Considering the fact Steve Bannon is currently the most powerful man in the White House, I decided to dig a bit deeper than I have previously into who he is and where he comes from. After doing this research I’ve decided to condense it all into a timeline, since I’ve yet to find an article or source on Steve Bannon that is this comprehensive.
I’m sure that there are important points in his life I’ve missed or devastating quotes that I’ve overlooked, and so if there’s anything particularly egregious that I’ve let out I’d love to know so I can make amendments as necessary.
Before I get into the timeline, just a little background of anyone who may be unfamiliar with Bannon.
Who is Steven Bannon?
Wikipedia will tell you that Stephen Kevin “Steve” Bannon is the Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to United States President Donald Trump. Prior to assuming those positions, Bannon was the chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Before his political career, Bannon served as executive chair of Breitbart News, a far-right news, opinion, and commentary website that Bannon described as the platform of the Internet-based alt-right.
What is Breitbart?
Wikipedia says all of the following:
Breitbart is a far-right American news, opinion, and commentary website founded in 2007 by conservative commentator and entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. It also has a daily radio program on the Sirius XM Patriot channel called Breitbart News Daily. Initially, under Andrew Breitbart, the aim was to found a site that was “unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel.” It later aligned with the European populist right and American alt-right under the management of former executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon. The New York Times describes Breitbart News as an organization with “ideologically driven journalists,” that is a source of controversy “over material that has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist.” Bannon declared the site “the platform for the alt-right” in 2016, but has denied all allegations of racism and later stated that he rejected the “ethno-nationalist” tendencies of the alt-right movement.
Bannon in the White House
The speed at which Bannon is gaining power is one of the most important stories emerging from the Trump administration at this time. An article by Politico stated that the current onslaught of Executive Orders being signed by Trump were written and reviewed almost exclusively by Bannon, with very little input. From Politico:
“Inside the West Wing, it is almost impossible for some aides to know what is in the executive orders, staffers say. They have been written by Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior White House adviser for policy, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, according to people familiar with the matter. Ideas for some of the Trump executive orders came from transition officials and so-called “landing team,” sources say, who weren’t working in the White House.”
At this point, Bannon has more access to the National Security Council than the head of the CIA, and is drafting all executive actions and orders being signed by President Trump, who himself has had little input. This includes the executive order that appointed Bannon to the National Security Council. Bannon is one of the most trusted members of Trump’s inner circle, and he’s currently playing him for a chump.
Below is a timeline that I’ve compiled based on the research I’ve done, as well as the sources I used. I’ve also included a breakdown of what’s in each article. I also bolded some things within the timeline that I feel are particularly important or upsetting.
Timeline
1953 — Stephen Bannon is born in Norfolk, Virginia, in a family of “working-class, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union Democrats.”
1976 — Bannon graduates from Virginia Tech.
1976 — Immediately upon graduating, Bannon enters the Navy. During his time in the Navy he is an officer and a Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon while also earning a Masters in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He leaves in 1983.
1985 — Bannon receives a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.
Mid-late 1980’s — Bannon works as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs.
1990 — He launches Bannon & Co., an investment bank specializing in media. The group used data such as VHS cassette sales and TV ratings to devise a model that valued intellectual property in the same way as tangible assets. Bannon & Co. is extremely successful, making deals such as the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner. In lieu of a full adviser’s fee, the firm accepted a stake in five TV shows, including Seinfeld. Steve Bannon currently has stake in and receives royalty for syndicated episodes of Seinfeld.
1995 — Bannon marries his second wife, Mary Louise Piccard, a former investment banker. Their twin daughters are born three days later.
1995 — Bannon is brought in to run Space Biosphere Ventures for their Biosphere 2 project after the first Biosphere project is deemed a failure. His appointment is protested by former crew members, who go so far as to break into the biosphere compound and warn the staff of safety concerns. He shifts the focus of the biosphere project from survival techniques to studying societal changes like air pollution and climate change. In an interview during this year, he gives the following quote about climate change:
“A lot of the scientists who are studying global change and studying the effects of greenhouse gases, many of them feel that the Earth’s atmosphere in 100 years is what Biosphere 2’s atmosphere is today,” Bannon explained. “We have extraordinarily high CO2, we have very high nitrous oxide, we have high methane. And we have lower oxygen content. So the power of this place is allowing those scientists who are really involved in the study of global change, and which, in the outside world or Biosphere 1, really have to work with just computer simulation, this actually allows them to study and monitor the impact of enhanced CO2 and other greenhouse gases on humans, plants, and animals.”
1996 — Bannon is charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness in early January of 1996. The charges were later dropped when his now ex-wife did not appear in court. Piccard would later state to The New York Times that her absence was due to threats made by Bannon and Bannon’s lawyer — they advised her to leave town and hide until they told her it was safe to come back.
1996 — After leaving the Biosphere 2 project, Bannon is sued by the former crew members who earlier protested his involvement. He testified that after one woman submitted a five-page complaint outlining safety problems at the site, he promised to shove the complaint “down her fucking throat,” as well as calling the woman a “bimbo” and a “self-centered, deluded young woman.” Space Biosphere Ventures is ordered to pay the plaintiffs $600,000 but orders them to pay the company the $40,089 in damages they had done.
1997 — Bannon and Piccard divorce. During the proceedings, Piccard states that Bannon had made anti-Semitic remarks about several different choices of schools and did not want his daughters attending school with Jews because he doesn’t like the way they “raise their kids to be whiney brats.” Bannon denies saying ever making such a statement.
1998 — Bannon Sells Bannon & Co., and is now no longer in need of a day job. He decides to executive produce movies. He also becomes partner in a management outfit called The Firm. Clients include Ice Cube and Martin Lawrence.
2004 — Bannon enters into the world of documentary filmmaking, creating a documentary about Ronald Reagan called In the face of Evil. At a screening for this film, he meets and soon begins business with Andrew Breitbart.
2009 — Bannon and his third wife, Diane Clohesy (a tea party activist), divorce.
2010 — Breitbart publishes video of a Department of Agriculture official named Shirley Sherrod delivering a speech to the NAACP, purposefully edited to misconstrue her point — making it appear as though she is advocating for anti-white racism. The video goes viral and Sherrod is fired within hours. When it becomes clear to the media that Breitbart deliberately edited the video, Andrew Breitbart is banned by Fox News from being an on-air guest.
2011 — In a radio interview, Steve Bannon gives the following statement about why liberals hate conservative women and Michele Bachmann:
“These women cut to the heart of the progressive narrative. That’s why there are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement. That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England.”
2011 — After hearing that Anthony Weiner, Democratic Representative from New York, has a proclivity for sexting, Bannon hires trackers to follow Weiner’s Twitter feed 24 hours a day. They eventually intercept a sexually explicit photo that Weiner accidently makes public, setting off Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal that cost him a seat in congress (among other things). As a result of this, Andrew Brietbart is welcomed back to Fox News as an on-air guest.
2012 — Following the screening of a Bannon documentary championing Sarah Palin called The Undefeated, Andrew Breitbart refers to Bannon as “The Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement.”
2012 — Breitbart and Bannon work together to relaunch Breitbart News. Days before the launch, Andrew Breitbart dies of heart failure. Bannon goes through with the launch, stepping in as Executive Chairman. Under Bannon’s direction he declares the website “the platform for the alt-right” and pushes an alt-right and nationalistic agenda.
2012 — Bannon co-founds the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative nonprofit investigative research organization. Although GAI is privately owned, it is believed that Robert Mercer, a major donor to Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, is a main investor. While at the GAI Bannon helps orchestrate the publication of the book Clinton Cash, an anti-Clinton book that largely influenced public perception of Hilary Clinton going in to her 2016 presidential campaign, authored by GAI President Peter Schweizer. A Bloomberg profile on Bannon goes into details about the purpose and function of GAI and includes this juicy quote:
“The creative mind through which all its research flows and is disseminated belongs to a beaming young Floridian named Wynton Hall, a celebrity ghostwriter who’s penned 18 books, six of them New York Times best-sellers, including Trump’s Time to Get Tough. Hall’s job is to transform dry think-tank research into vivid, viral-ready political dramas that can be unleashed on a set schedule, like summer blockbusters.”
2013 — At a book party held in his D.C. townhouse on November 12th, 2013, Bannon tells a reporter from The Daily Beast: “I’m a Leninist. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” When the reporter reaches out to Bannon in August 2016 to confirm this before publishing a story, Bannon tells him “I don’t remember meeting you and don’t remember the conversation. And as u can tell from the past few days I am not doing media.”
2014 — in January of 2014 Bannon writers an article for Breitbart defending Roger Ailes against an allegation in a recently published book that Ailes once used an anti-Semitic slur in an argument with an employee. Bannon rails against the media — specifically The New York Times and the book publisher Random House — for publishing this allegation despite the story being denied by multiple sources.
2014 — Bannon writes an article for Breitbart titled “Cantor’s ‘Dream’: Homeland Security Reports 90,000 Illegal Alien Children to Attempt Border Crossing.” In it he states that due in large part to the Dream Act, 90,000 illegal alien children (later in the article he states the number is 142,000 children) will attempt to cross the border illegally in the hopes that they will be granted amnesty. According to the article, that number is 300 percent from the previous year.
2015 — Bannon is ranked 19 on Mediaite’s list of the “25 Most Influential in Political News Media 2015.”
2015 — Bannon says while hosting an episode of the radio show Breitbart News Daily that Pope Francis has “fallen into hysteria” about climate change. He and his guest accuse the Vatican of being overrun by “cultural Marxists.” Throughout the year, Breitbart Editor James Delingpole authors numerous articles denouncing climate change, at times referring to climate change scientists as “talentless low-lives that cannot be trusted,” “abject liars,” “Global Warming Nazis,” and “scum-sucking slime balls.”
2016 — Former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro quits Breitbart following the assault of reporter Michelle Fields by Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Shapiro accuses Bannon of turning Breitbart into “Trump’s personal Pravda” and accuses him of anti-Semitism. Bannon defends himself from the accusations with the following quote:
“Are there anti-Semitic people involved I the alt-right? Absolutely. Are there racist people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely. But I don’t believe that the movement overall is anti-Semitic.”
2016 — In July 2016, a month before Bannon leaves Breitbart to work for the Trump campaign, he writes an article titled “Sympathy for the Devils: The Plot Against Roger Ailes — And America.” The article’s main photo is of a group of protestors burning an American flag and begins by criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement, criticizes the Democratic party’s response to the Pulse nightclub shooting which focused on gun control as opposed to targeting Muslims, and ends with an impassioned defense of Roger Ailes, who around that time had been exposed as a sexual predator by several women at Fox News and was forced to step down as a result of the allegations. In terms of thinly-veiled racist language all over the article, a perfect example occurs when Bannon brings up the murder of a (white female) college professor in Baltimore and states “Indeed, the Baltimore murder is a tragic reminder that all the progress that’s been made in the last 25 years toward revitalizing cities could be washed away in an orgy of de-gentrification.”
2016 — Bannon leaves the Government Accountability Institute in August when he is appointed Chief Executive of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on August 17th. He also goes on leave from Breitbart at this time.
2016 — On November 13, 2016, Bannon is appointed Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to President-elect Donald Trump. This is met with opposition from the Anti-Defamation League, The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the South Poverty Law Center, Democrat Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and even Republican strategists, due to statements in Breitbart News that were alleged to be racist or anti-Semitic.
2016 — on November 15th, during his first interview not conducted by Brietbart Media since the 2016 presidential election, Bannon said the following quotes:
“Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”
“I’m not a white nationalist. I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist.”
2017 — In an interview with The New York Times, Bannon says:
“The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile. I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”
2017 — It is discovered that Bannon is registered to vote in Florida at an empty house where he does not live. The house, currently unoccupied and due to be demolished, is owned by a man named Luis Guevara and was rented by Bannon for use by his ex-wife.
2017 — Bannon is appointed to the National Security Council by Donald Trump. With his permanent seat at the NSC meetings, Bannon has been elevated above the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, who was not offered an open invitation.
Sources
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/quotes-from-steve-bannon-trumps-new-white-house-chief-strategist/
This CBS news article contains quotes from Steve Bannon
An article in the NY Daily News about Bannon’s comments to his wife regarding Jews in the schools they looked into for their daughters
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/
An exhaustive (but not comprehensive) profile on Steve Bannon by Bloomberg.
Steve Bannon’s full divorce case with his second wife. Includes his anti-Semitic comments and statements from his wife detailing abusive behavior from Bannon towards her as well as her twin daughters among many other startling accusations.
More terrible Bannon quotes.
http://mashable.com/2016/11/14/steve-bannon-quotes/
And yet more Bannon quotes.
The Daily Beast article in which the author alleges that Bannon referred to himself as a Leninist, later denying any memory of the conversation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-steve-bannon-national-security-council-2017-1
An article from Business Insider about Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-biosphere-2-arizona
Mother Jones article about the Biosphere 2 project and subsequent lawsuit.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112016/steve-bannon-trump-white-house-climate-conspiracy
History of Bannon’s anti-climate change remarks.
More anti-climate change remarks.
New York Magazine article about Bannon’s authorship of Trump’s executive orders.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trumps-flashy-executive-actions-could-run-aground-234200
Politico article, also about Bannon’s authoring the executive orders.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html?_r=0
New York Times article where Bannon tells the media to “keep their mouths shut.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/07/10/sympathy-devils-plot-roger-ailes-america/
Bannon’s Breitbart article, “Sympathy for the Devils: The Plot Against Roger Ailes — and America.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon
Bannon’s Wikipedia page
Bannon’s Breitbart article, “Cantor’s ‘Dream’: Homeland Security Reports 90,000 Illegal Alien Children to Attempt Border Crossing.”
Bannon’s Breitbart article, “War on Ailes: Random House Prints Slanderous After Two Major CEOS Deny Incident.”
