Steve Bannon says ‘Maga army’ ready, as he reports to prison

Donald Trump’s former high adviser Steve Bannon has advised the BBC he doesn’t concern going to jail or watching the previous president’s 2024 marketing campaign from behind bars.

After being convicted of contempt of Congress, the person who was seen as the ability behind the scenes within the White Home firstly of Trump’s presidential time period in 2017 will report back to a federal jail in Connecticut on Monday.

He’s nonetheless interesting in opposition to his conviction for refusing to look in entrance of the committee of lawmakers investigating the 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. Bannon has claimed that conversations he had with the president that day needs to be protected underneath govt privilege.

However final week the Supreme Court docket dominated he couldn’t delay his sentence till after the attraction was heard, and now Bannon should face his four-month sentence.

“I’ve served my nation now for the final 10 or so years specializing in this,” he mentioned in an interview, referring to politics and the Make America Nice Once more (Maga) motion. “If I’ve to do it in a jail, I do it in a jail – it makes no distinction in any respect.”

He mentioned that he was unconcerned about lacking an important a part of Trump’s marketing campaign, as there’s a “Maga military” prepared to make sure the previous president defeats Joe Biden and returns to the White Home.

“I’m able to go,” he mentioned. “I am all arrange.”

Whereas his effort to delay his sentence failed, Bannon advised the BBC that he meant to broadcast one remaining version of his right-wing TV present and podcast from exterior the jail gates earlier than turning himself into authorities.

After that, his present – described as a “army command centre for Maga” – will stay on the air in his absence. He has organized for different hosts to current the Conflict Room together with all his common contributors.

A former Goldman Sachs banker turned alt-right media determine, Bannon was seen by Democrats because the mind behind not solely Trump’s extraordinary political rise but additionally a few of his most divisive insurance policies.

He shot to nationwide prominence as chief govt of Donald Trump’s profitable 2016 presidential marketing campaign after which turned probably the most highly effective figures in Washington as White Home chief strategist early within the Trump administration.

Seven months into his White Home posting, nonetheless, he was fired and spent a while adrift from Trump’s inside circle.

The difficult facet of Bannon’s persona is that “most commentators alternate between calling him a mastermind and saying that he’s irrelevant”, mentioned Benjamin Teitelbaum, the creator of Conflict for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Proper Circle of International Energy Brokers.

“He’s each extremes directly.”

Within the interim, Bannon seems to have labored his manner again into the Trump fold, and for the final 5 years has hosted the Conflict Room – the place he has continued to again the previous president and his motion.

Bannon’s precise “warfare room” is within the basement of a chic Capitol Hill city home, only a stone’s throw from the US Supreme Court docket.

Each floor is piled excessive with hardback books on politics, finance and conspiracy theories. Stacked on the mantlepiece, amongst assorted spiritual iconography, is a printed quote that Bannon – who sees himself as as a shepherd of the Maga populist agenda – coined: “There are NO conspiracies however there are NO coincidences.”

The large handbook of “Challenge 2025” is positioned in delight of place within the room. The 900-page tome put collectively by the Heritage Basis – a conservative suppose tank – incorporates detailed plans for the way a second Trump administration will remodel the American authorities and the ability of the manager department.

We have been surrounded by the lights, cameras and microphones that Bannon makes use of to broadcast for 4 hours each weekday when he advised me he and his present have performed a significant half in empowering and moblising 1000’s of Trump-supporting activists, who he known as “road fighters”.

Although he won’t be able to steer them from jail, he mentioned that this “Maga military” that “can’t and received’t cease till remaining victory” will simply proceed on its mission.

In any case, he mentioned, the populist Maga motion is bigger than him – and even Donald Trump. In line with him, it doesn’t matter who delivers its message.

Bannon continues to make the false declare that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump – in actuality, courts have thrown out dozens of lawsuits difficult the outcomes and no proof of widespread fraud has emerged.

On election day, 5 November, Bannon mentioned the “Maga military” can be able to deploy throughout the nation, at polling stations and election counts to make sure the previous president’s victory.

These supporters – together with ballot watchers and attorneys – would problem ballots they don’t imagine needs to be awarded to Joe Biden, he mentioned.

Mr Teitelbaum, nonetheless, doubted that Bannon’s personal viewers was “organised sufficient to be deployable in the way in which he describes”.

Assured that Trump will win in November, Bannon was keen to debate what the previous president’s agenda can be as soon as he returns to authorities – and the Conflict Room host leaves jail.

He believes the following Trump White Home will likely be influenced by concepts he has promoted on his present.

Immigration stays a high precedence, Bannon mentioned. He mentioned he was certain that on “day one” Trump would seal the border to “cease the invasion”, after which begin the “mass deportation of 10 to fifteen million unlawful alien invaders”.

The previous president would flip to the economic system after that, he mentioned, and retain the tax cuts from his first time period which have largely benefited rich people and companies. He claimed the Republican would then finish the “ceaselessly wars” in Ukraine and Gaza, although it was unclear how Trump would do that.

Bannon didn’t draw back from discussing how a second Trump administration would goal its political enemies.

Trump has himself mentioned that if reelected, he might have people he feels have wronged him investigated – particularly those that have been concerned within the varied felony proceedings in opposition to him.

Regulation enforcement companies and the army would all be “dropped at account” underneath a future Trump administration, Bannon mentioned, and President Joe Biden would additionally face prosecution.

Whereas he accused the president of “promoting out the nation”, the Republican-controlled oversight committee within the Home of Representatives investigating such allegations has not produced any proof of felony wrongdoing by the president, nor moved to question him.

However, as of now, it’s Bannon who is ready to go to jail. And simply earlier than his departure, he left an ominous warning about any election consequence that didn’t name Trump the victor.

It’s “unattainable”, he advised me, for Joe Biden to win the election in November. And, due to this fact, there isn’t any manner he or his “Maga military” will settle for the consequence if the president is reelected.

As he put it in a current speech at a conservative political convention, he sees the election as a zero-sum sport – and, he advised the revved-up crowd of Trump supporters, it can lead to “victory or loss of life”.

With further reporting by Rebecca Hartmann and Ana Faguy