During 'Shields and Brooks' on PBS Newshour, David Brooks questioned Michael Wolff's credibility as a journalist, and said parts of the 'Fire and Fury' book ring false to him. It is possible that Trump was referring to this during his Camp David press conference when he said some journalists "came to the defense of this great administration".

January 5th, 2018

Transcript:

Judy Woodruff: Well, Michael Wolff on The Today Show this morning, David, said the consensus of everybody around the president, he said almost with exception, is that it’s like working with a child.

David Brooks: Yes. Well, I have written that.

I find it a little more supple. There are two issues here. One is Michael Wolff himself. In my view, I don’t know what to believe in the book because I don’t think he practices the kind of journalism that we practice. He doesn’t practice the kind that could allow you to work in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, PBS.

Many of the things he reports are true, and many of the things he reports are fictionalized. And a lot of things all throughout his career — this is not a new thing with him. Some of the things in the book are factually completely inaccurate. Some of the things ring false to me. Maybe somebody told him, so he put it in the book without checking it out.

When I started my career in journalism at the City News Bureau of Chicago, we had a phrase- If your mom tells you she loves you, check it out. And I’m not sure he does a lot of that. So, that’s one fact. So, I’m very dubious about accepting everything.

Judy Woodruff: Right.

David Brooks: Nonetheless, the general picture confirms what we already knew. And I think there is a general sense the president is unfit. They treat — they do treat him like a child.

It’s too simplistic, though, to say it’s like the madness of King George. I certainly have talked to many people over the last several months who said, yes, I went into a meeting, he was surprisingly well-informed, surprisingly ran a good meeting.

I have certainly had that experience. And he’s running a White House that, whether you approve of the policies or not, has done this Pakistan deal, or the change in Pakistan policy, which is defensible — they did pass a tax bill. They are doing this regulatory stuff, this judicial stuff.

It’s not completely dysfunctional. They are getting stuff done. And so I think that he has severe mental flaws. But the picture that’s coming out that he’s completely off his rocker, I think that’s overly simplistic and underestimates this…

Judy Woodruff: Well, we are going to be interviewing Michael Wolff on the NewsHour on Monday night. And we do plan to ask him some of these questions about, how did he confirm — how do we know that he — that this is the real deal, that it wasn’t made up in any way?