House Republicans are reportedly set to call Fox News contributor Dan Bongino to testify before the Judiciary Committee about police brutality. Bongino spent the last several years honing his conspiracy theories, fact-free statements, and denial of systemic racism on Infowars, NRATV, and Fox News.
Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, a former NRATV host and Infowars favorite, is set to testify before Congress about police brutality
On Fox yesterday, Bongino said: “If Black lives really mattered to Black Lives Matter, then they would be the first ones coming out to speak against this abomination of a policy [to] defund the police.”
Written by Cydney Hargis
Published
Fox News contributor Dan Bongino to testify before Congress about police brutality
Former NRATV host and current Fox News contributor to testify as a Republican witness. According to an “informal list of witnesses” sent to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee that was obtained by Politico, Bongino was listed as one of the Republicans’ witnesses for a June 10 hearing on police brutality. [Politico, 6/9/20]
On Fox, Bongino has defended law enforcement, maligned Black Lives Matter, and questioned whether police killing of George Floyd was racially motivated
Bongino: It’s an “abomination of a policy” to “defund the police.” During a June 8 appearance on Fox News’ Hannity, Bongino said that “if Black lives really mattered to” the Black Lives Matter movement, then “they would be the first ones coming out to speak against this abomination of a policy [to] defund the police.” In reality, many proponents of this policy call for cities to allocate funds typically reserved for the police department to other resources, including education and health care in marginalized communities where a lot of this policing occurs. [Fox News, Hannity, 6/8/20; CNN, 6/8/20]
Bongino: Defunding the police would be “the single most catastrophic, deadly public policy decision we have seen in the modern history of the United States.” During the June 8 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Bongino lambasted calls to defund the police as “the single most catastrophic, deadly public policy decision in the modern history of the United States." He went on to complain that it’s impossible to have a conversation about police reform with Democrats because they are “committed to systemic-racism monologues and talking points”:
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Citation
From the June 8, 2020, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
DAN BONGINO (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): You know, Brian, if this goes through, this defund-the-police abomination, it will be and this is not hyperbolic, the single most catastrophic, deadly public policy decision we have seen in the modern history of the United States. Make absolutely no mistake about it. People will die. Real people, not Hollywood nonsense, not movie types. I mean real people, kids, teenagers and adults will die. Think about the continuum of -- from low level property crime to murderers and terrorists. The message that sends to all of them. Go from the low end first. Why even bother paying the train fair. Jump in the turnstile, just get rid of the turnstile. Who is going to pay? Oh no, they will pay because they are going to do the right thing. Really? Are you sure about that? Most people are going to just walk right through. What kind of a message do you think this sends to a murderer or a terrorist or a gang member or a drug dealer slinging crack on the corner of a neighborhood? Now that the police are gone, you think they’re going to go to the local social worker? Listen, God bless social workers as I said this weekend on Fox & Friends and I mean it, they do great work. They are entirely, completely, 1,000% unprepared to go face to face with a murderer or a terrorist and try to use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to talk them out of killing people. Brian, this is complete insanity. I lived through the exact opposite with Rudy Giuliani, when he bumped up the police force and said we are going to take care of every low-level crime and cut off the high-level crime.
...
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): What are your thoughts? How do we change what's been happening?
BONGINO: You know, Ainsley, I'm sorry to tell you, I don't know what we can do anymore. I don't know what we can do anymore. We put out there that, yes, there are obviously bad apples in policing. Yes, we have civilian complaint review boards. Yes, oversight of police officers is clear, we need that. I'm a libertarian at heart. But the statistics don't marry up and it doesn't seem to be getting through with some people on the left with a divisive agenda. They are absolutely committed to systemic-racism monologues and talking points despite the fact when you say to them, “You understand the system you are talking about is run by Democrats and liberals, right?” Then they turn around and call you a racist. How do you have a reasonable conversation? And when I say to them things like I used to respond to domestic violence situations. They're the worst. Ask any police officer. The absolute worst. When you walk in that house and see the kid like I did, grilled in my head, this 5-year-old kid sitting in the corner cowering, and his father just lost it. And you are sitting there between preventing that chaos or death sadly that would have occurred. Who do you think is going to stop that? Again, a social worker is going to walk in there? I'm sorry, folks that's not the way the real world works. You have to get out of the cocoon you live in and see the world for what it is not for what you want it to be.
Bongino: “I did not experience in any way, shape, or form some mass form of racism at the NYPD when I was there, at all.” During the June 5 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Bongino responded to a video of the New York Police Department commissioner apologizing for his department’s mistakes in the midst of protests. Bongino asked, “Was this really the time to be issuing a mass mea culpa for the NYPD,” and he questioned the need to apologize “for a history of racial bias as if it’s a systemic problem with the NYPD.” He concluded that he did “not experience in any way, shape, or form some mass form of racism” when he was an NYPD officer. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/5/20]
Bongino: “We have to unleash the federal law enforcement and we have to start perp walking these antifa terrorists.” During the June 1 edition of Fox News’ Hannity, Bongino said the national protests for the police killing of George Floyd were “hijacked” by “antifa terrorists.” Bongino went on to suggest President Donald Trump “unleash our federal law enforcement” and start treating “antifa” like a “criminal enterprise.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/1/20]
Bongino: “I wouldn’t inject race” into Floyd’s killing. Bongino called the police officer's killing of Floyd “disgusting” and “hard to fathom,” but insisted it’s a “humanity issue” and not a race one. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/28/20]
Bongino previously offered blind support of police officers
One week after Philando Castile was killed by a police officer, Bongino tweeted that “you’re either with the cops or you’re with Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton.” [Pew Research Center, 8/16/16; CNN, 6/21/2017]
Bongino asked when President Barack Obama was going to have his “Sister Souljah moment” and support the police. After an Illinois police liutenant died by suicide in 2015 following years of stealing money from a local youth group, Bongino went on Fox News and blamed Obama. He asked how many police officers have to die before Obama has his “Sister Souljah moment President Clinton had and he comes out and says ‘enough is enough’?” [The New York Times, 11/4/15; Politico, 6/24/2015]
Bongino: “Oddly enough, saying you can’t breathe, means you can breathe at some point.” During a December 4, 2014, interview with The Wall Street Journal to explain chokeholds after Eric Garner was killed by police, Bongino mentioned that Garner was resisting the officers and declined to conclude whether or not the fatal chokehold was intentional. Bongino also insisted that because Garner said, “I can’t breathe,” it means he could. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy for Garner testified during the disciplinary hearing for the officer involved that the chokehold and chest compression set “into motion a lethal sequence,” which ended in an asthma attack. [The Wall Street Journal, 12/4/14; The New York Times, 5/15/19]
Bongino: Noting implicit and explicit bias is an “easy excuse” when discussing police brutality. During the December 3, 2014, edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Bongino argued with New York Times columnist Charles Blow about the implicit racial bias in police departments. Bongino repeatedly insisted police officers do not inherently view Black men as a threat and said the systemic racism in society at large is an “easy excuse” when discussing police brutality. [CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, 12/3/14]
Bongino claimed a California law restricting police use of lethal force to only when “necessary” would cause “chaos.” An August 20, 2019, post to Bongino’s website slammed a California law that changes the standard for use of lethal force from when it is “reasonable” to when it’s “necessary,” and claimed it would hurt citizens and create “chaos on the streets.” [Bongino.com, 8/20/19]
Bongino repeatedly lambasted former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players for kneeling during the national anthem in response to police brutality. During several media appearances, Bongino insulted NFL players for taking a stand against police brutality. Bongino said players kneeling were “crap[ping] all over our national anthem,” and he called Kaepernick’s protest “self-serving, ignorant, immature, [and] anti-American.” In 2017, Bongino tweeted, “You took a knee and we took a hike. Bye bye NFL.” [NRATV, 2/2/18; Conservative Review, 11/9/16; Twitter, 10/16/17]
Bongino has a history of making bigoted, fact-free statements as a host on the now-defunct NRATV
Bongino excused Florida governor’s racist joke that Andrew Gillum shouldn’t “monkey this up.” After then-candidate for Florida governor Ron DeSantis said his Black opponent shouldn’t “monkey this up,” Bongino went on NRATV to say it was just a “joke” and to call the comment racist is an “entirely fabricated, far- scandal.” [NRATV, Relentless, 8/29/18; The New York Times, 8/29/18]
Bongino: “The Trump team was set up.” During the August 8, 2018, edition of NRATV’s We Stand, Bongino insisted the Trump campaign “was set up,” spied on, and “that the entire initiation of this was meant, in the beginning, to set up the Trump team.” [NRATV, We Stand, 8/8/18]
Bongino misquoted Rep. Maxine Waters to claim she made a decapitation analogy about Trump. Bongino misquoted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and claimed she told Americans they should be “screaming for Trump’s head” during the July 25, 2018, edition of his show We Stand. Bongino read the purported quote from a July 25 Washington Examiner article headline without acknowledging the line was a misleading paraphrase of an interview Waters gave to CNBC, in which she said, “I think Americans should be out in the streets screaming to the top of their voice. Do something. Make something happen.” Bongino went on to ask, “We’re now making decapitation analogies again? What is this, the French Revolution?” [Media Matters, 7/26/18; CNBC.com, 7/25/18]
Bongino honed his fringe talking points on the conspiracy theory platform Infowars
While discussing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Bongino accused the Democrats of “crisis leveraging” after a “national emotional crisis.” On the April 8, 2013, edition of Infowars’ The Alex Jones Show, host Alex Jones claimed it’s “so over the top how authoritarian the Democrats have become” while discussing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that occurred several months earlier. Bongino responded that Democrats aren’t crisis managers but are instead “crisis leveraging [and] using a national emotional crisis to get you to believe things that simply aren’t true.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 4/8/13]
Bongino: We are “being manipulated” by a “tyrannical group of insiders.” During the August 6, 2013, edition of The Alex Jones Show, Bongino endorsed the conspiracy theory that CIA security operatives were told to stand down during the terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Bongino said that “there is no question in my mind this was politically motivated” and claimed the Obama administration was either “the most incompetent administration in presidential history” or the Obama officials knew exactly what was happening and “for political reasons, they let these four guys die.” During the same interview, Bongino said he didn’t want to sound “conspiratorial” but the American public was being “manipulated” by a “tyrannical group of insiders, crony capitalists, … and elected officials, some from both sides.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 8/6/13, 8/6/13]
Bongino: The Obama administration used “tactical” and “strategic propaganda weapons to get the American people to just not pay attention to the evaporation of their liberties.” Bongino claimed the country was in “a really dangerous place” because the Obama administration used “tactical” and “strategic propaganda weapons to get the American people to just not pay attention to the evaporation of their liberties.” He specifically mentioned “health care liberty,” which he said was “evaporating in front of your very eyes with Obamacare.” During the same interview, Jones called Obama “a gangster” and Bongino said that if some of the practices of Obamacare had occured in the private sector, the authorities “would have you and I in handcuffs doing a perp walk right now.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 11/25/13; 11/25/13]
Bongino on former President Barack Obama: “We have a president of the United States that takes the Constitution” and “uses it like a tissue.” During the January 14, 2016, edition of The Alex Jones Show, Jones claimed his federal-level sources told him that “they are actually scared of Obama now.” Bongino responded that people are scared because “the government is a shiny new toy for Barack Obama” and that “there is a danger in electing far leftists who have little government experience.” Bongino continued on to say that Obama “invented prosecutorial discretion” in order to exempt “an entire class of immigrants” from the U.S. law and questioned why the left was not “in a panic” over Obama using the Constitution “like a tissue.” Jones asked him if it was accurate to say the Obama administration wanted to “mount our head on the wall.” Bongino responded that Obama “certainly feels that way about people who are in any way vested in a constitutional republic and in an objectively limited government.” Bongino also claimed Obama was an apologist for Iran and ISIS but couldn’t stand anyone who believed in “free market,” “capitalism,” and “liberty.” According to Bongino, liberals “find allies with radical Islamists” because “they will not call these people out, no matter what. It’s outrageous.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/14/16; 1/14/16]
Bongino: The “left-wing media’s goal … is to stop you from being able to say things” that advance liberty. While discussing media backlash to Trump’s comments that “Second Amendment people” could act against then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Bongino claimed that “once we allow the left-leaning media” to characterize conservative speech as inherently violent, “the next step is censorship.” Bongino went on to insist that Trump’s comment was “of course not,” a threat but the left-wing media are taking it as one to “influence elections and get the American people to think any talk about liberty, any talk about conservatism or about American values is inherently violent.” In response to Jones saying the media was acting like “it’s the end of the world,” Bongino said that the media’s goal “is to stop you from being able to say things that are going to fight to advance the cause of liberty, and this is how they do it.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 8/15/16]