Original subtitles

This is an ABC color presentation.

Hello, I'm Alec Baldwin. Tonight, a conversation with the star of RuPaul's

Race, RuPaul.

Recently, he took home the Emmy for Best Reality Competition Program for a show

that has been a cable sensation for ten seasons.

and earned RuPaul a place on Time magazine's list of the most influential

in the world. His new book is a collection of inspirational stories and

called Guru.

Also tonight, one of the heroes of the global environmental movement, Norwegian

Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Norway remains a beacon of hope for environmental activists with innovative

policies aimed at being a world leader in reducing carbon emissions. We're glad

you've joined us. RuPaul and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg coming up

right now.

With any of my sons, in the modern world, I see the way the world is so

and so encouraging of people's freedoms.

Whenever my kids put on their mother's clothes, I'll sit there and go,

literally, I'm in my bathroom going, oh, here we go.

Oh, here we go.

Six hours of makeup later, they're going to be like, America!

It's me.

Now, listen to me.

We're going to go there.

We're going to get there. Yeah, why not?

Let's creep up on my drag act, honey. Yeah.

It's not all about your drag. Yeah.

Everybody's doing it, Alec. Everyone is doing it. We're going to get to that.

people politically in this country to me are doing is they're manipulating

people's fear of change. Everybody hates change. That's right. They hate change.

Yeah. And to varying degrees, some change they like if they won the

a lot of change they don't like. And you represent a period of tremendous

change. You are this iconic figure in a world where drag, remember,

I'm going to get, and I'm very upset about this too, because I'm going to get

lot of ideas and thoughts wrong.

I'm a straight white boy from massive people. long island i get it wrong as my

friends point out to me a lot but during your career your estimable career we've

gone from tootsie and mrs doubtfire and all of it for comic effect to you being

a person who's liberated people is that how you see it no you don't good

night everybody my guest has been rupaul whose new book will be out soon guru

we'll be back

With Al Pacino.

You don't represent change.

No, I represent doing what the hell you want to do. You're on this planet, you

know, have some fun. Be kind.

Eat some chicken or not.

Or, you know, have a laugh or two.

Dance. I love to dance.

I love to laugh.

I love being human. I love those aspects. That's what I'm doing. Now, if

else gets...

some value out of that of my experience right on you're doing it for you i do it

for me you're doing it for you and everyone should do it and when we see

footage of you early on you as a boy and you started to dress up

Whatever the term.

Yeah, yeah.

Whatever. You don't have to worry. I'm not. The only thing that offends me is

extreme deliberate cruelty and extreme poverty.

Those are the only things I'm offended by. But when you see you in the research

we did in the footage and you're very young, obviously it's a work in

You're building, building, building to get to what you become on the most

sensational level.

What's the experience for you? Is it just about pleasure and fun and joy?

It is.

It's pleasure and fun and joy and using all the colors of the crayon box. But

it's also a big to the establishment. And you're not going to put me in a box.

Nobody puts baby in a corner. And you're not going to put Mr.

RuPaul in a box. And, you know, I've been lucky enough to where the world has

caught up with me. There have been many people who have the same philosophy.

who have never had the acclaim or the success.

But really that's all it's about, you know, because when it's all said and

at the end, I want to be able to say, you know what, I went for it. I went

through, I pushed through my fears, walked through the fire and had some

Honestly, it's just that simple. Life isn't really that complicated.

It really isn't.

And when did you begin to experiment with?

Drag. From the very beginning. I never put those restraints on myself, even

from childhood.

Because kids, you've got kids. They don't. They're not thinking, oh, this is

boys, right? Oh, no. Oh, Catholics over here? Oh, they don't think that way. So

I never adhered to those rules. Never did. Is being a drag queen and being

a gay man, do they go hand in hand?

No, no, no, no. How many people in the drag experience aren't gay men?

You don't know. Now, most of the showgirls who come to our show are gay.

are performers who were little boys in small towns who found a place to

and hit their mark.

But, you know, men at home, I believe there are a lot of men at home

who are wearing women's clothes. And God only knows what you have on underneath.

That suit right now. We got a long way to go here, Ru.

We're going to get to that.

You show me mine, I'll show you yours, baby.

It's a transaction, darling.

But it's funny because I sit there and I think, in my lifetime, I mean, I'm 60,

and in my lifetime, I've watched that great.

leap where everything gay marriage marriage equality what have you and

drag and nobody cares anymore and that that actually leads me to an important

question which is it's like if it's more common now if it's not i don't want to

say forbidden at the operative word but if it's not as special as it was 30 40

years ago is less interesting to you well we'll see i think that's a great

question we will see i think once we take the constraints off of young boys

are wanting to try on mother's high heels or girls who want to try on

you know outfit construction outfit we will see i think artistically in this in

our culture if we tear down those walls and broaden it, we will see unilaterally

amazing changes. We can turn the dial on the human experience

on this planet. That's what was so...

disheartening about the election was that it said to someone like me that oh

god we as humans on this planet we're still here we're still here and oh my

who are those people moving across here at the house across here we're still

there so you know um

Will we lose some of the exclusivity of language and of the gay experience

because it's so open?

Maybe, but it's worth willing to see.

But did you realize that you were gay before you realized you were into drag

both at the same time?

First of all, as a kid, I played with all the colors, literally and

figuratively. I didn't restrict myself.

You had a jackhammer in one hand and a tiara in the other. That's right. I was

teasing my hair with the other hand. Exactly.

And then professionally, when I started show business, I wanted to be the next

David Bowie. So I was in rock bands and singing, performing on stage. I knew I

was going to be famous. I didn't know how it was going to happen.

But I've always...

had an ear for what the universe was saying. I was always looking for magic,

always looking for clues.

So my band dressed up in drag once, and we thought

we were being very... That was the gateway?

Well, we were being punk rock, and it was the Reagan era, so we were like, you

know, smeared lipstick.

New York Dolls. Exactly.

But the reaction I got was, oh,

ooh. I'm like, what?

What are you doing?

Why are you looking at me like that? And I thought, oh, note to self, there is

something there. When I dress up as a woman, I'm getting the reaction as an

actor and a performer that I want. And that's why my show business career, I

realized something was there.

And I just, I ran with it. I took it and I ran with it. And then I had to

recalibrate. my own ideas around that around in terms of

in terms of you know when i started out it was what we call gender f word style

drag which was that punk rock smeared lipstick like fingers up you know trashy

and edgy edgy and it was um it was disturbing right and then When I moved

York and needed to make money, they were looking for go -go dancers and hosts

for clubs and all that kind of lip -syncers. So I had to adopt a style of

that was more like a soul train dancer, where I actually shaved my legs, I

shaved my chest, I started putting in boobies and that kind of stuff.

You know, socks.

When I say boobies, they're just, you know. I don't want to know all the

secrets. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm not going to tell you all the secrets.

But so I started doing that. And then when I moved into mainstream, I refined

it and turned it into glamazon style drag, which is what I do now, which is

untouchable. Like, what is that?

Here in the house of RuPaul,

everybody is welcome.

There ain't no walls here to divide us. There's only love.

And now, let's say it loud enough so they could hear it in Washington, D .C.

Everybody say love.

Now drive that down Pennsylvania Avenue. Get your ass out of here.

When I've seen you now in your recent incarnation, the way you are, because

talk about stages of it.

When did you realize, I'm not going to say there's a moment, like the aha

moment, but at what period of your life did you realize that to take it to that

level was what was required or was going to be effective for you in your career?

When did that start, what you are now?

Yeah, well, you know, when I, I had worked in downtown clubs here in New

for many years.

reached the pinnacle of that. I was crowned the Queen of Manhattan in 1989.

And it was an annual thing that the downtown club things would do. And at

end of my reign, I realized, okay, it's time for me to...

to really go for it. And I stepped away from nightclubs, started working on a

demo tape, and then presented that to record companies.

And I got a record deal through a company here in New York. And you've

several records. Mm -hmm. You've made, what, like 11, I was told? Something

that. Maybe, it might be 14 at this point. I have one Christmas special and

Christmas album coming out.

very soon for Christmas. But I'm assuming, because I want to get to this

window here of something I'm kind of fascinated by, which is that when you

to that point where you're going to go to the level you're at now in terms of

the detail of it, that costs money.

I mean, when you come out there, I mean, I'm not just saying this for your

benefit. They'll tell you. I mean, you're a knockout.

There is this thing. I mean, you talk about it being heightened and women

dress that way.

When my wife puts on a lot of makeup, I go, oh.

It's like, oh, now we're at the Folly Berger all of a sudden. You know what I

mean? Because she normally is a very, she's a beautiful woman, so she needs

less. I always say to my wife, you're the jewelry, honey.

You're the diamond.

Quiet clothes, quiet jewels, quiet hair. When someone's as beautiful as you are,

we do less.

People who do a lot of stuff. But with you, you do a lot of stuff. And you are

beautifully constructed man.

I'm wondering, are you sitting?

I know that sounds weird. I have an image of you.

And you're like sitting in front of a mirror.

Day after day.

And people are even knocking on the door going, Ru, Ru, you got a ticket on the

car, baby. We got to move the car.

You parked the car.

They're ticketing the car. Come out of the bathroom, Ru.

And you're there, Dave, finding that look because your face and your

is the platform of this sensational. You look amazing. You are such a knockout.

You know what I mean?

And the way you hold yourself.

Did someone help you with that? Who is your Bob Mackie in terms of the clothes?

Who helped you realize that? Well, a couple of kids downtown years ago, 25,

years ago, I met them here in New York. And Matthew Anderson and Zaldi, who

still does my costumes today, they helped.

refine the look for me. Once I got the record deal, they helped me refine the

look into the glamazon. But you pick up these things along the way, these sort

of life hacks. In fact, I talk about it in the book Guru, where you find a way

to navigate around certain obstacles.

For example?

Well, first, the number one obstacle for me when I sort of went mainstream was

I had this idea that I was going to be the next David Bowie. I said, okay, I

left the downtown clubs and I was going to go for it. I was going to make a demo

tape. And I started doing this thing, okay, now is the time for me to be

And then someone said to me, said, Ru, okay, that's great, but when are you

going to do your drag thing again? It occurred to me that the universe was

saying,

A little to the left. That's what's working. Do the thing. That's what's

working. Don't fight what's working.

We already have Bowie. We already have Bowie.

And Bowie's sitting home going, I really wish I looked like RuPaul.

Look at how fantastic her eye makeup is.

Exactly.

But that is the major, and I tell this to all the kids who I meet, find,

be clear enough to hear the universe's stage direction. Someone told me that,

and I said, I'm going to do that.

Alec, I tell you, it was like these ancient doors of life.

When I made that decision, do drag and went.

It was like open sesame. And the change was here. It wasn't I didn't change the

world. I changed my mind.

I changed my mind about what I thought it should be. So I tell all these kids

who I see.

Listen for your own GPS system. Listen for the universe's stage direction.

It's there for you.

I want to get to another question in a minute about when you stopped for a

while. But I want to say that when you do this, I kind of loathe these tough

referential points in my own career unless they're useful.

But, like, I'm someone who does a shtick on TV from time to time in the last

couple of years, and I put that orange wig on, and then the wig goes on. I

when I'm walking around, I don't, but the physical accoutrement go on me,

and all of a sudden, I feel it. It's there. Yeah.

And I kind of get there. Is that what happens? Are you you and she's her? And

you're going into that process, is there a moment where all of a sudden you're

like, I'm her?

Absolutely. That's exactly how it works. And also what informs that is how

everyone else reacts to me.

Everyone sees me when I'm in full geish and they're like.

Oh, my God. And it informs how I behave because they're they're looking at me

like literally a queen, like a queen, like royalty. So there's a certain way I

need to behave. But I've also said many times doing drag is like my the Superman

to my Clark Kent. Soon as I put the outfit on, it's like, here I go. Yeah.

But do you do you miss?

the effect that, like, when you're you, are you happy to be you? Or do you sit

there and go, God, I should put that on because I get a better reaction from

people when I'm her. I have more power.

I've said many times, you're born naked and the rest is drag. And my therapist

years ago, probably 20 years ago, I've seen the same one for 20 years, she

you know, the power that you have in drag, you have that out of drag.

That blew my mind. It blew my mind. And so... Now I'm able to do that.

Also, when I'm out of drag, I love to wear a suit.

And I tell kids all the time, you want to make more money?

Wear a suit.

Wear a suit. And that goes for women, too. Take yourself seriously.

Well, and people, you can conduct the energy in the room based on what you're

wearing, just like what you said. You can change how people see you, and you

play it like a symphony, like a conductor, based on what you're wearing.

why, you know, you're born naked and the rest is drag.

Now, when you're doing this, I mean, this is kind of a silly question, but...

When you're doing this kind of work, do you find you have to behave on a

disciplinary level like a glamorous woman does in real life? Has RuPaul ever

gotten on the scale and go, uh -oh, put the dress on, uh -oh?

Or are you always, I mean, you're very reedy and very thin and trim. Has RuPaul

ever, like, gone on a Ben and Jerry's binge and the next day been like, you

know, ah.

Oh, no. You know, absolutely.

There have been times when I've the discipline that's required. There is a

discipline that's required. But also being a sweet, sensitive soul as artists

are, you know, it's a balancing act with spirit and the

saboteur, which is always there. You know, I like to.

project a positive image and i like to stay on the side of joy but i've got the

darkness too and sometimes the scales get a little uh uneven and i head over

to the ice cream part of the don't we all yeah don't we all it's and and that

in the book i keep mentioning it like a pro who's hawking some products here but

uh the book is really a series of mantras and uh totems to help

a human remember who you really are and what you really are is an extension of

the power that created the whole universe

let's

move on down to honey boo boo maybe she's got the match

I drew a picture of a bunny.

Oh, you did.

I'm such an artist.

You call it the exact way I fight for art in school education.

Yes, it's very important.

I'm home -schooled.

You've been doing Drag Race for how long now? It's been ten years.

Ten years? Yes.

Ten years. Ten years.

How was the show and public perception of the show?

And your relationship to your audience changed in those 10 years. Well, in the

past two or three years, we've been on VH1, which is a broader audience. So

people are discovering it for the first time. They may have heard about it, but

they're discovering it now.

And we produce the heck out of this show.

But once you add drag queens to any equation, it becomes its own animal.

There have been times on our show where we're all like... What? What just

happened? These kids who come from these wild backgrounds, real courageous

backgrounds, will drop a bomb like I was left at a bus stop by my mother.

Thrown out of the house. You know, you think, what are these parents thinking?

What are they thinking? Is it just a narcissistic? Are the children just sort

a luxury accessory item? Because if you're not willing to go there with your

children, if you're not willing to experience what life is and create an

atmosphere for them to emerge and grow, what are you doing? You have prompted

me. This discussion of identity has prompted me to think.

What do I want to do and who do I want to be in whatever years I have left that

I don't have the courage to face?

Right, right. Well, the answer is you leave a space for that answer to emerge.

This doesn't have to figure it out. Right.

In your meditation or your spiritual practice.

you create a space for that to emerge. And I'm going to tell you, your children

will also instruct what that is too, and that openness, because this is your

opportunity to relive your childhood and to reparent yourself.

But, you know, being gay was never really a part of why I decided to do

anything. It just happened to be. And the drag, if I didn't do drag again for

the rest of my life, I'd be like, okay.

When did the idea... When you took off for those four years or whatever that

period was, what was the moment when you said, time to get back to work? What

happened? It was a feeling. And what happened was I was offered a job.

Also, you know, part of also wanting to get away, step away, was that, you know,

this was the Bush era. This was a time I could feel, I could sense a hostility

in the air, especially after 9 -11. There was a hostility.

So I wanted to let that settle.

time for me. You know, my point with all of this is that I've been discriminated

by gay people for being femme, by black people for being too white, by white

people for being black. So I've always separated. I've never put a label on any

of that. We have a cliched question here for people who are a woman and African

-American or black and gay, whatever, which was harder for you? Were they both

equally difficult or which was harder?

First of all, life is hard. Let's just put that on the table. I don't care who

you are. Life is hard to negotiate, whether you want to be a success or

you want to just sit home and watch soap operas.

It's hard.

I can only speak from my experience.

And has it been difficult? It's been difficult. But again, the most difficult

thing, the most difficult walls or obstacles I've ever...

approach is my own limited perception of myself.

So I have the power.

I'm not giving the power to the man, the woman, the society.

They don't have the power. I have the power of how I can interpret the

information coming to me.

Shameless plug, shameless plug.

Guru is your book. What do you want to say in a book? Because I struggle with

this. What do you want to say in a book that you haven't already had the

opportunity to say?

Why a book?

Well, this book is really a keepsake for people who need a touchstone to

navigate this life, especially young kids. You know, our show, Drag Race, is

seen around the world. And a lot of young people who have an open heart and

who... right now especially, want help in

directing their heart and how to navigate it. This book is for them. It's

mantras and life hacks that allow you to get through the day. How to keep it

together. How you keep it together. They want to know.

Life is tough for everybody. Life is tough. I love that you said that. And

everybody is looking for the instruction book, and there really isn't an

instruction book.

But this is a start. This is a way to help you help yourself.

Now, in the world we live in today, obviously lines are blurring and

and blurring between what is a man, what is a woman, what is gender identity.

People are on a spectrum. Do you think that there are things about men and

and differences between men and women that we want to maintain?

Well, it's not up to us to maintain it. We just have to experience it. Again,

I'm going back to having children.

Your children don't belong to you. They belong to the world. And they're

actually your teacher.

So are there things I want to maintain?

No, I'm okay with it going however it goes, as if I were a parent. But I'm

willing to adjust myself. I'm willing to die and be reborn into myself at all

times. That is the key to the thing. You know what? I'm going to say this, and

it's going to sound really, really weird, but I mean it. You know who your

energy reminds me of? That is...

Not you personally on any physical level, but your energy reminds me of the

energy of the Beatles.

And that is you make people happy at a time when they needed to be happy.

Kennedy was killed. The country was not looking too good right then. A lot of

sadness, a lot of doubt. And along come these people, people like, oh, God,

let's listen to that. Let's dig that. Let's get into that. And for you, in

watching you.

and experiencing you, you brought, this is such a corny thing to say you brought

so much joy into people's lives and happiness, but you have.

You have made people happy and entertained people, but in a thoughtful

in some kind of silly, like, you know, let's have a cocktail kind of way to

screw everything.

No, I'll take that. That's great. That is great.

Because this is, it's a beautiful gift.

This life and having your health, having a consciousness and being able to do

what you want. You know what I miss? You know, in my day, there was dancing

everywhere. There's no more dancing, Alec. You know, it used to be cocktails,

dancing on signs everywhere.

There's no dancing.

We need to get back to dancing. That is our connection to spirituality. It's a

spiritual practice.

That's our connection to the spirit. I'll never forget. This is so funny. I'm

not a great dancer. And my wife said to me, we're at my wedding rehearsal party.

And she had an uncle.

His name is Ramon.

And we're at the wedding rehearsal party, and he's there, and his wife is a

fabulous dancer dancing around him. And he turns to me, and he goes, there are

so many of me to come dance with them on the floor with this group of people,

all from Spain, in this Manhattan restaurant.

And I'll never forget this guy, Ramon, says to me, he says, Alec, remember

something for the men.

He says, all you have to do is this. There's only one thing you have to do,

Alec. You just do this.

And the woman, she'd dance around you.

So you stand there like this.

You stand there on the dance floor and you just go.

You see dance around you. That's what a man has to do, Alec. I love it. I have

it to myself. My God, I got to move to Spain.

Yeah. Where I have work in Spain. That's right.

That's right.

Thank you so much. Nice to meet you.

Pleasure.

You say that the goal or the policy, however formal that was, has

been for the Norwegian people to give away 1 % of their sovereign wealth per

year. What is it about the Norwegian people that they're so generous in this

to send all that money? I mean, they're doing it on behalf of the planet.

They're doing it just because it's wise and it's right.

But it is kind.

It's extraordinary.

What is it about the Norwegian people? I think there's an understanding that

it's in our nation's interest. We are always discussing what's nation's

today, to have a global system that functions, that addresses the global

Climate is universal. It's going to hit any part of the world.

There's no country that's free of the climate change when it really starts to

accelerate.

The oceans are the same, which we are working a lot on now.

The oceans, you know, if you pollute in Asia, it ends up around the North Pole

in the Norwegian areas.

We find them on the west coast of my country, where I come from. If you go on

the coast there, where the Gulf Stream is passing our country, you will find

plastic litter, but other types of litter from all around the world.

It's both American, British, but also from Asia.

Coming to your shores.

That's why we believe in global commitment to work together

fight these things and to join forces on it. Because we are not alone in this

world, and everything will hit us if we don't try to solve them.

How did that start in your country? Whose idea was that?

Well, I think for a long time we've had a...

policy in Norway of trying to reach one percentage of a gross national income

through development aid.

And the question ought to the global issues in a way. And I think it's

been fundamental.

I mean, I was a Girl Scout. We did work like that when I was very young. So I

think we're all accustomed to the fact that we could participate in solving

global problems.

It's also self -interest.

There is no country in this world that now can live without, you know, the

effects of other countries' activities.

So, of course, climate is one of those global challenges that you have to have

global answers and local activity around.

But I think in a Norwegian sense, people just think that there is a joint

responsibility. Not everybody, of course. I mean, I always get this

Facebook of why are you giving away money, but you pool it.

70 % of the Norwegians say yes. Or an agreement with what you're doing. We

should give aid.

Now, for Americans who don't understand, on the broader sense, the oil fields in

the Arctic where Norway is extracting this oil, those finds were made when?

Well, we are still searching for oil in some areas, which is new. But we also

have oil that we started to, well, we developed around year 2000,

producing in the north of Norway. But we still are looking for oil and gas in

those areas.

And I know that this might sound strange because why should we produce oil and

gas? And I say, well, I don't think it's the production you should stop. I think

you should stop the consumption.

And if we don't produce, others will produce. And we do much higher

environmental standards than most countries. And we also...

Tech's much higher. The CO2 emissions to production is tech's much higher and

over than I think anywhere else.

So our production is cleaner. And in Europe, it's also about security.

I mean, we are the second largest gas supplier to Europe.

Russia is the largest.

We are one of the other.

And gas is going to be a mid -term, you know, the next 50 years, gas to Europe

is going to be an environmentally good solution because they're using so much

coal. So we have to have this pragmatic view also that you don't stop it by just

stopping producing oil, but you have to work a lot on the renewables. But all

renewable systems need a stabilizer. They need to either have a battery

or they have to have something that kicks in.

if the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. So you were at the UN and

you saw the President of the United States speak, and globalization is

not on his mind. He was pretty upfront about that. How does that make you feel?

We're not here to bash Trump. I fundamentally disagree with him on that

I mean, it's also in the US interest, like it is in the Norwegian interest, to

make sure that we together can solve these big international issues that need

global governance.

I think we all can criticize how efficient global governance is

We can say that the UN isn't functioning well enough, that other institutions

aren't functioning well enough, but then we have to work on repairing them and

not do this just bilateral because we will not end up, we will not solve these

large problems. Were people disappointed by those statements in the global

community? He's not the only one who is there now, you know, on more

nationalistic rhetoric and saying, you know, you put your own interests first.

But the general feeling, I think, is that this is the wrong path.

We have large global problems that have to be solved together.

There's no place, especially not the U .S., who is the biggest economy, very

dependent on global economy for a lot of other activities, can't just count

itself out of this.

Your career in politics.

began when? What was your first office you were elected to?

Well, the first office I was elected to, of course, was I was elected to the

city council when I was 19.

So I was this youth activist.

Then I stopped for some years, and then I came back and got elected to

parliament when I was 28.

And you're a conservative.

I'm a conservative.

The opposition party there is referred to as what?

It's social democratic.

How would you most appropriately delineate between the two?

What issue do they butt heads about most?

Immigration? No, not so much immigration as on private,

public, you know, how much should the private sector work on public issues

health care and others? You know, in Norway, 85 % of the health care system

public. It's run by the state.

So we would have, you know, how large part can the private sector be into

How do you feel about that? I think that the private sector sometimes brings

innovation in ways and types of doing it. But I very firmly believe that there

should be a...

People should not pay for it. It should be free and the access should be the

same. But the government should sometimes buy from private suppliers so

can get that type of innovation that you sometimes get outside the public

sector. And it's a little bit more difficult inside the public sector.

one area.

Taxes, of course, is a bit different between our parties.

But being a conservative in a European sense, especially a Nordic sense, is

quite different from, I think, conservatism in the U .S. these days.

We are free market believers, like the Republican Party used to be.

But we believe in social conscience, and we believe, in fact, that the state has

a big role in supplying basic goods, like we have free education, free health

care in our society.

If you go to the doctor, you pay a minimum, you know, part, but, I mean,

-thirds is paid by the government. But if you're in hospital, it's free. And we

believe in these things because we think it's efficient to do it in a country,

to deliver services that way, and that it's an...

very important part of our society that we have confidence in each other.

People pool, you know, our institutions very high interest.

They believe that we are in this together and that they have respect that

politicians of Norway, in fact, might disagree on the way forward, but they

working in the interest of the people. And that's, I think, extremely...

important to have because you can go through much more difficult times if you

have this feeling of togetherness in a society, which I think is extremely

important to have.

Now, obviously, there are a myriad of things you can do with this sovereign

wealth that you so generously give to these environmental programs.

Why deforestation? Why does Norway believe that protecting forests is so

critical? Because they are binding the most CO2 of everything.

Oceans and rainforests are extremely important for the balance. So you can do

lot of policies in your own country, but if we cut down the rainforests, it will

have results that are much more devastating than the national policies

So we want more countries to participate in these programs. We want more to

understand that these are the lungs.

important things, but they are binding, forests are binding so much CO2 that if

they are cut down, it will accelerate the climate change.

How old are your children now?

19 and 21.

Was it difficult for you to serve your country and to work in politics in

and function as a mother at the same time? Or does Norway make that easier?

No, I think it's easier to be...

A woman will have a career in Norway because we have good care systems.

Maternity policy. We have maternity policy.

A family can have a year of parental leave when they have children

with 80 % pay, a little bit less if you take 100%. When I had my first child, I

was home for four months, and then my husband was home for seven months. So he

took the most part of that.

And I think that's also the key to it. Yes, that's the key to the issue. I

in a family, you are two grown -ups.

So it's about dividing it. And in my marriage, my career has had a priority

towards this. So he has been the one who's been making dinner.

When I was a minister, he was making dinner.

And I tried to... He's become much better, I usually say.

He wasn't very interested in that before I became a minister. Very good. Yes,

but he's become much better. Now he likes it very much.

What's the hardest part of being prime minister of Norway?

Eating your husband's cooking.

It's not that hard to be prime minister of Norway, but of course, like for every

politician, I think there is a demand for quick solutions, easy answers to

difficult issues.

And we live in a world now where the easy answer is often asked for,

and you can't always give easy answers. I mean, to understand that this world is

complicated, it's interlinked, it sometimes gets a little bit longer

that you have to work on different parts. to get people to understand that,

say it's not just yes and no.

We always go into a political debate show and they say, please ask yes and no

this, I hope to and fro. And I say...

Sometimes it's nearly impossible to do that because there is interlinkage

between problems.

I want to finish by restating what I said before, which is that in the global

environmental community, there was no hero who was more admired than the

of Norway. And I want to say what a great honor it is to have you on the

Thank you very much. Madam Prime Minister, and thank you very much.

Not only has Norway remained a strong supporter of the Paris Climate Accord,

they are actually doing more than is being asked of them in terms of reducing

their carbon footprint.

Now we leave you tonight with a story from earlier in the show as animated by

acclaimed illustrator Stephen Brodner. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you

time.

I wouldn't say dress up as a woman. I dress up in drag. It's separate for me

because women don't dress that way. Drag is a super heightened fantasy and it's

a commentary on our culture's idea of a synthetic woman. And listen, Dolly

Parton is a drag queen.

Prince was a drag queen. James Brown. It's a super heightened image.

Pop it up. Pop it up. So that's all drag. That's there. Carol Channing was a

drag queen. Absolutely. And still is. In Palm Springs right now, she's doing

drag right now.

She's a drag queen. You've educated me. They're drag queens. And that's why gay

men gravitate toward these super heightened feminine images like Joan

and Diana Ross and Cher and Dolly Parton and Elvis.

I've never dressed like a woman because women don't dress that way. Women

actually wear T -shirt and jeans, really.