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Prominent MAGA commentator Steve Bannon on Thursday offered a rosy view of the populist right’s influence — and of Republicans’ fortunes, predicting they would keep the US House this fall.
“I feel better than ever,” Bannon told Semafor World Economy in Washington, DC. He touted the success of conservative Senate candidate Ken Paxton in Texas and polls showing that less than a majority of South Carolina voters approve of GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose hawkishness has made him a frequent political punching bag for Bannon.
Bannon acknowledged that, while populist- and nationalist-leaning conservatives such as himself “were ascendant” in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term, recent months have seen his wing’s interest “maybe not totally aligned” with the rest of the party.
Among the issues on which his camp has split from the White House are the war with Iran — Bannon declared that “we’ve got to get out of the Middle East” — and mass deportations, which Trump’s aides have urged the party to downplay heading into the midterm elections after a remarkably aggressive start to immigration enforcement.
But Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, vowed that “we will be ascendant again,” predicting that Republicans are “going to hold the House” majority. (The majority of polls this spring show that Democrats, not Republicans, are on track to claim control of the chamber next year.)
One Republican Bannon was less bullish on: Vice President JD Vance. Asked if Vance was the “heir apparent” to Trump’s base for 2028, Bannon said that he continues to advocate for Trump to seek a third term in office despite the Constitution’s prohibition on such a move.
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Bannon also underscored his sharp criticism of “out-of-control” artificial intelligence companies, saying that the AI startup Anthropic “had it right” in its feud with Trump’s Pentagon over the use of its technology in autonomous weapons systems and the surveillance of Americans.
For populist conservatives, Bannon said, AI is “right next to immigration, our top issue. People are galvanized by this.” He called for “some modicum of regulatory control” over technology that he warned would hurt children and take away jobs.
And he warned that congressional Republicans would keep trying to pursue legislation that would effectively nullify state-level attempts to regulate AI, despite having failed to do so in the past.