him. all while establishment republicans giggle and democrats are bringing in bowls of popcorn. cnn's jeff zeleny is at the white house this evening. and jeff, president trump released a statement unlike anything i'd ever seen before from a president talking about one of his senior strategists. >> reporter: jake, it was quite a day here. and certainly, we have seen the president dismiss some of his closest advisers before, put them at a distance. but steve bannon was no ordinary adviser. this was the president acting like steve bannon was the coffee boy, if you will. but that statement released this afternoon saying that the president had a personal hand in actually writing, it said this, let's take a look, jake. it said, "steve bannon had nothing to do with me or my presidency. when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people, with no access and no clue whom he helped write phony books."