BRIAN STELTER (HOST): But let's begin with the one, the only, Carl Bernstein, a CNN political analyst, who has been, I would say leading these conversations, leading these questions about the president's fitness. Carl, you and I have talked about this topic in recent months. Has something changed in your view this week?
CARL BERNSTEIN: Yes. We're in a real constitutional crisis, in an unprecedented place where we as a country and where we as journalists have never been before, in which a huge part of the citizenry of our country and the leadership of the country in Congress, privately and in public, openly question the fitness and stability of the president of the United States. So it raises a great question. How do we report on this reality? Meanwhile, abroad, leaders are questioning the fitness of the president of the United States and whether or not the country is in good hands. This is a reporting challenge unlike any other. And it really is a story partly about Republicans, what Republicans are saying in private. Because as I reported months ago in private, they were telling me, many Republicans in Congress, that they doubt the fitness and stability of the president.
But we as journalists need to go -- and especially I would say this is a challenge for Fox News, which has some great reporters. I'm not talking about [Sean] Hannity and the commentators and the anchor people, but this is a great challenge for Fox News because they have a kind of credibility with Republicans in Congress that perhaps other news organizations don't have, and their reporters need to go and see every Republican in the House and the Senate and talk on background about what each and every member believes about the president's stability and fitness, because the story of Russia and the story of the president's stability and possible criminality are all one story and we have got huge reporting to do and put our heads down, all of this, and do it.
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BERNSTEIN: Fox News has to do it. Again, I come back to Fox time and again. Because this is a chance to show that they can be fair and balanced, that they are capable of being a real reporting organization. Let them send 20 reporters to talk to every Republican senator, every Republican congressman, and come back and tell us what these people are saying in private on background. It may be that, in truth, those Republicans believe he's fit. So far, from what I'm hearing, I don't think they do believe, most of them, that he's fit. But it's time to see if they are willing put the national interest, the common good, above parochial partisan interests if indeed they believe this president is not fit or have grave questions, as I believe they have been saying to me certainly, about whether he is stable, unfit, et cetera. And also, military leaders, intelligence community leaders, and people in the White House, as Michael Wolff has reported, have been telling us for months and months, they believe he is unstable. That includes some of the people very close to the president of the United States and this is a story unlike any we've ever had.
