Bulwark Takes - MAGA Is Getting Suspicious of Trump’s FBI Leadership

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Will Sommer joins Sam Stein to discuss his latest newsletter, False Flag, which talks about why right-wingers are growing impatient with the FBI's new leadership and the backlash facing Kristi Noem and “Libs of TikTok” for cosplaying as ICE agents.

Hey guys, me Sam Stein here with Will Sommer, author of False Flag, and we're about to get ourselves arrested by the FBI. We are. Open up. I just think we should be honest about what's about to happen. We're going to be talking about Will's piece on Dan Bongino, deputy FBI director. And by the end of this, if someone breaks down our doors, this is, you know, why, um, before we get into it, subscribe to the feed as always. Um, all right. Well, the piece is called Dan Bongino wants you to know he's working really hard. Seriously.

He is, um, exceptional headline. I don't know how that got put in there. I think I might've been a Sam Stein joint. Yes. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know. Um, this is something that's been on my radar for a little bit cause I'm on Twitter way That might have been a Sam Stein joint, yes. I wouldn't know. This is something that's been on my radar for a little bit because I'm on Twitter way too much. But Tim Pongino keeps tweeting the same basic thing, which is, just because you don't see the actions of the FBI doesn't mean they're not happening. And I've been wondering, as he keeps issuing a variation of that tweet, how many times seven times i i think our last count

as of wednesday was eight okay so so what the hell is the point what is he getting at what is he alluding to why why is it so mysterious so i got interested in this as you said because he kept sending these tweets and they weren't really directed at anyone but just kind of like in so many words like to my doubters i'm working really hard yeah yes and and you know he said at one point you know if you think i came to dc for like an all expense paid vacation you know you don't know me you know i'm hard at work and i thought this is so strange and so it you know that is the way just to stop there then one of them was like i didn't give up this sweet life that I built to not do.

It's like, go do your life if it was so sweet. No one asked you to do this. This is an honor. I mean, he seems really stressed, I guess, is how I would put it. And so overall, so then I started looking into what are people so mad about? And then at the same time, other of his friends were tweeting like, I, for one, think Dan Bongino is doing a great job, you know, which is always a great sign. Michael Flynn Jr. said it, I think. Some others, yeah.

Yeah. So basically, there's a couple things. I think one of them is kind of the idea that the right-wing media audience, including Bongino's old audience, has been told that, you know, Democrats had a criminal cabal running the country. Right. And yet now that Dan Bongino is in charge, Hillary hasn't been arrested. Oprah hasn't been arrested. No one's been arrested. Well, he's hard at work.

We'll just give it a little time. But there were some other things, though, that you wrote about that seemed to be bothering people. It's not just the absence of arrests. It's personnel decisions. Yeah. So last week, the New York Times reported that Kash Patel, who's Bongino's boss running the FBI, had appointed this FBI agent named Steve Jensen to run the Washington field office, which is very prestigious appointment. But Steve Jensen is kind of like the arch enemy of January 6th people.

And also like, well, so he ran a lot of the response to january 6th from the fbi um he he handled uh you know sort of relatedly the you may remember like a few years ago conservative parents getting really rowdy at school board meetings and so he did the fbi response to like if any crimes happened there um and then there was this fbi quote conservatives hated that they thought it was big government trying to suppress speech and and all that stuff exactly and so the idea that the fbi was looking into that they hated that and then this idea that um the you know he was supposedly he was described on a conference call like two days or one day after january 6th saying like let's get these people and and one fbi agent was like what if they're innocent he said i said, I don't care. Well, not that I don't care,

but basically like these people clearly did something bad. And so I want to pursue them. And, you know, this is treated on the right as like, you know, this guy's in the Gestapo or something. And so the idea that now Cash and Dan Bongino by extension are giving him a promotion has just infuriated people. And it's funny because like, well, there's two things I want to unpack.

The first is there's two things I want to unpack. The first is there's precedent for these people getting mad and then going after them and then Trump retrenching and firing those people. I mean, Laura Loomer just did it with the National Security Council. So it's not like this is just a sideshow. This is actual. There could be real consequences to the frustration over the hiring of these people. But the bigger question is like, and you've been following this way more than I have. At some point, do the people who believe all the conspiracies, like that there's a cabal and that the Jeffrey Epstein client list is

going to be turned over at any minute and that QAnon has exposed it, when it continuously doesn't happen, obviously they just spin a new tale. But is there any point at which you've witnessed where people are like, you know what, maybe I've been led astray or maybe all my prior held beliefs weren't grounded necessarily in reality? Because if Dan Bongino can't uncover this stuff, then who knows? No, I don't think that'll happen. I think what's going to happen more likely is that Dan Bongino is going to be scapegoated here, as we're already seeing, because they're saying, you know, come on, Dan, you got to find the big secrets. And when he is unable to do that, they're going to say. Who else could they turn to? Well, they'll put Laura Loomer in or something. I mean, you know, there's a long list of Republican republican kind of maga person podcast personalities that they could uh have run the fbi is there i mean i guess this

the truth is bangino wasn't in a confirmed he wasn't in a senate confirmed position so it was like you know they could find someone else i suppose um but boy it's like hard to find a character more suited to satisfy the conspiratorial mind than Bongino. And if he can't do it, any sense of like, whether he really is sweating it? I mean, all we're going on are these tweets, I guess. Yeah, I would say the tweets are a pretty good sign. I mean, I really recommend people like read the newsletter, you know, if you're like a team, we have all his tweets listed out there. I mean, he like, I'll pull them up. There's one, there was one that was really good, but go ahead. on them well i was just gonna say i mean since i was writing this

and then i was just like all right let's check old dan's twitter before i send this in and then he had sent a new one that was you know no is that nine or no that was eight well this was this was yesterday yeah i mean let me let me read from one just to give people sense as i dive back into work i want to reassure you that nothing that is happening here is happening by accident. Now, keep in mind, he's already said, just because you don't see things happening doesn't mean they're not. So I don't know, you either see it or you don't. Because of the sensitivity of what the FBI deals with, both the director and I have to be circumspect about in what we can make public. Bad guys read this stuff too. Neither one of us came here to play games. Measure by results,

you will see them. But just because you don't see something happening right this second doesn't mean it isn't happening. I'll conclude by stating that not every result is going to please everyone. That's just pandering. It's not leadership. Complex problems require diligence and a reform-oriented process to create lasting changes, blah, blah, blah. I can't imagine writing a tweet like this and putting it up. I really just can't. I mean, this is,

this is like one of the most powerful law enforcement officials. I know. I know. That's the thing. On Wednesday, he sent one that was just like, time stretches out before us. Like who is to say,

who is to say like, you know, I mean, yeah, it was, it was like it was very like kind of time as a flat circle type situation again though this is the second most powerful person at the fbi i defy i i challenge someone to name any other prior deputy director by name let alone anyone who ever tweeted anything it's unbelievable these people normally

operate completely in the dark. I guess I should applaud the transparency. And Dan, if you're watching this, look, I have the utmost respect for you. Please, I want you to recognize that. Well, Dan, if Sam at this place, he'll never catch up to you. It'll be

2030. Yeah, exactly. All right. Let's talk about the other element in your newsletter, which I also find fascinating, which is Libs of TikTok got a ride along Kristi Noem. People are not happy about that. Again, I guess it's of the same genre, which is like they expect results and not pandering. Bongino's like, I'm not pandering. I'm just going to be straight with you. But in this case, they're like, why did Kristi Noem put Libs of TikTok on an ice raid? Can she just go and deport people? And will note this was in your newsletter but it happened last night maybe we could find the clip um megan kelly uh while complimenting uh christy numb for the work she's

done was like stop coast playing like just stop like brandishing guns and um pretending you're a member of ice you're not stop trying to glamorize the mission and put yourself in the middle of it as you cosplay ICE agent, which you're not. I can't stand these photo ops, you guys. I think they diminish ICE. They diminished DHS, um, CPB. She's not an agent. She is an administrative policy person appointed by Trump because she was very loyal to him. Fine. But stop with the glam. I mean, she looks like I look right now, but she's out in the field with her gun being like, we're going to go kick some.**. No one wants you there. So it does seem like there's a little bit of frustration

on that front too. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of the MAGA frustration newsletter. I mean, in this case, I was interested because Libs of TikTok, you know, you would think they would like her being long. But I think there's this frustration that, I mean, they were expecting like enormous levels of deportation.

Like it was supposed to have this like huge ripple effect on the economy. Everyone, every citizen was going to be mega wealthy after all the deportations. And instead, you know, in February, there were fewer deportations than there were under Biden. I just find it shocking to me that people are unsatisfied with the level of cruelty on the deportation and migration. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what's so crazy about it. I mean, that ultimately they're saying, you know, we want more people in the Salvadoran prison. And so this idea that, you know, this kind of dovetails with the Epstein binder debacle where they, Pam Bondi, handed out these Epstein files that turned out to not be new.

And so one of the people who received that was lives of tiktok who is also now on this and so i think i guess overall the mag audience is getting kind of fed up with like the specter probably like oh you're using her just to brandish your credentials and seem and keep a good standing in our community but we want results yeah basically we want more cruelty we want more terror you're not cruel enough and And same with Bongino. Like, where are, like, why is Oprah still walking about in a free society? Like, come on, Dan. We hired you for a reason. All right. Well, I need a drink.

Again, I just want to stress, to Dan Bongino, like, I totally respect what you're doing. And I just want you to. We got all the time in the world, Dan. No rush. Yeah, no rush. And I'm happy for the transparency. And I'm grateful for it, in got all the time in the world, Dan, no rush, no rush. And I'm happy for the transparency and I'm, I'm grateful for it. In fact.

So thank you. Okay. Well, summer check out his newsletter, false flag. Also subscribe to this feed where we talk about stuff like this. It's well worth it. Thanks buddy.

Appreciate it.