‘Some in This Room Are Going to Prison – Myself Included’: Bannon Predicts Grim Fate for Himself if Democrats Win Upcoming Elections
Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon told a hall full of conservatives that if Democrats win the 2026 midterm elections and the presidency in 2028, some of them will go to prison, including him.
The former adviser to President Donald Trump spoke at an event put on by the Conservative Partnership Institute on Wednesday. His remarks came a day after Democrats racked up electoral wins in several key races, including gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, and a referendum in California that could secure five additional Democratic congressional seats. Democrats are hoping he results are a harbinger of next year’s races.
“And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness,” Bannon told the crowd.
“If we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison – myself included. They’re not gonna stop. They are getting more and more and more radical. And we have to counter that. And what do we have to counter it with? We have to count it with more action, more intense action, more urgency. We’re burning daylight.”
Bannon went on to suggest Senate Republicans heed Trump’s demands by eliminating the chamber’s 60-vote cloture threshold, which is currently at the center of the ongoing government shutdown that began on Oct. 1. Republicans need seven Democratic votes to advance their funding bill, but so far Democrats are witholding them in exchange for the extension of Obamacare healthcare premium subsidies, which are set to expire on Dec. 31. However, Republicans have not budged.
“If we don’t do that now, we’re gonna lose this chance forever, because you’re never gonna have another Trump, all right?” Bannon continued. You’re just not going to have him.”
Bannon has already spent some time in prison. Last year, he served four months after being found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022. He had defied a congressional subpoena and refused to sit for a deposition in front of the House Jan. 6 Committee.
In February, Bannon pleaded guilty to defrauding donors to his former organization, We Build the Wall, which was ostensibly formed to use private funds to build a wall along the southern border. The guilty plea allowed him to avoid jail time. Bannon also faced federal charges stemming from the same scheme, but Trump pardoned him on the way out of the White House in January 2021.
Steve Bannon sounds the alarm after Mamdani win – and warns Republicans will be defeated in 2026 if they’re not MAGA
The former Trump official warned that Mamdani’s election shows the growing strength of the Democratic party’s populist wing
‘Turn the volume up!’: Zohran Mamdani offers powerful message to President Donald Trump in victory speech
Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon is warning that democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election should set off “alarm bells” and “flashing red lights” about the growing influence of the Democratic Party’s populist base.
“What this kid got was 5,000 people canvassing in Brooklyn by going door-to-door, the Working Families Party and the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America],” Bannon told Politico. “People should understand they’re the rising power organizationally.”
Mamdani, whose views on issues from freezing rent to the Israel-Hamas war are considerably to the left of those of party leaders, was able to deliver a coalition of voters Democrats have struggled to retain in recent elections.
He carried precincts with younger voters and districts with predominantly people of color, according to voting data.
Bannon added that Mamdani had some of the same anti-establishment views that propelled Trump to power, and similarly showed how a grassroots movement could support a candidate that party elders were skeptical of embracing.
“The energy is in the populist right, Trump, and what Mamdani is, what I would call the neo-Marxist left,” Bannon said. “The Democratic Party was basically worthless here. The Republican Party, as a party, was worthless.”
Indeed, party leaders were slow to embrace Mamdani, if they endorsed him at all. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New Yorker, declined to say who he voted for, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered a last-minute endorsement but has batted down suggestions that Mamdani is the future of the party.
Commentators on the left agreed, with The New Republic writing that Mamdani’s election was a Tea Party moment for the Democrats, a reference to the anti-establishment uprising in the Republican Party in the mid-2010s that swept out a previous generation of party leaders and candidates.
Democratic party leaders appeared wary to endorse Zohran Mamdani, despite the democratic socialist candidate winning with a coalition of young and diverse voters who delivered the highest turnout in a mayoral race in decades (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Looking ahead to the 2026 elections, Bannon said Republicans will rise or fall based on how closely they align with the MAGA movement because the institutional Republican party is a “husk” that has “no following” outside a small circle of donors, establishment figures, and aligned journalists.
Trump, for his part, has greeted Mamdani’s victory with threats to withhold federal funding.
If the president’s record so far is any indication, he could clash with the New York mayor over immigration issues, making the president’s home city the latest Democrat-run jurisdiction where Trump has sent National Guardsmen and a surge of masked immigration agents.
