FBI Director Kash Patel has been hit with a brutal TV reel that shows him repeatedly bragging about his affinity for drinking.
MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki stitched together clips of Patel—who denies consuming alcohol in excess since joining the FBI—once speaking of early-morning drinking, having a “beer or three,” and of “slamming Negronis.”
“Sundays are for God, hockey, and beer,” Patel said in one of the clips, from 2023. “I will resurface back on very early Monday morning.”
In another, in 2022, Patel said, “It turned into flannel Fridays because I was having this beer and I was wearing a flannel shirt, and now it’s this massive thing online.”
Those remarks were made before President Donald Trump tapped Patel to lead the bureau—but multiple insiders alleged to The Atlantic that the 46-year-old has continued drinking regularly as FBI director, occasionally so heavily that he has been unreachable behind locked doors.
Reached for reaction to the MS NOW segment, the FBI referred the Daily Beast to Patel’s previous denials of drinking in excess on the job and shared a statement from Assistant FBI Director Ben Williamson.
“While some in the media continue these pathetic attempts at smears, Director Patel and the FBI will be solely focused on continuing the most prolific year of crime reduction in United States history,” he said.
There was no shortage of boozy boasts from Patel before he took his all-important job in the Trump administration.
In another clip aired by MS NOW, Patel said in 2023, “Everybody should have a beer or three.”
In a fourth, from 2022, he said, “We ended up in northern Italy, and we were slamming Negronis at our, like, last night, and I was like, I need a subpoena.”
Patel even suggested that he drinks early in the morning in another clip aired by MS NOW.
“I went to Devin, and I told him that in the morning, he goes, ‘Dude, if you’re gonna start drinking at 9 a.m., get out of my office,” he said in September 2024.
Psaki also featured a clip in which Patel predicted that, should he ever be appointed to a position in the Trump administration, he would be accused of being an alcoholic.
“Can I be the first one to say that if I ever go before Senate confirmation, they’re gonna call me an alcoholic?” he said on the Fourth of July in 2022 while cracking open a beer and wearing a bright-red MAGA hat.
Psaki was left stunned by Patel’s admission.
“His words, not my words,” she said. “I mean, the guy had enough foresight to joke that he might one day face questions about his drinking, but now that he is actually in a big, important government job, he’s very clearly outraged by those very questions from the Senate.”
Patel clashed with Democratic senators in a hearing on Tuesday, particularly Sen. Chris Van Hollen. The FBI director said under oath that he “unequivocally and categorically” refuted the allegations made by The Atlantic and agreed to take an “audit” test to prove his drinking denial.
The FBI director cannot say he has never consumed alcohol since becoming FBI director. Videos of him chugging a beer with the U.S. Men’s Hockey team went viral in February, showing Patel celebrating rowdier than anyone else in the locker room after the team won a gold medal. Trump, a teetotaler, was reportedly angered by the clips, but kept his frustrations private.
