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SAVIDGE: Good morning, nice to see you. I'm Martin Savidge in for Fredricka Whitfield. Donald Trump may be courting battle ground voters this weekend, but Trump already may be looking past The White House and on to the possibility of building a media empire. Well, it's an idea that at least some say may be gaining steam. The Atlantic writes, "What if Tuesday, November 8th marks not an end for Donald Trump and associates, but the beginning of phase two in launching an effort of some kind of media juggernaut that challenges Fox News for supremacy on the right across all platforms." And this from an op-ed in the LA Times that is saying, "Trump has therefore recruited Ailes and Bannon to lay the groundwork for his backup plan. A new career as a right wing media personality." This is fascinating stuff. So, let's talk about this with historian and professor at Princeton University and co-author at L.A. Times, Op-Ed, Julian Zelizer, plus CNN Senior Media Correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources" Brian Stelter, and senior political analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein. Julian, let me start with you. How feasible is this? Because it just -- when I read this, it was like, holy cow. Do you see this as a real end game for Donald Trump?</s>JULIAN ZELIZER, HISTORIAN & PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Well, I'm not sure it's all planned out, but I'm sure it's in the works. This is a response to his bringing on an executive from Breitbart News. It's a response to the fact he comes from the world of the media through his reality show, and he has crafted a campaign that resolves around the media, and he is in a difficult position in terms of the election. And we really do believe that if he loses, this would be a very viable path forward. How he does it, we don't know, a TV station and online presence, but this would be a natural way to continue with the political campaigning that he seems to enjoy.</s>SAVIDGE: Ron, are we planting a seed here or when you look at who is currently running the Trump campaign, ex Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, Breitbart News chief, Steve Bannon, does this possibility make more sense?</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it does. I mean, it's a reminder to me how much Trump and Trumpism is a reflection of a civil war and a shift in the balance of power inside the Republican Party. You can go down a long list of issues on which he's reversing decades in some cases of Republican priorities on global engagement, on trade, on entitlements, and I think it is also a reminder his base is the media. There are very few elected officials in the Republican Party who kind of sign on to the full range of Trumpism as it's defined. Its core support, its core institutional support are media institutions in the conservative coalition. And so I think it could be very logical and very ominous for a Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan if Donald Trump is not elected president. That the fusion with Breitbart would continue and become the institutional voice in the Republican Party for this set of ideas which guarantees conflict with their existing power base. For example, the Chamber of Commerce, how would the Chamber of Commerce react to a Trump Republican Party after this election that is a very open question?</s>SAVIDGE: And the reason this sort of struck me with an aha moment was the fact that I've been out on the campaign trail and spoken to a lot of Trump supporters, if he does not win, of course, you've got this huge d dissatisfied audience and these are the people he could immediately appeal to. Brian, you know, if this is indeed Trump's plan, it's one thing to talk about it, but starting a network from the ground up, that's incredibly difficult thing to do.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: It's getting harder and harder every single year. Cable operators the people deliver CNN in to their home right now. They don't want new channels. They are actually trying to get rid of small channels. It would be hard for Trump to get on cable. It would be hard for him to launch a Netflix style streaming service. Sarah Palin tried that a couple of years ago and it folded within a year. But even the CEO of the company that ran Palin's streaming service said he believes Trump could be incredibly successful doing this, raising $5 or $10 a month from Trump supporters and creating an online channel. It would be difficult, but it is feasible. Both "Vanity Fair" and "The New York Times" have reported that yes, Trump advisors have at least informally looked into the idea of some sort of media investment. I think this all gets to the broader question of what does Trump do if he loses, where does he go? I don't think anybody expects him to just go quietly into the night the way Al Gore or John McCain did after they lost. So what does he do and how does he empower his supporters?</s>SAVIDGE: This is another reason why this seems to make some sense.</s>BROWNSTEIN: I think it's a very interesting point Brian makes because there is no question there is an audience in the Republican coalition for the set of views that Donald Trump has put forward. He's demonstrated there is a big piece of the Republican coalition response to this mix of anti-immigrant, anti-global and really pro entitlement. It's that older white blue collar coalition. There is very little institutional support. There are very few elected officials that will be advocating Trumpism after Trump if he loses. Not only could this be a media play in the sense of making money. I mean, this could be the kind of the corner stone of an effort to continually shift the party in that direction and speak to those voters. It's not clear what other institutions in the Republican Party other than a few hosts on Fox would continue to raise the Trump torch after the election --</s>STELTER: So you're saying Trump 2020 would start --</s>ZELIZER: Trump comes to this with a lot of expertise in the media. She did not have that. So he knows how this institution works. He is very good at it. Say what you will about the rest of his campaign, he has proven himself to be effective. He would be going into some kind of operation like this with a lot of knowledge and savvy.</s>SAVIDGE: Right. I believe, you know, who would fear this most is Paul Ryan and the establishment Republican Party. They're the ones who would have the most difficult time with this.</s>STELTER: Just wonder just to be devil's advocate here for one moment. Marty, you and I have great jobs on cable news. Does Donald Trump want to be a television host if he loses the election? It might fell kind of small. I'm throwing it out there.</s>SAVIDGE: I suppose he is the head of the network, but it's not like he's the entire voice all the time. I presume he'll hire people who are like minded --</s>STELTER: Sean Hannity.</s>SAVIDGE: -- and he spreads a message through surrogates.</s>BROWNSTEIN: To Julian's point real quick, if Donald Trump loses this election, he will have lost this election and kind of the mix of views that he has put forward will have shown to be short of a majority of the country. So think of this from the point of view of the Republican Party after an election potentially in which Trumpism falls way short. You could then have a voice continually pushing the party in that direction after its electoral limits had just been demonstrated. That is a very kind of ominous prospect. But again, one that speaks to portion of their coalition will make it harder together manage that aftermath if in fact Donald Trump loses and this is the way he responds.</s>SAVIDGE: You know, Brian, we were talking about the problem of getting on cable. This is actually getting on the internet. On top of this with Breitbart, he's already got a multiplatform bed so to speak.</s>STELTER: Yes, that's absolutely true. Certainly if Donald Trump wanted to launch a Facebook live channel today he could do it tonight over at Trump Tower, he'd have millions of viewers on his channel. He wouldn't make a lot of money off of it, but he would have influence from it. It comes down to what does he want? If he does not win the election, does he care more about making a profit or having political power? Does he want to think ahead towards 2020 or 2024? The choices he makes after November 8th if he losses will tell us a lot about what he wants in the years to come.</s>ZELIZER: Look what he's done with Twitter. He's used Twitter to build a whole campaign around it. So we shouldn't under estimate the way he can see opportunity in parts of the media that are not being fully exploited.</s>STELTER: This is all only if he does lose. We'll see.</s>SAVIDGE: Right. Right. We'll see. Brian Stelter, thank you very much. Julian Zelizer and Ron Brownstein, great conversation. Talk to you again, thanks. Still ahead, the International Olympic Committee now setting up a disciplinary commission to investigate Ryan Lochte and his three other teammates following that controversy in Rio. What one of the swimmers is now revealing about what happened. It's pretty interesting. Stay here.