Steve Bannon received out of federal jail at round 3 am Tuesday. Seven hours later, he was stay on his Warfare Room podcast to “flood the zone with shit” precisely one week earlier than the presidential election.
Flooding the zone with shit is Bannon’s personal oft-quoted description of his media strategy: churning so many lies or half-truths into the stratosphere that it turns into not possible to attract a line between reality and fiction.
“I’m extra energized and extra centered than I’ve ever been in my complete life,” stated Bannon on the Warfare Room stream on Rumble, which garnered practically 100,000 stay viewers at one level. “The 4 months in federal jail not solely didn’t break me, it empowered me.”
Bannon, 70, a longtime ally of and former strategist for Donald Trump, spent 4 months at a low-security federal jail in Danbury, Connecticut, for contempt after he defied a subpoena within the congressional probe into the January 6 Capitol riot.
Bannon has forged himself as a martyr—somebody who, like January 6 rioters and like Trump, is being unfairly persecuted by the identical tyrannical forces they’re up in opposition to subsequent week within the election.
On Tuesday on air, and later at a press convention, Bannon repeatedly instructed that former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi banished him to jail as a result of she wished to comprise his affect.
“In case you’re not ready to be despatched to federal jail as a political prisoner, then you definately’re undeserving to be on this motion,” he stated. “It’s a must to perceive, they need to put you in jail, and they’ll put you in jail. In case you can’t settle for that, then you definately don’t know what they symbolize.”
Bannon’s return to the general public sphere additionally means the return of a large mouthpiece to amplify the election fraud conspiracies which are already raging on-line. And Bannon received on to enterprise, spinning a story to his viewers of Democrats plotting to heist the 2024 election.
“Each day after November 5 goes to be Stalingrad,” Bannon stated. “If they will’t take it away from Trump, if they will’t nullify it proper there, they need to a minimum of delegitimize his victory.”
“They’ll go to any size to cease President Trump,” Bannon continued. “That’s the fact.”
A 2023 Brookings study on disinformation in political podcasts recognized Bannon’s Warfare Room as the largest disseminator of falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims; a couple of fifth of all episodes assessed by researchers have been decided to have claims flagged as false by debunkers akin to Snopes and Politifact.
“If the Pelosi equipment wins, you higher be ready to go to federal jail,” Bannon stated. “As a result of these individuals haven’t any qualms about weaponizing the justice system, weaponizing the authorized system, in opposition to Individuals who’ve totally different political beliefs.”
His followers appear to be blissful he’s again. “God Bless You Steve’ Get The Bannon Sledge Hammer Out, And Begin Smashing The TRAITORS,” one viewer wrote through the Tuesday livestream.
“Welcome again Steve, we’d like our chief,” wrote one other. “Give us our marching orders and lets get this performed.”