Meet Dan Bongino, podcaster turned Trump’s deputy FBI director: the right-winger was a Secret Service agent for Bush and Obama, ran 3 times for Congress and lost, and hosted …
The podcaster also claimed Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was rigged, called the FBI ‘corrupt’, and was permanently banned from YouTube for spreading misinformation during the pandemic
Popular right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino has built a career on unleashing sometimes inflammatory rants against the media, Democrats and the federal government.
Now, the 50-year-old former New York police officer and US Secret Service agent will return to the government he has so often criticised as President Donald Trump’s selection for deputy FBI director. He will soon leave his daily show to take on the new role.
Bongino, who will work under FBI Director Kash Patel, has no experience at the premier federal law-enforcement agency. Nonetheless, he has strong opinions about how it should be run.
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A sampling of Bongino’s podcast commentary from the past year reveals he’s a Patel loyalist and wants to see sweeping changes, from clearing the bureau of anyone he views as inappropriately political to redirecting investigations away from domestic extremism.
Here’s a closer look at the new FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino.
He is of Italian descent
Bongino was born and raised in Queens, New York. In a 2018 YouTube video with Premiere Collectibles, he revealed that he’s half-Italian.
He went on to tell viewers that despite his heritage he’d never visited Italy, but said he would like to.
He has an MBA
In the same YouTube video, Bongino said completing his Master of Business Administration degree at Pennsylvania State University was his greatest accomplishment outside his family.
“I did an MBA, while employed full time plus as a Secret Service agent on the president’s detail. I did an MBA at Penn State University, it is the hardest thing I ever did,” Bongino said.
He worked for the Presidential Protection Division
Bongino signed up with the New York City Police Department as an officer in 1995, leaving after four years to join the Secret Service as a special agent.
One of Bongino’s first assignments was on Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, according to the Washingtonian magazine. He was then assigned to the Presidential Protective Division in 2006, during George W. Bush’s second term.
Bongino spent 12 years with the Secret Service, which included four protecting former president Barack Obama, per the same source.
He ran for the US Senate
In 2013 autobiography Life Inside the Bubble, Republican Bongino wrote that his experience as a secret service agent and presidential protector inspired him to join politics.
He quit the Secret Service in 2011 to run for the US Senate for Maryland, but was unsuccessful. He ran for Congress twice more, in 2014 and 2016 and failed both times, per Forbes.
His podcast and other media shows
Bongino started his podcast The Renegade Republican in 2015, during his third congressional campaign. It was later renamed The Dan Bongino Show.
In 2018 he hosted We Stand, a political commentary show on the National Rifle Association’s online video channel, but the NRA later refused to renew his contract. Bongino then hosted a show on Fox News called Unfiltered With Dan Bongino, from 2021 to 2023, per Forbes. He has also guest-hosted The Sean Hannity Show and The Mark Levin Show, per The Palm Beach Post.
In 2019, Bongino launched his own far-right news aggregator website, Bongino Report. Articles from the site were soon among the most frequently shared on Facebook, Politico reported in 2020.
His controversial takes
Bongino has promoted several conspiracy theories that have been particularly controversial. After Joe Biden‘s presidential election win in 2020, Bongino was among the many republicans who insisted the vote had been rigged.
In 2022, during the Covid-19 pandemic, he was banned permanently from YouTube for claiming face masks were useless against the virus. Before that, Bongino threatened to leave Cumulus Media because of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate, according to Forbes.
Amid his many other controversial takes, Bongino has also previously insulted the FBI, calling them “irredeemably corrupt” in 2022, as was widely reported.
He is a father of two
Bongino is married to Paula Andrea, who hails from Colombia. The couple have two daughters.
In 2020 Bongino was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer and underwent an operation to remove a tumour from his neck. In an appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show last year, Bongino revealed that he was “two years clean in remission”.
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