The White House issued an official statement from the president of the United States on Wednesday blasting former chief strategist Stephen Bannon after his criticisms surfaced in excerpts from a new White House tell-all by Michael Wolff. "Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency," Trump said of his former campaign CEO in the statement. "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."

In quotes published Wednesday (you can read seven of the most eye-popping here), Bannon called a meeting between Trump's campaign aides and a Russian lawyer "treasonous" and claimed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is "all about money laundering." Bannon has nevertheless maintained that since being fired, he is Trump's "wing man outside" the White House.

Trump added that "now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look" and blamed his former campaign CEO for the recent loss of an Alabama Senate seat to a Democrat. Read the full statement below. Jeva Lange

Special Counsel Robert Mueller could wrap up his report any day now. Just ask a group of reporters who've been sitting outside his office for months.

As an investigation into possible connections between President Trump's campaign and Russian election interference waged on, journalists — namely the so-called #CNNStakeout team — have kept an eye on the secretive man at its helm. While they haven't reported any collusion conclusions, they've practically mapped out Mueller's daily schedule — and in the last few days, it's seemingly been out of whack.

Things started looking fishy last week when Andrew Weissmann, a top member of the Mueller squad, was reported to be headed to a new job. Weissmann even showed up wearing a tan suit, of all things, on Tuesday, while Mueller himself seemed to be dressing more casually, CNN's Evan Pérez said. The obsessive coverage ratcheted up even further on Thursday, when CNN brought an extra-large media crew to Mueller's door, per CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, and caught something big: Mueller didn't leave his office for lunch, as he usually does.

While reporters continued to gasp over those implications, CNN's Katelyn Polatz had a few more conclusive signs that something was afoot.

Even bigger news came on Friday: Mueller didn't seem to be in the office at all. Stay tuned to the stakeout feed to see if that means everything — or nothing at all. Kathryn Krawczyk

Roseanne who? ABC's Roseanne spinoff, which excises the original series' main character, will return for another season.

ABC gave The Conners a second season order on Friday, per The Hollywood Reporter, with this coming two months after its most recent episode. The next season will reportedly be about as long as the first, which consisted of 11 episodes, and John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson, and Ames McNamara will all return.

The Conners was ordered if the aftermath of ABC axing the hit Roseanne reboot due to a racist tweet sent by Roseanne Barr comparing former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett to an ape. The show was canceled mere hours later. Barr has since insisted her tweet was misinterpreted and that she didn't know Jarrett was black when she sent it, as she declared in a stunning July video in which she shouts expletives at the camera.

ABC after Roseanne's cancellation worked out a deal for a spinoff that Barr would not star in or have any financial ties to; in its first episode, which premiered in October, it's revealed that Barr's character died of a drug overdose off screen. Barr recently told The Washington Post that Gilbert, who also produces the series and denounced Barr's tweet, "destroyed the show and my life," and in a recent stand-up set, she raged against ABC as a "low-rated network" network that she had to "bail out," Fox News reports.

The Conners has been a ratings success for ABC, though not quite the hit that Roseanne was; the season finale scored 7.7 million viewers, compared to 10.5 million for the Roseanne finale. Still, the Reporter notes it was the No. 1 new comedy of the season. Brendan Morrow

President Trump appeared on Fox Business on Friday, and seemed to have a lot on his mind. Here are 4 of the most dubious things he told host Maria Bartiromo.

1. He's uniting the country. Well, part of it: Bartiromo asked if Trump feels a sense of "responsibility" to "bring the nation together." Trump confusingly said "I do, I do," but said he is doing it in "a certain way." "I can tell you that a big portion of this nation is united like it's never been united before," he said, per CNN.

2. No one will believe the Mueller report: Trump suggested Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Mueller have no credibility because both men "didn't get any votes." He suggested Mueller's eventual conclusion on the Trump campaign's potential involvement with Russian election interference will be seen as illegitimate, especially if it threatens his presidency. "People will not stand for it," he said, per The Hill.

3. He didn't start the McCain drama: Trump bristled when Bartiromo asked about his latest attacks on the late senator John McCain, claiming he didn't start the latest cycle of the feud. Since McCain is obviously not to blame for this week's drama, Trump pinned it on members of the media like Bartiromo, calling her "fake news." "You shouldn't have brought that up," he fumed, per Mediaite, though she pointed out she was only asking because of Trump's unprompted tweet condemning McCain.

4. The economy is not slowing: "The world is slowing, but we're not slowing," Trump insisted, simultaneously blaming the Federal Reserve for keeping growth below 4 percent last year. The U.S. economy grew last year, but at a slowing rate, reports The Washington Post. Trump said he "hope[s]" he didn't influence the Fed's decision to halt rate hikes this year, "but it doesn't matter, I don't care if I influenced them or not."

Watch the interview below, via Fox Business. Summer Meza

Two 2020 Democrats may have just scored — literally — the most crucial endorsement of the race: they've got the backing of Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope.

This, at least, is according to Amy Poehler, who on Thursday speculated about which Democrats running for president might receive the support of her beloved sitcom character. The first person to come to mind was Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who Poehler called a "Midwest candidate."

Poehler also agreed with the interviewer that Knope might support South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, whose "underdog status" Poehler said her character would like, although neither of them could actually remember his name; Poehler seemed to think it was "Paul." Buttigieg had the best response, tweeting, "Wait till she realizes she's talking about the Indiana Parks and Recreation Association’s 2018 Elected Official of the Year..."

Weirdly, a name that didn't come up at all was former Vice President Joe Biden, even though Leslie Knope famously had an almost unhealthy obsession with him on the show. Biden even had a cameo in a scene where Leslie meets him and nearly passes out due to excitement. Maybe Poehler didn't count him since he's not officially in the race yet — or perhaps Leslie has discovered some horrifying secret about Biden's waffle opinions. Brendan Morrow

A nine-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen says she was "scared" and "completely by myself" while being detained at the border for more than 30 hours.

Thelma Galaxia told NBC San Diego that her two children, 9-year-old Julia Isabel Amparo Medina and 14-year-old Oscar Amparo Medina, were on Monday being driven to school from Tijuana to San Diego by her friend, who told them to walk across the border after being worried that heavy traffic would make them late to school.

But the children were reportedly then detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and not reunited with their mother for more than 30 hours. Galaxia says officers told her daughter she didn't look like her passport picture, which was taken when she was younger. They reportedly accused her of lying about her identity and told her she would be released to her mother if she told them she was really her cousin.

Galaxia also says officers made her son sign a document identifying his sister as his cousin. "He was told that he would be taken to jail and they were going to charge him for human trafficking and sex trafficking," she said. The two were finally released when Galaxia called the Mexican consulate after being informed her children had been detained.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told NBC San Diego that the young girl gave them "inconsistent info" and that they detained her so they could "perform due diligence in confirming her identity and citizenship," but they did not explain why this took more than a full day. Read more at NBC San Diego. Brendan Morrow

President Trump is closing out his workweek with — you guessed it — another attack on late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Trump in an interview with Fox Business that aired Friday was asked by host Maria Bartiromo about his recent attacks on the Arizona senator, who died of brain cancer last year. "John McCain is dead," Bartiromo said. "Why are you doing this?" Trump used this as an opportunity to tear into McCain once again, saying he gave Christopher Steele's Russia dossier to the FBI for "very evil purposes" and that he "was horrible" for his vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act.

"I'm not a fan," Trump said of McCain.

Trump also insisted, though, that he's not the one bringing up the subject of McCain, saying, "I don't talk about it. People ask me the question. ... You people bring it up. I don't bring it up."

This is despite the fact that Trump originally began attacking McCain on Twitter, going after him in a tweet on Saturday and then again on Sunday, also retweeting a follower who said, "We hated McCain." This is what prompted questions from reporters. Trump also brought up McCain on his own during a speech on Wednesday, during which he went on an anti-McCain rant for several minutes.

Even if Trump were only talking about McCain when asked, though, he could always simply decline to answer these questions, a fact Trump acknowledged during this Friday interview. "I could say 'no comment,'" he said, "but that's not me." Watch Trump's latest exchange about McCain below. Brendan Morrow