Dan Bongino cries to Fox News about how much he hates his new FBI job: ‘I gave up everything!'

Independent

29-05-2025

Appearances on Fox News aren't doing the FBI's two top officials any favors.
Dan Bongino lamented Thursday morning about how unhappy he's become now that he's the bureau's deputy director, complaining that he 'gave up everything' to take the job in what at times felt like a therapy session on the Fox & Friends couch.
But the griping about the office from the FBI's second-most-powerful drew heaps of trolling online.
'Dan Bongino has a nice cry on Fox & Friends,' liberal influencer Aaron Ruper snarked while posting a clip of the one-time podcaster's complaints.
'He gave up a podcast and has been on the job for a few weeks,' pundit Amanda Carpenter reacted on social media. 'There are many qualified people who will gladly and expertly fill this job if Bongino can't handle it.'
Bongino's apparent self-martyring on the right-wing network that he used to call home came the morning after his boss, Kash Patel, sat down for an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, which featured the FBI director drawing online mockery for the comically high chairs they sat in that left his feet dangling well above the floor compared to the host's that reached the ground.
'Kash Patel height' memes enused.
Meanwhile, the back-to-back Fox News interviews for the two FBI leaders come as they've faced increasing MAGA fury for insisting that disgraced sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein did indeed commit suicide, which has prompted right-wing conspiracists to hammer them for failing to keep their promises to expose the 'truth' about his death. Especially since both Patel and Bongino had helped promote those very conspiracies around Epstein.
Amid the conservative backlash, Bongino announced earlier this week that the FBI would be stepping up its efforts to investigate several cases that have long received outsized attention in right-wing media and have launched a series of conspiracy theories.
Specifically, he noted that the bureau would look deeper into the discovery of a small bag of cocaine in the Biden White House, the undetonated pipe bombs found at the January 6 Capitol attack, and the leak of the Supreme Court decision overturning abortion.
During his interview with Baier, Patel seemed to directly appeal to impatient MAGA supporters by promising a 'definitive answer' to questions surrounding the involvement of the FBI during the January 6 riots, claiming the results may 'surprise and shock people because of what past FBI leaders have said about it.'
According to an inspector general's report last year, 26 confidential human sources were present during the riots, but only three were assigned by the FBI to be there. Meanwhile, no agents were present, according to the report. A number of prominent MAGA media figures, including Patel himself, have pushed the baseless theory that the FBI orchestrated the attempted Capitol insurrection.
Bongino, a former Fox News host who left his successful podcast and radio show to take the FBI job, repeatedly bemoaned how difficult his life has become during his Fox & Friends interview on Thursday.
'The biggest lifestyle change is family-wise,' he sighed at the top of the lengthy conversation, adding that he was answering the president's call to serve his country.
'It was a lot, and it's been tough on the family. People ask all the time, do you like it? No. I don't,' Bongino continued. 'But the president didn't ask me to do this to like it – nobody likes going into an organization like that and having to make big changes.'
He went on to describe a woman telling him that she missed him and his show. 'I miss me too,' Bongino claimed he told the woman. 'Part of you dies when you see this stuff behind the scenes.'
At one point in the interview, Bongino wanted the Fox News audience to know that he has hard evidence to prove that Epstein killed himself, promising that the FBI would soon release footage that made it 'clear as day' that there was no conspiratorial murder of the financier.
'I'm just telling you what we see in the file,' he declared. 'I want to be crystal clear on this. I am not asking anyone to believe me, I'm telling you what is there and what isn't.'
Towards the end of his appearance, Bongino appeared to get emotional as he pushed back against the criticism he's received from conservative circles about the perceived lack of results on his end.
'If you think we have not taken appropriate action against political actors, they are just making that up. We can't advertise this stuff,' he griped. 'If you think we're allowing partisanship to infiltrate the FBI and let bad stuff happen, you're really just making it up… maybe you're trying to breed mistrust.'
He then concluded his time on the curvy couch by bemoaning what his life had become during the few weeks he's spent as the second in command at the FBI.
'I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my wife is struggling,' he bleated. 'I stare at these four walls all day in DC, you know, by myself, divorced from my wife. Not divorced, but I mean, separated. And it's hard. We love each other, but it's hard to be apart.'
Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, meanwhile, made a point of reassuring Bongino that he's 'doing some great work' as they signed off, seemingly giving him a boost of encouragement.