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Feb. 24, 2025 - The Dan Bongino Show
52:23
Cutesy Time Is Over (Ep. 2429) - 02/24/2025
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Thank you.
We'll see you next time.
All right.
How do you start today's show?
No, I howl.
Jasmine's sitting there kind of laughing.
What do you say?
Hey, guys.
Monday morning.
Well, let me give you a weekend update.
Quite the weekend update.
Kind of probably the most interesting weekend update ever.
And the interesting thing about this weekend update is producer Jim, at least on the radio show, is not going to have to run the, let's take a brief interlude into Dan's personal life because my personal life is no longer personal.
Folks, I'm sure by now you've heard the news.
Wait, let me just, do I have it?
Oh, no, I already took it.
Sorry.
Someone gave me the man card.
Gave me like an actual man card one day.
It looks like a credit card.
Kind of a joke, obviously.
So let me just turn that in right now because this may be a little bit emotional.
And let me apologize in advance.
I was home last night and I'm sitting there.
I was watching a show.
I didn't even know what I was watching, food that built America or something like that, and I was falling asleep because it had been a really long day.
Now you know why, and some of you kind of understand why the show had a different tone over the last couple of weeks.
And I got a call from the president, and he couldn't have been nicer.
And I obviously keep the contents of it between us, but I think you get the gist about what it was about.
Broke down a bit because it was, this is now real.
So, President, Attorney General Bondi, and now Director, gosh, that sounds good to say, FBI Director, Akash Patel, offered this role, a role I expressed an interest in.
And ladies and gentlemen, I told you.
You see?
It's hard for me.
I'm going to accept the role proudly as the deputy director of the number two spot at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Folks, it's a lot to walk away from.
I will tell you everything what happened.
Within reason.
And then I got a show to do and I'm going to tell you what's going to happen with the show.
So it's going to be a pretty wild ride today.
Man, do we have a lot to talk about.
I'm going to play for you in the beginning too a speech I gave that someone sent to me from 11 years ago.
And you'll see why I decided to make this decision.
So a lot to do today.
Thank you so much for kind of a big audience here right away.
Out of the chute.
So thank you very much.
I love you guys.
And Bongino Army out there, I hope you understand.
I got a couple of negative comments.
You know, Dan, you should let us know.
I hope you understand about this.
This is not my...
You do not ever get ahead of the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and the Director of the FBI. You don't do that.
Not when you take positions like that.
It's not the right thing to do.
So now you understand.
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Little bell for you.
I want to play this for you first because the Bongino Army out there and all of our supporters, you guys and ladies out there have been amazing.
And someone, one of you sent this to me and a friend of mine sent it to me as well.
And I gave this speech at the Heritage Foundation 11 years ago.
And it was about good people stepping up.
Not just me.
It's not about me.
It's about a bigger vision.
I want you to listen.
It's about a minute and a half of it, but it's worth your time.
Check this out.
We can fix it, though, folks.
And I think it's going to take some good, passionate people going forward.
And I think it's going to take more people to speak out.
I think right now there's a crisis of internal leadership.
I think people during a recession are afraid to leave.
But I speak to people all the time on my cell phone, on the inside, who are just as frustrated as I am, whether from the military or anywhere else.
And I think it's going to take just a tidal wave of people speaking out to really create some effective change This is really hard for me folks I hope you understand.
We spent a long time building this.
We.
Me, my wife, Guy, Michael, Justin, Jasmine, Evita.
My wife and I started doing this show.
And it started in a basement.
It was me, Joe, and Paula.
That was it.
We started doing this show.
Paula was putting together show clips for me.
We never expected it to become this massive live stream and podcast and radio show.
We never expected it.
I knew you guys were going to be there for us.
So to walk away from it.
Yeah, it's not easy.
Thank you.
And I'm getting money and all that other crap.
That doesn't give a damn about any of that stuff.
We'll figure that out later, but...
You know, I'm not going to tell you as an audience what's been one of our just bedrock principles of this Bongino army out there and this...
People, the massive audience we've had, what's one of the bedrock principles, right?
The do matters.
We've talked about the do.
You can talk all you want.
I tell you all the time, I don't feel like I have a real job.
I don't.
I don't feel like, I feel like you guys are the ones out there getting your hands dirty.
You know, the truckers, the cops, the pilots, you know, the architects, the men and women in our military.
I appreciate everything, but if the do matters, I'm not going to sit here as a commentator, talking head, whatever dopey title we have.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you the do matters and then sit on my ass when an opportunity comes to do the right thing.
And not only talk about everything we wanted to change, but actually change it.
There are a lot of people listening today.
And I hope you understand that.
I want to address something too.
I know...
You know, New York Times and others, of course, all of the attack pieces start already, which is fascinating from these two who were on the wrong side of the truth when it came to the collusion hoax and others.
I don't think they understand what it's like to commit to service, not partisan service, but service.
I get it if you are a political opponent of mine that has been involved with Proudly celebrating a weaponized justice system.
How you don't understand how a guy like me who discusses partisan content in an opinion show can go and do an unquestionably non-partisan job.
I'm going to ask you a simple question.
Have you seen what I did before I came here?
I'm committed to service.
People play different roles in their lives.
People are dads.
People are soccer coaches.
People are cops and military officers and military enlisted people.
People are carpenters.
People are plumbers.
We play different roles in our life.
And each one requires a different skill set.
I've been there.
I know what this is like.
And it's time for me to step up.
Folks, I have to thank my family first, though.
You know, most of you know Paula.
Paula's been with me a long time.
Folks, we met.
I don't know if you know the story.
It's certainly not my autobiography today, but we met just a couple of weeks before 9-11.
I mean, an actual couple of weeks, like two weeks before 9-11.
My second date hadn't even happened with Paula, and she worked at 120 Broadway, which is the building that looks right into the World Trade Center right there.
She worked for a company at the time called SIA. The 9-11 attacks happened.
I had only been on one date with her.
We barely knew each other.
But I knew I was in love, so I called her, and she didn't answer the phone.
I thought she was dead.
I did.
I panicked.
I thought she was dead.
I couldn't believe it.
I said, I just met this woman.
Well, it turned out, we'd just been on one date, and she was actually in Nevada.
Her mom lived in Centennial Hills in Nevada.
Actually, Summerlin, I think, back then.
And she was out in Nevada.
I couldn't believe she was alive.
But we met two weeks before the most devastating terror attack, one of them in American history.
That was an event we all scarred us forever.
I was an agent watching that.
We'd been through a lot together.
We've been through the Secret Service.
We've been through the President's Detail.
We've been through cancer.
We've been through some health crises with her.
We have two beautiful daughters.
One in college and one younger one still in grammar school.
We've been through three runs for political office.
We've been through the launch of a podcast 11 years ago and everybody laughed at us.
They're not laughing now.
They did.
They actually laughed at us.
Oh, a podcast?
That's cute.
What happened?
Can't get a real show?
We lived through all of that.
We spent our last $10,000 on a microphone and some mixers in a basement of our house in Maryland.
Paul has always been willing to take a chance on me.
Always.
She said on her first date that she knew I was something special, which I didn't think I was anything special back then, but I guess she did.
She's been busting her ass all weekend.
Why?
Because there's going to be a major transition.
It's not going to be the last show, but we've only got a few more left with you.
Obviously, we're going to be working with a team of people to make this transition from Me, political commentator Dan to deputy director of the FBI Dan.
Those are different roles, require different skills.
Skills I have and have used before and I plan to use again.
It's going to hurt to leave you.
I'll discuss over the course of the coming days.
I'll be with you for a little bit longer on radio and on my show.
I will discuss exactly what's going to happen.
It's not going to impact Evita or Haley's content at all.
My wife has been running the business for a long time.
I don't get involved with the business at all.
I do the talking.
But I want to ask you, who's next?
Who's next?
This isn't just about me, folks.
The do matters.
Who's next?
You know, I said last week and a couple of media critics commented, I said we're all going to have to take it on the chin a little bit.
Now do you see what I meant?
I never got in this for the money or notoriety.
Listen, I enjoy making money and that I can impact people's lives and that people come out and say nice things to me as much as the next guy.
But if you think that's why I got involved in this, running as a Republican in deep blue Maryland, my life of...
Activism and my time in the Secret Service.
If you think I get into the Secret Service to get rich, then you don't know me and you haven't seen the government salary scale.
But I am going in this clear-eyed vision of President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, and Director Patel.
I am going to do my job to implement that vision.
And I can tell you right now, we are going to try our best.
Every single thing I have in me, every single strand of DNA cell in my body is going to be dedicated towards keeping this homeland safe, no matter what.
No matter what.
That's my job.
We're going to reestablish faith in this institution.
Good people there doing their job, hitting the streets, developing sources.
We'll have your back.
We are going to reestablish faith in this institution.
The FBI belongs to the American people.
It doesn't belong to me.
It doesn't belong to anyone else but the American people.
But this is the honor of a lifetime, and it's a serious mission.
And I plan on implementing that vision.
Folks, there are a small number of people out there in the country right now dedicated to doing really bad things.
It's not...
The overwhelming majority of Americans are patriots that love this country and love their family.
They love their jobs.
They go to work every day, but there are a small number of really bad people out there who are planning on really bad things, from terrorists to narco-traffickers, child sex rings, gang members.
I'll tell you right now, I'm not going to rest easy until we find as many of you as we can.
Don't sleep, know after today that that's my mission.
Folks, of course, the Constitution matters.
We're going to get back to the four corners of that document that guide us all as well.
And I think you know from my history of covering content here that the primacy of that is really important.
You understand that.
It is the one thing that dictates all the rest of your actions, and that's the Constitution.
Again, regarding the show, folks, going forward, I will tell you how we're going to wind my portion of the show down.
And I'm just going to leave you with this before I get to some other content.
And we've got a couple more.
We've got some shows for you lined up, so I actually put a show together, even though it's been harder than I thought.
I didn't plan on this.
I didn't plan on a lot of things.
But I want you to know it is the honor of my lifetime.
And I hope I'm making a plea to you all personally.
I hope you're not angry or upset at me for making this decision.
I knew it was the right thing to do.
But there is a big cost.
And I understand that.
There's a chance when the mission's over that you guys all disappear and go somewhere else.
I'm not going to lie to you, it's been on my mind for a long time.
I hope not.
not, I love you guys, but I, this is a mission I can't say no to.
Sorry, guys.
JL suits.
Holy moly, Batman.
We're so proud of you, Dan.
We love you, Dan.
I love you guys, too.
I woke up this morning, I was just, I jumped in that cold plunge to kind of clear my head a little bit.
And I get out of it.
And I have to tell you, folks, this is very surreal.
What an honor.
What an honor.
All right.
Let me take a quick break.
Did I? Did I melt down the rumble chat?
Thank you, guys.
Michael senses I need a little emotional kind of...
Hold on.
Let me take a sip of water here.
You know, it's funny.
Guy's been here the longest, and Guy will typically say, all right, you're like droning on too long.
He didn't say that.
That's interesting.
Guy actually gave me a little leeway on that one.
I appreciate that, Guy.
You know how Guy is.
Guy's the most cut-and-dried guy you've ever seen.
All right, move on.
I don't know.
Have you taken a field degree?
They'll promote me and push me right into a reading.
You get to the spots.
We got a show to do.
So I appreciate that, Guy.
Thank you.
By the way, my team, so you know, because I know a lot of you have developed relationships with my crew through the chat and events and elsewhere.
We love all you guys.
My crew's not going anywhere.
I'll explain more as the week goes on today.
I just want to focus on this, some news, and I want to do a show for you because I don't have a lot left.
The transition's going to be tough, but my crew's not going anywhere.
I gave them the opportunity.
I hope I'm not sharing inside information, guys, but I gave them the opportunity, and none of them took it.
Justin was like a little...
I don't know about him.
I'm kidding.
Justin was like, I don't know.
I'm not so sure.
Justin was actually the first one.
He's like, you kidding, bro?
We're going to make this...
We're going to work with Paula from now on.
It's probably a pretty easy transition because there isn't a transition.
Paula's always run the place anyway.
She has been the mastermind.
I'm just the content guy.
Thank you, guys.
Let me take a quick break and we'll get to the show.
So I told you to be there when you say.
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So, folks, the Monday winning coverage.
Of the administration and their endless litany and cornucopia of W's and wins is just not stopping.
To the point where I did not know.
I'm obviously waiting on the president, the attorney general, and the FBI director.
It's their call to make the decision.
So, you know, the specific timeline, you have an idea, but I did not know.
So I'm still putting together a show this weekend.
And the winning...
I hope, you know, most of you out there, I would guess, if you're listening to the show, you probably think this is a win.
I appreciate it.
It certainly was a win for me in the fact that this is something I'm really looking forward to.
But we're not the only ones, folks.
Mark Penn, who's a Democrat pollster.
Now, I don't care what you're hearing about the public polling.
The public polling, people can cherry-pick polls all they want.
For every poll you tell me, well, voters are dissatisfied with this, and I've seen this all the time, you can pick another poll that voters are mostly liking what they're seeing.
How do we know that?
Because Mark Penn in a tweet put out those literal words.
Voters are mostly, this is a Democrat pollster, are liking what they see in the first month of the new presidency.
57-43, voters say Trump's doing a better job than Biden in an advanced look at a poll coming out on Monday.
Job approvals at 52, but closing the border, cutting waste, are hugely popular.
So is resetting merit as the prime hiring and contracting principle.
They don't agree with everything being done.
They cites the Gulf of America, which I haven't heard anybody really complaining about, but, you know, People feel much better about the direction of the country and the economy.
You know, its Democrats are cratering down to 36% approval.
It's going to be a big problem for them, obviously, moving forward.
I want to address this too.
This is one of the reasons you have public frustration with taxpayer dollars being allocated to outfits with very little accountability when people are working in jobs and have been working in jobs where...
The bookkeeper, the accountant, or whoever it is, if you spend a dollar at a gas station on a company card and you can't explain what it's for, they've had to account for every single dollar the entire time.
Here, folks, as good as USAID article.
USAID squandered, but this, this, think about this.
Think about the loss factor in this.
New York Times, how USAID squandered billions in Haiti and around the globe.
There were $2 billion in contracts and grants for Haiti-related work.
Less than $50 million.
That's 2%.
Let me say that again.
2% of the $2 billion that was supposed to go to Haiti went to Haitian organizations or firms.
Even went to the firms.
By comparison, $1.3 billion, 56%, has gone to firms located in or near the U.S. capital.
Little wonder USAID is so threatened by the sudden scrutiny.
Folks, there is a problem with third-party spending.
If I've highlighted it once, I've highlighted it a thousand times on this show.
Milton Friedman has discussed this often.
When the government takes taxpayer dollars from its citizens and spends money not even on itself, but on other people most of the time, on programs and giveaways and USAID, the cost or the quality don't matter.
The cost doesn't matter because you're not buying anything with your money, so why would you care about the cost?
But here's the kicker.
The quality doesn't matter either because a large portion of the time you're not even buying anything for yourself.
And when I say yourself, I mean, say waste in the Pentagon.
No, they're buying things for themselves.
No, they're not there.
It's not for them.
It's for a military unit or something.
It's not even for them.
So not only do you have a cost problem, but you have a quality problem as well.
If you've not seen this Milton Friedman clip, we've been doing this show 11 years.
See, I can't even mention that.
I'm going to melt every time I say, I cannot believe we've been doing this 11 years.
I can't.
I cannot believe we've been doing this 11 years.
If you've been watching all 11 years, you've seen this clip before by Friedman.
It's worth your time.
Check this out.
Well, you know, you can spend your own money.
On yourself.
And when you spend your own money on yourself, you're very careful of what you spend it on, and you make sure that you get the most for your dollar.
You can spend your own money on somebody else.
You give gifts to other people.
You take people out to dinner.
And when you spend your own money on somebody else, you're very careful that you don't spend too much.
You try to keep down the amount you spend, but you don't worry very much about What the other fellow is getting from it.
You don't pay anything like as much attention to the gifts you buy for other people as to the things you buy for yourself.
Or you can spend somebody else's money, as when you're spending the government's money.
I say the government's money, the taxpayer's money, which the government has control over.
Now you're spending somebody else's money.
Let's say you're spending your boss's money.
You're out to lunch on an expense account, but you're spending it on yourself.
You're very careful that you get good things for your money.
You try to have a good lunch and pick the right things, but you're not very much worried about whether you get the cheapest...
Spend all you want.
Spend all you want.
You'll be careless.
Now, what happens when you spend somebody else's money on somebody else?
You're a distributor of welfare funds.
Well, you're interested in making your own life as good as you can.
And most people have humane instincts and want to do the best they can.
But you're not going to be anything like as careful in spending somebody else's money on somebody else.
So there are four ways in which you can spend money.
Folks, that's one of the most important clips you will ever see about why there is a specific level of unaccountability that exists not solely in government, But you have a persistent problem in government because it's other people's money spent on other people.
That's a hard thing to get over.
That's why when you're in government, you have to hire the best of the best of the best of the best because you have to get over that natural impulse because it's not your money and you're not even spending it on anyone else.
That's where you get clips like this.
I was watching this clip this week and going through some show preparation material.
And I saw this CNN clip pop up.
And they're talking about spending as if it's their money.
Like, hey, listen, there's a Sesame Street program in Iraq.
And don't laugh, by the way.
That's actually what this video is about.
But there's this really valuable Sesame Street program in Iraq that, you know, terrorists may watch instead of terrorist material.
So, okay, well, what about that money back in the United States?
That had to come from people who had to pay it, who could have kept that in their business.
Watch this clip from CNN. You'll see what I mean.
And then I'm going to play for you a...
I'm going to show you a clip from the Wall Street Journal about this just amazing first month of Donald Trump and how this has hit.
The winning has just caught everybody by surprise.
Check this out.
I'm going to get to the economics.
I gave you a chance for a great soundbite.
And those soft power exercises make for great soundbites.
But when you drill down...
For example, on Sesame Street in Iraq, they often make sense.
Joseph Nye from Harvard, who gets credited with the coinage of the word soft power, you know, you'd rather spend on that than bullets.
But wait, you want to talk about the economics?
There was a terrorist attack in Iraq last month that killed 40 people.
It's clearly not working.
Soft power in Sesame Street are not working.
If there are terrorists, we need to kill the terrorists.
We don't need to fund Big Bird and Elmo.
You know, You probably feel like I do, that it's really hard to believe that a country that is great as America, that's 30 plus trillion dollars in debt.
Do you have any comprehension of how big of a number that is in comparison to what?
We're talking about the value grossly of every single thing we produce and then some.
And we're discussing Sesame Street programs in Iraq?
Folks, there's an opportunity cost to every dollar spent on things that don't focus on specific core functions of the United States government.
That this is a serious argument on cable television is tough to take.
I've got a piece coming up for you next where it's starting to hit, even with some people who are not big fans of the Trump agenda on the political front early, who are starting to realize that There's a couple key components from this, what's happening right now.
The first month, it hasn't even been, excuse me, first hundred days, but it's a month of the first hundred days.
That number one, the gold standard for action has now been set by President Trump.
Folks, any other president, Republican or candidly Democrat too, is going to be expected to make big, bold change.
Republicans in the past have kind of eased into it.
You get the first hundred days.
You get a couple EOs here and there, but there's been nothing like this.
And second, the do matters.
Well, I'd say second, the do matters because President Trump has done it and he's even invited some court challenges that could, I don't want to say redefine the presidency because the courts and others have redefined the presidency.
The presidency was laid out in Article 2 of the Constitution.
And we've gotten away from that.
If the president can't fire people, then who can?
Quick break, and I'll show you what I mean.
An interesting piece by Kim Strassel.
I've enjoyed her commentary, but let's be honest, a lot of these people aren't huge MAGA people, which is fine.
Like I said, I read their content, and I like to see what everybody's thinking.
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Back to the show.
This is what I was talking about from Kim Strassel.
What stood out in Trump's first month.
And it's a series of comments from their opinion staff on this.
Again, these aren't big MAGA people at all over there.
They've actually been very critical in a lot of the Trump agenda.
And, you know, that's fine.
Do your thing.
You're certainly in a constitutional republic where you have freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
You can have whatever opinion you want.
I bring this up because for them to acknowledge.
The success of this first month.
This is a bold new world of Republican presidencies where a standard's been set.
Kim Strassel notes the president's public events tend towards the rambling.
He's discursive, but that's how he is.
But the press is mistaken to present his team as simply unruly.
He says, consider this.
A month in, the administration has a nearly full complement of confirmed cabinet heads.
The border's under control.
Criminals are being deported.
The White House has issued nearly 80 executive orders targeting energy restrictions and bureaucracy, DEI, transgenderism, and censorship.
It's dismantling Biden-era regulations and shutting down entire programs.
The president's met with many foreign leaders and withdrawn from global entities.
Congress is progressing on the president's tax reform.
As I said before, there are two takeaways from this.
You need to tattoo on your brain that are going to set the standard for Republican presidents going forward.
Democrats may expect the same from a future Democratic president, but now I'm talking about the Republican side.
The Republican side, they've generally kind of eased into the presidency a bit.
There's always the 100-day agenda, but let's be candid.
Even Kim Strassel's noting, there's never been anything like that.
So it now sets a standard in the future that if you campaign on something...
Which, no, come on, most people don't take a lot of campaign promises from politicians seriously.
It's sad, but it's true.
You are now going to be expected in the first few months and first two years of your presidency until the midterms to get this stuff done and get it done quickly because Donald Trump has set a different standard for action.
But second, which I brought up before the break, another important point.
They're inviting a lot of court challenges, which is important because the presidency has been redefined away.
From the Article 2 role of the founders.
They laid it out in the four corners of the document.
It's not hard.
We have an executive.
We have an executive whose role is laid out by the Constitution who's been, who's had pounds of flesh taken away from them.
Their power's been neutered.
Independent agencies, bureaucrats acting as if they're the executive.
I ask you this very simple question.
And I ask the courts, too, if the chief executive of the United States and our commander-in-chief of the military cannot remove personnel under him for reasons he lays out and we've done now, you've seen with the Doge, then who can?
Are you telling me that the government bureaucracy is immune from accountability elsewhere?
Let me ask you this.
You know, I get it.
Congress, you have Article I, obviously Article II, Article III, you have the courts.
Congressional staffers, for those who dispute this on the Democrat side, and you disputed from the legislative branch, and you're saying as a congressman, the president can't do this.
Can you fire staffers in your office?
Well, of course I can.
Well, if you can fire staffers in your office, then how is it that the Article II presidency, where everyone is a subordinate to the one nationally elected figure?
The President of the United States, if he can't fire him, then who can?
You?
You're a separate branch of government.
You don't work in the executive branch.
None of it was meant to work this way.
And, you know, I had Ned Ryan on last week on my radio show.
And Ned brought up an interesting point regarding TROs, temporary restraining orders, national injunctions.
Are you telling me that one judge on the Supreme Court...
You're the most powerful judges in the country.
Can't do what a local district court can and by himself stopping legal action.
Folks, the government was never meant to work this way.
There has to be accountability.
Working American people live with this kind of accountability every day.
It's a gold standard for action, folks.
It's been absolutely set.
Let me get back to the beginning of the show.
Thank you all in the chat.
I'm sorry.
I'm just reading through.
I know, Rumble, we kind of melted it a little bit.
Thank you for everything.
I want you to know I'm reading it.
Glory Bound.
We're so proud and excited for you, Dan.
Jersey Girl 51. We'll miss you, but we'll feel safer with you and the FBI. Lazarus, I'm proud of you, man.
You're going to Helen.
You're going to be exactly where you needed to be.
Folks, we got to step up, man.
We all have to step up.
You know, I had a good friend when I was an agent.
When I left and walked away from the Secret Service, it was, at that point, professionally speaking, it was the hardest decision of my life.
I did not retire from the Secret Service.
I resigned.
There's a difference.
There's a difference because you don't get your health care, you don't get anything.
Some of you heard the story in the past.
I certainly don't mean to relitigate it, but...
I remember walking out of the White House, at least, for the last time when I was on the president's detail.
And, you know, I was telling this guy, I didn't know I was going to leave, run for office.
I went to the Baltimore office.
I had no idea.
But I was telling this friend of mine, this guy, Steve, another agent, very smart guy.
I was telling him how I felt like my life wasn't fulfilled and that I felt like I needed to do bigger things.
But I knew it was going to be a massive sacrifice because I loved my job in the Secret Service.
I loved it.
It was so special to me.
I'd worked so hard to get it.
And finally, I'd finish the president's detail.
It's the most difficult portion of your life.
And I'm walking out.
And when you leave the president's detail, for those of you who don't know, you turn in your White House pass.
You're a field agent that way.
You can't just walk back in the White House and go say hello to the guys.
I know it's kind of surprising, but it doesn't work that way.
If you're not meant to be on the White House grounds, you're not supposed to be there.
End of story.
So I knew when that gate closed for the last time, That I probably wasn't going to stay with the Secret Service, and I thought, gosh, unless I run for president, this would be the last time I may ever see the White House.
Little did I know, but my friend Steve said to me, very famous line, he said, you know, Dan, you're going to make tough decisions, but the heavens have a way of putting a price on things.
And the price for this was large.
But I've told you repeatedly the do matters, correct?
You think I'm going to tell you that and sit on my ass again when the opportunity comes up to change things?
Folks, there's no excuses.
People are policy.
You've got to get people in there who read the Constitution and understand it.
The Constitution cannot be a suggestion.
It wasn't meant to be that way.
And good people are going to have to step up in the next two and four years.
And make really complicated, hard decisions.
We've seen it with Pete Hegseth over as Secretary of Defense, walked away from an incredible career in media.
We've seen it with Sean Parnell.
We've seen it with tons of others who've stepped away from incredible jobs to go and serve.
We have to step up.
All of us are going to have to do something.
We're going to reorient this government back to a constitutional republic, which we should.
We're all going to have to do something.
Kayleigh McEnany addressed the, on Fox last week, she addressed the appointment of now Director Kash Patel at the FBI. She had some commentary on some of the problems, some of the issues at the FBI. She views that we need answers on.
I wanted you to hear this important segment I played last week, but...
Thankfully, Director Patel got through.
I think he's the best man for the job.
I deeply appreciate his faith in me.
It means a lot.
Check this out.
And I want to pull them up.
This, in a nutshell, is why this man matters and today's vote matters.
Look at this.
CNN special counsel John Durham concludes FBI never should have launched full Trump Russia probe.
Isn't that nice?
National Review.
FBI spent a year preparing platforms to censor Biden's stories.
Withheld info.
On Hunter's laptop authenticity.
Fox News, heavily redacted records show FBI's targeting of Catholics went beyond what it claimed.
They concluded the DOJ, Biden's DOJ, there was no malice there.
However, the headline stands.
Christianity Today, federal convictions of pro-lifers blocking clinics are rising.
Emily, four of many headlines as to why this nomination matters.
Yeah, it matters.
It matters a lot.
On a lighter note, I really want to interact with you guys over the coming weeks.
This is going to be really hard, folks.
I don't know how you...
I can't speak for all of you.
I've met a couple of you, but not obviously the whole crew, and there's a quarter million people watching right now.
I really do feel like you're part of this extended family, almost to the point that when I join the chat in the morning sometimes, I can almost predict what everyone's going to say because I just...
We've just had this long relationship.
It's going to be really hard to walk away with it.
Might that go dark over there?
That's weird.
Look at the TV. We're good, right?
This is my TV. I think we might have fried the TV there, too.
But someone asked me in the chat.
Dan, a t-shirt or a suit and tie?
I bring it up after what I just said because I was waiting for somebody to say that.
Obviously, a suit and tie, folks.
And you know when I interview the president, when he's the president of the United States, I always put a tie on out of respect.
But yeah, there are a lot of big changes.
There are a lot of things I've had to think about.
Security-wise, logistics-wise, lifestyle-wise, I obviously love Florida.
Florida is my home, but the job is in Washington, D.C. So that's been a lot to think about.
And then, you know, I have a young daughter.
Gosh, this is really hard, man.
It's harder than I thought.
I think you guys are starting to feel this is harder than I thought.
I have a really young daughter.
Not really young, but young enough.
You know what I mean.
And she's not used to seeing me away from home.
My oldest daughter in college remembers the Secret Service time where I was on the road one year, something like 260, 70, 80 days or something like that.
My youngest daughter's not used to this.
So forget about the money and business stuff.
That's subordinate to family.
And my daughter, even at 13, understands that sometimes, as a family, we have to make really tough decisions.
And that's been the hardest part.
But I think she understands that the opportunity to join an administration committed to reestablishing our constitutional republic and bring back the glory days of the United States, you can't say no.
Folks, there's a lot of talented people in this administration.
I'm glad to be a small piece of it in the weeks and months.
It's going to be a long process.
Obviously, winding down some of the business components of this takes time.
It's going to happen overnight, and there's a process for that legally and ethics-wise, and we'll be obviously following that to the letter.
But it's going to be a long road.
But you have people like this in there, too.
First, I want to congratulate, and this means a lot to me, I want to congratulate Laura Trump.
Laura Trump has the 9 o'clock weekend show now on Fox on Saturday, a spot I'm very familiar with.
A lot of you watched Unfiltered, and we were in that spot.
It's a great spot.
A lot of patriots watch news television on Saturday night.
The ratings, I'm sure, are going to be insane for her.
She had a great lineup of people.
And she had a director of national intelligence, DNI, Tulsi Gabbard on.
And I want you to listen to this, folks.
This administration is clear-eyed on what the threats to the homeland are.
Remember, you're going to get in positions like this.
Everybody knows you keep the homeland safe.
Keep the homeland safe.
Check this out.
Joe Biden once said that white supremacy was the single greatest terrorist threat to our homeland.
What do you feel is the greatest threat to the American people's safety?
We look at the last four years of open borders, where we had tens of millions of people come across our borders, many of whom we don't know who they are or what their intentions are.
Very specifically, the threat of radical Islamist terrorism here within our country is higher than it's ever been before, not only because of President Biden's open borders.
But because of his and his administration's fear of being called Islamophobes, they took their attention and our resources away from that threat and once again pointed it at our fellow Americans.
This administration is clear-eyed on threats to this homeland.
Clear-eyed.
And the people they have in charge right now.
FBI Director Patel, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director Radcliffe, Deputy Director Michael Ellis.
They're a very clear eye on what the threat is.
Folks, I'm going to tell you what I said in the beginning, and I'm going to leave it here, because this has been a lot for me today, and I really deeply appreciate your support.
It's not going to be the last show.
We'll be winding it down.
There's not a lot left.
I will let you know a date soon.
It'll be sooner rather than later.
And I'll have some announcements about how we're going to transition business for you tomorrow, so please don't miss tomorrow's show.
I'll be on the radio today as well.
But the people they've selected are clear-eyed on this threat.
And it's the honor of a lifetime to be able to sit at the table with them.
I hope you understand why I made the decision I made.
Thank you guys for being here.
I'm sorry if I... I'm not...
I promise you I'm elated about this opportunity.
I just don't want to pretend that I'm elated about losing you guys and stepping away for a bit to do this mission.
And I really hope you guys understand.
I got very few people, very few negative comments, but some were a little upset.
And I hope you understand why I made the decision I made.
You don't turn an opportunity like that down.
So thank you, President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, and Director Patel.
And again, throughout the week, I'll be giving you more detailed plans about how we're going to transition from business back into government.
It'll make sense, I promise you.
Thank you, guys.
I really appreciate it.
I'll see you on the radio show in a little bit, and back here tomorrow at 11 a.m.
See you then.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
We've been seeing people float you as the next FBI director.
Would you do it?
Would I do it?
Only if President Trump personally wanted it.
Him, if he wanted it.
I've never envisioned myself.
Going back in government again, ever.
Like, ever, ever, ever.
I can't say that enough.
Repeating decimal, right?
But, you know, there comes a time where I wouldn't even take a salary for this stuff.
There comes a time where, you know, your country matters more.
And I never got in this stuff for the money or the glory or any crap like that.
It just happened.
I'm honored that people think that.
But, yeah, I'm kind of flattered.
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