\n<\/p>\n
The adult-education<\/span> program at Federal Correctional Institution Danbury needed a civics teacher. Conveniently, a new prisoner with a history of intimate involvement in American politics\u2014inmate No. 05635-509\u2014needed a work assignment. And that is how Steve Bannon, the man who stood accused of helping orchestrate an effort to undermine American democracy and to overturn a presidential election, found himself on the federal payroll making 25 cents an hour teaching civics to fellow convicts.<\/p>\n Bannon\u2019s class met up to five days a week, with as many as 50 inmates showing up for the sessions. Whether that impressive attendance had more to do with Bannon\u2019s lectures or the sweltering summer heat is anyone\u2019s guess\u2014the classes were held in one of the only buildings at Danbury with air-conditioning. In class, he taught the story of the American founding, referencing both The Federalist Papers<\/em> and the writings of the anti-Federalists who believed that the Constitution gave the federal government too much power. His lesson plans described how the growth of what Bannon calls the administrative state betrayed America\u2019s founding principles. After one class on the evils of the Federal Reserve and the national debt, Bannon says one of his convict students raised his hand to ask, \u201cAnd they say we\u2019re the criminals?\u201d<\/p>\n The 70-year-old former chief strategist for Donald Trump had been found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress. His crime: defying a subpoena and refusing to cooperate with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. For four months, he would be housed in a two-story cellblock with 83 other men, all of whom shared two showers. Bannon\u2019s willingness to serve time rather than cave to Nancy Pelosi cemented his status as a towering figure in the MAGA movement. \u201cI am proud to go to prison\u201d if that\u2019s what it takes \u201cto stand up to tyranny,\u201d he\u2019d told reporters on the day he showed up to serve his sentence.<\/p>\n Danbury is not the kind of prison where you would typically find someone like Bannon. But because he had another pending legal issue\u2014he later pled guilty to one felony-fraud count in New York related to a fundraising campaign\u2014he could not be sent to one of the minimum-security prisons, sometimes referred to as \u201cClub Fed,\u201d where inmates live relatively comfortably. Bannon wants you to know that he was locked up with hardened criminals in a real prison.<\/p>\n Just a couple of weeks after his release, I sat down with Bannon in the cluttered living room of his townhouse on Capitol Hill. We spoke for nearly three hours about his time in prison. It was a dialogue that started with a phone call the day he was released, in late October 2024, and continued over dozens of telephone interviews as the former inmate resumed his role as one of Trump\u2019s most important outside advisers. As we talked about Trump\u2019s return to power, our conversations often came back to Bannon\u2019s experience behind bars.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t in a camp like that pussy Cohen,\u201d Bannon told me, referring to Trump\u2019s former fixer Michael Cohen. Danbury is, in Bannon\u2019s words, \u201ca rough place\u201d\u2014\u201ca fucking low-medium security with gangbangers and fucking drugs and stabbings.\u201d Soon after he arrived, he told me he saw a group of inmates \u201ctake a shiv out and fucking rip a guy.\u201d There was \u201cblood everywhere.\u201d When police officers asked Bannon what he\u2019d seen, he refused to tell them anything. \u201cYou just can\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cYou answer any question a cop asks you, and you\u2019re done.\u201d He was eager, though, to tell me about the \u201cmurderers, fuckin\u2019 mob hitmen, who were my besties.\u201d<\/p>\n This article has been adapted from Jonathan Karl\u2019s book,<\/em> Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America.<\/p>\n Among the prison\u2019s few amenities is a small room with three TVs\u2014\u201ca Spanish TV, a white TV, and a Black TV\u201d\u2014behind a glass barrier; inmates can use handheld radios to listen to the TV of their choice. One evening in July, all three were tuned to the same channel, to the reports from a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n Bannon had been in the computer room when a guy raced down to get him: \u201cHey, boss,\u201d the inmate said. \u201cTrump shot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTrump shot.\u201d<\/p>\n Bannon had long feared that something like this would happen. I had spoken to him weeks before his prison sentence began, and he told me the only way Trump wouldn\u2019t return to the White House was if the election was stolen or he was assassinated. \u201cI\u2019m very worried,\u201d Bannon said. The Democrats, the media, \u201cthey\u2019re giving moral justification that whoever takes [Trump] out is a hero.\u201d In a speech that summer, he warned a crowd in Detroit, at a conference sponsored by Charlie Kirk\u2019s Turning Point USA, that \u201cbetween now and Election Day, they\u2019re going to try to take out so many people.\u201d It was, he predicted, \u201cvictory or death!\u201d<\/p>\n Now, watching the news through the protective glass, he was convinced his fears were coming true. The Secret Service had failed to protect Trump. A gunman had taken a shot at him. Bannon watched as a blood-flecked Trump stood up and shouted, \u201cFight! Fight!\u201d Had Bannon not been in prison, he would have immediately taken to the airwaves to amplify that message.<\/p>\n At the time, I had one thought: America is lucky that Steve Bannon is behind bars.<\/em><\/p>\n For as long <\/span>as Bannon has been in Trump\u2019s orbit, he has been the voice channeling the anti-establishment rage at the heart of the MAGA movement, preaching a no-compromise, screw-your-opponents, tear-down-the-institutions approach to politics. He used his post as \u201cchief strategist\u201d in the first Trump presidency to go after Republicans inside and outside the White House who were unwilling to do what was necessary for Trump to transform Washington. Bannon kept a list of Trump\u2019s major campaign promises on a whiteboard in his West Wing office. After seven months, only a few items were checked off, and Bannon was fired. The truly radical Trump presidency would come later.<\/p>\n Bannon wasn\u2019t out of Trump\u2019s good graces for long, though. And unlike many of Trump\u2019s allies, he did not waver in his support after the failed attempt to overturn the election. In fact, he became even more devoted, building his video podcast, War Room<\/em>\u2014the twice-daily dose of resentment and retribution for Trump supporters\u2014into the center of the MAGA-media ecosystem. The show guided hard-core Trump supporters through all of the state election recounts in early 2021 and helped spread the bonkers theory that the former president could be reinstated before the next election. The plan to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership in 2023 had been largely hatched on Bannon\u2019s show. Trump himself was a regular viewer. At least once, Bannon interrupted an interview to answer his phone. \u201cHey, Mr. President,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m live on TV; can I call you back?\u201d<\/p>\n Bannon lined up an eclectic group of about 20 guest hosts\u2014including his daughter Maureen, Rudy Giuliani\u2019s son, and Osama Bin Laden\u2019s niece\u2014to keep the podcast going while he was behind bars. \u201cI\u2019m not a journalist. I\u2019m not in the media,\u201d Bannon said shortly before going to prison. \u201cThis is a military headquarters for a populist revolt. This is how we motivate people. This show is an activist show. If you watch this show, you\u2019re a foot soldier. We call it the Army of the Awakened.\u201d<\/p>\n But even while he was imprisoned, he found ways to wield his influence. One of the first things I talked with Bannon about after his release was the assassination attempt. If Trump had shown up to the convention declaring, \u201c\u2018Fuck them, they tried to kill me,\u2019 I think the country would have been on fire,\u201d I told Bannon. \u201cHe calmed it down.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe calmed it down, yes,\u201d Bannon replied.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you would have been fanning the flames.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThrowing fucking gasoline on it. Fuck yes!\u201d Bannon shot back. \u201cI would have revved that thing up to a 10.\u201d<\/p>\n And, he added, cryptically: \u201cI\u2019m not saying I didn\u2019t make that recommendation through code.\u201d<\/p>\n Through code?<\/p>\n Yes, Bannon had a way of getting messages to the Trump campaign\u2014and to Trump himself\u2014while he was behind bars.<\/p>\n In prison, Bannon spent as much time as he could in the computer room, using one of the four PCs\u2014equipped with a two-decade-old Windows operating system\u2014that were shared by the 84 prisoners in his cellblock. He would sign up to use the computers for an hour, and then, after a 15-minute break, sign up again. Bannon was cognizant of \u201cprison etiquette\u201d about not hogging the computers, but said that he would sometimes spend 10 hours a day \u201cworking on campaign stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n The devices were not connected to the internet, but he could communicate via email with a few dozen preapproved individuals. The Bureau of Prisons would review the correspondence on its way in and on its way out. His daughter Maureen, whom he calls Mo, and his chief financial officer, Grace Chong, helped him keep up with the news. \u201cThey had a system of sending me, first off, all polling data, everything like that, analytics,\u201d he remembered. \u201cThey would send it to me, and I\u2019d be able to comment and ask questions.\u201d They also sent him images of various news websites so he could see what stories were online even though he didn\u2019t have direct access to the internet. \u201cI\u2019d have 50 stories. I couldn\u2019t click on the stories, but I said, \u2018Send me boom, boom, boom.\u2019 And they\u2019d cut and paste and drop it in there.\u201d<\/p>\n Bannon claims that an investigative officer at Danbury\u2014an official he described as \u201cpure MAGA\u201d\u2014had warned him that his communications were being reviewed by \u201cMain Justice,\u201d otherwise known as the Biden administration. So he developed a coded system to let \u201cthe girls\u201d know which messages were to be passed on to Trump or to those around him, in particular the aide Boris Epshteyn: \u201cI had just a system to get to Boris, kind of in quasi-code, through Mo into Grace,\u201d he said. Was there literally a code word? \u201cWell, we had\u2014\u201d he began, before catching himself. \u201cI don\u2019t\u2014the Bureau of Prisons could go back through it. We had a way that they could get to him.\u201d<\/p>\n And in the days following the assassination attempt, Bannon let campaign officials know that he believed they were making a huge mistake by trying to reduce tensions rather than raise them.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s going to be Trump. You\u2019re not going to have that \u2018unity,\u2019\u201d he remembered saying. \u201cWhat you\u2019re going to do is blow a huge opportunity to differentiate yourself. And quite frankly, throw down harder that they tried to assassinate him. Put it back on them. Get into the thing about the lax security. Double down, triple down on this. It\u2019s a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately, the campaign disregarded the advice. As Bannon watched speaker after speaker at the convention praise Trump\u2019s message of unity, he found himself growing angrier and angrier. \u201cI hated the convention,\u201d Bannon told me. \u201cThe kumbaya, the cancellation of all the guys who wanted to get up there to fucking throw fucking fists.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf I had been around, that would have never happened,\u201d he said. \u201cEver.\u201d<\/p>\n Though much<\/span> of Bannon\u2019s attention for those four months was focused on the world outside Danbury, he said he learned a lot in prison.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can actually get a sense of where the country is in prison,\u201d he told me. \u201cEvery Hispanic and Black family in America has someone they know that\u2019s incarcerated; that\u2019s just the reality. It may not be their son, but it\u2019s a cousin, or nephew, or a next-door neighbor. These mass incarcerations are out of control for nonviolent drug charges.\u201d<\/p>\n Bannon wanted me to know he didn\u2019t hang out just with the other nonviolent offenders. One of his closest prison buddies was an Italian guy named Vito\u2014\u201dthe single biggest Trump fan you\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Bannon told me. \u201cHe could literally quote\u201d Trump\u2019s speeches.<\/p>\n Vito is a reputed member of the Columbo crime family named Vito Guzzo. He had been locked up for nearly three decades after pleading guilty to five murders and several other crimes, including arson, racketeering, and attempted murder. When he pleaded guilty in 1998, the judge asked him to describe his crimes. He did so with no emotion. \u201cI killed Ralph Sciulla by shooting him in the head,\u201d he said, reading from a piece of paper. \u201cI killed Anthony Mesi by shooting him. I shot John Borrelli.\u201d<\/p>\n Vito has been a free man since April. Bannon helped him get an early release\u2014after serving 26 years of his 38-year sentence\u2014through the First Step Act, the criminal-justice-reform bill signed into law by Trump in 2018.<\/p>\n A friend captured on video the moment Vito walked out of Danbury\u2014swaggering in a white Sergio Tacchini tracksuit, pristine tennis shoes, and dark sunglasses, his hair slicked back.<\/p>\n \u201cCome on,\u201d Vito can be heard saying as he gives his girlfriend a hug. \u201cLet\u2019s get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n Vito\u2019s girlfriend sent the video to Bannon, who watched with gleeful pride at his friend\u2019s composure. \u201cThat guy is so impressive,\u201d Bannon told me. \u201cLook at that guy\u2019s tracksuit; look at the shoes; look at the hair.\u201d Nearly three decades behind bars and he \u201cwalks out, totally precise. These guys amaze me.\u201d<\/p>\n Bannon had been a critic of the First Step Act\u2014it was one of the only things he disagreed with Trump about. The initiative, which sought to improve conditions in prison and to give inmates more opportunities for education and early release, had been pushed by Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whom Bannon often clashed with. Now Bannon had come around. \u201cJared was a genius about this. It is our ticket to a massive coalition,\u201d Bannon told me. \u201cRemember, in Spartacus<\/em> the slave revolt starts in a prison, right?\u201d<\/p>\n (Though Bannon expressed what seemed to be genuine concern for the treatment of the inmates he got to know at Danbury, his compassion for the accused was far from consistent. He had only praise for the Trump administration for flying two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members, without the benefit of a hearing or reasonable notice, to the CECOT prison in El Salvador\u2014a place that actually resembles hell on Earth. \u201cGuess what, if there are some innocent gardeners in there? Hey, tough break for a swell guy,\u201d Bannon said on War Room<\/em> in March.)<\/p>\n Bannon\u2019s time in Danbury convinced him that Trump was going to win again. In his view, he told me in October, Kamala Harris was doomed by her record as a prosecutor in California. \u201cNo Black or Hispanic men are going to vote for Kamala Harris, because of the mass incarcerations,\u201d he told me. \u201cThe Black community, the Hispanic community, they literally hate her.\u201d Prison, he said, \u201cis the most MAGA place I\u2019ve ever been in my life, from the minorities.\u201d (According to a Navigator Research postelection survey, Harris won 49 percent of the Hispanic-male vote and 71 percent of the Black-male vote. Directionally, though, Bannon\u2019s broader point stands: Joe Biden did 35 percentage points better than Harris among both groups in 2020.)<\/p>\n But the main thing Bannon learned in prison is that he doesn\u2019t want to go back there. He was released on October 29, at 3 a.m.\u2014because prison authorities wanted to avoid the commotion of a press conference. As he walked out of the prison gate, he was met by Maureen, who ran over and gave him a hug. It was exactly one week before the 2024 election, and within hours of his release\u2014before 6 a.m.\u2014Bannon\u2019s phone lit up. Donald Trump was on the line.<\/p>\n \u201cMy Steeeeeeve! My Steeeeeve!\u201d Trump said as they both laughed. \u201cYou\u2019re a convict.\u201d The former president had lots of questions for Bannon about his life behind bars. If Trump lost the election the following week, there was a very real chance that he would end up in prison. How bad was it?<\/p>\n \u201cLet me be blunt,\u201d Bannon told Trump. \u201cIt\u2019s hard as shit. So we\u2019re not going there.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump<\/span> didn\u2019t go to prison, obviously; he went back to the White House. And his second term is proving to be far more consequential, more radical, and more lasting than his first.<\/p>\n He has put his personal legal team in charge of the Justice Department, squeezed top law firms to do his bidding, and upended a half century\u2019s worth of ethics and anti-corruption reforms by mixing family business deals with government business. He is attempting to use the Federal Communications Commission to police and punish television networks that he says treat him unfairly and is pressuring U.S. attorney\u2019s offices to prosecute his political enemies.<\/p>\n Trump hasn\u2019t always taken Bannon\u2019s advice on policy, but Trump\u2019s brazen attack on norms and on his real and perceived enemies is exactly what Bannon has been preaching. From his powerful post on War Room<\/em>, Bannon is pushing the aggrieved president to use his power to not just defeat his enemies but destroy them, and Trump is pursuing that agenda to a much greater degree than he did the first time around.<\/p>\n The unity talk Bannon so despises is gone completely. Two days after the killing of Charlie Kirk, Bannon attacked Republicans who were calling for people to turn down the partisan rhetoric. Bannon hated it when Governor Spencer Cox stepped forward the day Kirk was killed and said we had to \u201cstop hating our fellow Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not gonna say it\u2019s a time to bring people together,\u201d Bannon told the foot soldiers of the MAGA movement. \u201cYou know why? One side has to win here.\u201d<\/p>\n At times, Trump still turns to Bannon for guidance, as if he were working down the hall from the Oval Office. Case in point: Bannon\u2019s previously unreported role in the events leading up to President Trump\u2019s remarkable confrontation with Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in February.<\/p>\n On Monday of that week, President Trump convened his top national security advisers in his dining room adjacent to the Oval Office. It was a busy time. French President Emmanuel Macron had just met with Trump, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was due soon. Both were pleading with Trump to continue military support for Ukraine and its president. Zelensky himself would be coming to Washington in a few days, though the visit had not yet been announced.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s advisers had worked out an agreement with their Ukrainian counterparts whereby, in exchange for continued military support, Ukraine would promise the United States a share in the development of its natural resources, including its deposits of rare-earth minerals. But as Trump reviewed the draft agreement, he didn\u2019t like what he saw, believing the terms were not favorable enough to the United States. He looked out at the most important officials in his administration: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice President J. D. Vance. Then he turned to Waltz:<\/p>\n \u201cGet Steve Bannon on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Bannon saw Waltz calling and sent him to voicemail with a text: \u201cThe show is live. I\u2019ll call you at noon.\u201d A few minutes later, his phone rang again. This time he could see it was Trump calling from his personal cellphone. Bannon quickly went to commercial break, telling his producer to make it a long one.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Mr. President.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHey, Steve, I\u2019ve got the boys here,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI\u2019m going to put you on speaker.\u201d<\/p>\n For the next 30 minutes, Trump had Bannon tell his national-security team, through the little iPhone speaker, why he didn\u2019t like the deal and why he didn\u2019t trust the Ukrainian leader.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear you don\u2019t love this deal,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cI fucking hate it,\u201d Bannon said. \u201cI hate everything to do with it.\u201d He said he understood that Trump wanted to recoup the $350 billion that he estimated the U.S. had spent on Ukraine. But the deal \u201cties us to Ukraine.\u201d Bannon, who knew there had been talk of a Zelensky meeting, referred to the Ukrainian president as \u201cthat punk\u201d: \u201cIf that punk comes here, he\u2019s going to want a security guarantee,\u201d Bannon said. \u201cYou can\u2019t trust him. You can\u2019t trust any of the Europeans. You can\u2019t trust Putin either, but these guys are really slippery.\u201d<\/p>\n The rest of the saga surrounding Zelensky\u2019s visit to Washington is an extraordinary piece of U.S. history, and there\u2019s little doubt that Bannon\u2019s advice set the tone for the coming conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not in a good position,\u201d Trump told Zelensky, his voice rising. \u201cYou don\u2019t have the cards right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not playing cards,\u201d Zelensky interrupted.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re playing cards,\u201d Trump shot back. \u201cYou\u2019re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You\u2019re gambling with World War III.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you speaking about?\u201d Zelensky asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re gambling with World War III,\u201d Trump repeated. \u201cAnd what you\u2019re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that\u2019s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the kind of tough-guy language that would make a mob hitman proud.<\/p>\n For nearly a century, America had helped keep peace in Europe, standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies against aggressors. But there in the Oval Office, Trump was doing more than berating an American ally; he was declaring to the world that America was no longer the country that, in John F. Kennedy\u2019s words, would \u201cpay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.\u201d Now a U.S. president was showing an ally the true meaning of \u201cAmerica First.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s final words before the cameras left the Oval Office made clear that, although Trump was angry, he was also enjoying himself. \u201cAll right, I think we\u2019ve seen enough,\u201d Trump said to the shocked reporters in the room. \u201cWhat do you think? This is going to be great television. I will say that.\u201d<\/p>\n Great television, perhaps, but, thanks in part to Trump\u2019s favorite convict, Trump is now doing far more than playing to the television cameras. He\u2019s changing America in ways that will long outlive his presidency.<\/p>\n This article has been adapted from Jonathan Karl\u2019s book,<\/em> Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America.<\/p>\n Retribution: Donald Trump And The Campaign That Changed America<\/p>\n By Jonathan Karl<\/p>\n \u200bWhen you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The adult-education program at Federal Correctional Institution Danbury needed a civics teacher. Conveniently, a new prisoner with a history of intimate involvement in American politics\u2014inmate No. 05635-509\u2014needed a work assignment. And that is how Steve Bannon, the man who stood accused of helping orchestrate an effort to undermine American democracy and to overturn a presidential<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[17423,1816,2798,4393],"class_list":{"0":"post-29512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-bannon","9":"tag-learned","10":"tag-prison","11":"tag-steve"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}