Strategy so far that the president s legal team is taking when it comes to this book, fire and fury. Hallie, it is a battle and war that is escalating by the minute. Just moments ago, as you said, we have confirmed that President Trumps legal team sent a cease and desist order to that book and the publisher. I have it right here in my hands. Let me read you a little bit of it, hallie. In your upcoming book, fire and fury we are identifying false and baseless statements that youre making about mr. Trump. Theyre essentially trying to get the publisher and author to hold off on publishing this. This follows a cease and desist order that was sent to steve bannon overnight. You have breached the agreement by communicating with author Michael Wolff disclosing confidential information and making disparaging and, in some cases, outright defamatory statements to mr. Wolff about mr. Trump, his family members and the company. Of course, some of the most inflammatory statements cited in that book
One of the reporters on the story standing by to talk with us. Michelle obama speaking out candidly about this president in advance of her new book as the 11th hour gets under way on a friday night. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 659 of this Trump Administration and the president tries to turn his attention to the world stage as his selection to run the Justice Department acting attorney general Matt Whitaker is coming under increasing fire. Demands are growing for whitaker to recuse himself, pull himself out of the russia investigation portion of doj just as Jeff Sessions did before him because whitaker appears to have prejudged both the investigation and one Robert Mueller. And new reporting indicates that his previous business ties have attracted now the attention of the fbi. Before leaving for paris, trump was asked about the concerns over whitaker. Well, Matt Whitaker, i dont know Matt Whitaker, but i didnt know Matt Whitaker. Whitaker
there s three people you don t want to see in the courtroom. that s dominion, cardi b or gwyneth paltrow, you re gonna lose. um. i d like to thank tamra keith and the white house correspondents association for having me. thank you. i m well aware that not everybody in this room knows who i am. so let s just address the elephant in the room. i know what it is half this room. think i m keenan thompson. the other half think of louis armstrong. president biden thinks something to daddy your family matters. nonetheless. i m happy to be here at this event amongst government officials who speak to msnbc. former government officials who now works at msnbc. and future
freedom. we talked about evan of the wall street journal, sitting in a russian prison as we speak on espionage charges. which espionage charges by the way, that s the foreign equivalent of saying someone fits the description. evident hundreds of journalists. imprisoned all over the world simply for doing their job. we got to defend brave jobs. most of national stories in this country. at some point, we re first a local story. those stories and championed by reporters at outlets that many of them have now folded if we can t figure out a way to pay local reporters than as a country, we re only left with that many more blind spots to where the bull is happening. you hear about all these newsrooms getting cuts? that s every article that tamra has been sending me to last two months. it s just the new room is getting cut cutting people
like the southern district of new york, they report to the acting attorney general as well. so that is, to me, part of what s been so kind of calculated and dangerous about this situation. he didn t fire mueller, which would have set off alarm bells and even bigger demonstrations in the street. when he did was more subtle and makes it less clear about how much damage he can do. had he put someone in a position who has oversight and we don t know yet what s going to happen with that. but it should set off alarm bells. a valuable point to make. our thanks to fellowship republican national committeer, tamra keith, to mimi row cafor a terrific first session of our broadcast. coming up for us, a new trump tower meeting contradicts the president s many denials of hush payments. one of the reporters who broke the story joins us next. layer, florida, georgia, arizona, still counting votes three days after the midterms. and now trump is once again