Steve Bannon Calls ICE At Airports A Midterms 'Test Run'

On Monday, the Trump administration began deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to U.S. airports to assist unpaid TSA agents amid a partial government shutdown that revolves around Department of Homeland Security funding, specifically ICE funding. By Monday night, members of the GOP Senate said they believe Trump is open to negotiating with Democrats to reopen the DHS without fully funding ICE. Meanwhile, one Republican senator says President Donald Trump previously blocked a deal that would have paid TSA agents because it would have meant working with Democrats. Also, former White House strategist Steve Bannon is out here suggesting that ICE’s presence at airports be a “test run” for deploying the agency to polling locations during the 2026 midterms.

Let’s get into it…

According to the Hill, a  Senate Republican source familiar with the discussion said that following a two-hour meeting at the White House on Monday evening, Trump signaled his willingness to separate funding for the Enforcement and Removal Operation from the Homeland Security appropriations bill in order to gain Democrats’ support. Although it appears that what the president has actually said he might agree to is a deal that would put ICE funding on a later-to-do list, allowing DHS to reopen in the meantime.

From the Hill:

Under the proposal presented to Trump, Senate Republicans would pass additional money for ICE’s removal operations under the budget reconciliation process, which allows them to circumvent a Democratic filibuster in the Senate as long as the legislation being considered meets certain requirements related to the spending, taxation or deficit reduction.

Senate Republicans told Trump that they would also attempt to pass elements of the SAVE America Act, which Trump has called his No. 1 legislative priority, in the follow-up reconciliation bill.

“I think we showed him that we can run a parallel process where we can fund DHS now and have a second reconciliation bill that would put a down payment on some of the SAVE [America] Act,” said a person familiar with the meeting.

As we previously reported, earlier this month, Trump said flat-out that he’ll refuse to sign any legislation at all until Congress passes the SAVE Act, which, at its core, is just a law to reinforce right-wing propaganda that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and non-citizens are voting in them, which they are not. As for the president’s alleged openness to bending on the issue, it would be a drastic turnaround from just Sunday, when Trump posted on Truth Social, “I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.’ It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate, and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems (who are to blame for this mess!), a Five Billion Dollar cut in ICE funding, a deal which, even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to the American people and me.”

As you can see, Trump is predictably blaming Democrats for the partial government shutdown, just as he and his administration did during the full shutdown on Trump’s watch just a few months ago. In fact, in a DHS press release published last month, the department referred to what’s going on now as “another Democrat shutdown,” but at least one Republican, Sen. John Kennedy, says Trump’s refusal to work with Democrats is the reason TSA agents are still not being paid.

From Newsweek:

Louisiana Senator John Kennedy said on Fox News that the president had said there would be “no deals with the Democrats,” rejecting a plan that would have ended the partial shutdown of DHS and given TSA workers their paychecks “by the end of the week.”

The plan, put together by Kennedy and Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, would have accepted Democratic lawmakers’ proposals on funding DHS, excluding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Kennedy said.

Kennedy added that this would have been followed by a reconciliation bill to fund ICE, which would have meant Republican lawmakers “don’t need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ICE.”

So, basically, Trump was reportedly already presented with the idea of funding DHS while putting ICE on, well, ice until later, and he rejected it because it would mean extending compromises across the aisle.

So, this so-called “Democrat shutdown” is, once again, looking more like a MAGA malfunction the more we learn about it.

It’s almost as if the Trump administration is scrambling to do something — anything — about its ever-sinking approval ratings leading up to the midterms, including somewhat caving to Democrats.

Speaking of the midterm elections, Trump’s buddy Bannon and conservative lawyer Mike Davis recently had a conversation on Davis’ War Room program, during which Bannon asked, “We can use what’s happening with these ICE [officers] helping out at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections, sir?”

“Yeah, I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places, because if you’re an illegal alien you can’t vote, right? It’s against the law, it’s a federal crime for you to vote in federal elections,” Davis responded. “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 canceling out your vote.”

“Exactly,” Bannon replied. “Pick ‘em out of line starting today, and maybe the lines will get shorter.”

And there it is…

Every investigation and study done on the subject of undocumented migrants voting in U.S. elections — including research published by the Project 2025 think tank, the Heritage Foundation — has found that it is extremely rare. We’re talking numbers in the double digits out of billions of votes cast in elections over the last two decades, plus. So, right-wingers like Bannon want ICE to be present at polling places in an intentional effort to reduce the number of people voting, resulting in “shorter” lines, based on the myth that non-citizens are voting in our elections, which is the same myth Trump has relied on in threatening to hold the federal government hostage if the SAVE Act isn’t passed — which is apparently is the cause of TSA agents not being paid, and the reason Trump sent ICE to airports in the first place.

We are truly cooked, and the MAGA-fied federal government is in the kitchen, burning it all down while claiming it is saving dinner.

Sad.

SEE ALSO:

Was The TSA Crisis Written In Project 2025?

Trump Sends ICE To US Airports To Help TSA And Target Immigrants, Of Course