An unrestrained and visibly jubilant former FBI Deputy Director, Daniel Bongino, returned to “the other side” of conservative media on a video podcast Wednesday night to trumpet what he described as his accomplishments during his ten months of service at the bureau, including the arrest of the alleged January 6 pipe bomber and firing of what he called “the politically weaponized” cadre of FBI personnel.

“I knew we were walking into an agency that had a lot of problems, and I think that’s the understatement of the millennia,” Mr. Bongino told host Hayley Caronia on the “Nightly Scroll with Hayley” podcast. 

“I was pretty clear with the guys and the women there on day one that we’re in charge. We were here to fix the place, and that was it,” he added. 

The appearance marked Mr. Bongino’s first return to a podcast studio since he signed off from his successful “Dan Bongino Show” in March 2025, shortly before joining the FBI.

He told Ms. Caronia about the moment he got the call from President Trump inviting him to become the new deputy director under FBI Director Kash Patel. Mr. Bongino said Mr. Trump asked if he “wanted to take the job,” which he accepted.

“It just went down really fast,” he said. “I knew it was the right thing to do. It was a calling. But I’d be stone-cold lying to your face if I said I didn’t miss you guys.”

Indeed, at the time of his appointment, Mr. Bongino’s unprecedented transition from successful podcast provocateur to the FBI’s No. 2 official was considered a sharp break from bureau tradition. 

Mr. Bongino, a former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent, came to the role despite having zero prior FBI experience. Once assuming the role, Mr. Bongino helped oversee investigations into matters that he once devoted considerable airtime to on his “Dan Bongino Show” podcast, where he regularly floated theories that painted the Deep State as the secret culprit. But once he was on the inside, Mr. Bongino publicly debunked many of the theories he had previously espoused as a media personality.

“So, it was kind of hard to stay quiet, but I’m not quiet anymore. Loud, obnoxious Dan Bongino taking on the world of grifters, bums, shitheads, and life losers is absolutely back,” Mr. Bongino said. 

He lasted just 10 months in the job, announcing his departure in December. Mr. Bongino told Ms. Caronia that his timeline was always one year.

“The timeline was always for me to do the first year and help the Trump administration with my law enforcement background. Kash is a really, really good lawyer, had DOD experience, but they wanted someone with law enforcement experience in that seat,” he said. 

In May, Mr. Bongino gave an interview to Fox News when he said that he was miserable in his job, stayed in his office until late at night staring at the walls, and missed his wife. 

 “I gave up everything for this. My wife is struggling,” he said.

Then in July, Mr. Bongino reportedly clashed with Ms. Bondi during a contentious White House meeting over the Justice Department’s rollout of its report and trove of information on Jeffrey Epstein. The report concluded that the disgraced financier’s 2019 death was a suicide. Before joining the FBI, Mr. Bongino had claimed Epstein was murdered by Deep State actors to protect powerful elites. Then in August, amid reports that Mr. Bongino was going to leave the FBI, the Trump administration brought in Missouri state Attorney General Andrew Bailey as a co-Deputy Director.

A highly critical report from the National Alliance of Retired and Active-Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts said Mr. Bongino lacked a basic understanding of the law enforcement agency, with one anonymous participant describing him as “something of a clown.”

The report added that Messrs. Bongino and Patel’s “unfortunate obsession with social media” was a sign that the two men were “too often concerned with building (their own) personal resumes,” according to the report. 

In December, the FBI announced the arrest of 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr. for placing two pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters the night before the January 6th Capitol riots. As a podcaster, Mr. Bongino accused the Biden-era FBI of a “massive cover-up” in its handling of the pipe bomb investigation, even speculating that it was an “inside job” by the FBI.

His purpose at the FBI was to “be the hammer, to come in there and to get stuff done.”

When asked by Ms. Caronia about the number of FBI agents he fired under his watch, Mr. Bongino said, “There were a lot of personnel changes.”

“The leadership is, I’m reasonably confident, completely different at this point,” Mr. Bongino said.

“I love the hard decisions, but I had a blast, man. I’m a, you know, happy warrior,” he added. 

Both Messrs. Bongino and Patel fired a multitude of longtime FBI personnel who worked on several investigations involving Mr. Trump like Arctic Frost and the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Many of those agents, in turn, have since sued the two men, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and the president, for what they say were unconstitutional and politically vindictive dismissals. 

In one lawsuit filed by three former high-ranking FBI officials that included a former assistant director in charge, Steven Jensen, Mr. Patel allegedly admitted that his job as director “depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President.”

Mr. Jensen, a 19-year FBI veteran and father of 10 children, accused Mr. Bongino of pressuring him to fire special Walter Giardina, who in 2022 arrested a sometime Trump White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, at a Washington airport on contempt of Congress charges. 

“He explained that Bongino would likely be deposed in a lawsuit should Giardina choose to challenge his unlawful firing. Bongino did not pursue further his demand that Giardina be summarily fired in that meeting,” the lawsuit alleged. Mr. Giardina was eventually fired.

During his appearance on Ms. Caronia’s podcast on Wednesday, Mr. Bongino went after, in coarse language, reporters like one from the New York Times who reported on Mr. Bongino injuring himself during a training session at Quantico last year. 

“I wasn’t injured. It was my elbow. I was grappling with the boys down there,” Mr. Bongino said.

He listed the December arrest of Mr. Cole, the alleged pipe bomber,  as one of the highlights of his time in office. 

“I was, like, blown away, because I know we’ve been busting our ass on it for a really long time,” he said of when he got the call about Mr. Cole Jr. being identified as the prime suspect. 

As for his podcast, Mr. Bongino said it was “definitely coming back” in early February. 

He added: “Just wait. It’s just going to be glorious. The Godfather is back.”