Confirmation hearings, more on that in a moment. While that was going on, the first report surfaced about whats in Bob Woodwards new book. The advanced details are rather devastating. The book is called fear trump in the white house. Woodward writes that he conducted and recorded, notably, hundreds of houses of interviews for the book while also reviewing notes, personal diaries, government documents. The Washington Post reports that woodward describes, quote, a nervous breakdown of the executive branch under his president and woodward depicts trumps anger and paranoia about the russian inquiry as unrelenting, paralyzing the west wing for entire days. Among the most revealing details are the interactions between President Trump and his first lead attorney in the russia investigation who youll remember is john dowd. According to the post woodward writes dowd was convinced he would commit perjury if he ever talked to mueller. Tried to prep the president for a pop sitdown. Dowd peppered trump with questions provoking stumbles, contradictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool. This things a gd hoax that started a 30minute rant that finished with him saying i dont want to testify i dont really want to testify. The post says woodward accounts trumps testimony was a bad idea because of how it would make the president look. In march, john dowd reportedly told mueller, quote, im not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. You published that transcript because everything leaks in washington and the guys overseas are going to say i told you he was an idiot, i told you he was a gd dumbbell. What are you dealing with this idiot for . John, i understand, mueller replied. Later dowd reportedly told the president , quote, dont testify, its either that or an orange jumpsuit. Ill be a real good witness, trump told dowd according to woodward. You are not a good witness, mr. President. Im afraid i just cant help you. The next day dowd handed in his resignation. Woodward details interactions of top aides in the white house including former economic adviser and Goldman Sachs adviser gary cohn. Stole a letter off trumps desk that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the u. S. From a trade agreement with south korea. Kone later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect National Security. Woodward illustrates chief of staff john kellys feelings about the president , quote, kelly said of trump hes an idiot. Its pointless to try to convince him of anything. Hes gone off the rails. Were in crazy town. I dont even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job ive ever had. Today kelly issued a response calling woodwards account, quote, bs. Woodward did request interviews with President Trump, which were not granted. After the manuscript was published in august, the president called woodward to say he wanted to talk. Today, the Washington Post released a recording of that call. I dont mind sorry we missed the opportunity to talk for the book. Well, i just smoke with kellyanne and she asked me if i got a call. I never got a call. I never got a message. Who did you who did you ask about speaking to me . Well, about six people, you know well, they dont tell me. Senator, i talked to kellyanne about it 2 1 2 months ago. Ive got to go talk to people and see them outside of the white house and outside of their offices and ive gained a lot of insight and documentation. You know, its a tough look at the world and your administration and you. Right. Well, i assume that means its going to be a negative book, but, you know, im sort of 50 used to that. Thats all right. The president was aware the recording was underway, by the way. Tonight, the president wrote that the books quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. He wondered if woodward was a democratic operative. On the russia front there is new reporting from the New York Times on the negotiations between mueller and trumps legal team. Times puts it this way, quote, mueller will accept written answers from President Trump on questions about whether his campaign conspired with russias election interference. Mr. Muellers office told mr. Trumps lawyers in a letter two people briefed on it said on tuesday on whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself, mr. Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a president ial interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter. Tonight, nbc news is reporting that a person familiar with the matter says discussions are, quote, moving in a positive direction. Thats certainly the line some trump surrogates took on television tonight. Lets bring in our leadoff panel on a busy tuesday night. Phillip rucker, Pulitzer Prize winning jeremy bash, former staff at the cia and the pentagon. A National Security analyst for us. Barbara mccade, former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of michigan. Good evening and welcome to you all. Phillip, i try gamely to prevent you from ever passing judgement on one of the stories that comes before us but you have read now and reported on this book. You report on this white house every day. Do the two portraits match up . They absolutely do, brian, and what we have in woodwards book is a lot of new detail and color and scenes and episodes that fit in with the broader narrative that i think has been very clear now of this president , you know, really showing a lack of knowledge and information about the world. A lack of curiosity in alarming his advisers. What woodward details is again and again and again his military leaders, general dunford, for example, secretary mattis, the defense secretary, and others just being alarmed by this president , by decisions that he wants to make. For example, he said in a phone call to general mattis, the defense secretary, that he wanted to assassinate Bashar Al Assad, the leader of syria and his people. And mattis when he hung up the phone had to tell his senior aide, no, were not going to do any of that. Were going to be much more measured than that. There is an effort by all senior officials in the administration to be guardrail for what they believed would be very dangerous and unwise actions that the president wanted to do. I intend to act john brennan a question about that in just a minutes time. Jeremy bash, in your lifetime did you ever think youd read about or hear about a letter being swiped off the desk of the president of the United States lest he read it or even worse sign it . No, brian. What we see here is our system of government is heaving under enormous strain because we have a president whose cabinet does not trust his fundamental judgement. They believe hes unfit to make core decisions about National Security, about life and death, and they not only are alarmed as was just referenced, but they actually believe that his actions are a direct threat to National Security and they have to take unprecedented steps to prevent that from happening. Barbara mcquaid, these portions about lawyers conducting a practice session with the president and then relating the results of that to mueller, does that, given your experience i know you werent in the room for either instance. Does that ring true to you . I dont know. You know, its the idea that they would do a practice interview does ring true to me. I think that thats a common scenario to help someone understand what it might be like to go through that, but to then try to use that as an excuse to not conduct the interview does not seem like a winning argument. The law says that a grand jury is entitled to every mans evidence, is the way the long was phrased long ago, and that includes a president. Just because youre bad at telling the truth doesnt mean you get out of it. Phil, i want to read you this. One minute after 11 eastern time tonight since weve been on the air, the president has written this. The already discredited woodward book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions, a term weve asked our children not to use and a dumb souther. I said neither. Never used those terms on anyone, including jeff and being a southerner is a great thing. He made this up to divide. Imagine, phil, of the details of this book coming out amidst the Supreme Court hearing. Well, its a huge story, these book details, and i think its going to continue to be a story for days if not weeks to come. The president should be careful what hes wishing for in taunting woodward because woodward has done meticulous reporting. As jim comey once said, lordy, there are tapes. There are a lot of tapes. Woodward recorded hundreds of hours of his interviews. Hes said in a statement tonight that he stands by his reporting. And, you know, i think the president in saying that he has never used that phrase before, he better be sure hes right. Indeed. I saw that your colleague and fellow pulitzer winner david mayor us in who has known woodward for 41 years said minutes ago he would stake his life on the accuracy of woodwards work. Jeremy bash, i often ask you how you think the white house is functioning inside during our conversations in all the days that pass here. We now learn in the woodward book that sometimes this, these machinations, would take up days at a time. Yeah, this is an effort by aides, by colleagues to hatch a plan to thwart the president s direct orders. You saw in the context of an illegal order given to secretary of defense mattis about assassinating a foreign leader, which violates the 1974 executive order signed by president ford. We dont do that in our country. Its against our lou lah and our policy. It ranges from the illegal all the way to the dangerous of pulling troops off the korean peninsula. These require a lot of effort by staff, by cabinet officials, by National Security professionals to prevent the president from doing grave harm to americas interests. So, jeremy, you have to limit the opportunities where he is able to do such a thing . I think you have to box him in, take documents off his desk, not tell him things, basically ignore his orders. Weve seen that down the line. One of the things that chris wray, the fbi director, said over the summer at a conference that i attended, essentially were ignoring the president when he says we should stop investigating the russia matter. Barbara, some surrogates for the president appearing on cable news channels tonight were expressing relief over the direction the mueller talks are apparently headed. Do you believe any of it regarding leaks out of the white house on the mueller talks . It certainly wouldnt be his first choice. Written answers are certainly not preferable because you cant follow up with followup questions. You cant look at someones tone or inflection or body language to determine whether theyre telling the truth. It dud be Robert Mueller has reached a point where hes decided that donald trump is not going to sit for an interview and Robert Mueller is not willing perhaps to litigate this matter and risk an adverse decision in the courts, though i think he would win that battle. Maybe he perceives trump sit for an interview as his opportunity to tell his side of the story. If he wants to do that through written questions, maybe Robert Mueller takes those answers and moves on and believes he has all the evidence he needs already to do whatever he plans to do. Barbara, lets speak english, written answers are not donald trump at a typewriter or at a legal pad, theyre written by committees of wellcomp saided attorneys. Absolutely. Im sure the person who would take a first draft wouldnt even be the president , it would be a lawyer. He would look to verify their accuracy and they would be fined tuned. Thats why i think Robert Mueller would be less inclined to take those kinds of answers than sit facetoface, look him in the eye and ask him questions and take verbal answers. Phil rucker, to underscore what you have already underscored, a person close to woodward called me tonight to remind me of the express purpose that the fine print says that bob woodward has recordings of so many of the conversations that he engaged in for this book. As you put it, the president s kind of engaging in a high wire act. He sure is, brian. Its not just recordings. Woodwards book details his method. He did interviews with firsthand witnesses and other participants in these meetings on deep background, which is a journalistism term for conducting the interview but not identifying the source by name in the book. So the book is written almost like a screenplay but its all based on these rigorous interviews and also based on diary entries, memos hes obtained, in some cases government documents. That letter that gary cohn reportedly took off the president s desk, woodward prints a pdf copy of the letter in his book. He actually has that letter that was swiped from the president s desk. So there is a Real Reporting Foundation here behind the narrative in the book. I was just going to say, much oblige to you and the big three for starting us off on a tuesday night. Phil rucker, jeremy bash, barbara mcquaid. Coming up, more revelations from woodwards new book including how defense secretary mattis reportedly described the president. Former cia director john brennan in the wings to join us later next. Later, fireworks from the very first moments of the kavanaugh hearings as democrats attempt to delay what may be the inevitable. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a back to work tuesday night. This isnt just any moving day. This is moving day with the best inhome wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. And this is moving day with Reliable Service appointments in a twohour window so youre up and running in no time. Show me decorating shows. This is staying connected with xfinity to make moving. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and twohour appointment windows. Click, call or visit a store today. This new book by bob woodward offers a depiction of how President Trumps National Security team was shaken by their boss on the Foreign Policy front. Washington post details this moment from the book after syrian leader Bashar Al Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians last year, quote, in april 2017, trump called mattis, said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. Lets expletive kill him. Lets go in. Lets kill the expletive lot of them, trump said, according to woodward. Mattis told the president that he would get right on it, but after hanging up the phone he told a senior aide, were not going to do any of that, were going to be much more measured. Woodward writes about a National Security meeting january 19th in which trump, quote, disregarded the significance of the massive u. S. Military presence on the korean peninsula. Trump questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all. Quote, were doing this in order to prevent world war iii, defense secretary jim mattis told him. After trump left the meeting, woodward recounts mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling Close Associates the president acted like and had the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader. Tonight, secretary mattis has released a statement on woodwards new book that reads in part, and we wrote, the contemptuous words about the president attributed to me in woodwards book were never uttered by me or in my presence. He goes on to say, while i general and enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely washington brand of literature and his Anonymous Sources do not lend credibility. Well, here with us tonight, former director of the cia, john brennan. Were happy to say hes also an msnbc senior National Security and intelligence analyst. Thank you for coming in. Your reaction to just the story about Bashar Al Assad and is general mattis one of the people you regard as a human guardrail around this administration . Absolutely. I think it just underscores how fortune we all are that somebody of jim mattis experience, common sense, as well as his interest in making sure that this president , donald trump, does not do something that truly is dangerous for our National Security. I think it also reveals just how inexperienced donald trump is and how impulsive he is. To say that he wants to kill somebody like that. As well as his utter disregard for the implications of doing something rash on the korean peninsula. Again, it shows his impulsiveness, it shows his recklessness, and thats why i think people like jim mattis and john kelly and others are there to prevent donald trump from doing something that is truly going to hurt this country. Here is gary cohn. Wellknown rich guy in new york, Goldman Sachs. He didnt come up through the intelligence channels. He wasnt trained as a National Security adviser. The story goes he swiped a letter off the president s desk so he wouldnt read it or worse sign it and get us into trouble with south korea. Yes. It makes you wonder how that letter got on to his desk if it didnt go through the appropriate vetting process. Did the president miss the letter when it was gone . I dont know. What else might have been taken off his desk in an inappropriate way by gary cohn or others. Again, think the shows that this is a white house that is very dysfunctional and individuals like gary cohn and others are trying to prevent mr. Trump from doing things that could hurt all of us. After the north korean summit, we heard the president kind of question the need for the military exercises that are a huge builtin part of our forces serving overseas. I want to read you this other portion. This is via the