James Comey couldn't believe he was briefing the incoming president about an interaction he may have had with a bunch of prostitutes, and it was equally preposterous for the president — for a different reason.

“Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?” Trump shot back as Comey walked him through allegations from the famed Steele dossier in his first interaction with then-president-elect Donald Trump, in January 2017.

During a no-holds-barred interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Friday morning about his new book, Comey walks through his first meeting with Trump at Trump Tower last January. Comey walked Trump through the allegations contained in the so-called Steele dossier, which describe an interaction between Trump and prostitutes at a hotel in Moscow in 2013. The dossier alleges that they were, in Comey’s words, “peeing on each other,” that the Russians had taped it and would use the tape as leverage to control Trump.

“And I assumed he was asking that rhetorically; I 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, I just think it’s very important that you know,’” Comey told Stephanopoulos.

How weird was that first interaction? “Really weird,” Comey said. He described it as an out-of-body experience, one in which he was floating above himself and looking down, realizing that he was briefing the incoming president about an interaction he may have had with a bunch of prostitutes.



Trump apparently also insisted that Comey try to disprove the pee tape, for Melania.

“He may want me to investigate it to prove that it didn't happen. And then he says something that distracted me because he said, you know, ‘If there's even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that's true, that's terrible,’” Comey said.

“‘And I remember thinking, ‘How could your wife think there's a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?’ I'm a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So, what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think [that] there's only a 99 percent chance you didn't do that?”

So is it real?

“I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” Comey said. “It's possible, but I don't know.”