Piers Morgan Uncensored - Steve Bannon on Trump 2028, Elon Musk Feud & Jail

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

One of the most famous figures within the ranks of the MAGA movement carrying Donald Trump aloft is Steve Bannon, who managed to climb the ladder and enter the arena of public discourse in explosively dramatic fashion. Having served President Trump in his first term as well as a controversial prison sentence, Bannon has been in lockstep with the US President’s highs and lows, and has learned a few things along the way. Piers Morgan speaks to Bannon on all things MAGA; Trump’s Re-election, Elon Musk’s global influence and the future of America to name but a few topics. Get ready for an interview that’s as personal as it is political. Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by paid promotion from: Tax Network USA: CALL 1-800-958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/PIERS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make sure you understand the faith, the nuances of the faith, and understand how you can internalize the faith. Don't come up and start lecturing people about the way things are going to be. If you're going to do that, we're going to rip your face off. It's been really a tectonic plate shift to more populist nationalism. This is why now you're seeing what we call the Days of Thunder. These guys have now become what I call techno-futalists. In that regard, they're quite evil. If he is evil, should he be at the right hand of the President of the United States?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Pears, you're just wrong about Ukraine. Unfortunately, I've been... I'm not. I'm not. Appears you're 1,000% wrong on Ukraine. A fight of two Slavic entities. We just don't have a dog in that fight.

You were quoted as saying, maybe we'd go again in 2028. Did you mean that? Was it just a massive troll? When Donald Trump reached the White House for the first time, Steve Bannon, was credited with not only helping to put in there, but also setting the agenda for his presidency

with this speech. This American, American carnage stops right here and stops right now. Well, Bannon served for seven months as the White House chief strategist, but as we know, the relationship soured. Trump said of his former Sven Ghali, when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. But Bannon never gave up on President Trump. His war room podcast has been instrumental in reshaping the Republican agenda ahead of Trump 2.0. So how does the original MAGA mastermind view the opening weeks of the new minister?

Well, Steve Bannon, host of the war room, makes his uncensored debut. I finally lured you on, Steve. Here's, I've been wanting to come on for a long time, but just wanted to wait for the best day, and I think this is the best time. You know what? It actually is the best time, because it's been a fascinating eight years, really, and you've been involved very heavily, very inside on the periphery, now back in a very influential way. First of all, your reaction to the scale of the scale of the...

Trump's win. Were you surprised, or did you feel that was coming for quite a while? You know, Pierce, when I did the morning show with you years ago in London, I think when President Trump was making his trip, you said, because, you know, our audience may not know this. So seeing you tonight as we put this up is that, you know, Pierce has had a long relationship with President Trump. You said on the air, you said, hey, I asked, I talked to Trump after the win, and I said, tell me what Bannon did. And he says he sent me to the right places. Right. And I think I think you saw that in. And right place is what it meant was that we had this theory of the case in 16 that we could pierce the blue wall,

that we could go to Pennsylvania, go to Michigan, go to Wisconsin. You know, every morning on morning, Joe, they were mocking me because they said I didn't know what I was doing. And that's what President Trump meant, that we talked about going up there and piercing that. He won that. He won that again this time. And I think the difference is that you saw coming together, right, of now African-American working class, 39% of African-American men voted for President Trump. Hispanic families. Most Hispanic county in our country down at South Texas,

and hard-bitten South Texas on the border is called Star County. 97% Hispanic. We lost it to Hillary Clinton in 16 by 60 points. We won it in 2024 by 16. So it's been really a tectonic plate shift to more populist nationalism. And that's why you have, and this is why now you're seeing what we call the Days of Thirteen. thunder. This has been years in the making of Pierce. Ever since President Trump left, there was a

hard group of people around him that got together and kind of put together the grassroots political organization, but there were also public intellectuals who came to work in different think tanks. It's under the rubric of project 2025. But what you're seeing is the culmination of all that, the political and really the public policy coming together and kind of hammer blows every day as we flood the zone to basically take down the established order here in the United States. You've been incredibly close with Donald Trump. You've also been frozen out by Donald Trump,

and you're back in with Donald Trump. People are curious about the state of your relationship now. How would you categorize it? Well, I think it's great. When we say frozen out, President Trump and I did have some disagreements, but it's a little bit been mischaracterized by 17. If you look at it, I've always had President Trump's back and really populist nationalism.

President Trump, and when he left, when the 2020 election was stolen and he was forced out of the White House that just had a core group of people that had his back in war room. Remember, he was, the Murdox banned him. Rupert Murdoch sent out a memo in late January of 2021, I believe it was,

says we're going to make Trump a non-person about what happened at the Capitol away. He was not on, he was not live on Fox for 18 months because they were afraid he was talking about things. So war room, our show, the war room posse, that kind of hardcore of the MAGA base, we started to go to work in the precinct strategy

and rebuilding the political operation from the grassroots up. And, you know, we've been totally aligned, we've always been aligned ever since our first meeting, but he's a populist nationalist. And you're seeing those policies today in what we call the Days of Thunder. How often do you talk to him?

I talk to him frequently enough, but I think what I tell people is if you watch the war room, We're on for four hours a day, two in the morning, two in the afternoon. You'll see that coming into the policies. In fact, to give you a very specific example about these tariffs that have come up, and I know a big point of conversation, we said, look, part of this is an emergency about fentanyl on the border, and he's using an emergency measure that's never been used before for tariffs,

a measure about security emergencies, but that this is really a geoeconomic and a geostrategic reshifting of the actual the underlying business plan or business model of the United States and our national security model. And this is much more truly what I call the golden door or charging a premium to get into the market of the United States.

And he came out, I think, on Sunday and basically tweeted out this thing that was on the show. So I know the people around him show him a lot of clips. He and I think, I think exactly like on matters of national security and economics. Although he has, President Trump

has to balance much more than we have to in the war. We're about as hard right as you can possibly get in the United States. And President Trump has to balance a lot, particularly with the new money that's coming in from what I call the oligarchs. The IRS is the largest collection agency in the world, and it's just stepped up enforcement for 2025. If you owe back taxes, or if you've unfilled returns,

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That means they know which agents to deal with and which ones to avoid. Tax Network USA has proven strategies that are designed to settle your tax problems in your favor, whether you owe $10,000 or $10 million. attorneys and negotiators have resolved a billion dollars in tax debt. You can talk to one of their strategists about your case for free. So put your IRS troubles behind you once and for all. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com forward slash peers. That's P-I-E-R-S, and that's TNUSA.com slash peers. Now on with the show. Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk, he's the new first buddy, as people are calling him,

and he's part of the broligarchy. You've been pretty scathing of Mr. Musk. I think you said he's a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down before because he put money in. I was prepared to tolerate it. I'm not prepared to tolerate it anymore. I will have Elon Musk run out of here by inauguration day. He won't have full access to the White House.

He'll like any other person. Well, he's not being kicked out yet from the circle. Do you still believe what you said then? It doesn't have full access to the White House. That's true. That's true, yeah. But I want to give some depth this for the audience, because a couple things. Number one, you know, the enemy, my enemy is my friend.

Elon, I have been Elon's biggest promoter, even more than even President Trump, on three big elements, I think, will directly relate to your audience. Number one, he backed our play early on. this before I went to prison. This campaign came down to two decisions, which you would appreciate peers. One was what we called the MAGA-based plus. It was MAGA plus low information,

low-propensity voters that have to be dug out in a very expensive kind of ground game, plus what I call the Maha movement, the make America healthy again, kind of the Bobby Kennedy, these moms, suburban moms of moms for Liberty, American moms, that crowd. Versus, as you know, Trump,

has around him, people want him to moderate. People want him to be nicer. People want to kinder. And that was people that wanted to go after the mythical suburban mom for Trump to tone it down. Elon came in and with his engineering mind, he backed our play. In fact, he wrote $250 million worth of checks, which I know England, there's not a lot of money in elections. In the United States, there is, but nothing like this. When you talk about billionaires like the Aedelson's putting in $100,000 or $200 million, dollars. That's over a four-year cycle. This was $250 million put at the point of attack on the grassroots to basically get these low-propensive voters to get people out. He backed our play. Then when he went around President Trump, every time he seemed jumping around the stage,

he's talking about canvassing, get out the vote, you know, registering voters, that kind of core stuff of grassroots that allows you to win. So number one, he deserves a big, you know, hat tip. And I've said all along, what he did in the campaign, he's going to get a at the table, just not at the head of the table, and that table shouldn't be in the cabinet room. Number two was Doge. I'm kind of the author of the deconstruction of the administrative stage. You remember back at that CPAC speech years ago, he actually brought an element that can help energize the system, that engineering brain plus money research.

So Doge is quite important to what we want to accomplish and taking the deep state and the administrative state down. Number three, I said, look, I've been to kind of the pioneer of trying to knit together this populist nationalist movement throughout Europe. And, you know, Nigel says, hey, have a hem in for Breitbart, London, and Ben, and we've never gotten Brexit done. And we've backed Tommy Robinson and all these guys for years and years and years. Elon comes with the two tactical nuclear weapons of modern politics. Unlimited money, a guy that they write a quarter of a billion dollar check and not affect his lifestyle, and the tactical weapon of a massive social media platform that he can promote who he wants to promote and crush who he wants to crush. And I said, there's no centrist government.

in all of the continent that could withstand this guy, getting back of it, and having a full play. So on those three, I'm fully supported. Now, I'm totally against kind of his concert of the broligarch. He's a globalist. He's a techno-fuelist. We've got to cure him of those things. And once we do, we'll be fine.

But you're not painting a picture of Mr. Evil. Well, he's in many regards, some of the things that the brologarcs, particularly when you talk about the brologarcs, they don't believe really in this, if you look at the spectrum of kind of the debates we have, whether it's progressive left or the right, you're on a spectrum of kind of sovereignty, and some people may be more globalist, some people were nationalists. In the United States,

we've allowed an apartheid state to be formed in Silicon Valley. And the progressive Democrats are the ones that did this. They made a pact years ago. With the same time, they made a pack with Wall Street to bail out our financial institutions after 2008, on the back of American taxpayers. They also made a pack with Silicon Valley to really let them become a, uh, a group of oligarchs and not to have to. They didn't break up the companies. They didn't set the Justice Department on them. They let them create an apartheid state.

They didn't do anything on pricing. These guys have now become what I call techno feudalist, not really on the spectrum when you have a debate in a democracy or a constitutional republic. In that regard, they're quite evil. In addition, he's the leader of what it's called the transhumanist movement, this transhumanist movement, this kind of dark underpinnings of this tech revolution. and that is the conversions of these technologies,

particularly artificial intelligence and CRISPR, and this, really to enhance homo sapiens. And Elon, with Neurlink, which will chip your brain, is at the forefront of that. So in that regard, it's quite dark and it's quite evil, and the populist nationalist as a country, kind of binding together to make sure, with the Maha movement,

with the Make America Healthy again, to make sure that we stop it. So, I mean, if he is evil in the way you're now characterizing, should he be at the right hand of the President of the United States? And that's what many people are asking. He's an unelected evil presence. It's a, well, he's not a co-president. Look, he has influence.

He doesn't have a lot of power over the weekend. You know, he's trying to do two trillion dollars in cuts or one trillion dollars in cuts. He's kind of here and there. He did help take down USAID, which is one of the things we fought for. It's kind of a cutout for the CIA and for M. So it's one of the things we fought for. So he does good work in the time. But remember, the enemy in my eye,

enemy is my friend. I don't have to be in love with every person I'm fighting with in a trench, right, as long as they fix band nets at the top thing. And we're going to have huge disagreements. But right now, we have an apparatus we have to take down the administrative state, the deep state, plus the lords of easy money on Wall Street. We got a long fight and a tough fight ahead of us. He has actually been helpful in certain areas. And in those areas, President Trump's appreciates that. And also President Trump is trying to balance in a major industrial power, all elements of it. So, you know, he's got his hardcore, fervent grassroots, populist national, which I show plays to the grassroots leaders,

this kind of cadre, but President Trump's going to balance it. And President Trump gets to choose, just like in the cabinet. He gets to choose Bobby Kennedy. He gets to choose Tulsi Gabbard. He gets to choose Cash Battelle, and we back those plays. He gets to choose who the first buddy is. You mentioned two things which resonate with me here in the UK at the moment. Brexit, which just had its anniversary, five years since it actually got implemented.

Obviously, the vote was in 2016. I mean, I voted to remain, but I wasn't massively evangelical about it. I was prepared for Brexit to work, and I said, look, I definitely think we should give it time. But here we are, five years after it started. And honestly, the ability of even the most fervent Brexiteers to paint a positive picture of what it's actually done to help us. rather than actively harm us. I just don't see anybody out there with a convincing story to tell.

I spoke to a world leader last week, very influential, who just said it makes no sense when you're competing against the United States and China and countries of this magnitude. It makes no sense for Little England to be out there on its own. It should be part of a EU,

albeit a reformed EU, battling with the big boys. rather than, you know, and his little dingy out on his own? Number one, I'll think, look, Theresa May, the elites in England, even leading to Boris Johnson this fifth anniversary. And always remember, Brexit was kind of the predicate to Trump's win. As soon as we won in England and saw that, particularly the way the working class, up in the Midlands, I guess,

you know, saved the Brexit vote, the same people that kind of supported Churchill against him. But they feel very disillusion now, Steve. I mean, it's like 57% of the British, but hang on, I was 57% of the British public in a poll last week because of the fifth anniversary said they would now vote to go back into the EU. They would vote to stay in it. So there's a massive shift now in public opinion from a slight majority wanting to leave to an overwhelming majority now thinking it's been a mistake.

Because the Tory elites have never implemented and what they did implement was wrong. First of all, Theresa Maynard's guys, when they came over, I told the team at the time, We would sit in a room for 30 days or six, however long it took to cut a one-on-one trade deal to make sure it was reciprocal and fair that, you know, England was our mother country and we're prepared to do this. They saw at the time Brexit as a problem to be overcome, not a solution to anything. They fought it. Then when Boris Johnson won the huge majority, he had a concept of Singapore on the Thames. This is exactly what England doesn't need. This is kind of fall into the – you have a small – version of what we have between Cambridge and the city of London

and I would argue if you look at the economics outside the city of London England is kind of a third world country because they've let in manufacturing atrophy. You guys could be a manufacturing powerhouse with the skill set you have and the workers you have. You could be a manufacturing powerhouse.

Boris Johnson's thing of from the temps plays right into the lords of easy money mentality of the city of London just like Wall Street and Cambridge University you've got another settlement Silicon Valley up there. Now, it can be very positive if you talk about bringing back advanced manufacturing, but all it's doing is the age of algorithms exactly like our Silicon Valley does, which is looking for foreign workers, not using domestic workers, and having industries that don't employ a lot of people.

If you ever executed Brexit, like I think the initial Niger-Friarch vision was, you're going to be a road past country, and you're going to have your sovereignty. The British are going to make decisions for the British people, you're not going to look to Brussels. You're not going to look to Davos. Good God, look what's happening in Ukraine. Do you want these people making decisions over your life? This is a very destructive... Well, you and I don't agree about Ukraine, to put it mildly. I mean, I know, I know. I'm actually, genuine question. I don't want to get to a whole thing about Ukraine. You're just wrong about Ukraine.

I'm not. I've been right. What? I'm not. appears you're 1,000% wrong on Ukraine. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to ask you one question. I'm fascinated by your And I respect you, I respect you, peers, but on this one, you're just dead right. So much you say is smart, and this one you're just dead wrong. Let me just put a picture to you, which is this. I remember Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait, right, in 91. And Q8 wasn't a member of NATO.

So America had no need to get involved if he didn't want to, but it did because it was in America's interest because of oil and whatever. And America, over about a month-long period, did a brilliant operation along with other allies to remove Saddam Hussein. Now, I'm a lot to understand why that was universally supported by almost every American I've ever met in my life. They all go, yeah, absolutely. We kicked out Saddam. It was great, including, I would say, 100% of conservatives and Republicans. And there's been a bizarre shift in thinking. And I'm genuinely curious, because you're one of the people I think who's been influential in this. Why is it that so many conservatives now view a Russian dictator in

invading a sovereign, democratic, European country, which, for better or worse, Ukraine now is, legally invading it and taking a third of the land so far, as he had taken Crimea before, why is it that that doesn't instinctively bring out a rage in the American right as Saddam invading Kuwait did, and why don't you want to kick him out? I mean, it seems to me that is almost a feeling of... First of us, we were sold a bill of goods. Kuwait wasn't about Kuwait, it was about Saudi Arabia and defending the monarchy, and we're sold a bill of goods on that, okay, for what happened later at 9-11 was Saudi money. What happened is people started to wake up. Look, I spent eight years of a naval officer, four years under destroyer, and a lot of that time in the North

Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf because of the situation in Tehran at the time with the hostas. My daughter is a West Point grad that served and fought with the 101st Airborne in Iraq after she got so we have some skin in the game. Here's the point. My brother was an army colonel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as was my brother in all. So I have skin in the game, too. I didn't say you didn't.

I got that. But here's the point. Look at World War II. In World War II, good Lord, Montgomery, Patton, Eisenhower, those wars in Eurasia, that part of Eurasia is not in the vital national security interests the United States.

A fight of two Slavic entities over the Russian-speaking Don Bosque and Crimea is we just don't have a dog in that fight, okay? We can't be everywhere. You do, it's called democracy. It's called safeguarding freedom and democracy, wherever you see it attacked. What are you talking about?

Pierce, did you not live through the first half of the 21st century to protect democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan? No, I thought. Hang on, hang on, Steve. I literally led the campaign in the UK, media against the Iraq war, even though it was a labor government and the paper that I was the editor of was the labor supporting paper. I literally went to war with my own labor government at the time because I felt strongly that it was waged on a completely false premise,

which it was. But there's no false premise with what's happening in Ukraine. All the false premise is exporting democracy everywhere. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Look, whatever the two Slavic entities slugging out, and if the EU and NATO, because this is our point. NATO has become a protectorate of the United States, not an alliance. You guys can't put up two combat divisions because the 2% you're supposed to go to GDP,

you know, Italy's at 1.5, only the UK and in Poland does this and quite frankly it's going to... Actually, a lot more of them are now doing it because of Donald Trump. He bullied them into doing it quite rightly. And I was the tip of that spear. I'd go into those meetings and say, guys, you've got to

put the 2% in the English, well, Here's the bottom line. The bottom line is, as I said on the eve of this war, just like Professor Mersheimer said, the West, Davos, Brussels, NATO, the city of London, and Washington, D.C. in New York City are going to lead the Ukrainian people down a primrose path to their destruction, and the West will fight to the last Ukrainian dies, and it becomes uncomfortable for the West, as is becoming uncomfortable now, they'll cut bait and say, hey, Bob's your uncle. And here we have, according to President Trump, and I'm giving his numbers, he gives him. all the time. There's essentially a million dead or wounded Ukrainians. There's 750,000

dead or wounded Russians. Ukraine looks like Dresden in 1945. And Pierce, here's the tragedy, where it was about the Eastern speaking Russian, the Russian speaking Eastern problems of Donbass and Crimea. Now the Russian army, I don't know, as you said, controls a third of the country. And as you remember, peers, the Russian army has a tendency not to back up where they have tanks. now we're going to be in a horrible, you know, a horrible negotiation. It appears yesterday to the Associated Press, Zelensky just told the Associated Press, hey, of the $200 billion the American cent, I only got $77 billion. So I don't even know where the rest went.

And this is one thing we said at the beginning. And they're going to come back, and they're going to come back to you, England, and say, of the 200,000 man security force, England's got to put in 50,000 troops. We want 50,000 or 100,000 from the Americans, and NATO have put the rest. That's just going to be a non-starter here. This thing's been a debacle. I'll tell you what. Here's what I think.

I actually have just literally interviewed President Zelensky today before I interviewed you. I've always liked Zelensky in a way that a lot of the American conservatives seem to hate him. I don't quite know why what he's done wrong other than defend his country. But he said to me an interesting thing about nuclear weapons, right? If Ukraine hadn't been persuaded to give up its nuclear capability, then Putin would never have invaded them. And he said, look, if I'm not going to get NATO membership, which Putin would probably see is a red line for him, then I want to have the firepower that deters him from attacking us again if we do a settlement. And he said, and that should include a nuclear weapon, right?

In other words, give us back the deterrent we had, which if we'd had it, would have stopped him invading. I thought that was a perfectly reasonable point. We made them, we made Ukraine, led by America, made Ukraine give up its nuclear defense, and look what happened. Pierce, have you telling me now that we should give guys have already shot off missiles into Russia itself. You're telling me the West should give Zelensky. Why shouldn't Ukraine fire missiles into Russia, given the number of missiles, Russia's fired into Ukraine? Tell me. Because those missiles, those missiles were not, at least the American missiles,

were given under the auspices they would never be fired into Russia in those depths, because then you could trigger a broader conflict. Look, all this fear of the Russian army. Why should Russia have the right to do it, but Ukraine not? When I came off sea duty, when I came off sea duty, it was in the Pentagon, everything was about Russia. When I was a naval officer, all we did was hunt Russian submarines. I was on an anti-submarine destroyer protecting a carrier battle group.

It was all about getting the Russian fast attack submarines. In the Pentagon, it was all about deep interdiction in the North German plane to make sure we could stop the Russians from rolling across Poland into Germany. That doesn't exist anymore. They can barely take Harkev. They haven't gotten to Kiev in three years of fighting with almost a million casualties. So this whole thing of the Russian army being so overwhelming is, to me, just doesn't seem to be a fact on the battlefield. And if it is, the UK and NATO ought to take it seriously, and they're not taking seriously now because they don't build up their military and don't have any combat.

Well, I agree with that. I agree with that. This thing in Greenland, this thing in Greenland should be a signal that President Trump is looking at what I call a Mahanian strategy off of Alfred Lord, Mahan, the same strategy the Royal Navy had for years. We're looking to get choke points in Greenland all the way down to Panama. And this weekend, the Panamanians threw the Chinese out, no one belt, one road. They're going to essentially turn the Panama Canal over to us. We're going, President Trump's plan geostrategically, you see it's pretty clear.

It's hemispheric defense all the way from the Arctic Circle, which is the new great game of the 21st century, the Arctic Circle all the way down to Latin America with Bolsonaro eventually in Millie, taking care of a land. Latin America, throw the Chinese out. We have hemispheric defense. And, you know, tomorrow's going to meet with BB, and I think they're going to talk about Iron Dome. And President Trump said Iron Dome. So when he leaves office, he's totally secured the homeland from the Arctic, all the way down into Latin America. And then we can pick and choose. And one thing we're not going to choose is taking on a Russian army and a Slavic entity that Montgomery and Patton and Eisenhower would tell us

we're crazy even think about. The Eurasian landmass is not our deal. Those are wars of the 20th century, and we lost enough people in Iraq and Afghanistan and enough money that America doesn't want to do it anymore. The working class people that serve don't want to pay for it, and they don't want to do it. And so now NATO's got a big decision. What the peace deal in Ukraine is going to be central because if you guys are going to send security forces, it's going to be enormously expensive. And I don't know how you balance your budget, given that you've already had Liz Trust government turfed out by the bar market. Really, Richie Sunnet kind of turfed out. One of the reasons labor is upside down is they can't get an economic model that works.

And these global bond markets have taken out more than howitzers, more governments than howitzers. And it seems to me that in the United Kingdom, we want to get very focused on an economic model that works and kind of the benefit of UK citizens instead of worrying about wars going on over between these two Slavic entities. We will agree to disagree, Mr. Bannon. But I hear you, I respect your view. And I respect your, I respect your view, but I just think you're wrong in this one. Agreed. I feel the same way about you. So we'll move on.

January 6th, obviously Trump's coming in and he's pardoned all 1,500. My personal view was that... Which I recommend it strongly, all of them. Right, so that's an interesting point, because I agree with J.D. Vance on this, that

anyone who committed acts of violence against police officers, they should not be pardoned or commuted. But the others, very good argument, a lot of them, were given way too heavy sentences. particularly those who were completely peaceful. It just seemed to me a bit odd that Trump is always so vocal supporting police officers generally

and so determined to stop people attacking police officers. Why would he send a signal that actually, if you do, you may get a pardon? I don't think it's a signal. Here's why. Let's go back to J.D., bringing up a great point. When J.D. won on Fox that day, and for your audience, it was a couple of Sundays ago.

It was Sunday, I think, the week before the inaugurator. And he gave the same argument you gave. He says, look, we're looking at pardons for the nonviolent, but the guys of peace. And brother, it blew up our show and the base and Don Jr. And guys said, no way. It's all of them, right? And we're law and order folks, right? Okay?

We're law and our facts, but it's all because this was a Fed'surrection. We got to investigate this. Things totally rigged. And I don't even know when you talk about police hurt, we got to get to the bottom of that because these cases were all totally rigged. The firestorm that came from the MAGA base, who are law and order, got President Trump's attention. A woman named Julie Kelly, they put him in touch with her.

She walked, she's covered these cases for four years from the courtroom. And he made a determination, hey, I think I'm going all the way. I believe peers what triggered the whole thing, I think came late the morning of actual inauguration day. When Biden, very cowardly, started giving these pardons, not for his family, but when he pardoned J6 and the staffs, That's what I think Trump, because the partings didn't come to late in the afternoon. I think they had two choices. And I think Trump has always leaned into all of them. I think he said, screw it, all of them.

And you got to remember, I went to prison for four months in a federal prison, not a camp. For the people in jail, and I went for a principal. I said this was not a legitimate committee, and the president gets to choose on executive approval of who he wants. And if I got to go to prison and they sent me to prison for a misdemeanor the first time in the history of our federal prisons, I'll do it. And so when I'm sitting there and I hear that, Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney and all these big talk, particularly Liz Cheney and Kinsinger, who had gone out of the way to campaign and get on stage with Kamala Harris and talk.

When they're begging the White House to give them blanket preemptive pardons, which never happened in our history, except for Nixon on one tiny, you know, technicality, when they're begging him and the staffs, the woman who pursued herself in my trial got a pardon, I think that's when our side just said, screw it. And President Trump, I think, did the right thing. Are there some bad hombres in that group? I think you could argue that, but it's not the point. The point is in the MAGA base, there's totally law and order.

So nobody thinks Trump's getting soft on law and order or soft on the police. That's another mainstream media misdirection play. What was prison like? I mean, take me back to your first night in prison. Many people who go through that say it's a pretty harrowing experience. I don't want to, it's such a personal experience, and I don't want to, that's why I've never really talked about. I don't say, look, I will say this. At 70 years old, a federal prison is a federal prison is a.

very dangerous place and here's why it's a dangerous place the prisons are very cramped this prison in dambury was for 800 people and 1200 i think they're 1200 inmates because of the overcrowding and a lot of that's from the illegal alien uh bad umbra as they got there but the central thing in this warehousing and i was in a cell block in a cell in fact that january 6 guy was right across from me is that non-violent drug dealers and these are young men normally in their mid 20s Hispanic and african-american not caught selling drugs, are caught in federal law and conspiracy to sell drugs. Peers, they're getting 10, 15, and 20-year sentences, and Danbury's a very tiny place. And if you and I had to sit there and think the next 20 years, I'm 25 years old, the next 20 years of my life, I'm not leaving a very small compound.

It would break it. What happens is the place is flooded with drugs. This drug particularly called K2. And once these guys take K2, it's out of control. The cops can't control it. nobody control it. And so what makes it so dangerous is these prisons are flooded with drugs.

And one of the reasons are flooded with drugs is the mental kind of breakdown of people that have been given these long prison sentence by these judges and really don't have any rehabilitation. This is why President Trump's First Step Act, quite frankly, is brilliant. I'll be working with Jared on prison reform a lot.

But I will say this. Federal prison in the United States of America is very, very difficult and very, very dangerous. I mean, just without going too much, into it and I respect the reasons why you prefer not to, but just on a human level, you're Steve Bannon, you were the architect of this stunning victory in 2016 for Donald Trump. And then suddenly you're finding yourself in a grim, overcrowded prison, you know, and you're there for months. That kind of experience, it can make or break a man. It seems to me, I don't know you very well, but it seems to me, in a way, it kind of made you maybe a stronger individual.

I mean, I'm going to put words in your mouth, but how would you categorize what the experience did to you? I consider it a duty to my country, just like I said, I served under destroyer in my 20s in the Pacific, in the North Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf, and I'm serving here in a prison as a political prisoner. You know, Nancy Pelosi, think about it, the people that put me there, Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson, and Jack Smith's team at the prosecutors. And Nancy Pelosi, I came out, I'm more empowered. One of the reason I'm more empowered. You have to be so immensely focused. Look, at 70 years old, you're just not going to get that experience. You have to be so amazingly focused. Are you going to get end up hurt?

Are you going to end up dead? So you've got to be focused every second of every day to have your mind just totally focus. It empowered me. And think about Nancy Pelosi has been kicked to the curb of screwing up the 20-24 election. Liz Chene these people beg for pardons. Jack Smith's gone and probably going to be prosecuted. So I came out of this empowered. And as you know, because you've known me, the show's tougher, the show's better, I'm more focused on what I do with Trump.

Because I also realize you only get so much time in this life and you've got to get on with it. So for me, outside of the fact that I had to work 12 hours a day talking to my team about making sure the show was empowering the campaign, it was a very empowering experience, dangerous but empowering, if you can get through there at 70 years old. And all the people that put me in either got pardons or are going to be prosecuted who did, like Jack Smith's team for this, for the criminal behavior they had. And Nancy Pelosi has essentially been kicked to the curb by the Democratic Party of having screwed up the 2024 election. So it's ironic, but, you know, so is life.

What was the thing other than family and friends? What was the thing you miss most when you were inside? It's interesting. The thing you miss most in prison, in federal prison, the whole thing is to break you psychologically. One of the ways they, there are no chairs. You have a little plastic chair in your cell, and you can take that in the TV room,

But everywhere in the chapel, the little plastic chairs for grown men. Now think about it. This is for a guy that's 25 years old going to be there for 20 years. You have a little plastic chair, whether you go to the chapel or anywhere. And if you go, I taught at civics, you have a little tiny school desk like you would have one year where nine years old. The whole system of prison is to break you so you never feel comfortable. You sleep on a steel slab with a mattress that big. You have no pillow, no blanket.

It is literally to break you that you're never. comfortable. You're always on edge. There's this cell block. There's just men all over top. If I hadn't been on a Navy destroyer, if you're just some burglar Schmendrick showing up at 70 years old, I think it would be very, very tough. I'd had training in this in military school and an destroyer, and I can kind of grind through things. But everything they do, and the biggest thing you sat there, took me a month that said, why am I so uncomfortable all the time? I said, wow, you can't sit anywhere. There's no place really to sit and be comfortable. So they do all, they play all those kind of games. And look, I was in a low security prison, which is controlled moves in a cell

block in a cell. You go up, if you go up the prisons to medium security, which I think I would only live for 72 hours, I went to medium security or U.S. penitentiary, forget. Those are gladiator schools. That's a whole different level. So the prison, and this is why I'm so big on prison reform with Jared, because I didn't actually see the genius of what he was doing. Our prisons in the United States have to be radically, have to be radically. change. We are, and the other thing, sex offenders, this is the thing. Half the prisons are sex offenders now, and there's no rehabilitation. If you think people are in prison right now, sex offenders are getting rehabilitated, you were wrong. There is no programs whatsoever. These people are warehouse for 10 and 15 years,

clearly have issues, big issues. But outside of being a, you know, a child molester or somebody on a thing, they've never had a parking ticket. I mean, it's bizarre, and they're put in with convicts. So it's It's a bizarre system. It's a dangerous system. You're not helping people. And quite frankly, you're not helping the country. So it's got to be, and President Trump is kind of the leader in prison for him.

This is one of the reasons, by the way, 39% of black men voted for President Trump, the highest portion number. And part of our coalition going forward are Hispanics and African Americans. So just the short version is you missed a nice, comfortable chair. Maybe.

I just missed. You're not comfortable. But if you don't get over the fact, that you're not going to be comfortable, you're going to crack pretty quickly. So you just get to put it by you. Just to say, hey, I'm here. I've done lots of interviews with serial killers and psychopaths and stuff in American, you know, maximum security prisons.

The feeling I get when I leave those places is always just a surge of relief that I'm out of there because they're very foreboding places. We've got to wrap things up soon, Steve. But I just want to ask you quickly, there's a lot of fear. on the Democrat side that Donald Trump may try and run for another term. You were quoted as saying

since the Constitution doesn't actually say consecutive, maybe we go again in 2028. Did you mean that? Was it just a massive troll? Peers, you probably know him as well as any person in global media, right? You know Trump.

And you know that you can see right now these days of thunder. I mean, he's in the moment. This is something he's thought about a lot in those years. The line in winter, Trump was always thinking, always thinking. He had like the Project 2025 people, the stink tanks, and others. He's here and now, and I just, and I do believe that the Constitution is a little, some lawyers I talk is a little open of that. I think it'd be terrific if President Trump is a candidate in 2028, and I would, I would work for that. Wow. Now, that being said, that being said, the Democratic Party, and this is, you know him, so he's a

blunt force instrument, and he's delivered blunt force trauma on the political class in our country. The Republican, you know, the Mitch McConnell Republicans, but particularly the Democrats, they have not regrouped. Schumer's sitting there bleeding. Oh, Bannon's flood the zone thing is not going to work. We're going to focus. Just this weekend,

they picked ahead of the DNC as just some average guy from Minnesota. They're not charging any of their policies. They are, and here's the reason. The worst thing, the worst thing, by the way, you've reminded me. The worst thing was the way every candidate on stage for that chairmanship, were asked, do you think racism and misogy

played a part in Kamala Harris-Loozy? And they all put their hands up. And I was like, you guys have learned absolutely nothing. She did not lose because of her skin color or gender. She lost because she was utterly useless. End. That's it. I rest my case. You just said it.

And that's no, but they still embrace it. So he's shattered them. And it's only going to be more shattering because it's tons of work to do. but I just think right now, if we can figure it out, why wouldn't we? And it can't be, look, if we get to a place that can't happen, it can't happen. But you know him, he's got ahead of steam right now. When he went to Notre Dame, I sat there and go, this guy was like Charlemagne walking in

with a bunch of, you know, McCrone and all these characters. That's how he is right now. Every day's days of thunder. We're flooding the zone. He's getting, you know, from the Panama Canal back to Mexico, just a cave. within 24 hours on the tariffs, it's all happening, and it's happening at a vast scale

with scale, depth, and urgency. Tell me one thing Donald Trump could do that would lose your support, that you would distance yourself completely? I don't think there is. We're going to disagree a lot. First of all, I totally disagree. They're going to try to, I think in his tax plan,

it's to re-put the tax plan. Remember, I fought that back in 17, when the Wall Street Journal went after, me in June of that year when I said the taxes for the wealthy have to go up. President Trump and I are going to disagree on taxes. We're going to disagree on what's the deal with the wealthy. We're going to disagree with the prologarcs. Disagree made with transhuman.

There's a whole host of things we're not going to totally agree with. But I don't have to agree with everything to have this guy support. He is unique. We've had General Washington. We had Abraham Lincoln and we got Trump. This is going to refer to as the age of Trump. We've never had anyone like this, given everything that he's had against him, given that, you know, when they turfs him out of here in January 20th or 2021, you remember this, Pierce.

When he went back, the only reason McCarthy and his guys would go down is make sure the line was still in the cage. He had nothing. And he understood, this is why he had moral courage. He understood he made a conscious decision. He made a conscious decision to come back and run again. Understanding they were going to try to criminalize this. I agree. I agree.

And Jack Smith, for your audience, just. Jack Smith stuff alone, not the rest. Just Jack Smith was 300 years in a federal prison. The established order in our country wanted Trump to die in a federal prison. You know the worst thing. The moment, well, there are several moments that I knew he was going to get reelected, but one was when I heard that they were literally going to drag him through a criminal court over an alleged one-night stand with a pawn star 18 years ago. And at that point, I was like, are you kidding in the history of the United States, the first president to ever get taken through a criminal trial is going to be over that.

I said, if that doesn't scream to everybody that this is literal law fair, it's all it is. It was pathetic political point scoring. And from that moment on, actually, you saw Trump's poll numbers just go up and up and up and up. I thought he was done, finished. I thought it was all going to be DeSantis or whatever. And Ron DeSantis too.

Here's the thing that's interesting. Your old CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, you go back and look at the coverage that time, they were wall to wall. This was Trump was finished. Yeah, it's done. I'm sitting there going, this is the greatest gift they ever gave us.

Yeah, and that moment of when he survived the assassination attempt, and he punched the air and said, five, five, five, I actually spoke to him a week later and I said, it's all over. But he said, it was interesting. He said, you know, it's four months to the election. He said, anything can happen.

And it was the next day, Joe Biden quit. I was like, wow, he wasn't wrong. The moral courage of coming back and doing that, understanding all the law firms are going to come, because he knew they were going to come bankrupt and all the points of all. The physical courage, which not many people have, of getting up this, to fight, fight, fight. Even in prison, I could tell you, the gangster and the gladiator merged.

That's when he, this is when the young men came to him. This is one young men who had the low propensity, they go, hey, I want that guy. And we haven't had that in this country. That's what you're seeing here. with days of thunder. Well, you know the difference is that Joe Biden physically couldn't have got back up. I mean, right there was the stark reminder that the current commander-in-chief literally falls over quite regularly and can't get back up again.

And that was the most telling thing. Steve, we're running out of time. I'm going to end with a quick-fire Q&A because I've never had you on our censored. And there are some wonderfully wild rumors about you. And I want to give a quick answer to these, right? Whether they're true or not. Is it true you grew up in a Kennedy Democrat family? Very true, yeah.

Union, Kennedy family. Is it true, you're an executive producer of 18 Hollywood movies from 1991 to 2016, including the Indian runner written and directed by one of Trump's most ferocious critic, Sean Penn? True. How many millions? Well, I know this is true, but how many millions did you get from investing in Seinfeld? I didn't invest, but I kind of invested. I took a, instead of taking a cash fee, I took my fee in ownership of Seinfeld.

I don't want to say, but it's been Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are geniuses, and the things was enormously profitable and incredible. So you've made a ton of cash from Seinfeld? I did very well in Seinfeld. Not as well as those guys did. They're well-deserved, you know, Bay. Yeah, they're genius. Larry David's a genius, but Jerry Seinfeld was the business genius.

Larry David is the creative genius. Extraordinary. You once wrote a hip-hop musical set in the L.A. riots. I took Cori Linus. I've done Shakespeare films. Titus Andronicus was a major motion picture. I was a company that owned that did a bunch of, including with British stars,

did incredible films. Richard the Third I did. My company did. And then I, yeah, Richard the Third. that great one was done set in World War I between the two wars, was a company I owned, was one of the producers and distributors of it. And I always wanted to do Cori Linus. And so I wrote with a writer, Cori Lainas,

set in between the Bloods and the Crips in L.A. during the riots. Wow. Yeah, that's a great idea, actually. Finally, my favorite one of all, that Trump's use of the song, Macho Man by the Village People, was originally inspired by your love of the iconic gay band during your time in the Navy. Is that true?

I am actually not a fan. President Trump's got his own musical taste that comes from his, as you would know, peers. Just so, you know, our producer made that one up just to get your reaction. No, no, no. The Studio 54 era. Now, President Trump's got eclectic taste.

Your producer got me. No, I'm not a fan of that and not a fan. Although Maga loves it. I got to say, the irony, the irony of the guy, they all call a bigot, actually leading America in a dance to, you know, young man by YMCA or match or whatever it's called. It's just hilarious.

Well, one thing, Scott Besson, who's a very close friend of mine, he was a contributor on War Room for years, Secretary of Tracy is the senior most openly gay man to ever have a cabinet position, a major cabinet position, as a close friend, and we pushed him so hard for me, that doesn't matter. It's who you are and what you're competent. So we're very proud of pushing. Scott Besson, who's the first openly gay senior cabinet member in the United States history.

So we're very proud of that. But the village people, I'm not a fan, but President Trump loves it and MAGA loves us. That's all the matters. When he starts dancing, it's one of the most hilarious things to watch. And when he did it with the village people on stage, that was hysterical. Steve, we've run out of time. Brilliant to have you on our sense.

So don't leave us along next time. I won't. Pierce, thank you so much, brother. Look forward to seeing you over here. Great to see you. you being so wrong about you, Craig. I went hold of the guest for another day. Take care.