60 Minutes - Sunday, September 10, 2017

Episode Date: September 11, 2017

Steve Bannon joins Charlie Rose for his first extended interview since leaving the White House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $5. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, English muffin sandwiches, value iced coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. The Republican establishment you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling.

The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That's a brutal fact we have to face. The Republican establishment. The Republican establishment. Wants to nullify the 2016 election. Trying to nullify the 2016 election. Absolutely. Who?

I think Mitch McConnell, and to to a degree Paul Ryan. They do not want Donald Trump's populist economic nationalist agenda to be implemented. It's very obvious. In his first television interview since leaving the White House, Steve Bannon talks about the president's policies and controversies and a new mission to brawl with anyone who gets in Donald Trump's way. They're going to be held accountable if they do not support the president of the United States. Right now, there's no accountability. And then that you're out of the White House, you go into war with them. Absolutely.

For five weeks, this no man's land of ice was home to an expeditionary team of sailors, scientists, and engineers whose mission was to understand how to survive in maybe the most hostile conditions on Earth. How cold does it get up here? It's about 25 below zero with a windshield. The stakes are high. Trillions of dollars of natural gas and oil long buried under the seafloor. Which is one reason we came upon a U.S. attack submarine in a most unlikely way. I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker.

I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Charlie Rose. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, during his brief tenure in the West Wing and his few months as CEO of President Trump's campaign, earned many nicknames among his admirers and his ever-expanding list of enemies.

He was the great manipulator, Trump's Bengali, the grim reaper, propagandist-in-chief. He describes himself as a street fighter, and he proved it in this, his first ever television interview. Bannon is back running Breitbart News, the website where the alt-right and conspiracy theories meet conventional conservatives. The street fighter, shiv in hand, came ready to brawl, and not with liberals or Democrats. The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That's a brutal fact we have to face. The Republican establishment? The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. Trying to nullify the 2016 election. Absolutely. Who? I think Mitch McConnell, and to a degree, Paul Ryan. They do not want Donald Trump's populist, economic, nationalist agenda to be implemented.

It's very obvious. It's obvious as night follows day. Give me a story that illustrates that. Well, Mitch McConnell, when we first met him, he said, I think in one of the first meetings in Trump Tower with the president, as we're wrapping up, he basically says, I don't want to hear any more of this drain the swamp talk. He says, I can't hire any smart people because everybody's all over him for reporting requirements and the pay, et cetera, and the scrutiny. You know, you've got to back off that.

The drain the swamp thing was Mitch McConnell was day one, did not want to go there, wanted us to back off. You are attacking on many fronts people who you need to help you to get things done. They're not going to help you unless they're put on notice. They're going to be held accountable if they do not support the president of the United States. Right now, there's no accountability. They have totally, they do not support the president's program. It's an open secret on Capitol Hill. Everybody in this city knows it.

And so therefore, now that you're out of the White House, you go into war with them. Absolutely. Have you cleaned the swamp? Well, first off, okay, the swamp is 50 years in the making. Let's talk about the swamp. The swamp is a business model. It's a successful business model. It's a donor, consultant, K Street lobbyist, politician.

Seven of the nine biggest, wealthiest counties in America ring Washington, D.C. What are you talking about when you talk about the swamp? You're talking about the lobbyists and the people. The permanent political class is represented by both parties. You're not going to drain that in eight months. You're not going to drain it in two terms. This is going to take 10, 15, 20 years of relentlessly going after it. So you win the election. You go through a transition. A lot of

people might join the cabinet, didn't Rudy, Newt, Christie. And that's 48 hours after we won. There's a fundamental decision that was made. You might call it the original sin of the administration. We embrace the establishment. I mean, we totally embraced the establishment. I think in President Trump's mind, or President-elect Trump's mind, and in Jared's mind, in the family's mind, I actually agreed with the decision. Because you had to stand for government. And to be brutally frank, you know, the campaign, look, I'd never been on a campaign in my entire life, right? You know, I'm a former investment banker as a media guy running a little website. We were, our whole campaign was a little bit the island of misfit toys.

So he looks around and I'm wearing my combat jacket. I haven't shaved. I got my hairs down to here. And he says he's thinking, hey, I've got to put together a government. I got to really staff out something. I need to embrace the establishment. I need to govern. I need to govern.

Let's go down the list of what things that Donald Trump wanted. He wanted to do away with Obamacare, repeal and replace. It didn't happen. The very first meetings we had with the Republican establishment, here was the plan that was laid out. The plan was to do Obamacare because remember, Paul Ryan and these guys come in and said, we've done this for seven years. We've voted on this 50 times. We understand this issue better than anybody. We know how to repeal and we know how to replace. And this is ours. That's where we're going to start with day one. And we will have something on your desk by Easter, by the Easter break, we'll do repeal and replace. Come back from Easter and all the

way up to the August break, taxes. Come back from the summer break on Labor Day, and we drive home to the end of the year on infrastructure. We accomplish all three big legislative goals in the first year. They would take- This is what the leadership in the House and Senate told you. And we agreed to, that was the deal. So you're saying I'm blaming them for all of this? I'm not blaming this, I'm not blaming this for all of this. What I'm saying is that when left to even repeal it, in June, in the Senate, they put up for a vote. They only had 41 votes.

There is wide discrepancy in the Republican Party, as we know today, now that we're in it. But I will tell you, leadership didn't know it at the time. They didn't know it to the very end. And let me tell you about Obamacare. There is something that's being worked on right now to fix Obamacare. And that came up. To fix Obamacare. It does not. To about Obamacare. There's something that's being worked on right now to fix Obamacare. And that came up to fix Obamacare. It does not fix Obamacare.

Hang on. It does not. Well, hang on. It does not totally. Have we come to that where the choice is simply to fix Obamacare? I think the choice is going to be you're not going to be able to totally repeal it. Do you accept no responsibility for the failures of this administration? When you say failures, it's eight months in. Give me a failure. Obama didn't have Obamacare for the first 18 months. You're holding him to an unfair standard. We interviewed Steve Bannon Wednesday at his home in Washington, which doubles as the headquarters of Breitbart News. The interview was a day after the Trump administration announced it would end DACA, the program that provides legal protection for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

President Trump gave Congress six months to sort it out, but Bannon believed the program should be abolished. I'm worried about losing the House now because of DACA. And my fear is that with this six months downrange, if we have another huge, if this goes all the way down to its logical conclusion in February and March, it will be a civil war inside the Republican Party that will be every bit as vitriolic as 2013. And to me, doing that in the springboard of primary season for 2018 is extremely unwise. The president made the wrong decision? I think... The president made the wrong decision. You wanted him to go for a bore.

I think what we have to do is focus on the American citizens. I think we have to focus on American citizens. So what would you do with the people who came here? I think that... You saw the memo. But just tell me what you would do. I think as the work permits run out, they self-deport. They self-deport.

Yes. I am absolutely... That's being deported. There's no path to citizenship, no path to a green card, and no amnesty. Amnesty is non-negotiable. America was in the eyes of so many people, and it's what people respect America for, it is people have been able to come here, find a place, contribute to the economy. That's what immigration has been in America.

And you seem to want to turn it around and stop it. You could be more dead wrong. America was built on her citizens. We're all immigrants. America was built on her citizens. Except the all immigrants. America was built on her citizens. Except the Native Americans over here. Don't give me, this is the thing of the left. Charlie, that's beneath you.

America's built on our citizens. Look at the 19th century. What built America is called the American system. From Hamilton to Polk to Henry Clay to Lincoln to the Roosevelts. A system of protection of our manufacturing, financial system that lends to manufacturers, to the Roosevelts. A system of protection of our manufacturing, financial system that lends to manufacturers, and a control of our borders. Economic nationalism is what this country was built on,

the American system. We go back to that. We look after our own. We look after our citizens. We look after our manufacturing base. And guess what? This country is going to be greater, more united, more powerful than it's ever been.

And this is not astrophysics. Okay, and by the way, that's every nationality, every race, every religion, every sexual preference. As long as you're a citizen of our country, as long as you're an American citizen, you're part of this populist economic nationalist movement. Can I remind you, a good Catholic,

that Cardinal Dohler is opposed to what's happening with DACA. Cardinal Dolan. The Catholic Church has been terrible about this. The bishops have been terrible about this. By the way, you know why? Because unable to really come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens. They need illegal aliens to fill the churches. It's obvious on the face of it.

That's what the entire Catholic bishop's condemning. They have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration. Boy, that's a tough thing to say about your church. As much as I respect Cardinal Dolan and the bishops on doctrine, this is not doctrine. This is not doctrine at all. Let me talk about it.

I totally respect the Pope and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine. This is not about doctrine. This is about the sovereignty of a nation. And in that regard, they're just another guy with an opinion. So how do you want to be perceived, you, today, because you have a media image? The media image, I think, is pretty accurate. I'm a street fighter. That's what I am. You're more than that. No, I think I'm a street fighter. By the way, I think that's why Donald Trump and I get along so well. Donald Trump's a fighter. Great counterpuncher. Great counterpuncher. He's a fighter. I'm going to be his wingman outside

for the entire time. So you'll not be attacking Donald Trump in your role? No. Our purpose is to support Donald Trump. And destroy his enemies? To make sure his enemies know that there's no free shot on goal. By the way, after the Charlottesville situation, I told General Kelly, I was the only guy that came out and tried to defend him. I was the only guy that said, he's talking about something, taking it up to a higher level.

Where did this all go? Where does this end? Does it end in taking down the Washington Monument? Does it end in taking down? I tell you where many people suggest it should have gone. It should have gone in terms of denouncing, specifically from the very beginning, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and people of that political view. And he should have gone there because

those were people that Americans in World War II went to fight against. And he should have instantly have denounced them. And you didn't at first instinct. In fact, you seem to be doubling down in terms of a moral equivalency. What he was trying to say is that people that support the monument staying there peacefully and people that oppose that, that's the normal course of First Amendment.

But he's talking about the neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates in the Klan, who, by the way, are absolutely awful. There's no room in American politics for that. There's no room in American society for that. My problem, my problem, and I told General Kelly this, when you side with a man, you side with him. I was proud to come out and try to defend President Trump in the media that day. There are no exceptions in terms of siding with someone? You can tell him, hey, maybe you could do it a better way. But if you're going to break,

then resign. If you're going to break with him, resign. The stuff that was leaked out that week by certain members of the White House, I thought was unacceptable. If you find it unacceptable, you should resign. So who are you talking about? I'm talking, obviously, about Gary Cohn and some other people. That if you don't like what he's doing and you don't agree with it, you have an obligation to resign. So Gary Cohn should have resigned. Absolutely. Were you upset about it?

I was of the opinion that you should condemn both the racists and the neo-Nazis because they're getting a free ride. Hang on. They're getting off a free ride off Donald Trump. They're getting a free ride because it's a small group. It's a vicious group. They add no value. And all they do is show up in the mainstream media and the left wing media makes them up in some huge part of Donald Trump's coalition. David Duke.

They're not. David Duke shows up for every media opportunity because you guys put the cameras. Well, but the media does not make David Duke say what he says, that he applauded what the president did. That's what David Duke did. David, the president has condemned David Duke and what David Duke stands for. Everybody listening to you who talks about one of the great issues in American life today, which is the plight of the middle class. But they also believe that there is, on your part and the president's part, not enough appreciation for some of the values also that made America great.

And you don't appreciate that. And you don't appreciate the diversity. You don't appreciate the respect for civil rights. I was raised in a desegregated neighborhood. The north side of Richmond is predominantly black. I went to an integrated school, a Catholic school. I served in the military. I don't need to be lectured by a bunch of limousine liberals from the Upper East Side of New York and from the Hamptons about any of this. My lived experience is that. New York's from the Hamptons, okay, about any of this. My lived experience is that.

New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan, citing both Hebrew scripture and the New Testament, calls Steve Bannon's criticism of the church's support for immigrants preposterous and so ridiculous that it doesn't merit a comment. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. Steve Bannon's strategy during his time as CEO of the Trump campaign helped turn conventional politics on its head. before the administration even began, President Trump's upset victory faced investigations into whether it was won under a shadow of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

There's nothing to the Russia investigation. It's a waste of time. What do you believe? You know what the national security institutions believe. What do you believe? What do you mean what they believe? We don't really, I mean, that there may have been. I think, look, I was there.

It's a total and complete farce. Russian collusion is a farce. Okay, I didn't say collusion. Did the Russians try to influence the election? If you consider maybe something they did at the DNC. Maybe something they did. Maybe something. That's not what the CIA believes. That's not what the FBI believes. Have you seen the intelligence reports? No. Okay,

fine. So you don't know. Have you seen intelligence reports? I have seen the intelligence reports. Are you saying to me those intelligence reports do not suggest that the Russians tried to influence elections? I would never devolve classified information on this show. But let me tell you, I think it's far from conclusive that the Russians had any impact on this election. Well, that's not the question. Did they try to influence the American election? That's what the investigation is about. We'll have to wait until the investigation is finished.

Why does the president find it so hard to criticize Russia? Charlie, this is what stuns me. I don't think the president goes out of his way. His point is, why pick another fight? We've got enough problems around the world. So don't criticize the Russians because we don't need another fight. He criticizes the Russians all the time. He knows the Russians are not good guys.

We should be focused on how we bring the Cold War to an end. So we don't have to, and I think it was President Obama's program, $1 trillion to upgrade the nuclear arsenal. Is that what you want to do? Is that where you want to spend your money? Would you rather spend a trillion dollars in Cleveland, in Baltimore, in the inner cities of this country where we need to spend it, in the heartland of this nation? And I think what he's trying to say, in a world of anarchy, do you need another enemy? I don't know of a higher priority for you than going to economic war with China. Donald Trump, for 30 years, has singled out China as the biggest single problem we have on the world stage.

The elites in this country have got us in a situation where it's not economic war with China. China's at economic war with us, okay? You want a trade war with China. I want China to stop appropriating our technology. China is, through forced technology transfer and through stealing our technology, but really forced technology transfer, is cutting out the beating heart of American innovation. We asked Steve Bannon how he responds to criticisms of President Trump on national security that have been made by members of his own party.

On the campaign, what did the mainstream media say all the time about Donald Trump and national security? He's a madman. He's crazy. The Republican establishment came out, all the Bush guys came out on all those ads, okay? He's irresponsible. He should not be allowed around the nuclear trigger. And going after the establishment, just like in national security, he's done it in a prudent method. It's not just those guys. It's the former national director of intelligence. Absolutely.

James Clapper. Exactly. Said he might not be trusted. This is, once again, where the narrative is dead wrong. And by the way, they had all the stuff in the Wall Street Journal, the signed advertisements from all the geniuses in the Bush administration that got us here. The geniuses in the Bush administration that let China in the WTO and genius in the Bush administration told us, hey, they're going to be a liberal democracy. They're going to be free market capitalism. OK, the same geniuses that got us into Iraq. That's the geniuses

of the Bush administration. I hold these people in contempt, total and complete contempt. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. It gets all over me like nothing else. And you know why? They're idiots. And they've gotten us in this situation. And they question a good man like Donald Trump. I don't want to name names. Well, you have to name names because you're painting with a broad brush and that's unfair. The Condi Rice, the George W. Bush, his entire national security apparatus and the Skolkoff, Colin Powell. Yes. Condi Rice. Absolutely. Dick Cheney. All of it. All of it. All of it.

By the way, the Obama crowd, almost the same. Clinton crowd, almost the same. It's three. It's three administrations. President Trump made Steve Bannon CEO of his campaign just three months before election day. The campaign's biggest crisis was an October surprise when a 2005 video surfaced of Mr. Trump using vulgar language to describe his encounters with women. He made those remarks on a bus to TV host Billy Bush. Any truth that he's dropping out? No. The Trump family and senior advisors held emergency weekend meetings. Those meetings included New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus. And Trump went around the room and asked people the percentages he thought of still winning and what the recommendation. And Reince started off and

Reince said, you have two choices. You either drop out right now or you lose by the biggest landslide in American political history. And Trump, with his humor, goes, that's a great way to start our conversation. We went around the room and you could tell, I could tell from the incoming of politicians and I could tell from some of the politicians that were there, is that the natural inclination of politicians are to be so overwhelmingly stunned and shocked by how the media comes on you. But Trump wasn't that. And I told him as he went around, I was the last guy to speak.

And I said, it's 100 percent. You have 100 percent probability of winning. And that's the first time. But you seem to have done that at every point in the campaign when he was in trouble, asking him to double down on his rhetoric, double down in terms of appealing to his base. Appealing to the American people and to the working class people in this country, absolutely. You know why? Because it was a winner.

That's why I told him, double down every time. And on that day, that's the first time and only time he ever got upset with me. He goes, come on, it's not 100%. I go, it's absolutely 100%. And I told him why. They don't care. And they do care about respect for women. They do.

They do. And it's not just locker room talk. It's locker They do. And it's not just locker room talk. It's locker room talk. The Billy Bush thing is locker room talk. Did you lose confidence of anybody because they came at you at that point and said, look, he ought to get out of this race other than Reince Priebus? I mean, did your attitude towards those people who said that, you're just wrong? Absolutely. Billy Bush Saturday, to me, is a litmus test.

It's a litmus test. And I said it the other day to General Kelly during the Charlottesville thing afterwards. It's a line I remember from the movie The Wild Bunch. William Holden uses it right before that huge gunfight at the end. When you side with a man, you side with him. Okay? The good and the bad. You can criticize him behind, but when you side with him, you have to side with him.

And that's what Billy Bush weekend showed me. Well, you took names on Billy Bush Sunday, didn't you? I did. I got them. I got it. You know, I'm Irish. I got it. Got my black book and I got him. Christie, because of Billy Bush weekend and was was not looked at for a cabinet position. He wasn't there for you on Billy Bush weekend, so therefore he doesn't get a cabinet position. I told him the plane leaves at 11 o'clock in the morning. If you're on the plane, you're on the team.

Didn't make the plane. In all the conversations about you, there's this Saturday Night Live image. Okay, Donald, that's enough fun for tonight. Can I have my desk back? Yes, of course, Mr. President. I'll go sit at my desk. It basically shows you some Bengali. Actually, the Grim Reaper.

The Grim Reaper. Right. I don't need affirmation of the mainstream media. I don't care what they say. I don't care what they say. They can call me an anti-Semite. They can call me racist. They can call me a native.

They can call me anything you want. Okay? As long as we're driving this agenda for the working men and women in this country, I'm happy. To be this strong a defender. Why aren't you there? Why? And would the president of the United States who you applaud so loudly have allowed you to leave if he didn't want you out? No, it's the exact opposite.

I was a staffer. Look, I'm not cut out to be a staffer. In the White House, you're a staffer. No, your title was not staffer. Your title was chief strategist. You are a staffer. I was a federal government employee. There's certain things you can't do. I cannot take the fight to who you have to take the fight to

when I'm an advisor to the president as a federal government employee. You can't do it. You know that this White House leaks like nobody's ever seen a White House leak. And that's where the reporters are getting the story. And they're getting a story about conflict between you and H.R. McMaster. They're getting stories about conflict between you and Jared Kushner and you and Iv. Trump, they're getting all these stories because people in the White House, including you, are leaking. You know that. And you have, in fact, said no administration in history has been so divided among itself about the direction about where it should go. So I want to know from you, what's the divide?

The divide is, first off, President Trump and the way President Trump has always run his organizations. He will always take divergent views. I think that's healthy because I think for an idea, a Darwinian environment for ideas is positive. Now, the one thing I disagree with is that I think there has been a divide in this administration from the beginning. It's quite obvious. There's one group of people that on the campaign, and by the way, it's basically the campaign and some additional came on that said, all you have to do is do what you said you were going to do in these major areas. Let's punch out one thing after the other. You're going to keep your coalition together and we're going to add to it over time as you're successful. There's another group that

has said, let's compromise and let's try to reach out to Democrats and let's try to work on things that we can do together. Did General Kelly say to you, you got to go? Absolutely not. I went to General Kelly on August 7th, saying my one year anniversary is coming up. And in fact, when I went to him on the 7th and said, hey, I'm going to put in my letter of resignation. I'm going to be out of here on the 14th. It'll be one year to the date. But by that time, and you know this, you were isolated inside the White House. That's absolutely not true. I had the same influence on the president I had on day one. This is the first television interview you've done. Yes, ever. What I have received from you

in this conversation is Donald Trump, you believe, is a historic figure. You believe that Donald Trump, I mean, has been without criticism. And I don't believe you're the kind of person that doesn't give him the same kind of criticism. It's not without criticism. And you haven't made that criticism. I think if there's one criticism or one observation is that the president, in coming here, right, has still thought, at least in the beginning of his administration, that it's about personalities. And if I can change this personality or if I can get this guy on my side, I can do that.

It's not what the institutional logic is. I think some of that was with the FBI and others in the State Department and how his foreign policy is playing out. But I believe you're going to see over time, he's going to have a greater appreciation that this is a city of institutions and you must engage them as institutions, not just persons does that mean he'll be more quote presidential i think by the way i think when you say presidential i think he's very presidential okay i think he's very presidential this is one of the things he uses but okay he uses twitter

and not they used to call me oh you're the enabler of the Twitter. I think what he does on Twitter is extraordinary. He disintermediates the media. He goes above their head and talks directly to the American people. It's not a question of going over the head of the media. It's what he says. It's what he says. No, it's what he says that you deem that the mainstream media, the pearl-cl that the mainstream media, the pearl clutching, the pearl clutching mainstream media, the pearl clutching mainstream media, what they deem is not correct.

What they deem is not right. No, it's not a question of being right or not right. It's a question of what's appropriate. It's a question. It's not a question of appropriateness. It's a question of whether it's in his interest. That's the point. I think not the appropriateness of it. I don't think he needs, I don't think he needs the Washington Post and the New York Times and CBS News. And I don't believe he thinks that they're looking out for what's in his best interest. Okay. He's not going to believe that. I don't believe that. And you don't believe that. Okay. This is another standard and judgment that you rain upon him in the effort to destroy Donald Trump. He knows he's speaking directly to the people who put him in office when he uses Twitter. And it sometimes is not in the custom and tradition of what the opposition party deems

is appropriate. You're you're absolutely correct. It's not. And he's not going to stop. And by the way, General Kelly, who I have the most tremendous respect for and has put in very tight processes, he's not going to be able to control it either because it's Donald Trump. It's Donald Trump talking directly to the American people. And say something else. You're going to get some good there. And every now and again, you're going to get some less good. OK, but you're just going to have to live with it. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more.

Play it at play.it. The sea ice over the Arctic is melting and shrinking so fast, we will see in our lifetime something that hasn't happened, it's believed, since the end of the last ice age, the opening of an ocean, the Arctic Ocean, and with that, access to trade routes and trillions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas, almost as much as the entire U.S. economy. But as we reported last fall, this isn't a story about climate change. This is a story about the competition for those riches.

The Russians, for instance, have already amassed a major military presence in the region. It's also about pioneers, U.S. scientists and naval personnel, learning to tough it out in the harshness of this still ice-covered frontier. We discovered just how harsh on a trip to the Arctic. The Arctic Ocean sits on top of the globe, encircled by Russia, which encompasses about half of its coastline, Norway, Greenland, Canada, and the United States, thanks to Alaska. We flew as guests of the Navy from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,

200 miles in the direction of the North Pole, over fractured, thinning ice, to a spot where the ice was still thick enough to support this base camp. It was a small, temporary village, disrupting the peace and purity of the ice, white as far as the eye can see. The camp was built for a scientific and military exercise called IceX 2016. Hi, everyone. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Welcome. Welcome. For five weeks, this no man's land of ice was home to an expeditionary team of sailors, scientists, and engineers whose mission was to understand how to survive in maybe the most hostile conditions on Earth.

The Navy says those taking part in this exercise are the first humans ever to set foot on this part of the planet. It's actually beautiful beyond belief, isn't it? It really is. Chuck McGuire was one of the first to arrive. He's an engineer with the University of Washington's Applied Physics Lab that was brought in to build this camp from scratch. So you get off the plane, there's nothing. There's no shelter. There's no indoors. No. There was just ice. Ice everywhere.

That's right. And you say, how am I going to survive? You pick up a hammer and start building. They built a makeshift city called Sargo for roughly 60 people, consisting of a command post, tight living quarters, a mess hall stocked with food airlifted in weekly, and some very primitive toilet facilities. That outhouse is really cold.

Outhouse is awful. Oh, my God. What about water? You can't just eat the ice, right? You can if you know what you're looking for. This ice mining team knows what to look for, old sea ice that's been baking in the sun long enough that the salt has leached out. Ice mining team, ice mining team, we are returning back to camp. They bring back chunks to melt down into the camp's only drinking water. All the things that you take for granted in normal civilization, right? Shelter, food,

the ease of going to the bathroom, right? That is all different out here. What qualities do you think it takes to stay here and survive out here for weeks? I think maybe you have to be a little off initially and really understand that everything outside that door is trying to kill you here. Another successful day here at Sargo. There's a daily briefing in the command post to coordinate the various researchers who are studying and trying to understand this part of the world as they plan for a more sustained presence here. They're analyzing, among other things, The ice floes moved about nine miles to the west-northwest today.

how climate change is affecting the way the ice here drifts and migrates. It feels like you're on land. You get the sense that you're on land. It's very firm and, you know, the plane could land. But we're moving, which is kind of astonishing. I think every day it's interesting to wake up and recognize you're eight or nine miles The plane could land. But we're moving, which is kind of astonishing. I think every day it's interesting to wake up and recognize you're eight or nine miles from where you were the day before. It looks the same, but it's pretty interesting to figure that out. The ice moves that much every day in unpredictable directions because of the currents underwater and the wind above.

Down here we're 23 degrees Celsius. Also unpredictable is the weather. We met a team of meteorologists using balloons to help with forecasting, which is key for any military operation. So these balloons measure your temperature, your dew point, the wind speed. Commander Scott Parker, a meteorologist with the Navy's Atlantic Submarine Force, says there's virtually no weather data collected up here. In other parts of the world, meteorologists rely on satellites for forecasting. But up here near the North Pole,

satellite coverage is minimal. How cold does it get up here? Because it's right now, I don't know. It's freezing, right? The lowest we've had is 26 below Fahrenheit. And today's actually our warmest day. Come on. Right now is six below. And with this windchill factor, because the wind is really blowing. It is. It is terrible. It's about 25 below zero with a windchill. And you're telling me this is the warmest day you've had? This is the warmest day we've had so far. Do you want to go inside? I do. Let's go. The temperature can drop to as low as 50 below, and that can wreak havoc on just about everything, including these Navy divers who were here to test their latest cold weather gear and their endurance in the frigid water. These robotics engineers are conducting underwater experiments in a temperature-controlled tent. When we were there, Doug Horner and his team

were field testing these underwater drones for the first time in the Arctic. When we first put it in, we checked the ballast. The drones are collecting scientific data about the Arctic, where the water gets warmer the deeper you go. They're also getting a picture of what it looks like down below. My primary emphasis here is the ability to map the under ice. So we have sensors, sonar specifically, which is sound, which is focused upwards. And what we hope to do with continually putting sound upwards is to make a map. You're mapping the bottom of the ice? Yes,

the underneath portion of the ice. And why is that important? I want to be able to navigate relative to that. So this is the idea of being able to navigate an underwater robot accurately without GPS. Because in the ice, you don't have the opportunity to being able to navigate an underwater robot accurately without GPS. Because in the ice, you don't have the opportunity to come up to the surface for a GPS fix. He says these drones could also be used to patrol the waters of the Arctic, looking for enemy subs, for instance, the way drones hover in the sky over a battlefield. The Navy is testing this technology and amassing all of this research to prepare for an expanded presence in the Arctic as the ice continues to melt.

The Russians are already there in force. In 2015, they staged a military exercise in the Arctic as seen in this Russian Ministry of Defense footage. It involved about 40,000 troops, 15 submarines, 41 warships, and multiple aircraft. No one disputes their right to do that on their own territory. It's just that it wasn't announced. We pre-announce ours. No one is surprised by them, whereas the exercise that Russia did was a snap exercise, which is a bit

destabilizing. Until last year, retired four-star General Philip Breedlove was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO with responsibility for the Arctic. What else is destabilizing, he says, is Russia's military buildup along something called the Northern Sea Route, skirting the Russian Arctic coastline. The route could become an alternative to the Suez Canal, saving huge amounts of time and money for the commercial shipping industry. I have heard as much as 28 days decrease in some of the transit from the northern European markets to the Asian markets. That is an

incredible economic opportunity, and it could be a very big boon to business around the world. What would it mean if the Russians did gain control over the northern sea route? If the Russians had the ability to militarily hold that at ransom, that is a big lever over the world economy. So tell us in a nutshell what's happening. Along that route, what we see is Russia upgrading over 50 airfields and ports, 14 of them to be done this year, increasing the number of ground troops, putting in surface-to-air missiles, putting in sensors that could be used to guide weapons, that could be used to deny access.

In 2007, Russia went so far as to plant its flag on the seafloor under the North Pole. I think it's important to understand what the deputy prime minister said, that the Arctic is a part of Russia, that they will provide the defense for the Arctic, and that they will make money in the Arctic, and that the Western world may therefore bring sanctions on them. But that's okay, because tanks don't need visas. I think it sends a pretty clear message.

The U.S. has not tried to match the Russian buildup. The Navy relying on its fleet of nuclear and attack submarines, the most powerful in the world. When we were there, the Navy was conducting a submarine warfare exercise, something it does in the Arctic every two years. When a sub surfaces in the Arctic, they use shovels to carve a visual landmark in the ice that the sub can see. X literally marks the spot. But that X is a moving target because of the drifting ice. There we go. Which makes maneuvering a windowless steel cylinder the size of a football

field to such a pinpoint location seem impossible. But on this day, the skipper and his crew, punching up through thick ice, nailed it on their first try. It took a few minutes for the sail, the shark fin on top, to completely emerge. There they are. When they popped the hatch, a special guest climbed out, the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mavis, who'd been on board for five days taking part in the naval exercise. What does it mean that the Secretary of the Navy has come up to the Arctic? Is there a special significance to you being here?

Our responsibilities are increasing as the Arctic ice melts, as the climate changes. And so the Navy has got to be here. We've got to provide that presence. And I hope that my presence emphasizes what we do. As he flew off to Alaska, we climbed down the ladder into the fastattack, nuclear-powered USS Hampton. Do you feel claustrophobic? Oh, no, not at all. No. You get used to it. Commander of the Hampton, Theron Davis, took us to the control room as the crew prepared to submerge.

Farewell. Stationary dive to ship. Stationary dive to ship, aye, sir. Dive. Stationary dive to ship. Make your depth 150 feet. What he and his crew of 20-somethings are practicing is something subs only do in the Arctic. Diving down through new ice that had formed around the sub. We're listing. I'm tilting this way. Once they get to a cruising level, they practice hide-and-seek with another sub. In some of the exercises, they also test-fire blank torpedoes.

So I'm going to show you a torpedo tube. One of their challenges is ice keels, huge chunks of ice that jut down from the surface and confuse sonar-guided torpedoes that can't distinguish them from enemy submarines. So what we're working on is saying, hey, how can we fix that? We return to the surface. We're coming up right now. We're one to two feet. One American sub in a region with a growing Russian military presence. During our last day at the camp, something dramatic happened.

A crack in the ice along the perimeter became a giant lake. New fissures formed right through the heart of the camp up to the doorstep of the command post. Everything was packed up quickly for an emergency evacuation, a reminder that the most formidable adversary here may not be Russian forces, but the forces of nature. Since our story was first broadcast, Russia has continued to expand its military presence in the Arctic, unveiling its newest base in the region. The sprawling complex can house 150 troops for up to 18 months.

Four more bases like it are planned. I'm Leslie Stahl. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.