Former White House aide Steve Bannon suggested Friday that the GOP could lose dozens of House seats in the 2026 midterms over the Trump administration\u2019s handling of files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we ain\u2019t gonna \u2026 we\u2019re gonna lose 40 seats in \u201926,\u201d he told a live audience during his \u201cWar Room\u201d podcast. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna lose the president.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that happens, it would mean a major upset for Republican lawmakers who managed to obtain a majority in both chambers last November. Democrats have been plotting to retake House and Senate seats in the next election cycle after their sweeping 2024 losses. This new turmoil over the Epstein case and backlash from sweeping cuts in the GOP\u2019s recently signed \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d spending package could offer the left some fodder for their 2026 messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t even have to steal it, which they\u2019re gonna try to do in \u201928, because they\u2019re gonna sit there and they go \u2026 they\u2019ve disheartened the hardest core populist nation that\u2019s always been who governs us,\u201d Bannon added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His criticism comes after the Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI released a memo on Monday concluding in its investigation that Epstein did not keep a client list and confirming that he died by suicide in his New York City jail cell in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who defended the findings during a recent Cabinet meeting, has faced backlash over the memo after she previously suggested she had a list of names \u201csitting on her desk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Trump and others in the administration have come to her defense, despite some calls to remove the attorney general from office and after news outlets, including CNN and Semafor, reported FBI Director Dan Bongino was furious over the Epstein files controversy, considering resigning and did not show up to work on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey f\u2011\u2011\u2011ed up because they trusted her,\u201d podcaster and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly said of Bondi earlier this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kelly added, \u201cThey were humiliated because she gave them all these binders that read \u2018Epstein Files,\u2019 you know, \u2018Volume 1,\u2019 and there was nothing new in there. Nothing. There was no scoop. Why would she do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Trump has yet to respond directly to Bannon\u2019s dire prediction for the GOP, but he has brushed off questions about Epstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy\u2019s been talked about for years,\u201d he told a reporter who asked about the disgraced financier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former White House aide Steve Bannon suggested Friday that the GOP could lose dozens of House seats in the 2026 midterms over the Trump administration\u2019s handling of files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. \u201cYou\u2019re going to lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we ain\u2019t gonna \u2026 we\u2019re gonna lose 40 seats in \u201926,\u201d he told a live audience during his \u201cWar Room\u201d podcast. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna lose the president.\u201d If that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-politics","category-trump"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bannonasdfas.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6294,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292\/revisions\/6294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nakedpolitics.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}