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FBI Director Patel Defends His Handling Of Kirk Shooting Case; Patel Testifies Amid Questions Over FBI Leadership, Kirk Case; Sen. Booker To Patel: I think Trump "Will Cut You Loose". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 16, 2025 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, and we're following a pivotal hearing on Capitol Hill. FBI Director Kash Patel has been fielding questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for nearly three hours now. He's been defending his handling of the investigation into the heinous murder of Charlie Kirk, the Jeffrey Epstein case and accusations of turmoil at the FBI. Right off the bat, Director Patel, did defend his record.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: I'm not going anywhere. If you want to criticize my 16 years of service, please bring it on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: It comes just hours before the man accused of gunning down Charlie Kirk in cold blood in front of a giant crowd of college students, appears in court for the first time. The alleged shooter will be arraigned in Utah this afternoon.

CNN's Evan Perez is following all of these developments, and you see there, Evan is outside the hearing, listening to the hearing. A lot of ground is being covered. Evan, what strikes you the most when it comes to what we've heard from the FBI director so far?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, not surprisingly, Kash Patel has been very strident in defending his -- the job that he's done, including, of course, going over that misstep that occurred during the search for the alleged shooter in the Charlie Kirk murder.

You remember that the FBI director incorrectly said that there had been someone who was apprehended, a subject who had been apprehended for the shooting, and it turned out that that was not true, and he had to retract that. And it really does sort of go into some of the criticism we've heard from people inside the Justice Department as well as at the FBI, about how he has really been more focused on his social media presence.

And we've seen him talk about some of the evidence that the FBI and that the Utah public safety officials have gathered in this case, which is unusual because this is an ongoing investigation. As you noted, the suspect is expected in court today, and the federal prosecutors are still working to see whether they can bring any federal charges. It's very unusual for you to be talking about some of that evidence.

You're seeing Pam Bondi, for instance, doing interviews, and she's staying away from the same thing. He defended some of that today, Dana, by pointing out that what he promised was to bring more transparency to the FBI, and he said he would continue doing that. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. And he also said just on the specifics of the investigation, when asked whether or not, they were talking to everybody on the discord chat that we now know that the suspect was involved in. He said yes, and that we're talking about 20 people who were on that chat, which is certainly a lot of people who could have a lot of information.

Evan, just broadly on the questions about what is happening at the FBI and retribution against FBI agents inside the FBI that have been allegedly happening since Kash Patel took office. I want to read our viewers something from the New York Times today.

Chris Meyer knew he was in trouble over the summer when a pro-Trump influencer claimed, without a wisp of proof, that he was the main agent in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. It was inflammatory. Mr. Meyer, 43 said in an interview last week. It was false. No matter. Last month, Mr. Patel summarily fired Mr. Meyer.

He has been asked in various forms by Democratic senators, mostly, maybe entirely, about whether or not he is going after FBI agents who were assigned to cases investigating the president, and also people who are in his orbit. What has he said?

PEREZ: Well, yeah. He's been defending the way he's run the FBI. He says that he has repeated that people are not being fired because of their involvement in pro-Trump cases and Trump investigations, which is the allegation that's being made.

And in the case of that agent that you talked about, he's a former -- he's a veteran. He had nothing to do with the Mar-a-Lago search, but yet, because people falsely on social media were accusing him of that, that's what then became the problem for him internally.

And we've seen in another lawsuit that Brian Driscoll, who was the former -- who was Meyer's boss, said that he tried to save his job. In the end, Driscoll was also fired. But listen to him, pushing back when Senator Blumenthal asked the question about, you know, some of removals of people inside the FBI and whether politics was playing a role in this. Listen to this exchange.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PATEL: The only way people get terminated at the FBI is if they fail to meet the muster of the job and their duties, and that is where I will leave it. And you accusing me of lying is something I don't take lightly, but I'm not going to get into a tit for tat with you.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Well, let me just ask you to answer my question. Has anyone from the White House contacted you about personnel decisions?

PATEL: Generally speaking, we always discuss with the White House OMB during the budget process, how many personnel we need, who we need, where.

BLUMENTHAL: Answer is, yes.

PATEL: For budgetary purposes --

BLUMENTHAL: You've been directed to be fire people, agents because they participated in investigations of the president.

PATEL: I don't receive directions to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And Dana, the allegation, of course, is -- has been made by people who Kash Patel elevated inside the FBI. And then, of course, let go because they refuse to go along with some of what they say where they were being ordered to do. Some of that, of course, is going to be worked out, going to be litigated in court -- in court proceedings in the coming months.

But obviously, this hearing is still going on for another couple of hours, and you expect -- we can expect that more questions about the way Mr. Patel has managed the FBI will be at the front and center of that.

BASH: Yeah. No question about that. Evan, thank you for your terrific reporting. I appreciate it. I'm joined here at the table by some other pretty amazing reporters, CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Tamara Keith of NPR, Marianna Sotomayor of The Washington Post, and also with us is retired FBI special agent, Daniel Brenner.

Let me just go to you first, Daniel Brenner, because we were just -- just to pick up on where I left off with Evan about the questions about the FBI inside and agents and that sort of atmospherics there. And then, in a bit, I want to get to the investigation into the shooting of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

DANIEL BRENNER, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, things that the FBI, obviously are -- one of the most amazing things about the FBI is the agents, especially in the Salt Lake division. They're going to do their jobs, no matter what is going on above them, at the turmoil, whether it be the director or the SAC, the Salt Lake division. When a crisis happens, everyone comes together, everyone bands together, everyone knows what the job is to do, and everyone trains for that. And that -- and Director Patel said-- BASH: Daniel, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I'm going to get back to you. We just want to dip back into the hearing. The FBI director is being questioned by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): I think you'll defend us again -- defend children, reassign. You're not denying that.

PATEL: FBI just don't get reassigned--

BOOKER: I've seen time and time again, attack my colleagues, premises of questions as a way to not answer the question. So let me end with this. I believe you have made our country weaker and less safe. I believe that we are more vulnerable to a major event, and I pray to God it doesn't happen. You've gutted the bureau of institutional knowledge and expertise. You fired or pushed out seasoned FBI officials, many with more than 20 years of experience and who were working on cases that were critical.

You've been purging thousands of serious law enforcement officials who spent their careers keeping us safe only to lower hiring standards in order to find anyone to replace them. And shockingly, you admitted in this hearing to Senator Coons that it would take 14 years to fill the vacancies at your agency. Many are the result of your purge.

20 percent of FBI agents are doing low level immigration enforcement instead of their mission critical work. You've disbanded entire task forces that stop election interference, foreign influence, public corruption. And who benefits from this? Will corrupt people benefit from it. Criminals benefit from it. Vladimir Putin benefits from it.

And it really makes me wonder who you're looking out for. It makes me think we can't trust you as a nation. You swear to release the Epstein files, but now you're withholding the Epstein files. You claim that you have a suspect in a serious assassination. Whoops, then you don't have a suspect.

You know nothing about plans to remove FBI agents, yet you're directly involved in those plans. In the words of an ex-FBI official, you are overseeing, and I quote, generational destruction of the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Mr. Patel, in just eight months you have assaulted the institutional integrity of the FBI. But I know FBI field agents.

I've worked with them in Newark. No matter how truly bad you are, you can't undermine the legacy of agents who fight every day to keep us safe, but you can tarnish the integrity of the agency and undermine the agency's capacity. I believe you're failing as a leader, and that your failure does have serious implications for the safety and security of Americans and our families.

[12:10:00]

We're more vulnerable to domestic and foreign attack because of your failures of leadership. I don't think you're fit to him the bureau, but here's the thing. Mr. Patel, I think you're not going to be around long. I think this might be your last oversight hearing, because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump and not the constitution of the United States of America, Donald Trump has shown us in his first term, and in this term, he is not loyal to people like you. He will cut you loose.

This may be the last time I have a hearing with you because I don't think you're long for your job, but I'm going to tell you this. I pray for you. I pray for you that you can step up and defend your oath, defend the constitution, and do a much better job of defending this country. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want to say anything?

PATEL: Yes, sir. That rant of false information does not bring this country together. If you want to work on bringing this country, it's my time, not yours.

BOOKER: My God, my God--

PATEL: If you want to talk about--

(CROSSTALK)

PATEL: -- fighting this country, I follow you on your social media posts that terribly come to your part.

(CROSSTALK)

PATEL: The vision of this country, it is my time. Your time is over.

BOOKER: Sir, you don't tell me my time is over.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, point of order. Senator Booker, I announced at the beginning of this meeting that this back and forth talking over each other doesn't work. And I said, if that happened, I asked Patel not to respond and I was going to give him some time after the senator's time was up to respond, and that's, he has the privilege to do that uninterrupted.

BOOKER: Mr. Chairman, one point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead, Mr. Patel.

BOOKER: I've watched him talk over us, and you've never once criticized him for us not even be able to get our questions out. He has been rude and disrespectful to senator after senator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when the senators were not giving him a chance to answer, I didn't stop the senator either. Go ahead, senator.

PATEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the FBI under my seven-month leadership were failing this administration, this country, why do we have 23,000 violent felons arrested this year alone, a 20 -- 200 -- excuse me, a double increase from that time last year. Why is it that we have seized 6000 weapons? Why have we found 1500 child predators and arrest them? Why have we have 300 human traffickers in jail? Why have we found and identified 4700 children? Why have we seized 1600 kilograms of fentanyl, enough to kill a third of the American public, a 25 percent increase alone from last year.

88,000 kilograms of cocaine seeds, 70,000 kilograms of meth seeds, and that's just on our criminal operations in summer heat. How is it possible that we are taking eight kilograms off the streets of the cities in New Jersey and preventing the deaths of 607,000 people this year alone, a failure of the FBI and my leadership.

How is it that we have counterintelligence arrests. Already this year, exceeding the numbers from the entirety of last year. 33 percent increase in PRC, 83 percent in Russia, 60 percent in the CI space, as it relates to Iran. And we haven't talked about CT the southern border, the northern border.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before Senator Cruz, I kind of feel like a broken record today, all this interest in FBI termination, yet my colleagues showed no intent or interest in when I -- my whistleblower suffered retaliation over the past years, particularly the past four years. Indeed, one whistleblower has alleged that Brian Driscoll insubordination, whether, and asks -- whether an agent is on a hot button case or not, they ought to be held accountable for misconduct and weaponization. Senator Cruz?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I have to say, it used to be that to see theater, you had to go to the Kennedy Center. Now, apparently you need only go to the Senate Judiciary Committee and see our Senate Democrats berating the director of the FBI, which, OK, it's not partisan. Politics is not new in the United States Congress.

But what is remarkable is what Senator Booker was berating Director Patel about. He wasn't berating him for failing to do his job, but rather he was furious for Director Patel for successfully doing his job. For four years the Democrats under Joe Biden had an open border that undermined the safety of every single American. They allowed 12 million illegal aliens to come into this country, to invade this country, and every single day Americans were murdered, women were raped, children were assaulted by violent criminals that Democrats released

[12:15:00]

Now, Director Patel, I found Senator Booker's questioning really bizarre. He asked you, have you reassigned FBI agents from human trafficking to immigration issues? Director Patel, are the Mexican cartels that are bringing people illegally into this country engaged in human trafficking?

PATEL: Yes, sir.

CRUZ: What the hell does it mean to reassign someone from human trafficking to immigration? The greatest human trafficking that in the world has been over the last four years at our southern border. It is modern day slavery that the Democrats still defend. They still defend those open borders. Mr. Patel, he also said, did you reassign FBI agents from protecting children to immigration? How many children have you found that were victimized by the open borders of the previous administration?

PATEL: 4700.

CRUZ: 4700, and yet, oddly. I don't hear a Democrat here saying, gosh, thanks for protecting those kids.

PATEL: 35 percent increased year to date last year.

CRUZ: All right. I want to shift topics. And I want to shift topics to what happened last week. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He was assassinated because of his political views. We're living in a time of enormous division and tragically hatred and hatred that manifested in evil that we saw last week.

Now the FBI working in concert with state and local law enforcement, apprehended what appears to be, in all likelihood, the murderer, and you did so in just 33 hours. So, I want to start by just congratulating you and the FBI agents and state and local law enforcement for successfully apprehending the murderer in less than a day and a half.

In the wake of that assassination, we have seen far too many people on the left celebrating the assassination. We've seen Democrats. We've seen activists cheering it on. We've seen tragically teachers, teachers in high schools, teachers in elementary schools, university professors, cheering on the murder of Charlie Kirk. You and I both knew Charlie well. He was a good friend. He was an extraordinary man.

And I will say, there's a great deal of discussion about what to do about it. Under our constitution, under the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment speech is protected, and that's true even for vile speech. Someone can stand up and say the most hateful thing, and it's protected by the First Amendment.

Nazis and Klansmen can march in the streets, and even though their speech is bigoted and horrible and racist, the First Amendment protects it. Conduct, however, is not protected by the First Amendment, particularly conduct that is violent. Violent conduct that is threatening others, that is harassing others, that is injuring or in this case, murdering others, is most assuredly not protected by the First Amendment,

And so, I would encourage you and the FBI to focus on conduct. Now, speech can direct -- speech can guide you to those engaged in conduct. And I will say, one question that I have, and many have, and I recognize this is an ongoing investigation. So, I don't want you to say anything that would compromise the investigation. But what can you tell us at this point about what evidence there exists of other individuals who may have had prior knowledge of this assassin's plans to murder Charlie Kirk on September 10?

PATEL: Generally speaking, we've interviewed numerous people, family members and friends, including the partner, to provide us with detailed history of the knowledge he may have had, the suspect may have had prior to. We are still mapping out who, if anyone, was involved as an accomplice, as I said, the investigation is ongoing.

[12:20:00]

We are also speaking to and going to interview numerous individuals online who were part of a chat group that was involved in this heinous assassination. And we're also going to work with our state and local partners out in Utah to find out what community organizations, if any participated or had any foreknowledge of this information, but it's very much ongoing. I remind everybody that it's not even been a week since Charlie's tragic death.

CRUZ: Is it accurate? It's been widely reported that the assassin's roommate was a transgender man who was transitioning to be female, and it's also been reported that they may have been romantic partners. Is that accurate?

PATEL: Yes, Senator.

CRUZ: And I assume the FBI is investigating. It has also been reported that there were transgender chat rooms that may have had some awareness of the plan to commit this murder. Is that accurate as well?

PATEL: I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question?

CRUZ: It's been reported that there were chat rooms of transgender activists that indicated some degree of potentially a foreknowledge of this murder.

PATEL: We're still developing that.

CRUZ: Do you have any information, the bullet casings had on them, both antifa and LGBT wording on them. Do you have any indication of the source of those engravings and what inspired them?

PATEL: As to the actual source we're still developing that.

CRUZ: I want to encourage you in the course of this investigation, absolutely go after anyone who aided and abetted. But I want to more broadly encourage you, follow the money. The violence we are seeing is not purely organic. There is, I believe, significant money that is spreading -- dissension that is spreading violence, antifa. Do you believe antifa is a terrorist organization?

PATEL: I believe antifa is associated with a lot of violence in this country. As to its designation, I'll leave that to the appropriate authorities.

CRUZ: So, I would encourage the administration to designate antifa as a terrorist organization, to go systematically after antifa. They committed acts of violence all over the country, and the shell casings have multiple references to slogans that antifa has popularized. I believe there is considerable money funding, and I would note that I've introduced legislation called the stop funders act. Stop Funders Act would add rioting to the list of predicate offenses under RICO. I believe the money should be -- should be tracked and prosecuted under RICO. And both the antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of a couple of years ago, and the pro-open border riots in Los Angeles and other cities of this past year. I believe there was significant money behind those riots.

I'm not the only person who noticed at the antisemitic protest and violent protests on college campuses that many of the tents all matched. And so, I would ask, would it aid your ability to prosecute these matters if Congress passed into law the stop funders act and if rioting was added to the list of predicate offenses for RICO.

PATEL: Yes.

CRUZ: Talk to me about the--

BASH: We're going to continue to monitor this hearing, and it is clearly not even close to being over. But I do want to talk to my panel here about what we heard between Cory Booker and Kash Patel, and then following that, Ted Cruz and Kash Patel. Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Obviously Senator Booker raising many of the questions and concerns and what was more of a monolog, really summarizing the view of Democrats, of what he thinks of Kash Patel. It became very heated, which is not surprising. We saw Senator Booker walk out of the hearing room. Republican chairman, Senator Grassley ultimately interrupted or tried to bring order, but I think they will not bring a resolution to those are the central questions.

One thing I think that Senator Booker pointed out. He said that I think you are not going to be around very long. I'm not sure that that is true. One thing that is dramatically different of the many things that are different of the Trump administration the second time than the first. We've seen very, very, very few firings.

And I think by Senator Booker, they're really having a very explosive moment with the director. Think that probably keeps the director in his position longer, because President Trump likes a fighter, and Kash Patel at that moment looked like a fighter.

[12:25:00]

But I think the bigger point here, just really quickly, is that he would not be there if President Trump had not fired Christopher Wray. He was still two and a half years left of his 10-year term here. So, loyalty is important. Absolutely. But we've not seen President Trump fire nearly as many people as last time.

BASH: And President Trump was just asked a couple of hours ago, specifically whether or not he still has confidence in Kash Patel, and he didn't hedge at all. The answer was yes.

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Correct. And President Trump has what he wants in high level officials around the government, which is people who will do what he wants them to do, whether he tells them directly, or just puts it out into the universe, and then that happens.

At one point during this hearing, Kash Patel, or several points, was asked about whether there's an enemies list or a list of people to be fired. And he insisted there, there wasn't that he's making these decisions. But the message is very clear in an unrelated situation, but clearly related. Karoline Leavitt, at a White House press briefing not long ago, was asked about firings at the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control.

And she said, people need to be loyal to President Trump. People need to agree with the president and do what the president wants, if they want to keep their jobs, and that is something that is playing out, certainly high-level firings haven't happened. But below the surface, at Justice Department and the Department -- and at the FBI, there have been a lot of firings, and that is what one of the more contentious matters in this hearing.

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: We also haven't seen that much pushback from Senate Republicans, and we can tell when they are angry. I mean, just a couple weeks ago, there were pretty direct questions from Republican senators to RFK. Jr, right? We haven't really seen that.

BASH: And we saw them upset about the way that Patel and Bondi were handling the Epstein file but not shy about that.

SOTOMAYOR: Exactly. But when it comes to, you know, the Kirk investigation, which is something that Democrats have really been pointing and asking Patel about, essentially accusing him of, you know, kind of completely just being a little too transparent in a process that we are used to, you know, trusting the FBI, making sure that they are telling us the accurate information in real time, you are not seeing that pushback from Republicans. So again, I don't really think to your point that, you know, all of a sudden, the Republican Party is going to be calling for his officers.

And Daniel Brenner, I want to bring you back in after I had to interrupt you to go to that really remarkable exchange. Specifically, I want to ask you about what Senator Cruz was talking about with the FBI director. Senator Cruz is very media savvy, and he dropped some things into this hearing to put it on the record, which Kash Patel said that they are not sure about yet. He said, we're still investigating that, and that was a question about whether or not there were chant transgender members of a group chat that might have known ahead of time about this, this attack.

You know, I just want to emphasize Kash Patel did not say yes. He made very clear. This is -- we're investigating basically all the things that Senator Cruz and others asked about. What does that tell you as an FBI -- a former FBI agent?

BRENNER: Absolutely, as a case agent for 20 years, I never became a supervisor, never worked at the chain of command. I liked working these investigations. This absolutely would, you know, put me in knots if I had someone out in the media sphere, talking about my investigation, because it is still -- in retrospect, it's still in its infancy stages. They're still collecting intelligence. They're still collecting information.

And I've worked closely with the U.S. attorney's office. I have, you know, very close friends of mine who are a U.S.A., and they would absolutely also be very upset that the director of the FBI is out there talking about this investigation in providing information. But yet, during his testimony, he himself was asked about other investigations, and his comment, wells -- well, that's an ongoing investigation.

So, he's asked about other investigations, and his comment is the correct one. It's an ongoing investigation. I cannot comment whether it is or is not ongoing. So, the fact that he is talking so much in the pub -- in the in the public sphere, about this investigation, about the shooting, is difficult to hear as a case agent, and it would not be something I would want.

BASH: You know, politics is so infused in this. I mean, politics is infused in everything in this town, let's be honest about that. But particularly in this and there are things that that there is an interest in getting out there, and we have to wait and see what exactly the investigators come up with. And also in the short term, what we see in the filing document.

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