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Steve Bannon had a mission: Convince Republican voters, just this once, not to listen to Donald Trump.
It was Friday evening, one day after a federal judge ordered Bannon — Trump’s former White House adviser turned MAGA podcast mogul — to prison for defying subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee. He was spending it in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, rallying with Rep. Bob Good, the chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus who had thrilled Bannon and other anti-establishment Republicans by helping to bring down Kevin McCarthy’s speakership.
But Good had made the grave political miscalculation of supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president, a “stab in the back” that convinced Trump to endorse his primary opponent, state Sen. John McGuire. The incumbent had planned to run as an America First establishment-smasher; he and Bannon had to explain why Trump, who they called the greatest president of their lifetime, wasn’t with him this time.