Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has spent nearly two years promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and Democratic presidential primary candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his War Room podcast in a mutually beneficial relationship that could have disastrous public health consequences for the country and the world.
Both men have used their substantial platforms to spread incorrect information about vaccines and COVID-19, which could now reach an even wider audience given Kennedy’s longshot campaign.
Bannon reportedly encouraged Kennedy to run against President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party primary, believing he could be “both a useful chaos agent in [the] 2024 race and a big name who could help stoke anti-vax sentiment around the country,” according to CBS’ Robert Costa. Other right-wing pundits have similarly exploited Kennedy’s run as an attempt to undermine Biden’s support among Democrats with the aim of weakening him in the general election.
Costa’s reporting aligns with Bannon’s public support of Kennedy on War Room. Since July 2021, Bannon has interviewed and provided a platform for Kennedy, his publisher, and colleagues involved in his anti-vaccine work. In addition, Bannon has repeatedly hyped Kennedy’s book, a discredited diatribe against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the face of the United States’ effort to mitigate the risks of COVID-19. Even the magazine of the Trump-aligned Claremont Institute concluded that “Kennedy’s book has all the objectivity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Even relative to other right-wing media, Bannon’s podcast is a hotbed of conspiracy theories, many of which relate directly to COVID-19 and vaccines. He frequently pushes junk science from discredited charlatans like Naomi Wolf, has celebrated efforts to disrupt vaccine distribution, and claimed the pandemic was everything from a way to eradicate religion to a form of global war deliberately unleashed by China.
Given this feverish and paranoid atmosphere, it’s not surprising that Bannon amplified Kennedy’s longstanding efforts to discredit safe and effective vaccines, including those that protect against COVID-19, and has now latched onto his nascent campaign. Both are ecumenical and opportunistic in their conspiracism, including pushing QAnon messages and influencers.
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n July 24, 2021, Bannon interviewed Kennedy twice over the course of two hour-long shows. Although Kennedy’s The Real Anthony Fauci wouldn’t be released for months, Bannon was already hyping it. Tony Lyons, the book’s publisher, would make frequent appearances on War Room in the coming months.
Bannon mentioned the book and disparagingly referenced a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that listed Kennedy as one of the 12 biggest spreaders of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
“When you make your speeches, do your analysis, you’ve got your center, you put out information, you put out reports — do you think that you’re adding to, or your focus is on digital hate?” Bannon asked. “Does that concept apply to any of the work that you’re doing?”
“Not only does it not have anything to do with digital hate, it has to do — we don’t put out any misinformation,” Kennedy responded.
Sound difficulties forced Bannon to cut the interview short and return to it during the following hour’s broadcast. In reintroducing Kennedy, Bannon again promoted the upcoming book, referring to it as something “I know our audience is going to want to pile into.” The interview lasted for roughly half of that episode.
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In the lead-up to 2023, Bannon’s War Room had helped lay the groundwork for an old school ratfucking. The next step would be gassing up a spoiler candidate to serve as a “chaos agent.”
Kennedy filed his statement of candidacy on April 5. Bannon and his guests immediately began framing Kennedy as a fellow traveler who shared their same enemies, even if not all of their exact policies.
On April 10, days before Kennedy’s official launch announcement on April 19, Bannon and Wolf discussed the opposition he would face from the Democratic National Committee.
“Any campaign that made a crusade of Wuhan lab, Tony Fauci, the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, and the vax and everything about vaccines, right, all the science and logic of it, would be something that would help the American people. Do you agree with me on that?” Bannon asked. “And look, he’s a very progressive, liberal Democrat and I’m a right-wing populist, but something like that would help the country just basically sort through these issues that have come up so big over the last couple of years, ma’am?”
“Yeah, I’m actually scared to answer that publicly because when you like him, the entire legacy media gets angry at both of you,” Wolf replied.
After outlining how great a Kennedy challenge would be for Democrats, Wolf painted him as a victim of the party’s structures.
“I am not at all persuaded that the DNC, which I see as a group of criminals at this point, are going to let any challenger who’s not wholly owned by the DNC, and wholly owned by whoever owns the DNC, bring up those issues,” Wolf said. “I think there’s going to be a massive mobilization against a campaign like his, and a campaign like Marianne Williamson’s.”
Two days later, Bannon devoted an entire episode to discussing a speech Kennedy had just made at Hillsdale College, interspersing long clips of his remarks with obsequious praise.
Then on April 24, Bannon escalated his rhetoric, arguing that if failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake wasn’t available to be Trump’s future running mate, that Kennedy would make a great choice.
“Somebody asked about Robert F. Kennedy, and the great speech at Hillsdale, and his opening speech, and what did I think about his prospects,” Bannon said, describing a recent public appearance he’d made. “I said, ‘Look, I’m a Kari Lake person, but if Kari Lake becomes governor, as she should, with this court case, or if not, if she runs for the Senate — if she’s not available to be Trump’s VP, that Bobby Kennedy would be, I think, would be an excellent choice for President Trump to consider.’ It was a standing ovation.”
He reiterated the point the following day on Charlie Kirk’s podcast.
“I see a very compelling reason — although I know Bobby Kennedy is terrible on guns, he ain’t great on Ukraine — but he talks about going after the administrative deep state in a very significant way, led by the pharmaceutical industry,” Bannon said. “If we put together a unity ticket of Trump and Kennedy, it would be insurmountable.”
There’s more, a lot more. Useful idiots are always a little bit depressing but this one is especially sad. The man clearly has big problems and these people are having a lot of fun exploiting them.
