Former Trump aide and soon-to-be-released convicted felon Steve Bannon has reportedly been teaching behind bars.
Bannon is being held at FCI Danbury, where he has been holding a weekly civics class for fellow inmates ahead of his release on Tuesday, Rolling Stone reported. He has been behind bars after his contempt of Congress conviction for refusing to testify before the House panel’s January 6 Committee.
He has taught his class every Tuesday this fall, sometimes employing the Socratic method, to a crowd of roughly 50 fellow prisoners at the suburban Connecticut prison, multiple sources told the outlet.
One Tuesday afternoon, Bannon asked his class who they believed would win in November. Most said they Trump would. But this poll led to a discussion around whether the former president might deploy the army against US citizens if he loses — a move Trump has considered in the past in other situations.
As recently as earlier this month, when asked on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures about chaos on Election Day, he suggested that any chaos wouldn’t arise from his followers, but from “the enemy from within,” referring to “some very bad people, some sick people, radical left lunatics.”
He then suggested that troops could be used to quell any conflict: “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
But when the prospect of Trump deploying the US military against US citizens was raised in class, Bannon said the Constitution prohibits it.
A student retorted: “You might need to remind Trump that he can’t do it.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Bannon asked with a mischievous smile.
The former Breitbart executive chair lectures to a variety of prisoners: drug dealers, fraudsters, sex crime offenders, and even one convicted January 6 rioter.
At one point, Bannon reportedly told the class that America had been founded on the principles of the Roman Republic, pointing to the Constitution as evidence of the founding fathers’ fear of a monarch, the magazine reported.
While many students expressed that the US might have fared better with a king, the January 6 rioter voiced his concern about a hypothetical America run by a dictator.
“Wasn’t that what you were trying to do on January 6?” Bannon asked the student-slash-prisoner. “To make Trump king?”
“No,” the inmate replied. “I was there to protest the lack of an investigation.”
The jailbird-turned-lecturer imparted a number of other Trump-tinged lessons, referring to Taylor Swift as a cult leader and frequently talking about “illegal aliens,” Rolling Stone reported.
He bragged to the inmates about how he recently spoke to Trump — a closeness that likely enamored the mostly pro-Trump crowd.
Bannon also argued that the former president had pulled out of the 60 Minutes interview because he was skeptical of how his footage would be edited, echoing Trump’s claims.
The Republican nominee has claimed that the CBS used “deceitful editing” when putting together Kamala Harris’ interview. The network rejected that claim, calling it “false” in a statement last week: “When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point.”
Bannon during one lesson asked an inmate if he was better off in 2019, during Trump’s term, than he is now.
“I can’t really say,” the prisoner replied. “I was selling drugs.”
Bannon quipped: “Trump’s 34 felony convictions have taken some of the sting out of being a felon.”
Raheem Kassam, former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News London, told NOTUS that he expects Bannon to be a Trump advocate again soon:
“I would not be surprised to see him immediately hitting the campaign trail, as well as hosting his ‘War Room’ show for four hours each day. Every second will count. Every word will matter.”
