defense secretary and the generals and others and gary cohn and others in that room. steve bannon throwing around a lot of profanity on his part in his direct address with those generals. lawrence, i think one of the many absurdities we have long forgotten about this administration, steve bannon was actually placed on the national security council in january of 2017. and one of the first orders that president trump promulgated as president of the united states. i can confirm you are in fact correct, i did not routinely hear that language in the situation room. it is not the language you expect to hear when you are debating and sometimes speaking about matters of life and death. everything from the iran deal to cuba, to matters of nuclear contingency. so it is not certainly par for the course in those settings. go ahead, david. one quick thing. you know, it s time for rex tillerson, gary cohn, and rob porter to say these things out in the open. this is how the president behaves. t
the donald trump exactly. the way he operated in business, the way he did everything. when he gets these paper statements today from rob porter and gary cohn, does he fall for those? i think all he cares about is the show. you know, he has this very reptilian, core strengths. even if it contradicts what he believes it happening. it s also juan of his core flaws. because he only lives in this world, this fiction that he creates around himself. i think he knows full well that those are possibly cover documents for both gary cohn and rob porter. but what he cares more about is that his assemblage of voices out there saying, bob woodward is a liar and the president of the united states is telling the truth. and that s why it s worth remembering in a moment like this that trump is 72 years old and he spent the last five decades anonymously leaking
documents denying things that they said to him when he has them on tape. and has the documents. in the war on truth, i can t think of a better general on the side of truth than bob woodward. and that s where we stand right now. i wanted here s a quote from rob porter in the book. let s remember, rob porter and gary cohn their written statements they don t attempt to contradict a single word in the book. porter says, it felt like we were walking along the edge of the cliff perpetually. other times we would fall over the edge. and an action would be taken. and tim o brien, it s very clear, i mean, anyone who knows how to read these books can tell that rob porter is a direct source, speaking directly to bob woodward as is gary cohn. these statements they ve issued today are things that have happened with woodward books before and bob woodward has said in the past that sometimes people will actually tell him.
and that the book is not a reliable account of his presidency. do you believe rob porter and gary cohn you shouldn t be talking about that right now because it doesn t matter. but i appreciate their statement. their statement was excellent. they both set out beautiful which shows the book is just a piece of fiction. and the president has tweeted that the woodward book is a scam and bob woodward is a liar. but there is an obvious contradiction in the president s statements on bob woodward s book. politico said, this book does not accurately portray my experience, former top stewards of the administration who shards with the famed journalist alarming details of how the white house functions. joining our discussion now leading us off tonight, tim o brien, he is the executive editor of bloomberg view. he s the author of trump nation, the art of being the donald. and an msnbc contributor.
my dog is not going to say hello to me, he s going to turn his back to me. i am in trouble with the dog community. i can tell you. the dog will get over it, rachel. thank you, lawrence. thank you, rachel. we have solve to discuss with our panel tonight on rachel s interview with bob woodward in this last hour. and this new book fear which has rocked the white house by revealing an uninformed and unfit president trump in more detail than any previous reporting. this book is on sale today and americans will now be able to read this, judge it for themselves. politico is reporting that the president is absolutely livid at the former members of his administration, especially gary cohn and rob porter, who he believes leaked to bob woodward. they are both obvious direct sources of the book. both men appear frequently in the book, including in a section that describes kohn stealing a letter from the president s desk before he could sign it to terminate the united states trade deal wi