Amid backlash since announcing last week that Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, would headline the 2018 New Yorker Festival, the controversial firebrand has been ousted from the event.
Critics of Bannon’s inclusion included staffers at the magazine and Judd Apatow, Patton Oswalt, Jim Carrey and John Mulaney, who were all in the New Yorker Festival lineup and dropped out almost immediately after the announcement was made.
“The reaction on social media was critical and a lot of the dismay and anger was directed at me and my decision to engage him,’ New Yorker Editor David Remnick, who was to interview Bannon at next month’s festival, wrote in an email to staffers Monday. “Some members of the staff, too, reached out to say that they objected to the invitation, particularly the forum of the festival.”
Steve Bannon short-lived New Yorker Festival headliner
After announcing last week that Steve Bannon would headline the New Yorker Festival, New Yorker Editor David Remnick said he expected their interview to be “combative.”
“I have every intention of asking him difficult questions and engaging in a serious and even combative conversation,” Remnick told The New York Times. “The audience itself, by its presence, puts a certain pressure on a conversation that an interview alone doesn’t do. You can’t jump on and off the record.”
In an emailed statement to the Times after he was pulled from the New Yorker Festival, Bannon wrote, “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.”
In Monday’s email to staff, Remnick wrote that “there is a better way to do this. … If the opportunity presents itself I’ll interview him in a more traditionally journalistic setting as we first discussed, not on stage.”
The New Yorker Festival takes place Oct. 5-7 at several venues across New York City.
