After several failed attempts at elected office, Dan Bongino finally found national acclaim as a pugilistic, bare-knuckle conservative media personality, appearing as a contributor on Fox News before hosting an eponymous radio show and podcast.
The Dan Bongino Show, which was hosted by Westwood One, ended abruptly earlier this year when Bongino was plucked out of the conservative media-sphere by another veteran pro-Maga podcaster, Kash Patel, and picked to serve as his second-in-command at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On Wednesday, though, Bongino announced that he would leave his role next month. Donald Trump, the man to whose star Bongino successfully hitched himself, hinted at what’s next for Bongino – a seemingly imminent return to his old life. “Dan did a great job,” Trump told reporters. “I think he wants to go back to his show.”
Vince Coglianese, the conservative commentator who replaced Bongino on Westwood One’s daily schedule, confirmed on his Thursday show that Bongino would return – though he said he would keep his 12-3pm radio show, which has been a “wonderful success”.
A veteran of the industry noted that Coglianese’s accompanying podcast was produced by Bongino’s company, Silverloch Productions, suggesting that arrangement kept the door open to his eventual return.
“There’s no doubt that Dan gets behind a microphone – that Dan talks to you again,” Coglianese told his viewers, an audience he said Bongino had built. “I’m super pumped that Dan Bongino is rejoining the fight on this side of the microphone. I can’t wait to see it.”
Eric Bolling, a veteran of the conservative media space, predicted that Bongino’s government experience – however limited – would be an asset to his media career. “He’s walking back into a space he helped define, and I expect him to be one of the biggest voices in conservative podcasting,” he told the Guardian, adding that “having seen how the sausage is made from inside the administration only adds to his credibility”.
Michael Harrison, publisher of the talk radio trade publication Talkers Magazine, said Bongino’s appointment at the FBI was “a terrible choice” and was primarily indicative of the president’s desire to recruit the stars of the conservative media world for his administration.
“I think Bongino will learn from this, and he will go back into the game, and he will be better than he ever was because of this experience,” Harrison said. “He’s a very experienced and intelligent man who should not be taken lightly.”
But Laura Ingraham, Bongino’s one-time Fox News colleague, appeared to throw shade at Bongino’s impending return on her Wednesday evening show. “After only nine months on the job, FBI deputy director Dan Bongino is stepping aside,” she told her viewers. “Now, this is not surprising. He loved his lucrative media life and he wants to get back to it.”
Brian Rosenwald, the author of a 2019 book about the rise of talk radio, said he was not surprised by Bongino’s imminent return, considering how lucrative the business is.
During his time at the FBI, though, Bongino faced backlash from conservatives for stating definitively that the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died via suicide, with some noting that he had once raised questions about the circumstances of Epstein’s death while working in radio, asking provocatively in 2023, “What the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?”
Rosenwald predicted that Bongino would have to address some of the inconsistencies between his two careers – but will largely hew to the just-asking-questions formula that dominates conservative talk media. “Realistically speaking, he is going to go back to doing exactly what he was doing before, because it worked for him,” he said. “Bongino is not going to come back and say, ‘Hey, I learned to be much more responsible in my time at the FBI.”
Bongino seemed to acknowledge as much during a recent appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, when pressed on his past statements about the person who planted pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee in 2021. “Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions. That’s clear,” he said. “And one day I will be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”
While Bongino’s career got its biggest boost at Fox News, he is unlikely to return to the network – despite his close relationship with Hannity. Bongino’s tenure at Fox ended abruptly in April 2023, though he said at the time that there was “no acrimony” and his exit was not part of “some big conspiracy”, despite coming shortly after Fox’s massive settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Still, his exit surprised Fox-watchers because he seemed to be a rising star at the network.
If nothing else, Bongino’s trajectory provides further evidence of the revolving door between the conservative media ecosystem and the Trump administration.
Another conservative media personality who has gone in and out of government service is Sebastian Gorka, a veteran of the first Trump administration who then worked as a radio host for Salem Media Group, before stepping down to join the second Trump White House as deputy assistant to the president.
Asked for his thoughts about Bongino’s impending return to the conservative media space, Gorka responded in an email: “The Guardian are scum. And you can quote me.”
