Kash Patel Faces Backlash After Partying With U.S. Men’s Hockey Team

FBI Director Kash Patel is unapologetic after being caught celebrating with the U.S. men’s hockey team after their Olympic gold medal victory in Milan on February 22.

Patel posted on X Sunday that “yes, I love America and was very humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys,” following viral videos of him celebrating and drinking with the team in their locker room.

Ben Williamson, the FBI assistant director for public affairs, had in previous days castigated news outlets for even suggesting that Patel had traveled to Italy with FBI resources in order to watch the Olympics, claiming that Patel was there for security events.

MS NOW reports that the video of Patel chugging beer circulated around Department of Justice and FBI circles, outraging current and former employees. Eight former officials from both departments even sent the video to the news outlet.

Patel has previously drawn criticism for using FBI resources for personal reasons, whether using a $60 million jet to see his singer girlfriend perform at a pro wrestling event or detailing an FBI SWAT team to protect her. Patel has also used taxpayer dollars to order a fleet of custom-armored BMW X5s to travel in. Meanwhile, the FBI has yet to investigate anyone implicated in the latest Epstein file release. Does Patel realize what his job actually entails?

Violence broke out in parts of Mexico on Sunday after government security forces killed Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, or “El Mencho,” the country’s most wanted drug kingpin—with “intelligence support” from the United States.  

El Mencho was killed in a shootout with security forces in Jalisco. As founder of Cartel Nueva Generacion Jalisco, or CJNG, he was most active in fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine trafficking and put out hits on multiple members of government. 

“The United States provided intelligence support to the Mexican government in order to assist with an operation in Talpalpa, Jalisco, Mexico, in which Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera Cervantes, an infamous drug lord and leader within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was eliminated,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X. “President Trump has been very clear—the United States will ensure narcoterrorists sending deadly drugs to our homeland are forced to face the wrath of justice they have long deserved.” 

The violence was immediate and retaliatory, according to Mexican authorities. There were multiple explosions and reports of gunfire, as billows of smoke appeared in at least 13 different states. Armed cartel members blew up gas stations and set up various blockades with burning cars, and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a security alert as many American tourists remain trapped. 

“The fear that remains in society is overwhelming,” a Zitacuaro, Michoacan, resident told Al Jazeera. “That’s when you realise the immense power these organisations have, because they can collapse a city in a matter of minutes.… They have co-opted the leaders who manage transport, and at any moment they can block the entrances and exits of a city.… They can completely paralyze a city’s movement.… All basic services are disrupted: going to hospitals, grocery shopping, ordering food. It becomes total chaos.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum urged her citizens to remain calm in the face of these attacks. 

“The Secretariat of National Defense reported on the operation carried out this morning by federal forces, which resulted in various blockades and other reactions. There is absolute coordination with the governments of all states; we must remain informed and calm,” she wrote. “The social media accounts of the Security Cabinet provide permanent updates. In the vast majority of the national territory, activities are proceeding with complete normality.”

While Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau called El Mencho’s death a “great development for Mexico,” others acknowledged the death of El Mencho—the last of an era of Mexican kingpins that included El Chapo and El Mayo—as a major shift in a conflict that is far from over. 

The Federal Communications Commission is imploring America’s broadcasters to air propaganda ahead of the country’s 250th birthday.

In a Friday memo establishing the “Pledge America Campaign,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that U.S. media companies should run public service announcements, short segments, or specials to advance “civic education, inspiring local stories, and American history.”

The document also suggested that news media could include pro-America segments during “regular news programming,” or start each broadcast with a rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” or the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I believe in the greatness of our country,” Carr said in a statement. “And I look forward to broadcasters showcasing its inspiring history by taking the Pledge and fulfilling their public interest mandate to serve the needs and interests of their local communities as America’s 250th birthday celebration marches on.”

The initiative is a component of a broader Trump administration effort to celebrate the country’s sestercentennial known as “Task Force 250.”

Participation, according to Carr’s note, is voluntary.

The proposal could be a benign request under any other president, but over the course of the last year, Donald Trump and his allies have made clear their efforts to erase and revise history according to their preference. The White House has already ordered the Smithsonian and the National Parks to remove “woke” exhibits, which apparently include mentions of Trump’s impeachments and signage relating to climate change or slavery, respectively.

And a Trump-sponsored version of the Bible, mandated for use in Oklahoma’s public school system, was published with a wildly outdated version of the U.S. Constitution that omitted more than a dozen amendments, including the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished slavery. But the 160-year-old version featured the three-fifths compromise, a vestige of slavery that handed more political power to slave-owning states.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is using the cleanup from the implosion of Donald Trump’s illegal tariffs to set the stage for all that tariff revenue to disappear.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Dallas on Friday, Bessent claimed that in spite of the Supreme Court’s decision to block Trump’s tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a new series of tariffs imposed under other statutes would ensure the revenue was “virtually unchanged.”

But Bessent warned that at least $175 billion of tariff revenue that the U.S. government had already collected would likely evaporate. “I got a feeling the American people won’t see it,” Bessent said, his fingertips pressed together like a cartoon supervillain.

But if Americans don’t see those funds, there would only be one person to blame: Trump. Promises to fund sweeping tax cuts, bridge payments to farmers, deficit reduction, and phony $2,000 rebate checks all went up in smoke—because they weren’t his promises to make.

Clearly, Bessent deserves some blame too, because he didn’t bother to see if the president’s fees were actually legal before he went to collect them.

The Supreme Court’s majority ruling did not say the federal government could keep the money from the improperly collected tariffs, but conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned in his dissenting opinion that doling out refunds could get messy.

The Supreme Court decision striking down Donald Trump’s many tariffs may prove to be a windfall for the family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a key architect of Trump’s signature economic policy.

In July, Wired reported that Cantor Fitzgerald, which Lutnick chaired until he was appointed to Trump’s Cabinet, was allowing its traders to purchase the rights to hundreds of millions of dollars of refunds in the event the tariffs were struck down in court. The firm now happens to be headed by Lutnick’s sons Kyle and Brandon.

The magazine cited a letter from the firm explaining how Cantor Fitzgerald was willing to exchange refund rights for 20 to 30 percent of what the companies paid.

“So for a company that paid $10 million, they could expect to receive $2-$3 million in a trade,” a Cantor Fitzgerald representative wrote. “We have the capacity to trade up to several hundred million of these presently and can likely upsize that in the future to meet potential demand.”

The letter indicated that the firm already had one company agree to a deal worth about $10 million. It’s been seven months since then, and Cantor Fitzgerald has had plenty of time to make other such lucrative deals.

“The fact that it’s Cantor Fitzgerald, that raises some questions,” Tim Meyer, a professor of international business law at Duke University School of Law, told Wired. “It’s quite interesting that the commerce secretary’s firm is the one that is betting the tariffs will be struck down. That strikes me as very interesting—and quite telling about what those with connections to the administration think about the merits of the tariffs.”

Lutnick has been a steadfast proponent of Trump’s tariffs, frustrating many Republicans and staffers within the White House. He fought the efforts of others within the administration, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Economic Council chair Kevin Hassett, to put limits on Trump’s tariffs.

Lutnick has yet to comment on Friday’s court ruling. Does his firm’s bet mean he never really believed in the tariffs to begin with and was lying to the public about them? Did his kids know something the rest of us didn’t?