this is nightline. >> tonight, "fear," the explosive claims deep inside bob woodward's new book. >> they are all fighting each other. they are chaos creators. >> setting off a fire storm of white house fury. >> this idiot, woodward, who wrote this book, which is all fiction. >> the big pushback tonight and the new details now emerging. the legendary watergate reporter standing by his story no matter what. >> too many people are disturbed and worried about what's going on in the trump white house. plus -- >> did you just take my picture? erase it. >> i guess i'm probably not the kind of person you're normally friends with. >> oh, you do not want to be friends with me. trust me. >> blake lively and anna kendrick in "a simple favor."

a not so simple clash between two moms with sinister secrets duelling in unexpected ways in this twisty mystery. >> i think the idea that there are these dark secrets is really exciting. but first, here are t the "nightline" five.

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good evening, and thank you for joining us. we begin here tonight with an all-out assault by the white house on a new book that contains explosive allegations of chaos in the west wing. current and former members of the administration coming out today to attack the latest publication by veteran journali journalist bob woodward, and we sat down with him. >> many people are disturbed and worried about what's going on in the trump white house. we need to wake up and address it. >> bob woodward, legendry reporter for the "washington post" is out with a new book that has president trump enrage ffd book is a work of fiction. >> this is a war on truth. the president is saying things are a certain way when they are visibly and provably the opposite. >> team trump on offense, fighting back against the picture painted in the new woodward book. >> i am into fiction so maybe i'll take a look at this one. >> and in that scathing "new

york times" op-ed by an anonymous senior official, that there is a quiet resistance within the administration working against the president to protect the country. >> i think you're subverting the will of the people, trying to prevent him from doing the job that he was elected to do by the people. >> this is not the first time that bob woodward has tangled with a commander in chief. he's covered nine presidents, even helping bring down richard nixon by breaking the watergate story. >> well, i'm not a crook. >> he was immortalized on film by robert redford in the movie, "all the president's men." now, woodward has turned his attention to president trump, recording, he says, hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources for his new book, "fear: trump in the white house." why'd you call the book "fear"? >> trump in an interview two and a half years ago said, well, real power is fear. it's right out of his own mouth. >> he calls his attorney general

jeff sessions, and i'm quoting here, mentally retarded. he's this dumb southerner. he compares reince priebus to a rat. is this generally the way a president talks about the people around him? >> there are lots of things said by nixon about people which are quite insulting. a white house administration and cabinet needs to somehow be a team. needs to work together. and they're all fighting each other. they are chaos creators. >> the book opens with a scene that woodward describes as an administrative c administrative coup de tat. gary cohn stealing this document off the president's desk because he word, according to woodward, that if the president signed the document, it would jeopardize america's national security by make us more vulnerable to a north korean missile attack. >> he takes the letter from the president's desk in the oval

office. once it's out of trump's eyesight, he didn't ask for it when the issue was postponed for a while. >> have you ever heard of something like this? >> cohen's argument to a colleague is, i'm protecting the country. i've never seen or heard of something like that occurring. it's part of the breakdown of the presidency in the trump era. >> woodward calls it a nervous breakdown, staff joining together to purposefully block some of what they believed were the president's most dangerous impulses. another example came, he says, after a chemical attack on unarmed civilians launched by the president of syria, bashar al assad. now you're talk about a moment where the president says i want you to essentially assassinate the leader of syria. >> it was kind of, let's get f'er. mattis was very deferential, we'll get right on it, and then

he turn to an aide and said, we're not going to do that. >> the book also portrays a president who seems dangerously uninformed, incurious, or immovable. you describe a scene where the president says to gary cohn, his chief economic adviser, that the government should just print money. >> this was before he was hired. in the meeting, the president said, well, we should print money and cohn said, no, no, we can't do that. because we'll increase the deficit, and the president did not understand. basic economic, the president does not comprehend. >> while cohn cites no specific objections, he does say in a statement released today, this book does not accurately portray my experience at the white house. i continue to support the president. "fear" claims to take the reader inside the white house during key moments of the trump presidency. including the aftermath of trump's reaction to the deadly

white supremacist march in charlottesville. after his initial comments in which the president appeared to go soft on neo-nazis created an uproar. >> we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. >> the president was approximpe to deliver a second, more conciliatory speech. >> racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the kkk, neo-nazis, white supremacists. >> trump watched fox news and saw that someone said, well, this speech was a course correction and soon, trump was talking about that was the f'ing worst speech i ever gave. the next day, he went back to his original position that the problem here is both sides. >> according to woodward, the trump white house is often paralyzed by robert mueller's

russia probe. woodward writes extensively about tensions between the president and his now former personal attorney, john dowd. you report that john dowd was so worried that the president would p perjure himself in any sitdown interview with special counsel mule hear t mueller that they set up a mock interview. >> it was kind of a practice question and trump says things that are not true. dowd concluded, my god, if mueller really were here, trump would fire him on the spot. after they go through this, dowd says to the president, look, see, you can't testify. you would be a terrible witness. and the president, well, no, i'll be a good witness. no, look at -- you know, we won't do this. and then dowd goes to mueller and shows him -- demonstrates what happened, that the president couldn't tell the truth. >> he actually role plays.

>> yeah. >> with another presidential attorney. >> yeah. >> in front of the special counsel. >> right. >> woodward says the issue of dowd and led to many strained his client. >> it's very anguishing for dowd. he said this is breaking my heart, but i can not sit next to you as your attorney and have you not tell the truth. he says, if you testify, it will be an orange jump suit, and the president, at that point, decided he's going to testify and dowd says, then, i cannot stay on as your attorney, and he resigned. >> you write that dowd ultimately concludes, of the president, you're an f'ing liar. >> yes. exactly. but he can't bring himself to tell that to the president. >> dowd has disputed woodward's account, saying in a statement, there was no so-called practice session or reenactment. further, i did not refer to the president as a liar and did not

say that he was likely to end up in an orange jump suit. there are also a bunch of quotes in here about things that people who work for the president say about him. rex tillerson calls him an f'ing moron. his current chief of staff, john kelly, calls him an idiot. his defense secretary, james mattis, compares the commander in chief to a fifth or sixth grader. >> there's always a lot of backstage comments about the president. this is clearly extreme. >> current members of the administration have pushed back on the book's reporting. chief of staff kelly said, in part, the idea that i ever called the president an idiot is not true. he and i both know this story is total b.s. and secretary of defense, jim mattis, said, in contem contem contem contem contemptous words were never

attributed to me. >> who should we believe here? >> i found in 47 years of reporting, when people have denied things or challenged things, that then they will, in their own memoirs, come out and say, oh, yeah, by the way, that was true. >> woodward says he has audio tapes of most of the interviews. in fact, just last month, woodward recorded a conversation he had with the president himself. >> sorry we missed the opportunity to talk for the book. >> i never got a call. >> senator graham said he had talked to you about talking to me. now, is that not true? >> senator graham actually mentioned it quickly on one meeting, you know, that is -- that is true. >> that once cordial relationship -- >> you've always been fair, but we'll see what happens. >> has now clearly cured if i'm a trump supporter, i've seen now one, two, three, four negative books about the president. why wouldn't your book just wash over me as more noise? >> i think if anyone looks at it

objectively and goes, gee, they're saying this happened on this date and there's the document printed in the book, you know, this has a ring of truth. >> the truth, he says, contained in what he hopes will be a historical document that allows americans of all stripes to come to informed conclusions. in your view, is president trump fit for office? >> that's not for me to decide or comment on. let the people in the country or the political system look at what's occurring. i would argue that's their job, not mine. >> next here's something entirely different. blake lively channeling her inner sociopath while anna kendrick pushes what she calls the limits of dorkkeyness in their new movie about moms with secrets. ♪ we the people, defined by the moments we share

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♪ back now with the mystery with a twist featuring blake lively and anna kendrick, portraying frenemy moms, the dark comedy shining lights on the secrets women keep. here's my "nightline" coanchor with more. >> two of hollywood's most popular leading ladies, naekd and blake lively face off as frenmys in the dark comedy, "a simple favor." a twisted clash between a working mom and a stay at home mom. >> they're trying to take each other down. they're also in complete awe of the other person. >> the thriller, set in a picture perfect suburban

mansion, complete with a dashing, doting husband, played by hollywood newcomer henry golding. but lurking just below the surface of that gleaming veneer, things are not what they seem. >> five days ago, emily went missing. >> the movie taps into the often unexplored lives of women. there's this idea that we all lead these picture perfect lives but underneath, there's a hot mess. >> there's different versions of try pretend that you have the perfect life. i went down the rabbit hole on youtube and found a lot of mommy blogs that were really great and honest and then i found some that were very sunny, all white backgrounds, and there was something about it that was really almost, like, sinister when somebody's pretending that everything is, you know, that picture perfect. >> when you're young, everything that you do that's daring or provocative or adventurous is really celebrated and then suddenly, your past, your things

that were provocative or dangerous, they suddenly become concealed behind this facade of motherhood and family or fatherhood and parent. >> anna kendrick is betst known for her spot-on portrayals of uptight, uncomfortable characters. you play awkward so well. >> i never know what to say to that. thank you. >> i'm assuming that's good acting because i can't imagine that you're awkward in real life. >> this was -- this pushed the boundaries of how dorky a human person can be. >> and blake lively stars as the tlam glam rouse and mysterious emily with a fashion job in new york. >> did you just take my picture? erase it. my character's a psychopath so i felt like it was entirely different than anything i've ever known. >> they bond by sharing secrets. >> i think they're both really

lonely and they're outsiders in their own way. the whole sort offe thll, etr it'"ge girl" why do you think this is like this new explosion? >> because women have secrets. i think, you know, sometimes a woman's inner life is not always explored. >> blake, whose own megawatt relationship with husband ryan reynolds is in the spotlight says it was liberating playing emily. how did you channel your inner sociopath? >> it's more just like everything that you see is a veneer so i stopped trying to hide my sociopath. >> a mother herself to daughters james and inez, she blazeplays y different type of mom in the movie. >> does your kid drink, maybe? it's never too early to start teaching them. >> i think you're joking but great. >> you swear like a sailor in front of children. >> i did ask for the children to be removed, at least. >> did you really? >> they're so tiny and when we were shooting with them, i would

do a very neutered version and then i'd say, can you remove the kids so we can improv now? >> thwhose subaru is blocking t garage. >> your wife is trying to get my to stop apologizing. >> maybe you can get her to start. >> and henry golding, just coming off the summer smash hit crazy rich asians plays lively's husband. >> here you are in this big smash hit, crazy rich asians and in this movie, your character, it's not even mentioned that you're asian. caught up in a genre-bending love triangle. >> she's an enigma, my wife. it's what drew know her. it can also make her impossible. she can be so fiercely private. >> who's the better kisser? >> i'm going the -- >> keep it classy, san diego. >> very neutral and say both girls are absolutely amazing. >> director paul feig has helped break the hollywood mold with

female-driven comedies like "bridesmaids." >> i'm ready to party. >> and with this thriller, featuring two sophisticated female leads, he hopes to do the same. >> women have been so underserved in movies for so long. they were just playing one-dimensional characters and it just drove my crazy, and i just got tired of watching stories about men. >> and often men are celebrated for their history and all the adventures where women, there's this idea that they sort of have to be completely pure and you don't want to know their history. so i think the idea that there are these dark secrets is really exciting. >> for "nightline," in new york. next here, 17 years later, americans paying their deepest respects. >> announcer: abc news "nightline" sponsored by -- keep those shrimp comin'!

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and finally here tonight, remembrances of 9/11 around the

country here today. the familiar and haunting twin beams of light commemorating the world trade center attacks exactly 17 years ago. the eastern michigan university memorial placing flowers on that 6,800-pound beam salvaged from the 74th floor and colorado's red rocks amphitheater, billed as the largest stair climb in the nation, honoring the new york city firefighters who sacrificed their lives to save others. we remember all the families around the country who lost loved ones and we will never forget. thank you f