Steve Bannon rails against student debt forgiveness then brags about his Ivy League degree
Real America’s Voice producers reportedly get paid $30,000 a year
Written by Madeline Peltz
Published
On the August 25 edition of War Room: Pandemic, Steve Bannon bragged about his Ivy League degree after railing against debt forgiveness, and claimed that his audience would get a “better education” watching his conspiracy theory-driven show than they would at Harvard Business School.
Citation From the August 25, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
In the previous segment, Bannon decried student loan forgiveness, and said “if the [degrees] weren’t worthless, they’d be able to have jobs that could pay it off. The terms of these loans are not that brutal.”
Notably, Real America’s Voice, the channel that carries the show, pays their producers $30,000 a year, according to the Washington Post.
In a studio outside Denver, next door to a youth prison, 15 or 20 people put Real America’s Voice on air. Many are in their 20s or 30s and earn about $30,000 per year, said current and former employees.
Forgiveness of student debt could be life-changing for the Real America’s Voice staff working for such a low wage.
On top of that, Bannon admits himself that he screams at his underpaid staff, including his own daughter, describing the War Room as a “hostile work environment.”
Citation From the June 7, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
Additionally, Jennifer Senior reported for The Atlantic that while shadowing Bannon for a profile, she witnessed him screaming at his staff:
You allowed it to happen, you stupid motherfucker!”
This is what Bannon sounds like when he loses it. I had heard about his famous temper, but had yet to witness it in real time.
“You know why? ’Cause you don’t give a shit.”
The target of his pique is one of his employees. I will later feel terrible about this and apologize. He is yelling at the employee based on a mistake I made—I’d been pestering Bannon about a bizarre newsletter that I thought was issued by War Room but in fact came from a fan site. Bannon thought the employee was to blame.
“If I didn’t give a shit, I wouldn’t be here doing this stuff,” the employee replies.
“Bullshit,” Bannon says. “You’re doing this for a fucking paycheck. Go fuck yourself.” He then calmly turns to Cameron, the producer. “Do we have Ben at the border?” Suddenly the tantrum has the quality of WWE wrestling—dialed up for my benefit, a performance.
Was it for my benefit? I ask the employee.
He shakes his head. No. He stares at his computer, grim-faced.