‘It’s Beneath You!’ Steve Bannon Rages in WILD Interview After ABC’s Jon Karl Asks Him About Beheading His Foes
Steve Bannon, the former top aide to ex-President Donald Trump who is set to begin a four-month prison sentence on Monday for defying a Congressional subpoena, participated in a wild interview ahead of his incarceration with ABC’s Jon Karl.
Speaking with the War Room podcast host Friday in an interview which aired Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Karl grilled Bannon about his repeated threats of retribution against Trump’s enemies. In particular, Bannon focused on the past two Attorneys General — Merrick Garland and Bill Barr, the latter of whom was appointed by Trump.
KARL: you made a promise on your shows, you said that the Attorney General will be in prison.
BANNON: 100%
KARL: So you’re not just talking about investigations. Is Bill Barr on the retribution list?
BANNON: I think Bill Barr has to be investigated, not retribution. You keep talking retribution, no–
KARL: Because Trump says retribution, you said retribution
BANNON: It’s justice, it’s justice.
KARL: So, Bill Barr needs to be investigated. Bill Barr, Bill Barr needs to go prison with Merrick Garland?
BANNON: I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that. We have to see. I’m not gonna prejudge somebody. We have to see-
KARL: So Bill Barr could be going to prison? As part of retribution –
BANNON: That’s not retribution. It’s justice.
Karl went on to confront Bannon about a clip from his podcast in 2020 which he “seemed to imply that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.” (On his Nov. 5, 2020 broadcast, Bannon 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 at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: either get with the program or you’re gone.”
Bannon scoffed at the notion that he actually wants to behead Fauci and Wray.
“That is a metaphor!” Bannon said. “In this town, Jonathan, and it’s beneath you to bring it up! In this town, it’s–”
“[It’s’ not beneath me to bring this up,” Karl interjected.
“In this town, a thousand times a day, people go, ‘We got to put the heads on pike, we have to put his head on a pike,'” Bannon said. “It was a metaphor.”
The War Room host went on to further defend his comments.
KARL: You’re saying at a time when Anthony Fauci and his family are facing death threats, when Christopher Wray and FBI agents all the way down are facing death threats, and you’re going out and talking about putting their heads on pikes.
BANNON: A total metaphor. Anybody understands that. That’s, that’s your overreach, by the way. They banned us, I think, on Twitter. They banned us on Facebook for that. And hey, guess what? The show got even bigger. So not that we care. And I’m not backing off my–
KARL: Are you concerned about those death threats though?
BANNON: That’s not a — what do you mean death threats!
KARL: I mean the fact that—
BANNON: You think I don’t get death threats? Do you think I don’t get death threats and have security all the time? That comes when you play at the highest levels. It just comes.
Watch above, via ABC.
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