Donald Trump crashes Steve Bannon’s interview with GOP activist Matt Schlapp

Far-right agitator and former White House chief strategist for the Trump administration Steve Bannon hosted American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp on his podcast program Monday and was seemingly caught off guard when a surprise guest crashed the interview: former president Donald Trump.

Mr Schlapp can be heard in the clip explaining to the conspiracy wielding host how he is still on Twitter and then proceeds to list all the various handles associated with his brand.

“I am still on Twitter believe it or not,” Mr Schlapp told Mr Bannon. “I’m learning all my other handles on these uh,” he begins, but breaks off as the shoulder of a white polo-wearing man begins to enter the frame from the side.

“You’re not gonna believe who’s here Steve,” Mr Schlapp laughs, at this point half of the former US president’s face and torso can be seen with his iconic red MAGA hat in full view.

“He does a great job, great job,” Mr Trump says while patting Mr Schlapp on the back.

The corner of the former US leader’s polo, which remains in view for the entire time that he’s on camera, is emblazoned with a crest that reads: “President Donald Trump”.

“Wow wow. Special guest appearance,” replies Mr Bannon, breaking into a smile. “Amazing.”

The former reality star crashes the interview for less than 10 seconds in total and after he leaves, Mr Schlapp refocuses the conversation to social media platforms and his various handles.

“Now the president’s mad at me cause I need to say my Truth Social handle which you know I’m learning all these handles,” Mr Schlapp says, referring to the former president’s social media platform that was launched back in February in what he headlined as an effort to “fight back against big tech”.

Truth Social was announced by Mr Trump following his ban from most mainstream social media networks, namely Twitter and Facebook, after the fallout from the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.

Recently, with Twitter announcing that the social media company will be sold to Tesla titan Elon Musk for around $44bn, politicians and pundits loyal to Mr Trump have begun egging the tech billionaire about restoring the former president’s banned account.

Mr Schlapp wrote on his own personal Twitter account on Monday while sharing a clip of the photobombing interview with Mr Bannon that he too would like to see Mr Trump’s account restored.

“Dear @elonmusk , I think I know somebody who deserves to be back on Twitter,” Mr Schlapp wrote, while using a finger pointing emoji at the video of Mr Trump crashing his interview.

For his part, Mr Trump has said that he will stay the course of buoycotting Twitter and will instead be posting to his followers on Truth Social, telling Fox News in a recent interview that he intends to be “TRUTHing” over the next week.

“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," Mr Trump reportedly told Fox News. "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH."

As recently as last week, Mr Trump’s social media app, which has been plagued with technical glitches and stalled launches, was reportedly down again for hours after it was hit by a series of outages, according to DownDetector.