Bannon’s Back and His Message Is Clear

Steve Bannon resumed his “War Room” conservative podcasts this week within hours after being released from prison. He was convicted two years ago of contempt of Congress for patriotically refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Next week’s impending Presidential Election, not surprisingly, was the primary focus of his first podcast after completing his four-month sentence in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

He told his roughly 60,000 listeners that “everything we’ve fought for for years is coming to fruition.”

He urged his supporters to make certain Democrats “cannot steal the election” as they did in 2020. He started the podcast playing clips of political commentators Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough harshly criticizing Trump.

“Understand something, and this has to be very clear, the Democrats and the radicals you just saw on MSNBC and CNN … they have no intention of giving up power. And this is why it’s so important for this audience; you are the background of this movement.”

He mentioned Trump’s controversial political rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday, in which some of the speakers made controversial statements with racist and sexist overtones, including a performer unknown to Trump who referred to Puerto Rico as “garbage.”

Bannon said the rhetoric was “fantastic” and “amazing.”

Bannon was the second former White House aide to serve a prison sentence after refusing to answer questions from a congressional panel on whether Trump planned to incite the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Lawmakers also wanted to question him about whether Trump was trying to seize control of the government.

Peter Navarro, a former trade advisor, was the first Trump appointee to serve jail time. Three others were censured by Congress.

Bannon claimed that he was immune from prosecution under the executive privilege that protects the president and his staff from liability for their official actions.

Prosecutors argued Bannon could not claim executive privilege because he already left the White House when he was subpoenaed by Congress.

After a judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced him, Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse, “There’s not a prison built or a jail built that’ll ever shut me up.”

Bannon has always contended that he was a “political prisoner” who was enduring reprisal by former Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

He continued his defiance on his podcast when he said, “The four months in federal prison not only didn’t break me, it empowered me. I am more energized and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”

Bannon renewed his attacks on Pelosi when he said, “She sent me to a federal prison as a political prisoner to do two things, to make sure that she tried to tamp down the power of this show, right, tamp down the power of the show, and also to break me. Nancy Pelosi, take out your number two pencil and write this down: this show has never been more powerful.”