Last year, Glenn introduced his audience to former Secret Service agent and Maryland congressional candidate Dan Bongino. Bongino worked in the service for the Bush and Obama Administrations, but he ultimately left his job because he felt like “part of the problem, not part of the solution.” Bongino is running for Congress in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, and he joined Glenn on radio this morning ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
Glenn began by offering a heartfelt characterization of Bongino as a person and candidate.
“In case you don't know who Dan Bongino is, Dan Bongino is an amazing Secret Service agent that I have just tremendous respect for. He's one of the best men I know. I would love to have him in Congress or in the Senate in service of our nation. He has protected Bushs and he protected the Obamas,” Glenn explained. “He got out because he started listening to our television program and radio program and… he woke up and realized, ‘Wow, I'm not hearing any of these values around people in Washington. And that's a problem.’”
“He went back to school and started studying von Mises and everything else. And now he is running for the 6th Congressional District in Maryland,” he continued. “He has put, you know, his heart, his soul, and really everything his family has up on the auction block to be able to afford to be able to do this. And I think he's one of the guys that could go in and not lose his soul.”
With all that is going on in the world today, Glenn asked Bongino to share his thoughts on immigration reform and what can be done to thwart the influx of people pouring over the border:
Listen, we're in a lot of trouble at the border. It's a sensitive issue for me. Obviously my wife being a first-generation immigrant who did it the legal way, it's just chaos. Chaos is not compassion. Putting out a kind of tacit message come here because I'm going to unconstitutionally reform some part of the DREAM Act… Drop your children off after the border and somehow they'll get a pass is not compassion. That's only liberal compassion where results don't matter.
And, ironically, what we’re seeing is partisan outrage against this. The President's approval ratings are in the tank but even in Baltimore City, a bastion of liberal values. Folks here say we're going to open up a Social Security Administration facility to warehouse people in there. Moving across the border illegally and the Baltimore City residents said absolutely no way. The President has shown less than zero leadership on this – as he's done most issues recently and it's showing in the polls.
During his time in the Secret Service, Bongino spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and he offered his opinion on the situation in Iraq:
This Sunni/Shi'a generational battle, I hate to say this, but there's no benefit for us right now to get involved in this. We have to start thinking short term. You know, we're nation building abroad. And right now we're struggling at home. Our military is being hollowed out. Our economy is struggling. But anybody can complain. What do you do?
When I was in the Secret Service traveling around engaging in these massive security operations, there was only one thing I found that had a positive short-term and long-term benefit for us. And frankly, it wasn't boots on the ground all the time. It was joint training exercises with their military. It was some degree of intelligence sharing. It doesn't have to be a robust operation, even a smaller operation.
I spent a lot of time in the Middle East. The people who believe you're the great Satan so to say… When people look you in the eye and they see who you really are, what Americans really are, and what they're really about, it's really hard to believe a lot of the propaganda… A lot of these kids have been indoctrinated since they're infants [that] we're the problem. America is the problem. It's very tough when you meet someone and you really see it.
I would say an intelligence footprint over there, a training footprint. But are we going to get involved on one side? We're reinforcing the Iranian regime on the Shi'a side and the other side we're reinforcing al-Qaeda. The answer is get out of it. I'm not sacrificing my daughter, your daughter, or anybody else's daughter for a sectarian war that we've shown no evidence of stopping throughout the generations.
“I love this guy and feel strongly that he is the kind of guy that we need off in office. If you would like to know more about him, you can go to Bongino.com. If you care to donate, you can do that as well,” Glenn concluded. “Maryland, tomorrow, 6th Congressional District. And it is just over the border from where the Brat miracle happened. Let's hope for another miracle tomorrow.”
Learn more about the Bongino campaign HERE.