Bulwark Takes - LIVE REACTION: FBI Director Kash Patel Testifies Before the Senate Judiciary Committee

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Join Tim Miller, Sam Stein, and Will Sommer for a live reaction to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing on the FBI. Kash Patel faces sharp questioning over his handling of the Charlie Kirk murder investigation and the Epstein case, as senators probe his leadership and judgment.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey guys, me Sam Stein, managing out of the bulwark here, my bud, Tim Miller. We are in the midst of watching this cash Patel hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's still going on, but I think we got the gist of it. I'm going to just miss you to make sure.

Yeah, okay, it's still going on, but we got the gist of it. Basic background. It's just like a big Tuesday between us. Just a couple of buddies, you know, we like to wake up on Tuesday morning, get some coffee, you know, watch Cash Patel. do his BDI testimony in front of the Senate and just chit-chat about it, you know, just like any other pair of compadres. Yeah, what a life. Who has it better than us?

Let's talk about, first of all, you raised a lot of people. You raised an interesting question in our Slack chat. Why the hell is cash even up there? I mean, I know why. There's oversight hearings. The Judiciary Committee has oversight over the FBI, you know, in theory in a normal world, you know, you need to appeal to members of Congress so that they are good to you and fund your initiatives and things like that. But I guess I understood where you're coming from.

Like, this administration doesn't really give a shit what Congress does. So why send cash up there at all? Yeah. It's like it's both a, it's a sarcastic, legitimate question, right? Like, why is he doing that? You know, I think you have to. Is it sarcastic? Well, yeah. I was making a joke, but it's also legitimate, right? It's like, I think it's important to sometimes step back and say, well, this administration across so many different areas they are not interested in doing what past administrations have done what people should have done you know for example after an assassination every president in history before this sort of tried to bring the country together gone to the church dialed down the temperature this president and vice president are doing exactly the opposite

that's just one example but there are a million norms that they got that these guys have trampled over from doge all the way down so it's like why send their people to here I mean, the Republicans control the Senate. They're scared of Chuck Grassley. The Chuck Grassley is going to subpoena cash and, you know, send the Senate cops over to the FBI to make sure that he testifies. I just, I don't know. And so then once you consider that question, which is if these guys will stop doing business at normal in other cases, you wonder why do they do business as usual in this case. And maybe it's just inertia.

But I think, and we'll see in these clips, it doesn't work for me. But I think that Cash, like, wants to perform for the boss. That's not legitimate answer. That's my explanation. Yeah, he wants to perform. The boss, he knows he needs to be. And this is why Pam Bond, he's out there on Katie Miller's podcast and doing Fox News hits every two days and things like that.

I mean, Cash wants to perform. You think Trump is, is live streaming Katie Miller's just absolutely unbearable podcast? I don't know if Trump's, I don't know if Trump listens to them. But maybe the clips say they think. that the clips with that podcast will be on Fox. Yeah, exactly. Put aside Eddie Miller's podcast. Maybe Trump does listen to pods while he's in the golf car.

You know, sometimes you've got to kill some time. You couldn't get things to the ears. And he has like, it's all the makeup, all the orange makeup on the ears, and then the bruising. It'd be hard to get the ear buds. Figures can't get the butt. We're digressing really fast. The backdrop of this is obviously the Kirk assassination, although this hearing was scheduled before then I believe and so you had the Epstein stuff too um I'm going to start with the

kirk stuff because it's more recent uh and it produced some of the more notable exchanges so to your point about dialing down the temperature versus dialing up the temperature um there was two exchanges that really kind of underscored the divergent paths were on in this moment one came from amy clobitra who went first and the other came from eric Schmidt uh who went later in the hearing, both talking about the Kirk assassination, but political violence more broadly. Let's play clip seven so the viewers can get it side by side, just to get you a sense of how divergent the two parties are currently handling this moment. Actually, don't want to go tip for tat on this, but what I am asking for is that this rhetoric

of blaming one side or the other stop, if you could convey that to the president, and we actually work on things that are solutions. So could you commit to me, Mr. Patel, Director Patel, that you will do that. Absolutely, Senator. And I would point out, we've heard years, years of the left, their loudest voices calling anyone on the right extremist, extremist, mega-republicans, fascist, Nazis, an existential threat to democracy. Check yourself.

And don't give me this, both sides, bullshit! it all right so just to fact check the people who called trump and nazi include jd vans and robert f kennedy junior but besides that point um i mean that's just a petty little rejoinder i suppose um i i i just you know what is that says it all that just says it all right there yeah it doesn't actually quite say at all because eric schmidt talked for i mean one half what felt like an hour and a half I don't know how long the actual speech. You get five minutes and he talked for basically all. It was the longest five minutes of my life.

It was a speech that I assume was written by Nate Hockman, his new speechwriter, who was Ron DeSantis's speechwriter and got into trouble for having fascist imagery in some of the material that DeSantis campaign had put out in a video. And he's a controversial young man. Will Sumner knows about Nate Hockman. All about him, a broken and rat in the video. Yeah, very big on the new right. So Eric Schmidt has hired this guy who,

who, you know, was cast out of DeSantis World, and he is refashioning Schmidt as like this culture warrior nationalist. You know, because Eric Schmidt, no, I'm assuming most of the commenters had never even heard of them unless they're from Missouri up until recently, but he gives this big speech of the NatCon conference where he talks about, where he does kind of a blood and soil. America's not about the principles of the Constitution. And then here, this, at this,

supposed to be questions for cash patel he ends up asking himself questions where he does a bunch of rhetorical questions like like was it a left winger or a right winger that didn't walkie shaw walkie shaw christmas killing and he lists all the killings and then he answers them himself that it's left wing and it's just stupid he just like leaves out all the right wing killings i will say that it's just stupid demagoguery the reason he had to answer the questions was because cash actually did not want to play ball there cash was like um well you you know, I'll let you answer those. And then he answered them.

I will say Katie Britt followed that up where she did note that there were politically motivated killings that targeted Democrats. She didn't say that it was the responsibility of the right to denounce it. But at least she was honest about the current situation, unlike Eric Schmidt. Anyway, just one more thing about Eric Schmidt. I just like, it goes about saying kind of like the ridiculousness of taking this moment. And there's just so much legitimate things to be concerned about with oversight of the FBI, whether it's like the handling of the various investigations, pushing people from

out of, you know, child sex trafficking cases and domestic terrorism cases and immigration cases, the firing, eventually, like all this stuff we'll get to. I'll do ask for Eric Schmidt to just like go on this rant that it's only the left-wing people that do violent rhetoric or aggressive rhetoric or extreme rhetoric when the president of the fucking United States is Donald Trump. It's just so like appallingly obvious and ridiculous and shameful. And yet, like, he, I think he feels like he's going to get rewarded for it. I'm sure he's in bright way media circles, yeah.

He'll get some good hits. He'll raise some good money. I mean, come on, let's be real. That's what it's for. Well, I'm going to bring you in here because let's switch to the Jeffrey Epstein stuff at this point because, you know, I was a little bit surprised. When we could come back to Charlie Crickon a little bit because they did mention Section 230 in the context of what you're talking about, Tim, just like camping down on some of the stuff that's caused. causing this. But the real big thing was the Epstein stuff to me. Like, that was where the news was made. And let's just play clip one because Patel opened it up by throwing someone so far under

the bus that I was shocked. I mean, poor Alex Acosta. Poor Hawksa. Run over by the bus. Then the bus turned around and just put it in reverse and just did it again. This is what Ash Patel said about Alex Costa and the Epstein files. Let's play it. Now, I know that there's a lot of talk about Epstein, and I'm here to testify that the original sin in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. Acosta back in 2006. The original case involved a very limited search warrant or set of search warrants and didn't take as much investigatory material it should have ceased. If I were the FBI director, then, it wouldn't have happened. The search warrant were limited to small time periods to include 2002 to 2005 in 1997 to 2001. Mr. Acosta allowed Epstein to enter in 2008 to a plea and non-prosecution agreement,

which then the courts issued mandates and protective orders legally prohibiting anyone from ever seeing that material ever again without the permission of the court. All right, we can stop. The non-prosecution agreements also. So we'll explain Alex Acosta the role he plays in the mystery around him. Yeah, sure. So Alex Acosta, this was during the George W. Bush administration, he was the U.S. attorney in Florida who handled Epstein's case. and he was involved in cutting this very favorable deal that basically, you know, gave Epstein a relatively light sentence. And most notably it said that the federal government and state authorities would not investigate Epstein or any of his associates further, what other things they might have done.

And so the local cops there said, well, we could have put this guy away for 20, 30 years. And suddenly he's getting away with his light sentence. And then Alex Acosta resurfaces in all places as the labor secretary during the first Trump administration. Someone who probably should have been, you know, one would imagine would have been drummed out of politics based on this Epstein deal. He claims that, you know, he was told Epstein or reportedly claimed that Epstein was an intelligence asset of some kind. But basically, he's a guy who may have some answers here and has not given them in sort of this resurgence of interest. But he is being subpoenaed. Yes. Yeah, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed him.

But as you can see, Katta, as you really sort of backed the bus up over him and said, you know, if I was there, it wouldn't have gone down. down the way it did. And I want to object to that question that it wouldn't have gone down the way it did based on how Cash Patel answered questions today about what the FBI is knows or is doing or is looking into regarding other people that these young girls and young women in various cases were traffic to. And I'd like to play clip three so that we can we can show you where Cash is on this right now. You've seen most of the files. Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these young women too besides himself? Himself, there is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals. And the information we have, again, is limited.

So the answer is no one? For the information that we have. In the files? In the case file. I mean, this is great. That is crazy. Like the idea that every single one of these young women and young girls were only trafficked for Epstein's personal sex use.

Like many of them have testified about others, including most famously Prince Andrew. Many of the victims have testified about that. Then you notice that Cash, he does this a couple other times too when he's asked about Epstein. He specifically talks about the case files. The senators will ask about the files and then he'll say the case files. And the reason why he's doing this is because he wants to limit the scope of his responsibility to things that were actually in the evidence that was presented in the cases, in the court cases against Jeffrey Epstein. But like, during the FBI and the government gathered a ton of other information about Jeffrey Epstein over a period of time.

And sure, typically the government does not release information about people that they have. suspected or whatever that they did not bring charges against but like that's what cash was calling for his whole career as a podcast right was like like reveal all the people that are that are his known associations because we know there are a bunch of them we know the government has a bunch of them we know that Donald Trump is mentioned in there a bunch of times because they said that they created a share file of all the Donald Trump mentioned so he's playing this word game between files and case files that I don't know if the senders caught it or they wanted to let him get away with it or they didn't care but like

And I think that that is pretty telling, and I don't know if that's going to be a good enough answer. We know at least Kennedy himself caught it. I mean, Kennedy followed it up, but wasn't in the clip, I'll read it. Kennedy-Fell is going to have to do more to satisfy the American people. Quote, the issue is not going to go away. And I think the central question for the American people is that they know that Epstein trafficked young women for sex. They want to know who, if anyone else, he trafficked these young women, too. You're going to have to do more.

actually we do have the clip but we don't have to play it now because i just read just quoted verbatim but like there's no it just doesn't it doesn't pass the smell test right like the idea to your point to him that all these girls were on the island or wherever and it was just for geoffrey upstein doesn't make any sense whatsoever and then you have things like the british ambassador to the u.s getting sacked recently prince andrew and all the scandal around him and not to mention the years and years of conspiracy theorizing that people like patel himself were engaged in around this idea that this was some sort of great cabal um so yeah no i i can't imagine that's going to go i mean i would love to have i mean cash does do some some you know maga media and i

i think i feel like that'd be a nice follow-up for for folks in that world just like what like what made you change like change your mind like you don't well yeah go ahead well well well i was just going to say at one point cash says he hasn't read the whole all the all the files and so you know related to epstein and so you know on one hand i realize it's a lot of files but you know he was the guy who was like, the FBI director has the files, we got to get them. And so for him now to be kind of the face going on things like Fox News and saying, it's over, get over it, move on with your lives, maybe he should take a look at the files, just a suggestion. It's crazy. I mean, that is nutty to think that he wouldn't look at the files. Is there been any reaction online around

this, or are they just moved on from it will? I think in many ways they've moved on. I mean, you know, obviously this hearing just ended recently, but I think there's so much focus on Charlie Kirk right now. You know, and one more thing I would say about cashing, you know, it wouldn't have gone down that way if he was in charge. I mean, it was striking to me that when he was asked about the 764 network, which is a big understandable cause to live on the right, which is sort of this sextortion, violence network with a praise on children, that has been a real FBI priority. You know, he initially said, you know, what? I don't know about that. So, you know, it suggests maybe it's not that big a priority for him. And, you know, I think that's one I didn't see people

on the right. We're a little irritated by. Well, then he's, yes, I kind of agree. that people are moving on from it in the abstract, but I guess there is a lingering oversight committee investigation and subpoenaing of people like Akkosa. And then there's the possibility that they get 218th member to sign this discharge petition for the Massey-Connor thing, which would demand the production of all the documents. That is going to happen, right? Like, that's basically just a matter of swearing in this next, you know, representative from Arizona, right?

Yeah, that's right. I mean, they are going to get the votes that they need eventually and, you know, how the administration handles that. I mean, it's not over. I mean, I think this is, I only mean, the Charlie Kirk is obviously taking up a lot of news today. But I do think this has gotten to the point where the Epstein thing is going to continue to linger and continue to flare up for the administration. I just want to say one more thing that they didn't. And Sam, you suffered through more hours of this than I did today. I had a couple of other interviews I had to do. It wasn't suffering. So maybe, so maybe you can tell me if I missed it. But, but during. the lengthy segments that I watched, he wasn't really pressed on something that we do know, which is that there were a bunch of agents that were tasked with going through all these files and combing through them and that some of the end that they were asked then to flag Donald Trump when they saw him in the files, whatever that means, right? And I think that when you talk about this, you know, maybe the heat being not around this, particularly on the right, like in this moment,

following Kirk, like that is something that, you know, the calculus changes if the Democrats do take, right, if they do take back the House, if they do win this. And, like, to me, I would be looking at oversight of, of that process. Like, who was correcting it? Who was doing it? Can we, can we have some of the people that were reviewing them testify? I will say the majority, the Democratic side of the ledger, like, did not actually focus so much in Epstein today. they didn't I mean it was they came in clearly wanting to talk to Patel about the firing of agents within the FBI and we're going to get to that which is a very important issue by the light the Democrats are always out there being like you're they're trying to distract from Epstein

and then they had their chance and didn't talk about it right like they they went in there and you know I think the reason I well I don't know what the reason is but they went in there with the focus on whether Patel had fired mid and senior level agents because they were involved in prior investigations into Donald Trump. And it comes on the heels of a couple of lawsuits filed by those agents alleging that they were improperly filed with some pretty eye-popping details in those lawsuits. But they did not, the lawmakers themselves, I mean, like, I don't know, am I missing something that will?

Like, I didn't hear that much. The segment we just played was from Senator Kennedy, who's a Republican. So it wasn't like it was a major focus today for the Democrats. Yeah, I think you're right, Sam. I mean, I think there were a lot of questions that maybe could have been about Epstein instead, like the question about, you know, whether FBI agents have to do too many chinups, you know, for amazing Herodo, perhaps. Durbin mentioned Epstein, do you not? Durbin mentioned it. He said, did you sign the memo?

He said, why did you not sign the memo that came out from the FBI and the AG saying that there were no more records? and Patel had some, you know, childish rejoinder about something, what would you, should I have done an auto pen and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, whatever. Yeah, that was quite well received on the right. Yeah. I'm sure, yes, team up. And I guess Cory Booker, you see the Cory Booker's thing.

I guess he mentioned it, but it was part of like a longer rant. We can play. Let's play the Durbin thing just because I referenced it. It's clip number two. You can see Durbin, but let me, before we press play, let me just point out. And Durbin is old. Like, he's retiring this year. He's 78.

something like that like you can tell i mean his fastball's not there he's just reading from the paper he seems kind of caught off guard when patello pushes back and i thought that really set the tone for the hearing so let's play the durbin clip bond he also pushed the fbi to review approximately one hundred thousand epstein related records on an arbitrarily short deadline in march and the fvii was directed to flag any documents that mentioned president trump nothing came of that review until July when DOJ and FBI released an unsigned memorandum stating there is no incriminating client list. Why was this July 7th memorandum unsigned? Would you prefer I've used autopen? Did, well, why was it unsigned? The memorandum had the insignia of the Department

of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in our effort to secure transparency for the American people because the three prior administrations had not done so, we conducted an exhaustive search of everything related to the Epstein cases, and we produced what was legally and permissibly able to be produced to Congress to the American public. So there's a congressional subpoena, and we're continuing to do so. Do you personally direct that investigation so that you would sign such an... Did I personally direct what investigation? Of the Epstein records for any reference to President Trump?

Again, you are citing reporting that I think is baseless. We conducted an investigation of the Epstein case files pursuant to the direction of the president of the administration to provide all credible information and we are working with Congress pursuant to a congressional subpoena to turn over all the documents we can't all individuals who at DOJ and FBI were okay we can probably we can probably stop it there like I just I got lost honestly with what everyone was getting there so processy I mean I think he's talking about them trying to flag mentions of Trump right yeah right like yeah they are yeah well exactly like because because cash says well that's maybe

faulty reporting, you know, and then I think you could fault with specific things, right? But even the point of he, so he mentions this, right? But like that point of, was this a valuable use of FBI agents time, right? Like going through all of the Epstein files for you guys just to say that there's nothing here, nothing to see here? Like you're telling me that the thousands of man hours that were spent for federal agents are supposed to keep the country safe to go through the Epstein files or for nothing? Like, you got nothing out of it.

There's not a single other lead. You have no leads. Or how about this? How about just saying, okay, you led this investigation to the files? How many mentions of Donald Trump did you find? I can't tell you. Why can't you tell me? I'm not going to get into it.

Why not? It seems like you're covering it for Trump. I mean, like that's the basic stuff, but it just, I don't know, it seemed to pass them by. Any other thoughts before we move on from the Epstein stuff, well? No, I mean, I think Cash Patel, obviously, as you can see, really pushed back on basically any question from Democrats about Epstein. And I think, you know, at the moment, they seem to have avoided, I think, a big backlash from the right, but, you know, remains. Yeah, but I think they're Pat. I think the right's over it, honestly.

I just think they're over it. It's just, we went to a place where they just don't care anymore. It was a big deal in the summer. Was there any discussion of the fingering at the TPSA event during the hearing? Did that come up? We don't need to. We don't need to reference that ever. All right, switching, how am I going to segue here?

Switching to the other matters. Now we're going to finger the... More internal matters. Oh, no. All right, we're going to talk about FBI internal matters now. Cash Patel was pressed on a couple of cases, on a couple of instances on the firing of these officials. There was a big story in the Times here.

You guys read it that preceded this hearing? Okay. So, yeah. Run down is this guy, Chris Maher, field agent, signed to Fly Patel up until last month. was basically told that was accused, I should say, of being the main agent in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. Problem was, Chris Mara was never signed to that case, and he was, according to terms,

at a lakeside vacation with his family in Virginia when the FBI conducted the search of the Mar-a-Lago property in August 2022, and yet he was fired by Cash Patel, and the He was filed alongside another agent, guy named Walter Giardini, Giardina, sorry. He did so, and Patel did so after being told that the terminations were unlawful, and that pushing up Mr. Giardina, who is caring for his dying wife, would be, quote, inexplicably cruel. That's according to a lawsuit filed by three FBI supervisors who were also dismissed by Mr. Patel. So that was like a lot of the backdrop of the hearing today, a lot of what the Democrats pressed in mind. Patel just kept saying, no, you know, everything was done merit-based.

But, Tim, what are your thoughts on the article? The merit-based thing is actually pretty, well, can I go to the merit-based or I don't know, you have thoughts on the Times article? Yeah, I mean, I think that article demonstrates, you know, what also comes out in the lawsuit is that Cash and Dan Bongino are just extremely sensitive to social media criticism or these conservative ex-agents who are saying, you know, on podcasts, you know, that guy's a liberal. why are you promoting that guy?

And then the cash will call someone up and say, hey, they're saying you were involved in this, is that true? Well, let me just jump on that because there's another part of the article, to your point, Will, about Brian Driscoll, who basically was running the bureau until Cash came along on an interim basis. And Driscoll goes to Patel and he's like, why are you listening to this guy? And what Driscoll's talking about is a right-wing podcast or a former FBI agent named Kyle,

what is his last name? Kyle Serafin. I actually, I want to write something about him because he's really Cash's nemesis. Yeah. What the hell? What the fuck is going on here? Like, what is the story? I thought we might have had it.

I thought me and Kyle might have had a moment because I was sharing a lot of his material going after Cash and we started following each other in social media. But then he did turn out he didn't like my criticism of J.D. Vance's podcast yesterday. So, all right. So Kyle Serafin is talking about, talking about Chris Meyer and Cash Patel is taking it as gospel. And Brian Driscoll's like, hey, you can't listen to this guy? What is going on? Yeah.

So like the brief Kyle Serafin story is that he was, he left the FBI. I believe he was fired or there was some whistleblower thing. He was like linked up with James O'Keefe at one point, who he's also turned on. But I think what people need to understand now is that Kyle Serafin is like a really pugnacious ex-FBI agent who's really critical of the second Trump administration and Cash Patel's handling of the FBI. And he's constantly like nitpicking them, like saying, you can't promote that guy. He was involved in January 6th investigations. And on one hand, he's constantly trashing cash, but on the other, it seems like Cash is very sensitive to his criticism of him.

Notably, he said Cash's girlfriend is a Mossad agent, and now she's suing him over that. And also in the ex-agent's lawsuit, you can see your... Are you ready to be that dismissive of it, Sam? I mean, Cash doesn't see my type of person that's just, like, you know, land and ships on his own. I'm not saying it. I know nothing about this. I'm just saying that if you're trying to tell me that the reason why Cash snagged the hot girl is because that she is a foreign agent of some kind, I'm open to that theory.

That doesn't sound crazy to me. It sounds more likely than cash bagging a hot girl himself to me. It's fine in theory. I just, I'll note it's always the Jewish agent that's controlling the levers. It could be Russia. They could have been any other country. Any country. All right.

Anyway, I apologize for interrupting. The one other thing I would add about how this Kyle Serafin guy lives in Cash's head red-free is at one point in the ex-agent's lawsuit, Cash says, like, they're saying this about you, you know, what are we going to do? And he's like, tells this agent, he's like, you should sue him, you should sue him too. And so he'd go after him. So he's clearly a big influence on the administration. So clearly Driscoll was like, what the fuck are you doing listening to Kyle Serafin?

Are we really allowing you to influence decisions? Driscoll implored Patel to speak directly to Mr. Marl. Cash Patel refused. So that's where we're at. He fired some dudehood, no involvement in the Mar-Lugger raid because Kyle Serafin said he was involved. Yeah. So here's like I'm saying, I mean, there's a lot of that in there. And there's a lot of funny stuff we can go through as we know, Will and we were talking

this week about the challenge coin, that has Cash's name on that that he is, that he's handing to people. Do you have one? And I don't have one. And there's a lot of firings that seem very suspect. I've had Mike Feinberg on to get pushed out for being friends with Pete's truck. So, like, it is a, that is a big problem, I think, across the bureau. Today, Cash avoided, like, having to really, I think, you know, engage in any of the details in any meaningful way.

In part just because he kept, like, ducking it and ongoing lawsuit. Can't talk about it. That said, one thing I just wonder from this hearing that might linger with him is the line. he kept using about everybody that's been dismissed, which is a lot of people, is they failed to meet the standard or uphold the Constitution. You talk about Meridian. They failed to meet a standard. And I don't know, man, if I'm Brian Driscoll, who's like a lifetime FBI agent who was just doing my job, well respected inside the building, gets accidentally put into the role as acting head of the bureau and by accident i mean like literal accident they put the wrong name on the press release

and so he ends up never corrected it which yeah so he just like ends up as acting FBI director based on a fuck up and he's in there and he's just trying to do the best he can with his job and they're like telling him to fire people and stuff and now you've got this fucking clown like up there testifying in front of congress that you don't meet this that you failed to meet the standard that it was my that i made a judgment call to fire that person To me, if I was one of the guys on the side of the lawsuit, that would be an inflammatory remark. I'm like, that would be, that would be something that would make me more likely to want to

go even harder at cash, either through the legal process or the media, et cetera. And I don't know that over the long term, he really set himself up for success as far as the coming blowback from folks within the building. I think that's totally fair. Like, that would piss me off, right? Like, and there was another point in the hearing where Cash, we actually could play this clip where he's talking about, well, you know, I've, me and Bongino, we have a collective 31 year. Let's play it. It's clipped for it because it's so good.

Got to press that play button. Hello. This is kind of like, it's a dramatic pause because it's what Cash does. He does this. It's, you know, it's like you just want to see his, it's like little bitty eyes. he's so nervous he's like he keeps looking to the side not a lot not great on eye contact with cash

well my point was that he at various points he gets very defensive nervous about like people going after him and Bonjina for being podcasters he's like you're just dismissing my 31 years of 31 years of combined experience which you know six it's 16 and 15

divvied up and like their experience was like what Bonjino was a secret service agent for a little bit and cash John Chino was driving the golf cart for Trump, for Obama. For Obama. That was his district. And Patel was like a Nuna's staffer and then he worked for Trump. Like if you're Driscoll, you like were in the trenches.

You know, maybe it wasn't for 31 years total, but not there were theirs. But like you, that would piss me off for sure. I will just note just to close the loop on the, on this dude that Will loves Serafin. This is what the Times wrote, because after this whole thing, where he gets Driscoll fired, or sorry, he gets Meyer fired. The Times writes this, Mr. Serafin acknowledged to the New York Times that he might have gotten some wrong details about Mr. Meyer as well, oops, but he said the firing proof he had been close to the mark, adding that it had not been his intention to get

anyone fired. It's real like, you know, Keystone cop stuff here, basically. Yeah, I mean, they're very sensitive, clearly to this right-wing media world, and I would say not in a good way. can we get to the pull-ups because we're going to close it with the pull-ups yeah so okay I think we'll close with this

I don't think Democrats acquitted themselves particularly well they didn't really end too many punches there was a weird Cory Booker moment where he got really impassioned and they started screaming back and forth not sure what it accomplished

quickly there was one moment where like Cash kind of entertained the idea of an assault weapons ban but I just didn't really quite understand what he was getting at with Amy Klobuchar. And then there was Mazing-Hirona. We don't have the clip here. But she basically was talking about basic training for FBI agents in the field.

And she said, well, you know, I think it's wrong because women can't do pull-ups like men can do pull-ups, which is already being taken by the right as evidence that Mesa-Hiron understands that there is a distinction between genders when it comes to physical abilities. So there's that. Also, it came right after Senator Schmidt's four-and-a-half-minute diatribe about how Democrats are responsible for all the violence in the universe. And so, Herona just sort of let that one slide. But Tim, Tim, you had some real thoughts on Heron. Well, I just, well, no, I just, I just really had thoughts about Cash Patel doing pushups or pull-ups, I mean. It's pull-ups.

Cash-Petel was really, really adamant. Like, the thing is probably the most adamant about the whole hearing was that that agents need to be able to do pull-ups. Right. And, you know, I guess so. I don't know. Sure. I think that probably it's good for FBI agents to do pull-ups, but I don't know. He just pushed out to like one of the China experts who like know whose job is counterintel on China. And I'd like to have some people in the FBI that, you know, are very good at, you know, getting into the domestic, you know, maybe somebody can't do a pull-up because they are undercover as an in-sell, you know, and they're going to. going into in-cell culture and and i think that would be fine with me i i guess i just don't know if that's the top priority i have if it's a subpoena and it's not the top priority i have for van mezzerono to ask questions about but it's also not the top priority i have if i'm the bureau direct at the head of the i like this idea that the undercover in-cell agent has to do such great method acting so weak i can't chew a pull-up that's how you really commit to the

bit. Oh, my God. Well, this is also, this is a few weeks after Cash put out the video of himself doing pull-ups as part of the RFK Pete Hags up challenge. Didn't you get in trouble because of the timing of that? I forget. Well, and people say, I mean, you look at it. Look, I'm not Mr. Pull-up, but he can't.

I mean, he does like one or two with good form. But then the rest are just like, create, like, wriggling. And, you know, the little chipmone pull-ups kind of. Yeah, he's kind of like throwing his body up. And it's crazy, as you can tell, I guess he's converted this open air part of the FBI headquarters into a gym. And so you could, I mean, this is like going on on the streets of D.C.

That the FBI director is going like, whoa, well, they're all trying to outdo each other, right? It's like the- We should grab that video in post. For the people that watch this not live, we love you, live folks and commenters, especially the guy that called me handsome over there, but for the people,

what? To come later. We should grab the video for them so they can enjoy it. All right. There are one last thing before we let you go, because it's been discussed. in the common section, and this is right up your alley, but there's people who don't think Patel dresses the part. It doesn't really know how to dress like an FBI director. I have no

actual strong thoughts. I did notice his tie had been really loose during his confirmation hearing. It was a little tighter today at the knot area, but it wasn't like totally tight and it still is a fat knot, and I'm not sure. I can weigh in on this. Yeah, you want to weigh on this? I'm kind of a, you know, sartorial fan. Yeah, so I agree. His knot is too big, and I don't understand he has like some sort of symbol on the tie it's like um it it looks almost like the like the emmy's award or something it looks like an angel or something and so i that's weird i don't i don't think that's appropriate it he dresses um it's sort of like almost like he's like going like going to the like a gentleman's like a gentleman's like not a shirt club but like like an old like london

gentleman's club like the like the executive branch club that they all go to in charge yeah exactly but i do think that nod is just way too big and and And this whole administration, they love the suit lapels are too thin and, you know, so on. What, I didn't realize we had a darn fucking guy. My problem is with his face, not his outfit. Okay. And maybe there's nothing he can do about it. I've said this about myself in case people are saying this is too mean.

People are like, yeah, they're like, Tim, if one of your loser candidates that ever won, would you have been White House press secretary? And I always say, I probably would have been communication director behind the scenes because the press secretary is important to have a good poker face. And I have a bad poker face. If I hate you, you can tell immediately on my face. That's the face problem. Some people just don't have a face for the press secretary.

Cash does not have the face for being in charge of the Bureau of the FBI. He looks nervous and scared. His eyes are darting always. He looks very uncomfortable. And maybe it's not his fault. Maybe that's just how God made him. But he doesn't have a face for the job. Trump likes people to come from central casting.

And he doesn't have the face for the job. Yeah, I agree with that. He doesn't exude the sort of like I'm above at all and I'm just going to play it really cool and I'm not going to tell you anything going to be kind of intimidating or he doesn't have that. But he does have Trump's backing for now and I think that's all that matters. So there have been some chatter that he might be on the way out. No way. Booker said this is probably your last hearing. No fucking way.

No way. Not happening. I'm putting my money down. I don't even know what to pull up polymarker. our polymarket odds are on this one. But I don't care. He's not going anywhere. Can I just flag something that a producer?

Yeah, and then Tim's got to run. In our comments, just briefly, it's apparently a liver football club, Liverpool football club tie, which is even crazier. Maybe he does love those soccer flag things that he drapes all over place. Maybe he's a big Liverpool fan. All right. Tim, Will. I got to roll.

Thanks everybody. Thanks everyone for tuning in.