Steve Bannon says he knew Donald Trump would be re-elected because his former fellow inmates think the former U.S. president is a rebel.
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It’s not easy to win a tough crowd but it appears behind bars, Trump is the man.
“Number one, they think he’s gangster,” Bannon told the U.K. Times. “Number two, they just admire him as a gladiator.”
Trump’s longtime ally was released one week before the Nov. 5 election after serving a four-month sentence for spurning the since-defunct House Jan. 6 Committee’s subpoena for testimony and documents.
The 71-year-old said he spent his time behind bars educating his fellow inmates, predominantly Black and Hispanic men who appeared to support Trump.
“I just taught capital markets and everything like that,” Bannon told the publication.
He noted the irony: “I’m here for insurrection, and I’m teaching civics.”
When he began serving his sentence in July, Bannon called himself a “political prisoner,” adding that he was “proud” to serve time after standing up Attorney General Merrick Garland and a “corrupt” Justice Department.
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With Trump returning to the White House next month, Bannon said he believes that the Make America Great Again faction still has work to do in rooting out Republicans who haven’t particularly warmed to the movement.
“We are so close,” he told the Times. “We just need to see this through.”
Bannon added that MAGA could continue ruling for years if Trump succeeds in getting his agenda through in his next term.
“If we deliver now, it’s upon us. They’ve given President Trump that,” the former White House chief strategist said.
“If he delivers on the economics of this … we’re going to govern for 50 years. It’s all there for us to lose,” he declared.
“We have to institutionalize the populist nationalist revolution in this country, and you only do that by seizing the institutions, purging them, reforming them and remaking them in the image and likeness of the American people, the working men and women in this country.”
Bannon, however, insisted that he’s neither a conservative nor a Republican but, rather, a nativist who wants to put America first and keep the country out of foreign wars.
“The term Republican and Democrat is irrelevant,” Bannon argued. “They’re old categorizations that don’t matter. You’re either a populist nationalist or a global elitist.”