The last we’d heard of Steve Bannon, he was furtively attempting to incite a populist revolution in Europe, only to be rejected from the continent’s thriving nationalist networks. But Donald Trump’s exorcized White House adviser resurfaced Monday evening on Fox Business with the bold claim that “crooked” Hillary Clinton is attempting to shoulder her way back into the political arena. “She is running. She’s just trying to decide how to fit her way in,” he told Fox Business Monday evening, predicting that she could take over the centrist lane from Joe Biden.

Clinton, of course, has firmly denied any interest in the 2020 race. Her current press tour is to promote a book she cowrote with her daughter, Chelsea, that comes out this month. To Bannon, though, Clinton’s press junket is a sure sign she’s jockeying for position ahead of the presidential primary. “Hillary Clinton is doing a whole thing,” he said. “A meeting this week for a book…she said [Trump is] an illegal president, illegitimate president…he’s a clear and present danger.”

Clinton did indeed call Trump an “illegitimate president” on CBS News’s Sunday Morning show this weekend. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories…there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did,” she said of Trump. In the wake of the Ukraine story, she has also tweeted that the president is a “corrupt human tornado,” a line she used on CBS as well. Of course, these remarks aren’t too far afield from what she’s said regarding Trump before—back in 2017 she called the president “impulsive” and “vindictive” and said the “whole world should be concerned” by his reign of terror. Sure, she’s zeroed in on Trump’s corruption in recent press appearances, but the fact that her book tour coincided with the Ukraine story seems to be coincidence.

Moreover, if she is attempting a comeback, it might not be as smooth as could be hoped. Clinton’s remark that staying in her marriage to Bill Clinton was the “gutsiest thing” she’s ever done on a personal level raised some eyebrows, as did her comments to People that the body politic should “get over” Biden’s habit of touching women in ways that make them feel uncomfortable. “You could take any person who sticks their little head above the parapet and says, ‘I’m going to run for president,’ and find…a little annoying habit or other kind of behavior that people are going to pick apart and disagree with,” she said. “We can pick apart anybody. I mean, that’s a great spectator sport. But this man who’s there in the Oval Office right now poses a clear and present danger to the future of the United States. So get over it.”

But Bannon, as usual, seems content to trust his own instinct over publicly available evidence. Since he left the White House and predicted an utterly wrong Roy Moore victory in Alabama, he has repeatedly attempted to regain relevance via prognostications of questionable accuracy, such as when he predicted Democrats would lose the House in the 2018 midterms, and that Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke would be a deadly ticket in 2020. These speculations have not inspired confidence. But Bannon may be turning to other means to work his way back into the political orbit Stateside. The Daily Beast reported last week that he and his colleague Peter Schweizer, the author of the book Clinton Cash, had joined in the efforts to spread conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden. Rudy Giuliani might be king of Trump’s illicit Biden oppo push, but should Giuliani fall off the Elizabethan wheel of Trumpian fortune, Bannon could be ready to take his place.

More Great Stories from Vanity Fair

— Impeachment fervor is causing a ruckus at Fox News

— Why Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian adventure could end his career

— Inside the stunning collapse of WeWork (and its kooky CEO)

— It’s official: Trump has met his Twitter match

— A surprise appearance by Tiffany Trump

— From the Archive: The power broker who taught Donald Trump the dark political arts

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