Trump is poor theyred as unserious and only semiliterate. And steve bannon accuses the president s son of treason. That is a ridiculous accusation. Fighting back, President Trump says bannon has lost his mind. Plus the president s bigger button insult to kim jongun is raising questions about mr. Trumps judgment. Its a taunting tweet to say he has a larger nuclear button. But its just a fact. And weapon of mass distraction. After the president s big button tweet we talked to about expert on the brain and language about whats really behind President Trumps serial tweeting. This is mtp daily and it starts right now. Good evening. Im chuck todd here in washington. Real nonfiction washington, i swear. Welcome to mtp daily and welcome to a fivealarm Dumpster Fire for the white house. Or should we call it bannons rebellion . The russia investigation blown nope dramatic fashion. Not by the fake news media. Not by the deep state justice department, but by steve bannon. And in response, the president is now trying to destroy bannon. In a new book, bannon is quoted calling the Trump Campaign treasonous, unpatriotic says Jared Kushner and trump jr. Could face Money Laundering charges and no way the president didnt know about the Infamous Trump tower meeting, thought it was getting russian access dirt to incriminate Hillary Clinton. Bannon said he told us the president to his face that his defense of that meeting was insane. And bannon said, using words i cant say on Live Television i dont know if i can even say it on tape delay, and response, President Trump went nuclear today on bannon in ways both jawdropping and laughable and oddly, weirdly predictable as far as this president s concerned. In a statement the president said the following steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When fired he not only lost his job he lost his mind. Steve doesnt represent my base. Hes only in it for himself. Guys, steve bannon was the president s chief political strategist and the Trump Campaigns chief executive. So it is beyond ludicrous to argue he has nothing to do with mr. Trump or his presidency. But the white house made it clear again and again at this afternoons briefing, that statement is their story and theyre just simply going to stick to it. I think the president s statement is extremely clear what his position on mr. Bannon is. Once again i think the president s statement faulty addresses what his position and what his relationship with mr. Bannon is. Once again, i think the president and hit feelings towards mr. Bannon are very clear. Look, these are the president s words. I think theyre very clear. Theres not much to add bekbrond th beyond that. And no Legal Authority either. And of all of the effort that this is a hoax or wouldnt find anything who could have predicted it would have been the guy who runs brbreitbart. Even if you thought this was not treasonous or unpatriotic or bad you know what and i lap to think its all of that, you should have called the fbi immediately. No one in the campaign did contact the fbi about it and bannon recounts a confrontation with the president. The president said to me everybody would take that don jr. Meeting with the russians. I said, everybody would not take that meeting, i said. Im a naval officer. Im not going to take a meeting with russian nationals and do it in a headquarters had you [ muted ] in sane. I guess you can guess the expleti expletive. The chance don junior did not walk these jumos up to his Fathers Office on the 26 floth is zero. Look up jumos. Its there. And this goes through paul manafort, don junior and Jared Kushner. Goes through Deutsche Bank and all the kushner this, its greasy, go right through. Roll those two guys up and say, play me or trade me. Wow. Bring in tonights panel. Carol lee, National Political reporter and Michael Steele and former rnc chairman and Jennifer Palmieri for both the Obama White House and Clinton Campaign and is probably, cant believe shes going to find herself saying things like steve bannon is right. [ laughter ] so much. Never thought how wise steve bannon was . Michael steele all right. Theres a level of absurdity to this, but, wow, its explosive. If you are dealing in the 30 of this country basically believes whatever the president says and whatever breitbart says and now the two parents are arguing, what happens . In large measure, trump has the upper hand relative to the base because they bought into him not bannon. And bannon was in many respects his, trumps muse. Do you think bannon knows this . He does not know that. It was clear theres a separation here, but like every pot you put on the stove and turn the flame underneath it, even if theres no water in it, it can burn some stuff up. Right . And thats whats happening here. All of the stuff inside this administration that has been reported over time, largely dismissed as fake news by the administration has been confirmed or is being confirmed by bannon. How that plays for the base, i think depends how the president comes out. The first today in his retort, a way to hold the base in place. Carol, youve done amgt lot reporting. Back to the trump tower meeting to unpack things. Do you get the sense steve bannon e knows something here . He knows a lot. He was ob usiously was there. Io obviously there in the aftermath as this has come up. Hes score settling. Everyone knows how much he hates Jared Kushner. This is focused on that . Right . In ways obsessed with him and continues to go after him and ivanka and parts of the book he talk, jareds like, what happened to steve . In the white house. And how he just had this kind of change. So, you know and the book, though, as you were saying, fits with this narrative coming out of the white house the first year, and just underscores not just that there was an infighting but things people believe about the president. That hes distracted. Cant focus in meetings and paints a picture of chaos at a level we dont fully understood when all covering it. Its i cant imagine how you feel looking and watching. Well, a couple things occurred to me. One, i wonder how much bannon knows where mueller is going and trying to distance himself. Explain . You mean, like something there . He wants to make sure hes like, hey everybodys about to go down and i have some distance since i didnt join the campaign in august and yada, yada, yada. And said im not getting a lawyer. I dont need to. And hes hes putting hes painting all of these things in a very negative, all of these activities in a really negative light and by distancing himself from that it suggests to everyone i had no part in whatever happened. I see that. I see the president , i think this is probably why the president did a New York Times interview. Right . They probably knew, had a sense this book was coming. It will be bad. Chris ruddy says talk to somebody else. Get ahead of it. He says collusion. You know . However many dozen times. Theres no collusion in the interview. That bob mueller will be fair to me in that interview. A very odd, surprising thing for him to say, and i suspect they had an inkling this book would start getting into this territory and hoped to lay down markers ahead of time, but i think bannon is trying to distance himself. Michael, when we see the immediate pushback on donald trump, and i take your point here. I think the first statement was about keeping the face. Sure. Okay. Lets try to separate bannon here. But it seems as if the other aspect here is the president , this is getting to him. And he is, his tweets are becoming more outrageous. The kim jongun tweet is obviously one that comes to mind with the button and all that craziness. Are members of your party going to say enough is enough at some point . I hope they dornlg. N. This is no way to run a country that should be first and foremost in front of every republican on the hill, particularly in leadership, about that very question. How are we perceived running the country . Because now that you have the house, the white house and the senate, it is all about governing, and what has happened over the last year has been, its been anything but. What you see, i think, through the tweets is an escalation by the president thats more reactionary. Partly because he knows whats coming down the pike. Partly because hes blindsided by certain things and thats a moment for leadership to step in and sort of calm the waters down and get the president focused on the things that they call agenda. Whether its infrastructure or some other things. Even though we no there are big political fights there. Mitch mcconnell especially to sort of move the conversation for the president in a better direction. I want to go to two places here. One is russia and one is that Mitch Mcconnell point. Go with the russia point here. Bannon toys with the idea that if he fires mueller it isnt going to protect him. Theres an idea that says, well, you know, if hes going to do it hes going to do it and maybe it speeds things up to see where this is heading . An odd sort of that idea bannon likes to light things on fire. Yeah. Thats the thing. Bannon if anything, is somebody who just wants to kind of blow things up. Part of this he talks about he wanted to roll out the travel ban on that friday to create the maximum amount of chaos. He wanted chaos. When people were around the white house, whose brilliant idea was this . Why do this on a friday . Screw up airports. Yes the point. Youre like, he embraced the idea. We kept saying he wants to burn it down. Hes a political anihilist. The question. What is his end game . What is this leading to . This is coming out in the separation. More of a divorce than two people fighting. Oh, yeah. Its a divorce. Happening after a series of blows to his political stature, that he would be this kingmaker and hes not. Hes lost these elections. Has that, then this. Then donald trump on his own website, breitbart, leading with the president s statement saying that bannon not only lost his job he lost his mind. And by the way, buried in here is steve bannon for president. That isnt like bannon muses about it. Look, i remember people laughing in 1991 when people floated pat buchan buchanan. Noble quite believed it. Anybody is possible. Anything is possible because donald trump create add space for that to happen. Ban knows that and how he takes advantage is what were seeing play out now. A lot to unpack on the book. Spent most time on bannon and russia. More russia in a minute. Much more on this including the bomb bombshell book and what it means going forward. You dont want to miss my next interview, after this. When i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasnt finding all of these germans in my tree. I decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. The big surprise was were not german at all. 52 of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. So, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. Ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Or a little internet machine . It makes you wonder shouldnt we get our phones and internet from the same company . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. See how much you can save. Choose by the gig or unlimited. Xfinity mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Welcome back. Steve bannon dlived a clear warning to the white house and Michael Wolffs new book fire and fury. Insisting muellers investigation will end quickly and quietly but are in for a storm of epic categories. Much more on the fallout book when we come back in 60 seconds. With the onetwo kick of ro tels diced tomatoes and spicy green chilies. Then, find space for extra parking. Lots and lots of parking. Welcome back. Joining me now is virginia senator mark warner. Of course, the top democrat on the Senate Intelligence committee. Looking into the russia probe. All right, senator let me dive into the bombshell allegation from steve bannon. He called the Infamous Trump tower meeting that included donald trump jr. , treasonous, and unpatriotic. What say you . Well i dont normally agree with steve bannon, and i wouldnt call him a reliable source, but he also said in light of that meeting the trump folks should have gone to the fbi, and on that account i fully agree with him. There was a report over the weekend from the New York Times that said the trump associate mr. Papadopolos, who is offering, knew about the russia i male emails, conveyeo the australian ambassador when they started to appear knew enough to report that information to the fbi. If the australians knew enough, i clearly think Trump Officials should have known enough as well to report that kind of meeting, where that same kind of proffer of dirt on Hillary Clinton, they should have gone to the phish fib, if they were true patriots. You spent a lot of times questioning folks either aware of this meeting or in that meeting. Steve bannon says, also said this the chance that don junior did not walk these jew mumos, a sla word he used, up to the 26th floor is zero. Do you have evidence to support that allegation that everybody in that infamous meeting with donald trump jr. , that one off more of those folks were taken to see donald trump himself . Im not going to talk about what went on in terms of the testimony. Iable going say, though, donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner, Michael Cohen, there are a host of individuals that i believe we need to have back before the committee and if possible in public, where the members themselves get to ask the kind of followup questions that you just asked. So you just feel as if you havent had that kind of access to anybody from that meeting . Listen, we have had, our staff has done a great job doing the first round of questions and im not making comment about what they learned or didnt learn in those interviews, but ive made clear from the outset and i think members on both sides of the aisle, before our investigation is finished, we need to see the principals as members and ask them questions. By were our account, we dont believe you have interviewed steve bannon. Why not . If thats true, why not . And if so, should you . Well, clearly, mr. Bannons comments are going to be subject to, i think, of interest from our committee. Im sure from mr. Mueller. How did he know all of these fax, if theyre true. Again, i dont usually call on steve bannon as a source, but some of his comments are pretty explosive and i think before this is all over, theyre going to have to be proven or disproven. All right. Do you think steve bannon needs to come before your committee . I think that the comments that hes made in this book have to be proven or disproven. All right. That doesnt answer the question. Can that be done without him or do you think he has to be has to be asks some questions . Well follow the facts wherever this leads. The truth is, we have not just mr. Bannons comments, and he made comments about, for example, Deutsche Bank. There have been a series of other entities that raised questions about that. There are a host of individuals and questions. We still have to get answers to. As well as obviously a whole host of items that fall under the criminality bucket when i hope and believe bob mueller is pursuing. And moving to the Opposition Research firm hired by republican donor and major parts of the democratic party. The two principals wrote and oped saying they would like to see the House Committee release their testimony. Your counterpart, the chair of the symbol Senate IntelligenceCommittee Richard Burr indicated hed be willing to have a public hearing with them. Where are we on that . Is that something thats coming soon . I assume he talked with you before he tweeted that . Listen, i think that whether its the folks from gps fusion coming back in a public setting or whether its donald trump jr. Or Jared Kushner or trumps lawyer Michael Cohen or a numbers of our principals, the more we get it out into the public so the American Public can then make their own judgment and i believe confirm the consensus of the Intelligence Community that the russians intervened and intervened with the effort to help trump and hurt clinton, i think the more we can get that into the public, the better off well be. Not just in 2erterms of looking back but making sure were better protected going into the next election psych the. What is this investigation at this point . Is it about russian laundering, steve bannon seems to independents kaindicate. What would you say . What happens in terms of what the russians did and how do we prevent it from happening in the future as well as what did that effort, vening in our election, include ka collusion or collaboration with any particular campaign . What weve seen we know they intervened. We know they used social media in a way unprecedented and seen those Companies Take action. We know we have to better guard our Electoral Systems and will have more recommendations there and we know there have been a host of contacts from the russians to officials in the Trump