On a series titled The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth, one would think that the more wildly out-of-control an interview goes, the better. But former GOP political operative Tim Miller wasn’t having any of Steve Bannon’s bullsh*t when he guest-hosted what was supposed to be an interview with Donald Trump’s perpetually-in-need-of-a-shower former chief strategist on the long-running Showtime political docuseries.
As the clip above shows, Miller was looking for Bannon — or, as he described him, “the multi-shirted [and] multi-indicted Steve Bannon” — to do away with all the pro-Trump lies and just be honest about the 2020 election, especially as so many members of the Republican party seem to be turning their backs on the former president. But what he got was just more bullsh*t with a heaping spoonful of horses*t.
The topic of conversation was Arizona TV personality-turned-gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who — weeks before the election — made it clear that “concession” was not in her vocabulary. While we now know that Lake did lose to Democrat Katie Hobbs, at the time (and probably still) Bannon was touting Lake “as the future” of the Republican party despite the fact that, as a Trump-endorsed election denier, she was focusing the bulk of her energy on winning over the fringe parts of the GOP. But Bannon, who Miller was surprised to see at a Lake event in the first place, wasn’t buying it. “You don’t really believe this sh*t?,” he asked.
Bannon claimed to be “100 percent” serious and certain in his claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and said that Lake believed it, too. At which point Miller reminded Bannon that “People stormed the Capitol over this sh*t, dude. These are lies!” and added that if Bannon himself hadn’t been perpetuating the Big Lie, the insurrection would have never happened.
While Bannon continued to paint himself as a believer, Miller — who wrote a great, recently published book on the MAGA movement — finally just shut the whole thing down. “You don’t believe this sh*t, I’m not doing this anymore,” Miller told Bannon before just calmly extricating himself from, well, the circus.
You can watch the full clip above.