“I have every intention of asking him difficult questions and engaging in a serious and even combative conversation,” Remnick told the Times in a phone interview. “The audience itself, by its presence, puts a certain pressure on a conversation that an interview alone doesn’t do.”

Bannon left the White House in August 2017, not long after white nationalists incited violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. After his work for President Donald Trump, Bannon focused his attention on getting Europe’s far-right parties more power in government positions.

During a speech in March at a party congress of France’s far-right National Front in Lille, he told attendees to consider being called racist “a badge of honor.”