captioning sponsored by cbs >> dickerson: today on "face the nation." 2018 is already auto doozya blockbuster behind the scenes account of the trump administration shakes up washington. and prompts the president to defend his mental stability tweeting that he is, a very stable genius. >> tweeting about your mental state, why did you feel a need to tweet about that? >> because i went to the best college. i went to -- i had situation where i -- made billions of dollars became one of the top business people. went to television and for ten years was a tremendous success as you probably already have heard. ran for president at one time and won. and then i hear this guy that does not know me. doesn't know me at all.

>> dickerson: meanwhile challenges for the commander in chief in iran, pakistan and north corey where what president tauntetaunted jong-un about thes of his nuclear button. kentucky senator rand paul will join us to talk about the challenges for congress in 2018. and former mississippi governor and rnc chairman haley barbour will talk about this election year and plenty of analysis here and abroad is all ahead on "face the nation." good morning, welcome to "face the nation" i'm john dickerson with temperatures getting down to the single digits in washington this weekend the president, members of his cabinet and republican congressional leadership left the city and huddled at camp david to talk about priorities. cia director mike mom mayo was there, is back in washington joins us this morning welcome, mr. director. >> thank you.

dickerson: the president said he's a stable genius, is he? >> i'm with the president nearly every day. we engage in some of the most weighty matters, i deliver this exquisite product that is developed by my officers. he engages in a way that he understands, yes, he asks hard questions. he delivers policy outcomes based on the information that we provide him. my observation of the president is that we deal in serious matters and that this book is in no way that. >> dickerson: let me get to the serious matters in a minute. give us an example of this. there is this book you refer to, got all the stories, debate about the veracity. one of these penetrating questions, these insights the president has had? >> i'll give you really good example it was from early spring, i've been serving for couple of months at this point. there was this question about syria. was this in fact the assad regime that used chemical

weapons, that's an intelligence question, can you demonstrate, were they used against civilians, was it the assad regime. he called me up had three very direct questions basically what i just. mike, i need to you answer these as quickly as you can. then we came back the next day gave him what we knew. he sent us back for a little more clarity we were confident in what we were doing before he made what he viewed as very important foreign policy decision about how to respond to that. i could give you countless other examples. >> dickerson: seems we have situation here where on the one hand you have the accounts in this book, if it were true, there were questions about the president's ability to perform his office would put duty to speak up. then on the other side you have what could be fundamental smear against democracy which to say fitness of the president, this isn't just some political critique, whether he can perform which goes to the heart of what is going on. those are the two options is

that the way you see submitted. >> i can only give you my experiences, john. i haven't read the book. i got plenty of important things to deal with. i don't put this as one of those. but my observation is that, my dealings with the president on some of the most important issues that the president has to face are as professional and as thoughtful as the american people deserve. the president is handling these duties in a way that i'm proud of to be part of his team. >> dickerson: one of those duties, north korea. the "new york times" has a piece in the "times" talking about intelligence on being able to track the north korean missile program. in that piece it says this. talking about intelligence community. their inability to foresee the rapid strides now ranks among america's most significant intelligence failures. what do you think of that piece and is that right? >> john, just got this one wrong. the author of the piece.

i've been one who has been candid where the intelligence committee has made mistakes, this is not. that in this case frankly before my time. the work that was done to understand jong-un to understand the regime and advancement of his missile program was really first rate. we did understand the progress that he was making. multiple administration have had access to that same set of information and that program has progressed. >> dickerson: not just david sanger, h.r. mcmaster street quoted as saying that the program has been quicker in the timeline is a lot more compressed than most people believe. >> you are never going to get the day right or the week right. but intelligence can provide policy makers is, an understanding of capability, capacity. and understanding of motive and intent we nailed both of those things. then our best effort to understand how that will proceed at what pace. frankly got that mostly right.

>> dickerson: when you last spoke in august you said attack from north korea is not something that is imminent. where is that -- you still believe that now? >> i d. i do. dickerson: just few months away from crossing the threshold to putting u.s. city of nuclear attack. where are we now on that timeline? >> that remains the same. dickerson: still a few months away from that? >> yes, sir. dickerson: what is few, three or four? >> i can't give you that kind of certainty. >> dickerson: north korean soldiers some have sprinted to freedom, what are we learning from them? >> two things. that the team would identify is that this is a -- we talk about the nuclear force, it's the big focus but i will promise you secretary mattis and our team never forgets they have enormous conventional capacity has well, that threatens not only south korea but other neighbors. we -- i don't wanted to on the show here tell you but we have what we think very good tea saysment of their military

capability. how ready those enormous forces are. >> dickerson: you said in december the president's tweets actually helped the cia execute its mission. this week, the president tweeted about the nuclear button, how does that help the c iota do it mission? >> yes, sir. that tweet is completely consistent with u.s. policy. president, unlike previous administrations, has made a real commitment that is that the denuclearization of the peninsula is the mandate that is what we are going to achieve. the president has made very clear that we're going to do everything we can to do that in a way that doesn't involve military action. but equally made clear that we're not going to stand for allowing jong-un to hold los angeles or denver at risk. what you saw in that message the same as the rest of the messaget made that policy crystal clear. important to jong-un idea that clarity.

>> dickerson: some thought it was joke around or you don't be cavalier about nuclear weapons. is that, though, helpful that kind of willingness to risk talking about nuclear buttons in a casual way in terms of keeping the other side off guard? >> i can't tell you that kim jong-un has read that, but i'm confident that he did. my my guess as he is trying to figure out exactly how it is he does what he wants to do, which is keep his nuclear weapons and stay in power. i think that's what you see happening this week where he's now agreed to have some conversations with the south koreans, alacking for foothold to walk himself back. enthoroughly consistent with the historical activity. we see the threat, he tries to pacify it. you can be sure that this administration is not going to fall prey to the same trap that previous administration did. >> dickerson: with north korea they have continued testing, u.s. said stop testing we might talk spin fashion. in that context this decision to

talk to the south koreans would seem to be positive step if he's in the modesto step back instead of test. >> yes, sir, i hope that's the case. ever the optimist, always the realist. i hope that's the case but past his torely would indicate that this is a faint, not likely to lead to any true strange in his outlook, he'll continue to want to maintain his nuclear capability. that the president has said is unacceptable. >> dickerson: the engagement in the last several months is your picture clearer, more sharp about the north korean leader or fuzzier? >> a little more clear. frankly the great officers that work for me their efforts to deliver to the president a little more granularity and a little more color to help understand what not only kim jong-un is thinking but those around him. john, we don't though kim jong-un is getting the straight story from those around him about the tenuous position he finds himself in domestically and internationally. it is not a good healthy thing

to tell kim jong-un bad news. >> dickerson: he tweeted about the deep state s. there a deep state at the cia? >> no, sir. dickerson: has there ever been one? >> i've only been there a little while. i can't believe it's ever been there. these are professional who sacrifice so much to serve america, they're patriots. truest and highest order. >> dickerson: iran, what is the significance of the protest is this a turning point or just a flash point in the regime will continue? >> difficult to know analytically if this is a turning point. it is different. the protests that we saw in 1999 hand 2009 were from elites. this was not that. it was ordinary -- same people who would enlist in irgc their neighbors are now the ones out protesting. they're protesting because they have seen the failed promises of the president that they haven't been able to deliver the check out comes that they said. they said they would get jcpoa

the food would be plentiful, jobs would rise, simply hasn't happened. >> dickerson: the so-called iran deal. in that sense is the iran deal forced destabilization in iran there for that good for in terms of the u.s. interests? >> from the perspective, what is clear is that there have been economic difficulties in iran in places outside of take ran, there's a massive uncommitment what the iranian people were promised has not happened they can see that. they have taken to the streets. >> dickerson: let me ask you about pakistan, u.s. is cutting off aid to pakistan. that is a nuclear power. is it a good idea to pressuring pakistan, given all the rest of the plate in the united states, with the nuclear power? >> john, again, i'm going to avoid the policy that you asked about. but from the intelligence perspective what we see. we see the pakistanis continuing to provide safe harbor, havens

inside of pakistan for terrorists who present risks to the united states of america. we are doing our best to inform pakistanis that this is no longer going to be acceptable so this condition aid, we've given them chance if they fix this problem, we're happy to continue to engage with them. but if they don't we're going to protect america. >> dickerson: haven't we always, though -- get a line in the u.s. intelligence benefits from things that the pakistanis do, isn't there kind of a relationship that may not be perfect but for the bad things they do they allow counter terrorism to benefit from staging, isn't that at risk in terms of national security problem? >> the president has made very clear that he needs pakistan to cease being a safe haven for terrorist that threaten the united states of america, period, full stop. >> dickerson: the seven of two, there are some questions about

how long to reauthorize it. what is the cia's position about this program which allows surveillance of foreign people but also critics believe allows back door to gaining information about americans? >> john, the section 702 is important component of american national security, allows us the cia to observe communications from non-u.s. citizens, persons outs side of the united states that's central to our mission. so we are very hopeful that we can reach an accommodation that we can get to the right place and i understand it may well come to a vote this week. i hope that's the case. i hear the critics from the other side, i understand their concerns, i hope that we can accommodate them in a way and achieve our national security mission. while doing -- while continuing to protect americans' privacy, i think we can do them both. >> dickerson: let me ask you a final question here. that is san election year, lot of talk about the russians, destabilization. are the russians engaged in

trying to undermine the elections and do you worry about that this year? >> yes, sir, i do. dickerson: are they currently doing that? >> yes, sir. have been for decades. yes, i continue to be concerned not only about the russians, but about others' efforts as well the we have many folks who want to undermine western them mock:see. this is washington-based focus on russian interference. make sure we broaden the conversation. we hawaiian important function as a parted of the american nation national security team to keep the american elections safe and secure and democratic. we're working diligently to do that we're going to work against the russians or any others who threat then very outcome. >> dickerson: direct for pompeo, thanks for being with us. we'll be back in one minute to talk with kentucky republican senator rand paul in his first sunday show appearance since being injured in an altercation with his neighbor. stay with us.

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>> dickerson: we're back with kentucky republican senator rand paul. good to have you back, senator. we hope you have fully recovered. by the way, happy birthday as well. >> thank you. i was wondering about getting presents today but i understand that the ethics rules of the senate won't let me take any presents. >> dickerson: your presence is our present. how are you feeling, by the way? >> a little better each day. it was a living hell for the first four or five weeks, difficulty, couldn't get out of bed without assistance, six broken ribs, damaged my lungs, two bouts of pneumonia. it was really a tough go of it but each day i feel a little bit better. this last month hive been doing better. >> dickerson: you haven't talked about the motivation for this, there is an increased -- in politics things have gotten a little bit uglier, was that part of what happened here, can you talk about that with your colleague? >> you know my colleagues come up all the time they want to make sure there is some kind of

deterrence because people don't want to think that it's open season on our elected officials. i was also at the baseball field when we were shot at with semi automatic fire and steve scalise was severely wounded i was ten feet from a young staffer who was shot in the leg. yeah, i've been involved in violent attacks twice in the last year. we're very aware of it. i think one of the thing about motivations is people got obsessed, some in the media about motivations, but i think really we usually don't ask if someone is raped or mugged why the person did it. we want punishment and deterrence, i guess that's what people mostly about. i just don't think of any kind of motivation or justification whether it's political or personal to attack someone who is unaware from behind in their own yard. >> dickerson: those who are involved in politics might think about changing the way they believe and change that climate. >> maybe. dickerson: let me ask you 'with the the climate here in washington this new book about the white house, as politician,

the president has responded by talking about his mental stability, why do you suppose did he that when instead he could say, forget this book, we have tax cuts, defeating isis, we've nominated bunch of judges, why do you think he did that? >> you know, i don't know. i guess my first response this was sort of gossipy book, like kitty kelly book back when i was in high school, nobody really believed them. they were treated as sort of like a sitcom or treated as a television show. they weren't treated seriously by the media. i think from high experience, i've been around the president quite a bit, i've been in the white house quite a bit. i can give you one example that i think really shows his great insight and ability to cut through to the chase and do things that ordinary politicians don't d. that is when i took him the idea of letting individuals join together to buy insurance across state lines. every politician, republican and bureaucrat in washington said we

couldn't do it, they hadn't done it in 30 years, he looked at the original law, told his lawyers look at the original law and see if the interpretation of the previous government attorneys have been corrected. he had the wherewithal just to say, no. we're going to let individuals join these groups so they can get cheaper insurance and perhaps better insurance as well and perhaps get insurance for people who don't have insurance. but did he that because he's different than any other politician. now we have all these wise acres wanting to criticize be presumptuous about trying to judge someone's intelligence, i can tell you he has the wherewithal that no politics has beenably to do and in a good way. >> dickerson: a couple of policy questions, we tacked about section 702 of the cia director, you have held up a nomination of john demmers and talking about filibustering this, why? >> 702 is supposed to get information on foreigners, we

have lower than constitutional standard. well the constitution doesn't apply to people in other countries, i agree with that. we collect massive amount of information on foreigners but they talk to americans. so after you gather millions of bits of information, turns out there's a lot of americans in the database. we don't want to happen is that domestic law enforcement, police and fbi looking at database that was collected without cons if i talksal protection and let's sae medical marijuana people in colorado, which is legal in colorado but now federal government talking about changing their policy and going after them. what is if they're searching a database that was collected on foreigners to get incidental information on medical marijuana in colorado. i have a real problem with that. they should have to get a warrant before they look at that. and really none of that information should be used for domestic crime because it was gathered with a less than constitutional standard. >> dickerson: what are you going to do? >> we're trying to stop them.

the people on the other side, the cia director and others want permanent reauthorization, no reform. when you ask them, are you using that for domestic crime there's a little bit -- they say, well, we don't do it very often but they won't tell you whether they are looking at the information then not presenting in court but using that information to develop what's called parallel construction, develop cases. they want just permanent reauthorization to me means no more oversight by congress. the reason we need more oversight, as madison said, men are not angels. we've seen, we've had people in the fbi that had bias againstment president. we also have seen now people department of justice who were married to people that were doing opposition research on trump. you can see how people are human, bias could enter into this the history of the cia and the fbi are not without blemish. the hoover years are a great tarnish, we also had civil rights activists in the '60s,

illegally spied upon, vietnam protesters illegally spied upon. this great to do, the church commission back in the '70s and fias was supposed to reign that in now many of us, we have a bipartisan said, we have to defend the americans' right to privacy and right now we're sort of a minority in the senate. in the house it's close to 50-50. >> dickerson: we'll have to leave it there. thanks so much. happy birthday again. >> thank you. dickerson: we'll be back in a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ what we do every night is like something out of a strange dream.

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experience which is that over very long period of time the intelligence community accurately assess the nuclear program and it's not consistent with the observable facts. what i mean by that, if the cia at the end of the obama administration and the beginning of the trump administration was saying there were years, why did barack obama tell president trump that this was his most urgent and serious problem. then why did the trump administration move so quickly to put maximum sanctions on north korea. this is not an intelligence failure this is an intelligence success. >> dickerson: tom, give us your sense of where things stand right now with north coreya director said months away still from from the -- >> i agree with michael's point on the analysis. potential military conference, should be doing everything it can do short of war. to pressure north koreans to the

negotiating table and achieve our goals. the director said earlier, that include working with our allies, includes continuing sanctions or pressure, by the way we just started in a lot of these areas in the bank and finance and oil and energy area. it's having some affect, i think we saw some that have with respect to jong-un on new year's day i agree with the assessment not likely to lead anywhere differently but nonetheless indication of the pressure. we need much more aggressive enforcement. we should be thickening our ballistic missile. put pressure on human rights front and get to negotiation at some point. lot more pressure we can put on them. >> dickerson: we'll be back to this in a moment. need to take a short break, lot more with mike morell and tom donilon when we come back.

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>> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation." mike morell former deputy cia director and tom donilon former national security advisor is president obama. the president said this week that the talks between north and south are the result of his hard pressure, do you buy that? >> i think what the north koreans are doing, john, is reaching out to the south for two reasons. one is, to divide the united states and south korea, a long-term strategy on the part of seoul and another example of it. the seconds they are looking for some economic gains here. they are hurting as a result of the sanctions. and they would like to come to some arrangement with the south koreans where they get something for being more positive. on the south korean side they're being receptive because they're concerned about the tough rhetoric in washington. concerned about war, they don't

want ha to happen. >> dickerson: what do you make about president's tweets on nuclear weapons? >> i agree on the north. they are under pressure. on the tweeting on nuclear weapons, no president should talk about nuclear weapons in a cavalier fashion. it's really decidedly bad topic for tweeting frankly. it's the dawn of the nuclear age august of 1945 ever president has thought to speak in the most precise terms about nuclear weapons and circumstances under which the united states night use them. since the dawn of the nuclear age, presidents have endeavored to speak about nuclear weapons separate from conversations about regular weapons that we might use. peggy noonan had good column yesterday which i encourage your viewers to look at this could destigmatize of the use of nuclear weapons which is not in our national interest. every president since john f. kennedy thought to make the use of nuclear weapon less likely than more likely. we've been lucky over the course

of the 72 or 73 years. as a result of care and precision and consciousness of what these weapons are about. we really shouldn't press our luck. it's a profoundly bad topic for twitter. my last point is, i would encourage the white house staff, i know general kelly said that he doesn't pay attention to the president's twitter account, that's a mistake. these are presidential statements and the world pays attention i would encourage him to have national security carve out if they could ever achieve it with the president to say, these are the kinds of things you need to get advice on. these are the kinds of things you should sit with your advisors are and much more precise conscious fashion. >> dickerson: mike, the cia director said this is perfectly in keeping with the u.s. policy which if it looks like the president is s ready to go then that helps put pressure on koreans and even chinese, too. >> i couldn't agree more with what tom said. i would just add that people often defend the president on this by saying he's keeping our adversaries off balance.

from the tactical perspective that's something you wanted to do on the battlefield, for example. strategically you want just the opposite. you want great clarity in terms of what the united states wants, what its red lines are and what we're willing to do about what we want. and this is a strategic issue, you want great clarity from the president, not things that raise questions about what we will or won't do. >> dickerson: tom, moving to iran, the protests and how should we think about those? >> couple of things. one is i think the protests in some respects reflected failed expectations by iranian people: they are different in kind and geography and from the protests in 200, more rural and outside the big cities. but the nuclear deal put pressure on the regime to deliver. that was the promise that the president made. they haven't been able to live up to. that

in general, one quick thing on this. we do have a situation here where the president has to decide this week whether he's going to continue waving the sanctions as part of the nuclear deal. all the objective observers indicate that iran is complying with, we're getting what we wanted out of the nuclear deal which was transactional approach to put a lid on and roll back the nuclear program. for united states to pull out will only escalate ourselves and make us the issue as owe polessed to iranian behavior. >> dickerson: how does the u.s. calibrate putting pressure on a authoritarian regime but not being able to rally. >> let me just add, i think that these are the most significant protests in iran since the revolution in 1979. i think they're more significant than 2009. which was limited in geography as tom said, it was limited to those people who were already

ideologically owe polessed to the regime. this is much more geographically spread and these are the supporters of the regime. these are the supporters of the supreme leader, thee are the supporters of ruhani. this is fundamentally different. in 200 was about an election. this is about economic opportunity. that is about corruption. this is about the regime itself. so this is very significant. in terms of what we do going forward, i think we have to speak out for freedom in general because we want to send a message to the rest of the world. but we have to be extremely careful how we do that because there is nobody inside of iran to wants u.s. interference in iran. whatever we do, i think we need to be careful. i think we need to do it with our allies and partners. >> dickerson: we'll have to end it there. tom, mike, thanks so much. we'll be back with former governor haley barbour. ...pre-tox day mask from aveeno®. its' powerful anti-oxidant formula... ...fights pollution and keeps skin looking younger, longer.

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with vast, far-reaching networks... deep knowledge of industries... and, yes... maybe a little magic. ♪ >> dickerson: we're joined by former mississippi governor haley barbour also former head of the republican national committee. welcome back to the broadcast. what do you make of this book, "fire and fury"? >> i expect a lot of it is not true or is exaggerated. i hadn't read it. don't intend to. it just strikes me as president trump very unpopular in washington, very unpop few lar with the liberal media elite, this story plays to those prejudices. >> dickerson: yet the president's reaction has been to go right at this book.

you know about politics y. would a president basically put at the center of the conversation his competency by responding in the way that he has? >> i think if we look back through the year, the president is more likely to respond to things than most presidents have been. this is just another case of that. >> dickerson: what is your sense of the way things are going to work out in politics this year in 2018, got lot of congressional elections, what does the landscape look like? >> biggest thing is the economy. we had very slow economic growth in the obama administration. we averaged 2.1% of gdp growth where since world war ii we've been averaging 3.1%. think in the heartland the economy had been growing half again faster. now under trump we are above 3%. obama never had year where economic growth was 3%. if the economy grows, if people recognize not only the tax bill is going to put more money into

the private economy and less money into the government, also what he has tried to do and is successfully doing according to regulatory reform, take costs off of business where they can spend more money on hiring people, giving raises, investing, i think that's the big thing for trump. but it's not only getting good results it's getting credit for the good results. >> dickerson: you say the media elite doesn't like president trump but his approval ratings suggests that people outside that have group that have some issues with him, you've seen the generic ballot on asking democrats and republicans those are not great signs for republicans. >> of course they're not. i have to say, the public is not affected by what the media tells them they're supposed to be thinking. in the hillary clinton it turned outed public decided to go into a different direction from what the media was telling them. trump has to live with that. republicans have to live with that. he is not going to get all of a sudden popular with the liberal

media. >> dickerson: should republicans run with the president? they want him coming to their district? >> in mid-term elections, republicans, democrats, whomever, every candidate ought to run for their state, whether they run for governor, senator, congressmen, for their district on their issues. their campaign against their opponents' campaign f. i were the democratic former democratic nation natural chairman i'd give them the same advice. >> dickerson: president said he's not going to campaign for any challengers to incumbents. what do you make of that decision? >> that would be typical. i was political director of ronald reagan. he didn't take sides with republican primaries, period. but he certainly would have never gone out and campaigned against an incumbent republican. wait have been foreign to his experience and politics. i don't think there is anything unusual about that. >> dickerson: let me ask you that political director, inside of the white house, president trump came to washington he was going to do things differently.

this michael wolff book leave that aside. it doesn't come out of no where. this is a president who is doing things differently. based on your experience in being inside politics, i mean, it goes too far to say that is a white house that's just like every other one. there are some rough edges to it. the questions that i'm asking you iss give me your experience, how are people to evaluate those rough edges? >> well, first of all, a lot of what he's trying to do is hard. we just passed a tax reform bill, biggest tax reform bill since 1986, it happened i was political director of the white house in 1986. it took us more than two years. we had democrat support from the beginning when president reagan announced his tax reform package in the spring of 1985 the democrat response was given by daniel rostenkowski said the democrats are for tax reform, too. we want tax reform. still took us to the end of '86 so they got this done in one year, i think is remarkable. i had been saying, i don't

believe you can get it done that fast. >> dickerson: putting egg toga bipartisan position on immigration, you encouraged your party, you said we're not going to deport 12 million people and we shouldn't. where is that issue with the republican, given that president trump is being very tough on undocumented? >> i think in the obama administration if they had tried they could have passed instead of putting daca in by executive order. they could have passed immigration reform and it fell apart, not because of people's bad intentions or anything but you remember when all those children came up from central america and that made some people afraid of that issue at the time. >> dickerson: it fell apart because senate passed it but house couldn't. >> because of what happened. because you had this huge influx of children coming from central america. let me just say, daca is the

place that seems to be the easiest place to start. let's don't forget the president obama said repeatedly he didn't have the authority to do what he ultimately did. but most americans realize, somebody got brought here as a child, whether it was illegal or not they didn't commit a crime. these are people that are making real contribution to our country. but it's got to be a compromise. i think you'll get that done before the end of march when you start seeing the extension that tom gave expires. >> dickerson: we're expiring here, governor, thanks for being with us, we'll be right back with our political panel.

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>> dickerson: joining us now for an unusual week here in politics and washington molly ball, national political correspondent for "time" magazine. michael learn cofounder of axios and ramesh manure a with the "national review." welcome to all of you. start with you, molly s. we can talk about michael wolff book. let's start about the president's reaction to the book

which is happen aing in front of our eyes, what is your assessment? >> that has the most telling part of this whole episode. first of all, as a matter of political or communication strategy, the professionals would tell you if you -- much more likely to go away. there is a lot that is explosive and salacious in this book. but to engage with it in way that the president has and to really publicly fly off the handle is substantiates a lot of the claims about the degree to which he takes things personally, the degree to which he is obsessed with personal slights and has to hit back no matter how far down he may be hitting. i mean, it's almost as if he's dropped any pretense that his first priority is his work on behalf of the american people. very clear that he's preoccupied first and foremost with his own ego. >> dickerson: what do you make of this, the president could have said, here is what i racked up in this last year, all congressional leaders around me, leave michael wolff to himself.

instead he is put this question of his competency by responding to it in theatrical way he has in the middle of the casks. why do that? >> i think that we've seen this pattern play out many times during this presidency and before this presidency. one of the other things that the president is demonstrating that he's obsessed in particular with the medium he's obsessed with the cable news coverage of him. he tweets out comments about individual cnn interviews in between all the times he's saying he doesn't watch that much cable news and doesn't care about what the media thinks. he is the number one consumer of cable news. not only that, his communications aides are outed there performing for him, they're trying to sell themselves to the president why trying to sell the president to the public. that's one of the reasons i think you've got the situation where the president has this intensely loyal base but still unpopular with most americans. >> dickerson: mike, how do you

read where we are? >> john, there are factual problems, some of them big, some of them small. what michael wolff does, let the people in the country in on the conversation that the people on this table have every day. you can quarrel with specifics in the book, but as you well know descriptions, has the of the president, how he does the job, his precliff tease that molly was talking about does exactly mirror what we hear of people who spend all day with them including contradictions. the president totally trusts his own instincts even though they change. they likes generals but doesn't like to be told what to do he let's people in on the fact that the president just doesn't read, doesn't have an attention span and will cut you off when you're trying to explain some of the big issues to him. >> dickerson: you know, mike, you're right about the off the record conversation that goes on around these issues, but molly, we know that the senate foreign

relations committee chairman, bob corker, few months ago raised some of these questions. in other words, did the president have the temperament for the job. it's not just michael wolff. who has been raising these questions. >> absolutely. the other big thing that i think mike is right that is by the book, degree to which these conversations are going on among supposed allies. president. and the people around him. >> and employees. >> it's been a concern for the white house for awhile now that the president is surrounded by people who don't necessarily respect or like him very much. and the president i think is aware of that it bothers him. this book has really thrown that open for all to see that even the most intimate relationships in the white house are people who have a very different view. republicans on capitol hill at the time of the corker comments there was a lot of conversation about, well people say this in private and now here is someone saying this in public. that has been the looming question i think as this

presidency has continued to become more, sham we say, interesting. is that what point do republicans do more of them start coming forward to have this conversation in public. >> we didn't need this book to have a national conversation about the president's fitness for office. what this book is doing i think is confirming the president's opponents in their negative opinion of the if the and confirming the president supporters in their negative opinion of the medium it is a polarizing book that sets back the discussion. bad, sloppy journalism that cuts corners has been the president's ally more than it's been his enemy. >> dickerson: mike, ask you about steve bannon who is a player, central player in this book. the president denounced him this week, also a statement that has been put out. >> this went up, the president getting a statement of regret from steve bannon, this is the first time that steve bannon has responded to the book. there's one word that's missing, a couple of words that are missing from this statement one

of them is "sorry" one is apology. he won't quite go that far but steve bannon trying to hold on to his place in the conservative movement. he's praising donald trump junior, as you all know extremely popular with the base. and he's saying that he has been out there defending trump, defending trumpism. he's been willing to go back into the breach for trumpism. resays, regret, regrets that he took so long to respond and that these comments. but i can tell think is too little too late for the president. the president axios has reported is telling us allies, he wants them to bury steve bannon. >> dickerson: so ramesh, this is in some sense intrigue and useless, except this was president's senior advisor was there where him in the campaign and had ambitions how 2018 would play out. bannon backing more of trump-like characters in

campaigns that he saw it than establishment. do you think this matters or is this just palace intrigue? >> there still is republican party establishment that is not in love with donald trump. even though it is ally to him. what i think the net affect of this bannon controversy is, to bind that establishment more closely to the president. they hated steve bannon. they are happy to see him marginalized and isolated. and they are cheering the president on as he does that. they are speaking with one voice with the president in saying let's get rid of this guy forever. >> that's a great point. related to that in the palace intrigue, who is this book a clear victory for? jared kushner, ivanka trump. as steve bannon calls them they wanted him outed, said they didn't trust him, president said that he thought steve bannon was the leaker and all turned out to be true. what is so fascinating about this wolff book why more is true

than the white house is letting on, he did something that is very rarely done. that is, he just took a lot of off the record comments and printed them. this is clearly -- >> dickerson: which by the way, you're not supposed to do that. >> under any -- it hurts all of the journalists who honor our agreements with tower sources. that's deeply -- >> things that he heard or corroborated. >> what you don't see in that bannon statement is "i didn't say that" bannon comments he has sorted of reversed himself spin ways, he hasn't taken it back and said he didn't say it. that part of it clearly -- that does matter because to the degree to which trump had someone creating a vision for him, creating an ideology that was unique to him that was bannon. that came from trump's gut, but bannon was putting that into a theoretical framework with him gone i think there's much less of a root for that.

electorally, the cat is outed of the bag. primary challengers already exist are turning some of these primaries, particularly in places like nevada into a referendum on the trump party versus the traditional republican party. bannon's bark was always worse than his bite in terms of having challengers in every single state. but the challenges are there. >> the reason that steve bannon isn't denying what he said, not many other people have either is, michael wolff has dozens of hours of tape. and people thought it was off the record, but it is on tape, gives you very little place to go now that it's out. >> dickerson: do you think the president is on any of those tapes? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> dickerson: the push back has been broad and not specific which is a point -- >> the thing that's totally bogus -- story. the thing that is bogus he did have access. he was over there all the time. he was sitting in the west wing

when other staff found out that comey was fired. he was l. >> reminds me of the ed klein books about hillary clinton. the difference is that nobody thinks that he was anywhere close to the clintons. where as wolff he was in there. >> dickerson: this is saw period in the white house where things were loosey goosey, mitch mcconnell seems very happy about steve bannon's rough patch. why is that important? >> just gets back to my point about the party establishment being binded closer to the president and being very happy about bannon's absence. bannon wanted to take down mcconnell. one of the things that he wanted from the candidates he was backing for the senate was their pledge that they would oust mcconnell as senate republican leader. >> dickerson: we'll have to leave it there. thanks to all of you. extraordinary book. we'll be hearing about this undoubtedly more than just this week. we'll be back in a moment. but after an electrical fire from faulty wiring, mary's vintage clothing

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>> dickerson: that's it for us today. thanks for watching. until next week for "face the nation," i'm john dickerson. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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