Trump-Favorite Dan Bongino Reportedly Dropped By NRATV As Organization Falls On Hard Financial Times
One of Donald Trump’s favorite political pundits may be in need of a job, with a report claiming that the cash-strapped NRATV is dumping Dan Bongino from its lineup.
Bongino has been the host of the political show We Stand since its debut last year, but he is reportedly the latest one on the chopping block for the network. A report from The Daily Beast claimed that Bongino is being dropped from the gun rights lobbying group’s television network.
Dan Bongino has been a favorite of President Donald Trump. The conservative television host published a book called Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump, and he caught the president’s attention for it. In a Twitter post last month, Trump named it among his book recommendations, along with a number of others written by conservative pundits defending the president and painting the Russia investigation as a hoax. Trump has also mentioned Bongino by name to reporters in the past.
Dan Bongino issued some apparently contradictory messages after The Daily Beast reported that his show is being axed. He initially responded by calling the report “fake news,” though later conceded that the show was indeed going off the air while arguing that it was his own decision to end it.
There may have been signs for weeks that Dan Bongino’s NRATV show was headed off the air. As The Daily Beast reported, a Fox News segment from several weeks ago that apparently went unnoticed referred to him as “Former NRATV Contributor,” and over the weekend Bongino removed the phrase “NRATV host” from his Twitter bio.
The decision to scrap Dan Bongino’s show comes amid bigger struggles for the NRA. Tax records show that the NRA’s revenue dropped by $55 million last year, and the lobbying organization has come under intense scrutiny for its often incendiary partisan commentary and attacks on the left. NRATV also generated plenty of controversy, including a segment where NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch used an edited image of the children’s television program Thomas & Friends to show the cartoon characters wearing KKK hoods.
The NRA could be in more trouble with a guilty plea from Russian spy Maria Butina, who DW.com reported is suspected of having infiltrated the NRA and has been pictured at events with some of the organization’s top brass.
The NRATV network had already instituted a round of layoffs in November, cutting jobs in an effort to offset some of the lost revenue from the previous year.
