Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said Americans should be “scared to the marrow of your bones,” by left-wing praise of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing insurance executive Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel in December, 2024.
Speaking at Semafor’s World Economy Summit in Washington, DC, this week, Bannon stressed the need for the populist nationalist ideology to combat the Marxist thinking that justifies violence against capitalists:
Luigi Mangione “has been treated like a hero,” Steve Bannon tells @semaforben. “That should scare you to the marrow of your bones because that’s the alternative if the system keeps going like it is.”
— Semafor (@semafor) April 23, 2025
"The populist nationalists offer something you're not gonna love, but you'll be… pic.twitter.com/bdX9hFM5Te
“We are narrowing our choices and our alternatives. I don’t care if it’s Bernie Sanders and AOC or Donald Trump,” the “Bannon’s War Room” podcast host told Semafor editor-in-chief Smith. “As a country, we have to come to a solution… And what Harvard and the colleges and the law firms show you, it’s all federal money.”
Continuing on to attack federal endowments paying for higher education institutions to churn out leftists, he said, “Harvard’s all about federal money. Everybody’s got their snout in the trough, and who pays for it? The little guy. That’s why it’s so frustrating.”
According to Bannon, the “alternative” to “populist nationalists” is “this Luigi.”
Mangione, a 26-year-old from Maryland, is facing state and federal charges for the cold-blooded murder of Thompson, who was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare until he was fatally shot by a masked man in Manhattan.
While the U.S. Attorney General has already announced that she is seeking the death penalty against the suspected killer, left-wing personalities like journalist Taylor Lorenz have swooned over Mangione, calling him “handsome,” a “revolutionary,” and “morally good.”
“Look how he’s treated like a hero. He’s treated like Robin Hood,” Bannon said. “That should scare you to the marrow of your bones, because that’s the alternative, if the system keeps going like it is. That alternative is your alternative. We offer — the populist nationalists offer — something you’re not going to love, but you’ll be able to live with.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
