tensorflow: "error in tensorflow setup command" error when running building the TensorFlow pip package

System information

• Have I written custom code (as opposed to using a stock example script provided in TensorFlow): No
• OS Platform and Distribution (e.g., Linux Ubuntu 16.04): Ubuntu 14.04
• TensorFlow installed from (source or binary): Source
• TensorFlow version (use command below): TensorFlow commit 70ba44b46bb9e5f5e55b2357676ffa7196b9bda7
• Python version: 2.7
• Bazel version (if compiling from source): 0.7.0
• GCC/Compiler version (if compiling from source): 4.8.4
• CUDA/cuDNN version: CUDA 8.0, cuDNN 6.0
• GPU model and memory: GTX 1080 8 GB
• Exact command to reproduce:

bazel build --config=opt --config=cuda //tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package --config=monolithic
bazel-bin/tensorflow/tools/pip_package/build_pip_package ~/tensorflow_pkg/

Describe the problem

When I try to build TensorFlow at commit 70ba44b46bb9e5f5e55b2357676ffa7196b9bda7 or later, I get the following error after running bazel-bin/tensorflow/tools/pip_package/build_pip_package ~/tensorflow_pkg:

reedwm@reedwm2:~/tensorflow_test$ bazel-bin/tensorflow/tools/pip_package/build_pip_package ~/tensorflow_ec2_pkg/
Tue Nov 21 18:22:34 PST 2017 : === Using tmpdir: /tmp/tmp.m24Ub0Z2z4
~/tensorflow_test/bazel-bin/tensorflow/tools/pip_package/build_pip_package.runfiles ~/tensorflow_test
~/tensorflow_test
/tmp/tmp.m24Ub0Z2z4 ~/tensorflow_test
Tue Nov 21 18:22:35 PST 2017 : === Building wheel
error in tensorflow setup command: 'install_requires' must be a string or list of strings containing valid project/version requirement specifiers

This does not occur on the commit before 70ba44b46bb9e5f5e55b2357676ffa7196b9bda7. When running ./configure, I choose the default option for everything except that I choose to use CUDA.

Note I use --config=monolithic to get around #13243.

/CC @alanhdu @gunan, any ideas what the issue could be?