Steve Bannon is in prison, but his show must go on. Lucky for him, there’s a Congress for that. The other week, Bannon’s popular digital show and podcast, War Room, had an unusual guest host: Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). “I’m temporarily sitting in the chair that will be filled again by Steve Bannon after he’s busy out there fighting for you and me by sitting in prison,” Roy clunkily ad-libbed, from a set that included a Moms for Liberty coffee tumbler and a plaque adorned with a mysteriously punchy Bannon quote (“There are NO conspiracies, but there are NO coincidences”). “I’m honored to do it.”
Roy is one of a handful of lawmakers who have filled in this summer while Bannon serves a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) guest-hosted the show in mid-July; Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are reportedly slated to take the mic in the coming weeks. (Kari Lake, the election denialist and Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, and former Virginia congressman Dave Brat have also filled Bannon’s oversize seat.)
It’s the latest example of a trend on Capitol Hill, as new tech, coupled with mass media layoffs, has enabled lawmakers—especially, but not exclusively, from the far right—to bypass the nation’s beleaguered press corps and become the first-person storytellers of Washington. Last year, Greene hosted a short-lived digital show called MTG Battleground, which covered everything from ending the war in Ukraine to her own efforts to impeach President Joe Biden. Boebert hosted a livestream from the Republican National Convention on the conservative platform Rumble. (“I want to talk about President Trump, of course,” she began. “I spoke with him last night—it was just such a blessing to see him in person, hear his words, to have a hug from the president.”) Republican leaders are so overjoyed by their members’ bypassing the traditional press corps and packaging their own stories to their personal audiences that the GOP created a page to list their podcasts.
The left, of course, has its own cadre of internet icons who use social media to speak directly to their supporters—like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who often shares her unfiltered thoughts on Instagram Live. But the political stars on the right are going a step further. After the party’s former standard-bearer labeled the press “the enemy”—undermining many Republican voters’ last vestiges of trust in the media—these conservatives see themselves as more than just stand-ins for Bannon: they’re the gatekeepers they love to decry.
It’s a further realization of Rush Limbaugh’s dream of dismantling the mainstream media and replacing it with unquestioning conservative voices. While he could barely have fathomed it, these days, the effort has gotten an unexpected lift from Congress itself. When they’re not broadcasting from their offices turned sets—furnished largely at taxpayer expense—lawmakers can retreat to a set of semisecret studios on the grounds of the Capitol. Those studios—recently renovated into a state-of-the-art facility complete with green screens, blindingly lit makeup rooms, expensive digital cameras, and spacious podcasting booths—are technically off-limits to the public and press corps alike. (I was given a rare peek a couple of years ago, when a lawmaker brought me in as if I were a member of her staff.) Politicians of both parties use them to do local and national media hits, and to produce their own professionally airbrushed messages. But the line between official communications and personal self-promotion has blurred—to stay legal and avoid prohibited electioneering on government property, the bipartisan trick is to refer to the audience as “constituents.”
Gaetz—ever the media-savvy self-promoter—may have blurred the line the most. He has an entire media operation, including his digital show Firebrand, which he hosts from a set in his congressional office, and the Gaetz Network—a livestream of what he calls “the biggest moments in the United States Congress.” (It typically rebroadcasts C-SPAN hits as DJed by team Gaetz.)
That allows him to manage his loyal viewers’ understanding of major events—like he did during a recording of Firebrand in early July, when he reported on the mood among Democrats who were struggling with what to do about Biden’s reelection campaign. “I can just tell you from inside the halls of Congress where we’re currently broadcasting from—Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol complex—it is like a funeral mentality.” Forget man-on-the-street interviews—this is politicians on the marble, adorned in all the trappings of the mainstream media Gaetz so loves to decry.
While Gaetz has amassed an enviable 2.8 million followers on X, and built a sizable fan base on Rumble—320,000 followers—that pales in comparison to the reach he and his fellow lawmakers have with Bannon’s million-strong Rumble “posse.” Before turning himself in, Bannon promised listeners that “the show’s not gonna change,” and so far, it hasn’t. The fill-in hosts have largely sustained Bannon’s general themes: stoking “deep state” fears, spreading election disinformation—Lake used her time to call for volunteers to help clear voter rolls nationwide—and rallying their audience as a righteous band appointed by God to clean up Washington. (Roy read from Galatians 6 to open his July episode.) And, of course, building those all-important brands.
“Keep up the fight. Keep up the Lord’s work,” Roy said as he wrapped up a segment with Gaetz. “How can people follow you? What’s your social media, brother?”
“At MattGaetz and at RepMattGaetz everywhere on the internet,” Gaetz replied.
“Well, if you’re going to follow him, follow me too,” Roy said. “He’s got more followers.”
Matt Laslo has covered Congress since 2006 for outlets ranging from Rolling Stone to Wired. Since 2016, he’s taught political communications at Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Government and Public Policy program.