Dan Bongino, the hugely-popular political commentator and host of The Dan Bongino Show on Fox Nation, appeared at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2021 Restoration Weekend on Nov. 11th-14th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. His wide-ranging talk addresses leftist “corrupto-crats,” our “destructive media ecosystem,” and the biggest problem in America right now.
Don’t miss his entertaining, inspiring talk in the video below. A transcript follows.
Transcript:
Dan Bongino: Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful day, right? That’s Florida for you. That’s what I love about Florida. In New York, it’s like 40 right now; Florida is 75 and kids are swimming in their pools. My wife and I are taking a vacation in a couple of weeks to Utah. So she’s like “Do you have any clothes? It’s kind of cold in Utah.” I’m like, “No, I don’t.” As a matter of — we had nothing, we had to go out and buy everything, jackets, like new pants. If you live in Florida where you live, we walk around in flip-flops and shorts.
I had nothing. I had to go to like, what, Helly Hansen or whatever at North Face, and then I had to figure out what company wasn’t like a liberal crazy company. Remember, right, Paul, it was like “Oh, let’s try Patagonia.” I’m like “No, no, we’re not buying Patagonia. They’re a bunch of liberal nuts, like we’re not doing that.”
But before I get started, listen, how about what happened last week, spanking the libs in that election. Wasn’t that awesome, how great? Did we need that or what? Listen, it’s been a rough year and a half and to watch them just sit there in their misery going “I don’t — what happened?” Gee, I don’t know what happened. You’re teaching a bunch of kids to be racist, you want taxes through the roof. People are eating cat food for dinner because inflation’s through — like I don’t know what possibly could have happened.
We got an open border, 200,000 people entering the country a month and they’re shocked. They’re like, how the hell did we lose? Gee, I don’t know, guys, you were on such a roll. How did you — things were going so swimmingly well. You wonder like what planet do these people live on, right, that they were stunned. They lost everywhere, they got crushed. And it goes to show you that when all the chips are down, right, and you think, oh, my gosh, the country’s finished, [math], it’s never finished, we’ll always come back, we will. We will always come back every time. It’s just — it’s in our DNA.
Even the immigrants who come here, come here because they’re escaping someplace worse off with some — well, they’re escaping socialism and tyranny. There’s something in their DNA too that just yearns for freedom and they come here. They’re not going to accept that crap here, they’re just not. That’s not going to happen in the United States.
It reminded me, we were talking about David’s book, to just — listen, I got ADHD, so where the speech is going to go, I have no idea. Let me just tell you right now. He asked me what I was going to speak about, I’m like “I don’t like to media, so we’ll talk about the media today.” But that book Unholy Alliance really kind of woke me up to a lot of things, and this kind of segues nicely into why I want to talk about the media today and the pernicious force it’s become in this country.
David woke me up early to this. We ask all the time like with these leftists, right, why, why do they do this, why do they do that? And we try to — because we’re all sane, unlike these nuts — we try to explain it away. Like how could they be in cahoots with Iran? They say they’re in for the LGBTQ lobby. In Iran, they throw gays off buildings. Like, how is that and — right? Well, but you’re all — yes, that doesn’t make sense.
But when you understand David’s writing, believe me, it makes perfect sense. He has this theory of the anti-anti-communist. You know what I’m talking about? We’re the anti-communists, all of us, we’re freedom fighters. We believe in liberty and freedom for everyone. We don’t care about your skin color, religion, whatever, we don’t care. You are touched by God with the gift of liberty and freedom and that is what we in this room will fight for. Even if we don’t agree with you, we’re in it for you. They’re not in it for us, but we’re in it for them. We therefore are the anti-communists. That’s what we do because communism is the opposite of that.
David used to write that the left, they’re the anti-anti-communists, they just hate us. So whosever on the side of people who hate us. They’re on the side of. They don’t care who it is, throw gay people off buildings. “Do you like conservatives?” “No.” There you go, that’s my guy. They don’t care and when you don’t have principles — I’m not stigmatizing all Democrats, but the left, the far-left, when you have no guiding principles and your only principle is I hate the other guy so much, I’ll align with anyone, the whole world makes sense to you.
And I’ll tell you, I never forgot that. That’s the whole premise of Unholy Alliance, how all these different various factions get together. And their one guiding principle is we just don’t like you guys, that’s it. But we don’t do that. Conservatism and libertarianism and good Republicans understand. The Golden Rule is we fight on the battlefield of ideas and the bedrock of ideas is having principles behind them, right? That’s what we do, but the left, you have to understand, doesn’t see you the same way.
So I joke on my radio show all the time about one of my golden rules is that we think the left are people with bad ideas, but they think we’re bad people with ideas. I’m telling you when you understand that one simple premise, this whole fight makes sense and until you get it, you’re in the wrong fight. You’re debating over tax rates as if they care. You think the left gives a damn about tax rates?
They just reinserted in Biden’s Build Back worst bill, they just reinserted the SALT tax for rich people to get a tax cut, which is great, I’m all for tax cuts. That’s their thing because their thing is tax the rich, just not the ones that vote for us because they’re full of crap. They don’t actually — you understand, they don’t mean any of this, they just don’t like you. And that’s why when we argue with them on ideas, it’s a good thing to do because there’s a third party listening, right, and we can convince the third party. But make no mistake, if you think you’re convincing the leftists of your position, you are dead wrong.
And when you understand that in the fight we’re in, this whole thing, now you see why the — gosh, why is Dan angry all the time on TV? That’s why, because I can’t stand that we’re always on the right side of these issues, and these leftists aren’t even willing to debate them because they just hate you. It really is disturbing, which brings me to something I wanted to talk about today. I was thinking about it on the way down here.
I was on Fox and Friends this morning. I don’t know if you caught it or not, but they send you what they want to talk about before. And like yes, let’s talk about Rittenhouse. And I just kind of like hijacked the interview and I want to talk about something different. And I brought up this Rittenhouse thing in context of a larger argument. This Rittenhouse case right now is such a big deal because it speaks to so many different angles and narratives and problems in this country today and I would make the case to you today strongly.
The biggest problem in America right now is not liberals. It’s not. Man, what are you crazy? You just said they don’t like us. They don’t like us for a reason and the reason they don’t like us is the biggest problem is the media. No one would be a liberal if it wasn’t for the corrupt media ecosystem we live in now, no one. And I’m telling you, it’s true. This Rittenhouse case and a couple more examples I’ll give you that just broke this week is an example of why this country will have a very difficult time repairing itself until we can do something about this corrupt grotesque media ecosystem we live in.
These people are really a pernicious force. Now, again, I’m a champion of the First Amendment. I’d never attack media freedoms and I never will. The media is free to be stupid and unfortunately, they take us up on the invitation every single time. They never turn that stupid invitation down, but there can’t be restrictions outside of law breaking, there can’t. So remember, we’re dealing with almost like a Hobson’s choice, right? It’s this horse or no horse at all. We’re kind of screwed either way, but we can try to clean it up by pointing out the hypocrisy.
And think about the things that just happened this week, Rittenhouse, number one, this trial. You watching any of this?
Audience: Yes.
Dan Bongino: If you are not in this room — most of the people in this room, I guarantee you, had a pretty good grasp of the contours of what happened in this shooting incident, right? I can guarantee you, as my name’s Dan Bongino, that liberals had absolutely no idea that this guy acted in self-defense, that the guy’s — the kid’s father lived in Kenosha, and that one of the guys he shot stuck a gun in his face right before that. I guarantee you knew that because you all are smart people who do your homework before you draw a conclusion.
Remember my golden rule though, the left isn’t interested in ideas; you’re bad people with ideas. They don’t care about your ideas. You’re a bad person who has to be stopped. Rittenhouse was that same thing, it was the same thing. They were blinded to any of the facts of the case because they’d been drawn a conclusion by the left that this kid was the evil face of domestic terror and white supremacy. Was there any evidence to back that up? Not a shred, it was totally made up.
But you see why the liberal is not the issue. It’s the media feeding him the garbage every day, and her. They’re the issue. If the media would have come out early in this case and just stated the obvious, that there’s no evidence whatsoever of a racial bias — the victims were white, they were white. The people who he engaged with his firearm, but they were all white. Secondly, there’s no history we know of this kid being some white supremacist, there’s no picture out there of him in like a Ku Klux Klan hood at a rally or something, no, they made it up. Calling him a domestic terrorist, what evidence did you have of that? The kid said he was going there to defend property and the media jumped to this conclusion.
Here’s where it gets really weird. It seems the prosecutor in the case had watched the liberal media too. I made a joke this morning, right, on Fox and Friends. You see the cut in the case, the prosecutor is like talking to Rittenhouse and he’s like “So you’re from Antioch, you’re not from Kenosha, Wisconsin, right?” And the kid’s like “No, no, my dad lives here.” And the prosecutor is like “Wha, wha?” It’s like it’s the first time he’s heard this.
And I made this joke. Remember the movie, The Usual Suspects when they arrest Kevin Pollack for the heist with Keyser Soze. And the cops look at them and they go “We can put you in Queens at the night of the robbery.” And he looks up and he goes, “I live in Queens. Did you figure that out yourself, or you got a team of monkeys working around the clock?”
But that’s what happened in the trial. The kid’s dad is in Kenosha. The prosecutor had no idea. “Huh, you live in” — because the left wing media told people, this white supremacist, this crazy domestic terrorist, took his AR15 across state lines to kill someone. All this crap was made up, it was totally made up, it was a fabrication. It was an Aesop’s fable, a Teddy Ruxpin fairytale, they just made it up. And these suckers on the left continue to buy it.
Thank the Lord every day — I don’t know what your religion is, I happen to be Christian. I love Jesus Christ, but I thank him every day. I say “Jesus, thank you for not making me a liberal idiot.” These people, they live — it’s true, you’re right, it’s true. Would you want to be one of these people? They don’t know anything, they don’t know anything. They (indiscernible) they know nothing (indiscernible) my conscience. His dad lived in Kenosha, huh? Like this was shocking to them. If you would have read Conservative Review, Breitbart, right, you would have already known all this.
That’s not the only story that’s a reflection of this destructive media ecosystem that’s really eating this country alive, like a cancer. Think about story number two. Just this week, which is ironic because I spoke here before about Spy Game; when the book came — that speech went viral. If you were here for that, that thing got like 10 million views. I sold a lot of books off that. That book had been out like 2 years.
Burgess, so look at this guy, there’s a hero right there, my man. Sorry, didn’t mean to embarrass you. I love this. I was a fan of his when he played for the Raiders; I’m like totally a fan, boy. Whenever I see Burgess now, I still ask him for his autograph and selfies and sell them. I didn’t tell them I’m selling them on eBay for money, but I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But there’s a warrior right there, man, he don’t take any crap.
But I spoke here a few years ago about the Spy Game thing. You can see, I’m telling you, it’s still out there on Rumble and YouTube and everything. And everything I told you in that speech 3, 4 years ago, the media is just finding out this week. They’re like, oh, my gosh, you mean Trump doesn’t have a pee-pee tape and didn’t collude with the Russians? I’m like “You dunces didn’t know that? Like it took you 4 years to figure that out?” Everybody and their grandmother whose a conservative knew this 4 1/2 years ago. Yet had 4 1/2 years later —
I don’t know if you saw the news this week, the Washington Post has now had to amend all their Russian collusion things to acknowledge that the whole story’s crap, that they made the whole thing up. Think — imagine being one of these idiots. Guys, ladies, their one job is to give you the facts, that’s their only job. Burgess was a football player, his job was to play football; his job wasn’t to sell ice cream. It was to play football.
These media people, their only job is to get the facts right. These idiots can’t even do that. They’re like, “No, no, there’s definitely a pee-pee tape.” “Do you have any evidence of that?” “No, none at all.” “Well, why is it in your paper?” “Because some other liberal idiot told me to put it in there.” “Okay.” And they all buy it like thirsty dogs, licking the bowl. “Oh, yes, there’s a pee-pee tape.”
Keep in mind, everything Donald Trump did, leaked to the media. I’m not kidding when I say this. What he eats for breakfast, watching Fox and Friends, that he sits in his robe, that he gets 2 scoops of ice cream, I’m not joking, put it in your search engine. All of these, everything leaked about Donald Trump’s entire life, everything. So you’re telling me there’s a pee-pee tape out there and nobody’s leaked it yet? It’s amazing. This guy’s got a $20 billion tape and no one’s seen it. And these morons in the media printed this for 4 1/2 years.
I got to thank them. I made a fortune on books on these idiots because really, it would be — it was such a non-story that I used to laugh writing the books because the evidence that this thing was fake was right in front of their faces. And yet magically, they just figured it out this week. What does this tell you? I’m serious, man, you should thank the lord, whatever God you pray to, every morning, you are not one of these idiots. I’m serious, I would rather die and never win an election than win and be on the wrong side of the arc of truth every single day of my life. I wouldn’t do it, that is not a trade I would ever — that’s a Judas trade right there.
Thank you, Linda. Linda’s like the greatest activist in the history of humankind. So Linda knew that the Trump collusion thing was nonsense the day it came out because we know Trump. The guy’s a germaphobe. Trust me, there’s no pee-pee tape. If you know the guy, the man goes through more hand sanitizer than Johnson & Johnson. Seriously, when we heard that story, we were like “Gosh, what a bunch of idiots, they fell for this?” It’s like the kind of thing your 12 year old would say. “Oh, yeah, media guys, the Washington Post, like “Sounds good to us. Print it, democracy dies in the darkness.” That’s their motto. You believe that, is that a joke? They are the darkness, democracy dies. That’s their thing on their masthead, The Washington Post, democracy dies in the darkness. Every time I see that, I chuckle.
But the reason these people on the left believe that is again because of these liberal media buffoons. Listen, a lot of these people aren’t stupid, they’re not. I’m not going to sit up here and go, “All liberals are dumb.” No, listen, I’m a guy of average intelligence, I’m not Stephen Hawking. I didn’t develop a Theory of Relativity like Einstein. I read a lot, I study, I’m interested. I love economics, I just love stuff, I love to read about stuff. My mom bought me those Charlie Brown encyclopedias when I was a kid. Then when I was a kid, I couldn’t put them down.
But what bothers me about it is they’re not dumb people. The information is out there that could open their eyes to a whole new world, no matter how they vote, they can clean up their own party in the process and they choose not to. Personally, I’d rather see a world where we were battling against Truman-type Democrats every day. We need — there’s always going to be a two-party system, we’re never going to get rid of that.
And candidly, sometimes the two-party system has its benefits. There were areas of Maryland that I ran in where Republicans ran everything all the time. And listen, I’d never vote them; I’m not suggesting you ever vote for a Democrat. But not having at least the counterparty libertarians or even some other kind of Republicans like conservatives, we have different wings of our party, the national security wing and whatever. Some of those areas, those counties had some issues because people had been voted in so often, power corrupts. Like Lord Acton said, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” it doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat.
But I would much rather fight against a Truman Democrat, candidly, a Bill Clinton Democrat. He gave the speech, the era of big government’s over; that wasn’t my speech, that was his. I’d rather be fighting against them. That way when we lose, we know the country’s not going to collapse tomorrow. But when we lose to these idiots now, like this decrepit, rotting bag of oatmeal in the White House — listen, I’m sorry, he is. By the way, I have a footnote, that’s Matt Walsh specifically.
But who puts a guy like this up for office? The man is the President of the United States; the guy is wearing Depends. What the hell is going on here? This guy has the nuclear codes. Whose family puts him up? Did I not say to you, Paula, on the way over — I said “Listen, if I’m ever in that condition and you let me run for office, divorce me immediately, or I’ll divorce you too.” You can’t do that.
You put this guy up to run for office, this guy, his son with the blow-hole paintings for like — the guy paints out of like a blow-hole. This is the guy son selling out his access to his dad for 10% because he’s the big guy, to a nuclear-powered enemy of the United States. Does the left know any of that? No, nothing; they don’t care, they don’t care. They don’t care about any of it.
They voted in a guy who was a known corrupt-a-crat, who is in hock to China, whose son has the character of a jellyfish who does blow-hole paintings for money, who’s on sex tapes. They voted this guy into office. Why? Because of David’s anti-anti-communist theory, because they just hate you. You think they like this guy? They don’t. They know this guy’s a clown. Get your liberal friend, give him a shot of Jose Cuervo. They’ll tell you in a minute after a few drinks, “This guy’s a moron.”
You think anybody thinks this guy is for real? The guy’s a mess, he’s a mess and it’s our job to call it out. What’s amazing is his Vice President has an even lower approval rating; is that even possible, right? Like he’s at 38%. They’re like “Everybody thinks he’s lower than Dick Cheney.” Well, listen, Kamala is lower than him, so what does that say about her with the fake French accent? She’s like “De plane, de plane.” What was she doing, Tattoo from Fantasy Island? What the hell was she doing? Did you see the thing? I’m not kidding. I know it’s — she’s like — and (indiscernible) “De plane.” And I’m like — I did a segment on my podcast. I’m like “Was she doing Pepe LePew or Tattoo from Fantasy Island?” She’s in front of a foreign country faking a French accent.
And then we get Biden yesterday. Was it — yes, yesterday. He’s giving a speech. I’m listening to this live and he’s talking about Satchel Paige and I’m listening, and he’s talking about Satchel Paige, the pitcher. I love Satchel Paige; Satchel Paige had that old expression, “Ages is mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” He pitched into his 50s, a hero of mine.
Satchel Paige happens to be Black, which again, doesn’t matter to conservatives, but liberals, that’s all they care about. So he’s talking and I’m listening and I’m like ready to go live. And he says — and Joe Biden was — “And I’d like to celebrate the great Negro” — and I’m like “Wait, what?” On my life, I tell my producer, “Wait, I’m not a lefty. I want to make sure he just said that.” I’m like “Rewind the tape.” He plays it like 10 times, slow-mo, fast-forward, extra, “The great” — and I’m like, pardon my language, “Holy shit, did he just say that?”
Now, listen, if he — because again, I’m not a leftist nut journalist. He probably meant to say “The great Negro Leagues pitcher, Satchel Paige.” Really, I’m not going to do what the left us to us. Fair enough, I don’t think he meant it as some kind of slur. But I thought to myself, you know what’s weird about that? The media, you never heard that story anywhere. Can you imagine if Donald Trump had said that? Oh, he’d be in handcuffs right now hanging from his toenails in a Turkish prison overseas. They’d ship them out on a C-130 gunship with a fighter escort to Siberia, he’d be working in the gulags.
But Joe Biden says it and it’s automatically assumed that it wasn’t racial. And just to be clear, I don’t think it was, I don’t, because I’m not — again, I’m not a liar and I’m never going to lie to divide the country. I don’t think he meant to say that in some kind of like slur kind of way. But I said on Fox and Friends this morning “Don’t you find it odd that Joe Biden, I’m telling you, actually said that.” You can watch it, 100% said it.
The media spent the whole day fact-checking people who said he said it, even though it’s literally on tape, not figuratively — fact-checking it, saying “This is what he meant to say,” as if they’re Carnac from the Johnny Carson Show and they can read his mind. Like “He meant to say” — they have no idea what he meant to say.
Here’s the weird thing. When Donald Trump, again, not figuratively, but literally says during that speech he gave after Charlottesville, that talking about white supremacists, he says “It’s in the transcript, by the way, I completely condemn them.” Put it in any search engine, even the hapless buffoons at Google, put in, “I completely condemn them. You could see the transcript.” 5 years later, we still hear about how Donald Trump magically celebrated white supremacists after Charlottesville, the same fact checkers.
So Joe Biden can call a guy a great Negro literally. If that makes you cringe, it should. That’s Joe Biden. Yet Donald Trump can quote “completely condemn” white supremacists and who’s the bad guy here? Now you see why we live in the world we live in. Now you see why they want to teach our kids to hate one another. You see why — you mark my words in this room. You give it 5, 10 years, Martin Luther King will be canceled next, you watch. The content of your character, not the color of your skin, that’ll be considered racist, if it’s not already, by the left. I’m telling you, things we thought were crazy 10 years ago, are standard talking points on the left now.
The one thing I’ve always loved about being a conservative, the one thing that’s mattered to me more than anything, listen, I love that — I love economics, okay? I love talking about taxes and school choice, patient-controlled healthcare, deregulation. I love it, I could talk about it all day, but candidly folks, it’s boring. It’s wonky stuff, it’s white paper stuff. We’ve got to fight in that in D.C. What I’ve always loved about this movement, if you’re a real conservative, a real conservative, as I know you are in this room, none of that crap means anything, skin color, people’s religion. I don’t know your religion; I couldn’t give a damn.
I know one thing though. I’m a Christian and some of you may be Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, I have no idea. But I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t take you to tell me what your religion is before I’m willing to fight for your freedom to practice it, and your freedom to go out and speak about it every day. And I damn well don’t care about your skin color either, that doesn’t mean a damn thing to me and it doesn’t mean anything to the people, nothing, it means nothing. It is a pigment in your skin, it is meaningless. And the only reason we give it meaning is because of people on the left who continue to give it meaning. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s not connected to your brain. It doesn’t determine anything, nothing.
And we are the warriors for freedom who want that to disappear and get to a more just, prosperous society where someone can walk in the room and not feel out of a place for all these superficial characteristics. They feel that way because of the left and the media, not because of us. That is our movement; we are the ones fighting for these kids, that school choice issue where millions —
You know what our greatest untapped resource in this country is right now? Our greatest untapped resource are urban youth, largely minority, not all, but largely minority, being left behind because their schools are crap, they’re garbage. If that was your kids’ schools, you’d be burning the State House down, and you would and you know it. But because it’s lefty parents’ schools, and because of the anti-anti-communist theory, where they hate you so much, you’re for school choice, they hate it. They’d rather watch their kids suffer, they would. It’s not the minority parents, it’s the liberal parents.
Minority parents right now, Black and Hispanic, are revolting. How do you think Ron DeSantis is the Governor of Florida? Look at what happened with him. Black mothers were like “We’ve had enough of this crap.” Ron’s for good schools for my kid, I’m for Ron. Historic numbers, we’re the ones fighting for these kids. I throw the statistic out once in a while. I want you to remember it, and I’ll wrap it up there and take some questions. And sorry if I’m — am I going long here? Okay, 2 more. Thank you. I told you I could talk all day. I had no idea what I was going to — I get like totally ADHD. So much stuff bothers me about the left.
But I read this op-ed by the great Jason Riley, The Wall Street Journal does really terrific work. And I tell you, I read this statistic probably 6 years ago and it just was tattooed on my brain. It said there are 20,000 public high schools in the country and only 2,000 of those 20,000 produce half of our dropouts. Think about that. 10% of the schools produce 50% of the dropouts, failure factories. If you’re Black, you have a 50% chance of your kid going to one of those schools. I want you to think about and never forget that.
That’s our fight, that’s not the left’s fight. They don’t give a damn about those kids. You know what they care about? Money from the teacher’s unions. They don’t give a damn about those kids. That’s our fight, that is our fight. I don’t care who votes for who, those kids deserve a shot at the American dream you’ve lived to be the successful people you are here right now.
I’ll end on this and it’s true, it’s true. And I’ll take some of your questions because — you saw what happened on Tuesday. Guys, ladies, we got to stay in the fight. I say all the time, this isn’t a golf game, okay? I know we had a bad year, I know it. The election was a disaster, I don’t even know what we were doing. Mail-in ballots, oh, no, there’s no fraud there; we mailed out 47 trillion about — yes, yes, nothing happens, all — the election was a total mess, it was a bad year, it was a bad year.
But there’s no second place, okay? There’s nowhere — where are you going to go, Canada? I love Canada, the RCMP are some of the best guys I’ve ever — I’m not going to Canada. I want to live here, there’s nowhere else to go, this is it. You better fortify the castle and dig the moat because there’s nowhere else to go. This isn’t a golf game, you can’t just quit. Golf, right, you quit in the 8th hole, nobody cares. The greens guy gets his fee and the other guy plays through. They actually want you to quit. Get off, beat it. It’s true.
I’m not a golfer, but I’m guessing that’s how it works. I suck at golf. People ask me to golf all the time. Like with shoulders like this, I can’t even put a jacket on, you want me to golf? My wife had to help me out by the car, put the jacket on. The guy was looking at me like, man, that guy looks really old. I was like uuh…folks, this is a boxing match, okay. That I know well, that’s why my nose looks like this. You see the side profile?
So my nose is smashed in multiple times. Remember that, Paula? I came upstairs, she’s like “Holy gosh, when did — what, do you have ground beef on your face?” I’m like “No, that’s my nose.” My brother broke. This ain’t a golf game, you can’t quit. There’s nowhere else to go. It’s a boxing match. You just give up and go “Ah, that election sucked, I’m done.” All right, the other guy is still kicking your ass, he’s not going to stop. “No, I said, I’m done.” He doesn’t care that you’re done.
They’re the anti-anti-communists. They genuinely dislike you, they are not going to stop. There’s no quitting, there’s no quitting. There’s damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead, and we did it on Tuesday, last Tuesday. We humiliated these guys and we showed them what it’s like when a coalesced effort for freedom and liberty, what that looks like. When we act as a collective unit, we stand for something, our principles matter and you should be proud of that. Don’t ever forget it.
I’ll take your questions next, but thanks a lot for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker: We only have time for two.
Dan Bongino: Okay, sure. Thank you, thank you. Grab a seat. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I noticed my wife was the first one to stand. She led the — very good, very nice. I appreciate that.
Audience Member: Are you taking questions?
Dan Bongino: Yes, I’ll take two. We can take two questions.
Audience Member: Okay. I have one quick question. First of all, how are you feeling?
Dan Bongino: I feel good. I just got my last cancer screening out at MD Anderson, and they score you 1 to 5; 5 is like, hey, you better call your wife. And number 1 is like every — I know, I can joke about it, it’s me. Well, number 1 is like you’re all clear and I got my first 1. So (inaudible) it felt really good. Thank you for asking.
Audience Member: On the heels of you making, God willing, a full recovery, why would you sit next to Geraldo?
Dan Bongino: (Laughs). Ha! Man, I get this all the time.
Audience Member: He is the most infuriating, annoying, obnoxious — doesn’t shut up and has crazy-ass ideas. And he just makes you so pissed off and I have empathy and I want to kill him through the TV, but I let you do it. So secondarily, I want to know why you do that to yourself, and what’s wrong with Geraldo? And lastly, Rupert’s 90-something, what’s going to happen to Fox News when [Laughlin] takes over?
Dan Bongino: Listen, I hear it, that’s a big question. I don’t want to kill Geraldo. Geraldo, listen, he’s — here’s what I like about Fox. I work for myself, by the way. I think I’ve had fights with Fox and they’re all public, you can see them. But here’s the thing about Fox. I was in the Palm Beach Gardens Mall not that long ago. Paula was trying on some mother jeans, which they looked great on her, by the way (indiscernible).
And a lady came over and — because she takes a while. She was — had a few pairs. We started talking, she lives local, and she was just kind of laying into Fox. And listen, I’m not their PR agent, I am my own — believe me, I have my own gig, I don’t need anybody’s money anymore. I made a lot of investments, life is good. I’m not like patting myself on the back, I’m just telling you, like I’m not motivated by financial concerns anymore. Matter of fact, Fox pays me the least of all my jobs, all right. It’s not that anyone cares, but it’s not that I’m there for the money.
They’ve never told me what to say, ever, and what I’ve always appreciated is — and you may not, but I do — they actually have real liberals on, but why would you appreciate that? Because, folks, we expose the emptiness of liberal ideas every single day, but that never happens on CNN. They hire fake conservatives, they do. They bring in David Gergen, people like — I don’t know, she [doesn’t] work there, but Jennifer Rubin (indiscernible), right? Jennifer Rubin’s about as conservative as AOC.
But those debates with Geraldo, yes, they’re (inaudible) and we do kind of — I don’t — believe me, I don’t look forward to them all the time, but they’re important. He says things sometimes that are just crazy, like “Oh, yeah, the open border, we’ve got to be compassionate.” And one time — remember that time I said to him, “How many have you taken in, in your house?” He’s like, “Oh, none.” I’m like, “Oh, so you want everyone else to be compassionate, just not you.” Be compassionate with my money, like that doesn’t work that way.
So they’ve never told me what to say. And I just ask — understand that there’s always going to be disagreements. They got a news division. Some of the news people are more kind of centrists down — that’s okay, but that’s not me. You got to remember, they hired me, Jeanine, Tucker, Sean, Lisa Boothe. The list is pretty long of people who are like flame-throwers. So they got to hire a lot of people.
So I’m not telling you what to do or not to do, what to watch, what not to watch. There are a number of great stations out there. I’m just saying I worked there for a reason; 3.5 million people watch at night. And if you really want to change the world, you can’t forfeit a platform of 3.5 million people. It’s a big mistake. You want more? The gun, okay. Sorry. We’re out of time. But thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thanks a lot.
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