a built-in skepticism when you are curious and that is what we need more of in the adult community. >> rose: let's talk about more questions that you answer. einstein's theory of relativity. >> yeah, i mean this was the follow-on, if you will. because icek newton back in the late 1600s came out where a new theory of motion and a theory of gravity. and this worked everywhere we ever measured it. moon going around earth, earth going around the sun. the moons of jupiter around jupiter t wasn't just a solar phenomenon. in fact, the planet neptune was discovered because the planet uranus was not following newton's lawsk people said okay

we found the limits of newton's laws, they don't apply that far away. wait a minute, before you throw it out, maybe there is another planet out there whose gravity we have not folded into our equations. and it is a very hard mathematical robb. >> rose: responding to the gravity of the other thing. >> exactly. so once, it's a hard mathematical problem to invert so one is i have an object and let's calculate its gravity. another one is there is a gravity here, where must the object be. that is a very hard mathematical problem. some brilliant people worked on it. they made a prediction, look here tonight, that announcement got to berlin, an observatory there, there is an astronomer, looked in that spot, discovered nep-- neptune. newton's laws of motion and gravity were still in fact. -- in tact. what happens in modern time, we find failures at the edge of it. things are not working. all einstein's relativity it, it is an updated version of the laws of motion and laws of gravity it doesn't replace newton, it subsumes it, and it

applies to black locals, to the beginning of the universe itself. and if you put low speeds and low gravity in einstein's equations, they become newton's equations. that is why i'm saying it subsumes newton. >> rose: am i right in believing i have read over the years that over the years we have discovering affirming evidence of how einstein was right? >> well, so, einstein was right on so many counts but here is something interesting am when he wrote down his first equation that described how gravity functions in the universe, there was a term in there that represented antigravity. >> rose: yeah. >> and mathematically it doesn't have to match the universe. you can say the rest of this fits the yeufersz but that, there is no antigravity in the universe. so here is what happens. what this term did for him was stabilize the universe to become a static entity. if you take out this term, the

universe collapses. and why would he think the universe would have any kind of motion at all. there was no premise for that. so he puts it in, and says have i to leave this in. i don't know what it is but i'm putting it in. then edwin hubbell discovers the universe is expanding. that's okay too. he doesn't need the term any more. >> rose: that is why they named a telescope after him. >> among three or four other reasons as well, hubbell, the man, not the hardware and so einstein realized he didn't need the term and took it out and said putting it in was his greatest blunder of his life. and so fast forward 70 years, we find a pressure in the universe operating against gravity that is making our expansion accelerate. and we have to go back to that term and put it back in. now we need the term. it's real, it's called the cosmo logical constant. so for einstein, it's like einstein's greatest blunder was saying that this was his

greatest blunder. >> rose: that was the mistake he made. >> his only mistake was saying he made a mistake. >> rose: right. is there a big search for union fying theory of gravity? >> yes. and it's been going on, einstein was one of the earliest out of the box. >> rose: if you could figure that out, boy, you get a lot of. >> yeah, and it's not just gravity but all the forces of nature. there is a philosophical idea that it's not unfounded. you go back 150 years, there was magnetism, there was lechicity-- electricity and two forces we were playing with. we found wait a minute, these are manifestations different sides of the same coin, so we stapled the two words tolling, we got electromagnetism. we found out that the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism were the same in the early universe. that got a nobel prize. in 1978. in fact, two of the three nobel laureates are graduates of hawaii school, the bronx high school of science. that school has eight nobel

laureates among its graduates, seven of which were in physics. so they found out they merged as one. we now call it the electroweak force. so now we have the electroweak force, the strong force and gravity. and it's been tough mixing gravity into these, and no one has done it successfully yet but we've got top people working on it. >> explain this question as to why it is important. can anything, can anything or any object ever outrun a beam of light. >> no, no. not only experimentally have we never seen that, they receiptically we can declare it's not possible. >> rose: and what is the significants of that? >> it has profound-- it is one of the founding principles that make relativity real. >> rose: i mean that einstein. >> so once you, so we were discovering that this was true in our spemplets. einstein said let's imagine that it must be so everywhere in the universe. what would then be the consequences. and out of this he derives the

laws of relativity. and then every time we test it, it comes out correct. he was just correct every time we test it. so we've gots a very deep awareness and sensitivity of the operations of nature, just the way isaac newton did. >> rose: what is the difference between dark matter and dark energy. >> unfortunately they have names that kind are similar to one another, dark matter is what we call the gravity in the universe that has no known origin. we should really call it dark gravity, if you must. that is literally what it is. we see things moving in space, an you can calculate how much gravity would be enabling that. and then you look at what is there, there is not enough stuff there to account for the gravity that is making this motion. how much stuff is there about 15 percent of what is necessary in the form of matter to make this, so we just called dark matter. it is a mystery. the longest unsolved mystery in modern astrophysics, possibly in all of science. it's been with us since the

1930s. and so we-- . >> rose: in all of science. >> dare i go that far? an i think i'm going to go that far. >> rose: biggest mystery in the history of science is. >> how many branches of science have a mystery with them for 80 years. i don't know of any, right. so but certainly the longest unsolved mystery in astrophysics. and it remains a mystery, we don't know what it is. if you are a better person, if you bet on physics. >> rose: go down to my local broker. >> yes, the aisle on the far right. if you are a betting man on physics, people are suspecting that it might be a new kind of exotic particle that just doesn't interact with us in any normal way. because this dark matter, it doesn't have light. it doesn't reflect light, bend light, it can bend light but it doesn't interact with light in any traditional way that matter interacts with electromagnetism. so it is a mystery. and darg dark energy, that is what we call this mysterious pressure that is operating

against the wishes 6 graferrity. we don't know what that is either. >> rose: stephen hawking and others said we need to be colonizing some planet somewhere. and they talk about mars. >> yeah, yeah, i-- first i think w should colonize just cuz it's a cool thing to do i don't fully agree with their reasons. their reasons make good headlines. it's it could end up trashing earth and we need a backup planet, or an asteroid could come or killer virus, something devastating the human population. and if you are in two, eggs in two baskets you don't break them all, okay. i get that. but is that practical? the following sense. if you teraform mars, turn it into earth and then ship a billion people there so you split the species, protecting one from disaster relative to the other, i get that. but whatever effort that takes, it's got to be easier to figure out how to deflect the asteroid. it's got to be easier to come up with a superviral certificate up where no virus will ever infect

you. those have to be easier than teraforming mars an shipping a billion people there. not only that, if we trash earth, and we want to go to mars after you teraformed it, if you can teraform mars into earth, you can teraform earth back into earth. why not. so i think in practice, we shout because it is a cool thing to do and a scientific frontier but to do it as the solution to saving our species, i don't see that as realistic. plus are you going to sit around and watch four billion people go extinct and just do nothing about it? we are fine over here, we're the half that are going to survive and prop gate the human cease. i just don't see it as realistic. so yeah, i'm-- i say let's do it but not for those same reasons. >> these and other questions are answered in astrophysics for people in a hurry by neil degrasse tie soon. thank you for coming. >> charlie, thanks for your interest over the all the years, you do good by science, so keep it going. >> rose: thank you.

al franken is here, he is a two-term senator from minnesota. before politics weigh was a comedy writer and performer on snl an hosted a progressive radio talk show on air america. he has recently emerged as a forceful challenger of the trump administration. his tough questioning of cabinet nominees during confirmation hearings went viral. >> if there is any evidence that any one affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate in a time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians. >> i think if i am understanding your question correctly around proficiency, i would also corelate it to competent tensee and mastery so that you, each

student is measured according to the advancement that they are making in each subject area. >> well, that's growth, that's not proficiency. so in other words, the growths they're making isn't growth, the proficiency-- is an arbitrary standard. >> if they reached a level, the proficiency if they reached a third grade level for reading, et cetera. >> i'm talking about the debate between proficiency and growth, what your thoughts are on that. governor. >> senator. >> thank you so much for coming in to my office. did you enjoy meeting me? >> i hope you were as much fun on that dyes as you were on your couch. >> well. >> may i rephrase that, sir. >> please, please, please. oh my lord. (laughter).

>> rose: there it is, karen tumulty of the washington most wrote at the dawn of a presidency, that would be the trump presidency that stretches the limits of late night parody and at a moment when an out of power democratic party is trying to find its voice, the former comedian and satirist may be having a breakout moment, as a political star. he is out with a new book, a memoir called al franken, giant of the senate. i'm pleased to have senator al franken back at this table. welcome. >> thanks, charlie. it's great to be here. i hope i'm as much fun behind this table as i was on it that couch with rick perry. >> rose: well, i did notice, when rick perry campaigned this time and he wore the glasses people said he was trying to look differently. obviously the glasses have continued. >> you know, i found him actually very prepared for our meeting. he prepared, he knew my stance on energy issues, and i found him actually to be, he was the

longest governor in the history of texas. and he had did a lot of wind energy. >> rose: very popular down there. >> very popular. brought a lot of wind, i think texas is the largest wind electricity producing state. and so i actually didn't vote for him because i didn't like some of his answers on climate and but i called him to tell him i wasn't voting for him, and we said well, let's get dinner. i like him. >> rose: you had dinner with him. >> i did not have dinner, we said let's get dinner. doesn't mean we're going to have dinner. we just said-- well, i hope to do that. i hope to do that. and hope, i asked him to become a student of climate. and so i think it will take a few months to do that, so i will give him a preak. >> rose: we night need that because there are reports and seem to be more and more evidence that the president will, although he has not announced it, withdraw from the paris climate.

>> yeah, i think that would be a big tragedy in terms of our leadership in the world. there is something that 195 other countries signed on to. every country in the world i pleef but syria, and nicaragua. we should be, the whole world knows this is happening. >> rose: let me talk about the budget that they have and look at this domestic agenda. the argument is that a lot of what he promised in the campaign to the people that he helped elect him are going to be hurt a lot by the budget. >> yeah, i'm cochair with pat roberts of kansas, republican. of the rural health caucus. and i go all over minnesota talking to rural hospitals, small hospitals, clinics, nursing homes. people are freaked out about this health-care bill. because i, you know, in perm,

minnesota, a woman was crying because she said my mom will lose her home health care. and my husband and i both work. and i don't know what we're going to do with my mom. >> rose: do you believe that if, that we're looking towards 218 election which democrats could take over both the house and the senate? >> is it heading that way. >> you know, i'm not a prognosticator. so i'm not going to go down that-- that is not a pivot. that's just not something i'm prepared to answer.. >> i done like to do that. i like to focus on what's in front of us right now. and what's in front of us right now is this terrible health-care bill that the president had the ceremony and the rose garden, which are you going to do after one-- . >> rose: it is not a mission accomplished time. >> no. and the president saying you

know, you know, everyone, no one knew that health care was complicated. until i figured out that it's complicated. you know, that's crazy. and we all know it's complicated. it's very complicated and 1250eu78s i feel that my republican colleagues just had the affordable care act which has its flaws, which has weaknesses. they just were counting on hillary winning again so they could just keep bashing around and didn't bother to find out how complicated it is. >> rose: i want to talk about politics. why did she lose? >> why did the man that you are looking at in the presidency today win? >> i think there are a lot of reasons. he obviously appealed to people who were angry. and. >> rose: why wouldn't she appeal to those people? >> i believe that part of what they are angry at is the

establishment. and part of what they thought was, if we just get somebody in there who hasn't been part of this. >> rose: they will kick butt. >> at the establishment and washington crowd an drain the swamp. >> drain the swamp. there was that aspect of it. but people legitimately angry. i mean i'm talking about people who for 40 years have seen the middle class squeezed. and who don't see their kids having a brighter future than they had and are angry about it and i think we in the democratic party have a different interpretation of why that has happened. >> rose: but did you make that argue clear? >> i think what happened was at a certain point hillary had felt that donald trump had disqualified himself. i think they felt they were going to win. and they started playing prevent defense.

and then 11 days before the comey thing hit, i'm not making any excuses for her. and the extent of the russian interference in terms of a thousand trolls in russia sending fake stories out and that's where fake news came from. and that going on facebook, you know, taking, once they hacked the dnc and they hacked podesta, they can just put anything out there. no one has read all of podesta's emails. no one has read anything from the dnc. so they can just send whatever lies are. and you know, if you are talking about did, was there cooperation with rush abs on that, there are some things where you know podesta's time in the barrel is very soon. >> rose: roger stone said that. >> yeah. >> rose: before the release of the wikileaks stuff. >> that is kind of suspicious, don't you think?

>> rose: yes. >> good. i mean. >> rose: she won minnesota. 46 and a half percent to 45. >> right. >> rose: minnesota. >> minnesota. >> rose: your home state. >> that's right. >> there are a lot of people who voted for me in 2014, who voted for donald trump. >> why, because of all the things we've been saying. >> from the things we're talking about. and you know, our job is to send a message that we are looking out for them. and i think that it helps when this pre i mean it's an-- this health-care plan had an $880 million, billion dollar cut in medicaid and a $900 billion

dollar tax cut, almost exclusively for wealthy people. >> and that's the reason you want health care to proceed tax reform. >> yeah. i want health care to, i want it on the table because right now i believe they are deliberately undercutting the markets in the affordable care act which are one of the focus. >> rose: deliberately undercutting those markets. >> yeah, they've been doing that for quite awhile. and the unpredict ability that they have created is yus making those insurance companies either want to leave the market or raise the rates. and that's the last thing we need. and so this, and i want, i would like to hold them responsible if they, if that continues to happen, what i would like to happen, though, is address that. the first hearing we had in this new congress in the health committee which lamar alexander who i respect a lot, chairman,

was exactly on that. was addressing this, the exchanges in order to address, get more competition. and there are reasons that the competition has left, part of it was getting, the republicans got something called the risk corridors which was, would have paid insurance companies who got riskier groups-- . >> rose. >> i understand why you want to move on when i get into risk corridors. >> rose: no, no, i'm give giving you time to talk about them all you want to. >> no, no, no. i-- very often democratic messaging, i say this in the book, that our problem is that all our bumper stickers end with continued on next bumper sticker. an i don't want to do that here. >> rose: speaking of politics. you said and have said that

celebrity today in the political world triumphs ideology. >> i actually-- trumps ideology. and i didn't mean it as a pun because i used to say this before. >> rose: what did i say, i meant to say. >> triumphs. rose: i misspoke.rumps. >> well, maybe you have a hard time saying "trumps." >> rose: no, no. >> like the trumps. believing what, if you have a big name recognition as a celebrity, you can win over people who simply are policy wonks. >> i think i first made this observation when i used to go to ep are can conventions either for comedy central or for my radio show. i go to republican conventions, people go hi, al. >> rose: remember that skit, tell me about it. >> yeah, yeah. and i go holy mack rel, all i do-- are-- hi, al. and because of sat night. >> rose: are you funny and i remember that great skit, i will

vote for you next time. >> well, i mean, believe me, i write about the 08y campaign and everything i had ever done in come-- comedy was put through a 15 million dollar machine that the republicans-- . >> rose: looking for an attack ad. >> well, to create an attack ad but they took everything and put it through this dehumannorrizer. >> rose: explain that, because you write it about it several times. >> this machine was built with israeli technology, very d so you know, in satire anddld comedy you use irony. you use hyperbole. and sometimes when those things are taken out, i will give you an example. so i wrote this joke which was, is a very conservative joke. because it was warning parents about the internet and you should probably monitor what your kids are doing on the

internet. but i wrote the joke with some irony. and i said you know, the internet is doing great things for learning. my sixth grade son did a report last year using the internet on bestiality. and he downloaded a lot of great visual aids. and the kids in the class just love them because you know, at that age they're just sponges. okay, so that, you are laughing. >> rose: you made your poipt. >> you are laughing because you understand the joke. and they just did an ad where they kind of did al franken, does joke bses bestiality. and if goes from you know, from infinite through your face in the living room. and my mother-in-law cried when she saw that ad. because it was, you know, and i was unrecognizable as her son in law. and my-- you know, it was rough. it was rugged. >> rose: speaking of family,

you have said that in that election franie your wife of 40 years. >> yeah, 41 dk did drk dsh one and a half, will be 42 this year. >> rose: without her you couldn't have won the election because she had had some bouts, i'm trying to say this right w alcoholism. >> she is a alcoholic, recovering alcoholic. and she did not like the way i was being portrayed. and wanted it, she said i want to do an ad telling about my battle with alcoholism and how you stuck with me. cuz what we're seeing isn't who you are. and she did an ad with mandy grunwald. mandy just talked with her and did a one minute ad. and in it she talked about we've had problems in our marriage. and i was, had a problem with alcoholism. and al, but the line was how can

a mother of two such beautiful kids be an alcoholic. and that line spoke to the shame that mothers feel. and that alcoholics feel. and there was an anchor esme murphy who is an anchor woman for wcco, the cbs affiliate who wrote a thing like imagine, this is the best political ad this year because this ad could actually help somebody. and two days after the ad aired, we had a debate. and it was in a gymnasium. a lot of people there on the floor and in the bleamps, when she entered that room, she got a standing ovation. and i cried when i saw the ad. chuck schumer cried when he saw the ad.

and it was extremely, not only would i not have won, i would have lost by a lot, i think if it hadn't been for franie. and franie you know, it's funny. because people come up to me a lot. and they say you know, you have a thankless job. thank you. i go like no, no no a thankless job is a job where no one thanks you. that is what lorn michaels once said to me. you know, franie has the thankless job which gord, that remindses me, i should thank her at some point for making that ad, don't you think sth. >> rose: i do. and i don't believe you haven't thanked her a thousand times. >> well. >> rose: have you or not. >> i thanked her. >> rose: have you not. >> i thanked her once. i felt that was sufficient. >> rose: why did you decide 20 run. i mean you start at the top, had no political experience, you had been a comedian. >> i didn't start at the top. >> rose: well, next to the

top. >> well, paul wellstone, i dedicated. >> rose: aggressive senator from minnesota. >> whose seat i hold, i guess, also hubert humphrey, also walter mondeals. he was a hero of mine. and i dedicate the book to him and to his wife sheila. and he died less than two weeks before in a plane crash, he and his family and others. his daughter and wife and others on the staff and the pilot. and there were a sequence of events where there was a memorial for him that was very much about paul. paul had this exuberance and energy. and it was sort of, and i write about this at length in lies and lying liars who tell them.

and that was taken by the republicans and you know, they said that we d-- that there is some inappropriate things said during that and it was used in a certain way. and so norm coleman ended up winning that election, and he beat walter monday deal who had stepped in at the last minute. and. >> former vice president. >> yes. and a couple months after coleman had taken office he did a profile, his first profiling role call and he said i'm a 99% improvement over paul wellstone. >> and you read that. >> i read that and i said who's going to beat this guy. i didn't say guy but i said something. and i had never ever for a second considered running for the senate or running for office until i saw that.

and frashie and i were going to be empty nesters. and i talked to her about moving to minnesota. i had the air america thing start here,. >> rose: the radio show. >> yeah, the radio shoi in new york. but then we moved to minnesota to do the show and to explore. and listen, i didn't necessarily think i was the guy who was going to beat norm coleman. and as the campaign progressed, it became less and less about norm coleman and became more and more about thoses who any cafe i would go to, small towns anywhere, vf-w hall, american legion hall, you would seerks is you know, a sheet thrup saying we're having spaghetti dinner for this family cuz they've gone bankrupt because of a health care crisis. and elizabeth warren had been on my radio show telling me more than 50% of americans go

bankrupt because of a health care crisis. it was related to a health care crisis. and i knew that. my radio show. but it got personal. cuz it was personal with the people of minnesota. so it is a petty reason to run for the senate to say someone's got to beat this guy. but what it became more and more about was what paul said. paul said that politics isn't about winning for the sake of winning. it isn't about money. politics is about prove improving people's lives. and that's, you know, i wrote this book to answer a question that i get asked more than anything else. which is is being a united states senator as much fun as working on saturday night live. and the answer is no. why would it be? but it is the best job i've ever had because i get to improve

people's lives. two weeks in to being in the senate johnny isaacson from george, i call him up, i have this idea for this bill to match vets from iraq and afghanistan with invisible wounds with ptsd, and he could sponsored it and it went through and it passed. and that made me feel like i was doing something. and that is when you feel like, i'm a good senator. >> rose: makes it all worthwhile, i mean all the. >> all the all of that. >> yeah. >> rose: and the interesting thing is you won by a landslide. >> i clob erred him. >> rose: you sure did. >> but the smallest clobbering in history, 312. >> rose: 312. it took him like six months to decide how long. >> it took eight months. yeah, it took eight months. and well, we have a very

thorough process in minnesota. i won the recount in time to be seated with my colleagues but then. >> rose: they challenged. >> norm coleman took it to court and we went through the process. >> rose: i promised you more than four minutes, five minutes which we did on the morning show, i think we reached that point. more than four minutes. >> thank you, you lived up to your promise. it was good seeing you ta days in a row. >> rose: thank you. as well. >> yeah, what are we doing tomorrow? >> rose: whatever you would like. not about politics. the book one more time, al franken, giant of the senate by al franken. for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at cbs.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: of america, life better connected. >> 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. >> turning the page. august is done. and it was better than most expected. investors?ght september hold pump pain. damage from hurricane harvey disrupts the nation's largest refinery causes a spike in gas day. how high magt they go and how long will they stay there? has powerful hedge fund industry a bit concerneded. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for good evening and welcome. tyler mathisen is off this evening. august has come and gone