The investigative journalist Carl Bernstein. Screenshot via CNN 
 
 President Donald Trump attacked the legendary Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein on Wednesday evening over a story he coauthored for CNN last month about the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting. 
 
 The July 27 report cited unnamed sources as saying Trump's former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen had asserted that Trump knew about the meeting before it happened. 
 
 That June 2016 meeting included senior Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer who had offered dirt on Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Trump's camp has denied that Trump knew about the meeting beforehand. Cohen also did not mention whether Trump had prior knowledge of the 2016 meeting when he sat for interviews with US lawmakers as part of the Russia investigation. 
 
 Cohen's attorney and spokesman, Lanny Davis, said this week that he was one of CNN's sources for the July 27 story and that he was recanting the claim that Cohen would testify about whether Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting in advance. 
 
 Davis' claim that he was one of CNN's sources contradicts CNN's reporting, which said Davis had been reached by CNN but declined to comment. 
 
 CNN says it stands by its reporting. Two employees told Business Insider's senior politics reporter, Allan Smith, that the network's level of commitment to its story was "100%." 
 
 Bernstein and the former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on NBC's "Meet the Press" in 2005. Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press 
 
 Trump sought to capitalize on the fallout by attacking Bernstein on Wednesday, calling him "sloppy" and a "degenerate fool." 
 
 Bernstein hit back at Trump, saying: "I have spent my life as a journalist bringing the truth to light, through administrations of both parties. No taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission, which is the essential role of a free press." 
 
 Bernstein, along with Bob Woodward, led much of The Washington Post's investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, which resulted in numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. 
 
 Bernstein now regularly contributes to CNN as a political commentator. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 July 27, 2018, 1:55 AM GMT / Updated July 27, 2018, 11:16 AM GMT By Hallie Jackson, Kristen Welker and Alex Johnson 
 
 Editor's note (Aug. 28, 2018, 5:10 p.m.): This article was based on a confirmation from Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen's lawyer. Davis now says he was incorrect when he confirmed this report to NBC News, and has apologized for the error. A corrected version of this article can be found here. 
 
 Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, asserts that Trump knew in advance about a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 between his son Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer, in contradiction to Trump Jr.'s congressional testimony in May 2017, a knowledgeable source told NBC News on Thursday night. 
 
 The source told NBC News that Cohen is willing to inform Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, that Trump Jr. told his father about the meeting. Cohen's assertion was first reported by CNN. 
 
 Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, said he had no comment. 
 
 Trump Jr.'s attorney, Alan Futerfas, indicated that the report was false. 
 
 "Donald Trump Jr. has been professional and responsible throughout the Mueller and congressional investigations," he said Thursday night. "We are very confident of the accuracy and reliability of the information that has been provided by Mr. Trump Jr. and on his behalf." 
 
 The president's attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also dismissed the report, saying, "Michael Cohen is not credible." 
 
 "Michael Cohen can't be believed unless it's corroborated five times," Giuliani said in a telephone interview. "I talked to the president about this at length before, as well as other witnesses, and it's not true. 
 
 "Why would you expect it would be true from someone like Cohen?" he asked. "A lawyer who would tape their own client is a lawyer without any character." 
 
 Giuliani's comment was a reference to an audiotape Davis made public on Wednesday of a secretly recorded conversation in 2016 that shows Trump mentioning "cash" in relation to a possible payment involving a former Playboy model who alleges she had a year-long affair with Trump. 
 
 Both developments suggest an aggressive move by Cohen, Trump's former "fixer," who is under federal investigation. 
 
 In April, the FBI seized eight boxes of documents, four phones, an iPad and several hard drives and storage devices during a raid on Cohen's offices, seeking information about a separate $130,000 payment that he made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the election. 
 
 The president has repeatedly claimed that he didn't learn about the meeting until well afterward. Asked about it in an interview with Reuters in July 2017, for example, he said: "No. That I didn't know until a couple of days ago — when I heard about this. No, I didn't know about that." 
 
 Asked about the meeting the same month by The New York Times, Trump responded: "No, I didn't know anything about the meeting." ||||| FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2017 file photo, Anthony Scaramucci, a senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, talks to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. CNN isn't commenting Monday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — For a president seemingly at perpetual war with "fake news," the resignation of three CNN journalists over a retracted story about a Donald Trump Russian connection is a gift from the political gods when the struggling effort to pass a health bill dominates the headlines. 
 
 The White House quickly took advantage Tuesday with blistering presidential tweets and a media scolding at the afternoon press briefing. Conservative provocateur James O'Keefe piled on by releasing a video with a CNN producer caught on camera talking about the network's Russia coverage being ratings-driven. 
 
 CNN late Monday accepted the resignations of journalists Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau and Lex Haris over last week's web story about Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci's pre-inaugural meeting with the head of a Russian investment fund. The network retracted the story on Friday and apologized to Scaramucci. 
 
 Trump has been unhappy with CNN since he was a candidate, and has been particularly annoyed by its reporting on connections with Russia. The misstep on a relatively minor story — it was never mentioned on any of CNN's television networks — left some White House staff members jubilant, believing it handed them a new talking point to use as a cudgel against mainstream media organizations they feel are largely biased against them. 
 
 That happened quickly Tuesday when Sarah Huckabee Sanders called on a Breitbart News reporter for the first question of the White House briefing. It was about CNN. 
 
 She said the "constant barrage of fake news" at the president has frustrated Trump. She called stories about Russia and Trump "a hoax" that is distracting from other news. Sanders urged all Americans to watch a video posted by O'Keefe's Project Veritas featuring CNN producer John Bonifield — even though she couldn't vouch for its accuracy. 
 
 "If it is accurate, I think it's a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism," Sanders said. "I think that if we have gone to a place where the media can't be trusted to report the news, then that's a dangerous place for America. And I think if that is that place that certain outlets are going — particularly for the purpose of spiking ratings, and if that's coming directly from the top, I think that's even more scary." 
 
 She was interrupted by reporter Brian Karem of the Sentinel newspapers, who accused Sanders of inflaming anti-media sentiment. "Everyone in this room is only trying to do their job," he said. 
 
 Sanders ignored CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny's attempt to ask a question before ending her briefing. 
 
 After Sanders left the stage, she was criticized on Fox News Channel, where Trump-friendly views usually dominate. Wall Street Journal editor John Bussey told Fox's Shepard Smith that "the White House could actually learn from CNN's example" about being forthright when caught saying something untrue. 
 
 Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that "they caught Fake News CNN cold." He lumped ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post together in the same "fake news" category. He said that "CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories. Ratings way down!" 
 
 A spokeswoman for CNN chief Jeff Zucker didn't respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. CNN's public relations staff refuted Trump's notion that the network is hurting, saying it is completing the most-watched second quarter in its history. 
 
 The president was livid at CNN's story but also felt vindicated because it seemed to confirm his belief that the cable network was trying to undermine his presidency, according to one staffer who demanded anonymity to discuss private conversations. 
 
 The CNN issue enables the White House to change the subject for what has been a rough stretch for the presidency, with constant questions about the Russia probe and a vote on the Republican health care bill delayed. Aides also believe that highlighting media mistakes could be a useful way of questioning reporters' credibility and convincing supporters that Trump was the victim of a witch hunt. 
 
 Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted a link to the Bonifield video. Besides talking about ratings, the Atlanta-based producer in CNN's medical unit said the network has no "smoking gun" showing wrongdoing by Trump and that "the president is probably right to say, look, you are witch-hunting me." 
 
 CNN said in a statement that it is standing by Bonifield. "Diversity of personal opinion is what makes CNN strong," CNN said. "We welcome it and embrace it." 
 
 O'Keefe told The Associated Press that Project Veritas got the video on Friday and that a portion, in an elevator, was recorded at CNN's headquarters. He said that Project Veritas plans to release another video involving another CNN employee, with the timing dependent on how CNN reacts to the Bonifield material. 
 
 O'Keefe and Project Veritas have a track record of aiding Republican causes, often by using hidden cameras and hiding identities, and Trump's nonprofit foundation has made two $10,000 donations to the organization. His sting operation led to the downfall of ACORN, a community organizing group that O'Keefe portrayed as engaging in criminal activity via hidden camera. 
 
 Before last November's election, Project Veritas released a series of heavily edited videos that included a Democratic activist appearing to brag about deploying troublemakers at Trump rallies. The fallout included the two people most prominently featured, Scott Foval and Robert Creamer, cutting ties with the Democratic National Committee. Creamer's firm recently sued Project Veritas alleging the sting violated federal wiretap law. 
 
 O'Keefe declined to discuss how the Bonifield video came about. O'Keefe said his efforts are journalistic and, since they include video, he contends that it is more believable than media stories based on anonymous sources. The retracted CNN story was heavily dependent upon one anonymous source. 
 
 One social media exchange about the CNN story indicated how feelings about the network were running strong among Trump supporters. 
 
 John Podhoretz, a conservative columnist for The New York Post and editor of Commentary magazine tweeted that "CNN published a bad story, pulled it, apologized. 3 journalists quit. That's impressive and decisive action. Yelling 'fake news' is unfair." 
 
 That drew a quick retort from Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, an ardent Trump backer. "John wtf has happened to you?" Hannity wondered online. 
 
 Podhoretz declined to respond to Hannity online and denied an interview request. 
 
 ____ 
 
 Associated Press correspondents Julie Bykowicz and Jill Colvin in Washington, and Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report. ||||| Throughout Monday, President Donald Trump’s lawyer and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani went on a chaotic media tour, with each subsequent interview seeming to atone or clean up for a key element laid out in a previous appearance. 
 
 In an interview with The Daily Beast on Monday night, Giuliani appeared to blame the maelstrom he kicked up on inquisitive New York Times reporters who he suggested had compelled him to proactively spin a potentially damaging story that may or may not actually be real. Several veterans of the Trump campaign, like much of the viewing public, were left befuddled. 
 
 “I don’t know, man,” one senior 2016 Trump campaign aide simply messaged The Daily Beast when asked to deconstruct Giuliani’s performance. 
 
 The day began with a morning interview with Fox & Friends , during which Giuliani insisted that “collusion [with Russian election-meddlers] is not a crime” in the first place. He then headed to CNN where he proceeded to, ostensibly, break a bit of news about the infamous Trump Tower meeting that the president’s son took with a Russian lawyer reportedly tied to Kremlin officials. 
 
 Two days before that meeting, Giuliani relayed, former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen claimed that there was a separate meeting; this one, involving five people, including Cohen himself. According to Giuliani, three of the five people in that supposed meeting told him “it didn’t take place.” Not only that, they had done so “under oath on it and the other two couldn’t possibly reveal it because [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller never asked us about it.” 
 
 “You get to the other meeting he says he was at, that the president wasn’t at…with Donald [Trump] Jr., Jared [Kushner], [Paul] Manafort…[Rick] Gates and one other person . Cohen also now says that—he says too much—that two days before he was participating in a meeting with roughly the same group of people—but not the president, definitely not the president—in which they were talking about the strategy of the meeting with the Russians,” Giuliani continued. “The people in that meeting deny it, the people who we’ve been able to interview. The people we’ve not been able to interview have never said that about that meeting.” 
 
 To numerous observers, this was incredibly confusing and potentially damaging. There had never been reports of a planning meeting. And the Trump team had long insisted that the actual meeting itself was so innocent and irrelevant as to barely even register in their memories—which likely would not have been the case if they had been planning for it. 
 
 Yes, Giuliani had denied it took place. But why was he even talking about it in the first place? 
 
 In subsequent interviews on Monday, the president’s lawyer claimed that, in fact, he was only speaking off of as-yet unverified details from reporters who had contacted Team Trump to ask about the planning meeting. 
 
 Giuliani told The Daily Beast that this included reporters from The New York Times , such as the paper’s star Trump reporter Maggie Haberman, who had reached out about the alleged pre-meeting meeting. So, he added, “Jay [Sekulow] and I spent a great deal of [Sunday] trying to run it down." 
 
 Giuliani said that he believes they managed to "shut it down" and help kill the story, and speculated the journalists had also found other reasons not to run the item. Giuliani and Sekulow—according to Giuliani—had to "go to [alleged participants’] lawyers, and they had to go back to their notes, because nowadays no one wants to be inaccurate”—a rather ironic statement. 
 
 Giuliani added that he believes it was Cohen who tried to plant the pre-meeting strategy “meeting” in the press, but conceded he had no proof. Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, declined comment on this story. 
 
 The entire episode may end up being a largely forgettable bit of drama in a long-running political story rife with controversial, head scratching moments. But it still underscored the unorthodox approach Giuliani has brought to the president’s legal team. Lawyers, especially those serving the most powerful person in the world, don’t normally launch media crusades based off of requests for comment from reporters—if, in fact, that’s what actually sparked this particular episode. 
 
 Haberman, one of the reporters who Giuliani fingered as a source for the confusion he himself had created, gave a blunt assessment of the Trump lawyer’s performance on Monday. 
 
 “We don’t talk about sourcing, and wouldn’t now—but I have lost the thread of what the former mayor is talking about,” Haberman said. She then referred The Daily Beast to a New York Times spokeswoman, who did not immediately respond to an inquiry. 
 
 —With additional reporting by Betsy Woodruff
– President Trump's general lambasting of the media got more specific Wednesday night when he called out journalist Carl Bernstein. The president declared that Bernstein, "a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country!" Bernstein then responded, writing that he has "spent my life as a journalist bringing the truth to light, through administrations of both parties" and that "no taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission." He ended by standing by a story he co-authored at CNN last month that is at the heart of the dispute. That piece, based on unnamed sources, reported that Michael Cohen says Trump knew in advance of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians. It's a damning allegation if true, but one of the sources is now recanting. Over the weekend, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis acknowledged that he was one of CNN sources in July, but he said he "made a mistake" and had no information that Trump knew of the meeting ahead of time, per Business Insider. However, CNN—and now Bernstein, specifically—is standing by the story, saying that other sources backed it up. "CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake," wrote Trump Wednesday night, and he continued the theme on Thursday morning. "I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is," he wrote, returning to his "Enemy of the People!" slogan. "What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks - with @NBCNews being the worst," he added.