The Megyn Kelly Show - 20230922_dan-bongino-on-threats-to-trump-bidens-poor-parent

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Sept. 22, 2023 - The Megyn Kelly Show

01:36:49

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Welcome Back Dan Bongino 00:01:22
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show and happy Friday.
	We have an excellent, excellent show for you today with an exciting guest.
	Dan Bongino is back by Popular Demand.
	You, of course, know Dan for his sharp political commentary.
	He's host of the huge hit, the Dan Bongino show.
	But today, he's here to discuss, yes, the news, but also his new book, The Gift of Failure, which he calls a motivational memoir.
	In it, he shares personal stories from his childhood, from his time in the Secret Service, and his continuing fight for free speech in this country.
	As always, Dan is brutally honest, but leaves you with the tools to turn failure.
	You struggling with one right now, into a gift.
	And he's got some great, great ideas about this whole thing.
	Dan Bongino, so good to see you.
	How are you?
	Yeah, I'm good.
	And, you know, it's funny, since our last interview totally blew up, I was getting it from everyone, you know, grandmothers, moms, neighbors, kids, dogs.
	Everyone was like, I saw you on the Megan Kelly show.
	I had a laugh because it wasn't but a day or two later I read another one of these articles about how you and I descended into total irrelevancy since we left Fox.
Turning Failure Into A Gift 00:07:52
	And I find it so comical how nobody understands this new media environment.
	We do this interview.
	I was at a party.
	I'm not even kidding at the Stuart Sandbar and someone came up to me and said, I love Megan Kelly.
	She's the best interviewer.
	And your interview with her.
	And I just get a kick out of it because this is new media, man.
	Just taking over where we control our own content, do our own thing.
	And I'm really sorry if you're not on the boat, you're outside and you don't understand it, but we're the ones.
	No one's, I don't want to change spots with anyone.
	Everyone wants to change spots with us.
	But it was an awesome interview.
	I actually watched it myself.
	I was like, she's a really great interviewer.
	Like, I didn't realize I could even answer questions like that.
	So I'm glad to be back.
	It was one of my favorites since we've launched the show.
	You've always just been so dynamic, but there's a good chemistry there too, which always works in an interview.
	This is like, you can see it when it's on the screen.
	It's hard to avoid.
	But you know, you're, now that you mentioned this, I wasn't planning on leading with this, but it is one of my very few things irritate me in the press about myself.
	I'm used to them saying whatever they want to say about me, but I do get annoyed when they refuse to call me a journalist.
	I'm a journalist and a commentator.
	Those are the two things I do, but I am absolutely a journalist.
	And the fact that I do commentary on the news doesn't, doesn't diminish that.
	I mean, did they ever refer to Don Lemon as, you know, just talk show host or liberal commentator?
	No, they called that guy a journalist, but they refuse to use this term when they're writing about me, Dan.
	And it's always the left-wing publications and it's intentional, right?
	They're trying to undermine you in the same vein as what you just said.
	Like now I'm over in this irrelevant sphere in which no real journalist would ever appear.
	It's like they've never seen like iTunes charts, Spotify, downloads.
	It's really bizarre how you'd expose yourself is so foolish.
	Megan, I'm going to tell you something.
	Honestly, the word journalist doesn't mean jack shit anymore.
	Really, I get what you're saying.
	Like it's not a proxy for credibility.
	We have a running joke on my radio show.
	If you call me a journalist, I'm going to have to immediately cut you off because I don't want to be associated with such a pathetic group of people, present company, obviously excluded.
	And I forget who it was, but maybe it was Trump interviewing Trump or somebody called me a journalist and the audience like jumped on Facebook.
	Stop them, Dan.
	Stop them right now.
	It doesn't mean anything.
	I'll give you a quick example.
	A friend of mine sends me a thing during my radio show today and says, Dan, there's this group of liberal lunatics, ad Fontes Media or whatever, and they grade the credibility of commentators.
	And they said they gave you an F and Rachel Maddow an A.
	And I said, that's hilarious because Moscow Rachel Maddow, who pretends to be a journalist, has, you know, almost, I hate the word literally, but almost literally gotten every single major story of our time about Trump wrong.
	The impeachment thing, the collusion stuff, the spying operation, the Mike Flynn story, the tax returns.
	We got them right.
	I wrote books on them, actual books on them.
	I footnoted them with liberal sources, extensively researched.
	And yet we get an A. Why?
	Because I don't meet what the left calls a journalistic standard.
	But if the standard's meaningless and it's like a ruler that changes every five minutes, well, here's a 12-inch ruler and tomorrow it's six inches and the next minute it's eight inches, then it's not really measuring anything, is it?
	I mean, it's not even, you know, there's validity and reliability, right?
	In if you, if you're, if you're a scientist, there's two measures of how you would measure the robustness of statistics.
	So if your information is valid, right?
	Say like a scale.
	A scale can be 20 pounds off every time.
	I weigh about 200 pounds right now.
	So the scale shows 220.
	It's reliable, but it's not valid.
	It's not measuring my weight.
	The thing about the media and the thing with journalism is you're actually given an A for being reliably wrong, like the scale.
	It's a valid measure.
	You're a left-wing lunatic.
	You're validating your left-wing lunacy, but you're just not reliable.
	You're not validly measuring anything statistical.
	And as long as you toe the liberal line, you'll get the journalist title, but someone like you won't because you've said things that, you know, that don't, you know, don't don't go right up to the line and you don't genuflect before the golden calf of liberalism.
	100% true.
	You know, I was thinking about it because I recently, for like my kids are all in middle school or late elementary school, and soon they're going to be moving on to high school.
	And I'm very much conscious of not projecting to them that they get the, have to get perfect grades.
	You know, their mother did not.
	And so I decided to go back to my high school to get my transcript just because I knew that there would be some things in there to make my kids feel better, just in case when they go to high school, they have those down moments, they get some bad grades and start to beat themselves up.
	I'm saving this.
	I'm going to put it in my back pocket.
	And when they come home sad, I'm just going to show them my transcript and I'm going to try to make them feel better.
	I say it in other ways all the time, but it's different to actually see the grades.
	Let's just say that they were a lot worse than I expected.
	I knew they weren't going to be stellar, Dan, but I didn't know they were going to be like this checkered.
	Okay.
	So Abby, my assistant, now is on a mission to get them all for me.
	And she actually got my guidance counselor's college recommendation for me.
	And I'm not going to read you the whole thing, but I'm going to read you one line and I'm going to explain why this is relevant to our discussion about journalism.
	Okay.
	Here is, here's the first, like three lines.
	First of all, he calls me Meg Kelly, which is funny because like nobody calls me Meg Kelly, but okay.
	My husband calls me Meg.
	Meg Kelly is a solid student who has taken a strong program in high school.
	Her areas of strength seem to be in language arts and social studies.
	Meg loves to write and has a real interest in politics and government.
	Okay, that's interesting.
	Currently, her goal is to become a political journalist.
	Look at that, Dan.
	And I'll read you one more line.
	You nail that or what?
	Megan has had to work much harder and achieved less success in math and science.
	He goes on from there.
	Right on, Mr. Villa.
	I cannot deny.
	Okay, but you're not a nuclear physicist.
	Right?
	We've all got our little niches, right?
	So the political journalist.
	One thing I learned.
	Wait, wait, hold on.
	One thing I learned about you this week, I follow you on social media is apparently you're quite the basketball player, too.
	You got a nice little shot there.
	I saw you.
	I guess your kids were filming you.
	I'm sorry to embarrass you.
	It's on your Instagram, so I figure it's public knowledge.
	This way, if you have not followed Megan Kelly on Instagram and you want to see her shoot hoops, she's got a little bit of LeBron Allen Iverson going there, man.
	Not too bad.
	The kids got you a little like they were cryptic about it too, right?
	From the living room or something, no, they were inside taping me without my knowledge.
	Yeah, it was great.
	That was very good.
	Very candid moment.
	You and Rachel Campos are my favorite followers on Instagram.
	She's got a daughter with Downs, and the daughter is just the cutest kid on planet Earth.
	I mean, there's nothing finer than what these videos will always put a smile on your face, but you guys are really great.
	And your guidance counselor there, I mean, absolutely nailed it.
	We all have little like niches, right?
	And you know, I wrote a whole book about failing at a thousand different things.
	And, you know, Megan, sometimes you ask God for answers as I write in a book and talk about honestly and openly.
	And the answer is no.
	People think, oh, I asked God for an answer.
	And he's like obligated to tell you yes.
	God, I want to be a millionaire.
	I want to be a politician.
	I want to be a congressman.
	You know what?
	The answer was no.
	And if you're going to ask him for answers, you better damn well be listening.
	The ask is the easy part.
	The listen is the hard part.
	I love the book.
	And I want to get to it in one second.
	The only reason I'm getting into my high school guidance counselors' opinion of me is the reason I wanted to be a political journalist, Dan, is because in 10th grade, I watched in my journalism class, All the President's Men.
Asking God For Answers 00:16:34
	And like so many, I just thought that was such a great story.
	You know, Woodward and Bernstein and Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman and Jason Robarts, you know, it was like you felt inspired.
	It wasn't political.
	It wasn't like I wasn't anti-Nixon or anything like that.
	It was just like, oh my God, this is crazy story, crazy story, and how they got it.
	I don't even know what we are anymore.
	You're right.
	The term journalist is meaningless now.
	If anything, it has a negative connotation.
	And you've given me a new way of looking at this irritant.
	I'm actually going to let this irritant go because you're right.
	That term itself is, it is not what it once was.
	It is, and journalism itself is not what it once was.
	Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of theories about what killed journalism.
	I think, and it's never one thing.
	I mean, there's never really in life a road to Damascus moment.
	I mean, you know, that happens in great stories and the Bible and great cataclysmic events, but in life, things happen on an incline and a decline.
	They happen slowly, you know, the simple machines, you know, an incline ramp there.
	And the thing about what I, one of the, one of the lead factors, if you had to attribute it, say, I don't know, 51.62% of it, is definitely the subscription model for journalism online.
	Right now, you have this model online where it's really easy to disconnect.
	When we were growing up in New York, there was basically two papers.
	The conservatives bought the New York Post, the liberals bought the Daily News.
	Maybe you picked up a news day once in a while.
	But, you know, they had their audience, the other one had theirs, but they would generally agree on a certain set of facts.
	It was just how they kind of put lipstick on the facts.
	It mattered because there was always crossover too.
	Some people bought both.
	Now, with the litany of information with social media, which is democratized information exchange, I mean, you and I can go and report on a story on Twitter or True Social right now and break news ahead of the Washington Post.
	I mean, Megan, one thing I was astounded to learn, and it's not a self-praise moment at all.
	It's just a hard reality.
	You can look up yourself.
	My Facebook page, which is one of the most popular in the world, has a larger distribution than the Washington Post and the New York Times combined.
	I found that out, by the way, through the New York Times.
	Kevin Roos, who wrote an article about me, it's sitting right there on the wall because I love to mock them.
	It's called Right Wing Pundit Draws a Lot of Who's on Facebook.
	And he'll tell you, I have a bigger audience than them combined.
	So I can crack a story quicker than them.
	So the problem they have now is you got a bunch of left-wing nuts who are subscribed to this business model that's old.
	And if you lose 10, 20% of them because you write an honest article about Trump, your business is finished.
	It's done.
	So I think that's a lot of it.
	I don't like simple explanations, but that's probably a lot of it.
	No, I think that's true.
	And not only, but not only do you have greater reach, you have greater loyalty because in this arena, your audience is with you.
	It's not to say they'll agree with every position you ever take.
	Sometimes you'll aggravate them, sometimes, but they're with you because they spend two hours with you a day.
	They know your heart.
	They know your soul.
	They know your honesty.
	It's not like on TV or thumbing through the Washington Post and just seeing a byline.
	It's like they've gotten to know you.
	They know your family.
	They know your troubles.
	They know your foibles.
	The relationship is so much more genuine and loyal both ways.
	It's so weird because I've been doing books.
	I don't get out a lot.
	I mean, this is a studio.
	It's a home studio.
	We just bought a new one, but we're still here for about another six months.
	And it's basically an apartment back of my house.
	So I don't get out.
	I literally don't get out much.
	So when I see people, it's always refreshing.
	So I've been doing book signings for the last couple of days.
	And it's just so strange because people will come up and they'll tell me stories about my life that I forgot I told on the air.
	And they're like, oh my gosh, that story about you in the first watch with the lady.
	And I'm like, which one again?
	And they're like, you know, when a lady, she paid the bill.
	And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's how do you know that?
	They're like, you told it on the radio six months ago.
	And it's like you said, like, they're so bought in to your life.
	It's so flattering, yet so asymmetric.
	Because I know you care about your audience as much as I do.
	I've known you a long time.
	Like you, you passionate, you're passionate about your audience.
	You wouldn't be doing this otherwise.
	I mean, listen, let's be honest.
	You don't need the money.
	You know, you're doing this because you enjoy it.
	And having an audience that enjoys it back is this reciprocal feeling of joy we both have.
	But I don't know if you get this, but I feel like I owe them more.
	Like you're at a book signing and you maybe get 20, 30 seconds with them because there's 500 people online.
	And I just always leave with this feeling like, damn it, I just wanted to say more and let that woman know how much they matter.
	But it's just, it's just not practical.
	You just can't.
	And I, and I, and, you know, people send me emails, Dan, we understand.
	And I love that they do that.
	Yeah, they're so interesting.
	I just want them to hold that against me.
	Yeah, it matters to me.
	That's one thing I love about 26 because, you know, on radio, you can take callers.
	You know, when we release it as a podcast and a YouTube show, you can't really like interact live while that's happening.
	But I like being live on the radio where I can actually take callers and get to know the audience.
	And the one thing I've never, I've never been disappointed by is the level of intelligence of the audience.
	Like you don't underestimate them.
	They really are incredibly smart.
	They will bring it to you.
	They don't require any handholding.
	And that's a blessing, right?
	Because you never know.
	Like when you're cable, who I have no idea.
	I don't really know.
	But in this sphere, these are news consumers.
	They're pretty avid about it.
	Like you can start it or run.
	I mean, even little things.
	Like when I was first doing my podcast, the live chat on Rumble is my favorite thing to do because we interact live.
	I do the show live at 11 and it's just awesome.
	We do live polls.
	I have so much fun with people, but it's instant fact checking.
	One time I said horse blinders and a guy was like, it's horse blinkers.
	It's not horse blinders.
	I didn't know that.
	I had to go look that up.
	And it's little things and big things.
	People will instantly correct you.
	Like, I'm really terrible with pop culture references because I just don't go see a lot of movies.
	I just don't care.
	I mean, who's got the time, right?
	And most movies suck anyway.
	So what's the point?
	So I just don't see them.
	But people tell me about them and I'll see them in clips.
	And I'll say something.
	I'll be like, you know, and this is from whatever, like Star Wars or the Godfather.
	So I'm like, dude, that's not the Godfather.
	That's Tombstone with Kurt Russell.
	Like, what's wrong with you?
	And it's just so hilarious.
	They are.
	They know everything about everything, but it's instant feedback, you know?
	Back in the cable days, I, you know, you had to rely on viewer email.
	And I, you, there, you learn the hard way too, because you say something live in the air and then you find out either from like the PR people that you've stepped in it, or now it would be Twitter, I imagine, but I would get it in the emails.
	And I'll tell you two things I learned that you're not allowed to say, at least on cable now, I swear like a sailor, but you're not allowed to say scumbag because I was informed after saying it on O'Reilly.
	Yes, forgive me, but scumbag is apparently a term for a used condom.
	Sorry.
	That's number one.
	And two, you can't say patty wagon because that's a slur to my people.
	That's a slur of the Irish, Dan.
	It's about all the patties that got rounded up.
	I didn't know that.
	I thought it was like an actionable term.
	You're not allowed to say a lot on the air.
	Fortunately, I said a lot of it.
	Probably why I'm not working there anymore.
	I mean, I think I said bullshit a couple of times on the air too.
	And they were like, dude, you're really not supposed to say that.
	It's Fox and Friends.
	Like it's six in the morning.
	I was like, really?
	So it's a, yeah, you do learn the hard way.
	I mean, you know, in cable news, the good thing about my Fox show is a lot of it we did, we taped on Friday.
	We got to do a lot of live shows on Saturday because of breaking news and stuff.
	But we could always like clean stuff up, but you do kind of learn the hard way.
	And the audience is generally forgiving if they know what's in your heart.
	Yeah, you kind of figure that.
	But I mean, I've called probably 10, 15 people scumbags every day.
	And I don't even care.
	Like I, it's probably why I'm better off on my own.
	Like, I just don't like being told what to do ever.
	I had a good time there.
	Like I said, I know they got their issues, whatever, but I got friends there still.
	There's good people there.
	And some people, probably not such good people, but I'm just better off doing my own thing.
	And I know you, I mean, your career is just taking off.
	I'm actually upset.
	Wait, I got a bone to pick with you here if I may.
	I know it's your show.
	I don't want to hijack it.
	But so, you know, I'm busting my ass for eight years with this podcast.
	Finally, I'm like the number two guy, Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino.
	It's like that for like three years.
	And then like a month ago, I see the rankings and Megan Kelly's number two.
	I'm like, totally unacceptable.
	Totally unacceptable.
	I'm like, I refuse to be number three on the iTunes charts.
	Like people really love your show.
	And I got to tell you that you did it in such a short period of time.
	I'm serious.
	It's like the, I think it was the August rankings.
	That is the first time we've been number three.
	And I'm kidding.
	I'm actually very happy.
	I know you're kidding.
	I know you're coming.
	But don't you, don't you love?
	I remember seeing that.
	And I tweeted out this and I feel this.
	I love my neighborhood.
	I love sharing this space with you and Ben and the guys who are in the top five.
	Like, what a great collection of people.
	And even though we're not all under the same umbrella, like Fox News or CNN or what have you, don't I feel like we're a part of a community.
	I feel like more times than not, we have each other's back.
	If you see somebody coming for one of us, you know, it's like the bar is high and people understand how it's like an attack on the whole ecosphere.
	It is.
	And Megan, you know, some people talk and some people do.
	I absolutely feel that way and I can back it up.
	I mean, I don't know how much you follow your Twitter or don't, but I'm on there all day between that and truth because I'm just like obsessed with show prep stuff.
	I just, the store, I have this FOMO thing.
	You're missing out.
	So I saw it just a couple of weeks ago.
	It's like the second or third time I've had to do this where somebody tweeted again.
	That's why I opened up the show with it.
	Some dumb article about you.
	Like, oh my gosh, Megan Kelly's not on fire.
	I'm like, do you have any idea how big her audience is?
	I mean, are you that stupid?
	Like, and this was a journalist type person.
	So I think I tweeted out.
	Danny could probably tell you if they look for it, something like, tell me you don't understand new media without telling me you don't understand new media.
	Like, look at this dumb tweet right here.
	So yeah, I mean, that means a lot to me.
	I don't care if it's your show or not.
	I'm invested in this entire space, this new media space.
	And if you don't think this is the future, I mean, just look at the numbers.
	One side's going down, cable news, and one side's going up.
	Which side do you want to be on?
	I mean, it's not complicated math to figure out.
	There was just a headline this weekend about this past weekend saying CNN on its weekend shows.
	It's, you know, they take the weekend demo average and the weekend overall average demo being 25 to 54 year olds for the audience at home.
	And it was the lowest in CNN history.
	You know, Dan and in cable, we always used to look at the demo and Fox News never came near this, but some of our competitors did in the demo.
	If you get under 50,000, you call them slashies.
	They don't even show you what you got.
	You just get two slash marks to show you that you didn't even hit the 50,000 mark, which, you know, should be very easy to do in cable news.
	And the demos now averaging, I think, 55,000.
	They're almost at slashies across the weekend in all CNN programming.
	The overall was averaging about 350,000.
	350,000.
	That's the demo on most Fox shows.
	Or at least it was, you know, a year or two.
	I'm not ignoring you on my phone to text.
	I'm just looking at something right now just to make sure I don't fake the funk.
	That's an N. That's an N.
	I know we don't have FCC real quick.
	Well, you look, I'll just say, so that's an absolutely dreadful embarrassment to CNN.
	That is embarrassing.
	My problem.
	My Rumble show has been up about two hours, three hours, and it's got 395,000 views.
	Monday show has 820.
	That's just my Rumble show.
	That's not audio.
	That's not iTunes.
	That's not Spotify.
	Megan, we get 70 to 80,000 people in the live chat.
	I mean, on an 11 o'clock in the morning show online with no cable distribution at all, you can't pull 50,000 people in the demo.
	But, you know, I think what's happening is the TikTok generation has a shorter attention span.
	Listen, it's not a knock on them.
	It's always, you know, kind of fashionable to knock the younger folks, but I was one of them once too, and they knocked us.
	You know, we used to listen to like Rage Against the Machine and stuff, and everybody used to laugh at us.
	And now it turns out they are the machine, by the way.
	But I just think they don't have time for kind of like bullshit stuff.
	And the thing about CNN is nothing ever is newsworthy there.
	Nothing's ever worth watching.
	And you could almost predict what the guest is going to say.
	Donald Trump sucks.
	Ron DeSantis killed everyone in Florida.
	You know, Republicans are Nazis.
	I mean, it's just some kind of euphemism.
	Yeah, there's no evidence of that.
	There's nothing ever.
	But, you know, for as much as you may like or dislike Fox and Newsmax or OAN or whatever it may be, you'll go on there and you'll actually get a perspective.
	Like John Turley, who's a very skilled constitutional attorney.
	I see him on Fox, see other lawyers on Greta's on Newsmax.
	Greta will give you both sides.
	Greta will be like, hey, man, listen, that was kind of bullshit.
	What happened in court?
	There's no legal precedent for that.
	And you're like, wow, I learned something.
	You're on CNN.
	You will learn absolutely nothing.
	They're like, oh, we're going to bring on the Republican.
	You're like, oh, good.
	I'm going to get the other side.
	And they're like, welcome Adam Kinzinger.
	You're like, bro, this guy's worse than the Democrat.
	Like the Democrats debating Kinzinger a bit more.
	And he's more pro-Trump.
	So you think I'm right, ain't I?
	Like, you don't really learn anything.
	So why would you bother tuning in?
	What's the point?
	So what do you make of the fact that it was just announced, Rupert Murdoch, 92 years old, stepping down as, you know, the emperor of News Corp, of Fox Corporation and Lachlan Murdoch taking over.
	It's kind of the drama's gone because the fight between Lachlan and James Murdoch.
	I mean, they're a bunch of Murdoch kids, but those were the two who were vying to be the heir apparent was settled years ago.
	We all knew it was going to be Lachlan, the more favored son.
	Sorry, James.
	But James is more liberal.
	Lachlan, I think, if anything, is more conservative even than dad.
	But he's basically been running the place already for a few years.
	I don't expect much to change.
	But what did you, what was your reaction to the announcement that Rupert said?
	You know, I was talking to my radio producer about, you know, some long breaks and radio sometimes.
	So you're chatting during the break and we get along really well.
	And he asked me the same question.
	You know, I had a different experience.
	You got to remember, like you at Fox, you were nine o'clock.
	Like you were Fox.
	I mean, I was in the nine o'clock spot at Fox is the spot.
	That's just anchors the whole night.
	I mean, the first time I filled in for Hannity on his show, I got to tell you, man, I've never been nervous on the air like ever.
	You can probably tell.
	I just, I don't know, when you're a Secret Service hit, you're really.
	But I walked in the building and I was like, damn, if I screw this up, I can screw up the whole network tonight.
	It really hit me for the first time.
	So you were there every day.
	The thing about being a nine o'clock person on Fox, you did really good ratings, is you're in a network and you're treated differently.
	Like you, you get to talk to, you probably talk to Lachman.
	I've never had a single conversation with Lachlan.
	I've spoken to Suzanne maybe twice.
	So I have no, I don't know if Lachlan's conservative at all.
	I know Tucker used to chat with him a lot, but I was a Saturday guy and I did that for, I did it remotely.
	So I only was up at Fox like four or five times.
	But having friends over there, they'll tell you what you already know.
	I mean, he was probably running the company day to day, pretty much anyway.
	And to act like Rupert's going to step aside and like all of a sudden, if he says something, no one's going to listen is kind of like stupid.
	So what's changed?
	Like if Rupert has a thought, people are going to listen, which happens now.
	And if Lachlan has a thought, people are going to listen, which definitely happens now.
	So I don't see anything changing at all.
	I mean, what Fox was yesterday, Fox is going to be tomorrow.
	It's not like they sold it to like, you know, Brian Stelter or something like that.
	You know, it's the same thing.
	Well, the real question is, what's the future of the company?
	And many people believe that now it'll be sold off, that Lachlan will sell it or the kids will push to sell it because he's not the only shareholder.
	And Kara Swisher, who I used to like, but don't now, she's taking.
	She's trying to get me on her podcast, by the way.
	And it's the weirdest thing.
	Like your people are nice.
	They're like, hey, Dan.
	I will tell you a story.
	She comes after me on Twitter.
	And like I said, off the air about Kara Swisher.
	I will do her the courtesy of not telling this story publicly, but don't go on that podcast.
	This is not a good person.
	She is not a good person.
	Sorry to the audience for that kind of tease without revealing it, but I'm nicer than she is.
	So I won't.
	In any event, she's predicting, she does know tech well, and she's predicting that they're going to sell it.
	And she thinks Elon Musk is going to buy Fox News potentially.
	Is Elon Musk, like, why would he do?
	He already has Twitter, which I think is much more relevant and forward-looking than a cable company, even if it's Fox.
The Kara Swisher Tease 00:05:40
	He's already, you know, awash in money problems.
	He's doing the electric cars.
	He's doing the spaceship.
	He's doing the Neuralink thing for your brain implant.
	What the hell else could he possibly buy?
	You know, you just kind of like clicked a dendrite and an axon in my brain.
	A very close friend of mine who's knee deep in the whole tech space, she may be onto something there.
	It's not her.
	It's someone else.
	But he sent me a picture a long time ago, Elon and I think it was Rupert or maybe Lachlan like chatting it up or stuff.
	Was it a football game or something?
	Maybe it was, I think it was a Super Bowl.
	You can go look it up.
	Like it's out there on the internet for the listeners.
	They can see it themselves.
	It's not like they were hiding.
	And he's like, what do you think is up here?
	You think he has an interest in buying Fox?
	So I wouldn't completely discount it.
	The catch is how liquid is Elon?
	I mean, his estimated worth is about 140 billion, depending on what any given day.
	Now, it's not liquid.
	I mean, you know how wealth works.
	Wealth are not liquid assets.
	That's what he's worth in Tesla stock.
	So the question is, he sold a lot of that Tesla stock and put it up as collateral for this purchase at Twitter, which was way overpriced at the time.
	So how liquid is Elon?
	You know, I mean, he would have to sell a ton of Tesla stock.
	And like you said, after the experience with Twitter, he's now being investigated for perks at Tesla, which is a total political investigation because he's pushing the place more towards free speech, or at least he says he is, right?
	I don't buy any of it.
	I don't buy it.
	I don't think he would.
	I don't think I think he'd be crazy.
	I mean, he'd be public enemy number one.
	You know, if Fox News, cable news had its heyday, I was there.
	It was probably back in 2012, 2013.
	That's when they were getting double paid top dollar from the advertisers and the subscriber fees.
	Those days are gone.
	Their audience is disappearing.
	And with respect, they're also aging, which matters to the ad dollars.
	I just don't see that being a viable business option for anyone, never mind for Elon Musk, who's learned his lesson about jumping into these media spaces.
	All right, enough about Fox.
	I want to talk about you.
	And I want to talk about the book on failure, the gift of failure.
	And the subtitle is, and I'll rethink the title if the book fails, which it will not.
	Luckily, you don't have to do that.
	I've received that gift in my own life, and I know you have too.
	I'm just going to leave it there as a tease, as a bubble tease.
	Take a quick break, and we're going to come back and get into Dan's humiliation on the baseball field and how it would become a lesson for us all.
	Stand by.
	Here with me today, Dan Bongino, host of the Dan Bongino show and author of the new book, The Gift of Failure.
	Dan, I love this line.
	Love this line.
	Failure is not the opposite of success.
	It is a necessary part of the journey towards it.
	Yes, that's true.
	We do think of failure as the opposite of success.
	That's so simple, but so brilliant.
	It's got such a negative connotation to it, the word failure.
	And I thought to myself, the funny thing is, we actually wrote that line when we were putting a book together and formatting it.
	I wrote it at the end and had to reformat the book to put it in the beginning because I'm going through with this editor and fact checker about the book.
	Yeah, fact checker in your, yeah, because you just want to make sure you get every little thing right.
	We're going through it and I'm reading it through on like a kind of a FaceTime call.
	And he gave it to this beta group of authors to read.
	It's kind of like a test group.
	And they love the book, but one of them is their comment was, this isn't a book about failure at all.
	It's about all the mistakes Dan made in the road to success.
	And this isn't a failure at all.
	So we actually kind of like rewrote the book and had to change the beginning because I started to realize that although I, Megan, honest to God, I really meant to write the book.
	The genesis of it was just so you understand.
	I was coming out of the NASDAQ.
	We had just sent Rumble Public at a $3.2 billion valuation.
	It's the first parallel economy company to really make it and make a dent.
	And we were so proud.
	We had rang the bell in the NASDAQ.
	I'm like, wow, what a day.
	And all these crazy liberals were tweeting to me as I was sending pictures out over social media.
	What a loser.
	You ran for Congress and lost, you know, what a dipshit.
	And I'm looking at my wife and it's raining in Times Square.
	And I'm like, this is hilarious.
	Like if, you know, taking a company public at $3 billion is a loss.
	Like, bring on the losing.
	Like, this is some terrific losing.
	And I started to think back and I realized, like, gosh, everything I did in my life that I would call a success was actually born out of a huge mistake in advance.
	The podcast was from losing for office.
	I ran running for office.
	Me going to business school and learning what I learned about business was because I didn't get into medical school and I failed.
	I mean, I thought like everything had been born out of a failure.
	So I wanted to write this book, exposing to people like, what's your excuse?
	Like, I'm just a dopey kid from Queens.
	I got an average IQ.
	I'm not particularly athletic.
	I definitely got a face for radio.
	I mean, I'm not like the Brad Pitt looking.
	I don't have Jorge Posada's catching skills for the Yankees or anything like that.
	And if I could ever make it, whatever you want to call that, then, you know, really, like, what's your excuse?
	And then not only that, I'm going to show you every single thing I screwed up in every wart embarrassing fashion.
	I'm going to write about it.
	And I still got out of the morass.
	So again, what's your story?
	You can go figure it out yourself and you'll probably do a whole lot better than I did.
	I totally object to the description that you just offered of yourself, that it was wrong on so many different fronts.
Carving Out Your Place 00:08:55
	I would say, Dan Bongino is brilliant.
	You're very attractive, not just, you know, stroke your ego, but you are.
	You're obviously very attractive.
	You're a man's man.
	You're somebody who notwithstanding, I mean, not just because of the Secret Service and the police background, but you just kind of know around Dan Bongino, he's going to protect you as a woman.
	Like, I'd feel very comfortable around you anywhere.
	You're damn right.
	You're fearless.
	You're fearless, but you haven't gotten so rich and smart and successful that you've lost your appeal to the common man.
	All of that is what makes the Dan Bongino brand.
	So that's my reassessment of what you are.
	Everyone can forget your own self-you made me feel good.
	I deeply appreciate that because I, you know, I'm going to share something because you see, this is you.
	You're the interview.
	Like, you're, you're, you're uniquely good at this.
	And I, I'm so envious because I stuck at interviewing so bad.
	And I'm like, if I could only do a Megan Kelly interview, but I mean this.
	I'll give you a vulnerable moment because it's true.
	You know, when I was a kid, uh, without going into like stupid nonsense stuff, but, you know, I was a little like pudgy.
	I wasn't really like obese or fat, but, you know, didn't really eat that great.
	I was the worst player on my baseball team.
	I kind of, I just, I don't know, like I, I didn't, I was lanky.
	I just looked funny.
	Like I had a weird haircut and stuff.
	And I just always felt confused.
	I mean, I would later in life in the 90s when I, when I heard songs like Tracy Chapman's Fast Car, like that song meant something to me.
	You know, the fact that Tracy Chapman is a black lesbian performer meant nothing to me.
	It's like what she was talking about in that song, that feeling of alienation and wanting to escape and seeing the city lights and your arm felt good wrapped around my shoulder.
	I mean, that meant something to me, you know?
	And the thing is, that kid never left.
	They don't leave.
	I mean, the savage side of me only came out later.
	I don't mean that like a Neanderthal way.
	I mean, that only came out later because I just wanted to defeat that kid so bad.
	And I have to almost supersede even your expectations to show you that that's not me anymore.
	And it's a vulnerability and I get it.
	But this, this, you know, people like you who know me and you see me now, but never saw me growing up would have known a totally different kid.
	Like the reason I started boxing and in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, actually, it's funny, I actually write about it in a book.
	Like the reason I started is not because I was a good fighter.
	It's because I grew up in New York, got my ass kicked like really bad.
	And it's embarrassing because in the neighborhood, when I was a kid, I was a kid who got beat up by Steve.
	I tell the story in the book, like this kid up the block who was smaller than me, who beat the crap out of me when I was like 12.
	And that's how I got into boxing in jujitsu because I said to myself, I'm not going to be that kid anymore.
	I'm not going to negotiate ever from a point of weakness physically for the rest of my life.
	You want to mess with me in a bar, so I'm not going to fight you.
	I'm not going to instigate a fight.
	Never.
	I'm not getting sued.
	I'm not stupid.
	However, I'm not negotiating from a point of weakness.
	You want to fuck around with me, then I'll fuck around back.
	And believe me, only one person is going to come around and win in that fuck around competition and you're going to find out, not me.
	And that's just the facts.
	I was never, but that's from that.
	That's from that little weak kid who got beat up.
	And the same thing with school.
	My wife would say to me all the time, like, why do you keep having to go back to school?
	Like, I, I, you know, I always say, if you talk about your education, you're probably a moron.
	But if you'll allow me a dispensation, because it makes sense here, I, I, I went to two graduate programs.
	I got a master's degree in neuropsychology and I did an MBA at Penn State.
	And I wanted to go back to do a graduate degree in economics.
	And my wife was like, enough schooling.
	How much school do you think you need?
	But that's that same kid.
	You know, I wasn't great in school in sixth grade.
	I got a D in math and I was embarrassed.
	I just felt stupid and dumb and I knew I wasn't dumb.
	So now I feel this need to almost like almost elevate and supersede the median and the mode and the average every time.
	And that's where that comes from.
	You know, I got to lift six days a week because other people lift weights four.
	And I'm like, ah, you're 48.
	Ease up.
	No, no, I'll ease up when I'm dead.
	Like you sleep for a long time.
	And that's where that all comes from.
	And I'm actually glad I was an insecure, vulnerable kid because that's the only reason I am the way I am now.
	I love what you said.
	I love that song by Tracy Chapman.
	It's a McClay list.
	It's in, you know, the next line after the one you just sang is, I had a feeling that I belonged.
	I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, right?
	Like, that's what you did.
	You went on.
	You made a name for yourself.
	You carved out your own place in this incredibly competitive industry.
	And those like those stats you were just giving me about the Facebook are absolutely stunning.
	Alan Rumble as well.
	I mean, there's a uniqueness to your brand, but the ability to be so self-deprecating and to own your, what you perceive as your weaknesses is part of it.
	It's part of your charm and it's part of your drive.
	And it's part of the reason why I really worry for my own kids because I do think the most successful people are pretty like screwed up.
	Like there needs to be some damage.
	Not so much that they're crippled, but enough that they have something to prove.
	And it's very hard to thread that needle.
	You know, you just brought up another sensitive topic because you're a mom, I'm a dad.
	And Megan, I think about it all the time.
	I grew up, my, my wife grew up in Columbia.
	She came here when she was nine.
	She didn't even speak English.
	I mean, and I always laugh.
	I said, not Columbia, South Carolina, like Columbia, the country, like El Padrino, Pablo Escobar's Columbia, you know, gates on the windows because of, you know, people break in and steal your stuff all the time.
	You know, I grew up above a bar at 64th place and Myrtle Avenue in Queens.
	It's a sushi place now.
	I mean, I grew up on the street in New York.
	I mean, it was Queens.
	It wasn't Brooklyn or the Bronx, but it wasn't the most pleasant place.
	I mean, my brother, when he was, what, 13 years old, witnessed a murder outside Glendale Pizza on Myrtle Avenue.
	You can read about it now.
	Make he was the, he was a witness in the trial.
	I mean, this is the kind of place we grew up in.
	And like you said, like, this is the kind of stuff that's damaging almost to the point that it creates like pockets of instability in the human brain.
	And you don't want that.
	But you also, you and I, thanks to the amazing audience watching your show and that watches my show too, who have made our lives.
	I mean, we're nothing without the audience.
	That's just a fact.
	I mean, you and I can talk all we want.
	If no one's listening, who gives a shit, right?
	So you have a loyal audience that made you the success.
	And I have the same thing.
	And the fact that they've given us the resources and ability to give our kids different lives is a blessing, but you're not wrong.
	It can be a curse too.
	And, you know, one of my daughters came home one day.
	And this is after we'd really kind of hit it, like the podcast had really blown up and things were just going remarkably.
	We didn't even know what to do with the money because we just weren't used to ever living like that, like ever.
	Like we grew up poor and then we, you know, we were middle class.
	I was an agent.
	My wife worked at a, you know, a lobby firm.
	She had done quite well, but we weren't blowing it up or anything with money.
	We, we didn't even know what to do with it.
	And the thing is, we kept saying to ourselves, like, our kid's going to be soft.
	So my daughter comes home one day and she says, we got to move into this nice area, not overwhelmed, but pretty nice.
	And she said, oh, my, my, I was thinking what her friend's name was, this was years ago, but she's, the dad's going to buy her a Porsche for her birthday.
	And I was like, that's cool.
	That's really nice.
	You know, Isabel, great story.
	It's like, you know, can I get one of those?
	I said, that's funny.
	I said, that's really hilarious.
	You think I'm going to buy you a Porsche?
	I said, your dad drives a navigator and you think I'm driving you, giving you a Porsche.
	You're going to get a Honda Civic.
	It's a great car.
	It's safe.
	I don't want to put her in a bad car and get her hurt.
	And you're going to pay for the gas and the insurance and the oil changes and everything else.
	And she still got that car.
	The car's got like 100,000 miles.
	And I could buy my daughter a Porsche, but why would I do that?
	I'm not going to destroy her life.
	And I've told her about money too, and she knows it.
	I've said, you're going to inherit a lot of money one day, but it's not going to be till you're like 50 or 60 years old.
	I'm telling you right now, because you're going to make your own life.
	It always reminds me of, you ever hear the line by Shaquille O'Neal to his kids making the greatest line ever.
	He says to his kids, you're not rich.
	I'm rich.
	There's a difference.
	And the worst lesson you can teach your kids.
	Yeah, it's a real problem.
	When they first asked, they're like, mom, are we rich?
	I said, dad and I are doing okay.
	You've got nothing.
	Good luck.
	I don't know about you.
	You're going to have to make your own way.
	And to their credit, though, you know, you do.
	You have to give them a little bit of an edge.
	And I try.
	I mean, my daughter goes to a really great kind of conservative leaning college.
	She busts her ass.
	And, you know, she scoops ice cream when she comes home in the local wits.
	And she's got to have a job.
	I told her, I'm not going to let you struggle, but you're going to work for it.
	So make no mistake.
	Like if you think like, I mean, in other words, I'm not going to let her go outside with rips in her jeans because I'm trying to make a point.
	But make no mistake.
	Like you stop working, you're going to struggle.
	And I don't care if you have rips in your gene.
	And Megan, I'm telling you, my wife and I struggle about this every day.
Scraping What You Can Live Without 00:08:00
	Like how much is too much?
	And we don't know it's going to come their way too, you know?
	And I love just the reframing of the whole thing.
	Like, okay, the failure will like they could get bullied.
	They could, they could fail.
	That's a, that's a social failure, you could argue.
	Something about them made them a target.
	Not to put it on the bullied victim, but I'm just saying like there's all sorts of ways that word will come into one's head.
	And you think to, and you say to them, failure is not the opposite of success.
	It is a necessary part of the journey towards success.
	And how can that be?
	You know, even in my own life, I was very badly bullied in the seventh grade.
	It was brutal.
	I wrote about it in my book and it was life-changing.
	It was the kind of bullying you don't want.
	You know, it's like the kind of bullying today where a parent and a guidance counselor and a school principal would definitely be stepping in.
	And so it's not like I'm recommending it, but I do think it's the reason I went to law school, you know, to arm myself in the same way you became a cop, right?
	Like and learned how to fight.
	Like I armed myself with tools that would help me protect myself and protect others who are getting bullied by somebody who considered him or herself stronger.
	In my case, it was all girls, of course, because seventh grade girls can be evil.
	They can be sweet, but they can be evil.
	And so that was an example of what you're talking about.
	And like you, the book takes you through lots of these stories in your own life and otherwise people wouldn't expect it.
	Like even that story you just told about you feeling kind of dumpy as a kid when I heard the story about you playing baseball and kind of disappointing the one guy you wanted to impress and the stands and his face.
	And like, can you just tell that story?
	Cause it's kind of, it's sweet.
	It's heartbreaking.
	But I think it might be something.
	It was actually hard to write about because I thought it was kind of soupy when I wrote it.
	And I'm like, it's not.
	And the weird thing is I'm writing it, but as I'm writing it, I'm also dictating it to someone who's going to send me back their version of it without hanging participles and stuff.
	But I'm writing it in live time while they're there.
	Cause, you know, I was not a, I was a, I was a psychology major and then a business major, but I'm writing this and I'm writing.
	And I'm getting surprisingly choked up.
	It's about my cousin Steve, who I adore.
	He's older than me.
	He's just a great guy.
	He was a fireman in New York.
	He's retired now.
	Just a great guy.
	And growing up, he was, I mean, there's nothing he couldn't do.
	Hockey, baseball, football.
	He loved like everything I loved.
	I loved Pink Floyd before Roger Waters went crazy.
	And like everything, I just admired him.
	Like he would drive us around, take us to the beach.
	And he really made us like little bros, Sam.
	He lived up the block of what we called the horseshoe in Glendale.
	But he was an amazing baseball player, incredibly talented.
	So one day my mother couldn't take me to a game.
	So he takes me to the little league game and I'm playing the Owlfield, which is where they hid where they hid the scrubs.
	And I was terrible.
	I was one of the scrubs back then.
	I couldn't play baseball, which is a whole other thing.
	I got how I made the, you know, made it all the way into like the all-star team later on.
	I said, whatever.
	But I can't pitch to save my life.
	I have no arm.
	But because I thought I could pitch, I saw Steve there and the coach Jim walks out.
	We're getting killed like 19 to nothing.
	He's like, you want to pitch?
	And I'm like, oh, I can definitely do it.
	So I get on the mound.
	I don't think I throw a single strike.
	This goes on for about 10 minutes.
	And let me tell you something.
	I write about it in a book because I remember it like it was yesterday.
	I mean, like vivid memories.
	I remember the construction equipment in the background.
	When you're on the mound in baseball, it's all you, man.
	I mean, all you.
	You're literally on a mound.
	Everybody's staring at you.
	And when you screw it up, you look like a loser.
	And I couldn't believe I looked over at my cousin Steve in the stands as I'm on pitch 20 and I still haven't thrown a strike.
	And everybody's like, please get this kid off the mound.
	But the coach doesn't want to come out in the same inning and embarrass me, but he has to.
	And Steve's got this look on his face like, I don't know what just happened.
	And I mean, you know, it's, it is, you, you would think like, Dan, you're on the radio and all these stations and whatever.
	You got all this success.
	Like, that's the story that still rings, you know, rings your bell.
	And the answer is, yeah, man, still to this day.
	It's not his fault.
	He didn't say anything nasty.
	He was like, it'll be okay.
	Don't worry.
	He was cool about it.
	But I could see I disappointed him.
	And I just thought like how much bad advice I got in my life.
	And that's one of the things I allude to in the chapters.
	I hate stupid ass cliches and dumb advice.
	People say things like, you know, oh man, do what you love, chase your dreams.
	Listen, that is bullshit.
	That's the dumbest advice I've ever heard.
	It is absolutely totally impractical.
	You know what my dream was to be a pitcher and I chased it and I look like a dumbass because I wasn't good at it.
	I tell people all the time, dreams are great.
	If you want to be an artist, knock yourself out, go for it.
	You know what you got to chase first?
	A living.
	Feed your kids, your wife, and your family.
	Don't do what you dream about.
	Do what you're good at.
	You may be good at accounting and you may love being an artist or a pitcher.
	That's fine.
	Feed your family first, get a pitching coach, and then try to make the St. Lucie Meds.
	But don't chase your dreams.
	That's the dumbest stuff I've heard.
	Do what you love.
	I love baseball.
	I love pitching.
	I sucked at it.
	If I did what I love, I would not be on this show right now.
	Hopefully, hopefully on my show and yours, maybe changing people's lives and trying to do big things because I did what I love.
	That's dumbass advice that stupid people tell you.
	And it's cliche and it's dumb.
	And the book is full of practical advice.
	Like, don't do what you love.
	Do what you love after you do what you're good at.
	Then you'll love it even more because there won't be stress of feeding your kids.
	I also like how you write about when you're faced with a difficult choice, like between two goods.
	My mom always says that the hardest choices in life are between two goods, right?
	Good and bad.
	That's easy.
	Two goods is tougher.
	You wrote, figure out which one you can't live without.
	And you brought us back to the business.
	That's actually advice from Kenny.
	So the long and short of it is when I went into the secret service, he went to Syracuse.
	He's the second person.
	You got a good, wow, folks.
	Most hosts don't actually read the book.
	They read a promo.
	That's amazing.
	Like you actually remember that.
	I got to tell you, you never, you never disappoint ever.
	He was.
	He was an offensive lineman at Syracuse.
	He was my boss in the secret service.
	I wanted to go on our SWAT team.
	It's called CAT, Counter Assaulted, wear the black ninja suit.
	I just like to break stuff.
	And I'm like, if you have like a really elevated testosterone like me, you fit right in on CAT.
	Like it was perfect.
	It was a dream job.
	And the cool part is you can still go and protect the president because it fell into the president's details.
	Sure enough, Dambongino luck, right?
	The class before to go into the president's details kind of school where you got to go, they go, no more.
	You can either do one or the other.
	I'm like, wait, you guys just messed up my whole life.
	Like all I wanted to do was the CAT team and the detail.
	Like this is bananas, right?
	So I go up to Kenny, who is a great guy.
	And I said, Kenny, he was my boss.
	I said, brother, what do I do, man?
	What do I do?
	Do I CAD or PPD, the Presidential Protective Division?
	I came here to protect the president.
	I don't know, but I got to do CAD.
	And he said, brother, it's not what you want to do.
	What can you live without?
	It was the best.
	Again, not cliche, but totally practical because the answer was instantaneous.
	I wanted to do CAT, but I could live without it.
	But I could never live with being a Secret Service agent and not protecting the President of the United States.
	And the answer was obvious.
	So as you just said, the choice between two goods, it's not what you want more.
	It's what can you live without.
	And whatever you can live without, you got to scrap it and move on.
	The world isn't black and white.
	It's full of gray.
	It's the entire field of ethics.
	And anyone giving you stupid answers, clichéd answers, probably has no idea what they're talking about.
	Oh, so good.
	It's so good.
	I remember when I was trying to decide whether I should leave Fox and it wasn't like I'm dying to work for NBC.
	It was just, I have this great, big, powerful career that I love.
	And yet I have these three little people who I love even more.
	And as much as I'd love to say, it was like, oh, it was a very easy choice.
	I'm going to go home and see my kids more and take this easier job.
	It wasn't that easy.
	It was, it definitely was a big sacrifice.
	But to your point, it was very clear which one I could not live without.
	And to this day, while I didn't land at the right place, I made the right choice in leaving that lifestyle so that I could have the one I have now.
	All right, stand by.
Navigating Political Gray Areas 00:15:33
	Much more.
	Dan Bongino's here with us for the whole show today.
	You're welcome.
	And before we go to break, remember, you can find the Megan Kelly Show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon East.
	The full video show and clips when you subscribe to my YouTube channel.
	That's youtube.com/slash MeganKelly.
	And guess what?
	We're on Rumble too.
	We're building our presence over there.
	So check us out.
	If you prefer an audio podcast, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, wherever you get your podcast, basically.
	It's free.
	It's fun.
	And there, if you meander on over to the Apple podcast, you're going to find our full archives now.
	More than 600 shows.
	My God, the amount of man and woman hours that have gone into those 600 shows, but I loved every one of them.
	So, Dan, I want to talk politics and get into one of the chapters in your book with the latest polls.
	There was a Fox business poll on 9-18 that showed Trump up in Iowa 46th, Ron DeSantis in number two at 15.
	So he's up 31 points.
	There is a poll that just hit a day or two ago out of University of New Hampshire.
	These are the first two, the first caucus and the first primary in the contest, showing Donald Trump, Trump at 39%.
	Vivek is in second at 13.
	Nikki Haley's in third at 12.
	Chris Christie's in fourth.
	I mean, he's putting it all in in New Hampshire, but he's fourth at 11.
	DeSantis is in fifth place at 10.
	He's down 13 from the last poll, which I think was a month ago.
	So DeSantis in fifth in Iowa.
	And Trump still dominating everybody at 39 and dominating everybody in Iowa, where he hasn't done a ton of campaigning.
	I mean, I will show the audience just this.
	I mean, it doesn't matter that he hasn't done a lot of campaigning.
	They know him.
	He was president.
	He won Iowa.
	And here's just a clip of Trump entering an Iowa bar the other day.
	Take a look at the hero's welcome you got.
	We want Trump.
	We want Trump.
	We want Trump in the way of Trump.
	Just as an aside, something funny.
	Somebody tweeted out, there was a waitress there, a bartender.
	She had like a tank top on, kind of like she wanted Trump to sign, you know, kind of right here with a magic marker.
	So he did it.
	And honestly, on Twitter, they're like, look how inappropriate he was.
	Carol Swain, who I love, she's like, she was literally asking for it.
	Like that term she was asking, she was literally asking for it.
	My God, calm down.
	The point is he's crushing.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	All right.
	So this is the point.
	This is my belt.
	The point is he's crushing.
	So, and I want to get to your experience with Trump because now it seems to me Trump with these numbers is pivoting to the general.
	He's kind of moving past everybody else in the field.
	He's not debating.
	Wall Street Journal had a piece out this week, this week, suggesting he's too scared.
	I don't know what his reason is, but I see his point.
	He's up, you know, 30, 40, in some polls, 50 points.
	Does he really need to debate?
	I see the point.
	So he's pivoting to the general and he's looking good there too.
	The polls this week showed him up four over Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden's numbers are precipitously low and falling.
	The vast majority of Americans think he's too old to be president.
	There was just yet another new poll on that.
	I'll read it to you.
	I'm building up towards something here.
	This is one third of Americans, according to the latest CBS News YouGov poll, think Joe Biden can finish his second term.
	Only a third, two-thirds do not believe he could finish a second term.
	That's unbelievable.
	So all that brings me to this.
	And you heard Tucker ask Trump about it when he interviewed him.
	Whether Trump is worried, whether there's a realistic possibility the left is going to so melt down as his power rises, as he rises toward a second term, that they try to do something to him, God forbid, or that they try to do something to our country.
	You know, that the riots we saw around BLM, that, you know, the total overreaction we saw to basically everything surrounding Trump, but certainly the way they described January 6th as the new 9-11, right?
	All those things are going to culminate in some sort of like serious meltdown for our country.
	All right.
	Well, there's a lot in there.
	And the response is going to be a little troubling to people.
	And if we make news with this, then we make news because I don't say anything I can't back up, unlike the media and the journalists that do.
	On the first point about will the liberals do something crazy.
	The answer is, yeah, I'm afraid of that.
	And listen, don't, again, I ask every, I'm begging you, matter of fact, I'm begging you to fact check me on this because any good reporter, that's a word, reporting on the facts will ask you to do it because it only adds to their, you know, their veracity and their authenticity.
	There's a thing called the Democracy Integrity Project.
	They put it out before the 2020 election.
	The gist of it was a bunch of anti-Trumpers and liberals basically on this project.
	You can look it up yourself.
	I'm not sure if it's page 27 or wherever it is, but it's in there if you read through it.
	They talk about what they're going to do and how to take back the election, basically if Trump were to win or there's any kind of squabble about the results.
	And they mention that it's going to turn into a street fight.
	Now, Megan, in case you're thinking they're playing like a euphemisms game, and they don't really mean a street fight.
	They're very clear and they say not a legal one.
	They mean an actual street fight.
	Again, don't read it yourself.
	So the idea that the left, if they would have say, lost the 2020 election, would have gone crazy and there would have been riots in the streets, that the idea that that's nuts is not backed up by the actual facts where they were promoting this stuff and had rioted in the streets with Antifa and BLM.
	So I mean, I don't know what I can't prove a counterfactual because Joe Biden's butt is in this resolute sitting in the Oval Office right now.
	But the fact that the left might have went insane is just backed up by the facts.
	Just look at what they were promoting.
	This wasn't, by the way, some tomato can group of ham and eggers here.
	This was like, I mean, higher ups in the Democrat Party promoting this stuff, that it was going to be a street fight, quote, not a legal one.
	They noticed the qualifier.
	They weren't kidding.
	Second, Tucker asked the question.
	And believe me, I'm not trying to one-up Tucker at all.
	He's a friend.
	You're a friend.
	I'm not in any way trying to, but I had said this months earlier on my podcast.
	Tucker must be talking to some of the same people I want.
	The threats against Donald Trump's life are very real.
	Now, because the left cares so little about Donald Trump and doesn't want to make him a martyr, which, by the way, wasn't my intention of doing that podcast now infamous on the left three months ago, about the threats to Donald Trump's life.
	I didn't do it to make the guy a martyr.
	I did it because I may, you know, Megan, just know a little bit about this.
	I mean, I only did it for 12 years.
	And I may know some people, let's just say in the business, who are fighting every day with Secret Service headquarters over basic security mechanisms for Donald Trump because his life is at risk, like right now, like seriously at risk.
	And there's a fight going on almost every single day because some of the people up there are Joe Biden cronies and don't want to make Donald Trump look even more presidential with a greater detail.
	If Donald Trump were to be, and I say this with the greatest of regrets, were to be hurt or worse, I would be sad.
	I'd be destroyed.
	He's my guy.
	I wouldn't be surprised, not one bit.
	And the hilarious part about this whole thing is these goons in the media and their response.
	Some NBC reporter writes an article a week later, calls the Tucker and Dan Bongino, whatever, a theory that Donald Trump could get hurt or worse during this election cycle because of security problems.
	He calls it what they call every conspiracy theory.
	So when I reached out to him to back that up, I mean, he's a journalist, right?
	He blocked me on Twitter.
	He blocked me in his DMs.
	I asked him, please tell me who told you he's, because I can tell you, without giving up my sources, but giving up kind of the contours of it they're comfortable with, who told me?
	But you can't tell me shit.
	Nobody told him that.
	He just didn't want to make Donald Trump look like a martyr because he thought it was some positive narrative.
	So he wrote a hit piece on me claiming it was a conspiracy theory.
	And then cowardly, like a little chump, crawled into his little cave and blocked everyone on Twitter and wouldn't answer any emails.
	That's who they are.
	They don't give a damn that this guy could get hurt.
	But your question's a good one.
	I wouldn't be surprised one bit if something happened.
	Sad, but not surprised.
	No, he just, he really drives so many on the left insane.
	And what got me thinking about all of this was in your book, Chapter 11, you write about going to, was it Washington?
	It was Washington, right?
	When he accepted, right, from the White House in August, the second nomination.
	Of course, you know, it was obviously he was going to be the nominee for the Republican Party.
	And I remember this when it broke out, when the violence around or the protest Antifa broke out around the White House.
	I remember Rand Paul, right?
	He got, he got attacked.
	Yeah, it was after me.
	That was the same street, right?
	About an hour after me.
	And you did too.
	So you and your wife were exiting the White House.
	We actually asked you for the tape.
	They took it down, but we have it from you.
	And we'll show the audience just to remind them what happened to you.
	I do.
	Video in this score.
	Video discussion.
	I got him.
	I got him.
	You gotta listen to your pretty wife again.
	Yeah, listen to you, man.
	Are you by yourself?
	You gotta be by yourself.
	Listen to your man.
	He's so fantastic.
	You can intimidate me.
	He watched these kids.
	He's very ignorant, sir.
	You're a parent.
	That's your bitch wife.
	That's your bitch wife.
	Don't worry.
	I don't care what he is.
	That's your bitch wife.
	Watch my show.
	Oh my God, Dan, this must have been stomach turning to you on so many levels.
	Yeah, I don't even like watching that now.
	But, you know, that cat there came within like five seconds of losing his life.
	And if it wasn't for my wife, because she's on the other side of me, because I'm separating her from this guy.
	Now, you got to understand there's a crowd of people behind them.
	It's being filmed on an iPhone.
	There's at least another 50 people behind them that are following us.
	This went on for three miles.
	This was not, this would, I mean, that's just a snippet of what happened.
	So he's asking me if that's my bitch wife.
	Now, the interesting thing about it is this guy's a BLM guy who's supposed to be in it for minorities and the black population and Black Lives Matter.
	My wife's a Hispanic Colombian immigrant, and he's asking multiple times if that's my bitch wife.
	While, by the way, he's telling me he's going to rape her and he's going to rape her from behind and make me watch.
	I'm sorry for the vote, but that happened that night.
	I write, you can read the whole thing.
	I mean, I go through exactly what happened.
	That video, that is just a snippet of what happened.
	Now, one other thing you don't see in that video is behind us.
	And again, I write about all this if you want the whole gory details, but there's two Asian women, maybe 5'1 and 5'2.
	It's a grandmother and the mother who were members of like Asians for Trump or whatever it was.
	And they were sitting on the corner crying as this group of animals were surrounding them, spitting on them, taunting them.
	So we took them with my wife and I and walked them to our hotel, even though they were on the other side of the city, because there was no way to get them around.
	We said, just come with us because I don't know if you're going to make it out of it.
	And, you know, I got to tell you, this is the perfect question after the one we just had.
	You want to see what the left is capable of?
	Look at it right there.
	I mean, we could have an honest conversation about, listen, some of that, January 6th, you shouldn't, some of that stuff shouldn't have went down.
	Conservatives were like, hey, man, we don't do that kind of stuff.
	Okay.
	But that was a rare thing.
	Glenn Beck had a rally on the mall.
	They left the place cleaner when they showed up.
	You understand, Megan?
	This is never a rare thing with the left.
	None of this was condemned.
	Not a single CNN or MSNBC producer reached out and said, Dan, that's messed up.
	You want to talk about it or running a story on it?
	No one wrote any story about anything.
	They made fun of people.
	Oh, look at you, losers.
	What a bunch of wushbags.
	President Trump was evacuated in the White House during the BLM rallies into the basement.
	What a wuss, man.
	What a chump.
	You tell, I mean, really, these people are dangerous.
	And when you look them in the eye and you see that kid, that girl, you can see in the tape, if you were watching a video, rewind it.
	There's a girl behind her, a woman, and she's got a skateboard.
	She kept driving around, cruising around my wife.
	I thought she was going to hit her with the skateboard.
	She kept picking this.
	And the only reason she did is I kept rotating around my wife in different directions to make sure if she swung the thing, she'd hit me.
	These people are lunatics.
	And until you see it in their face, I want you to understand they have no emergency break.
	I am a sinner.
	I am nobody's role model.
	I say on my show all the time.
	I'm half a savage myself.
	But I'll tell you right now, I've got an emergency break on my behavior.
	That's Jesus Christ.
	You have God-given liberties from him.
	I am not allowed to infringe on them.
	I will never attack you.
	I will never try to take your right to speak.
	I will never try to take your right to assemble or petition away because not because the Constitution says it, because God says it.
	The Constitution protects it.
	You understand these maniacs, Megan, with their foaming mouths and their fangs.
	They have no emergency break.
	They have no God.
	Their God is power.
	And when you see it in their face and the rage and anger, you know you're in the shit.
	And I knew that night we were in deep trouble.
	And thank God those customs and border patrol guys walked back with us because that wouldn't have ended that way in that video if there weren't two or three more of us there.
	That was a really ugly night.
	I never want to relive my entire life.
	And that was just him announcing he accepted the party's nomination to run again.
	I mean, this is not he's actually returning to the White House.
	You know, that's what I worry about.
	If he, if he gets the nomination and if he beats Joe Biden, I do.
	I worry for him.
	I worry for him.
	I mean, people forget.
	Trump's controversial, of course.
	They'll make any Republican controversial, but he's got his own particular flair.
	But he's a human.
	He's a man.
	He's a dad.
	He's a husband.
	And one of the other stories in the book, and I know, I know this, but it's a sweet story.
Worrying About Trump's Return 00:05:10
	And I know you've talked about it, but you got sick.
	We talked about the last time you were on.
	You got cancer and you had Hodgkin's lymphoma, which has been a really tough thing for you to deal with, had to deal with the chemo and all of that.
	And I don't think we got to this story, though.
	You were about to go under.
	They were going to cut into your neck, which can be fatal.
	And you were scared.
	You had some nurse.
	But tell us about the nurse and then tell us what happened next.
	All right.
	I'm not crying twice.
	Okay.
	You got these tears out of me last.
	I'm not doing it again.
	You're like the only one.
	You're like, this is why I wanted to do my first interview after Fox with you because you're so good at this, but no crying.
	Okay.
	Cause this story's tough.
	No crying.
	But yes, if you want to read all the gory details, it's in the book.
	But I got diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
	I had a huge lump on my neck.
	So they didn't know what it was.
	It could have been anything from semi-benign to really, really, really bad, given how large it was.
	So the doctor who is amazing, Boo Singh is just the most amazing guy.
	He's like, listen, I'm going to warn you in advance, like with this surgery here, that we're going in your neck and you talk for a living.
	And he says, I'm doing this as a biopsy.
	We're not doing it to take, you got to understand that they were doing it to biopsy.
	He said, but if I can get this tumor out, I will.
	He said, but it's in a really bad spot, brother.
	Like if I nick a vocal cord, you're screwed.
	If I nick your jugular, you're dead.
	So he goes in there and this guy's the magic man.
	Okay.
	He winds up not only getting the whole tumor, but getting another node too he found.
	He cuts the whole damn thing out of my neck.
	I got pictures.
	It is, it looks like a softball in my neck.
	It's nasty, right?
	He got this whole thing.
	So I'm worried before I go in there because I know that it could be the end of me.
	All right.
	Maybe it was a 2% chance, but I don't want to take those on.
	So I'm kind of freaking out.
	So I'm getting an IV put in and like this nurse comes up and she's like, well, what do you do for a living?
	And ordinarily, I make something up because I don't want anyone to know.
	I'll tell him I'm an aqua dozer or something.
	What's an aqua dozer?
	The answer is I have no idea.
	That's why it's the greatest thing to tell people.
	So we used to tell people that when we were secret service agents.
	So I wind up slipping and I tell her, I do a podcast, which really I never do if you don't know, because then it just turns into politics.
	So she says, on what?
	And I said, politics.
	And I said, oh, boy.
	My wife looks at me like, why'd you just do that?
	So the lady's sticking an IV in my hand, which I hate because I got super sensitive hands from boxing and it hurts like hell.
	And she's like, you're not a Trump supporter, are you?
	And Megan, I'm thinking to myself, wait, wait, what?
	Like, this is a medical thing.
	Are you crazy?
	You're asking me if I'm a, and she's like, you know, he didn't wear a mask, right?
	It's when he went out on the balcony after COVID with no mask.
	It happened like two days after that.
	She goes, this guy's crazy.
	Like, why is he doing that?
	Why is he not embarrassing?
	Doesn't this guy get it?
	I'm sitting here like, don't you?
	I can't believe this is.
	I mean, I'm stuck.
	Like, I'm stuck now talking about it because I'm like, you realize I'm about to have a cancerous tumor removed from my neck and I could die.
	And you're telling me about like how you don't like Trump?
	I can't believe it's happening.
	So I'm not even in a condition to fight back like I ordinarily would because I just don't know what to say because I'm so shocked.
	Even Paulo, who's got as big a mouth as I do, is like just doing the like McGilla gorilla.
	What the hell just happened.
	So I am in a really bad spot.
	We're in shock and and Paul is looking at me like do we even do this surgery?
	Because like i'm thinking crazy things, like am I going to go out, never wake up, like I mean, you're in a bad spot, you're not thinking rash.
	I know it's stupid, but what?
	At the time it I don't know.
	We were in a bad spot.
	Bottom line is I and what was i'm telling you some heavenly intervention.
	I don't know if someone told him to call.
	I don't know what happened, but my phone rings, which I still had on me for some bizarre reason, and it said unknown on the phone.
	So you know how it is in the business, unknown is one of two people.
	It's Fox or the White House, like that's it, like no one else comes up unknown.
	It comes up restricted for regular, but unknown is like you know someone, right?
	So i'm like oh, this must be Fox or something.
	So I pick up the phone and it's Trump and I mean you know Megan I I, I get it like I I, you've interviewed him, i've interviewed him, you know him, I know him.
	He's not your standard politician, you know, people accuse him of being mercenary and all this other stuff.
	You form your own opinion.
	I know a different guy, but that it wasn't even that he called me.
	It was that he was so genuinely interested in making me feel better.
	You know what i'm saying.
	Like it wasn't a perfunctory task.
	He already understood, he had my support.
	It wasn't something he did.
	And you, I mean, come on, you got people who kiss your ass all the time.
	They're not really listening to you, they're just either like worshiping you or they're like waiting to talk, and that's like the worst thing ever because nothing's genuine anymore.
	It was the weirdest conversation because he really wanted to know.
	He's like, how are you doing?
	I said, you know not that good this, this thing.
	You see, you're gonna get it.
	I don't know.
	There we were.
	There's no crying on this show, just like no crying in baseball.
	He's like, how are you feeling?
Dehumanizing The Businessman 00:09:49
	I said I, I can't I.
	This story just so gets to me because he's like, how are you doing?
	And he said I told him what had happened.
	He's like, do you need me to make some kind of phone call?
	He's like, are you going to be okay going in there?
	I said no, mr president i'm, i'm gonna, i'm gonna be all right, man.
	I said i'm gonna be all right.
	But uh, you know, I said uh, it really, you know, it just really matters that that you did that, that you called and and it wasn't.
	And and the funny thing is it wasn't the first time I had spoken to him by any stretch.
	I mean he's very open with his, you know.
	I mean you can call him anytime.
	Trump will take your call.
	I call him right now on the show.
	I guarantee you he'll pick up.
	Uh, it wasn't the first time I talked to him, but it was just that time.
	I'm telling you, I don't know if some angel tapped him on the shoulder and said, call this guy.
	And you know i'm not some goofy, I don't worship politicians, Trump or anyone else, but I wouldn't have got through that, there's no way.
	And uh, I was in and my wife said who was that?
	I said you're never going to believe it.
	It was Trump.
	And we spent like five minutes on the phone and all he wanted to know, all he wanted to know is how I was doing and if I was going to get through this and if I needed anything.
	And he said, the minute you're out of there because you're going to make it through this, because i'm with you, God's with you.
	He said I want you to come down from.
	You know the White House and you know when people ask me all the time, you know, why are you so loyal to this guy?
	Well, there's your answer.
	I mean, and you have to understand, my loyalty and friendship will never go challenged, but that doesn't mean I don't get to question, question him on issues, just like he can question me on stuff.
	That's what true friends are.
	And this myth out there amongst the anti-Trump crowd that doesn't see this guy through a clear lens.
	They just don't.
	They're so blinded by their hatred that, oh, Trump demands fealty or he'll kick you out of his circle is the dumbest shit I've ever heard.
	I've disagreed with Donald Trump on criminal justice reform.
	I've disagreed with him publicly on my own radio show.
	I played the clip the other day about abortion and just the other day on my podcast.
	But that doesn't mean I'm not loyal to who he is personally, but I'm also loyal to my faith and my politics too.
	And he understands that.
	So people say, well, how can you still support him?
	You know why?
	Because Donald Trump is transactional.
	And sometimes that's used as an insult.
	In politics, it's the greatest compliment ever.
	He understands every transaction matters.
	And I'm sorry to tell you, there's not a single other candidate in a race that's gotten that.
	He is transactional.
	When you walk in there, he is a business guy.
	Is he an avid pro-lifer?
	Anyone who tells you that's lying to your face, not a chance.
	But Donald Trump understands pro-lifers got him elected.
	And Donald Trump understands that when Leonard Leo and others walked in there and said, we got to get Roe v. Wade out of there.
	And here's a good idea of judges who may or may lean in the pro-life direction.
	Who got it done?
	He did.
	While everyone else just talks shit about it.
	So I don't understand.
	Like everybody takes that as a knock.
	Oh, he doesn't believe it in his heart.
	Okay.
	So the other politicians in the past that did and did jack shit about abortion.
	I'm supposed to like them more.
	I'll take the doer over the talker any day.
	And transactional to me in politics is a compliment, not an insult.
	Well, I think that the story is extraordinary because, and we've had a few people come on and tell these back sort of behind the scenes stories about Trump, whose number I don't have.
	I want to just know for the record of John to not have it, but maybe someday.
	He, so, but he's so demonized to the point where I do worry for his safety.
	I think he's been so like the left likes to use the term dehumanized.
	I feel dehumanized by this.
	Is there anybody who's been more dehumanized than Donald Trump?
	And on the other hand, you got, you know, President Basement, right?
	Joe Biden, who barely puts himself out there.
	And when he does, like he's waiting for the, he's there to greet the caskets coming home from Afghanistan.
	He's checking his watch.
	He's checking his watch, but they want us to believe that that guy, Uncle Joe, is the empathetic one.
	He's the sweet one.
	He's the kind one.
	He's the avuncular one.
	And Trump is the devil.
	And Trump is ornery and he's a fighter and he's controversial, but he too is a man.
	He's a human.
	He has a heart.
	He has a family.
	As I started this off by saying, I just think the book, this kind of example, does a good job of putting layers on that.
	So people can be reminded it's real.
	Even though he's very tough and he's a fighter, it doesn't mean he's incapable of being hurt.
	And God forbid, worse.
	So we need to like, as you say, pump the brakes, make sure he's protected.
	And he's not the only one.
	Dan's been talking a lot about the total unwillingness to protect RFKJ, who also is controversial, is strong, is, you know, like presses the left's buttons in a unique way.
	And also Dan with him.
	The Biden White House is refusing to give him any security.
	They won't give him Secret Service.
	And you, as somebody who was in that role for 12 years, say what?
	I tweeted about this.
	I did a whole segment on the show when they first made this decision.
	It comes down from my Orcas, our DHS secretary.
	He obviously supervises the Secret Service and the chain of command there.
	We used to be in Treasury.
	Now we're in homeland.
	It's an obscenely stupid decision.
	Now, granted, there is a formula for it.
	No one can deny that.
	But the formula, there's a lot of discretion in it.
	This president could very well and the DHS secretary sign off on a protection detail.
	Now, I ask you this.
	The prime minister of say, you know, East Tunafish, some country you don't even know, when they come to the United States for the UN.
	I've done a lot of these details.
	We're smaller.
	I don't want to say country because I don't want to, I'm not trying to insult anyone.
	I'm just saying, nobody recognizes these people at all.
	They get a full-blown detail for two or three weeks.
	It costs a lot of money.
	Midnights, cars, armored cars, everything, people overnight, dog sweeps the whole night.
	Megan, I've been on these details.
	Nobody recognizes them from Adam.
	I'm not going to say the country, but I was with a guy who, Megan, you've been in New York a lot.
	You know, the delis that have the gross buffets in them, the delis on, you know, I'm talking about, right?
	With the sneeze guards, everybody sneezes in anyway.
	The prime minister of his country went in and ate in one of those things out of the plastic tray, and not a single person recognized this guy.
	So when you got RFK in some polls, upwards of 16 to 20%, whose dad, again, hate literally, but was literally killed by an assassin who's got the last name Kennedy.
	It is clear as day the guy should at a minimum be getting some kind of what we call portal to portal detail, door to door.
	Maybe you don't do midnights.
	You put a little alarm in the house.
	We call it Agent Sony.
	You put a camera out front so we can call the cops if the alarm trips.
	Okay, at least it's something.
	You can say you're doing something.
	To give this guy nothing, I'm going to tell you what's going on.
	I'm going to let you in on a little secret here because I, again, I kind of know some stuff about some stuff.
	So here's what's really going on.
	Biden obviously doesn't want to make it look like he has a primary.
	When you show up with a secret service detail, it gives you that, it's an aura with it.
	You get the black cars, you come out and it exudes power.
	And politics is a projection of power.
	That's what it is.
	It's a projection of power through votes, but you want to project power as an image too.
	They don't want to give him the imagery.
	But second, having a secret service detail comes with some added fringe benefits your audience may not know about.
	You don't have to wait on plane lines anymore.
	You go through the Leo exit, the law enforcement officer exit.
	You sign right through.
	You get a lot.
	You'll get transportation.
	So it's a pretty decent subsidy.
	I'm not saying I agree with it or not.
	I'm just telling you the taxpayers pay for a lot of it.
	You get a subsidy and you get a time subsidy because you're not waiting in airports.
	They will hold the plane up for you.
	You can get there two minutes before because you don't wait with anyone.
	You go right through security with Secret Service.
	It makes your campaign 100 times easier and less expensive.
	You think the Biden administration doesn't know that?
	You think my orcas doesn't know that?
	That's why they're dumping this guy for a security detail, even though he has a last name, Kennedy.
	He's polling at 16%.
	It's crazy.
	So is there, because I was saying the other day, I know Gavin DeBecker.
	I know his firm.
	They're excellent, but I heard you make the point.
	They're nonetheless, as excellent as they might be, there is a real difference, notwithstanding, like you were talking about like sort of the VIP access stuff, but there, is there a difference in the level to which they can protect you, Secret Service detail for somebody like RFKJ versus a private security firm?
	These guys are amazing.
	My fellow security brothers and sisters, I love you to death.
	You know it.
	Super talented.
	Some of these guys were steals, berets.
	Some of them are retired Secret Service.
	These guys will tell you what I'm telling you now.
	Most of them can't arrest.
	A lot of them don't have anything other than the citizens' arrest powers for a probable cause right in front of you.
	And they're just never going to get the law enforcement support that a fellow law enforcement agency is going to get.
	Any Secret Service agent can walk into whatever Podunk County Police Department, again, has five members and say, guys, listen, these are the guys there, though.
	You have to understand, whatever it is, Podunk or Stewart or Island, they know the area.
	Megan, no one's more valuable than them.
	They patrol it every day.
	The Secret Service guy coming in from DC has never seen this place in his life.
	He doesn't know what it is.
	The security guy is going to have a difficult time.
	Not that they're going to gaff him off.
	They may help you out, but they're under no like real obligation.
	The Secret Service has little memorandums of understanding where they can write little letters and formally request support.
	They can subsidize it through taxpayers, pick up some of the funds if necessary.
	Security companies are not going to be able to do that.
	They are immensely skilled.
	Some of them are actually better agents than some of the guys I met, but they just don't have that kind of the United States Code, Title 18, 3056.
	They don't have actual legal power to do what the Secret Service can do.
	It's a total screw job.
	There's zero doubt in my mind.
Hunter Biden And Security 00:15:08
	And whereas we had the conversation with Trump about Trump safety before, if something happens to RFK, God forbid, please, God, I don't use the Lord's name in vain.
	Keep all these guys alive from Biden to Trump.
	We're not a banana republic.
	I'm just telling you, if something happens, this is 100% on Mayorkas.
	100%.
	God, I mean, he's already doing everything he can to endanger regular American citizens with that southern border.
	This is the least he can do to protect one prominent one in particular.
	All right, stand by.
	More with Dan Bongino after this quick, quick break.
	Don't go away.
	Do you think that there's a risk here that the impeachment inquiry could backfire on Republicans?
	Yeah, there certainly is a risk.
	I mean, look at it this way, Abby.
	If I were to ask you, what was the Clinton impeachment about?
	We'd say Monica Lewinsky's blue dress.
	If I said, what was the first Trump impeachment about?
	We'd say it was his phone call with Zelensky.
	When you say what this impeachment inquiry, it's not an actual impeachment yet, is about, you know, Hunter Biden, what Hunter Biden was doing overseas, whether, but in other words, there isn't any, at least at this point, they're there.
	Oh, there, there, says Chris Wallace now of CNN.
	Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show here with me today, Dan Bongino, host of the Dan Bongino show and author of the new book, The Gift of Failure.
	So Chris Wallace says there's no there there and that even though the latest poll shows 48% of the American populace, including a fair amount of Democrats, 36% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans and nearly half of Independent voters say they support this inquiry.
	No one knows what it's about because again, there's no there, Dan.
	Well, he's right.
	I mean, outside of the suspicious activity reports, the 1023s, the multiple FBI informants, the Tony Bobolinski testimony, the Eric Schwarren texts, the Devin Archer testimony, the photos of Hunter Biden, the texts of Hunter Biden to his dad.
	Yeah, I'm going to give half the pop text, despite the Bobolinski testimony that Biden was the chairman, despite the Devin Archer testimony that Biden was the brand they were selling, despite the laptop, the emails, the office space, the $20 million in payments, the multiple LLCs, the son of a bitch video, the Poroshenko tapes, despite the Biden fake email accounts.
	Yes, Chris Wallace is correct.
	There's no evidence.
	Megan, you know, this is kind of like, I don't know where we are, like wrapping up or beginning because it's like that Pink Floyd album, The Wall, like, is this where we came in?
	If you know, by the way, you know.
	But when you came into the show, you said like, wow, they try to offend me here, but they don't want to call me a journalist.
	Chris Wallace calls himself a journalist.
	I don't really care what your relationship with is.
	I have zero respect for this tool.
	For you to go on that network with your knowing your dad, who he was and who you pretend to be now, and to claim with a straight face with, you know, your educated looking glasses and your nice cutesy time little suit that there's no evidence is really an embarrassment to your family.
	I mean, it's an embarrassment to your network.
	Are you serious?
	There's no evidence?
	Let me tell you something.
	Unlike Chris Wallace, I was an investigator for 12 years and a cop before that.
	This is not just evidence.
	There are standards of proof.
	You have reasonable suspicion.
	You have beyond a reasonable doubt.
	You have preponderance of evidence in many civil cases.
	This is beyond any reasonable doubt.
	If this case was in a court of law with any fair jury, Joe Biden is convicted in 10 minutes or less.
	There is, I did financial corruption.
	Now, you may say, oh, Dan Bongino, you're a conservative.
	You don't like Biden.
	Point stipulated, Your Honor.
	I don't like Biden.
	However, I'm not a moron.
	I'm telling you right now that the stuff that is out there is not just there.
	It is beyond any reasonable doubt.
	And the fact that journalists or pseudo-journalists like Chris Wallace, again, I have zero respect for, zero.
	The fact that this guy goes on TV and knows this is recorded for posterity's sake, and that generations are going to look back on this guy defending the biggest presidential scandal in American history.
	I mean it when I say this.
	I genuinely feel bad for his grandkids and his kids.
	Oh my gosh, that's harsh.
	I don't give a shit.
	I'm not trying to impress anyone in this business because I don't try to be a journalist.
	I try to be real and fact-based.
	I am dead serious.
	Everything I do, I think to myself, how would my daughter look at this?
	And you know what?
	I screw stuff up every day.
	Believe me, like I said, I'm a sinner, man.
	I ain't no one's a role model.
	And it bothers me.
	I'm like, that was dumb.
	Like my daughter wouldn't be proud of me if I did that.
	I think about it all the time.
	How the hell do you go on TV and humiliate yourself like that?
	I mean, isn't it degrading?
	I mean, listen, Megan, one last thing.
	Like I said, in case anyone's out there like, oh, you're a kiss ass.
	You do the same thing for Trump.
	Go fuck yourself.
	When Donald Trump was on my show and he told me, and he, we got into it about abortion, and Donald Trump knows I feel this way.
	I said, sir, I completely disagree on my radio.
	We have a different take on abortion and what weeks and all that other stuff.
	And you know what?
	We're still friends and I still support him because I had the balls to say something and he has the balls to say, here's why I disagree.
	I think it's bad politics.
	You're thinking of it the wrong way.
	Totally fine.
	Not these stuck-ass, kiss-ass losers in the media who look at their oatmeal god, Joe Biden, and they can't get off their knees.
	It's pathetic.
	It's disgusting.
	And you asked me in the beginning of the show, why does no one watch CNN?
	That's why.
	Because that's a totally predictable answer from a loser who couldn't hack it in the business.
	Here's what the journalists are doing on the Biden story instead of any of the things that you just mentioned, investigating any of those things.
	Here's their messaging around this whole thing.
	No evidence and this.
	Watch.
	He calls his son every day to check in.
	He calls his other family members to check in to see how they're doing.
	He loves them.
	Right now, you have the president's son, somebody he loves deeply, somebody who has very publicly struggled with drug addiction.
	My bet is right now, this is a heartbroken president in the White House who is worried about his son.
	He was in the throes of addiction.
	He was in a very bad place.
	You know what addicts do?
	They do really stupid and they lie.
	They lie.
	They lie.
	They commit crimes.
	Hunter Biden did that.
	He was one of the kids who was in the car when a sibling got Joe Biden's first wife and child.
	He was traumatized by that.
	He probably has a lot of survivor guilt and all that.
	Oh my God, Dan.
	This is all his survivor guilt.
	That's what's happening.
	I mean, listen, I'm sorry.
	I like lost into that.
	Listen, I just, I so hate that we're in this place as a country.
	I'm really, I'm sorry.
	I get passionate.
	I know the language, folks.
	I'm sorry.
	It's on me.
	It's obviously not on Megan.
	It's just, I can't, I really lose control with this.
	I'm right there because I can't take it.
	But Megan, you know someone with substance addiction.
	Okay.
	You do.
	I do.
	Everyone does.
	Someone very, very, very close, okay?
	Not my nuclear family, but like right there.
	Would you send that person over to deal with the Chinese Communist Party and the corrupt Moscow mayor's wife to run 20 different LLCs and flush $20 million through?
	You imagine the stress of doing that?
	And by the way, so you can grift off them and give half the money to pop or take half the money from your drug-addicted kid.
	There it is.
	You're telling me that's a good father?
	You are an asshole.
	You are a scumbag.
	Not only is he not a good father, he is an awful father and a genuinely terrible human being.
	Instead of getting his son treatment, he put him out at the tip of the spear of the Biden crime family grifting brigade to go get him filthy rich.
	It's disgusting.
	They are looking at this the total opposite way because they're propagandists, not even remotely interested in telling you the truth.
	It's thank you for putting such a perfect point on it.
	This has been driving me nuts all along.
	I do have people in my family, someone who is very close to me who is an addict.
	And this is the last thing that you would do with them is actually put them in any sort of position of prominence or something that would add stress to their lives.
	And never mind over there in Ukraine dealing with Burisma, who you're investigating because you're head of corruption and the Chinese and the Russians.
	My God, never.
	And it was at the time that he was very actively using and in and out of rehabs.
	It's not like it was a mystery to Joe Biden what was going on with his son.
	Like, you can make the, oh, he's totally fooled.
	He had no idea.
	No, he knew.
	He knew full well.
	He was in the throes of addiction.
	He didn't care.
	But let's make a little more news on your show because I don't think I may have talked about it, but I'm not really sure.
	But let's just say, you know, Hunter Biden had a detail because he did, a secret service detail.
	And like, let's just say maybe those guys saw a lot of stuff, right?
	As Hunter Biden was traveling overseas, you know, people coming in and out of the room.
	What do you mean?
	Like room service?
	Oh, it was service.
	Wasn't room service, but it was service.
	So people kind of saw that because, you know, that's your job.
	Like, hey, who's coming in here?
	Oh, that's, oh, okay.
	Winky, winky, nod, nod, I guess, right?
	You don't think dad knew about that?
	You don't think that was happening in China when I use that country specifically because I know specifically about that incident.
	You don't think that was happening all over the world in this loving dad, according to that tool, Joy Behar?
	You don't think the loving dad knew his son was traveling around the world in hotel rooms with service people, if you know what I mean?
	You don't think that was going down in reports back to DC?
	What did dad do?
	Bring him home, son, you need help?
	Send him out to the next country to steal some more money.
	Grift over there too.
	Tell me again how he's a loving dad.
	I mean, really, man, give me a break.
	I got people struggling with this in my family.
	And like you said, I don't, Megan, one of them in particular, I don't even give money.
	Why?
	Because I can't know.
	I could give him a lot of money because I know where it goes.
	And I refuse to do it.
	I'm not going to partake in that.
	I'm really sorry.
	Give them money?
	I don't even give them money.
	You're sending your son out to not only make millions, but to get you money too and take a cut off the grift while he's addicted to crack doing the whole like UFC fight with the girl.
	You're like, oh my gosh, is that a UFC fight?
	No, that's Hunter Biden in a room with a woman.
	That's a woman.
	You can't even see her anymore in a picture.
	You see these pictures?
	It's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen.
	The guy is a lunatic.
	That ain't a loving dad, man.
	That's a sicko.
	This is a really troubled individual who's probably a worse human being than his son, Hunter.
	He ain't no loving dad.
	That's a garbage line.
	Throw that right in the can.
	This is like the best I've heard anybody summarize what's been in my gut as I watch all of this.
	Last thing, I've got to get to this.
	I'm dying to weigh in, to get you to weigh in on this, on this event that happened with Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports.
	I don't know if you saw this online, right?
	Did you see this the other day?
	So Dave Portnoy finds out that the Washington Post is doing what appears to be a hit piece on him.
	He goes around and he tests all these people's pizza and then he gives it a rating.
	He's been doing this for years.
	And he's having something like a Pizza Fest or Pizzagate and he's going to celebrate all these pizzas.
	And he finds out that this Washington Post reporter is calling up the sponsors of the event, emailing them and so on, saying bad things about Dave Portnoy, basically trying to pressure them into withdrawing, generate a story.
	Oh, advertisers are bailing.
	Dave Portnoy is controversial.
	You know, he can't even get anybody sponsored him at the Pizzagate thing.
	Meanwhile, they are sponsoring him.
	She's the one behind the push to make it controversial.
	And somebody tells Dave Portnoy this, one of the advertisers, I presume.
	And so Dave tweeted out saying, I found out they were doing this piece.
	So I did what I do.
	I went on offense and he called the Washington Post reporter, who's like the food reporter for WAPO.
	And he tapes the whole thing and he puts it online.
	And it's fascinating.
	The whole thing is well worth the listen.
	But here's the beginning where he confronts her right off with what she's doing.
	She tries to deny it.
	And then he zings her with the proof.
	Let's listen to that.
	We have this pizza fest happening on Saturday and you're reaching out to our advertisers and you're basically sending an email that says to the effect, Dave's a miscegenic racist.
	Do you want to defend yourselves advertising at this event?
	No, I'm not, I'm not.
	I haven't said anything like that.
	I can read what you actually sent.
	I have it.
	We are planning to write about the festival and how and how some of the sponsors and participants have drawn criticism by seemingly to associate themselves with Dave Portnoy, who has a history of miscegenic comments and other problematic behavior.
	I want to make sure that Blank had a chance to respond to this since the company is the most prominent of their partners of his festival.
	Oh, that's the one I sent to, which was definitely the most pointed of them because I really did want them to respond.
	Okay, so first she denies that she's done it.
	Then he reads to her the nasty email that she has sent.
	Then she's like, oh, well, that's just the most pointed one.
	Now, stand by.
	Here's part two.
	It goes on and on, but here's part two that we cut where he rounds back to that.
	He's very unhappy that she's doing this with his advertiser.
	He keeps saying this is so wrong.
	Why didn't you ever contact me?
	Why are you doing a story about me?
	Trying to disparage me with all these people.
	He's saying miscegenic.
	He claims he does.
	He's so non-misogynistic.
	He doesn't even know how to pronounce misogyny.
	In any event, here's part two where she tries to defend what she said to that advertiser.
	Then why would you include that in the email to sponsors?
	Because I was hoping for a dialogue with them.
	You know, sometimes you have to say something like, this is like, you know, it's sort of a reporting tactic.
	When you want someone to respond, you kind of have to indicate that there might be something negative and then you get them to engage.
	That's all I was trying to do.
	I really wanted them to engage with me.
	That's amazing.
	So Emily Heil, reporter for Washington Post, covering national food news and trends.
	Let me school you on something.
	As an actual journalist, that's not what you do.
	Not at all.
	We don't run around defaming people, saying things that we don't believe are true, which is what she's implying, just to get a response.
	That could actually get you in trouble in the civil courts, madam.
	What did you make of it?
	Well, listen, there's no one better to ask than me.
	I mean, as a major equity holder in Rumble, I deal with this all the time.
	We have been under conservatives.
	And I say we, I don't mean Rumble particularly.
	But as you saw what happened with the whole thing recently with the UK attacking Rumble and everything else, it's a whole other story telling us we've got to demonetize people according to allegations now, dictating to private businesses how they should be run, which I found amazing.
	It's actually the same story here.
	You may be like, oh, those are two disparate stories.
	They're not.
	They're the same story.
Dave Portnoy Is Not Conservative 00:02:40
	Here's the thing, man.
	Dave Portnoy is not a conservative.
	Matter of fact, ironically, Dave Portnoy and I have had a spat in the past.
	Anyone can look it up on the internet about abortion, which is an issue that matters a lot to me being pro-life.
	I don't dislike Dave.
	Dave and I, we went at it a little bit.
	You know, it got kind of frosty because me and him are both frosty SOBs.
	But, you know, we're not friends.
	You know, we don't know each other.
	He was on my Fox show a couple of times.
	So, I mean, I'm the perfect guy to talk about this because nobody understands it, I think, better than me than him.
	I bring that up because Dave's not a conservative.
	So you might go, why is Dave an enemy of the liberal Washington Post then if he's not a conservative?
	He's not even like a pro-life guy.
	Like you think he has liberal positions on some stuff.
	He should be a hero to them.
	Well, the answer is it doesn't matter if you're a liberal or a conservative to the Washington Post.
	What matters is you know the hierarchy of power.
	And if you don't understand that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the liberal movement will tell you and dictate to you what to do, which Barstool does not.
	Barstool gives the double barrel middle finger to everyone, then you are, in fact, the enemy.
	Whether you're a liberal or not is irrelevant.
	These pressure campaigns have been going on for years.
	I'm going to tell everyone, you and everyone listening, that we got to run.
	If you do not fight back, you will be a victim.
	There is a woman on the internet.
	She's in my book.
	I actually write about it who thought it was cutesy time to toy with me.
	I made her life miserable for about an entire year as I found out every single thing that she did supporting child sex predators, Antifa people.
	And I tweeted to everyone she talks to, that's who this person is.
	And it's the only way or they will never, ever leave you alone.
	And Portnoy figured that out.
	And that Washington Post lady, she figured it out too.
	One might say that he gave her the gift of failure.
	He let her experience it firsthand.
	And now the follow-up, the follow-up should be the delivery of Dan Bongino's new book.
	So, so great to talk to you.
	Thank you so much for coming back, my friend.
	So much fun.
	That was great.
	I think it was even better than the first time.
	So thanks a lot.
	We talked ourselves amazingly.
	All right, all the best.
	Don't forget, gift of failure.
	It's out right now.
	And don't forget to buy Doug Brunt's book while you're on Amazon buying Dan's The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel.
	That is my husband's Doug Brunt's book.
	It's out too.
	It's also up there in the Amazon top 20.
	And would love your support on that as well.
	Listen, have a great weekend and we'll do it all over again on Monday.
	Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome Back Dan Bongino
00:01:23 Turning Failure Into A Gift
00:09:15 Asking God For Answers
00:25:50 The Kara Swisher Tease
00:31:31 Carving Out Your Place
00:40:26 Scraping What You Can Live Without
00:48:27 Navigating Political Gray Areas
01:04:00 Worrying About Trump's Return
01:09:11 Dehumanizing The Businessman
01:19:00 Hunter Biden And Security
01:34:08 Dave Portnoy Is Not Conservative