you can find me on twitter, facebook and instagram and snapchat. thank you. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins right now. hi. everyone. it's 4:00. donald trump appears like the presidential version of a cartoon character with a good angel on one shoulder and a devilish troublemaker on the other shoulder, one who amplifies his most divisive instincts. today, his prince of darkness officially parted ways with the white house. steve bannon fired exactly two weeks after general kelly took over. the white house press secretary releasing this statement. quote, white house chief of staff john kelly and steve bannon have mutually agreed today would be steve's last day. we are grateful for his service and wish him the best. two trump advisers telling me today that bannon's departure was one inevitable, and two, a good day for the west wing. two prominent leaders aligned with bannon's politics both said

that the decision to remove him from the west wing was quote fine as he clearly had become a distraction. let's get right to our reporters. jonathan swann of axios, one of the first to break this news. and phil rucker from "the washington post" and kelly o, white house reporter. you had been on bannon watch and you predicted this this morning but some differing versions of the timing of this decision. lay out what we know at this hour. >> look, yes, bannon has been telling people that he resigned on august 7th, effective august the 14th to mark one year since he joined the trump campaign. that was really a face saving decision, agreement. he was told that he was out. and that conversation happened a few weeks ago. the entire senior staff had basically turned against him. there were very few left in his corner by the end and frankly the president had turned against him. the president has been telling

people, you know, who is this guy, what does he think he is? he resented steve bannon the narratives that steve bannon was a central figure in his election victory. he resented the profile that bannon had got. and frankly trump which we've reported axios on the weekend, trump had been telling people that bannon was a leaker. my understanding is he even told bannon that on one occasion in the sort of offhand way that trump does. it was all the cards were against bannon and frankly by the end it was very clear that steve himself wanted to go out in a blaze of glory and set himself up for the next phase which is a leader of the nationalist populist worldwide and he's partnering with bob mersa. they are planning the next moves in terms of political and media

strategy. i don't know if bannon will return to breitbart but my reporting is that that's possible if not likely. he described it as a killing machine so you can expect him to cause a lot of trouble on the outside, particularly for the quote up quote globalists that he wants to destroy who still remain inside the white house. >> you've got a great line from your piece this morning, it says one senior white house adviser said it seemed like bannon was setting himself up to be a martyr. >> yes. >> the nationalist hero filed by the globalist and i understand that war against the globalists will be very much ongoing on his part. that in as much as hr mcmaster can maybe exhale he doesn't have an enemy within, undermining the policy process on north korea, that bannon doesn't plan to take his foot off the gas pedal. >> oh, if anything, he plans to push the foot harder on to the gas pedal. i expect based on the conversations today that breitbart will -- i mean, they

have already been, you know, rampage against mcmaster, the national security adviser. gary cohn the top economic adviser, dina powell, the deputy national policy adviser and jared kushner they're turning on jared and ivanka. i expect one person described it as going thermonuclear. i think there will be a very dedicated campaign against all of these people from the outside. >> phil rucker, smooth sailing ahead it sounds like. phil, i want to lay out some of the reporting that i heard today. what i heard was that, one, dispense of the notion that in any any way, shape or form this was a reaction or a response to charlottesville, that donald trump didn't rid the west wing of someone who was egging on the white nationalists sympathies. that that is just a farce. that this had more to do with steve bannon alienating everybody and having such a

public war. that if he had been a craftier behind the scenes back stabber he might have lasted longer, but everything came out in public view and he undermined his own internal wars. >> that's exactly right, nicolle. based on the conversations i have had and the key figure here is really general john kelly. he came into this job hoping to instill order, to end the back stabbing, the infighting, get rid of all of this chaos inside the white house. and it became very clear in the first days on the job that steve bannon was a central player in this infighting. i think kelly was very bothered by the campaign that was being waged internally and externally against general mcmaster, the national security adviser and saw bannon as somebody to blame for that. but you're right. bannon in the last couple of weeks had been so public with his criticisms of his rivals internally that he put a target on his back. >> phil, let me run another piece of reporting by you. i heard the analysis that now

there's one. that at the beginning jared kushner, reince priebus and steve bannon had equal rank in terms of power and they were sort of a three headed management structure of the west wing. jared kushner now obviously the only man standing and general kelly as a chief of staff but behind the scenes not there with the -- with the mandate of reining in the president. i'm told this to reflect that jared kushner and his allies in the west wing asserting themselves over the sort of nationalists and the campaign forces. >> i think that's right and there are a number of those allies. there's dina powell, the deputy national security adviser, very close to kushner. hr mcmaster, the national security adviser who is also at times close to kushner. and gary cohn, the economic director. they have all been at war with bannon for months now. it's been an ugly back and forth that's played out in the press, but, you know, in large part has been happening behind the

scenes. you know bannon's departure is really -- it shows the power of these folks but it shows the power and influence of kelly. i'm told that kelly had enough and it was his decision for it to play out this week. >> kelly o, pull back the lens for us. when i think of the bannon/trump relationship, i mean, i laid it out at the beginning that he was sort of the devil on the shoulder, do it, do it, inflame racial tension, do it, undermine the general, do it, do it, talk about pulling out of nafta and the tpp even though it goes against long standing commitments. do it, do it, trash article 5 of our agreements and commitments to our european allies. and now that he's gone, do you think there's any sort of false optimism that those instincts that already exist in donald trump will be less sort of visible to the outsider?

>> well, he was also a person who would tell the president he was right when he acted on those things instead of being someone in the inner circle who was trying to be a moderating force to urge the president to tack toward the center or consider an opposing view from those outside the white house who might not have been supporters of president trump during the campaign and in the early days. so bannon could be a mirror for the president on some of those nationalist impulses and some of the early policies that you outlined there in some of the early days of the trump administration have the bannon fingerprints all over it. to some degree that frustrated the president greatly when some of those first policy steps did not go well. whether they were tied up in the courts or there was a backlash or a misunderstanding with congress, where they couldn't really execute as expected. so for the president now a big question will be first among equals, the family advisers, jared kushner and ivanka trump who have at times through people who are affiliated or supportive

of them would leak when they felt that their views were difficult from the president's, while remaining closest advisers and at the table. there will not be the internal enemy known to these other advisers. that could change the dynamic. while it's been described as a very good day for the white house, because this pressure that has been building through all of the months of the administration and now at a time sensitive politically because of charlottesville although that was not a causation event, but because of that, there won't be sort of that who to blame internally person. bannon has fulfilled that role without any blinking for many months. it also changes the dynamic of the internal power struggle where he had his own sort of being a principal in washington speak, he had his own team, his own center of influence and john kelly wanting it to be much more streamlined so that the only principal is the president. that everyone else reports through kelly.

so this is a time where the sorts of things we have heard president trump talk about just this week, give us another way of looking at steve bannon. the president was quick to point out he had already won all of the necessary primaries to have dispensed with his competitors before bannon came on board. bannon was part of the fall strategy, turning toward working against hillary clinton and the campaign. and so the president wants to retain a sense that his nationalist impulses as you might describe it or his political instincts new as they were back then were his alone and that that did not require bannon on the inside. and at the same time, tuesday we heard him praise bannon at a distance referring to him as mr. bannon. not as steve, not as someone who's been at his elbow for a full year and then saying we'll see what happens. that was such a big tell looking back. in addition to john kelly making it clear through top white house officials that he was doing an assessment of who could stay in their lane and who could not.

those couple of clues right there spelled when -- that this would eventually happen and jonathan who was out front on reporting today told us it would be today. >> jonathan, let me come back to you on and to play the devil's advocate for the moment. who's to say that an outside media outlet that reinforces donald trump's most extreme policies won't be just as if not more influential to donald trump's mind and donald trump's eyes and donald trump's twitter feed as someone who's sort of hemmed in by the constraints of being a west wing staffer? >> the reason i don't think it will be as influential although it will be influential is the way that donald trump consumes media. he doesn't -- he reads "the new york post" in the morning. "new york times," the printed newspapers and he watches cable tv throughout the day and evening and early morning. but what bannon would be creating -- so obviously he will probably be doing stuff with breitbart online. and then who knows.

he might to a tv element which i expect to be a streaming only play. probably outflanking fox on the right, although i wouldn't rule out work -- trying to build a new tv network which is what roger ailes wanted to do with bannon before he died. so trump gets access to this, to the extent that they're printed out and shown to him and there are fewer people frankly that are going to do that and john kelly is now taking charge of the paper flow to donald trump. it used to be that, you know, omarosa could wander in -- it was free-for-all. people would take articles to trump and that's not going to happen anymore. >> phil rucker, i'll let you have the last word in this segment. one, i want to know if you can sort of put this in the contest of general kelly's body of work for the two weeks. these have been some pretty dramatic fridays for the white house. i believe spicer was out on a

friday. if not fired on a friday. scaramucci's fate was sealed on a friday when that article came out. reince priebus was fired on a friday, so talk to me about friday, bloody fridays in the trump white house and talk to me about whether it's overly optimistic once again to project on to this white house the notion that a personnel change is going to do anything to improve the political standing of a president who lets it rip on twitter, who has never been behind a group of reporters. you were in front of him for 50 minutes of questions. he seemed to me he would have gone until the sun went down. when you were on pool duty last week. explain to me how personnel changes do anything to change the nature of the problems that the white house has. >> they don't do anything to change the nature of the president's problem and the president's decisions and instincts and character. you're right about the bloody fridays. we have had all of the major

departures, they're big shakeups internally and i think they speak to an effort by the president in instilling general kelly in charge to try to save this presidency. the legislative agenda is in shambles, things are not getting done and there's a real desire to find way to make this work and bring some order. i don't think the order is going to change the president. i mean, general kelly can change the people in the white house. he can try to tamp down on some of the leaking and the infighting. get everybody acting as staffers as opposed to as principals which is an important point made earlier. but that's not going to change the president's instincts. we should remember all of the nationalists tendencies, impu e impulses that bannon has been pushing internally, trump had them for 20 years. he doesn't have the trade and the immigration position because of steve bannon. steve bannon happens to share the same views but these are trump's ideas and trump's impulses himself. >> that's right. i'm reminded that birtherism was something that came to pass and that donald trump wrought on our

country before he even collaborated with -- >> a lie for five years. >> with steve bannons. thanks to jonathan swan, phil rucker and kelly o, the best of best. let trump be trump, get ready to hear that with bannon now completely liberated from the white house power structure. and bannon's war against the establishment as general kelly tries to clean up the west wing. we'll share new reporting about bannon's plans for wreaking havoc. does any of it matter? the question of the hour. steve bannon doesn't type the tweets so are we missing the mark by suggesting trump will become any less fiery without his flame thrower? by mikis theodorakis ♪ ♪

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well, we'll see. look, look, i like mr. bannon. he's a friend of mine. but mr. bannon came on very late, you know that. i went through 17 senators, governors and i won all the primaries. mr. bannon came on very much later than that. and i like him, he's a good man. he is not a racist. i can tell you that. he's a good person. he actually gets a very unfair press in that regard. but we'll see what happens with mr. bannon, but he's a good person and i think the press treats him frankly very unfairly. >> that was donald trump on bannon tuesday, today of course we have learned that steve bannon is officially out at the white house. he's just the latest in the string of high profile exits in trump's first seven months in office. we were looking at the image from the oval office, the week

after trump was inaugurated. the only man standing, vice president mike pence. let's bring in our panel. "new york times" op-ed columnist brett stephens, host of the national action network, rev al sharpton. jen palmieri and former cia operative and former independent presidential candidate evan mcmullin and also joining us is msnbc contributor, my pal steve schmidt. rev, i haven't talked to you all week but i have been dying to know what you thought about everything. i want to know on today's news on getting rid of steve bannon, do you think that makes a difference? >> i don't think it makes a difference at all. i think the difference that it does make is that it means that all of the things that we heard president trump take back on tuesday that he said monday in terms of charlottesville was straight donald trump. let's be real clear. that bannon and i'm certainly the last one to defend bannon, bannon was blamed as he's a guy

that went in there after the conciliatory that i didn't consider that conciliatory by the way, but when many people felt it was conciliatory and turned him around tuesday to go the way he went. now we know bannon was not in position to do that. this was pure raw donald trump that came back praising the confederate statues, talking about that this was the culture of our country and history of our country. bannon is no longer the blame person that we know that we're dealing with a president and that's bad news for us who don't want to see the country go in the way it's been going the last few days in terms of racial justice and we're dealing with the president. it's not the crew, folk, it's the captain. >> you don't need to delegate your racism if the guy in charge is willing to do it for free. i think that's the central lesson here. i think the other point which was made earlier in the show is

bannon's departure i don't think changes anything in the white house. this isn't a case of george bush bringing petraeus, but more caligula bringing his horse. you saw that lineup of general kelly, steve mnuchin, gary cohn on tuesday, all looking mortified, embarrassed as the president rambled on -- >> he didn't rambled on. he incited and unleashed as you said support for the white supremacists in char -- he drew a moral equivalence between people there, protesting under the banner as neo-nazis and white supremacists and those there to oppose it. >> we have a president who is a neo confederate. aside from the immorality of it it's the political stupidity is kind of mind boggling. it's called the lost call for a

reason -- it loses. >> right. jen? >> we found that general kelly can have control of the staff, but not the president. it's not like steve bannon said last week's infrastructure week and this week is defend nazi week. that came from -- right, that came from the president. and general kelly stood there and we saw how pained he was when he watched trump on tuesday. but that's -- that comes from his brain and, you know, last weekend kelly was trying to rein him in on provoking -- bringing us to the dangerous brink of war on north korea. >> fire and fury. >> yeah, fire and fury. we sat here a week ago confronting that. so i'm not sure that it's going to make much of a change. i'm glad he's gone though. he's a bad influence in the white house and he was pursuing a lot of dangerous policies so it's a good thing. >> evan, let me read you a list of people calling for the departure. roger stone, the mooch, rupert

murdoch. naacp, nancy pelosi and other members of congress, representative ted lieu. do you think on that list anyone other than rupert murdoch -- certainly not the naacp. >> nancy pelosi. >> it was probably -- >> yeah, do you think that someone finally said to him, you know, listen, this guy is baggage or do you think it was more primal, more, you know, this guy is -- he has an image as my puppeteer. he's been on the cover of as many magazines as i have. i mean, we know that he's not bothered by being called a racist or he'd stop tweeting racially insensitive things. so it can't be that steve bannon was a political liability on the race front. do you think it was all of the things we have been talking about, that he had gone to war with his staff. or do you think it was that his image was larger than donald trump could tolerate? >> i think it as a confluence of all of those things but i think the most important driving factors here are general kelly who wants to institute order

within the white house. he's a former marine general. he's going to make that happen. >> how? how is he going to make that happen with a president who sits there on twitter? >> at the staff level he'll make it happen. the problem is that trump will overrule that by the chaos he brings to the equation. but the question i'm wondering about, what does bannon do afterward, what kind of impact does he have? he's going to be attacking members of the white house. members of the administration. he's going to be advancing the populist and nationalist movement in the united states. by the way there's fertile ground for that in the republican party unfortunately. not all, but some. so that's something to watch. that's something that i'm concerned about. >> i bet the other thing that is that josh green's book is the number one book on "the new york times" best seller. >> a book about steve bannon. let me ask you, rev, about this reporting that i heard that while bannon's firing was inevitable for all the reasons we have been talking about, that

obviously the headline is the role he's played in sort of supporting the president's support for white supremacists and racism. but the other part of his legacy was helping to deliver white union households in the republican column. that one of the reasons trump won was because bannon at least helped him hone a white nationalist economic despair message that did drag some union voters over to the republican column for the first time since ronald reagan. >> but i think that you have to look at the fact that in this regard i agree with president trump, which is -- >> he was winning them anyway. >> he was winning the primaries anyway. against some very solid, moderate republican leadership. so i don't know how much of that is being given too much credit to bannon. i think though that evan's point is one to watch. out of the circle, bannon is the one that was committed and by

all accounts believed in something bigger than donald trump. and he's going to pursue that. you know, i'm an activist and activist are going to pursue what he believe, even if he starts hitting trump and the people around them. you have people like sean hannity who believe in it, but you can sit down and talk with sean hannity, at least he and i used to talk. but this guy is a zealot. i think that he is going to be very dangerous to a lot of the people around him. not out of a personal grudge, but he has an agenda. he's going to pursue that agenda. and he could be their worst nightmare. >> he's a true believer. don't go anywhere because when we come back we'll hit steve schmidt with all of the questions about bannon's exit and whether it will do anything to curb donald trump's most incendiary instincts on the other side of this break. , we'vn almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. even a swing set standoff.

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i'm not going to defend the indefensible, i'm not here to othat. i'm here to be clear and concise and succinct. his comments on monday started to erase the comments that were strong. what we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority, that moral authority is compromised when tuesday happens. there's no question about that. we should all call that on the carpet. >> that was south carolina senator tim scott saying our moral authority has been compromised by this president. also weighing in, mitt romney, the gop nominee for president in 2008. whether he intended to or not what he communicated caused racists to rejoice and minorities to weep and the vast heart of america to mourn. his apologists said we didn't hear what we heard, but he should acknowledge he was wrong, apologize. this is a defining moment for

president trump, but much more than that, it is a moment that will define america in the hearts of our children. they are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching. mr. president act now for the good of the country. today there is the first wave of relief at the white house in many days with news that bannon is out. but still a lot of anger and despair of the events of last week. important to note that no one has resigned, even though they feel angry and derespondent. at this hour, he is headed to camp david. steve schmidt, take us through first your reaction to mitt romney's strong statement. it sounds like he's been watching some of your appearances on television. >> look it's a powerful moral statement and i hope his running mate, paul ryan, hears its. he has been complicit in his

silence in not condemning the moral equivalent between the neo-nazis. when we think of steve bannon it's good he's left the white house. had he not, had he stayed after those interviews, general kelly would have had no credible claim that he was in charge of anything. but now steve bannon will be the chief intellect and the chief propagandaist back at bright bar. we see the dissolution between the nationalist party and the trump party. it's still fused together, it's what brought them victory. there was a lot of hoodwinks and dog whistles in 2016 that have given way to loud speakers. and the racist rejoicing with the president's false moral equivalency is this. he's fused the white nationalist

movement as a credible force in american politics with neo-nazis and ku klux klan. and the republican party cannot exist in coalition with these groups. and so now a titanic political battle is joined and that battle requires every elected republican leader to denounce both the white supremacists and neo-nazis and kkk, but it also requires them to denounce by name the false equivalency because that false equivalency on the part of the presidency of -- the president of the united states is in and of itself an immoral act. so now we have a great contest that will take place. and you are on one side of the line or the other on this. you will either stand on the side of american values or you will stand on the side that

marches fellow travelers with this neo-nazi movement. in fact, there are no good nazis carrying torches. the leader and the cause that those people were venerating was the most evil in all of human history and it must be condemned. you cannot have a coalition and an alliance of convenience with people who venerate naziism and venerate the kkk because it may advantage you in the next election or help you pass tax reform. and i think the other thing that's really clear, nicolle, is that the notion that this republican leadership will be able to pass tax reform when they can't bring together a coalition to denounce naziism is an absurdity. and i have stock in the brooklyn bridge to sell you if you believe it, but it's not going to happen. >> steve schmidt, i mistakenly called mitt romney the 2008 nominee, that was our old boss,

john mccain. he was the nominee in 2012. i wonder if you can expand this out not just to the support of nazis, but the support of autocrats and the tactics because i know that's one of the things that keeps you up at night. >> well, look, there are two hallmarks of any authoritarian regime, that the truth is subjective. so all of trump's lies to some degree are different than normal political lies because they're lies of authority. they require people to subordinate what they can clearly see with their own eyes. just like winston was forced to do in 1984. and the second hallmark of all the totalitarian movements and all fascistic movements is the presence of conspiracy. the dark forces conspire together. the higgins memo that resulted in mr. higgins being fired from the nsc, that talks about the

feminists and the corporatists and the globalists. we don't talk as much as we should about what the meaning of globalists is. there is an anti-semitic insinuation inherent there. no different than the rhetoric that the nazis used in the 19030s but the conspiracies of all the other -- the silent cabal, always in conspiracy with each other working their dark magic to oppress people. right, that gives easy answers to complex problems is always a hallmark of these movements and it fuels much of the talk radio propaganda that's talking to these audiences. and it fuels much of the foundation of this white nationalism that put trump into the white house by the thinnest of margins across three states.

>> i didn't get to talk to you yesterday, but we came on the air just as video surfaced of bob corker saying that trump didn't have the stability or the competence for the office he holds and the country could be in grave danger. there hadn't been a lot of folks other than the two we started the block with, but where are the republicans and why can't more people say what bob corker said, that donald trump lacks the stability and the competence for the job he has? >> well, it's self-evidently true it's what every allied leader believes. it's what the overwhelming majority of the members of congress believe. most are unwilling to say it. >> why? >> good for the chairman of the foreign relations committee said it. because they're cowards, nicolle, simple as that. you can see the yellow streak running down their backs and when you look at the comportment, the behavior, the lack of rectitude on the part of the commander in chief, of course the nation is imperilled.

we live in profoundly dangerous times. when you see someone acting with the recklessness, the possibility of there being great strategy should not be lost on anyone. and then i'd also say of republicans just pragmatically, if you want to cast all principle aside, look at this through a political lens. when you think of the republicans who won't condemn donald trump by name, just pragmatically, how nuts do you have to be not to disassociate yourself from him before he goes to this phoenix rally? where who knows what he says and who knows how much more -- how much more he inflames the situation that we have seen already lead to the murder of a beautiful young woman in charlottesville, virginia. >> free political advice, republicans, from a guy who's got a couple of presidential wins under his belt. stay with us. still ahead, yesterday i again asked will anyone resign? well, we may be getting a clearer picture of why some in the white house are willing to put their reputations on the

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steve bannon is out at the white house, but many others remain who have been publicly biting their tongues to stand by a president who this week has made comments they find abhorrent. a new op-ed in "the wall street journal" explains why. the men and women aren't doing so because it enhances their reputations. they have no illusions about mr. electrocute's character flaws. they're trying to serve their country. every person has to decide how long they can serve in good conscience. we hope the best stay as long as they can for the good of the country. >> it was a good op-ed. i was reading the second volume of henry kissing's -- kissinger's memoir and you're reading it and you're seeing a

president descend politically, you're grateful you have figures like kissinger and alexander haig as chief of staff. it's interesting that john kelly is the first military man to be a president's chief of staff since general hague was his chief of staff. you want the people in the white house, you want firm hands in the white house. the real onus is in congress on what they say about this president. >> you don't think there's any sort of gray area where people of good conscience said i won't enable a map who sits there on -- a man who sits there on twitter and instigates racial violence? >> i hate to put -- >> put yourself in their place. >> i never would have asked gone into the administration because i wouldn't want to have to wrestle with the situation like that. but i think people like kelly, mattis, tillerson and mcmaster they're all patriots and they're all doing the country a service

when the people have elected a man so unfit to be in the high office. >> rev, what do you think that calculation looks like, you're glad they're there, or do you think that people with a conscience have to walk away from someone tearing the country apart? >> i'm almost with bret is, but people with a conscience at a point have to say to themselves, i can't be party to certain things. we have got to talk -- we have to understand, we're talking about a man that said there were fine people on both sides. >> on both sides. >> what can be fine about a neo-nazi? >> nothing. >> we have gone from a president who had a beer summit who tried to bring a policeman and a professor together, to the president to the mother of a woman that was killed said i won't take his phone call. so how long do you associate with that before you say, i can't be party to this? forget my place in history, i have to live with myself. and i think that they're really at that point. we're talking about neo-nazis. we are talking about

confederates. forget -- yeah, i might have a thing with anyone that owned slaves but people that are only known and only they have a statue because they were confederates, they were not presidents of the united states. when you're talking about stonewall jackson, and you're talking about robert e. lee, the only reason we know them is because they were fighting to overthrow this government and to keep slavery. how do you equate them even with those that were presidents -- >> i don't think you do. that's why i put the question back to everybody here. does the staff have power if they say, mr. president, if you don't stop tweeting about monuments and statues and confederates i'm out of here, or do they stay for the good of the country? >> i think -- you know, we both worked in the white houses, and i can understand someone like mcmaster and kelly thinking they can rein in a difficult situation like north korea. but when you posed the question which was very powerful, nicolle, to say you're working

for a president that's tearing the country apart that's when i think you go to congress. that's when these officials that are at the white house go to congress -- to the republicans in congress and say, we need to do something about this. he is not competent to serve. the word competent has entered the lexicon. it's called the 25th amendment and bob corker said that word. he didn't say it in the right tense that you would need to use to apply to the 25th amendment but people are calling our -- are legitimately calling into question his competent and whether the 25th amendment should apply. but people working with him every day they're the ones in the position to know whether or not he's truly competent so i understand you want to stop north korea, a nuclear war with north korea. but you're also the ones that can go to congress to say this is -- >> you're the only one at the table that worked in the cia. is there an obligation -- this idea i'm there to serve my country so carve me out from a man inciting racial violence

rings hollow to me. come down on what the staff should do in the face of the president's actions over the last ten days? >> i think i agree with everybody here, elements of what everybody saying but i think it comes down to who you are. if you're in the administration and you have real power, mcmaster, kelly, mattis certainly, i think -- i think bret's right. you have to be there, you have to stay. although i'm concerned with the number of generals who are now depending on to sort of keep this administration on some kind of -- >> let me add too that all the generals had to put out statements this week, all of the heads of every military division this this country. >> right. >> they had to defy the commander in chief and articulate the values of the marine corps, of the army and navy. >> that's right. something that our political leader should be doing. i hope as we depend on these generals and this time of need in our country that we don't let that become a habit. it's necessary right now. but we need political leaders who have the courage as steve

was saying earlier the courage to stand up for our founding principles. the quality and liberty, the first among them. we need leaders who will do that. they need to be accountable to the people that the generals are not accountable to the people, but if you're not in one of those situations, if you're not in one of the roles that you have real authority and real power i think it's time to seriously consider stepping away at this point. >> all right. when we come back, steve and i have co-captained a couple of rocky ships. i'll ask steve schmidt his thoughts on whether the staff should stay or go. so that's the idea.

what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. in this canicoll we're back

bring steve submit into the conversation we've been having about where a red line might exist for a staff so board a rocky ship. something and and i have been through, steve. >> well, look, i think that if your duties in the white house involve life and death, the deployment of the u.s. military, the national security of the united states, if they involve the stability of global markets, if it involves the response to a pan denimic threat, a health virus. we saw one not long ago with the ebowla patients came back to the united states. if you have responsibility of life and death, by all means please stay. do your duty. but if you're part of this administration that's working in furtherance of this president's agenda, if you're pumping out the talking points, instrungting people what to say with regard to the question of the moral equivalency that the president i

am morally made about nazis and the protestors, then you're stained with this for all time. you will live with this for the rest of your career. and i predict ten, 15 years from now we will have nobody in the national leadership of this country who has been complicit with and positively gist for this president's most extreme statements. be on the right side of history. these are not difficult decisions. this is not an ambiguous moment. >> the position is that drt puts his senior staffers in, h.r. mcmaster was on a sunday show ostensibly to talk about the nuclear crisis with north korea, but had to defend the president's comments. at what point are they enter tangled -- >> i think it's an extraordinary situation. i think that line is ambiguous. what we know is that with general kelly, general mattis, secretary mattis, general mcmaster, we have people of the

highest rectitude, the highest integrity. and you have to leave it to them to make the best decision. and i give them the benefit of the doubt as they navigate it. >> jim, there was an extraordinary moment on the floor of the new york stock exchange that you think is going to end up on steve bannon's audio i guess tape for his next gig. >> yes. when it was announced on the floor of the stock exchange that bannon was fired and there was a huge cheer that went up from the floor, which i cringe when i heard because i thought that's such a great moment for steve bannon. and they should have really arraigned it in. said the globalist won. look what happened. i got fired and the globalists cheered. it feels like the 2020 presidential -- republican presidential primary has begun. it's going to be fought out in the west wing. it's going to be fought out, you know, on the air waves with bannon being released from the white house. but it is -- these are -- you know, these issues are -- it feels like we never stopped from

-- >> but that isn't globalism. those are just the traders. this is the proof that there's wisdom in the market, that captainism has a kind of inherent intelligence. i think it's one of the best signs of -- >> but he's going to say it's globalists -- again, he's a true believer. he's going to use this because this was his moment where he got cheered by the people that he wanted to tell his crowd i stood up to them. see, this could be better for him. >> i think, though, this is rupert murdoch is going to roou his effort to get steve bannon fired because bannon will be a competitor and a serious one to fox. >> all right. we're going to sneak in one more break and we'll be right back. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program,

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in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. an extraordinary scene in barcelona spain where a large crowd has gathered throughout the day and evening. one day after terror attacks claimed 14 clooifs there. our thanks this friday to steve stevens, the rev al sharpton, jim pal marry. that does it for our hour. i'm nicole wallace.

"mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> quite the week. there you go. we made it. well, if it's friday, it's apparently a white house staff shake up day again in the west wing. tonight, the departed. the president's controversial chief strategist steve bannon is out. but does this latest shake up really change anything inside the white house? >> they're going to go out the quote unquote globalists in the white house. >> plus the mayor on charlottesville on what he thinks should happen to the confederate statues now. and total clims of reason. what does monday's eclipse have to do with your health, the planet your anus, president trump and probably 1776, probably nothing. but don't tell that to your local atrolg engineer. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right