>> berman: welcome to the program. i'm dennis berman filling in for charlie rose. we begin this evening with a look at politics and the economy, ahead of president trump's address to congress this evening. with david leonhardt of the "new york times" and author and journalist william cohan. >> we often look back to the eve when the market fell and we thought it would go down from there. the opposite happened. the pundits were wrong. the market approaching 21,000. i can only imagine what the reaction among americans would be if the market had falon to 14,000 instead of rising to 21,000. i think donald trump has gotten a lot of political mileage and economic mileage out of the fact the markets have risen so

dramatically, so quickly, and we are still talking about the trump bump. the question in my mind is when does it stop. >> berman: we continue with jay wright, head men's basketball coach at vile villan. >> it's the most important aspect, attitude. we wear attitude wrist bands. when we break a huddle we say one, two, three, attitude. what we're reminding ourselves is we're not responsible for the results of what happens. we're responsible for our effort and our attitude going forward. so as we get guys at 18 years old that come, in they're basketball players. they know they're supposed to get a the degree and an education, but when they first come to learn basketball, we teach them first the play you make is not as important as how you react on the next play. that's what's most important. we want you to use that attitude to separate you from other

players. >> berman: we continue with omar saif ghobash, author of "letters to a young muslim." >> the ideas of connecting principles and concepts goes back a long way to when i was 14 and 15 and i was going through a phase of asking many different questions and not finding the answers in our culture, but there was a sense in which you couldn't pose those questions. what i noticed is, as time went by, the situation hadn't changed and i noticed exactly the same process is occurring in my older and younger son. so i decided that, if nobody else had done it, then i should make my best effort. >> berman: politics and economics and "letters to a young muslim," 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: good evening. i'm dennis berman filling in for charlie rose. donald trump swept to a white house on a promise to improve the lives of those left behind by the financial crisis and other changes overtaking the economy. he has also pledged to revoke and replace barack obama's significant achievement as president, the affordable care act, but the hurdles to achieving this ambition appear increasingly challenging for president trump. joining me from washington is david leonhardt, columnist for the "new york times" and he writes about the problems facing the president's effort to dismantle obamacare in today's time. also joining me is william cohan, here in new york. a special correspondent for

"vanity fair" and author of a provocative newly-titled book "why wall street matters." i note we are taping this program before president trump's address before congress later this evening. david, you mentioned in your column basically the... republicans are backed into a corner on obamacare. what do you mean? >> president obama's health law was politically moderate health law. it was market-based, took ideas from both the right and left and essentially said we're going to expand coverage for people in this market-based way. it was to the right of not only bill clinton's plan, it was to the right of richard nixon's plan, way to the right of harry truman's plan. so if you want to expand health insurance coverage, it's really hard to do it in a way that's a lot more conservative than obamacare. and republicans did a very effective job politically of blasting obamacare, but now that they're actually running government, they realize getting

rid of obamacare and also keeping their other promises, which is not throwing people off of healthcare and not causing prices to go up, is actually enormously difficult, and they still may do it and decide they're willing to accept throwing people off of healthcare, but they're struggling now. >> you mentioned the term imaginicle promises of trump. what is specifically magical by your reckoning? >> he's had several lines where he basically said this version of we're going to cover everyone, the coverage is going to be better and cheaper. and, you know, people -- economists like to say there is no such thing as a free lunch, right? that you can't both cover everybody and have everything be cheaper. or if you did, it would require really hard choices about getting rid of waste in the healthcare system that led to the whole debate over death panels. so neither trump nor the congressional republicans have ever said, look, what we're going to do is we are going to cut tax bus that also means we're going to have to cut

benefits, or we're going to raise tax and raise benefits. they've just sort of pretended they could have it all. when they weren't governing, they were able to do that. now that they're actually in charge, it's proven particularly difficult. the republican governors are interesting to watch because they actually have to run states. when they came together this weekend, they said, wait a second, we don't want you throwing a lot of our citizens off health insurance, and those are the kind of tensions republicans are trying to figure out how to solve. >> berman: let's bring in bill cohan. thanks for joining us. bill, there seems to be a predicament by many of the ideas presented by the trump administration. lots of great promises, the market believes it. what can we expect from the market realities hitting the policy reacts from your vantage point. >> we often back to election eve when it looked like trump was going to and did win, the market

futures fell about 1,000 points, and i think everybody thought it would go downhill from there. a lot of people said it's remarkable the opposite happened. the pundits were wrong, the market is approaching 21,000. i can only imagine what the reaction among americans would be if the market had in fact fallen to 14,000 instead of rising to 21,000. i think donald trump has gotten a lot of political mileage and economic mileage out of the fact that the markets have risen so dramatically, so quickly, and we are still talking about this trump bump. the question in my mind is when does it stop? obviously, we know it's not going to go on forever, never does. but the question is when will people sort of come to terms with the fact that the trees don't grow to heaven, and i think it's going to start when, as david was talking about, if obamacare does not get repealed and the costs related to that, the costs of this proposed new budget that we're beginning to hear more and more about, what

if he can't repeal some of the regulations that he's talked about repealing? what if he can't get the tax cuts he's talked about, that he's promised? what if he can't repatriate these trillions of dollars from overseas? when his reality of governing hits up against the promises that he made, then i think people are going to say, hold it, whoa, we may need to re-think this stock market direction here. >> berman: david what's the reality on the trump agenda as you see it? >> we have skepticism as to how the market is reacting toward trump either way. we had a stock market boom for the vast majority of president obama's presidency, we had stocks rising when people thought hillary clinton was going to be elected. then there was the little gyration when trump was elected and the market has gone back to booming more.

i think any effect the president has on the market is relatively ended and the market boom could end if trump's agenda succeeds and the market boom could continue even if his agenda falls apart. i think one of the lessons is we as citizens give presidents way too much credit for the economy and too much blame. it wasn't actually george h.w. bush's fault we had a recession in the early '90s, et cetera. i think the question is is the trump administration doing the kinds of things that are likely to lift growth? i'm skeptical. >> berman: why? give us three quick examples, if you could. >> the basic notion that the way to turbo charge growth is to cut taxes and to have less regulation. if you look over the last 50 years, there isn't evidence one way tore the other. yes, growth surged after ronald reagan did that but growth was weak after george w. bush did it and growth was faster under bill clinton who regulated and raised taxes under ronald reagan.

so i looked at all that evidence and i would say i don't think even modest or significant changes in the tax rate are the prominent or significant drivers of growth. these things are more unrelated than related. >> berman: if nothing matters, what does matter when it comes to the american economy? >> well, things certainly matter. i think long-term absolutely no question education matters. i don't think anything matters as much as education and the skills of a workforce long term. that's not a year-to-year thing. i think we know much less about the economy, we know the fed is important and avoiding financial crises are important. i think the odds of a financial crises in the next few years are relatively low, but i worry we could be seeing signs of excess. and we saw a decade ago that not caring about regulation is not a particularly great way to avoid dpliedges sees. >> berman: bill you wrote a book "why wall street matters." do you agree with david? sounds like a centrist view he's taking there. >> i don't want to be put in a

position of disagree being david but i'm going to a little bit here. i do think tone matters. i do think some policies do matter. when you, just as a pure mathematical calculation, if you increase corporate profits by reducing taxes, for instance, then, as you know, the price-to-earnings ratio that the market is driven on, the stock market will go up because earnings have gone up. you don't have to expand the multiple on that for that to happen. i think some of the reason why the stock market has gone to 21,000 is the expectation that those tax rates will be cut, corporate tax rates, which are obviously the highest in the western world and probably need to be lowered, though i'm not sure why, but it seems to be something people talk about and are excited about, and i think that's part of the reason why the stock market has gone up. you know, when you deregulate, i mean, look, the pendulum swings, right? you know, the clinton administration at the end, you

know, took off stegall and is a free-for-all. >> the law that governed how banks were regulated. >> could be both in the investment and commercial banking business. you know, under christopher cox, the surfer congressman who was chairman of the s.e.c. during the george bush administration, all sense of regulation was taking off. basically, it was like wall street was driving on the wrong side of the road with a ferrari and a whiskey bottle in their hand. no surprise we got into a huge financial crisis in 2008. now we're in a position where there has been too much regulation, too much sand thrown in the gears of left veteran cal of capitalism, this beautiful machine, and now we're in a position where donald trump says, hey, we'll take all this off. i think there needs to be a grand bargain with wall street where there is a corresponding agreement with wall street that we're going to reform our compensation system so our

incentives on wall street are not to reward people for taking risks with other people's money. if you take away regulation and let people guam wbl people's money you're asking for a financial crisis. that's where i disagree with david, if we don't marry a grand bargain of compensation and incentive reform on wall street with this deregulation, you are virtually guaranteed a financial cry sills. >> so from a legislative standpoint, your best tweaks would be, from your perspective, what? >> i think it depends what the goal is. i think if the goal is long-term growth, then i think you want to make sure you're not running up long-term deficits. so i'm concerned that the whole focus of the trump administration is on the discretionary budget and there is no focus at all on social security and medicare which is all our long-term fiscal challenges come. i'm concerned we seem to be disinvesting in things like science, education and things we know fuel long-term growth. so i think there are lots of things that matter. my skepticism is whether we can

draw a straight line from most of these policies to the economy next quarter or the stock market this month. >> berman: all right, the deficit question is important. if we look at the numbers debt to g.d.p. is around 110%, which is a rather incredible number. we've gotten used to it in the last ten years, bill, but back prior to that in the aughts, we were 60 to 70%. >> i think this is hanging over the trump administration because all he's talking about, the nontext policy center examined trumps' proposal and said the national debt will go from 20 trillion to 27 trillion, we're going to look more like greece and japan on a debt to g.d.p. ratio before long weeks already starting to get there. 110% from 60% is mind boggling.

we've had big wars and they're very expensive and we seem to be comfortable with the national debt and interest rates have been so low so that's the market basically saying we're comfortable with your high debt to g.d.p. ratio, but at some point something has to give. you can't give all the toys away for free and not expect to have to pay for them. >> david, you're on the ground in washington. are the republicans willing to go further on the deficit than previously to get some of trump's agenda passed in perhaps ways they weren't comfortable before? >> i think it's unlikely. i mean, i think what we've seen from congressional republicans is their number one priority on fiscal matters is cutting top tax rates, cutting taxes for companies and higher-income individuals. that's a higher priority for them than the deficit. my guess is that are continue. they're in a tricky spot right now because the way they've lined this up legislatively and procedurally, healthcare has to come before taxes. they have an easier path to a republican deal on taxes than on

healthcare, but they can't get to health care without first passing health care or abandoning it. you saw the president lament this yesterday the fact tha health care comes first. so that's going to be one of the interesting things to watch today, abandon health care or do they come on a deal on health care which lets them goat taxes. and i think republicans, good deal or not, i'm skeptical, will be able to agree to a deal, will substantially cut high-end taxes and substantially increase the deficit. >> berman: doesn't that go against republican views for the last three decades? >> the catechism of the republican economic platform has been deficit reduction, redo you seeing the debt, and now we're talking about as if those things don't matter. it's mind boggling to me. >> berman: what do the republicans say, david, to someone in his or her district, exactly what bill's saying, i have been preaching this a long

time. what's the argument? >> americans aren't that worried about the deficit right now and i don't think they're crazy to be focused in the medium term on other issues. i would argue wage stagnation, i would argue the rise in non-employment that isn't captured by the unemployment rate, i would argue all those things are more serious immediate issues than the deficit. i think the deficit is a more serious long-term issue, but i don't think there's a huge political price to pay for raising the deficit. the question is how do voters react when they see the deficit was going up and the reason it was going up was to deliver tax cuts to people already doing very well. i don't know what the answer will be, but i'm confident the democrats will run on that in the midterms if that's what the republicans do. >> let's have one question for each of you. a lot of people voted for drimp, and they had grievous about the way the economy was headed. for people who don't pay attention to all this stuff we're talking about but who care about what's in their

pocketbook, what's the single most important thing they should be paying attention to right now, bill is this. >> in my mind, it's how donald trump deregulates wall street, how he deregulates business generally and how he sort of unleashes the power of our economic engine, you know, and allowing capital to flow to small businesses that need it, to hire more people, to build new plants and equipment, to pay people higher wages, that is the single best way, i think, that the people who were so concerned about the way they have been treated and who voted for donald trump, they're going to get the greatest benefit when that economic engine is starting to run properly again. >> berman: david, for people who don't care who david leonhardt is or what he says, what's the thing they need to be most focused on? >> and to be clear, i think a lot of these grievous are legitimate. i think people have a right to be angry about the economy.

i think in the short term, whether republicans or democrats, i think they should care about health insurance because it's a huge driver of bankruptcy. if we go back to the system where you don't have health insurance through your job, we're talking about huge numbers of people subject to bankruptcy. i encourage them don't just look at washington. look at your local school district. nothing affects long term growths and community's living standards like education. there is so much focus on washington. for people who don't care about the week-to-week stuff in washington, focus on how your school district is doing because that will have a huge effect on the quality of your children's lives long term. >> david leonhardt, william cohan, thank you. always a pressure to chat. >> thank you. >> berman: tomorrow is march 1, first day of the month to have the ncaa tournament. villanova is seeking to repeat as national champions. the wildcats won last year in a buzzer defeat in north carolina,

already considered one of the historical moments of basketball history. jay wright captures last year's journey to the title and much more in a new book called "attitude." welcome to you, jay. >> good to be here. >> berman: set the feel for us. we're a few weeks away from the start of the tournament. is it a wide-open race and how does villanova fit into that? >> it is a wide open race and each yeareth becoming more that way. last year we won it, it was wide open, more wide open this year. kansas, gonzaga, we're one of the top teams now, but any one of us can be beaten, and it's been proven. any one of us could win it. i think it's up to 16 teams that could win it there year. >> is there a reason structurally in college basketball why it's more open than perhaps in the past? >> i think the one and done players make the top teams that get them, the kentuckys, the

dukes, it makes them talented, but a little vulnerable in that if those guys stay for three years, they might be untouchable, but they're really talented well coach, but an older team can get them sometimes. it creates a balance. when john wooden was there at u.c.l.a., they were getting those guys and staying all four years and it would get to the point where they were untouchable. but now there is a good balance between young and experienced teams. >> berman: that seems to be the formula you had last year. >> yes. >> berman: you have a solid, great team. how do you develop the team? there is an old basketball saying hat nothing fails like success. how do you keep your edge going into that second year knowing -- you've got the championship, how do you keep it and adapt? >> it's the greatest challenge that faces us this year, not our opponent.

the expectations, the outside distractions, and we addressed it immediately in the locker room following the championship game. one of the first things we did, we talk about it in the book, when we hold hands, to say a prayer after we get into the locker room. now, in the championship game, that's about an hour after the game. you're on the court for so much celebration and fanfare and presentation, you finally get back into the lockerroom with your team. we hold hands, say the prayer and one of the first things we say, is look, let's make sure this doesn't define you as an individual. let's make sure this ring isn't the most important thing you have in your life. let's take what we've learned here and make sure we're able to do other things in life based on all the characteristics we used to do this. so right away, we were kind of starting on the fact it's how we handle this that's going to be important going forward. where our guys have done a good job of this season, we address that everyone's going to talk to

us about repeating, everyone's going to talk to us about winning a national championship, everyone's going to talk to us about the n.s.a. tournament, much like rightnow. we have to have the mental discipline to focus on today's work ethic, today's challenge, and one day it might be practice, the next day it might be a game against georgetown. but no one else is going to be talking about that or focusing on that except us. that's our challenge this year. >> berman: have you faltered at all on that exercise? >> i think at times we've all slipped. we had three losses this year in. each one of those losses, there was a time in those games where our confidence got to us. we led in the second half of all three of our losses. i think there's a time where our confidence became a negative. it wasn't arrogance, it was more, okay, we have been here before, we've got a lead in the second half, this is what we do,

we finish these, instead of focusing on what do we have to do the next possession to make it the best possession we've ever played. and when you slip there a little bit, that's where you're vulnerable. as long as you address it afterwards, we're human, we slipped, doesn't make us bad guys, but let's admit it and learn from it. >> berman: there is an interesting line in your book and you don't expand on it much but you said, at one point, i thought i was better than i was. how did you go about the journey to find out how good you were and, in a way, who you were, when you think about the young player? >> i think we all do that when we attain some levels of success, we only look at what we did to get there, whether it be individually or even a team. a team not recognizing that all the other people around them that they are a part of that. and most importantly, the culture that's around them.

i think there was a time when we went to our first final four where i thought, i've got this now, i've got it. i know what we have to do. and i didn't pay attention to as much the process of every day getting better and continuing to improve and evolve. and it caught up to us. we had a bad year. and i think as long as you go back to being honest and assessing your role in everything, right, at first, before you look at someone else around you, i think you can grow and get better and you can always recover. >> berman: how does a winning attitude handle the negative emotions we all have -- disappointment, blame, anger? i could go on and on. but those are present for everyone and they're present in teams. what are the concrete things that you think about and you say to your team about those emotions when they surface? >> it's the most important

aspect of our program. that's why the book is called attitude. we wear attitude wrist bands, and when we break a huddle, since our days at o hofstra, we say one, two, three attitude. we're not responsible for the results of what happens. we're responsible for our efforts and our attitude going forward. so we get guys at 18 years old that come in, they're basketball players. they know they're supposed to get their degree and an education, but when they first come they're thinking basketball. so we first try to teach them on the court, the play that you make is not as important to us as how you react on the next play. that's what's most important to us. that's what we want you to use, that attitude to separate you from other players. >> berman: coach kay had a similar philosophy, next play, right? same idea. >> exactly. >> berman: how do you apply that to your everyday life? so we chart, in practice, every drill we do. we keep score, but there is

attitude points. the other team gets points. if you turn the ball over, the other team gets a point. but if you turn the ball over and you go back and don't hustle or you make a face or there is a bad call, that's two points for the other team. so we're monitoring how you react to negative situations, but also if you make us three and give us three point shots and celebrate, we want you to take any energy you have, don't give it to the crowd, take that energy and give it to your team. we want you to hit a three and say, let's get a stop on this next play. >> berman: do you think attitude points could ever apply in a corporate setting or a work setting? >> i do. i think valuing people's commitment to the core values of the organization, valuing their commitment to one another and how they respond to success --

we have a term hungry and humble that we wear wrist bands, too, that when we have success, we have to respond in a humble and hungry way. when we have failure, we have to respond with a positive attitude. i think in an organization, you can find people that in a short term may not be having success numerically, but you see the approach every day, you trust their attitude will carry them to big time success later. >> berman: i've got one challenge to what you're saying, and that is basketball is this beautiful game of flow and creativity and motion. how do you keep that vibe going and yet still have discipline? feels like there is some value in being expressive. >> yes, and it's a creativity that comes with a free mind. athletes are the most successful when they're minds are clear,

and if you have -- what that attitude gives you on the next play is a clear mind to make decisions that have not -- are not affected at all by what you did previously. a great example is, in our championship game against carolina, we had a ten-point lead going down the stretch in the biggest year. we blow the lead, so we make mistakes. we're up three with 13 seconds to go and call time out. in the huddle we say, in a more articulate basketball kay, we say the only thing we can do to screw up here is give up a three. we can foul, give up a two, we gave up a three. on an incredible shot, our guys came back to the trouble and were looking each other in the eye saying attitude, attitude. forget the last play, let's go into the next play with a clear mind. and we started the next play

with 4.4 seconds. i wasn't sure kris jenkins would make the shot. i was proud of how clear their minds were and i knew whatever decision they made would not be affected by fear of failure because of the previous play. >> berman: interesting. who has more sway in the locker room, you or the smartphone? >> that's good. i like to get it to the point where the most sway comes from our seniors. i like to get it to that point by the end of the season, and it takes a lot of work. smartphone is involved in that. >> berman: do you say they can't use the phones during the season? >> when we're on the road the night before the game, we take the phones from them. when they come into the locker room, we have a place where they put the phones and the managers keep them, because we want all their cons traismghts we get into the locker room an hour and 45 before the game. we want all the concentration to be on the other. even listening to music by

themselves, we don't do that, because we want them to be vibe being each other and connected to each other. now, as soon as the game is over, they get it, and i know they're on it. but we have an hour and 45 there and as i said the night before the game in bed, we want their concentration to be on the game and each other. >> are there players you won't recruit? and why not? >> yeah, there is a lot of players. there is a lot of players that don't want us, too. but we really try to find someone that is going to thrive in our culture. we had a lot of success going to about 2009, we went to the final four. a couple of years after that, a lot of success. then we got to the point, it was kind of seas to get top players -- it was kind of easy to get the top players. as the head coach and head of our organization, i didn't vet those players and i didn't explain to them what the culture was. i know the culture. they don't. it's not their fault.

i ned to make sure i'm bringing in people will be successful in that culture and comfortable. if it's not explaining it to a 16-year-old, 17-year-old kid, that's on me. and i didn't. we got guys, it wasn't their fault, we just put them in a tough situation. we spend a lot of time getting close to guys and getting to know them real well and realizing, you know, they may not know it but this probably isn't a good fit. >> berman: what do you do during the commercials in the tournament? they go on too long, right? >> it's a significant difference than the regular season, obviously. >> berman: absolutely. o in the nsa you remember -- in the nsa tournament we will spend a lot of time talking to our staff, first. because for me i don't want to be in front of those guys too long, because i might have things that i'm frustrated about that we're doing that it's really not time to share with them, but if you give me too much time it's going to come out and it's not good.

so you get me with the coaches, i go in and talk to them. >> berman: but as a fan, it goes on forever. >> it does. but even with the coaches and players, we don't want to sit there that long, we don't, especially in the game. >> berman: but it's build around the money to support the ncaa. >> is that right. >> berman: how do you feel about the level of commercialization that penetrated the sport, in particular the tournament? >> it's something we discuss with our players because there is a lot of things with the commercialization of the game and the publicity you get. for the 18-year-old to 20-year-old kid you're trying to teach values of hard work and not being about yourself and living others, all that goes completely against what you're teaching. so we talk about it. we say, look, we get to play -- our home court in philadelphia at the wells fargo center, we get to play in front of 20,000

people. we travel on chart planes and stay in the best hotels. if not for this, we aren't doing that, but this is part of the business. but our main goal is to be the best men we can be, get our degree, be the best educated people and best players we can be. we've got to sprayed those two. >> berman: but it's got to be hard. >> it is. >> berman: you mention you have rap concerts to kick off the season. you say 50-cent and drake are there. >> yeah. >> berman: do you ever say, what in the world does this have to do with basketball? >> exactly. >> berman: so why don't you stop it? >> it is a part of sport now. sport has become entertainment. so how do you want to do it? do you want to fight it? you know, if you fight it, you're not going to get the players that allow you to

compete in it. we try to separate the competition -- we have a saying, actors play to the crowd, players play for their teammates and coaches. once we get ton court that hour and 45 before the came we talked about, everything is about playing for your teammates and coaches. so we don't want any of our guys pumping their shirts or their back or pointing to the crowd. that's getting caught up in commercialization. afterward we meet with the media, part of the game. >> berman: should players be played? >> in college, i don't think so. >> berman: why not? i think we have a unique system of amateur athletics that our gets get a great education, and let me back up on that. as long as we are held responsible for educating them, they shouldn't be paid. if we're not going to educate them, then they should be paid. but if we are held responsible as coaches to educate these guys, we have 100% graduation rate.

every player who stayed four years has gotten his degree on time. we take great pride in that. giving them a villanova education that's worth $300,000 over four years now and preparing them for the real world with all the travel, the food, everything they get, i do think it's fair. >> berman: but they also have a tremendous commitment to you, to the team in terms of hours spent in practice. they're not hanging out and having a great time like most kids in college are, they have to live a very disciplined life. >> i disagree with that. i think they are having a great time. i think they do put in a lot of time. they get the best training for their professional careers. every player that plays that villanova is either going to play in the n.b.a. or he's going to play professionally in europe. we have a part of our program called life after basketball, where we're committed to them after they play professionally. we have a system set up that, when they start thinking about retiring, we start getting internships set up for them for

the next part of their life. that's our commitment. now, if we're not doing that, then they should be paid because then they're not getting the value of their efforts. >> berman: it seems, though, for the average fan sitting there through the interm enable commercials, counting through the dollars, that they think they should be paid. i think that's where it's headed. >> i agree. here's what i think there. i think there are few players that really add to that and go on to be professional and add a lot of the value. i think those guys should be allowed to go to the n.b.a. right out of high school. if you choose -- and i think the n.b.a. is doing a good job with the d league where they could take some of those kids and develop them and some of those kids won't go to college. if you don't want to college, you shouldn't be just because you want to play basketball.

if you want to go to college, you should be committed for three years, and then you wouldn't have those guys that maybe get so much attention that are making the money -- i think you would see the schools will get the same amount of money without those guys and those high-level guys or pros would be getting paid what they're worth, i think it would be a more fair system. >> berman: let's make it commissioner at the moment, we know that attendance is largely down, maybe not at villanova but college basketball generally, tv ratings not great. there is something amiss in the sport. what needs to be changed? >> i think what you're talking about is the result of a lot more content on tv, all right. so people don't go as much because every game is on tv. i think the tav ratings seem -- you know, you get so many games on you can't watch them all. so i don't think it's a miss. i think, when you see the ncaa

tournament and you see the passion for that event, when that starts to fade, if that event isn't what tots our country -- isn't what it is to our country, then i think something's wrong at college basketball. because you can watch games at division one, even division three, they still get great following. i think college basketball is alive and well. i think what we have to solve is there are certain guys who should be professionals and they're stuck going to college because of the rule. >> berman: who were you when you were a 25-year-old coach, and who are you today many years later? how have you changed? >> 25 years old i was an assistant coach at villanova and watching this great coach who won a national championship do some things and think, at 25, why the hell would me do that? you know, i've got all these ideas, i'd never do that. and all these years later, i

find myself doing some of the same things. >> berman: turning into your father. >> but understanding -- and i did understand some years before, if you look at anybody in any situation, it's not just his decisions, he's a part of something and that culture he's a part of dictates some of his decisions, and what you need to do as head coach is define your culture. if your culture is defined and your values are clear, your decisions are easier. and i found that, as a leader, what i have to do is define how we're going to live, not just how we're going to play basketball, but what is our -- what is our motto going to be? what is our core values going to be? how are we going to live every day not just as coaches and players but as a family and men in this world? so i definitely changed my thinking a lot. >> rose: you're okay having become your professional father, more or less?

>> a refined edition of my professional father. >> berman: fair enough. championship or bust this year for villanova? >> no, not at all. we have to become the best team we can possibly be, given everything that goes on around us, and that's been our goal. last year our goal was not to win a national championship, it was to be the best team we could be and take on every challenge. the year before we did, too, and lost in the second round. i told our guys, if we don't win it this year, but we give the effort and the commitment to be the best we can be, i'm good. >> berman: attitude, develop a winning mindset on and off the court, jay wright's new book. >> thank you. >> berman: thank you for being here. >> i'm john meacham filling in for charlie rose. omar saif ghobash is her, ambassador of the united arab emirates to russia. his new book is called "letters to a young muslim." it consists of a series of

personal accordances to his older son. it seeks to answer the question of how moderate muslims can find a voice that is true to islam while engaging in the modern world. i am pleased to welcome the ambassador to this table. welcome, sir. >> thank you very much. so what was the origin of the letters to your son? >> well, the idea of sort of collecting a set of principles and concepts goes back quite a long way to the time when i was 15 -- 14, 15, and i was myself going through a phase of asking many different questions and not finding the answers in our culture, but there was a sense in which you couldn't pose those questions. what i noticed as time went by is the situation hadn't changed and i noticed exactly the same processes occurring in my older son and also my younger son and, so, i decided, if nobody else had done it, i should make my best effort to try to sort of put a kind of framework around those questions and try to

explain how the possible answers might come about. >> any literary example in your mind? >> no, as i said a couple of times before in private mix initial version was a das capital by marx ( laughter ) >> shorter. in my original version was longer. but my editor said you should think about addressing people's concerns here, so she gave me the idea of addressing my son. i thought, that's fantastic. as soon as that happened, everything began to flow andism fy'itself. when i read the back, when i reread it, i'm pleased the way the language has broken down into very basic elements here. >> sure. is this the way you talk to him? >> it is the way i talk to him. i talk to my younger son in the same manner. the subject matter will be slightly different, but i think it's important to be able to explain things in a fairly simple manner, and i think it was also something i was taught

as university. don't with enamored or long words. try to express things as simply as possible. the ideas can be complex but the presentation should be easy. >> i admire you for having a 16-year-old and 14-year-old who could listen to this. i have a 14-year-old who i don't think would read a letter from me. tell me what was the most important message you wanted to get across? i mean, this is a complicated time in the muslim world, a complicated time in the western world. there are still some who want to say it's an enduring clash of civilizations. there are others who would like to see co-existence and reform be possible. what was the impetus? what's your message to them? >> well, my message is actually something about our personal responsibility within the faith. so people can talk about a clash of civilization. so between civilizations, i think there is a clash within our own civilization, within our

own islamic community, and i think it's particularly worrisome and also kind of tantalizing in a way. there are 1.7 billion muslims, and the kinds of ways in which we discuss issues with each other have not really progressed in the sense that there is a tremendous amount that is kept under wraps so that, you know, it takes place behind the scenes in private homes and so on. and i've received a certain amount of feedback from young arabs and young muslims and people as so far away as indonesia, and they tell me thank you for putting words on some of the feelings i have. thank you for breaking taboo and speaking about so many issues. so i think that's very important. i want to demonstrate all of these taboos are choices that we have made and we actually need to begin to legitimize the vast population, but lives in fear of discussing their own issues.

>> what is your greatest fear for, say, your 16-year-old, growing up in an islamic world that has been given to extremism? do you worry he would be surround bid people who have been radicalized? do you worry about his own susceptibility, potential? >> in the case of my older son, not particularly worried about him. there was a moment where i was worried he was interested in the wrong ideas. initially you could think of it as curiosity, but when he began to defend the ideas, i thought it was wrong. >wrong. what ideas? he got a copy of the biography of bin laden and thought perhaps he had a point. but this is an extremely important issue and takes me back to september 11, and the event on i want is 11 -- and the events on 11 were tragic, evil and a crime, and made me think

clearly, we mustn't repay a crime with a crime. it makes nonsense of our ethical system. my son after a few weeks dropped that idea and moved on. but he's representative of a certain category of young men or women who may look at certain actors within our world and within the arab and muslim world and say, oh, well, these are really quite heroic fellows, they've made a big sacrifice. so i want to take all that negative energy and try to transform it into something much more constructive and productive. >> why do you believe islam has been, broadly put, more resistant to the liberalization, the kind of appreciation of diversity that you argue for, that you allude to in the book? >> i don't think its anything

intrinsic to islam. it's more of a cultural representation. we have fairly top-down, autocratic, patrio patriarchal s in the arab world. i think if we look more broadly across the islamic world, what happens in the arab world and arabic language will then transmit itself to the rest of the islamic world. that's one thing. so when we look at the structures, the clerical structures within the islamic world and the arabic world, they're very, very top e-down again, they're a self-replicating class of scholars. these are people who will spend 30 or 50 years or more studying the qur'an and the things of the prophets and devote their lives to. this there is a certain point

where you cannot challenge them, and part of the magic is they teach young men and women that they are tuns who know, they are the gatekeepers to our moral knowledge and empowers them and essentially creates a large group of people who have to submit to their authority. in the book, i'm trying to say more knowledge is within access or within reach of anybody, and if what kind of religion do we have if we need to spend 50 years studying the religious text in order to come up with a moral position? and, you know, i've spoken to ereligious scholars about this and i've said, i do not with a religious background in the sense i have not been trained but i believe i have a right as a human being to engage in moral discussion. and the answer was if you don't have the expertise, you mustn't. >> i know you're in moscow but you have been here. where do you see america's view

of islam moving, particularly given our presidential election? >> yeah, of course, i witnessed the muslim ban, and i thought that was very interesting. i look at the united states as a set of laws and fundamental vas you embodied in a constitutional system that seems to be working. >> we're deathin testing it, bu. ( laughter ) >> for me i think it's an exceptional lesson for the world where we have been told the last two decades, the american democracy, founding fathers, the genius, now it's the practical outcomes of the genius. so it's very important to observe. myself, i don't take a personal position on the approach of the administration and the seven countries on the list of the

ban. it just surprised me and a number of others that there was ever an expectation that we could get visas so easily to come to the u.s. there was an element of surprise there. >> off this point but again tied to your diplomatic post, where do you see the trump administration relationship with moscow at this point? are you as puzzles as many of the rest of us? >> not entirely. my personal view from where i'm sitting in moscow is the entire relationship has been somewhat compagexaggerated and fictionald and more of a political football within american kind of establishment politics. >> you mean the tensions have been exaggerated tore the relationship? >> the supposed relationship trump -- >> the trump-putin relationship, alleged relationship. >> exactly. my other reading of the situation is, with so much kind

of -- with so much inability to see where the administration is going, i think the russians will probably behave in a way that suggest they're not expecting anything from the americans anyway. >> i've got it. yeah. what's the reaction to the book? what was your son's reaction? >> great pride. my youngest son is reading 15 pages a day and loving it. my older son came across a couple of chapters that upset him quite a bit, particularly about my father' passing. so that put him off. but i don't want to pressure him to read, but i have asked him to read the book in the next few weeks. >> tell us the story of your dad. >> wonderful man. precocious child, very, very smart. at the age of 12, he was giving sermons in the mosque. at age 14, i think probably 1948, '49, he had already become

a marxist communist. very interesting background. he then spent time in iraq trying to get an education, didn't have any money. finally, in his 30s, he was offered a scholarship to the soviet union to get a university education, he did that. he married my mother. that's why i'm half russian, half emiratey. or 100% emiratey and half arab. ( laughter ) he was killed in a terrorist incident in abu dhabi. it was an accidental killing. the person beside him was the intended target. >> and the effect of losing him so young on you? >> you know, i don't want the feel sorry for myself, but it's coming up to 40 years and it's something that i will carry with me till the end of my life. what i did notice is my relationship to my father's

passing had affects on my children. i noticed this with my nieces and nephews and i had a chat with my brother and sister and i said, we really need to make a stand and say an incident that happened 40 years ago should not now begin to cripple our children. so it makes me empathize tremendously with other victims of violence, whether it's domestic or political or religious violence. i think it's exceptionally important we all stand and push back against this strange kind of theology of violence we're finding in the arab world. >> absolutely. let me ask you to read your closing note. >> thank you very much. o your sons. yes. in ending these letters to you, i want you to promise yourself that you will always maintain your dignity, your individuality and your independence of mind. if you can do this, you will be

likelier to see life for what it is and what it can be. you will be the decider of your own path. you should also insist on discerning the dignity, individuality and independence of mind in others, by presuming others are similarly endowed, you will create the space for them to rise to the challenge, to express themselves and to live up to our highest standards. now go write your own letters. ( laughter ) thank you very much. >> the book is letters to a young muslim. thank you ambassador ghobash. >> thank you. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by 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.

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