close
close

Steve Bannon is out of prison and spreading lies online


Steve Bannon is out of prison and spreading lies online

Steve Bannon was released from federal prison around 3 a.m. Tuesday. Seven hours later he was live on his War room Podcast to “flood the zone with shit” exactly one week before the presidential election.

Flooding the zone with shit is Bannon's oft-quoted description of his media strategy: He hurls so many lies or half-truths into the stratosphere that it becomes impossible to draw a line between fact and fiction.

“I am more energized and focused than I have ever been in my entire life,” Bannon said on the website War room Stream on Rumble, which at one point attracted almost 100,000 live viewers. “Not only did the four months in federal prison not break me, they also gave me strength.”

Bannon, 70, a longtime ally and former strategist of Donald Trump, spent four months in a low-security federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, for contempt after he refused a subpoena as part of the congressional investigation into the January 6 Capitol insurrection. January had resisted.

Bannon has portrayed himself as a martyr — someone who, like the Jan. 6 rioters and like Trump, is being unfairly persecuted by the same tyrannical forces they will face in next week's election.

On air Tuesday and later at a news conference, Bannon repeatedly suggested that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should send him to prison because she wanted to curb his influence.

“If you are not willing to be sent to federal prison as a political prisoner, then you are not worthy of being in this movement,” he said. “You have to understand, they want to put you in prison and they will put you in prison. If you can’t accept that, you don’t know what they represent.”

Bannon's return to the public eye also means the return of a huge mouthpiece to amplify the election fraud conspiracies already raging online. And Bannon got straight to the point, telling his viewers the story of Democrats plotting to rig the 2024 election.

“Every day after November 5 will be Stalingrad,” Bannon said. “If they can’t take it away from Trump, if they can’t cancel it right then and there, they want to at least delegitimize his victory.”

“They will do anything to stop President Trump,” Bannon continued. “That’s the reality.”

A 2023 Brookings study of disinformation in political podcasts identified Bannons War room as the largest spreader of falsehoods and unfounded allegations; About a fifth of all episodes evaluated by researchers contained claims that were flagged as false by debunkers like Snopes and Politifact.

“If the Pelosi apparatus wins, you better be prepared to go to federal prison,” Bannon said. “Because these people have no qualms about using the justice system as a weapon, about using the legal system as a weapon against Americans who have different political views.”

His fans seem happy that he is back. “God bless you Steve, get out the Bannon sledgehammer and start smashing the TRAITORS,” one viewer wrote during Tuesday's livestream.

“Welcome back Steve, we need our leader,” wrote another. “Give us our marching orders and let’s get this done.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *