ACOSTA: Yeah, that's not quite the case, Anderson. I talked to a source close to the campaign earlier today who said Bannon has been going around telling friends that he and the president have been speaking time to time, and that these conversations have been happening as recently as in the last few months.

I talked to a second campaign source in the last hour or so who confirmed the president and Bannon did speak, this source described, as weeks ago. But the conversation only lasted a few minutes. So, the president and his former chief strategist have been in contact with one another, Anderson. And, so I do think that contradicts what the president said yesterday, when he said, "I haven't been dealing with Steve Bannon for a long time."

Now, the two men did have a falling out, you'll recall, in August 2017 after Charlottesville, Bannon was shown the door at the White House, he was seen as too close to the white nationalist movement. But they've been able to repair that relationship, it appears, over the last couple of years. And just recently, as you know, the president was telling Fox News in July, he appreciated some of the supportive words he's been hearing from Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon's been hosting a pro-Trump podcast for several months now. It does appear to be the case these two men have been talking to one another. The source who confirmed this to me earlier, they said that the two men have sort of a kinship, was the word that was used to describe their relationship, a kinship because of a shared ideology of nationalist populism. In the words of this source, Bannon has the ideology and Trump is the vessel.