>> i wonder if there's a way for the trump folks to have some sort of definitive way of talking about this. so we have these blanket denials, there are a lot of denials that have been made that seem hard to credit because at least there's contradicting evidence on the other side. like how could they demonstrate they're telling the truth? >> i'm not really sure. i spoke to the trump campaign for that story today and i said, look, why deny what's not unusual and i got this response back, a phone call back that was like "it's a dumb question, we can't deny something that never happen happened." it was a stonewall, never happened and that's that. if that's the case, that's the case. but there's a lot of contradicting evidence and i think that's going to be a problem. >> well said. matthew rosenberg, thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> i'm joined by david cay johnson, author of "the making of donald trump," a man who has rert about the people at the center of the story we've been covering, the back channel, i