Newly installed FBI Director Kash Patel made a surprising choice for his No. 2 Sunday night: Dan Bongino, a MAGA podcaster and former Secret Service agent with no experience in the bureau.
President Donald Trump made the announcement Sunday night in a Truth Social post hailing Bongino as “a man of incredible love and passion for our country.”
“Working with our great new United States Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and Director Patel, Fairness, Justice, Law and Order will be brought back to America, and quickly,” the president wrote.
With Patel and Bongino at the helm, the FBI is now led by Trump loyalists who have no experience working in the bureau and no track record of running massive federal agencies. Both have spoken about targeting the president’s adversaries—although Patel sought to walk that back during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Bongino, 50, does have a background in law enforcement, including stints with the Secret Service and the New York Police Department. Trump also noted that he has a master’s degree in psychology from the City University of New York and an MBA from Pennsylvania State University.
But Bongino is perhaps best known for his hugely popular podcast, The Dan Bongino Show, which consistently ranks highly on the charts alongside other right-leaning shows that have been credited with boosting Trump’s popularity among young men.
In October, Trump sat down with Bongino for a 43-minute-long episode that covered everything from his opponent Kamala Harris to how he survived his first assassination attempt, which took place over the summer in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In his Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump said Bongino “is now one of the most successful Podcasters in the Country, something he is willing and prepared to give up in order to serve.”
The Friday episode of Bongino’s show covered Patel’s confirmation as FBI director. “We got Kash through, so now you are going to see what real change is like,” he said.
Before he became a prominent conservative pundit, Bongino failed three separate times to win Senate and Congressional seats in Maryland and Florida between 2012 and 2016.
Bongino sued the Daily Beast in 2019 for defamation over an article about the end of his show on NRATV—the online channel of the National Rifle Association of America.
The case was later dismissed “without merit” and a federal judge in Florida ordered Bongino in 2021 to pay the Beast over $30,000 in attorney’s fees.
After the article was published, both Bongino and NRATV released public statements saying that the decision not to renew the show was Bongino’s, not the network’s.
In 2021, Fox News announced that Bongino, then a regular contributor, would headline a primetime show on Saturday evenings. He left the network two years later over a contract disagreement.
On both Fox and The Dan Bongino Show, the FBI has been a common target for the right-wing firebrand’s ire.
Bongino flamed the bureau in 2022 after the agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a Justice Department probe into the then-former president’s handling of White House records.
“This is some Third World bulls---t right here,” he said on Fox News. “Let me say it again: Third World bulls---t. I mean every word of that. I don’t care that it’s cable news… Nobody will take them [the FBI] seriously from this point on. It is over.”
In a separate meltdown over the FBI raids, Bongino called then-Attorney General Merrick Garland “a real loser. A genuine loser. An actual loser.”
Bongino was banned from posting on YouTube in 2022 for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, including comments that masks were “useless” in preventing the spread of the respiratory disease. YouTube barred Bongino permanently after he created a new account to circumvent an initial weeklong ban.
“After your ‘suspension,’ I will immediately post content questioning why masks have been totally ineffective in stopping this pandemic,” he told YouTube at the time. “I dare you to do something about it.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth congratulated Bongino on his new job in a post on X: “No better patriot or professional. Patel-Bongino atop the FBI is pure 🔥”
Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser, also lauded Bongino as “the warrior America needs in this vital role.”
