Stephen K. Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, served a four-month federal prison sentence Monday after hosting the final two hours of his podcast just outside the facility in low security in Danbury, Connecticut.
“We will be as close to the prison as possible,” Mr. Bannon said in a spirited interview this weekend. And when the recording, which he presented as an unsubtle troll aimed at the Justice Department, was over, “I’m going to cross the street and turn myself in.”
He surrendered shortly after noon Eastern time.
Mr Bannon lost on Friday his last attempt to avoid incarcerationafter the Supreme Court rejected a request to defer sentencing while he appealed a jury verdict that found him in contempt of court for ignoring a congressional subpoena. As a result, this very public figure will remain out of sight – and off the air – until just days before the November 5 election.
But the right-wing activist insists that swapping his studio mic for a prison job and his signature double-collared shirts for government khakis will have little impact on his influential podcast “War Room”. In fact, he claims, he will “only grow in importance and power” while he is in detention.
He has been preparing for this moment for months, Mr. Bannon said, recruiting a team of nearly 20 guest hosts to continue airing the show, which has aired its distinctive stew of invariably pro-Trump political chatter for four hours per day, Monday to Friday. , plus two additional hours on Saturday.
That group includes Andrew Giuliani, the son of Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani; Mr. Bannon’s daughter, Maureen; Noor bin Laden, the niece of Osama bin Laden, known for her belief in conspiracy theories; and Jeffrey Clark, who served in the Justice Department under Mr. Trump and is facing criminal charges. charges in Georgia as part of the effort to reverse Mr. Trump’s 2020 election defeat. They will be tasked with managing the flow of Republican politicians, consultants, media figures, pollsters, policy experts, donors, intellectuals and economists who are using the “war room” as a megaphone aimed directly at what is arguably Mr. Trump’s most loyal and engaged base of support.
Mr. Bannon said Peter Navarro, a frequent “War Room” contributor and former trade adviser to the Trump administration, would also participate. about to finish serving his own sentence for contempt of Congress in prison July 17.
“The show must go on,” said Jack Posobiec, who will guest host between episodes of his own popular political podcast.
He interviewed Mr. Bannon, along with Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, on Sunday night. He said he would ensure that Mr. Navarro was deported directly from the low-security prison in Miami, where he has been doing it since mid-Marchin Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.
But not everyone is sure that this absence – in the last critical months of the presidential race – will not leave its mark. Mr. Bannon ran Mr. Trump’s victorious 2016 campaign during its final months and, while he has no official role in this iteration, he speaks frequently with Mr. Trump and several of his top advisers about political questions. Most recently, Mr. Bannon said, he and Mr. Trump discussed strategy ahead of last week’s debate with President Biden.
He is also a huge celebrity on the right, regularly drawing larger crowds at events like CPAC or Turning Point USA than most politicians or any other media figure except Tucker Carlson.
“It’s a political blow,” said Mike Davis, a former congressional aide and lawyer who became one of Mr. Trump’s top surrogates on legal issues. “Steve Bannon is by far the intellectual leader and general of the MAGA movement and cannot be replaced.”
Mr. Davis, a frequent guest on “War Room” who was also tapped to host the show, noted that Mr. Bannon has an almost unique ability to stir mass action. “I get far more social media activity and donations when I’m on Steve’s show than I do on any other platform, including Fox News,” Mr. Davis said.
“It will definitely be a void,” agreed Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has her own podcast and who also has close ties to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bannon’s ability to join the Make America Great Again contingent will be severely limited by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Although Danbury Federal Correctional Institution is a low-security prison, its rules nevertheless limit phone calls to 15 minutes at a time, with a total limit of 320 minutes of calls per month. Inmates are not allowed to access the Internet and can send emails and text messages only to approved recipients through a paid messaging system that can be monitored by prison officials. Inmates are also required to perform prison work, often maintaining facilities or cooking for new arrivals and short-term workers.
Clay Travis, a conservative radio host who also has a popular sports podcast, said that if he were to be imprisoned, he would be sure to call his own show from behind bars. “I would get my team together and see if I could make some phone calls to distribute the show,” Mr. Travis said.
Mr. Bannon said he had no such intentions. He compared prison to his regimental years as an officer in the navy and intends to use his time there for focused work. He will limit phone calls and visits to his lawyers, he said, and asks his fans not to send him letters of support, which he insists on returning unread.
Instead, he said he would spend his free time sending emails about the campaign to key people (he wouldn’t say who is on his approved list). He also plans to catch up on his reading: he has ordered five books to read, including the King James Bible, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and a history of the Russian Revolution.
He believes its temporary disappearance will serve as a boost to the millions of loyal listeners who regularly make “War Room” one of the most listened-to political podcasts in the country. And, Posobiec says, it will be released just in time to help deliver a victory on Election Day.
“It’s like an epic tale where the leader of the dead can’t be present until the final battle,” he said. “It will be a lot like Gandalf Returns. »
