it stwings china. >> i got carl. >> carl is supporting me. >> i have carl ready. killer. killer. >> i'll put him in charge of zion take china. >> trade with china. >> do me a favor, work it out. >> give each one a country. they'll make a great deal. >> i had the best negotiates in the world, carl icahn. the greatest negotiators read "the art of the deal." >> no exit pollers said carl was the reason behind their vote. it's clear his validation was important to donald trump. just something to keep in mind in case over the next few days you hear the president say about mr. icahn, he joined later in the campaign but he's good guy. look at the time. that's our broadcast on a zpritsds for this week, thank you for being here with us, goonts from nbc news headquarters here in new york. starting in middle school,

there's a thing you can do called model u.n. model united nations. it's an educational thing, they do it for college kids, kids in high school and for kids in middle school. it's a very cool idea. you get assigned to represent a country and then as the delegate for that country, you learn about diplomacy and international relations and the workings of international institutions by you acting out your assigned country's best interests along with the other kids in this mock u.n. environment. it's cool. some schools do debate club. my school did mock trial. some schools do model u.n. it's a cool thing. last march when he was zipping his way through the republican primaries on his way to the nomination to be the nominee for president in 2016, last march,

then candidate donald trump sat down with the editorial board "the washington post" and finally answered the question that reporters had been bugging him about for weeks. he was becoming the front-runner for the nomination for president but despite having made it that far politically, nobody really knew where to place him on the number line of republican politics, particularly issues like national security and foreign policy. people asked him, mr. trump, mr. trump, who is your foreign policy team? people have been asking him for weeks and then started to make fun of the fact that he didn't have a foreign policy team. on that day in march at "the washington post," with kind of a dramatic flourish, he produced a piece of paper that had a list of fife names on it. and he spread it out and read off the paper to the "washington post" editorial board, and in so

doing, he announced his list of five people who he said were his foreign policy advisers. and nobody ever heard of them. and as a whole, they turned out to be very strange choices. for example, one of them turned out to be a guy named carter page, a small-time business guy who had worked for merrill lynch in russia for a while. he had also turned up in an fbi investigation of a russian spy ring operating at a new york bank. he turned up in that investigation as somebody who had provided information to the russian agents. another person on the list was a guy who said on his resume that he had taught for years at the national defense university when in fact he had not taught for years at the national defense university. another one of the five people on this list, listed on his resume, that among his awards and honors, not only had he participated in model u.n., in

model u.n., he had been the representative for the united states. hey, you know, if you're going to advise an actual u.s. president some day, that's probably pretty good practice, right? and what luck presumably if the kid had been assigned to be the delegate and then he wouldn't have turned up in a u.s. election as a foreign policy adviser a few years down the road. so trump with this flourish pulls out his list of five names and unveils his five-person foreign policy team and it was a weird thing and it continued to be a weird thing. carter page ended up under scrutiny for his travels to russia and his meetings in russia in the middle of the presidential campaign, which is now under scrutiny. the kid who modeled u.n. on his resume to be a trump foreign policy adviser, and the trump campaign has now handed over to

congressional committees investigating the russia issue. there's records of a half dozen times when the model u.n. kid wrote to other people on the trump campaign insisting that he was able to get them meetings with high-level russians, including his efforts to set up a meeting with putin himself. where did these guys come from and how did they end up as part of trump's campaign? trump doesn't seem to have known george pop do carter page, the guy in with the russian spies. he doesn't seem to have known these guys before he was running the campaign for president. how did they end up on his presidential campaign and what is described as senior important roles as his foreign policy team. same question applies to the guy who ran his campaign for a while, paul manafort. he wasn't connected to donald trump before he mysteriously wound up running the trump

campaign last year. it has been unequivocally confirmed to us that as late as january last year, paul manafort and donald trump had no relationship, but by march of last year, paul manafort was running the whole campaign. where did he come from? out of all the people in the country, out of all the republicans in the country, why did trump pick this guy who he didn't know who had been out of american politics for decades while instead he was doing business and political work for putin-connected oligarchs and dictators. why pick him of all people? approximate once trump won the election, why did he end up with this guy running the state department. rex tillerson had never met president trump before the election. rex tillerson's selection as

secretary of state is explained now as having been a recommendation to trump from condoleezza rice and from obama's defense secretary bob gates. as if trump was taking tons of advice from people like that when he was setting up his cabinet. remember, trump installed his bankruptcy bankruptcy lawyer as ambassador to israel. he put his top fund-raiser in as treasury secretary. he put his son's wedding planner in charge of federal housing in new york and new jersey. he named his son-in-law and daughter as senior presidential advisers. he made his bodyguard the director of oval office of operations and newt gingrich's wife in rome as the ambassador to the vatican. you really think he held out on the job of secretary of state until he found someone condoleezza rice approved of? i mean, every name is a strange thing that donald trump picked rex tillerson to be secretary of state. but tillerson did have decades of experience with vladimir putin. he's thought to be closer to

putin than almost any other american. putin pinned the highest civilian honor on rex tillerson's lapel a few years ago when they completed the largest oil deal in the history of the world. a half trillion dollar oil deal between russia and exxon that is off now but could be back on in an instant if only those u.s. sanctions on russia could be rolled back. so this is this thing that nags at me and has been keeping me awake on and off for like more than a year now. where do these folks come from? how do they find their way into that inner circle? there's been a whole bunch of people in the trump campaign and in the trump administration who are, forgive me, weird choices for the jobs that they have had and for the roles that they have played. in terms of my sleep schedule, it's almost comforting now, it's at least clarifying now to look at all of those weird choices and realize that some

inexplicable connection to russia and russia interests appears to be the common denominator in all of those weird choices. there's at least a theme, right? with this one other guy, though, he doesn't fit the theme. he was an equally-weird choice. you can't explain him the same way. this is the trailer for the val kilmer movie he once produced about a mad scientist who locks people in a steam room and holds them hostage while the girls hold each other and take off their bikini tops at random times. it sounds kind of corny. it is. the message of the movie is about the mad scientist's murderous crazy scheme which is to convince those in the hostage crisis that there is such thing as global warming. >> why are you here? >> hundreds of millions of people are going to die. that's a fact. >> hundreds of millions of people will die how?

>> global warming. >> and that's how you know he's crazy. this one guy who doesn't fit the sort of pattern of a weird choice for the trump campaign and trump administration, he produced the mad scientist kills people because he believes in global warming sexy sauna scene horror movie. he also produced a movie that is supposed to be nonfiction, a documentary, that shows and proves that one of the guys from "duck dynasty" isn't just a guy with an amazing beard and has duck calls, he's a living profit here on earth. he's the torchbearer. sent here from heaven to show humanity the way. that one, that movie, that documentary of his has so much footage of people being killed and stabbed and ran over by tanks and stuff that i can't show you the trailer for that film. i can only show you the stuff from the main part of the movie that makes the case that the "duck dynasty" guy is the same

-- next jesus. he worked for biosphere 2, a texas billionaire's experiment in the '90s to have people live in giant terrariums with no link to the outside world. steve bannon's time running that company ended in a lawsuit where one of the dwellers accused him of screaming at her that he would take her safety concerns about the biosphere and, quote, ram them down your f'ing throat. bannon actually admitting to saying exactly that in the court case, which was a couple years before police ended up at his home and he was charged with domestic violence and battery as well as charges he was trying to interfere with his wife's ability to testify against him in that domestic violence case. those charges were later dropped when in fact his wife didn't turn up to court to testify

about the charges. that was also before we learned about the reported meth house that he rented and where he received his mail in florida and that was before he was registered to vote in multiple states at the same time while leading a crusade about supposed voter fraud. there are a lot of people who were weird choices in the trump campaign. and in the trump administration once they won. people who just don't make sense in terms of where they came from and where they ended up. but at least with most of them there's this common thread that they all have unusual ties to russia. and we're working on unraveling that and explaining it in the end. but with steve bannon, he's -- he's the weird tie himself. one year ago yesterday, steve bannon was brought on board to replace paul manafort at the head of the trump campaign. he and kellyanne conway were both funded by the same

reclusive right-wing billionaire, robert mercer, the single largest donor to elect trump as president. even though bannon was taking over as the campaign manager for manafort, he insisted on being called the campaign ceo. okay? once he was installed as senior white house strategist, steve bannon insisted it be made publicly known that his chief strategist role was of equal rank to be white house chief of staff. he then named himself to the national security council. before that national security adviser, the first one got fired and the new one kicked him out of there. well, now as of today, he's gone from the white house altogether with a flourish of random contradictory information about how exactly he left, how much he jumped and how much he was pushed. the line they're trying to sell from the bannon side is that it was an orderly good-bye, that it

was on his terms, that he filed his notice that he would leave two weeks ago or maybe it was ten days ago or maybe it was a week ago. he at least definitely had already decided to leave on his own terms a long time ago and everybody knew he was leaving, including him. and that's all fine. if you're going to try to sell that line except for the fact that three nights ago he made a call to the american prospect to brag about all the people in the administration about who he's about to fire, who steve bannon will be firing soon. none of those people are fired but bannon is, declaring victory all the way. so obviously this is another landmark moment in the disillusion of the trump administration, but we'll be talking about that over the course of the next hour. and i just want to focus on a few things that we're chewing on right now and trying to answer.

stuff that hasn't been answered yet that i'm hoping that we might get answered over the course of this evening. number one, when do we get normal sleepy fridays back? when can we have a slow news day, particularly on a friday? never? ever? okay. so that's why. two, carl icahn just left the administration tonight as well. he left the administration, quit his job, literally moments before "the new yorker" magazine published this piece about billionaire carl icahn using his position in the trump administration to potentially make hundreds of millions of dollars for his own companies. moments before that was published tonight at the new yorker's website, carl icahn resigned. is that resignation by carl icahn is standalone carl icahn corruption story or is his resignation tonight tied in any way to the steve bannon departure today? also, who else is leaving the

administration right away, either to just take advantage of the smoke screen tied to bannon or now that bannon is gone they don't have any political means of staying? number three, erik prince, the billionaire brother of betsy devos and founder of blackwater, politico.com reports that that big meeting on afghanistan today, the supposed reason mike pence had to fly home early from his overseas trip, politico now reports that erik prince, the blackwater guy, was due to be at that afghanistan meeting in person today at camp david to pitch his idea in person that the trump administration should pay him $10 billion a year to run the afghanistan war from here on out as erik prince's own for-profit private enterprise instead of something being run by the u.s. military.

according to this new reporting tonight, steve bannon was the one who was erik prince's chief ally in favor of this idea. once steve bannon got fired today, erik prince was blocked from attending that afghanistan meeting at camp david that he was otherwise going to be at. the person who blocked him, reportedly was national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. is that true? are there other cockamamie schemes that will take place now that he's gone? we're chewing on that tonight. here's my big question tonight which we might be able to figure out with the right reporting in just a moment. why was steve bannon there in the first place? what was he there to do? and at whose behest was he there? and whatever he was sent to do, did he leave now because he accomplished it? there were a lot of other inexplicable people in the trump campaign and now in the trump

administration and those people fit another pattern entirely. russia. russia. as to how they got their place and why they're there. but bannon really is different. bannon came on a year ago out of the blue to run the trump campaign, despite the fact that with his personal background, he probably couldn't get a commercial driver's license, let alone control of a major presidential party campaign. he got back in because the people who funded bannon at breitbart and funded all of his other ventures, including his insane movies, by that point, those same people had become the single largest funders of the trump campaign and those are the people who installed him on top of the campaign a year ago. and who ultimately got him into the white house, into the oval office in this senior role that ended today. why did they want him there? did he accomplish what he was supposed to do? and what do they want to do next with bannon out of the white house and now working on the outside?

we've actually got expert reporting on that next from the reporter who has done more than anybody else in the country to explain the single funder who made this all happen in the first place. stay with us. that's next. i love you so much, that's why i bought six of you for when you stretch out. i want you to stay this bright blue forever, that's why you'll stay in this drawer forever. i can't live without you, and that's why i'll never ever wash you. protect your clothes from stretching, fading and fuzz with downy fabric conditioner. fading and fuzz with downy fabric conditioner. it smooths and strengthens fibers to protect clothes from the damage of the wash. so your favorite clothes stay your favorite clothes. downy fabric conditioner. trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes. and dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax. designed for dependable relief.

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weird in itself. campaigns don't have ceos. and they seemed like this kind of odd couple, politically speaking. kellyanne conway is this very personable, polished, sort of a based on the rest of her career, sort of a normal republican who went on tv and talked about donald trump as though he were a normal republican. steve bannon, on the other hand, was not that. on any level, really not. but despite their very distinct differences, both of them came from the same place. both of them made a very good living off of one reclusive conservative hedge fund billionaire. before becoming donald trump's campaign manager, kellyanne conway ran a super pac which supported ted cruz in the republican presidential primary. that pac was almost entirely funded by new york city hedge fund manager robert mer certify.

funded by robert mercer. then once trump won and cruz dropped out, that billionaire, robert mercer and kellyanne conway decided to switch horses. kellyanne stayed in charge but started running anti-clinton ads to help trump instead of running anti-trump ads to help cruz. mercer put many millions of dollars into that and and the single largest funder of breitbart.com which steve bannon ran before he signed on with the trump campaign, and where he's returned tonight already after seven months in the white house. steve boon was a strange pick as we've been talking about a strange pick to run a campaign, a strange pick for a very high-profile political job given his past, a strange pick to run the campaign of the republican presidential nominee and having done everything

humanly possible to unseat the republican majority leader, eric cantor, who in fact was primaried out of his job. he did everything humanly possible to kick the republican house speaker john boehner out of his job and he did leave as house speaker and at the time steve bannon got picked to run the trump campaign, he was doing everything humanly possible to unseat the next republican house speaker, paul ryan, the one who is still there despite steve bannon's best efforts. that's what the mercer family had bannon using breitbart to do before they took him away from breitbart and sent him to the trump campaign and trump administration. now that he's done with the administration and back at breitbart as of tonight, is he going back to that war waging on the republican party? or is there some new idea? what happens with the secretive billionaire mercer family as a

factor now, now that they're back to paying steve bannon's salary instead of us taxpayers? joining us is jane mayer. staff wire for the new yo"new y. there was an incredible piece of reporting that i'm sure put you on the mercer christmas list forever. thank you for being with us. >> glad to be with you. >> from what you understand about the mercer family and their intentions, why they funded trump to the degree that they did, why they facilitated the movement and why they supported breitbart all of these years, given your understanding of all of those things, do you have a sense of what their role will be now that bannon's out? >> well, first of all, what their intentions were in the

campaign was -- bob mercer is campaign was -- bob mercer is -- kind of, as you say, very reclusive and cooky political conspiracy theorist driven by hatred of hillary clinton during the campaign. so he literally believed that the clintons had murdered people and was susceptible to all kinds of right-wing cooky theories. at this particular point, he's playing both an inside game and outside game. he met with bannon on wednesday for several hours at his estate on long island and planning life after the white house where bannon will be kind of captain of this movement that is to push the republican party in a more sort of nationalist, populist direction. the next night, bannon -- excuse me. mercer had dinner with trump and pledged support so he's both an inside supporter but also going to be funding this hugely powerful outside movement to

pressure trump to go in the direction that he and bannon and it's a strange role, a wealthy man with an unusual amount of power over this white house. >> and is the goal to try to continue to shape the white house in bannon's image, his sort of nationalist image despite the fact that bannon's not in it anymore? is that the idea to try to get the other people who are opposed to bannon's vision out of there and to get more people like bannon close to trump now that bannon's out? you see why it seems sort of backwards. >> well, one way to look at this is bannon did all he could as he sees it inside the white house. he didn't get his way on an awful lot of things, particularly having to do with economic nationalism, you know, all kinds of things having to do with trade policy, and they didn't build the wall, and he is hell bent to try to get his way by pushing from the outside of

the white house. and the mercer fortune will be behind him pushing this movement. i think one of the first showdowns we're going to see in the fall is going to be over funding that wall and i can imagine, i think you're going to see probably breitbart which is largely owned by the mercers and bannon which is -- who is an incredible propagandist and i think they will see if they can shut down the government, play hardball like they did with bannon before and eric cantor. >> jane, i'm thinking about the role of breitbart and the decision by the mercers to fund that and then take bannon out of there and move him over to the trump campaign when they felt like the time was right, you know, there are a lot of ideological news outlets out there in the world that are funded and supported by rich people who want to use them for

crusading and stuff. breitbart's been pretty effective but they're -- i wouldn't describe them as a juggernaut in terms of landscape they are one factor among a media landscape that's changing all the time. do you expect that outside game, even if it doesn't involve breitbart, will also involve new efforts, new types of influence operations besides that one publication? >> i think i have heard that there's some interest by bannon and seeing if they can kind of launch breitbart tv of some sort. i mean, they're certainly not going to be alone in this field and you can take a look at rupert murdoch's media empire and see that he also has a tremendous amount of quite a bit more power and he was there lobbying for trump to get rid of bannon. so, you know, they certainly won't be alone in this. but i think -- you know, the

thing that's interesting about bannon, he is -- he's a political pugilist. he's a very powerful pr propagandist when he gets going. i think he added a lot of anger to trump and sort of cast him as a coherent political figure that really i'm not sure that trump is at all. and so, you know, i think he's good at propaganda and it will be interesting to see what he can do. but what they'll try to do is whip up anger from outside and get the base really angry and pushing hard against what bannon sees as sort of the globalist and the empire builders. >> which now his targets will be inside the administration that he just left to a significant degree. >> absolutely. he made a big mistake. if he thought that he could cross the children -- the

family, the trump family -- he was at war with jared kushner and ivanka trump. that was not going to be a ing with game. and in fact, bannon's been telling people for almost a yea. and in fact, bannon's been telling people for almost a year that he'd be out in august. so whatever the final game plan was in the end and who said get out or whether he said you can't fire me, i quit, either way, i think he knew he wasn't going to be lasting as an insider for the long term. >> and actually good stylistic for all of us. whenever you leaving anything under any circumstances, always declare victory as you're washing out the door even if somebody is pushing you while you're going. jane mayer, staff writer for "the new yorker," thank you for with us tonight. >> thanks. i'll just note, when it comes to it, in weeks ahead when i'm here again on a friday night when i'm expecting it to be sleepy, you'll look back at this night and say, you know what, jane mayer said the night they

fired steve bannon, things were going to get less coherent from here on out. let's stick a pin in that. we'll need to come back to that in the future. less coherence, coming up. stay with us. i love you, basement guest bathroom.

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in addition to steve bannon leaving today as white house chief strategist, special assistant to the president julia hahn also hit the exits and left the white house. also out today, the white house

director of public liaison, which is a title that sounds like nothing but it was a position held by valerie jarrett. in the obama white house. that guy left today. and then today carl icahn left today as well. carl e he will no longer serve as a special adviser to the president on regulatory reform, though this blistering long piece in "the new yorker" today suggests that carl icahn may have some criminal legal concerns that followed him home from that job that he quit tonight. okay. so that's this evening whose left the trump administration. anybody else? where's my phone? before tonight, in addition to losing his national security adviser and his chief of staff and his press secretary and press secretary and chief strategist, the president also saw the departure of not one but two communications directors and his deputy white house chief of staff and his

deputy national security adviser and the deputy chief of staff at the national security council and his assistant press secretary. the president has also replaced the top lawyer on his legal defense team and the spokesman for that legal team resigned. this in addition to all of the staffers and cabinet nominees who withdrew in the face of various controversies before even formally joining the administration. and all of these people have fled before labor day. i mean, what started as a shoe string campaign run by family members and people who worked at his business seems to be reverting back to just that now. but in addition to the administration hallowing out by woodpeckers, there is one piece of staffing news that for me really sticks out right now and it's a staffing story that is actually not from inside the administration, technically, it's from inside the special counsel's office.

on wednesday this week, abc news published a provocative report that the fbi's top counter espionage official became the first investigator to be removed from the robert mueller investigation but according to abc news he had also been busted down the ranks of the fbi. peter had been the lead supervisor on the investigation of the russia attack. that investigation was rolled up into the robert mueller's special counsel inquiry and so he moved over to the special counsel's office to be part of that investigation. but strzok is not only out of the mueller investigation, in addition to that, he's no longer running the counter espionage section of the fbi. he's working in the fbi's human resources department, which is really different. that very provocative news was on wednesday. no other news organization has matched that reporting over the

course of this week until today when we managed to confirm that, in fact, peter strzok is now working in human resources at the fbi now. don't ask me how we confirmed it. i will tell you over a beer sometime. but we did confirm it. he's out and he's in human resources now. the question remains why. natasha bertrand from "business insider" raises two possible questions. the first is the ongoing investigation by the inspector general looking into how the fbi handled hillary clinton's e-mails and that investigation during the election. there's an inspector general investigation of how that was handled. peter strzok was the fbi official who oversaw the fbi investigation into clinton's e-mails. so is it possible that peter strzok got caught up in the findings of that inspector general investigation?

about the clinton e-mail stuff? we don't know. second possibility is that his departure may have had something to do with the lightning "washington post" report recently that the fbi for campaign chairman, paul manafort. specifically, whether robert mueller's team may have leaked the details of that search to reporters and, if so, did somebody get a really big demotion because they got caught doing that leak? those are -- it's honestly -- who knows? all we have is speculation at this point because nobody will tell us. but this seems like an important piece of news, right? this is the first sign of the ship rocking over at the mueller inquiry. a lot of people in this country think about the bob mueller inquiry every day and think a lot of the future of our country depends on the quality of that inquiry. is something wrong at the bob mueller inquiry? this is the first sign of anything seeming hinky. we want to know how serious it is and we want to know to the

broader question whether the mueller investigation is having any serious problems. we don't know. we only have this provocative piece of staffing information. if you are out there and you know and you want to communicate with us anonymously, please do so. www.sendittorachel.com. just saying. ♪ ♪i'm living that yacht life, life, life top speed fifty knots life on the caribbean seas it's a champagne and models potpourri on my yacht made of cuban mahogany, gany, gany, gany♪ ♪watch this

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talk to tonight, i want to talk to nbc presidential historian michael beschlos want to talk to tonight, i want to talk to nbc presidential historian michael beschlos want to talk to tonight, i want to talk to nbc presidential historian michael beschloso want to talk to tonight, i want to talk to nbc presidential historian nt to % michael, thank you f here. >> delighted. great to see you. >> this is disorienting news today. i think steve bannon has been a disorienting figure in terms of things that have happened before in presidential politics. >> right. >> he seems like an ahistorical figure already. his departure now seems like both a shock and something that is hard to contexualize. can i just ask you, historically speaking, has it ever been a landmark moment, a key turning point when a white house staffer left? >> almost never. and that's why i think this is a really big deal tonight. and the one moment i think what qualify would be in 1985 when jim baker left as reagan's chief of staff, very competent, and knew washington a way that reagan had not and screwed up that and to some extent reagan's changes led to the iran-contra scandal which

almost led to reagan's impeachment. if you look at other white house stats, in washington you always hear it's so important, this guy is leaving, this person is coming. they usually don't amount to very much. i think the departure of bannon is going to be a very big deal. >> why do you think it's potentially a standout moment like that, that change for reagan? what is it about bannon that tells you that his departure is going to be a big deal? >> because this is a guy who had his own constituency and public profile. you almost never see that in a top place in a white house staff. we never saw a president choose a chief strategist. you don't see that job title in any other administration. but most of all, donald trump was able to sort of bridge this gap between, you know, the globalists and the nationalists if, you want to call them that, economic nationalists, and perhaps white nationalists represented by bannon as long as he was inside the white house, he could bridge those two

because he didn't have to worry about bannon denouncing him to the public. it's sort of what lbj has said about j. edgar hoover, better to have him inside the tent than outside the tent. >> right. >> because someone who might differ from you can do the president a lot of damage. tomorrow for the first time, donald trump has to deal with the very real possibility that steve bannon will go out and use breitbart and his other -- the other institutions that he helps to command to put real pressure on the trump presidency and perhaps try to break off certain parts of the people who support about him having his own constituency and sort of a unique power but a unique form of leverage on the president, something that made it difficult for him to be in that sort of a senior role. i guess that leads to the question of whether he'll be replaced. it also, for me, seems important

to note that nobody knew who he was a year ago. >> that's exactly right. >> yeah. >> and donald trump sort of made him. >> yeah. >> and he is now a huge figure, especially in that movement and in a position if he's angry at donald trump, you know, either because trump fired him or because he's angry that trump seems to have sided with new york globalists, so-called, he's in a position to do trump real damage, just like out of a novel. >> fascinating. this is what sarah palin wanted. when sarah palin quit as alaska governor. she thought she could have a bigger impact on politics by leaving politics, and she quickly dissolved into the comments section on facebook. bannon's got more juice than she did, even having been a vice presidential candidate. we just have to see what he's going to do with it. michael beschloss, great to have you here. we'll be right back. stay with us.

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can celebrate a life like no other. find out how at sanfranciscodignity.com. hey, so "the last word" is live tonight after we wrap up here this hour. and then at 11:00 p.m. eastern time, brian williams is here live on "the 11th hour" tonight. this is obviously a huge day in american politics. there's a lot going on right now. of course as we get later into the evening, everybody is wondering who else might quit the white house tonight if there's anybody else left to quit who is not a member of the trump family. presumably we'll know that by the end of brian's show maybe. so there's plenty of reason to stick with us here at msnbc tonight. i will tell you that we have one

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it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides to keep you effortlessly comfortable. and snoring.... does your bed do that? the new 360 smart bed is part of our biggest sale of the year where all beds are on sale. and right now save 50% on the labor day limited edition bed. when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company definitely doesn't have that... you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. march 27th, 1961, a young man named joseph jackson jr. walked into the local library, the jackson municipal library in jackson, mississippi, and he asked to check out a book. he was there with eight friends from the local college. they walked into that library. you can see mr. jackson there all the way on the left in the glasses.

he went up to the circulation desk. he asked to check out a philosophy book that he needed for class at college. and joseph jackson jr. was told no. he was told he could not check out that book. the woman working at the library told him to use the city's other library down the street because the jackson municipal library was the white library for white people only. and if joseph jackson and his friends wanted to check out a book, they should check out the library for colored people. joseph jackson jr. and those other eight students from the college, they did not leave. they stayed in that whites-only library. they held a read-in. they sat silently reading, refusing to go anywhere unless joseph jackson was allowed to check out that philosophy book he had come for. eventually the staff, the all-white staff of that all-white library called the police. the police came into the library. they walked the students out the front door. they put them into squad cars,

and they drove them to jail for reading in the library. those nine kids from the college were arrested and charged with breach of the peace. they were jailed for two days. this was 1961, a time when challenging racial law meant risking your life. joseph jackson, the one who asked to check out the library book, says he remembers being scared those two nights in jail. he and the rest of those students were worried that somebody, the klan or somebody would come after them once they got out. that was 56 years ago in jackson, mississippi. at the time it was a catalyzing event for other students to join the civil rights movement. but the read-in itself, that event, has been almost forgotten. but as of now, if you visit the old jackson municipal library, you will see this. it's a new marker funded by the jackson library board in honor of the tougaloo nine. at the bottom, it says the --

this has been a tough last few days in terms of our national conscience and dignity on very difficult issues related to race. but this new marker in mississippi, which the library raised the money to put up, and this new recognition of what those nine kids did that day in that library for themselves, come on. best new thing in the world today. and you know you needed it. it's true that what happens in national politics affects the whole country. that's why it's national. but it's not just the stuff that happens in the white house that happens everywhere. sometimes what happens in little corners of the country affects all of us too. best new thing in the world tonight. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again monday. now it's time for "the last word." ali velshi is here. great tows thanks for being here. >> thanks a lot. i learned a lot in the last hour. have a great weekend. >> thank you very much, my

friend. >> it's over. steve bannon is out of the white house, back at breitbart, and apparently ready for war. >> steve bannon is officially out at the white house. >> take him back to hell. >> steve bannon was the heart of darkness of the white house. >> controversial from the very beginning. >> you know, i can run a little hot on occasions. >> the entire senior staff had basically turned against him. and frankly the president had turned against him. >> we'll see what happens with mr. bannon. >> tonight he is already back in charge of breitbart news. >> he says, quote, the trump presidency that we fought for and won is over. >> it's almost laboratory test designed to enrage donald trump. >> every day it is going to be a fight, and that is what i'm proudest about donald trump. >> the problem here isn't bannon. the problem is trump. >> this man does not seem to me to have what we would normally think of as a soul. he has an open sore. >> i think he's in a position right now where he is much more isolated than he realizes.