Steve Bannon, the ever-controversial former White House strategist and MAGA movement firebrand, has returned to the spotlight in 2025 for reasons that stretch far beyond his headline-grabbing political maneuvering. According to multiple reports, including excerpts from ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl’s forthcoming book, Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America, Bannon’s influence has reverberated through the highest echelons of American politics and, more surprisingly, the gritty corridors of federal prison.
Earlier this year, Bannon played a pivotal—if previously unreported—role in a dramatic meeting between former President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As reported in The Atlantic, just before Zelenskyy’s February 2025 visit to Washington, Trump halted a national security team meeting and, in a move that stunned his advisers, asked then-national security adviser Michael Waltz to get Bannon on the phone. “Hey, Steve, I’ve got the boys here,” Trump announced, putting Bannon on speakerphone for a half-hour session that would set the tone for what became a combative Oval Office showdown.
Bannon did not mince words. He railed against the proposed Ukraine deal, telling Trump and his advisers, “I f------ hate it,” and warning, “If that punk comes here, he’s going to want a security guarantee.” Bannon’s distrust extended beyond Zelenskyy, whom he called “that punk,” to European allies in general. He insisted, “You can’t trust Zelenskyy or any of the Europeans.” According to Karl’s reporting, this call directly influenced Trump’s approach in the subsequent meeting with Zelenskyy, which devolved into a tense shouting match in front of reporters. Trump accused the Ukrainian president of being ungrateful and “gambling with World War III.” Zelenskyy left the White House early, and the U.S.-Ukraine relationship hit its lowest point since the onset of the Russian invasion.
Yet, as the year unfolded, the diplomatic chill thawed. Zelenskyy returned to the White House in October 2025, seeking renewed American military assistance. The recovery in relations underscored both the volatility of these interactions and the enduring influence Bannon wields over Trump’s thinking—even from afar.
But Bannon’s reach extended far beyond the West Wing. Following his 2022 conviction for criminal contempt of Congress, after refusing to comply with a subpoena related to the January 6 Capitol riot investigations, Bannon served a four-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. His time behind bars, as revealed in Karl’s book and reported by Raw Story, was anything but quiet. Bannon developed a “coded system” to communicate with Trump’s 2024 campaign team, circumventing the Bureau of Prisons’ monitoring of inmate communications. Messages were funneled through his daughter Maureen and his chief financial officer Grace Chong to Trump’s aide Boris Epshteyn, who later became Trump’s personal senior counsel.
“I had just a system to get to Boris, kind of in quasi-code, through [Maureen] into Grace,” Bannon explained to Karl, careful not to reveal too much about the method, lest the Bureau of Prisons review the messages. The impetus for this clandestine communication? According to Bannon, a prison official he described as “pure MAGA” warned him that the Biden administration was reviewing his emails. The system allowed Bannon to continue influencing campaign strategy, especially in the aftermath of the July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Bannon’s advice was unequivocal: “What you’re going to do is blow a huge opportunity to differentiate yourself. And quite frankly, throw down harder that they tried to assassinate him. Put it back on them. Get into the thing about the lax security. Double down, triple down on this. It’s a winner.”
Bannon didn’t just make political waves from prison—he also forged an unlikely friendship that would have consequences beyond the cellblock. Sharing space at Danbury with Bannon was Vito Guzzo, a reputed member of the Colombo crime family. Guzzo, convicted in 1998 for five murders and a host of other violent crimes, had served 26 years of a 38-year sentence. He landed at Danbury after years of good behavior in higher-security prisons. As reported by The Sit Down With Jeff Nadu and corroborated by ABC News, Guzzo and Bannon bonded quickly, united by their mutual admiration for Donald Trump. Bannon described Guzzo as “the single biggest Trump fan you’ve ever seen,” noting he “could literally quote” Trump’s speeches.
Their friendship proved consequential. Bannon advocated for Guzzo’s early release under the First Step Act, the bipartisan 2018 prison reform law signed by Trump that allows inmates to reduce sentences through good behavior. Guzzo’s release in April 2025 was celebrated by Bannon, who showed Karl a video of the mobster walking out of prison to greet his girlfriend. “That guy is so impressive,” Bannon remarked. “Look at that guy’s tracksuit; look at the shoes; look at the hair... these guys amaze me.”
Ironically, Bannon had long opposed the First Step Act, clashing with Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner over what he saw as a soft-on-crime approach. But his stint in prison changed his perspective. “Jared was a genius about this. It is our ticket to a massive coalition,” Bannon told Karl. “Remember, in Spartacus, the slave revolt starts in a prison, right?” Bannon’s evolution on the issue is a rare example of personal experience transforming hardened political beliefs—at least when it comes to criminal justice reform.
Bannon’s stint at Danbury was, by his own account, no walk in the park. He described the prison as “a rough place,” contrasting it with the medium-security facility where Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen served time. But Bannon’s ability to maintain his political influence—and even form alliances with notorious figures like Guzzo—demonstrates the adaptability that has made him such a persistent force on the American right.
By the time Bannon was released in October 2024, just days before Trump’s victory in the presidential election, he had managed to shape not only the messaging of Trump’s campaign but also the fate of a convicted killer. The web of coded communications, political counsel, and unexpected friendships reveals a figure who, even when physically confined, remains deeply enmeshed in the currents of American power and controversy.
As Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America prepares to hit shelves, it’s clear that Steve Bannon’s story is far from over. Whether as presidential whisperer, prison influencer, or unlikely reform advocate, Bannon continues to defy easy categorization—and, it seems, the limits imposed by any set of bars.
