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steve bannon
Steve Bannon Calls ICE at Airports a Good ‘Test Run’ for Deployment to 2026 Midterm Polls
The comments marked the second time in just two months that Bannon has floated having ICE illegally monitor US elections.
Mar 24, 2026
Right-wing podcaster and former Trump White House political strategist Steve Bannon on Monday said that President Donald Trump's deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports was a preview of what could be expected later this year at polling places across the country.
During a Monday episode of his "War Room" podcast, Bannon said that the Trump administration "can use what's happening with these ICE [agents] at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case, to really perfect ICE's involvement in the 2026 midterm elections."
BANNON (Epstein’s PR Guy): “We can use ICE helping out at airports as a test run to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterms.”
P.S. — Non-citizens don’t vote and they know it pic.twitter.com/hPFaI9Ue9z
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) March 24, 2026
Bannon's guest, MAGA influencer Mike Davis, agreed that ICE should be sent to polling places during this year's midterms to ensure no undocumented immigrants are casting ballots.
"If you're an American citizen, you should be happy ICE is there," Davis said. "So you don't have illegal aliens canceling out your vote."
There is no evidence that undocumented immigrants vote in any significant numbers in US elections.
As The New York Times reported in January, the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's second term has been conducting a wide-ranging review of voter registration data and so far has found almost no evidence of non-citizens voting in past elections.
"Out of 49.5 million voter registrations that have been checked, the department referred around 10,000 cases to Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation of noncitizenship, or roughly .02% of the names processed," reported the Times, which added that the administration didn't specify how many of the potential "illegal" voters had actually cast ballots in elections.
Even so, Bannon and other Trump allies have been floating sending ICE agents to serve as election monitors, even though they have no legal jurisdiction to do so.
In February, Bannon predicted that "we’re gonna have ICE surround the polls come November," which many critics warned was a signal for a coming mass voter suppression campaign.
“This is a red alert moment," said US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in the wake of Bannon's comments last month. "We have to start working to protect polling places from Trump’s paramilitary ICE goons before it’s too late."
Trump has also floated getting the US military involved in elections, telling the New York Times in January that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines after his 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden.
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Escalating Threats to Midterm Elections, Bannon Says Trump Will ‘Have ICE Surround the Polls’
"This is a red alert moment," said Sen. Ed Markey. "We have to start working to protect polling places from Trump's paramilitary ICE goons before it's too late."
Feb 04, 2026
Days after President Donald Trump suggested that Republicans should “nationalize the voting” in Democratic districts, his former White House adviser telegraphed another way Trump may seek to prevent a free and fair election later this year: illegally flooding polling places with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
"You're damn right we're gonna have ICE surround the polls come November," Bannon said on his War Room podcast on Tuesday.
"We're not gonna sit here and allow you to steal the country again," he continued. "And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen."
What Bannon proposed would be in direct violation of state and federal law. As Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the Brennan Center’s voting rights and elections program, explained back in October:
The law is crystal clear: It is illegal to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place. In fact, it is a federal crime for anyone in the US military to interfere in elections in any way. More specifically, it is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to deploy federal “troops or armed men” to any location where voting is taking place or elections are being held, unless “such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” ...
It is also a federal crime for anyone, including federal agents, to intimidate voters. Anyone who does so may be liable for a number of different federal criminal offenses.
While Trump has not explicitly said ICE should be deployed in 2026, he has said he regrets not deploying the National Guard to seize voting machines during the 2020 election, which he attempted to overturn with a litany of disproven fraud allegations.
He has since followed through somewhat on this desire, sending the FBI to seize 2020 election materials from a voting hub in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of what the FBI said was an "investigation" into election fraud, which he said caused him to lose the election to former President Joe Biden.
It's unclear how, if at all, ICE may figure into his goal, stated earlier this week, to have Republicans "take control of the voting in at least 15 places," which would violate the constitutional right for states and localities to administer their own elections.
He has, however, used ICE to demand that Minnesota—a key swing state in 2026—turn over its voter rolls to the federal government in exchange for a withdrawal of agents who have killed three US citizens over the past month and unleashed a wave of violence and civil rights violations.
Expressing fear that Republicans will be trounced in November’s midterm elections—which polls currently indicate is likely—Trump has also recently suggested on multiple occasions that the elections should simply be “canceled” outright.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Ct.) said all of this adds up to a frightening picture.
"Donald Trump can't win the 2026 election, so he's putting in place a plan to steal it," he said in a video posted to social media. "That is not hyperbole. That is not conspiracy. He is literally doing it, and telling you he's going to do it every single day."
Murphy said, “He wants the federal government, meaning Donald Trump’s MAGA loyalists, to run elections in places like Georgia and Minnesota, and probably Pennsylvania and Texas and Maine—anywhere that there’s a race that might determine control of the House or the Senate.”
Trump's threats come amid negotiations in Congress over whether to provide additional funding to ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Democrats have said they will not provide the necessary votes to fund DHS unless certain reforms are put in place to rein in the agency's abuses—such as requiring agents to wear body cameras, carry identification, and obtain judicial warrants before making arrests.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who voted against the bill Tuesday to extend DHS funding for two weeks while negotiations continue, has said Democrats must also pursue guarantees that ICE will not be used to interfere with elections.
"We must not agree to another dollar for ICE until we add my amendment blocking the federal government from seizing voter rolls, ballots, or voting machines," he said on Tuesday. "If the House GOP is serious about election integrity, they will agree that elections must remain run by states, not rigged by a wannabe dictator."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) agreed: "This is a red alert moment... We have to start working to protect polling places from Trump's paramilitary ICE goons before it's too late."
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See the 19 Photos House Oversight Democrats Just Released From Epstein's Estate
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world."
Dec 12, 2025
US House Committee on Oversight and Reform Democrats on Friday released 19 of the 95,000 new photos they just received from the estate of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the Department of Justice is preparing to release its files from the federal case against President Donald Trump's former friend following votes in Congress.
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world," the committee's Democrats said on social media, with a link to the photos, all of which Common Dreams has included below, on Dropbox. "Time to end this White House cover-up. Release the files!"
The photos feature sex toys, Trump condoms, and high-profile figures including the president, film director Woody Allen, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, billionaires Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, previously known as Prince Andrew of United Kingdom.
The committee's Democrats received the photos on Thursday night and have reviewed "maybe about 25,000... so far," Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told CNBC. "There's an enormous amount of photos we have not gone through... It will take days and weeks to ensure that we got those photos and that a redaction is done in the appropriate way."
"Obviously there are photos of powerful men, and folks that we want to have an opportunity to speak with and ask questions of,” Garcia said, noting that some shots Epstein took himself and others may have been sent to him. "Some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing."
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