Right-wing podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he doesn’t “have a ton of confidence” in FBI Director Kash Patel and the agency he runs.
Patel’s tenure at the head of the FBI has been plagued by controversy. A group of fired FBI agents is suing Patel and the Department of Justice, alleging that they were terminated in an act of unlawful retaliation after they knelt at a George Floyd protest in 2020.
A recent report from an FBI source also claims that Patel refused to leave his jet after the Charlie Kirk assassination because he didn’t have an FBI jacket to wear.
An internal report from an alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents, released in December, found that under Patel’s leadership, the FBI has become “internally paralyzed by fear” and that morale was low, hampering the agency’s ability to conduct its law enforcement mission in the U.S.
It is against that backdrop that Carlson made his comments casting doubt on Patel’s abilities during a recent appearance on conservative-leaning Theo Von’s podcast.
“I just don’t have a ton of confidence in the FBI or the men who run it,” Carlson said on Tuesday. “And I’m not saying that out of ignorance at all.”
He noted Patel’s X comments shortly after Kirk was shot, in which he incorrectly claimed that a shooter had been apprehended. Patel had to walk the comments back less than two hours later after local officials denied that the shooter had been caught.
“This dumb Twitter [X] s**t,” Carlson said. “Leaders of the FBI on Twitter, like what?”
Patel has also doubled down following claims that he used government jets for “personal joyrides” with his girlfriend, arguing that his travel has actually saved taxpayer money, while maintaining that he’s “entitled to a personal life.”
“I’ve also used the airplane less than my prior two predecessors,” he said last week. “And, yes, I’m entitled to a personal life just like my other agency counterparts with their partners. Do I support my girlfriend? Absolutely. And I do take trips with her? Absolutely.”
White House sources reportedly told Reuters that Patel’s online presence is “unprofessional” and added that his “performance is really not acceptable to the White House or the American public.”
Both Von and Carlson agreed that it was Patel’s handling of the investigation and the messaging around it that allowed conspiracy theories surrounding Kirk’s death to flourish online, and said the FBI director should shoulder the blame.
“The people with the authority are the ones responsible, and they’re the ones who should be held responsible when there’s a failure,” Carlson said. “Not some podcaster, not me, not you, not Candace [Owens].”
Owens has been peddling a number of conspiracy theories about Kirk’s death, including suggestions that he was murdered by Israeli agents and that the U.S. military was involved in his death. None of those rumors have been substantiated by evidence.
There have been rumors that President Donald Trump is considering replacing Patel as the head of the FBI, but the White House has denied the claims.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the rumors “fake news” and “completely made-up” in November.
