Steve Bannon: New Yorker editor ‘gutless’ for canceling his interview

“After being contacted several months ago and with seven weeks of continual requests for this event, I accepted The New Yorkers invitation with no thought of an honorarium,” Bannon said in a statement to CNBC. “The reason for my acceptance was simple: I would be facing one of the most fearless journalists of his generation. In what I would call a defining moment, David Remnick showed he was gutless when confronted by the howling online mob.”

[Opinion: This New Yorker reader wanted to see Steve Bannon interviewed — and debated]

In a two-page memo to New Yorker staff on Monday, Remnick said the effort to interview Bannon began months ago and evolved into the idea that he would interview the former Trump adviser in front of an audience.

“[T]o interview Bannon is not to endorse him,” Remnick wrote. “By conducting an interview with one of Trumpism’s leading creators and organizers, we are hardly pulling him out of obscurity. … The point of an interview, a rigorous interview, particularly in a case like this, is to put pressure on the views of the person being questioned.”

However, Remnick concluded, “There is a better way to do this.”

“Our writers have interviewed Steve Bannon for The New Yorker before, and if the opportunity presents itself I’ll interview him in a more traditionally journalistic setting as we first discussed, and not on stage,” he said.

Shortly after the Bannon interview was announced, several Hollywood stars, including Jim Carrey, Judd Apatow, Jack Antonoff, Patton Oswalt and John Mulaney backed out of the festival, citing Bannon’s attendance.