"War Room" host in Las Vegas on January 30, 2024 (Gage Skidmore)
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump announced plans to distribute ICE agents to airports across the country in an effort to alleviate long security lines caused by TSA staffing issues, which are in turn the result of a congressional standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding. With funding suspended, high numbers of TSA workers are calling in sick or quitting, and the ICE agents are purportedly being sent to fill the gaps.
But according to longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, sending ICE agents to airports is really a “test run” for deploying them during the upcoming elections.
Speaking on his War Room podcast this morning, Bannon said, “We can use this as a test run, as a test case, to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm.”
Bannon — who has been a key framer of the MAGA movement since its inception — has been advocating for Trump to place ICE agents at polling sites since last month, arguing it was necessary to prevent Democrats from “stealing” the election. Critics, however, say this is a blatant attempt to intimidate poll workers and voters with hopes of influencing the outcome.
The idea of putting ICE at polling stations has been gaining traction among conservatives, even though federal law expressly forbids deploying military or law enforcement at poll sites.
Bannon floated the idea to far-right lawyer Mike Davis, who said, “I think we should have ICE agents at the polling place because if you’re an illegal alien, you can’t vote. It’s against the law. It’s a federal crime for you to vote in federal elections. And so if you’re an American citizen, you should be happy that ICE is there, because you’re not going to have illegal aliens cancelling out your vote.”
Claims about widespread voting fraud have been thoroughly debunked, but that hasn’t stopped the president and his supporters from arguing that such voters stole previous elections from Trump. His opponents, however, say that placing ICE at polls would in fact be part of a Republican attempt to steal elections.
These opponents argue that such efforts have come in many forms, such as redistricting to shape the electorate to suit GOP needs, and the seizure of voter data and ballots from previous elections, typically in blue states or districts. Monday, a Republican sheriff in California seized more than 650,000 ballots in an attempt to overturn Democratic efforts to redistrict the state that were launched in response to similar efforts in Texas. And previously, Trump has said that he regrets not ordering the National Guard to seize ballots during his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
If deploying ICE to airports doesn’t decrease security lines, says Trump, he will “bring the National Guard” next.
“Perfect training for the fall of 2026,” said Bannon. “This is another 5D chess move from President Trump.”