Terms. Bannon is the latest in a series of top advisers to leave the administration after short tenure in the white house. First michael flynn, he was fired for misleading officials about the nature of his contact with russian, then it was press secretary sean spicer. He jumped ship when the president made the decision to hire anthony scaramucci. Then Reince Priebus was forced out after a turf war with scaramucci, who, of course, was soon fired, himself. But the departure today of trumps top strategist could have longterm ramification, especially now with the other big news steve bannon is already back at Breitbart News the headline late tonight reads this, populist hero Steve K Bannon returns home. He could make a strong allie or a very dangerous foe for this white house. A bannon friend says breitbart is ramping up for war against trump, its now a Democrat White House the source says, axios says they told me they would go term mo nuclear against globalists that bannon and his friends believe are moving the administration. He pushed back and told bloomberg, quote, if theres any confusion out there let me clear it up. Im leaving the white house and going to war for trump against his opponents, on capitol hill, in the media and in corporate america. In a report today, late tonight the Weekly Standard says, bannon told them, quote, the Trump Presidency we fought for, and won, over. We still have a huge movement. We will make something of this Trump Presidency. But that presidency is over. It will be something else. Joining me now is nbc news Halle Jackson from the Trump National golf club in bridgewater, new jersey, jonathan swann, we mentioned him a minute ago, hes a National Reporter at axios, they published an explosive interview with bannon earlier this week. Thanks to all of you for being here. Halle, i think everybody right now is trying to interpret the nature of this departure. We know hes back, ban isnt at Breitbart News being greeted as sort of a conquering hero there. Yeah. There are reports now it is war between bannon and this white house, you have bannon saying its war for trump but against the establishment. This war he is talking about. What is it going to look like . He wants to fight. Help wants a battle and there will be, likely, this war i think when you say ago ens the white house, steve, we have as to be specific as to what you are talking about. I think will you see steve bannon fighting for the nationalist agenda he believes he helped put into place and shape when trump then as a candidate a year and a day ago brought steve bannon on board, hes kind of kin tread spirit. There was some patico on campaign policy. I remember that time in the campaign, it was this fire let at then candidate trump, he was already pushing his policies for example on immigration and trade. That exploded at the time. Let me talk about the departure. Multiple forces, i know jonathan has been working on this for days as well has been telling nbc, bannon was telling certain people he believed he would survive this, at the same time was talking to john kelly about resigning, this was two weeks ago, we are told it was set to happen earlier in the week. That got delayed because of the violent that happened in charlesvilcharles charlottesville. The question is not what he does with breitbart, also what happens with the far right conservatives who backed bannon . There werent many, one was steve king. I spoke with him in a phone call up from tanzania. He was extremely concerned. He called eight purge of conservatives from the west wing, language you might see echoed for example on breitbart. He says as he believes he disparagely referred to him as the northeasterner. He has a concern about trump promising the border wall. This might put pressure on kellyanne conway, who he cited as the lathe last remaining conservative. Talk about explosive standards, bannon tonight said this i feel jacked up, now im free. I got my hands back on my weapons, someone said its bannon the barbarian, i am definitely going to crush the opposition. There is no doubt i built a blank machine at breitbart, im about to go back know whack i know and we are about to rev that machine up and rev it up, we will do. Jonathan swann, you have been on the id reporting this thing. That kind of message that steve bannon is delivering, i got some it sounds like he is saying, at least to me, i got some information, i got some material i dpleend in the white house i will maybe take and share with the public f. Are you donald trump, how is donald trump reacting to this . I havent we heard from the president today, but i know that hes been venting about steve bannon a lot recently. Hes been telling people bannon is a leaker. He has been saying, who does the guy think he is . One of the thing that upsets, angered is a better word. Trump was this book by josh green, can bloomberg reporter, which a lot of people close to trump saw as a vanity biography for steve ban. Trump resented the notion that bannon was taking credit for his election victory. So trump has been incredibly irritated with steesh bannon. I can just imagine him reading this piece in Weekly Standard saying the Trump Presidency is over. Its almost Laboratory Test designed to enrage donald trump. If you were going to craft a it would look a lot like that. Your earlier interview with steve bannon, he didnt know, maybe he did. This was in the american prospect bannon openly contradicted the president and chald members of the administration, despite trumps off the touk u talk, bannon said there is no military solution here, they got us. He said theyre wheting themselves, he says i fight every day against gary cohn, despite reports he tendered his resignation august 7th effective today. You sa i the conversation ended with bannon inviting me to the white house after labor by a to continue the discussion. So thats an interesting detail here t. Word we are getting is there was some talk of an imminent bannon resition i ig nation or department cure. You are talking to him after that apparently happened. He is talking to you about hey, come see me in the white house. How do you interpret that now in light of todays events . Well, i intrpt it either that he was dill lugsal or proceeding on two track, track one is he is going to have to leave. Track two is he is going to stay and pursue his trade agenda and hes looking for allies. Now, it was not sound judgment on his part to think that getting bob cutler of the american prospect as an allie on trade would somehow increase his credibility at the Trump White House. So my picture of bannen in that interview was a guy who was reckless, a guy who was at risk of making really poor judgments, but then after denying for 24 hours that he meant this to be on the record, he then spoke to the daily mail of all places and said, no, actually, this was deliberate. He did this deliberately to divert the attention for media in charlottesville. Heres my take away, bannon always had a plan b. And the plan b was to go back to breitbart and he was going to be at the white house as long as that was useful to his agenda. And i do think this escalation of pressure from wall street bart could very well backfire in terms of trumps response. Trump does not like to be pushed around. Whether you lover him or hate him, this is a guy that doesnt like to be upstaged. He doesnt like to be pushed around. He could just as well decide this alliance with the far, far, far right the neonazis, the economic nationalists, you know, it served him for a while, but if bannon is going to leave and if breitbart is going to kick him around, he might make his peace with establishment far right republicans. Well, jonathan, were talk sock much about what this might look like on the outside, if there is a war of words or something here between trump, between the white house and steve bannon and breitbart, what about on the inside, have you this new chief of staff presumably, hes happy to have brannon out of the way, this going to change anything at a practical level inside the white house or not . I think it will, yeah. Because really the factions have been eroded. There really arent, now that bannon is gone and presumably my understanding is his staff will go as well. Not that that is very consequential. But there arent really factions area. You got jared, ivanka, who a basically aligned with the National Security team and the generals. I gles to the extent you have a conservative influence, its really in the Vice President s office and the legislative affairs, led by mark short is fairly conservative. So i do think will you have conservative voices, but its a different type of conservative. I wouldnt describe bannon as a conservative. He was arguing to hire marginal tax rights on the wealthy, economic war with china, family protectionist trade policies, total withdrawal from afghanistan and contractors in a paramilitary operation. So that whole voice disappears, it only resides now in the figure of donald trump. I guess Steven Miller as well who is the remaining nationalist at the top level of the west wing. But i will say Steven Miller is a very good he works within the system, and hes become very close to jared and others. So hes not the Disruptive Force that steve bannon was. Halle, im trying to figure this out, too, you got some provocative words tonight from bannon. As jonathan says maybe these are words that can provoke drunk, on the other hand you have bannon saying i dont want to fight trump, i want to fight the people fighting trump. Its what the conservatives said, we want reagan to be reagan. We dont want his advisers pushing him off his course. What kind of pull possibly would a guy like bannon have with the trump base, if there is some kind of public battle between trump and bannon. Does trump bring an army or do they say forget were with trump . I this i the white house answer to that question is no right. I will tell you one person we posed that question to, listen, its not steve bannon who is Donald Trumps bachlts its donald trump who leads his own base, bannon can leave and rile up folks on the outside, ultimately the president is the president. People voted and went in to press for donald trump, not steve bannon. Ultimately, when you talk to folks close to breitbart, there is a sense they can push some of this nationalist agenda john than laid out. Jonathan is right, while there are people that possess that ideology in the white house, its not that faction you think of. I think back to that picture you showed of the advisers sitting in the oval office with President Trump, Reince Priebus, mike flynn, sean spicer, now steve bannon, all of them gone. Its so different than seven months ago. I would say moving forward, when you look at to your question, where is the pull, where is the push . It is donald trump who is the face of this i will say, too, what you might see, i look to his comments earlier in this week at that press conference at the lobby of trump tower, where he said this phrase, i have we heard repeated back to my by folks close to bannon, which was, we will see what happens with mr. Bannon, its marginalizing Paul Manaforts role, trump said steve bannon came on late and go inthe process of distancing himself from somebody who was very close to the president. Just like Paul Manafort was a campaign chair, steve bannon was sort of right there with the president in the trenches for a long time. You mentioned this, too, im curious about this, too, bannons fingerprints, they seem to be on a lot with Donald Trumpsed a machine strax, with his campaign, including, though, a few areas where donald trump departed from traditional republican or to docks. I think areas where it may help make him popular in those michigan, pennsylvania, rust belt states he picked up, im talking infrastructure spending, a different form of tax cuts, the idea of targeting it down the stail scale, not so much toward the rich, going against traditional republican or to do though dox orthodox. What was going on behind the scenes there . I think that trump believed a lot of these things and campaigning on them. Bannon joined fairly late. I will say few look at the presidency so far, trump withdrew from paris, i dont think it was bannon, i think donald trump wanted to instinctively withdraw from the paris china accord. He is saying i want tariffs. This is in terms of the trade conflicts with china. So bannon was really somebody who donald trump instinctively believed a bunch of things, so did steve bannon. Bannon would tell him. You are doing the right thing,ic him ompblt reenforce him. Now he is been, one fewer voice is doing that. To your earlier point about what breitbart is going to do, my expectation, i know quite a few people and steve bannon pretty well. My expectation is they are not going to attack donald trump. They are going to present it as an administration in the white house captured by the quote unquote west wing democrats. They are going to present a picture to the country and portray it as the globalists taking over our movement and donald trump sort of a victim of. That thats what i expect to be the way they drive this narrative. I dont know that for a fact. But based on my conversations today. These people are fired up to take on bannon just mentioned the media, the corporation and the capitol hill. He didnt mention the people inside the white house hes going to fight. Im telling you right now, he will take on gary cohn, jared kushner. They are going to war against all those people inside the white house. I know, reading the Weekly Standard, he says it will be a jail break of moderates on capitol hill the republican establishment, aiming his scorn at that. Im curious, if that is the direction, what jonathan is describing, if that is the direction, do you think that has any effect . Well, i would revise what jonathan said if one respect. Breitbart has to keep its lines straight. You cant both be kicking the president and then having bannon saying im going to defend the president. I would bet my reputation on the premise that even though bannon is gone from the white house, he is going to have a lot of back channel conversations with trump. He will be less accountable than he was. General kelly cant control him if he could control him before. Trump is famous for having conversations in the middle of the night with old friends. So bannon now has it both ways. He has influence both as an insider friendly with trump and as an outsider. If hes chairman of breitbart and breitbart is kicking the president and hes also trying to have an inside relationship with the president. You can only go so far down that road before trump starts fooil feeling he is flimflam. So i certainly dont think this strengthens the president. I think it strengthens bannon in some respects. I think breitbart my discover it doesnt have quite as much influence that it thinks it has, some small percentage of the electorate that moves to breitbart. By any means, a majority of the elect terror rate, trump is going to have to figure out how to play this game. Is he going to throw in with the neonazis, the white nationalists, is he going to try to mend fences . That will be interesting to see how this plays out. Bannon is interviewed tonight. He says trump will push towards the establishment of the Republican Party. We will see if thats the direction this goes, jonathan cutler, howie swann, great insight tonight and coming up, steve bannon kicking off a week that couldnt have gone much worse for President Trump. He is under siege from key republican leaders, who are questioning his competition, stability and moral authority. Thats ahead, plus, fire, steve bannon wont fix much of what is wrong, we will speak to a longtime trump watcher and how they might fit into a larger pattern and jeb bush famously promised donald trump would be a chaos president. With so much upheaval and so little to show for it legislatively. And fine tale hardball roundtable will be here with three things you might not know tonight. This is hardball. Where the action is. Well, its clear there has been friction between steve bannon and trump. Trump feels his strategist seeks too much credit for his election win. That blanking steve bannon, taking credit for my election, trump recently told a confidante reporting there from buzz feed t. President was reportedly irritated when time featured him. He introduced him as a guy that works for me. He down played his role in the campaign, telling the new york post, you have to remember, he was not involved in my campaign until very late. Im my own strategist. Well be right back. These days families want to be connected 24 7. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. Welcome back to hardball its day two of the presidency with the firing of steve bannon, seems to have capped off what could be the worst week yet for political politically. We said the before. His department cure comes on the heels of trumps controversial comments on charlottesville, which left the president increasingly isolated within leaders of his own party. That sentiment is shared by his friend and confident newt gingrich. I think hes in a position right now where he is much more isolated than he realizes. On the hymn, he has far more people willing to sit to one side and fought help him right now. I think he needs to recognize that hes taken a food first step with bringing in general kelly, but he needs to think about what has not worked and you dont get down to a 35 range of approval and have people in your own Party Shooting at you and conclude everything has gone fine. And today in a stinging review, mitt romney called on trump to apologize for his comments on cha