no! no! yes! yes, indeed. amazing speed, coverage and control. all with an xfi gateway. find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. good evening. more on the breaking news shortly. but first, cnn has the book that everyone in the white house interested in politics is either talking about, worrying about, laughing about or furious about. fire and fury, michael wolff's white house expose. late last night, the president's lawyers tried to block it and the publisher in defiance advanced the release date to tomorrow. i have a company now and i've been going through it. before today, just excerpts were available. as you know, steve bannon is already rocking 1600

pennsylvania avenue for its important trail of chaos and dysfunction. we should begin by noting that some of the reporting has been corroborated. somer ors have been identified. one person he quote said she never said those things. another verifies his account of it down to the word. she joins us shortly. we should say that wolff paints quite a few scenes without directly quoting anyone and his sourcing at times is vague. here's what he says about that in the pre face. it is worth noting, some of the journalistic conundrums i faced. many the result of the white house's absence of official procedures and the lack of experience of its principles. he continues. these challenges have included dealing with off the record or deep back ground material that was later casually put on the

record. sources who provided accounts and confidence share widely as though by their first it ranlss. a source's views being so wld known and widely shared that it would be wise not to credit them and the gone smacked retelling of deep back ground conversations. he also notes, everywhere in this story is the president's own constant, tireless, and uncontrolled voice shared by others on a daily basis. sometimes as he utters it. so bear that in mind as we bring you certain passages that do not contain direct quotations but do appear to make news. as for the direct quotes, steve bannon has not spoken against any of those attributed to him. first the president returning from his air force one trip.

and the meeting with russians claiming to have dirt on hillary clinton. this is significant because those moments could form basis for cover-up allegations. the president insist that had the meeting in trump tower was purely and simply about russian adoption policy. that was what was discussed. period. even though it was likely, if not certain that the thims the incriminating e-mail chain. it was quite likely that they knew it was this e-mail chain. the president said that no one should let on to the more problematic discussion about hillary clinton. quote, it was a time of denial and cover-up. that of course remains to be seen and we'll talk about that tonight. what more did the white house have to say? >> you heard sarah sanders describe this book as a book full of lies. i asked sarah sanders about that claim considering the fact the

white house gave michael wolf what appears to be unprecedented access to multiple officials, including steve bannon in the white house. here's what she had to say about that. >> you were calling it a book full of lies. didn't this give him all the access he wanted? >> absolutely not. in fact there were probably more than 30 requests to access from michael wolff that are repeatedly denied including within that, at least two dozen requests of him asking to have an interview with the president, which he never did. he never discussed this book the president. to me that would be the most important thing, to have some time with him. he never did. he was repeatedly denied that. i think because we saw him for what and he was there was no reason to waste the president of the united states' time.

we should point out, the white house continued to blame bannon mode. they said that he bannon was responsible for clearing wolff into the white house. when you hear what he was saying, basically, all he had to do was call somebody here and he was invited into the white house. it does appear he had extraordinary access to officials over who. and it is just like the kind of access we've never seen anybody have here for the production of a book. at least during this administration. >> he talked to the hollywood report better the atmosphere inside near the oval office. and sitting in the hall and being able to see kellyanne conway and gary cohn and all these people. >> that's right.

we've seen michael wolff come in. when the white house, this press secretary said earlier today, well, this is a book full of lies. it is tabloid trash and so on. yet it was the white house that was allowing michael wolf to come in time and again. apparently he was talking on steve bannon time and again and was not obstructed by anybody inside this administration. it was only when these revelations came out that they really urged to this book and turned on steve bannon. until this point we didn't hear much a people in terms of condemnation for this book. the publisher of michael wolff's book. that only served to draw interest and now it is coming out tomorrow morning. it is pretty typical of how they deal with damage control. they tend to deal with it after

the fact when they really could have dealt with it months ago by not giving michael wolff as much access that they had. they would have gotten attention anyway. that certainly gave the president front page access. >> there are a few koipss circus lating in the west wing. when this comes out tomorrow, they'll be responding to more revelations. >> we mentioned at the top of the broadcast. the headline, obstruction inquiry shows trump's struggle to keep grip on russia investigation. one of the reporters joins us now. what have you learned? >> i would like to say that this is primarily mike schmidt, my colleague's reporting. he came up with very detailed

reporting about how mike mcgann went to the attorney general and asked him not to recuse from the rush probe which we know jeff sessions did without telling the president in advance. made him very angry and set up a chain reaction. the idea that mcgann would go do this knowing it was problematic is striking. when he was going to recuse himself, the president was very angry. felt that he needed to be between himself and the, a g. bobby kennedy protected kennedy. the timing is quite notable. >> wait a minute. >> i want to you repeat that.

four days before comey was fired an aide of sessions? >> yes. looking for dirt. quote/unquote. went to capitol hill looking for information about james comey. >> do we know at whose behest the person did that? >> no. it is not clear if he knew that it was from the department of justice. >> to be clear, you talked about going to jeff sessions, not to recuse himself. he was doing that at the order of president trump. >> correct. the president he wanted to be personally protected by the attorney general with regard to the rush probe. this is about what the president demanded and what he wanted of the attorney general with regard to the probe. >> from the flork times talking about reporting from her and

mostly from michael schmidt. i want to point that out. >> this is about the comey investigation. here you have the whole reason jeff sessions recused himself from the russia investigation is that he knew he was part of what the russia investigation was going to be investigating. it was appropriate for him to recuse himself by trying to undo himself through the down of don mcgann, the president is showing that he wanted to be protected from that investigation. that is what obstruction of

justice is. i don't think this would amount to a crime in and of itself. when you look at the pattern of behavior. firing james comey for conducting this investigation, telling lester holt, the russian visitors, that he fired james comey because of the russia investigation. all of it adds up to the potential for a charge of obstruction of justice against the president. and the "times" reporting today is another brick in the wall. >> how do you see it? >> well, donald trump as a candidate and now as president has a fundamentally flawed understanding of the role of the attorney general and the role of the justice department. he thought on the campaign, he apparently has still thought that throughout his first year as president, that the department of justice and the prosecutors and investigators are an arm of the white house.

and he doesn't understand the independence that the attorney general needs to have. jeff sessions, whether people disagree with his politics, with his policy positions, or the policy in the justice department, in probably the most decision he had to make, which was recusing himself in the russia investigation, he did the right thing. and he adhered to the ethics advice from the professional ethics lawyers in the department that the right thing to do was to recuse from that investigation. if this new "new york times" report is correct, then he did so under tremendous political pressure from the president. >> the idea that someone who works as an aide to jeff sessions went to capitol hill to

find dirt on comey four days before comey was that? >> it suggests that the president was determined to on fire james comey. why it is significant that he's looking for dirt, it suggests that he mid up trying to fire him and then made it up. that's the implication. that contrary to the original explanation for firing james comey. that the president disapproved with how mean he was. it suggests there was a different reason and the pre

president was looking for a reason to fire him. >> he had recused himself, anything where comey was dealing with the russia investigation? >> it is just an odd thing to think about, that an aide to the attorney general would be going to capitol hill to look for, quote, dirt. i don't even know what that means, looking for dirt on james comey. what would seem a little more likely would be that they would go to capitol hill if this happened to look for political support for firing james comey. in other words, they knew there were democrats and maybe they were looking for support. i don't understand at all why anybody, let alone an advise or to the attorney general, would go to capitol hill looking for some kind of derogatory information on him. but it also, if true, just sort

of supports the understanding that the reason for firing the fbi director was concocted, and was not based on any merit related reason or anything related to his performance in his role as fbi director. >> go ahead. >> i just, one thing this report really does, is it cries out for don mcgann to give testimony before congress about what he did. >> could he do that? is that covered by attorney general privilege? >> not attorney-client. the argument would be executive privilege. the key moment in the watergate congressional hearings was the testimony of john dean who held the exact same job.

who held the exact same job as don mcgahn holds now. he testified at great length and in incriminating way about his conversations with president nixon. seems incumbent upon don mcgahn given the questionable nature of this exchange, he should be arrow required to tell congress and the american people what the heck was going on. >> the number of people from the white house invoked not executive privilege because not white house, but invented form of that, i just don't want to tell you my conversations with the president because i don't think i should, seems like everyone else has done it, why not don mcgahn? >> we might. congress never knows until it asks. the fundamental fact of the congressional investigations is

that republicans are in charge, republicans in charge of the house and senate and these investigations seem much more designed to protect president trump than to investigate him. but that doesn't mean those of us following it from the outside shouldn't say that congress should do its job and get these people under oath, find out what they know and did. >> joined by david gergen and david axelrod. what is the significance of the "new york times" reporting? >> i agree with what jeff toobin has been saying. adds to the pattern. not sure sending mcgahn to the justice department is in and of itself would qualify as act of obstruction, but seeing it within that pattern, i think has a lot more weight.

i do believe there is a question, in any impeachment proceedings, obstruction of justice, is there underlying crime? can you have obstruction if there's not a crime? that depends heavily on what mueller comes up with in regard to the collusion issue, possibly the money laundering issue. we have to wait and see exactly where this goes. one of the curious things i find here, sending someone from the justice department to find dirt on comey. i've never heard of anything like that except for nixon days. does raise questions. who was this person and who sent him? attorney general who already recused himself? number two in the justice department now running things? where did that order come from? peculiar and odd circumstance and i do think it represents skullduggery. >> having worked in the obama white house, is this just odd sequence of events?

>> odd would be a polite way to describe it. it is so foreign to me, having worked in the white house and knowing how scrupulously people dealt with the justice department, the fbi, the notion of a president sending his white house counsel over to persuade the attorney general not to recuse himself -- we knew that trump wasn't happy with that decision. but now this act of actually involving himself through his counsel and trying to persuade him is new information. and what's particularly disturbing is this description of trump's reasoning. attorney general is to protect him. where is my roy cohn, a despicable figure in american history, right hand of joe mccarthy and an early mentor by the way of donald trump and notorious fixer.

so the notion that attorney general's job is protect the president -- and protect him from what? what is it that the president feared? i do think this is going to add momentum to whatever already a roaring fire here. >> it is fascinating, given jeff sessions' early sign-on to the trump campaign, traveling with the president, it is fascinating that president believes he appoints him attorney general and he's going to continue being his roy cohn or bobby kennedy. >> there is no doubt that's what he believed, that this was his role, to protect the president. irony of all of this, comes on a day when two members of congress called for sessions to be dismissed. of course that's exactly what the president would want now because if he had an attorney general who wasn't involved in the campaign and wasn't involved in this russia matter, then that

attorney general would then take control of the investigation and mueller would have to respond to that attorney general. so it's quite a tangled web here. >> david gergen, do you agree with jeff that don mcgahn should be called to testify? >> i do. but think what we have to rely on is far more serious investigation under way by bob mueller. and i would assume he's been called and testified or will soon. because he's an absolutely essential piece now of this puzzle. and it's essential for the investigations. what has been disheartening is the way the investigations are stalling out on capitol hill.

look more and more like partisan bickering within the investigatetory bodies than serious investigations they were proclaimed to be starting down the path. almost entirely reliant on the bob mueller team. >> to you this doesn't necessarily point out obstruction? >> no in and of itself obstruction of justice. but if you have a theory that the president's actions, you know, during the period of the first several months of his presidency represented a pattern, a conspiracy to obstruct justice, stop or interfere with the investigation of his campaign and russia, this is another piece of evidence that supports that theory. reason it supports that theory is that jeff sessions was trying

to do the right thing. he was recognizing that he was too involved with the trump campaign in order to lead an investigation of the trump campaign. i mean, it's just basic legal ethics that jeff sessions was reflecting. and by interfering at that decision or trying to interfere with that decision through his white house counsel, don mcgahn, that suggests that the president didn't want an independent investigation of the trump campaign. he wanted to control that investigation. and that could be seen as part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice. >> anderson, just as clear as it can be now that president feels there are things to be hidden. doesn't want out in the public. now the publication of this book

is beginning to give us an understanding of why. >> carrie, from legal standpoint, if don mcgahn has talked to bob mueller or been asked to interview, is executive privilege something he could cite to not answer questions? >> i think he probably would because the white house seems to be -- although not really clear about doing it in the public testimonies we've seen, seem to be asserting variations of executive privilege. but i would just add even before this report tonight there is reason to think that white house counsel is already in position of being a witness to obstruction. to the extent he was knowledgeable about the president's intent to fire the fbi director, do other things that the president did last spring, early summer to try to shut down the russia investigation, both before the special counsel was appointed and after, i think when we look at obstruction, if we ever see a case brought through special counsel's office or political arena, will see a pattern of obstruction that brought together makes a case of obstruction, not going to be one

specific act. but white house counsel has been there for many different conversations and certainly i think at this point it's a question regarding his continued effectiveness in the position of white house counsel if in fact he is a witness in an obstruction investigation. >> and can i just address something david mentioned earlier? the legal question of can you have obstruction of justice if you don't have underlying crime. the courts have dealt with that question many times and always said yes, you can, you can charge someone with obstruction of justice without charging them much less convicting them of underlying crime. as legal matter in the courts, no question that's settled. however, talking about impeachment, congress can decide whatever they want in terms of legal standards there. if congress decides you can't have obstruction without underlying crime, that's the end of that story.

dealing in two different worlds here. courts have strict rules, congress operates very much by its own rules. >> can i -- >> let me ask just quickly, carrie made a point that don mcgahn is epicenter of a lot of things. where does the loyalty of the white house counsel lie, president as individual or white house as institution? >> i think his loyalty is to the president. i believe and the white house. but just pick up one other point and repurpose your question anderson. earlier it was mentioned that mcgahn could answer important questions. one goes to the question of whether there was cover-up of a crime.

he knows what the acting attorney general told him about what general flynn had done. was he told and did he tell the president that general flynn had lied to the fbi? which he's pled guilty to. if the president knew that and then asked fbi director to drop the matter, it seems to me that advances the case. >> also don mcgahn is the person sally yates came to and met at white house to explain what she had learned about michael flynn, he was point of contact. jeff, carrie, david, we'll be back to the legal heat on the president that michael wolff's book may document. let your inner light loose

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more on michael wolff's blockbuster. book that cnn has obtained, described a dinner party. when the passage came out yesterday, people asked how he could be so precise? it turns out he hosted the dinner and another tweeted about it. i was one of the six guests at bannon/ailes dinner party and every word from the book i've seen is accurate. it was an astonishing night. >> she's here now. >> michael wolff, contributing editor to the hollywood reporter sent me a note. if you're in new york, having a

casual dinner with the aileses, roger and his wife. can you make it? two days before, believe it or not, i think steve bannon might be joining us. as editor, i find this intriguing. we show up to michael's house in new york city. his partner victoria has made dinner. and in come roger and elizabeth. and night begins. >> i understand steve bannon showed up three hours late from trump tower? >> yes. so it was incredible. i talked to roger ailes, who i knew him slightly.

he was amazingly a big fan of the "hollywood reporter" as someone who grew up in entertainment, and he and his wife, had a spirited discussion about the accusations levelled against him at fox news. spoke quite candidly about rupert murdoch and a lot of personal discussion about the impact the news was having on his son. one of the fascinating things about the conversation with roger and his wife. in his heart he truly believed he had done nothing wrong. >> interesting. >> and elizabeth -- they were a couple, if you didn't know the backstory and clouds around him, would think it's very nice older couple in love -- >> i want to ask. sorry. ask you about a few quotes from the book, that dinner. roger ailes asked steve bannon quote, what has he gotten himself into with the russians? then president elect trump. >> he went to russia, thought he would meet putin but putin didn't give a -- word -- about him.

did you hear that? is that accurate? >> i heard a discussion, couldn't say verbatim word for word, wasn't taking notes. but sounds accurate to me. i was at dinner, just six people, seated between steve bannon and roger ailes. there was this frantic back and forth between them. unbelievable, like republican agenda being laid out for next four years. one of the things very clear from steve bannon, and -- so interesting, steve bannon walks in quite late. he's offered a drink right away, and very demonstrably says no, i'm not going to drink. then he sits down, has dinner and really goes into it. he and roger ailes, two of them basically plotting future of the republican party in the trump administration. so many interesting things said,

started out talking about -- they were building the cabinet together. and one of the things they started talking about, imminent subject right then, rudy giuliani and his disappointment over not being named secretary of state. ailes is so funny, you know what, sort of casual, just tell rudy, get him photographed once or twice coming out of air force one and rudy is all good. then started talking about john -- >> sorry, other questions to talk to you about. roger ailes says i wouldn't give donald too much to think about. bannon says too much, too little doesn't necessarily change things. is that something you heard? how did you interpret it? >> ongoing theme. to be clear bannon had a fondness for donald trump but can't say -- almost paternal

role to donald trump. >> like he saw himself above -- >> one of the first things -- saw himself in control of donald trump or the situation. >> interesting. >> consistent theme that donald -- the president, called him donald or mr. trump occasionally -- doesn't have the patience to go through details. laughed about how donald trump thought john bolton's mustache was unattractive. those things were absolutely said. >> want to read that directly from the book because again, it includes the author's context. quote, actually it asks -- sorry. i want to read the bolton one. regarding former u.n. ambassador

john bolton. well he got in trouble because got in fight in hotel one night and chased some woman according to ailes. bannon responded, if i told trump that, he might have the job. did you hear that? >> yes. yes. there was a lot of -- sort of a lot of i guess you would call it unpolitically correct stuff going back and forth. i think that was one of the things mind blowing to me was the level of trust they had in michael wolff, saying all of this in front of two people with the ability to put this out in the world. >> and no talk of this being off the record? >> ground rules at this meal, when it started, nothing could be used at that moment. until later, michael wolff upon roger ailes' death was granted permission by his wife, his widow, to use the night. and later steve bannon told him he could put it on the record.

>> fascinating. janice, i appreciate you coming to talk to us. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> more now from the book and wolff says from the president's mouth, his position, watergate and his position. comey was a rat repeated trump. there were rats everywhere and you had to get rid of them. john dean, john dean he repeated, do you know what john dean did to nixon? we have john dean, former nixon white house counsel with us tonight. john, do you know what john dean did to nixon? >> i do. >> what do you make of the president citing that? according to wolff. >> delighted he reacts that way. i think it's a badge of honor with this president. hit the top of nixon's enemies list. i think it's good that

presidents are aware of watergate, consequences of watergate, and maybe he has some crude understanding of watergate. >> wolff also described president as quote john dean freak, would go quote bananas when you would go on tv comparing the russia investigation to watergate and talking about loyalty and what people would do for media attention. does this sound like properly functioning president of the united states? >> i've had problems with functioning of this president since the beginning. one of the reasons i was interested in being a cnn contributor when i accepted the post. i thought somebody needed to speak truth to this man and let him hear it, historical

comparisons in particular. >> jeff toobin. >> we have this "new york times" story about don mcgahn at president's insistence talking to jeff sessions, trying to get him not to recuse himself. don mcgahn is one of your successors as white house counsel. do you think there's any problem, legal impediment, reason why don mcgahn couldn't testify about this incident in front of a congressional committee the way you testified about your conversations with president nixon? >> in front of a congressional committee it's an open question, if the president invoked executive privilege, he might be able to impose it. if you recall, during watergate that was unresolved element of executive privilege. a grand jury clearly had access to the tapes, senate watergate committee never got access. judge stopped it, didn't rule on it, thought it was political question. that's an unresolved issue. as far as attorney/client

privilege, that's pretty well resolved by ken starr case. >> why were you allowed to testify about conversations with the president? why wasn't executive privilege invoked about that? >> i don't know why they didn't. how do you invoke executive privilege? there's no such thing as injunction to not testify. they did waive attorney/client privilege. they knew we were going to blow through it anyway because of the exceptions to the privilege even then. >> so the real issue is does president trump tell don mcgahn i forbid you from talking to

congress about these conversations. >> that's right. and sanction is to fire him. glad you clarified the issue of his responsibility. today that's been clarified post-watergate, rule 1.13 of the model code of professional ethics put out by american bar association in representing an organization, it's the organization that he owes the loyalty to. >> that was my question. repeat that. don mcgahn, loyalty should not be to donald trump, president trump, but should be to the executive branch, the white house? >> it is to the office of the president in his case. that's what he represents. as does ty cobb. when they're on the payroll of the white house, they represent the office of the president, not the man who occupies it. >> so if they're aware of wrongdoing for attempts at obstruction or whatever it may be, they -- do they have a duty to discuss that with somebody

like robert mueller? >> they have to take it to the highest authority if they're aware of a crime. and with the president it's probably congress. >> that's an absolutely critical point, anderson, don mcgahn is not donald trump's personal lawyer. he does have personal lawyers, john dowd, jay sekulow, they represent donald trump the human being. if they know of wrongdoing, under absolutely no obligation to tell anybody, their loyalty to donald trump the person. don mcgahn is in a very different circumstance. paid by taxpayers. works for the taxpayers. and his obligation is to the executive office of the president, which happens to be occupied today by donald trump, but his obligations are very different from personal lawyers for donald trump. >> glad we got that cleared up. john dean, thank you. jeff toobin stay with us.

book passage i read, disclaimers about michael wolff and sourcing. president on air force one talking about characterizing the trump tower meeting. president insisted that meeting in trump tower was purely and simply by russian adoption policy. that's what was discussed period. even though it was likely if not certain that the "times" had the incriminating e-mail chain. it was quite possible they knew they had this e-mail chain. president ordered that no one should let on to the more problematic discussion about hillary clinton. jeff, if this part of the book proves to be true that president of the united states ordered people to essentially lie about this meeting in trump tower, saying it was about adoption or not tell the full story, does that put him in some legal jeopardy? >> this is obviously something

mueller has looked into and continues to carefully. we know that not from mueller but witnesses who have talked to his office. when the "new york times" story broke about the june 20th meeting in trump tower with jared kushner and the russian lawyers and donald trump jr., the initial report was that this was only about adoption. clearly false from the get-go. the question that mueller is investigating, who instigated this false story. if the wolff book is accurate, it suggests that the president was putting out a false story. that's potentially obstruction of justice. also puts the lie to the fact that the president claimed he didn't even know about this meeting. how could he be giving directions about how to describe a meeting he later said he knew nothing about. >> what do we know about how interested mueller's team is in the trip on air force one? >> mueller's team has been interested in it since basically

news broke about the crafting of this statement. early on cnn reported that president was involved in the crafting of this statement along with others including hope hicks, the communications director. so as jeffrey pointed out, mueller's team has interviewed some of the witnesses on that plane, including hope, looking at intent to provide a false statement like this. whether they were trying to conceal information as part of the obstruction of justice probe. as we know, it's not crime to lie to the media, but they're looking at this we're told as one piece in the puzzle of the obstruction probe given that first statement that president was involved in was misleading and false. >> boggles my mind why the president would insist this was about adoption if he and other people in the plane knew that "times" probably had e-mail chain and donald trump jr. had it and knew what was in it. another excerpt from the book. bannon's veered to despairation.

why not, let's do it. let's get it on. why not, what am i going to do, save him? he's donald trump. do you think impeachment proceedings would be inevitable on this. >> i think many people on both sides of the aisle view the firing of the special counsel as red line. more tenuous in the house, maybe more true for the senate than the house. particularly on the house intelligence committee the last month or so, really seen republican members coming more to the defense of the white house and trying to tamp down and discredit the special

counsel's investigation. but i think that if that quote represents steve bannon's advice, think at time it was given -- or his sentiment, that is a well-accepted thought that firing the special counsel would certainly agitate the hill if not immediately cause impeachment proceedings. >> one more excerpt about comey. most of the west wing staff, courtesy of erroneous report from fox news was briefly under impression that comey resigned. then throughout the west wing became clear what actually happened. next is special prosecutor said priebus in disbelief to no one in particular when he learned what is happening. now priebus is denying saying this.

but idea that white house staff could have been blindsided by president firing comey, is that surprising? >> no it's not. as you recall that night, comey learned it watching the news, thought it was joke because fox news. but sean spicer, press secretary didn't know about it. trying to talk to reporters by the bushes outside the white house in awkward gathering because he was also trying to piece together what was going on. so close hold, not even the key people in charge of communicating this information to the media were looped in, extraordinary and goes to theme of pure chaos. coming up, more on wolff's book. it's time for sleep number's 'lowest prices of the season' on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. does your bed do that? right now our queen c4 mattress is only $1199, save $400. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you.

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let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. one notion michael wof's book, "fire and fury" underscores is the powers going in the o in the white house, between jared kushner and ivanka trump and steve bannon.

"the washington post" reported that sergey kislyak talked about the instigation having a private communications channel and wolf writes that the jared and ivanka faction and again this is wolff's characterization. the exact sourcing is unclear and as wolff says in the book because of the white house's lack of procedures for setting parameters for conversations. with that in mind, here's what wolff wrote. i'm quoting from wolff, "part of the by now deep enmity between the first family couple and their allies and bannon and his team was the jarvanka conviction that bannon and to be wholly discredited and possibly even jailed. this was not merely an internal policy war. it was a death match. for bannon to live, bannkushner would have to be discredited. with me now is christopher rudy and josh green, author of "devil's bargain." so the rivalry between bannon and jared kushner and ivanka trump was not a secret.

why would the president allow this kind of multiple, you know, city, states, or what some would call dysfunction to not only come about but to continue on for months? >> it's very common in administrations that you have decisions. reagan had massive divisions, lots of leaks, lots of internal battles. some people like a cohesive administration. we saw that with obama and president george w. bush. i don't think the rivalry was between steve bannon and jared kushner. if you read the book, the rivalry is between steve bannon and donald trump. i think steve felt he was smarter and better and brighter than the president. and this book just sort of really brings home that he had disdain for the president. i've always liked steve. i've known him for a long time. he's a very fun guy to be with. but some of his opinions in the president to have worked for the president and his family and to

accuse onyuan don junior of treason and they were engaged in money laundering. if he thought family was engaging in money laundering, why did he kontd working for the president and his family? you know, you start looking at some of these issues and you wonder who he was fired, when he was fired, anderson, he told "the new york times" the president's presidency was over so steve has a very exaggerated opinion of himself, and i think it's been harmful more to him than it has been to the president, frankly. >> josh, what do you think of that? you spent a lot of time, in conversations with bannon. does he have -- i mean does he -- janiceminn got the sense that steve bannon felt he was above the president or could control the president. >> you know, what janice said i thought was right, that he had kind of a paternal fondness for

trump, respected his political talent but thought he needed guidance and bannon's role, he thought, was essentially to be the architect of trump's campaign and then as presidency, to put meat on the bones and take trump's impulses and craft them into some kind of a governing agenda. now, that went haywire pretty much from day one, and one reason why bannon was so angry at jared kushner was because as soon as things went off the rails, kushner, ivanka, other people in the west wing recognized that bannon was responsible for a lot of this and tried to push him out, which frankly is a bit ironic because during the campaign, nobody was closer than jared and steve bannon. they were kind of an oscar and felix quality to them. thick as thooefs aieves, and falling out as soon as they got into the west wing. >> do you think bannon has made a huge mistake here, an exulted

opinion of himself and even talk supposedly noted about possibly running for president if president trump doesn't run again. do you think he -- i mean, whatever support he had or interest he had by people outside who may have liked him, isn't it because of his association with president trump that he had that? >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, who knew -- who really knew outside of media circles and small political circles knew about steve bannon before he joined the trump campaign? let's not forget, josh knows about this in the book. most of the primary, all of the critical primary states, he had opposed donald trump. he supported ted cruz. he was a johnny come lately -- >> bannon was behind trump all along. the mercers supported cruz. bannon was behind trump all along. >> bannon called me in the fall of 2015 asking if news max would join with breitbart for donald trump to withdraw from the race and i told him i wasn't going to do that. so he had -- he was opposing the president

and although it was critical, it was after iowa, after new hampshire, when it was clear trump was going to win that nomination. the truth was that steve bannon was the chief strategist for the president. when he left, the president had an approval rating of 34%. that was not because of jared kushner, josh. that was because of steve bannon doing things like the muslim ban, the transgender bathroom thing, all these crazy things that -- >> well, i think it was the collective ineptitude of the trump white house. certainly bannon played a major role in that, but i don't you can put it all on his shoulder. >> so all of what we got lost was -- we got lost was all the president's great accomplishments. massive deregulation, closing the -- effectively closing the border by staging the immigration laws, upgrading them. the most successful stock market we've ever had in history, records in business confidence, consumer confidence. nobody ever talks about this because we're getting into all of these sideshows and a lot of

it comes out of, i think, the breitbart agenda. steve's a patriotic american, but he's an isolationist, he's a throwback on a lot of issues and i think where the president really needs to go forward in a more bipartisan approach if he wants to bring those approval number ratings up in the near future. >> josh, you could also argue the president -- i think chris makes a valid point, that a lot of that stuff hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves, but you could also point to the president as being responsible for that because every time they have an infrastructure week, he seems to ignore that and sends out some rockets -- you know, twitter rockets that grab people's attention. >> yeah, i think the twitter feed -- trump's twitter feed has a lot to do with that. but look, to chris' point, absolutely. i mean, steve bannon was probably the chief agent of chaos after the president himself, and of course that makes it difficult to advance legislation and then to take credit for the legislation that you do manage to advance, you know, and one irony of this flare-up over wolff's book is

that trump had finally managed to achieve something significant in passing tax reform and yet a couple days ago launched off on this tweet storm and now has released this statement, it seems to be busy burying bannon and here we are, all talking about something else. >> let's ask ourselves, who brought michael wolff into the white house? it was steve bannon. gave him unlimited access to the white house, put him in front of the president, saying you can trust this guy. this book is not only unflattering, i think it's filled with militia untruths. you know, steve does not drink, but when you read some of the things that he says there, it makes you wonder because to say that don junior committed treason by taking a meeting is just absolutely ridiculous. >> we've got to leave it there. chris ruddy, always good to have you on. josh, as well. thank you so much. coming up next, another story that is breaking and rocking the white house tonight that could be another key focus of the russia probe, we'll tell you that ahead.