Stephen K. Bannon may have been obliged to report to federal prison on Monday, but he wasn’t going to let that get in the way of putting on an eye-catching, fiercely defiant grand finale.
Mr. Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, spent the morning live-casting his popular podcast, “War Room,” from various locations around Danbury, Conn., near the site of the low-security facility where he’ll spend the next months in confinement. Cheered on by flag-waving supporters, members of Congress and other allies, he spent his final hours of liberty repeatedly poking a rhetorical finger in the eye of the Justice Department and the Biden administration.
“I’m a political prisoner,” said Mr. Bannon at a news conference held outside of a church a half-mile away from the federal facility where he surrendered shortly after noon Eastern time. Surrounded by a clutch of supporters holding up signs recommending, among other things, that he be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Mr. Bannon smiled and mugged for television cameras. “I’m proud to go to prison,” he added. “If this is what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden, I’m proud to do it.”
Mr. Bannon lost his last-ditch bid to avoid incarceration on Friday after the Supreme Court denied a request to postpone the sentence while he appealed a jury verdict that found him guilty of contempt for refusing to appear for a deposition before the House committee investigating Jan. 6 and for defying a subpoena for documents from the committee.
As a result, the very public figure will remain out of view — and off the air — until just a few days before the Nov. 5 election; opening his show from a makeshift studio in a hotel on Monday morning, he referred to himself as “federal prisoner 05635-509.”
But the right-wing firebrand insists that swapping his studio mic for a prison job, and his trademark double-stacked collared shirts for government khakis, will have little impact on his podcast, which he claimed, in a high-spirited interview over the weekend, had millions of listeners. In fact, Mr. Bannon claims, it will “only get bigger and more powerful” while he’s in custody.
He has prepared for this moment for months, he said, enlisting a team of nearly 20 guest hosts to continue pumping out the show, which streams its distinctive stew of unvaryingly pro-Trump political patter for four hours a day, Monday through Friday, and for two additional hours on Saturdays.
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, who is known for her belief in conspiracy theories; and Jeffrey Clark, who served in the Justice Department under Mr. Trump and faces criminal charges in Georgia in connection with efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss there. They’ll be responsible for managing the stream of Republican politicians, consultants, media figures, pollsters, policy experts, donors, intellectuals and economists who use “War Room” as a bullhorn aimed directly at what is arguably Mr. Trump’s most loyal and engaged base of support.
Mr. Bannon said it would also feature Peter Navarro, a frequent “War Room” contributor and former trade adviser in the Trump administration, who is set to finish serving his own contempt-of-Congress sentence in prison on July 17.
“The show must go on,” said Jack Posobiec, who will squeeze guest-hosting duties in between episodes of his own popular political podcast, which is carried on Real America’s Voice, the same right-wing streaming platform where “War Room” streams.
He said he would make sure that Mr. Navarro was whisked directly from the low-security prison in Miami, where he’s been since mid-March, to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.
Immediately after Mr. Bannon triumphantly climbed into a black Cadillac Escalade to be driven to the lockup on Monday, Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA, opened his own show, which also streams on Real America’s Voice, with a call to fill Mr. Bannon’s shoes.
“He’s gone,” Mr. Kirk said. “It’s time for us to step up.”
But not everyone is sure that Mr. Bannon’s absence — in the critical final months of the presidential race — won’t leave a mark. Mr. Bannon ran Mr. Trump’s successful 2016 campaign during its final months, and although he has no official role this time, he speaks frequently with Mr. Trump and several of his top advisers about political matters. Most recently, Mr. Bannon said, he and Mr. Trump discussed strategy going into last week’s debate with President Biden.
He’s also a huge celebrity on the right, routinely drawing bigger crowds at events like CPAC or Turning Point USA conferences than most politicians or any news media figure short of Tucker Carlson.
“This is a big political blow,” said Mike Davis, a former congressional aide and lawyer who has become one of Mr. Trump’s top surrogates on legal issues. “Steve Bannon is by far the intellectual leader and the general for the MAGA movement and can’t be replaced.”
Mr. Davis, a frequent guest on “War Room” who has also been tapped to pinch-hit as a host, noted that Mr. Bannon has a nearly unique ability to stir up action from the masses. On Monday, he provided live updates to the show from outside the Supreme Court in anticipation of the long-awaited ruling on presidential immunity.
“I get far more social media activity and donations when I go on Steve’s show than any other platform, including Fox News,” Mr. Davis said.
“It will certainly be a void,” agreed Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist with her own podcast who also has strong ties to Mr. Trump.
The ability of Mr. Bannon to reach the Make America Great Again contingent will be severely limited by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Although the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury is a low-security prison, its rules nonetheless cap phone calls to 15 minutes at a time, with a total limit of 320 minutes of calls per month. Inmates cannot browse the internet, and can send emails and texts only to approved recipients through a fee-based email system that can be monitored by prison officials. Prisoners are also required to perform a prison job, often in facility maintenance or kitchen duty for recent arrivals and short-timers.
Clay Travis, a conservative radio personality who also hosts the popular sports podcast “Outkick,” said that if he were going to prison, he’d be sure to call in to his own show from behind bars. “I’d be getting my team together to figure out whether I could make phone calls to distribute the show,” Mr. Travis said.
Mr. Bannon said he had no such intentions. He compared prison to his regimented years as an officer in the Navy, and said that he intended to use his time there for focused work. He’ll limit phone calls and visits to his lawyers, he added, and is asking his fans not to send him letters of support, which he insists he’ll return unread.
Instead, he said, he’ll focus his free time on 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 work through, among them the King James Bible, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and a history of the Russian Revolution.
Mr. Bannon, a former investment banker and media executive, may also use his time to prepare for his next legal battle. He is under indictment in New York State Court in connection with what prosecutors have said was a scheme to defraud Americans who donated money to construct a wall on the Mexican border. Mr. Bannon was previously charged by federal prosecutors for the same activity, but was pardoned by Mr. Trump and has maintained his innocence.
He’s also been keeping tabs on the ongoing federal trial of Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire and fierce critic of the Chinese government, who was charged with bilking investors of more than $1 billion. Mr. Bannon has held positions in at least two organizations linked to Mr. Guo and was named as a co-conspirator in the case, but has not been indicted.
Mr. Bannon believes that his temporary disappearance from the internet will serve as a motivator to the millions of faithful listeners who routinely make “War Room” one of the country’s most-listened-to political podcasts. And, according to Mr. Posobiec, he’ll get out just in time to help make the final push to Election Day triumph.
“It’s like an epic tale where the wizened leader isn’t able to be there until the final battle,” he said. “It’s going to be very much like the return of Gandalf.”
Michael Forsythe contributed reporting.
