Furious former deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino savagely lashed out at Chris Cuomo after the NewsNation TV host criticized his handling of the Epstein files.
The public back-and-forth between the two spilled over in a social media fight, with Bongino calling Cuomo a “fraud” who has been “begging” him to appear on his show.
It all started on July 6, when Cuomo questioned Bongino’s credibility in a post on X.
“Help me get why ANY of you are ok with bongino saying this after he did you dirty on epstein?” Cuomo wondered above a repost of a message from the conservative podcaster bashing fellow right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson.
“As we all anxiously wait for Tucker to produce a single piece of evidence for any of his psychotic claims, I sense a growing rage amongst his shrinking number of groupies,” Bongino posted on Sunday, July 5.
“They must know by now that they’ve been played,” the pro-Trump podcaster continued.
“They’ve invested their time in a circus clown who has backed himself in a corner,” Bongino added.
Bongino is referring to Carlson’s epic and very public break with Trump after the president started an unapproved and deadly war on Iran on February 28 with no clear objective, strategy, or endgame.
Carlson and other previous MAGA sycophants accused Trump of betraying his “America First” agenda, which he campaigned on for years, with many vowing to vote against Trump.
An enraged Bongino then went after Cuomo in a series of brutal rebuttals.
“Did you dirty? What the f–k are you talking about? I busted my a– on that case,” the former Secret Service agent fired back on X. “Did you miss that entire news cycle?”
But Bongino wasn’t even halfway through attacking Cuomo. He was just getting started, and he quickly made it personal.
“Remember when you kissed my a– when I saw [you] at the UFC? Remember your people begging me to be on your sh—y show? (Receipts attached). You’re a fraud. Go back to posing naked in your backyard while playing with life-sized Q-Tips with your brother,” Bongino raged.
Cuomo quickly retaliated. “Again, Bongino is more concerned about his public perception than doing the job,” Cuomo began his post.
“It’s sad— we were so hopeful you’d deliver big. You’ve done more showing receipts about people bad-mouthing you than you did about Butler or the 2020 election. Those are the receipts we care about @dbongino,” the former CNN anchor concluded.
A feeding frenzy erupted on social media skewering Bongino for spending years amping up conspiracy theories about President Donald Trump’s former best buddy and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019.
Bongino left the Trump administration in January 2026, not even a year after he started saying he only planned to stay on the job for a year, according to NBC News.
Bongino spent years stoking outrage over the Epstein files. His resignation earlier this year followed an internal fight with former Attorney General Pam Bondi in July 2025 over the Justice Department and FBI’s conclusion that Epstein did die by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 and that he did not have a celebrity client list.
Unfortunately for Bongino, the conclusion was in direct conflict with his previous claims, in which he relentlessly spread conspiracy theories, as did Trump and Vice President JD Vance, about a suspicious cover-up.
Then the files revealed that Trump’s name appears thousands of times, alongside several lewd and criminal allegations against him. The administration has still managed to withhold millions of files, despite a Congressional act mandating the release of all the files held by the Department of Justice.
