. good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley, tonight, a conversation with salman rushdie and the "the new york times" set during the golden house, and set during president obama's election and the current political climate. it tells the story of an indian businessman who goes to new york to start a new life. we're visiting with salman rushdie in just a moment.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪ so please welcome salman rushdie back to this program, the act claimed author of looks like midnight children, and the latest called "the golden house." salman rushdie, good to have you back on the program. >> always good to be here. >> glad to have you. >> i'm hearing, you can correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm hearing you are getting a little annoyed by the character in your book who has green hair in your book,

to another guy whose hair is sort of orange. you have written the book -- >> no, no, that is on purpose, a deliberate satirical idea, there is one character in the book that says what is happening in america is the dc, comics is taking over d.c., washington, so there is the character of the joker who has very, very white skin and really likes that. and green hair, and he is running for president. so that is -- that stuff i'm not you know -- what i'm saying is it's a minor character, in the background of the story. the story is about somebody else, you know, and that is just part -- he is like cackling at the edges of the story. >> that doesn't surprise you the moment that we're in, anything that is trump-like. >> it's true, all roads lead to trump. >> please don't say that. >> you can be talking about anything, you can be talking about baseball.

suddenly it will be -- >> i think you're right about that. there is a reason for that. it reeks still. tell me about the lead character in the book. >> he has some things in common, but the story began in india, in bombay, my old hometown, which is what really happened over there, which is a kind of strange linkage, which on the one hand, very, very wealthy people, on the other hand, criminal mobsters, and in the movies, it used to be the case in hollywood. also a linkage between the criminal mafias and the terrorists who attacked bombay from pakistan. and i thought if i could put somebody in the middle of that, that would be an interesting character. so there is a wealthy indian businessman who gets involved with the mob.

and then his wife is killed in the terrorist attacks on the taj hotel. and he and his three sons decide we're out of here, they decide they're going to go far away to the other side of the world. change their names, be different people. and that is the story -- the story is about them coming to america, coming to new york city to be different people. you know, and they all have their own problems which work out during the course of the book. and of course the tragedy that they think they have left behind, they haven't left behind. it comes after them. so that is really what the book is about. but -- the other thing i wanted to do is to set it right now. to set it like the day before yesterday. you know? and to do something cwhich in a way you're not supposed to do, which is to write about the exact moment that you're writing about. the reason you're not supposed to do it, because if you do it

wrong then your book becomes like yesterday's papers, dispose account. by if you do it right you can capture a moment for all time. >> i want to ask you two questions, i have seen a lot of chatter from your fans and readers of the book who were trying to figure out when you wrote this story because it does in fact, mirror so much of what we're going through. number one, and number two, since you raised it how does one write to a specific moment? >> i actually had finished just about finished the book by the time of the election. you know, but then i got a tweet and polished it for the next several months after that. but it was written two years before really. and the way you do it i think is that you stay inside the characters. if you try to make it too much like the news then that vanishes. we live in a time where the subject changes so fast, you know. >> in this white house, back to trump again all roads lead to

trump. in this white house, every other hour. >> there is too much news, so if you try and tie it too much to that, then your book is going to get outdated before it's published. you know, what you have to do is talk about how human beings are living in the situation, how are we living in this world? and if you stayed like that inside human nature, inside the characters, then that is a novel, a thing which has a chance of sticking around. >> let me leave the pages of the book and come to the pages of your real life, where you talk about how you navigate in the moment. how are you navigating this present moment? i ask it against the back drop of you knowing the first time of your voting as an american citizen was in this election. >> yeah, that went well. >> for your first time, it was the last time around and for those of us who follow you we've noted you just pretty much stopped tweeting. >> on that day, yes, i did.

>> so how do you navigate in that day? why did you disappear on twitter? >> i used to quite enjoy twitter. i had fun but i don't know whether i changed or it changed but it began to seem to me that i didn't like the tone of voice. i didn't like the noise that was being made on twitter. that it seemed to become almost like a lynch mob. and ugly. you know? and bad tempered. and people talking with incredible aggressiveness because they're protected by being anonymous, in the way they would never talk if they were sitting here. >> absolutely. >> and i just thought i don't like this. as i say i don't know whether it got worse or i became less patient with it. >> yeah. >> or some mix of that. but i just thought i don't need this noise in my head and i just quit, stop. >> there are a lot of people, i'm curious of your take on this salman, a lot of people who feel and i expressed this view on my

own in certain instances fema s that there are certain people who feel emboldened by this white house, and if the president can act that way, or feel that way, you can feel like you can throw bottles or hide or hand. do you think there is anything to the fact that people are emboldened buy eed by the bad b? >> i think there is evidence that a lot of people, the white supremacists feel emboldened by this white house. and it is not just in this country, but in india, why the prime minister is doing something similar. cranking up the hindu extremism priorities, and the minorities are being targeted. there are people being lynched.

journalists being murdered on the steps of their homes, again, you can't say it's directly attributable to the government but people are feeling exactly the same way and emboldened, enabled to feel like they have the right to act like this. >> i'm listening, about the irony of muslims catching hell here and there. >> that is for sure happening. >> what is your read on why this sort of mindset is not just within the u.s. borders? it's happening around the globe. in fact, trump is one of the more recent examples of example of what is happening elsewhere? >> i think there is a real dissolution of capitalism, of globalized capitalism. a sense that that benefits a tiny minority of the country and that everybody else is basically ignored. and then if somebody comes along

and says i can fix that, make you great again, people are going to listen. there is a real dissolution with the system. on top of that, i think one of the big dangers of the internet is the way in which truth itself becomes so subjective. you know, the people can say anything on the internet and it sounds as truthful as anything else except some of it is truth and jefferssome of it is lies. there is that famous quote by abraham lincoln saying you should not believe everything you read on the web. [ laughter ] >> and the internet is full of stuff like that. full of people allegedly saying things that they never said. and i think when people are in a situation where you zondon't kn what is true any more, and then a strong man rises up and says just follow me, i'm the truth, it works. >> what is behind all the angst and anger you see on social media and twitter?

what is behind that? >> first of all we have to think that race is behind it. i just think there was a substantial part of the population of this country that could not stand it, that for eight years there was a black man in the white house. could not stand it. and that people like me and many people when obama was elected thought that that might be the beginning of a better attitude. on race issues you know. but it seems to instead have created a kind of back lash. so there is race, there was a whole misogynistic thing about hillary clinton. i mean, i was surprised that this country seems still not to be ready for a woman leader, where other western democracies and even not western democracies have had women leaders for decades, you know. but here, it still seems to be an issue. and then i think there was this sense of in some parts of the country people were being felt they were being ignored.

that they were sort of on the scrap heap, you know. and all that combined was like a perfect storm. >> let me swing this way and then i'll swing back since we're talking about the election and since you are a writer extraordinaire, perennial "the new york times" best seller. what do you make strategically on the way hillary clinton handled her book? because she is getting a lot of back lash from people, for a while she played the narrative that people didn't like her, blaming others. what is your thought on that? >> there is the idea that everybody who loses a campaign writes a book. you know, she is not unique in this. there is a lot of sort of man-splaining going on, telling hillary clinton she should not write a book, which they would not do if for example, bernie sanders. and he has a book, nobody says he should not write it.

>> i don't think the critique is that she should not write a book, but about this election -- >> i haven't read some of the stuff about it. i know that she is suggesting that the trump people were collaborating with the russians in order to try and fix the election, to put it bluntly. and i don't know if that is true. you know, i'm waiting to see like everybody else, waiting to see what the mueller investigation says. but she has every right to say it if she thinks it, you know. i have no plan to read her book, but by and large i think that the election is over. you know, and that we need to turn the page. and that really -- >> that is what she wants you to do. >> she wants us to turn the back pages. you know? i'm talking about the next page, you know, because i think the democrats need somebody much younger. you know, somebody of a next

generation. if you see what is happening in canada, when justin trudeau or even in france with mr. macron, that the fact that this is kind of a younger generation. >> we had that with obama, we just went through it. >> i know, we need to get it back. obama was unusual lly charismat leader. we need something like that. we can't have 200-year-old people fighting the next election. >> unpack why you are so bold about not reading hillary clinton's book. for a guy who voted the first time, why would you not want to read her story? >> because i had it every day during the election, i am trying to think of the next thing, hillary clinton is not the next thing, i admire her in many ways, but she ain't the future. that is what i'm interested in. >> i quoted so many times on

this program the great paul robeson, i think he is the greatest american hero, i quoted him because he was so right saying that artists are the gatekeeper of truth. i believe that with the core of my being. in moments like these, you're eloquent, not just articulate but eloquent in talking about what this moment means, and whether or not you write fiction. the question is do you ever feel like writing fiction in a moment where the non-fiction is so real in our lives? do you ever feel out of place doing stuff like "the golden house"? >> you know, fiction is one of the great ways of telling the truth. if you think about "war and peace" as the most brilliant portrait of napolean's russian campaign, et cetera, so fiction itself is just another road to the truth. what i do think has happened, to

me certainly, i can't speak for other writers but to me, is it has made me question and set aside some of the ways i was writing, you know, because i mean, i had been very associated with the kind of fantasy fabulist what is called magic realism. in fact, my previous november set in new york was a novel that had that. i thought what you were saying, i thought in a world where it is so much untruth out there, so much make-believe being propagated every day that maybe not fantasy, you know, maybe not hold the flank up. maybe there is a role for artists so at least i feel a role for an artist like me to start resteve nashi reestablishf the writer, and let's start

trying to agree on what is really the case. because we do live in this country in which people can't agree on which is the case. i find myself lecturing to a quite conservative crowd a few months ago, when they didn't believe in climate change, they thought the news was fake news, i said it's only fake news when you read my books. but the bad idea that there is no such thing as climate change, we just live in these different realities. >> and then irma hit florida. >> exactly, it's kind of skulking around all of tumrump' properties, proving there is no god. i athink it has become very important for america as a country to regain the difference, the sense between truth and lies and what you can can do if you do it right, is that the reader and the writer

can make that agreement. you can read the book, a book and you can say yeah, this is how it is. this is how it is. >> has that line between what is true and what is false, has the line -- the line clearly has been breached. we blurred the line, has the damage been done, put another way trump did that and won and he continues to do that and his tweets, i always tell people i'm not so much impressed by the pushback that donald trump gets when he puts something crazy out. what blows me away are the number of times he gets re-tweeted by the number of people who apparently agree with what he says, i guess the question is whether or not the damage has been done, whether or not we are now in a whole new era where we will never be able again to distinguish the truth between the lie. >> i think it's a danger. trump's core base followers are incredibly loyal. nothing that has happened even

in the last six or seven months has shaken them. around like 38% it just stays there. you know, no matter what happens. now whether that is enough to get him reelected i don't know, it got him elected once. what i think may happen is first of all that there are opposition leaders who can speak as pict e persuasively as he has in which hillary clinton did not do. and i think in the end people, when reality bites is when they notice that things are not working out the way they think they're going to. i mean, coal ain't coming back no matter what trump promised. it's just not. a lot of jobs he says he will get back are impossible to get back because basically they're being taken over by robots, not by chinese people, but by

mechan mechanics. >> or mexicans. >> when people begin to see the promises are not delivered then hopefully that will detach people from him. >> you used the word hopefully now, what your books like "the golden house" do for us at the very least, even though they're truths, what they do is allow us some sense of escapism. i guess the question is whether or not escapism really matters when a society is experiencing hopelessness. is escapism a real alternative to hopelessness? >> i don't think it's escapism. it's just i hope that what books can do at their best is to make you reimagine things. make you see -- the world in a slightly -- in a slightly different angle, you know, which just helps you think about it. this book is quite funny, and funny is good. >> i'll take funny. >> funny is good just because people need to laugh. and funny -- political funny is

good because in this particular case we have a parent who is so thin skinned that it hurts him, which is nice. >> you know what is funny, i was in a conversation last night, i'm not even sure, i should read it on television, i'm sure, i will get mail for it. we're into it now. but this line of political funny is another line that is blurred and it's starting to annoy me. for example, i didn't find it funny that sean spicer and donald trump and that ilk are dangerous people. and leave it to hollywood to turn it into a freaking joke. he shows it about the emmy awards, this is not jokes and laughter to me, what he represents and what they represent is dangerous for our democracy. you can't tweet one day that it's dangerous for democracy, and the next day he is playing along with the skit. i don't get that. >> no, no, it's sort of enabling him? i thought it was a bad misfire. i don't know, i switched the

emmys off, they were borrowing. but i thought that was a bad mistake. >> it just troubles me, i just think we're talking again about things that are really dangerous for oush democrar democracy, th make jokes and laughter. >> the trouble with that joke, it was cozy, saying we're all the same guys really which actually we're not. i think satire is a very sharp-edged tool, not only in this presidency, but the george w. bush presidency, i have actually been grateful to comedians, steven colbert and john stewart. >> trevor noah. >> i think because they have been providing some of the most pointed political critique while being funny. of anybody. they're doing the job which maybe the mainstream media should be doing but doing it better. >> and what do you make of it,

you listed the late night comedians, what do you think the mainstream media is doing in trying to get out there and tell the truth? >> i think they're trying. papers like "the washington post" are trying, sometimes they get it very wrong. i went on election day, "the new york times" had a gathering in their theater, in the offices of like 7 p.m., all the heavy hitters, all the main commentators had no idea what wi was about to happen. they talked about the next day it was going to be madam president. and this was like two hours later trump was president. at 7:00 p.m., "the new york times" had no idea. so that made me think you guys are not nearly as smart as you think you are. >> what do you make of how badly everybody missed the mark? >> everybody was surprised, i think the person most surprised was donald trump. i don't think he wanted the job

and he certainly can't do it. he announced on some show a couple of weeks ago that it was harder than his previous job. the idea that it had not occurred to him that biggest the president of the united states was harder than being a real estate mogul, what can you say? >> this may not be a fair question, i'm not sure it fits but what do you hope the takeaway is for readers when they get to the golden house? >> what you want to do is first of all tell a good story, that's it. you want people to be engaged with the characters and care about them and what happens to them. but then if you're trying to write this kind of a social november which tries to deal with you know, take a panoramic look on what is going on, there are all sorts of things in this book. "occupy wall street," and there are all sorts of things for readers, one is for now, read it and they have the recognition saying yeah, this is how it is,

this is how it has been. hopefully if i have done it right in the future people can see it and say oh, that is how it was because you captured the moment. for readers today i hope they will read it and say this is a very good portrait of how it had been. >> and there you have it from the author, salman rushdie, the book is called "golden house." that is our show, thank you for joining us. and as always, keep the faith. for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley, at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley, join me next time, with the shape of water. that is next time, we'll see you then.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with myse musician wyclef jean. you know him from the iconic group the fujees. he has contributed to "hips don't lie" and whitney houston's "my love is your love" and carlos santana's big winner, "supernatural." his album is called cat carnival three : the fall and rise of a refugee." we're glad you've joined us for a performance from wyclef jean in a moment. ♪