He took the MAGA faithful for a ride, stole their money and made them look like fools. And they love him for it:
Steve Bannon has a new MAGA megaphone, and Republicans eager to shine in a party still tethered to former President Donald Trump know it.
Bannon, the former Breitbart News executive and one of the architects of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, has increasingly leveraged his “War Room: Pandemic” podcast into a kind of proxy primary. Ambitious Republicans are flocking there for the chance to demonstrate loyalty to Bannon’s former boss and pitch themselves to Trump’s voters — and, more indirectly, to Trump himself.
With Fox News losing favor among Trump’s most diehard fans, “War Room” appears to be gaining steam as a safe space for the far right. It’s routinely among the most popular podcasts on Apple’s platform and streams live twice each weekday and once every Saturday through the Real America’s Voice network.
On this show, Joe Biden is not the real president, and the theory that Covid-19 leaked from a Wuhan, China, lab has been a hot topic for more than a year. Bannon encourages skepticism about vaccines one minute and peddles zinc and Vitamin D pills the next.
In an interview with NBC News, Bannon said candidates who appear will be pushed first and foremost on what he called “a litmus test” for the GOP: challenging the outcome of the 2020 election.
“So Nov. 3 is not going to go away,” Bannon said. “There will not be a Republican that wins a primary for 2022 — not one — that doesn’t take the pledge to get to the bottom of Nov. 3.”
YouTube has banned Bannon’s podcast channel, citing concerns about the spread of false claims about election fraud. Nevertheless, Bannon has had little trouble booking guests, from MAGA celebrities such as the MyPillow creator to veteran lawmakers and candidates. They’re often reaching out to him, Bannon said, aware if they want to reach the Trump base, it’s a must-visit.
“We pride ourselves on being the most populist, most economic nationalist wing of this movement,” Bannon said.
The podcast is a home for the most ardent Trump backers. Bannon said he’s jokingly told some, “We’re with the dead-enders now,” a reference to those who believe what Democrats and some Republicans term “the big lie” — that the election was stolen.
“And we pride ourselves on that,” he said, making no secret that he views the last election similarly. “I think politicians see that need to reach that audience.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., dropped by this month as she worked to unseat Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., as chair of the House Republican Conference. Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governor who resigned over a sexual misconduct allegation and is now running for Senate, is a frequent guest. And Bannon has taken a particular interest in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two states where next year’s primaries for governor and Senate are shaping up as big Trump loyalty tests.
The show, which debuted ahead of the first of Trump’s two impeachments and refocused last year during the coronavirus outbreak, speaks to Bannon’s sustained influence among the Trump faithful — though the relationship between him and the former president has not been without its stumbles. Trump pushed Bannon out of his chief White House strategist post in 2017 and later dubbed him “Sloppy Steve” but pardoned him from wire fraud and money laundering charges in the final hours of his presidency.
Jason Miller, a Trump adviser who co-hosted with Bannon in the show’s early days, compared his sway to the late Rush Limbaugh, who helped grow the conservative movement in the 1990s. Miller said the former president — often referred to as an “audience of one” for those who wish to please him on TV and radio — is familiar with “War Room.”
“We present him with clips,” Miller said of Trump. “I frequently update him on who’s on the show and who’s doing what.” The former president, he added, “definitely has an appreciation for the work that Bannon and the show are doing.”
Some of the GOP’s most polarizing figures are frequent guests. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., continues to appear amid a federal sex trafficking investigation that is in part focused on whether he had a sexual relationship with a minor. (Gaetz has not been charged with a crime and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.) A day after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., condemned her for equating pandemic safety measures with the Holocaust, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., returned to the “War Room” for a sympathetic ear.
Mike Lindell, the MAGA-famous conspiracy theorist and businessman whose MyPillow products Bannon advertises, is another regular. After Lindell told Bannon on air last week that he planned to confront Govs. Doug Ducey of Arizona and Brian Kemp of Georgia over their acceptance of Biden’s victory in their states, the Republican Governors Association barred him from entering a members-only event.
Along with the election, cancel culture comes up often. So does critical race theory, the academic term meant to recognize how systemic racism is inherent in American life. Republicans have made it a catchall for anti-racism and anti-diversity lessons they don’t want taught in schools — and a new front in the GOP culture wars.
Republicans don’t care if they are marks. All they care about is being told the bedtime stories that make them feel good about being hateful and mean and convince them that the vast majority of Americans (except the bad you-know-whats) agree with them. They yearn to be subjects. They love to be lied to.