Steve Bannon on midterm subversion plot: “I have not seen the classified information, but my understanding is that there's information coming out about Venezuela and there's information coming out about China”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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From the July 2, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): The SAVE America Act, there is a big issue about — even if passed with the court challenges, et cetera, would you be able to implement it between now and Election Day? That's why people are talking about this national security emergency, of which you would have an executive order, and it'd be based upon a predicate of actually finding information, finding evidence that there was foreign interference, let's say this, foreign interference in the 2020 election.

And my understanding, and I have not seen the classified information, but my understanding is that there's information coming out about Venezuela and there's information coming out about China.

Media Matters detailed the MAGA media plot to subvert the midterms:

Over the last several weeks, the outlines of a plot have begun to emerge that could signal how President Donald Trump, along with MAGA media figures and activists, could attempt to severely curtail voting rights under the pretext of declaring a national emergency posed by China.

The details of the scheme remain publicly vague, and may not yet come to pass, but the short version looks something like this: First, the White House would declassify and release documents purporting to show foreign interference in U.S. elections, especially by the Chinese Communist Party.

Next, Trump would use that supposed “proof” of a stolen election to declare a national emergency, thereby — according to those pushing this idea — giving him extraordinary powers over the upcoming midterms. That move would serve as a way to advance the anti-voting rights measures in the SAVE America Act, like forcing voters to prove their citizenship, without having to actually pass the law — which Congress, so far at least, appears reluctant to do.

The main players here come not only from the fever swamp backwaters of MAGA media, but also from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the White House. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is a central node, attempting to advance the operation on his War Room podcast, aired on right-wing network Real America’s Voice, long a major source of misinformation about the 2020 election.