Fox News host Brian Kilmeade ripped the FBI’s leadership for seemingly being out of step with local law enforcement during the search for Charlie Kirk’s killer.
During a Friday morning exchange on Fox and Friends—shortly before President Donald Trump joined the show and announced that a suspect had been apprehended—Kilmeade told his co-hosts to “keep in mind… that the FBI seems to be in somewhat disarray.”
“I don’t know if these guys are not getting along at the bureau level, but that’s probably why Dan Bongino and Kash Patel flew out, did their own investigation and hold their own press conference,” Kilmeade said.
The host seemed to be referring to how Patel and his deputy director, Bongino, both flew out to Utah on Thursday, leading to the delay of a news conference about the then-ongoing manhunt.
That press conference on Thursday night yielded little new information about the search for a suspect, which Kilmeade also called out.
“And then when they did [the press conference], they didn’t nail anybody,” he added. “In real time are we seeing people in the FBI who just want to do their own thing and don’t want to accept new leadership and is it hurting this investigation?”
Kilmeade’s broadside comes after days of negative headlines for the embattled conspiracy theorist-turned-FBI director, who has faced his harshest test in the wake of Kirk’s death at the hands of a sniper in Utah.
According to a New York Times report, Patel called 200 agents to an online meeting on Thursday morning, before leaving for Utah, to ream out subordinates for mishandling the search for the shooter, who fatally shot Kirk from the roof of a building on Wednesday afternoon.
The meeting, led by Patel and Bongino, was heavy on profanities and included Patel saying that he would not tolerate any more “Micky Mouse operations.”
Patel also criticized agents in Salt Lake City for waiting nearly 12 hours to show him a photo of the suspected killer, an exchange that Kilmeade mentioned on Friday.
“My goodness, it looks like Kash Patel said, ‘I have been trying to get a picture. You have not sent me a picture for 12 hours,’” Kilmeade said.
Before that internal dispute, the FBI director attracted widespread criticism for a premature social post on Wednesday night declaring that a suspect was in custody.
The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with @fbi. We will provide updates when able.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) September 10, 2025
Less than two hours later, Patel backtracked and wrote that “the subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.”
The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency https://t.co/YXsG6YpFR5
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) September 10, 2025
Critics were quick to point out that hours before Kirk was killed, three former FBI agents filed a lawsuit alleging that Patel prioritized “politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people.”
A key narrative of that lawsuit was that Patel and Bongino, his right-hand man, were more preoccupied with flexing the FBI’s “wins” on social media than on running actual investigations.
On Thursday, an anonymous White House official told Reuters that Patel’s premature announcement the day before was unprofessional and that “his performance is really not acceptable to the White House or the American public.”
Patel appeared at a news conference on Friday morning announcing the arrest of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who was taken into custody on Thursday night.
He praised Trump and said that the FBI had done “monumental work in historic time” to arrest Robinson 33 hours after he allegedly shot Kirk.
However, he also said that the FBI had received over 11,000 leads and that the FBI’s work would be ongoing “as long as it takes, for as long as we need to find whatever suspects were involved in this crime.”
He also expressed his gratitude to the regional FBI office in Salt Lake City. In August, Patel fired the veteran special agent in charge of that office, Mehtab Syed, for unknown reasons.
The lawsuit filed on Wednesday by three fired FBI agents says that Patel told them he had instructions to fire anyone who had worked on a criminal investigation against Trump after his first term.
Prior to becoming FBI director, Patel had little law enforcement experience.
The Daily Beast has contacted the FBI for comment.
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