Bulwark Takes - Bongino Melts Down on Fox. Can’t Handle Real Job?

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Former podcast host turned Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino publicly melted down on Fox, overwhelmed by the reality of investigative work. Unable to prove his MAGA conspiracy theories, he's facing backlash from supporters.

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tender, juicy, and its own sauce. Would you look at that? Well, you can't see it, but trust me, it looks delicious. New Mcrispy strips, now at McDonald's. Hey guys, Tim Miller from The Bulwark here. Deputy Dan, our Deputy FBI Director, former podcast host, was crying on Fox and Friends today because people don't appreciate how hard his job is. It's really something. And I want to talk to you about what is underlying all

this. But we should watch it together and laugh first. I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my wife is struggling and I'm not a victim. I'm not Jim Comey. It's fine. I did this and I'm proud I did it. But if you think we're there for tea and crumpets, I mean, Cash is there all day. We share it. Our offices are linked. He turns on the faucet. I hear it.

He's there at, he gets in like 6 o'clock in the morning. He doesn't leave till 7 at night. I'm in there at 7.30 in the morning. He uses the gym. I work out in my apartment. But I stare at these four walls all day in DC, you know, by myself, divorced from my wife, not divorced, but I mean, separated divorced. And it's hard. I mean, you know, we love each other and it's hard to be apart.

But you're doing some great work. You're starting out at the FBI, you're moving buildings, there's a lot of change. Okay, so there it is. It was really cute to help Brian kill me just trying to buck him up there at the end. It's okay, buddy. You're doing good. Um, look here, I mean, on the, for starters, it's just funny to point and laugh. Like Dan Pungino, you thought it was going to be hard. You thought you could leave your job as a podcast host and become the deputy director of the FBI was no relevant subject matter experience.

Well, yeah, dude, directing the FBI is a hard job. The Bureau does serious work. You know, being a conspiracy podcast host, it's not too hard to work. I should know as a podcast host, I know how much work goes into it. It's not nothing. You know, we prep, I put in time. Uh, but for me, it's important to get the facts right. So I spend a lot of time reading other people and consuming information.

That shouldn't have really been a problem for Dan, who just kind of said whatever he wanted, said whatever the craziest person on the internet said was true and just started, you know, um, smearing people and throwing allegations around and, and, and cheering on Mr. Trump, raw, raw orange man. Good. So, you know, shouldn't have been that hard for. Um, uh, and as such, it's a big upgrade to a job that has, you know, actual responsibilities, right?

I mean, when you're the deputy FBI director, you need to come up with evidence to bring to a grand jury or to us attorney, um, uh, you know, of crimes that have been committed. You know, you got to actually like have the work. You can't just pop off and be like frazzled drip. I think Hillary Clinton is potentially putting the skin of babies on her face and hiding young children in the basement of a pizza parlor. It doesn't have pizza.

Or you can't, you can't like do that sort of stuff. There's no Q drop. You can't really do that stuff when you, to bring material to other elements, other parts of the justice apparatus. Here's another thing though. Here's what's really underlying why he was crying on Fox. And it's related to the fact that not just that the job is hard, which it is, which is why Donald Trump should have picked somebody who had experience, uh, in the entire modern history of the Bureau. The deputy FBI director was somebody who had been a G man who had years on the beat, who understood the job.

So it's why he should have picked somebody like that. But the job is hard for a particular reason for Dan Bongia, as I mentioned. And that is that he has gotten rich and famous on parroting whatever his listeners wanted him to say. He would say outlandish shit and it didn't matter if it was true or not. And you are now seeing, now that he has a job with responsibility, he's disappointing these people. I see it all the time in my social media feed of maggots that I follow. Maggots complaining about cash and Dave Mangino.

Will Summer, who writes false flag newsletter for us, has seen this and has documented this, which you should sign up for at thebullock.com. the list of issues. Epstein, you know, previous, well, let's actually, let's go flashback to that clip where, uh, Patel and Mangino are talking about how the Epstein, how Epstein really did kill himself because this is an important subtext here. You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don't believe it. Well, I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion, but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one and that's what that was. He killed himself.

Again, you want me to... I've seen the whole file. He killed himself. So you see there in that clip and in a different clip where on the same show with Mary Bartiromo where they talked about how there was no real conspiracy behind the Trump assassination attempt. A lot of people, a lot of mega folks online wanted to believe that was the deep state, it was an op.

And so you have these series of issues, the Biden crime family, so-called, not getting arrested because they didn't actually do crimes, Epstein, the Trump assassination attempt, QAnon, the supposed pedophile ring of Democrats, leading Democrats that are all pedophiles. All this stuff for years and years, people on the right, content creators, which is what they were, like Cash and Bongino, had been riling people up about all this deep nefarious stuff that's happening behind the scenes. And now they're in a position of authority and they can't follow through on any of those things because when you go to a grand jury, you need more info than just your farts.

When you go to the grand jury and say, hey, arrest this person, they're a pedophile, you need more info than just your farts. When you go to the grand jury and say, hey, arrest this person, they're a pedophile, you got to actually show them evidence that they're a pedophile. If the supposed pedophile ring was being maintained in the basement of a pizza parlor, if you're going to arrest the people running that ring, you need to first prove that the pizza parlor had a fucking basement, which it didn't. And so that makes the FBI director and deputy director job particularly hard for Cash and Bongino because two amateurs getting in there, it would have been a tough job anyway. But if they, you know, if they're just using the expertise they had within the bureau and trying to do their job, you know,

it would have been a learning curve, but you figure it out. But in their case, not only do they have this massive learning curve, but they're trying to prove things that aren't true to keep their base happy, to keep the people happy. They need to provide some sort of evidence that all the things that they've been talking about all these years were actually real. And rather than MAGA voters accepting the reality, which is that they weren't real, they'd been lied to, they're mad at Cash and Mangino. Like, you guys are lazy, you guys are doing photo ops, you guys are now the Fed boys. You've gone native with the deep state.

And this is making Dan Mangino unhappy. And I enjoy when Dan Mangino's unhappy. So sorry, Deputy Dan. That's the latest tough break that you gotta work for a living. Now that you took this job and good luck finding some real bad guys instead of the ones that you pretended were bad when you were a podcast host. And my guess is I'll probably be seeing you back here as a competitor on the YouTube podcast charts sooner rather than later.

So I look forward to that very much. Everybody else, subscribe to this feed, help us get up the charts, tell your friends. We'll be seeing you soon. Peace. trusted professionals, doing everything from deal advisory to litigation support to succession planning. CBVs are a preferred hire in investment banking, private equity, consulting, and many other areas with the potential to earn seven figures at the pinnacle of their careers. If you're starting your career in finance, check out cbvinstitute.com slash become a CBV. Your future self will thank you for it.