Dan Bongino CPAC 2021 Speech Transcript

Dan Bongino: (00:01)
Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you. Thank you. I don’t get out of my house much. So it’s interesting. I was telling my wife on the way up, we work from home. We do the show from home and it’s a really kind of peaceful, calm, sedate environment. We’re at like a zero energy level outside of the show all day. And then when we leave, we get immersed into this crowd of Patriots and it goes to a 99.6 and it’s so overwhelming. You make my emotional cup runneth over. So thank you very much. You all are the best.

And listen, before we get started, I can’t in good faith start this speech without saying a big thank you to the godfather of the conservative movement in modern times, the now too soon departed Rush Limbaugh, is the hero in our time. Folks, it’s not just that… I think some of you may have heard me say on Fox, but I’ll say it again. It’s not just that Rush was the best player in the game. It said he was the best player in the game for his entire time in radio. And he invented the darn game. Mickey Mantle didn’t invent baseball. Rush did, and I would never be here without Rush Limbaugh. Sadly, I’m going through kind of a similar fight now. We’ll be okay and everything. And I appreciate everyone’s wonderful wishes. Your positive energy and prayers are just infectious.

Thank you. They are. But I can tell you, and I’m sure many people in this room have been through that and some sadly worse, but it really does change things. And it’s almost been a blessing. They say, “Gosh, that’s weird.” No. No, it’s not. You really see things more clearly. See everything more clearly. Things you thought matter, don’t matter anymore. I was telling my wife when I came home from the hospital in New York and we didn’t know how severe this condition was going to be. I remember driving by this area that hadn’t been built yet in Florida, it was still under construction. And I always thought to myself, “Gosh, I’ll live long enough to see what goes there.” And I didn’t really have that answer that week. And your attachment to things just changes.

But I’ll tell you one thing that’s really like laser focused my attention on all of this is you know what matters more than anything? Ladies and gentlemen, all the rest is BS. What matters more than anything is the fight right now. And there is no more time to sit down on our knees and cry and do this victim stuff because we lost. That stuff is over. Everything else is bullshit, I’m sorry. Right now the fight is all that matters. You have to understand that. I love everyone in this room. I know you’re all here for the right reasons because you believe in liberty and freedom and patriotism and the greatest country in the history of humankind right now in the greatest state in the country, by the way Florida, I get that. You get that.

But it’s not enough. There are a lot of folks out there who are really beat up. I get it. I get it. Election night and the days later were devastating. Anyone telling you otherwise is full of it. It was devastating. But there’s no more time for that now. None. It is up to you as evangelists for the cause to go out there and get everyone off their knees, get everyone out of bed, dust off, get off the mat. There you go. Get the dust off, stand up and get back in the fight now. There’s no more time. The left, right after the election it’s a fact you may not like them and I certainly don’t like their ideas, but right after the darn election, what were they doing? They were out there in their pink hats in 2016 marching the next day.

They were, you saw it. I get it. A lot of us are beat up and are down. We lost a great advocate for the cause in this election, President Trump. But he’s not done. You’re not done. And listen to me there is no done. There’s no done. Forget that. Take done, throw done out. There’s no done. Get immediately back up and get back in this fight tomorrow. Everyone. There’s no time for this BS. None. I think about this great quote from [inaudible 00:04:43] all the time. A victor is not victorious. Remember this, tattoo this on your brain. A victor is not victorious until the vanquished considers himself so. Are you vanquished? You’re damn right, you’re not vanquished. Everybody got us to get up. You’re not vanquished until you consider yourself defeated. I don’t care if we lose every single seat in the House and Senate. If we are, 0 and 535, if we don’t have a single person on the Supreme Court and lose every election nationally, if one of you in this room does not consider themselves vanquished. You are not. You’re not. You’re not.

The time for feeling sorry for ourselves is done. And I’ll tell you why, we are right. We are on the right side of this. Believe it. Be proud of it. Stand up and fight for it like your expiration date is around the corner. There is no time to waste. It’s not a matter of what I think, it’s a matter of what you are doing. Thoughts are great. Thoughts and talk… I do a talk show. Talk is great. I love it. I live to speak to you every day on my show. I love it. But it doesn’t mean squat, if it doesn’t motivate you to do something. Pick a candidate in a primary. We’ve got a hell of a lot of rhinos out there folks. I’m really sorry. The Democrats are next. That’s 2022, but primary season starts now. It started yesterday. You’re a day late. No more complaining about the rhinos. We got them. Get them out. Go. We’re not going to miss you. Please get lost.

I was talking to someone backstage, that guy right there in the seersucker. Sorry, dude. Didn’t mean to point you out. Nice guy, by the way, with a cool suit on. I love that. And what did I tell you? I was talking about the 80/20 rule, 20% of the Republicans do 80% of the work, right. Unbelievably, all 20% are here at CPAC right now. Right. We’re done with the 80/20 rule. Let’s make it in this election, a 50/50 rule. And then let’s make it the 80/20 rule the other way. That 80% of the party actually believes in ideas that are right. We are on the right side of this. Folks, when I… I love to talk about issues, taxes, healthcare, school choice, it’s my bread and butter. I love it. It’s all great. I could talk about Milton Friedman till the cows come home.

But the hard reality is there are more pressing issues right now. Having been obviously an investor and promoter of Parlor, Rumble, and other parallel technology platforms. Well, thank you. And more ahead, by the way. I’m a doer. I’m not a talker. I talk for a living, but I do stuff because the do matters. The do changes the world. Talk is great, the do matters. I’m just telling you those issue fights are fantastic and I love them and I will talk them to death. But the hard reality is the fight right now is for the very fabric of this country. That’s not a joke. That’s not hyperbole. I am not kidding. These people are playing for keeps, make no mistake. William Wallace in the corner over there. Horse blinders, everyone, they are not kidding.

They want you silenced, bankrupted, fired from your job, embarrassed, humiliated and in the case of Donald Trump, they want him in prison. This is not a joke. Just put it in your search engine, just not Google. You will see it yourself. The tax fight is one we have to wage, the healthcare fight, school choice and regulations. But how are you going to wage it if we can’t speak? How are you going to do that? Listen, when I was a kid in college… Maybe not a kid. A young adult, whatever, I had a bumper sticker on my car. Not kidding, it said question authority.

I thought that’s what we did here in the United States. I thought that’s what we did, right. We respectfully question authority. And sometimes sadly throughout our history, we couldn’t do it respectfully because they didn’t respect us back. What happened to that? Where are our friends in the ACLU? Our liberal friends who may disagree with us, but who in the past at least historically were the ones who fought against government spying and things like that. Where’d they all go? It’s just us now. It’s just us now in this room. And I’m really sorry to tell you that. Sometimes I get like choked up, even thinking about it. It’s just us. You’re the real renegades now. Everyone in this room. You’re the misfits. You’re the new hippies. You’re the renegades. You are. Damn right.

And ladies and gentlemen, if we’re going to go down then we’re going to go down fighting. You want to cancel us off Twitter. We’ll start Parlor. You want to cancel Parlor. I’ll start Parlor 2. You want to cancel Parlor 2? I’ll start another platform after that. You want to dump a server farm, I’ll buy a server farm. You want to shut down a cloud support. I’ll start a cloud company too. You want to do DDOS? What do you want? I’ll do it all, payment processors… Shit I’ll start a bank with you if you want. Whatever you want. If we have to split this country’s economy in half, because we will speak and we will not be silenced then dammit we will do it in this room with the real misfits and renegades sitting in this room right now.

Because you will get nothing. You will get nothing from these conformist Lennons on the left. And these media buffoons who are the useful idiots of our time. You will get nothing from them. Expect nothing and you will never, ever be disappointed. Ever. Someone told me Acosta was running around here. You expect him to tell you that… I don’t even know this guy, don’t even care. You expect them at CNN to tell you the truth. This is hilarious. They want Fox deplatformed for… Get a load of this one. This is joke time. Okay. They want… For disinformation, Fox. They want Fox… But that’s the pee pee tape network. They promoted the pee pee hoax, the collusion. They want Fox deplat… Are you kidding? Like what planet… I said, this reminds me right. Ever watch Seinfeld? I use [inaudible 00:11:59]. Remember the Seinfeld episode where George, he does everything backwards and it works out for him, that’s the world we live in right now. Everything’s backwards. CNN is calling out right wing media for disinformation. These were the guys… The building was burning in a riot and they’re like, “All good here, folks. Nothing to see. It is a peaceful pro… Hey dude, get the fire extinguisher your jacket is… I’m just getting… It’s a peaceful protest folks.” This is the same network.

You had Rachel Maddow on TV for three years talking about how Donald Trump was colluding with Russia only did we find out later that her buddies at the Lincoln Project had the ties to Russia. Or the Lennon project, we should call it maybe right, the Vladimir Lennon project. You didn’t hear any about that. But they want us deplatformed for disinformation and misinformation. Don’t forget what I’m telling you. You are the real renegades. You’re the misfits man. You’re the new hippies of our time. You’re the counterculture revolution right here, because you actually want to talk and you know what you want other people to talk too. You know why? There’s nothing I love more than going on Hannity with Geraldo.

I love it. It’s the greatest day of my life. Everyday I look for… I go, “God, thank you. Please bring on…” He’s a nice guy. It’s not personal. But he doesn’t know anything so I love it. Why do you not want liberals to talk? Just let them talk to humiliate themselves every time. When I got involved with Parlor, I’m like issue liberals money to come on Parlor. We had a bounty, “Please come on. We love when you say you’re stupidity on our platform so we can expose it.” But they don’t feel the same way. You know why? They’re scared. They’re scared because we are right. I only got 25 seconds. I messed with the lady backstage I’m like, “Half hour, minimum.” Just kidding. I will wrap it up close to on-time. Nice lady backstage.

She said she’d tackled me if I went over 15 minutes. I’m just going to end with it because it’s important. Leave here tonight with your chest out proud. You are the renegades. You are the misfits. You are the real fighters. You’re the one that matters and make no mistake as you leave, you are on the right side of everything. Free speech, the freedom to protect your family, the freedom to assemble, to make your own money, to save your own life through your healthcare and to get your kids in a good school. That is you. You are on the right side. Be proud. Say your prayers. Thank the Lord almighty. You are on the right side of history. Amen. Thank you all.

Dan Bongino CPAC 2021 Speech Transcript

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