[Manu Raju, Cnn Anchor:] Looking again at live pictures of the total solar eclipse, a rare event. You can actually see from the United States this in Hailey, Idaho. We'll monitor this of course throughout the course of this afternoon. But now Steve Bannon leaving the White House last week, he promise to keep fighting for his brand of conservatism. Now back at the helm of Breitbart, he told Bloomberg this. "If there's any confusion out there, let me clear it up. I'm leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents, on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America." Those opponents apparently include some of his former colleagues at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Today, Breitbart blamed the National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster for Trump's impromptu, that's too bad comment, on the USS John S. McCain accident. This comes as a lot of questions about what role Steve Bannon is going to play outside of the White House. What do we think is his red line here? Is there something that's going to cause him to go after the White House, a specific issue, or is he just going to go after the people, his enemies that he's created during his time at the White House?
[Julie Hirschfeld Davis; White House Correspondent, The New York Times:] Well, I would expect it to be fairly broad-based. But I do think that Steve Bannon is going to focus a lot on the wall and this issue of border security. And we heard we saw the President tweet earlier this year about maybe we need a good shutdown. And that's going to be an issue this fall, whether or not they choose to go to the mat over border wall funding. I wouldn't be surprised if Steve Bannon got pretty exercised about that from his new perch, uncentered by any of the constraints that he had in the White House which is not totally clear to me that there were that many constraints. But I mean, the fact that he's been in an influential position on the outside to really make a lot of trouble for Donald Trump and frankly for congressional Republicans if he wanted to. I also think tax cuts is something to look at. I mean, he talked openly or somewhat openly about, you know, raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for middle-class tax cut. That's not something that's going to sit well necessarily with Republicans on the Hill and Donald Trump shut it down, but, you know, he's not in the White House anymore.
[Raju:] And just look at some of the people that we expect him to go after based on his own comments and what we know about his personal relationships in the White House. John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Dina Powell, Gary Cohn, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, among the people that the President his advisors may be targets of Steve Bannon. But the President seems to be trying to butter up his former chief strategist saying this on Twitter over the weekend. "Steve Bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at Breitbart News, maybe even better than ever before. Fake news needs the competition." The President saying that on Twitter. What do you expect from Bannon?
[Jonathan Martin, National Political Correspondent, The New York Times:] I think the question, Manu, is Bannon, in some, will going to be eclipsed? There's the fun.
[Raju:] Wow. And there is it. Wow.
[Martin:] Look, I think the question in all seriousness is, you just put up that graphic with the folks in the White House that could be a Bannon's targets. Well, guess what? They're all still there. They have the President's ear. Steve Bannon has Breitbart. Look, that's a weapon that should not be dismissed. But I think that the President's instincts are much more Bannon-like but now there's nothing somebody there to reinforce those instincts. In fact, just the opposite. There'll be more folks there who either reinforce and kind of centrism that his daughter and son-in-law reflect or a more traditional kind of, you know, market-based conservatism that folks like Mike Pence reflect. Another case, is a Bannonism law, right?
[Raju:] And will the President listen to this criticism from Breitbart who is clearly reads in this clips from?
[Jeff Mason, White House Correspondent, Reuters:] I think the President has shown he pays a lot of attention to outside sources. I think that means he speaks to outside advisers. I have no doubt that he will continue to speak to Steve Bannon and Steve Bannon will have his ear. Of course, it's different from being inside the White House. But a lot of those instincts that President Trump have came and were reinforced by Steve Bannon, he's going to reinforce that whether he's at the White House or whether he's out.
[Mj Lee, Cnn National Politics Reporter:] And that story that you showed earlier, the Breitbart story, it was leading the website for most of this morning. I don't know if it still is. And I thought it was interesting. It said, the story said that it showed disrespect for the President and the manipulating the information that was given to him, similar to the decision with Afghanistan. I mean, that is going to be a space to watch, right?
[Raju:] And it's clearly wasting our time right away jumping into that position. Thank you all. Coming up, high-profile viewing event and even special performances all for today's historic eclipse. Singer Bonnie Tyler was on CNN this morning as she prepare to sing her hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart" during the actually total eclipse of the sun. Here's a preview.
[Bonnie Tyler, Singer:] I need you more than ever. And if you only hold me tight, we'll be holding on forever.