>> reporter: the president, once again, is just making stuff up. cnn did an investigation showing that at least 16 associates of donald trump have had contacts with russia. many of them lied about it and several of them are now convicted felons. this is not peanut stuff. these are felonies that many of them engaged in and as we find out more about special counsel robert mueller's investigation, we'll see that we're not talking about peanuts. we're talking about felonies. >> the president also said something that stood out because we haven't heard about it before. this was about the hush money payments to women that he allegedly had affairs with. he told reuters, quote, it wasn't a campaign contribution. if it were, it's only civil and even if it's only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. first off, all kinds of problems with the statement factually. civil. it just doesn't measure up. the thing that stands out is ending part where he said what we did, because it's different from his denial of knowing about the payments.