capture the presidency. so as he hemorrhages support among republicans which is the big issue here, you ve got paul ryan speaking at the top of the program saying, we re engaged in a debate between two different governing philosophies of the country. 2340, we no, we re not. we re in a debate whether donald trump is fit to be president of the united states. a majority saying doesn t have the qualifications or temperament. not moving the electorate at all. why the likes of paul ryan focus on the senate and house. it s moved away from the presidential election. i assume you know karen tummalty, highly respected washington political correspondent. been around for a while. she s a very serious journalist. used to be at time magazine as wom as well. a grand conspiracy? a., we re not that good. we saw the donald trump speech yesterday and all the things, listen to things he said are rigged, crooked or fixeding everything from unemployment numbers to the federal reserve
breaking news. a story first reported by the washington post, karen tummalty, we want to warn all viewers here in the united states and around the world that the details are very graphic. here s what this woman told the washington post. and i m talking to me friend who i m sitting to and across from on my left side. i m very clear on this. this is the vivid part for me. so the person on my right who unbeknownst to me at that time was donald trump put their hands up my skirt. he did touch my vagina through my underwear. trump spokeswoman, just telling the washington post, and i m quoting now, mr. trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get free publicity. it is totally ridiculous. very strong allegation. now reported in the washington
wolf, you talk about malice, it s not whether somebody personally had a beef with donald trump or didn t like him personally. it s about whether the publishers knew or should have known it was false when they reported it. the hurdle most publications have to overcome is say, listen, we did a thorough and comprehensive investigation. we invited response from the actual candidate, heading up the story and did fact checking. i ve read the article now in the washington post. posted online and throughout the article the reporter karen tummalty quotes others who contemporaneously were told about this allegation and over the years, this woman kristen anderson apparently told several of her associates several of her friends what happened there. that will be an important element if there is a lawsuit. right? absolutely. because a journalist has to assess trustworthyness and credibility. one of the ways to do that for the courts is to do kind of
washington post over brunch and they lasted about it incredible he would do this. she didn t approach the washington post herself. in fact, a friend of hers knew about the story who contacted a reporter and took several days to consider whether in fact coming forward was the right thing to do and ultimately decided in fact it was. in the article, she also told karen tummalty of the washington post who s going to join us in the next hour with more details, she said she recognized donald trump. he was so distinctive looking with the hair and eyebrows. i mean, nobody else has those eyebrows. she really remembers donald trump at that moment, the whole thing lasted, what, 30 seconds or so. dana bash, it does, as we say, follow this pattern of these other women who have made similar charges. i just think we should maybe not be so surprised, but i m just sitting here, we re talking about this the last 45 minutes,
he comes to us via skype. pete dominick is in new york. mark thiesen is a washington post columnist, he s in washington. karen tummalty is with the washington post also in washington. i want to start with you, mark. you re a former speech writer for president bush. not often someone who compliments president obama. but last night in that event, unusual though it was because we thought it was going to be a memorial service and it had overtones, there was cheering and there was a lot of clapping. you felt that the president achieved two things in his speech. you describe it as being two speeches in one. brilliant and courageous. tell me from your normally critical perspective of president obama why you think so. well, first of all, there was two speeches. the first speech was a traditional memorial address like the one the examples you just showed where he told the stories of the victims and shined a light on them. that was very important because the light had been the