How Kash Patel Came to Loathe the Media and Love Trump

Summary

On the Media: How Kash Patel Came to Loathe the Media and Love Trump

Podcast Episode: "How Kash Patel Came to Loathe the Media and Love Trump"
Release Date: February 19, 2025
Host: WNYC Studios' Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger
Featured Guest: Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois
Reporter: Alaina Platt Calabro, Staff Writer at The Atlantic

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of On the Media, hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger delve into the intriguing transformation of Kash Patel—from a respected Department of Justice prosecutor to a fervent ally of former President Donald Trump with a deep-seated distrust of the media. Through an in-depth conversation with Senator Dick Durbin and insights from Alaina Platt Calabro’s profile in The Atlantic, the episode unravels the key events and motivations that have shaped Patel's political trajectory.

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Early Career and Rise within the Department of Justice

Kash Patel began his career as a civil servant and quickly ascended the ranks within the Department of Justice (DOJ). According to Senator Dick Durbin:

"He was a capable and competent attorney who was quite charming, good on his feet in front of judges, and same thing with his colleagues in Washington in the National Security Division of the Justice Department."
— Senator Dick Durbin [03:47]

Patel was perceived by his peers as a non-political, competent professional. Notably, some colleagues even recalled him supporting Jeb Bush while living in Florida, indicating his initial moderate stance.

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The Houston Courtroom Incident: The Catalyst

A pivotal moment in Patel’s career—and arguably his political realignment—occurred in 2016 during a high-stakes courtroom appearance in Houston. While on a trip to Tajikistan to interview witnesses for a terrorism case, Patel was unexpectedly summoned to a surprise hearing in Texas. Arriving without a tie, he faced rebuke from the presiding judge:

"If you come into my court, you better be dressed properly. What value do you bring to this case anyway?"
— Senator Dick Durbin [05:48]

The incident, which was later covered by The Washington Post, portrayed Patel as an unwitting victim of an overzealous judge. Despite efforts by his supervisors to obtain transcripts, the DOJ declined to publicly defend him. This perceived lack of support deeply aggrieved Patel:

"The fact that they did not defend him on the record was what counted to him. And he just simply could not let the incident go."
— Senator Dick Durbin [07:32]

This event planted the seeds for Patel's belief that the system was rigged against him, fostering a narrative of being targeted by a biased establishment.

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Alignment with Devin Nunes and the Trump Administration

Feeling betrayed by the DOJ, Patel sought allies who shared his disenchantment with the system. He found a partnership with Devin Nunes, a congressman leading counter-investigations into the Russia probe. Durbin explains:

"He has cast himself in it as either the ultimate hero or the ultimate victim."
— Senator Dick Durbin [09:35]

Through Nunes, Patel became involved in producing the so-called "Nunes memo" and leveraged this role to position himself as a key figure combating the "deep state." His efforts culminated in his appointment to the National Security Council and later as Chief of Staff to the Acting Secretary of Defense, despite initial resistance from figures like National Security Advisor John Bolton.

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Adoption of Conspiracy Theories and Media Hostility

Patel's transformation deepened as he embraced and propagated various conspiracy theories. In a December interview on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, Patel made alarming statements about the media:

"We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. We'll figure that out."
— Kash Patel, speaking with Steve Bannon [11:50]

Senator Durbin highlights the severity of such statements:

"I think Cash Patel is somebody who you have to take deadly seriously when it comes to statements like that."
— Senator Dick Durbin [12:11]

Patel's infatuation with the "Italygate" conspiracy theory—a convoluted subplot alleging election fraud involving military technology—illustrates his deep entanglement with fringe narratives aimed at discrediting political adversaries and the media.

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Threats Against the Media and Potential for Misuse of Power

As FBI Director, Patel's rhetoric poses significant concerns regarding the potential targeting of journalists and media organizations. Durbin elaborates:

"The end goal is always the same, that Cash Patel will use his power to collect all the supposedly incriminating documents, emails, memos that they are convinced will bury the deep state."
— Senator Dick Durbin [13:50]

This raises alarms about the erosion of press freedoms and the misuse of federal power to intimidate or suppress media entities.

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Side Hustles and Commodification of Political Persona

Beyond his governmental roles, Patel has ventured into various side businesses that reinforce his pro-Trump image. He has launched a range of branded merchandise under the "Cash" brand, including:

• Apparel: Cash crew polo tees, Cash scarves, and Rhino tanks.
• Beverages: "Cash Wine," which gained popularity quickly, selling out rapidly after its release.

Additionally, Patel has authored children’s books that weave conspiracy theories into fantastical narratives:

The Plot Against the King features characters like King Donald (representing Trump) and depicts a battle against corrupt forces aiming to undermine his reign.

These ventures not only generate income but also serve to amplify his political ideology and maintain his visibility within Trump’s supporter base.

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Conclusion: The Implications of Patel's Transformation

Kash Patel's journey from a competent DOJ prosecutor to a key figure within Trump’s inner circle epitomizes the broader shift of certain government officials towards populist and conspiratorial politics. His actions and rhetoric pose significant challenges to institutions like the FBI and the free press, raising concerns about the future of democratic norms and accountability.

Through the insights provided by Senator Dick Durbin and Alaina Platt Calabro’s investigative reporting, On the Media offers a critical examination of how personal grievances and political opportunism can reshape an individual's role within the American political landscape, with profound implications for media relations and governance.

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Notable Quotes

• Senator Dick Durbin on Patel’s Early Career:

  "He was a capable and competent attorney who was quite charming..." [03:47]

• Kash Patel on Targeting the Media:

  "We're going to come after the people in the media who lied..." [11:50]

• Durbin on Patel’s Self-Portrayal:

  "He has cast himself in it as either the ultimate hero or the ultimate victim." [09:35]

• Durbin on Media Threats:

  "The end goal is always the same, that Cash Patel will use his power..." [13:50]

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Further Listening

For those interested in exploring more about the intersection of media, politics, and personal transformation within the government, tune into the full On the Media episode. Additionally, follow On the Media on Blue Sky, Instagram, and their subreddit r/onthemedia for updates and discussions.

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Produced by WNYC Studios' On the Media, a Peabody Award-winning podcast that examines how media shapes public perception and policy.

Transcript

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Michael Olinger]

You're listening to the on the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Michael Oenger. During his confirmation hearings, Cash Patel was asked about a rumored plan to purge officials from the FBI, the agency that he's poised to lead.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way, including termination FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations?

[Sponsor Announcer]

I am not aware of this, Senator.

[Michael Olinger]

Then, a day later, the Trump administration has conducted an unprecedented purge at the.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Top levels of the FBI. Unprecedented.

[Michael Olinger]

This purge has greatly weakened the FBI's ability to protect the country and made America less safe. That's Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Last week, Durbin said he had evidence that indicated that Patel lied.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

During those hearings, Senator Dick Durbin, claiming.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Highly credible whistleblowers, told him Patel is.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Behind the recent mass firings at the.

[Sponsor Announcer]

FBI, even though he has yet to take the reins. Meanwhile, GOP senators standing largely united in.

Their support of Patel, Senate Democrats have worked to delay the vote over concerns that Patel is a Trump loyalist who.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Who'S ready to target the president's perceived enemies.

[Michael Olinger]

Mark my words, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode island, this Patel guy will.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Come back to haunt you.

[Michael Olinger]

Alaina Platt Calabro is a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she profiled Kash Patel in this conversation from late last year. She charted Patel's rise to power and prominence from his roots as an unknown.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Civil servant, he became a prosecutor with the Department of Justice. And then being in D.C. is essentially how he came to meet Devin Nunez, who, of course, was the congressman who led the counter investigation into Mueller's Russia investigation. And from there, he essentially scales the ranks. Within a year and eight months, I think it is, he is becoming a deputy at the office of the Director of National Intelligence. And then he ends his time in the administration as chief of staff to the acting Secretary of Defense, which of course is a quite senior role.

[Michael Olinger]

And in your profile of Patel, you spoke to some 40 associates who met him during this very accelerated rise. What did you hear from people about what he was like to work with?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

So many people I talked to time and again, they would say, I don't recognize the cash Patel I see today on my tv, what I was told by several people who knew him was that this was a person who was a capable and competent attorney who was quite charming, good on his feet in front of judges, and same thing with his colleagues in Washington in the National Security Division of the Justice Department. And most intriguingly, he was not political, certainly not overtly political in any way. I spoke to several people who said while they had a sense that he may have been generally conservative, he was a supporter of Jeb Bush actually, while Kash Patel was living in Florida. But beyond that, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that he would take the path that he has ultimately taken.

[Michael Olinger]

So then what exactly was the turning point where he became this mega pro Trump guy?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

So there is an interesting thing that happens in Kash Patel's life. In the year 2016, while he is a prosecutor with the Justice Department, he is in Tajikistan on a trip to interview witnesses for a terrorism case. He has only brought slacks and a shirt on that trip. And he gets a call from his supervisor back in Washington that a federal judge in Houston has scheduled a kind of surprise hearing for one of the other terrorism cases he's working on. So as he's en route to Texas, he reaches out to the U.S. attorney's office there and says, hey, guys, I wasn't expecting this, obviously, could you please bring a tie for me? And for reasons that remain in dispute, and I did try quite hard to get to the bottom of this, there was no tie. When Kash Patel arrives, where was the tie? Some people say that he never, in fact, asked for the tie. Others insist that he did. But at any rate, he gets there, there's no tie. So he goes into the Courtroom wearing, again, slacks and a button down.

[Sponsor Announcer]

And.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

And the judge berates him, pulls him into chambers and says, if you come into my court, you better be dressed properly. And it sort of snowballs from there into, what value do you bring to this case anyway? And even US Attorneys who are watching it take place are quite taken aback by the whole thing. As Kash Patel gets back to Washington, a reporter at the Washington Post picks up on what has happened and. And writes a relatively shortish piece about the whole thing. This was in part prompted by the fact that Kash Patel's supervisors, wanting to learn more about what happened, they commissioned rank and file staffer to try to get in touch with the court there to get a transcript of the back and forth. And the judge is so infuriated by this request that he issues an order of ineptitude against this Justice Department staffer. And the Washington Post does kind of a rundown of this in which Kash Patel really is rendered a sympathetic figure, just sort of the unwitting victim of this judge who was in maybe a very bad mood that day.

[Michael Olinger]

The piece also detailed the history of this judge making maybe similar outbursts. A history of questionable racist remarks.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Right. In fact, there was an Indian American plaintiff in one of this judge's cases who sought to have him dismissed from the case because of a history of making potentially racist remarks. So anyway, what Kash Patel is upset about, however, is that the reporter reaches out obviously to the Department of Justice for comment, and they decline, which is to say they do not defend Kash Patel on the record, even though behind.

[Michael Olinger]

The scenes, his bosses were, like, disturbed by the way he had been treated.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

But the fact that they did not defend him on the record was what counted to him. And he just simply could not let the incident go. For the next several months, he was constantly cycling in and out of his supervisor's offices saying, what are you going to do about this? You know, how essentially are you going to punish this U.S. attorney? And finally, one of his bosses says, I don't know what you want me to do. The U.S. attorney is a presidentially appointed position. I can't get this person fired. And the understanding of people around him was this was sort of the catalyst for him looking for other jobs and. And also deciding that the system was rigged, basically, that you could devote your life to it, but if they needed to, they would hang you out to dry and not have your back.

[Michael Olinger]

Okay, so that's an illuminating story, but it's a little hard for you to believe that it would be you know, the sole catalyst in a person's like, complete political reinvention.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

So I don't think that event alone was the catalyst for the Cash Patel we see today, but I think it certainly got him interested in the theme of the system is out to get me. It is sort of the impetus for him seeking out what he calls leaders who are not, quote, unquote, cowards. Congressman Devin Nunez, he adjudges, is not a coward. And as he starts working with him on this counter investigation of the Russia investigation, he finds his name coming up more and more in the press as he's identified as one of the key authors of the so called Nunez memo that comes out. And as he is reading that coverage, he writes in his book that to him it was the Houston incident all over again.

[Michael Olinger]

In your profile, you drew a lot on his 2023 book, Government the Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy. But you'd found examples where his recounting of events differed from those of the people who worked around him.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

When you read the story of his life and his words, you realize that however innocuous an event may seem, he has cast himself in it as either the ultimate hero or the ultimate victim. One recollection he has that is utterly unlike anybody else who was around for the actual event was his saying that he was the lead prosecutor for Main justice on the Benghazi case, leading the trial team. I spoke to several people who were involved in that case. It is absolutely not true. I remember putting it to one person who was in fact one of the lead prosecutors. And when I recounted this event, they just said, good God.

[Michael Olinger]

So when does Donald Trump enter the picture? And what exactly do you think Trump came to see in Patel?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Part of his kind of deal with Devin Nunes, when he came to work with him was, if I do this and complete my job, I would like you to promise that you'll recommend me for a job on the National Security Council in the White House. Devin Nunes stays true to that. He does recommend him and essentially pedals to Trump this line that Kash Patel has now developed. I am the only thing standing between you and the Deep State. I've uncovered their lies. I will continue to uncover their lies. Well, to Donald Trump, this sounds great, actually. Cash Patel getting on the National Security Council was not that easy, though, because you had people like National Security Advisor John Bolton, who really did not want someone with as little experience as Kash Patel on his team. So it did take a lot of push and pull before he was actually installed. But once he was in, I was told by colleagues of his on the National Security Council that he was really kind of phenomenal at angling to get in front of Trump, making sure he was crossing paths with him at all times, and, and perpetuating this line that he was his guardian within the White House against the deep state.

[Michael Olinger]

Fast forward to the nomination, which has led to unearthing many comments that Patel has made about the FBI and the media. Here he is talking with Steve Bannon on the War Room podcast last December.

[Sponsor Announcer]

We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. We'll figure that out.

[Michael Olinger]

What do you make of this very alarming threat that he's issued?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

I think Cash Patel is somebody who you have to take deadly seriously when it comes to statements like that. A really instructive anecdote to keep in mind is that toward the end of the Trump administration, Kash Patel and his position as Chief of Staff to the Acting Secretary of Defense became really enthralled by the so called Italygate conspiracy, which is related to Trump's election fraud conspiracy theory.

[Michael Olinger]

This is like an extremely convoluted subplot of like the larger conspiracy theory that satellites and military technology were used to rig the election for Joe Biden in 2020.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

It's not for the casual election fraud conspiracy theorists and in his position, he is able to get it up to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to say we need to send people to Europe to talk with these men and try to investigate the two men who were behind theoretically the Italy Gate conspiracy. The fact that he was able to get that far and was stopped only because some of his own colleagues and DOD and other agencies said, no, I don't think we should do this and I'm not going to do this. He has not been shy in roles far less powerful than that of FBI Director of using his sort of whim driven theories or QAnon related fringe conspiracies to put them at the centerpiece essentially of the work that he is doing.

[Michael Olinger]

So what would it even mean to act on these threats of the FBI coming after members of the press?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

The end goal is always the same, that Cash Patel will use his power to collate all the supposedly incriminating documents, emails, memos that they are convinced will bury the deeps state, essentially, and show to the American public just how corrupt they are. I don't know on a procedural level how that works when you are director of the FBI, whether Cash Patel would see himself as basically an intelligence gatherer and evidence gatherer and then present them to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and ask her to initiate a case.

[Michael Olinger]

You found through speaking to people who know him and had worked with him, that he had a lot of trouble finding work after the first Trump administration. This might explain why he's leaned so hard in the intervening years into commodifying his association with Trump. Can you tell us a little bit about his side hustles and sort of what he's been doing with his time?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Sure. He starts cobbling together various other income streams in large part through the selling of cash branded merchandise, a lot of the proceeds of which he says goes to a foundation he started called the Cash foundation, the mission of which is really vague and details of which are very hard to come by, even in filings with the irs. And the merch, I should say, really runs the gamut. You have your cash crew, polo tees, you have your cash scarves, Rhino tanks, basically anything that can be branded with K a dollar sign H. There's Cash wine.

[Michael Olinger]

That felt very Trumpian to me.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Yes.

[Michael Olinger]

Six bottles of official cash wine for $233.99.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

As of this recording, I believe it's sold out. There was a market for it, it would seem. Another thing he does is he writes books. Two of them are children's books, actually. The first one, the Plot against the King, is a really vividly illustrated rendition of the Russiagate conspiracy, wherein you have King Donald for Donald Trump, you have Cash the Wizard, and you have Duke Devin, Devin Nunez, and the Shifty Knight, Adam Schiff.

[Michael Olinger]

And don't forget Hillary Queenton.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

I could not forget Hillary Queenton. Never. It's quite a wild ride. And again, Cash, the distinguished discoverer, the wizard, is, in the end, the hero. He is the one that uncovers just all that the Shifty Knight and others have done to try to ensure that Hillary Queenton is chosen on Choosing Day and not King Donald.

[Michael Olinger]

I've seen many people recently quoting from his book Government Gangsters, the one that you studied so closely for your piece, that there's this, like, grudge list at the end of the book, I believe, where he kind of lists off all the quote, unquote corrupt people that that are in his crosshairs. It includes Anthony Fauci, it includes former Trump attorney General Bill Barr. It's a fairly broad tent of people that have wronged him or upset him in one way or another. What names on there stood out to you?

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Names actually, like Loretta lynch and Eric Holder stood out to me because I think they go to show how deep his grievances run from his time and the Obama administration. Working as a prosecutor at doj, you know, he frames his book in that way to say that that was his first major exposure to the deep state, the corruption of high level bureaucrats in the federal government. And so I think sort of names from a past administration or people who never worked directly in contact with Donald Trump just show again how deeply he has kept these resentments, how long he has nursed them, and when he does have power, the deep well that he has to pull from in terms of grievances.

[Michael Olinger]

Elena, thank you very much.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Thank you.

[Michael Olinger]

Elena Plot Calabro is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Her profile about Kash Patel is titled the man who Will Do Anything for Trump. Thanks for listening to the midweek podcast. Tune into the big show this weekend to hear about the right wing roots of Silicon Valley. In the meantime, you can keep up with the show by following OTM on Blue Sky, Instagram and our subreddit R onthemedia. I'm Michael Olinger.

[Senator Dick Durbin]

Foreign.

[Ira Flatow]

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