Bannon Refuses To Rule Out Presidential Run In 2028

Steve Bannon isn’t taking 2028 off the table.

In an profanity-laced interview on Wednesday with POLITICO, the MAGA firebrand repeatedly refused to rule out a presidential bid, as GOP sources close to him are increasingly speculating he is serious about running should President Donald Trump himself not campaign for a third term — a constitutionally barred idea Bannon has proposed.

“I don’t think like a politician,” Bannon said. “All I do is back President Trump and try to move the populist national agenda and the America First agenda.”

Asked why he simply wouldn't say that he would not be a candidate in 2028 should Trump not run, Bannon said that the question was “too absurd.”

The interview comes as the once-exiled Bannon is seeing renewed popularity and influence on the right amid the ascendance of the MAGA movement — with his fans floating him in a straw poll at a high-profile conservative gathering last month as a potential presidential candidate, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential contender, featuring him on his new podcast.

One person close to Bannon and granted anonymity to speak freely said Bannon has privately discussed a potential 2028 campaign. “I think he’s serious,” the person said.

And he has long harbored presidential ambitions for himself, said three other people.

Bannon said in the time after he left Trump’s White House that he would never return “as a staffer” and the “only time he would go back is if he were president,” according to a Republican consultant who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign. He also speculated about the possibility of businessperson Mark Cuban running on a ticket with him, the person said.

The consultant saw his comments as not “not kidding around — more so like, ‘I’m good enough to do this.’” The person added that Bannon, however, never got to the point where he was strategically mapping out a run. (After publication, Bannon denied ever speculating about returning to the White House as anything but a staffer.)

Bannon has established a reputation as both a mercurial provocateur and frequent pot-stirrer whose actions don’t always match his rhetoric.

A potential 2028 presidential run for Bannon, who served four months in prison in Connecticut on two counts of contempt of Congress, would activate a pre-existing fault line on the MAGA landscape. Last November, Vice President JD Vance — who is actively positioning himself as the heir apparent to the movement — on X called Grace Chong, chief financial officer and chief operating officer for Bannon’s show War Room, "a mouth breathing imbecile" after she criticized him for missing a Senate vote to confirm judicial nominees. Vance later deleted the post.

Bannon’s remarks come amid larger speculation within the party that he could run as a kind of keeper of the MAGA ideological flame against an ascendant tech right.

At an annual gathering of conservatives outside Washington in February, Bannon’s fans were openly encouraging people to vote for him in one of the most closely watched political barometers on the right, the straw poll for the next presidential contest. Bannon — who was treated like a celebrity at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where viewers of his show lined up to meet him — could have, of course, killed the effort. He didn’t, and his supporters catapulted him to a distant second place behind Vance, putting him ahead of big names like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president's own son, Donald Trump Jr.

“As we learned from the 2024 lawfare, if Bannon was elected, he certainly wouldn't be the first convict to become president,” said Jack Posobiec, a MAGA activist who often appears on Bannon’s “War Room” show. “In any other time frame, it would surprise me, but I don’t think there are any surprises anymore.”

A third person close to Bannon’s said he’s primarily focused on the threat posed to MAGA by tech mogul and Trump adviser Elon Musk, whom he has called a “parasitic illegal immigrant.”

"That’s what he does all day long: He's 100 percent focused on purging Elon Musk from MAGA,” this person said.

Still, Bannon would not address his plan after Trump's second term.

“My guy in 2028 is Donald J. Trump — a guy like this comes around once in a century, okay, and we got to get everything out of President Trump we can get. I’m on [air] four hours a day," he said. "I say it four hours a day, and then eight to 10 hours behind the scenes. This is another kick up the dust, kick up the controversy — because I’m in a huge fight with Elon.”

He added, “I have one podcast with Gavin Newsom and you're running around with your hair on fire.” Of Newsom, he said, “he agrees with me on everything.”

Bannon said he is not a “politician,” and added that he has held “one political office in my life,” referring to when he was student body president 60 years ago.

“I went to fucking prison to back this president, and to back this movement in a low-security fucking prison,” Bannon said. “Here are the things I care about: I care about my country and this movement, and I care about President Trump.”