The Megyn Kelly Show - Kash Patel Spars on the Hill, New Crooks Files, Nick Reiner Won't Face Death Penalty: AM Update 9/16

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

FBI Director Kash Patel clashes with senators during a fiery oversight hearing over FBI hiring standards, election monitoring, and his leadership of the bureau. Newly released FBI files reveal possible encounters between attempted Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks and several unidentified men before the attempted assassination of President Trump. Attorney General Todd Blanche addresses the AI regulation debate and the federal crackdown on fentanyl dealers following Hayden Panettiere’s death. Los Angeles prosecutors rule out the death penalty for Nick Reiner, who is accused of murdering his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner - The MK True Crime Show co-host Phil Holloway weighs in.   Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com & Use code MEGYNAM for up to 20% off ARMRA: go to https://tryarmra.com/MEGYN to get 30% off your first subscription order Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. It's Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and this is your AM update. By the way, I want to know how your wealth increased 4,000 percent to become United States Senate. An FBI oversight hearing erupting into insults, accusations, and downright bizarre exchanges, as Director Cash Patel battles fierce critics on Capitol Hill. A possible citing of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks with two unidentified men weeks before. for the assassination attempt, among the new details emerging from the latest release of FBI files on the Trump shooter. Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent

for months and months and months. Attorney General Todd Blanche facing the White House press corps weighing in on the escalating AI battle and then some. And the death penalty off the table for Rob Reiner's son, Nick Reiner. All that and more coming up at just a moment on your AM update. I have got to talk to you about cozy earth's bamboo, stretch knit pajamas. I love mine. They are silky smooth and buttery soft, and you can feel it the second you put them on. They are naturally temperature regulating and breathable, so they keep you completely cool without

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FBI director Cash Patel facing nearly five hours of grilling on Capitol Hill yesterday as a routine Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing erupted into a series of sometimes personal and at times downright bizarre confrontations. Lawmakers from both parties pressing Patel over everything from controversial firings and election monitoring to the Bureau's newly released hiring standards. Director Patel, opening on offense, listing out a series of FBI accomplishments under his leadership. The FBI has arrested 54,000 violent criminals. That's up 90% from the 18-month-year period prior to that. 31,000 violent gang members have been arrested by the FBI. We've removed, the FBI has removed 3,258 kilograms of fentanyl.

That's enough to kill a quarter billion. Americans. We have located, found and identified, 11,081 child victims. That is up 21%. That is making America safe. We have arrested 5,072 child predators and human traffickers. That's up 13%. This FBI have arrested 4,260 foreign terrorist organization relations. That's up 38%. Including the fact that this FBI has stop 1,100 criminal perpetrators from committing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The victory lap soon giving way to one of the hearings' strangest disputes. CBS News reporting the FBI issued new guidance in June, removing the automatic disqualification of some applicants who previously stole from an employer paid for sex or engaged in

bestiality or animal cruelty before turning 18. Ranking Democrat Dick Durbin, arguing the Bureau had lowered its standards, while Director Patel contended the change had been badly mischaracterized. Thank you for bringing this up so we can get to the truth of the matter. We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We did not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you are a victim of these awful, heinous acts. They still have to go to the same rigorous standards and application process. We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country. Listen to this.

Who may be most motivated to serve our FBI workforce. He's no longer protecting those who've been charged with peacefulity. He's protecting those who are victims. Just turned it upside down. No, you did. No, you did. Because you lied. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana trying to pin down precisely who the revised policy was intended to protect.

Tell me what it said before. It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminals. The bestiality? Yes. So you disqualified the animal? Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify it. I understand.

I'm trying to understand why you did this. If Joe participated in beastiality, not as the animal, but as the human. Don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified? If he voluntarily did it, sure. But if he was trafficked into it, how do you involuntarily do it? In a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth,

they don't just traffic you for prostitution. They traffic you for degrading acts of all kind, and they force you into that type of conduct. And some of these individuals would go on to be law enforcement officers who qualified to be law enforcement officers and later applied to the FBI. Director Patel saying he initially reacted, to the proposal much as Kennedy did, before Bureau officials showed him actual cases involving

trafficking victims who later applied to the FBI. The revised policy allowing those applicants to receive individual consideration, with Patel insisting anyone who voluntarily committed the act would still be rejected and prosecuted. Two months before the midterm elections, the questioning then shifting to what role the FBI intends to play on Election Day. Democrat Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont pointing to comments from Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate John James, who claimed Patel personally assured him that the Bureau would have a presence in both Western and Southeastern Michigan, the question triggering one of the hearings' most explosive exchanges. We have election crisis coordinators manned at all 56 field offices.

Election integrity is of paramount importance. This FBI is not going to shy away. from that effort. And if you want to continue lying about the men and women of the FBI so you can have your four-second campaign ad, go ahead. Do you pledge that you will not in any way interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November? I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies. Then why are you being such a panderer to President Trump, who's still claiming that he won the 2020 election? What I believe in is, rule of law. What I will always believe is executing the rule of law. Saying in advance that he loses an election. By the way, it's been rigged. I want to know how

your wealth increased 4,000 percent since you became United States Senate. The temperature climbing even higher during Democrat Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey's turn. Once Mr. Booker's allotted time expired, Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley trying unsuccessfully to move the hearing along as Booker and Patel continued trading insults. I'm going to hold this man accountable for as long as he isn't his job until he gets fired, which he probably will because he's incompetent at his job and continues to do things that merit his removal. Yes, shame on you, sir. Director Patel, were you done?

By the way, violent crime arrest by the FBI in New Jersey, you're up 75% on top of the historic results we've already delivered for the American people. Yeah, thanks to the state police and local police officers. There are nothing I have said here is a lie. You said your time's up. Are you done or not? No, are you done or not, sir? If you want to answer my questions, if you want to my questions, go to the next person. This is ridiculous. What a mockery you are.

You are the biggest mockery in the United States Senate and you're sitting next to ship. Yeah, well, 8 million people in New Jersey don't think so. At least I didn't get my job the way you got your job. Are you going to interfere with Senator Graham asking her questions to? I certainly will not. Two as well. I certainly will not. Are you done now? Are you ready to shut up?

I am done, sir. More than two years after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on President Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new release of FBI records revealing previously undisclosed details about the gunman's contacts and the early investigation. The FBI publishing its eighth batch of files on Crooks, including interview summaries, evidence records, and internal communications collected after the July 2024 assassination. attempt. Journalist Tom Elliott reviewing the files, highlighting several encounters that he argues complicate the familiar portrait of Crooks as a loner who did virtually everything by himself. The most notable involving a gun store roughly 120 miles from Crooks' home, according to an FBI interview record cited by Elliott, Keystone Armory in Edinburgh contacted investigators after the shooting to report that a man resembling Crooks had visited the store on

May 25th, 2004. Employees reportedly describing the man as spending roughly an hour inside, accompanied by one man believed to be in his 30s and another older man with a gray beard. The customer purchasing 20 rounds of ammo, though not the same type crooks used in the assassination attempt. After the July shooting, the store contacting the FBI and supplying investigators with its surveillance video. Elliot noting Crooks was scheduled to attend a firearms class elsewhere in Pennsylvania later that afternoon, making the timeline possible, though not conclusive. A separate FBI interview summary documenting another interaction one day before the assassination

attempt. Officials at the Clareton Sportsman's Club telling investigators that surveillance video showed Crooks speaking with another man while the two men were alone on the rifle range July 12th. Agents reportedly photographing the unidentified man and his vehicle from images held by a club official, then checking the names listed in the range's sign-in records. The release offering no public account of what investigators ultimately learned about that encounter. Other records revealing agents were searching for a third cell phone, believed to be connected to Crooks. On July 21st, agents reportedly conducting a coordinated search of the wooded area and a nearby dumpster for what the document calls, quote,

a phone believed to be associated with Thomas Crooks, investigators also searching an apartment complex whose coordinates had been stored on one of Crooks' devices. By that point, investigators had already recovered Crooks' primary Samsung phone from his body. The evidence log also listing a second Samsung containing a year of calls and messages ending in July, 2023. Elliot noting the separate search in the wooded area indicates agents believed crooks had possessed a third device, though he reports they found nothing. The FBI maintaining that crooks acted alone, saying its investigation included more than 1,000 interviews,

roughly 2,000 public tips, 100 subpoenas, and the examination of 13 electronic devices. Coming up, a wide-ranging White House briefing from Attorney General Todd Blanche, addressing AI and a potential investigation into actress Hayden Penitier's death, and prosecutors ruling out the death penalty for Nick Reiner. Feeling sluggish, bloated, not quite like yourself, life constantly bombards us with silent threats, processed foods, artificial light, non-stop stress, all of which can disrupt gut health, drain energy, and weaken immune health. When that happens, it's not that your body is broken, it's that it might be missing the right inputs.

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of the week, AI. A.G. Blanche addressing what role the DOJ will play as the tech advances. As far as AI is concerned, we have a lot of, there's a lot of criminal laws. And so if anybody associated with AI violates criminal law, we'll investigate that. We already have. There's plenty of cases involving AI that we've charged individuals. I do not think it's the job of the Department of Justice to regulate. We're prosecutors, not regulators. So we're not going to try to regulate AI. AI is extraordinarily beneficial to our society. There's a lot of great work that AI does. And it's also something that conveniently has become a flashpoint this week. And the president has spoke about that. And I very much agree with them. The flashpoint erupting after some of the

country's largest AI companies are now calling for lawmakers to regulate their own industry and slow their pace of development, warning of potentially catastrophic risks. President Trump branding the campaign a hoax, while critics question whether the industry's biggest players are using regulation to protect their position and box out smaller competitors. A.G. Blanche, too, questioning the timing of the campaign. This AI issue that's suddenly come up two months before an election is being, the president calls it a hoax. The way this has come around today and not three months ago, I mean, I was watching the news today. Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months. So to talk about the timing of this as being nothing but an

effort to influence the midterms. I shouldn't have to say that out loud. Of course, that's what it is. And that shouldn't be what drives the decisions that we're making around AI. We can't lose the AI race to China, right? President Trump says that. Everybody says that, but they say it because it's true. AG Blanche, also addressing reports, actress Hayden Penitiera may have died after taking a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl and what the DOJ is doing to target the people selling. those deadly drugs. So when it comes to fentanyl, they're not fake pills, they're death pills, right? So there are pills that kill people, and there's a federal statute that allows us to go after, assuming we can prove who the dealer is to go after them and put them in prison for murder. And we do it in every

district in this country. And it's a big, it's a big emphasis of DA Minister Cole and our prosecutors around the country. So when we can prove, and sometimes if somebody's an addict, it's difficult to prove who they actually got the pill from. But in the cases where we know who the dealer was and we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person sold the death pill to the victim who then dies, that's a federal crime. And that's something that we will readily prosecute as often as we can.

L.A. prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table in the case against Nick Reiner. The 33-year-old accused of murdering his parents, famed Hollywood director Rob Reiner and wife, photographer and producer Michelle. Reiner accused of fatally stabbing his parents inside their Brentwood home during the early morning hours of December 14th. A massage therapist arriving for a scheduled appointment that afternoon, contacting the couple's daughter, Romy, after no one answered the gate.

Romy discovering her father's body, first responders finding both Rob and Michelle dead inside. Police arresting Nick later that evening near the the University of Southern California, roughly 13 miles from the crime scene. Prosecutors charging Reiner two days later, the case initially moving toward a preliminary hearing to determine whether they had enough evidence to take him to trial. A grand jury instead returning an indictment on July 20th, allowing prosecutors to bypass that hearing. The indictment unsealed August 12th, charging Reiner with two counts of first-degree murder and alleging the

special circumstances of multiple murders and murder by means of lying in wait. Reiner pleading not guilty to the entire indictment that same day, Reiner currently being held without bail in downtown L.A. The special circumstance charges making him eligible for either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ahead of yesterday's pretrial hearing, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hockman announcing which punishment his office will pursue. sue. After a careful and thorough review of all these factors, the district attorney's office will not be

seeking the death penalty in this case. That means that the maximum sentence that Mr. Weiner will be looking at is life without the possibility of parole. We did speak with Nick Reiner's siblings. They made their views very clear. We took that their views into consideration and ultimately deciding not to seek the death penalty. Hockman declining to reveal precisely what Jake and Roman Reiner told prosecutors, Rob and Michelle themselves longtime opponents of the death penalty. NBC News reporting the couple previously advocated on behalf of Texas death row inmate Nanon Williams, developing a close relationship with him over several years. Nick Reiner appearing in court yesterday in a brown jail jumpsuit and shackles, reportedly remaining expressionless throughout the brief hearing.

Reiner, meanwhile, waging a parallel legal fight in probate court, seeking access to roughly $1.5 million from a trust established by his parents to help pay for his defense. That dispute returning to court October 23rd. We spoke with the M.K. True Crime Show co-host, Phil Holloway, about why the DA may have taken the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors almost universally take into account the wishes and the desires of surviving family members when they make the decision, often a hard decision on whether or not to seek the death penalty in a case. But that doesn't mean that the wishes of any survivors necessarily completely drive the decision. After all, the tail doesn't wag the dog. The prosecutor has other considerations as well. Certain things like the practical effect of the decision, will

the death penalty ever be carried out if a jury were to impose it? And in California, the answer is almost certainly know. There's been a moratorium in place in California since March 13th, 2019, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. And that'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for the MK Show live on Sirius XMs, the Megan Kelly Channel, 11 at New East, on YouTube.com slash Megan Kelly and on all podcast platforms.