Steve Bannon told Bloomberg that next month’s congressional elections will be a referendum on the president and that Republicans can still hang on to a slender House majority with the GOP base energized by the bitter confirmation fight over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Said Bannon: “I’ve called this now for many months to be his first re-elect. There’s a very narrow gate you have to go through but it’s doable. The Kavanaugh hearings gave us traction for the first time to try to, against all odds just like in ’16, to try to close strong and try to save it by a seat or two.”

Stephen Bannon is ratcheting up his war on the Koch network, accusing the billionaire brothers of running “a conscious scam” and a “con job,” The Hill reports.

“He also has a warning for Republican candidates in November’s midterm elections who might be thinking of distancing themselves from President Trump: Don’t do it.”

Said Bannon: “You’re not going to be able to hide Trump. The opposition is going to force this anyway…You have to go all-in. If you try to go in half-baked, it’s not going to work.”

Steve Bannon is expected to launch a new “war room” aimed at helping Republicans keep control of Congress, “all in the name of preserving the power of his former boss President Trump, who only a few months ago publicly denounced him,” BuzzFeed News reports.

“Sources close to Trump so far say they don’t know how closely the president is watching his former chief strategist. And there are mixed signals as to how easily Bannon will be able to reingratiate himself with Trump’s inner circle, which he flamed out of earlier this year.”

“This election is very simple. It’s an up-or-down vote on impeachment.”

— Stephen Bannon, quoted by Vanity Fair.

“Steve Bannon plans to unleash an advertising campaign touting President Trump’s achievements to help the GOP ahead of the 2018 midterm elections,” CNBC reports.

“It could also be seen as a bid by the former White House chief strategist to revive his own political fortunes… The ads haven’t been released, and it’s unclear when voters will get a taste of Bannon’s messaging. It also hasn’t been determined whether the ads will be released on TV, digitally or on radio. However, the plan is to run them across the country.”

“As part of Bannon’s plan, dubbed ‘top secret’ by one of his allies, he’s also looking to create a war room… that will allow him to monitor contests through the November election.”

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told Democrats on Capitol Hill that former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon asked the embattled data firm to test messaging on Russia, NBC News reports.

Said Wylie: “I can’t explain why it was that they picked Vladimir Putin to talk about in focus groups or to do message testing or to do models on, and why that would be useful to Steve Bannon.”

Wylie also told lawmakers “that Bannon specifically tasked Cambridge Analytica with looking at ways to depress Democratic turnout with their messaging.”

Steve Bannon was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over multiple days this week, NBC News reports.

“Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours in conversations with the team led by Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as other issues that have arisen around the probe.”