Inside Bannons Response: Facing the Prison Order | Tucker Carlson Network
Summary
➡ Tucker Carlson talks on the Tucker Carlson Network about how in the past, US Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress for not providing documents related to a scandal, but faced no consequences due to executive privilege. Recently, Steve Bannon, former political strategist for President Trump, was also held in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena and invoking executive privilege. However, unlike Holder, Bannon was ordered to report to prison. Bannon believes he is being persecuted for his political affiliations and is prepared to challenge the legitimacy of the committee that ordered his imprisonment.
Transcript
You hear a lot from the people who run Washington about the rule of law and its importance. But of course, the law, unevenly applied is not justice. It’s, by definition, tyranny. So with that in mind, the following back in 20, 1212 years ago, US Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress after refusing to provide Justice Department documents detailing the Obama administration’s handling of the fast and furious scandal. You may remember all of this. So that happened. Holder cited executive privilege, as many have before, to justify withholding these communications, protecting them because they were executive branch communications.
For that, he was held in criminal contempt. But it was meaningless. Nothing ever happened to Eric Holder. In fact, he became even more popular in Washington. His cocktail schedule was not interrupted even for a day. The us attorney in DC cited the country’s longstanding practice of not enforcing contempt charges to let Holder off scot free. Because, again, he invoked executive privilege. And that’s a constitutionally murky area known as ever been prosecuted for it. Of course, the Justice Department, which Holder led, refused to prosecute him. And then Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to protect him as well.
So that’s what happened then. So fast forward eleven years and Steve Bannon tried roughly the same thing. Bannon, of course, was President Trump’s former chief political strategist. And he was ordered, after he tried it, to report to prison by a federal judge. In fact, he’s going at the beginning of next month, he was convicted on two counts of contempt. Why? Because he did what Eric Holder did and defied a congressional subpoena from a committee, in this case, the January 6 committee. And he did what Holder did. He invoked executive privilege, but it didn’t work because he is not Eric Holder.
He is a Republican affiliated with Donald Trump. So we wanted to talk to Steve Bannon before he goes to prison in just a few days from now. And we’re honored to have him join us. Steve, thanks so much for coming on. Tucker, thanks for having me on. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good summary. Well, and I won’t even, I think that’s all very well known. I just wanted to make certain that people understood precisely what’s going on, which is you are being prosecuted. You were prosecuted. Now you’re being persecuted for your politics. But first, a personal question.
I just read this morning you saying you’re fine with it, you’re not afraid. For most people, going to prison is the scariest possible thing that could happen. That’s why it’s a punishment. How do you feel about it and why are you calm? I spent in my twenties, I spent, what, almost four years on a navy destroyer in the North Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, western Pacific, South China Sea. So in my twenties, I served my country on a navy destroyer. In my seventies, I’ll serve my country in a federal prison. It doesn’t make any difference. It won’t change my life one way.
I don’t have a big social agenda. I’m dedicated to this work of saving my country. And if, if I have to be a political prisoner, I’ll be a political prisoner. The one, just a couple things of what you said in the open. Remember these? This is a misdemeanor. When we’re, we were in the federal courthouse. The guy that ran the federal courthouse said is, and this is in DC, he said, and I think he’d been there 30 or 40 years. He told one of my guys he had never remembered a misdemeanor ever being prosecuted. He says, they’re so backed up with felonies, and that’s why half the felon, three corps of felonies get settled out of court.
They just don’t. There’s no time. He said he’s never seen a misdemeanor ever gone to trial, particularly immediately. They remember this, a criminal charge, not civil. You get charged somebody civilly. And like in Peter Navarro, my colleague and brother, he’s down in a federal prison in Miami. I don’t know if they’ve ever had a misdemeanor, someone there, and Peter’s the same way. It’s a misdemeanor. So they did this. Remember, President Trump invoked executive privilege, sent my lawyer a letter on a vice counsel. My lawyer told me flat out, executive privilege has been exerted. So just, you just stand down and he would handle that.
And we had three things that we argued in the court. The three things were up on a pill still back at the DC circuit, maybe en banc, maybe to the Supreme Court, which my lawyers are figuring out here in the next couple of days. But it’s not just exertion, executive privilege and the Lacavoli, or depending on my counselor, because my counsel was absolutely adamant that had been exerted, and I couldn’t respond even if I wanted to. It’s also the structure of the committee. The difference in holder is that. And you see now in Washington, this kind of firestorm over the last couple of days, it’s the very structure of Pelosi’s committee, because in Watergate and or on contra, you had these committees set up and you had a ranking member and you had minority council and that causes the tension and drama in these committees.
A minority council gets all the testimony, you get all the evidence, and you can do cross examination. That’s one of the reason, Tucker. I think even with the ABC tv producer that came in, the January 6 thing kind of flopped because Cassidy Hutchinson couldn’t be, you know, Nancy Pelosi when Jim Banks, the great Jim Banks and Jim Jordan were the two that are supposed to be on there. And Nancy Pelosi told, told McCarthy no. And Kevin, for whatever reason, just agreed to that. And that’s why they never had a committee. You just had, you had crying Kinzinger and you had Cheney, who have both been outed from Congress.
Were the Republicans. Everybody else, there was no ranking member. As soon as she saw Jim Banks name, who will soon be in the US Senate from Indiana, and Jim Jordan, who’s headed judiciary, she just told him no and forever. Strategic reason they made, they went along with it. So the other challenge I’ve got is the very structure of the committee, which the trial judge kind of struggled with. So I believe that has to go the Supreme Court. You know, also I’m prepared to, because I pay all my legal bills. I’ve never asked anybody to pay, you know, set up a legal fund.
I pay all my bills, but I’m prepared, and I’ve told my team, regardless what it costs, I’m prepared to go to the Supreme Court on the executive privilege on Lacivola, and on the structure of the committee, which I think may be of all the issues, because the defense of counsel is a technical thing for the lawyers that needs to be solved in this circuit. The two most important our executive privilege. But the most important to me still is the structure of this committee. Was it a legitimate committee? And you see, with the videos you got the last couple of days of Nancy Pelosi saying, you know, is her responsibility of the National Guard.
This is why we need a complete and thorough investigation by the House into the January 6 committee. Exactly what went on. You know, was it a Fed direction? Was it not a feds erection? What are the details? And what did the January 6 committee know about it? Because we’ve, you know, if you follow Darren Beatty in Revolver news every day, it’s another. Every couple of days you get information that was suppressed from the committee as John Solomon and these investigative reporters keep breaking. So I think there’ll be a lot more of this. But July 1, hey, I serve my country on a navy ship.
I’ll serve my country as a political prisoner in a federal prison for a misdemeanor. It doesn’t, I don’t bat one eye. Whatever, whatever it takes to win this revolution, we got to do. But you’re, you did serve your country in the US Navy. You’re now being betrayed and persecuted by your country. There’s no fair person could, I don’t think could conclude anything but that. Not our country, Tucker. No, our country. Our country. The guys that listen to you and support you, we’re being, we’re being suppressed by, we’re being oppressed by an illegitimate regime that usurp power here.
And that’s what we have to break. And look, I don’t need to tell you they’re on you every day. As you know. They’re on everybody that stands up. That’s what they, that’s what they’ve tried to do. This illegitimate regime is trying to persecute not just president Trump. They’re going to send him to prison on July 11. They may defer that, but they’re going to give him a prison sentence as they’ve given Rudy Giuliani either bankruptcy or deplatforming or taking your law license away or putting people in prison. That’s what they’re doing. And we have to stand up to it.
That’s why I would never give them. I would never give them, you know, you see McCabe on tv wedding himself every night about, oh, when these people get back in power, they’re going to come after us. You’re damn right we’re going to come after you within the rule of law, because that’s how we’ll bequeath a constitutional republic to our children and grandchildren. But no, I don’t bat an eye. It’s impossible. They will never break me, ever. And I, quite frankly, will be just as proud to serve my nation as a political prisoner in a federal prison for a misdemeanor by Nancy Pelosi, as I was to serve my nation on that destroyer has it, I mean, the timing of this.
So four months starting July 1, I mean, they’re taking you on a rotation for the election. I mean, that’s clearly part of the calculation here. Now, they did it in 2020. Also, remember in 2020, right at the very southern District of New York, dropped this bogus, we build the wall, which not only did I never take a penny, I actually put money in. I had a contract, a management contract, consulting contract, totally bogus. They did that and they did that. They did that because the rumor was out there, which was, had some truth to it. Some of the big donors wanted me to step into the campaign and take it back over like I did in August of 16.
There was a lot of concern about was the campaign, not that they couldn’t get out the vote, but could they actually close it? I was in discussions, I’ve been in discussions since May with people about stepping back in and taking the campaign. So they did this in 2020. And now they’re doing absolutely, the timing of this is to take me out July 1 and I come back a couple of days. They want to silence the war room and they’re petrified. Not that I would come back to the campaign. I think the campaign is doing a really good job.
But they want to take out another voice like they want to take you out. They want it. Look, they’re liquidating Alex Jones complete media operation. They’re after you nonstop. They want to shut down the war room. Look, these people play hardball. And I hope Republicans understand that. The reason we got in this situation was these kind of establishment Republicans that were controlled opposition. The only thing these people understand is smash mouth. Now, you have to play within the rules. You have to play within the constitution and the rule of law. But we can do a lot within that.
And that’s why I think McCabe and these guys, Brennan, McCabe, Clapper, they’re so absolutely worried because they understand we know the game. President Trump knows the game much better today. And there’s going to be real accountability come the 20 November of next year. Speaking of Republicans and the false opposition that they put up, I have a list of Republicans who voted to hold you in contempt, a vote that led to your prison sentence. And it’s people, some people you’d expect, Fred Upton, Liz Cheney, Weepy Kinzinger, Nancy Mace. Also. Has she called you to apologize? She’s actually been on the show a couple of times.
Look, to win, I can put a lot behind me. I think one of the reasons she’s had a little bit of problem getting the traction she needs down in her primary, of which I hope she wins the primary. I think she made a mistake. I think she knows she made a mistake. She, she’s come a long way since then. She really backed us. She was part of this, the whole, you know, part to overthrow the, the McCarthy speakership. I think she’s been pretty tough. But I don’t, I don’t hold grudges against which way people vote. I understand what’s going on here, as you do.
I mean, this is an illegitimate regime of neo Marxist from the justice department to the FBI, the Wall street crowd. You can see this everywhere in our society, the attacks on the family, and they play for keeps. And I’m so glad that in the Alice Jones’s and the Tucker Carlson’s, and particularly since you’ve had the opportunity to leave Fox, ourselves and so many others now understand that this is a war to the knife, right? We have to win this. If we don’t win this, this country is going to devolve into some kind of neo Marxist, uh, totalitarian regime of which it’s pretty far down the road right now.
That’s why I don’t fear going to prison, right? I know it’s going to take my voice off. The worm still going to go on. And I keep saying it’s next. Man up. You can’t lean on Trump. You can’t lean on Tucker. You can’t lean on Bannon. You can’t lean on Alex Jones. This is a populist revolt. You have to step up and do it yourself. You have to dive in more. You have to do more media sharing, you know, become a force multiplier. So I’m pretty happy with where the show is right now, what the audience is going to do with the team that we’ve got.
But it’s clearly the playing smash mouth. And I just think we have to wake up and the Jim Banks of the world and the Jim Jordans and the speaker Johnson’s. You have to understand we’re in a political war, in an information war, and you got to start fighting like you’re in a war. I mean, I have to say, and I’m not trying to rub it in or make you feel bad, but it’s, if you just take three steps back, the fact that they’re putting people in prison, men in their seventies, you and Navarro, but others, lots of others in prison for defying them politically.
I mean, that is not the country that we grew up in. Do you ever sort of wonder where you are? I think, like you, I’ve seen this coming for a couple of years. You know, I was able to work with Andrew Breitbart when you started. Daily Caller Andrew started Breitbart. I think at the time we had an inkling when Obama said fundamentally transform the United States. I think we had an inkling with Holder and these guys. But it took really President Trump as kind of someone of people that could rally around to understand that the managed decline of our country was more than just happy, you know, more than just a campaign slogan.
It’s real. And I think that’s, you know, I keep saying Trump’s win in 16 was providential because I was there. We had a, we had a man, we had a mission, we had a plane, we had a message. We didn’t have much. We had a lot of money and not a lot of organizations. And we kind of, that was divine providence. We won. But I tell people it’s also divine providence. It’s providential that we lost in 20 that was stolen. And the reason was, up until then, you kind of thought Democrats, and they had different ideas on taxes.
They had different ideas, maybe on certain social programs or education programs, but it’s not true. They are literally a neo marxist revolutionary group that wants to fundamentally change this country. And now that they have the power of big tech, the lords of easy money, Hollywood, the universities, both high culture and low culture, and the political apparatus, they’re going to destroy the american republic that we grew up with. And this is a war. It is a war. And I’m going to go in for a while as a prisoner of war. I’m a political prisoner. You say you’re shocked about it.
In one regard, I would be shocked about it, but this is the least. They want to put Trump in prison for hundreds of years. They want to destroy one of the greatest Americans in our country, Rudy Giuliani. I mean, bankrupting, destroying, they’re playing smash mouth. The Republicans don’t even conceive of that. That’s why in this Trump movement, when we start talking about judgment Days, 5 November and Accountability Day is after President Trump takes his hand off the King James Bible at high noon on the 20 January, 2025. McCabe’s on tv every other night. McCormick’s on tv all the time.
This is so terrible. We’re having conversations. We may have to leave the country. Well, hey, leave the country. But we have extradition treaties with everybody. And the long arm of american justice is going to get you and fetch you back here. Because one thing I can tell you, with President Trump’s second term, there is going to be accountability, not retribution, not revenge. He’s got the border to shut down, mass deportations. He’s got to stop these endless wars, particularly in the Ukraine. He’s got to stop the madness of the spending and how we finance this government, which is out of control and caused inflation.
But one of the most important things he has to do is deconstruct the administrative state. And part of that is literally crushing the new praetorian guard, which is the deep state. President Trump will do this. And I think we have a group of people around him that are going to be maniacally focused on to do it. But until that time, this is a war, and a lot more people are going to go to prison. A lot more people are going to prison than Steve Bannon, particularly DOJ and CIA, I think. That’s right. That’s where the power is.
That’s where the guns are. Um, that’s where the budgets are. So to war room, your show, which has been very successful and is very influential, can you have any effect on it from prison? Have you figured out a way to get your voice out? Well, you can’t. You can’t run. You can’t run your business from a federal prison. But I’ll stay in touch with the people all day long. I have a great team, and I’ve told them, and yes, and certain other guys, hopefully, hopefully, we’ll play by the rules a little bit better. But no, I tell.
I tell guys, I tell the men and women on my team, it’s time to step up. It’s like at Normandy. We just commemorate the 80th anniversary. The people on the first wave, half of them didn’t get up to the. Up to the bulwark on the beach. They were gone. It was next man up. The only reason they got off that beach is next man up. American history is built upon next man up. You’re going to lose your best people. You’re going to lose your good people. You lose the people in leadership. You’ll lose the people at the front of the phalanx.
You got to pick up the armor. You got to pick up the spear and do it yourself. This is going to be a very good exercise for us. Got to tell people, and I say it all the time, you can’t lean. There’s too much pressure on Trump. You can’t lean on Trump all the time. You can’t lean on Tucker Carlson. You can’t lean on Alex Jones. Steve Bannon, who named 20 50, 30 James O’Keefe. You can’t lean on them. You have to step up and do it yourself. That’s what a populist revolts about. And what they think is that that’s an old school model.
If I can take out Trump, if I can take out Tucker, if I can take out Rudy, if I can take it Alex Jones, I would take out Steve Bannon and cause the rest of them to all be worried about being de banked and deplatformed and spin their wheels there. They win. This is going to be a challenge to show if we win President Trump. DOnald J. Trump on the 11 January we think it’s over the top that Steve Bannon, for misdemeanors is going to a federal prison. Donald Trump, a guy that gave us four years of peace and prosperity, or at least three years of peace and prosperity before we got hit with a chinese bioweapon.
He’s going to be sentenced to years at Rikers island. Now they’re going to defer it or give him home arrest or make him a supplicant to judge Mershant so that he can go, you know, he can go campaign to a limited degree, but they’re in a court in New York state, are going to sentence a man who is president I states and gave us three of the best years of any president in this republic’s history, sentence him to prison on a case that’s actually ten times bigger joke than mine is. So don’t think that if they come for Trump and get, and sentence Trump to prison with the billions he has and the contacts he has and the fact that he’s been commander in chief and president and pretty damn successful, they can come for anybody.
You don’t think they can put anybody in prison. And right now, if you see what’s happening in New York state and California and some of these states and cities, the great cities like Chicago, with what they have running those cities, the folks they got running it, you better be prepared. There’s going to be a lot more people than Donald Trump and Steve Bannon go to prison unless we stop it now. And that’s why when you have people like John Yoo and Andy McCarthy, particularly John Yoo, who’s no fan of President Trump and certainly not MAGA, when a guy like that, that is smart as that and reason when he comes out in National Review, which is also not, as you know, a big Trump supporting, big MAGA supporting magazine, when he comes out and literally lays out, says, we have a constitutional duty, constitutional duty, attorney generals and das in the House to get in these democrats face and start indicting people, he says, if we don’t do that, the balance of the constitution will be totally gone.
We’re going to lose the country. So when a guy like John Yoo and then backed up by Andy McCarthy, when those guys are saying that over at National Review, you realize we’ve hit a tripwire. So is there a point at which in the case of President Trump, where the case is so absurd and the penalties are just, are a mockery of justice, that you just say, I’m not participating, come and get me? I’m not playing your games. I’m going to run for president as is my right as an american and be heard, as is my right.
Like, I’m not, I’m not playing along. I think we may be there on the afternoon, July 11. I mean, I think people got to take a very deep consideration of this. I think it’s a gut check and I think people have to look. And particularly, I think it’s very important. That’s why you and McCarthy and others like that and Matt Walsh and even Rich Lowry, other people have never been big MAGA supporters are now realizing this public, this Republic, we’re right there right now. And I think it’s going to be a gut check. And I think people got to be very reflective.
But the afternoon of July 11, if President Trump gets a multi year prison sentence and is put on hold, maybe for his appeal, but put on hold for some time to give him home release, or somehow they put restrictions on his ability to actually go out and campaign. People got started asking some very deep questions because the thing in New York was the show trial, like Moscow in the 1930s, and if we’re going to allow that to continue, people have to ask very deep questions. So I think we’re heading towards a constitutional crisis this country’s never had before.
And that’s one of the reasons I think I’m going to prison. They want to send me to prison in July to make sure that, I think some of the strongest or more aggressive of President Trump’s, President Trump’s advocates are taken off the, are taken off the playing field. I think that’s right. At some point you just have to say, no, no. Last question. So you’ve got four months. You’re facing. What do you plan to do with that time? Like, what are you going to read? What are you going to spend your time doing in person? Well, I have a pretty strict regimen as is, so I’ll continue on.
I do a lot of spiritual exercises following St. Ignatius Loyola, different spiritual exercises come out of the catholic church. Although I’m a, I’m a, I would actually say if you look at our lord and savior Jesus Christ, I would call myself a pre Christian. I wouldn’t want to insult his name by saying I’m a Christian, given the, I know the field, the very tough and high, high standards. So, no, that issue. And obviously, I read a lot. I study a lot. I try to study every different type of thing that comes up that I am very curious.
So that won’t be a problem. I’ll also communicate with my team and other people on the outside within prison regulations, whatever those regulations are. So I’ll be fully occupied. I work, I’m proud to work 18 hours a day. I have nothing else in my life going on except this. So it won’t stop and we’ll just continue to press on. I’ve told my team there can’t be one drop in quality. There can’t be one drop in audience participation or impact. And so it’s on my team to do it. And I’ll hopefully be in communication with those guys.
I’m very confident we build a team up here that will continue on. Like I tell them, it’s next man up. You don’t know if Tucker Carlson is going to be there tomorrow or you’re going to be rounded up. You don’t know if President Trump’s going to be. By the way, they could remand him to Rikers that afternoon. I think it’d be incredibly foolish and obviously a stretch even for those crazies. But Trump could be remanded to, he could be remanded to prison that afternoon. In fact, if you look at Tish James and Rachel Maddow and those people, they’ve got that we’ll all investigate when we take power as their participation in this.
If you look at Weissman, those guys, they want him remanded on the afternoon of July 11. They don’t want him to go to the republican convention, stand on that stage and before the world take the nomination that was so hard fought for, and really stand up and get it on with Biden one on one, which I think right now this thing will be a blowout. So, no, they’re playing smash. Look at Rudy, Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest mayors who’ve ever had, one of the greatest Americans, and just an amazing guy. To bankrupt him, they want to jail him.
I think he’s got sentences out there potential of 30 or 40, 50 years. Tina Peters, you know, a gold star mother from, from Colorado. I think she’s looking at prison time on multiple felonies of, I think, 20 or 30 years. The 75 year old grandmother they just put in prison last week gave her two years in ill health at 75 years old, gave her two years in a federal prison. So these people won’t stop at anything. Whether you’re right now you’re a religious individual, whether you go to a traditional catholic mass church and, you know, in Richmond, the FBI, the Richmond office, that was the church my parents started that.
They started looking at my parents were very devout Catholics, and as soon as they were able to start a latin mass back in the seventies in the diocese, they took a couple of the priests out of the monastery and they formed a latin mass prayer. That was. That was one of the churches. That was the one that gave the guys in the Richmond field office, because it’s a very traditional, very blue collar. Tons of kids going to the military, go to the academies, but really enlist in the Marine Corps and the navy and the army. And that’s what the FBI is going after.
They’re saying that they’re building political extremist. That this is where extremism is coming from. Your government has turned against you. Not our country, the government. This illegitimate regime has taken over the apparatus of the United States government and is enforcing dictatorial power. And we have to stand up for it, just like the revolutionary generation stood up to the dictatorial power of the crown. And people like the British East India Company, what they hate most is Christianity, for sure. Well, you’re a brave and magnanimous man, and so God bless you. Good luck, Tucker. Thanks. Look forward to seeing you.
The side. Thank you, Steve. Free speech is bigger than any one person or any one organization. Societies are defined by what they will not permit. What we’re watching is the total inversion of virtue.
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