‘The Ban Is Lifted!’ Steve Bannon’s Podcast Returns to Spotify Five Years After Beheadings Controversy

Steve Bannon’s WarRoom podcast returned to Spotify this week, nearly five years after the giant streaming platform banned the show over comments it said incited violence.

WarRoom has long been an influential cog within the MAGA media ecosystem and regularly hosts the influencers and elected officials popular with President Donald Trump’s base. The show’s team celebrated Spotify welcoming it back with a post on X that read, “The ban is lifted! The Posse can now get Bannon’s WarRoom on Spotify.”

Spotify has over 268 million subscribers and has been a key driver behind the rise of podcasting and alternative media in recent years – playing host to the world’s top-rated podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Spotify exclusively hosted Joe Rogan until February of 2024, paying the former comedian hundreds of millions of dollars..

Bannon was kicked off Spotify following a November 2020 episode in which he said, “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them [Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray] at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats.”

“You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to stop playing games,” Bannon added, later saying his comments were metaphorical. Bannon spoke to The New York Post about his return to Spotify, saying, “I think our content’s the same, probably more hard-hitting than ever.” In recent weeks, Bannon has been a leading voice on the right pushing for President Donald Trump to suspend habeas corpus in the U.S. to facilitate more deportations without due process.

Bannon, a former 2016 Trump campaign manager and early White House advisor, has also been working overseas to promote nationalist populism, a goal he said Spotify can help further. “At least an hour we try to give over to just the international populist nationalist sovereignty movement,” Bannon told the Post, adding, “We have a lot of coverage of Hungary, Poland, Romania…”

Spotify released a statement on Bannon’s return, saying, “Following its temporary suspension and a constructive dialogue with the show’s team, new ‘Bannon’s WarRoom’ episodes are available on Spotify.” On Monday, Bannon made headlines by arguing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) should be “arrested” if the hawkish Republican continues to “stir it up” in Ukraine – following Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s nuclear bombers.