Steve Bannon doesn’t shirk away from interviews by the political opposition; that much is certain. On Sunday—the day before Bannon was to report for a four-month prison term for contempt of Congress—Mr. Bannon appeared on ABC News opposite that network’s Jonathan Karl. The exchange was, shall we say, spirited.
First, Bannon essayed a prediction regarding this fall’s elections:
Former White House chief strategist and longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon said he thinks former President Trump will win this November’s election by a “landslide.”
“We have a 100% certainty we could beat [President Joe] Biden and beat him big and take the Senate and pick up seats in the House,” Bannon said in an interview Sunday with “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Bannon, an architect of Trump’s 2016 campaign who later spent just seven months in the White House, told Karl he talks with Trump “frequently enough.”
Watch:
Given the current polling averages, Bannon may well have a point, although the House and Senate status post-election are much less certain. But the real meat of this interview came when Karl asked Bannon about a second Trump term, about retribution, and about accepting the outcome of elections. That discussion went beyond spirited and became downright contentious. Regarding former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Bannon said:
“He ought to be very worried,” Bannon said. “He’s definitely going to be investigated. So is [former FBI Director James] Comey. So is [former Defense Secretary Mark] Esper. I believe [former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark] Milley will.”
Bannon went on to claim former Attorney General Bill Barr would also be investigated, but he denied that such threats of investigation qualify as retribution.
“It’s not retribution at all. First off — ” he said.
“Those were his words, not my words, ‘I am your retribution,'” Karl pushed back, referring to Trump.
“His retribution is a very successful, more successful second term,” Bannon said. “What we’re saying is we want justice. We want to have full investigations, and then if criminal charges come up, then criminal charges come up.”
Trump has stated himself that he is seeking success, not revenge, and while Karl challenged some of Bannon’s more colorful metaphors – “heads on spikes,” among others – Bannon held fast to his claim that there would be no seeking revenge, only justice.
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The knives came out, of course, during the discussion of accepting the results of this fall’s election, with the inevitable hand-wringing from Karl about January 6.
Despite Bannon’s confidence that Trump will win reelection, he dodged questions from Karl to call on Trump supporters to accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of the outcome.
“Will you appeal right now, message to all of Trump supporters to respect the results?” Karl asked.
“Are you going to pull this again?” Bannon replied.
“Win or lose and — to vow there will be no violence?” Karl pressed.
Bannon went on to ask Karl if he has ever “asked a Democrat this question.”
“I mean, I haven’t seen Democrats storm the Capitol to try to stop an election,” Karl responded.
Bannon said that until it is proven the election is “totally fair,” “all bets are off.”
That’s an interesting statement indeed. While the J6 event can’t be characterized as “storming the Capitol to try to stop an election” – it was, at most, hooliganism, not insurrection, no member of Congress was threatened, and the certification of the election happened; Bannon’s statement that “all bets are off” will be taken by the left as saying that he would support violence if the election doesn’t go Trump’s way.
But he makes an excellent point in noting that the legacy media, of which Jonathan Karl is surely a member, doesn’t ask Democrats these sorts of questions, despite the facts that real insurrections always seem to be carried out by the left – I remind the readers of the CHAZ incident in Seattle, in which a gang of leftist protesters and rioters took over a portion of that city and expelled civil authorities in what may only be defined as an actually (albeit limited in scale) insurrection.
Possible Trump VP Congressman Byron Daniels was representative of those on the right who took to X to ask why there are seemingly different standards for Bannon and, say, Merrick Garland.
This interview is worth watching for the entire 12-plus minutes. Steve Bannon gives a graduate-level class on how not to take crap from a biased legacy media type. His choice of metaphors is in places unfortunate, as he gives the left more rhetorical clubs to beat the Trump campaign with when he uses metaphors like “heads on spikes,” but he did close the doors on a lot of unfounded assertions by Jonathan Karl.
Steve Bannon will be serving his four-month sentence starting Monday. It will be interesting to see what he does once that is over, as his proposed release date is only a matter of days before November’s election.
