Trump’s former chief strategist fears his old boss won’t make a clean break and stop military aid to Kyiv.
Donald Trump is in danger of failing to make a clean break with Ukraine and could be sucked deeper into Vladimir Putin’s war — just as Richard Nixon was stung in his attempts to pull out of Vietnam — Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon warned in a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO.
The host of the influential “War Room” podcast is girding for a major political showdown over United States intervention in Ukraine. He advocates ending America’s all-important military aid to Kyiv, but fears his old boss is going to fall into a trap being set by an unlikely alliance of the U.S. defense industry, the Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, whom he argues are now misguided. These include Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who is Trump’s pick to be special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
“If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war and it went down as his war not Lyndon Johnson’s,” Bannon said.
Kellogg argues any deal to end the three-year-long war needs to include solid security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure Russia won’t just invade again. And Kellogg has talked about maintaining U.S. military aid to apply pressure on Moscow to agree a decent deal.
Despite his friendship with Kellogg, Bannon thinks this kind of delay will only heighten the risk of the U.S. being pulled deeper into a war he believes is unwinnable and one that isn’t in America’s national interest. Behind the scenes, he’s lobbying furiously for Trump to declare in his inauguration speech on Monday that he will end the war quickly.
On his daily radio show and podcast, Bannon’s been campaigning for this announcement on Day One. “I’m going nuts right now to make sure there’s something on Monday, an announcement. Because you have Kellogg saying it will take 100 days, the old foreign policy establishment are saying six months,” Bannon said.
He argues Trump should spell out to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “there’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re going to get a deal done and we’re going to get it done quickly.” Zelenskyy should, he goes on, take note of how Trump steamrollered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting a cease-fire-for-hostages deal with Hamas.
Not losing sleep over Europe
The 71-year-old was in a feisty mood, exhilarated by Trump’s election win but ready to do battle to ensure that America is remade along MAGA lines. Looking less rumpled than he can on occasion, he sported stubble and had combed his signature long gray hair.
Wearing slippers for the early morning interview in the front room of his Capitol Hill home, Bannon told POLITICO he didn’t think Europe appreciated how consequential Trump’s second term would be — and reckoned Trump’s domestic political opponents weren’t properly prepared either.
He talked about the “days of thunder” to come and said the slew of executive orders to be announced after Trump is sworn in on Monday will likely include ones on immigration, diversity hiring in the federal workforce, energy and possibly tariffs. He reckoned about 50 orders would be announced, though more than 100 others were locked and loaded, awaiting sign off by government lawyers.
Bannon compared 2025 to 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected and launched the New Deal. “Our [electoral] coalition is much bigger than it was in 2016, much broader, much deeper,” allowing more to be done, Bannon said, including the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
But a larger coalition also brings risks. Bannon worried the new Silicon Valley converts, including the tech billionaire Elon Musk, with whom he has been publicly skirmishing, may divert Trump and strike deals for their own benefit.
He was scathing about the Europeans and the transatlantic alliance. “If you look at NATO, I don’t think it can put together two combat divisions of Europeans that are ready to fight,” he scoffed, complaining NATO had turned into an American protectorate, rather than being an alliance.
“Europe has gotten away with early retirement and full health care because they don’t pay for their own defense,” he protested.
But Bannon is equally emphatic he’s no fan of Russia’s leader.
“Putin’s a bad guy. He’s a very bad guy. The KGB are bad guys. But I don’t stay up at night worrying about Russian influence on Europe. No. 1, their military hasn’t even got to Kyiv. In three years, they couldn’t get there. They haven’t taken Kharkiv even. You know why I don’t stay awake at night? Because the Europeans don’t stay awake at night. They don’t consider Russia a real threat. If they did they would throw a lot more money and troops into the game,” he went on.
He’s a big fan of Trump’s ploy to buy Greenland, and as a former naval warfare officer he says he sees the Arctic as crucial to ensure the American homeland is safe from both Russia and China. “Trump’s not going to invade Greenland,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “He doesn’t have to. They’re going to vote for independence, and then they’re going to vote to join the United States.”
Likewise, gaining control of the Panama Canal is important for American defense. “The people in Panama have been ripped off by the elites down there. They basically cut deals. It’s an open secret. They cut deals with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. They’re bought and paid for, and they turned the canal over to them. That’s ending.”
He argues too many European leaders fancied themselves as Winston Churchill, especially zeroing in on former British Conservative leader Boris Johnson, whom he called a “war criminal.”
“The Ukraine war is the central screw up of Europe over the last couple of years. You have a million dead or wounded Ukrainians. And we’re going to end up, best case, we’re going to end up exactly where this thing started, as I said three years ago. And it’s because you have Boris Johnson and [French President Emmanuel] Macron, all these fantasists that won’t pay for their own defense. They want to be big shots. They all want to be Winston Churchill with other people’s money and other people’s lives,” he says.
MAGA maniacs
It is difficult to gauge how influential Bannon is now on Trump.
The pair fell out after Bannon criticized Trump’s family, mocked the then-president’s intellect and criticized the operations of the White House in comments published in a book by journalist Michael Wolff. Trump disavowed Bannon and accused him of losing his mind.
But the two patched things up less than a year later with Trump calling Bannon “one of my best pupils” and said he “loved working with” him. In 2018, Bannon released a pro-Trump documentary aimed at galvanizing Trump supporters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections in a bid to maintain a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. He wouldn’t disclose how often he talks with Trump, but said he knew Trump listens to the “War Room” and often sends along notes of praise.
One European populist sponsor, who’s been a guest at Trump’s Florida resort in recent weeks, confided that some in Trump’s inner circle see Bannon and other die-hard early Trump supporters as “MAGA maniacs.” “It surprised me a lot,” the sponsor added. Asking not to be identified by name in order to be candid, he added: “But they’re also wary of Bannon. They appreciate he wields a lot of influence on MAGA die-hards and they don’t want to get the movement against them.”
Indeed Bannon can whip up an online MAGA crowd. When skeptical Republican senators expressed doubts about the wisdom of nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer, as defense secretary Bannon was a key figure in organizing a grassroots MAGA campaign to save his nomination. And there’s no shortage of MAGA figures and top Republicans clamoring to appear on Bannon’s “War Room” show, in testimony to its political clout.
Bannon broke off the interview to discuss a huge oil painting hanging over the fireplace depicting the USS Ranger, a sloop of war captained by John Paul Jones during the American revolutionary war. The Ranger took the war to the shores of England, captured five British ships and launched a raid on England’s northwest coast, prompting Royal Navy warships to be dispatched against her in the Irish Sea.
Bannon also means to take the political war to Europe. He segued to discuss how Britain’s populist leader Nigel Farage plotted his Brexit referendum campaign over dinner in Bannon’s Capitol Hill home. He clearly relishes upcoming opportunities to back European populists and amplify the radical populist message in Europe.
And he sees Elon Musk as crucial in that endeavor.
That is not to say he is an unalloyed fan of Musk. He has been vitriolic in his criticism of the tech billionaire for calling for more visas for highly skilled foreign workers. Bannon wants a moratorium on immigration. He was disappointed with Musk for recently turning on Farage and for saying he should be replaced as the leader of Britain’s Reform UK party.
Bannon and Musk are also in sharp disagreement over Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Musk is a fan. Bannon was, too, until recently. For weeks, he has been launching ferocious attacks on her in interviews with the Italian media describing her as a lefty disguised as a populist. This marks a stark contrast with his original support.
“I saw in her tremendous potential. She’s got the best skill set of any politician except for Trump on the globe. Tough, personable, smart. What happened is that once she got into office, she immediately became, not just moderated, she flipped and gave support to the central powers in Brussels, and particularly NATO, and NATO is a huge problem. She was an ardent backer of the Ukraine war,” he explained.
But he added: “My mission is to get her back on track.”
“I’ve told him this, and that as soon as I make him a populist nationalist instead of a techno-feudal globalist, we’ll be fine. But until that time, we’re going to be at loggerheads,” he said.
While complaining Musk could be “a random element,” he said the money and support he gave to Trump in the election was important. And he predicted Musk would have a huge impact on Europe.
“I don’t think Europe is ready for him. He has two tactical nuclear weapons — unlimited money and a social media platform. He can drive what’s important and he can crush everybody else,” he added.
“There’s not a centrist right or centrist left government on the European continent that can withstand his onslaught, if he gets fully engaged as he has in the U.S.”
