this. you know that. >> they didn't say it is completely false. it's clear to you. >> characterization and description were not accurate. i have to leave it here. i have to hand it off to anderson. thank you for being with me. i apologize for the coughing. i will be better monday. thanks for joining us. anderson is next. good evening. we intended to speak at the top of the program with one of two buzzfeed reporters behind a report that if true meant federal investigators had evidence that the president of the united states committed a serious crime and potentially an impeachment offense. cnn had not confirmed the story, nor had any other news organization. a few moments ago we learned buzzfeed was going to pull the reporter from the program because robert mueller's office was about to weigh in. that office has weighed in and it is something in itself. before getting into exactly what mueller's office has now said -- they rarely ever say anything on the record -- here is the essence of what the buzzfeed report was.

the headline read, president trump directed his attorney, michael cohen, to lie to congress about the moscow tower project. earlier today, neither the president nor the white house categorically denied the substance of it. by this afternoon, that line had changed. giuliani calling the report categorically false. sarah sanders echoed that line. >> did the president direct michael cohen to lie to congress? >> that's absolutely ridiculous. i think that the president's outside counsel addressed this best and said in a statement earlier today that it's categorically false. >> now in a rare move, the special counsel's office has weighed in. sara murray joins us with that. what did the special counsel's office say? this just happened. >> it did. as you pointed out, it's remarkable they issued a statement like this. here is what it says from the spokesman for the special counsel. buzzfeed's district of specific statements to the special counsel's office and characterization of documents

and testimony obtained by this office regarding michael cohen's congressional testimony are not accurate. remember, the story, it is sourced to federal law enforcement officials. but it also said that there were all of these documents, that there were interviews, witnesses. that is what backed up this notion that the president had tried to get michael cohen to testify to something that just wasn't true in front of congress. now the special counsel is saying, we have documents and witness statements but they don't back up what buzzfeed is saying. >> there were two reporters on the buzzfeed story. we were spoked to talk to one of them. they said they had two sources on the record in federal law enforcement who i believe it was they claimed that they had seen these -- some of the documents. >> yeah, that's right. they said their sources reviewed some of the documents. the buzzfeed reporters had not personally reviewed them. this is a story that's stumped a lot of us during the day and into late last night, because no one else has been able to

confirm this story. no one else was able to get their hands on the documents that apparently backed up this story. i think the same is true of the buzzfeed reporters. they didn't put anything else corroborating it in terms of the underlying evidence. this statement really shows you what a difficult position the special counsel's office was in today. we know the justice department, that includes the special counsel's office, does not comment on anything regarding an ongoing investigation. that's what got james comey into so much trouble when he was leading the fbi. in the wake of this buzzfeed story, we saw democratic lawmakers going out there and saying, we need to know if this is true. if this is true, we need to see these documents. the president instructing someone to commit -- to lie to congress, the president obstructing justice, is grounds for impeachment. i think that this drumbeat from lawmakers is part of what put pressure on the special counsel to do something extraordinary. they almost never comment. they wouldn't tell "the new york times" what one of their

prosecutors was having for lunch. that's how little they want to comment. >> appreciate it. i want to go to pamela brown. you heard sarah sanders deny the report this afternoon, quoting rudy giuliani. has there been any reaction since the special counsel's office weighed in? >> it's safe to say the president will tweet about this soon. this is veindication from what officials have been saying since this morning that they have been saying that this is false. initially, you heard some of the white house officials come out and attack the credibility of buzzfeed, attack the idea of leaking from law enforcement officials. then as the day went on, sarah sanders, the press secretary then came out and said, it's categorically false. rudy giuliani said the same thing. she was echoing the sentiment from what we heard from giuliani. now in an extraordinary move,

the special counsel spokesman is coming out and essentially saying that there is nothing to back up this buzzfeed report that the president directed michael cohen, his former attorney, to lie to congress and that there are trump organization documents to back it up. that is extremely rare for the special counsel to do. this story from buzzfeed certainly caught a lot of attention because of the implications for possible impeachment. suborning perjury, that's what this raised. you heard lawmakers saying they want to get to the bottom of this, they want to investigate. there was a strong pushback from here at the white house from officials saying that it's not true. now you have the special counsel statement. i'm sure this is -- even though no one is speaking out publically at the white house in response to the special counsel's statement, i think it will be safe to say that the president will be talking about

this, his son don junior tweeted about it saying, i told you so. there's probably more to come in terms of reaction. >> pamela brown, appreciate your reporting. buzzfeed just responded. i'm quoting from them. we are continuing to report and determine what the special counsel is disputing. we remain confident in the accuracy of our report. joining us is maggie haberman and preet bharara. maggie, what do you make of this? >> a lot of different things. it's still hard to figure it out. one thing that pam brown said that i don't think is true is the statement didn't say there is nothing to this. the statement said it's inaccurate. we don't know what they are saying is inaccurate. that said -- >> they are being specific,

buzzfeed's statement of specific statements and characterization of documents are not accurate. >> right. this story, if true, would have changed what is happening in terms of the white house. you saw the pressure come from lawmakers who were concerned about it, not just democrats but republicans. you saw that pressure applied and grow on the special counsel throughout the day. it's very rare that they issue any statement at all, let alone something of this nature. it probably would have been more helpful had they done it earlier today. i don't think they felt they could. >> president trump, who tweets quite a bit and attacks things, had said nothing about this all day. he wasn't saying, this is not true. >> it's interesting. there was silence from the white house or we're not going to get into it. i think sarah sanders did the same thing. there were officials not talking. we're not going to get into this. the reality is that the president is not known for

making truthful statements to his own folks. i think nobody necessarily wanted to go out on a limb. what was striking was giuliani did then issue the president's personal lawyer a categorical denial. sarah sanders went with that later. that's when you did start to see something change. the president is very likely to point to this and say, this is an a witch hunt. this is an example of what they do. the interesting thing about the mueller report is that depending on whether it's ever made public, there's going to be an answer to this. we're going to know at some point whether it's in the full report or a summary not exactly but what was found. this was a knowable thing. the two reporters involved in this have broken consistently very good stories about this issue, about the trump tower project in moscow, for instance. i think that lent a lot of credibility to this. i'm curious to see what else evolves. i do think you can expect the

president is going to point to this as an example of a -- >> if i could add, we may know february 7th what substance there is to this story. michael cohen is going to be testifying in public on february 7. he will undoubtedly be asked about this. >> they have suggested there are restrictions on what he can say. >> that's right. it's not clear what those restrictions are. it's not clear if this is covered. for example -- >> if he decides -- whoever decides that he can't speak about anything relating to mueller or the southern district of new york, that would eliminate this. >> the restriction that i understand that cohen is under is he can't talk about the russia part of the story. this say weird hybrid, this story of obstruction of justice and russia. it's also possible if the whole thing is false, he will take the opportunity to say that.

i don't see how that compromises -- >> we should point out, he did not comment on the story today, nor did people around him publically make any comments about it. >> ldavis did it out of respect for the special counsel's office, we can't talk about this. >> you were very cautious when this story broke, tweeting out, if this is true, it's very damming, but let's reserve judgment. >> i think this is an object lesson for people covering the story and responding to the story, whether you are in the press or in politics or you are a citizen in the country. sometimes you need to pause and decide whether there are enough facts to support your jubilation, because you don't like the president, or your disappointment, because you support the president. i feel like sometimes we should take a step back and realize, there are lots of people who have a political view and they

don't like the president. before that, some people didn't like hillary clinton. there are two categories of people. i don't know how much in the buzzfeed story is false. i credit anything the special counsel says. if they say the characterization is not correct, i believe that. the press needs to take responsibility in this case in the form of buzzfeed news. there were tens of thousands of other people, politicians, who decided to spring on top of this i think prematurely and excessively in a way that they didn't have to do. none of this is going away. the special counsel will have a report coming out in due time as jeff pointed out. there's going to be a hearing that will include michael cohen.

people can get a night's sleep before they start 30u7di inpoun this. that's a good lesson to think about going forward. >> a couple things. from a reporting standpoint, just explain for people out there, usually when a story is broken by whether it's "the new york times" or somebody else, gradually other news organizations try to figure out -- go to their sources, talk to people. usually can start to verify either the full story that somebody else has broken or aspects of it. it was telling that today, as soon as this story broke, obviously you have thousands of reporters all over the world trying to find out if this is true. throughout the day, no one was able to come up with similar sources saying this, was a red flag. >> there have been stories previously that haven't been confirmed. >> for a while. >> some cases they get confirmed well down the road.

then there are stories that some people break that never got confirmed. those continue to be questions, like the one about michael cohen being in prague, which has continued to be disputed by michael cohen. in this case, again, the reporters who broke this are very good reporters. they have broken a lot of really solid news. we had tried ourselves -- i can only speak for my news organization. we tried throughout the day to corroborate key aspects of it. we had been unable to. then you saw the special counsel's statement. going to what preet said, i think there's -- i think a lot of the partisan excitement has gotten ahead -- not only partisan, but a lot of the people's emotions around the president have in this example today gotten ahead of where the established facts were. i don't know what that means for whatever process follows. i don't know what that means in

terms of how people react when the ultimate report comes out. i don't know how it hardens resolve for supporters of the president. remember, an impeachment battle, if that is what happens, which there's ever to reason it will likely be something, a lot of it is public opinion. a lot is shaped around public opinion. that's how members of congress vote. people's emotions running high and away from the facts doesn't necessarily help that. >> jeff, the fact that the special counsel's office issued a statement, i mean, no disrespect to the spokesman, but it's not a -- he is not issuing a lot of statements. >> there's a name that a lot of people don't know because peter carr doesn't say much. he is the -- >> i'm sure he does other stuff. >> how many stories have you read which has a line, the special counsel's office declined to comment? >> i want to read what he said.

it's rare to hear from the spokesperson. buzzfeed's description and characterization are not accurate. >> that statement was obviously very carefully written. i think we should read it very carefully as well. which leads to a certain amount of puzzlement on my part. it's not a repudiation of every word in the buzzfeed story. it's a repudiation of some part of it. it may be a repudiation of the part we're focusing on, that trump told co-then to lie to congress. it might not be. that's what leaves me puzzles. brother preet is the right attitude here, which is, slow down. i mean, we don't have to know this today. twitter is a maligned force in

many ways. one of the things is it forces us all -- it doesn't force us, it allows us all to talk before we think. >> it also makes people feel like they have to join the stream of conversation as somebody who is stepped back from twitter, it's much better this way. life is better. >> we miss you. part of the reason that there was skepticism or i was skeptical was because there was a notable difference between the characterization of michael c p coh cohen's conduct relating to the hush money payment, versus the lying to congress. those two briefs came in and special counsel's office on the same day. with respect to the southern district case, the prosecutors took the position in their own document that the payoff was done in coordination with and at the direction of individual one the president. at the same time, you had special counsel mueller's

document that came in with respect to michael cohen's guilt plea in which they said they made it clear the deal in moscow concluded before the iowa caucuses. they did not take the step of saying what the southern district prosecutor said, which was he did at that time the direction of the president, which is why then months later you see the buzzfeed article say something that clearly sounds like the mueller team should have known, it was under the direction of the president. they didn't bother to say it. when their sister office did say it. when you see that discrepancy, that's the thing that causes you to have pause. >> i didn't notice that. you really know how to read a legal document. that's very good. that's a big deal. the southern district said it was at the direction of the president. the special counsel didn't. this buzzfeed story sort of

changes that and maybe we should -- >> why would there be that discrepancy? if they both have access to michael cohen. >> it sounds like in one case they had clear proof it was at the direction of and they credited it. in the other case, they didn't, which is maybe why we have this clarification, because -- i'm prepared to believe -- i'm not saying this is true. i'm prepared to believe the president of the united states did some things, said things or people suggested to michael cohen, your testimony better be good and it should not cause problems for the president. that's very different from something smoking gun proof it was directed. part of the problem -- i don't know if you agree with this. the beginning of the buzzfeed article is that they flatly say he was directed by the president to lie to congress. >> and that there were documents -- we don't know in what form, trump organization documents that backed up that notion. >> just one -- from a reporting

perspective, i have not been able to substantiate that anyone from the trump organization went to speak with mueller's people. we know that members of the trump organization have spoken with congress and not that many of them, but some have. the president's son would be one of them. i believe that mueller has access to those transcript. we know the cfo of the trump organization has been interviewed by the southern district. that's the only person i'm aware of who has been interviewed by the southern district. michael cohen was not a trump organization official anymore. that was a little puzzling to me as i was reading the story. the story suggested that they had this picture from documents and from texts and e-mails and michael cohen kind of filled in the back end of it with whatever he said to the special counsel. that doesn't seem substantiated by this statement. >> when you say they, you

mean -- >> buzzfeed suggested that's how -- that was a very clear and details explanation of how things had gone inside the room in a way we rarely have had. it may still turn out that there are elements of that that are true. we will at some point know. right now, it's hard to discern based on the statement. >> i want to put -- do we have the buzzfeed statement that they have put out? let's put that up on the screen. for people who are just joining, this is a statement that buzzfeed said in the wake of the statement from mueller's office, buzzfeed says, we are continuing to report and determine what the special counsel is disputing. we remain confident in the accuracy of our report. >> this is a problem. this is a big deal and a problem for buzzfeed. when i was a united states attorney, we used to debate this issue not infrequently. when a report comes out in some

newspaper or in some media outlet that has a lot of things correct but it has a few things incorrect, like who is the object of scrutiny or what documents we have or mischaracterizes things in a certain way, usually our plan was to keep our mouths shut. you can do more harm by talking than not talking. sometimes it was egregious enough you felt like you had to make some statement. the problem then is, you don't want to edit their piece and say, among these 15 facts -- you become their editor. you become sort of a party to letting them know secret information. i think it's five and proper what the special counsel's office did. they had to do it. it must have been extraordinarily difficult to decide to do it. it took them 24 hours -- or 20 hours do it. they're not going to get answers -- buzzfeed is not going to get answers from them telling them what little things got wrong and what you didn't get wrong, which leaves buzzfeed in a bad situation. press outlets sometimes face

that if they don't get everything right. >> just from a reporting standpoint, explain for people out there what happens now to -- for those buzzfeed reporters. are they -- they go back to the people they talked to, they try to -- >> speaking generally, people will go back to their sources and try to re-establish trails and look at what they have and what they don't have. ben smith, is a very smart, aggressive reporter. i'm sure he has his reporters doing that. one thing i think is really important that i didn't mention before, in the course of the reporting of this, the challenge that everyone has had in terms of reporting this story, michael cohen has pleaded guilty to lying before congress. this is something that you have the trump team say all the time is michael cohen is a liar, they use it to -- >> they are not wrong. michael cohen has lied. >> he has acknowledged that. the white house has a massive credibility problem. this is why when you have -- it's very rare --

>> the white house, as far as i know, have not acknowledged that they have lied about anything. >> correct. i think that's -- they have acknowledged sometimes errors. very infrequently. so this is why when i had a lot of people around the white house and around the president saying to me today, why is everyone not just -- why do they have -- why does the trump team have to give a response? because people are not going to just assume that because the president's folks say we're not going to dignify this, that that suggests that there is something wrong with the buzzfeed reporting. there's a cost to saying things that aren't true. this is it. >> want to bring in brian steltzer. what are you hearing? >> two more words electr s from. two more words. the two words are, stay tuned. they are trying to signal, as maggie was saying, the reporters will re-report this story, try to understand this in more detail. stay tuned is the message. >> they have updated their -- >> they have.

stay tuned. the new statement, stay tuned. i think the view inside buzzfeed is the statement is worded lawyerly. this was a carefully worded statement. also an incredibly rare statement. that's why they pulled out from your show knowing the statement was about to come out. i think we should acknowledge and be transparent about the background of one of the reporters here. jason leopold has been an amazing reporter. he digs through documents. he is able to get incredible information. in the past, he has acknowledged he had a checkered past. he had instances of plagiarism. this was a long time ago, 15 years ago. those details did come up today. republican national company tried to use that against him today. buzzfeed was clear. they said, we stand by our story. we stand by our journalists. we have confidence in our journalist. at the moment, that statement still stands. >> they're not saying in their

latest statement -- they're not saying, we have absolute confidence in the story. they are saying that -- >> they will re-report the story. >> i don't want to paraphrase it. these things matter. we a you say they added stay tuned. >> it's incredibly unusual for a big news outlet to be in this situation. to be out there on a limb with a story nobody else could match for almost 24 hours. now to have that story knocked down not by a trump white house spokesperson who has -- >> i don't know in knocked down is the right -- >> this is an incredibly important point. in the same way i and others have said, when the report came out, you don't immediately absorb and agree with everything. you have to maintain skepticism. just because the special counsel issued this clearly drafted and wordsmith document, taking some issue with the

characterizations, doesn't then you throw out everything the buzzfeed article said. the truth is probably somewhere in between. you can't have this pendulum swing from one extreme to the other about what the truth is. >> the reporters have had some excellent work on trump tower moscow. they have led the way on stories about this deal involving trump tower moscow. it has been backed up. this -- i think for the audience at home, this is more frustrating than last night. this is more frustrating than this morning. there are people inside the government that know the truth. the american public is not being told the truth. they can say -- you are going to say all day, we have to get to the bottom of it and finish the investigation. i think there are a lot of americans -- maybe most americans who say, you have had enough time. tell us what you know. isn't that a legitimate argument? >> i'm not sure that's the reaction to this story. i think -- in general, they may think mueller should tell what he knows. what the reaction here may be,

the press screwed up. they should apologize. the media isn't as great as it thinks it is. this is a bad day for the news media. let's not kid ourselves. that statement is at least a partial repudiation of an enormously important story. >> also, it's a very bad day for buzzfeed regardless of where this story goes. to the credit of other news organizations, everybody didn't jump on the bandwagon saying this is true. >> we ran with it saying if true. that was not that huge an asterisk. >> i think i would love to think that the press -- the public trusts us all the time. i think the opposite is true. >> this hurt -- this hurts everybody. >> of course. >> it also is a moment where -- this is maybe a footnote. it shows generally speaking how much credibility the special counsel's team has.

they never speak. >> that is true. >> when you never speak and you speak sometimes, it carries a lot of weight. the president's team that constantly says it's a hoax and the 12 angry democrats, they're going to wave this around and credit the mueller team with getting something correct that's to the benefit of the president of the united states who constantly attacks them, even though they are public servants. they will be proving by waving this around that they actually credit the kinds of things that the mueller team says on occasion. >> in fact, the mueller team has charged a number of people are lying to investigators. what you will hear very often from the trump folks -- jeffly and i ta jeffrey and i talked about this before, it's a process crime. it's still a crime. it's the reason why you have seen it, particularly in the flynn document, where you had the special counsel say government officials need to be held to a higher standard.

there is a reason why mueller has seemed like the arbitor of truth, because he has named who has been lying to investigators. i think that preet is right, when you have the president point to this as evidence of -- this is going to help him, the fact that mueller -- >> he is on a retweet spree celebrating this and attacking the media. he is, of course -- mostly retweeting people mocking buzzfeed for this. the editor and chief of buzzfeed, ben smith, who led the team doing this reporting, came out just now with a tweet that a slightly different statement. he is saying, we urge the special counsel to make clear what he is disputing. the odds of that seem small. buzzfeed challenging the special counsel saying, tell us what -- >> they're not going to do that. we have said multiple times how extraordinary this is. the statement by the special counsel's office is extraordinary for a number of

reasons. one is to vary what i said a second ago. you have the special counsel bob mueller who is attacked every day by the president of the united states and by his allies, including giuliani, who saw a bad story that's not their responsibility to fix in any way. they're not part of the press. they are doing their thing. they have their secret proceedings. the grand jury done in secret. they saw a story in part that was bad for the sitting president of the united states, that raised an expectation that further bad things were going to happen to the president of the united states, where you have policem members of congress committed to doing actions and talking about impeachment. they said, even though they get maligned every day as trying to take the president down, they said, you know what? we have to speak and tamp this down in part, i believe, because it is unduly hurting the president. that's what they did, because i think they are committed to doing the right thing. >>presidency and

the institution. >> to me, the most interesting part of the buzzfeed story was the citation to two federal law enforcement officials. >> that was the sources. >> as the sources. that is something that you almost -- you do not see federal law enforcement officials in the mueller investigation talking. that had to appall mueller. because that is something he has just not done. i think it's as much the sour sourcing as the substance. he doesn't want anyone to think that he authorized, supported, believed federal law enforcement talking to reporters about this. >> we will take a quick break. it's our first break. we will continue the conversation in just a moment. -we're in a small room. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance?

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the white house finally begins pushing back. then in a rare move, the special counsel's office takes issue with it, buzzfeed responds. buzzfeed's editor and speech is tweeting. the president is tweeting. go back to pam brown at the white house for that. >> reporter: as expected, the president is responding to the statement from the special counsel disputing the buzzfeed report by tweeting. he is just retweeting at this point. there have been a few retweets. he retreated from a radio talk show host who tweeted, we called it, fake news, more buzzfeed bs. he retweeted another tweet from a reporter who said, i told you the buzzfeed story was nonsense. he also tweeted this retweet his son don junior, which showed a

video of donald trump speaking to oprah in 1988. he retweeted that basically saying, just a son who loves his dad. unclear what prompted that tweet. certainly, white house has stayed mum. they are letting the president tweet, speak about this and just letting this play out. there is an attitude here of vindication and i told you so. white house officials throughout the day have been knocking this down or attempting to knock down the buzzfeed report, which was unusual for the white house to do. normally, on russia-related stories, the white house would tell reporters to go to outside counsel, such as rudy giuliani. in addition to that, they came out and said that it wasn't true. sarah sanders said it was categorically false. a press spokesperson here at the white house said that essentially it wasn't true. other aides here at the white house said, we are bringing up

the credibility of buzzfeed, talking about michael cohen saying a proven liar, saying this is another example of leakers. that's the attitude here at the white house. we should note -- you did point out in the lead to me that buzzfeed has come out basically asking the special counsel to identify what exactly it is disputing. ben smith, the editor in chief said in response to the statement, he is saying we stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it and we urge the special counsel to make clear what he is disputing. make no mistake extraordinarily special counsel do this unless they were knocking down that there is evidence corroborating the president directed michael cohen to lie to congress about trump tower moscow. >> we should point out that

terms of the time line from the white house response in the morning, i think it was kellyanne conway who was on attacking michael cohen as a liar, raising questions about the reporting, but not denying it. it wasn't until the president's attorney later in the day said that it was categorically untrue. then sarah sanders echoed that and citing rudy giuliani. >> that was significant. in the same way -- we rarely have statements from the special koup counsel's office. i did find that to be telling. i was not surprised by the, we're not going to dignify this with a response approach that the white house took. going back to something i said earlier, this is a president who has a history of not tell the

tru truth. i don't think anybody wanted to put themselves out on a limb. >> during the experience of covering one of the many scandals involving new york politicians that preet happened to be in the southern district for over the years, there was a moment where the denials from a spokesman went from, this is not true, to the elected official said this is not true. that's when the person questions whether they are being told the truth. you have a more exacerbated version of that with the white house. a president says things that are false. i did find what giuliani said to be striking. i think not unimportant. the concern was it referred to law enforcement officials in the buzzfeed story. you are seeing base on what pam was saying the president referring to that. others on twitter referring to leakers.

this is often a point the president makes. people are out to get him. anything that could delegitimize the investigation is of concern to the special counsel. that's why they went forward. i don't know what this means for the story going forward. >> joining us is ben smith. good to have you on. can you explain your response to what special counsel mueller's office has released? >> thank you for having me on. obviously, we stand by the reporting in this story. we spoke to federal law enforcement officials who told us the president directed michael cohen to lie to congress. >> do you know who the sources are? >> do i know? of course i know. yes. we have been reporting on the trump tower moscow, at the heart of the russia investigation, for months. we broke the stories about it before it was at the center of

the cohen indictment. that was jason and anthony. we hope to release this honestly, this vague statement disputing the piece, and we urge the special counsel to make it clear what he is disputing. >> when you say it's a vague statement, i want to read what they said. they said buzzfeed's description are not accurate. we were pointing out earlier, it's wrong to characterize this as knocking down the story entirely. it's a very specifically worded statement from them. >> absolutely. they are some of the best lawyers in america. they are clearly referring to something. we hope they will tell us what they are referring to. at this point, we would hope they would clarify that. >> you know it's unlikely they would clarify a statement that

took them 20 or so hours to come out w. are you expecting them to make another statement to >> that would be the responsible thing to do. >> do you have any belief that -- >> that's what we and everybody else are continuing to report on this. i'm hopeful more of the facts will come out. we think -- they have issued this statement that makes clear they are disputing something in the story and did not say what. >> do you have any doubts at this point about the story, about what you have reported? you say you stand by it. are there specific areas you have doubt about or any doubts? >> we're really confident in these specific sources and in the story the reporters told. >> ben, i think brian stelter has a question for you.

>> ben, earlier today the republican national committee challenged one of the two reporters, jason, said he has a history of false reporting. i know he has had a great track record working for you. are you concerned about the history of your reporters being questioned and their work being questioned? >> thanks for the question, brian. i think that whether we saw the republican attacking the reporters in the story, that struck us as -- that's something you typically do when you don't have a better response. we did not see the kind of strong and detailed denial or anything like them you might have expected. we saw attacks on jason, who was a pulitzer finalist two years ago for reporting on a series of assassinations in russia, who is one -- the leading practitioner of foya in the united states and revealed hillary clinton's e-mails. i think it's ludicrous to go

back and dredge around stuff -- stories from 15 years ago that are real and that he wrote about back then. >> people wonder sometimes if in this partisan age of anti-trump bias, reporters opinions creep into the coverage. you might hear something from a source and you want it to be true. did that happen in this case? >> no, absolutely not. the last time jason was being accused of things like this, it was when his reporting revealed hillary clinton's e-mails. >> jeff toobin here. is it unnerving to you that so many other reporters are chasing this story and no one has come up with anything like what you have come up with? >> i think i don't -- i'm not sure i know that to be true. everybody is chasing this. everybody is chasing it carefully and trying to confirm it. we will see over the next couple of days, i assume, where our reporting and where everybody else's reporting advances it.

>> we love to have scoops. isn't it nervous making that you are out there by yourself on a story that lots and lots of very good reporters are covering? >> you know, the specifics of this story grew out of a story that we have been way out in front exclusively on, the moscow project, which is a different line of inquiry. obviously, the facts are true or false. we will all get to the bottom of this. the special counsel could make clear what in the story he is disputing that would make it easier for everybody to stand it up. i think we are confident in the reporting. >> ben, it's preet. taking my shot at a question. do you have a complaint with respect to the special counsel in the following respect, if you can say, maybe you can't say,

but usually and often with respect to these articles, you would have said to the special counsel's office, in advance of the publication of the article, we plan to report the following, that the president of the united states directed michael cohen to lie to congress, what do you think about that. some offices will waive you off beforehand or you work it out in a way that's appropriate for both the media institution and the special counsel's office. or maybe 20 hours after you issue the story, they put out this statement. do you have any complaint with respect to how this came out in that respect? >> i think it probably wouldn't be appropriate for me to say whether one office or another has a habit of waiving people on or off. i think what they did is confusing. >> in what way? >> a day after a story is published they come out with a

redetailed and very opaque statement disputing it. >> are you concerned -- i'm concerned, frankly, that when you -- over the next few months, whenever there's a hot story, a big scoop that comes out, you are going to hear from the president and his supporters, it's another buzzfeed story, it's another story like buzzfeed where even robert mueller said it was false. do you worry that's going to damage all of us? >> you know, we are like most of our colleagues, very focused on doing the reporting and getting it right. that's all we can do. >> so now, right now, you have reporters out there trying to go back to sources, follow up on this? i would assume you have everybody trying to follow up on this. >> yes, absolutely. >> ben smith, i appreciate you talking -- talking to you. thank you very much. rudy giuliani has tweeted, i

commend bob mueller's office for correcting the false story. i ask the press to take heed that their desire to destroy the president has gone too far. they pursued this without critical analysis all day. >> that's helpful. i think -- sorry for the sarcasm. i think it's -- the former mayor of new york is acting as an extension of the president as opposed to presenting a legal defense. i think that's what you saw with that statement. i think it just adds fuel to the fire. there's going to be criticism from the president. it's understandable. given the special counsel's statement and given the fact that none of us have corroborated the buzzfeed story, it's not surprising the president's team would do this. >> do you read into the fact that the president -- as far as the last tweets we saw or i saw -- is not actually tweeting himself? he is retweeting things? he's not going on the record? >> i'm sure he will tomorrow.

what he is try doing is show that other people are criticizing and it's not just him. what we have seen from this president is that he is serving as -- we say this. he is serving as his own chief of staff. he really is driving >> you're looking at a white house that is dealing with the longest government shutdown in history and this gives them something to point to that is not about that. so i would expect them to be talking about it. generally speaking, in the course of the mueller story, the opposite is true. something has been reported and you have had the white house deny it and it's proven to be true. this is an unusual case. to be clear, mueller's team didn't say the story is false. they said it's inaccurate that is described, and we don't know specifically what they were referring to but this is the rare instance where that has happened and i'm not surprised they're pointing to it this way.

on another network i saw a banner saying mueller's team knocked down a story. buzzfeed's description of specific statements to special counsel's office in characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office regarding congressional testimony are not accurate. >> what they knocked down was a tremendous zeal going forward in congress and concern based on the reporting, this reporting, if true, as i said earlier, would change the direction of the story massively. it wouldn't just be this is another evidence in terms of someone and it's very, very different. you have a lot of congressional weigh in on we need to know what this means and that's what you're seeing mueller reacting

to. >> the big picture here is, and i appreciate, as i think about it, that we have been parsing out and questioning as the prior guest suggested what it is they agree with and what it is that they don't agree with and what i think may be very clear is that the special counsel is not being able to put forward an allegation that the president of the united states directed michael cohen to lie to congress because if they were, they were on the precipice of that and they felt they had the goods, they wouldn't have issued this extraordinary statement because the basic sentiment is true. so whether or not there's particular characterizations or law enforcement officials are giving out information, this will be disappointing to many and uplifting to others, but i

think the idea that they must have struggled to tamp down is that they're about to be in a position to indict the president and they're not. >> this article certainly did imply that not only is michael cohen saying this but there are documents and texts or whatever proof that they that showed. >> i have a different view of the implications of all of this. my view is -- the larger message that a lot of people are going to take from this story is that the news media are a bunch of leftest liars dying to get the president and they're willing to lie to do it. and i don't think that's true. >> they're not contradictory but i think this is a bad day for

us. you seem to disagree but it reinforces every bad stereotype about the news media. >> i am desperate to always say to the audience, judge folks individually and judge brands individually, don't fall for what these politicians out there want you to do. they want you to think we're all crooked. we're not. >> neither is buzz feed. >> he knows the identity of the two sources. they're going to be going back to the two sources and other sources to try to get to the bottom of this. now it's a dispute and i don't know how it's going to be resolved. i hope the president doesn't get everybody to use it. >> going to see this as evidence for his attacks being justified

and they're going to say it's understandable. >> we want to keep reinforcing how much smoke there is. it's a massive fire. >> we do that every day. i think there's two important things to remember. part of why, if the media gets something wrong, if the media gets something wrong, it is incumbent on us to correct it, and i understand that it is frustrating to the press and also people that believe in the press that the white house does not necessarily follow that same standard for themselves, but that has nothing to do with what we do. >> we have to keep our standards high, even if others are low and in this case one of the things that comes to mind when you see a story with two sources, obviously you need two sources and not just one. i wanted a third source and a fourth source and more corroboration and that's what the public expects as well. as much as possible on these

stories. what i love is that's the goal. >> what do you interrupt that to mean? clearly, one of the things that you pointed out is the reason mueller put out the statement is people thought there was somebody on the mueller team, i guess. >> my speculation and here we are talking about how you shouldn't speculation so here i go. i find it very hard to believe that imbedded law enforcement agents that are working full time around the clock on the core of what the mueller investigation was doing, that they are the sources for this. >> who has access to information? >> i don't know. but in the course of obtaining evidence, sometimes issuing search warrants. having other people that are not in the core of a group of people that a particular prosecutors

office was dealing with. the two law enforcement agents. >> there's other folks that characterize things in a particularly strong way, i think. >> there's lots and lots of people that have access to bad information, and they're often willing to share it with reporters: that's the problem that we have a lot of the time. in the great press movie, the absence of malice, paul newman who is the source, the person burned by sally field the reporter. she says we tell the truth. and he says no, you just write what people say. he's right. we're dependent on our sources and sometimes our sources are no good. and we rely on the wrong people and that may be what happened. >> so what happens now? >> we're going to hear a lot

more about this obviously. >> the president is going to be doing one of those. >> to see the investigation into him is something representing that. i don't think he's going to let this go and so i think it's going to depend on -- ben smith said they're continuing to report. it's going to depend on whether there's more corroboration of their story. but we don't know. i don't know what they're disputing and i don't think we're going to get more detail on what they're disputing at least not from an official

channel. so we have to wait and see. >> ben wouldn't go into details on this but it would be normal procedure to ask the mueller team to comment on a story that they're reporting. >> of course. all of our frustration has been that the mueller team won't comment on almost anything. we're all trying to get it right. jeffrey makes it a very important point that's true for all of us. my husband who is a journalist said we're all just as good as our sources, and that is true. again, i don't know who buzz feed's sources are and i think the two reporters here have had very solid records on this story. so i'd like to wait and see where this goes.

we have breaking news, robert mueller's team breaking it's silence about the report that ricochetted around washington in the last 24 hours and they have a different story. we'll bring in a team of people that have reported on and worked these type of cases to tell us where things stand in terms of what we know and where we go. then we'll go one-on-one about the shutdown. he spent an hour with the president about what it will take to get people paid and i think the president just let us know where he stands when it comes to whether he rejects steve king's message of bigotry. it is a wild week. once