Steve Bannon told a room full of conservative supporters that they all risk being jailed if Democrats return to power.
The former Trump White House chief strategist issued the warning while speaking at an event hosted by the Conservative Partnership Institute, one day after the GOP suffered major electoral losses in races across the country.
“And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness, if we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison—myself included,” Bannon said. “They’re getting more and more radical, and we have to counter that,” the War Room podcast host added.
“And what do we have to counter it with? We have to counter it with more action, more intense action, more urgency. We’re burning daylight. If you look across every aspect of this, we have to codify what President Trump has done by executive order.”
Bannon, 71, previously served four months in prison after being found guilty in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
He managed to avoid prison earlier this year after pleading guilty to defrauding donors who gave money to build a wall across the U.S. southern border.
Bannon’s fear of returning to prison comes after the GOP’s humiliating defeats on Tuesday, including Democratic Zohran Mamdani winning the New York mayoral race and Abigail Spanberger’s comprehensive victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.
The contests marked the first electoral test of Trump’s second term and were a significant gauge of voter sentiment ahead of the 2026 midterms. The CPI, where Bannon spoke on Wednesday, trains Conservative leaders.
The GOP will be desperate to try to retain control of the House, where it holds only a razor-thin majority, as well as the Senate, next November. Several Trump allies are already warning that Democrats could once again move to impeach the president if they retake the House.
Elsewhere in his speech, Bannon said several Republican senators, such as Missouri’s Josh Hawley, support Trump’s desperate demands to eliminate the filibuster to end the government shutdown and push through the president’s MAGA agenda.
“We have to understand that if we don’t take this to the maximum—a maximalist strategy now, with a sense of urgency, and in doing this, seize the institutions—if we don’t do that now, we lose this chance forever,” Bannon said. “Because you’re never gonna have another Trump.”
