First prison interview: Steve Bannon speaks from Connecticut jail

Steve Bannon showed he was still fully focused on politics despite spending the next four months in a federal prison in Connecticut.

In his first jailhouse interviews since surrendering to a federal lockup in Danbury on July 1, the former White House chief strategist and a leading figure in the MAGA movement didn’t mention jailhouse conditions or his emotional state.

Instead, the complete question and answer session — conducted via email with the rightwing outlet Breitbart — of which he used to be the head — was focused on MAGA movement.

And he suggested that the future of the conservative movement relied on the Democratic Party continuing to have President Joe Biden as its presidential nominee.

“We got the candidate we want,” said Bannon, who was convicted of contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack.

“The country is stuck with a non-performing cadaver. Time to ratchet up the national security aspect of this—he’s unfit to be Commander-in-Chief—now or in January 2025," he said. “We need to know who is responsible for this cover-up.. clearly European leaders are giving one embarrassing story after another.”

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He went on to say that his imprisonment would have no effect on the strength of the MAGA movement, citing the concept of “the next man up.”

“The established order thinks by targeting our leaders they can blunt the impact of MAGA — that assumption by them is wrong—lawfare against President Trump has only made him stronger and more appealing to an even wider segment of American voters — same with Rudy [Giuliani], Mike Lindell, Jim Hoft, Alex Jones, John Eastman, Jeff Clark, Cleta Mitchell.

“The list goes on and on and on—MAGA is the personification of ‘anti-fragile’—resilience is our watchword.

“Next man up comes from that anti-fragile premise—when one leader goes down another steps up, when one person can’t fulfill their task and purpose another steps up.”