Steve Bannon Wants ICE in a Terrifying Role During Midterm Elections

The chief strategist during the president’s first term has a grim vision for the 2026 midterm elections, and it involves armed federal agents.

“You’re damn right we’re gonna have ICE surround the polls come November,” Steve Bannon said on his War Room podcast on Tuesday.

“We’re not gonna sit here and allow you to steal the country again,” Bannon continued, repeating Donald Trump’s thoroughly debunked 2020 election conspiracy. “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.”

Caroline Wren, a GOP fundraiser that was on the podcast, agreed with Bannon, claiming that dissent against ICE activity and its funding was fueled by individuals who “don’t want ICE at the polling stations to stop illegals from voting.”

It is, and has been, illegal and impossible for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections.

Bannon’s comments seem to be the latest escalation in a nationwide Republican push to tighten up voter restrictions to a dystopian degree. Last year, conservative lawmakers passed the SAVE Act, requiring people to confirm their names with documented proof of citizenship before they register to vote—a detail that legal experts have warned could prevent droves of married women from casting their ballot.

Trump seemed to be on the same wavelength as Bannon the day prior, telling former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino during an interview Monday that Republicans should “take over and nationalize” elections in several states.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many—15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Since he lost the 2020 election, Trump and his allies have obsessed over contrived claims of voter fraud—a statistical nonissue in U.S. elections. For instance, a statewide audit out of Georgia, the epicenter of Trump’s baseless theory, revealed in 2024 that just 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million residents existed on the state’s voter roll, approximately 0.00024 percent of the state’s voting population. Out of those 20, only nine participated in elections years ago, before ID was required as a part of the voter verification process. The other 11 individuals were registered but never actually voted, according to the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday to allow California to use a newly drawn congressional map that could earn Democrats as many as five additional House seats in the upcoming midterm elections.

Republicans sued California over the new district lines drawn by Democratic lawmakers and approved by voters in November, claiming that the new map was racially gerrymandered.

When a federal judge found late last month that the map had been drawn along partisan lines, not racial lines, Republicans, joined by the Department of Justice, filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had championed the redistricting effort in his state, responded to the court’s decision Wednesday. “LFG,” he wrote on X.

The high court’s ruling represents another major victory for the Democrats in the face of Donald Trump’s vast gerrymandering scheme. Last month, Virginia’s Democrat-controlled legislature passed an amendment that would allow the state to redraw its own congressional map, potentially netting Democrats—who already control six of the state’s 11 districts—an additional three to four seats in November.

So far, five red states have moved to redraw their congressional maps at the president’s behest in order to hand a potential nine additional seats to the Republican Party: Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, and Utah.

Last month, Trump told Republican lawmakers that he needed the party to maintain control of the House and Senate in order to avoid being impeached.

This seems increasingly unavoidable, as in a typical midterm cycle, the presidential party pretty consistently loses ground. Those basic odds, coupled with Trump’s dismal approval rating and Democratic candidates’ growing momentum, is a particularly bad sign for the president, who has started babbling about potentially canceling the midterm elections altogether.

Elections experts have cautioned that Trump does not have the legal authority or mechanism to cancel the midterm elections, but his continued ranting could hurt participation and spur distrust of election results.

This story has been updated.

The Justice Department attorney who told a Minnesota judge Tuesday to hold her in contempt because “this job sucks” has been removed from her post. 

Julie Le was filling in at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota to help with a heavy caseload as immigrants challenge their detentions. In court, she was asked by Judge Jerry Blackwell why Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t complying with several court orders to release detained immigrants. Le admitted that her office, depleted by resignations in protest of Trump administration policies, simply could not keep up. 

“They are overwhelmed, and they need help, so I, I have to say, stupidly [volunteered],” Le said, noting that getting ICE to follow court orders was like pulling teeth. The stress clearly had gotten to Le, who normally works directly for ICE in immigration court, and she was unable to keep herself together. 

“I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep. I work days and nights just because people (are) still in there,” Le said. “The system sucks, this job sucks, I am trying with every breath I have to get you what I need.” 

Le will now leave the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota and return to her job at ICE. The Minnesota office has seen more resignations in the past month than it normally has in a year, thanks to the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement in Minnesota leading to the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Meanwhile, the government continues to flout court orders and violently detain immigrants based on scant evidence. 

Blackwell admonished the Trump administration in court Tuesday, warning Le that “a court order is not advisory and it is not conditional.” 

“It is not something that any agency can treat as optional while it decides how or whether to comply with the court order,” Blackwell said. “Having what you feel are too many detainees, too many cases, too many deadlines, and not enough infrastructure to keep up with it all, is not a defense to continued detention. If anything, it ought to be a warning sign.”  

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace wants to claim that a genetic condition means she wouldn’t have sent staffers on late-night booze runs, but a former staffer is calling bullshit—and they brought receipts.

In response to a sweeping profile, including claims that Mace dispatched staffers on after-hours trips for alcohol, the Republican lawmaker claimed that she was physically incapable of drinking in excess.

“I have a lifelong condition called hemochromatosis, a genetic disease where my body absorbs too much iron. I can only get rid of iron by bleeding it out. So I have a lot of phlebotomies. Any and all alcohol makes it worse,” Mace wrote on X Tuesday.

Natalie Johnson, who previously served as Mace’s director of communications, was quick to point out that Mace’s claim was not only ridiculous but even worse than what was previously reported.

“Nancy Mace claiming she doesn’t drink alcohol might be the funniest, most brazen lie she’s told to date,” she wrote on X Tuesday. “The woman drank so much she’d have interns or junior staff run to Congressional Liquor during the work day so she could imbibe during telephone town halls.”

Johnson left Mace’s office in 2021, during a turbulent six-week stretch that cost the congressperson multiple staffers.

Johnson shared multiple photographs of Mace holding alcoholic beverages, and even looking inebriated in a separate X post. “Cheers!” Johnson wrote.

Johnson also shared Mace’s own X post from February 2025 celebrating “National Drink Wine Day.”

Members of Congress are explicitly barred from instructing their staffers to run personal errands, and staffers are not permitted to purchase alcohol for their boss’s personal consumption. One staffer has alleged Mace’s excessive drinking and marijuana use became an issue at work.

Ryan Routh, who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison.

The ruling was handed down by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has a history of biased rulings in favor of the president. Prosecutors had been seeking a life sentence to “send a message that seeking to assassinate a Presidential candidate will result in the most severe punishment,” they wrote in a memo before the sentencing.

Routh had planned the assassination for months, prosecutors said, adding that he was willing to kill anyone who attempted to stop him and didn’t express remorse. Routh sought to have Cannon recuse herself from the case, citing her dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case in 2024, but his motion was rejected.

The sentence is not surprising, considering that Routh represented himself while on trial in September last year. He ended up being found guilty on all five charges related to the assassination attempt, and reportedly tried to stab himself with a pen moments after the verdict. Cannon’s response was to appoint a new lawyer to represent Routh.

Routh’s lawyer last month sought a reduced sentence of 27 years to “meet the need for punishment, provide the defendant with correctional treatment and provide for mental health treatment in a custodial setting.” Instead, Routh, who turns 60 in two weeks, will now spend the rest of his life behind bars to set an example.

This story has been updated.