CNN
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Steve Bannon was released from federal prison on Tuesday, according to sources, emerging just a week before Election Day to take back the helm of a weakened right-wing media platform.
Bannon, a right-wing podcast host and chief executive of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, remains an ardent supporter of the former president. Even when he reported to a federal prison in Connecticut in July, Bannon insisted he intended to influence the presidential election from behind bars and that his podcast “War Room” would continue to energize Trump’s base. .
Bannon met his daughter Maureen early Tuesday morning. He will host a radio show later Tuesday morning.
He was convicted in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He continues to appeal his conviction.
While in prison, Mr. Bannon kept in touch digitally with a small group of supporters, including one who served as a guest host on a podcast, two people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Bannon discussed some of the day’s news and politics, including topics he thought up for the show.
But Bannon’s MAGA megaphone suffers in his absence. “War Room,” which appeared frequently on Apple’s top podcasts before Bannon was released from prison, had fallen off the charts by early July, according to PodChaser data. By another measure, the podcast was once near the top of Apple’s political podcast chart, but has since fallen outside the top 25, according to Podchaser data.
As Mr. Bannon prepares for his return, there are some signs that things are looking a little better.
“As we’ve seen election denial activists still appear on the show as a central hub, you can see that the ‘war room’ could not survive without Bannon,” the show’s quick said Madeline Peltz, deputy director of response. Media Matters is a progressive nonprofit organization with extensive media oversight.
Mr. Peltz predicted that Mr. Bannon would become a prominent voice for election denialism if President Trump were to close in on Election Day.
“I think it’s going to take time to bring back the crowd and mobilize,” Peltz said. “I don’t think a week between now and the election is enough time to get it done, but I think we’ll see it start in earnest in the post-election chaos.” ”
Mr. Bannon’s show is largely seen as energizing to Trump’s base, but nearly half of Mr. Bannon’s viewers are Republicans, but about 3 minutes One was nonpartisan.
On the podcast “War Room,” stand-in hosts cheered for Bannon’s return.
Prominent election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell offered a deal on MyPillow products to commemorate Bannon’s release (includes a free pillow, plus shipping and handling and an associated discount code).
“We have less than 24 hours until Stephen K. Bannon is free and preaching the gospel of MAGA right here in the ‘war room,'” Natalie Winters, one of the podcast’s guest hosts, said Monday.
Winters then shifted his focus to the presidential race, insisting, “This is not an election, this is a voting war.” This is the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that Bannon embraced and promoted as an early voice of the 2020 Stop the Steal movement.
In May, Bannon repeated baseless claims on his podcast that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, claiming, “They’re going to do everything they can to steal this election.”
“Bannon is one of the most gifted broadcasters among his peers at taking current events, extracting kernels of truth from them, and then weaving elaborate conspiracy theories about them, which leads to his subsequent actions. “There was grassroots acceptance of these lies,” Media Matters’ Peltz said. “No two people really have the exact same level of talent when it comes to approaching specific misinformation.”
To commemorate Bannon’s release, his team announced that they will hold a press conference in New York on Tuesday afternoon.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Maria Aguilar Prieto and Maria Sole Campinoti contributed to this report.
