Former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who left the Trump administration earlier this year to return to political commentary, has taken aim at the wave of so-called right-wing grifters attempting to fracture the MAGA coalition. These figures have spread borderline anti-Semitic claims about Israeli influence on U.S. foreign policy, speculated wildly about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and at times appeared to run cover for America’s adversaries.
While independent media has been a win for free speech, it has also created a playground for grifters to peddle sensational claims with zero evidence, and build entire careers off it. Bongino notes that these opportunists exploit a longstanding conservative belief that conspiracy theories often turn out to be true, pushing it to extreme, unnecessary lengths.
At it's core, Bongino explains, what unites these grifters is a single, consistent strategy: claiming exclusive access to secret knowledge that no one else can see.
Dan Bongino just zeroed in on something very insightful.
— Bren (@bren45000) March 25, 2026
They use psychological tricks.
Candace Owns and Joe Kent (and others) will use “secret knowledge” to manipulate you.
Watch.
The same recycled trick, over and over. 👇
—
Source: https://t.co/HsMyRIXhHi pic.twitter.com/OdHeFggfwx
"Part number two is they have a piece of hidden knowledge. Candace does this Joe Kent's doing it now Igor and his boys are doing it now. Trump is being gatekept from this hidden knowledge we have but they never ever tell you what it is ever They never tell you who they think killed someone in a murder case. They don't say anything. All they do is they give you two data points, totally unrelated and they let you make the connection."
Bongino then played a clip from the Diary of a CEO podcast, featuring Chase Hughes, founder and CEO of Applied Behavior Research and a leading expert in behavioral science, who illustrated the very process Bongino had just described.
"Basically, I'm gonna put a Lego right here on the table in front of you. And I'm gonna put another Lego right here on the table in front of you. And I'm just gonna keep having the conversation to where eventually your brain is gonna be like, 'Oh, I bet those things go together,'" Hughes said. "So the idea came from you. So I'm gonna give you one piece of information and another piece of information, but I will never put them together for you. And the reason is that any idea that you think came from your own mind, you have no ability to resist it."
"So all I have to do is make you have an idea," he added. "So a regular example of this is, let's say you're watching the news and they say, 'Local Austin woman has been reported missing.' Neighbors said that earlier this day people saw her arguing with her boyfriend. 'Oh, yeah, details after the break.' So yeah, and your brain is like, 'Oh, I know what happened.'"
"Ladies and gentlemen you're being subjected to a psychological operation a psyop. It's not a conspiracy theory It's them trying to create a conspiracy theory," Bongino continued. "It is absolutely true they are using tried-and-true techniques of correlation without causation knowing your brain will fill in the pattern to make you believe that they have a series of hidden knowledge you don't have. About Charlie, Epstein, something else. This is what they do. They don't give a damn about Epstein. One of their boys [Steve Bannon] is in the damn files. You don't see them pop it in there. And if they gave a damn about Charlie and his family, they would stop trying to destroy a trial going on right now. I thought you believed in the Constitution due process a trial."
