Steve Bannon is being released from prison in time for last week’s advance to Election Day

CNN
—

Steve Bannon was released from federal prison on Tuesday, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, emerging just a week before Election Day to retake the helm of his weakened right-wing media platform.

Bannon, a right-wing podcast host and managing director of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, remains an ardent supporter of the former president. Even as he reported to federal prison in Connecticut in July, Bannon insisted he would influence the presidential race behind bars and that his “War Room” podcast would continue to energize the Trump base.

Bannon was greeted early Tuesday morning by his daughter Maureen. He is expected to host his radio show later Tuesday morning.

He was convicted in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. He continues to appeal his conviction.

While in prison, Bannon stayed in digital contact with a small group of loyalists, including some who served as guest hosts for the podcast, according to two sources familiar with the matter. In part, Bannon would discuss the day’s news and politics, including topics he was thinking about for the show.

However, Bannon’s MAGA megaphone has suffered in his absence. “War Room,” which frequently appeared on Apple’s Top Podcasts before Bannon reported to prison, fell off the charts in early July, according to data from Podchaser. By another measure, the podcast was once near the top of Apple’s political podcast charts and has since fallen out of the top 25, per Podchaser data.

There are some signs that things are picking up a bit as Bannon prepares to return.

“Even though we’ve seen pro-choice activists come into the show still as a central focal point, you see ‘War Room,’ it wasn’t able to sustain itself without Bannon,” said Madeline Peltz, deputy director of rapid response at Media Matters. a progressive nonprofit that conducts extensive media monitoring.

Peltz still predicted that Bannon would be a prominent voice of election denial if it appears that Trump will come around shortly after Election Day.

“I think it’s going to take some time to bring the audience back and mobilize them,” Peltz said. “I don’t think a one-week period between now and the election is enough time to complete it, but I really think you’ll see it come to a head in the post-election chaos that we’re all anticipating.”

While Bannon’s show is seen mainly as an energizer for the Trump base, data from Edison Research’s podcast metrics showed that nearly half of Bannon’s audience was made up of Republicans, but about a third of listeners were independents.

On the “War Room” podcast, a cast of fill-in hosts cheered Bannon’s return.

Prominent election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell offered a deal on his MyPillow products to celebrate Bannon’s release (free pillows plus shipping and handling with the appropriate discount code).

“It’s less than 24 hours until Stephen K. Bannon is back a free man preaching the gospel of MAGA here in the ‘War Room,'” said Natalie Winters, one of the podcast’s guest hosts.

Winters then turned his focus to the presidential race, claiming, “It’s not an election, it’s a ballot war.” It’s the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that Bannon embraced and promoted as an early voice in the “Stop the Steal” movement in 2020.

In May, Bannon claimed on his podcast that “they will do anything to steal this election” as he repeated the baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Bannon is one of the most talented broadcasters among his peers at taking current events, extracting a kernel of truth from them, and then spinning an elaborate conspiracy theory on top of it, which then becomes the fuel for the act, has been taken from the grassroots in response to these lies,” said Peltz of Media Matters. “There’s really no one with the same level of talent for that particular misinformation approach.”

To mark his release, Bannon’s team said he plans to hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon in New York.

This story has been updated with further developments.

CNNs Kristen Holmes, Maria Aguilar Prieto and Maria Sole Campinoti contributed to this report.