Steve Bannon celebrated Donald Trump's plethora of legal battles on Monday, claiming that media coverage of the "lawfare" against the former president is among the reasons Trump is "back in such a fury."
Bannon, ex-White House adviser to Trump, spoke about the former president's civil fraud verdict on his War Room podcast Monday a few hours after a federal appeals court in New York lowered Trump's bond amount in the case. In addition to massive financial penalties, Trump is facing 88 felony counts while running for reelection in November. The former president maintains that he is innocent of all charges, and has repeatedly categorized the legal battles as a form of election interference.
Bannon said on Monday that the court strife "gives President Trump a global platform," adding, "One of the reasons President Trump is back and leading is because half of his campaign is these court appearances and he's very strong going to the mics after where the world media has to cover."
"This is one of the reasons he's back and back ... in such a fury. That he's back with so much momentum," Bannon continued. "The reason is because of that. Because the lawfare is not working, you look on every aspect, the lawfare is not working."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment on Bannon's statement Monday night.
Some preliminary polls show Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, in a dead heat with President Joe Biden, the Democrats' expected choice for November. In a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll shared with The Hill, Trump had a two-point lead over Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head race, while roughly 9 percent of 2,111 registered voters surveyed said they were undecided.
Other recent polls show Biden leading the race, including a Mainstream Research/Florida Atlantic University survey of 1,053 American adults conducted earlier this month, where the president held a two-point lead on Trump. Both men have a relatively low approval rating, according to national polling reviewed by FiveThirtyEight. On average, 55 percent of voters find Biden unfavorable, while nearly 53 percent say the same for Trump.
Bannon's comments come on the same day that Trump was thrown a lifeline in his New York fraud case. The former president was ordered to pay $454 million in penalties after being found liable of misleading lenders, although a court granted Trump 10 extra days to post a now $175 million bond to appeal the full judgment, which Trump said he plans to do.
The former president has also been found liable of sexual assault and defamation against E. Jean Carroll and ordered to pay the former columnist nearly $92 million in penalties after two different judgments.
Trump's hush-money case in Manhattan—where he faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to reimbursements made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign—also saw a hearing on Monday, where New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan set jury selection for April 15.
Additional criminal charges stem from Trump's federal election subversion case, federal classified documents case, and an indictment in Georgia accusing him of scheming to overturn the 2020 election.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
fairness meter
To Rate This Article
About the writer
Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
