Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon appears to give ‘Nazi salute’ at CPAC

Steve Bannon has been accused of making a Nazi-style salute during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC on Thursday (20 February).

During the speech, Bannon stated “we want Trump in ’28” – a call for Trump to run for an unconstitutional third term. Then, near the end of his speech he said “the only way we lose is if we quit” and that they will never “surrender.” He then chanted “fight, fight, fight” before giving what appeared to be a Nazi salute.

Here's video of Steve Bannon doing a Sieg Heil today at CPAC. It is what it is and it's what Bannon intended. Don't let yourself be gaslit. pic.twitter.com/LDT2kU43ZV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2025

Bannon, 71, served as the White House’s chief strategist for the first seven months of Donald Trump’s first administration. Trump fired him after Bannon gave a candid interview to journalist Robert Kuttner, in which Bannon criticized some of his rivals and contradicted Trump’s North Korea policy.

Bannon now devotes the majority of his time to running his podcast, War Room, which streams to hundreds of thousands of MAGA loyalists six days a week.

During CPAC, Bannon hosted a War Room party attended by several people wearing lederhosen and low-collared vests; one of whom, Gregory Conte, identified himself to the New York Times as a National Socialist.

The National Socialist Movement (NSM or NSM88) is a Neo-Nazi organization based in the United States.

“Nazism has officially taken over the GOP”

Clips of Bannon’s salute quickly went viral on X and other platforms, with multiple people condemning the podcast host. Political commentator Brian Krassenstein posted on X: “Steve Bannon does a NAZI salute at the end of his CPAC speech. Someone try and convince me that he didn’t.”

Joshua Reed Eakle, president of the Project Liberal organization, tweeted: “Steve Bannon, after calling for Trump to be president for life, did a Nazi salute on stage at CPAC. Nazism has officially taken over the GOP. The few remaining conservatives have a choice: either leave the party and obstruct it – or choose to be complicit.”

Steve Bannon’s controversial gesture at CPAC follows a similar incident involving Elon Musk during an inauguration event in Washington DC, on Monday 20 January.

Telling voters “thank you for making it happen”, in reference to Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, Musk placed one hand on his chest before thrusting the other towards the crowd, his fingers together and palm turned down. He then turned and performed the same salute to the American flag.

“My heart goes out to you,” Musk continued. “It is thanks to you that the future of civilisation is assured. Thanks to you we’re gonna have safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending. Basic stuff. And we’re gonna take DOGE to Mars.”

Sharing a clip of the gesture, Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett alleged: “Our new co-president Elon Musk gives a Nazi salute on day one of Trump presidency.”

In response on his social media platform, X/ Twitter, Musk reshared a post from 2022 where he proclaimed that he would no longer vote Democrat and was waiting for the party’s “dirty tricks”.

Alongside the post, he wrote: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so tired.”

In another post, Musk reshared one X user asking: “Can we retire the calling people a Nazi thing?” to which the tech billionaire responded: “Yeah exactly”, with a yawning emoji.

Bannon has yet to publicly address to the “Nazi salute” allegations or respond to multiple requests for comment from various news publications, including Newsweek.