White house. Just moments ago, president trump, who has threatened steve bannon with legal action, made his first public appearance, excuse me, his first Public Comments about those explosive things that his onetime Campaign Chairman and adviser said in a new bestseller. Any words about steve bannon . I dont know. He called me a great man last night so he changed his tune pretty quick. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. I dont talk to him. I dont talk to him. Thats just a misnomer. The comments follow a letter from the president s personal attorneys, also threatening to sue the author and publisher of fire and fury. The new inside look at the white house which contains a number of salacious stories which we must make clear once again nbc news has not confirmed but they do call into question president trumps fitness to lead. His a built to read. Even his mental health. Trump supporters today out in force, pushing back on the book and its claim. Even bannon whos quotes contain some of the most damning allegations appears to be doing damage control today. Focus on the agenda because, you know, there is nobody we think higher of than president trump. Youll find out most of the sources are people that were disgruntled that no longer work at the white house. The president is a bestselling author. He does read. There are some people that assimilate information differently from other people. Sir Richard Branson for example is not a great reader but hes a great reader of people. Sir Richard Branson is dyslex dyslexic. These are allegations in a book by Michael Wolff. Hes a sleaze bag. Let us start with our chief White House CorrespondentHalle Jackson there in the Briefing Room getting ready for this briefing set to start in 30 minutes. What are the president s lawyers alleging . Theres essentially issuing the cease and desist letters to both the publisher and the author of this book fire and fury. The book comes out january 9th. Cats out of the bag to a degree. Its a little difficult to put the toothpaste back here. You have the attorneys for donald trump, for the president , saying steve bannon violated a nondisclosure agreement for example. There is obviously a legal threat here. Let me for context point out during the campaign, even before that, donald trump has threatened to sue a lot of people. Everybody from lawmakers to the women accusing him of Sexual Misconduct to the club for growth, none of those suits ended up actually getting filed. So its a question of the follow through here. Although it is worth noting that the attorney that the president has brought on for all of this has worked with his family in the past, worked with Melania Trump for example and also was involved in that lawsuit against gawker with peter teal. Gawker obviously no longer exists. So that is the lawsuit. Let me touch on a couple of issues. You mentioned some of the experts from wolffs piece out today. A little pull back the curtain behind the scenes look. He talks about the access inside that west wing, just through the door behind me there, that he hadded for a large portion of the begin of course the administration. The white house says hey, steve bannon is the one who cleared wolff into the west wing. The majority of the time, 95 of the time. Theres one particular explosive passage catching a lot of attention here. When wolff talks about the feeling of the president s advisers here, he says everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of the president s repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes hed repeat word for word and expression for expression the same three stories. Many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions. He just couldnt stop saying something. That is what Michael Wolff is reporting. I asked a friend of the president , you just played a little bit of our interview a second ago, about this particular passage and about the president apparently according to wolff being unable to recognize friends at maralago over the holiday break. He says the president oftentimes likes to repeat things for dramatic or theatrical effect. He also says the president recognized him on new years eve at maralago several times. No questions about the president s Mental Fitness. In this Briefing Room about 24 hours ago, you might remember, sanders pivoting to talk about the Mental Fitness of kim jongun in north korea. Remember, nbc news has not independently confirmed a lot of whats in Michael Wolffs book. Some things in the book that now appear to be just factual untrue, for example, that the president did not know who former House Speaker john boehner was. You search twitter, its obvious the president s been tweeting about john boehner for a long time. I would also point out a couple other things. Number one, there is a report out from axios that wolff has tapes of some of these interviews. I bring it up for one reason, which is you look at the on the record statements of this book versus some of the background information. Steve bannon went on the record to talk about donald trump, to talk about people inside the west wing. So that is notable. I would also say the president , you heard him in that pool spray just a little bit ago, had an opportunity to really lay into steve bannon. He had an opportunity to light up steve bannon, to throw a verbal grenade. He did not. He chose not to do that. He kind of pulled the punch and just said hey, i dont talk to steve bannon much anymore. To finish, i want to mention this new rule inside the west wing. A new old rule you could say. Something put in place under john kelly we understand now will be enforced more seriously. That is a restriction on the use of personal cell phones, personal devisors inside the west wing. Perhaps to crack down on, for example, leaks, but out in on it sound like the west wing is going to be stricter on the use of government devices only inside the west wing for staffers and for guests, craig. Hallie jackson, thank you. Shannon pettypiece, bloomberg, jill winebanks, contributor, also former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor. And susan page, Washington Bureau chief for usa today. The president has developed a bit of a reputation for tweeting about nfl players protesting where the news cycle goes against him today appears to be no exception and response to make America Great again. The president wrote, so beautiful, show this picture to the nfl players who still kneel. It would seem as if they clearly realize this is damaging to the brand. How damaging, shannon . Well, it appears theyre trying to get back on message to give you a little bit of inside, behind the curtain activity that was going on today, the footage you saw from this immigration meeting that the president was having with senators, that was not a planned photo op. The reporters were called just a few minutes before this meeting took place. Called suddenly. We werent expected to be called into the room. They allowed these remarks to be videotaped. That was not planned. I would think a decision was made at the last minute to lets try and get some image out there. Of course, they knew that one of the questions would be about steve bannon and as hallie pointed out, it seemed the president had a prepared remark. So i think they are trying to get off the subject. That would be difficult for the next few days. Theres more and more thats going to be coming. Certainly days, if not into next week. For the first time, were going to hear from the author of this book tomorrow morning. Let me read what mike wolff said in an email from Top White House aide gary cohen. Let me add nbc news has not confirmed this. A senior white house official denies both the substance and existence of such an email. But again, this is what wolff writes. In april, an email originally copied to more than a dozen people went into far wider circulation when it was forwarded and reforwarded. Purporting to represent the views of gary cohn and summarizing the appalled sense in much of the white house. The email read, its worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns. Trump wont read anything, not one page memo, not the brief policy papers, nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with World Leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better. Kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing. Bannon is an arrogant expletive who thinks hes smarter than he is. Trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits. No one will survive the first year but his family. I hate the work, but feel i need to stay because im the only person there with a clue what hes doing. The reason so few jobs have been, the reason so few jobs is that they only accept people who pass ridiculous purity tests, even for midlevel policy making job, where the people will never see the light of day. I am in a constant state of shock and horror. Assuming these stories are true, how does the white house turn this ship around, susan page, or is this just one of those stories that were not even talking about in two days and this is just another wednesday at the white house . You know, i do not think this is a story thats going to go away in a day or two and because of tweets about nfl players kneeling. Thats for two reasons. One, some of these disclosures have legal repercussions for the russia investigation. They also have these rather devastating political implay i kas because of the picture of a white house that is so dysfunctional. And the comments not just from one senior white house official but from many depicting the president in a negative way and depicting the whole setup there as one thats just not really operating in the way you need to have the white house operating. So this is i think quite a serious matter. Efforts at damage control so far by the trump folks have been to attack the author, attack the messenger, to call for a cease and desist. It has not been so much to go and deny the substance of the most serious stories that are depicted in this book. We heard from steve bannon a few hours ago on a radio show. I did find it noteworthy that he did not dispute much of whats been reported over the past 24 hours in terms of the substance. Wolff writing that the white house lawyers did not like the staffs response to that 2016 trump tower meeting with don jr. Quote, the lawyers, in disgust and alarm, saw, in effect, each principal becoming a witness to another principals potential misdeeds all conspiring with one another to get their story straight. Stephen miller, hope hicks had draft order at least typed kushners version of the first letter written at bedminister to fire comey. Hicks had joined with kushner and his wife to draft on air force one the trumpdirected press release about don jr. s meeting in the trump tower. How significant are those revelations . All of this is significant. All of it is another piece of puzzle. They all fit together to start showing a very compelling case of obstruction of justice. And it doesnt matter whether theres an underlying collusion or underlying conspiracy with the russians. There is a clear case being shown that they were obstructing and impeding the investigation of that relationship. And so we have some pretty good evidence against all of these people gathering together and committing a crime. Wolff also writes this about trumps opinion of bob mueller, jill. And then there was the president s insistent claim he could do something. I can fire him, he would say. Indeed it was his it was another of his repetitive loops. I can fire him, i can fire him. If he thinks he can fire mueller, than whats preventing him from doing just that . Well there are two things. One is he cant fire him. He would have to fire rosenstein. In order to do that, he would probably have to get rid of the attorney general and replace him. Because the rule is he cant be fired except for cause and so far there is no cause. Rosenstein has made that absolutely clear. The second reason is that the public outcry and the resistance is prepared to march en masse if mueller is fired. This is what happened during watergate. The saturday night massacre led to a public outcry that forced the president to appoint a Second Special prosecutor and to turn over the tapes that ultimately are what got them into complete trouble and led to his articles of impeachment and led to the senate concluding that they would convict him. So it would be a fool hearty lack of knowledge of history if the president now fired mueller, he should learn from the lesson of watergate and the saturday night massacre. Shannon, going back to hal hallys reporting there, the personal cell phones, is that going to stem the leaks . Well, i mean, no. Because you can just take your phone off of the white house campus and call whoever you want or do whatever you want. This is a ban on the west wing, you know, plenty of white house staffers can walk out of west wing any time and go to the petes coffee down street and make a phone call or send a text message. I will point out this is a must different white house today in some ways okay, in some ways its much different than even six months ago. Theres no more bannon, priebus, spicer. A number of people will be giving their resignations at the one year mark if they have not already, like weve seen gina powell leave and omarosa step away. It is going to be different in year two. But of course the one consistency is president trump. He will remain the president. He sets the tone. And so i think things will change like use of cell phones and the personnel. Obviously some very major things will stay the same. Susan page what continues to strike me about the whole thing is, granted, theyre railing against the author of the book today, but here was a guy who was allowed inside the white house for, again what appears to be the better part of 200 days, talks to hundreds, conducted on the record interviews. If one had just done a web search of the author, they probably would have found out, susan, that maybe this wasnt the guy that they wanted writing this kind of book about the president. You know, youre right, Michael Wolff wasnt hes dropping. He wasnt overhearing somebody on the next seat. He was invited into the white house repeated lid for hours. Extraordinary access. And got on the record quotes from people close to and supportive of president trump. Thats what makes it so devastating. Its not some democrats depicting the president as not being an effective leader or questions about his leadership and judgment. Its the people who are closest to him, who work the hardest for his election, talking on the record and according to these reports, sometimes even on tape, which makes it hard to deny things that you perhaps told a reporter on the record. There are tapes. Susan, thank you, jill, thank you, miss petty piece, always good to have you as well, thanks to you. As the Trump Administration and its allies, as they continue to fire back at the books author, that writer just laid out a detailed defense of his work. Well look at that. And once again were expecting the white house to take more questions about his work. Ive just been told its been pushed back. The Daily Press Briefing now at 2 00. That means youll have us for 43 more minutings. Plus, millions of americans feeling the effects of just one heck of a snowstorm right now. A bomb cyclone. That is a meteorological term. Al roker will verify it. He is standing by to show us whos likely to see the most trouble. When i received the diagnosis, i knew at that exact moment, whatever it takes, wherever i have to go. Im beating this. My main focus was to find a team of doctors that work together. When a patient comes to ctca, theyre meeting a team of physicians that specialize in the management of cancer. Breast Cancer Treatment is continuing to evolve. 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A new article in the Hollywood Reporter, the author reveals how he was given extraordinary access to write this explosive tell all. Quote, i interviewed donald trump for the Hollywood Reporter in june 2016 and he seemed to have liked or not disliked the piece i wrote. After the election, i proposed to him that i come to the white house and report an inside story for later publication. Journalistically, as a fly on the wall. Which he seemed to misconstrue as a request for a job. No, i said, id just like to watch and write a book. A book, he responded, losing interest. I hear a lot of people want to write books, he added, clearly not understanding why anybody would. But sure, trump seemed to say, knock yourself out. Joined now by msnbcs own ckati ter. Gabe sherman, vanity fair special correspondent, also msnbc contributor who im sure is also working on a book of sorts as well, right . Everyone should be working on a book. Books are great. Theyre interesting. Theyre good reads. Theyre full of details. Especially audio book. I agree with you. Wolff goes on to say, im going to read it here, his not disapproval became kind of a passport for me to hang around, checking in each week, making appointments with various senior staffers who put my name in the system and then wandering across the street to the white house and plunking myself down, day after day, on a west wing couch. Does this help explain how he was able to get such inside information absolutely. In quotes . He talks about j