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Jim Banks’s Red Line

Backing Trump’s brinkmanship with Iran while helping the president settle intraparty scores at home, Senator Jim Banks is betting that the Republican base turnout in November will defy the party’s brutal midterm headwinds.

Jim Banks Puck Power Breakfast
"Hoosiers don’t like high gas prices, and that’s what I’m hearing at home. We support President Trump and understand the long-term importance of what he’s trying to do. But the gas prices are too damn high, and President Trump recognizes that as well," says Sen. Jim Banks. Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Puck
Leigh Ann Caldwell
April 22, 2026

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Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks is one of the Trumpier members of the Senate. He was on the ballot with Trump in 2016, when he won his initial House race, and has rarely strayed from the president’s orbit, or talking points, since. In my conversation with him this week at the Puck Power Breakfast in Washington, for instance, Banks defended the president’s war in Iran and criticized Democratic redistricting efforts in Virginia—even though Banks has also actively assisted Trump in targeting Republican state senators who opposed mid-decade redistricting back in Indiana.