HOGAN GIDLEY (DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY): This is absolutely ludicrous that we are giving any type of credence or credibility to a 'news outlet' like BuzzFeed. They are responsible, completely and totally, for the release of a discredited, disproven, false dossier. And now, the author of the piece in question that you're talking about went on air this morning and said that he couldn't corroborate any of his own evidence. He ran it anyway. This is quite frankly the problem with the press and why the president continues to call them fake news repeatedly, because there is nothing in that piece -- there is nothing in that piece that can be corroborated.
BILL HEMMER (CO-HOST): I think the way it was characterized, the reporter did not see specifically the evidence, but relied on one or two sources that they had trusted for this.
GIDLEY: Right, but that's not news. That's something he sees and he puts out there. It's the same reason and rationale behind a dossier that has caused this entire fake witch hunt, Russia investigation. And now it's all been disproven and debunked at this point. So this is the type of thing we have to deal with everyday. We're used to it, the report came out, 90 percent of the coverage against this president last year was negative. This is just another in a long line of ridiculous charges without any corroboration or credibility whatsoever.
HEMMER: You're saying about the president did not tell Michael Cohen to do that?
GIDLEY: I'm telling you right now, this is exactly why the president refuses to give any credence or credibility to news outlets, because they have no ability to corroborate anything they're putting out there. Instead, they're just using innuendo, and shady sources.
HEMMER: That was not a denial of my question.
GIDLEY: No, but the premise is ridiculous. We're also talking about a person in Michael Cohen, who quite frankly has now been proven to be a liar. He self-admits that he's a felon. So to give him any credibility, it just doesn't warrant any response from the White House or this president.
SANDRA SMITH (CO-HOST): But the headline from that report, Hogan, is that the president personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations involving that Trump Tower. Is that true or false?
GIDLEY: Right, but the president's attorneys also addressed this. I'm not going to give any credence or credibility to Michael Cohen, who's a convicted felon and an admitted liar. That's just ridiculous and I'm not going to do that from the White House.
