fire and president trump's fury. how did he get inside the west wing? and how will his book impact other journalists. there are new signs that the white house is clamping down on access. but let's begin with the top story this weekend. the tip toeing is over. the whispers are turning into shouts. president trump's fitness for office is now the top story in the country. reporters and some lawmakers are openly talking about the president's mental stability, his health, his competency. partly, that is because of this new michael wolff book. you know, wolf claims that white house aides are united in the belief that trump is incapable of being president. he back this is up several different ways. including by quoting steve bannon, saying things like, "trump has lost it" and "he's lost his stuff." this is now a global story. one of rupert murdoch's stories in the uk went with the headline

trump's mental health questioned by a top aide and the translation of the german headline in the middle asks, is donald trump still sane? trump's answer via twitter is that two of his greater assets are his mental stability and like being really smart. i kind of got the sense that murdoch's new york post was making fun of him this morning. the headline says, "don't worry, america." but many americans are worried and journalists into he had to cover that. let's be honest here, it's not just the book that is forcing this fitness issue to the forefront. when a president of the united states threatens north korea by invoking the size of his nuclear button, it is fair to ask about his fitness. if a leader of a another country were to do the same thing, i think many commentators, many reporters will conclude that he is not well. this past year has been full of reasons to question his fitness. president trump promotes conspiracy theories. he shares racists videos on

social media. he live tweets fox news shows that mislead him while he derives real reporting as fake news. he calls for the prosecution of political opponents. he insults people for fun. he says so many flat-out false things that journalists can barely keep up. "the washington post" counts nearly 2,000 false or misleading statements since election day. but -- and here is the but -- journalists are not judges or doctors. this is not a court or a hospital. what this moment needs from reporters is more reporting. not more speculating or guessing or rupert mongering but real reporting of what is going on. on today's "meet the press," wolff said this is worse than anybody thought. do other sources back that up? wolff also says bannon spoke to him because he's deeply

concerned. are current white house aides deeply concerned, too? can that be proven. wolff also said, trump doesn't read. how is that affecting trump's decision making? the questions go on and on. when it comes to the book, some parts of "fire and fury" have already been backed up, already been corroborated. other parts have been challenged. when i read the book this weekend, i saw some errors that were relatively minor but still troubling because every error undercuts wolff's credibility. we'll get deep into that in this hour but let's go to the one, the only, carl bernstein, a cnn political analyst, who has been leading these conversations, leading these questions about the president's fitness carl, you and i have talked about this in recent months. has something changed in your view this week? >> yes. we're in a real constitutional crisis in an unprecedented place

where we as a country and where we as journalists have never been before in which a huge part of the citizenry of our country and the leadership of the country in congress privately and in public openly questioned the fitness and stability of the president of the united states. so it raises a great question. how do we report on this reality? meanwhile, abroad, leaders are questioning the fitness of the president of the united states and whether or not the country is in good hands. this is a reporting challenge unlike any other. and it really is a story partly about republicans. what republicans are saying in private because as i reported months ago in private, they were telling me in private, many republicans in congress, they doubt the fitness and stability of the president but we as journalists need to go and especially i would say this is a challenge for fox news which has

some great reporters. i'm not talking about hannity and the commentators and the anchor people but this is a great challenge for fox news because they have a kind of credibility with republicans in congress that perhaps other news organizations don't have and their reporters need to go and see every republican in the house and senate and talk on background about what each and every member believes about the president's stability and fitness because the story of russia and the story of the president's stability and possible criminality are all one story and we have got huge reporting to do and put our heads down, all of this, and do it. >> is it a problem that there's one set of questions on the record publicly and a different set of answers off the record? here's what i mean, carl. rex tillerson told -- >> yes. >> -- elise labott that he's never questioned the president's fitness and nikki haley says no

one in the house questions the president's stability. and another says, hey, trump is a political genius. are they saying something else privately? >> reporter: none of that is necessarily inconsistent with him being unstable or unfit for office. look, as i said on our air in this show many times months ago, we have to go to all of these people who have been saying to us in private, what do you think? look, it might be that when they poll 200 and something members in the house and senate who are republicans -- and this is very much a project for the republican party because they have enabled trump to go on as he has without questioning out loud his fitness. we have to do it perhaps, quote, on background, but we need to do polling ourselves.

fox news has to do it. again, i come back to fox time and again. >> right. >> because this is a chance to show that they can be fair and balanced, that they are capable of being a real reporting organization. let them send 20 reporters to talk to every republican senator, every republican congressman and come back and tell us what these people are saying in private on background. it may be that, in truth, those republicans believe he's fit. so far, from what i'm hearing, i don't think he believes most of them that they say he's fit but it's time to put the national's interest above partisan interests if indeed they believe this president is not fit or have grave questions, as i believe they have been saying to me certainly, about whether he is stable, unfit, et cetera. and also, military leaders, intelligence community leaders

and people in the white house, as michael wolff has reported, has been telling us for months and months, they believe he is unstable and that includes some of the people very close to people to the president of the united states and this is a story unlike we've ever had. >> let's listen to what michael wolff said to chuck todd on the sunday of the 25th amendment. >> if i left out anything, it's probably stuff that was even more damning. >> it's that bad? >> it's that bad. it's an extraordinary moment in time and the last -- the last several days focused on my book i think are proof of this. this is -- what happened here? what's going on here? this is -- you know, i think not an exaggeration and not unreasonable and it's not unreasonable to say this is 25th amendment kind of stuff. this is --

>> i mean, did anybody say that in the west wing to you? >> all the time. >> they would bring up the 25th amendment? >> yes. actually, they would say, we're not -- in sort of the mid period, we're not at a 25th amendment level yet. >> that's alarming. >> this is alarming in every way. and then this went on. okay, this is a little 25th amendment. so 25th amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the white house. >> michael wolff this morning on nbc. carl, how does that relate to your point, your view that this is a constitutional crisis? >> well, it relates and i think the constitution does not provide many answers for us here because it provides for impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. we're not at that place yet. we have a criminal investigation of the president of the united states regardless of him saying i'm not under investigation,

which raises more questions about his stability, his saying that. i think what we really need to keep our eye on here, again, are how do we go to the republicans, particularly mitch mcconnell, particularly paul ryan, we need as reporters to be getting them on record in this instance. it is incumbent upon them as leaders and us at journalists to force the question with them, what do you really think about the president of the united states and his fitness to serve and his stability and how do we deal with this? are we in a constitutional crisis, speaker ryan, leader mcconnell? these are unprecedented questions in terms of how we pose them, what we do as reporters. we are not advocates here. we are not psychiatrists. we are reporters and now we have to almost invent a new kind of reporting to cover a new kind of

story and reporters best in place to do that are some great reporters over at fox news. i know that they have some great reporters there. and james murdoch or whoever is charge of that network along with the "new york times," cnn, "the washington post," "the wall street journal," all these news organizations need to be flooding the hill with reporter who is ask every single republican member of the house and senate what do you really think and come back to the american people as viewers and readers with what their reporting shows and it might show that indeed these republicans think the president is fit and sane and ought to remain in office but there is a question and the only way really that is open under the constitution right now perhaps to deal with this might be if there is a consensus of the people of the country, the

republicans on the hill that the president is unfit, is unstable, is to try and to get him to resign. do republicans think perhaps that is a route that ought to be explored? we need to be asking those questions. not as advocates. >> not as advocates, as reporters. carl, let me bring in the rest of my panel. i messed this up last time. edura, the chair of ethics is a columnist also of the boston zone and brian is a cnn political analyst. endura, is there an ethical quandary here? >> the ethical quaint dree is not just for journalists. as carl alluded to, we're not

psychiatrists. psychiatrists are not supposed to comment objen the mental fits of people they have not personally examined. carl was one of the first people who was writing about this and trying to hold the media account and say we really need to talk about this and it's a serious question for american democracy, even since the 2016 campaign, people were writing about this. remember, atlantic magazine had a big piece. there were psychiatrists who took to the pages of respected publications and wrote themselves about their observations while having to disclose that they had not examined donald trump themselves. and when we write about things we're not experts on, we become experts in a day but, also, the whole question of how do you write it in a way that prevents you as a journalist from getting politicized? how do you write about it in a way so you don't fall into the

president's so-called enemy of the people's trap. it's important to write about this in a clear-eyed way. i like carl bernstein's idea of urging fox news reporters to, you know, look into this question but it does have to be dealt with delicately. however, i will say, the president opens himself up to this when he tweets things like, i am, quote, like really smart or i am a really stable genius, comparing himself to reagan who we know had alzheimer's and was writing things like that new republic story saying is reagan senile. >> he said, i've had to put up with the fake news from the first day i announced i would be running for president and now i have to put up with a fake book. ronald reagan had the same problem and handled it well. so will i. sounds like you were surprised

he invoked reagan given reagan's ailing health in the '90s. >> i am surprised. why do that when you're opening yourself up to that comparison? >> and eventually in the '90s, reagan was diagnosed with alzheimer's after he finished his term as president. so brian karim, this was also a topic at the white house briefing room. let's look at a couple of times that sarah sanders was asked about the president's mental health. >> should american's be concerned about the president's mental fitness, that he appears to be speaking so lightly about threats regarding a nuclear button? >> i think the president and the people of this country should be concerned about the mental fitness of the leader of north korea. >> what's the president's reaction to the growing number of suggestions, both in this book and the media that he's mentally unfit to serve as president? >> it's disgraceful and

laughable. >> brian, you asked a follow-up question about whether it will include a neurological exam or a look at his mental acuity. was it uncomfortable for you to say that to the white house press secretary? >> very uncomfortable. i want to take issue with a couple of my esteemed colleagues that have already spoken. as far as carl was saying, we don't need any new type of reporting. we need to follow the story, follow his own advice in that regards. we need to follow this story. it is uncomfortable to ask the question. there's not an ethical problem, i don't believe, in asking the question. as far as being painted as an enemy of the people, he's already done that. and we have to deal with that. no one in that press room that i know wants to be a part of the story. unfortunately, he's made us a part of the story and it is very uncomfortable to have to ask that question. i did not like asking that question. i don't want to have to ask that question. but in so much as his tweets and

his own actions have led us to that point, we must now ask those questions. as far as fox news goes, this may sound odd coming from me but i'm going to defend those people at fox news that are in that press room. i think john roberts and some of those people have asked some of the most stringent questions of the president of the united states and do a good job of following it. we as a press corps need to get over the fact that we're uncomfortable about this issue and we need to proceed. i know jamie raskin from maryland has tried to invoke the 25th amendment. i know there is movement in congress to do so. but if anyone thinks that the republicans are going to come forward and embrace this on the record, they really don't understand what's going on in washington because right now the republicans merely see president trump as a vehicle to get everything they want passed. and they are going to push through as much as they can

before the 2018 midterm elections and depending on what happens in those elections, then you may see a come to jesus moment where they say, hey, we have to do something about it. don't expect anything like that prior to the midterm elections because they are too busy trying to push forward their agenda and this president is so anxious to have just a win notched on his belt that he's going to sign anything that the republicans bring to him. so there is not going to be any serious consideration of his mental health, i don't think, by the republicans that i've spoken to and i've spoken to many of them, including those who are walking away. i mean, senator flake and others who have decided to give it up and move away still back some of the agenda because it is their agenda. and they're going to continue to do that as long as they see any chance of victory on their agenda and that's a sad state of affairs that we are putting

politic ace head politics ahead of mental issues. >> i want to hear more from carl after the break. we have new information about what steve bannon is saying about this book and we'll look at michael wolff's methods and tactics. he's under attack by the white house and the rnc. does the book negate its larger conclusion? ...down-alternative pillows... ...and of course, price. tripadvisor helps you book a... ...hotel without breaking a sweat. because we now instantly... ...search over 200 booking sites ...to find you the lowest price... ...on the hotel you want. don't sweat your booking. tripadvisor. the latest reviews. the lowest prices. but he's got work to do. with a sore back. so he took aleve this morning. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now.

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some breaking news while we were in commercial. steve bannon apologizing to president trump. that's the headline on axios. bannon has issued a statement to axios that is detailed, a response to all of those shocking quotes in michael wolff's new book "fire and fury." here is one of the quotes atrib

bited to steve bannon. my support is unwavering for the president and his agenda as i have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts and on the pages of breitbart news and in arizona to alabama. bannon also seems to quack back what he said about don jr. acting in a treasonous way. he says he's a good man and a patriot and trying to turn our country around. the statement goes on and on. it's on axios.com. what's notable, when the excerpts first came out on wednesday morning, bannon drafted a statement, according to our colleagues jake tap per and jeremy diamond, much like this to express support for the president and then around lunchtime, trump fired back, essentially disowning bannon saying that bannon had lost his mind and then bannon decided not

to release a statement after all. that's why it's notable four days later bannon is saying he's sorry and issues a statement of regret to the president. let's bring back our panel, brian and idira and carl. what is the significance of bannon trying to make amends? >> he's issued a statement that in no way contradicts what he said. i don't believe he's disowning what he said. i think that michael wolff's account is very credible. there were witnesses in the room to the most extreme of bannon's comments and he was talking freely. those witnesses include janice min, the editor of "the hollywood reporter" who hpz has been on several shows saying that, yes, michael wolff reported those accounts exactly as they were. what we are seeing, perhaps, is mr. bannon's indeed regret that

he has caused this great public furor and by bringing into the open what almost every reporter -- and again, i go back to fox news, including fox news -- knows is and has been the real story for a long time here and that is, those in the military, in the congress, in the intelligence community who are republicans questioning the stability and competence and fitness of the united states to serve in the office of the presidency. >> so this statement does not deny the quotes are accurate. it simply spins, i would say. brian karem, your reaction? >> and i haven't read it in full. >> i'm going to bet that he might get an offer to work at the white house again. they are kind of short-staffed. i really don't -- nothing like this would surprise anybody. as carl said, he doesn't -- i have seen parts of the statement and, again, i don't think he's

distanced himself from anything that he says. he's just giving a big blank mea culpa, spinning it towards the direction of president trump is the best thing since sliced bread and let's move on and doesn't dissuade any of us who have to look at the facts from looking at the facts and vetting those facts and finding out that there are legitimate reasons and legitimate concerns about the president's mental health and those are not going to go away with bannon merely saying i am sorry, i dist you. the school bullying, the fights on twitter, i mean, we talk often about access in this administration and you can't really -- we're hamperred doing our job because of the lack of our ability to question the president. i don't see this issue going away anytime soon despite the apologies. >> steve bannon -- let me add one thing. steve bannon has a very complicated view of donald trump and those who know bannon, who

have covered him, recognize the complicated view. it's not all black and white and, indeed, in the wolff book what comes through sl a rather nuanced view of donald trump in which bannon shows that he believes that trump is very likely to do things that are dangerous, that he doesn't have a good command of his job, that he is ignorant in really disarmi disarming in dangerous ways perhaps but he also very much believes in what the president of the united states has done. so let's not make this too black and white in our discussion either. >> i agree, carl. and if i may, real quick -- >> brianbrian, i need to go to commercial. we'll come back after the break. what the publisher is doing with the book, right after this. when heartburn hits... fight back fast with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue...

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now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. michael wolff's book "fire and fury" is being called the most audacious act of access journalism of all time. but there is also some sloppiness in the text, perhaps at the fault of the editors or the fact checkers, but there are lots of reasons for journalists to now be scrutinizing the book, as well as questioning the author's methods. how did michael wolff do it? that's one of the big conversations that's happening in journalism circles this weekend. his process started back in june 2016 during the presidential campaign. in this interview with the hollywood reporter, trump talked at length with wolff. trump liked the cover and how he treated him, interviewing steve

b bannon. this story came out two weeks after the election and then right after the inauguration, a profile of kellyanne conway by wolff appeared in "thr." he seemed to be warming up his sources for the book. and then his appearance here on "reliable sources" from february 5th of last year." he said i was being approached as a ridiculous figure. let's take a look at some of the interview that shows how wolff was talking about the press. >> i think individual journalists are, in many cases, having a nervous breakdown. >> you seem to think that the media is at war with trump. is that fair? >> absolutely. yes. i don't think that there would be anybody who would credibly disagree with this. >> many journalists say absolutely not, this is not a war against trump. >> you know, it's just like

preposterous and then you can follow them on twitter where they are having a very personal war with donald trump. but very clearly -- >> or lying and falsehoods. >> very clearly, at the center of this is this new grail that we have. how are we going to take this guy down? >> see what he was doing? he was saying to the trump white house, hey, guys, i'm on your side. the press is out to get you but i'm on your side. i kind of suspect that that's what he was doing at the time. >> are you just sucking up to get access to the white house? >> if i'm sucking up a bit to get access but i'm also trying to -- i am the only person, it would seem, who is actually having this conversation. i'm going to them and saying, what do you think? what do you believe? tell me. this is what we want to know. what's going on here? >> now, here's what nbc's savannah guthrie asked wolff about that three days ago. >> did you flatter your way?

>> i certainly said whatever was necessary to get the story. >> okay. so that's how wolff did it. he was able to cozy his way up to white house sources and spend months inside the west wing. did he break or at least bend any journalistic rules and what about the sloppiness in the book? let's talk about it with two people who know wolff, including michelle cottle, a contributing editor at "the atlantic" who profiled wolff in 2004. also with me is a reporter at "the washington post" and a cnn political analyst. michelle, you talked to wolff last night. what did he tell you? >> i wouldn't say talk we were e-mailing back and forth. i wanted to check in and see kind of what he thought of all of this, all of this attention. he's had paparazzi outside his house or whatever. so, you know, checking in to kind of get his take on what all

this is. his joke is that we're giving him about 50, 55% right, which he thought was a pretty good average. >> here's what you wrote in 2004 about wolff. the scenes in his column are not so much recreated as creative. that does not seem ethical. >> what he did with the moguls in particular, he was such a kree creature of new york's media scene. he had his own table at michael's and he would kind of absorb the culture and had enough knowledge of how it operated that he didn't necessarily have specific quotes. he would say things like, it must have been said like this, or someone surely said, or he would do psychological profiles of them. he would kind of talk about how conrad black was desperate for validation as a great man or how maureen dowd was bitter about not having a man, that sort of

thing. so he's never been a conventional reporter. he would kind of immerse himself in that culture and then kind of spin things from there. >> ka roon, is there room for that kind of journalist? >> sure, there is. you can have all kinds of journalism. opinion journalism, straight down the middle trying to be as unbiased as possible or more conventional journalism. the problem is, do people who are consuming that journalism draw those lines in their head? and this is a constant struggle in a normal environment but particularly in an era in which we have a lot of the supporters of the president and sometimes the president himself -- fake news is a thing right now so when we're looking at the way that michael wolff does things, which as michelle just said, unconventional and somewhat

bending some of the more strict rules that the conventional journalists try to follow every single day, the question is, does that impression that is made by looking at the way wolff did his work, is that something that we all need to answer for because if one person is doing that we are all doing that? and what we are writing daily is not credible. that's a problem when you're talking about an environment that journalists are being accused of not being credible and fake. >> it's a problem for the industry. some viewers are watching and saying if i find one error in the news story, shouldn't i question the entire news story? shouldn't we question the entire book? >> i mean, if you want to treat a news story like mathematical proof, i guess. i've never bought into that. every journalist makes minor mistakes, especially when you're talking about a book. we're not talking about a news story. we're talking about an entire

book. even if it were book pchz bob woodward, there would be errors. now fast and loose he has played is a different question. no, under no circumstances does one error or detail here or there in any kind of news story mean you've just shattered the whole thing. >> yeah, some partisans like to use a single error in order to tar an entire story. when you're reading it, which i think people should do, you should read it skeptically and understand it's under severe scrutiny. karoun, there's a lot of trump critics out there that want to believe everything in that book. >> that's why people have to be very careful about, you know, what is the professional credentials that you bring to making these analyses. we're reporters, not psychologists or doctors and we have not sat down and diagnosed

the president in any single way that we would be able to because that's not what we're trained as. yeah, people want to see the president as being unstable and they are going to take this as fodder for continuing that impression. those that want to see that generally all reporters are making things up and trying to attack the president are going to see him in that way. it's very difficult to get people out of that zone. but, again, that's why it's the job of everybody in the middle to be reporting on these things and to be asking these questions and looking at it saying, okay, taking what he's printed for what he is but also questioning how he came about to that point and, again, it's not a cut and dry thing because i believe -- i think carl was saying earlier, sometimes people say slightly different things on the record versus off the record so cutting to what is truth here is not an easy task which is why there's a debate about what is being felt and said in the white house. stand by. after the break, we'll bring

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more news on "reliable sources." at the white house briefing on thursday thursday, a reporter asked sarah sanders how exhausted she was with all of the revelations and questions about "fire and fury." >> i'm less concerned with my exhaustion as i am with the people of this country who, frankly, probably could careless about a book full of lies. >> they couldn't care more, actually. they couldn't care more. there is so much demand that the publisher cannot print copies fast enough. many bookstores are sold out.

amazon says there's a two to four-week delay for the hardbook edition. i have a full story about this on cnnmoney.com. let's bring back all five of our guests, starting with you, indira, michael wolff acting as the president's best pr person. first first, a cease and desist letter to steve bannon and then to the publisher and the author. was that troubling to you? >> extremely troubling. this is the whole question of prior restraint and thank goodness for the supreme court's decision that you can't just do this but no president should be using his office to try to block publication of a book. i have to say, though, go ahead and right a cease and desist letter about my next book because from a personal financial point of view that guaranteed that this became a

best-selling book as soon as the president said, no, don't publish it. it shot to the top of amazon and everybody wants a copy. it's silly what the president did. it goes against the first amendment and our laws but certainly helps the book from that standpoint. >> i do think hes behavior helped to affirm some of what wolff is claiming. carl, a viewer said why is there so much scrutiny about this book but not "game change" or bob woodward's books or your past books that seek to go inside campaigns and presidencies. do you think there's been enough scrutiny of wolff? >> no. i think if you look at the books that bob woodward and i did together, that he has done separately, "game change," et cetera, there's been great amount of inquiry into the methodology. the final days which woodward and i wrote together because it was based on ano, ma'am nonymou

it was one of the biggest sellers in nonfiction history at the time and it was challenged by people, our colleagues and journalism. let me say something about anonymous sources. most great reporting relies on anonymous sources particularly at the level of the presidency, and that includes bob woodward's recent books. and the reason is that people do not speak on the record about what they really believe yet we can get accounts of what they are saying to others and put that on the record, as michael wolff has done here and in terms of going to republicans on capitol hill, approaching them in what we in journalism and reporters call on background, meaning we will assure them they are not on the record with their names, although we would hope they might be.

let them speak frankly to us about what they really believe. i would think those news organizations and reporters who have particular credibility and fox especially ought to be up there talking to every republican member of congress. >> karoun, that's what you do every day at "the washington post." what's your experience -- >> and "wall street journal." >> what about your experience doing that at "the post"? are people a lot more willing to share how they are feeling when they are not named? >> of course, especially when it deals with something politically sensitive. the gop is trying to they had a delicate needle here. the president leaving details to congress but he speaks more complicated when they are trying to do complicated tax reform packages or health care packages and doing that without much democratic support.

so you're seeing a lot of people weighing what their options are here. how much they want to criticize the president for thanks they are critical of him about and if that might undercut something else that they need him for. so you see a lot of careful calculations being made about how people will speak about him and you oftentimes hear different things on the record than you hear on background or especially off the record because if people spoke as frankly as some members of the gop are speaking, then it might complicate their re-election prospects or their, you know, immediate legislative prospects and that's not unique to this time, this presidential administration but it's certainly a daily challenge for a lot of people now, given how active this president is. >> quick break here. more with the panel in just a moment, including a question of access. is president trump even less accessible now than ever? patrick woke up with a sore back. but he's got work to do. so he took aleve this morning.

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. welcome back to reliable sources. president trump arrived back at the white house this morning and did not take any questions from reporters. instead he's using twitter to complain about reporters. he said on saturday that brian ross who is returning to abc after a four-week unpaid suspension should have been fired by the network. did you know that trump's last tv interview, this one with fox news, was more than two months ago? we know he did give an interview to michael schmidt of "the new york times" in florida last month. but this rather odd appearance by video. president trump was down the hall but rather than coming in he just recorded a video of the press corp instead. let's talk about the various tactics, all the ways the president does not meet the press. with our panel for the last couple minutes. brian, we saw president trump have a photo-op yesterday with

gop leaders at camp david. why does that not count in the minds of journalists as a press conference? >> shouldn't count because it was just a pool spray and a limited number of reporters were there. >> pool spray means it was kind of a last minute thing right? >> right. >> and then they were able to shout out a few questions? >> exactly. he has had the i'll make three quick points. number one, he's had one solo news conference in the last year on tuesday when i asked about him, he's never showed up in that press briefing room. when i asked about it on tuesday, on thursday we were greeted with the very display of an expensive video instead of his actual presence while he was 60 feet away. more importantly, he contends that he is transparent but through tweets and his inability to ask questions he is not transparent and that is one of the reasons why people are questioning his mental stability. if he can come forward and

answer question in front of a press room and talk to us as a human being, it might dissuade people from thinking there's something wrong with him but when you have had little interaction with a man that you're sent to cover then of course you're going to have these questions and they're not going to go away and that's the problem that this presidency has. and finally, to carl's point earlier about anonymous sources, that's one of the reasons why we are relying on anonymous sources, because we cannot get to the man and there are people who are afraid to speak their mind because he throws them under the bus. finally, as far as anonymous sources, i'm always going to support those, i went to jail for one. it's important for us to do and important during this presidency because we have had so little access to this man and it continues to dry up. >> it was notable when michael schmidt was able to interview trump last month. he is aides weren't aware the interview was happening. that suggested maybe trump wants to talk and his aides are trying

to stop him. >> i think that's true. >> michelle, what are the odds of michael wolff's book is going to result in a further clamp down an access? >> you're not going to have somebody be allowed to be a fly in the white house but it's not like trump has done anything except trash the press and complain about them and convince his base in particular that we're all out to get him and shouldn't be believed. i'm not sure they care that he's not doing pressers or interviews or answering questions because they like to listen to his twitter feed. >> right. they see him on twitter. in the final minute, a few weeks from now the super bowl is on nbc normally president obama gave an interview on super bowl sunday. last year president trump gave an interview to bill o'reilly on fox news. i wonder if president trump will skip that big ratings grabber, the super bowl, because there are so many questions that lester holt or savannah guthrie or chuck todd would have to ask him about russia and the

criminal investigation that could be too uncomfortable for him to have to answer. >> i'm not going to speculate on what he's going to do. i would say only the following. that those of us who have the opportunity to demand and ask that he appear with us for interviews need to keep doing it. simple as that. but while we are asking without any great expectations, this is a story that has many corners that we need to keep our heads down and just keep going after the story and stay calm about it and recognize we are in a constitution nal crisis and hava special responsibilitibilitresp. >> thank you very much. for another televised edition of reliable sources. sign up for our nightly news letter at reliablesources.com. all the news recapped in the

newsletter. i'll send it out late because the golden globes are on and suspect there's going to be a lot of news at the golden globes. my handle is @brianstelter and i'll see you back here next week. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum tum tum tum... smoothies... only from tums

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fire and fury. app explosive tell-all book questions the president's mental stability. >> they say he's a moron, an idiot. he's lost it. >> president trump fires back. >> he's a fraud. i consider it a work of fiction. >> so what really happened inside the white house? one of president trump's closest advisers is here to tell us next. under pressure. sources say president trump enlisted members of his team to pressure jeff sessions to not recuse himself from the russia