Why did 75+ news people cram into a Park Avenue hotel room meant for maybe half that number yesterday? Because Steve Bannon was released from a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut, and, ostensibly, we wanted to hear what Donald Trump’s former campaign manager had to say one week before a presidential election that is anybody’s to lose.
Perhaps we just wanted to see the show, which included several dudes on the podium who looked like they had just left prep school—a Tucker Carlson Jr. squad in suits and sneaks—including a guy reporters thought resembled either Sam Bankman-Fried or a younger Charlie Kirk.
“They’re maybe two, three years old,” he said, when someone in the press pool commented on his sweet Jordans. “Anyone want to take a picture?”
Several did, as we waited for the press conference Bannon had called to start. More reporters arrived, leaving several of us pretzeled on the floor.
“I’m getting too old to do this,” said an NBC correspondent who looked younger than 40.
Bannon finally appeared, looking marginally slimmer and wearing only one button-down shirt under a jacket you might wear for duck hunting, and was greeted by a light smattering of applause.
“Thank you everybody for coming,” he said. “The first statement I made from Danbury, I think four weeks ago, was that victory was coming, that you could see the collapse of this kind of phony campaign of the politics of joy.”
Bannon disparaged the “politics of joy” eight times during his 39 minutes of remarks. He would seven times bring up the name of attorney Marc Elias, who filed multiple lawsuits against Trump following the 2020 election and who has now been hired by the Harris campaign. He engaged in the ritual airing of grievances, repeatedly labeling the Biden administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and especially former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as evildoers—accusations that did not quite land. Though Bannon had been in prison only four months for defying a Congressional subpoena investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the exercise felt stale, like asking us to root hard against last season’s Marvel villains.
There was likewise nothing fresh in what Bannon was offering, nor would he be backing down from the idea that Biden’s victory in 2020 was illegitimate.
“The 2020 election was stolen,” he said. “I will never back off that.”
This played well with some in attendance, such as Trump lawyer Mike Davis, who last year said on-air, “We’re gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing….We’re gonna put kids in cages. It’s gonna be glorious,” or Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who told a committee after the August would-be assassination attempt on Trump, “I don’t think [the Secret Service] regarded Trump as a worthy protectee [sic]. They were doing the absolute minimum,” or author Eric Metaxas, who was caught on camera punching someone he said was a protester after Trump’s 2020 Republican National Convention speech.
Others were not so obliging.
“You’re out of prison, and looking back on the last January 6th and the fact that you incited a mob that ended up with police being injured, I just wonder if you reflected on that at all,” asked The Bulwark‘s Tim Miller.
Bannon deflected, saying that former Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t handle it correctly.”
“So, no change,” said Miller.
“No, no, no,” Bannon said. “Absolutely no change.”
NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard picked up the thread. “Four years ago you urged then-President Trump to declare victory on election night when you knew full well that there was going to be a decent chance that we would not know [the results] because ballots had yet to be counted,” Hillyard said. “Have you urged him to do the same thing on this election night?”
“The Democratic party was going to steal the election with illegitimate mail-in ballots,” Bannon retorted.
“They were not illegitimate ballots. They were mail ballots that American voters cast,” interrupted Hillyard, wanting to know whether Bannon would be urging Trump to not accept the election results this time around.
Bannon said a lot of words that can be translated as: Absolutely no change.
In truth, this made me want to smash my head against a rock. There was not going to be any introspection or cosmic relief with the reappearance of one of Trump’s cavalcade of colorful characters, at least not from the characters themselves.
“Steve! Robbie Roadsteamer here!” came a voice from the second row. The man, wearing a red suit and black fright wig, was on his feet and insinuating that he and Bannon had been in Danbury prison together. “And I’m wondering when’s the next insurrection? Can we storm the Burger King after this?”
Bannon nodded at two beefy men near the podium.
“He looks like Yoda with AIDS right now!” Roadsteamer shouted “No political violence!” as he was dragged past Bannon and bumped into two photographers, one and a half of whom landed on top of me.
This might have given the proceedings a bit of a carnival atmosphere—but no, or at least not much. It was all reheated; a demonstration of the public’s lack of enthusiasm for either candidate.
Bannon nattered on. He floated the idea that “Trump could get up to over 300 electoral votes” and expressed a nonsensical desire to “get back to the sunlit uplands of talking about money and control and money” before getting in another jab at Pelosi—a figure who evidently had him plotting on his pillow in the clink.
“Nancy Pelosi thought a federal prison was going to break me. Well, it empowered me,” Bannon said. “So Nancy Pelosi, suck on that.”
One reporter wanted to know: If Vice President Kamala Harris were declared the winner next week, would Bannon “unequivocally condemn political violence?”
“Who believes in political violence? That’s a loaded question,” he answered. “I was just a political prisoner of a regime that put somebody in prison for what has been a civil charge [throughout] the history of the country.”
Bannon continued, “I am proud that I went as a political prisoner to Danbury Prison. I served my country on a Navy destroyer in my 20s and I served my country in a federal prison in my 70s. If you are not prepared to be thrown in prison by this weaponized Justice Department, then you’re not prepared to stand up and fight for your country, and I will never back down from this.”
Light applause.
Bannon closed as he opened—dinging Harris’s “incoherent politics of joy,” and then he left the stage. He had an episode of his podcast The War Room to record. Someone handed him a dozen roses, which he immediately handed back.
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