
Steve Bannon, former White Home Chief Strategist and host of the WarRoom podcast, poses for a portrait inside his residence studio in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 17.
Maansi Srivastava for NPR
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Maansi Srivastava for NPR
Three days earlier than President-elect Trump’s inauguration, Steve Bannon heard unwelcome information.
The previous adviser to Trump was near wrapping up the two-hour morning video stream of his present, Steve Bannon’s WarRoom, when he discovered that Monday’s inauguration would transfer indoors on account of excessive chilly.
“It ain’t gonna be that chilly,” he protested, and speculated that the choice should have come to guard the tech billionaires who had been invited to sit down behind Trump on the dais for the ceremony. “Simply because the oligarchs are there. They’re too tender, coming from Silicon Valley. Are they too delicate?”
He questioned whether or not Trump himself had accredited the transfer till his producer learn aloud a Reality Social publish wherein Trump mentioned he did.
The second was Steve Bannon in microcosm: He is a faithful Trump supporter who generally differs with him. He is additionally an advocate of political fight, who went to jail final 12 months moderately than cooperate with a Congressional investigation of Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 election defeat. (Bannon was launched in October, however nonetheless faces a prison case in New York State on prices that he profited from donations that had been solicited to assist Trump construct a wall on the US-Mexico border.)
As Trump prepares to retake energy, Bannon is celebrating, whereas additionally debating tech billionaires over the brand new administration’s strategy to immigration. Bannon says he’s a part of a populist revolution, whereas a look on the inauguration may counsel the other is going on. Monday’s attendees are anticipated to incorporate three of the richest and most influential men on the planet: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Fb CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk.
Bannon calls them “oligarchs” — the identical phrase President Biden utilized in his farewell address final week — and his latest social media battle with Musk reveals among the variations in Trump’s coalition. Bannon is looking for crackdowns on each unlawful and authorized immigration, in addition to confrontation with China. Musk, the South African immigrant who does a lot enterprise in China, would appear to personify the “globalists” that Trump’s motion rails in opposition to, but additionally performed a major and expensive function in Trump’s victory.
We talked with Bannon after that morning’s program ended. He was sitting within the seat from which he broadcasts, in entrance of a fireside mantel adorned with a portray of Jesus Christ, a Mothers for Liberty journey mug, and an indication with the saying, “There aren’t any conspiracies, however there aren’t any coincidences.” The quote is attributed to Stephen Okay. Bannon.
Bannon broadcasts in entrance of a fireside mantel adorned with work of Jesus Christ, crosses and indicators.
Maansi Srivastava for NPR
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Maansi Srivastava for NPR
Bannon says he isn’t looking for a place within the second Trump administration as he did for the primary. He nonetheless plans to exert affect by way of the live-streamed program that he produces 22 hours per week — 4 hours every weekday and an additional two on Saturday.
A unbroken theme of this system is the 2020 election. Final week’s visitors included Mike Lindell, the pillow maker, who as soon as once more insisted, as he has for years, that he’ll show his claims of a stolen election very quickly. In his dialogue with Bannon, it grew to become clear that every man doubts the opposite’s idea of how the election was stolen, but each nonetheless insist it was.
There may be additionally a strand of populist economics; Bannon says on the air that he needs to chop taxes for the working class, but elevate taxes on the rich. Trump and Republicans instituted tax cuts for the rich in his first time period and he has proposed extending them in his second.
In our dialog, Bannon insisted the billionaires who contributed tens of millions to the inauguration usually are not shopping for affect however getting used as trophies by the brand new president. “They are not there as a result of they help Trump. They’re there as a result of the Trump motion and President Trump broke them,” Bannon mentioned.
His distinction with Musk centered on H-1B visas for high-skilled immigrant employees. Musk has lobbied Trump to help them, and in late December posted on X that he would “go to conflict” on the problem. Bannon, in flip, has called Musk “evil.”
Bannon opposes the visas, asserting that they’re unfair to U.S.-born employees. When Trump lastly addressed the controversy he mentioned he supported the visas; however Bannon insists the battle is not over.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
Steve Inskeep: I’ve heard you speaking about oligarchs, utilizing the identical phrase that President Biden used. You performed the clip of Biden the opposite day in your podcast and also you talked about oligarchs and named Zuckerberg and a few others. The place does Elon Musk match into that?
Steve Bannon: Properly, there’s two units of oligarchs. There’s what we name the lords of straightforward cash on Wall Road. After which there’s the oligarchs within the apartheid state of Silicon Valley. And so they’re clearly oligarchs. They’ve focus of wealth and energy. With President Trump, I feel Musk has little or no energy. He has some affect. However has little or no energy.
First off, these oligarchs are utterly created by the Democratic Social gathering and the lords of straightforward cash. Keep in mind, for the final 4 years, they’d no downside in any respect with the oligarchs till they flipped and surrendered after we gained. Elon Musk got here somewhat earlier as a result of he noticed the writing on the wall. He is a wise man who may really see the true polling and noticed the place this was going. So he is the primary man out. However Zuckerberg got here and surrendered afterwards. Bezos got here and surrendered afterwards. Marc Andreessen got here and surrendered afterwards. They noticed the sport was over.

Elon Musk greets President-elect Donald Trump as they arrive to attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth take a look at flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on Nov. 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas.
Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs
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Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs
Inskeep: I wish to drill down on Musk particularly since you’ve spoken about him in a specific manner. Why is he so harmful if he isn’t that highly effective? Not that influential? Not likely in Trump’s ear that a lot?
Bannon: I am the one which mentioned three very constructive issues about Elon Musk. Only for the report. Primary, he got here in and backed our play in Might and June of 2024.
Quantity two, I’ve been speaking about deconstructing the executive state for a decade. We have been attempting to do it. Musk is available in with this Division of Authorities Effectivity idea, which is dovetailing proper in with the Workplace of Administration and Funds. If now we have a shot to deconstruct the executive state and simply take down among the regulatory equipment, however reduce the price, it will be his efforts.
And quantity three, we have been working in Europe for years and since there’s so little cash in European politics, there’s not a centrist authorities, centrist proper or centrist left authorities that can stand. He brings the 2 tactical nuclear weapons of recent politics. He brings limitless money, and he brings a social media platform that he can bind or loosen.
Inskeep: And but you have been very crucial of him in latest days. Why?
Bannon: It got here as much as a head in regards to the H-1B visas. We’re populist. We imagine Americans ought to come first in every thing. And within the visa program, there isn’t a authorized immigration to this nation.
Bannon is a faithful Trump supporter who generally differs with him.
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Maansi Srivastava for NPR
Inskeep: There isn’t any authorized immigration?
Bannon: It is all gamed. It is all corrupt.
Why are we attempting to be an imperial energy? Why do they are saying we’d like the perfect and the brightest? Properly, maintain it. The very best and brightest have gotten to return from Americans. I do not wish to sit right here and take the world’s finest and most elite and largest brains and put them in the USA. What is going on to make their international locations higher? That is an imperialist angle.
President Trump and I disagree on this. He adamantly disagrees with me on this. He mentioned that, for the perfect graduates of faculty, he needs to staple a inexperienced card to their diploma. And do the identical for the perfect individuals at group school. And we mentioned on the present the subsequent day, I mentioned, “President, with all due respect, we love you. We’re your guys. Nevertheless, now we have an alternate. We wish to staple an exit visa on the again of each graduate. You get a month and then you definately’re gone.”
Inskeep: What does it say that Trump listened to the individuals you think about to be oligarchs and to not you?
Bannon: Properly, hold on a second. Why do you say he is listened?
Inskeep: He agreed with them and never with you.
Bannon: Let’s have a look at how that performs out.
Inskeep: This seems like far more than a disagreement about H-1B visas.
Bannon: No, it is a elementary chasm. Here is what upset me and why I obtained engaged. [Musk] referred to as the Americans retards the R phrase. [Musk didn’t use the word himself but promoted a post on X that used it]. He dissed the MAGA motion as being racist, which is the previous trope that the left. He used all of the left tropes to return after us.
These oligarchs in Silicon Valley, they’ve a really completely different view of how individuals ought to govern themselves. I name it techno-feudalism. They do not imagine within the underlying tenets of self-governance.
So we’ll break all these guys ultimately. They’re damaged proper now.
Bannon says he isn’t looking for a place within the second Trump administration as he did for the primary.
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Maansi Srivastava for NPR
Inskeep: Do you speak a lot to Trump as of late?
Bannon: Sufficient. And he watches the present.
Inskeep: You counsel a situation the place Trump is successfully utilizing these tech leaders. They’re up on stage with him, as if they’re totems of his triumph. Are you certain that he isn’t utilizing you, although, that it could be the reverse, that they are going to get what they need out of this and you are not?
Bannon: That is all a course of, proper? This can be a populist, nationalist revolution on this nation. It has been constructing for a very long time. It takes an actual understanding of how the system is and what options are populist options to alter it. So is President Trump utilizing us? No, it is his motion, proper? We would not be a motion if President Trump hadn’t come alongside.
Inskeep: What’s going to you suppose and do a 12 months or two from now if it seems that the individuals you see as oligarchs, who will likely be on the platform, on the stage with the president, find yourself getting the decrease taxes they need and lots of different issues that they need?
Bannon: We’re battle hardened. This motion is battle hardened as a result of we had been put up in opposition to the wall in 2021.
Inskeep: Do you suppose it is potential that that can occur, that Trump will find yourself siding with them? That Congress will find yourself siding with them?
We are going to win as a result of we’re relentless. We do not give up. Is each vote going to go away? No, it isn’t. However it’s a course of. And when individuals see that using their company means one thing, that they are simply not some anonymous particular person within the crowd, however really them being within the precinct technique, being election integrity, doing a present, calling your congressman, being a collective pressure proper by way of your particular person company…victory begets victory.
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