[Cabrera:] People who know President Trump, worked for his companies and even wrote books about him, say there is one universal constant about this man. That you can count on him to stretch the truth, even outright lie if it suits the situation. And that's not a new facet of Donald Trump's personality. Here is CNN's chief political analyst Gloria Borger.
[Gloria Borger, Cnn Chief Political Analyst:] From the election itself
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] In many places like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say, oh, that's a conspiracy theory. It's not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.
[Borger:] to the inauguration.
[Trump:] We had a massive field of people. You saw that. Heck, it went all the way back to the Washington Monument.
[Borger:] To statements like this.
[Trump:] What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.
[Borger:] Donald Trump has had a fraught relationship with the truth, one that goes back decades, to the building and selling of Trump Tower where Barbara Res managed the construction.
[Barbara Res, Former Construction Manager For Donald Trump:] He pointed that Princess Di was looking for an apartment in Trump Tower.
[Borger:] And that didn't happen?
[Res:] No.
[Borger:] Oh.
[Res:] But it made the papers.
[Borger:] Sure. So veracity wasn't a part of it. It was just getting the buzz out there
[Res:] Yes.
[Borger:] about
[Res:] Yes.
[Borger:] about Trump? Did you guys laugh at it or
[Res:] Yes. Because there was nothing so terrible about it. I mean, you know, it's kind of like puffing. You know, it's like exaggerating.
[Borger:] Tony Schwartz, co-author of Trump's "Art of the Deal" has a name for this.
[Tony Schwartz, Co-author, "trump: The Art Of The Deal":] I came up with this phrase, truthful hyperbole, which is you know, I called it an innocent form of exaggeration. Now, I can call it something that I actually sold for $2 million and I can say $10 million and that becomes truthful hyperbole. The problem is that there is no such thing as truthful hyperbole. The truth is the truth. Hyperbole is a lie. They don't go together.
[Borger:] And they didn't go together during the troubled opening of Trump's Atlantic City Taj Mahal casino in 1990 when some of the slots didn't work.
[Alan Lapidus, Former Architect For Donald Trump:] When the Casino Control Commission went down there on opening day to check out that all the things have been done, many things haven't been done. They shut down a third of the slots.
[Borger:] Slots that were critical to the casino's success.
[Lapidus:] The slots are the prime revenue producer of the casino. To shut down a third on opening day was both humiliating and financially disastrous. And it's and it was only done because he doesn't have, you know, an organization in depth.
[Borger:] But that wasn't the story Trump told.
[Jack O'donnell, Former Manager, Trump Plaza Hotel And Casino:] Something could go bad, like the opening of the Taj, and he would say, it's because we had so much business here that this happened. Not that the systems broke down, not that we didn't know what we were doing. We had so much business, it broke down. Truly, he just would lie about everything.
[Borger:] And he did.
[Larry King, Host, "larry King Live":] What about the slot machine thing where they were down for a while?
[Trump:] The slots were so hot, nobody's again, nobody has seen people play that hard and that fast, we were
[King:] So what, it blew out the slots, literally?
[Trump:] They blew apart. We have machines that
[King:] Was it like too much use?
[Trump:] They were virtually on fire.
[O'donnell:] Donald is so wrapped up in hyperbole that it's almost constant lies. You know, whether it's the littlest things where, you know, if you had 2,000 people at an event, you know, he would say there were 5,000 people at an event.
[Borger:] And he got away with it.
[Schwartz:] There is no belief system. If it will work, I will say it. If it stops working, I'll say its opposite. And I will not feel any compunction about saying its opposite because I don't believe anything in the first place.
[Borger:] Switching gears is exactly what President Trump had to do after his press conference with Vladimir Putin, attempting to walk back this remark on election interference.
[Trump:] My people came to me Dan Coats came to me and some others. They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word "would" instead of "wouldn't." The sentence should have been, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't or why it wouldn't be Russia.
[Schwartz:] Seeing it from his perspective, doesn't make a distinction between what's true and what's false. His only distinction is what will work and what will not work.
[Borger:] And what happens when he is challenged with facts? What does he do?
[Schwartz:] He has a genius, you know, perverse genius, for turning any situation into something that is evidence of his brilliance. Even if it's not true.
[Borger:] Gloria Borger, CNN, Washington.
[Cabrera:] From Washington to the other side of the country, and celebrity chef Guy Fieri knows all too well what people in the fire zone are dealing with right now. Last fall, a fire forced him to evacuate his northern California home. How did he respond? He set up a mobile kitchen and he fed his fellow evacuees and first responders. And now, he is helping out again. Guy Fieri is joining us now on the phone from Redding, California. Guy, thank you for spending time with us. Northern California is your home turf. First, I just want to ask you, what are your thoughts about what you're seeing there?
[Guy Fieri, Celebrity Chef:] It's unbelievable. I mean, it's unbelievable to see what folks are going through, but it's even more well, I should say unbelievable of just how great this community is and all these folks that have come together and the Salvation Army. I mean, we're in tough times as a world with all of the things going on. And, boy, you take a moment like this and you really see what America is made of. A lot of great people coming together.
[Cabrera:] No doubt about it. I'm a big fan of Food Network, so I know how busy you are. Kudos to you for taking action to try to help in the response there. Tell us about what your plan is.
[Fieri:] Well, you know, the Salvation Army has been on the ground here in Redding. And Redding is a great place right here in northern California, and it's I mean, I come here for years as a kid. And they got involved right off the bat. And people are displaced. The fire has been up and you can't even see the sun. And they got involved Friday, started helping folks with a place to stay and get some needs and get water and, you know, all those basics that we you know, we have on a regular basis, all of a sudden they're gone. And my team and I got involved. We my son and I and his buddies and a bunch of mine loaded up our caravan from the Wine Country and drove, you know, four hours up here and just working arm in arm with the Salvation Army and local chefs and residents and everybody helping out all the evacuees. There's like 36,000 folks that have been displaced, so it's
[Cabrera:] That is
[Fieri:] It's quite a program.
[Cabrera:] No. OK, and that is quite the undertaking. What is it like to try to, I guess, respond in that way, to try to feed that many people on just a moment's notice?
[Fieri:] You know, it's not the simplest thing, but when you have a lot of people around you I mean, we've got lots of volunteers. I probably got 20 volunteers right now standing in a parking lot at Shasta College, and we've made a makeshift kitchen setup with one of my trailers and a bunch of stoves. And you know what it is? The Salvation Army has got people that are giving them great support. We have a group called Operation Barbecue Relief that's getting involved. They're going to be here with a couple of big trailers. Because we got more yes, more and more people are finding these shelters and the opportunities that the shelters have. A lot of them don't know where to go and what to do, but Salvation Army is going to help set it up. So cooking for that many people, we just did lunch for we just did lunch for 750, and we're getting ready to do dinner for that same group now. Trying to keep the menu interesting. But you know, I know folks are always asking me, how can I help? What can I do? If you go to gosalarmy.org, it's a great place. They can make donations. You know, folks are trying to drive stuff down here, but they can go on, they can make a contribution. People need clothes. People need just life necessities.
[Cabrera:] Yes.
[Fieri:] But they're a really great group to work with.
[Cabrera:] Well, Guy Fieri, food is comfort, especially during these difficult times for people, so thank you for what you are doing there, for giving back to that community. And, again, for just raising awareness of how people can help. We appreciate it. And we're back in just a moment.