Steve Bannon accused of ‘Nazi salute’ at CPAC
Moment sparks widespread controversy on social media, including from Right-wing leaders
Steve Bannon has gone viral over a hand gesture he made at CPAC that some critics have likened to a fascist salute.
During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, the former Trump adviser said: “The only way that they win is if we retreat, and we’re not going to retreat, we’re not going to surrender, we’re not going to quit.
“Fight, fight fight,” he added, echoing Donald Trump’s campaign rallying cry, before giving a one-armed salute.
The gesture was greeted with cheers of applause from the crowd, which Mr Bannon acknowledged with a nod, before saying “Amen”.
The moment has sparked widespread controversy on social media, including from Right-wing leaders, with critics accusing the War Room podcast host of performing a “Nazi salute”.
France’s far-Right leader Jordan Bardella cancelled his speech at CPAC on Friday following what he called Mr Bannon’s “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology”.
Mr Bardella, 29, had been due to address the conservative conference where he had planned to emphasise that many of the concerns of the Maga movement – notably mass-migration and political censorship – exist in France.
The president of France’s National Rally party said he was not present when Mr Bannon made his gesture.
‘Nazism had taken over the GOP’
Sharing a clip of the gesture, Republicans Against Trump, which has nearly 800,000 followers on X, wrote: “It looks like Steve Bannon just did a Nazi salute at the end of his CPAC speech.”
Joshua Reed Eakle, president of the Left-wing group Project Liberal, wrote: “Steve Bannon, after calling for Trump to be president for life, did a Nazi salute on stage at CPAC.”
He added: “Nazism has officially taken over the GOP.”
The controversial gesture closely resembled a salute given by Elon Musk at a post-inauguration rally last month.
The tech billionaire and government adviser went viral for twice raising his hand to his chest and saluting to the crowd at the Capital One Arena, prompting the Jerusalem Post to question: “Did Elon Musk Sieg Heil at Trump’s inauguration?”
Mr Musk later dismissed criticism of the hand gesture as a “tired” attack, while the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which campaigns against anti-Semitism, put out a statement claiming the world’s richest man “made an awkward gesture...not a Nazi salute”.
While the jury remains out on the intention behind Mr Musk’s salute, the decision to mirror it by Mr Bannon, whose War Room podcast is a hub for the Maga hard-liners, was unmistakably deliberate.
The incident will fuel concern that influential members of Mr Trump’s coalition are deliberately adopting a gesture associated with the far-Right, whether as a display of political allegiance or as a form of social media-based humour known as “trolling”.
Nick Fuentes, a political pundit accused of being a white supremacist, said Mr Bannon’s salute had made him feel “uncomfortable”.
“He throws a straight up Roman salute. It’s getting a little uncomfortable even for me,” he said in a video. “Even I’m starting to feel like that guy in the picture who wouldn’t heil Hitler.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Mr Bannon repeated his calls for Trump to run for an unconstitutional third term, telling the crowd, “We want Trump in ‘28.”