"He's a good friend and a good guy": Glenn talks to congressional candidate Dan Bongino

On radio today, Glenn introduced listeners to several candidates who have expressed support for constitutional values through their words and values. One person Glenn has had onto the show several times is former Secret Service Dan Bongino.

Bongino is running for U.S. Representative of Maryland's 6th Congressional District.

Watch the interview below:

GLENN: We have Dan Bongino. Dan is a former Secret Service guy. A really fine upstanding guy. Really gives me hope that there are good people that are in Washington who wake up. He was standing listening to some meetings after watching my program on Fox and at one point it was like I don't think these guys make any sense at all. What am I doing. And got out and decided that he was going to run and has put his whole family at risk quite honestly, put his family in financial risk. Walked away from everything to be able to run. And doesn't -- doesn't find anything but honor in running for the office. I don't think Maryland could have a better Congressman. Dan Bongino, welcome to the program.

BONGINO: Hey, thanks, Glenn, I appreciate all those kind words that. Means a lot, thank you.

PAT: Dan, there's no real polling on this race, there seems like. Where do you stand? What kind of sense do you have? Do you have any kind of internal polling over when are are you right now.

BONGINO: We did, I'm almost afraid to tell you, because we had $6,000 worth of our signs stolen last weekend and my opponent dumped about a quarter-million negative ads in my head. One poll had us up by six. So why no one is paying attention to this case except for TheBlaze family and a couple of other talk radio hosts out there with an audience is beyond me. It's not even that far of a democrat-leaning district. It's just a slight tilt.

GLENN: Who else is paying attention to it? What other hosts?

BONGINO: Well, Sean, who's obviously a friend of yours. Mark Levin has been good to me as well.

PAT: Good.

BONGINO: Rush gave us a shout-out about a year ago when I spoke out about Benghazi. But outside of that, Glenn, I mean, listen, I'm known you for a long time before I decided to run for office. I'm probably here because of passion and appeal you gave on your old Fox News program one time that made me go look at "Road To Serfdom" and read through it. It's probably the reason I would say I'm doing this.

GLENN: Tell me the -- tell the audience the pivot point. What was it.

BONGINO: Well, were you given this argument and the gist of it was that this is going to require some sacrifice. Obviously I'm not quoting you directly. I have it on T i V o upstairs, the actual episode, so I'm hoping I can take the actual box with me when I leave. But it's an older one and the division is the what did you think this was, goes to be ease?

Listen, the folks, the fights we're undergoing now are not the fights we were -- you know, having even a hundred years ago. These are now fights against people who are saying things like, businesses don't create jobs. You know, you didn't build that. I mean, this is a far different fight than arguing over a 19 or 20% tax rate. But the sacrifice theme you had made me ask myself, what in hades am I doing here. I'm just throwing the Nerf football at the screen collecting a government paycheck as a Secret Service agent. There's tons to do and not talk.

GLENN: So you're a fair tax guy. Can you tell me why -- I'm a flat tax guy. I don't understand the fair tax thing.

BONGINO: You know, I've got issues with both. The fair tax had some issues as well. It's a consumption tax. The reason I like it is because of the incentives or disincentives. The fair tax tax is consumption, it's a sales tax. Whatever you earn you take home. There are no federal sales tax at all. It doesn't disincentivize this thing we called work that conservatives really like. We should work. We work, we produce. We produce, we're wealthy. People's prosperity is measured by what they have. You know, their food, their cars, things like that. So it doesn't disincentivize work. The flat tax I like the idea as well, but the flat tax is still an income-based tax. But both of them have issues. I'm thinking we may be able to move towards more of a hybrid scaled program, flat tax to fair tax later, but they both have pluses and minuses.

PAT: The thing that scares me about tear fax and we're going to get a billion calls, so please don't.

PAT: The fair tax requires that you get rid of the IRS, which is just a monumental undertaking.

GLENN: I'd love to do it, though.

PAT: I'd love to do it, I just don't know how you do it.

GLENN: Needs to be done.

PAT: Do you think it's possible, Dan?

BONGINO: I hope it's possible, because as we've seen, whether it be Nixon who tried it or this administration that successfully implemented, you know, using the IRS as a -- you know, political attack dog program as their own 501( c )(3), something has to be done with our tax enforcement. One of the issues of the fair tax as well, is I think as -- I had a conversation about it this weekend with someone. They may be underselling the evasion rate. And you do need some semblance of revenue neutrality to sell it to people. You're going to have to get some people on the other side to go along or else you're never going to get it passed. So there are definitely issues with both. And I agree. I know when you mention that word, I'm totally with you guys. My Twitter feed will go crazy, too. But we have to be realistic and we can't pretend that there's some kind of -- panacea out there to solve all our tax problems. There's not.

GLENN: So the president printing up nine million green cards. They won't -- they won't verify. They won't talk about something as meaningless as what color the paper is that they're printing in Washington. That's almost a quote. What do you think it means and what do you do?

BONGINO: Well, I think we all know what it means. We're all terrified to say it because we're afraid we almost might incentivize him to do it. Do you know what's amazing about this administration, Glenn? They always pick the issue that really annoys Americans the most and then they poke and prod. Even when it comes to judicial nominees, it's like when they have this -- this portfolio of people and they're like, okay, let's rate them 1 to 100. A hundred meaning the most vile that conservatives will go crazy about. That's my guy. So with this thing I always fear the worst, because with this administration the worst always comes true. This is going to be a massive, lawless, completely lawless amnesty where people who just walked into the country -- by the way, my wife is an immigrant. We did it the right way. I always ask, do I --

GLENN: Why do you hate immigrants.

BONGINO: We paid to be legal immigrants. Do we get refund physical they're going to declare amnesty of of course they're going to do it after the election, which is amazing.

GLENN: Why do you hate Mexicans?

BONGINO: Of course, that's got -- you know, it's funny you say that, because my opponent ad doesn't like -- he eats them after he doesn't like them. So -- did you see that clip with the female candidate running for office who goes off the war on women and the audience starts cracking up like they can't control themselves anymore?

PAT: Yeah.

BONGINO: It's gotten so absurd on the left.

PAT: It's you can blink.

GLENN: It really has. Dan, five years ago when you were first listening to me and I said things are going to be upside down. You won't recognize your country. And up will be down, down will be up. What was liquid will be solid. You never really thought we'd actually get there, did you? Because I only halfway did. And I was the one saying it.

BONGINO: I remember reading on my time when I had a personal Facebook feed all of the -- the left wing Bloggers who would say, this guy is crazy. But you notice none of them are saying that now, because they're afraid to reprint and link to the old articles where the stuff actually happened. The dark money you were always talking about between tithes and Soros, funding these campaigns. And they do the little -- dipsydoo fliparoo, the left. Dark money, the Koch brothers. The Koch problems 15th in the country in donations behind all these left wing people who are out there pumping money with the campaign. All the stuff you talked about undo influence of our government and total evaporation like an Alka Seltzer tablet of liberty is now sadly coming true and Americans need to wake up and the independents among us and the moderate Democrats need to wake up too, that don't think they won't come after you next. Remember, there are Democrats who have been targeted too by this administration. Just ask people at the chase bank and other folks who have been -- and the guy in the -- HHS and the IRS who were Democrats who were gone after the administration after they spoke out.

PAT: Dan, what's going on -- you're for -- I think most people in our audience understand this and know this, but you're a former Secret Service agent. What has happened? I mean, as we watch the meltdown of the Secret Service agency, how -- what is going on with them? Do you have any sense of what's happened there?

BONGINO: I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. When we transferred from Treasury to Homeland, it became just a bureaucratic mess, just about like everything else in the government does. When you expand and grow bigger. The layers of management grew and they became insulated. In my opinion, there was a small group, not all, there are a lot of good managers there, but a small group of innings whose incentives then became to look for security jobs after their retirement with these Homeland Security personnel. They were now almost in bed with now that we from in the department of homeland security. That wasn't the case with treasury. The Secret Service wasn't going to leave with Tim Geithner to evaluate black shows derivatives. That's not the way it works. So the over bureaucratization of the agency created a perverse incentive to abandon the rank and file Secret Service agents for management. It really all comes down to that. And someone said to me you can't blame poor management for the fence jumper. No, you can't. I'm not absolving them of this catastrophic failure of course, but there were people there on the front lawn of the White House that had six months on the job because the uniform division can't retain anyone because they're led by really terrible managers. That does have something to do with it. You can't view in it a vacuum.

PAT: Where were the dogs that night? Because --

(overlapping speakers).

PAT: Well, the Secret Service did. The second time. But the first time, no one let the dogs out. Do you know what happened there?

BONGINO: Well, from what I'm hearing, I saw it in a couple media reports and a couple of my friends give me an inside scoop on it. That the handler was apparently afraid that a couple of the folks that were chasing them, that they would be the ones targeted by the dog. I don't know about that. These dogs are pretty well trained. I was in our train center, I was an instructor there and these dogs are pretty well trained to discriminate amongst targets. I don't know. I don't know if he just dropped the ball. There's no question it was a catastrophic mistake.

PAT: Bizarre.

BONGINO: You had some asking why didn't we shoot the guy, which I find absurd. You -- this is the United States. We don't shoot trespassers. It just doesn't happen. Then they --

PAT: Even when they're trespassing on the White House lawn? I would think you would. When they're trespassing on the White House lawn --

GLENN: Or --

PAT: Or inside the house. He took down one of the agents.

GLENN: We paint the front door because it's been stained a little bit.

(laughing).

BONGINO: I don't agree. No, here's the thing. If he had a weapon in his hand, if he vocalized the threat, you would be absolutely correct.

GLENN: Dan, Dan --

BONGINO: But remember the south grounds incident with Miriam Carey when the woman with the car went on the --

GLENN: They shot her in the head, right.

BONGINO: Right.

PAT: That we didn't agree with it.

GLENN: But she wasn't inside the White House. We shot somebody outside of the White House gates.

PAT: In a car.

GLENN: In a car. And we just let somebody run into the White House. I mean, it's insane. Just -- here's the thing, Dan. On this, because you and I agree on everything. Just remind me if I ever become president, you're not the head of treasury.

(laughing).

BONGINO: All right, I'll remind you.

GLENN: Or as long as you just say, yes, sir, Mr. President, when I say, I don't mind repainting the front door. Keep my family safe.

PAT: Don't worry, Dan, that's smog you'll ever have to worry about.

GLENN: You'll never have to worry about.

PAT: You don't have to consider it ever.

GLENN: Dan, best of luck to you. And we're really counting on you to do great things when you get to Washington. We're just really excited for you. And I just -- I can't endorse you any higher than I have. In fact, I never endorse candidates. What the hell, I just did.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: He's a good friend and a good guy. And I wish you all -- I wish you all the best.

PAT: How do you help if somebody wants to jump in and help out?

BONGINO: Thanks. Bongino.com. And I really, really appreciate that, Glenn. I hope you can hear the emotion in my voice. I mean it. You've been a good friend to me and I really appreciate that. Good to know there are people out there willing to take a chance.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!