By Jen Schumann | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice
Despite credible bomb threats and a last-minute venue change, the Colorado GOP gathered under tight security to kick off what Steve Bannon called “a journey to take this state back.” But the fight, he warned, isn’t just against Democrats—it’s against weak Republicans and elites “who don’t want you in their party.”
The Centennial Dinner, held March 28 at Phil Long Music Hall in Colorado Springs, featured a live call-in from former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from the Larimer County jail, and a headlining speech from Bannon that ignited the room with calls for courage, action and confrontation.
Outside, protesters shouted and blocked the entrance.
Inside, hundreds of attendees stood their ground.
A call to arms and a warning for what lies ahead
Bannon framed the event as a turning point. Colorado, he said, is no longer forgotten. It’s now ground zero in a national struggle.
“You are the next state that MAGA is gonna take over,” he said. “Total, complete victory is your goal.”
But he didn’t sugarcoat the road ahead. Foreshadowing intra-party tensions ahead of the next day’s reorganization meeting, Bannon reminded the crowd that revolutionaries don’t always get along—and they don’t need to.
“I realize everybody that’s gonna be there tomorrow doesn’t agree, right? There’s some factions, and people saying, ‘Hey, this and that.’ That’s okay,” he said. “The revolutionary generation, the founding fathers, were at each other’s throats. Jefferson hated Adams. Adams hated Jefferson. They both hated Hamilton. And Burr assassinated Hamilton. They were not buddies. But the greatest country in mankind’s history came out of that.”
He told attendees to expect disagreements, but to keep their eyes on the mission: retaking Colorado from the political class that, in his words, “has destroyed this state.”
Tina Peters: “I would do it all over again”
Before Bannon took the stage, the room fell silent as a call came in from former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, currently serving a 9 year prison sentence at the Larimer County jail.
She described the toll her incarceration has taken but emphasized she would not back down.
“At my age, this is very difficult. But I would do it all over again to bring the truth to the American people,” she said. “Please hold your liberty close because just like that, it can be taken away. But always stand for truth. Stand up and speak out.”
Bannon later praised Peters as a symbol of the movement’s moral stakes, and a centerpiece in his case against Colorado’s political leadership. “What kind of state puts a gold star mother in a prison?” Bannon asked. “Think about that. It’s not Colorado, not the people of Colorado. It’s the elites of Colorado.”
He called her imprisonment disgusting, humiliating and politically motivated. Casting her as a symbol of middle-class sacrifice and moral courage, Bannon said Peters represented everything the movement was trying to protect—and everything the elites had betrayed.
“She’s a middle-class woman that gave her son up for this country,” he said. “A gold star mother, the most revered demographic we have in this nation, equivalent to a Medal of Honor awardee.”
Bannon didn’t limit his criticism to the left. He took aim at Republicans as well, accusing some of complicity in Peters’ continued detention. He called them “sheep in sheep’s clothing” and warned that weak leadership had enabled the very system now targeting its own.
He issued a challenge to federal authorities. “Cut off all federal money to the state of Colorado until she’s free,” Bannon said. He prompted federal leadership to put a pressure campaign on state officials, and to say, “You get nothing until she walks out a free woman.”
Bannon unloads on Polis, the courts and Colorado’s elite
Governor Jared Polis was a central target throughout Bannon’s remarks. He painted Polis not only as a failed leader, but as a national threat whose policies had put everyday Americans in harm’s way.
“There’s nothing more radical than your governor Jared Polis,” Bannon said. “He doesn’t put Colorado in jeopardy. He put the United States of America in jeopardy.”
He accused Polis of turning Colorado into the “national headquarters of murderous terrorist gangs” and claimed working-class families had been terrorized as a result.
“Polis had made this the national headquarters of murderous terrorist gangs that were murdering and intimidating and raping working class Hispanic, white and black [families] in this state.”
On gun rights, Bannon was equally forceful. “He’s going to sign the most prohibitive gun law in the country,” he said. “In a state with Colorado’s history of heroism, he’s going to make it so citizens can’t protect themselves.”
He described Polis as a “rich, feckless oligarch” and a “global thinker” who spends more time with Aspen elites than with the people of Colorado. “Polis, you are repulsive,” Bannon said.
Looking ahead to 2028, Bannon mocked Polis’s presidential ambitions and predicted his failure.
He painted Polis as too extreme and ideologically out of step even within his own party, suggesting he would be politically dismantled by his peers before ever reaching the national stage.
“You know what’s gonna take you apart, brother? Your own Democratic governors back East — Shapiro, Whitmer, Wes Moore and Pritzker. Because you’re the most radical of them all,” Bannon said. “Polis is going to get field-stripped by these governors and spit out as the lightweight he is.”
He also criticized Polis’s foreign policy missteps, including U.S. support for Ukraine. “Jared Polis, you got blood on your hands, brother,” he said. “You ought to go to Ukraine, go to the graves of the dead, and ask them—was it worth it?”
Progressive think tanks and Democrat lawmakers and also drew Bannon’s ire. “The Aspen Institute and the elites of Colorado and the billionaires that came and took this state over. They think they run it – and own it.” He added, “You have sociopaths that run your courts and your legislature.”
Bannon drew a stark contrast between “elites in Aspen” and the conservatives in the room.
“We’re breaking every one of these institutions that [they] corrupted and giving them back to the people,” he said. “These billionaires coming in here, doing what they did. That day is done. Polis represents the old politics. You represent the new.”
He emphasized grit and unity, even in the face of political and cultural assault.
“You’re fighters. You’re not gonna back down,” Bannon said. “You’ve got what Colorado was built on—grit, determination, guts and common decency.”
Bannon ended with a clear charge to the crowd. “This is the beginning. Play this hand out. The country hangs in the balance.”