REGIME MEDIA: Sunday Shows FREAK OUT Over Trump Choice of Kash Patel to Lead the FBI

December 1st, 2024 4:48 PM

The Regime Media are up in arms and in high dudgeon after President Elect Donald Trump sent a Saturday shockwave by choosing former Department of Defense Chief of Staff Kash Patel as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Patel pick has been met with all manner of hand wringing on the Regime’s Sunday shows.

Over at ABC, Jon Karl opened This Week with the customary overwrought editorial, loaded with appeals to authority, diminishment of Patel’s qualifications, and fearmongering over the scope of Patel’s mission at the Bureau (click “expand” to view transcript): 

ABC THIS WEEK

12/1/24

9:01 AM

JON KARL: Good morning. Welcome to This Week. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. If there was any doubt that President Elect Donald Trump intends to follow through with his promises of radical change and retribution both here at home and abroad, those doubts have been erased. On the home front, the big move came just last night when Trump announced he intends to make Kash Patel, one of his most fervently loyal defenders, as the Director of the FBI. He'll first have to fire the current director, Chris Wray, who was chosen by Trump back in 2017, and whose term isn't up for more than two years. Patel will face an especially contentious confirmation battle. Patel is so controversial that whenPpresident Trump talked about making him the deputy FBI director in 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr, said it would happen, quote, “over my dead body” according to his memo adding, quote, “Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world's preeminent law enforcement agency. The very idea of moving Patel into a role like this showed a shocking detachment from reality.” Again, that was Bill Barr objecting to Patel becoming the Deputy FBI Director. Now Trump has announced his intention to make him the Director. Patel has served as both a public defender and a federal prosecutor. He also served on Trump's National Security Council, and in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. After the 2020 election, Patel was dispatched to the Pentagon. As I previously reported, he used his post as Chief of Staff to the Acting Defense Secretary to attempt to chase down one of the most far-fetched election conspiracy theories, that Italian spy satellites were used to flip votes from Trump to Biden. After Trump left The White House, Patel took up the case of fighting back against anyone and everyone in law enforcement who was investigating Donald Trump. He even wrote a children's book about Trump's legal troubles called "Plot Against the King." But it's the book that Patel wrote for adults, "Government Gangsters," that gives an idea of what he would attempt to do as the FBI Director. He writes that federal law enforcement agencies must be brought to heel by firing the top ranks and prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law anyone who in any way abused their authority for political ends. “The FBI has become so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to people unless drastic measures are taken,” Patel wrote, adding Democrats, quote, “should be very afraid.” 

Over at CNN, Kasie Hunt went and did likewise while filling in for Tapper and Bash on State of the Union. Her open, although more succinct than Karl’s, echoed similar themes (click “expand” to view transcript”):

CNN STATE OF THE UNION

12/1/24

9:01 AM

KASIE HUNT: Hello, I'm Kasie Hunt in for Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is: watching a new battle brewing. President Elect Donald Trump is closing out his Thanksgiving weekend by setting up another major political fight. He wants longtime loyalist and partisan firebrand Kash Patel to lead the FBI. It's a move that would require firing the current director, Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed after firing his first FBI director in 2017. Patel is a highly divisive figure. He's accused the so-called Deep State of targeting Trump and proposed a quote, “comprehensive house cleaning”, end quote, of the Justice Department saying that under Trump, it would go after members of the media. In his memoir, former Attorney General Bill Barr said he had tried to block a move to install Patel as Deputy FBI Director during Trump's first term. Barr said that he'd allow it, quote, “over my dead body.” And multiple sources familiar with the Trump transition process had previously told CNN that Patel's rise is deeply concerning. It's not clear that Patel could be confirmed by the Senate, but his pick is another sign that Trump plans to follow through on his promises to disrupt Washington.

Part of the false underpinning of the media’s arguments against Patel is the idea that his pick is a norms-busting politicization of federal law enforcement, and not an attempt to de-Ba’athify an already-weaponized government. Central to this false premise is the suppression of such stories as the malicious prosecutions of abortion clinic protesters such as Mark Houck, and the classification of both parents questioning their porn-enabling school boards and Latin Mass adherents as “domestic terrorists.” The Regime Media, in full self-preservation mode, would like you to believe that Patel is coming in to ravage a pristine FBI, as opposed to reform it. 

We see similar appeals to authority over at NBC, where Meet the Depressed moderator Kristen Welker tried to corner Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on the appeal to (Bill Barr’s) authority, to no avail:

NBC MEET THE PRESS

12/1/24

10:15 AM

KRISTEN WELKER: So, Senator, you are disregarding what Bill Barr, the former Attorney General under Donald Trump is saying. His warnings that he just doesn't have the experience.

BILL HAGERTY: I'm saying there are people that are serving in the current administration that are woefully inexperienced. I think Kash does have relevant experience, particularly when it comes to the mandate the American public have assigned of turning these agencies around that have become completely corrupted. Kash has pointed it out, he’s probably the best at uncovering what’s happened at the FBI, and I look forward to seeing him taking it apart. 

This was part of a broader exchange on Patel, where Hagerty initially shut Welker down by pointing out Antony Blinken’s role in conjuring up the phony letter, signed by 51 former intelligence officials, claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop bore all the hallmarks of “Russian disinformation.” It bears noting that Hunter’s laptop was authenticated a full year prior to publication of the letter, per testimony by the IRS whistleblowers in Congress, and FBI testimony at the Hunter Biden gun trial in Delaware. These testimonies were also suppressed by the Regime Media.

Failing appeals to authority, the Regime Media went for whataboutistic justifications. Here’s CBS’s Major Garrett, sitting in for Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation, attempting to suggest that the prosecutions of Donald Trump, Robert Menendez, Hunter Biden and Henry Cuellar occupy the same moral plane and promptly getting shut down by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) (click “expand” to view transcript)

CBS FACE THE NATION

12/1/24

10:41 AM

MAJOR GARRETT: As you know, Senator, there isn't a vacancy at the top at the FBI. What should become of Christopher Wray, appointed by President trump?

TED CRUZ: Well, I think he'll make a choice. I think either he will resign or President Trump will fire him. But it's no secret to anybody, including Chris Wray, that he is not going to continue to serve as the head of the FBI under Donald Trump. Listen, if you look at James Comey and Chris Wray, there has never been a period in our nation's history where the FBI has suffered a greater loss of respect where more Americans doubt the fundamental integrity of the FBI. And it's because James Comey and Chris Wray presided over allowing the FBI to become a partisan cudgel, to be used to target parents at school board meetings, to be used to target people who chose not to take the covid vaccine, to be used to target President Trump and to target the political opponents of Joe Biden and The White House. It is tragic, that is not what the FBI is for. That is not what the DoJ is for. And I gotta say, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, I think, together are a very strong slate of nominees to go and restore integrity to both institutions.

GARRETT: How do you place that up against the prosecutions of Bob Menendez, a congressman- a Democrat from Texas, Hunter Biden? Are those political prosecutions as well or not?

CRUZ: Well, first of all, let's be clear. Bob Menendez was literally caught with gold bars and a stack of cash with his fingerprints taking bribes, and it’s why Bob Menendez is not my colleague any more. At that point, the evidence was overwhelming.

Reaction to the Patel pick across the dial was equal parts rage, hysteria, fear, and loathing. There is still time to go before Patel goes before Congress but the Regime Media have made crystal clear that they will fight this pick tooth and nail.