In a wide-ranging podcast interview on February 2, 2026, President Donald Trump sat down with former FBI Deputy Director and host Dan Bongino for the inaugural episode of the relaunched Dan Bongino Show, covering domestic crime policy, military operations in Iran and Venezuela, immigration enforcement, and hemispheric security strategy. Trump made sweeping claims about crime reductions in cities like Memphis, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. — though independent data shows the actual declines, while significant, are substantially smaller than the figures he cited, and many were already underway before federal intervention began. He also discussed Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the ongoing Venezuelan oil deal, while Bongino — drawing on his year as Deputy Director of the FBI under Director Kash Patel — offered firsthand corroboration of Trump’s hands-on approach to federal crime-fighting operations. The interview was notable for its behind-the-scenes detail on how the administration directed city-by-city crime surges, its frank discussion of the political battles with Democratic governors and mayors, and Trump’s characterization of hemispheric dominance as a core national security doctrine. Assistance from Claude AI.
Participants
- Donald J. Trump — 47th President of the United States
- Dan Bongino — Host, The Dan Bongino Show; former Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (served under Director Kash Patel during the Trump administration, departed shortly before this interview)
Topic 1: Domestic Crime Policy and City-by-City Surges
What This Is About
A central theme of the interview was the Trump administration’s strategy of deploying federal law enforcement and, in some cases, National Guard troops into high-crime American cities — a policy sometimes called “broken windows” policing, a reference to the aggressive local policing strategy pioneered in New York City under Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s. Trump and Bongino described a process in which Trump personally tracked crime statistics in targeted cities and directed where resources should go next.
What Trump Said
Trump opened by claiming the U.S. now has “the lowest number of crimes in 125 years, since they record it. That’s in 1900.” He attributed this to federal action, saying the administration had been fighting “liberal judges” and uncooperative Democratic governors and mayors to implement its strategy.
On Memphis, Trump said crime is “down 75% after about two and a half months” thanks to Operation Viper, which he described as a surge of federal assets at the request of the city’s mayor and Tennessee’s governor. He said Memphis was “one of the most dangerous cities in the country” before the intervention.
On New Orleans, Trump said crime is “down 80% in two and a half months,” crediting a request from Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. He quoted Landry as telling him, “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
On Washington, D.C., Trump described reading a Washington Post story about falling crime in the capital and said the paper refused to give his administration credit for surging military into the city. He claimed the surge was responsible for the decline “97.2%,” saying the administration took “over 2,000 people out and moved them back” to their countries of origin.
On Chicago, Trump acknowledged more limited results — crime “down 25%” — because the city’s Democratic mayor and Illinois’s governor “fight us so hard.” He criticized the governor for being “incompetent” and the mayor for being “really a low IQ person.”
On San Francisco, Trump said the city’s mayor had contacted him wanting help and that Trump had advised him, but noted the limits of what a local mayor could do without federal deportation authority.
Trump also introduced a criminological argument: “2% of the people create 90% of the crime.” He said this meant that removing a small number of repeat offenders had an outsized effect on overall crime rates, and that liberal efforts to rehabilitate these individuals were misguided.
What Bongino Added
Bongino provided detailed behind-the-scenes color. He described being in the Oval Office when Trump first reacted to falling crime numbers in Memphis, and said Trump immediately asked, “How do we take this nationwide?” Bongino said he personally called FBI Special Agents in Charge across the country and told them, “The boss watches” — meaning any homicide in a major city would prompt a call from Trump or Stephen Miller.
Bongino also described the administration’s approach to immigration enforcement as “revolutionary”: rather than holding undocumented individuals in federal detention for years at enormous expense, the policy was to either extract useful intelligence about criminal networks or deport them quickly. He said this shocked some career FBI agents who were accustomed to lengthy debriefing processes.
Fact-Check: What the Data Actually Shows
The “125 years” claim is partially grounded in reality but significantly overstated. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program only began systematic national data collection in 1930, making claims about crime levels in 1900 impossible to verify with official data. What the data does show is striking: the FBI’s 2024 report confirmed the lowest violent crime rate since at least 1969 and the lowest property crime rate ever recorded by the FBI. Preliminary 2025 data from the Real-Time Crime Index (covering roughly 570 agencies and 115 million people) suggests 2025 likely set new records for the lowest murder rate and property crime rate the FBI has ever recorded, with murders down approximately 20% from 2024. However, this decline began in 2023 and accelerated through 2024 — before many of Trump’s city surges were implemented.
Memphis: The real number is significant but far lower than 75%. According to year-end data from the Memphis Police Department, violent crime fell approximately 28% in 2025, with murders down 26% and carjackings down 48%. Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis credited a combination of strategic policing, targeted enforcement, and federal partnerships — including Operation Viper, which netted over 500 arrests and 100 federal indictments. The city also expanded drone surveillance, its camera network, and MPD’s own “Prolific Offender Initiatives.” Mayor Paul Young said serious crime reached a 25-year low. The improvement is real and significant; the 75% figure is not supported by any official source.
New Orleans: The 80% figure is not supported, and the trend long predates federal action. NOPD data shows murders fell 3% in 2025 (or 14% when excluding the 14 deaths from the January 1 Bourbon Street terror attack). Violent crime declined for the third consecutive year in New Orleans. Multiple analysts, including former CIA crime analyst Jeff Asher, noted that the crime decline in New Orleans mirrors a national post-pandemic trend and was well underway before National Guard troops arrived. Local officials had pushed back on the deployment for months, pointing out that crime was already falling and that troops are not trained to investigate or prosecute crimes.
Washington, D.C.: Crime was already falling before the surge, and attribution is disputed. An analysis by The Trace found that the steep decline in DC shootings began in mid-April 2025 — months before the August military surge — and estimated that the Guard’s presence accounted for fewer than one additional shooting victim difference citywide compared to what would have been expected without deployment. The Council on Criminal Justice noted that DC’s violent crime decline was consistent with trends in other large cities nationwide. Short-term post-surge reports did show an additional 16-22% drop in reported crimes, but multiple independent analysts cautioned that isolating the Guard’s effect from preexisting trends, seasonality, and increased federal prosecutions remains difficult.
The “2% create 90% of crime” claim is a reasonable approximation of a well-established principle in criminology sometimes called the Pareto principle or the “80/20 rule.” Research consistently shows that a small share of individuals account for a disproportionate share of violent crime. The specific percentages vary by study, but the underlying concept — that targeting repeat violent offenders has an outsized effect — is well-supported by criminal justice research.
Topic 2: Immigration Enforcement and Sanctuary Cities
What Trump Said
Trump framed immigration enforcement as directly tied to both crime reduction and electoral politics. He said 25 million people entered the country under the previous administration, including “11,888 murderers” and vast numbers of drug dealers. He claimed that immigrants “don’t work” — citing a figure of “92% don’t work” — and that many were sent deliberately by their home countries to burden the U.S. welfare system.
He specifically targeted Minnesota, saying the state was “a mess” and that he wanted access to prisoners held in state jails. He referenced the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal, claiming it involved “over 19 billion dollars” stolen by Somali immigrants. He also said immigrants from Somalia had stopped stealing ships because the U.S. Navy was using the same weapons against Somali pirates that it uses against drug boats in the ocean — and that each drug boat intercepted was “responsible for the death of 25,000 Americans.”
On sanctuary cities, Trump said he had issued an executive order cutting federal funding to any city or state that maintained sanctuary policies, though he acknowledged these orders would likely be challenged by “liberal courts.”
Trump also made a political argument: that if Republicans did not remove undocumented immigrants, “you will never win another election as a Republican,” because these individuals were “brought to our country to vote.”
Fact-Check
The Minnesota fraud figure is significantly exaggerated. The confirmed fraud in the Feeding Our Future case — the largest single pandemic-era fraud scheme in the U.S. — involves approximately $250–350 million, according to federal prosecutors and court documents. A broader federal preliminary estimate across multiple Minnesota social services programs (including housing, autism therapy, and Medicaid) suggested total fraud could reach $9 billion, though this figure was disputed by Governor Tim Walz and remains unconfirmed by any final audit. Trump’s figure of “$19 billion” does not appear in any official federal or state source and appears to conflate total program spending with the amount suspected of fraud.
The claim that each drug boat kills 25,000 Americans is not a standard figure used by the DEA or Coast Guard and could not be independently verified. The connection Trump drew between Somali pirates and domestic drug interdiction, while rhetorically vivid, conflates two distinct operations.
The “92% don’t work” figure regarding immigrants was not sourced in the interview and does not align with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has historically shown immigrant labor force participation rates comparable to or exceeding those of native-born Americans. This claim warrants scrutiny.
Topic 3: Operation Midnight Hammer and Military Action Against Iran
What Trump Said
Trump described Operation Midnight Hammer — the June 22, 2025 U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities — as having “wiped out their nuclear threat.” He claimed Iran “would’ve had a nuclear weapon within a month” before the strikes and credited the operation with making the U.S. “respected again like never before.” He said he had ordered 25 additional B-2 bombers, including an upgraded version, and that world leaders including Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin had personally expressed being impressed.
He also referenced his first-term actions against Qasem Soleimani (the Iranian military commander killed in a 2020 drone strike) and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the ISIS leader killed in a 2019 raid), framing them as part of a pattern of decisive action.
Fact-Check
Operation Midnight Hammer is confirmed and well-documented. On June 22, 2025, seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers struck Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan using 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs — the first operational use of that weapon. A U.S. submarine also launched over two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at Isfahan. The operation involved more than 125 U.S. aircraft and was described by the Pentagon as the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine confirmed the strikes inflicted severe damage.
However, the claim that Iran was “a month away” from a nuclear weapon is not supported by U.S. intelligence. A March 2025 assessment by the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Iran “is not building a nuclear weapon” and that Supreme Leader Khamenei had not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003 — an assessment Trump publicly rejected. The IAEA reported that Iran had stockpiled enough enriched uranium to theoretically construct nine nuclear weapons, but experts emphasized that weaponization — the engineering step of actually building a bomb — is a separate and difficult process from stockpiling fissile material. A July 2025 Pentagon assessment found that the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by approximately one to two years, not permanently eliminated it. Some analysts and Israeli sources have suggested the actual setback may be even shorter.
Topic 4: Venezuela — Military Action and the Oil Deal
What Trump Said
Trump described the U.S. action in Venezuela as “unbelievable” and said the U.S. was now “getting along great” with the Venezuelan government, talking to them “every single day.” He claimed the U.S. had secured “50 million barrels of oil” that was “on its way right now to Houston to be refined,” and said the U.S. would help Venezuela rebuild and that both countries would benefit. He characterized Venezuela as having once been “a great country 15 years ago” before it “went socialist.”
Fact-Check
The Venezuela oil deal is confirmed, though Trump’s specific figure was slightly imprecise. On January 7, 2026, Trump announced that Venezuela would hand over 30 to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil — not a flat 50 million as stated in this interview. The first sale, valued at $500 million, was completed on January 14, 2026, according to the Department of Energy. The oil is indeed headed to U.S. refineries. Sources close to the White House told CNBC that the initial 30–50 million barrels are only the first tranche and that shipments will continue indefinitely. The deal is part of a broader $2 billion arrangement. At roughly $56 per barrel, the full 50 million barrels would be worth approximately $2.8 billion.
The broader context: Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves (estimated at 300 billion barrels), but decades of mismanagement and sanctions had reduced production to roughly 800,000 barrels per day — a fraction of its former capacity. Major U.S. oil companies, including ExxonMobil, have expressed caution about reinvesting, with ExxonMobil’s CEO calling the country “uninvestable” until legal and commercial reforms are made.
Topic 5: The “Monroe Doctrine” — Hemispheric Dominance
What This Is About
Bongino introduced this topic by referencing what he called the “Donroe Doctrine” (a play on the historical Monroe Doctrine, which in the 1800s declared the Western Hemisphere off-limits to European colonial powers). He framed it as Trump’s posture that the U.S. must “dominate this hemisphere” for national security reasons, citing threats from space, the ocean, ballistic missiles, and attacks on the electrical grid that he said were visible in the President’s Daily Brief.
What Trump Said
Trump agreed that the U.S. needed to be respected and dominant, and that the actions in Iran and Venezuela demonstrated this. He noted that the U.S. had been “laughed at a year and a half ago” and contrasted the current posture with what he characterized as the weakness of previous administrations.
What Bongino Added
Bongino said he found it “tragic” that young journalists criticized Trump’s hemispheric dominance policy without having read intelligence briefings. He noted results in Panama (a ruling against Chinese influence at the canal ports), Argentina, and Honduras as evidence the doctrine was working. He emphasized that the threat environment — as visible in the PDB — justified an aggressive posture.
Topic 6: Election Integrity and Voting
What Trump Said
Trump made several claims about election integrity. He said immigrants were being brought into the country specifically to vote illegally, and that Republicans needed to “nationalize the voting” in at least 15 states. He referenced ongoing legal proceedings in Georgia involving ballots and said “you’re gonna see some interesting things come out.”
He also told a story about a woman in Colorado — described as a 71- or 72-year-old cancer patient — who was jailed for “voter manipulation” after she attempted to inspect boxes of ballots that she believed were being fraudulently deposited. Trump said she was still in jail and “they better let her out fast.”
He criticized former President Barack Obama, former President Jimmy Carter, and former President Joe Biden in passing remarks, calling Obama “the great divider” and Carter ineffective in a reference to the 1980 Iran hostage rescue attempt.
Topic 7: Personal and Lighthearted Moments
The interview included several lighter exchanges. Trump joked about the relationship between Bongino leaving the FBI and hosting a show, calling it “net neutral.” He spent a notable amount of time discussing Joe Biden’s habit of jogging down airplane stairs, saying he was both impressed by and critical of the look — and that he himself descends stairs “nice and slow” to avoid accidents. He noted that the Air Force One stairs are “very slippery.”
Both men referenced attending the wedding of Dan Scavino, a longtime Trump aide, the day before the interview, with Trump joking about his role as master of ceremonies.
Bongino closed by praising Trump’s management style, quoting himself as telling people: “You want a friend? Get a freaking dog. Produce results or get the hell out of there.”
Citation
Factbase. “Interview: Dan Bongino Interviews Donald Trump on His Podcast.” Factbase, 2 Feb. 2026, factbase.app. Transcript powered by FiscalNote StressLens / CQ Roll Call.
Note: This blog post integrates fact-checking based on data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program, the Memphis Police Department, the New Orleans Police Department, the Council on Criminal Justice, The Trace, the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other primary sources. Where Trump’s claims diverge from available data, the discrepancies are noted in the relevant Fact-Check sections.