Former Secret Service agent and commentator Dan Bongino has said he is “growing concerned” about Donald Trump’s personal safety, citing heightened political tensions and what he described as increasingly hostile rhetoric. Bongino warned that the current climate could raise security risks and urged vigilance, stressing the importance of serious protective measures regardless of political views.
Foreign threats, Bongino emphasized, are far from hypothetical abstractions. Trump’s authorization of the 2020 strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani left him squarely in the crosshairs of Iranian intelligence and affiliated proxy networks, who have publicly vowed retaliation and continue to monitor potential vulnerabilities. U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly highlighted ongoing threats to former officials connected to this and similar decisions. Moreover, Bongino warned that other strategic actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party, have long-term motives to oppose Trump’s political resurgence. His prior actions on trade policy, technology restrictions, and international security directly countered strategic objectives pursued by China, creating incentives for careful monitoring or targeted actions against him. Historically, foreign adversaries do not require broad public support or mass movements to pursue their goals. Often, a single determined operative, a small exploited vulnerability, or a brief lapse in security can be enough to achieve strategic objectives. Experience shows that foreign intelligence organizations operate with patience and methodical precision, often waiting years for the right moment when domestic distractions and emotional turbulence reduce vigilance. This type of threat is particularly insidious because it is deliberate, calculated, and independent of domestic political narratives, yet it becomes even more dangerous when combined with the unpredictable forces of domestic radicalization.
On the domestic side, Bongino pointed to an environment that he considers increasingly unstable and unpredictable. Years of dehumanizing and inflammatory rhetoric directed at Trump have blurred the boundaries between political satire, casual insult, and tacit encouragement of violence. Public figures, media personalities, and social influencers have frequently joked about physical harm, staged graphic imagery, or casually discussed elimination as opposed to electoral defeat. While much of this is dismissed as hyperbolic performance or free expression, security professionals know that language matters. Research in threat assessment demonstrates that repeated vilification of public figures can inadvertently provide moral justification for unstable individuals to act violently. The danger does not lie in the rhetoric itself but in how certain individuals internalize it. Bongino was careful to avoid accusing specific public figures of direct responsibility, emphasizing instead that cumulative social cues create a risk environment. The psychological and sociological patterns here are well documented: when public figures are continuously portrayed as morally or politically intolerable enemies, lone actors can interpret the constant denunciation as implicit permission for violent action. Such dynamics have contributed to numerous incidents of politically motivated attacks in the United States and abroad, illustrating the thin line between rhetorical aggression and real-world consequences.
