Mediaite reports:

Former Trump White House advisor turned MAGA influencer, Steve Bannon, warned on Friday that if the Trump administration doesn’t satisfy the MAGA base on the so-called “Epstein Files,” the GOP could lose up to “40 seats” in the midterm elections.

“It’s not about just a pedophile ring and all that. It’s about who governs us, right? And that’s why it’s not gonna go away,” Bannon told a live audience, referring to the recent DOJ and FBI memo concluding that the various conspiracy theories surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are all false.

“For this to go away, can we blow the break, by the way? Can we blow the break, guys? For this to go away… You’re going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we ain’t gonna– we’re gonna lose 40 seats in ’26. We’re gonna lose the president. They don’t even have to steal it, which they’re gonna try to do in ’28, because they’re gonna sit there and they go, they’ve disheartened the hardest core populist nation that’s always been who governs us,” Bannon warned.

Bannon also called for a special prosecutor to be appointed by the DOJ to investigate the Epstein client list and whether or not he blackmailed powerful clients. [Continue reading…]

The Editorial Board interviewed journalist Lindsay Beyerstein:

Steve Bannon said the Republicans could lose 40 House seats on this issue. He said that as a warning if this does not go away. If so, that would mean even some GOP senators could be in serious trouble. That would make 2026 like 2010 in reverse. Is this really possible?

Bannon’s argument is compelling. About 20 percent of the Republican coalition is hardcore QAnon. If half those people get too disillusioned to vote, it’s going to be an electoral bloodbath for the GOP.

Trump’s superpower is mobilizing people who are disengaged from electoral politics. He got them to vote by promising to expose the deep state and the pedo-cabal. If they don’t feel like he’s delivering on those promises, they’re going to disengage again, with dire consequences.

They don’t have to become Democrats. They can just stay home. It’s hard to get this kind of voter out at the midterms at the best of times and this kind of disappointment will only further depress turnout.

Epstein is also serving as a permission structure to be mad at Donald Trump in a maga-coded way. Lashing out against the tariffs or the massive cuts to Medicaid makes you a RINO or “woke” in their eyes. But lashing out at Donald Trump in the name of Jeffrey Epstein’s child victims and the war on the deep state makes you a better, purer maga.