Steve Bannon speaks at the Turning Point USA ''People's Convention,'' in Detroit, MichiganDominic Gwinn/ZUMA
Donald Trump confidante and far-right agitator Steve Bannon talks for nearly four hours most days of the week on his show, War Room. But starting Monday, the only people who will be listening to Bannon will be other inmates at a low-security federal prison in Danbury, Conn.
Two years ago, a federal jury found him guilty of contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena related to the investigation into the events of January 6 at the US Capitol. A judge sentenced Bannon to four months in prison. Last week, the Supreme Court finally rejected his last appeal, and Bannon will report to prison on Monday.
In the meantime, he seems to be trying to squeeze in as much talk as he possibly can before he’s silenced for most of the presidential campaign. An unrepentant Bannon has been making the rounds of the same mainstream media he claims to despise. He told Time magazine last week that he feels ready for prison. “I don’t fear this at all… I’m a political prisoner,” Bannon said. “I’m at war with the ruling class of this country… I’ve dedicated my life to this. I don’t have a social life. This is my life.” He added that Americans should not expect him to come out of prison “ripped,” as the 70-year-old pugilist would be toiling away in the library rather than working out.
On Saturday, he spoke with NBC News and doubled down on what sounded to innocent observers like calls for political violence:
When asked what his endgame is, Bannon told NBC News it was “victory or death of this republic.”
“If we don’t win the—first of all, they shred the Constitution. It is the death of the constitutional American republic we know,” he continued.
In an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, which aired Sunday, Bannon declared that Trump was going to win the election “in a landslide. ” He also pushed back on suggestions that he has helped incite political violence with his frequent references to civil war. But when Karl asked him whether he’d accept the results of the 2024 election and also urge his supporters to do the same, Bannon dodged. “Have you asked a Democrat this question, yes or no?” he responded.
“I haven’t seen Democrats storm the Capitol to try to stop an election,” Karl replied. “And by the way, I have no problem asking Democrats if they’re going to respect the election.”
Karl also asked Bannon about Trump’s plans for a second term, and Trump’s “retribution” campaign against his perceived enemies. Warming to the topic, Bannon ticked off several people he believed would be investigated and possibly sent to prison, including Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Among the top agenda items that he said Trump would focus on were “mass deportations,” and “trying to dismantle the administrative state brick by brick.”
Bannon has made many predictions about the MAGA movement’s eventual takeover of the country, but Karl pointed out during his interview that many of Bannon’s favored candidates lost in the last two midterm elections.
“This is a populist nationalist revolution,” Bannon replied. “It’s a process.”
He has no concerns about Trump’s ability to beat Biden, however. “We have 100 percent certainty we can beat Biden and beat him big, take the Senate, and pick up seats in the House,” Bannon insisted.
Even so, Bannon had not been in favor of Trump debating Biden on CNN last week, especially under the terms of the debate that allowed the moderators to cut the mikes when a candidate ran over his allotted time. He also believed that because the debate was so early in the campaign, it would give the Democrats time to swap out Biden for a better candidate, as he’d been predicting they’d do all along. “I didn’t think Biden would be the nominee,” he told Karl.
But he said Trump had, in effect, taken one for the team and participated in the debate for the country, suggesting that the former president had intended to show the world just how much Biden’s mental faculties had declined. Next time, he said, “President Trump should debate who the Democratic Party nominee is,” Bannon said. “It’s not a guy named Joe Biden.”
Bannon also has spoken directly to his supporters who watch his show, preparing them for his time off-air. On Friday, he told them not to send him any letters, which is promised he would not read. Instead, while he is locked up, he urged them to get to work.
“Use your time, husband your resources, and use your time. And your time is not sending me some missive in prison that I’m not going to read. You know why I’m not going to read?” he asked. “Because I’m going to be working. Outside of my job in prison, I’m going to be working the rest of the hours on what? Total and complete victory.”
Bannon will leave prison shortly before the November election.
