And refers to the forest fire that is the trump presidency. Im joined now by phil rucker from the Washington Post who has read the book, former watergate prosecutor nick ackerman. Phil, lets start with you. Youve been burning the midnight oil, reading this book. What stood out to you . Well, its a really stunning tellall. More than 300 pages, and in it, james comey, the fired fbi director, details in vivid scenes all of his conversations with President Trump beginning in the transmissiition phase be he became president. Comey traveled to trump tower and briefed the president elect oneonone about the most lewd allegations in that dossier by mr. Steele that weve been talking so much about. And trump took it very in a very difficult way. He became fixated on this subject and would repeatedly try to prove to comey that these allegations were not true. He did so in that trump tower briefing. He did so again in a phone call a week or so later, and again and again. And comey details all of it in his book. According to his account. And the big picture, ali, about the portrait comey paints of the president is about as scathing as it gets. He describes the president as a congenital liar, somebody who is unethical and unfit for this office and somebody who is really blurring what should be traditional boundaries between the white house, the politics in the white house and the more independent fbi and department of justice. Comey was very alarmed and described it as a forest fire of a presidency. Phil, lets talk about the lewd allegations that the president seemed to be obsessed with. Did he ask comey to do anything about it . Does comey believe the allegations to be true or what he was asked about them . He did. So the allegation is that during a trip to moscow in 2013, then private citizen donald trump was in a hotel room in the ritz carlton and was taped by the russians interacting with prostitutes in that hotel room. These are not confirmed allegations. Comey made that clear in his conversations to trump, that this was part of the intelligence dossier, but there was no independent confirmation of them. But trump told comey they were not true. He told comey he wanted the fbi to fully investigate the allegation because it had been so painful for the first lady, for melania trump. Comey said that the fbi would investigate that and did. But the president was really fixated on it and came back to it again and again and again, including at that loyalty dinner, the oneonone dinner that comey and trump had at the white house, in the green room of the white house, where the president asked the fbi director for his personal loyalty. One of the subjects they talked about was the incident with the prostitutes, the alleged incident with the prostitutes in moscow. James comey did not put anything forward in his book about the veracity of the allegation . Thooats right. But he does describe the reasons President Trump gave to him why theyre not true. And comey narrates in his voice why they could be true, but comey does not render any judgment about the allegations. And again, just so all the viewers understand, these are unconfirmed allegations that were part of that dossier by the former British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Phil, lets talk a little bit about john kelly, who apparently spoke to jim comey right after he was fired, or soon after he was fired. Thats right. So this is on may 9th, 2017, the day comey was fired. And john kelly at the time was the Homeland Security secretary. He had developed a relationship with comey. He called comey on the phone. Comey was out in los angeles that day, youll recall, and kelly told comey that he was really taken aback by the firing. He thought it was sad. He was sick about it, thats the word that comey used to describe how kelly was. And kelly said he thought about quitting. He threatened to resign because he didnt want to work for dishonest people, which is assumes to be a reference to the president. Of course kelly did not resign. Comey writes in his book that he convinced kelly to stay in the job, because this president especially needs to have principled people with integrity around him. And i want to talk about john kelly for a moment. Because obviously john kelly will be asked about this, or Sarah Huckabee sanders will be asked about this. John kelly is on the record, the nation knows hes a liar. He lied about congressman frederica wilson. John kelly told comey that he would resign over this. Thats right. He told comey that he wanted to quit his sknljob as the homelan security secretary because he couldnt handle working for people comey described kelly describing them as being dishonest people. And kelly told comey he wanted to resign over that. Comey convinced kelly to stay in the job, according to comeys account. Kelly did stay in the job and two months later, he was appointed white house chief of staff. Just important to know that. I expect john kelly will deny it. I think its important to remind the nation that john kelly has lied on the record. One other thing thats important to point out, this whole memoir, the accounts of his interaction with trump, its all based on contemporaneous notes that comey took as the fbi director. After every call, after every meeting, he would write a diary entry, so this is not a memoir hes writing a year after the fact. Its based on his notes in realtime. Did he do that in every meeting he ever had as fbi director, or was this a trumpspecific thing . He did it in a lot of meetings. As an fbi director and a prosecutor and in his line of work, he was trained to take detailed notes to rely on those notes, to observe things and remember things. But he felt as he began to interact with trump, he felt these were such odd interactions, he wanted to have a record of it. He would take the notes, write the diary entries, and then he shared them with some of the other senior officials at the department of justice or rather at the fbi, so that there would be witnesses, as it were, to what happened. Let me bring in natasha and nick. I want to ask you about this. Comey in the book, according to phil, writes about Jeff Sessions, that hes overwhelmed and overmatched by the job. But whats important here is that comey said to sessions after trump had asked him to leave the room, he said comey says to sessions, you have to be between me and the president. Obviously that didnt happen in the end. Is that material, is that relevant . It is. Because as weve seen, the president was absolutely furious with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the russia investigation. The fact that sessions did not heed that call to place himself between the president and james comey kind of adds to this idea that perhaps he helped the president obstruct justice. Because of course he did write that letter that supported the president s decision to fire james comey in may. When he did decide to recuse himself from the investigation earlier on, he really drew the ire of the president and the president wanted to fire him, asked him for his resignation over the summer of that year. So this is definitely something that can be looked at as well, why did sessions not go along with this. Nick ackerman, the interesting the most interesting thing about donald trump is that, i dont think hes going to wait until sunday, monday or tuesday to start tweeting about this book. Hell react to comments from people who have read the book. That could imperil him with respect to this investigation. Because the president will now try to diminish jim comeys standing in the public. And i think hell give more publicity to the book. Hell wind up selling more copies of the book for jim comey than any pr person could do. So its just going to take more interest in the book. Its going to put a bigger spotlight on comeys side of the story. All of which we heard, has all been documented with notes and contemporaneous memos. The things that hes saying arent extraordinary up to this point. We all know that donald trump is unethical, we know he cant be trusted. Hes probably lied more than any president that weve ever had. What i did find interesting was about this incident in 2013, in moscow at the time of the Miss Universe pageant. Since to really dig into that, why he would be so focused on that and keep asking about it, i find it actually sort of interesting, almost like if it really was nothing, why wouldnt you let him do it . And we know that Christopher Steele had seven independent sources basically saying the same thing. I mean, based on that information, if he were not president of the United States, he wouldnt qualify for a National Security pass. I mean, he wouldnt be able to get a clearance. And certainly from the standpoint of probable cause, just based on those seven people, you have enough for a search warrant, enough for a wiretap. And he also had to know as president , asking comey to investigate that, theres no way the fbi can go to moscow and Start Talking to the same sources that Christopher Steele did. Thats impossible. Its almost like hes asking for something that could not possibly be done. Were never going to really know the truth on this matter until theres a regime change in moscow. Just like there was a number of years ago and we learned a lot of the things that were in the kgb files. This is the kind of thing were only going to get to the truth on 30 or 40 years now when theres a complete change in russia. So what was the implication, phil rucker, that donald trump wanted james comey to investigate the lewd allegations there . Or he wanted james comey to come out and say that theyre untrue, from your reading of the book . Its actually both, ali. Its that donald trump wanted james comey as the fbi director to conduct an investigation into these allegations in order to prove that they were not true. So he wanted the fbi to look into it, and then he wanted the fbi to be able to report based on an investigation that the allegations were not true. It was very important to him that the fbi look into it, and that the fbi come publicly and make it clear that theyre not true. Natasha, does this do anything at all to where we are right now, in the russia investigation with the president s standing, with the fact that theres been endless reporting, including from phils colleagues, that the president is lived, he is offbalance this week because of raiding of his lawyer Michael Cohens office. At this point, the president who was probably going to be this angry on monday night or tuesday, were going to get an advanced taste of it. Yeah, i think that more than anything, what struck me about phils reporting about this book is the fact that after trump received this intelligence briefing from his from the fbi director, from top National Security officials, the thing that he fixated on the most was this dossier. The thing after receiving all this information about how russia interfered in our election, about how they compromised our entire democratic process, how they had attacked the country basically, what he fixated on was allegations that he had prostitutes pee on a bed in moscow in order to soil president obamas bed. That speaks to a promise comey made later on when he testified about his firing, which is that the president never seemed interested in the substance and the meat of russias election interference. He never seemed interested in, okay, how can we counter this . How can we punish russia for this . How can we prevent it from ever happening again . Instead, what this book shows, is that he from the beginning has been fixated on how it reflects on him, rather than how it affected the country. And phil, to that point, jim kelly talks a lot about loyalty. According to your reporting, he relies a lot on this discussion that donald trump wanted loyalty. He wanted loyalty oaths. Thats exactly right. He wanted loyalty from comey, from his fbi director, and comey was not prepared to give it. He said he would be loyal to the truth. He would not be loyal personally to President Trump. And it wasnt just trump who was fixated on sort of blurring these lines between the fbi and the white house. The whole administration, or the whole white house, rather, seemed to not really understand the difference between what the fbi does and what the white house does. And comey describes a scene where he went over to the west wing to have a meeting with reince priebus, then the chief of staff with the white house and spent 20 minutes explaining to priebus how the white house should operate with the fbi and with the department of justice, whats appropriate, whats not appropriate, to maintain the independence of the bureau. And at the end of that meeting, priebus told comey, come on down the hallway, i want you to come say hello to the president , he wants to see you in the oval office. Comey writes, he thought to himself, this is so ironic, i just spent 20 minutes explaining how we need to be independent and here you are trying to bring me in to see the president , and indeed he did and dthey had a conversation there. Does any of this have an impact on the investigation . It will impact Public Opinion and people can decide whether they like him or trust him. But does it have any standing or influence on the investigation . Well, i think its going to certainly impact the investigation to the importance of it and people realize that mueller continue doing it. Whats really unusual here, jim comey is a star witness in any obstruction of justice prosecution. Hes a star witness in a whole series of items that relate to trump and people around him. And its very unusual to have your star witness go out and do a bestseller book that can then be used to crossexamine him. So he had to do what the prosecutor would want him to do, which is to make sure that he s has put in there everything that is material, that he will testify to. Because the last thing he wants to do is get on the witness stand and suddenly come up with additional testimony that he hadnt put in this book, because theyre going to ask him why he didnt do that. So in other words, one can trust or one should assume that the stuff that jim comey has written in this book is better vetted or more accurate than necessarily if i wrote a book, because he knows that muellers people are going to go through this thing . Thats right. And thats what hes going to testify to. Hes going to have to stick to what hes saying . That book. So he had to be very careful. On the other hand, if he has contemporaneous memos and notes upon which this book was written, that makes it pretty easy. Any sense whether those notes have been subpoenaed . Thats a good question. Im not sure. I know comey has been cooperating with mueller as the special counsel. So it may have been volunteer . I dont know. And i imagine that the accounts that comey has given to mueller and his investigators are more detailed than what hes written in this book. Is comey selfcritical in the book at all . He is. You know, he talks a little bit about how he knows over his years, hes had a reputation for having a healthy ego, for sometimes being a little sanctimonious. He acknowledges that, and he also talks about his own sort of experiences. Remember, its a memoir, so he talks about through his entire life. But as you read it, you cant help but think about trump. Theres a whole chapter about how comey was bullied as an Elementary School student, middle school student, slammed against the lockers, teased by his classmates, and he ruminates on the psychology of bullies and liars, and writing that in a thinly veiled assessment of the occupant of the oval office. Natasha, this all comes within the context of reporting by nbc that the Mueller Probe could ramp up now that theyre coming to terms with the fact that donald trump, in his anger this week, has soured on the idea of sitting down with Robert Mueller, something he thought he would do. The Mueller Investigation can ramp up without that. Where do you think this sort of places the investigation and donald trump . Well, my reaction when i read that was that mueller has enough to finish his obstruction report without actually having to interview the president. There is theres reason to believe that they would be able to subpoena the president to be interviewed if they felt like that was absolutely necessary. But the fact now they have written essentially four different points at which they believe the president tried to obstruct justice, tried to end this investigation or impede it, really says a lot. One of the most striking things about it, they apparently have evidence that he was dangling bribes to grand jury witnesses and that is huge if its true. If they dont have the opportunity to sit down with the president because the president is kind of throwing a temper tantrum about the raid on his lawyers home, which of course there was a warrant for and it was perfectly lawful, then thats really going to damage him. Because he wont be able to have the opportunity to tell his side of the story. Now, of course, his allies have really strongly urged him against sitting down with mueller because they feel it could be a perjury trap. But theres something to be said about, well, if you think that youre telling the truth and you really believe you have nothing to hide, then why not just sit down with mueller and get this over with . And nick, to that point, comey, who again is going to know that more than most people, more than fire and fury, theres going to be lawyers and investigators going through this book with a finetooth comb. So comeys credibility here is at stake in a way that most authors credibility is not. And according to what phil rucker read in the book, comey says about trump that he built a cocoon of alternative reality, that he was busily wrapping around all of us, that he lies about all things large and small. Comey is setting himself up as something opposite to trump. That comey must be telling the truth and trump must be lying. Thats what weve seen anyway. Comeys not giving away the store here. Thats what weve seen with this individual during the campaign, after the campaign. I mean, a number of times hes lied about even inconsequential things is staggering. And hes not telling us anything new from that standpoint. But again, comey is the kind of person who puts himself up as somebody who is a little bit holier than thou, which led to that statement he made in ending the clinton email investigation, which he had no business making, when he got up there and criticized her for being careless. He had no business making any of those statements in the first place. That should have been done by the attorney general or the Deputy Attorney general, not by the fbi. This is the First Time Ever the fbi director has gone out and made a statement about an investigation. That is just not proper. Nick ackerman, thank you very much. Natasha bertrand, thank you, and phil rucker. Great job, phil. Ive been talking to you for more man the last 24 hours. Not sure when you read the book, but you appreciate that you did. Thanks, ali. Much more on this breaking news, fresh revelations from james comeys book. So far, no reaction at all from the trump white house, or more importantly from Donald Trumps twitter feed. Ill talk to the lawmaker leading to push to protect bob muellers investigation, congressman jerry nad ler is with me next. Also, the feds investigating the links between trumps lawyer and the top brass at the National Enquirer. What it has to do the salacious reports of yet another hushmoney payout. Im ali velshi in for ari melber. Youre watching the beat on msnbc. Wer body, so now she does it with dr. Scholls orthotics. Clinically proven to relieve and prevent foot, knee or lower back pain, by reducing the shock and stress that travel up her body with every step she takes. So keep on climbing, sarah. 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The negotiations collapsing after the fbi raided trumps longtime lawyers office, home, and hotel room on monday. Without a trump interview, mueller might publish findings on whether trump tried to obstruct justice by this summer. All this amid growing reports that trump is looking to remove muellers boss, Deputy Attorney general rod rosenstein, as a way to block the russia probe. With me now, the top democrat on house judiciary congressman jerry nadler who has a new bill to protect bob mueller. Thank you for joining us. You are the only hope for americans if donald trump decides to fire rod rosenstein. The Legal Options at that point become more limited because the president does by most legal opinion have the right to fire the Deputy Attorney general. At that point, if congress doesnt become involved, the president could get away without an investigation. Well, he would he can legally fire mueller i mean rosenstein. And rosenstein could fire rosensteins replacement could fire mueller. Or could very much constrain the investigation by saying, you cant look at this, you cant look at that. But any such action, given the fact that the president has made very clear the motive for any such action, hes made very clear that he considers this criminal investigation a witchhunt, that he wants to put an end to it, that hes personally intolerant of it, would be clear thats a preadmission that if he fired mueller or rosenstein, that would be an obstruction of justice, it would be a crime. Hes already convicted himself out of his own mouth, should he do that. So heres the issue. The legislation that created the special prosecutor after richard nixon, which is different from the special counsel. But for a lot of reasons that legislation was not renewed. And different legislation came in. But its very clear and it would be very clear to a lawyer and it would be very clear to a judge that the intent of that legislation would be to prevent the president from being able to influence the investigation, or get rid of the prosecutor without good cause. This is what that legislation initially was written for. It is unbelievable to most americans that it is possible that the president would be able to get rid of Robert Mueller. Theres an ancient maxim in Anglo American law that no man can be his own judge. And President Trump apparently wants to be his own judge in the sense that he decides whats a fair investigation, what is not a fair investigation. He said that the courtapproved the execution of a courtapproved search warrant on his attorney, mr. Cohen, was an attack on the country. It was not an attack on the country. He is not the country. It may have been an attack on him in some sense, but he is not the country. The fact that the special prosecutor, the special counsel, can only be fired for cause is a regulation of the justice department. And the legislation we introduced this morning, the same as the Senate Legislation that was introduced, would put that into law, and would also say that the president that the special counsel cannot be dismissed except for cause. And that if he were dismissed, he has ten days to appeal to the courts, and the courts would have to find that there was ample grounds, justifiable grounds for dismissing him. And thats the legislation we put in. Under current law, the president might be able to ignore the regulations or change the regulations. Whats the chances of your legislation passing . Well, i dont know. The question is, will the republicans in the house finally develop a spine and stand up to a president and be willing to defend the liberties of the American People and defend the rule of law . Well, lets listen we are sworn to do that. We had a chance to poll some senators in particular this week. Lets listen to what they had to say and i want to hear from you on the other side. On the president , he has been openly talking about firing bob mueller. Potentially firing the Deputy Attorney general. What are your thoughts on that . I have no reason to believe thats going to happen. I have assurances its not. He shouldnt be removed from office. He should be allowed to finish the job. I dont think the president is going to fire mr. Mueller. I think the president is too smart to fire mr. Mueller. No reason for it to happen, shouldnt fire him, dont think the president is going to. They think the president is too smart to. None of that says, he better not. That doesnt really show us a spine. Im really glad that our elected members think the president shouldnt do this, but im passed caring about that congressman. All i need to know is that he cant. I agree with you, it doesnt show a spine. Number one, hopefully it wont happen. Number two, if it does happen, maybe theyll develop a spine then and we can take appropriate action. Number three, if it doesnt, this will certainly be one of the major issues in the midterm elections. Our job nbetween now and then i to protect the integrity of the justice department, the fbi, and to the extent possible, the special counsel, against assaults by the white house and anybody else. I want to ask you about the interpretation that the white house offered. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on tuesday that the white house seems to have advice that says he can fire Robert Mueller. Listen with me for a second. You said the president believes he has the power to fire Robert Mueller. I know a number of individuals in the Legal Community and including at the department of justice, that he has the power to do so. Weve been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision. So congressman, thats either spin, bad legal advice, or a lie. Which one . I dont know. It could be a lie. It could be bad legal advice or spin. I dont know of many lawyers who think that the president has that power, but he does have the power to fire rosenstein. And rosensteins replacement could fire mueller. Theres no question of that. Thats what we have to keep the eye on. Congressman nadler, good to see you, from new york, democrat, Ranking Member on the hus judiciary committee. Ahead, much more on the bombshell details in james comeys new book, and the scrutiny over trumps close personal relationship with the head of the National Enquirer. Were back in 90 seconds. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Tylenol cant do that. Get all day minor arthritis pain relief with an easyopen cap. 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Believe me. Yeah. Donald trump days before his inauguration rejecting the most salacious allegations in the infamous dossier. James comeys new book tackling that topic head on with the details coming out this hour. Comey writing that trump asked him to take care of that story, to put it to rest, for fear that it would hurt his wife melania. With me, Senior Editor for the Marshall Project and clarence page, columnist for the chicago tribune. Clarence, youre jij digesting the initial reports about the book. Your initial reaction . Well, it certainly accords with what weve heard other people say who have talked with mr. Trump on various occasions and it fits with what comey has indicated in the past. I was particularly intrigued by the culture gap between them. He was talking about feeling flashbacks to when he interviewed known gangsters and suspects out there, that it was the same kind of language. One thing about mr. Trump, he likes to talk tough and sound kinda gangsta, as they would say in hiphop, and we see that popping up here. But hes over reacting a lot, as weve seen, to any kind of a direct any kind of a direct criticism. And mr. Comey here has always sent him through the roof. Andrew, whats your take . What do you hear from what weve heard, that most affects you . I mean, today about the comey book, its two things. One is the fact that the first reaction from the president appeared to have been selfconcern. As natasha said earlier in the show. That he didnt say, oh, my gosh, this is an attack on america, unlike the attack he alleged earlier in the week when his lawyer was searched. That that west ham unitasnt hi reaction, how are we going to stop this. That is one of the big takeaways that transcends all the political talk. The other thing, its not a shock that james comey is going to call President Trump a liar, hes said it before. A lot of people have said it before. And the coordination between comey and mueller in anticipation of this book, i think, is an open question thats interesting to sort of k cogitate on. Did the special counsels office ask james comey to delay the publication of the book . Did they have a conversation about it . Because its a valid point to think all of this material is subject to crossexamination not just by the president s lawyer, if he ever has one, but all these other people who have been charged by Robert Mueller or may be charge, manafort, gates, all these people down the line are going to be asking questions about this book. If im a prosecutor in any case, i dont want my star witness going on the record with all this stuff. It could lead to problems down the road. But i also think its a sign of the confidence that mueller has in the evidence that he has, and also the confidence that if its going to be a credibility battle, its going to be a credibility battle between james comey, this Republican Former fbi director who a lot of people still believe, and donald trump whos lie rate now is in the thousands as the Washington Post does that matter . The white house the Republican Party, im sorry, is setting up sort of a war room in anticipation of the release of this book. Theyve got a weapon called lying comey. Theyre ready to fight this in a way that they didnt fight fire and fury. The problem is fire and fury, it fought itself. Because there was an author there who had a habit of inconsistencies and it read a little bit more like a gossip book. Jim comey is not a guy who writes gossip books. You may not like what he did or his motivations, but he was the head of the fbi. Does anything actually matter anymore . This is kind of unprecedented, this sort of a countercampaign, as if we were running an election campaign. Right. I cant help but think that mr. Trump and his lawyers are looking ahead to saying this all went to an impeachment trial in the congress, what if it went to a regular trial and depositions . Thats when the public, the jury of the public out there, can make a difference. And many of them are being prepped with this alternative narrative that says that its mr. Trump who is the victim of a vast fbi conspiracy. Thats been promoted by the conservative press, promoted by his friends. Now we have the Republican Party itself, the rnc, part of this machinery, to promote this questionable narrative. Something that the president s been building on for months and months and months, is an attack on the institutions of this country, on the brewercracy, on the judiciary and on Law Enforcement and the fbi. So theres a segment of of tthe population is quite ready to hear from a website be called lying comey, that jim comey is a liar and part of a conspiracy to take down the president of the United States. Sure. I think theres a segment of the population that will believe the president no matter what they say. But the timing of all this is really interesting too, right . You have comey coming out with this book, with all these allegations, these detailed allegations that go beyond what his testimony has been, that go beyond generally what weve known, and you have the president making noise, or through his tribe yuns, that hes not going to talk to Robert Mueller. Right . So i think there has to be some american out there or a few million, who are saying, weve heard one side of the story. And the president will have his opportunity to have its side of the story. And as theyre having that thought, going through this preview of the james comey book, theyre hearing that the president doesnt want to talk to mueller. I think its a great idea for him not to talk to mueller. Most lawyers say he shouldnt talk to mueller. Exactly. And this sort of linking it to the cohen search is a great excuse for the administration to say, were going to keep our guy away from Robert Mueller. But the timeitiming of it is for the president , because this is his chance to go to mueller and say, james comey didnt say this, or i didnt have this exchange. And if he doesnt do that, he runs the risk of bigger problems down the road. Guys, thank you very much. Good to see you as always. Coming up, federal investigators now looking deeper into Michael Cohen and his connections. Plus, inside trumps connections and links to the head of the National Enquirer. Thats under new scrutiny as a salacious story breaks. Discover card. Hey, im curious about your Social Security alerts. 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When this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. Hold on dad. Liberty did what . Yeah, Liberty Mutual 24hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. My dad says our insurance doesnt have that. Dont worry i know what a lug wrench is, dad. Is this a lug wrench . Maybe . You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. All right, now to a story breaking right now. Federal investigators want all communications between trumps personal lawyer Michael Cohen and two National Enquirer executives. Sources telling nbc news the feds are eyeing cohens connections to david pecker, a trump supporter, and ceo of American Media incorporated, known as ami, the Parent Company of the National Enquirer and communications with its chief content officer dylan howard. This comes after these headlines today. Nbc news has not confirmed this reporting, that the tabloid paid a trump doorman 30 grand to stop an embarrassing unverified rumor about then candidate trump about an affair and an out of wed lock child. The story never ran. Today ami categorically denied it use Company Funds to shut down this or any investigation, and said the love child story was determined not credible. The company saying neither donald trump nor Michael Cohen had anything to do with their decision not to publish the story. The Trump Organization also denied it, saying the doorman has a history of peddling false stories, and the woman in question denied the story to the associated press. Ami also reported bee paid former play boy model, this woman, karen mcdougal, 150,000 in 2016. She alleged a 2006 affair with donald trump. That story also never ran. Pecker once described the president as a personal friend and called an attack on trump an attack on ami. Heres what we know. When Michael Cohen was raided this week, fbi agents were looking for records on the mcdougal payment, records on the Stormy Daniels payment, a payment cohen admitted to facilitating even though hes given no reason as to why he paid her and who came up with the money, and any information or records on the access Hollywood Tape. Tonight, multiple people say federal investigators want all communications between cohen and pecker. Weve reached out to the white house for comment. Weve not heard back. With me now, New York Times media wro med media writer and Washington Post representative. Youre chasing down the story about a doorman who says he was paid money not to tell a story about a love child. What do we know, if anything, any this . Well, i interviewed that former trump tower doorman today. His name is dino. And he essentially said, look, i took a lie detector test. I was told by executives at the trump org at the time, senior executives, that there was this love child. So it doesnt appear to me that he had first hand information, but he believed this to be true, and he was willing to sell his story to the National Enquirer. We confirmed they paid him 30,000, as the new yorker first reported, and that they ultimately, they say, decided his story wasnt incredibcredib did not publish it. Dino sajudin, he said, today i awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that i had with ami, the National Enquirer, with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press. Lets put that aside for a second, jim and talk about the National Enquirer and its Parent Company. Its probably not known to a lot of americans that theres a practice, generally not practiced by organizations like yours or ours or carols where you promise to buy a story or you pay someone for a story simply to kill it . Yeah, the practice is catch and kill. And its not always and usually isnt applied to politicians, but in this case, it was for donald trump. And now this is the subject of this investigation, because the question is, did the 150,000 that was paid to mcdougal by ami, does that somehow represent an Illegal Campaign contribution, because those contributions are limited to a few thousand dollars per election cycle. Very interesting moment, because you have a Media Company basically being accused of acting in a more political fashion, and the Media Company is arguing, we have First Amendment rights, we shouldnt be mixed up in this. Wheres the line for a company that catches and kills a story . Because they made do it because theyre a friend of somebodys, which happens by the way in other countries all the time. Versus when it becomes a perceived or potential Campaign Contribution . In other words, ami has been a friend of Donald Trumps for a long time. Right. The critical question here there are a few. But one is the timing. Lets look at karen mcdougal. This is in august of 2016. Stormy daniels is october. So these look like theyre about protecting a political campaign. Now, you know, Michael Cohen could say hes my friend, im trying to protect his family. Thats where its a he said she said. However, now theres a federal investigation. So what happens if there are communications that are found where its all spoken about in context of, and this is where the access Hollywood Tape comes in. It hits. Theyre worried about damaging information about mr. Trump and his personal relationships. And they go into some protection mode for the campaign. Thats where the problem will come. Theres a federal investigation that can get hard evidence in that. Carol, i have never caught nor killed a story. We dont pay for stories here. Jims from the New York Times. Youre from the new york post. Ive caught a coup. Youve caught. What occasion, carol, in your career would there have been for you to either pay or pay for a story to kill why would you do that . Why would an a Media Organization do that. Weve never paid for a story at the Washington Post. The only time we kill a story is when we dont feel its met the threshold for hubly indication. There can be a million reasons for that. I leave open the possibility that the National Enquirer had its own standard here that it followed in killing this story, but whats more interesting to me is really the federal investigation because remember that the raid of Michael Cohens home and his office and the hotel room where he was temporarily staying, this is raid spelled out, according to people that have told me about the search warrant a pattern of activities that investigators are looking at, all of these women who received payments, this all the communications with david pecker who was a close friend of michael copes and who strategized with Michael Cohen, the president s personal lawyer during the campaign about how to help their favorite candidate. It is unusual, its true, for a Media Organization to be trying to help a particular candidate in this country. But the issue is the legality like was this all a illegal conspiracy. Whether its moral or not is a separate issue. Legality is another issue. Jim rutenberg is from the New York Times. Jim comey blasts gop leaders for standing by idly by trump. Rhi by over 200 allergens. Like those from buddy. Because stuffed animals are clearly no substitute for real ones. Feel the clarity and live claritin clear. Are made with smarttrack®igners material to precisely move your teeth to your best smile. See how invisalign® treatment can shape your smile up to 50 faster today at invisalign. Com this is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people. People who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. 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Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. James comey with stunning claims in his new book about dot coming in this hour writing at one point trump bedan discussing cases where women accused him of sexual assault, a subject i had not raised. He mentioned a number of women and seemed to have memorized their allegations. At another point blasting Republican Leaders writing it is wrong to stand idly by with while a president seeks to undermine Public Confidence in institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check. With me rand bryce is running for paul ryans seat. Ryan announced his retirement yesterday. Randy, thanks for being here. Randy, for a moment, when the access Hollywood Tapes came out, for a moment, paul ryan did what a lot of people think was the right thing. He got on a phone call with all the republicans who were running for congressional seats and say do what your conscience governs you should do. You are not required to defend the person running for the presidency. There were a number of people in the country who at that moment thought paul ryan had the backbone to stand up against a man who would come to be a bully that is donald trump. That changed. Absolutely. And i also gave hip credit because there was supposed to be an event in racine, wisconsin close to where i live shortly after that the took place. And paul ryan refused to pleat. That meeting did not take place. I gave some kind of credit. I thought thats great. Its good to see him stand up. However, since that time ryan has been nothing but speaker of the white house. He hasnt been speaking on behalf of the house of representatives. Its been very disappointing. Why do you think that happened . Ryan has had a more than 20year career in the house, he has been chosen to be the speaker of the house because felt this is a man of principle. A lot of americans dont agree with his principles. I take issue with some of them as an economics guy. Why give it up in the face of donald trump . Well, i think the only time that you saw him speak out vocally about donald trump was when his donors were under attack. Other than that, it seemed to be he was going along in order to get his agenda passed. His agenda has always been to givetach breaks to the wealthiest people in the country at the expense of working class people like myself and the majority of people in the first district. Its been very disappointing to see that place place. Not only is his legislative agenda to take from us in order to redistribute upwards but hes not going to sand up for the rest of the country and do the right thing. Hes not going to make sure and insift that congress is part of the checks and balances that this country was set up upon. Just being complicity with allowing the president to do whatever the president decides he wants to do. Randy bryce, thank you for joining us, a democrat running for paul ryans congressional seat in the 201 midterm elections. I want to remind you, the book is not out until tuesday but we have had people including phil rucker from the west who have read the entire book giving us some excerpts from jim comeys book talking about trump saying he likes loyalty oaths and has an us versus them world view. He said he lies about all things large and small, about Jeff Sessions comey says hes overwhelmed and overmatched by the job and after trump told comey to leave the room, comey said to sessions you have be between me and the president. Hardball with Chris Matthews starts right now. Comey throws the book at trump. Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in washington. Huge news on the investigation of the president. Nbc news is reporting tonight that special counsel Robert Mueller is now moving more speedily toward a report that could show that President Trump obstructed justice. What opened the way is the realization that the president will refuse to answer muellers questions. The other breaking story tonight is were seeing the first excerpts from james comeys explosive new memoir and the former fbi director didnt hold anything back. The Washington Post has obtained a copy ahead of