[Soares:] We return now to a story that is almost too strange to actually be true. You are about to hear the former head of the FBI, James Comey talk about a private conversation with President Trump and the topic of that conversation was, well, rumors that a tape exist that shows Mr. Trump watching a pair of prostitutes urinate on each other. Have a listen.
[James Comey, Former Fbi Director:] I started to tell him about the allegation was that he had been involved with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow in 2013 during a visit for the Miss Universe Pageant and that the Russians had filmed the episode and he interrupted very defensively and started talking about it, do I look like a guy who needs hookers? And I assumed he was asking that rhetorically, didn't answer that, and I just moved on and explained, sir, I'm not saying that we credit this. I'm not saying we believe it. We just thought it very important that you know.
[Unidentified Male:] Did you tell him you thought it wasn't true or didn't know if it was true or not?
[Comey:] I never said I don't believe it, because I couldn't say one way or another.
[Unidentified Male:] How weird was that briefing?
[Comey:] Really weird. It's almost an out of body experience for me. I was floating above myself looking down saying, you're sitting here briefing and incoming president about prostitutes in Moscow.
[Soares:] Well, Comey's interview is part of an effort to promote his new book about his interactions with President Trump, as you can imagine. The president has fight back calling Comey a liar and a slime ball. Let's bring back up Stephen Collinson with more. And, Stephen, you and I were listening to the press conference from White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders who basically said that he was he's a disgraced partisan hack and he created this problem for himself, and it seems the president is tweeting back. What is he saying?
[Collinson:] Right. So the president is seizing on a report that was sent from the watchdog, internal watchdog of the justice department about the former deputy director of the FBI, Mr. McCabe. Now, he was fired because of he was accused of not showing candor to FBI investigators who were investigating his handling of the Clinton e-mail investigation. It's all very convoluted. But basically what the president is saying is that McCabe is an example of corruption and he says he's part of the den of thieves and liars at the FBI, and he's clearly using that to take a swipe at James Comey. The president argued all along argued that Comey and the intelligent services of the United States, particularly the establishment within the FBI, the leadership is corrupt and has been out to get him from day one to invalidate his election. So this is one way that he is now trying to defend himself from the accusations in the Comey book by lashing out at Andrew McCabe and lashing out at Comey himself.
[Soares:] Yes, and the book, it has been absolutely boosting have been pretty salacious and explosive and I'm sure that we'll hear more from regarding the book next week, because I know that we know that Comey is going to do a whole media blitz next week. So expect more of the semi Tweets won't we? As even from President Trump next week. Thanks very much, Stephen. Thanks for staying with us.
[Collinson:] Thanks.
[Soares:] Now, the founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram says he will fight Moscow's attempt to ban it. Pavel Durov who is himself Russian says the app all used built-in methods to bypass the ban. Samuel Burke is here with more on why this is so significant. Before we talk about why this is significant, wow exactly are they going to bypass this ban?
[Samuel Burke, Cnn Business And Technology News Correspondent:] Well, it's going to be very difficult. He says they'll have to have VPN, virtual private networks which make it so you can log in but it looks like you're coming from another country like the United States. You and I both know that VPNs are not what they're used to be, whether you're in the U.K. trying to watch Netflix from the U.S. or whether you're more seriously in China, Iran or Russia. They've really cracked down on this. So Telegram, one of the most important, one of the largest messaging apps in the world with 200 million users. The Russians are asking them for the keys to get in to these apps.
[Soares:] Why? What are the allegations here?
[Burke:] Well, what's interesting here is basically it was not one of the big stories like we had in the United States, for instance when you had the San Bernardino terrorist attack, the whole country, if not the whole world just looking at it through the lens of this terror attack, the United States wanting to get into the iPhone. In this case, the Russian government says the laws here require companies, tech companies like Telegram to give us the keys, but experts say, listen, this is end to end encryption and only Isa and Samuel have the keys, if we're messaging each other. Nobody in between has them. So what they're asking for they cannot give them. We've seen this play out with other apps like WhatsApp in Brazil. Before it's there, eventually the service is turned back on because they don't have the keys. They would have to re- write and completely change the app for this to be changed. We'll see how that plays out in Russia.
[Soares:] But like you said, we've seen similar cases. We've seen similar cases in Brazil. So, where does this go from here?
[Burke:] Well, maybe they'll look at alternatives. I mean, even Dmitry Paskov who's the spokesperson for the kremlin said he uses the app and he'll use an alternative but he's not great with text. It'll be very difficult with him. It's interesting because a lot of leaders have stopped short of banning apps like this because they're so popular. When you have a place like Iran or Russia where secretive messaging is so important to people because they know that there's a lack of privacy in these countries. You're talking about all of a sudden millions of people being frustrated because they can't communicate the way they've become accustomed to. So in some ways, you see this become a big risk for other government. Russia is a unique situation, though.
[Soares:] What are Telegram saying?
[Burke:] Right now, they're just saying we will work around this, but it gets back to that whole issue with the VPNs. And keep in mind, the man behind this app is also the person who started Facebook. This is a message that they had sent out previously. "Since the day we launched in August 2013, we haven't disclose a single byte of our users' private data to third parties. This is a guy who created the Russian version of Facebook and eventually had to leave Russia and come to the United Kingdom. He knows how tough life can be in Russia, especially for these tight startups trying to balance privacy with a very strong government when it comes to tech issues."
[Soares:] yes. Again, we're talking about privacy data or data, as you said. Samuel Burke, thanks very much. More to come right here including he has taken the Premier League by storm. CNN sits down with Liverpool and Egypt superstar, Mo Salah, that's next.