robert costa, some of the best reporters covering this white house. thank you so much for starting us off. still ahead tonight, what this book reveals that could be an asset for the special counsel s investigation. plus, a new lawsuit filed by paul manafort against robert mueller and the department of justice. and later, the feud between jared, ivanka and steve bannon, who reportedly called ivanka, quote, dumb as a brick. the 11th hour just getting started on a wednesday night. cannot live without it.
it s apparent to the members of congress. but they don t say it publicly. they say it to journalists. they say it privately in the bars, but it is dangerous unfitness. i think it s something out of this book and these other actions on the third day of the new year are increasingly going to become part of the political narrative in 2018. because though it may be uncomfortable, it s increasingly clear the question of this president s fan fest of unfitness for this office is no longer something we can avoid discussing for the sake of politeness. eugene, can you respond to that? he s absolutely right. nicolle, how many times have i written this man is clearly not fit to the be president of
we re seeing tonight many candidates across the republican party express some concern can about his comments, distancing themselves from steve bannon. we see the president asserting his own political capital within the republican party as senator mcconnell and others rally behind him. bannon will have to reeevaluate in the coming weeks what was his aim this year politically. what is this project, especially if he is not as closely aligned with the white house. actually, parker, some of the biggest and most dramatic headlines were around steve bannon s observations about the different players that we ve all mentioned now, jared kushner, hope hicks, and others as it pertains to the russia investigation. and i know some of the conversation tonight has shifted to what in michael wolff s book is precisely accurate. what is accurately described and what is not. it was pointed out to me that to the degree that any of it is relevant to the russia probe, bob mueller likely already knows the a
very pointedly blame the president himself. you could out loud judge his acumen and the advice he was getting. he s not only crazy declared tom barrack to a friend, he s stuped much i should point out we have not independently verified that quote as coming from the president s friend, tom barrack. but there is a lot of reporting in the book that people did not hold donald trump intelligence in very high regard. yeah, that s certainly true. you see members of his cabinet saying it, members of his staff saying it. and with respect to this decision, look, this decision to fire comey, donald trump we don t know if he entered the white house with any criminality. whether he was involved in it or not, that s still being investigated, but we do know he brought criminal liability on himself through his actions, nut
priebus? i ll answer your second question first, which is basically steve who? don t know the guy, can t really remember the guy, was he ever really in the white house that much, and the answer of course is he was. he was an integral player during the campaign and in president trump s white house until he was forced out. one of the things i find interesting is something the post has reported is today bannon lost the financial backing of rebecca mercer, who was one of his biggest patrons, sort of the dollars behind one of his projects. and so today we saw the great palace intrigue we all love to soak up the gossip on. but for steve bannon he lost his chief paten in terms of donald trump and financial support in terms the mercers provide. again, this could all change. no one is perpetually