He didn’t like Pope Francis either. Get a load of this excerpt from the Vanity Fair article about Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein’s very close friendship, which is a real mind-blower:
In November 2018, as Bannon was hatching a plot to export MAGA-flavored nationalism abroad after his success storming Washington with Trump, Epstein suggested he build his campaign around a media company, not an NGO. The latter would afford less privacy and invite more scrutiny. “Press. Private. Protected,” Epstein told Bannon. “Think of it as a battle plan. You have made great strides. Forged ahead. [At] some time you stop and build a fort to protect your gains.”
Within a year, Bannon launched War Room, a live podcast beamed out daily from a basement studio near Capitol Hill. He styled himself as a general barking orders to the shock troops of the MAGA movement. The extent to which Epstein inspired the launch of War Room, which The Washington Post once described as “a far‐right Meet the Press,” is unclear, and Bannon hardly mentions his old friend anymore. The crimes of Epstein—who a medical examiner determined died by suicide as he awaited trial—have been a fixation of Trump’s base for years, yet these days they barely merit a mention on War Room.
One possible reason for that came into focus last year as Trump’s Justice Department, under pressure from Congress, began to dump out millions of documents from their cache of files related to the Epstein case. These documents further illuminated the extent of the friendship between Bannon and Epstein, whose private exchanges are jocular, even affectionate at times.
Epstein sent Bannon caring messages about his health and offered him stays at his properties and trips on his plane. After organizing a flight for Bannon, Epstein joked that he was “the most highly paid travel agent in history,” and added: “Massages. Not included.” In one text from 2018, Bannon actually messaged Epstein, “You up???” In another, he told Epstein that a Fox Business anchor who had him on her show was “so wet” during their interview. When prosecutors upheld Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, the two celebrated: “Dude!!!!!!” Bannon messaged. “Tell me this is real.” They seemed to relish in confiding in each other about Trump’s struggles in office, including in one exchange where Bannon called Trump “stupid” and another where he mocked him as a “stable genius.” Epstein once messaged Bannon, “Now you can understand why trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you and I are friends.”
And yet Bannon remains in very good graces with the MAGA set. In fact, he’s one of their most respected intellectual strategists.
I love this part:
For Bannon, Epstein was a conduit to an international network of elites. For Epstein, Bannon offered insight into Trump, an old friend he remained fascinated by. “They were both using each other,” the source who knows both men explained. “Jeffrey would introduce people together a lot, as a way of making himself useful for his patrons.” (The files also demonstrate that despite Bannon’s frequent diatribes against “the ruling class,” he remains a Barbour-clad member of the cosmopolitan elite himself. This is a man who stays at The Pierre when he visits New York and Le Bristol when he’s in Paris. His quest to spread populist nationalism across the globe was aided by private jet travel. In one exchange, eager to get to Paris from Rome, Bannon asks Epstein: “Is it possible to get your plane here to collect me[?]”)
FFS…
As for the Pope, Bannon and Epstein apparently plotted against Pope Francis:
Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to Trump, told Epstein that he wished to “take down” the leader of the Catholic Church. In June 2019, Bannon wrote to Epstein: “Will take down Francis. The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU – come on brother.”
In the text exchange, Bannon references the book In the Closet of the Vatican, which exposed much of the secrecy and hypocrisy at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. Another text exchange from April 2019 shows Epstein emailing himself “in the closet of the vatican.” He then sent Bannon an article titled “Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics must choose.” Bannon responded: “Easy choice.”
Rome and the Vatican were once a very important priority for Bannon. In 2014, the former Trump adviser established a Rome bureau while he was running the right-wing outlet Breitbart News. He also wanted to set up a “gladiator school” for Judeo-Christian political training near the city. Those plans were blocked by the Italian government in 2021; Bannon reportedly was furious.
Now he’s saying the conclave that elected Pope Leo was rigged. Lol. You can read the whole story of the plot against Francis here. It’s a doozy.
If you get the chance to read the Vanity Fair article it’s a really great distillation of all the evidence that’s come out about the Bannon Epstein friendship. He was talking to him and making plans to hang out all the way up until the day he was arrested in 2019.
And it’s all good in Trump world. No big deal at all.