“Are You Ready to Shut Up?!”: Kash Patel Hearing Goes off the Rails

Senator Chuck Grassley had an explosive outburst at Senator Cory Booker Tuesday, after the Democratic lawmaker grilled FBI Director Kash Patel over his incompetence.

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on FBI oversight, Patel faced tough questions from Democratic lawmakers—especially Booker—and by the end, Grassley couldn’t handle it anymore.

Grassley provided enormous cover to Patel after he refused to answer Booker’s questions about the FBI’s efforts to investigate Elizabeth Williamson, the New York Times journalist who reported on the SWAT team assigned as his 26-year-old girlfriend’s security detail. Booker accused Patel of lying before a grand jury that no journalist was under investigation.

“Mr. Chairman—Chairman, I’m asking yes or no questions about activities of the FBI, that as a matter of oversight I have the right to do,” Booker said to Grassley.

“I’m not going to—normally I would say, but this seems to be a personal thing to him,” Grassley replied. Booker continued to outline Patel’s efforts to attack the press and subpoena reporters, and accused him of stonewalling the committee.

When Booker asked about Patel’s promise to investigate Donald Trump’s crude birthday card to alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Grassley interjected to grant Patel extra time to respond. As the FBI director proceeded to ramble about hunting down leakers of classified information, Booker tried to steer Patel back on topic, and Grassley informed the Democrat that his time was up.

As a frustrated Booker proceeded to give his closing remarks, Grassley continued to interrupt, even banging his gavel.

“We don’t have an FBI director, we have a lackey here. Who’s using govern—and frankly, he’s not even a good lackey, he’s an incompetent lackey. He’s like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of. Doing keg stands and chugging with friends,” Booker said. “He’s an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn’t qualify, even, to be an FBI agent.”

“What is bad is not just that we have a rogue FBI agent intimidating reporters, what’s bad is that we have Republicans in the Senate enabling him to go without any objective oversight or transparency or accountability!” Booker added.

Grassley accused Booker of expecting to receive special treatment. “You don’t show much respect for your chairman,” he said. “Yeah, you’ve gone on now for three minutes—”

“I have utter respect for you, in fact I have love for you,” Booker said. “This is why I know this is not who you are. You are not holding this witness in an objective way to answer the questions that are given to him by Democratic senators, yet he insults them time and time again.”

Booker criticized Patel for speaking disrespectfully to Vermont Senator Peter Welch, and insisted he had a right to ask about how the FBI director was spending money on his girlfriend. As Grassley attempted to pass questioning to Senator Darline Graham, a protester appeared, spurring Booker and Patel to continue to exchange barbs.

Again, Grassley reserved his admonishments for his Democratic colleague. “Are you going to interfere with Senator Graham asking her questions too? Too, as well? Or are you done now?” the Iowa Republican shouted. “Are you ready to shut up?!”

Donald Trump is convinced that the Kennedy Center is doomed to fail without his name front and center on its facade.

The president lamented the state of the famed arts institution in a lengthy post on Truth Social Tuesday, claiming that the property is in a “in a virtual state of collapse” and that he alone can save it.

“Remember, The Kennedy Center was losing Hundreds of Millions of Dollars when I took over. It was failing badly! It had nothing to do with me, I am only there to help,” Trump wrote. “I just got there to reveal the facts, but especially those concerning Building Safety.”

The rant came hours after a federal judge ruled that the performing arts space could not be renamed to include “Donald J. Trump” on its exterior, noting that Congress singularly arbitrates the name of the Kennedy Center, which was erected to memorialize the assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

Judge Christopher R. Cooper also barred the Kennedy Center board from renaming the surrounding campus as the “President Donald J. ​Trump Plaza.”

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

That decision did not sit well with the Kennedy Center board, which is composed of Trump as its president and a batch of Trump appointees, who promptly voted to shut the center down.

The board had previously asserted that adding Trump’s name to the building was the only way to maintain his promised funding and ensure the arts space could avoid “certain fiscal collapse.”

Programming at the Kennedy Center was initially projected to end in July to make way for a two-year renovation period. Trump announced the plan in February, at which point he said “financing is completed, and fully in place.”

Long before Trump’s meddling, the Kennedy Center was widely considered a premier arts institution. But since the White House became directly involved in its operations and programming, its normally star-studded lineup has fallen apart.

In December, the president suddenly decided to rename the venerated cultural institution “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” in a flagrant rejection of the laws that created the center in the first place.

The judge’s decision was the third major legal loss that Trump has suffered in less than 24 hours. On Monday, a federal judge blocked the administration’s efforts to limit visa stays for foreign students and journalists, effectively upending a pillar of Trump’s anti-immigration efforts. And later that night, the Supreme Court ruled against the president’s mail-in voting scheme. The news sent Trump into a tirade, during which he lashed out at his judicial appointees, claiming they were “not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court.”

President Trump’s handpicked board of trustees for the Kennedy Center voted Tuesday to immediately close the famed venue for renovations, shortly after a federal court blocked Trump’s latest attempt to put his name on the building.

The board claims that the center is in serious trouble, financially and structurally, pointing to a partial ceiling collapse earlier this month and alleging possible bankruptcy. The board argues that the only way to keep the center running and the building intact is to allow Trump to take over and have his name added to the building’s facade.

The board’s vote happened just minutes after U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled that Trump cannot place his name on the building—or circumvent his ruling by trying to rename the plaza. The historic theater will now be closed indefinitely to all visitors.

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

This is the third time since February that the center’s board has voted to close the building. They’re trying to shutter the venue ostensibly for repairs, but as Cooper noted in his ruling, emergency repairs are already allowed.

Trump is so set on getting his way that he has threatened to demolish the center if he isn’t allowed to put his name on it. His board of trustees continue to insist that the venue will collapse if he can’t take it over, despite the fact that his involvement directly led to artists canceling their performances, ticket sales plummeting, and fundraising drying up.

In a Truth Social post following the board’s vote Tuesday, Trump refused to budge on anything.

“The Board of The Kennedy Center today agreed, almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction. The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name,” Trump posted. “If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”

One would think that after repeatedly losing in court, Trump would get the message and stop trying to forcibly take over and slap his name on the center, but his ego won’t allow that. Trump thinks that if he can’t have his own center for the performing arts in the nation’s capital, it shouldn’t exist at all.

This story has been updated.

GOP Senator Mitch McConnell returned to Capitol Hill on Monday, after a 92-day absence, with large, dark bruises on his hands.

This is not the first time the 84-year-old senator has been seen with bruises like this. Similar questions about his bruised hands were raised in 2020, when the senator’s team assured the public there were “no concerns” about the injury. They haven’t commented on it this time either, even as McConnell returns from a three-month paid leave of absence after being found unconscious on the floor of his D.C. home in June. On top of the bruising, McConnell is bound to a wheelchair, and appears gaunt and mentally out of it. And upon his return, his team made sure to only have him conduct interviews in a section of the Senate building that didn’t allow camera recordings.

McConnell’s bruises look similar to the ones Donald Trump has been spotted with throughout his second term, with the president’s most recent flare up occurring during Labor Day weekend. While Trump has blamed the bruising on his intake of “big aspirin” or on his frequent hand-shaking, the White House has been incredibly secretive about that ordeal, as has McConnell’s team—even as the two senior citizens clearly have some other kind of health issue making their hands discolored.

FBI Director Kash Patel all but confirmed that the bureau’s agents will be deployed to voting locations this November.

As Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, multiple Democratic senators asked him whether the FBI would be at polling stations for the midterm elections. After trying to dodge their questions, he eventually admitted they would be there.

Senator Richard Blumenthal tried multiple times to get Patel to commit to saying that zero agents would be at the polls, to which Patel said that agents would be at the bureau’s field offices on Election Day, refusing to offer any guarantees.

“On Election Day, the FBI will follow the law. If there’s a reason to go there because there’s been a violation of law, we will, otherwise we won’t,” Patel said.

Senator Peter Welch also asked Patel about agents being sent to polling locations, specifically noting that Michigan’s Republican nominee for governor, Representative John James, said that Patel had told him that the FBI would have a presence in the state leading up to Election Day.

Patel replied that there were election crimes coordinators in all of the bureau’s 56 field offices. Welch was taken aback, saying, “I thought you weren’t going to be sending people to the polls.”

“When did you hear that? It’s just another lie,” Patel said, accusing Welch of lying for a campaign sound bite. When Welch pressed Patel, he repeated his line about election crimes coordinators, adding, “Election integrity is of paramount importance. This FBI will not shy away from that effort.”

“Do you pledge that you will not in any way interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November?” Welch asked.

“I have pledged unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies,” Patel said.

All of this raises questions as to whether President Trump plans to send federal law enforcement to polling places for the midterms, and what their orders will be. He has compliant lackeys in the form of Patel’s FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s bloated budget. Trump frequently accuses his political opponents of cheating and rigging elections against him. Based on how he acted in the 2020 presidential elections that he lost, those accusations seem more like confessions.