Wednesday, during an appearance on FNC’s “Hannity,” former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino rejected criticisms from former Trump counterterrorism official Joe Kent that Iran was not an imminent threat, which was the predicate for the Trump administration’s strikes against Iran.
Partial transcript as follows:
BONGINO: I could make the case to you that and strongly I saw a lot more. And listen, forget — say you’re out in the listening audience or viewing audience out there and you just don’t like me. Fair enough. It’s a republic. You’re allowed to like or dislike whoever you want.
You don’t find it odd that nobody else has come out — I like you too, buddy. I’ve known you a long time. But listen, I’m not everybody’s flavor ice cream. Okay?
What — why has no one else from the administration if his case is legitimate that this was not an imminent threat? Don’t worry about the death to America, mullahs with 440 kilograms of enriched uranium that could create 10 or more nuclear bombs while you got a theolog — a theocracy chanting again “Death to America”. Even if that was correct, how come no one’s backed him up?
Sean, listen. I’ve got no dog in the fight anymore outside of the fact that I just love the country and was proud of my service there. I’m not in the administration anymore. I promise you no one absolutely no one. You have my word on my eyeballs. No one has called me and said, “Hey, can you go out there and like back us up?”
I have no dog in this fight other than the truth. I saw the entire body of intelligence up until I left. Nobody kept anything from me. I don’t know what he’s talking about.
Let me — can I just make a quick analogy for people having a hard time understanding this because I’ve seen it in a lot of media coverage and it’s understandable. We’re getting lost on the word imminent. There’s a whole bunch of like euphemisms games going on right here.
Think of it this way. You’ve got — I live in Florida. You’ve got a hurricane brewing offshore. Okay. Is it imminent? Well, maybe like four or five days away.
You’ve got 99% of meteorologists telling you it’s going to be a cat five. We deal with this like every year, right? What do you do? Do you prepare for it? You just say, “Ah, you know what? I’m going to trust that one out of guy who says it may be a cat three because no one’s saying it’s not going to happen.”
That is what we’re getting lost in this word. And it’s just insane. I mean, if you were in a criminal case trying to prove intent, they’re screaming “death to America”. They have nuclear material.
They told Steve Witkoff they’re not backing away. They have no intentions of surrendering. They were offered a civilian nuclear program by Donald Trump. They were offered a thousand exits off the Long Island expressway and they took none of them.
That was for you, Sean. Well, well, formerly they’re not picking any of the exits.
HANNITY: I live here in Florida.
BONGINO: I know.
HANNITY: They’re not taking — can we address something? Well, I’m sorry. Go ahead. Finish, bud.
BONGINO: Yeah. The point is like he gave them basically 10 years of offramps and they took none of them. So, when they’re telling you what they want to do, we want to create a nuclear weapon and kill you. I strangely have a tendency to believe them given their history of terrorism and actually killing our people.
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