About a hundred protesters gathered outside Phil Long Music Hall to denounce the right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon’s keynote address to the Colorado Republican Party at their fundraising gala Friday night.
“The fact that the Colorado GOP thinks inviting someone who throws Nazi salutes and is a convicted felon for fraud, for bilking the government, is a suitable keynote speaker at their gala is appalling, frankly,” Ellen Buckley, a protestor who drove down from Westminster, said.
The party brought in the former Trump Administration official to headline the annual Centennial Dinner, hoping to energize the Republican base ahead of choosing new party leadership Saturday.
Bannon’s expected appearance generated online uproar from local groups like the Colorado Springs chapter of Democratic Socialists for America. The event had already been moved from its initial location at the Denver Tech Center. Then, on Monday, the Antlers Hotel in downtown Colorado Springs canceled the event following the public outcry. The dinner was moved to the Phil Long Music Hall on the city’s North side, a large Western-themed event space with a history of hosting GOP-sponsored events.
Members of the press were not permitted to enter the gala. CPR News reached Colorado GOP events coordinator Eric Grossman by phone Friday, who gave no comment.
“I mean, all they want to do is shout the same two words, Nazis and fascists, that's the only thing they know,” Hugo Chavez-Rey, the Vice Chairman of the Denver Republican Party, said as he watched the protestors before entering the Gala. “Everybody's a Nazi and everybody's a fascist if you don't agree with them.”
Bannon is well-known in far-right circles. He rose to national prominence as a key voice and campaign advisor in the Make America Great Again movement in 2016 and was named a chief strategist for the Trump Administration. Bannon was dismissed from his duties at the White House in August 2017.
Last year, Bannon spent about four months in prison after ignoring a congressional subpoena to testify during the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Despite his tumultuous personal history with Trump, Bannon is still considered a MAGA loyalist and is popular with Trump’s grassroots supporters. He has called for the term-limited president to run for a third term in 2028 and stoked controversy last month for giving what some described as a Nazi salute at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Bannon called the gesture a wave.
“Radical Democrats are trying desperately to disrupt and cancel our event but we won't let them,” the state party wrote on its official Facebook page. “Together, we will beat back the radical leftists who are trying to silence our voices.”
A group of officers from the Colorado Springs Police Department provided extra security as party members arrived for the event.
