>> rose: we begin tonight with ta-nehisi coates. his new book is called "we were eight years in power: an american tragedy." >> he's one of the smartest people i've ever met. i can recall being in an off the record briefings and watching a round table of reporters asking him questions ranging from taxes, environment, foreign policy, and him being able to offer answers to those questions in considerable depth. it was remarkable. it was really, really remarkable. i think he was, in terms of becoming the first black president, the perfect person at the perfect time. i don't think there are many other barack obamas, i don't think there are many other african-americans who can navigate the straits he navigated in order to become president. >> rose: we conclude with

laura ingraham, her new book is called billionaires at the barricades, the populist revolution from reagan to trump. >> last year so many people were blindsided. election night was fun for me to watch, the sour faces, projections of gloom and doom, they predicted the market would tank, global economy would stall, america would become isolationists. none of that happened, of course. >> rose: ta-nehisi coates and laura ingraham, 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: ta-nehisi coates is here. his new book is called "we were eight years in power: an american tragedy." it is a collection of eight essays written during the obamaer ray that examined the issues of race and the first black presidency. the book's epilogue, the first white president, was featured in this month's issue of "the atlantic." coates work won him numerous award including the 2015 national book award and the peres teens macarthur genius grant. the "new york times" calls him the premiere black intellectual of his generation. explain to me the book.

>> the original idea was to take the essay articles i had written during the obama years and put them together into one single volume with an epilogue and intro says this is what i wrote, hope you enjoy it. as i read the old essays and the blogging i did during that period, i began to see the possibility of a different book emerging, a memoir interlaced between the essays i had written. i picked eight and wrote a story with the linkage being the thought process that went into each piece and where i was in my life and what led me to the piece. >> rose: great thing to do. the eight are regarding gooze gd negro government. this year this is how we lost to the white man. second year american girl. third year why do so few blacks study civil war. the study of malcolm x.

>> seventh year the brach family in the age of incarceration. eighth year my president was black and the epilogue the first white president. is there one here that for you represents more than the others? >> for me personally, i think it's the civil war one. >> rose: really? yeah, because i think, like, it was during -- you know, i had a great gig. i have a great gig, but, you know, during these years when barack obama was president, i was in a very privileged position to observe him. i was at "the atlantic." i had freedom to write as i wanted to write and i had time to read and research. that's another story that goes through, as i wanted to. i had the financial support to do that which never had in my career as a journalist. a significant part of that period was spent studying the civil war. the other thing that happened during barack obama's eight years is we had the 150t 150th anniversary of the civil war. i spent a good bit of time reading about that and studying

that conflict clarified some things to me about american history and identity. >> rose: was it primarily the impact of slavery? >> yeah, but more than that. it was the fact that we lost so much life in the struggle to actually abolish slavery in this country. when we went into that period, the 150th, it was still respectable to say and to some extent still is it actually wasn't about slavery even though the academic consensus long ago decided that. in the popular consciousness, before south carolina pulled down the confed rat flag, it was still possible in the minds of some to divorce those two things. we lost 600,000 to 800,000 americans, more americans than in all the wars that we fought combined and it was over the right to expand and to protect the enslavement of 4 million african-americans. >> i think that fact exerts huge

weight even today on american society. >> rose: and therefore the idea of the monuments was something that you looked on as coming none too soon? >> yeah, definitely. i mean, and the thing that i would add is it feels to many people as though this idea of taking down these menments of robert e. lee is coming out of nowhere but african-americans have been fight these battles since these statutes went up. for us it's very old and it's a depressing statement in the city of new orleans where you have a statute that says this was erected in the preservation of white supremacy, there can be no debate what that statue is, that you have to have a fight over it and have armed guards. it says something about white supremacy even in our society today. >> rose: do you think white supremacy was a factor in the 2016 election? >> i think it was an essential

factor. i don't think it was mistake that donald trump began his political career in birtherrism, in the idea that our first black president was not actually a legitimate citizen and thus mott a legitimate president. i don't think it was a mistake that large portions of the opposition party, the republican party at the time, the base actually believed the leadership spent much of its time wink and nodding. i think it'setic canned to newt gingrich when he was running for president in the primaries in 2012, labeling barack obama a food stamp president. it's connected to the congressman from south carolina who stood up and said you lie during barack obama's address. >> rose: during the state of the union address. >> yes, i think it's all linked. >> rose: you wrote about the case for reparations in "the atlantic." have anything changed? >> no. some things have changed. i'm sorry, i shouldn't say that.

for instance, it's interesting, a number of the ivy league universities have been doing research on their past, in their linkages to enslavement in this country, your harvards, yales, georgetowns. there is been some movement to acknowledge the history. in georgetown's case to actually do something about it, whatever one might think of the effort, that's different. i don't claim credit for that. i think we were writing the same historical -- >> rose: but it is the legacy of slavery you believe most informed the sense of relationship between black and white in america today. >> i think without the legacy of slavery those labels black and white would have no meaning actually in our society, would have no political purchase. >> rose: did you have any meaning in france where you just spent a year?

>> they do. obviously, one of the cases i make all the through the book is labels of race always tied to politics and issues of power. so i am black here and obviously when i go there they see me as black. but as soon as i open my mouth, that is not the predominant identity i have with them. >> rose: it's an intellectual identity? >> it's an american identity. >> rose: they see you as american rather than black. >> that's the most important thing. when i start talking immediately -- they have their issues with racism, i want to be clear, but it's with black people, and i would argue much more, even with the cases of north african people who they actually have a history with, and i'm not representative of a french send to them. so when they talk to me, you know, they regard me as american. there's a long history of african-americans going over there -- >> rose: james baldwin and others. >> miles davis, and being treated in a way tha they werent here, but that's because they

don't occupy the place in french history. had they been black from senegal, the relationship would have been different. >> rose: when i mentioned the first rank of black intellectuals, you and i talked about this before, you want to be the first rank of intellectuals without any qualifying word describing it. >> i will qualify it even more. i consider myself a writer and reporter. that's how i was trained. i was trained as a journalist and reporter to go out in the street and talk to people, to read, research and write. that's the job i do. i'm happy if it provokes thought. i don't know, i hate "intellectual." i think of some dude sitting there -- >> rose: well, it's the same idea, though, for example, i have friends of mine who are in the military who are african-american and they wanted to be the best general in the army not the best black general in the army. >> same thing. i'm very happy to be black and black writer, tradition is

important -- >> rose: i don't want to just be the best woman, i want to be the best whatever. >> in terms of your competition, who you read, your influences, even though i'm rooted very much in being black and the black literary tradition, like all the other black writers, i pull from all sorts of other literature. >> rose: barack obama. mm-hmm. >> rose: tell me how you feel about him, what aret you think of him, what impact he had on you. >> he's one of the smartest people i've ever met. i can recall being in an off the record briefings an watching a round table of reporters ask him questions ranging everything from taxes to the environment to foreign policy, and him being able to offer answers to those questions in considerable depth. it was remarkable. it was really, really remarkable. i think he was, in terms of becoming the first black president, the perfect person at

the perfect time. i don't think there are many other barack obamas, i don't think there are in other african-americans who can navigate the straits that he navigated in order to become president. >> rose: but does he have a different attitude about white america than you do? >> probably, yeah. >> rose: not probably. you make this point rather strongly. >> yeah. >> rose: he was raised by -- his mother was white, he knew white people. he didn't view them harshly. >> no, he didn't. but more importantly than that -- >> rose: but you make that point. >> i do. >> rose: that he grew up -- i think more important than him actually having white family because that's not particularly new in african-american history, he had white family who actually embraced him as a black person. that wasn't a problem. it was, in fact -- well, he argued his grandfather fetishized it a little bit. if anything, it was towards the positive end, a kind of naivety. he wasn't made to feel any type of way, any type of negative way

about the fact of being black. on the contrary, his family in many ways was a conduit to the african-american experience, the african-american culture, politics, his mom, dad, taking him to jazz clubs. that's a very different thing. >> rose: to the black culture. i've not encountered stories like that. i've encountered stories of black people with a white parent but not in which the white parent is -- frankly, the white family is that loving. >> rose: and wanted to make sure he understood and appreciated the black culture. >> yeah, that is different. >> rose: but do you also believe that it in a sense restrained him in some way because his experience had been different so that he didn't -- he didn't want to be talking about race all the time? >> yeah, i mean, i think most black people don't want to be talk about race all the time. i have my own suite of curios tees i would love to be talking to you about right now. >> rose: but you wrote the book. >> i did. >> rose: the bodge is the subject. >> the book is the subject.

i think the difference is, charlie, not so much because i think actually he spent a lot of time thinking and talking about race. i think the difference with him is when white people literally are your family, when you, as he would say, when you go to iowa and you see people and they remind you of your grandparents, and that's a positive thing, that's a positive thing, that signals acceptance to you it's a very, very different relationship. >> rose: did he change over the eight years? did he change? >> i don't know because i didn't start really interacting with hum until 2011, 2012. >> rose: three years into the presidency. >> yeah, yeah. what i know just from his own testimony an talking to him, he and the office probably underestimated the kind of opposition that they were going to face. they were not -- they thought that they -- >> rose: and was that because he was black? >> was the opposition because he

was black? >> rose: yes. that was part of it, but it's more complicated than that. >> rose: help me understand the complexity. >> it wasn't he was black president, he was a representative of the democratic party where the vast majority of black people are represented. it's very different. people say bill clinton also got a lot of resistance. parties represent people. barack obama wasn't just a black politics. it wasn't just a matter of them looking at him as black person, it was who he represented and who they represented. >> rose: did you grow over the these eight years. >> yeah, a lot. >> rose: how tod you change? i didn't believe in reparations when we started. >> rose: you learned that from the civil war reading? >> the civil war reading was a gateway. >> rose: the 1200 books you read on the civil war. >> here's the thing. in terms of an ambassador,

barack obama was, like, the best we had. >> rose: ambassador from whom to whom? >> from black america to the rest of the country. >> rose: right. by the standards which america tends to hold middle class values, et cetera, he was, like, a character out of the brady bunch or something. ivy league lawyer, wife is ivy league lawyer, beautiful children, dog named bo, just a miraculous representative. >> rose: what hollywood would have done if they made the movie. >> exactly, and half the political party -- donald trump actually forced the guy to show his birth certificate. you see that and you say something deep is going on here. something profound. that spurred me on which radicalized me a little bit. >> rose: radicalized you? yeah, i think i was a pretty

standard issue left liberal at the beginning. i don't think i really believed in, you know -- >> rose: so -- -- race conscious policy. if i did, i was hazy. >> rose: do you believe in identity politics? >> i think all politics is identity politics. i don't think you can get away from it. >> rose: economic politics. i don't think they're contrary to each other. i don't think in america people ever talk about one without theouter. >> rose: exactly. they may not spell it out that way but fink you get down to brass tax -- >> rose: if you talk about identity politics you're talking economic results. >> if you say i'm going to fight and preserve medicare and social security. you're talking about a particular group of people, an age bracket that have the ability to access the benefits. you aren't necessarily speaking to an identity. you are not speaking to 125-year-olds, that's not who you're making your pitch to. >> rose: does barack obama -- i mean, i've seen him time after

time and most recently in a conversation here in new york that i saw talk about notwithstanding the -- notwithstanding the conflict with police, notwithstanding all those incidents, notwithstanding what happened at charlottesville, notwithstanding all of that, i've seen the president say time after time, we have made huge progress. >> made some progress, i would agree. >> rose: but there is a difference. he seems to think we've made a lot more progress than you believe. there's a fundamental sense of almost despair. >> i disagree. >> rose: there is no despair from you. >> i don't despair. >> rose: none. no. >> rose: so you're optimistic? i don't, like, think in those terms. >> rose: tell me how you think about it. >> i think like a journalist, by which i mean, if i'm reading -- >> rose: but you are more than a journalist. >> i don't feel like that. >> rose: it's not just me.

i'm not suggesting, trying to identify you, but a lot of people who admire you think of you as more than a journalist. >> but the work i do every day -- >> rose: is journalism. -- i report, write, read, research and report. it's the work to have journalism. >> rose: the idea of public intellectual has no appeal to you. >> no, because i feel like a dude streaking his chin in his smoking jacket. that's not what i do. for a journalist, it's foreign i have to think that way, i think. i think. i know my editors don't ever ask me that. they don't say, this is a real downer, no one says that to me p the editorial process, an people didn't say it to me -- >> rose: let me ask this a different way. >> okay. >> rose: you look at the election of donald trump in a sense as a rejection of what happened the previous four years. >> i do, yes, eight. >> rose: i'm sorry, the previous eight years. the presidency of barack obama,

as a rejection of it. >> yes, i do see that. >> rose: because? because i don't think you could have trump without the reaction to barack obama. again, i just go back to the fact of how donald trump began his campaign and i think -- >> rose: with the birther issue. >> yes. >> rose: and calling him a racist and murders. >> talking about judge curiel, exactly. i don't think that's accidental. i don't think donald trump would have been president without that. i think that's how it happened. >> rose: let me ask you this, i'm trying to stay awe way from optimism and pessimism -- well, i owe it to you. when you look at what the country has gone through and the kind of things that have happened in the last eight months, the presidency of donald trump, what do you think the challenges are? is that a question? where are we?

i mean, your colleagues, like, david brooks constantly write about this, looking at what were the cultural and economic factors that were at play in the 2016 elections? >> right. i don't doubt that -- you know, and, obviously, i've taken the notion that race was very, very important and i would argue, in fact, essential -- >> rose: and is it more important than, say, economics, are they tied together? >> yeah, i don't think they can the disentangled from each other. often when you're talking about race, you're talking economics and fact and vice versaa. so i don't doubt, for instance, that there are people who are very, very angry about the fact that we had app economic collapse and no one was, you know, held accountable for that. and that that pushed a certain number of people a certain way in the polls and into the voting booths. i do not doubt that when folks heard hillary clinton took speeches from wall street and paid x number of dollars that

that had an effect, i don't doubt that at all. >> rose: barack obama is making speeches for wall street. >> yes, he is. >> rose: does that disappoint you? >> very much so. >> rose: are you surprised? i'm disa pointed. i'm disappointed. i wish he didn't. i think it sets a bad example. i think it's contrary to how the ethos of twice as good that he used to conduct himself as president and during the campaign, i think, again, for those people who watched an economic collapse and saw very, very few people punished to see somebody turn around and give the speech, and i don't care if you're giving all the money to charity or not, the fact people can purchase access in that way, that was built off public trust -- >> rose: here's how i would argue on that issue. they did purchase access. they purchased access meaning

hillary clinton or barack obama or lots of other people could come and make a speech before people. they're not getting it, they listen to him, and maybe he or she has an opportunity to make points, they're not saying this to please the people. they're defining the challenges that are different from speaker to speaker but they're saying what they want to say. >> i don't think it's influence like that. i don't think it's quid pro quo, i give you money and you say what i like to hear. >> rose: no, i know you weren't saying that. >> i think it's a matter of who you surround yourself with and who you're around and what becomes normal to you. there are lot of suffering americans out there who don't have an ability to purchase an audience with you like that. so i think you have to be really, really -- i don't think he should never -- i don't think he should never give paid speeches.

he was spade quite a bit for his book -- >> rose: he lived, barack obama, bill clinton -- >> right. >> rose: -- he gets huge contracts for the books he writes. >> i think that's fine. i have no problem with that at all. >> rose: he lives in a wonderful home millions of americans can't afford. >> i don't have a problem with that at all. >> rose: but you have a problem if he's paid to give a speech -- >> to wall street. >> rose: -- and other people -- >> i do to wall street, yes, to wall street specifically, yes, i do. >> rose: you said when you looked at your own growth over the last eight years, you've become more radical. >> yeah, i think so. >> rose: how would you define your radicalism other than -- >> i did not understand -- like my basic thoughts about, you know, policy in this country, stronger social safety net, desire for people to have some dignity in their work and some sort of livable wage income -- >> rose: that doesn't seem radical to me.

>> that's what i'm saying, none of that stuff actually changed. that's where i was before. i tinted consider white supremacy essential to american history, i tinted understand it that way in 2008. >> rose: how do you think we grow out of that? >> i think it's the work of generations. i don't know how we grow out of it, actually. i actually don't. >> rose: it's the central challenge of our time. it is, it is, it is. i know the first step probably is to take it seriously. that's what i think the first step is and i don't think we're doing it. i think when you have a president of the united states who is objecting to a statue of a general who kidnapped black people out of the north, you're not taking it seriously. when we're still having debates over that, you know, it's tough to even get to the blue sky question that you're asking because we're still down here on

ground level arguing about things that should obvious. >> rose: you called president obama a conservative revolutionary. >> yeah. >> rose: yes, you did. yeah, i did say that. >> rose: meaning what? he was not revolutionary enough or his style was -- >> no. >> rose: what? it means he was revolutionary in the sense that he was the first black president, but i think his style, i think he believes in institutions. he's an institutionalist, an establishmentarian. >> rose: inn tuitions have been good to him and he has been good to institutionsy. >> rose: let's talk about the first chapter. >> the idea -- so the title is taken from a declaration made by a congressman by the name of thomas miller in 1895. he was a congressman in reconstruction after the civil

war. he served with a number of legislators that had been free black people in advance of the civil war or were, in fact, enslaved. in 1895, he is at the south carolina constitutional convention where they are effectively disenfranchising blacks and taking the rights of black people away in the state of south carolina and he can't understand why they'd to this. he said we were eight years in power and in our time basically reconstructed the entire state. the great historian and activist dubois said miller was making an argument for good government, and the voice he failed to understand is what south carolina feared more than bad negro government was actually good negro government, the fact they had been so successful and you can trace that to today. >> rose: didn't barack obama put the lie to racism, too?

>> and that's the problem is that and that's the problem and that is the reason because he put the lie to racism because so superbly talented. >> all the things i outlined to you about him being a great ambassador, this idea of looking like something out of the brady bunch, it countered the stereotype of black people. i think that in fact was actually quite upsetting because these stereotypes of black people are at the root of the belief system behind the actual policies of white supremacy. >> rose: so you're saying those people looked at barack obama, if they had looked at barack obama in a way that measured their own expectation, you know, they would not have had the necessary -- the need to rebel against him. >> this is a long history of this. if you look at the history of

lynchings and race riots, often the places that are attacked are middle class "well-to-do" black areas because they stand in violation of the very idea of whiementsy. they offend the heirarchy. barack obama was the same. >> rose: offending the hierarchy. >> yes. he wasn't below. as so many people said he gave evidence to the idea that my child could be president. well, there are others on the other side of that equation who take evidence of something else which explains where our politics are now. >> rose: what was the expression that martin luther king said that the arc bends toward justice. do you believe that? >> no. >> rose: you don't? no, i think it bends toward chaos, an chaos means you don't know. could be good, could be bad. we'll see. i hope for good, but you just don't know. >> rose: in your judgment, what are the, you know -- what

are the core values of the country that you think have served us so well? >> i don't know, charlie, that's a hard question for me to answer. i like individual freedom. >> rose: yeah. i like that. i like the idea that, you know, somebody like me -- you know, we were talking off camera about being in france. >> rose: yeah. and i was very aware when i was have that my story would not be possible there, not for grand and huge reasons, but because the society and all of it is individualism made way for somebody like me to be a college dropout and make may way. there wasn't the same hierarchy there, i like that. but it's hard for me to think that way. ates different way in looking at the world. i haven't examined enough societies to make the

comparison. >> rose: others said there were people who voted for donald trump who were not white supremacists and voted because he was the lesser evil, to use the phrase. some people who looked at this said, you know, maybe 15 to 20% of the people might be considered, and the other 85, you know, were people of a different political philosophy, had nothing to do with race. >> i'd put that number a little higher. >> rose: where would you put it? >> we have surveys on this, i would put it at 40%. >> rose: 40% of whee people who supported donald trump were white supremacists? >> no, but they have some sort of belief. even if i took your point -- >> rose: i'm just siding with what you said here. >> if we took the argument it

was 15%, that other 85% had no problem electing somebody who at the very least activated white supremacy, began his campaign in white supremacy to become president. that is really disus disturbing. it says i may not be a white supremacistest but i'm amoral on white supremacy. that should be scary for us all. >> rose: would you be offended if i asked are you fearful for the future to have the country? >> no, i would not be offended, and am i fearful? i'm fearful about day-to-day events. i pick up the newspaper and read about north korea and, yes, i'm scared. >> rose: because it demands rational -- rose: what do youon't think we understand about donald trump? is he evil? >> yobt use those sorts of words. >> rose: that's why i ask you. dangerous. >> rose: that's what hillary clinton said to me during the

campaign. >> i think he's really, really dangerous. i obviously did not vote for donald trump. i think he's dangerous. >> rose: we need you. we need people like you as well in other areas of our national life to help us try to understand it and certainly this book and the other book written and the memoir, i think it earned you this remarkable admiration have for you and i thank you so much for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: ta-nehisi coates, the book is called "we were eight years in power: an american tragedy." we'll be right back. stay with us. >> rose: laura ingraham is here. she is one of the nation's most influential conservative voice. she's also the most listened to woman in the country on political radio. october 30 she will join fox news channel primetime line up, it will be called "the

ingraham angle." how the road to the white house was propelled decades in the making. i'm pleased to have laura ingraham back at this table, welcome. why did you want to try write about the populist revolution? >> i think it's important to put a frame around what's happened to the country. i think in november of last year so many people were blindsided. election night was very enjoyable for me to watch because the sullen faces, the dower looks, the projections of gloom and doom on a global scale. they predicted after trump won that the markets would tank, global economy would stall, america would become a protectionist force, isolationist, and none of that happened, of course. the economy is booming globally, new forecast for 2018 is very strong except for maybe russia and great britain. so i wanted to write the book to take people on this journey going back to nixon and talking about the silent majority through obviously the ascendancy

of ronald reagan and his statement that wherever government grows freedom retracts all the way to george w. bush who said he was going to have a humble foreign policy and promised to be there for the working people, even obama had some populist zeal when he talked about -- >> rose: is it more about economics or culture? >> well, i think it depends on the times, but i think right now the focus is the american middle class, the american worker. for about 25 years, really, going back i focus a lot of time on the period from about 2005 to today, where the middle class has not really seen their wages two up. they have become despondent. they've began to think that the system works against them not for them. so for me, and i come from working class background, my mom was a waitress till she was 74 and couldn't hold a tray any longer, and that is my spirit. i carry her spirit. she's no longer with us but i carry her spirit with me. >> rose: at the same time

you've had the benefit of the establishment. you were dartmouth, university of virginia law school, clerked at the supreme court. >> i never forgot where i came from, charlie, never. that working class sentiment made me hungry, and it connected me to what was happening in politics over 2016. >> rose: but you see yourself as someone who respects that working class sentiment or that the values and ethos of populism is who you are. >> i think it's who i am. i really do. i think that the american tradition is under assault. civic pride, civic virtue is under assault. the anthem. >> rose: civic pride and civic virtue are not necessarily belong to populists or to conservatives, republicans, democrats or -- >> no, of course not, but eight years of clinton and obama, there are a lot o things i disagree with. that's okay. republicans didn't have their act together. but i never sad for the pledge or never kneeled for the national anthem because there

are certain things that hold us together, the glue of society that i don't think we should just, in one fell swoop, trash. >> rose: does donald trump equal american populism in 2017? >> well, it's early. we're going to see. >> rose: we've seen a campaign and in a transition and seen him govern. he's shown his colors. we're not going to see anything about him we don't know now. >> billionaire at the barricades, the reason i use barricades is a double meaning, we have the border barricade. but for him the barricades are pretty big to clear, but just getting elected was a monumental feat, beat the clintons, obamas, the media, corporations, a lot of big cree os didn't want him to be the president. he won electoral college, didn't win the popular vote, work to do there, that was a stunning feat to do that. >> rose: you say this is the story of donald trump.

>> yeah. >> rose: it's also the story of those who supported ronald reagan and where they are. ronald reagan led the conservative movement. donald trump leads something else which is populism. >> it's a different -- >> rose: where do they overlap? where are they separate? >> i think remember going back to 1976 when it was a shock that ronald reagan almost won the g.o.p. nomination, they called him dangerous. they said he was a disruptor to the status quo. ronald reagan was an actor who knew nothing, really knew nothing, he didn't write his own speeches. i worked in the reagan administration. people act now like, oh, everybody was embracing reagan. the media, we didn't have the apparatus that we have now in the media, we didn't have cable news for the most part back then, but they ridiculed reagan. reagan was ridiculed throughout most of his presidency, but what he tapped into was this sentiment for all these people in the south who for years thought the democrat party was

working for the little guy, and the democrats had, that's why they had, charlie, the house of representatives, since the 1950s all the way to 1994, unbroken hold the democrats had because they had the populist understanding. as was written in the threan "te atlantic" last october, they lost the souls of them and he captured it. >> rose: is donald trump a populist,o is he a very smart celebrity, successful businessman who saw opportunity and grabbed et? >> well, i think, going back to his early remarks about trade and immigration, trump had those two core issues in the palm of his hand for some time. trump was a democrat, had a lot of democrat friends, donated to a lot of democrats, but i think at the time when he came to run pore the presidency, he saw that

there was a double vacuum, there was a deep vacuum within the republican party with the exception of maybe huckabee and rick santorum, the blue-collar republicansers and pat buchanan, a lot of zeal for buchanan but he didn't have the individual wealth to take that message -- >> rose: but many look at buchanan's campaign and say that's where it began there. >> that's what i say in the book. >> rose: but the idea against big business. >> bigness versus smallness. >> rose: the isolationist aspect of it was also buchanan. >> let me talk about the isolationism thing. the way the left and many on the right dismissed trump and this populist appeal that he has is they say well, he's anti-immigrant -- >> rose: i wasn't dismissing him. i was talking themes. >> he's ice lanessist. now, think about what he did, his first foreign trip, charlie. he goes and he visits the countries that house the three major religions. he reached out to the muslims,

he went to the vatican, and, of course, he went to israel. >> rose: right. now, jared kushner put that trip together and said you're biting off more than you can chew. that's not an ice whraitionist. that's someone engaged ton international scene but also understands america cannot carry the load by itself. it needs allies, it needs to be respectful surely of allies, but he didn't get a lot of credit for that trip a i think that was an amazing trip. >> rose: i agree there were things that happened on the trip. but when he went to the g-20 he raised questions because he did not include article 5 when he talked about where the united states would be if there was an attack. >> but reinvigorated our alliance with n.a.t.o. and said everyone has to pay their fair chair. >> rose: angela merkel said after that trip we've got to look out for ourselves now. >> when you go back to his u.n. speech i guess a month ago now,

when he spoke at the u.n., charlie, he talked about the fact that all the leader gathered there, they all work for the benefit of their own people, they're elected whether you're from britain or france -- >> rose: this is the u.n. speech. >> yeah. >> rose: he said you should be acting in your own self-interests. >> china is act in china's own self-interests and are doing a heck of a job. i don't agree with their tactics but they want the chinese to be dominant globally, not just their hemisphere, but their philosophy, outlook, military power, they want to dominate and you have to admire that. trump says we need to do that. if we're a weak power economically, we're not going to be a great ally to everybody else because the american people will be retrench and say my wages haven't gone up in 20 years and we need help. when he talks about sovereignty, he's talking about freedom. >> rose: you saw what happened in the alabama senate race. >> lutesser strange. strange things. >> rose: did you support that? i decided not to get involved

in that race. i can't know the nuances of every race. that should have been another wakeup call to the establishment is that the big wakeup call is when eric cantor lost the primary. >> i was involved in that. >> rose: yes, what role did you pray? >> his name was brought to me five months before the june primary. i didn't know who he ways. my editor said you have to look at this guy, he's on fire, he has a working class spirit, is a professor in economics at randolph, and i said how does this work? but then i met him and started having him on my radio show. my barometer is very simple, if you're a republican and afraid to come on hi radio show, you're going to have probably a kilt time convincing me that you're going to connect with the average working person, and he said, look, i'll come on, invited cantor, rubio, all these guys. once in a while, they'll come on, but very rarely. he comes on, starts talking about we've got to work for the

american people. we have to be for the little guy, otherwise we're just for big corporations and big government. that's not how we were raised under the principles of reagan. i said this guy is pretty interesting. so i decided a week before the primary to go to a country club, republican, and i said i don't want to speak at a country club that's working against your message, dave. he said, it's cantor's country club. i want you to have a speech at his country club. i said cantor's? he said, yeah. i said no one will be there. we drive in and i said, my god, there must be some event here. there were several hundred people packed in an open area hanging from the rafters and they're, like, laura you've got to help dave! i said this is wild. one of the parking attendants said yeah, we had to park overflow parking in front of eric cantor's house. i said, oh, wow. i got the call a week later and

it was wild. >> rose: back to trump, did he inherit the populist mantel simply because he was the last man standing and won the primary or when did trump and populism meet? >> i think when you look back on his first peach, the escalator. >> rose: immigration. it wasn't just about immigration. it was about the working class. you're forgotten no longer. he said you're an american citizen and government should work for you. >> rose: what did brexit add to it? >> again, i was covering the rise of ukip and nigel phi raj two years before donald trump came on and that should have awakened the elites to what's happening. these are hard working good people an want the best for their country and few and far between politicians were speaking for them. trump comes along and says these republicans keep cycling the same policies and the voters are

saying, no, we continue want open borders. if we're going to do trade deals, let the deals work for us. >> rose: why did senator corker decide not to run for reelection? >> you can't be captain of a ship if you abandon it. if the elites really have the better path forward for the republican party, if the g.o.p. establishment, the hold bush republicansish. >> rose: why is he an elite and donald trump not an elite? >> well, it's a sensibility. it's not how much money you have. it's whether you get the fact these policies -- >> rose: talking about how you live your life. >> again, you could be a rich person but get the spirit of the working class and you can understand that a lot of these policies help to deindustrialize the midwest and send a lot of jobs overseas. you could be poor and be more in touch with policies that -- >> rose: how long have you known him? >> i met him first in 2002 -- >> rose: that's 15 years ago. yep. >> rose: 15 years ago. was he thinking about running for president then? >> no, but when i met him, what

struck me, charlie, and you've known him a lot longer. i introduced him to a mutual friend. we had lunch. i kind of rolled my eyes. i always had an image of donald trump. i thought, he's just going to talk about himself the entire time. at the end of an hou hour and 15 minutes, i realized he had hardly said anything about himself which shocked me. >> rose: he asked questions? how do you make money in the radio business? tell me about your breakdown. how many minutes to the national and local stations get? by the end of it, i didn't learn anything, he talked about himself hardly at all. i worked at cbs at the time and he said, you can take my car if you want, they'll take you where you need to go. i said, i'll walk. he said, take my car. he gave me hand sanitizers. he said this city is filthy, take the hand sanitizer. he was really nice. he was very curious about my

life. he had a sense of curiosity about my mom, my upbringing, my father. he asked me a lot of questions about, you know, how did you become what you are today? >> rose: so what was the answer to that question? >> you know, i think it's really my mom. my mother really -- >> rose: a waitress. yeah, she worked her tail off. she didn't have the chance to go to college. she grew up in the depression. she lost her mother at age 14 and she believed that america was the greatest country in the face of the earth because her parents came here from poland, which is in the middle of its own struggle to keep its independence, and she said, you know, you have to have a basic level of respect and don't ever forget where you came from. she always reminded me of that. when i went to college at dartmouth, she's, like, i would have loved to have gone to college. basically, make it matter sthoof did dartmouth shape you some. >> i was the editor of the

dartmouth review and that whole crowd. i remember th the election night party in 1984 at the hanover inn, i was head of the dartmouth review and all the proffer profs were on the outside looking in and we were a band of renegades at the time. >> rose: when did you decided to go into journalism? >> 1996, i decided to write random op-eds for "the los angeles times" and "the washington post," and i ekept watching the mclaughlin group and i said, i think i could do that. and msnbc called me and said we're starting this new network and we would like you to come. i'm, like, how much are you going to pay me? not much. >> rose: you would be the conservative voice? >> i was one of many people. cbs also called me at the same time and i was working with both

networks at the same time. i don't think i was good at cbs, i didn't know what i was doing, but i learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people along the way. it's been a wild ride. this country is awesome. i really -- i get teared up -- every sunday when i goss go to mass and thank god for what i have and ask him to give me wisdom and hue multias i go forward because i adopted three kids -- >> rose: is he answering your prayers? >> sometimes. i mean, sometimes, if i do the right thing. i adopted these three kids, charlie, one from got mali and russia and i want them to have a country as tree and prosperous as the one that gave me these opportunities. sounds hokey but that's what i want. >> rose: adopted as babies? yes, maria was three. the boys 11 and 12 months. they're awesome. >> rose: you work for fox. yes.

>> rose: you don't contestant to do the radio show. >> i am. i'm looking at your example. you're up in the morning, doing the night. i see page 6 charlie rose is at a charity dinner. what? how are you able to stand-up right? your staff is, well, he's doing this, this, this. my friend looks at me and said you could do the morning radio show and nighttime tv show. no problem. not if rose can pull this off. >> rose: what's happened in terms of the legislative program of donald trump? is that a failure of donald trump or failure of mitch mcconnell? >> i think he learned some lessons. he made mistakes early on in ceding too much of the message to capitol hill. i think on healthcare, he needed to get -- he needed to get more into the weeds on healthcare. i think he thought, these guys voted for the seventh time, they're going to repeal t was nd of logical.be on our who would have thought the republicans seven years later would -- oh, wait, sorry, it's too hard.

>> rose: where do you think he is on north korea? >> that's a tricky one. going back to when i was here last time, north korea has been a disaster. i think he rightly says we presided over the rise of potential nuclear north korea. madeline albright, you know, she was there, tried something. obviously bill clinton was hopeful, barack obama, george w. bush. he said none of that worked. what's next? the war of words with kim jong un, that's not something i would do. i don't think that's the right way to do. >> rose: do you think he's trying to say good cop bad cop? >> i don't know. >> rose: the diplomats are the good cop and he's going to be the bad cop? a lot of national security people look at that and say that's really not the way to go. >> well, again, i would say to the national security experts, where did your policies take us? a lot of these people are the ones who advise policies that led to the rise of a potential nuclear north korea. so i get it, he's an outsider

still -- >> rose: when in is one like senator corker says, look, he may be taking us on the path to world war iii. >> i would say the reason we're at this place is because all of the establishment politicians from both parties -- i'm not laying the blame on democrats -- i think both parties have culpability here. trump says we're going to do things differently on north korea, middle east, trade, immigration, tax reform, and he's going to have some wins and losses, but message discipline, stopping the leaks, getting good people confirmed and having some allies on capitol hill. he's got a lot of barricades to clear and we'll see how well he does. the jury's out. >> rose: will the wall be built? >> if it's not built, i think he's finished. i think he's got to build the wall. he can't build it in certain parts because of the mountains, but the structure's got to be there and we have to have a significant barrier to entry.

>> rose: that's the breaking -- >> that's the cornerstone of his campaign and it represents a break -- >> rose: the straw that breaks the camel's dk. >> -- will break faith with the american voter so i think he has to deliver on immigration enforcement. >> rose: when look ago your career, when he wanted you to come to the white house, that was not tempting for you? >> it was tempting. i struggled with it a lot. in tend, i thought to myself, i worked in the white house, already. i worked for president ragan. i did that. that's my time. it's time for a new generation to come forward. i grasp this mantel. it's going to be difficult and hard. you don't take on an establishment and find the task easy. it's going to be difficult. for me, i thought, i think i'm more effective on the outside. i get the attention of politicians when i get my

audiencey engaged and who whether it's on the radio or television. so for me it's a better role. who's going to control what i say? i speak for myself. i don't do well speaking for other people at this point. too old for that. >> rose: a billionaire at the barricades, the populist revolution from reagan to trump, laura ingraham, thank you, good to have you back. >> great to be here. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> you're watching pbs.

this is "nightly business repo" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. a triple record, rebound on wall street. will this big earnings week push the blue chips dow index past 12,000. a free-xheeling press conference the two most powerful republicans say they have a great relationship and plan to work together on taxes, and a health care fix. >> a conflict in iraq spilled over into a key oil producing region and crude provideses could head straight north. those stories, and more tonight on "nightly business report" f good evening, everyo wall street rising, the three major indexes all closed at recos.