Daniel John Bongino / b. 1974 / New York, New York, USA / Secret Service Special Agent, Author, Radio Host, Political Commentator, Podcaster, Candidate for US Congress
Note: The sources of the following quotations are provided where known; however, the specific sources of the great majority of the quotations are unknown, presumably deriving from Bongino’s many writings, online commentaries, interviews, and podcasts
The American Dream
The American Dream is not about free stuff; it’s about freedom.
Bongino on Bongino
I didn’t want to be a man of words but of action.
Talk is cheap if it doesn’t motivate action.
As a proud former Secret Service agent, it’s tough to stand by and watch the agency struggle.
I joined the Secret Service in June 1999 as a special agent and vividly remember an agency brimming with pride.
I don’t live like liberals in a 5,000 square foot mansion.
I’ve had problems with the Republican establishment in the past.
Being a Secret Service agent, I have an obligation not to disclose personal conversations and security details. But that doesn’t prevent me from speaking generally about foundational principles and the system of patronage and punishment I saw in the Obama administration.
The big umbrella issue is, do I make a bigger difference on the outside of political process or on the inside?
But it was becoming more and more difficult to accompany the president and listen to another speech whose content was contrary to the principles I believe make this country exceptional.
Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2021).
What we are fighting are not just random, off-the-shelf bad guys. It is genuine, generational evil. This is the real fight.
The Gift of Failure: (And I’ll rethink the title if this book fails!) (2023).
I failed to comprehend just how destructive and malevolent they are. It’s ironic that they tweet about fascism all the time, claiming that they are warriors against it, when in reality they emulate the tactics of these generationally destructive fascists and totalitarians themselves.
The Gift of Failure: (And I’ll rethink the title if this book fails!) (2023).
The Constitution
The Constitution was written to protect your freedoms, not your feelings.
The Constitution is not an à la carte menu. You can’t pick and choose the parts you like and ignore the ones you don’t.
This Constitution was not a suggestion.
Culture War
We are now living through peak stupid with the left, and this “toxic masculinity,” “white patriarch” nonsense, where they’ve now devolved to judging people exclusively by their gender and their skin color is a marker of the total intellectual collapse of the radical left.
Economics
Wealth is not determined by how much you earn; it’s determined by how much you save.
Capitalism is not about how you divide the pie; it’s about how you grow the pie.
No good libertarian I know wants us to completely isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. It’s not even possible. I mean there are economic ties – there are trade routes that need to be secured. You know international trade can’t happen if you don’t have open oceans.
If we had a flat tax code rather than a 70,000-page document full of cronyism and favors, bureaucrats and elected officials wouldn’t have the power to do you any favors. That’s what we need. You would have to compete on your own on a level playing field, but that’s not what the government permits now.
Education
The battle for the future of this country will be won or lost on the field of education.
Foreign Policy
I can’t think of a more powerful message to send to the world when we act as one nation, one team, one fight.
Israel is one of our staunchest allies in an increasingly volatile world.
Freedom
Liberty isn’t a menu option, it’s the whole damn meal.
Freedom isn’t just a privilege; it’s a responsibility.
In the battle between government control and individual liberty, I will always choose liberty.
Free Speech
Your right to speak your mind should never be subject to someone else’s feelings.
Government
The government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.
When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re a government, everything looks like a program.
The government’s not your mommy or your daddy. The government’s not there to feed you, to clothe you, to give you shelter. The government’s there to protect you and to protect your rights.
The government doesn’t have any money. It only has your money.
That’s why we don’t give the government extra money as conservatives because government generally stinks at spending money. That’s why!
In Washington, DC, perception is reality and managing perceptions is a lucrative business for those who are skilled at it.
The Fight: A Secret Service Agent’s Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine (2016).
Always remember that men and women of character are a direct threat to those politicians who are only in the game for the power.
Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2021).
Principled men and women in politics often walk alone in Washington, but they attract legions of dedicated supporters in the real world of grassroots politics.
Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2021).
Gun Control
It’s not about “commonsense gun laws.” It’s about commonsense liberals.
There is no such thing as gun control. Only people control.
History
History picks interesting messengers.
Judicial System
We have a problem with judicial activism in this country.
The left loves the courts. They hate constitutional limited government.
A law has to have teeth.
Law Enforcement
Assessing any possible threat is one thing, but pressing into a full investigation without facts of a crime or national security threat violates standard procedure.
In the United States, authorities are supposed to investigate crimes and find the people who have committed them.
Leadership
No amount of government spending can buy quality leadership.
Being an effective leader means having the ability to tell those you like that they are wrong and those you don’t that they are right, and to show your human failings when there is a lesson to be transmitted.
Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2021).
Life
You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
Making a Difference
You can make a difference if you commit yourself to action. The only power in words is to motivate people to action. A better tomorrow awaits your response.
Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2021).
The Media
The media is done, they don’t do journalism anymore, it’s activism, nothing more, right?
What’s “straight news?” I guess a lot of people out there in the general public would probably say the New York Times and Reuters. I just disagree that is straight news.
I definitely have a real frustration with the media, especially having dealt with them as an agent.
Obama
I’m done with President Obama, and frankly, so are my law enforcement friends.
There are no figures in the Trump campaign who colluded with Russia—but there were at least five in the Obama administration who helped push the bogus narratives of collusion and obstruction, and they have plenty of questions to answer.
The Solyndra scandal occurred because of people with money who have influence and power.
Politics
Liberals believe that the state is the solution to problems. Conservatives believe that the state is the problem.
Conservatives think liberals are people with bad ideas; liberals think conservatives are bad people with ideas
Liberals confuse the cost of government for the value of government.
The Left believes that you’re too stupid to make decisions for yourself.
Liberalism is an ideology of feelings, not facts.
The Democrats want to destroy the country immediately.
Liberalism is a cancer; it’s a forest fire; it destroys every single thing it touches.
Democratic socialists, why don’t you open your eyes, Clockwork Orange–style, and look at the truth.
New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez relies on a lot of economic ignorance to get you to believe what’s not true could be true.
Conservatism is about empowering people to make choices, not the government.
Conservatism is about freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility.
You want to spend more of the money you earn? You want to control your own healthcare, and you want to pick where your kid goes to school? Then, welcome to the new Republican party. That’s us.
Here’s the deal: when conservatives lose elections, they change their strategy. When liberals lose elections, they want to change the rules.
Government grows and liberty dies when apathy flourishes.
Only after the people get involved and support the politicians who want to move this country forward—with our founding principles as a stepping-stone—will our government be returned to its rightful owner: you.
Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2021).
. . . but voting without a properly informed electorate has become a poor mechanism for limiting the growing role of government in our lives.
The Fight: A Secret Service Agent’s Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine (2016).
The President
Accessibility and openness are good politics but bad security.
One wrong move that appears to reveal a president ensconced in a White House bubble can lose an election, such as when President George H.W. Bush was criticized for expressing interest in the capabilities of a grocery-store scanner in the early 1990s.
White House staff spends enormous amounts of time planning a president’s every move so that his public persona reflects the mood of the public.
The average guy doesn’t have an army of lobbyists and lawyers working on his behalf every day in the White House.
Secret Service
The President can’t go around in a steel box, as much as the Secret Service would like him to. Protection is an art form, keeping the President available to the public while protecting. Most of the hard protection is done by the police, the perimeter work.
“Because we’ve always done it that way.” During my 12-year tenure as a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service, I heard those words all too often. The agency, in my experience, has an entrenched management culture resistant to change.
The mission of the Secret Service (to keep the president of the United States safe and secure) is, by its very nature, pivotal to the proper functioning of the country, and any failure to accomplish this mission has the potential to cause an immediate international crisis.
When you’re a federal agent you don’t get to arrest people for like $5.00 petty crimes or anything like that, they’ll throw you right out of there.
Socialism
Socialism is a disease of the mind that convinces people that theft is compassion and force is love.
It’s ironic that socialism and similar left-wing ideas appeal to people who fashion themselves as “anti-establishment,” when you can’t have socialism without political repression.
Ironically, socialist countries do tend to have immediate short-term decreases in poverty before collapsing.
While no famine has ever taken place in a democracy, they’re the rule rather than the exception in socialist countries.
When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition.
Success
Success is never owned; it’s only rented, and the rent is due every day.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
The Gift of Failure: (And I’ll rethink the title if this book fails!) (2023).
Venezuela
Nicolás Maduro is a fraud. He is a fake. He is a charlatan.