Bannon says the ‘MAGA military’ is able to safe second time period for Trump

Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon says the ‘MAGA army’ is working to secure the ex-President’s victory over Joe Biden and his return to the White House.

Bannon is scheduled to report to a federal prison in Connecticut today to serve a four-month sentence on contempt charges for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The former White House chief strategist says he is not concerned about serving time during the crucial stages of Donald Trump‘s campaign, telling the BBC that the Republican’s supporter’s ‘can’t and won’t stop until final victory’.

He also implied that he will continue to help Trump’s campaign while he serves his sentence, though it is not clear how he plans to do so behind bars.  

‘I’ve served my country now for the last 10 or so years focusing on this,’ Bannon told the broadcaster of the MAGA movement. ‘If I have to do it in a prison, I do it in a prison – it makes no difference at all.’

Bannon, in an interview with the BBC, said ‘I’m ready to go’ and ‘I’m all set up’ as he prepares to serve his prison sentence.

He intends to broadcast a final episode of his War Room TV show and podcast – which he describes as a ‘military command centre for MAGA’ – from outside the prison gates today before turning himself into authorities.

Bannon reiterated that his show will remain on the air while he serves his sentence, alleging he has arranged for other hosts to present the program alongside his regular contributors. 

He remains confident that Trump will be re-elected in November and said he is sure the GOP candidate from ‘day one’ will work to ‘stop the invasion’ of the US border and start the ‘mass deportation of 10 to 15 million illegal alien invaders’.

He claims the former President will then focus on the economy, retaining the tax cuts from his first term which largely benefited corporations and wealthy individuals.

Bannon claimed Trump would then end the ‘forever wars’ in Ukraine and Gaza, but did not explain how he would do so.

He also shared that a second Trump administration would target the former President’s political enemies, especially those who were involved in the criminal proceedings against Trump.

Additionally, Bannon argued that it is ‘impossible’ for Biden to win re-election in November and warned that neither he nor the ‘MAGA army’ would accept the results if he did. 

The remark comes after he recently told a revved-up crowd of Trump supporters the the upcoming election will result in ‘victory or death’ 

Bannon has also claimed that Biden’s performance during Thursday’s debate against was a ‘Pyrrhic victory’ for Trump. 

Biden’s calamitous debate performance saw him stumbling over his words and losing his train of thought. 

The President is understood to be is ‘humiliated’ and ‘painfully aware’ of his image in the contest.

Bannon, however, has predicted that the debate will lead to collapse in poll numbers that Biden will be unable to come back from. He also believes that a withdraw from Biden would benefit Trump’s campaign.

‘The campaign is starting to wake up after spiking the football, I think wrongly,’ Bannon told The Washington Post on Sunday. 

‘You’re going to take out a guy you know you can beat and beat badly, and we’re going to have a wild card.’ 

Bannon, a sometimes adviser to Trump, has warned that if the Democrats replace Biden on the ballot after primary voters have already cast their ballots that the conservatives would ‘weaponize their process’.

He argued how Trump’s campaign and the Republican party must ‘show the nation how callous [the Democrats] were, how self-serving they were, how they didn’t put the good of the nation first, they put the good of personal ambition first’.

He predicted that the Democrats will be ‘searching for a messiah’ to replace Biden and by the time the party convention rolls around in August the situation will be ‘so toxic’ that the Democratic candidate will ‘start off with a minimum of a five-point to seven-point deficit’.

Trump, 78, repeated a series of well-worn, glaring falsehoods during the 90-minute debate on Thursday, including claims that he actually won the 2020 election.

Biden, 81, failed to refute them and his fumbling, halting performance has sparked calls from Democrats for him to end his quest for a second term and for ‘soul-searching’ or resignations among top aides.

Biden’s debate strategy was signed off on by campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, who helped him win in 2020 and was appointed in January to boost an uneven reelection campaign. 

Senior aide Anita Dunn, a longtime Biden aide and former Barack Obama campaign strategist, backed that strategy.

Confidence going into the Thursday’s debate was high. Trump was convicted of falsifying documents by a jury in New York on May 31, while Biden held back-to-back visits in Europe.

To the surprise of some Biden aides, his stubbornly low poll numbers began to inch up nationally in the weeks that followed.

Advisers set up a rigorous debate prep calendar, with Biden sequestered at Camp David for six days.

An inner circle, some close to Biden for decades, were involved: Ron Klain, his first White House chief of staff, Dunn, former White House counsel and long-time adviser Mike Donilon, as well as about a dozen other policy and political experts.

Biden’s campaign said on Friday that no staff shake-up was under consideration. Multiple aides – not just Dunn and Bob Bauer, the president’s attorney who played Trump in pre-debate rehearsals – were involved in the preparation, said a campaign official.

In an email to supporters Saturday, O’Malley Dillon said internal polls and focus groups showed no change in voters’ opinions in battleground states after the debate. She warned ‘overblown media narratives’ may drive ‘temporary dips in the polls,’ but said she was confident Biden would win in November.

In the lengthy prep sessions, Biden’s team peppered him with details, then followed them up with mock debates. 

Critics say now that the preparation should have focused on the bigger vision Biden needs to sell to the country, and that the President had insufficient rest headed into the debate.

Meanwhile, Bannon remains in contact with Trump and his aides but has ruled out any future official role with the Republican’s 2024 campaign or potential White House team.

The longtime Trump ally is preparing to surrender to authorities and report to a federal prison in Connecticut today to serve a four-month sentence.

A judge had allowed Bannon to stay free for nearly two years while he appealed his case, but ordered him to report to prison today after an appeals court panel upheld his contempt of Congress convictions.

The Supreme Court rejected his last-minute appeal to stave off his sentence.

A jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the January 6 House Committee and a second for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in the Republican ex-president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Defense attorneys have argued the case raises issues that should be examined by the Supreme Court, including Bannon’s previous lawyer’s belief that the subpoena was invalid because Trump had asserted executive privilege. Prosecutors, though, say Bannon had left the White House years before and Trump had never invoked executive privilege in front of the committee.

Bannon’s appeal will continue to play out, and Republican House leaders have put their support behind stepping in to assert the January 6 committee was improperly created, effectively trying to deem the subpoena Bannon received as illegitimate.

Another Trump aide, trade adviser Peter Navarro, has also been convicted of contempt of Congress. He reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence after the Supreme Court refused his bid to delay the sentence.

Bannon is also facing criminal charges in New York state court alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges, and that trial has been postponed until at least the end of September.