Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
To hear someone talk about Trump in this way that
really gets to the extremes of Trump's character, to the
ridiculousness of Trump's character. You can listen to Steve Bannon
all day. It's performative, with a real expressiveness poetry, and
he's the Tuscanini well of abusing Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Certainly, this is Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm Michael Wolfe, I'm James Truman. So, Michael, we're meeting
today one day before the debate. We'll get into that
in a future podcast, but today I thought we might
talk about this central character in the whole drama, Steve Bannon,
whom I know you have been very close to and
it has been an important source for your books. So
let's really try and drill down and to find out
(01:01):
who this strange architect of trump Land is. Let's start
with the obvious. Is he getting to jail next week?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
This is his contempt of Congress citation. It looks pretty
definite that he'll be behind bars. And this has gone
through the entire appeals cycle and everybody has said no, no,
you got to go to jail. He's been given a
July first show up date, and now He's appealed that
to the Supreme Court in a kind of Trumpian last
(01:31):
throw it at the wall. Who knows what's going to happen.
It's the Trump Supreme Court, so maybe, but probably not,
and he probably does go to jail.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
This is the four month contempt term that he's looking at,
to be distinguished from the fraud indictment, which was initially
a federal indictment which Trump pardoned him on in the
final hours of the Trump administration, but then has been
reconstant in New York State. And he goes on trial
(02:04):
for that in September before the same judge, by the way,
who presided over the Trump trial, and that could be
up to four years.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
And this relates to him raising money for the wall
and possibly exactly keeping it clean.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Raising money for the wall, and apparently raising money for himself.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
To me, he's the most dimensional and interesting character in Trump.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Totally totally fascinating. Steve is somebody I have liked quite
a bit. I mean, there's nothing other than the moral dimension,
there's nothing not to like. I mean, he's incredibly funny,
incredibly smart, full of insights that nobody else has about
Donald Trump. I mean he is one of the people
who is most clear eyed about Donald Trump, and in
(02:52):
a really devastating way.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
If I may ask, did Fire and Fury sew his
relationship with Trump that it ended?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, Well, he was cast out because of Fire and Fury.
Now they have had all kinds of issues beforehand. I mean,
Steve really came into the Trump campaign in August twenty sixteen,
as Steve put it, into this broke dick campaign, and
I mean they were twenty points down. There was no
possibility that they could win. And then Steve because there
(03:22):
was really no possibility, so you just might as well
do whatever. Hail Mary and Steve had a hail Mary approach,
which seemed actually quite preposterous at the time, that they
would concentrate on these traditional democratic industrial states, and that
turned out, of course, to work. And then Steve set
(03:42):
about for the early months of the Trump administration marketing
himself as the real president. So that did not endear
him to his boss. He was fired before Fire and
Fury came out. But then Fire and Fury came out,
quoting him at enormous length about Trump and about everyone
(04:03):
in Trump's family and about everyone in the Trump administration,
and that really got Steve cast out of the Trump orbit.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
You've often said that Trump doesn't read and in fact
didn't even read his own book, The Out of the Deal,
according to its ghostwriter. But if Trump probably never read
Fire and Fury, So who in the court was going
to use your book to get rid of Bannon?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Almost everyone? Okay, there was no one at that point
in the Trump court who was a Bannon ally. He
had alienated literally everybody. So there was wide glee when
Fire and Fury came out and caught Steve live saying
all of the things that he had said so often
(04:47):
in private, and.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He knew this was on the record.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I think that was a moment of high disregard for
Steve Bannon, And it's very hard to actually interview him
on those traditional terms on the record, off the record,
because he's always transgressing either side, and then it's a
lot of wink wink, I'm gonna tell you this and
it's off the record. But that's part of Steve's charm,
(05:14):
I suppose, is that he can't not say what is
on his mind.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, So does Steve Bannon have a place in Trump
world or any world right now? Is he just ad
on the fringe of his regner, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I mean, Steve has really created a place for himself
in a significant way. I mean Trump may regard him
as an annoyance, but the greater Maga world, Steve is
the most articulate person in that world, and he has
come to be the person who who lots of people
in that world turned to. Plus he has this podcast,
(05:48):
The War Room, has become very powerful and very significant.
All of these people from Marjorie Taylor Green on and
on and on and on show up at the war Room,
which is done from where Steve lives, which is in
this really little grotty townhouse on Capitol Hill, otherwise known
(06:10):
as the Embassy. This was where the Breitbart offices were,
and it was the Breitbart Embassy. Now it's just the
ban and Embassy and it's kind of man cave like
and Steve has a kind of monastic bedroom upstairs, and
all of the Steve people, kind of young men with
(06:30):
a slight brown shirt cast, come in and out of
the Embassy while Steve sits before the microphone talking on
a NonStop for hours on end. And that has given
him this central place in the secondary Trump orbit.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Right, Yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean there's these other groups, the Heritage Foundation and
America First something or other. They all wrap present themselves
as significant entities in significant parts of the Trump brain trust.
And then the campaign says, don't listen to them, you know,
don't listen to anything that if it doesn't come from us.
(07:13):
But that doesn't stop anybody, including Steve, who would represent
does represent himself as a significant part of Trump's thinking
and as the enforcer too of pure maga thought of
the real Trump position.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
We'll be back right after the break.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So let's go back from a minute to how this
extraordinary character was formed. I mean, I know the outline.
He grew up in Virginia. His father worked for at
and T devout Catholics. He went to a Catholic military school.
Who knew there was such a thing at that time.
Was also kind of like young Steve Jobs. He was
sort of reading about sort of Buddhism and mysticism, traveling
(08:08):
the world while in the Navy.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah no, and I think that's an important aspect. The
autodidact aspect of Steve is very important and very deep.
He knows a lot about a little I suppose he
would say, I mean, Steve is an obsessive and so
he can drill very deep on something and become a
world class expert on a very narrow sliver of whatever
(08:36):
his interests are at the moment.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Would you say he's a gad flight and you're presenting
him now as not a wholly serious person, Well.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I would say he's one of the least serious people
ever I have ever met, Which is not to say
that he's not unintelligent. He's incredibly intelligent and again incredibly insightful,
but the focus of his intelligence shifts constantly. The point
of his insights is in constant flux. It is all
(09:05):
about what is the opportunity for Steve Bannon at a
given moment. You know, talking to me in the many,
many many hours we spent talking, you could tell that
the opportunity was just in that moment to say to me,
what would get a headline, even if it's a headline
that would be damaging to Steve interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So he's not one hundred percent unlike Trump.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Then I think that there is a clear affinity there,
and I think that's what Steve likes about Trump, that
sense of Trump being willing to do anything at any
time for the headline or for the applause, the attention
I mean Steve would like in an ideal world, Steve
would have Trump's attention. I mean, not the attention of Trump,
(09:54):
the attention that otherwise goes to Trump, which goes to
the tension in their relationship.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, I mean ruin his tension, because, as we've talked
about before, the minute Trump thinks he's sharing the stage
with someone, he's got to get them off the stage off.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yes, and that clearly happened to Steve, and that has
not really been repaired to my knowledge. Actually, they have
only seen each other since twenty seventeen one time. So
Steve continues to portray himself as somehow integral to the
(10:29):
Maggie universe and Trump's thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But he's not on Trump's late night call list.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Absolutely not. No, they I mean effectively, they don't speak
their paths of cross on this one occasion that I
know of, And Steve speaks to many of the people
who speak to Trump, So that is a form of influence.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, and this thing that he might go to jail for.
I find that extraordinary that he took on himself the
role of getting the wall built after Trump had failed
was that to appease Trump, was that to compete with Trump?
Was it to set Bannon up as being a politician contender?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
All of the above plus a little grift on the side.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Okay, there's a quote I found from July twenty seventeen,
which I think was a month before he got fired.
He was speaking to an interview. He said this phrase,
I'm going to use that will shock you that you
never thought anybody would put together Donald Trump and moral courage.
So that was a month before he got fired, and
he was saying all that stuff to you about Trump
(11:26):
being an idiot.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
At exactly at the same time. So the pivotal conversation
I had with Steve, I think took place somewhere in
the second half of July. And Steve then had this
apartment in Arlington, Virginia, this kind of two room apartment
above a McDonald's. You know, there was sort of one
piece of furniture in it, lots and lots of books
(11:51):
but no bookshelves, unmade bed, and then some Chinese food
that he had ordered in every occasion that I've spent
Steve is interesting and funny, but for some reason, at
that moment, he just the floodgates opened, and I think
that he was at a moment of particular frustration with
Trump and the Trump White House, and every single word
(12:16):
out of his mouth for approximately two and a half
hours was a scathing and devastating word. At that moment,
emerging there, I thought, Okay, I've got a book.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Wow, did you tape it?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I did?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah? Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I mean one of the interesting things is that he
then played to me the Donald Trump as the crazy person,
and then Steve made him out to be the craziest
person on earth in a way, creating the indelible image
of Trump. So Steve in a way has created the
Maga Trump and the anti Maga Trump too. The pro
(12:57):
Trump and the anti Trump are all from Steve's imagination.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Wow. And of course, you know, if we're talking about
the people Steve attaches himself to after he's thrown out
of the White House. More recently, he was the kind
of media strategist for Epstein. Does he have terrible judgment?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I don't think it's a question of judgment, it's the
question of the opportunity. I mean, I think that there
were two things that appealed to Steve. Jeffrey Epstein's money. Yeah,
because he's always looking for who's going to back me.
You know, for a while it was the mercers. There's
been a whole cast of these people who have backed
Steve Bannon. Then the other aspect is that Epstein knew
(13:41):
Trump very well. I felt that here were the two
guys perhaps who knew Trump best. I mean, Epstein had
spent really from the late eighties through till the early
two thousands as Trump's bff. They shared airplanes, they shared
a mutual nightlife U Palm beach life in New York life.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
They were the bros.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And then that relationship broke up over real estate. There's
a certain kind of level of guys. The thing that
most can hurt them, that most gets them is real estate.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, it ends a fifty year friendships over night, doesn't it.
If someone buys you a house that you want to
it's just remarkable.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But Epstein knew, I mean profoundly, I think knew Donald Trump,
and I think Steve did in his way too. So
these guys got together and they talked about Donald Trump.
It's irresistible topic.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, how did they meet Bannon and Epstein?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
After Bannon had left the White House? So Bannon was
then I think, actively looking for new patrons. Epstein came
along and they immediately got a crush on each other
and again, and it was over Donald Trump and helped
along by the fact that Epstein had an airplane that
could shuttle Steve around. And then in a scene that
(15:09):
resulted in me falling out with Steve because I was
privy to a scene in which Steve was counseling then.
This was about maybe four or five months before Epstein
was arrested. Steve was counseling Epstein on essentially media training.
(15:31):
This is what you should do. You should go on television,
and you should expose yourself to a tough interviewer. And
I will show you how to do this, and I
will be the tough interviewer, and we will practice this.
And I was privy to this scene and then wrote
about it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, it was amazing, amazing, totally totally immoral. It was
kind of just remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And so Steve, who forgave me for Fire and Fury
and then forget gave me for my next book, which
also quoted him at enormous length, could not forgive me
for this.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
We'll be back next week with our rolling coverage of
Donald Trump and his presidential campaign, the most consequential presidential
campaign of our lifetime.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Fire and Fury.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolfe
and James Truman.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Maronot.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Executive producers for Kaleidoscope are Mangesh had to get A
and Os Valascian, Executive producers for iHeart On Nikki Ito
and Katrina Novel