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After a nine-month stint helping run the FBI, former deputy director Dan Bongino is a podcaster once again.
On Bongino’s first show back on Monday, President Donald Trump briefly dialed in, offering Bongino — who resigned from the agency in December — well wishes.
But otherwise, the episode was more of a two-hour monologue that saw Bongino attempting to skewer old enemies — namely the mainstream media — and reconnect with the masses that launched his name, years ago, into the MAGA stratosphere.
“The podfather is back,” he declared, “and I’m here to take back this movement.”
Before joining the FBI last year, Bongino was a prolific right-wing podcaster who peddled in deep-state conspiracy theories. As the agency’s No. 2, working alongside the real-world powers he used to rail against, Bongino was often caught between his past digital footprint and his new job helping lead one of the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies.
For years, he entertained conspiracies about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s death, dismissing the authorities’ claims that the late financier killed himself. Bongino built a fanbase by stoking these very fires — and angered many when, after joining the FBI, he swiftly backtracked his rhetoric. Online, some of Bongino’s former supporters have slammed him as a sellout.
The show was a big moment for Bongino, whose tenure at the FBI was at times chaotic. The show’s launch included a Times Square billboard, and opened with around 140,000 viewers — according to conservative video platform Rumble’s view count — and peaked at around 220,000.
After a victory lap around the nation’s top law enforcement agency, Bongino is not returning to the friendliest audience. And he had some choice words for any critics.
“I want to address the grifters out there who mistakenly thought I wasn’t coming back,” he said during the livestream. “This movement’s been hijacked by a small group of dipshits and bums and losers, who are nothing but doomers under the frame of accountability.”
This was the throughline for much of the two-hour segment, which saw Bongino ripping into a number of his critics. “Get your lips and just pucker them up and plant a big wet one on my ass,” he told “the libs and their media pals.”
The “dipshits” in media, he said, remain “totally divorced from reality.”
And to alleged leakers at the FBI: “You guys destroyed the place, and you tried to destroy us too,” he said. “But I’m back now, and you can go fuck yourself.”
Bongino, exhaling at the end of his minutes-long diatribe, smiles into the camera: “We’re so back. Aren’t we?”
But unlike the first version of his podcast, Bongino largely shied away from conspiracy theories — except for when, 15 minutes into the show, his livestream abruptly cut off thanks to a technical glitch.
“Rumble is under attack, this show is under attack, this is what these scumbags do,” he said. “Can’t have a voice like me speaking out.”
“They just don’t want me to talk,” he repeated for the rest of the show.
He also offered “behind the scenes” insights into his time at the FBI, defending himself against critics who misunderstood, he said, the decisions they made — including the agency’s handling of the Epstein files.
“When you get selected for one of these principal or deputy positions, everything you do is a level 10 decision,” Bongino said. “Find out which one is the shittier decision and avoid it. That’s the best you can do.
“Here’s the problem with the Epstein mess,” he continued. “The FBI doesn’t have the evidence many thought it did. … There were not tapes with powerful men raping kids. There was not a list. Epstein’s rolodex was already public. The files are largely unreleasable for many reasons.”
The files didn’t contain the smoking gun people were expecting, Bongino said, but “this administration got you the information.”
Near the end of the show, Trump — who hand-picked Bongino for his post last year — dialed in for a brief interview, where the two discussed the administration’s crime crackdown, Minnesota’s welfare fraud scandal and National Guard deployments.
“I’ll tell you what, if I were a Democratic governor and I were in charge of Chicago, as an example, I would be begging Donald Trump to come,” Trump told Bongino.
Trump took another chance to rail at the results of the 2020 election (“I won in a landslide,” he said), urging Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and suggesting taking over voting “in at least 15 places,” which he didn’t name. And he patted himself on the back for his military actions in Iran and Venezuela, saying the U.S. is “respected again like never before.”
“Listen, you did great in the FBI,” Trump told Bongino. “I’m very torn. I think, maybe, I’d rather have you where you are. “Very few people can do what you do, and your voice is a very important one.”
Bongino, who has generally been a reliable supporter of Trump, intends to host his show every weekday. And for those expecting a Bongino chastened by his time in government — or those looking to take his space in the MAGA media sphere — he had a direct closing message.
“All my bullshit detractors or whatever,” Bongino said at the end of the episode, “don’t know shit about anything. Throwing popcorn from the front row. We’re the number one livestream in the world. … I’m such a target that they came after the whole damn website. That’s how bad they want to keep me off the air.”
“But I have my first — guys, you ready for this screenshot? — double barrel to those who tried to stop us,” he continued, silently flipping two middle fingers to the camera.
English (US)