Bannon Says Midterm Losses Followed a Break With MAGA Policies

Emily Maitlis put the Nov. 3 defeat to Steve Bannon in Washington that Thursday. “Tuesday night, Steve, was a Republican wipeout,” she said. The News Agents published the interview on Nov. 9.

A Break With MAGA Pledges

Asked why voters had turned on President Donald Trump, Bannon said: “I think some of it is the lack of, I mean, the way we view this is the lack of really MAGA policies of really doing what we committed to do, particularly no foreign wars, this entire situation with greater Israel and the Gulf Emirates.” He added: “No mass deportations.”

He said advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair had “this wrong from the beginning,” focusing on drug prices and the “big, beautiful bill” tax cut. Midterms “are much more emotional than presidential cycles,” he said, with a “war that will not end,” Greater Israel, the Gulf emirates and an economy he said Scott Bessent had let go “off track” weighing more.

Iran War and Israel Ties

Bannon said Trump “never really went to the country and sold the idea of exactly what is the nuclear threat,” and that Washington had to “extract ourselves from this situation.” He called the second phase “clearly a regime change war” and asked whether decisions had drawn on Mossad, Shin Bet or U.S. intelligence, without offering evidence.

The United States, he said, should keep “an arm’s length relationship with Israel that is supportive, but like other allies, exactly like we do in NATO.” Voters under 40 were saying, “We want our sovereignty back.” Vance has also cited Israel ties.

He called for a presidential commission on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and the first “total obliteration” strike, and no further kinetic action until it reports. A “$4 billion” figure was “as close to a gimmick as you can get,” he said. Trump has also said the Iran war “largely” cost Republicans the midterms.

Turnout and What Comes Next

Bannon said “a lot of our base did not show up,” and that some around Nick Fuentes had been told to vote against Republicans. Maitlis cited 18-to-29-year-olds at 66% Democratic and Latinos at 60% Democratic. He blamed a poorly explained war and later costs, not ICE, for losing Hispanic men, and said the case should have been made “after the midterms.”

Before Democrats “take power” on Jan. 3, he warned of a lame-duck omnibus with a “$3 trillion deficit,” a lifted debt ceiling, and what he called the “biggest amnesty.” He claimed Democratic senators in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and “maybe Mississippi.” MAGA is “absolutely not” dead, he said, but “if you don’t get Texas back, there is no Republican Party in this country.”