>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, my conversation with the president and the first lady at the white house last week while reporting for cbs news. >> the american people actually don't think the same way this town thinks sometimes and so the challenge for me is not so much that i've lost faith in the capacity for america to come together. the frustration i have right now is that we still need to break the fever here in washington so that this town operates and reflects those values that are shared by people all across the

country. >> rose: also this evening the political moment with al hunt of bloomberg news >> charlie, right now we're in the beginning of of the second quarter. obama is ahead by about a field goal, maybe more. there's a long way to play out. there's a lot of talk about how negative it is. by historical standards it isn't that negative. what's really occurred is that mitt romney who had a little momentum about a month ago has been back on his heels. >> rose: we conclude this evening with a conversation with david skorton, the president of cornell, an institution of higher learning much admired in the united states and abroad. >> for decades-- and i've been in higher education for decades-- people told me why don't you break down the silos, why don't you have department x and department y. we're not going to have departments on this campus. we'll have areas of concentration based on the city's economy that we're calling hubs. >> rose: president obama, first lady michelle obama, al hunt and

david skorton when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: on thursday, july 12 of last week i went to the white house reporting for cbs news to talk to president obama and the first lady michelle obama. we talk of many things, both political and personal. we also went outside on the balcony to talk about vacation. first the balcony and then later the conversation inside in the blue room with the president and the first lady. not a bad place to live. >> you know, it is gorgeous and... the humidity went down a bit for you, charlie. >> rose: you got a basketball court, a tennis court, a fountain. you can see the washington monument. >> i just always remind our kids

this is rental housing. >> rose: (laughs) >> the american people have loaned us this for a little bit. >> rose: a year or five years, we'll see. >> our goal is to take good care of it and we can hand it over to the next administration in four more years. >> rose: how are the things you're planning coming out? >> they're going great, our garden... >> rose: she has a green thumb. >> i have a lot of help. i tell people that all the time. it's just been so much more than growing food but it started just a tremendous conversation in this country about the health of our kids. >> rose: there's not a more important issue. how are you going to spend your summer? where is summer vacation? >> most of it is going to be campaigning. this is going to be my last campaign and the girls are now of an age where they start having their own stuff so they've got a sleep away camp for a month. both of them are leaving.

we're going to be experiencing the first stages of empty nest syndrome. >> rose: are you prepared far? >> well, i get a little depressed. >> he's going to be so busy. but we'll get some time in because any time the girls are out of school that's important time for us to spend as a family. we're still parents where you have to juggle your time around when they're free and summer sometime that time. so we'll keep sneaking time but we will be campaigning this time around. >> rose: no martha's vineyard. >> no, we'll probably use camp david. we're only going to get snatches from long weekends. we won't have a long stretch where it would make stones go someplace else. >> thank you for the opportunity to sit here in for this important time in the presidency and this country. i'm pleased to have both of you because... >> because she's more popular. >> rose: (laughs) more popular. i've noticed you playing a prominent role in the campaign.

i read you, though, this, that i found fascinating. you said "i'm extremely happy with her and part of it these do with the fact that she is the most committed to me so i can be myself and she knows me very well and i trust her completely. at the same time she's also a complete mist troy me in some ways. it's that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong because even as you build of a life of trust and support you retain some sense of surprise or wonder." is that even more so now and in this place? >> absolutely. >> that's very sweet. where did he right that? >> rose: 1996. >> (laughs) >> you know, i am happily surprised at how i think this experience has strengthened rather than diminished our marriage. i rely on her even more now than i did back then the importance

of family and knowing that at least when i'm in town at 6:30 even if i will do go back to work later i'm sitting there at the dinner table with michelle and the girls and the perspective they provide talking about their days and their lives and after the girls are out walking the dog and michelle and i are trading notes about how malia's doing, what's sasha up to, it constantly grounds me. and i dohink that part of the great thing about our marriage is we have complete trust and honesty but we are different people with different temperaments and it means sometimes we get in arguments but it also means that we can see things from different angles and surprise each other and make each other laugh in ways that we

don't always expect and that keeps the relationship fresh. >> rose: does this place change you? >> you know, i don't... i say this all the time. i think particularly at our age-- late 40s, early 50s. >> 50s. >> you, i'm 48. >> rose: have you forgotten he turned 50? >> no, i'm just being clear that i'm not there yet. but i think you are who you are fundamentally in terms of your values and what you care about and your character and i don't think you'll you'll change in this place. i think this place magnify it is good parts and the bad parts of you which was why i was so adamant about supporting him in this race not as his wife but as somebody who knows him because who he was coming in would be what kind of president he would be and i wanted this kind of man

in office, somebody steady, clear headed, smart, humble and he's... >> rose: is that all him? >> he's still all of that. i've just been so proud to wch hi maneuver through some pretty interesting waters and to retain himself and when he walks in the door, second floor of the residence there are times when i would have no idea what kind of day he'd have but he just lights up as if there's nothing on his mind. he shows us in the way that he looks at me and the girls when he comes home at 6:30 that there's nothing more important than being there with us and the fact that he can do that and then later on after dinner, after we've walked the dog and got the girls started on their home work he starts unloading his day and i think, wow, is that what happened? i'm just impressed with his

steadiness. and that hasn't changed. >> i do think the fact that we lived an entire life together... we were... i was passed 40 when i got any national attention because of my democratic convention speech so we knew what iwas liketo beroke. we knew what it was like to have to figure out how to juggle child care, two jobs. >> rose: pay off college loans. >> pay off college loans. all that stuff. we knew what it was to be disappointed. to go through struggles. so in some ways i always count it as a blessing that the political life and public attention that we received came late and that meant that kind ofnewho we were, what was important, what values we care about and i think we've been able to hang on to that.

>> rose: take a look at this. this is four years ago. come january. >> look at that. almost no gray hair. >> oh, wow. >> just a little couple of flecks, huh? >> rose: this was also a time of "yes, we can." "hope and change." what happened to that? because that's not the narrative today. >> it's funny. i just came back from a bus tour in ohio and we're now starting to get in the campaign swing an i tell people this campaign is still about hope. if somebody asks you, it's still about change. what is undoubtedly true is that in part because of the enormity of the financial crisis and the economic crisis and the difficulties that so many people have had to suffer over the last several years but also the strategic decision it is republican party made which was at that moment to oppose as opposed to collaborate in

solving some of these problems, washington feels as broken as it did four years ago. and if you ask me what is the one thing that has frustrated me most over the last four years it's not the hard work, it's not the enormity of the decisions, it's not the pace, it's not the accomplishments because i think we can point to as productive an administration as we've mean? a long time. it is that i haven't been able to change the atmosphere here in washington to reflect the decency and common sense of ordinary people. democrats, republicans, and independents who i think just want to see their leadership solve problems. and there's enough brain to go around for that. >> rose: and do you blame yourself in part?

because you had this confidence that you had these skills that would allow you to bridge the gap? >> thnk there's no doubt that i underestimated the degree to which in this town politics trumps problem solving, right? you know, my wonderful secretary of state when i was running against her in the primary, you know, hillary would, i think, tease me sometimes about saying just because you say you want to work with republicans, let me tell you, i've been through this and they may not always work with you. and i think that because i knew the hunger that the american people had for that kind of cooperation and the fact that we were going through as tough as a crisis that we've seen since the great depression my was that we would see more cooperation. but having said that, the basic

notion that we are not democrats or republicans first we're americans first and that most of the problems that we face are solveable not in some ideological way but in a praical common sense american way that i believe as much as ever and so do i t american people. >> rose: here's something you said "the only way my life makes sense is if regardless of culture and race and religion there's a commonality of these essential human truths and passions and hopes and precepts that are universal and that we can reach out beyond our differences. if that is not the case then it is pretty hard for me to make sense of my life." >> yeah. >> rose: do you feel that way? >> i do. >> rose: you can't make sen of your life because you haven't been ale to bridge this gap. >> no the reason i remain a happy warrior in this whole process what michelle and i

always talk about which is when they get out of this town then my life makes perfect sense because i meet people from all walks of life everywhere i go and they've got the same values, they care about hard work, they care about responsibility, they care about family, they care about working together, they cae abou treating people with respect, they care about looking after the vulnerable. that point that i made is something i am convinced of more than ever because as president we travel all across the country and i meet people from every walk of life and the american people actually don't think the same way this town thinks sometimes. so the challenge for me is not so much that i lost faith in the capacity for america to come together. the frustration i have right now is that we still need to break

the fever here in washington so that this town operates and reflects those values that are shared by people across the country. >> rose: meaning what "break the fever"? >> break the fever meaning that we've got to stop thinking in purely political terms about who's on top, who gets the advantage in the spin wars. i'll give you a ver concrete example. everybody agrees we need to bring down our deficit and our debt. and if you look at public opinion polls and how the american people think about this they understand, everybody's got to give a little bit. we've got to reduce spending that's not helping to build the economy. we've got to make sure that everybody's paying their fair share of taxes. we've got to make sure that folks like you and i, charlie, who have been incredibly blessed by this country we're doing a little bit more so that the next

generation is seeing investments in education, infrastructure, basic science and research, continuing to grow the economy and giving everybody opportunity. now... so the problem in reducing our deficit is not technically how do we do it. the problem is that we've got the other side ideologically saying "we will not vote for a dime's worth of increased taxes on millionaires or billionaires. we would prefer to reduce by 20% and 30% investmen in education." that's not something that is consistently traditional with how democrats or republicans survive. >> rose: some believe that you've lost faith in some sense of this business capacity to come to compromise and that view this election to say to the country there are two ideologies and they're in conflict and you have to make a decision as to whether we can go a different

direction. >> i do think that the american people are the ultimate tiebreaker. >> rose: they can break the fever? > they can brea the fever. so, look let me give you another example. my... the health care bill that the republicans have called everything from... (laughs) a child of god. right, i mean... >> rose: everything but a what? >> they've... they have... you know, who... they've made a center piece of what they consider to be my mistakes as president. there's a reason why their front-runner has a problem talking about it. because it basically matches what he signed in law in massachusetts and that's been successful. >> rose: and, of course, you know he would say that's a state mandate. >> i understand. but the point is, that's an approach to making sure everybody's got health care, that five or ten years ago would have been considered not just mainstream but a center right

approach to solving this problem. so it's not as if there's an equivalent between democrats and republicans on this issue. i think the american people have to decide whether a sharply ideological shift by the republicans is what they want. and it may be. or whether the traditional balanced, responsible approach that we're taking is one that's most likely to lead for prosperity for most people. >> rose: the question most people want to know from both of you is why do you want to be president? why do you want him to be president? and what will be the significant achievement that you want to accomplish in the next four years. >> well, first of all, i think it's important to know we did an awful lot in t first four years. >> rose: of course. >> so the... one of the things you learn in this office is everything takes longer than you like. >> rose: the office of the

presidency. >> right. >> rose: so when i think about the next four years, what's undone. the most important issue we face as a country how do we build an economy where the middle-class is strong and growing and those who are willing to work hard can fight their way into the middle-class and the components that we put in place have made a difference but what we can also continue to do is change our tax codes so that we're rewarding companies that invest here in the united states as opposed to shipping jobs overseas, investing in our education system so we have great new teachers, especially in math and science. make college more affordable. invest in our infrastructure and bring down our deficit? a responsible, balanced way. those are all components of an overarching strategy. >> rose: of all of those things, what would be the equivalent of health care for the next term? what is the single thing that ignites your passion, your drive your ambition, all of your

skills? >> the most important thing for us to do right now is to go ahead and resolve the fiscal issues-- debt, deficit, who's paying what in taxes, where are we investing. making that decision because once we resolve that issue then it freeze us up to focus on hiri more teachers and helping young people afford college education but as long as we're in this deadlock where we've got a big deficit and debt and we haven't determined how to bring that down we're going to continue to have problems. so that's going to be a top priority. and the good news is, as i said, the american people actually agree on how we should do it. it should be a balance of smart cuts in programs that don't work-- and we've already cut a trpl dollars out of the federal budget-- but it also requires us

to change our tax code so folks like you and me pay a little bit more. and the reason i'm confident we can do that is because after this election we've got a whole bunch of laws that are about to expire, including the bush tax cuts, and i intend to win this election and if we do nothing than everybody's taxes are going up and my assumption is that's not something the republicans want to run on and what i'm going to say to them is i'm prepared to make sure that 98% of americans don't see their taxes increased. we're goingo use th mon that we saved from not giving you or me a tax break to bring down our deficit and we're going to be able to make investments in the future that help america grow and give everybody opportunity and i think that we're going to be in a strong position to make that case come 2013. >> rose: there's a lot of the campaign ahead of us but many people look at the campaign so far and they say "i see too much negative campaigning and not enough talk about the future."

they look at your own ads from your own campaign and they say a lot of negative campaigning here about your opponent in the republican party rather than what you just talked about. does it bother you, the negativity of this campaign so far? >> you know, let me tell you, the one thing that i've learned not to do is pay any attention to the back and forth. >> rose: that's how you get him up there. >> (laughs) but it's just not... it's not useful and it's not actually indicative so when i'm on the campaign trail that's all i talk about is the future. i talk about my dad and people like my dad who worked a blue-collar job all his life, was able to pay his bills and pay them on time. that's all he wanted. he never wanted a house on the lake, he never wanted... he wanted to be able to send his kids to college and make sure he could retire with dignity and respect and that's what the last four years has to be about.

>> rose: but there are those who look at the campaign so far and they say that rather than talk about the future there's an effort here to tear down your opponent and make him unacceptable so there will not be a debate or referendum on the first four years. >> i have to tell you, charlie, if you look at the ads that we do, first of all, we've done a whole slew of positive ads that talk exactly about how we need to change our education system. how we need to change our tax code, how we need to rebuild america, how we need to promote american energy. those just don't get attention in the news. we are very much promoting. if you look at my stu seech i spend a whole slew of time... sometimes people say i talk too long because i'm outlining all the things we want to get done. what is true is there's a sharp contrast-- probably as sharp a contrast as we've seen--

philosophically between myself and mr. romney. i think he's a patriot, i think he loves his family, but he has a particular theory of how to grow the economy that has to do with providing tax cuts for folks at the very top, eliminating all regulations and somehow that is going to generate solutions to the challenges we face. i've got a very different approach and i think it's entirely appropriate for the american people to understand those two theories and the more detailed we get into what he's saying and what i'm saying, i think that serve this is democratic process well. >> rose: politics are about choices. >> politics are about choices. >> rose: but there's also this. do you believe his presidency would be a disaster? because this is a man who's been a successful business person. does that disqualify him or make him appropriately a candidate for a political office? how do you take the measure of his business experience?

>> i do not think at all it dis qualifies him. but i also think it's important if that's his main calling card. if his basic premise is that i'm mr. fix-it on the economy because i made a lot of money. >> rose: that's not what he's saying. >> well, that is to some degree. what he says is he understands the economy and the private sector. >> rose: and they built busisses and... >> they invested the. >> rose: but they invested. >> >> so that's his premise. i think it's entirely appropriate to look at that record and see whether, in fact, both that is true that in fact his focus was creating jobs and he successfully did that when you look at the record there are question there is that have been to be asked. >> rose: like what. >> well, you know, as i said, when some people questioned why i would challenge h in

recor the point i made there in the past is if you're ahead with large private equity firms or a hedge fund job is to make money. it's not to create jobs. it's not even to create a successful business, it's to make sure you're maximizing returns for your investor. now, that's appropriate. that's part of the american way. that's part of the system. but that doesn't necessarily make you qualified to think about the economy as a whole because as president my job is to think about the workers. my jobs to think about communities where jobs have been outsourced. and so it is not that he is disqualified because of what he's done. it is if that's your main claim-- he doesn't talk about the fact that he was governor of massachusetts for four years very much. >> rose: all about the olympics. >> then i want us to make sure that we know what your theory is about how to grow the economy.

and that is a question that i think most americans want to know as well. this is the nature of running for president. >> rose: do you believe there's anything about his experience at bain that should be called into question. >> well, i think that when you run for president everything's called into question. when you're president everything's called into question. and that's a healthy part of... >> rose: but nothing illegal about his experience. >> i think that this is entirely a question of how do you think you can help the average joe out there get a job, get a home, send his kids to college, retire with dignity and respect, all the things that michelle's dad wanted. i think the question right now for the american people is which vision-- mine or mr. romney's-- is most likely to deliver for those folks. because that is where the majority of the american people live. >> rose: because the

middle-class has been and is in a terrible place in america and losing ground in terms of their history. >> and they've been losing ground even before this recession hit. for the ten years before their incomes and wages have flat lined. >> rose: but suppose... i mean, he clearly will say let's look at your record. let's look at the fact that unemployment is at 8.2%. it's unlikely to change. let's look at how effective the stimulus was. >> right. >> rose: let's look at your management of the economy. >> exactly. >> rose: yes, it was a bad hand you were dealt but you have not made it to what it ought to be. that's the centrality of their campaign. >> exactly. >> rose: and that you haven't created jobs and what are you going to tell us that you're going to do in the next four years at you didn't try in the first four yea that failed. >> exactly. that is his argument and you don't hear me complaining about making that argument because if i was in his shoes i'd be making the same argument. >> rose: you had an enormously successful health care legislation because the supreme

court did not declare it unconstitutional. that's your proudest achievement in the last four years? >> my proudest achievement is actually stabilizeing the economy to avert a great depression. because if i don't do that nothing else matters. now, we're not where we need to be. and you're right, the unemploent rate is way too high to where i want it to be and a lot of folks are still hurting and struggling out there. but the fact of the matter is is that we were able to stop a hemorrhaging of jobs, get the economy growing again, add 4.4 million jobs, 500,000 manufacturing jobs, save the auto industry. all those things provide us at least a base for from which now to grow and the central question becomes building on what we've done, where do we go from here? and making sure that we are

constantly thinking about growing this economy not from the top down, because we tried that and it didn't work and it hasn't worked in our... historically. but rather how do we make sure that every man and woman out there is who is willing to work hard has a chance? that's what we're going to be spending these next four months debating and this's what i hope to be spending the next four years working on. >> rose: we have a mutual friend her name is doris kearns goodwin. i often asked her what would lincoln do in many conferences we have had. she has said before that what lincoln says is... and what she has learned is that the ability of lincoln and f.d.r. to learn from their mistakes of the first term is what made them successful in the second term. what do you think the lessons have been that might guarantee success in a second term if that happens? >> i think that's your... i ink that's your question.

pretty clearly. (laughs) >> you know, when i think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well, the mistake of my first couple of years was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. and that's important. but,ou ow the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the american people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times. it's funny, when i ran everybody said "well, he can give a great speech but can he actually manage the job?" and then my first two years i

think the notion was well, he's been juggling and managing a lot of stuff but where's the story that tells us where he's going? and i think that was a legitimate criticism. so getting out of this town, spending more time with the american people, listening to them and also then being in a conversation with them about where do we go together as a country, i need to do a better job of that have in my second term. >> rose: a better job of explaining? >> well, explaining but also inspiring >> because hope is still there. i mean, hope doesn't get actualized in three and a half years. if that were the case we'd be out of luck as a country. so people still need to grasp on to something important and they need a leader and a message and

a set of possibilities for their lives. that's what kept my dad getting up everyday going to work wi. many. many was his vision and hope for us. and i always say that if we live out our visions for our children in our policies and decision wes make as adults, if we do that everyday not just for our own children but if we're thinking about all of our children we will always get where we need to go. and i can tell you that is really the only thing i'm talking about on the campaign trail. i'm just trying to help people that none of this is about us because we are only here becau of our fathers and grandfathers, those people in our lives who made huge, painful sacrifices for us and it's our turn to do the same. if we continue to do that we

will build a vibrant... continue to build a vibrant society and we have always moved forward in this country. always have. i can't think of a time in understanding the history of this country where we've moved backwards. where women have had fewer rights, where children have been more vulnerable. so we're making progress but sometimes it's hard in a day to day struggle to remember that and that's a big part of what leadership is about. it's just giving people the glass half full perspective that is real that keeps you going day in and day out. that's what i'm going to be doing and i know he's doing on the campaign trail and we deal for the next four years. >> rose: thank you for this opportunity to talk to you. >> it was great to talk to you, charlie. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. >> rose: the president and the first lady at the white house. to put this conversation in its political moment we talk with al hunt of bloomberg news. welcome, sir. >> welcome, charlie. >> rose: having seen the conversation with barack obama,

having listened to the debate in the campaign, where are we in this campaign and what are we witnessing at this moment? >> charlie, right now we're in the second quarter, the beginning of the second quarter, i would say obama's ahead by a field goal, maybe a bit more. but there's a long way to play. there's a lot of talk about how negative it is right now, by historical standards it isn't that negative. what what really has occurred the last couple weeks is that mitt romney-- who had i think a little momentum about a month ago-- has been back on his heels. he is really not able to focus on the economy and the issues of obama stewardship because he's been so defensive about bain, about taxes, and about a host of other issues and they're going to have to turn that around. if you talk to the republicans they'll tell you obama spend a great deal of money, he's had an advertising advantage over the last couple weeks and the needle hasn't moved much. true but romney's negatives have

climbed. >> rose: therefore it means the administration or the campaign team for the president is looking at what seems to be sticking and believe it has traction? >> i think that's true, charlie. interesting it was the spak super pac that first seized on this. the much-maligned obama superpac you'll recall we were on with mark halperin and there was a gate debate on the obama campaign do we run against mitt romney as a flip-flopper or as a right winger? and what i think the outside group, the bill burtons and paul begala said is we're going to run against him as an out-of-touch rich elitist. that's what has hurt romney so far. not so much the other stuff. >> rose: yet at the same time we've had other rich candidates, both democratic and republican, running for public office. there seems to be something different about this? for some reason? >> that's a really good point. f.d.r., j.f.k., ronald reagan,

"w." if you had tried the same campaign against "w" 12 years ago iwould have gone absolutely nowhere. the problem for mitt romney-- and it's a credibilityable problem-- is it seems all of apiece. he does seem out of touch, he is wealthy. he somewhat miscast his role as a private equity executive. not a job creator, but a wealth creator. he won't release his tax returns. those he did release show he has swiss bank accounts and grand cayman accounts. he's clumsy sometimes in his rhetoric. when he says "corporations are people" that might impress jack welch but it won't impress the voter in dayton, ohio. so it's all of a piece and he's got to realize that and get that act together, if you will, because there's less than four months left. >> rose: why couldn't tse plipl go to the country and say "this is really about you and what the country should offer you and haven't and i'm here to try to fix that.

and by the way america has been good to me and i want america to be good to you"? >> i think they've tried to do it. they haven't done it successfully. he has to tell them a bit more about himself. right now they are letting the obama people define mitt romney more than mitt romney is defying mitt romney. this is really... it is deja vu all over again in yogi's terms. it's john kerry in 2004. the other side is defining a candidate. >> rose: it seems to me that it's axiomatic, you can't let the other person define you. >> you knew that, everybody knew that, i also knew and everyone else knew that there would be an attack on bain. what gingrich and others tried earlier in the primary was going to be kids stuff compared to what the well-organized democrats would do. you knew and i knew and everyone else knew that the question of tax returns was going to be dicey, the fact that he was pressured three monthsing too release one full year and the

returns mostly of another year was not going to be sufficient. >> rose: he doesn't want to release tax returns. is >> he doesn't want to release tax returns and he really, i think, resents talking about this business background and some attacks on him and he should realize that that was not only inevitable but rick perry and rick santorum and newt gingrich laid the ground work. >> rose: tell me how you see the president at this moment in his time in washington. >> i thought some of the... he's not a terribly introspective person, at least he doesn't share it with people if he is. i thought some of the insights that he offered you were interesting. he said he underestimated the divisions in america in his

second term he these inspire people. i think that's right. but he didn't seem to quite grasp-- and he's a smart guy, i hate to say he doesn't grasp-- but the presidency is always an inside and outside job. you have to work the inside levers and you have to in the outdoors appeal to the american electorate. and obama seems to go back and forth and sometimes falter. yes he has to inspire but when he said inspire as well as education the health care bill is a prime example. there's a bloomberg report out the other day that less than 3% of americans, less than 3%, would ever have to pay that tax because of a mandate. i don't think very many americans know that. the president hasn't educated them in important areas, either. >> rose: and also to his credit there's such a deep sense of family with he and his wife and the kids and spending time there, that means a lot to him and that came throughn this

conversation. there's this other point. i went to be personal for a moment, i left that interview and i flew out to a conference in idaho and while there i interviewed the prime minister of italy. the prime minister of italy praised this president very strongly and said he was impressive and he talked about-- and this was not for public consumption-- he talked to me about a conversation that how this president really brought together different people looking for ways to bring them together, looking for ways this was this was on the international economic front and you wondered then has he done that on the domestic political front? >> he hasn't and he has, as you note, done it rather successfully on the international global front. he deserves credit for that. it also has to be said he has not exactly had willing partners domestically. >> rose: well, of course. >> the republican party has

clearly moved to the right and there's not a whole lot of republicans on capitol hill who are interested in doing business wi barack obama. that's been true from day one. >> rose: but at the same time... i mean, that's what leadership is supposed to be about. >> yeah, it is. but when you read the caro book and you read the way lyndon johnson handled everett mckinley dirkson... >> rose: that's true. >> that couldn't be done today. johnson was a genius and i don't think obama has those skills but i don't think johnson could do that today. the politics really, really have changed and the republican party in particular has moved clearly to the right and they're not interested deals on those thin. >> rose: suppose this is a one-term presidency. do you have a sense of how he would be judged? >> well, there are very few one-term presidents who are judged favorably by history. james poke-- who i didn't cover, charlie--. >> rose: i would never make a joke like that. >> he may be one of the rare exceptions and i think that's a

point that bob merry makes in a wonderful new book in which barack obama in an interview said "i'd rather be a one-term president who did right than a mediocre two-term president." usually to you do well in your first term you get elected to the second term. so i think history will be limited in its judgment of him if he only has one term. most of our great presidents or near great presidents are two-term presidents. >> rose: but at the same time most of the things that brought them the greatness occurred in the first term rather than the second term, for most of them. >> that's true but they're validated with the reelection. that's absolutely right. roosevelt would be an exception. i would argue that reagan had some... and reagan had some real successes in his second term. onhe domestic front as well as with the soviet union and i think bill clinton had successes too, in his second term. so i think most of the success comes in the first term, but that validation of reelection is important.

>> rose: thank you, al. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: david skorton is here, he is the president of cornell university, the "new york times" has said leaders of his stature are in short supply, every university wants a skorton. cornell was suspected to build a state-of-the-art 11 acre tech campus. cornell will receive $100 million in city capital. this is part of mayor bloomberg's applied sinces designed to promote technology and prepship in new york city. construction will begin in 2014 with the first phase of completion in 2017. in the meantime, classes will begin in september in office space lent by google. i am pleased to have david skorton at this table. welcome. >> thank you so much. tell mebout cornell's interest in this and how you decided that this is where we ought to go.

>> well, cornell has the land grant university for new york state. there's two private schools and a country do land grant functions, m.i.t., and cornell does the whole land grant for the state of new york >> we're in all 57 upstate counties and that's the anniversary of the act in congress in 1862. i bore you with that because this w a natural for us. this was a perfect match to our d.n.a.. that we're here to serve across, no. and a chance to do that in, no where we have a big president is just irresistible. >> people thought stanford had this and then you aced them out in the end. >> rose: >> we had stiff competition but we had a few things going for us. one is we have this presence in new york city and new york state. secondly we have something on the order of 50,000 alumni in the greater new york metro area and they're very exercised about this opportunity.

thirdly our campus came together to support this undergraduate student assembly on their own voted for support of this project with a very interesting proposal. i'd love to talk about it if we have time. and at the very end one of our alumni gave the gift of $350 million which covered the cost of the first phase that you mentioned to 2017 so we think we had the problem surrounded and the one last thing i'll mention is we're very experienced in doing constructi prects, capital projects in new york city. over here up the street on 69th between the first and new york we're putting up a billion-dollar project for medical research. >> rose: at its best it will be what? >> at a time of such retrenchment and pessimism and hand wringing one of the areas in the country that's growing is the tech sector and we need to have more hands on deck, more qualified hands on deck. >> rose: or we lose the future. >> yeah. and there's sort of a skills

mismatch, people have called it, between what the tech industries need and what our work force has right now so the mayor identified the need for graduate-level education. so the first thing that this is an educational project to give graduate degrees. it's a different kind of a campus. not just a new campus but a new kind of campus. that sounds like advertising but it really is. for decades... i've been in higher education for decades and people have told me why don't you break down these silos, why do you have to have department x and y. we're not going to have departments on this campus. we're going toave areas of concentration based on the city's economy that we're calling hubs. one of the things about cornell-- i have to toot my horn a bit now-- is that we're in a core part of the campus in ithaca, new york, a town of about 35,000 and so although the last five years the alumni of cornell have started 2,600 companies,

capitalized over $10 billion, they won't all fit up in that area like many of us in silicon valley. so people don't recognize how entrepreneurial we are. so we'll continue that. we'll open up theates a little bit. here's the example. every single grad student on this campus, every one, is not only going to have an academic advisor-- the usual-- but is going to have an industry mentor from day one. so not only are we not going to put up barriers, we're inviting industry to come in and work with us on the curriculum and the interactions they have with students from the beginning of each student's experience. >> rose: what should a university be and what is the role of a university and what do you say to an 18-year-oldho gos to cornell-- any campus-- and he says to you "what will i be like if i apply myself four years from now? >> what i tell him is two things. number one, don't be in a hurry to be locked into one path. this is a chance to sample from a broad, broad variety of ways

of thinking and secondly learn to think and learn to learn. it sounds like a cliche but look at how many changes we go through in our lives, different things that we do, different careers, nuances of the same career or widely friend careers. i'm a cardiologist but i'm sitting here with you talking about a tech campus. and so i think i try always to remind the students and their parents that this is the time to explore a little bit and learn to think, learn to learn and try to find that match between what you feel in your gut is right for you and what's in the marketplace. >> and i think the important thing is to give you tools to learn as much as you can but also to convince yourself to be open to ideas that you might not have experience sod when those ideas come you can massage them and explore them and find out because you may find things that you never knew anything abo but they somehow touch deeper within you than anything you've ever experienced before. >> i wish i could have said that as eloquently as you just did.

on the cornell campus in ithaca 25 20-% of the student body of 22,000 students is from overseas. from over 120 countries. so you can be sitting across a table in the cafeteria or look across your room in the dorm and meet somebody from a place you've never been, a culture you don't know anything about and a language you don't speak, a political point of view, a background you haven't run into, tremendous, tremendous chance to be cultivated in that way. you're right. is. >> rose: and in terms of america we have benefited enormously from having more universities at the highest standard than any other country in the world and that's served us well. can other countries catch up in that area? how long will it take them? china has set it as a goal to create two of the best universities in the top list in the next 25 years. >> they do aspire to it. i think they can make it happen.

it's a long hill to climb. one things which sort of the opposite of what i just said is that we started over again in a new way not very long ago over the time scale of countries and cultures. secondly we've had a pretty stable culture, stable political system for a long time. the thirdly we've had resources about fourth we've put the resources into higher education in a big way. that's threatened now, by the way. that's threatened because of the recession. support in public universities that are an endangered spe snee this country. the support per student has come down about 25% in the last decade. so i think if we don't continue the resources and allow that long-term conversation to occur we will slip in the international rankings. but it's not the rankings that are important. i think what's important is we have the long view and take the view that learning how to learn, as you said, is learning how to solve problems that don't have to be solved overnight is how we make progress.

>> rose: sebastian thrun was on this program,google x is one of the things he has run. he's talking about online universities and i'm interested in how you see the future of online. here it is. >> i haven't imagined how much hunger there is in the world-- including america-- for good education. how many people where are writing me passionate e-mails sending me passionate e-mails about how a simple class changed their life. and the hunger is funnily enough much more outside the walls of stanford than inside. stanford gets the world's bst students, they're skilled and talented. i don't think any impact as a teacher on them is anywhere as big as my impact is on a high school student in minnesota. >> rose: they do argue that there's something about the physical place, that's their argument as to why it costs more. >> and i think that argument is well taken and the approach is not to take away the physical university, the approach is to

make it accessible to the other people. if you look at the world, i estimate that we only educate well 1%. people talk about the wall street 1%, i love to talk about the education 1% that is the kind of leave 99% behind. it's not just people in other countries, it's people in mid-career. if you're an automotive engineer in detroit and you got laid off, what are the odds that you can actually learn today's engineering skill which is would be computer engineering or tomorrow's engineering skill which is would be bioengineering so i think education is a life long thing. just the fact that it's free, you can learn on the bus, on the toilet, wherever you want, but you have to stay educated throughout your life. >> rose: that's a good point. and universies tday you have this resource that is so valuable. a place where people think about the future, think about big ideas and have to do significant research. to make that available to more people that can exist on a campus seems to me to be an

essential motivation. >> i think it's a terrific idea and he's clearly a leader. what he's talking about if i can restate it is flipping the current model where you utilize the online procedure to get those lectures, so to speak, then you use the classroom etting toalk it over, mix it up. i think you need both. and i want to put a plug in about community colleges. the workers that he mentioned being laid off in many parts of our country will be a few miles from a community college that's developed to help retrain people in situations like that so it's not just research universities like stanford and cornell but within that slice of humanity i think the online is going to make a difference. it's going to be a leveler, it's going to be more egalitarian, it's going to help people around the world. i don't think it's going to do the whole job. i think some sort of an amalgam of some things on a campus or in a location and some things that can be done online is where we'll end up. >> rose: president of cornell

university, thank you, pleasure to have you here. >> it's a great pleasure to be here. >> rose: check back in and see how you're doing. >> thank you very much. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org